Starting in January, Project Ulpan will have a full-time doctor living in the Valley, bringing medical care to the 7,500 people there closer than they have ever had it. Turns out that last weekend I had the honor of being the doctor's first patient. But first, a little backstory:
Ginger and the boys left last week to head back to Nashville for Christmas. My plan was to hang around for about another 10 days to finish up some water things and help out with several meetings and trainings we had going in the Valley. My error here was actually making a plan in the first place (see my extensive research on this topic filed under: PLANS, nothing here goes according to). The day Ginger and the boys left, I did what any healthy man would do - I drove to visit some nuns. And it only took 6 hours - a speed record for a nun run. These amazing women have run a health promotion and training program in southwestern Guatemala for about 40 years, and it was very impressive. In truth, I was along because Kris and DeeDee and Christian were my ride back to the Valley. So, the 4 of us and the new doctor went to visit to see what we could learn. The road was crowded and bumpy and full of sugarcane trucks because it's harvest time right now. Also, there were a few stops where we were searched to make sure we didn't have fruit or other things that might infest the crops there (I didn't mind that necessarily - it makes sense, but I wish that governments put as much effort into addressing the trafficking of humans as they do the trafficking of fruit flies).
Throughout the visit, it became clear to everyone that I didn't know very much about medicine (more on that later), but thankfully I was able to work in some of my best nun jokes ("dressing as a nun is easy once you get into the habit", "you must think we're as fun as a barrel full of monks", "I assume you're Cardinals fans", and so on). They actually weren't Cardinals fans, though, but they really liked the Detroit Tigers from the 1960's and were pleasantly surprised to talk with someone who could recount Denny McClain's amazing 1968 season and how Al Kaline is one of the most underrated players ever. They also said that they are working in one community in particular where they have a desperate need for water, and it looks like next spring we are going to "trade" some water work for some medicines and health promotion work. It's always interesting to me how things get intertwined for the good.
And, along the way, it occurred to me that I wasn't eating or drinking much at all. By the time we returned to Guatemala City, I was feeling pretty rotten and really just wanted to sleep. I looked up my symptoms on WebMD and it said definitively that I had a kidney infection. That is probably not fun anywhere, but in the mountains of Guatemala it's especially un-fun. The combination of bouncing along the "roads", the drizzle, the cold (it's surprisingly cold right now), the real discomfort in my back and side, and the fact that whenever I went to the bathroom it sounded like I was sending a Morse code message made it pretty miserable. Thankfully, of the past 144 hours in the Valley, I slept about 120 of those hours. One of the few clear decisions I made was to move my flight back from next week to today. Feeling better and sitting here in the airport gave me some time to reflect on another event that occurred around me in the last few days.
One (evening?) Kris came in to where I was sleeping and said "Sorry, but this guy's got a broken arm and this is the best place to help him". I really don't remember much else from that time, but the story was that he had fallen and had a severe break that needed immediate medical attention, but before getting him to he hospital for setting / surgery he needed to have the break immobilized. Kris (who could probably use a nap by this time as well) was able to put to use some wilderness training and apply a splint. The family was distraught. He was a new father and needed to support the family. Bear in mind that this sort of injury is often a death sentence in places like this, and even in the best case scenario he wouldn't be able to work for several months, if ever again, and most of the people here live day to day.
