Celio, Enrique, and Roberto were standing at the bus stop
when I approached. I greeted them, asked
Celio if he would be attending the Water Committee Seminar, and when he
demurred, I turned to Enrique and asked why his neighborhood and family never
chose a date to have a meeting with me to discuss a latrine project.
“It’s because we do not agree with your project.”
And then Roberto launched into a soliloquy about how
asking the people to pay for their own latrines out of their own pockets was
what everyone disagreed with. The
previous volunteers only ever asked for the people to provide labor; someone
else paid for the materials. Why not
this time?
“But, Roberto,” I replied, “you built a latrine for
yourself and for your son. Who paid for
those materials?”
“Well, I did, but Enrique isn’t capable of doing
that. Some people can but most people
can’t.”
This had been the theme all the month of March – we’re
just not capable. We need to wait for
someone else to help us. And even when
someone – like Roberto – is actually able to do something without waiting for
him, he – and everyone else – assumes he is exceptional, and that no one else
should expect to be able to do that.
This sentiment, this sense of helplessness and inability
to take control in improving things themselves, this is what I am
fighting. The role of a Peace Corps
Volunteer, in our model of Sustainable Development, is Empowerment.
Which is not to say that this role is easy. In fact, we often find ourselves at odds with
other aid workers. Aid can come in many
forms, but one way to look at it is to divide it into three categories: Relief,
Rehabilitation, and Development. For
example, provide Relief for tsunami victims – get them food, water, and shelter
immediately to save their lives. Provide
Rehabilitation to rebuild cities destroyed by flooding – bring in help to work
with the people in the rebuilding process.
And do Development to empower people to make improvements themselves;
the responsibility is on them to make the changes, and the help comes mostly in
the form of teaching skills, of facilitating, of organizing.
However, aid groups often do Relief tasks to solve
Development problems. Last month, a
group arrived in Quebrada Pastor – they handed out free medication, they did an
activity with the children in the school, and they installed an 800 gallon
plastic water storage tank and rainwater catchment system at one house.
They were very nice people with good intentions, but
giving away a giant plastic tank to one family completely opposes the message I
have been trying to send to my people for the last eight months. The message of the tank is: “If you wait
around long enough, maybe some nice gringos will give you a tank so that you
don’t have to fetch water from the stream anymore.” I message I have been saying is: “You can
build your own tank using concrete. If
it breaks, you can fix it. You don’t
even have to save up nearly as much money as a plastic tank costs. You can treat the water to make sure it’s
clean. You have the ability to save
yourself time and improve your health – you only need to learn how to build a
tank.” The message is not, “You are
dependent upon the good will of richer people to make your life better.”
The thing is – the people of Quebrada Pastor have been
living without water in their houses for generations. They are probably not going to die tomorrow
without a giant plastic tank. So giving
away stuff – a Relief tactic – is not really necessary here. Better that they find a way to make water in
their house happen for themselves, or that they work alongside someone to seek
out a way of doing so – a way that works for them, where they have a say, where
they know what to do if it has a problem.
After all, what happens when the tank or piping breaks? And there are other issues – What message
does this send to the rest of the community?
Why did this family get chosen instead of any of the 40-some other
families that don’t have water in their house?
(Answer: there was not really any strategic planning toward that end –
they house was off by itself, making it not useful for sharing the 800 gallons
of water with other families; the family was not the poorest or the largest or
the sickest or the most capable of maintaining the tank. I know of at least 4 other families in that
area alone who would better fit those descriptions. This family was chosen because the boat
driver, translator, and guide for the aid group is related to the family.)
Now I better understand why, when I am walking around proposing
projects that involve input on the part of the people – all the preparation to
build an aqueduct, or buying the materials and building your own tank – the
response is often, “Well, why don’t you just get us a plastic tank? Like that other house?”
I have been mulling over all of these issues – how I am
going to try again with the message that my people are capable of so much more
than they themselves believe, when, two weeks ago, I was presented with an
amazing opportunity.
My boss (the head of the Environmental Health program for
Peace Corps-Panamá) asked if I would host Tech Week in Quebrada Pastor.
I think I posted about Tech Week last June when I
attended, as a trainee, in the Comarca – a week of hands-on learning (my
favorite!) held at a current Volunteer’s site – experiencing an indigenous host
family and work on construction projects much in the way that we eventually
would in our own sites.
This is a really cool opportunity for me to try again at
my message – “Look, guys, we are so capable of being organized and working
together and doing projects – like y’all did with the previous two Volunteers –
and we’ve made so much progress toward new projects, that Peace Corps actually
wants to come HERE – bringing all of their 26 new trainees – to learn from US
about how to do Environmental Health projects!
And as a benefit, we get their labor to help with what we’re doing, even
though they don’t know anything – so WE’RE the bosses!”
Well, that’s how I’ve been trying to frame the whole
thing when I speak to individuals and when I made an announcement to everyone
at the last Assembly at the school.
It really is a neat thing to get to do – it will be a lot
of planning and organizing and logistical work, but a really cool opportunity
for me, and for my people. Maybe it will
help motivate them out of their feelings of inability.
Despite this great opportunity, I realize that the effort
for empowerment is still going to be a hard fight, because in the end, all I
can do is offer help, but I can’t force my help to be accepted. I encounter the
same sense of helplessness, of resignation to accepting the way things are,
permeating every aspect of life. The
other day I hiked an hour up the hill looking for Rubén in his house – he is a
member of my Committee for Community Projects – because I wanted to invite him
to a meeting and hadn’t seen him in a while.
He was so sick he could barely walk – and he had been like this for two
weeks with no sign of getting better.
When I asked if he wanted to go to the hospital, he told
me he couldn’t because he didn’t have the money to buy any prescribed
medication. I offered to lend him money
– not something I normally do, but this was a special case since he is my
friend and works a lot with me – and he refused any borrowed money, saying he
would not be able to pay it back. His
mom told me that the moment the family gets money, they immediately spend it on
food, and that they would never hold onto it to honor a debt (an incredibly
self-aware observation). I offered
everything I could think of as alternative methods to pay back the debt: giving
me food from the farm, helping me paint the house, machete-ing my yard to clean
up the vegetation. They turned down
everything.
I was pretty worried about him and tried everything
possible to communicate that – how will he be able to provide for the family if
he is too sick to work? Finally I
offered to personally take Rubén to the hospital to figure out what was wrong
and worry about the money later. I said
I could take him the next day, since I was leaving for Panama City anyway. His response was that he needed to go to
church that afternoon, so he couldn’t go to the hospital. Yes, going to the hospital is important, he
told me, but God comes first.
I was at a loss. I
tried to suggest that perhaps God would want him to get better, and that
perhaps this was an opportunity to do so, but there was nothing I could do to
convince him. He was decided. He told me that maybe, with the help of his
brothers from the church, he would be able to go to the hospital within a week.
I left feeling very frustrated – it felt very urgent to
me that Rubén get better and I couldn’t understand why he refused all efforts
on my part. And I realized that the real
source of frustration was how impotent I felt – there was simply nothing I
could do to change this situation. It
was very humbling, and a good lesson. I
can only help those who want my help.
Pictures:
The current three participants in the latrine project,
working on sorting out the order of construction steps as part of the second
mandatory charla.
More fun with Calvin and Hobbes!
Sunset colors
