Life Update #6: Last few weeks as a Chapina

The last couple weeks have been some to remember…exhausting, frustrating and moving.  I guess I’ll just go in chronological order and attempt to keep it short….

First off, we met with Genésis Empresarial, the MFI we came to Guatemala to partner LC with for subsidized housing through the government. Only took 3 ½ weeks to get that meeting. Then she told us they aren’t working with the government anymore and given the upcoming elections, it would be best to table any projects until no earlier than March 2012. Guess it’s a good thing we’d been working on alternative solutions! Frustrating but given her reaction, anecdotes we’d collected, and the experience of ConstruCasa I'm glad we didn’t start the project only to lose money, be put indefinitely on hold, or have homes constructed 25% and abandoned.

The second objective in our meeting was to discuss Genésis’ willingness to be the Guatemalan partner of a new microfinance fund in the US to benefit LC and later other communities in Guatemala. This was very positively received and we’re looking forward to helping construct the fund when we get back to Nashville.

Wondering when we were ever going to do anything other than work this summer, we decided to join Tyler for a trip to Tikal…that day. Tikal is the largest excavation site in the Americas and home to the largest Mayan city. The driver of our overnight bus to Tikal was apparently unaware that a 70-degree night does not require full heat for 9 hours. We arrived sweating and dazed at 6am in Flores where we jumped on a 1 ½ hour shuttle to the ruins. Enormous temples and stunning views – hard to imagine building them then. At the final temple we climbed had a nearly vertical staircase, with the bottom rails loosely held down by a rope (safety first). This is one of the few times I've had anxiety from heights – what a climb, and then in the rain!

A handful of Shalom board members and the Executive Director gathered in Guatemala for a few days, giving us a chance to share the information we’d collected, the projects in process, and our recommendations thus far. Most exciting was arranging for them to see the homes Un Techo Para Mi País built in Palencia, a town outside of Guatemala City. We hoped this would build momentum for partnering with UTPMP in Las Conchas. Everyone was able to walk through a home at UTPMP’s offices but unfortunately only two were able to make it to the town – sometimes cars just don’t make it up the unpaved mountains!

The next day Mario and I set out in the afternoon to join UTPMP on a weekend build. The task: 50 homes, 3 towns, 2 days, 500 volunteers. For a country with a very limited culture of service, there was an incredible amount of energy to start the work! I don’t think I could have organized a volunteer army of 500 college friends for 2 ½ days of work; very impressive.

Villa Canales is actually a resettlement of victims of Hurricane Mitch – 1998.  The owner of the land made an agreement with the government to let them live there, put in roads and water, etc. None of that has happened – he takes pictures of other services, sends them in and collects his pay. After a night of sleeping on a classroom floor, we awoke for jail-style breakfast at 530am and were put into our groups. I had a very nice, very calm group but I enjoyed them tremendously. And appreciated that they suffered through Spanish with me instead of speaking English…which they all speak well. Tomás, our Costa Rican leader, was constantly looking out for me, sure to include me in various tasks and explain things clearly for me. I hated having my hand held but the extra minute or so I needed to process directions meant someone else was already doing it.

The first day we worked hard. The builds include zero power tools because families often live in questionable land situations and may need to take the house apart to move later. That being said, we dug 12 1m-deep holes to secure the pillars that lifted the house. Shovel – iron pole. Level – plastic tube with water. And then secured the floor panels to end the day! A bathing suit and sink shower later we were some of the first to sleep (are we getting old?). The next morning after learning how to play “Ninja” we set off again. We had the walls up before breakfast/brunch and ate with Don Rito, who would receive the home. Then we set about getting the roof up, the windows in and finally the door in place. What an incredible sight to sit on the roof and see the 30 or so sites getting new homes!

