So I have been pretty terrible about writing on my blog the past couple of months. It is such a time commitment to make myself sit down and write about what’s been going on, especially when I spend many days in front of my computer at the office.
The past two months have been really busy and I have been all over the place. At the end of August, I spent some time on brigades. I had the opportunity to go on one day of a medical brigade for the first time.
The group was from Loyola University of Chicago and their doctor was a volunteer doctor who currently lives in Haiti. They found him through some doctor’s association that paid for his trip. The students said that they did not realize he was a doctor when they picked him up at the airport because he was standing in a corner singing and dancing with his headphones and wasn’t wearing shoes. He’s definitely not your typical doctor. He went to medical school in Arkansas. After graduating, he decided not to do his residency in the states and went to Haiti to help people following the earthquake. He has been there for a over a year living in a clinic and has learned criole. I had the opportunity to translate for him and the students at the diagnosis station of the medical brigade.
During a medical brigade, the students and GB coordinators set up medical clinics in various communities with several stations, one is triage, one is a diagnosis, dental, pharmacy, and the “charla” which is the education aspect which teaches people basic health and hygiene concepts. I had never translated in a medical setting before, so I learned a lot of different medical vocabulary.
The community clinic that day of the brigade was in Pajarillos, which is one of the communities my program, microfinance works in. The members of the Caja Rural were all there helping with the medical brigade. Most of them are members of the Basic Sanitation Committee (in Spanish is called the CSB/comite de sanitacion basica), which is a group of leaders in the communities that Global Brigades Water and Public Health team train to be representatives in their community for educating others on human health. The CSB was all there with the polos GB had made for them helping with the brigade. It was so great to see them working together alongside our staff and students to help their community.
After the clinic was done for the day, Alex , the microfinance technician came and we had a meeting with the Caja Rural about their grain purchase from the community.
As I had mentioned in an earlier entry, one of the problems in the communities is that they have to sell their crops through an intermediary called the coyote. The coyote gives them a very low price on their crops. In Pajarillos, the Caja has accrued enough capital to be able to use their own money to purchase corn directly from community members for a fair price, thus bypassing the coyote. Pajarillos in particular has a meeting house in the center of town that was built by community members and students from the states. They have also purchased the land next to the house where they are building a pavilion like structure to be able to store the corn in what are called silos. Silos are large storage bins that can preserve the corn for 3-4 months. After storing the corn, the Caja can sell it during the off season and get a higher price for it. The money they earn from selling the corn is reinvested back into the Caja and used for other similar community investments or to continue giving out more loans. Its been really interesting not only learning the financial side of my job but also about agriculture, something I did not know much about before.
The last week in August, I went on a Public Health brigade with Northwestern University and Lower Columbia College (a small community college in Washington) in Zurzular, where to my dad’s surprise I sawed, mixed and carried cement, and helped build a concrete floor. During a Public Health Brigade, students build an eco stove, two concrete floors, a water storage unit with a faucet and purified water called a pila, and a latrine (toilet). In order for the families to have their projects in their homes, they are responsible for preparing the home prior and purchasing some of the supplies, such as cement. They are also responsible for paying for 20-25% of the project, which is about $100. This is a lot for a family who may typically live on that amount in one month. The Cajas Rurales in the communities provide loans for the Public Health projects. The families are able to borrow the money from the Caja and pay it back oer a 6month-1year period. So far the payback rate has been near 100% with a few late payments. The reason for requiring the families to pay this amount is so that they take ownership for the projects. In the past, donating projects was unsuccessful and the families chose not to take care of them.
I really enjoyed the Public Health brigade and felt very useful being able to do the physical labor and also helping translate. The students work alongside local masons, where they are able to complete all 4 projects by the end of 3 days . Its pretty amazing! These projects reduce several health problems that were being seen on medical brigades. The eco stoves have a pipe that force the smoke from the stove to be released outside of the house, which reduces respiratory problems such as asthma and pneumonia. They also do not burn as much wood, about half as much as prior. So, the families spend less time traveling to collect wood every week, only needing to make the 4-5 hr trip once every two weeks. The latrines provide a sanitary way of using the bathroom versus prior to where the families would go in the woods or in the fields. Prior to the Public Health brigades going into a community, water brigades must install the water system. In Zurzular, prior to having a water system, the nurse at the health center reported 10-15 cases of diarrhea in children under 5. Following the completion of the water system, there were none. Fresh water has nearly rid the communities of water related illnesses and also parasites. So the pilas, have a connection to the water system so that they have fresh running water to drink, wash dishes, clothes,etc. Finally, the cement floors are much cleaner and easier to take care of than in the past where most families had dirt floors. The dirt floors also created dust which contributed to respiratory problems and also had bugs which carried chagas disease.
