Water Committees, Latrines, and Visitors

You must forgive me for taking so long since my last post. Entering civilization for just a few days after a month in site continually leaves me racing and a bit overwhelmed to communicate with all those I wish to communicate with. Trying to write emails, type up work reports, making and receiving calls back home, and connecting with other Peace Corps volunteers here in Panama left me with no time for a blog last time. I love receiving feedback about my blog though and really appreciate all those who are reading it.

Since my last blog I enjoyed the always wonderful and energizing company of my first visitor Helen Jones. We got to explore beautiful Taboga Island, Bocas and Bastimentos Island, ride on a giant dug out boat with a full grown cow as one of many passengers back to my site, move into my cabin, and then experience the debauchery of carnival. The community loved her visit and have made it very difficult to try and put her out of my mind given that they ask we constantly about her, or point out that the flowers she planted are winning in the growing race to my banana trees. The women were stoked to take her sardine-ing, show her how to make coconut oil, and demonstrate how they make cras (woven bags made from a natural or synthetic fiber). Needless to say, I was a sad little puppy when returning to my site and spending my first nights alone in my cabin.

Remaining busy appears to be the best remedy to missing loved ones so I’ve continued to work on my house, my garden, and begin capacitating a newly formed a water committee about potable water and methods necessary to design and build the aqueduct. The community certainly moves at a different pace than my energy and enthusiasm finds desirable. After returning from in-service-training last month I felt extremely eager to continue with the capacitation trainings. I arrived on a Sunday and tried to program a meeting with the water committee for Thursday. “No, we’re busy Thursday.” “Well how about Friday or Wednesday.” “Na, lets just wait until next Thursday because we picked Thursday for our meeting date and we should stick to it.” So I used the time to write a development plan and work around my house only to find out the following week that the community had planned for the president of the water committee to get merchandise for the store on Thursday. I protested so they changed the date, but nevertheless it made me have to give a little lecture about the importance of this committee.

Community members without tubes shoved in a creek bringing water to their house constantly ask me “when is the water going to arrive, my back hurts from carrying water” trying to complain in the most pathetic of voices so I hurry up with the project. But I try to empathetically explain to them that it’s a process and that now the water committee is just as responsible for the project as I am, and that they should ask those members. But even the water committee has yet to fully internalize that they are just as responsible for the success or failure of the project. And while I remain optimistic about the process of educating the water committee so that they can educate the rest of the committee and do the measurements and studies necessary to plan the gravity fed water system, they are struggling at times to assume such a role. Communities in Panama are never asked to be apart of a project like this. A politician usually hires an engineer from Panama City to come into the community, design and build the aqueduct with no education or feedback, and in a few years the aqueduct becomes damaged and the community doesn’t no a thing about how to fix it. This very thing happened to my community 12 years ago. I think this not only leaves them without water, but also hurts the morale of the community and their prospects for being apart of their own development. Any broken or unused infrastructure project sits there as a reminder that the community can’t develop and that they remain trapped in poverty. But if I can show them how to design the system, ask them to make some of the most important decisions about the project, have them build it, and teach them how to maintain it, then when I’m gone and a problem arrases, they wont have to wait another 12 years for someone to come along and try and fix it. It’s a slow process though and I’m starting from the very basics, teaching about water-shed management, the water cycle, contaminants, all while teaching about measuring flow, measure height differences between potential sources, tank locations, and homes, and then distances between these.

And then after we have the entire design ready the next stage will be soliciting for funds. It looks plausible that a local water and sanitation representative might be able to donate some of the tubes, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Most of the funds however will come from a funding source called Peace Corps Partnership Project (PCPP), where theoretically anybody scanning the web could read my (not yet written) proposal and donate to my project, but more than likely will come from friends, family, church groups, returned Peace Corps volunteers, or any other organizations that I email in search of funds. Then on top of that Peace Corps Panama has a strong relationship with two organizations that donate up to half of the funds received from the PCPP.

On top of the water project I’m also gearing up to start educating about the importance of latrines and hoping to build a pilot latrine project. I want to build just one composting latrine and have families take turns using it and providing me with feedback about whether they could actually see themselves using and maintaining it if we built one beside their home. Too often in the past Peace Corps Volunteers have built latrines in communities only to see them unused or never fully finished because Ngabes are simply much more comfortable pooping in the creek. Like mentioned earlier, I think it is a greater disservice to have unused latrines sitting in a community than none at all. So I’m not going to be twisting anybody’s arm to build a latrine next to his or her home. Those who remain committed after the pilot project will have to attend mandatory meetings and put a small financial deposit down before construction of latrines will begin.

Currently my sister Nina and my parents are here visiting (amazing!). After visiting the Panama Canal and enjoying many delicious meals in the city as mom tries to put those 15 pounds I’ve lost back on my, we enjoyed the relaxed rhythm of Las Lajas Beach Resort and are now currently in Boquete. After exploring the host springs, going on a coffee tour, and search for the elusive Quetzal we will take off for my site where I’m eager for my parents and Nina to see my daily life in Panama, the cabin I am oh so proud of, and meet my sweet community members. Hopefully we’ll get some good weather and be able to enjoy the great snorkeling I’ve discovered right in front of my house (where I will soon be honing my spear fishing skills), do some bird watching in the jungle, and eat some delicious michila maduro (ripe boiled and smashed bananas will coconut milk). We’re also discussing brining seeds to start a campaign to integrate more nutritious vegetables into the local diet after I figure out what grows well there and maybe some egg laying chickens which I’ve been promising to the local store so they can sell their own eggs rather than bringing them for Chirique Grande.