Saturday, March 6, 2010

Cloak & Dagger - Guate Style

I spend many of my Saturdays (including later tonight) at the Guatemala City Airport - palms sweating, heart racing, and with a large wad of cash in my pocket. Why? Because the Guatemalan government wreaks of corruption.
If you have no qualms about screwing your own fellow countrymen, want to know how to make a quick buck? Tax the heck out of incoming medical mission teams, of course. Or worse, take ALL of their meds away. The government here (the Haitian government is now doing this also), after seeing "rich" (read: generous) gringos come into their country with thousands of dollars of medicines every week, finally decided last year that these teams needed to share the wealth, so to speak. So now, every single time I go to pick-up a team, I have to go in to baggage claim and beg, plead, and yes, bribe the officials to allow us to pass. The worst one was late last year when the team leader started crying after customs said they were confiscating every medical suitcase (around 20). God bless the almighty dollar, though, which apparently can change even the hardest of hearts, and the ingenuity of our volunteers, which have taken to hiding medicines in their socks and underwear.
Part of me hopes there is a special place reserved in hell for those who would try to rob the poor of medicines and other necessities just so they can get rich off of it, but another part of me is trying to understand. I guess when you've struggled your whole life to get by financially, you do things you may not do in other situations.
Once, a janitor at a church I worked at was caught stealing money from the church office. I said to my Senior Pastor, "What kind of person steals from a church?" He said something that helped me put it in better perspective, "A desperate one."

Let's all pray for the desperate ones, and keep battling the injustices that put them there.
Peace,
Jay

ps. Please help me pray that all goes well tonight with customs - about 70 Mayans that need surgery certainly are.
UPDATE: ALL of our meds made it through customs!!!

1 comment:

Wilson said...

Wow... who knew that watching every Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci movie ever made might be required study for the prospective Guatemalan missionary?