Exhausted but exhilarated from such a hands-on weekend – one that made an immediate difference – Mario and I had a project of our own to be excited about. The power of social media graced us when Shannon posted a blurb about making solar lights (55W equivalent) from soda bottles. It didn’t take long to see the potential for such a project in LC. Kevin from Shalom took care of materials and on Tuesday we arrived ready to experiment. After buying 200Q worth of soda and giving it out to a million kids we worked with two Guatemalan high school kids to cut the lamina, cleaned the bottles, secured with wire, and sealed the bottle in the lamina. The next step: who is going to be willing to let us cut a hole in their roof for the first light? Given that almost no one believed us that the soda bottle was going to be a light, this could have been tricky. Luckily Rudy has workshop and volunteered that we could try in there. Skeptical at first, after installing that light he was ecstatic! The light was as bright as any bulb and clearer than the electrical one he had in place already. A roaring success.

Tomorrow I will spend probably my last day in Las Conchas working on these lights. A young boy talked to Mario while we were building at the school and even though he was skeptical, asked if he could have one at his house. When we found out where he lived it was pure serendipity. The boy lives in a tin home of 12 people including 9 kids. They have no water, no lights, no electricity, and no stove. The mom happened to walk by while we were installing at Rudy’s and after showing her, she told us how happy it would make her to know that her kids could do their homework inside instead of having to go outside, if they did it at all. If nothing else comes out of this summer, I think this light project will give both of us enough comfort that it was not a waste.

Career Suicide

 This past weekend we spent an exhausting 2 ½ days helping build 50 homes in 2 days. Yes, those numbers are correct. And we built them without power tools – digging holes with iron poles and your hands is not something I necessarily need to do on a regular basis, but it was great to take part. We built that way because if the families we were helping don’t have machines, why should we? Un Techo Para Mi País (UTPMP) is a large nonprofit organization founded in Chile and currently working in 19 countries throughout the Americas and soon to open an office in Madrid. While the US and Madrid offices were born specifically for fundraising,  Chile has transitioned from constructor to fundraising/operations. Why? Because they literally built so many homes that there is no longer a need for the type of housing they offer. The current director said they are all trying to commit “career suicide” as we climbed a mountainside cornfield to visit a family’s new home.

Each time our camp gathered this weekend for announcements or to take a moment to try and grasp the reality in which the families we were building for live, one of the leaders or staff invariably mentioned UTPMP’s fervent hope that there will be a day when they are no longer needed, when they become obsolete. What more appropriate goal could any nonprofit have? If the goal is development - is serving the needs of others in order to alleviate those needs – shouldn’t eradication of that particular need, and therefore of your own services, be the ultimate goal?

If you are truly in the business of serving the needs of others, the hope should be that one day that need disappears. When I think about the kinds of programs and organizations I want to work for I search for and strive for sustainable development – not flash in the pan fixes. Don’t give clothes, lets figure out how to establish a business to make affordable clothes in that community/country – jobs, GDP increases, and the clothes. Don’t just give meds to treat diarrhea, fix the source of the illness – water, food etc. Either prevent the problem from existing or provide a solution that will survive after you leave – fostering jobs, growth and pride among the community where it matters most. I hope that every time I embark on a project in development, I can create/be part of something so sustainable that I work myself right out of a job, or at least that the mission is forced to change. What a great world that would be.

...I will also be setting up a personal donation page for my jobless self (Mom & Dad, aren’t you excited?)

900 Hot Dogs

Life Update #5:

Again, our lives have primarily been made up of meetings, luckily a couple have involved traveling…breaking up our routine of the mid-morning decision whether we’ll leave our apartment or not based on if we have internet and how much we (I) want espresso.

We did have the opportunity to have dinner with about 40-50 people, including Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland…sounds a lot more glamorous than it was. It did force me to the mall for real clothes and shoes though, which Mario keeps reminding me I need, as I basically brought a wardrobe of Target clothes thinking I wouldn’t need to look nice much this summer. Little did I know.

