¡Saludos desde Guatemala!

Quetzaltrekkers (QT) leads treks through some of the most culturally, historically, and geographically interesting places in Guatemala. Whether clients want to summit the tallest volcano in Central America (Tajumulco! Amazing hike!), ascend steep rock walls overlooking Xela, or spend six days traversing the Maya villages between Nebaj and Todos Santos, QT offers treks for all skill levels and provides all gear at no additional cost. Plus, 100% of the treks’ profits benefit the Escuela de la Calle (EDELAC), a school for disadvantaged and abused children in Xela, as well as the Hogar Abierto, a dormitory for children lacking safe homes.

To be honest, I have sustained a crush on Quetzaltrekkers since I first learned about the organization last year during my time with Manna Project International. Hiking for a good cause? Count me in. Also, I love the simplicity of the idea behind QT’s creation. With 33 volcanoes and a vibrant Maya culture that dates back centuries, Guatemala is a hotspot for both outdoor and anthropology enthusiasts. Why not use these markets for charity?

However, as I have learned, no matter the practicality of an idea, social change is anything but simple. In fact, “community development” may be one of the most difficult concepts to define. What is community development? How is it attained? What does a “developed” community actually look like? My MPI experience has biased me to view holistic approaches as the only avenue to achieve community development. During the upcoming months, I look forward to challenging and expanding these perceptions of community development, as I volunteer primarily with the fundraising branch of this youth-focused organization.

Ginny just finished a thirteen-month commitment as Program Director with Manna Project International-Guatemala and is returning to Guatemala to work with Quetzaltrekkers. To hear more about Quetzaltrekkers or working as a volunteer hiking guide in Central America, check out “Quetzaltrekkers: Into the Clouds,” parts 1, 2, and 3 by Samantha Camarra or “New to Nica” by Alexa Williams. For more on Ginny’s experiences in Guatemala, check out her blog.

1. Establish what the needs and interests are within the community. As Kati Mayfield pointed out, communities may have a logic in setting priorities that isn’t immediately obvious. Take some time to get to know the place before expending resources on a project that may not get earnest community backing, while also acknowledging your own interests and unique skill set.
2. Create a project that is appropriate for your timeframe. Whether it is maintenance of a garden or construction of a house, you can’t necessarily count on future volunteers to sustain a half-started project.
   

   WorldTeach program site in Colombia

3. If it is a long-term project, establish means for its sustainability. Identify a local team willing to oversee the project’s continuation. If you anticipate excess donated funds, those are best entrusted to an organization with oversight and accounting safeguards rather than to an individual. Also, what challenges may arise in the future? For instance, a photocopier may be a great addition to a school, but in the future will teachers be able to acquire and afford toner?
4. Write a proposal. Clearly outline materials and manpower necessary with precise cost estimates, and set a timeline. If you will be actively soliciting donations, the proposal shouldn’t be so limited that the funds cannot be applied elsewhere if you overfundraise or end up with too little funds to start the project. That may be deceptive to donors. At the same time, alternative plans should be germane to the project’s primary intention, be it adding to a school library or creating a safe play area for kids. If you are working within a bigger volunteer institution, make sure you understand their guidelines for donations and projects.
5. Get your community back home invested and informed. Keep a blog, write a newsletter, start a penpal exchange. Remember that in-kind donations (shipping is the biggest one) can be as valuable as cash, but understand donor expectations (can you provide a tax-deductible receipt? Do they expect one?).
6. Have fun!

Flora Lindsay-Herrera is currently a Fulbright Fellow in Montevideo, Uruguay. For more about her experiences, check out her blog. For more resources on community development, check out Idealist.org’s Community Action Center.

The Costa Rican Institute of Tourism opted not to renew its contract to place a CREST teacher in Puerto Jimenez for the next term. I know these things happen. The tourist season was slow this year, with the recession. I’m sure the ICT budget is tight.

What my classroom in Puerto Jimenez will look like for the forseeable future...

A native speaker could still be here. The local chamber of tourism on its own could bring a in teacher. Someone from the large new group of Peace Corps volunteers could land here. CREST could get another contract in the future.

But it still feels like something got pulled out from under me.

What is the point of a development program if it is stopped when things get difficult? Anyone who’s ever tried to do something to change knows how much easier it is with some outside motivation: a class, a workout buddy, a book club. Without that, things get so hard.

When you multiply life improvement on a scale of tens or hundreds of people, the importance of an outside assisting influence is multiplied as well. I’m reminded of a recent This American Life piece on Haiti. The impoverished island nation has been receiving millions of dollars in aid for years, with little signs of progress. One reason the program suggested for that was because development groups are constantly losing project funding or seeing money diverted to different projects. There’s a lack of consistent commitment and direction, and (admittedly not having been in on whatever discussions took place), that’s what it feels like in Puerto Jimenez.

