Where In The World are Brian And Angela?!?: Well...a bunch of stuff, really

Well, we continue to move at an astonishing break-neck pace with the activities we carry out in the community. Last week, we actually had something planned one day!!! Yup, the rain is here. It’s wet. It’s muddy. Everything’s, well, hibernating. We haven’t seen even a peep from the sun in over two weeks. But hey, you all know how industrious Brian is and how I like to shake a tail feather, so we’ve been getting creative. We go on long walks to far-out villages to visit people for lunch. We make hot cocoa and take it to neighbors. I do exercise videos (I can’t seem to get Brian into ¨Yoga-Booty-Ballet¨ yet…how odd, no?). We read and write. We study Spanish and butcher it talking to each other. We garden, or used to. Now it’s a big flooded area and the plants are swimming in their beds. Sometimes we watch Mexican soap operas after dinner, but the black and white screen flickers and buzzes. Some days we go to the municipality and look at pictures from trips on the computer with a friend at the municipality. When the electricity isn’t out (almost every day it goes for a while – yes – the rain), we take movies to friend’s houses. And when possible, we work.

I’m tentatively positive about Sícchez´s progress with trash management. And Brian’s doing an awesome job supporting the Health Center with trainings and getting an improved cooking stove and family garden project off the ground. To be honest, I’m doing the ´ol carrot-and-stick trick. I’ve got access to some funds from the Peace Corps and have developed a trash management plan with my community associate (a Tech that works at the municipality) that will take advantage of these funds. We want to buy new community trash cans that won’t rust, give sacks and family-size trash cans to each household so that they separate organics from inorganics, implement house-to-house trash collection, use the organics for compost production, and separate and sell the recyclables. But I’m refusing to give them the money until they can meet certain conditions first. Thus, the ball is in their court to get themselves organized and take the initiative to make change (with my constant loving support, of course). Namely, they have to correctly manage the system they already have in place, which consists of trash cans spread out through the town streets and collection by wheelbarrow. As of now, the trash collectors go to only about half of the existing trash cans, so that people don’t see any reason to use them. Instead, they burn their waste streams or throw it all down the hill behind their house. The municipality will have to show that it can manage consistent and adequate collection of the existing system before receiving money to implement a more complex one.
Yesterday, we had a meeting with my counterpart and the workers who collect the trash, explaining to them our future plans and the need for them to comply with their responsibilities in order to move forward with the project. I rounded up more support from the Governor, who is now going house-to-house with me each week (along with the local police officer and Justice of the Peace) so we can educate and monitor families as they implement new trash management practices in their homes. Some people are on board and rearing to go, others…not so much, they don’t really listen. The Governor will also be responsible for monitoring the system once it’s in place, with the help of a graphic organizer that I made for him (some of that teacher blood coming through). The local schools will be responsible for monthly clean-ups. The Mayor has promised to buy (in 2010) new and improved trash collectors that consist of a large crate mounted on the front of bicycles for the workers to use instead of these tiny wheelbarrows. And the Tech is going to make the compost and recyclable storage areas (which also have to be in place before receiving funds). It all sounds good on paper, but I’m not holding my breath – it’s a lot of behavior change to ask for. It might be something that the volunteer after me ends up fully implementing. I might just be laying the groundwork.

As for the two rural villages where I work, trash collection is not feasible. Thus, I’m working with 21 families on using family sanitary landfills to dispose of their trash and use their organics for compost production. This part of my service is a lot easier, because the villages are small and I don’t have to deal with institutions, just the families, a local teacher, and the local Deputy Governor. We basically go house-to-house each month to make sure that the families are disposing of their trash in the landfills and correctly maintaining their compost piles. The gratification is a lot more instant because each time I go to the villages, more families are participating. I think it’s a peer-pressure thing. The families that are now keeping things a lot cleaner pressure their neighbors to do the same, as they can see the difference between a ¨clean¨ and ¨dirty¨ home. They don’t want their neighbors trashing what they’ve worked so hard to clean. Initially, we had a contest and gifted food baskets to families who participated. Now they’re doing it without prizes. This made me extremely happy, as you all know I don’t much like extrinsic rewards. I felt so proud of them! Unfortunately - or fortunately - the Mayor saw what I was doing and offered to gift food baskets to the rest of the families that participate. So now they are expecting extrinsic rewards again, but hey, who am I to judge?!?

The municipal landfill. Yes, it seems so simple - a big hole. But, wow, it´s hard to get it right! And yes, that´s a dog that fell in there. Apparantly, his owners never feed it and it goes to the trash hole to eat, spreading it all over the place (which understandably pisses the workers off). Well, this guy fell in by accident (it´s about nine feet deep) and the workers can´t get him out because he gets really vicious. So you know what they say?? ¨Better to let him die.¨ And that was the end of discussion. So now you can hear him barking every day, stuck down there with no hope of getting out. It PAINS us to hear it, especially when it rains really hard. Poor guy!!!!!!

A family in a small village with their family-sized landfill. And they´re using it - YAY!!!!

On our long hike to Ayabaca to use internet. That´s a WORM not a snake!

Passing through the cloud forest on the way to Ayabaca.

Happy little couple ;)

One way to pass the time...paint a map on the wall of the local preschool.

It cleared up a bit one day. The picture of the little girl from the village above lives at the very bottom of this valley. A nice walk!

What most days are like. Yeah, who wants to do anything in THAT?!?!

Brian´s trying to work but I think his papers are soggy.

Aahhhhh...morning.

Heavy rain + deforestation = lots of sediment in the water. Yes, this is the water that we drink, use to wash clothes (whites come out tan), and otherwise depend on. Can you see the fear?

Refreshing! Right out ´o the tap! We´re starting to fill up large bottles to let the water sit for a couple of days so the sediment settles before consuming.