The Past Week

On Wednesday Harrie, Dalyn, Adan, Jared, and I met with Balsamo, the organization that has worked with Help International in the past. I already mentioned that I felt that their projects for the environment wasn't my favorite, because I wanted to focus on helping the people directly, so I don't know if we will work with them this year. They tend to go do their own projects when they take us places.

On Thursday, we went to San Lucas, the rural community where square-foot gardens were built last summer, twenty total. We met with two of the garden leaders (Elsy Montes and Mirna Montes), and their gardens definitely morphed from the square-foot concept. For one thing, they themselves said their gardens were too small. The gardens also weren't divided into squares, and the string for Elsy's garden really didn't have any rhyme or reason. The chicken wire on Elsy's garden was partially damages, something the grandma said might have to do with an animal (but I'm wondering why they didn't fix it.) Elsy told us she had started working about two months ago and couldn't visit the people she was in charge of. She, her mother, and the kids and others were very nice.

Mirna had expanded her tiny garden, but she is planning on planting the tomato plants in una bolsa, a bag that is black and compost and nutrients in it, where the plant can grow vertically (there is a support). She told us Balsamo told her neighbor that this was the best way to plant, so we need to be flexible and see why this might be.

Some of the needs I discovered was the water situation. The area hasn't received as much rainfall as in years past, but at least some of the communities have water pumps that are run by the community itself. Those not close to the water pump resort to doing a simple purification of the rive water by putting it in a rock (I'm still confused; Jared was talking to the lady, not me). I also learned that English was a huge need because they can't obtain certain jobs in the capital. But, talking with Adan, I realized it isn't feasible for us to go only once/twice a week (it's three hours away.) I thus learned to really assess if we could help even though we may have the skills they need.

On the way back, a man named Miguel was on the bus next to me and he seemed weird at first, but I could tell he wasn't drunk. I asked him about his family, and he told me his mom died recently and his dad died a while back, that his brother was killed, and that he wasn't in contact with his other siblings. I had such sympathy for him as he explained he makes $4 a day, working so hard. He also said his family didn't ever really support him. I learned from him the hardships the people here go through, and I gained respect for him.

Monday was so busy. I lead our group of nine people to San Lucas to evaluate the effectiveness of the twenty gardens in the area, built last year. We missed a bus, because it lied to me about when it left (more like they misunderstood me). So I decided to take a pickup truck instead. It's basically a truck with railing around it to prevent people from falling. Super funny! Anyway, Carlose the driver and I were in the car as I explained to him where to go. I learned a lot about the changing nature of the gangs here from him. They are starting to not wear tattoos because the police is starting to crack down on them.uper funny! I forgot to mention that it was crazy because the copy machine wasn't open when we thought it would be, so we hand-copied the questions on the bouncy bus. Needles to say we were dizzy. Oh well, I decided to have a good attitude.

I have learned a lot about evaluation here. I expected it to be super formal, but our country director Adan told us that we would make them feel uncomfortable, so we wore pants and polos. I learned how to break the ice and help them feel comfortable as Kristen and I asked people at five of the gardens to show us around and answer questions. I felt that the four groups that went were very effective in their approaches, we learned that some family gardens were doing well and others were gone (because no crops would grow). It was a humbling experience.

We had an excellent discussion with most of the group afterwards about the gardens. We decided that if we are going to work there, we need to promote more ownership (Mirna wanted me to get bolsas for 50 more tomato plants!) We don't want to be the all-seeing white people what to do. It was obvious that nonnative plants didn't grow well, and harvesting them also is difficult to remember. One the group members, Hilary, brought up the excellent point that we controlled what seeds they got to a certain extent. I am understanding that we should teach them guidelines, but then let them run with their ideas without micromanaging them and making them feel it's our project. After all, the goal of development should be to work ourselves out of existence.

It was a great week. Enjoy the pictures!