Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting Don (title of respect for older men) Werner Gadiel Morales Hernández, who was the alcalde (mayor) of Palestina de Los Altos for 14 years. He is the brother of a friend and colleague of mine at the health center named Don Lolito, and he came to my birthday churrasco (barbecue) on Saturday, November 8th, following my birthday on the 6th. I wanted to interview Don Werner for the communities field note because he was and remains a pillar of the Palestina community and is very familiar with the needs of this community of the past and present. His father was alcalde before him, about 50 years ago. Don Werner is dynamic, enthusiastic, and kind, and I got to learn not only a lot about the community's need for potable (safe for drinking) water, but also about Palestina and its history.
Don Werner is extremely proud of the progress that Palestina has made in expanding access to drinking water during his time as mayor, and also of the community's improvements to roads, the stadiums/soccer fields founds in all the towns have, and the fact that each community has its own school. Palestina was an aldea (town) of San Juan and used to be known as Aldea el Suj (town of the vapor). On the 18th of February 1933, Palestina became recognized as a municipality, which is a city or town that has a local government.
