Insanity

There is something insane about planning “Tech Week.”

With less than a month to go, this thought struck me as I was walking to Elsa and Humberto’s house at 6 pm for my sixth-and-not-even-final meeting of the day, preparing for Day Zero.

The thing is, there are a lot of things going on here.  It was always going to be that way, because the needs here are so diverse, because there are a lot of different, motivated people and leaders, because I like doing lots of different things so as to keep busy and not get bored.  I realized back in August during my Site Visit that there were ample opportunities to do a wide variety of environmental health work.  I expressed my plans to try to do all of these things in December and January as I was preparing my Work Plan, and then I set all these wheels in motion in February, with the thought that I would make available every possible avenue of my capacity to help, offering that help to whomever would take it.

I knew that it was not all going to work out, that some attempts were going to fail, but I hoped that a few would succeed, too – as Mom would say, I was taking the “shotgun approach.”  I hoped that when one project was stalling, we could make progress on another, and that I would never really be waiting for things to happen because I would be spending that time working toward something completely different.  Quebrada Pastor made this possible because there are so many different leaders here, interested in a variety of projects.

So I set about different projects.  In November, I encouraged groups that wanted an aqueduct to invite me to measure the flow at the source.  I organized a ferrocement-rainwater-catchment-tank-building party in December to show everyone an example of this novel water collection and storage option.  In February, I walked to (almost) every single house to tell everyone I was offering to orchestrate the construction of storage tanks and pit latrines for anyone interested.  When the aqueduct groups finally formed their Water Committees, I went with each of them to do surveying.  I have been meeting with the school/central aqueduct Water Committee since I arrived, proposing repairs, and finally starting to survey that system, too.

Lots of balls have been rolling for a while now, albeit we had to overcome significant inertia to get them going….

And then in April I found out we would be hosting Tech Week.  Suddenly, all of those carefully and slowly cultivated projects, developing organically each at their own pace, were going to culminate at a specific point, on a rigid, unchangeable timeline, all at once.

That is the insanity of it.  Originally, we had lots of separate things going on, each with their own participants and goals and timelines.  Each had some probability of success and some of failure.  Now these things are all tied together, and the objectives have grown – now we are also teaching Trainees, reinforcing further the idea of capacity and empowerment.  We’re riding that opportunity and excitement – 30 Peace Corps people in Quebrada Pastor!  Wow! – to offer things I  wasn’t even ready to try yet, for lack of time and energy, like Tippy Taps and Incinerators, and I’m trying to take advantage of the context to show my people here – by placing them in the role of teacher – just how much they know.  I’m trying to “aprovechar” (which means something akin to taking advantage of an opportunity) all of the interest that this week is going to generate, and all the extra minds and hands that are going to be here.  It could turn out to be something really cool.

Could.  That’s really the insanity of it.  Before, if things failed, they would fail separately, at separate times, within a small group of people.  Now, everything can fail together all at once in the most public way possible – in front of the whole community, my boss, my fellow Volunteers, and all the new Trainees (not to mention my parents, who are coming at the end of the week, and the mayor of Changuinola, who might be showing up on the last night).  In setting my ambitions high, I am inviting an ever-more-severe fall.

And that fall feels particularly perilous because there is one person who cares an order of magnitude more about the outcome of this thing than anyone else.  That would be me.

I care about the outcome of each of the individual projects that I invested in, cultivated, developed, and cared for.  The owners and beneficiaries of these projects care too, but for their individual projects, not collectively.  And I care about the success of Tech Week as a fun learning experience for the Trainees.  The Trainees, Facilitators, and Trainers each care too, in their own way.  However, my definition of success is tied up in how the whole thing reflects on my community and me.  I’m inviting them all into my home to scrutinize my life and my work – a great opportunity to show off everything here that is awesome, but also a great opportunity to fail.  My hopes and interests for this week are the exact overlap of all the goals of my community members, the training staff, and the participants.

Such are my preoccupations as the preparations begin to exponentially increase in intensity.  I’m still putting forth maximum effort and ambition – I have to plan for both the best-case and worst-case scenarios – but I am trying to temper my expectations so I am not devastated when things don’t work out perfectly (as, of course, they never do).  And that’s the challenge, having so much hope and investment and effort tied up in something, while trying to be realistic.

And, heck, if some things do fail, that’s life.  That’s the nature of this work.  And everyone who is going to be a part of the week – my bosses, the Volunteers, the Trainees, my community, my parents – should know that, or at least be given the opportunity to learn as much.

Here we go!!

In the midst of the increasing insanity, I made note of a few heartwarming sentiments straight out of this very place, reminding me how much I appreciate my counterparts here:

·         Angel: I would rather not belong to any church rather than always be fighting with people within my own church and with people in other churches all the time.  (Church – and organizations in general – is great, except when it primarily serves as a divisive force rather than a uniting force – and I’m glad someone else agrees.)

·         Otilia and her son: We will build this latrine ourselves.  We do not want any help from outsiders.  We’ll let the Trainees help so that they learn something.  (At last!  This is exactly the empowerment sentiment I’m seeking!)

·         Neli and Alberto (married couple): We are both the owners of this tank, so we both have to sign the work agreement.  (It’s good to see such equality.)

·         Principal Carolina: Well, if you’re going to get incinerators for the school to use, let’s get together a meeting as soon as possible and invite all the leaders of the community so that we can organize a waste management committee and clean up this community.  Here, tell me who should be invited and I’ll write up the invitations and you and Omar can sign them.  (I love when other people take initiative to make things happen.)

Pictures:

James, an Agricultural Volunteer from a community down the road, came for a visit to give a training about cacao tree grafts, which was much enjoyed.

Surveying for the Jimenez aqueduct (José is the husband of Ema, my mochila teacher) – how am I ever going to design and construct (and get funded) three separate aqueducts…?

The brownie cake that I made for Heidy’s birthday was so popular that it was requested for Mechi’s birthday this week (my “host mom”) – and enjoyed by all.

Random visit to an artisan shop tucked away in the Ngӧbe neighborhood of Almirante… you never know what you might find if you wander off the main road…