A Place far Away

I was going to write about the purpose of my visit in Peru, about what it is that I am going to research, how the system of participatory budgeting works and what I hope to find... but first things first.. thanks to those that commented directly on the blog, thanks as well too the many that sent me an e-mail. It is appreciated. Since some of the said e-mails were actually complaints about the lingua franca of this blog so far, I decided to implement a new policy that will enable me to address a wider public. Those who prefer to comment in other languages, though, are welcome to do so.

Now I need to confess something. I'm not actually in Germany. As a matter of fact, we got back from there last Monday. The visit was due considering the last one was months ago and the next opportunity would only be around Christmas. With her no longer optimal short-term memory, I told my grandmother three or four times that I will be going to Peru. Just to be sure she’d remember. Not very surprisingly, her reaction was the same each time. Eyes widening, mouth opening, and an upwards movement of the arm that puts the right hand on her temple… ‘What is it that you want to do over there?!’ It’s a question that makes sense, and that many of you would probably like to see answered as well.

I am going to Peru to research a process called participatory budgeting. It is a process that allows ordinary citizens to determine how part of the municipal budget is spend. In the course of a few months, citizens meet a couple of times at the neighbourhood level and propose and deliberate projects. After a few meetings and technical assistance from the bureaucracy there is a vote to determine which projects will be executed. After renewed technical approval and some other bureaucratic procedures a document listing all the project is drawn and signed by the most important actors in the process. It is a mechanism of governance that I find very interesting, as it appeals to the most radical democratic ideals and allows the most powerless in society to exert influence on the way government behaves. Especially in Latin America, it has the potential to break through traditional power relations in which the poor areas are simply ignored, except for election years. There are many more theoretical benefits to the mechanism than I can mention here, but they all have on thing in common: it doesn’t matter if the projects aren’t executed. So far there has been little comprehensive research into the implementation of the projects, and sadly enough the first indications from Peru are not that well. It seems that only a tiny percentage of projects is actually executed… but how big the problem is exactly, and why so little is done… that is what I’m going to try to find out!

Of course I did not attempt to explain it to this extend to my grandmother. She would care, but it would be a bit too much to grasp. Politics isn’t really her thing I guess. Her reaction was exactly the one I expected. I gave her an abbreviated answer by saying I would be doing my ‘Masters research’. I could see that only led to more questions in her mind, but she refrained from asking them and started shaking head. Who would want to go to the other side of the world? For a masters research? Just stay home! Or come to Germany! There is a point in there that some other people might very well share with her. I’m not sure myself why I started this Masters and why I want so much to return to Latin America. I guess it’s a combination of ideals and experience. My time in Brazil was anything but ephemeral in my life, and to me participatory budgeting is one of the most interesting experiments of democracy and social justice out there. I have no idea if it would aid me in my professional life in the end.

The long weekend in southern Germany was ideal to get a little peace of mind before returning here and getting into the final two weeks before I leave. I realise more and more that the day is rapidly approaching, and I’m not sure how to react to it. There is sadness, nervousness and excitement, and none of these emotions prevails over any of the others. Right now it’s this really long period of three months that I am gone. Once I’m back, I was away for ‘just’ three months. I guess my grandma already saw it this way. It’s not that uncommon for us not to see each other for three months. That fact that I’m going to Peru, then, doesn’t really influence my visiting pattern all that much. Nonetheless, when saying goodbye Monday morning she remembered. ‘And you.. you are going to…’ and an arm flew through the air signalling ‘some other place’. Realising that she remembered I smiled and nodded. ‘Yeah. I’m going a place far away..’