Nourish goes to Peru

So not only is the nourish group working to provide a sufficient water system, but we also get to learn all about the history of the lands we are working on. When surveying and digging the pipe line, we came across several areas of archaeological significance. We get to see first hand newly discovered remains of ceramics scattered throughout the mountains near Ciudad de Dios. We have also been very careful to avoid these areas during construction. It is rather saddening though to see some areas torn up from looters. Although we continue to find more and more remains, so much of the artwork and pottery has been lost due to the looters.

In addition to ceramics, we also found two burials right in the middle of town. The kids in Ciudad were so intrigued by our discovery, it was refreshing to see some excitement and fun amidst the endless digging.

Last Saturday, our group had the chance to visit a well known archaeological site not far from where we are staying. Brian gave us a personal tour of Huaca de la Luna. This site is presumed to have held sacrificial rituals performed by the early Moche civilization in 300-600 AD.  Our brains are gathering so much new information!!

During my time at UNC I have encountered many students who care or at elast seem to care about those sterotypically collegiate buzz words : global health, sustainability, poverty, etc. I, though not involved during the academic year with groups like Nourish and other groups that address social and political issues, share many of the concerns that these passionate students espouse, but have always been wary of overly intense individuals who wave rhetorical banners during discussions and are unwilling to compromise their ideologies during a conversation. Some believe this to be a lack of caring, or a lack of commitment to my ideas. In fact, my external reservations regarding political and economic ideas stems from my deep desire to actually achieve a tangible goal through compromise and practical application.

During manual work on the water line today, I got into a very interesting conversation with a student from the Duke Engage group, regarding the reason for this trip : international development. For quite a while, we entertained different possible reasons for why the sort of work we were doing is necessary, and if it was in fact necessary at all, or if the entire framework for our well-intentioned work was in fact failing to address essential elements of the community´s relationship to its local and national government. The best part of the whole conversation was that we differed in our fundamental priorities. He was a proponent of the market system, and I have deeply entrenched misgivings regarding capitalism that come from a belief in equality over efficiency.

Unlike most conversations of this sort that I have experienced at UNC, this one was devoid of ideological mess. I was able to express myself without being afraid to sound too `left´ and I did not pidgeon-hole any od his ideas as ´conservative´.  In other words, the polarization that so frequently occurs in covnersations of this sort on college campuses (at least in the public arenas) was absent from this discussion.

As a result, I was able weave certain notions together that a polarized mind would not allow to be woven together. So frequently, the current economic system is blamed for the strife of whole populations in poor rural nations such as my own (I am Peruvian). I will be the last person to say that this idea is erroneous. But finger pointing is about as productive as sitting in a rocking chair. By incorporating some of my conversatoin partner´s perspectives into my previous schema, I arrived at previously unreached (by me) conclusions. Capitalism is the only system that most of the world is willing to embrace, and we must work through it, not around it, to achieve the empowerment of marginalized communities that we so justifiedly seek. Intellectual compromise never felt so satisfying.

Musings about development work´s concrete potential for working through avenues not currently address may come in the next post.

tragedy has struck

in the land of the monkeys

it was all my fault

this haiku relates to yesterday´s events, when i punctured a water pipe that was located in front of a random monkey cage.  andres (the local engineer) assured me that it would be fine and that it was not a problem. these words were comforting, but i still felt quite embarassed. 

despite the minor setback, we still remain optimistic that the water project will be completed before our departure on the 14 of july

It’s pretty amazing to me how a process so simple allows so many people to have full-time access to water in their homes. We dig trenches (connected to the water source), lay the pipes, and then cover them up. Pretty basic stuff.  As a part of the pipe-laying team this is what I’ve mostly been up to for the past few days in Ciudad: 1) lay sand in trench, 2) glue together pipes, cutting and gluing in t-lines at intersections as necessary, 3)add more sand on top of pipe, 4) add a layer of sifted dirt on top of the sand on top of the pipe, 5) add more dirt to completely cover up the trench. So there’s really not much to it…which makes it hard to believe that when all of it is finished water will flow to Ciudad for all to use. Hopefully we will be able to see it in action by the time we leave!

I feel like alot has changed in the past week.  My first time ¨walking the line¨ was about a week ago - 9 days to be exact and after that experience I was feeling 3 things.  1. what have we gotten ourselves into?  2. how in the world is a pipe going to go through all of this?  and 3. there is NO WAY we are going to finish this in 4 weeks!  This was after we spent a grueling week digging around the village of Ciudad, encountering boulder after boulder, and then to think - almost 3 more kilometers of this?