The next day, a group of friends and family came and asked Kris if he could take them to the hospital to visit their friend, who by this time had been informed that he needed treatment costing 1,500 Quetzales (which he didn't have) or they would need to amputate his arm. More of the story came to light as well - that the man had in fact been intoxicated and got into a fight with his father-in-law over the fact that he'd been unkind to his wife and threats were made and punches thrown and just a general sad situation on the family front. I really don't know any more than that, but I suspect that the story, like all stories, goes back several years and possibly generations. I guess we have the option to pay attention to the sweet story of a family rallying around a loved one who is hurt and we have the option to pay attention to the story of a man who made some exceptionally poor choices in exceptionally trying circumstances. Or, we could pay attention to both stories, for they are part of a larger story. The Ulpan
So here I am - we're about to board the plane. I get to come and go. I get sick and can make a few calls and change a plane reservation and a few hours later be finishing up a drink and typing away on a computer. Another man my age gets sick and faces selling all his property or losing his arm. However, even given his grievous mistakes he's made with his family, he is currently surrounded by his family. That's what I want to be as well. Thank you, God, for a kidney infection because it pushed me to do what I should've done in the first place: stay with my family who is that light in my life.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
On Babies
"The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" John 1:14
People have lots of babies in the valley. Our family of five is considered a slightly small family compared to many in Guatemala. Over the past few months, DeeDee and I have been helping with a baseline study of the valley. Questionnaires are filled out by a random sampling of families in each village on basic health and education. Questions are asked such as "When do you wash your hands?" and "What do you do when you wash your hands?" (ie: Do you use soap). Among the questions are also "How many times have you given birth?" and "How many of these children are living?". These questions are the hard questions to enter into the computer at times. Some families have six children and all are living. Others are more difficult. There are women who have given birth four times and none are living. When asked "Who helped you give birth?", most women answer that the local mid-wife or their mother helped. One particular woman, however, answered that no one helped her give birth to her children. As a woman who has given birth, this is difficult for me to understand.
Even closer to home, our friend and employee in Project Ulpan, Julio, asked for time off about a month ago because he needed to help a friend build a tiny casket for their 8 month-old baby. Only a few days after, Kevin and my boys witnessed a village digging a grave for another tiny casket. It is telling and sad that the newborn we visited last week doesn't yet have a name. Maybe that's just the custom in the valley, but why? Is it because so many die that names are not given until later?
There was a baby born a little over 2,000 years ago who we celebrate at this time of year. In the birth of this baby lies all our hopes. The hope that His light will break through the darkness of babies dying and people hurting. I find that the Christmas songs that mean the most to me this year are the ones that talk of the hope we have with the birth of Jesus. One particularly poignant song to me this year is Point of Grace's "Emmanuel". If you've heard it, the melody is beautiful, but the words are what convict me most (If you've not heard it, find it and listen to it). The last line of the chorus says, "Emmanuel, be God in us". Jesus came to be God with us. But He didn't leave us empty-handed when He returned to His father. He gave us His spirit, and with it, the ability to continue to be "God with us" to a world lost in darkness. He paved the way for us by His perfect example and then said, "Now, go be my light to those you find in need".
So, I celebrate Christmas this year with extra spaces in my heart for the people in the Ulpan Valley and with the hope that our presence there will be a light in the darkness for them as their lives have been a light in my darkness. I celebrate with thankfulness overflowing that God's perfect plan doesn't leave us alone but gives us His presence forevermore. I celebrate that God is with us.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Dry-erase Boards: A Love Story
The past several years have seen some remarkable improvements in technology, especially in the area of communication. The fact that I can sit at a computer and talk to people anywhere in the world for free by way of Skype, all from a place that's an hour from the nearest electrical service, is amazing to me. Think about it - cell phones, iPhones, the internet, satellites, GPS, and countless other devices are all so commonplace that we barely even notice them, except for maybe when watching re-runs of TV shows from the 1990s and notice that most of their issues could have been solved by mobile phones. None of these inventions, however, can even approach the importance of the dry-erase board and the contributions it has made to humankind.
I know there are some old-fashioned chalkboard apologists out there, and to those people I just have to say that all you are is chalkdust in the wind. Dry-erase boards use markers that, while not quite as tasty as chalk, come in a wide variety of bright colors as diverse as "green" and "blue", and for extra emphasis when underlining something important, even "red". Black dry-erase markers are so 2005. Go to any office building and inspect the dry erase boards in individual offices - that's how you can tell who is the brains of the outfit and who does all the work. I used to work with a man (and friend) named George Garden, whose marker board was epic. It was always full of engineering formulas and complicated things like "process and instrumentation diagrams" and other things that looked like the washing instructions you find on the tag of your shirt. And for any of you who drink water in Brentwood Tennessee, rest assured that the only reason that water ever got to your house was because there was a note on Travis Lankford's dry-erase board to build something or fix something or "ignore what that geeky engineer down the hall just said".