We then went to Antigua for several meetings and seeing a few friends. First we met with Constru Casa – another organization I kind of love that works in places like Las Conchas and does its own in-house microfinance to build 2 and 3 BR homes with bathrooms. It costs the family up to $20/mo/4years. Stefan, the guy currently in charge, was incredibly open with information about his organization and his ideas on exploring ways to move the organization away from total donor-dependency. Hopefully we, especially Mario, can not only use some of their ideas in our own work, but help him improve their business practices.

We met with Steve and Allison, from Shalom in the US. Despite only 2 staff in Guatemala, they are dedicated to maintaining the new surgery center, a secondary school, a new nutrition program, 10-15 mission trips throughout the year, and expanding the housing program. Admirable as this may be, it concerns me and I hope more staff will be hired. The money Shalom puts into this work is significant and I am simply afraid that their money and good intentions will be lost or inefficiently used. But Steve was very open to our ideas so I’m optimistic that we'll be able to create positive change.

After meeting up with Omar and my friend Laura – British friend from Spanish school – for dinner and drinks…and a tour of Antigua in the rain…we made plans to see water filter construction in action the next day. After a little bit of a late start we made our way to the chickenbuses and on to Parramos. The 20min trip took a bit longer than planned but what a great town Omar had brought us to! A beautiful square as the center of town, lots of local comedors and none of the tourism you find in Antigua. A mile later we reached the worksite but didn’t participate much, as a group was being trained on filter construction… and really there’s not a lot of rocket science to making a cement filter. The hard part is figuring out the physics of it before you even start building. We pitched in when we could, asked some questions, pondered its applicability to Las Conchas, and got a free lunch (you know I love free food).

We also went to Xela, which I’ve already talked about in the last bit on Compartamos, but the MFI aside I loved that city and hope I’ll get to spend more time there in the future. It’s the 2^nd biggest in Guatemala but feels more like a small town that just keeps on going. What a nice change to be in a big city without everyone telling me to “please be careful” every time I walk around. 

While Mario left me to fend for myself last weekend I went to Las Conchas twice. Friday was the infamous 900 hotdog cookout with the Shalom group. We cooked, dressed - mayo on hotdogs??? - and wrapped 900 hotdogs. Then we drove to LC and had all the people that were waiting for us sit in the dirt in the heat in circles so that the foreigners, who can’t speak Spanish, could hand out free food and trinkets…not even healthy food…for an hour. As much as I appreciate the sentiment, not my favorite life moment. Helllooooo dependency and entitlement. Great lessons. And I didn’t even get to have one! But after my obligatory help giving stuff out and translating was over I hung out with a crew of boys on a truckbed and let them use the camera for an hour while all the little girls thought it was great fun to tickle me to the ground. That was a good time at least! The Shalom crew that was there, and the new one in town this week, had some great people who return to Guatemala year after year – their hearts and intentions are in the right place and their openness to change is encouraging for what Mario and I hope to accomplish.

The weekend was highlighted by going running on Sunday by myself and getting caught in the rain. That and making salad finally, fresh food hallelujah. Oh, and I finally watched Inception…now I understand last year’s hype.

Then Monday I headed back to Las Conchas to help Tyler with a health survey and to gather some basic data for our own tracking sheet. After Rudy joined us, kind of an unofficial town leader, we managed to talk to 26 families. However, it’s hard to talk to people about their health when they often don’t even know they’re sick because no doctors are seen until it becomes an emergency. But it was interesting and good to see how surveying goes to preempt any issues we might have on ours.

It’s a fascinating and heart-wrenching place – to see 14 kids living in one tin shack that keeps adding tin walls out the back; to see a kid with a mouth infection that’s been untreated for a year and is probably eating at his jawbone; to hear Rudy talk about trying to teach kids English so they can get jobs but he can’t keep it up when he doesn’t have a stable job; to know the school is considered a treasure when there are 450 kids for 12 teachers. Here’s hoping our time here has a positive impact and that next time I’m here things will be just a little bit better.

