No, I didn't forget about the blog..

I apologize for my absence from the blog; things in site have been....time consuming. Where to begin?

Well, this Saturday I said goodbye to the three highschool volunteers from the program called Los Amigos de Las Americas. This was the second year that they came to my site. They spend a month living with families, giving winter camps with the kids on topics like reforestation, nutrition, dental hygiene and so forth. Volunteers also build 8 Fogones (brick and earth stove/oven units) in their community. I was very lucky in having three awesome, very mature and very hard working girls. They seemed to have a great time here and the fogones they built were stellar. Sadly, the process in determining which families would receive the fogones was marred with greed, selfishness, and a general lack of compassion for one's poorer neighbor. Luckily, the girls didn't speak Guarani so they didn't hear what I did. I am not going to get into the whole story because it is too long, a bit confusing, and just disturbing. What I will say is that I have lost a lot of respect and have even stopped talking to some of the people in my community.

Regardless of this, we were lucky enough to receive a small-project grant from the Amigos program. Each year the Amigos have funds for sustainable projects within the communities that their volunteers stay. One project that we have all talked about (women's committees, men's committees, and individuals) has been for a venue to sell their goods – a farmer's market. So I wrote up the pedido (grant proposal) with another woman in site and our idea was accepted! We received funds to build a modest, open-air venue 6 meters by 3 meters. The locale would be where our street meets the main ruta, since that is where the most traffic is. I pushed this project hard so that it would get done before the volunteers left. I went door to door to all 80 some odd families and invited them to meetings. 15 people showed up. I wasn't too perturbed and we were able to form a work committee since the materials were paid for but the labor would be solely volunteer. The first day was great, 7 guys showed up and we put in a full day from sun up to sun down. We had the entire structure up with roof. All that was left was to fill it with dirt, put the floor down and then fix the table in the floor. The next day, however, only two men showed up. I was furious. Regardless, I worked as hard as possible to get it done and could not. We had at least another day of work left. The next day I roused up a couple more men to help and then a stranger from the ruta showed up and helped, and actually knew a lot about putting down cement floors. I made the community pay him for his work.

The structure is done and all that is left is to have a big sign made for the market.

While this whole farmer's market is a wonderful thing - something the people have wanted for a long time, and is the answer to many of their financial difficulties, it has left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

As I said, this is something that the people have wanted for a long time and have talked about for almost the entire time I have been in site. They basically had to do nothing to get the money, since I wrote out the proposal and dealt with the coordinators from Amigos de Las Americas. All they had to do was come to a couple meetings and help build the structure. The turn out for both of these was meager and disheartening. I met an unbelievable amount of resistance in helping build this structure, even from those who pushed for this so hard and kept saying how much they themselves could benefit from it. Getting people to come felt like pulling teeth and I now regret putting in so much effort. I also regret putting in all the effort in writing the grant proposal and in all the dealings with the Amigos. It was not sustainable. Had the community members dealt with the pedido and other administrative work maybe they would have taken more responsibilty and ownership of the project. However, I have seen too many opportunites like these pass by because the people just wait and wait until it is too late, so I stepped in.

So, here I am with mixed feelings about...everything. For one thing the market is done and the people will have their venue to sell all kinds of produce . They will profit from this, I have no doubt. Yet the whole process showed me what it is like when my community members actually get the project they want, and it makes me never want to do another project with them again. In fact, it has made me not even want to go to meetings anymore. I sit through them discussing how they can get this and that, and if only they had these funds etc. and now I have seen that when they finally do get what they wanted they don't do anything!

Maybe I'm being a bit negative and cynical about the whole thing. As I said, my community members now have a means to make a better profit from their labor. But how sustainable was it? That is what bothers me. I'm not so sure this would have happened had I not been here to keep pushing and I am not saying that to brag. The point of Peace Corps work, or any other sustainable development work, is to have the people be empowered with skills to better their lives and communities long after the volunteer is gone.

Well, I guess at this point there isn't much to do but just let it be. I can work with people now on marketing their goods.

I will post pictures soon.