So what, one might ask, does this have to do with mission work in Guatemala?
Our work here has gotten busy enough that we now use a white marker board in our planning and designing so much that even men like George and Travis would be impressed. Here is a photo I took a couple of days ago after a minutes-long planning session:
Aside from noticing that I don't know how to turn the flash off on my camera, you'll notice there are references on here to water projects in places like:
I know there are some old-fashioned chalkboard apologists out there, and to those people I just have to say that all you are is chalkdust in the wind. Dry-erase boards use markers that, while not quite as tasty as chalk, come in a wide variety of bright colors as diverse as "green" and "blue", and for extra emphasis when underlining something important, even "red". Black dry-erase markers are so 2005. Go to any office building and inspect the dry erase boards in individual offices - that's how you can tell who is the brains of the outfit and who does all the work. I used to work with a man (and friend) named George Garden, whose marker board was epic. It was always full of engineering formulas and complicated things like "process and instrumentation diagrams" and other things that looked like the washing instructions you find on the tag of your shirt. And for any of you who drink water in Brentwood Tennessee, rest assured that the only reason that water ever got to your house was because there was a note on Travis Lankford's dry-erase board to build something or fix something or "ignore what that geeky engineer down the hall just said".
So what, one might ask, does this have to do with mission work in Guatemala?
Our work here has gotten busy enough that we now use a white marker board in our planning and designing so much that even men like George and Travis would be impressed. Here is a photo I took a couple of days ago after a minutes-long planning session:
- Sesalche I, where people don't have water 3 months out of the year because their source goes dry and for whom we are building a reservoir and extra lines to augment their system
- Sesalche II, where the 800 people there obtain water every day from the same location where they wash their clothes and themselves, and where not surprisingly there are high rates of sickness
- Sequixpur, where 400 people drink out of a river when we can get safe water much closer to their houses than the polluted river for about $10 a person.
- Benitzul, where we live and where many people, especially on one end of the village, still have to look for water.
- Don Bosco Setex, where we've designed a new spring box for them that will double their supply and are looking to construct later this month.
- Semesche, where a very simple project can get water to about 200 people.
- Santo Tomas, where someone built part of a system 12 years ago and never taught them how to maintain it, so it hasn't worked since.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Thanksgiving with Native Americans
390 years ago, a group of Pilgrims had a celebration with some of their new Native American friends. The same thing happened today.
We had gotten the advice long before we moved to Guatemala to make sure we took the time to "do familiar things" and "make things feel like home", and holidays are a really good excuse to do familiar things in familiar ways. The typical Thanksgiving at the Colvett household includes throwing frozen hot dogs at passing cars, but since we don't have a freezer, hot dogs, or passing cars, we had to make other plans. A couple of weeks ago, we decided that we were going to have a true Thanksgiving feast, complete with turkey and stuffing and stuffing turkeys like me. So, with a little forethought, we had some friends bring some food from the US as part of a visiting team last week and we did a little out-of-the-ordinary shopping ourselves. We also invited several people here who we are close to and had a great day.
