Ok so that may be old school at this point...but its what we said back in the day of Riverside High School 2000-2004. But the end point is that RHS Students basically rock. Why you might ask? Oh well grab a seat and I will tell you:
Last school year (for them) Ms. Davidson's International Relations class asked me if there was anything that they could do to help with a project in my site. Obviously I can't ask them to raise enough money to to a latrine project...lets face it, the NC School system needs that amount of money to put towards hiring more teachers. But I figured that they could help me with toothbrushes. Tooth Brushing is a daily habit majorly overlooked here in the campo of Peru. Most of the people I know...well in fact ALL of the people I know, even the Health Post Staff, have at least 3 cavities (not that the Peace Corps Volunteer doesn't have her share...So I was a rebellious child...I'm sorry mom!). Then even more are missing at least 3 or 4 teeth due to tooth extractions--my health post doesn't have the instruments to fill cavities, they just get to be so bad that they take the whole tooth out.
So obviously the best way to counter this trend of toothless Nanchoc-citizens, something must be done, and it must be done from the little ones right on up. Well I got my starting hand from Ms. D's IR class. I asked them for 150 tooth brushes. That would be enough for every child in my community between the ages of 4 and 8 to receive a tooth brush. And they sent me 205! Now that's what I'm talking about!
I've yet to give a lesson on tooth brushing to students, I have given the lesson to the health promoters with the help of some local kids. I'm looking forward to the end of winter vacations (which got pushed up 2 weeks due to the pig flu...) so that I can start giving the lessons! The game plan:
To start in the poorest caserios of my town, Aventuranza, Tingues, and Palto with their kindergarten through 2nd grade classes (which is around 35 kids) and then to move on to the actual Town of Nanchoc. I can't wait to start! I have made up a "television" out of a big box that I fill with slides. Each slide has a picture that corresponds to a story about the dangers of not brushing your teeth (aka cavities). The end product is that the kids feel like their watching a movie, not receiving a lesson. After the "movie" we're going to play a game. With 4 or 5 volunteers we will create our "mouth." The volunteers are the teeth. The other students in the class will stick with tape pictures of candy and sweets all over their classmates. Then we must "brush" our teeth with the "tooth brush," aka broom, until all clean!
When I get to giving lessons I will be sure to take LOTS of pictures for the IR class and post them all. A big ol thanks to RHS and all their hard work in getting me those tooth brushes! You guys are a great bunch of students!
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Why Do I Bang My Head Into The Wall? Because It Feels So Good When I Stop.
I can’t remember where I first heard that quote. I’m pretty sure it was Grey’s Anatomy episode…some of the best lines I know come from that show. Don’t hate.
Why do I bang my head in the wall? Because it feels so good when I stop. Believe it or not, that actually translates into Spanish quite well. “? Porque estoy golpeando mi cabeza con la pared? Pues, porque siento riquÃsimo cuando me pare.”
Why might one need to use such a phrase in Peru you might ask? Simple. I assisted my first, and probably last, active budget proposal. What might that be you ask…well it’s a time where the representatives of the organizations and communities come together in the mayor’s office to talk about dividing up the community project budget.
Wait, I just described that way too orderly. It’s really a time where 30 people who are semi-organized come together to yell and scream and literally take their shoe off and slam it into the floor demanding that the government hear why they need a project done in their caserio more than that dude’s over there.
Yeah, sounds like fun doesn’t it? Well see I didn’t know what exactly I was in for when I arrived in the Health Post this morning. I came with one goal: To talk to Carlos, the guy in charge of the environmental concerns of Nanchoc, about the disgrace of a landfill the Mayor has built along the road. It’s horrible! I’m not even sure he dug a hole for the landfill. It looks to me more like he found a spot where with the way the wind blows the sand it created a shallow pit, maybe 4 feet deep, and started dumping tractor loads of trash in the whole. Now as common sense would tell you, if the wind created that hole, then the wind is damn well certain to lift all of the trash out of said hole. Needless to say we’re blowing trash all over the town and into the river. Then to rub a little salt in the wound that is the trash dump, it’s also laying in the middle of a flood plane...oh yes, when December comes around what trash that is left in the hole, that didn’t blow out that is, will be washed straight into the river.
Oh the joy I find when going for an early morning run in my site. Badly made dumps. At least I now know why the Mayor was avoiding showing me said dump for the past 2 months. Even he must have known that it was a mess.
