Projects :)

I just sent in my first two grad school applications to U of T and SFU in Resource Management!

Bam.

Next, an article I've been commissioned to write in exchange for taking a Mediation training at CIIAN (ciian.org). Life is pretty amazing!

The Land of Plenty (of options)

Loving having options!

Looking forward

When I came home, I told myself that I would take some time off and not think about my next adventure until the New Year. Sure enough, three days after returning home, I was already researching options of what I want to do next. My 2011 was so incredible and productive, that I need to follow it up with an even more wonderful 2012. I accomplished the three personal goals that I set for myself last year:
-Live abroad
-Improve another language
-Do something towards my career goals

Now, the internship wasn't exactly the most useful career oriented use of time, but it did teach me a lot about the kinds of environment I don't want to work in and opened my eyes to many of the realities of international development.

I'm currently trying to decide if I want to keep working and try to find some interesting projects, or if I want to go back to school and learn some technical skills. As always, I'm torn between all of my interests.

Being back

I haven't yet written about me re-entry into North American society because to be honest, I still don't know how to put it into words. And, I'm not positive that I have re-entered yet. But here goes.

It's weird.

After a year of traveling, being away from Montreal, hopping around, living out of a suitcase/backpack/plastic bags, it's strange to arrive back where I have more than a few clothing outfit options, have my family to depend on and understand the culture. (Mostly...)

I came back home at both the best and worst possible time. My mother very kindly offered to pay for my flight change to come home for the holidays. Actually, the way it happened was that I mentioned that it might be nice to come home for the holidays and within 24 hours, I had received an email from her advising me of my flight change. Yay for moms!

After six intense months in a communist country, where consumerism is viewed as the devil, advertising is basically non-existent, and people survive with the basics, coming home to the hyped-up version of what Christmas has become was quite a shock. Just the drive from the airport to the cozy nest my mom has created in the Laurentians was enough to overwhelm me. The sides of the road are littered with visual pollution in the form of billboards and signs. The most shocking part, was that I had never quite realized how much visual distraction there is here. I was on an instant high from overstimulated retinas and I don't think I stopped talking from 8pm, when my mom picked me up, until 1am, when I finally crashed. My brain was just trying to process all of the bright, flashing, colourful visual cues that I was seeing, while processing the fact that I was home.

The holidays flew by in a haze of warm family moments, lovely friend re-bonding and the tastiest, most beautiful food and wine I had seen in months. Throughout all of these wonderful holidays, I kept having massive jolts of culture shock. One particular jolt was when I first opened my mother's fridge... The amount of food, condiments, drinks and just the excessive amount of pure choice and diversity nearly drove me to tears. Not from sadness or happiness, just the absolute alien-ness of it. Something that used to be so normal now feels completely foreign.

There's nothing like traveling to come home and realize how incredibly spoiled and absolutely lucky I am to have been born where and when I was. At a holiday party, I was approached by a old acquaintance who sat down next to me and immediately began to verbally unload all of her pre-holiday stress onto me. I sat and nodded and made several sympathetic comments to comfort her, while she explained; how stressful her cushy-high-paying job is, how she never knows what to do with all the free stuff she gets, how she doesn't get the exact swag she wants, how her boyfriend had yet to give her a very expensive Christmas present and how her new Michael Kors dress had a faulty zipper. Not to say that these aren't all very valid concerns... I love when stereotypes are proven to be true. I was imagining sitting her down in front of the girlfriends I had made in Cuba and the hilarious conversations that could come out of that clash of cultures and values.

So I've been hopping back and forth between the country and the city, settling in slowly and yet, still feeling like a visitor to where I live. It helped that a friend of mine who was also an intern, though in a different country, came to visit a few times. We were able to compare stories of disillusionment.

I'm slowly starting to catch up on all the things that we as North Americans take for granted; news at our fingertips from sources around the world, easy and fast internet access (I missed youtube!), the ability to openly protest our government's policies and decisions and food. Lovely, diverse, tasty food.

Catching up with friends is wonderful. For the most part, we pick up right where we left off, fill each other in on the past few months of adventures. I feel so fortunate to have such an incredible network of friends that I can not see for over a year and still feel such a deep connection to. Everyone I have seen has been so supportive and patient with my constant Cuba-talk.