The turkey, which is for some reason the centerpiece of the Holiday, was a special challenge. We don't have an oven here in which to cook one and we didn't want to use a turkey fryer because we figured that setting fire to the Ulpan Valley would be frowned upon by the 7,500 people here, although it would teach the principle of "stuff and burn" to people who are more accustomed to "slash and burn". So after doing some intense research (i.e. Googling for a few minutes), we determined that we could cook a turkey underground (like what might have actually been done in 1621). So, yesterday we spent about 4 hours using machetes to chop down and chop up firewood. We had some help from our Mayan friends here, and their wood was cut fairly cleanly but the ones we cut were basically turned into mulch. The next step was to dig a hole:
It was pouring down rain at this point, and well after dark, but to protect our fire we had constructed a plastic tarp over it, firmly secured with scrap lumber, broken fence posts, and I think a small turtle. We were, however, quite confident that we could keep the turkey moist, since there was a nice mix of water and kerosene in its soon-to-be-occupied grave. So about 10:00 last night, we buried the turkey and nervously awaited its exhumation this morning. It did stop raining during the night, and most of the family stopped throwing up as well. Here's Kris opening the poultry-geist this morning:
Put simply, it was the best turkey I'd ever had. Really, I was chicken at first, maybe a little sheepish, and almost had a cow when I tried it because the concept still seemed fishy to me, but I really pigged out. Our company was even better. It brought to mind times growing up when Billy Ray Warren would write on a chalkboard all the things people said they were thankful for, or when Steve and Debbie Gampp in Boulder would invite a strange new couple from Alabama to their house to share the holiday. It brought to mind the fact that my mother was with my aunt today and Ginger's sister was with her parents today. We were right there with them all. That's the great thing about holidays and being a part of God's family. In this picture you see a bunch of lost Pilgrims and people like Manuel and Roberto and Julio and their wives and their kids and right there with them are people they've never met. But they're all at the same table, and there's plenty of room and plenty of food.
We had gotten the advice long before we moved to Guatemala to make sure we took the time to "do familiar things" and "make things feel like home", and holidays are a really good excuse to do familiar things in familiar ways. The typical Thanksgiving at the Colvett household includes throwing frozen hot dogs at passing cars, but since we don't have a freezer, hot dogs, or passing cars, we had to make other plans. A couple of weeks ago, we decided that we were going to have a true Thanksgiving feast, complete with turkey and stuffing and stuffing turkeys like me. So, with a little forethought, we had some friends bring some food from the US as part of a visiting team last week and we did a little out-of-the-ordinary shopping ourselves. We also invited several people here who we are close to and had a great day.
The turkey, which is for some reason the centerpiece of the Holiday, was a special challenge. We don't have an oven here in which to cook one and we didn't want to use a turkey fryer because we figured that setting fire to the Ulpan Valley would be frowned upon by the 7,500 people here, although it would teach the principle of "stuff and burn" to people who are more accustomed to "slash and burn". So after doing some intense research (i.e. Googling for a few minutes), we determined that we could cook a turkey underground (like what might have actually been done in 1621). So, yesterday we spent about 4 hours using machetes to chop down and chop up firewood. We had some help from our Mayan friends here, and their wood was cut fairly cleanly but the ones we cut were basically turned into mulch. The next step was to dig a hole:
The hole needed to be about 3' by 3' by 3', so this took some time. Notice how nice and bright the sunshine is. That lasted for about 45 more seconds. Getting a fire going in a hole isn't as easy as it might sound, but it is as smoky as it might sound. However, we borrowed a trick from the original Pilgrims and started soaking our firewood in kerosene. I assume their 50-year old kerosene heaters they borrowed from other missionaries didn't work either, so what else did they need kerosene for than to create an explosive pit of jet fuel? Speaking of which, let me just say "Poof! No eyebrows!" and leave it at that. Here's proof of pre-poof:
You can see our good friend Roberto Caal in the background cutting up wood. We'd given up long before this. Next was the most sacred of all Thanksgiving traditions: the burying of the turkey where you usually park the Mazda pickup. Of all the things to baste a turkey with, soil is pretty low on the list, so we once again followed the path of our ancestors and wrapped the turkey in aluminum foil, then in banana leaves (those grow on Cape Cod, right???) and then a screen mesh we typically use to screen outlets to spring boxes and then secured it all with rebar tie wire:
Put simply, it was the best turkey I'd ever had. Really, I was chicken at first, maybe a little sheepish, and almost had a cow when I tried it because the concept still seemed fishy to me, but I really pigged out. Our company was even better. It brought to mind times growing up when Billy Ray Warren would write on a chalkboard all the things people said they were thankful for, or when Steve and Debbie Gampp in Boulder would invite a strange new couple from Alabama to their house to share the holiday. It brought to mind the fact that my mother was with my aunt today and Ginger's sister was with her parents today. We were right there with them all. That's the great thing about holidays and being a part of God's family. In this picture you see a bunch of lost Pilgrims and people like Manuel and Roberto and Julio and their wives and their kids and right there with them are people they've never met. But they're all at the same table, and there's plenty of room and plenty of food.
