Sunday, November 11, 2012

Self-Esteem, Literacy, Training Locals, and a Chicken Coop

I (DeeDee) have been staying busy lately helping with health fairs that we have been hosting in almost all 16 of the communities that we work in.  The health fair is made up of four stations: Kitchen and Deworming, Water and Latrines, Organic Gardening, and Self-Esteem and Literacy.  The stations consist of interactive lectures and demonstrations, encouraging the people to adopt healthy practices in all areas of their lives.  We have also been utilizing the secondary students of the Valley to help us teach in each of the stations.  I have been working with Roberto in the station of Self-Esteem and Literacy, and I have focused specifically on self-esteem.  Since the majority of our participants have been women, I have adapted my part of the lecture to specifically speak to a woman’s importance in her work in the home and her right/responsibility to become a leader in her community.  At the end of my lecture, I have all of the women stand up together and say, “I am important because I’m made by God.”  I’m hoping that these few words said aloud will begin to sink in so that these beautiful women began to walk around with their chins held high and with the belief that they really have a purpose and a voice, if for no other reason than that they are made in His image.

Secondary students helping to demonstrate planting seeds in the organic gardening station.


More than anything, I have enjoyed sharing some good laughs with the women of the Valley.



Last week, I also devoted the majority of my time to working with Julio as he attempted to complete his final exams for his literacy classes.  As many of you know, Julio is our water technician that works with us day-in and day-out in the Valley.  He is very bright, but as is the case with many children in the Valley who drop out of school to help work with their families, he only completed his schooling up through the third grade.  Through the literacy courses that an organization called CONALFA offers in the Valley, Julio can study 4th, 5th, and 6th grade material in just one year in order to earn his sixth grade diploma.  We finally got his final exams sent in on Monday, and we eagerly await the results!

Over the past few weeks, maybe close to 2 months now, I (Kris) have been focusing with Julio and Mark on training local water committees.  We have been working with three communities, two of which have older water systems and one we will begin construction in this coming Friday.  Our team sat down a few weeks ago and developed a three-session training curriculum where we are teaching about the administration, operation and maintenance of water systems.  It has been an up-and-down experience for me personally.  We are trying to set up systems that are not dependent upon us in the future; therefore, much time is needed in education and practice.  Also, there is so much difficulty in working three languages away and still having very little cultural understanding.  Nevertheless, moment-by-moment I can see progress being made. After a long, frustrating meeting last week with one community, I selfishly told Mark that I hope there is some type of reward along this road because going through the trenches is really starting to wear on me.  I said this to him in English, and then Julio riding in the back seat began to tell me (in Spanish) a little more details about the meeting.  He proceeded to inform me that one of the water committee representatives said towards the end of our meeting that he finally realized why the spigot near his house did not have water.  For almost a year now, his perception was that he did not have water because there was no water in the system, but at the meeting it was almost like a light bulb went off, and he said, “The reason I don’t have water is because we are not maintaining the system!”  And then another committee member, who is also a teacher in the local primary school, said that if the committee could not find a way to work together with the community, how could she effectively teach her students about team work(?).  It was as if Julio understood exactly what I was just venting to Mark and decided to lift my sprits by telling me these stories.  These realizations represent a huge step forward, especially the recognition of the connection between no water and bad maintenance of a system.  Slowly, day-by-day, week-by-week, I hope we can equip each community’s water committee with the tools and training needed to maintain their respective systems well into the future. 

Below you can see a picture of our new chicken coop.  We have been working on building this for the past several weeks since our team here in the Valley (Guatemalans and Americans) decided to all chip in and buy about a dozen chickens to supply us with our eggs.  Now that construction is done, all we need are the chicks!  The McKinneys actually had chickens at their home in the States, so the kids are especially excited to start caring for these friendly pets.    



This time I wanna end our post by sharing a joke that could probably make the show, “Kids Say the Darndest Things.”  This week, since schools are now out of session, Cesar brought his wife and two children to stay with him in the Valley.  Several nights ago, as we sat down to eat dinner, the oldest daughter of the McKinneys looked down at the other end of the table, and with surprise in her voice said, “Both of Cesar’s kids are drinking coffee!”  To which we responded, “It’s really normal for kids in Guatemala to start drinking coffee at a very young age.”  She then followed up with the statement, “So maybe that’s why they’re that color!”  Makes perfect sense in a kid’s mind…

And here are a few more of our favorite Valley pics:

One of the benefits of the rainy season in the Valley...


One of the anti-benefits of buying a chicken in a supermarket in Coban...


The sweet girls that daily continue to steal our hearts...




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