Orientation

Andrea and I are doing the ESW orientation this week at Cornell University. It's very enjoyable and we are meeting some neat people. Not to mention, Ithaca is gorgeous! (or "gorges" as all their shirts say here). We should be flying out of NYC and getting into Tuxtla Gutiérrez on Friday of this week ( May 25).

It's exciting to finally get this project started, but I'm also nervous about how the project should turn out. We've had limited communication with Alex (the leader of COPIN), and so we have no idea what her intentions are for the summer. Andrea and I are so eager to take off with a participatory approach after our course this past semester, but our limitations will be in what direction Alex is wishing to take the project, as well as Andrea and I's lack of experience in actually working with a community like this.

One question is 'What exactly is a participatory approach?' Is it coming in with previously formatted popular education exercises while telling them "Do this, and trust me that you will learn something"? This seems rather methodical, and quite frankly, not much different than the typical expert coming in from the outside and telling them what to think. Quoting Arturo Ornelas in Nurtured by Knowledge ( sorry I'm quoting this so often, it is the book I'm currently reading)

"In doing participatory action-research (PAR) you enter into a process as an ignorant. You start by recognizing your ignorance and working with it...You do not doubt that you will have doubts! But if you begin, already thinking that you have the truth and the tools to go with that truth, then it is not possible to find reality."

So I guess our next steps should be figuring out in what we are ignorant and in what do we think we know the 'truth'. I would say, first of all, that we are ignorant of the community dynamics of Damasco. We know some of the history of Damasco, but only a small glimpse of it. I won't pretend that we fully know the reason that Damasco moved from Chamula, other than religious differences. This will be something that we will need to ask the community about. We know that machismo is prevelant and that men are in charge of the household, but we don't know to what extent women are allowed to participate in daily life. COPIN has of yet had a women's empowerment side to the project, because of the fear that the women will be beaten if they participate. Hopefully, throughout the summer, we can try to determine how much validity is in this statement. Maybe this is true, or maybe it is just a rationalization for not taking action. We know that the community is fairly organized and they have community meetings, but we don't know to what extent they are organized, nor do we know to what extent the community leaders have control. And a big question we need to be answering this summer...We know that the community has sanitation problems. But what we don't know is the extent of these problems and exactly what illnesses affect the people of Damasco on account of these problems. Nor do we know the people's perceptions of these problems. Is curing these sicknessess a high priority for the community, and if not, then why not? Do they understand the link between sanitation and health? If not, then what is the best way to approach it. Talking about coming in knowing the "truth", as engineers, we are coming in, as Arturo warned, knowing that building toilets will improve the health of the community. When someone in the community asks us (assuming some know spanish) "Why are you here?", then the obvious answer is "To build you a toilet." This answer seems to be about five steps ahead from where we want to start, and is by no means the final step we want to take in the process, but I don't think that I could answer the question " We want to use a participatory process so that the members of your community take agency in making changes to your own lives, one of these changes being the sanitary treatment of your waste." First of all, that is a mouthful, and second of all, I doubt that I could adequately translate that to a point where I don't receive a blank stare in response ( I sometimes get a blank stare when I try to explain participation in english!)

It might turn out that participation will just have to be something in the back of our minds while we progress through the summer. Andrea and I will be following the lead of Alex as we begin our project, and she will be the one introducing us to the community. It might just be that our plan for the next few weeks will be asking Alex the right questions.

Volamos para Mexico el viernes!!!