We capped the evening off with a viewing of The Polar Express. Movies have become a real favorite of people here, and it makes us feel like home. Afterward, right at sunset, we said our goodbyes and said "hasta manana" to our friends, or in some cases "wulak chik alooy", which means "see you soon, friend". And as we said goodbye, a huge rainbow spread across the east end of the valley, and this sight was on the west end:
Happy Thanksgiving.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
It Takes More Than One Wing To Fly Straight
Over the past few months we have met hundreds of people here in the Ulpan Valley. Not surprisingly, the ones we have gotten to know the best generally fall into two groups:
To describe anyone in just a few sentences is doing them (as well as the describer) a disservice because you wind up stereotyping or gossiping or overgeneralizing. But over the past few weeks, as I have gotten to know these men and worked alongside them, I have become fascinated with their different talents and different approaches to life. It makes we wonder if the lasting effect of our time here will be mixing people together who ordinarily wouldn't be interacting very much.
Juan is very motivated and seizes opportunities to make things better for him and his family. In fact, he sold us the land the Project Ulpan facilities are located on so that he could benefit from a long-term relationship. When the initial water system was constructed in Benitzul, he made sure that the line ran to his house and there was a good supply there, and when opportunities to serve on things like solar panel committees, water committees, etc., present themselves, you can rest assured that he or his wife will be a part of that. He is respected in the community, but not completely well-liked because of his assertiveness. It's almost an elbow-you-outta-my-way sort of assertiveness, but this community would be less than it is without him in it.
Ignacio, on the other hand, is very quiet and meek - so much so that it's often difficult to even hear him speak. I think that he is like the majority of the people here in that way. He works and never complains, but works at a slower pace than others, and they notice that. A couple of weeks ago, he came to visit and you could tell that he was very timid about what was on his mind. He was asking if we could help him with a water situation near his house and it took him close to a half hour of "I hate to bother you" to get to that point. Incidentally, the water situation he wanted help with was a location in a cave where many people crawl down 100 feet of mud to get water (including an 80-year old woman - everyday). A few weeks ago, a rock fell and killed a woman doing her laundry. The end result of this is that we will be installing a solar powered pump here and actually using it to augment the water system, including the portion near Juan's house. I hope to post pictures of an 80-year old woman getting water at her house for the first time ever in the next few weeks. Ignacio has helped us with some other situations here and is a true friend, but if everyone were like him in the Valley, I fear not much would ever get done, even though it would be a very peaceful place.
Arturo is one of the few people in the Valley who everyone refers to as "Don", which in a very Godfather sort of way is a term of respect. Even other communities know and respect him. I do too. He is illiterate and barely speaks Spanish, but he is the local resource from everything ranging from horticulture to knot-tying to construction. If there is something that needs to be done in the community, he will be the first one there and the last one to leave. He shares his food and his very limited goods with, as best I can tell, everyone. He serves on virtually every committee in the community, but it comes across more as "service" than "what do I have to gain by doing this?"
At this point in the post, it is tempting to create some analogy like: God doesn't want us to be like Ignacio because he wants us to tend the field and improve things, but he doesn't want us to use our success for our own benefit like Juan - he wants us to share and be like Arturo. Some or all of that may be true, but maybe the lesson here isn't necessarily that Person A needs to be more like Person B, or that Person C is better than A and B because he is a blend of their gifts. Maybe the lesson is that Person A needs to be put in situations where they can learn from Person B, or Person B needs to be put in situations where his talents complement those of Person C. I think we get too hung up on trying to change people into something they aren't, or trying to change ourselves into something we are not. Instead, we could simply just accept that God put different people here for different reasons, and the end result can be beautiful. It can also be chaos.