Ok so I’ve gotten sidetracked. Yes that is why I originally showed up the Health Post. To talk. Then Carlos mentioned that there was this active budget proposal meeting and that I should go with the Doctor to mention the horrors that are the dump. GREAT IDEA I thought…
Ok so it all started out great, we talked about the vision of Nanchoc, what we all want to see by 2014, what big projects need to be done to reach those goals. It was all quite orderly and calm. Well that was the first 2 hours. By noon I guess everyone’s stomach’s began to turn on them. The mean came out. People started fighting over why their caserio deserved the money more than another…that is when I knew it would be a fun day. By 1 the representatives of the government decided it was time for a break and lunch. A little cooling off period if you will.
After lunch, things just got worse. Not because of the participants, the lunch had done them all good. They were calm and organized even cooperating and suggesting joint projects to benefit multiple caserios. Oh no, this time the problem was the government. Now it could be that I’m a math major, or that I’m a gringa who occasionally points out flaws in plans when it comes to number crunching…but I became the least favorite member of the community by one of the council members…
So the mayor had told us that we had S./134,400 this upcoming year (2010) for projects. Between 6 caserios that’s S./22,400 per caserio. Roughly $7,466. You can do a fair amount of work in Peru for that amount of money. Palto wanted a new bridge to be built, or maybe a community center, Adventuranza won my heart by saying they wanted a latrine project (in coordination with the Peace Corps volunteer!), Tingues wanted to fix an irrigation canal, Hacienda Vieja wanted to fix their water system, Carahuasi wanted to do the same, and Nanchoc wanted to rebuild the police station…which is literally about to fall down. All of which were reasonable with about S./22,400.
Then the other shoe dropped. The mayor realized he had forgotten to mention a few things that we’d have to take out of the budgeted money. S./34,400 for contractors and paying taxes on community work projects (yeah I didn’t understand it either). And then another S./ 15,000 for “extenuating circumstances” that could happen during the rainy season. Akaadded costs of fuel and the like from muddy roads. So…as a math major, I raised my hand…the first time I had done so the whole day. I figured it wasn’t really my place to decide where the money goes, I already had my latrine pitch, I was happy with that. But I raised my hand and said:
“Mr. Mayor, excuse me but I’m a little confused. You origionally said that we were going to be given S./134,400 for community projects is this correct?” “Yes,” he replied. “Ok, well that would have given us S./22,400 for each project, and we had planned the projects for today’s meeting based on that number. But now you are taking S./49,400 from the budget. That’s taking about 40% of the budget out of play.”
And then there was a silence. I waited a few seconds for him to respond, he said nothing…so I continued…
“So we went from having a little over S./22,000 for each caserio for a project, to S./14,166 for each project. That’s a big difference.”
You could see the wave of light bulbs clicking on in the room. I guess I was the only one who had done the math in their head. That’s when the disorder began…my bad. I won’t go into the details, but luckily it was all verbal arguments, aside from the slamming of a shoe (it came from a bag, not off a foot) to make a point, it didn’t get too violent. And after 3 hours of yelling it appeared that everyone just gave up. We weren’t going to get that S./49,400 back from the mayor. So it wasn’t worth anymore of or time fighting for it.
The meeting ended undecided the actual amounts that will be given to each project, the newly founded comities’ going to decide. And the council must have not held a grudge on my math, because they asked me to be the president of the town’s Patron Saint’s party. After being informed that that means having to organize everything, I said “no thank you” and left to head home to eat supper.
So why do I bang my head into the wall? Because it feels so good when I stop. That might have been a waste of my time…after all nothing was really accomplished…but it made a good story.
Why do I bang my head in the wall? Because it feels so good when I stop. Believe it or not, that actually translates into Spanish quite well. “? Porque estoy golpeando mi cabeza con la pared? Pues, porque siento riquÃsimo cuando me pare.”
Why might one need to use such a phrase in Peru you might ask? Simple. I assisted my first, and probably last, active budget proposal. What might that be you ask…well it’s a time where the representatives of the organizations and communities come together in the mayor’s office to talk about dividing up the community project budget.
Wait, I just described that way too orderly. It’s really a time where 30 people who are semi-organized come together to yell and scream and literally take their shoe off and slam it into the floor demanding that the government hear why they need a project done in their caserio more than that dude’s over there.
