Last week on Thursday, I followed the garbage truck through San Jose, helping the Comité de Limpieza Pública ("Committee of Public Cleanliness" aka Garbage Collection) collect the 3 soles that people are supposed to pay each month for the garbage collection—the municipality sends the truck and pays the garbage collectors, but San Jose is responsible for the gas, which costs around 75 soles per collection. 3 soles is about the price of a kilo of expensive imported apples, and I do not think it is truly beyond the means of anyone in the community. Unfortunately for us, paying for garbage collection at all is something very new to the people of San Jose, and the only way to get any money out of anyone is for the committee, made up of entirely of mothers, to donate time they don't have to follow the truck, knock on doors, and argue and plead with people to give up their 3 soles. They stress and frustration of this weekly exercise has lead 3 of the 6 committee members to quit, and one recently had surgery, leaving me with only 2 members to work with last week.
Joining them was a good experience for me, because I got to see how their system works currently—the baseline for my future endeavors—and also learn the extent of the entire community. It's bigger than I thought. The fliers we passed out last week estimated 6,000 residents, but the committee thinks that this is a huge overestimate; still, it is probably upwards of 3,000 (I will try to get a more accurate statistic from my surveys), at least 600 families. If everyone actually pays for the collection, they would have more than enough to pay for weekly garbage collection, possibly even bi-weekly (depending on how many families actually live there, a stat I need to get somehow...). But as it stands now, they do not. They didn't have enough the last week of August, so this past week they had twice as much garbage. The garbage truck filled up halfway through the route, so we had to go dump it and come back, which then cost the committee more gas money.
So why won't people pay? My surveys are going to be full of "behavior change"-style questions to try to figure out exactly why, but I'm starting to think that might not be necessary. I think the following conversation sums it up nicely:
I had gotten ahead of the truck and the president of the committee who was with me, and came upon 2 lovely ladies standing with their bags of garbage:
Me: Hello, the tuck is on its way, would you like to pay for the month now?
Ladies: Ah, señorita, we already paid.
Me: Are you sure? We are collecting now for the entire month of September, you may have only paid for August.
Lady 1: No no no we did. Ask Rosalia [the president] when she comes.
Lady 2: Si, we already paid.
Me: Ok, she's on her way.
[I believed them, some people had already paid, and with her amazing memory, Rosalia would remember].
Me: I am new to this [here I explained Peace Corps and what I'm doing].
Lady 1: Oh, that's wonderful.
Lady 2: Yes, the people in San Jose expect everything to be free.
Lady 1: Yes, they don't want to help their community. They are bien cochinas, too! [Slobs, pigs]
Lady 2: Yes, and they are sin verguenza when they don't want to pay! [Without shame]
Lady 1: Yes yes, sin verguenza!
Lady 1 [shaking her head vehemently]: Sin verguenza!
[In case you can't tell, Peruvians like to repeat themselves a lot]
Rosalia [approaching us]: Did they pay and did you write their receipt?
Me: No, they said they already paid you for September.
Ladies: Yes, we already paid.
Rosalia [shaking her head]: You paid me for August, and only 2 soles between your 2 separate houses. For September you need to pay 3 soles for each house.
Me: [I didn't even know what to say and probably stood their gaping like a fish]
Lady 1: But the truck didn't come last week.
Lady 2: Yes, and now look how much garbage we had in our houses? We will pay you 2 soles.
Rosalia: The truck didn't come last week because we didn't have enough money to pay for gas. We didn't have enough money to pay for gas because not everyone will pay 3 soles.
Me: [finding my tongue for a moment] Yes, if everyone pays 3 soles this month, we will be able to come every week. It is very important that every house pay 3 soles.
Lady 1: That is why you did not come last week? Mmm people are so stingy here, and they are sin verguenza.
Lady 2: Yes, they are all sin verguenza.
Lady 1: Sin verguenza…
At this point, the phrase "sin verguenza" was echoing in my head and starting to hurt. I had to just walk away, lest I start yelling at them in English (sadly, my Spanish is still not quite good enough to really bitch someone out) or die of incredulous laughter. Rosalia caught up with me, 2 soles in hand, still shaking her head and also laughing. By this point, I thought of a few good things to say to them, but it was too late. Why can't they see that when they complain about cochinas who are stingy and won't pay and have no shame they are talking about themselves?! AHHH!
Finding a way to inflict some friendly shame on this community might just be the key I need to get their garbage collection in order.
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