Another aspect of the Public Health Brigade is education. The Northwestern/LCC group was assigned the topic “water and the body” to teach to the elementary students in El Zurzular. They worked first to teach the CSB who then explained the concept to the children. It went relatively well considering it was the first time that the CSB taught a Public Health education lesson. Overall, I really enjoyed the brigade and also was able to talk with students a lot about Public Health’s relationship with Microfinance.
The week after the brigade, I traveled to Seattle for the Global Brigades Student Leadership Conference. The conference was great and I was able to meet some of the students that are coming on microfinance brigades this winter. We had a breakout session where we talked about everything happening with microfinance in Honduras and they asked a lot of really great questions. I had never been to Seattle, which is a beautiful city. On the second of the conference, we took the students on a boat cruise around the harbor which was really great. I also had the chance to meet some of the GB staff that lives in Panama and Ghana. It is so nice to be able to put a face to all of the people that we email and have conference calls with.
Following the conference, I flew home to Ohio to spend the week with my family and work from home. My brother also flew in from Colorado. It was so nice to have the whole family together and be able to see our other relatives. With my dad’s family spreading out all over the US, me being in Honduras, my brother in Colorado, it is going to be more difficult to have everyone together.
Since returning back to Honduras from the states, I have been getting really busy preparing for the upcoming winter brigade season. We also moved to a new house outside of the city. It is another adjustment, as now there are 22 of us living together in a very large main house that has a back apartment with some other bedrooms. Everyday a bus comes to the house to take us to the office and back home. It’s quite humorous seeing 22 gringos get on the bus everyday. I feel like I am back in elementary school.
A man named Kevin and his wife and baby live on the property as well. Kevin takes care of the outside of the house and has been very helpful with the transition. He is only 20 years old and married with a baby, which is pretty common here. Except, most people just have children and are not married. Kevin also has two of the smelliest dogs I have ever met. London, is a Rottweiler, who we call tripod because he has a broken right front paw and he limps around. The other is Stanley, who is a Bassett hound who is constantly crying and barking at us. He is really sweet but so smelly, no one wants to pet him. Tyler, the architecture brigades lead, gave both dogs a bath the other day and now they smell better. These dogs may seem sad but they are actually really lucky, compared to the other skinny stray dogs in Honduras. Most dogs have no homes, are starving, and get kicked for bothering people. Its really terrible..
There are going to be 7 universities coming in the last two weeks of December and first 3 weeks of January for my program, which is double what we had last year. I like being able to correspond directly with the students and also being able to talk with the communities to prepare them for the brigades as well. I have been able to get out to the communities quite a few times to talk with some of the Caja members about preparing education workshops for the brigades. They have given me some great feedback and I will be able to better prepare the students for coming down. We are going to be bringing brigades to a new community called El Canton starting at the end of the February. The men starting the Caja in El Canton are really motivated and wanting to learn and help grow their community economically. I am really excited to work with them over the next year.
We also found out shortly before the conference that El Zurzular, the coffee growing community that I worked in on my first brigade in March is going to start packaging their coffee through a distributor in the northern part of the country and selling it in surrounding communities and potentially in the states. A previous Global Brigades volunteer and student from Marquette University started a non profit called Buena Vida Coffee where they work with local farmers in Honduras to package and export coffee to sell in the states as a fundraisier for Global Brigades students. We hope to be able to make Zurzular coffee one of the brands that they sell.
Zurzular is also going to be getting electricity in January! The local government is working with Global Brigades and the Caja Rural to facilitate the project providing electricity to the health center, new school and the families of the community. The Caja is communicating with families that want electricity and also collecting the initial payment and will also be collecting the monthly electric payments from the families. This is really exciting for this community as they have been isolated for so long.
This last couple of weeks like I said have been busy and also a transition living in a new house. There is not a whole lot to do in Santa Lucia where we now live. The center of town is quaint and safe to walk around which is nice. I am working from a teteria, which is a tea house that has great teas, desserts, and hummus. We are also close to a tourist town called Valle de Angeles, where we take students brigades. Yesterday I went there with some girls because there was “feria” which is a fair. We had some good food, draught beer, and just walked around. It is nice to be able to do things outside of the city and get some fresh air. It has been adjustment in terms of nightlife and transportation but we are starting to figure it out. There are two cars we have to drive on the weekends but only 5 drivers. Figuring out a process for using the cars is difficult but we will eventually come up with a more efficient system. This week I am planning to get a lot done as I am thinking about going to Belize for a 5 day visa renewal with Katie, my new roommate and Nicole, a medical advisor.
