In the Land of the Hustlers, Caudillos, and Charlatans

From that day on, Balaciego became his advisor and confidante and would carry the political torch for Trujillo decades after the mauling pawns of his regime had been annihilated. Decades after Trujillo's death, Balaciego inhabited a gray and nebulous world of politics, adulating the dictator and proclaiming to be an illuminating source of democracy for the whole country. He also presided over a harem of self-decorated and corrupted generals who unbeknown to him manipulated his presidency and squandered the country's fortunes. Dressed in his signature dark three-piece suit and fedora hat, he roamed the country inaugurating newly built construction projects, reciting deeply elaborate speeches to the masses and pretending to be an intellectual conquistador, conquering the poor and uneducated with his traditional gift-giving ceremonies. He established these ceremonies as a way to show the masses that he cared for them and that their presidente had a profound love for his people. Great social programs to help elevate the socio-economic status of the people or to improve their lives were never part of his political schemes, for he preferred to see them trampling each other to get on the long-winded lines that extended for miles and fighting for the various items that were handed over at the gift-giving ceremonies. Surrounded by his entourage of hungry generals who tended him like preying vultures, he waited for the destitute crowds perched on an elaborate, wood-carved presidential chair ornamented with imported fabric. He received people with a hug, had a small talk with them and their request was written in his book of gifts, where every item given and the recipient's information was recorded, as if he pretended to use it on the day of judgment as evidence to show God his good deeds on earth. In the years after his passing, he would be remembered as the construction president, for his constant penchant of erecting constructions projects that ranged from public schools, housing complex, highways in deserted areas and a multi-million dollar lighthouse that projected powerful beams of light in the sky in the shape of a cross and consumed an unheard of amount of electricity at a time when the country was suffering from severe electricity shortages. Yet, history in the Dominican Republic, or as some call it, that great witness of times, has always been a fleeting and lurking shadow that only presents itself at its own convenience. For the generation that saw his passing and watched on television the spectacle of thousands of yelling mourners at his funerals who pushed and shoved to touch his casket and screamed "this is our corpse," had not recollection or knowledge of the years he spent being the scribe and political architect of the dictator. Balaciego had adapted to the changing climate and had remade his persona over and over again in a way that he had disassociated himself completely with the terrible atrocities committed by the dictatorship. The younger mourners present at his funeral could not have envisioned the horrible events that span the thirty-two year dictatorship, as the one that took place in the late 30's, when Balaciego was a young man trying to impress the dictator. Trujillo had summoned his staff for an emergency meeting.