I feel a sense of ownership about the community. Since I heard the news, I’ve been slightly tempted to figure out a way to stay and keep doing it. Were this a place where I thought I could thrive long-term, I actually might. I hope I can at least help the chamber find someone.

The one thing I stressed over and over to my students was that no matter what we do in class, how well they do in English hinges on how much they practice and work at it in their lives. If they learned anything from me, I hope they learned that. Because, for the moment, it’s truly the case.

Kent Green is currently teaching English in Puerto Jimenez, Costa Rica through Costa Rican English for Sustainable Tourism, a project of ALIARSE. For more on his experiences,  check out his blog or follow him on Twitter.

Greg Mortenson's stomping grounds (via Stig Nygaard/Flickr)

1) Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson: After a hiking accident attempting to reach the summit of K2, the villagers of Korphe in remote, rural Pakistan saved Mr. Mortenson’s life. In return, he promised to build them a school. Thus began an inspiring journey that has changed the assumptions on access to education, the role of women and the ability of foreign NGOs to affect change in one of the conflict hotbeds of the globe.

2) The Places in Between, Rory Stewart. Mr. Stewart had set out to walk across Asia – and then 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan were poised to stop him from fulfilling his goal. However, they did not; this book chronicles a man’s chilling solo walk through Afghanistan in 2002.

3) Mountains beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, Tracy Kidder. Tracy Kidder records the life story of Dr. Paul Farmer, an epidemiologist, professor and the Founder of Partners in Health, one of the organizations that has led the charge in the recovery from the earthquake in Haiti and has innovated in the field of community health enterprises and medically-related development work.

4) Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, John Wood. How a personal revelation and the boldness to follow through with it on the part of a former Microsoft employee sparked the foundation of Room to Read and a commitment to children’s access to reading and literature worldwide. Especially good for those contemplating a professional or lifestyle change.

5) Chasing the Flame, Samantha Power. After the Pulitzer-prize winning A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide, Power focused on the story of Sergio Vieira de Mello, a UN official who served in some of the world’s most treacherous conflict zones. A biography full of reflections on the United Nations, peacekeeping, personal courage, and the dangers of aid work.

6) The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton. Beautiful essay vignettes on why we travel, how we travel, and how it changes us.

7) Travels with Herodotus, Ruszard Kapuscinski. For Kapuscinsci, Herodotus was the “first globalist.” In this book, the author parallels his own journalistic findings on a journey across the world to those of the ancient historian.

Which books do you turn to for inspiration on the road?

Roxanne is currently designing and implementing projects in conflict and post-conflict communities worldwide. For more of her thoughts, follow her on Twitter or visit her blog.

Antigua, Guatemala: Home to the most beautiful McDonald's in the world?

Antigua, Guatemala boasts: three stores selling bagels, a frozen yogurt parlor, a McDonald’s with a flowering courtyard and views of a volcano, and a former percussionist of the Buena Vista Social Club crooning into Wednesday night air.

What Antigua, Guatemala lacks: immediately accessible manifestations of conflict. The tourist trail does not bear the same visible scars from the civil war. According to the Commission on Historical Clarification (the Guatemalan Truth Commission), the toll of the conflict amounted to:

• the destruction of 626 villages;
• the displacement of 1.5 million Guatemalans and creation of an additional 150,000 refugees in Mexico;
• death or disappearance of 200,000 people – with Mayans forming 83% of the victims of the conflict.

Women have been particularly hard hit not only during the atrocities, but also in the wake of the war. The female homicide rate, dubbed femicide, rose by more than 117% between 2001 and 2006. Investigations are lacking, at times leading to a legal process for only 40 cases in a total of 2,400.

My main purpose during my fellowship placement in Guatemala  is to contribute to the reintegration of victims of the conflict in peaceful, lawful communities through a series of programs drawing on concepts of conflict management, psychology, social anthropology and capacity development.

Perhaps the hardest challenge, however, is wrapping my own mind around the types of worlds that can coexist within these borders: The world of unreported abuse and failure to protect, through preventative measures or a justice process, reigns supreme a 20-minute drive away from the frozen yogurt parlor. Different cultural understandings of the position of women in a community, as well as norms of modesty and stoicism, can make it harder to bring the injustice to light. And every night that ends in the company of an ex-pat potluck dinner is succeeded by a morning interview revealing that a 13-year-old girl was forced into prostitution by her own uncle or a visit to a neighborhood in which women cook over burning trash.

Welcome to the schizophrenia of Latin America, post-conflict development and life as an expatriate.

