My counterpart never stops talking about his “plan estrategico” that they’re making in the office for the upcoming years. It sounds ridiculous to me every time, as if we’re making a strategic plan to drop stinkbombs on other competing tourism sites. Nevertheless, I too have been doing some strategic planning in my head – what am I going to be doing here?
Thinking forward, it has been pretty eye-opening to see just how big of an operation Chone is. The city apparently has about 800 employees, and is already running with some big projects. They are currently rebuilding the municipal administrative building and are designing a project to manage the sewage lake which is not big enough for the growing population. Soon they will break ground on a dam upriver, and it will be one of the largest in the country, some 200 feet high. Additionally, there are approximately 40 schools, and a significant university. So where do I fit in all of this? This isn’t the stereotypical go to a mud-hut village and build a bridge scenario.
I’m working with municipal office of tourism, the environment, and international relations (weird, I know). There’s way too much work to be done in these areas for the 3 people that work in the office. I’ve been shadowing the guys, which has involved some cool trips to pretty rural towns to give talks promoting environmental consciousness or addressing some environmental issue like drinkable water. Sadly, however, it seems that there’s mostly a lot of talking, and not much doing. This is really challenging for me, being a go-getter, but it has helped me think ahead to what I want to be doing here, and equally as important, how I want to do it.
I’ve already gotten started working on teaching people here to make blogs for tourism and publicity. I’ve been making a guide in Spanish on making a blog with WordPress, and tomorrow I’ll be helping the first group make a site. It will be very interesting to see how it goes – I still don’t know the level of technological fluency here. All of it could be really straightforward, or really challenging. A lot of computer stuff feels overwhelming to the people here, but WordPress has a nice interface and a Spanish translation so that should help a lot. I’m really excited to get going on this; I think it’s essential to bring Chone forward a bit.
Most of all Chone needs to improve its environmental practices, or it truly risks becoming a humanitarian tragedy. The canton has been nearly completely deforested, which has exacerbated flooding and erosion problems, and also created drought problems that didn’t exist before. The people throw trash and toxic waste directly onto the ground or into the river. My compañeros in the office give a lot of community and schools talks to promote better waste management and reforestation, to which the people nod their heads in agreement without changing their habits.
I need to continue to define my role here, which will involve doing things a bit differently than my counterpart. The environmental talks they give are good, but don’t stick. They try to tell the people that money isn’t everything, and that they should value the natural surroundings instead of exploiting them. I don’t disagree with this, but I think we have to be more pragmatic. These people are poor, and don’t have the luxury of sacrificing income that their family needs. Since nearly every hectare of land here is farmed, I think it’s absolutely essential that we promote better agricultural practices. Such practices would not only improve the environmental state here, but also provide more stable and sustainable income to the people. Agriculture is a bit outside the domain of my counterpart (and outside my areas of knowledge), so I need to make myself more independent of the office rather than my counterpart’s assistant.
I agree on being pragmatic, but you do need to challenge people as well. Don’t make excuses for them. Poverty isnt the reason people throw trash on the street.
Anyways, what I wanted to say is: how restricted are you to computer geek stuff? have you read up on the agri organizations that develop farmer networks with cell phones? For example:
http://imerrill.umd.edu/globaldigital/2010/04/29/cell-phone-applications-help-farmers-in-uganda/
I’m sure there are lots of other applications of this type of concept. Who knows, maybe some would involve computers instead of / in conjunction with cell phones.
Think big buddy
Dr Griswold – thanks for commenting! I am not at all restricted in my work, and if I try to stick with geek stuff, I’ll be really bored. Also, the environment here is more urgent than promoting tourism with web pages.
Needless to say, this stuff is really hard, but thanks for challenging me. It’s pretty easy to feel pessimistic. I do need to challenge the people here – it’s not being done enough. I need to find a way to blow up people’s mindsets about the environment. I am really eager to hear what other people have done. PC hasn’t really provided us much preparation in this regard.
I am really pragmatic, and it does seem like working with the farmers could be the way to go. They have the most intimate relationship with the land here, and have much to gain personally from improvements to the region as a whole. We’ll see – there’s a ton I need to learn here.
It’s exciting, Reid, to read about someone who’s abroad trying to make plans of how to education people of how to help the world. I just got off another friend’s vacation blog and this is a nice contrast with some real substance. I wish you well in turning educating talks into changed behavior. Reminds me of a saying in my field that if they’re not learning, you’re not teaching.
You may want to check out http://sustainableharvest.org/ which is an organization doing exactly what you’re talking about in terms of promoting sustainable land-use techniques with indigenous farmers. I’ve seen first hand the work they do in Central America and it’s incredible.
Good luck with your work!