Some Months are More Challenging Than Others: Part 2

Something about materials delivery days means that before 6am there will be people on my porch trying to talk to me. Sorry friends, but if the sun isn’t up yet, I’m not up yet. I answered their questions by shouting at them from my bed and continued sleeping until 7:30. At 9:30 the store called to say they were on their way to the port (a 40 minute trip) with the first load. I ran the bell (a rusty hubcap) and set about finding my guys. I found 8 of them huddled on the floor of my host grandpa’s house with a boat motor in about 15 pieces. They tried to explain to me what was wrong with the motor but since I would only somewhat understand what was wrong if someone explained motor problems to me in English, all meaning was lost once it was put in Spanish. I think I got that the motor wouldn’t turn over. I let them fidget with it for an hour, then I started getting really antsy.

At 10:45 I started trying to tell them to give up on the motor and find another one. They went to ask Misa if they could use his motor, and Misa came over and then set to work try to fix the broken one. At 11:15 the delivery guy called me in a huff to ask where the hell we were. My guys told me to tell him we’d be there in 5 minutes. I rolled my eyes and repeated that, hung up on the delivery guy, and then asked my guys, ‘How in the world are we going to be at the port in 5 minutes when it is a 10 minute trip, and the motor is now in 20 pieces?’ They said, ‘We’re going to take Sergio’s motor instead’, and promptly left to get in the boat. They’d had a motor the whole time, they just didn’t want to have to wait at the port for the delivery guy, so they purposely stalled until they were sure he was there. UGH, BOYS.

We get to the port and the delivery guy had of course left the blocks of concrete at the top of the river bank, rather than putting them down near the water’s edge. My guys started yelling at him for leaving them so far away and the delivery guy started yelling at my guys for being so late. I swear, they’re all 6 year olds sometimes! I apologized to the delivery guy for our tardiness but told him that he had voicemails from me explaining that we had motor trouble so he had no right to be huffy and then told my guys that if they wanted the blocks left in a different place, they had better be there earlier next time. And we set off to work, without further trouble.

I hate materials delivery days. They are so physically demanding, not just on me, but on all of my community members and that makes them bicker more over who is working harder than who, who carries how much, etc. This round was particularly challenging, I think because it came right on the heels of the previous round of construction, because everyone is busy harvesting their rice crops, and because the mud this time of year is AWFUL. Carrying a 50 lb sack of sand up a river bank is not fun on dry dirt, but it is especially challenging when that river bank is soft non-weight-bearing mud. If you walk too slow or take too long finding your next step, you sink to your knees. If you go too fast or take a wrong step, you slip and fall. I asked them repeatedly before we started if they wanted to wait until summer- December- but they were all excited and wanted to continue NOW. So we fight with the mud.

Because of our late start on Wednesday, we didn’t finish. We got everything from the port to the community river bank, but not delivered to the houses before dark set in. So at twilight on Wednesday my guys decided they wanted to come back to finish the next morning while their wives cooked breakfast. That way they could do the job, go eat, and then we would be ready when the next load showed up mid morning. It’s a great plan for everyone with a wife at home to cook for them. Ahem. But I was outnumbered, so the plan stuck.

I got home exhausted on Wednesday night, washed a couple layers of mud and sand off and left my dirty clothes on my porch because they were too gross to allow in my house. I fried a peanut butter sandwich and passed out before 7pm.

At 6AM Thursday I ran the bell again and walked to the river. I stood on the river bank barefoot, drinking my coffee as the guys showed up. One of them asked me where my boots were. I explained that if they want to haul materials at 6am, by all means, I would not stop them, but this girl would not be hauling anything before she finished drinking her coffee. Another guy commented, ‘Amber, I have noticed, it seems to me that you are not happy in the mornings.’ Astute observation.

At 5PM Thursday we finished up our nearly 12 hour day. I had made a stew with rice for lunch so I ate some of the leftovers, bathed, and was in bed by 5:30PM, asleep by 6. Twelve hours later I got up again and we not only finished our last delivery of materials, but started laying foundations for 2 latrines.

Saturday my friend Kerri, another EH PCV, arrived.  We had been planning her visit for weeks. I have had trouble with a few of my guys getting them to take my recommendations, especially when I was trying to get them to change the way they built the latrines. In the last several months, talking with other PCVs building composting latrines, we have developed some best practices and developed some tweaks to the original design in order to make them better. Getting my guys to accept these changes was more difficult than getting a kid to eat broccoli. So we hatched a plan.

Kerri showed up dressed in her most professional Peace Corps attire, complete with makeup. I introduced her as ‘the engineer’ and only referred to her by her title, ‘Ingeniera’ in front of my community members. We talked about the changes I wanted my guys to make in English, and she acted like she was doing an inspection of the construction in Spanish. She gave them feedback sandwiches- positive, constructive, positive, and explained why some of the changes needed to be made.

While I had spent hours arguing with certain guys over small things, as soon as Kerri made the recommendations, they accepted them without argument. Sometimes you just have to bring in someone from outside to get their respect. Kerri stayed with me from Saturday to Sunday, and then Aja and Rachel, 2 non EH PCVs, arrived Monday morning. They wanted to learn how to build composting latrines. I set them to work with a group and made my workers feel special and knowledgeable by having them ‘train’ the girls in composting latrine construction. They seemed to have fun playing with cement and the guys begrudgingly even let them do stuff eventually. At one point Javier commented to Rachel, ‘I didn’t know gringas knew how to do real work, I just thought they did stuff with computers!’

Breaking down stereotypes, one little bit at a time.