| | This past week was our CLOSE OF SERVICE CONFERENCE! DA DA DAAAAAAAA (evil movie theme music please maestro!). It was a great time actually with good food and tons of laughs with the whole group back together again which was the first time in over a year I think. It was amazing to see how much people had changed yet how well we all just get right back into the groove like a big family or something. I felt the COS made things official for all of us. It is real...we are going to go home soon...we won´t be here forever...wow. I think it was a good thing to finally address and accept for all of us and to get that foreboding large packet of forms to be completed. I am relatively certain I will be filling out forms for the next week or so because they have to have both a paper and digital copy. Why? I have no clue but apparently that is necessary. They tell me its because I have amazing calligraphy but I am hesitant to believe it.
So where does that leave me to write this week? Surprisingly, I have nothing explicit to write about for the conference. I could write about the ping pong tournament, the impromptu dance party, the quest to get the perfect group picture, James´s conversion to Veganism, or even the award winning videos from the EARLY 80s we had to watch (painful...just painful) on life after Peace Corps, but not one of those topics seems sufficient for this weeks blog. Instead I am going to write a serious piece about something that happened to a friend of mines family.
While in Asuncion a friend of mine came by the hotel I was staying at to say hello and while there she told me about a very unfortunate incident that happened to her family recently. Apparently, her aunt received a phone call from a man she didn´t know demanding money in the amount of $3000USD or he was going to kidnap her two children and hold them for even more money. The man had names, locations of schools they attended, schedules of their days and other bits of personal information making his threat very legitimate and possible. He told her aunt to drop the money off just two blocks from her home and forbade her from contacting the police or any investigators. She decided to defy the man and went to the police who tracked the phone down to other cities far from Asuncion. The phone was probably stolen and didn´t lead the police anywhere but they did save the mans voice for further investigation. The police also put body guards on the family members but that is limited for a month and a half after which she will have to pay out of pocket to keep guards on her and her family.
The part that struck me the most about this story was that it isn´t totally uncommon here in Paraguay. I have a few friends who have either had someone in their family, one of their friends or one of their friends family members kidnapped. How does this happen? Evidently there are several ways that it can be done and the problem is compounded because some people go ahead and pay so that the problem will go away thus enticing more kidnappers. Often times the offenders come back later asking for more money but when you factor in the cost of to hire bodyguards you could break even or come out ahead just paying them off. That is the dilemma currently faced by my friend and her family. Do they wait out a month and a half till the police take away the bodyguards and then pay for their own for an unknown period of time? Do they go ahead and pay it so the problem will go away with the chance of coming back at any point in time? Do they go after the guys in hopes of catching them and in doing so pay for private investigators and attorneys that could cost much more than $3000 with the possibility of never actually catching and prosecuting? Tough decisions to be made.
My friend and her family are obviously upset and distraught over the recent developments and have some very difficult decisions to make in the coming days. I hope they make the best choice possible and everything turns out for the best. It is just scary to think this sort of thing could happen to friends of mine and it isn´t too far out of the realms of possibility. It is a part of Paraguay I never really think about because I live out in the middle of nowhere so these things are not common at all where I live but it is something people in the cities have to consider and worry about. It all just reminds me that Paraguay means a lot more than my little site out here in the fields. It is still a complex and sometimes dangerous place that has to be treated with respect and caution at times.
jgm |
| | Posted 5/21/2008 8:03 PM - 52 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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