Let Raise Some Money!

It’s crazy how life as a Peace Corps volunteer can go from 0 to 100 in the blink of an eye.  Following the end of the school year field trip, I had to figure out how I was going to spend my summer.  During that trip, over half of the school and I along with a handful of parents made our way to Belize City at around 3:30 AM.  We started out at the airport, somewhere that none of the students had ever been.  They were fascinated by the size of the planes and the number of people that each could hold.  My parents were actually heading out from Belize that day, and even though I didn’t get to see them at the airport, I did get to see their airplane and point it out to all the kids.  Following the airport, we made our way to Old Belize for a tour of the museum and then we headed over to the Belize Defense Force barracks.  The BDF actually offers a lot of opportunities following service, and a few of the kids have mentioned wanting to join the BDF in the future, so it was cool for them to see what life may be like if they decide to take that step in life.  Then, for the highlight of the trip, we headed to the Belize Zoo.  Though it was a small zoo, there were loads of animals that I had never seen before, such as a tapir.  There was also a jaguar that was just posing for pictures.  The students had a great time traveling around Belize City area.  I had a great time being with the kids.  We ended up getting back to the village around 10:00 PM, exhausted but happy. 

For about three days during mid-July, I sat in my hammock and read magazine after magazine.  Luckily, I was also reading Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot at the time, so I had a pretty large task ahead of me in that.  I had worked on some small tasks here and there for upcoming projects, but really didn’t have too much planned for the imminent future.  That plus the rain was enough to convince me to take some down time.  It got to the point that I decided I would go to Punta Gorda for the day with hopes of finding some work to do.  I don’t think I have had a day to rest since.

July really pulled my attention to two main projects: latrines and data collection.  The first was the latrine project that I have been working on since February.  Ac Yuam Development Project (AYDP) got some donations, thanks to Trinity Episcopal Church and Mrs. Peggy Pinnell, and so I had to figure out how to get the money from Rivers of the World (ROW), the organization storing and transferring the money for the latrines, to the AYDP bank account (also big shout out to ROW for all their help). 

This may sound like a relatively easy task.  The money was sent from the U.S. and made it to the bank pretty easily.  The problems came, though, in getting the money from the bank into the bank account.  The bank required an email from ROW specifying who they wanted the money to go to.  Naturally, I didn’t think this would be too complicated, so I sent the bank’s email address to ROW and hopped on my bus back to the village.  I waited a week to go back into town again thinking that there would be some money in the bank account, but, alas, the bank had given me the wrong email address.  So it was on to Take 2 with another address.  Though it took about a week and a half, I’m happy to say that we now have enough money in the account to buy materials for six latrines for families in the village!!

On that note, if you’re interested in donating, it’s a pretty easy process.  Just follow this link: http://row.org/donate/ and click the "One Time Gift" button. On the next page click the blue "Donate" button OR to donate by check, click the link below that button for instructions.  IF YOU SEND A CHECK MAKE SURE TO INCLUDE IN THE MEMO AC YUAM DEVELOPMENT PROJECT, SAN VICENTE LATRINES! You'll fill out your information and at the bottom of that page you'll see Additional Details.  At this point, you will type "San Vicente Latrines".  Then for Donation Destination select "Belize" from the menu.  Any little amount helps!  The latrines will cost about $300 USD to construct one.  We’re aiming to build 30.  The villagers are already excited and constantly asking when they can start to dig their hole and build their toilet.  I’m hoping that by giving the villagers the first toilet, they will be more motivated to build their next one, however many years down the road that may be.  I also need to say that this is not a PC funded project and I am not responsible for managing funds (though I help the group members by keeping the book and a budget) but in assisting with the implementation of the project.

While all this was going on, I was in and out of Belmopan working with four other volunteers on a way to better Peace Corps Belize’s data collection system.  This is very different from my main project in the village because it focuses on long term changes that will happen within Peace Corps Belize.  Whereas in the village, there’s very little structure and implementing change is a long term process, with the data collection, we are making changes that will hopefully better the data collection system within the next few months and will last for years. 

Now many people scoff at the idea of data collection in Peace Corps.  It’s something that can be kind of a pain for Peace Corps Volunteers who feel that they need to be making relationships and developing change, not collecting data and information about the people, and for the most part, they’re right.  One of the things I’ve noticed since being here is that change is more likely when relationships have been developed; however, I think it’s incredibly important to quantify that change which is taking place.  The goal of Peace Corps is to create sustainability in our sites, essentially to work ourselves out of a job.  Collecting data, especially long term behavior change for individuals, is the only way to prove that sustainable change is taking place.

I like to use an example of a hypothetical man with diabetes.  When the first PCV arrives at site, the man’s diabetes is out of control, but once the volunteer arrives, the man begins going to lessons about how to control his diabetes.  After that volunteer’s time is up, another volunteer comes in and makes sure that the man continues to take his pills and eat healthy, but the man no longer needs to go to lessons on controlling diabetes because he already has it down.  By the time the third volunteer comes in, the man has his diabetes completely under control.  Without following this man’s individual change throughout multiple Peace Corps generations, there’s no way to show that the man has undergone a behavior change.  I think that with the perfect combination of personal relationships and data collection, Peace Corps as a whole can begin to achieve, and prove, its sustainability.

Really, that about sums up my July.  I have a lot of big projects coming up that I’m excited about.  We’re going to be having Maternal and Child Health lessons in the village and also going to start building latrines!! With all this, August is looking to be much busier than July!