Before I start, Alice DID post something for those of you that she refered here, it's just below mine, which is slightly long. I would recomend reading hers first if you haven't already, and trying to read this one another day. I would compare reading the following to a marathon, your going to need your stamina. The above pictures are from the ferria (fair), they couldn't seem anymore Honduran. The young lady on the left is wearing things I could see any given day. he young lady on the right would definitely not dress like that outside of special occasions, just to be clear.
This is my first attempt to explain what I am doing here, and the language barrier is a bit hard to work through on some topics, so ask anything concerning what I write about that doesn’t make any sense. I will start with the basics. All Peace Corps volunteers get assigned to a community partner, and Alice and I were assigned to the local head of CATIE. CATIE doubles as a Costa Rica university and a non-profit that works with the proper protection of watersheds. Unlike most groups, CATIE uses an approach where they look at why it is being damaged and try to reverse the reasons instead of trying to reverse the damage only. This means we don't just plant trees (actually we don't plant trees at all) we do community education and organization to prevent the watershed from being further damaged and get the communities that are affected to take on the project of ensuring proper vegetation to maintain the area. That being said, the sustainable child of CATIE here is the consejo de cuenca or “administration of (the water) source”. This group is made up by 22 water boards, 1 group of farmers, 7 caja rurales, and some patronatos. In total it represents over 200 people and the water source is a major part of our community, the 22 surrounding villages, the capital city, and quite a few more cities from further down. Now, I need to be specific about some of these groups, they are not what someone from the United States would expect. Most of these community organizations are made up of highly concerned volunteers from the community, though some function far better than others. The water boards average 8-20 people per organization, and occasionally they make decisions that affect the entire community. They are the backbone of the consejo and are the best organized (usually). The group of framers is one of the larger groups and there is currently another forming due to the importance of their work. They generally just share information about farming techniques that solve common problems of the area. They are vital to the consejo since often the farmers will just clear more forest to get better soil instead of fixing problems. This group works hard to make sure if trees are pulled out they are replaces by fruit trees to maintain the area, while giving the farmers options to increase the profitability of the land. I am working with the caja rurales, so I will skip them for now, but don't worry, I have lots to say. They are important. Alice is planning to work with the patranatos. Patranatos have no good translation since no such group exists in the states. They are based in either a village or neighborhood within an urban area. Their organization is protected by law, though they have relatively few rights. Mostly they are in charge of lobbying at a city level to make sure a community gets necessary repairs and advances. These groups have a variety of issues, most stemming from years of being ignored by politicians made people think power lies in the hands of politicians. Since these groups are responsible for helping communities develop, the consejo uses these groups to make sure they develop in a constructive way.
So finally, I cannot avoid it any further. I have to explain what I do. Caja Rurales are a form of micro finance based LOOSELY on the Grameen bank model. Assuming everyone is familiar with Grameen, the primary differences are: The Honduran model is open to both men and women; there is no oversight like grameen provides; low interest is relative; default rates are more problematic. Assuming everyone is not familiar with the micro finance model, the idea is that with small loans at low interest rates to very poor communities people will be able to remove themselves from poverty and create sustainable businesses. The Grameen model focuses its efforts on communities of women and has very low default rates despite lending money to the poorest of people mostly because of the community aspect. The money for the loans is provided by Grameen and Grameen provides training and continued oversight with every organization, so falling into a state of disorganization is relatively difficult. Hondurans live in a far more machismo social organization, so the truth is the model would never work here depending solely on women. While women are completely competent (and then some) to run the organizations, it would undermine the tradition gender structure in this country and lead to embarrassment for the men, followed by a lot of drama, and a probable discontinuing of the organization. While I am all for a furthering of gender issues here, trying to force such idea on people would probably lead to the reverse effect. Some issues can be encouraged, but not forced. The banks themselves are community funded, though occasionally non-profits lend or give money. They generally depend upon money from within the community. Hence there is an additional 2 services Grameen doesn’t have to deal with. The first is called actions, which all "members" of the bank pay annually and gives them the right to receive a fair portion of the banks profits every year. The other service they offer is savings, which is open to anyone from anywhere. It earns about 1% a month (depends on the constitution of the organization), no compounding. They just multiply 1% and the total savings, and there is the total interest. I cannot tell if all the banks even understand that interest should earn further interest, so it is the most basic of models. Most groups that want to help cajas don't really "loan" money, they just use a "savings (account)" (sorry translation there is poor at best, but I think it gets the point across) and accept the 1% as the interest and retire the money at the end of the designated time they offered. Obviously the primary function of these organizations is to offer credit. Now before I explain this system, I want to preface it by saying: These organizations are about the only option for credit for people here, and are truly revolutionary for the sustenance farmer. They are finally given the option to better things, because as they were, things were not going to develop, at least not any time soon. What little credit was available labeled the area as highly risky and they charged 20% interest… per month. That being said interest rates range between 36% and 48% a year, 3% or 4% a month. It isn't perfect, but it allows the cajas to grow, distribute some profits to the members, work on some projects, and pay the interest on the savings. Same as savings, there isn't a complicated amortization schedule or anything like that. Things are a simple as possible.
