Guns, Heat and Steel
Why TA Todd Greenwood left preterm to observe Guatemala’s elections, and why you should too
By Observer Staff

This August, with preterm in full swing, Micro TA Todd Greenwood made a decision to ditch the office hours and problem sets for an opportunity to travel as an election observer to Guatemala.
 
This election was a tense one for the country, which saw over 50 people killed in election-related violence in the period leading up to the election.  Conflict stems from the remnants of a long civil war that ended only ten years ago, and from a de facto power structure in which local politicians control government largesse.

Amidst this atmosphere, Todd’s job was to ensure that the elections proceeded as fairly as possible.  Stationed in Puerto Barrios, a municipality on the Caribbean coast of Guatemala, he traveled to election sites in advance of voting to make sure they were prepared and observed eight voting stations on the day of the election.

Todd found that one of the major concerns faced in being an election observer is to ensure that the bystander role does not turn into one of active participant in the election process.

“We were allowed to give people a ‘denouncement form’ if they saw something that was inappropriate, but we didn’t want to proactively hand them because we felt it would smack of imperialism,” says Todd.

Despite the violence that unfolded in some regions of the country, Todd says he managed to avoid coming face to face with the conflict.  However, he did get a taste of the gun culture that exists in Guatemala.

“There were gunmen in front of most stores, and many men on the street carried guns on their sides.   People were always digging in their pants for their cellphones, and I half-expected one of them to answer their gun instead by accident.”

Even without facing down violence, Todd says that his experience in Guatemala was not an easy one.

“We were hit by the tail end of hurricane Felix.  I was in a hotel and woke up the morning after the hurricane to see my suitcase floating on the top of the water.  It was also really hot, I would wake up in the middle of the night and look at the thermometer and see that it was 34 degrees Celsius.”

Comparing the job of an election observer to the TA position he had given up, Todd says being an election observer was the more difficult of the two.

“We were a bit more on edge, and had a lot of responsibility.”

And Todd adds that if he had to choose between Washington DC and Guatemala in August, he would pick DC as the nicer summer locale.

“You can drink the water and roving youth gangs are less of a threat.”

The challenges may have been difficult, but for Todd, the experience was not without its benefits.

According to Todd, being an election observer gave him the chance to participate in a key moment in Guatemala’s history.

“Guatemala is making strides with democracy,” he notes.  “This was the first election where voting stations were placed in the countryside.  In previous elections, the voting only occurred in municipal centers, supposedly because the government believed there was too much fraud in remote locations.”

Todd points out that his experience is not unique at SAIS.

“Three people from my class (‘07) and one person from the class of ‘03 participated as observers in this election.”

He says that it was the connections he made at SAIS that helped him land the position.

So, was it worth it to ditch a decently-paying job and the relative cool and safety of DC for a few weeks as an election observer in Guatemala?

Todd replies, as only a professional TA could, “The marginal costs of skipping out on pre-term were outweighed by the benefits.”

This article was contributed by SAIS Observer staff