But I must say - the tables have turned.  After saying goodbye to the engineers our organizational structure got a huge overhaul, and a positive one if you ask me.  Kat, a co-founder of MOCHE, has arrived and taken charge.  By splitting us (Nourish, Duke Engage, and the people from the community) into 5 working groups it seems like our productivity has skyrocketed and we have really accomplished alot.  We have completed the 800 meters of trench from Ciudad to the mountain and today got plenty of trench dug coming from the spring box.  Even today we spoke about side projects we will have time to complete.

I guess the bottom line is that all of my skepticism about our ability to actually complete this project while we´re here is gone - in fact I am super confident right now about our progress.  I´m proud of the hard work put in by all of us students and still find myself in awe of the productivity of the Peruvians here.  And I didn´t think I´d find myself saying this but after 2 sick days last week, I´ve missed you, pick axe!

Hello,

I want to write a little bit about where we’re going from here.  I confess I haven’t read the blog in its entirety and don’t have a lot of time today to do so.  I apologize in advance for any repititive information, if there is any.  Just sayin’… So, the water project is progressing well under the leadership of Martin, the engineer, and surely a lot of others.  Our Engineers w/o Borders team from UNC left middle of last week and it seems as a group we’ve been doing the right things to continue the momentum they gave to us. 

I was sick last week starting Tues. afternoon, and I ended up missing the rest of the week at Ciudad de Dios and surroundings.  A lot of digging and material loading has been done at the springbox (water source) since I left, and the remaining labor is going toward completely digging the trenches between the town and the source, and installing the pipe with a layer of sand underneath.  As you may know, there are 3km between source and sink.  All of this has to be done by hand, of course.  About 30-40 citizens have been working with us thus far, and in my view the citizens of CdD will be doing a great deal of the remaining work.  Nourish had a meeting this afternoon as a group, and we are going to try to begin some other forms of work within the community.  In other words, the citizen workers have given us a bit of room for creativity we wouldn’t otherwise have.  The thing I’m going to try to tackle is recycling within the community, which as I’m sure you can tell would have obvious advantages and corresponding difficulties.  With our limited time here, recycling established by us is at this point a long shot, but I’m interested in taking a few preliminary steps to see if further effort is warranted.  Garbage collection looks to be a very long shot for reasons explored in another entry, and in my view cutting down the waste stream in other ways should be looked at very seriously by any town planning to expand.  CdD’s water system will, when in place, allow its citizens a higher quality of life and allow it to grow.  I am concerned that without other infrastructure improvements, this expansion will put undue strain on the current system of dealing with waste.  Sustainable development is therefore a buzzword that carries with it a commitment to these kinds of creative thinking.

As a review, the three main trash sources in CdD are plastic bags, plastic bottles, and steel cans.  Two out of three are recycable, so in theory recycling would put a significant dent in the waste stream.  (Glass bottles in Peru are handled via a deposit/reuse system that seems to work well.)  Implementation is obviously the problem, with no collection and transport system and several community issues in need of (much) more attention.  I’d like to talk to the manager of the town’s general store (bodega) and ask what happens to most packaging.  I assume it is thrown into the ravine but really do not know.  I have also heard that someone comes and looks through the garbage for recycables and sells them, but again I don’t know.  I’d like to by the end of this week have two bins set up in a central location, for metal and plastics, with members of the community informed and asked to participate in a weeklong (or less) trial.  At its close, we would personally take the recycables to Trujillo and sell them.  I understand that you can’t make people change their lives based on what you say is going to be good for them.  That’s not the approach I think anyone is pushing in any of our projects.  That said, I do think citizens’ help to separate recycable materials would be, well, helpful in the preliminary stage, even if we can’t provide them with a clear advantage in separating recycables.  I think the effort involved would not be much, and it would also be a good indicator of inherent interest.  I have no idea what people do and do not know about recycling, and I think the trial week, if we carry through with it, would be very beneficial regardless of the outcome.  If the collection containers have nothing in them at the end of the week, and we’ve asked everyone to use them, then we know either they’re not producing that type of trash or they just aren’t going to do it.  Either way, we know more than we do know.  I am personally very interested in seeing where we can take this with our limited time. 

As part of a group formed to work with the town´s water committee, I have gotten to see first hand the growth of this community organization. Last summer the town elected four members to its water committee. We began by meeting with these four about their plans involving the completion and maintenance of the new water system. They have decided to have four positions on the committee: a president, a treasurer, a secretary and a vocal (someone to serve as the main communicator between the committee and the rest of the town). They outlined the responsibilities that each of these positions would uphold throughout the coming year as well as the inscription and monthly fees that would be collected from all of the water users. We talked to them about questions and concerns that we had heard from other people in Ciudad de Dios about the new water system including who would have access and how they were going to keep people from nearby communities from illegally tapping into their water line.

