Today was packed with stuff to do. To start, we woke up at around 6:15 in the morning in anticipation for our community meeting. After a brief breakfast and such, we set up the room and finished packing our stuff so that the community meeting could be held indoors. It was pretty cold outside, but the inside temperature wasn't much better. At 7:30 when our meeting was going to start, we only had 5 or so people on time; this was a drastic change compared to our first community meeting where we had plenty of people show up on or before our start time of 7:30. We didn't start the meeting until about 9 or so, and launched into our parts. Sophie, Sam, and Stephen talked about the soil and water sampling we had done, as well as household surveys. They described why we were there and also what tests we were doing. Then, Allison talked for Lauren (who was starting to feel really sick and couldn't give a speech) about forming a latrine committee. This was the turning point in our talk, as we needed the community to form a group of 3 people in order to progress forward with our project. We stayed silent while some of them started to talk, and although we predicted they would take 15 minutes, they took about an hour to talk about who would be selected for this committee.
At some point in their discussion, one of the community members suggested that we went outside, as it started to heat up and was more comfortable than being inside our building. While outside, the community was able to come up with three members of the latrine committee. Felix, who we had worked with, was flaky with some parts of our project but had been "in charge" of our trip before. The other two members were Cornelio and Rosa, who we were in contact with during our trip and were super cool. Cornelio and I especially bonded when he was showing us the houses in Parque-Colani, and he was the one who went with me down to the river when we were taking GPS data points. After the latrine committee was selected, Sebastian (the secretary general of Parque-Colani), Allison, and Ana all read and signed 6 contracts detailing our plan for the latrines over the next 5 years. After completion, they were met with applause from both our team as well as the community.
I gave my presentation with John about the next steps for the project, which went fairly smoothly. Although we had prepared extensively for questions pertaining to the specific design of the latrine, we received none, so our presentation was shorter than anticipated. After, Allison gave her closing remarks for our project, and our community meeting was officially over. I experienced a small wave of sentimentality, as the two years of work that we have put into this project to execute this moment had finally paid off. As I was reflecting, the community started setting up their Aguayos (the Bolivian blankets) with lots of papas and maize. They didn't bring any salads which was nice, as we weren't allowed to eat anything washed with water. The papas were fine to eat, but were fairly bland. It was hard to imagine how you could survive off of such a basic diet, but food was food I suppose. I didn't let the blandness get to me, and I had several papas during our meal. They also made a few salsas which were wayyyy more vibrant in taste and paired extremely well with…just about everything. For drinks, they had brought a few knock-off soda brands, but for some reason we weren't allowed to touch them. John was really thirsty and sat where the sodas were, and after he couldn't restrain himself he opened up a bottle and poured himself a glass. None of the community reacted, however through their broken Spanish, the older members communicated that we should celebrate by pouring a cup, pouring some on the ground, and thanking "the Pachamama", who was the spirit that represented the Earth. After this, we could then drink the cup. After finishing, the cup was to be passed to the next person, who would do the same thing. We were unsure of how to go through the steps at first, but eventually understood the cultural context and participated accordingly. It was the first time that we had experienced something truly unique to the Aymaran people, and I was grateful for it.
After our meal with the community, the women took their Aguayos away with the leftovers and we started taking our stuff down to the car. Lauren had gotten more sick, and had slept for the majority of the meeting. Getting her down the narrow path to the car was a challenge, and I took her stuff and asked if she wanted a piggy-back ride. She smiled, but was able to make it down by herself and told me so. She sat in the front of the car with John, who also was not good at sitting in the truck during the various bumps and general windiness that would follow when driving back up the mountain. After packing all of our stuff, we were off, and I was saying goodbye to Parque-Colani, maybe forever. The community had taught us so much, and we succeeded in accomplishing what we came there to do. In fact, we were actually able to collect much more data than we originally anticipated, and although the first few days had confused us, we came out on top with the signing of the community agreement.
Community Group Photo
At some point in their discussion, one of the community members suggested that we went outside, as it started to heat up and was more comfortable than being inside our building. While outside, the community was able to come up with three members of the latrine committee. Felix, who we had worked with, was flaky with some parts of our project but had been "in charge" of our trip before. The other two members were Cornelio and Rosa, who we were in contact with during our trip and were super cool. Cornelio and I especially bonded when he was showing us the houses in Parque-Colani, and he was the one who went with me down to the river when we were taking GPS data points. After the latrine committee was selected, Sebastian (the secretary general of Parque-Colani), Allison, and Ana all read and signed 6 contracts detailing our plan for the latrines over the next 5 years. After completion, they were met with applause from both our team as well as the community.
Parque-Colani
I gave my presentation with John about the next steps for the project, which went fairly smoothly. Although we had prepared extensively for questions pertaining to the specific design of the latrine, we received none, so our presentation was shorter than anticipated. After, Allison gave her closing remarks for our project, and our community meeting was officially over. I experienced a small wave of sentimentality, as the two years of work that we have put into this project to execute this moment had finally paid off. As I was reflecting, the community started setting up their Aguayos (the Bolivian blankets) with lots of papas and maize. They didn't bring any salads which was nice, as we weren't allowed to eat anything washed with water. The papas were fine to eat, but were fairly bland. It was hard to imagine how you could survive off of such a basic diet, but food was food I suppose. I didn't let the blandness get to me, and I had several papas during our meal. They also made a few salsas which were wayyyy more vibrant in taste and paired extremely well with…just about everything. For drinks, they had brought a few knock-off soda brands, but for some reason we weren't allowed to touch them. John was really thirsty and sat where the sodas were, and after he couldn't restrain himself he opened up a bottle and poured himself a glass. None of the community reacted, however through their broken Spanish, the older members communicated that we should celebrate by pouring a cup, pouring some on the ground, and thanking "the Pachamama", who was the spirit that represented the Earth. After this, we could then drink the cup. After finishing, the cup was to be passed to the next person, who would do the same thing. We were unsure of how to go through the steps at first, but eventually understood the cultural context and participated accordingly. It was the first time that we had experienced something truly unique to the Aymaran people, and I was grateful for it.
After our meal with the community, the women took their Aguayos away with the leftovers and we started taking our stuff down to the car. Lauren had gotten more sick, and had slept for the majority of the meeting. Getting her down the narrow path to the car was a challenge, and I took her stuff and asked if she wanted a piggy-back ride. She smiled, but was able to make it down by herself and told me so. She sat in the front of the car with John, who also was not good at sitting in the truck during the various bumps and general windiness that would follow when driving back up the mountain. After packing all of our stuff, we were off, and I was saying goodbye to Parque-Colani, maybe forever. The community had taught us so much, and we succeeded in accomplishing what we came there to do. In fact, we were actually able to collect much more data than we originally anticipated, and although the first few days had confused us, we came out on top with the signing of the community agreement.
Community Group Photo
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