I have seen them here, visiting, and I ask myself what they are doing here … they are signing checks and papers and vaina (stuff).” And the copying machine and other items that the communal council had acquired for the common use of the community were long gone quite convenient since the woman who headed the campaign against him, and now had a central position in the communal council, owned a local copying shop where they charged five bolivares per copy. Moreover, they were skimming off money, Alfredo maintained: “And they couldn’t have done that without accomplices in the Alcaldia and Fundacomunal.

Now, the others had taken over the communal council and carried out projects that he had been in charge of and raising money for, passing it off as their own work. Eventually he couldn’t take it anymore, and resigned. The letter was stamped with the communal council’s seal.Īfter that, they had then made life difficult for him and smeared his name in the community. The letter stated that he resigned because of the campaign against his good name and honor, and the untruthful accusations against him and his work as the financial spokesperson. It was signed on June 6, 2011, two weeks after I last saw him. He got up and found his resignation letter for me to read. They had also claimed that he hadn’t done any work in the communal council, which also was a lie, and the evidence was there for everyone to see-the work was visible there in the community, stairways, several new houses built and others reconstructed, and above all a huge project of drainage and reconstruction of a hillside on the outer slope of the community that put the houses on its edge at risk for landside. The other faction had smeared him, spreading rumors in the community that he was corrupt and that he hadn’t done the rendición de cuenta (present the balance sheets) to the community, even if that was a lie. After a while he told me that he had resigned from his position as financial spokesperson. We started to chat, and I soon noticed that something was wrong.

La viveza criolla del boliviano