Big days

I have a horrible habit here of doing absolutely nothing for a whole day, then the next day I try to cram in everything I avoided. Yesterday I really shoved a lot of information gathering in one day, and I learned a lot about the community.

In the morning I went over to Ana's house (I mentioned her in a previous post) and I walked with her and her family to the Catholic church. Honestly, church is something I've been stealthily avoiding since I got to site. Yes, I know going to church is a great way to meet people and be seen in the community... but I just can't get over the whole 3-4 hour long commitment. I made an exception yesterday because the music group Bendición was crowning the queen of saint's day. Saint's day is a lot dia de los muertos, but a lot less fun. People typically clean up the grave sites of their loved ones and decorate the grave stone with flowers.

Bendición visited me in my second week to see if I can help them fund raise for new instruments. I asked them a million questions, most importantly "What have you done so far to raise money?" So they invited me to the crowning ceremony, which ended a contest similar to the one at corn fest where you buy votes and some girl ends up with a crown.

 The girl who won was 6 years old, and cranky. She didn't even care that she won! I think some of the teenagers were pissed about it. They asked me (as the honored guest) to put the sash on her. I tried making her smile, but this is all I got.

So happy. 

Then I visited with Otinia, talked about my big plans for my asamblea general coming up on Wednesday. This is basically a community meeting where I introduce myself and Peace Corps, why I'm here, what kind of projects I can do. It's kinda a big deal since first impressions matter so much. Also, I want to clear up any misinformaiton people have spun about PC. Some people have it in their minds that I'm their volunteer, that I'm here to do their work, and not work with any other part of the community. That doesn't sit well with me. It actually makes me incredibly uncomfortable and irritated. I just hope that my asamblea puts things into perspective.

Vaquito, the last PCV's dog who lives with Otinia. He follows me everywhere! 

I then posted up a handmade flier for my asamblea at the pupusaria. The pupusa lady hustled me for a higher priced pupusa- queso con lorocco- but I couldn't care less, I was so hungry. I scarfed down my pupusas then ran in the pouring rain to the ADESCO meeting in Hoja de Sal.

I learned a lot about their organization. Their sole purpose right now is to get the casario access to drinking water. There are about 10 members. Their first question, of course, is what can you do for us? I told them that I'm an open resource, I focus on capacity building, I'm a representative to NGOs, I can help organize the community. I got a lot of blank stares. I think they were waiting for me to say dinero or fondos. The meeting dragged on as 10 voices shared 10 opinions on what they need to do and what I can do and how we do that together...

After 3 hours, I broke. I told them that I'm not here to build water tanks with my bare hands, I'm here to get them ready to find organizations who can and want to build the water tank. But before we go around asking the municipality or NGOs, we have work we need to do. We need a name, we need a census, we need community support. We need to answer where you gonna build it, who's land is it, how many lives will be improve by access to clean water? I'm all for sunshine and rainbows, world peace and happiness, blablabla. But at my core I'm a businesswomen. I know there's a process to community development. Play by the rules, have the information ready, and you'll have a grant in your pocket by the end of the year.

That got some people on board. I think they started to see that after the water tank they'll want to fix the road, then get waste management, then a casa comunal, then, then, then! There's never really an end to what this community needs. I'm only here for 2 years, but with a strong administration and mission this ADESCO can get it all done. They just need to see the big picture.

Some of my closest friends still don't know what I'm doing here. I hope that rant gives you some idea. It's ambitious, but I love it.