For an approach to different women’s issues in Central America, read Emily Mew’s account of her time in Nicaragua. For more of Roxanne’s experiences with conflict-related work, follow her on Twitter or read her blog.

The difficulties of leaving, captured in Colombian graffiti.

Field work requires comfort with transience. Many development workers parachute into places, build their lives from scratch, weave themselves into communities and are subsequently yanked away, to a new project or some other life demand.

As I wrapped up my last workshop for women ex-combatants and victims of conflict in Colombia, discussing community organization strategies for sustaining the impact of our gatherings, the women had one question: “When are you coming back?”

The truth is that I do not know. My fellowship requires that I design and implement projects in conflict and post-communities worldwide, always charting new ground for myself, veering away from the familiar. If love for the community and the project were enough, I would not have left Colombia yet. But for now, I boarded a one-way flight with no firm plans of return. This begs two questions: First, how do field workers relate to their projects once they are no longer on the ground?

There are transitional mechanisms that can sustain impact after formal project completion:

• Training community leaders in conducting a version of the project in the future, thus multiplying its outreach effects;
• Compiling archives of materials and strategies used to preserve institutional memory;
• Establishing monitoring & evaluation systems to gather data and discussing future changes and applications.

The second question is more introspective: What role will this project continue to play in your life after your departure? Was it a chapter in which you gained experience and gave a bit of yourself? Was it a stepping stone to a continuing project? Was it an escape from another world? Trying a new career? Confronting a fear? Do you plan to come back? Explaining that “this may have been it” to project beneficiaries is always hard; it creates feelings of abandonment and sadness in all of us. Somewhere far away, another community awaits your ideas and your service. Once you embed yourself within it, what role will this community continue to play in your heart?

How do you deal with the emotional and professional consequences of leaving a project? In what form do you stay involved?

Following Colombia, Roxanne is now in Guatemala. For a sneak peek into her observations,  follow her on Twitter or read more thoughts about impact on her blog.

Company in the indigenous village, Amazon

In an indigenous community of the Amazonian rainforest, the line between family and community becomes blurry. The  village consists of five inhabitants, all of whom are related by blood or marriage.

Every November, tribe members flock to the maloka, the hut-like structure that houses activities from food production to celebrations, to give thanks and remember their ancestors. Part of the ritual involves jumping on a log decorated with the painting of an anaconda, creating a sound so formidable that it echoes through the jungle to Leticia, the small Colombian port on the banks of the Amazon. During the rest of the year, the sounds of the jungle are interspersed with salsa tunes from a battery-operated radio, the mumblings of a parrot and the conversation five people can create.

Salento, Zona Cafetera

Wedged between a cloud forest and a valley of wax palm trees, the highest palm trees in the world, lies Salento, a village of no more than 4,000 permanent residents.

It is possible to walk and feel like you have seen every face before. 4,000 people in Salento can create the kind of vibrancy that is missing from a university campus on a snowy February Monday morning. A couple is dancing in the middle of the main square, men are playing chess by the church, two younger boys strum a guitar by an arepa stand. Salento is tucked away in the Zona Cafetera in such a way that it remains unknown to many travelers. In this quasi-isolation, its residents seem to live in bliss.

View from the coffee finca, Salento

Coffee finca

At the coffee finca, the bean tastes as sweet as a blueberry when picked directly off a tree. Five men work here without many modern amenities. Peeking into the lifestyle of a coffee farmer or a man in his mid-70s living in an Amazonian indigenous village makes one feel privileged and voyeuristic at once, as if you are experiencing a slice of the world steeped in beauty and at the same time invading a sacred space with curiosity. And yet, one wants to ask:

“Do you feel like you are missing anything? What do you long for but do not have here?”

In Salento, the men at the coffee finca laugh nervously and respond “Girls. Company. Someone with whom to dance rumba.”

In the Amazon, the 22-year-old son of the Chief of the tribe says he cannot think of anything – but quickly adds, “It is nice when people come to visit. It is nice to talk.”

Life in conflict and post-conflict zones can be isolating, nostalgia-inducing, lonely. Few are immune from the yearning for companionship, from the aid worker to the indigenous Amazonian. The stoicism and self-sufficiency of Salento or the Amazon are one charmed glimpse into navigating the solitude.

Roxanne is currently designing and implementing projects in communities of conflict worldwide. For more about her experiences in Colombia, check out her blog.

blueEnergy has spent most of our time helping community members see, feel and realize the benefits of these systems. In short, we created a “need” for our systems.

When I helped perform our system maintenance checkups on our microenergy individual home solar systems in Monkey Point I was astounded by the gratitude of the community members. Families were now cooking dinner with the light from the three light bulbs their systems powered. Our aim is to ensure our communities don’t need to use dirty fuels like kerosene for light. Another microenergy borrower was badly burned a while ago when her thatched roof house caught fire from the kerosene lamp and burned to the ground. She will always carry the scars from this incident.