Yeah, sounds like fun doesn’t it? Well see I didn’t know what exactly I was in for when I arrived in the Health Post this morning. I came with one goal: To talk to Carlos, the guy in charge of the environmental concerns of Nanchoc, about the disgrace of a landfill the Mayor has built along the road. It’s horrible! I’m not even sure he dug a hole for the landfill. It looks to me more like he found a spot where with the way the wind blows the sand it created a shallow pit, maybe 4 feet deep, and started dumping tractor loads of trash in the whole. Now as common sense would tell you, if the wind created that hole, then the wind is damn well certain to lift all of the trash out of said hole. Needless to say we’re blowing trash all over the town and into the river. Then to rub a little salt in the wound that is the trash dump, it’s also laying in the middle of a flood plane...oh yes, when December comes around what trash that is left in the hole, that didn’t blow out that is, will be washed straight into the river.
Oh the joy I find when going for an early morning run in my site. Badly made dumps. At least I now know why the Mayor was avoiding showing me said dump for the past 2 months. Even he must have known that it was a mess.
Ok so I’ve gotten sidetracked. Yes that is why I originally showed up the Health Post. To talk. Then Carlos mentioned that there was this active budget proposal meeting and that I should go with the Doctor to mention the horrors that are the dump. GREAT IDEA I thought…
Ok so it all started out great, we talked about the vision of Nanchoc, what we all want to see by 2014, what big projects need to be done to reach those goals. It was all quite orderly and calm. Well that was the first 2 hours. By noon I guess everyone’s stomach’s began to turn on them. The mean came out. People started fighting over why their caserio deserved the money more than another…that is when I knew it would be a fun day. By 1 the representatives of the government decided it was time for a break and lunch. A little cooling off period if you will.
After lunch, things just got worse. Not because of the participants, the lunch had done them all good. They were calm and organized even cooperating and suggesting joint projects to benefit multiple caserios. Oh no, this time the problem was the government. Now it could be that I’m a math major, or that I’m a gringa who occasionally points out flaws in plans when it comes to number crunching…but I became the least favorite member of the community by one of the council members…
So the mayor had told us that we had S./134,400 this upcoming year (2010) for projects. Between 6 caserios that’s S./22,400 per caserio. Roughly $7,466. You can do a fair amount of work in Peru for that amount of money. Palto wanted a new bridge to be built, or maybe a community center, Adventuranza won my heart by saying they wanted a latrine project (in coordination with the Peace Corps volunteer!), Tingues wanted to fix an irrigation canal, Hacienda Vieja wanted to fix their water system, Carahuasi wanted to do the same, and Nanchoc wanted to rebuild the police station…which is literally about to fall down. All of which were reasonable with about S./22,400.
Then the other shoe dropped. The mayor realized he had forgotten to mention a few things that we’d have to take out of the budgeted money. S./34,400 for contractors and paying taxes on community work projects (yeah I didn’t understand it either). And then another S./ 15,000 for “extenuating circumstances” that could happen during the rainy season. Akaadded costs of fuel and the like from muddy roads. So…as a math major, I raised my hand…the first time I had done so the whole day. I figured it wasn’t really my place to decide where the money goes, I already had my latrine pitch, I was happy with that. But I raised my hand and said:
“Mr. Mayor, excuse me but I’m a little confused. You origionally said that we were going to be given S./134,400 for community projects is this correct?” “Yes,” he replied. “Ok, well that would have given us S./22,400 for each project, and we had planned the projects for today’s meeting based on that number. But now you are taking S./49,400 from the budget. That’s taking about 40% of the budget out of play.”
And then there was a silence. I waited a few seconds for him to respond, he said nothing…so I continued…
“So we went from having a little over S./22,000 for each caserio for a project, to S./14,166 for each project. That’s a big difference.”
You could see the wave of light bulbs clicking on in the room. I guess I was the only one who had done the math in their head. That’s when the disorder began…my bad. I won’t go into the details, but luckily it was all verbal arguments, aside from the slamming of a shoe (it came from a bag, not off a foot) to make a point, it didn’t get too violent. And after 3 hours of yelling it appeared that everyone just gave up. We weren’t going to get that S./49,400 back from the mayor. So it wasn’t worth anymore of or time fighting for it.
The meeting ended undecided the actual amounts that will be given to each project, the newly founded comities’ going to decide. And the council must have not held a grudge on my math, because they asked me to be the president of the town’s Patron Saint’s party. After being informed that that means having to organize everything, I said “no thank you” and left to head home to eat supper.
So why do I bang my head into the wall? Because it feels so good when I stop. That might have been a waste of my time…after all nothing was really accomplished…but it made a good story.
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