All this to say - from 1000 miles away the whole "Occupy" thing seems strangely reminiscent of what we are trying to end here - where people mistakenly believe that they don't need other people, regardless of what "percent" you find yourself. After watching an infant be buried yesterday and two others in small communities die in the past week, I feel like inviting a team of Wall Street bankers and occupy-ers to come to the Ulpan Valley for a week and pour some concrete and fit some waterlines together and work with men like Ignacio, Juan and Arturo. In each their own way, I think the three of them would be able to teach such a team quite a bit.
- People who live near us, and
- People we work with frequently
To describe anyone in just a few sentences is doing them (as well as the describer) a disservice because you wind up stereotyping or gossiping or overgeneralizing. But over the past few weeks, as I have gotten to know these men and worked alongside them, I have become fascinated with their different talents and different approaches to life. It makes we wonder if the lasting effect of our time here will be mixing people together who ordinarily wouldn't be interacting very much.
Juan is very motivated and seizes opportunities to make things better for him and his family. In fact, he sold us the land the Project Ulpan facilities are located on so that he could benefit from a long-term relationship. When the initial water system was constructed in Benitzul, he made sure that the line ran to his house and there was a good supply there, and when opportunities to serve on things like solar panel committees, water committees, etc., present themselves, you can rest assured that he or his wife will be a part of that. He is respected in the community, but not completely well-liked because of his assertiveness. It's almost an elbow-you-outta-my-way sort of assertiveness, but this community would be less than it is without him in it.
Ignacio, on the other hand, is very quiet and meek - so much so that it's often difficult to even hear him speak. I think that he is like the majority of the people here in that way. He works and never complains, but works at a slower pace than others, and they notice that. A couple of weeks ago, he came to visit and you could tell that he was very timid about what was on his mind. He was asking if we could help him with a water situation near his house and it took him close to a half hour of "I hate to bother you" to get to that point. Incidentally, the water situation he wanted help with was a location in a cave where many people crawl down 100 feet of mud to get water (including an 80-year old woman - everyday). A few weeks ago, a rock fell and killed a woman doing her laundry. The end result of this is that we will be installing a solar powered pump here and actually using it to augment the water system, including the portion near Juan's house. I hope to post pictures of an 80-year old woman getting water at her house for the first time ever in the next few weeks. Ignacio has helped us with some other situations here and is a true friend, but if everyone were like him in the Valley, I fear not much would ever get done, even though it would be a very peaceful place.
Arturo is one of the few people in the Valley who everyone refers to as "Don", which in a very Godfather sort of way is a term of respect. Even other communities know and respect him. I do too. He is illiterate and barely speaks Spanish, but he is the local resource from everything ranging from horticulture to knot-tying to construction. If there is something that needs to be done in the community, he will be the first one there and the last one to leave. He shares his food and his very limited goods with, as best I can tell, everyone. He serves on virtually every committee in the community, but it comes across more as "service" than "what do I have to gain by doing this?"
At this point in the post, it is tempting to create some analogy like: God doesn't want us to be like Ignacio because he wants us to tend the field and improve things, but he doesn't want us to use our success for our own benefit like Juan - he wants us to share and be like Arturo. Some or all of that may be true, but maybe the lesson here isn't necessarily that Person A needs to be more like Person B, or that Person C is better than A and B because he is a blend of their gifts. Maybe the lesson is that Person A needs to be put in situations where they can learn from Person B, or Person B needs to be put in situations where his talents complement those of Person C. I think we get too hung up on trying to change people into something they aren't, or trying to change ourselves into something we are not. Instead, we could simply just accept that God put different people here for different reasons, and the end result can be beautiful. It can also be chaos.
