We had to scoop our jaws off the floor the other day when a lovely indigenous couple that is one of our main counterparts in the church informed us that he and his wife had decided to buy us land so we would have somewhere to plant. They wound up getting us about an acre very close to our house with a lot of creek frontage, a variety of fruit trees already planted, and a small waterfall. We´re hoping to install the pico-hydroelectric system, for which I have everything but the tubing, on that property and possibly make a charging station so that community members can charge a battery if they want.
An indebted thank you goes out to whoever was praying about our road. The answer came in two forms. 1) Our government officials visited us at our request, promised to send the same slackers back to do a decent job, and charged the community with keeping track of what they did. 2) Most community members either a) continued to do nothing or b) continued complaining and continued to do nothing; and the good Lord gave me the motivation and patience to do exactly what I did not want to do: babysit the road crew.
you can see the excavator bucket trying to keep the dump truck from flipping while the grader pulls it out... one of several "incidents"
Donning my most professional attire and armed with a camera and notebook, and pretending to know how to build a road, I proceeded to regurgitate everything that community members had told me needed to be done, often looking at my watch and utilizing a technique rarely encountered in Panamanian employment: encouragement.
people that only complain are also likely to do stupid things like get their truck stuck on top of a pile of material and then abandon it, blocking the road.
To my surprise, it worked! I coordinated with community members to keep the workers fed and happy and their attitude towards me shifted from annoyance and resentment to acceptance and maybe even appreciation, even though I fended off the majority of community members offering cash to do private work on public time. After a week and a half, I had learned a lot, got to ride in some snazzy machinery, and we now have a pretty decent road.
Our last and most daunting news is that a project proposal we wrote for MBMSI has been approved. It´s about $150k to build water systems and latrines and to conduct educational health workshops in 7 indigenous communities in the far reaches of Darién. The figure is actually outrageously cheap because our goal is to utilize existing infrastructure from recent, failed government projects in the majority of the communities. The timeline is an optimistic 2.5 years. Here is a copy of the proposals if you like to read dry business documents. Aquaducts , Latrines
We´d like to express our sincere gratitude to yall that support us in your thoughts and prayers. Let us know how we can return the favor.
cheeky... very cheeky
Good work with the road! That community is so lucky to have you guys! Congrats on the MBMSI award! That is awesome! I had a feeling you were gonna get it back when you were writing it. You need any help carrying it out? 🙂 The picture and the cheeky comment is tooooo cute. Hugs to you all! Love and miss you guys! Much aloha, Vicki