Last weekend we got invited to stay after work for a town meeting in Ciudad de Dios regarding the future of the community´s water committee. One of the existing members had decided to step down from his work on the water project since he is getting older and the maintenance of the pipe system is getting harder for him to do on a regular basis. The community decided to reinstate the other three members for another year and then voted on a new fourth member. Since Ciudad de Dios is small, with only about 70 homes, almost the entire community was present at the meeting. Everyone openly discussed their nominations for the new member for the committee. Several people were nominated to fill the vacancy and an open conversation began about the merits and flaws of each respective nominee. There were a lot of different opinions about who was responsible enough to take on the responsibility and just from watching and listening we could begin to understand some of the underlying divisions within the community. There are a couple of large families in Ciudad de Dios that stretch back many generations. A lot of questions came up about whether or not a single family should be in charge of the water system and what that would mean for the rest of the community. It was a heated discussion, but by the end of the meeting the community had voted a fourth member to its water committee. We´re looking forward to meeting with the new committee and talking to them about their plans for the completion of the water system as well as the water distribution plans.

I wanted to write about this before I forgot about it entirely.  The other day Alyson and I were taking turns picking and a woman from town was shoveling for us.  We were taking a short break when the woman started a conversation by asking us if we did much digging in the states.  We told her that we didn’t (although I’m pretty sure she already knew…I mean, not that Alyson and I aren’t masters at pick-axing).  From there we somehow began talking about the differences in Peru and the United States.   She said that from what she knew, the main difference was that poor people in Peru stayed poor, because they didn’t have the educational and economic opportunities that people in the states have.  She also mentioned that many thought of Peru as a country doing almost the opposite of developing (de-developing?), insinuating that conditions here are actually worsening while the rest of the world continues to progress.  (I might return to that statement in a later post, but it is not my reason for writing tonight.)

At some point in the conversation she asked me if there were poor people in the United States.  Both Alyson and I immediately began nodding our heads.  She was baffled at this and asked multiple times how a country so rich could have poor people.  She asked us how, with so much opportunity and money there could be so much poverty.  I tried to explain that there were inequalities and why poverty exists, and I realized halfway through my explanation that she was not really understanding me, because what I was saying wasn’t really making sense.  Why is there poverty in the United States?  There are so many reasons I couldn’t even begin to name them…it would take volumes and volumes of books to write about.  But this woman reminded me of an important point that I often overlook: poverty exists everywhere, including in the United States.  And though  the infrastructure and the resources may exist in the states (part of the equation that is missing in many (excuse the term) “developing” countries), there are still inherent flaws in the system if even an insignificant (and it is not insignificant) portion of our population is suffering from poverty.  She asked me the question I have asked myself many times this summer: Why are you here helping instead of in your own country?  I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I think it is because I honestly feel like I can make more of a difference and offer more to people in Latin America than I can in my own country.  This is a huge problem, and I think it is one that a lot of college aged Americans have.  I think that it needs to change.  If we want to work with people to create a better and more sustainable world, we need to start at home.  What is going wrong in the US?  What can I do about it?

I think it would be invaluable for Nourish to begin to invest time and resources into domestic projects as well as international projects.  Any thoughts?

With the help of a generator in a town lacking electricity and running water, la ciudad de dios was able to put on a small concert showcasing the talents of its own young people and other youth from various communities. It was a cinematic moment simply because we were attending a concert in la ciudad de dios in the plaza de armas which only consists of a recently plastered wall and three large boulders. But the atmosphere was festive and people seemed to be excited about the music and dancing. Young children wore traditional clothing and danced to folk music. There was also a man from la ciudad de dios that sang a few songs which involved plenty of dancing, mostly by the gringos and children. With the evening to an end, we were led in the darkness by a small hand flashlight someone had luckily thought to bring along…(no electricity) And we found ourselves back on the bus to return to Huanchaco for a hot meal made by our amazing cook.

Finally, the long awaited update has arrived!!

We have all been working in Ciudad de Dios since last Monday. The main element of this project is the water system, and so far most of our energy has been directed towards its completion. As Melissa has described, the work has been very physically demanding, but we are getting used to it. I think we kind of enjoy coming home at the end of the day covered in dirt, sweat, and bruises. While the original plan was to finish this project before Thursday (the day the Engineers Without Borders people leave), it looks like it will take much longer. We aren’t even sure at this point that we can finish it in the next month, but we will definitely have the system close enough to completion that the townspeople can continue the project without us. 