The downside of having access to news is the frustration at how small-minded and incredibly stupid our current government is, with respect to environmental issues. I missed the entire Keystone Pipeline protests, the withdrawal from Kyoto and have come back just in time to learn about Fracking in Qc and Pipelines through B.C.

Things like that make me almost miss the censored news in Cuba.

¡Se Acabó!

It’s hard to believe that 8 months of internship are over. I’ve been busy with finishing up projects, spending time with friends, organizing exit papers, and saying goodbyes to new old friends. The highlights of the past few weeks:

Spinning fire at the Guantanamera Festival

With the dance company that we befriended, we put on a street performance in front of a massive crowd and the theme was FUEGO, with me closing the act.

All four of us Guantanadienses played a part. E and M opened the show with a discourse on fire in English, French and Spanish. PV played the accordion for the five dancers and then I poi’d! With fire! I had come up with a small two-minute routine that I could do to the beat of the African drums that accompanied my “dance”. When soaked with lamp oil and lit on fire, those babies are HEAAAVYYYYYY. At the end of two minutes, my arms get tired and that is when I finish off with my grand finale move and spin around my head in a move called the windmill. It all went really well, the drums gave me a great beat and the crowd broke out into applause halfway through my routine. The only hiccup was that my finale was supposed to be a clean extinction of the fire into a bowl of water. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the poi into the bowl properly and it took me a while to put out the flames. Oh well, I guess a few mistakes are to be expected for my first public performance! What a rush!

Getting the groundwork done to organize ongoing water testing of the river

This seems straightforward, but this being Cuba, everything is more complicated. Every little victory with the bureaucrazy here feels like a massive achievement. This simple process involved two weeks of ministry visits, appointments and paperwork. As of yet, the testing still has yet to actually be done, but I have faith that in Cuba time, it will happen.

A workshop for children

We wrote a puppet show with an environmental protection theme and I ran one of my activities for the kids from the community of Cecilia. In the activity, the children took on the role of rivers and transported “water” from one “lake” to another. The objective was to show children how the water cycle works, how their watershed functions, how water can be contaminated, the vectors of contamination and how to protect their local environment. The workshop went really well and it was amazing to work with children again. After the “educational” part, we played together on the farm, running around, taking pictures and videos. I lent my camera to my little sister from farm 1 and she used her budding photography skills to take some lovely pictures of her friends. While the children were playing, I took the opportunity to talk with the teachers from the community and gave them the print outs of the activities that I had created in Havana. They were excited to have some new educational activities to add to their toolbox and with that, I accomplished my workplan goals.

Having so many lovely friends to bid ¡Adiós! and ¡Hasta Luego! to in Guantánamo

For having been there for such a short time, it’s amazing to have gotten so close to such great people. Both in the city and on the farms. I had a lovely despedida (goodbye) dinner the night before I took the bus back to Havana with some of my close friends from the dance company.

The Seed Festival on December 11^th

We pushed the farmers to organize a second annual Seed Festival for themselves and it was a smashing success. The best part was that they planned it themselves, without needing outside help. This was the idea behind all of our efforts. Since the project is finishing, we focused on the sustainability of the project goals and made an effort to involve the farmers to have a transition from having a project and interns to not having any outside support when the project finishes. The seed festival was their first self-organized event. I showed up a little late and saw the end of the seed and seedling exchange between the community and the farmers. I knew it was going to be one of those days when I got off my bike and was immediately handed a glass of rum by one of the farmers.

It was “coincidentally” the head farmer’s birthday. After the official part of the day, the beer truck showed up and the bottles of rum were brought out into view. My cariño from finca four spent the morning roasting a pig over a pit, which we devoured in the afternoon, along with a salad of lettuce and moringa from their garden and rice and beans. Like all good Cuban fiestas, this one featured an intense reggaeton dance party. I’m still too Canadian not to be shocked when I see some of the dance moves that are busted out on the dance floor. For some reason, our Cuban friends insist on teaching us the “very complicated” dance moves. Again, I’m too Canadian to bust out these moves in public.

