Well, I haven´t written in a while, nor do I have a decent excuse, other than overall general laziness.
Hmm what to update, art classes are starting to taper out, I think the boys have decided they´d rather play soccer than paint, which is fine, it gives me time to start working with a girls group. I´m still trying to get the soccer league up and running. I´ve been begging the mayor´s office since February to help me, but everything is terribly disorganized, they want an NGO to donate everything so they have resources before they start, whereas the NGO wants there to be an actual league to donate the materials to before they´ll give us anything. So we´ll see how I tackle this seemingly-simple-soon-to-be-complicated road block. Also today I’m going to price house paints, because I want for my youth group to paint world maps on a few of the community schools.
Hopefully next month I will be having a HIV/AIDS billiards tournament. This is run like any old tournament, but between rounds, I´ll be giving mini-lessons about VIH/SIDA to the participants. In the final round, every time a ball is put into the hole, the shooter has to answer a question about VIH/SIDA. If they answer incorrectly, they either loose a turn, or the ball is taken out and placed back on the table. This means that everyone has to be paying attention to the lessons in order to answer to the questions.
I recently participated in a 3 day workshop building improved stoves in a neighboring department with some friends of mine who are serving in the agriculture sector.
Many people here cook in stoves constructed out of half barrels with a grill. They are extremely inefficient because they loose a lot of heat, and unhealthy because the smoke stays either in the house, or at face level, therefore the women and children are breathing this smoke all day long. Sometimes trash is used to cook with rather than wood because wood can be very expensive. These improved stoves are made out of brick, horse poop, and water in which a plant called pitayah has been soaked. This plant is a cactus of sorts that crawls up trees and has a wonderful bright pink fruit that makes you pee pink (which is kinda cool, its brighter than beet pee!) anyway this cactus once chopped up, soaked, and squeezed makes kind of a modge-podge type glue which is used in the adobe. Rebar is used to maintain the holes in which the pans and pots will sit. Aluminum sheeting is used to build the chimney, and ya, tada you have a stove. It’s a rather simple process that can save families money from wood and health bills and in the long run save lives
(something like 1.6 million people die each year from smoke induced respiratory problems, aka 1 person every 20 seconds).


old stove

I´d post the after photos, but I didn´t take any oops!
So my friend invited 60 families to participate. Part of the commitment of the participants was to attend 3 or 4 meetings in which she taught them about the environment, benefits of the stoves, waste disposal, and maintenance. To conclude the classes, all were expected to attend a two day workshop in which on the first day they would participate and observe the building of the stove, and on day two they would each build their chimney and rebar frame so they would be prepared to build their own stove in the following months. The supplies were all donated by friends, and family through an online site that Peace Corps maintains. (If you´re interested, here´s the link, you can browse current projects and donate money to volunteers around the world. http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors)

Well being the nature of the culture here, only about 35 of the participants had sufficient attendance to receive the materials, and 5 others were border line. Still, the participants are expected to help in the building of 1 stove other than their own, and if they don´t my friend will be taking the materials back. Because of the nature of foreign aid here, and remittances being sent from the states, there is a sense of entitlement which for the most part tints the culture here. One thing we try to do is give ¨hand ups¨not ¨hand outs¨. So by requiring the participants to actually participate, means they have to be held accountable, and if they don´t there are actual repercussions. Many times NGO´s or missionary groups come in, do all the work, and leave, removing any necessity for the community to participate. This in turn creates a culture of dependence on the foreign aid. Instead of the people looking for opportunities or even better creating them, they wait until someone comes in and does it for them. This as far as I can tell is fairly common throughout Central America. It may seem harsh, taking someone´s stove from them, but unless people are willing to contribute and be held accountable, then no long term meaningful change can occur. Until the people can re-learn to help themselves and become independent, there is little hope for growth and development. (In my opinion).
My reading list is slowly growing I’m up to 50 books (more or less I wasn’t keeping count at the beginning) since January 2009. Any one read any good books lately?