Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Lather, rinse, repeat.

About four years ago the town I live in had a new school built. In the compound in one of the two buildings that contains classrooms there is one room that has a padlock and is not used as a teaching space. Inside on the floor are sacs of rice, condensed milk, and sugar. On the ceiling are two massive air conditioners. I'm fairly sure these are the only air conditioners within an hour and a half, and if not they are definitely belonging to a group smaller than a dozen. This room was built with the exclusive purpose of housing computers, the school has solicited several government organizations and one NGO but still remains forsaken.

A Peace Corps volunteer in a different part of the country is organizing a large shipment of computers from an NGO in the states (around 400), and all the other volunteers in country who are interested in computers for the schools in their communities are collaborating with him. The principle and I decided we could probably manage to raise half the money for the computers and get the other half from the mayors office. One of theses computers costs 86.25 including shipping. One of the comities that was formed at the general assembly was to raise the money for those computers. That's 258.75 in two months—trickier than it seems. A day of working in the corn fields will get you four dollars, a bus driver makes ten dollars a day, and people who work in stores in San Vicente make 3.50 a day. During the second training one of the technical sessions we had was learning how to make shampoo.

“It won't pass.” Julio said looking right at me. A man in his earlier sixties, button up shirt, and an almost clean shave were in not for one hair that in the middle of his check that is almost half an inch long now. “It won't pass.” He says again continuing his forlorn gaze, his brow furrowed and holding his hands completive covered with shampoo slowly dripping into a large bowl full of shampoo that we made the day before. The shampoo continues to slime from his hands and he stares me right in the eyes and says again “it won't pass. It's too thick.” and just looks at me mouth agape I stare right back at his extremely troubled face, I suppress laughter and try to stay calm; I wanted to laugh because how seriously he was taking the shampoo too thick and also because I didn't want to completely disappoint everyone. “I see that.” More time passes of us doing the same thing until he says it again “okay, I said. Maybe we added too much salt. We can add some more water and it might make it less thick. Or what do you want to do?”

He touched the surface of the shampoo gingerly and again and tries pouring it into the bottle again, but it just won't pass. “It will not pass.”

The other group who is also trying to fill up that bottles from an other batch made the day before is having the same problem, as Julio stated the shampoo won't pass into the shampoo bottles. He cleans off his hands and picks up one of the instruction sheets, and goes over every possible step out loud emphasizing quantities and verbs; he asks everyone if the read allowed step had been completed properly, and if so, did we do it exactly as the sheet instructs. While he is rereading the instructions out loud an other member of the computer committee has added water and the shampoo passes. However a little too much water was added it passes too quickly and we fill 20% more bottles than the recipe is suppose to make. Which turns out to be a happy mistake because out customers were equally happy with the new batch.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Although the storm is coming, the tide is already turning.

I am moving to a small house by myself in Sept; the house is an interesting place. So quiet and loud, the roof makes a constant ticking sound I think that comes from it contracting or expanding under the heat of the sun; like your car in the driveway. Under a light rain makes a pleasant sound and under a heavy rain make an equally unpleasant sound. Made of cinder block with the tin roof, lacks electricity, water, and a complete floor (all cement but parts rock like icebergs protrude several inches). I can pass electricity with an extension from the land ladies house but water I will have to walk the 200 ft everyday. In a red plastic chair directly in the center, I sit in the cold-gray heat of the house fiddling with an old shop light trying to fix it. The house is void of all direct light and noise other than the ticking and the neighbors regeaton in the distance. I sit in the gray working to erase it, or at least make it a few shades lighter. The house seems to be empty but the longer I spent in there tinkering the more I realized it is a silent battle ground. A scorpion the size of half a PB and J sandwich, surveys the smooth surfaces of the slanting ceiling; silently sitting passing time until it is that to strike. I stand on a stack of plastic chairs to pass a electric cord from the one large room to one of two smaller side rooms a grass hopper as big as the other half of the PB and J sandwich catches my eye as it boldly stays put as I pass the cord centimeters away from it. I openly express to myself a desire to see the two halves meet. A prodigiously sized lizard sneaks over the wall and under the ceiling. In the same small room to which I am passing the cord lives a small host of bats, maybe twelve. They fly in circles around the room and into the larger room on and off the whole time I am there. I have been assured however that the bats are easily made to vacate by use of smoke “they just hate it” my future lady easily convinced me. So bats, scorpions, lizards, giant crickets? The thing you have to remember is that all these neat “throw ins” are pretty much par for the course anywhere in the boondocks, in fact my least favorite 'throw ins' are rats and I have yet to see one in my hopefully not so gray future. However my current house is quite comfortable in the way of water, electricity, and furniture: a lack of funds will leave me in the plastic chairs for a bit. So what does this palace cost? 30 bones a month. By the time I move in I will have been living under the direct care of a family for 7 months, and I truly loved my time with my families and will continue passing time with them while here. However I look forward to being the only one with veto power in my living space, possibly for the first time.

PS

I am also unreasonable excited about buying beans from one of the many farmers here. They're only 7 dollars for 20lbs that like 10,000 beans for a damn dollar!11!!!!one!!