Why is the project taking so long to complete? Well…it turns out nothing is as simple as it seems. Ciudad is situated in the Moche Valley, and it is surrounded by farmland and rocky mountains. The original plan was to dig the trench for the water line through the loose soil of the farmland in the valley, and reimburse the farmers whose land we disrupted in the process. Unfortunately, most of the farmers objected to our digging through their land. Even though they are legally obligated to allow a water line to be dug on their land, we decided it would be much more neighborly to find another route. This meant moving the line upwards into the mountains. Our current path runs along the side of a rocky mountain for a couple of kilometers: over ridges, along cliff sides, and across quebradas (the loose ravine like areas formed by El Nino flooding). About one kilometer of the line runs through the valley, which quickly changes from farmland, to jungle, to swamp. The farmers in this section have agreed to allow us to dig on their land, including one man who simply wants to be compensated with a pair of shoes and a woman who has several pet monkeys. Other complications have popped up with our project, and while we can deal with all of them they have made the progress on the project extremely slow.

Despite all of the difficulties and frustrations with this project, I can say with certainty that progress is being made.  The trenches for the water pipes have been dug throughout the entire town, and on the main streets the pipes have been laid and we have already refilled the trenches.  After days of conversing with the townspeople, Kathryn G. and Kathryn H. have managed to mark all of the homes in Ciudad for where the line will enter for their tap. The entire path of the water line has now been surveyed, marked and is ready to be constructed. Additionally, digging has begun for the spring box (the water source for the project).

In addition to the physical progress of this project, our group has been steadily building the trust of the townspeople and we have been interacting with them more and more. The people of Ciudad are truly amazing–they have welcomed us into their community and have constantly expressed their desire to get to know us and help with the project as much as possible. Even though my Spanish skills are lacking, I have been met with patience and warmth from all of the community members.

Even though we are making a ton of progress, there is still a lot to do.

Within the next two weeks we think we will finish laying the pipes in town and digging out the spring box, so the rest of our time will be occupied with laying the pipe throughout the mountains. The rocky terrain of the mountains is impossible to dig in, so we cannot bury the water pipe. Instead, we are planning to construct a stone platform which will be covered by a bed of sand that the pipe can rest on. The pipe will be surrounded by rocks for protection. While “walking the line” on Thursday, Melissa and I expressed our fear that this task will be impossible to complete when precariously perched on the side of a mountain. We could barley maintain our footing will attempting to spray paint a path for the line, so we are skeptical about building a rock wall through certain areas. However, the townspeople (who have experience both with the terrain and the rock constructing methods) have assured us that they are up to the task. 

Our other projects have also proven to be much more complicated than our original plans. Since the water project is our main priority, we have spent less time on the other projects for the past week. At the beginning of last week, we talked to a ton of community members about what they want most from future development projects. The water project is their biggest priority, and it is still ours as well. Their second biggest priority is the Plaza de las Armas, followed by latrines. Trash and recycling are a vague concern for some community members, but only when brought up by us first.

The trash-recycling project is looking to be less and less realistic. While it has not been abandoned entirely, we are struggling to find a viable alternative to their of disposal: dump and burn. The municipal government had agreed that if the community could centralize its trash in one location, it would come and pick it up. However, it looks like this was an empty promise on their part. It isn’t entirely clear which municipality is responsible for Ciudad, and none of the area governments have the resources to worry about trash pickup for small communities. Dr. Billman (MOCHE) explained that if there isn’t money, it will not get done…no matter what the legal obligations are. We have been exploring the concepts of composting, creating a small community landfill, and hiring a private company for pickup. The lack of financial resources, combined with the lack of community concern with the trash problem, make any of these options unrealistic. Recyclable materials are not in abundance in the community, since anything of value is already being sold in the city. We are still researching alternatives, but we are moving our focus more towards other projects.

One project which we are shifting our focus towards is the possibility of aiding the community in the construction of latrines. We surveryed the community and found out that of the seventy homes, only five to twelve currently have latrines. This means that human waste is definitely a problem in the community, and most townspeople acknowledged this when we discussed it with them. Felipe, Kathryn H., and I are researching the different latrine designs in order to determine how feasible this project would be given our time and money constraints. The three designs we are looking into are traditional pit latrines, composting latrines, and Ventilated Improved Pit latrines.

The Plaza de las Armas is the square in the center of town that would ideally be used for town gatherings and meetings. While it is currently just an empty and dusty area, it will eventually have a mural, benches, and greenery. The people of Ciudad are very proud of their community, and having a town center would serve to increase this sense of pride and ownership.

Overall? This development project is frustrating, slow moving, complicated, exhausting…and so totally worth it. Our progess is encouraging, and we are positive that the outcome of the project will be beneficial for Ciudad. As long as we continue to be flexible and don’t allow our ruined plans to ruin our project, we will be just fine. Creativity, sensitivity, and openness to new ideas have carried us through the past week, and I am pretty psyched about the next month.