27 Months of La Pura Vida

Just as I feared, January was a slow month, not a whole lot of movement on all the older projects which caused me to begin to think about new projects and how I can get them started.  I am really excited about an idea to use plastic soda bottles, filled with trash wrappers to construct a building (more on that later) but the biggest news is that my host mom, Ligia, was voted onto the new Asociacion de Desarrollo Integral (community development association) which is in charge of all community construction projects and the community that will allow me to move forward with any "larger" development projects.

New Committee

The Asociacion de Desarrollo Integral (ADI) is usually a CED PCV's primary contact in their community as they are usually fairly well organized, work with other local government organizations and for the most part are made up of people that are involved and invested in their community's future.  Unfortunately for me, I never really got the "in" with the ADI for whatever reason and was mainly relying on communication with the President whenever she had a chance.  The old association never invited me to meetings even though I pressed and offered my help to them...for whatever reason, they just never seemed to interested in working with me, which is why Ligia's new position could change a lot for me here.  In the meeting on Sunday, Ligia asked me to stand up and give a "speech" during which I maybeee was a little too harsh on the community about the perceived lack of interest in their own community's development (only 30 members of 350 showed up...) but also laid out plans and idea about how we can move forward and continue to develop the community not for the adults but for the youth and children and I think it went over fairly well. The best part is now I have direct access to the VP of the committee, I know when their meetings are and I have someone who is very supportive of almost all of the projects for the community...optimistic about what can come of this new development.

 

Community Benches

One such community project is the construction of 6-8 benches in the plaza right along the soccer field under a cluster of trees.  Last week, I received 3 donations from community members to buy cement and other supplies so that Jorge and I can use left over metal in the salon comunal to make the benches.  Seeing as this was a community project, the metal has been sitting in the salon for months, and the old ADI president had given me verbal permission to use the metal for the basketball court, I figured I would go ahead and buy all the materials before I actually had written permission from the ADI...mistake of course.  Since there was a new committee being elected, the old ADI didn't want to do anything that might effect their standing in the community and in my opinion just didn't feel like giving me permission to make the benches and have the new ADI take credit.  So whatever, I didn't get to make the benches this weekend like I planned.  The good news now is Ligia is 100% supportive and has already brought up this project in the meeting Sunday and the new ADI has invited me back to their first formal meeting Wednesday.  Again...I'm optimistic.

Bottle Buildings

I came across and organization called "Pura Vida" based out of Guatemala that uses an interesting way of recycling to build fairly large buildings (7m x 14m).   The process involves taking a plastic soda bottle and washing it out, then fill it with clean, washed plastic wrappers (chip bags, candy wrappers, grocery bags, etc.) until the bottle becomes firm.  With a support form of wood or metal, you line the bottles in rows to make the walls in between the forms.  On both sides of the bottles, you place chicken wire tight to the bottles so that they do not move and are more or less squished together.  Then, once you have all the walls built with bottles, you spread concrete over  the chicken wire making the outside appear to be made of pure concrete, covering any holes in the wall and allowing you to paint the outside of the building.  I'll admit,  I am awful at explaining the process In English, let alone Spanish, but the process involves recycling, waste reduction and construction...the definition of a Peace Corps project and definitely viable in the community.  I already spoke with Rafa and he was excited to see the process in action and loves the idea of recycling and waste reduction.  Michelle and I began walking through the community to begin collecting trash and bottles that are strewn throughout the community and have the support of the pulperia and the high school already with much explanation.  On Thursday, another community member is coming to the house to help design a "model house" (3m x 3m) that we hope to use as an example to demonstrate that is project is doable and makes sense (telling people you are going to build something out of trash doesn't always go over very well).  However, that point where this project could get bogged down is simply finding enough trash and bottles to make a building.  According to a PCV in Guatemala, to build a 7m x 14m building, I will need to collect and fill 8,000 bottles.  Michelle and I have spent the past 3 days filling bottles and have a decent pace to wash that trash, fill and compact the trash in the bottles but are only able to fill a bottle after about 30 minutes...it's a slow process and we will need to find another way we can get more people involved if we hope to build anything.  Hopefully we can decide where we want to build and what we want to build soon so I can give everyone an update.

 

This is an example of our building supplies:

And this is an example of a building in progress:

 

All photos taken from Pura Vida Organization's website

 

More information here:  http://www.puravidaatitlan.org/index.html

 

Recycling

Unfortunately nothing new from the grant organization and with school still on vacation, nothing new has started here.  Hopefully, once Rafa comes back to the community we can get to work.

Rural Tourism

At this point I would say it was a nice try...I don't think anything else is going to come from this but at least to got my name out there a little more.

Courts for Kids

Also no real update here....waiting until Edgar is back in the community so that we can begin to plan the cow auction and get ready for the CFK representative's visit on February 17th.

 

Anyway...thanks for reading as always.  Hope everyone back home is staying warm and surviving the snow.

 

-Conor