The Aymara Emperor of Latin America's Little Rome

Initially, I was frustrated, assuming that I couldn't get an interview because I am an outsider to the community and culture. As it turns out, I find myself in a quite common predicament. I was about ready to pass off my struggle as a case of cultural misunderstanding...or perhaps an effort that was considered unimportant...

From the looks of things, it is more of a case of an evading top political player: the provincial mayor of Juli, Pap Lindo.

Last Sunday, I returned from a weekend break in Puno to travel with Nico out to the district of Kelluyo. As we road on the bumpy "highway", he recounted his frustrating attempts to meet with Papa Lindo. Let's note that his intended session with the provincial mayor was a tad more important than mine. Apart from his role as the Director of the Institute on Rural Education, Nico is the President of the Mesa de Concertación. It is hard to give a direct translatoin, but basically the Mesa is an effort of different members of civil society working in collaboration to address local social problems (poverty, education, development) as well as work with the municipality. This typically includes acting as mediator between communities or organizations that are at odds with the mayor.

Having never participated in the meetings or activities coordinated by the Mesa, the newly elected mayor, Papa Lindo, lacks a relationship with the civil society body. From the looks of it, he wants to keep it that way. I was completely shocked as Nico recounted his efforts the day before in attempts to track down the mayor. The mayor might as well have just convicted a crime by his behavior.

They had set to meet at the mayor's home on Saturday morning. Nico arrived, surprised to find that the mayor was not present. His son contacted his Papa (haha) by cell and informed Nico that he was in a meeting at the home of one of his advisors. Once Nico reached the location, the son of the advisor came out of the house to let Nico know that no one was present. At the same moment, Nico noticed that the curtains on the second floor had abruptly been shut. The advisor's son told Nico that the mayor was in the municipality's truck and sent Nico on a bit of a wild goose chase for the rest of the morning. Nico resigned in his effort for the day...not pleased.

But this is not the end of the interesting...and quite unadmirable actions by the Mayor Papa Lindo to date:
-Last Sunday, at the weekly flag ceremony, he refused to remove his hat. For quite a patriotic community, that sent out lots of angry cries from the public as well as attacks by the radio station for the rest of the week.
-The Sunday, the mayor himself confronted merchants in the market and demanded that they pay their debts or else he would throw them out of the market building. Believe it or not, a merchant actually slapped Papa Lindo in the face. And, rumor has it, one of the other merchants threw his hat into a fresh pile of cow dung.

Hopefully the slap to the head has knocked some sense into Papa Lindo...or maybe knocked him off his high horse. A mayor from a small peasant town, with a high school education (I think), advisors also lacking more than primary or secondary school education (except his director of management who resigned yesterday, a mere 20 days into office), Papa Lindo has little to no experience running a budget and has made his first priority redesigning his own home with the new salary he has gained.

He is doing a fabulous job of putting himself directly between a rock and a hard place. Unless he opens up to the local civil society, becomes less of an ideologue and more of a municipal manager, and respects the rights for citizen participation...I give him 3 months before they kick him out of office.