IDEALS

By Matthew Killby

Feb. 23, 2009
My plan was to sleep in an extra 20 minutes and skip Gary’s walk to get a bit more rest and a chance to work on my journal, which was now two days behind. Instead I slept right through until breakfast.
We listened to a man from Ocotopec tell us about community policing and how it works and differs from the regular police force. Andy asked him if distributing the power to different community police networks fragmented society.
“We are a fragmented country,” was his reply.
When asked about the success rate of community policing projects, he said “We’re not really concerned with success. Who decides success? A better question is how happy are we with what we are doing? We learn as much from failure as from success... There are so many things we must do that it is kind of a luxury to think whether something is a success or not.”
The community police almost replace the municipal police, who have to stay out and let the community leaders know in advance if they do go into the community. The community police were given weapons and power by the governor and they perform their own investigations. Punishment is working on community projects, or they are not fed. The meals are provided by the community three times a day. When they have server their term, they are returned to their family in a public ceremony and the prisoner is asked how they were treated. The prisoner is then welcomed back into the community openly and they are not ostracized as is often the case in the process of normal convictions. The system works on community building, so the more involved you are, the higher your standing in the community and the quicker the response by the community police. Someone who builds high walls and avoids the community may never get a response from the community police. A story was told of a man who put up a security camera and the joke was that now the women couldn’t pee in the bushes because of the man watching on the camera.
“Security for one family is insecurity for another.”
We headed to the Zocalo in cabs. Gary asked for cab captains and I reluctantly volunteered. I figured I had better get the experience now, before I’m on my own having to negotiate a price with a cabbie in a foreign country.
We met an indigenous family in the Zocalo that makes crafts to sell. They must ride the bus in from their town, but if they can’t afford the bus then they have to carry their crafts for four hours to catch a cheaper bus by the highway. If they don’t make enough money during the day then they don’t go home. They sleep on the streets, or sometimes in a bedroom that one of their relatives in town has rented. The mother recently had to have a tumor removed from her stomach. The operation cost 3000 pesos ($300), but they couldn’t get a loan from the bank so they had to get one from a credit agency at 30% interest a month. I did the math in my head and it worked out to almost 900 pesos a month just in interest. There were two young children, Francisco and Yoseline, who looked about four and two. Gary gave them some chocolate and Francisco went to town on it. Yoseline wasn’t really sure what to do with it, but after some coaxing from her brother, she bit the ears right off the chocolate rabbit.
We then went to see a community school named Casa Tatic, sponsored by VAMOS in the downtown core. We watched a DVD movie on the organization and its founder, Bill Coleman. The video brought most of the group to tears, but I found it had too much post production, and it kind of ruined the moment for me.
There was one point in particular, where there are some small children running out into the street yelling, “Bills here, Bills here”, that really got to everyone.
I found that the music that was playing at the time ruined the moment. It was a very real moment with very fake music. I felt as though the reality of the moment was overshadowed by the music, making it feel more like a Hollywood production than a real living experience. For the first time, I agree with my multimedia teacher about music and video.
We toured the school and saw different classrooms with students being distracted by us.
We headed across the street to Romero House, also sponsored by VAMOS. Romero House is a place where parents can make and sell crafts, with much of the material being supplied through the school. There were some beautiful crafts there and I purchased a wooden box painted in a black and white story.