It has definitely been the theme of the month so far. Starting with the invitation by a Swiss NGO called Cielo Azul to give a series of workshops on water conservation and the benefits of dry latrines, I had a chance to investigate more on this vital resource and learn about technologies for water conservation. The workshops took place in a Kishwa community called Topo about 40 minutes from Otavalo. I was immediately impressed with the school there and all its resources. After working with the Awá education system for almost two years, I have become accustomed to very basic facilities. Multiple classrooms, a conference room with computer and projector, multiple dry and water latrines, a rain water harvesting tank, this school seemed to have more installations than the school I attended in France.
My contact at this Swiss NGO was my good Sicilian friend Mauro who used to work with me at the FCAE. I told him that I needed some community action, that the office was driving me crazy so he gave me this opportunity. I gave workshops to a total of 7 workshops to about 400 students from 3rd to 10th grade. It was a lot of fun for the most part and I was fascinated by the enthusiasm and hospitality of these young Kishwas. It is a radical change from working with the Awá who are extremely timid and reserved around foreigners. The Awá are obviously much more isolated living in their forest and therefore haven’t developed the social skills these Kishwa kids displayed. All of them greeted me and thanked me for the workshops including several teachers. This hardly ever happens with the Awá, they seldom show gratitud.
In fact, returning to the FCAE office, I was thrown back into the proposal writing process of a pretty big USAID grant. Since the request for applications was all in english, I lead this process and received very limited support for the rest of the staff. Two days before the deadline I finally presented the work in progress to the Awá president and his counsel. They approved the objectives and planned activities and helped me with details regarding logistics and picking which communities who would benefit from the different pieces of the project. The main focus is on water conservation and treatment to improve the health of Awá people and protect their territory from different sources of pollution, particularly from domestic and industrial contaminants. As always we manage to complete all the requested parts of the proposal right before the deadline after working late and naturally did not get a “thank you” for the effort. This typical of the Awá and I must admit it can get a bit frustrating as you feel used and not appreciated for your hard work.
This is even harder to cope with when you see most of the Awá leaders just hanging out in the office not being productive. They sit in meetings but hardly ever participate only the president and two of his counsel members ever speak. It all comes down to the motivation level: many Awá leaders don’t seem to be genuinely interested in helping their people improve their quality of life. This is why I miss working with the communities so much; there you can see the harsh reality of their lives and help them figure out solutions. The office is a cold, steril environment to work in; disconnected from te people and ideals you are working for.