Here is how to dance to Cuban Reggaeton if you’re a girl

Step 1: Find a chair

Step 2: Face the back of the chair

Step 3: Place hands on the back of the chair

Step 4: Bend over at the waist, maintaining your ass in an upright and locked position

Step 5: Rock it back and forth, up and down to the beat of the music

Step 6: As you are doing this, grind your pelvic floor into the pelvis of whatever male approaches you from behind, regardless of age, sexual orientation or relationship

*If there is no chair available, start at Step 4

*If the male doesn’t appeal to you, start over at a different location on the dance floor

A variation of this move is to move into a position that looks quite similar to the yoga posture of Downward Dog.

Important to note: Do not be alarmed if another male approaches you from a different direction. This is entirely normal. In this event, the second male will generally approach you from the front and it is entirely accepted to end up on all fours on the ground. It is actually quite the feat of athleticism. One male assumes a crab-like position on the ground, facing upwards. The woman then positions herself over him and if there is another male invoved, he positions himself however he is able to.

This is how to dance to Cuban Reggaeton if you’re a guy

Step 1: Scan the room for women and choose target, regardless of age or relationship to you (mothers, aunts, sisters and neighbours are perfectly accepted).

Step 2: Approach the target

Step 3: If the target has not yet assumed the position, turn her around and bend her over, keeping your hands around her waist

Step 4: Grind your pelvis into the target’s exposed pelvic floor, keeping with the beat of the music

And that my friends, is how to dance reggaeton.

Defying Physics

A friend of mine once showed me a coffee table book that was a series of photographs of people carrying various items on their bicycles. These pictures were taken around the world and portrayed cyclists carrying everything from stacked boxes filled with chickens, to computers heaped together. I often think of that book while walking around this town, observing the types of things my Cuban Compañeros carry. I’ve noticed that there are two items that Cubans often haul around. It doesn’t seem to matter if they live in a city or in the country, it’s as though these two things unite us all. If you had to guess, what would you think? Think of the climate, the lack of access to materials, the culture… My first guess would be far from correct.
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Item #1: Fans! Totally makes sense with the heat here. People carry around all shapes, sizes and colours of fans. I could write a book on the different fans that people have and somehow relate them to their personality. Or I could make a quiz; “What kind of fan are you? What your fan says about your inner self.”
Question number 1
Do you prefer fans with
a)    Two blades
b)    Three blades
c)    Four blades

Item #2: Pigs! It’s the type of meat they eat the most. Again, all shapes, sizes and colours. People are also very creative in how they carry their pigs. Over the shoulder in a fireman’s hold, around the neck like a scarf, around the waist like a belt, in their arms like a baby, in a bag, in a carriage, by the foot, by the ear… Maybe the way they carry their pig says something about their love-making style. Again, another idea for a quiz
Question number 1
Do you prefer to hold your pig:
a)    By the ear
b)    By the tail
c)    By the foot
d)    I’m a vegetarian

I might have too much time to think here…

I held my first workshop in Spanish on Saturday. I had prepared flipcharts with my main points and a few drawings. I guess this is what people did before PowerPoint…

One of the team members, A, is the connection between us, the farmers and the communities. She wanted us to hold the workshop in the community of Paraguay, which is the furthest one from Gtmo and the closest one to the military base. She recommended that we bring something to provide to the farmers to eat. P and E’s landlord makes beautiful cakes so we ordered one from her and it was ready just in time (7:30am). Cakes are the third most common item that I see people carrying around.

Getting there in the morning was quite the adventure. The workshop had been called for 8am but of course it didn’t start until much later. I was going to bike there and E and P would catch up with the Cake. One block past their house, I saw them walking with the Cake. Actually, I noticed IT before I saw them. I decided to leave my bike at their place and go with E, P and the Cake. During the adventure of getting there, the Cake took on its own personality, becoming more than just a pastry. It’s difficult to explain how these things happen. Maybe it’s like in Castaway with the volleyball. The Cake was our Wilson. I became very emotionally to this dessert in our short time together. Not that my emotional attachment stopped me from eating it. It just made it taste bittersweet.  

Anyway, to get to Paraguay, we walked to the bridge and hopped on a horse-drawn carriage. The carriage brought us to a roundabout, where we walked over to the designated hitchhiking-waiting spot. In Cuba, there are specific areas where people can go wait and have someone hail trucks for them. The state employs these people to try to manage this type of transport. They wear yellow jumpsuits and for some reason, remind me of the yellow pages come to life. These waiting points are official unofficial hitchhiking locations. We went. We waited. We waited… We waited some more. We moved back and forth between waiting with everyone and trying to hail a car on our own. To picture the situation, you need to picture the three of us, the only non-locals, holding a huge cake, with our backpacks, holding a wad of cash out to try and get a car to stop for us, trying not to stress about being late. I know I’ve been in Cuba for a long time since I wasn’t anxious about being late.

