So after the update on vacations, maybe you are wondering what is going on in Chipillico? I have spent the last couple weeks running around with my grant money buying materials, arranging with the municipality the transportation of the materials, and getting the families ready.
All the materials had to bought in Las Lomas, which as a reminder is about 45 minutes outside of Chipillico. So because the Municipality of our district fails very often to help out with anything, I asked them for the very minimum of simply helping out with the transportation of these materials to Chipillico at the end of May. Back in March the mayor told me that he wouldn’t be able to help out with the project at all other then transportation. So I went to all the right people, I have all the right signatures; I even have a time and date set up! Now I am just waiting to see on the 30th if they follow through and show up with a truck.
I was very relieved to find that during the buying process that many of my materials are coming up much cheaper then I had expected. This is partially due to the fact that I am buying in bulk. I had also found a mistake on my budget that was in my favor. I and my committee are looking for ways to help out the families with the extra money that has shown up, but everything has to get preapproved by the grant agency before we can make any moves. And if we don’t use all the money we will have to return what is left over, which isn’t a bad thing because it will go to other volunteers all over the world who are looking to do a project as well.
As for the families, they are my most stressful part. We are at the point where the families have all signed their contracts and have agreed to do their part of the work, and just the other day they all received the dates that we will be coming to help construct their latrine. But now suddenly husbands are popping up and questioning the latrine. Although they “signed” (not sure if it forged by their wives or them) paperwork, some have been lead on by their wives to believe that the latrine is a different model then we are building. So every night there is someone new at my house asking about the latrine. Fortunately up to this point I haven’t had any problems after I explain our model and why I choose to do that one. I have had some families elect to do a more modern model that requires them to bring extra water to the house (exactly why I didn’t choose it), however if they want to buy the extra materials and do the extra work I am 100% in.
So as of right now, materials come the 30th of May and construction begins June 5th and goes until the end of July. Wish me luck!
I am trying to take some stress off myself by bringing a lighter mood to the project. For example the other day at one of our monthly training we played a jeopardy game revisiting information from the first 4 sessions. They absolutely loved it and it got very competitive. I always feel much better after a training when the mom’s seem happy, and they had fun, and I can see that they actual did and are learning something.
As for my other work, the health post staff have been bugging me to help them work in the schools, which I love and although I have been very busy with the latrines I am not going to turn them down. So we went and arranged with the school principal to start with self-esteem training. Training might sound very boring, but I have lots and lots of manuals on how to make this stuff fun, and they learn through games. So it will really end up being great. The technician from the health post has also arranged for the psychologist from Las Lomas to come and help us. It’s always good to have support from the higher up facilities in this stuff. So they can see what we are doing, and then later one may be able to support the health post with more activities or money.
As for my host family and stuff we had a little action over the weekend. After celebrating Dayana’s 7th birthday party I was sitting out front of my house looking at pictures with my host sister’s Betty and Liliana, when two men in the cantina next to my house started arguing. I told my sister’s that the men were going to fight. It was kind of pathetic, because the much bigger man, Mateo, who was starting the fight was sloppy drunk and when we was ready he lazily put up his fists to fight, kind of like a really bad western movie or something. It made me laugh. However, and older man who was sitting at the table stood up to Mateo to try and calm him down and break up the fight. Mateo pushed the older man and literally it’s like he fell in slow motion and fell straight back, and his head was the first thing to hit the cement, and the hit was incredibly hard. We went running to help him. First thing was that he wasn’t responding, and as everyone was yelling I started attending to him, first I noticed blood on the floor. He had split his head open. I grabbed a shirt to stop the bleeding and then we tried to get his response. At this point he was just staring off and he had no pulse. Us women, put him in a moto taxi as the men watched and argued. There were about 7 witnesses to what happened, one happened to be Mateo’s wife and son. Betty and I raced to the nurse’s house. Because on Sundays and at night there is no one in the health post and the nearest doctor is 45 minutes away in Las Lomas. Fortunately along the ride the man came too, was speaking slurred words. And would go in and out of consciousness. I jumped out at the police station to explain what happened and the guy Mateo was still at the cantina. This is a police officer I don’t particularly like and he looked at me, and did nothing! Later the family of the old man came to the nurses home and it was decided he would go home for observation. I was so incredibly frustrated having worked with so many brain injured patients in my previous life. This man needed observation but in a hospital. It made no difference that no one could tell if the effects of the injury were from the fall or from drinking, he hit the ground hard, he went unresponsive, he had no pulse, and he needed to go to a hospital!!!!!! But one thing I have learned is not to question the natural order of things here, all I can do is help and hope for the best, but once they make their decisions its best I stay out of it.
As Betty and I walked home, we encountered Mateo and his wife and son. They asked about the old man, and we said the police were notified. They said the police hadn’t come to do anything because all they want is money. I was standing behind Mateo when I noticed he had pointy rocks in his hands, probably waiting for the old man’s family to come and get him. Which I hoped they would!!!
The following day I found out that the old man was still doing badly, and everyone was just waiting…for what….I is not really sure, but his life was in their hands. I also found out that Mateo had gone to that police officer and said that the old man came at him with a knife and that is why he pushed him. The police never came to question anything. When I asked my host family why the family of the old man didn’t go to report it, the response was “That kind of family doesn’t want police, they will just go and kill if they think it’s necessary.”
After all that I am somewhat relieved that I am only looking at about 6 months left of my service.
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