 

1- Rick & co. at Shalom site. 2- Denis and the street cat (his family is getting the new home). 3- Home nearby. 4- At least their stove is outside...the source of so much sickness. 5- Hotdog giveaway... 6- My two new friends. 7- New friends and Giovanni returns with more kissing.


More LC Pics: https://picasaweb.google.com/102104549777635189839/LasConchasJunAug2011?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Pleasantly Surprised

As organizations expand we find more hands in the pot, more people involved in decision making, and more variety in outcome expectations - making it harder to truly serve the best interests of a given community. Missions become bogged down in bottom lines while diplomacy and politics grow more important to sustaining the organization. Larger organizations often mean larger amounts of program money – a good thing – but also that the relationship with the community diminishes, leading to a disconnect between the wants/needs of the community and the opinions of the organization.

At least, that’s what I thought. I continue to see these tradeoffs happening at the expense of the people for whom they claim to work, but was pleasantly shocked last week in Xela to have my assumptions of a large-scale, public organization shattered.

Compartamos is Latin America’s largest microfinance bank. Based out of Mexico, beginning as a traditional nonprofit MFI and going public in 2007, they've expanded to Peru (March '11) and now to Guatemala (June '11). The billion dollar bank has opened its first office in Xela and just four weeks in already has 4 offices to handle the demand of its 2,300 clients. This public MFI tapped into my reservations that they (and many nonprofit MFIs) often generate significant profits from the poor they are supposed to be lifting out of poverty.

What shattered my assumptions was the high-touch customer service on which this billion dollar company relies and its flexibility to local conditions. Given its success in Mexico, I would have expected a simple transplant of that model to Guatemala. But instead they recognized the differences: the deeper poverty, the tradition of monthly payment instead of Mexico’s weekly, and the extent of rural poverty, which lies just 5mins from urban centers. They work 6 days per week, 10-12 hours per day and work on their clients' schedules, not their own.

Once a group is formed the two promoters and their supervisor attend meetings for group payments every two weeks (in Mexico it’s every week). These staff members never physically touch the money the women bring – the group’s treasurer handles it and seals it in a bank bag. Each member and staff has a history of payments signed by each of the 3 group leaders and the promoter. The group assigns the required amount for savings and penalty fees - building consensus and ensuring Compartamos won't be "the bad guy".

The first meeting we attended was a group of 12 women making their first payment. Here we saw the careful handling of money and the importance placed on attendance. The air, however, was full of anxiety, as this was probably the first time most of these women had ever made a payment on a loan.

The second meeting was a loan disbursement – the first time the women had officially gathered with Compartamos. We didn't begin until all members were present but the large room was electric with unspoken excitement. A touching moment was when 3 of the women shyly explained that they could not read or write and used the ink pad to sign with their fingerprint. This delicate situation was handled with ease by the staff, as if it were a common occurrence. 

The third was the a group of 14 making their second payment. They were more urban and a little better-off than the others. Where previous groups of rural Mayan women had been friends and family, this group were acquaintances at best – some still didn’t know the others’ names. The promoter handled latecomer fines well – not succumbing to attitudes and explaining that they are an example to their peers and families and by habitually saving they would pass that value to their children, creating greater opportunities in the future.

Not only did I witness a huge, public and profitable organization maintaining high-touch customer relations and flexibility with the poor, I saw a high-level of professionalism inherent in organizations in the game of providing a service for profits. I've felt for some time that organizations of any kind should be run as businesses. But as I am gathering experience with various business models – for and non- profit – I'm finding this is more important than I already thought. So many nonprofits waste time and resources because the bottom line is not a priority. As sacrilegious as this sometimes still sounds to me, that interest – appropriately checked by a strong mission – often leads to better service, efficiency and evaluation of practice and results. Of course this is not the only way to run a successful program, but I continue to see the benefits that come with this model.

There are lots of ways to solve a problem, don’t make assumptions until you see something in action, you never know when you’ll be surprised. The best way to know something is to go out in the field and touch it, I hope we all remember to do that as we work in our chosen field delivering services to others.