Now that we’ve succeeded through the “need” stage, we are working to find ways for communities to generate income from renewable energy to pay for maintenance and ultimately be self-sustaining. We want to ensure that these communities have the funds and knowledge available to buy parts, fix and maintain these systems.

One idea that I helped study was building an acopio, or a community seafood freezer powered by our systems. We studied how this could improve the fishing businesses of the communities and reduce trips to Bluefields to receive ice. After studying the technical capacity of, for example, a freezer, we realized that our systems couldn’t provide the necessary power. But, we are trying to think creatively like this and find ways for productive uses of our systems.

I am curious what other projects people have seen or experienced with finding productive uses for rural renewable energy systems. Starting agri-businesses and textile operations are commonly used. We even have a PH.D. student from Berkeley studying the ways to use biofuels for energy, and possibly creating commercial activity.

There are many options that exist and it can be difficult to replicate systems because every region is different with their own challenging obstacles. But an open forum is always the best way to share ideas and I’d love to hear what you have to say.

For more on the environment and other sustainability related issues, check out these other posts from La Vida Idealist bloggers.

On the conservation front, we have been under attack because of the restrictions we put on access to the Bladen Nature Reserve (BNR). Only researchers and students are allowed to enter the park after being awarded very specific permits. Belizeans are putting pressure on Ya’axché to open up the protected area for use by all locals. As we continue to emphasize that we are protecting the natural resources of BNR for future generations of Belizeans, we are reminded that most researchers and students entering BNR are foreigners.

On the humanitarian front, I have been concerned that we may be creating a “culture of dependency” among our buffer communities. As our projects focus on poverty alleviation, community development work is integral. This includes agro-forestry projects, organic gardening endeavors, gender-specific programs, and business development training. Because our funders like to see the direct benefits to the villages, we are often just handing free tools, seedlings, machinery, irrigation systems, and supplies to our participating farmers. While this really helps to jump start enthusiasm, it doesn’t build ownership of the equipment. It isn’t surprising to see a $3000 rotor-tiller sitting dormant in utter disrepair because no one takes responsibility for its care. But even so, communities are starting to just expect these “benefits” of their impoverished condition and are putting Ya’axché in the role of a reluctant Santa Claus.

Despite these hard days, it pays to have just one farmer attending an integrated pest management training express particular interest in organic gardening, or one young girl on a marketing field trip ask me to help with establishing a women’s group in her village. It reminds me that we are doing good, and that we’ll continue doing good.

For more information on conservation work in Southern Belize, check out the Ya’axché Conservation Trust website.

Where I volunteer, in the community of Pucará, most people live off small-scale agricultural production. But the community has plans to construct a paradero along the main road, which would house a community-run visitor center, restaurant and Internet cafe. From there, local guides can take visitors on hikes through some of the most stunning and biodiverse forests in the world. According to the Intag Cloud Forest Reserve website, this area contains “approximately 15-17% of the world’s plant species and nearly 20% of its bird diversity (1,666). For both groups, the endemism is astonishingly over 40%.” Across the street, the Intag Spanish School already employs local youth as Spanish teachers. It offers immersion lessons to travelers while providing an economic incentive for the town’s young people to remain in Pucará.

From what I can see, there is a deliberate strategy taking shape here. That’s good, because ever since tourism began to pick up in the 1990s, tourists have concentrated exorbitant wealth in a handful of locations. (Quito, Baños and the Galápagos Islands come to mind.) And even within a city like Quito, travelers tend to favor La Mariscal District (aka Gringolandia) and El Centro Histórico. If they venture out into the country’s national parks, tour companies often make deals with specific lodges and guides, bypassing local communities. It’s a serious problem and one worth addressing: how can the average traveler help protect the natural environment and respect the communities he or she visits? Well friend, have we got some links for you!

If you’re interested in minimizing your environmental impact and providing direct financial benefits for local people and conservation efforts, check out these helpful resources below:

- The International Volunteerism Resource Center, provided by the folks at Idealist.org, can help you make informed decisions about volunteering abroad.

- The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) is committed to helping organizations, communities and individuals promote and practice the principles of ecotourism.

- Responsible Travel offers sustainable travel ideas and locally distinctive, authentic holidays that are better for destinations and local communities.

- Volunteer South America regularly updates a list of hundreds of free and low-cost volunteer programs. If you’re thinking of volunteering in South America, look no further.

- Tourism Concern fights exploitation in tourism and campaigns for more ethical, fairly traded forms of tourism.

Check out these posts by other La Vida Idealist bloggers for more on the environment and sustainability in Latin America.