Brenda shared this story with me. I will try to tell it as best I can.
We were getting ready to begin a water tank project in the community of Los Alisos. 15 tanks for 15 families were planned.
Brenda had the supplies from the city of Huehue loaded up into a large truck and delivery planned one afternoon. As they were approaching the community on a newly cleared dirt road, they noticed a large group of about 50 men blocking the road ahead.
As they approached they flagged down the delivery truck and said that they had to pay a toll. It seems that the alcalde who helped the community clear the road (that still seemed to be little more than dirt and rocks) supplied the equipment but the community was responsible for paying for the diesel. So to raise money they decided to close the road and charge a toll till they could raise enough money.
Well the driver and Brenda were not about to pay the exorbitant fee (Q100 or about $12). And so there was lots of back and forth between Brenda and the men. Several people in the group wanted to let the truck through since they were, after all, delivering things to their community for the good of the community. Specifically about 15 of the men, whose wives were part of the project, felt this way. The other men in the group felt that it wasn’t fair since they weren’t going to get anything of out if. The solution they presented was for the truck to leave its cargo at the bridge about 2 miles away and then to have someone carry them in by hand.
At last Brenda realized that they had reached an impasse and Brenda said that she was going to call the women (who were assembled and waiting for the delivery) and let them know the problem. The men acted as if Brenda had pulled a gun on them. They quickly spoke up and said “no no, you don’t need to call them”. And “now now we can talk about this”. As it turns out, even the men whose spouses were not a part of the group had family of some kind in the group and not one of them wanted to go up against a sister, mother, or wife. They quickly decided that they could pass and that no one would speak of the incident and that the women in the group didn’t need to know about this incident.
So when Brenda arrived with the materials and told the women the story they got a good laugh out of it. Several women stomped of to let the men know that they were not to interfere in their business. Several others got a good laugh at the whole incident and said that Brenda should have just left the materials at the bridge and they would have had the “burros” that were blocking the road haul things back to their houses.
In the end the materials were delivered, the project went on well and we saw yet another example that the men are not as “machismo” as they pretend.
by Stacy
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