All this to say - from 1000 miles away the whole "Occupy" thing seems strangely reminiscent of what we are trying to end here - where people mistakenly believe that they don't need other people, regardless of what "percent" you find yourself. After watching an infant be buried yesterday and two others in small communities die in the past week, I feel like inviting a team of Wall Street bankers and occupy-ers to come to the Ulpan Valley for a week and pour some concrete and fit some waterlines together and work with men like Ignacio, Juan and Arturo. In each their own way, I think the three of them would be able to teach such a team quite a bit.
Here is Ignacio showing me the cave that will be a new water source for the west end of Benitzul and the east end of Esquipulas. We're 100 feet below the walking path here, and the next rock that falls here I want to hit a concrete box with a pump inside and not a human being.
This was sunrise out our front door a few days ago. Not really pertinent to this post, but I just kinda thought it was pretty.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
GIVE THEM THE OPPORTUNITY TO SAY "NO"
A few years ago at my former job, when I was dealing with a particularly "interesting" client on a particularly thorny issue, I asked a mentor named Garland Rose what I should do to potentially resolve the issue. What I needed to do was to ask them to do something that I figured they probably wouldn't do, so I was struggling with why I needed to ask them in the first place (by the way, I'm not purposefully being ambiguous here - I really don't remember all the specifics of the situation). Garland's advice was simple: "You need to give them the opportunity to say No", and it was good advice. The end result of that was that they did indeed say "no" and that was pretty much that, but the advice has stuck with me: even if you expect someone to say "no", you at least need to give them that opportunity. There is probably some spiritual application to this regarding prayer and petition and our ongoing conversation with God, but this post is about a meeting I had last night with the Benitzul Ulpan Water Committee.
Backing up a little, about two and a half years ago, the first project of any sort ever done as part of Project Ulpan was a water system for the village of Benitzul. It was primarily a construction effort at the time, but as relationships grew and we learned more about the communities here, we grew with them. And as one might guess, any water system - in Nashville or in Benitzul - is only as good as the people taking care of it. A real problem in the developing world is that many well-intentioned people give money for a project - like a new well or a new school or a new hospital, but there is no follow-up for the training and the maintenance and eventual "ownership" of the project by the community. It's a difficult line to walk between helping and enabling and I'm not sure there's a clear litmus test for when you're doing either. But, at some point, the goal is to make the project sustainable and self-reliant, and last night was a big step in that direction.
Without boring anyone with the details (probably too late for that), the community approached us with a request to extend their water system a little farther to make it more accessible for a dozen or so more families. Because of the generosity of www.thelivingwaterproject.us and several individuals, we have more than ample money to accomplish this extension. But, we felt that this would be a good time to walk with the community through the process of collecting money from the "customers" and saving that money so they can pay a portion of the cost. The portion we proposed to them was approximately 10%, which interestingly is analagous to the "match" portion many water systems in Tennessee must pay when applying for state or federal assistance for water projects (whether there is ample follow-up or training for those projects is a different set of opinions for a different time). I really had no idea how this concept would be received, but I felt it was important to "give them the opportunity to say no".
It turned out that their reaction was one of thanks and of excitement and of total agreement. I was really proud of how the Water Committee felt an eagerness to make an investment their system and in their community. They said they would have their share of the money in the next couple of weeks. I think this is a great precedent and a great sign that we are helping teach them how to develop their community. It's easy to forget that most of us work in "community development" - that most of what we do (engineering, teaching, doctoring, preaching, making, selling, cleaning, etc.) is for other people and for the "good" of the community. It's also easy to forget that everything we've accomplished thus far in the "developed" world has been the direct result of someone giving someone else the opportunity to say "no", because every now and then the answer is "yes", and that's when things move in the right direction.