Finally, a truck pulled over in front of the yellow jumpsuit man and dozens of people ran towards it. People were crawling up the sides of the big truck, like ants climbing a rock. Everyone was scaling the tires and climbing over the rails to get onto the flatbed. We joined the crowd. I handed my backpack up to someone who had already successfully climbed and proceeded to scale the massive camioneta. I got a foothold on a ridge of the tire, sprang up, grasped the metal railing, hauled myself up, ducked under the metal bar and threaded by body through the gap.

P handed the cake up to me from the ground so that he could then climb up, unencumbered by IT. Our Cake was grabbed out of my hands and passed over the crowd’s heads as if it were bodysurfing. It floated towards the front of the truck and was placed on top of the cab, along with three other cakes. E commented that cakes are like kids here, everyone looks out for them. The truck pulled away once everyone had settled in as comfortably as sardines. I was worried that our lovely dessert would go flying off of the truck at every turn, would bounce off at every bump or lurch forward at the slightest brake. IT barely moved during the entire ride and after the first few minutes, I stopped worrying; this was a magical pastry. The Cake seemed to defy the laws of physics and barely moved for the entire ride… unlike us. With nothing to hold onto other than the outside rails, we were like leaves in the wind, at the whim of the driver and the road. With the morning sun warming us up, the wind cooling us down and the landscape rolling around us, we couldn’t stop smiling.

As the truck drove by the farms, we saw a few of the farmers waiting by the side of the road for transport. They squeezed onto the truck and we greeted each other through the sea of people and sped along the country road towards the community of Paraguay. Pulling up, we saw that there must be some kind of party going on, based on the amount of people with bottles of rum and cakes. That, or just a normal Saturday in Cuba.

We found A waiting by the Sala Comunale with a few other ladies, including the head of the Water Resources for the area who was there to also speak at my workshop. We coordinated what we would say and waited for the rest of the farmers to show up.

The workshop went really well! Other than a few technical issues with my flipchart, it went off without a hitch. I didn’t have too much trouble with my Spanish and there was a decent amount of participation from the 20-odd people that attended. I talked about water quality, source protection, point of use treatment, chemical, physical and biological water purification and initiated a discussion about water management. I forgot how much I enjoy public speaking.

I received great feedback about the presentation. On a few of the flipchart sheets, I wrote down questions and hid the answers behind a taped piece of paper. I would ask the question, wait for the answer and then tear off the paper, revealing the answer. This especially seemed to go over well! I also drew pictures of the “enemy”; micro-organisms present in contaminated water. P was the one who got me thinking about how to present my topic. He mentioned something about demystifying the science behind it all and this was my inspiration. 

When it was done, we ate the Cake, drank some juice, coffee and tea and then left all together. Our transport back to Gtmo was an old soviet prisoner transport truck. By far, the most interesting vehicle I’ve ever been in. Every part of it, save the tires, was made out of slightly rusted metal. We entered through a small door at the back passenger side corner. The inside was big enough to hold 3 dozen passengers/inmates.

That same day, we bumped into the dancers who had just received their results from their most recent evaluation. Every two years, ballerinas are evaluated by an official comity and the results of this determine their level (1-4) and their yearly salary. P, M and I sat in on the evaluation on Thursday. When we saw them on Saturday, they were starting to celebrate and invited us to join. Three of our dancer friends are now Nivel 1 ballerinas. First class dancers! Not that I’m surprised. These people are incredibly talented and work incredibly hard every day. It’s always amazing to me that someone can devote themselves so entirely to one thing. The passion that goes into their dancing is so inspiring to me and makes me want to work harder in what I do. Maybe I’ll start tomorrow… or the next day…

On the subject of work, when we dropped off our weekly workplan this morning at the office, we were informed that the trench-digging machine would be arriving to the farms today! Now all that’s missing is petrol, someone to operate the machine properly, cement and a workforce.

