Bad news.

With the change in government (which happened exactly a year from two days ago), a lot of other things have been changing in the country, and almost all hurt the poorer people the most. One of the latest, around here and all over the country, is that municipalities and local governments, with the backing of the federal government in the form of a national decree, have been changing the teachers in schools to ones that agree with the new government. One of the biggest problems, which they dont seem to care much about, is that they dont have enough qualified teachers with that criteria to fill the roles. So what happens is that unqualified political favorites get placed in the schools, and the kids are the ones who lose out. And it usually happens in the poorer neighborhoods, that dont have much of a say in what happens.

So far the government has been getting its way basically throughout the country. Some in the press have been brave enough to write about it, but it hasnt changed the course of whats happening.

The reason that this affects me and my project is that this is exactly what is happening at the school where I worked, La Escuela Canada. The teachers only found out about it a few weeks ago, and they have been fighting to stop it ever since. but it looks like the government will get its way, and the entire staff will be replaced by "Nationalistas," including the principal who I was working closest with.

Yesterday, the situation looked a little more hopeful. I was at a meeting of about 50 community members and the principal, where they vowed not to let this happen. The general result of the meeting was that they had to keep the principal, and that if new teachers were sent that they had to actually be teachers, and not just high school grads. Their threat was to stop sending their children to school this year, and to make it extremely public. I spoke at the meeting, and explained my project to the people in the community, who were extremely happy to have such a project in their neighborhood, and even voted unanimously to pool together and pay for someone to act as a security guard for the computers and books.

After returning this morning, however, the situation looked a lot more dire. Apparently the mayor didnt even listen to their demands, and the old staff is being kicked out tomorrow. I spent the morning with the kids rearranging the books and taking inventory of what the school had. The principal said she still wants to work with me, but that she and the community decided that my project should take place in another school, so other kids will be able to use the library without the interference of the government. She advised me to go talk to Proyecto Aldea Global, the biggest NGO in town dealing with social affairs, about finding another school.

As of now, my project kind of remains in limbo. Everything happened so quickly, it was impossible to predict it. Ill still be returning to the community, to talk to the kids and their families, but until I find another school willing to host the library.