Backing up a little, about two and a half years ago, the first project of any sort ever done as part of Project Ulpan was a water system for the village of Benitzul. It was primarily a construction effort at the time, but as relationships grew and we learned more about the communities here, we grew with them. And as one might guess, any water system - in Nashville or in Benitzul - is only as good as the people taking care of it. A real problem in the developing world is that many well-intentioned people give money for a project - like a new well or a new school or a new hospital, but there is no follow-up for the training and the maintenance and eventual "ownership" of the project by the community. It's a difficult line to walk between helping and enabling and I'm not sure there's a clear litmus test for when you're doing either. But, at some point, the goal is to make the project sustainable and self-reliant, and last night was a big step in that direction.
Without boring anyone with the details (probably too late for that), the community approached us with a request to extend their water system a little farther to make it more accessible for a dozen or so more families. Because of the generosity of www.thelivingwaterproject.us and several individuals, we have more than ample money to accomplish this extension. But, we felt that this would be a good time to walk with the community through the process of collecting money from the "customers" and saving that money so they can pay a portion of the cost. The portion we proposed to them was approximately 10%, which interestingly is analagous to the "match" portion many water systems in Tennessee must pay when applying for state or federal assistance for water projects (whether there is ample follow-up or training for those projects is a different set of opinions for a different time). I really had no idea how this concept would be received, but I felt it was important to "give them the opportunity to say no".
It turned out that their reaction was one of thanks and of excitement and of total agreement. I was really proud of how the Water Committee felt an eagerness to make an investment their system and in their community. They said they would have their share of the money in the next couple of weeks. I think this is a great precedent and a great sign that we are helping teach them how to develop their community. It's easy to forget that most of us work in "community development" - that most of what we do (engineering, teaching, doctoring, preaching, making, selling, cleaning, etc.) is for other people and for the "good" of the community. It's also easy to forget that everything we've accomplished thus far in the "developed" world has been the direct result of someone giving someone else the opportunity to say "no", because every now and then the answer is "yes", and that's when things move in the right direction.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
A Stormy Night
The following is Sam's account of our stormy night:
One night there was a huge storm. It involved a loud noise on the tin roof, a small landslide on the side of the house, and some working in the morning. That night was strange and scary. Lots of people were up for the most of it. Here is what happened.
The most annoying part of the night was that the rain on the tin roof sounded like you were in a movie theater with the volume all the way up, and glass was shattering constantly. My friend Zane and I were asleep for most of it. We were only awake for the loud part of it though. From what I hear it went on for hours, and hours. The front porch was wet all over, and it was covered all the way by tin too.
Another strange thing that happened during the storm was that there was a small landslide right on the side of our house. All of the sudden we heard a thud. I opened my eyes and I saw water seeping through the walls. The others went around the side of the house and they said, " Yep it's a landslide." As it happened a thin tree trunk fence had fallen down with a lot of mud and hit the side of the house.
The next week involved cleaning the little bit of landslide up from the house. We also had to dig up mud from a drain.After that we cleaned up the utensils that we used. And then we took the mud in the wheelbarrow down to the road and dumped it out.
All in all we were okay, but tired.And I still can't believe I slept through most of it!
One night there was a huge storm. It involved a loud noise on the tin roof, a small landslide on the side of the house, and some working in the morning. That night was strange and scary. Lots of people were up for the most of it. Here is what happened.
The most annoying part of the night was that the rain on the tin roof sounded like you were in a movie theater with the volume all the way up, and glass was shattering constantly. My friend Zane and I were asleep for most of it. We were only awake for the loud part of it though. From what I hear it went on for hours, and hours. The front porch was wet all over, and it was covered all the way by tin too.
Another strange thing that happened during the storm was that there was a small landslide right on the side of our house. All of the sudden we heard a thud. I opened my eyes and I saw water seeping through the walls. The others went around the side of the house and they said, " Yep it's a landslide." As it happened a thin tree trunk fence had fallen down with a lot of mud and hit the side of the house.
The next week involved cleaning the little bit of landslide up from the house. We also had to dig up mud from a drain.After that we cleaned up the utensils that we used. And then we took the mud in the wheelbarrow down to the road and dumped it out.
All in all we were okay, but tired.And I still can't believe I slept through most of it!
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