For all of its difficulties, Cuba does seem to do at least one thing very well: the medical system. I am proud to say that I have contracted my first tropical skin thingy. Apparently it’s very common and is caused by sun, heat and humidity. I have a few little white spots on my back that are supposedly some kind of mushroom. I went to the clinic to see a dermatologist today and within ten minutes, I had the prescription I needed. The pharmacy also only took a few minutes and cost me less than 5 cents for two 25g tubes of cream. As usual, I’m very sceptical of doctors so I intend to look up the drug he prescribed to me. I’m amazed that prescription drugs are so inexpensive and easily accessible here. I was under the impression that because of the blockade, Cuba was lacking in the drug department. Not so! There are drugs galore and even more interesting, they promote alternative natural medicine for the same ailments. This would be an interesting place to do research for GIFTSofhealth. That is going down on my project idea list. That list is growing more each day. This environment has been bringing out my creative side. It’s a wonderful feeling. I’ve been drawing, writing, attending art shows and dance shows as well as coming with project ideas.

Every day, it hits me that I live in Cuba! Life is pretty wonderful.

Murky Waters

Other than the technical aspect of this water project, there is the whole administrative
side that I also have to work on. If you thought that the technical and material side of
things seemed like a clusterf*ck, just wait…

We just found out that the water system for the farms won’t actually be going through
the existing water treatment facility. The system has been set up to run in parallel to the
villages’ existing systems and will be bypassing the somewhat important part of cleaning
the water. We knew this for farms 1 through 6, but for farms 7 through 14, we were under
the impression that the water would be treated before getting to the farms. Apparently
not. Great.

The geography of the area makes it more viable for farms 1 through 6 to get their water
from the Rio Hondo, which runs through the community of Cecilia. Farms 7 through
14 are situated closer to the community of Paraguay, which gets its water from the Rio
Guaso. Both rivers originate from a large man-made reservoir and run through various
villages, past cane plantations and beside porc farms. By the time the water gets to
the communities, it is of poor quality in terms of sediment, harmful micro biota and
pollution. Having spoken to various personnel from different Water Ministries, this is
a known fact. Of course, there was no plan to treat the water before sending it to the
farmers. According to one water expert I interviewed: “guajiros (country folk) are used to
the bacteria and parasites in the water and aren’t harmed by poor water quality.”

On the material and technical side of things, nothing has changed. The empresa that
supplies cement remains at a standstill because the head boss is in a psychiatric ward and
no one dares make a move without his approval. I’m getting to the point of dressing up as
a doctor and sneaking into the psych ward to talk to him. I think I could pull it off. This
situation seems like a hilarious scene from a movie.

Since there is still no cement, the cement plinths have yet to be built and the tanks are not
set up on the majority of the farms. The few cement plinths that have been made crumble
to the touch and I have my doubts about their ability to support over two tonnes. I’m no
physics major, but I’m pretty sure that four crooked cement columns that are filled with
holes and aren’t supported at their base won’t last very long under weight, in the baking
sun.

As for the water pipes that need to be installed and buried, they are still lying on the
ground, cooking and cracking in the Cuban sun. The man with the trench-digging-
machine was supposed to go to the farms on Monday. This being Cuba, there is of course
only one of these machines available for use in the province. Apparently the machine was
being used somewhere else on Monday. Then somewhere different on Tuesday. Then
another place on Wednesday. Now, Thursday it might be dropped off at the farm while
gas is found from somewhere in town and brought to the machine. The only thing that
was supposedly slowing down the digging for the past few weeks was the wet ground. It
hasn’t rained in quite some time and the ground has been dry for at least two weeks. So at

this point, with the materials and technical aspects, it’s just a waiting game.

On the administrative side of things, it’s been somewhat nightmarish. I spent most
days last week biking all over town, going from ministry to ministry, looking for the
appropriate one to get what I need. Basically, what I need is some baseline information
about water quality in the two rivers, information about Cuban parameters for human
water consumption and I need to arrange some contracts for system maintenance and
continued water quality testing. This is to ensure that someone is watching out for the
farmers after we withdraw.

Today was the first time that something actually worked out. Monday, we were supposed
to meet with the empresa to push for an alternate solution to the cement problem. It
turned out that the head of the empresa is in Havana so that didn’t work. Yesterday, I was
supposed to meet with someone from a Water Ministry. He was out of the office with a
delegation from Baracoa. Today, I finally managed to link up with someone.