So my job with them is organizational strengthening. In other words, I am trying to get their ducks in a line. I am starting with training on accounting books and interest rates. I am trying to get them to 1. Be more organized with their book keeping, 2. Figure interest monthly instead of one time 3. Create an oversight body for transparency and the ability to help other communities with problems. Point 2 needs some explanation. The group that gave the training to organize these banks didn’t really teach the banks what interest is in the most basic terms, so most people see interest as a phantom concept. So the group taught them that it was totally fair to figure interest for the whole loan for a month, divide the total of the loan by the number of months the person planned on paying, add the numbers and that was the payment every month. As I see it, that is really not fair to people, since they are paying interest on capital they no longer control. I don’t know if I will get that point across or not, but I am going to try. So I am also planning on starting to go to their meetings and addressing issues other people seem to want to control instead of fix. Most meetings consist of 4-6 people of a 35 member organization, because instead of planning the meeting when most people can come, they plan it for whenever.
We are also working on a couple other things. I am going to a local high school in two weeks to teach a basic class on Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. I’ll be there for 5 days, 5 hours a day and I am just supposed to give a basic class on how they can use them to better present reports and such. I am afraid of teaching excel, as I myself am a beginner, but I know far more here than anyone else willing to teach the class, so I guess they will learn as much as I know.
That class is part of a getting to know students, with whom I would eventually like to a civic education project. The project is called “project citizen” and it came from Texas. It basically teaches kids about city governments by making them pick a problem and come up with a proposal to fix it with a public policy solution.
Alice is working a lot with a sober living home for girls and trying to teach the young ladies some arts and crafts they can sell during the holidays to raise money for the home. She has also recently got involved with “youth without borders” and has helped with some HIV/ AIDS training recently. I plan on helping out some as well, hopefully to bring a mature male’s perspective to the presentations.
My boss would also like us to work on disaster mitigation and planning, which I know nothing about, but the truth is, that is the kind of project I like the most. I can’t think of another opportunity in my entire life I will be put in charge of implementing a project I know nothing about.
I also plan to develop some sort of sports activities for youth here, specifically girls, since nothing exists for young ladies, but since this has nothing to do with my project I have to do this on my own time, though that can be whenever I want it to be. I’ll probably do a small soccer league, like 5 on 5, but it depends on how many girls are interested. In the future, I will probably be found begging for people to send me some soccer balls and some vests I can use to differentiate the teams. The biggest problem right now is finding a field that will let me use it without having to fight for it week after week. I really need a spot I can guarantee will be open, if I can’t find one this year, I’ll get some kids to build one, and use it next year. I’m sure that won’t be too much work at all.
So again, no related pictures, mostly because I haven’t done anything where taking pictures would serve a purpose. I am going to an average of 4 meetings a week to introduce myself and I am gaining entry into the community slowly. It is harder here since we have so many tourists in and out, most people here still think we are missionaries, but we are working the people and teaching them not all white people come on church related projects, though even I have a hard time believing that myself.
As a disclaimer, not all Peace Corps volunteers are this busy after thier first month, and nights here are still painfuly boring at times, though we send thanks to everyone sending us things to do. It has been a great help. We are currently in the period I am calling the post training lonelyness. We spend so much time bonding to people in training, not to have them around is really wierd. If your looking for a different perspective there are a couple other blogs from people in my training group, just let me know.
So be safe and protect the water source, or I will send man-frog after you.