Like everything else in Cuba, water management is broken up into at least four different
ministries, each with a different mission and function. For what I need, I was referred
to a ministry called Acueducto. I met with a very friendly gentleman who proceeded
to explain that what I need is only found at a different ministry. According to him,
Acueducto is only responsible for chlorinating water for human consumption. On top
of that, this specific branch of Acueducto only oversees municipal water systems. The
provincial branch of this empresa manages any system outside of Gtmo city.

My contact explained that there is some room in the municipal budget for non-municipal
water treatment, but special requests need to be made through the Unidad that we work
with and this takes a long time. The conversation was starting to go down the same
path as all my other conversations with ministry officials; either they don’t have the
information, they do but they can’t give it to me, they might have it but have to look for
it, they aren’t the right ministry and don’t know what ministry would be useful… etc.
Somewhat of a dead end, but after some good old fashioned Canadian charm and flattery,
he supplied me with some very helpful documents about Cuban parameters for human
water consumption and lent me some booklets about water treatment. He was also kind
enough to link us with the appropriate ministry and had the director arrange to meet us.

For anything related to water quality, we have to go through the INRH (Instituto
Nacional de Recursos Hidraulicos). RH isn’t as simple as this though. It is divided into
several other sub-ministries that all have different tasks and focuses. The sub-ministry
that I was referred to is the Laboratorio, which actually only tests water on demand. I
hopped on my trusty bike and peddled over to the big blue building where the INRH
offices are. The director of the lab met me at reception and directed me into her office,
where the water quality expert joined us. As it turns out, there is no recent data on river
quality for either the Rio Hondo or the Rio Guaso. When I mentioned “water quality of
these rivers”, the Expert visibly winced. I asked her about her reaction and she carefully
explained that those rivers are known to have extremely poor quality water.

I explained what I needed for my part of the project and they explained that they only
test water after an official demand is made through a state ministry. Luckily, the Unidad
Silvicola that I work with qualifies as such. That was the first good news I had heard
in a long time. On the one hand, it almost seems like a waste of time and energy to go
through the motions, but this will be extremely valuable in the long run. This baseline
assessment should have been done a long time ago. Part of the sustainability plan for
the project is to reforest the banks of the rivers with plants that can restore and maintain
water quality. Getting a baseline assessment of current water characteristics will be useful
to determine changes over time and to bring attention to the poor quality of water that is
being supplied to Cuban citizens.

The conversation with the two women from the lab resulted in determining that drawing
up a contract between the Unidad / finqueros and the lab to get consistent water testing
wouldn’t be too complicated or take too long (by Cuban standards). Of course, I still have
to go through my Cuban jefe to get this contract written up.

After this conversation, I returned to my office and attempted to explain this whole thing
to my jefe. In the middle of my story, he interrupted me to ask if I had the phone number
of the lab and when I said no, he picked up the phone in the middle of my sentence.
Fifteen minutes later, he was still calling around to find the number, calling various
empresas to get the number for the lab. Once he was finally connected with the lab, he
spent another 15 minutes going through the exact same conversation that I had just had
with the two women. UGH. In the end, he sent one of his staff members to pick up the
contract so that the water testing process could be expedited. I’m not sure what purpose I
actually served in this process.

If this situation is like the fable of the turtle and the hare, Cuba is the turtle, my
organization is the hare and I feel like I’m the tree that the hare sleeps under while the
turtle passes by it. I’m sure that I fulfil some function, but I’m not quite sure what.
Everything here goes at a very different pace and through so many needless, mind-
numbing steps.

This Saturday I’ll be running my first full water-themed workshop. I’ve started planning
it and I’ll be running it old-school; no PowerPoint, just paper, markers and me! The
workshop will be held in the community of Paraguay and will involve the farmers and
some members of the community. I’ll be discussing water quality indicators, water-borne
illnesses and then I plan on demystifying the different water treatment methods.

I also have to talk about Moringa oleifera because now Fidel and Raul have mandated
forestry ministries to produce a certain amount of Moringa. Farm 14 will be planting
10Ha of monoculture. So much for Analog Forestry!

If I have time, I’ll be starting a discussion about water management and conservation
methods. The farmers have been living with very little water for years so they already
know how to reduce their water consumption. I’m trying to get the water comity involved
in running the workshop, but they have been scared off by the jefe. Time will tell!