The community is responding according to how it knows best: huge groups are going into the lake to bail out the algae onto the shoreline; other groups (especially of women) meet to sing, pray and walk in the lake with a statue of the Virgin Mary. (I am surprised at how many people respond with a comment such as “God will take care of us” when I ask them what they think or what they are doing about the crisis.)

As phosphates are a major culprit, fortunately many people are also demanding an end to heavy fertilizer use in fields along the lake shore, and that a community pila, or washing place, be built in the center of town as well as along the lake shore. However, this doesn’t take care of the bathers, unless they put showers in, but I’ve never seen that in any community. It also doesn’t take care of people who depend on fishing. And, of course, the folks in this community who serve the tourists are worried; they have already been hurting due to the long rainy season. The community is also demanding a revitalization of the sewage treatment plant across the lake – destroyed by Hurricane Stan – and that new ones be built in all the communities.

As volunteers, we extranjeros walk a fine line.  We are trying to be respectful of all these efforts, for each has its value; trying to impart what information we have, and offering to help in ways they are requesting (like money for buses to take community members to the capital to demand government response). Some extranjeros feel none of these efforts will be sufficient, insisting that the bloom is imminently dangerous and that even boiling or Clorox won’t kill the toxicity. But this is a difficult stance to take. We might have the choice to bathe in agua pura or construct a well, but the average Guatemalan family does not. As usual, delicacy and sensitivity, along with honest responses to close friends, is the rule.

To learn more about the situation and see how volunteers are responding, check out Lake Atitlan Health Information.

This book is about community organizing by one of, if not the most, famous radicals/idealists of all time. Saul Alinksy began his work in the Chicago stockyards, was a radical icon in the 60’s, and worked towards achieving his ideals until he passed away in 1972. In Rules for Radicals, he lays out the strategies to help those have nothing – the “have nots” – get what they want.

Two of his most famous disciples are Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. After reading this book, you will recognize Alinsky’s tactics were used by Obama in his presidential campaign. You may say to yourself : “I don’t consider Hillary and Barack to be radicals.” Don’t let the word “radical” deter you from reading this book. The insights and principles discussed are sensible.

Alinsky emphasized that to be effective, you need to see things how they are, not how they should be:

“Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life.”

Some principles that I use in the way I think about volunteer work and the world:

Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. If your organization is small, hide your numbers in the dark, and make bold moves that will evoke the thought you have more people than you actually have.

Never go outside the experience of those you are trying to help. Think  about how they have lived and what they have seen. Stick to what they know, not what you know. If you are trying to build a connection with a group of people that has no more than a high school education or less, stories from your days in college won’t help your cause.

Look at the current fulfillment of your community needs hierarchy, and act accordingly. If a village lacks an adequate food supply, then any project you develop or help you provide better be directly related to increasing their food supply.

At the very least you are reading a book by someone who lived their life the way they wanted to, on their terms.

The town in which I am working has a considerable reputation for folks who take advantage of any opportunity and/or often seek solutions in which they somehow personally benefit. I suppose Camoapa, Nicaragua could be a notable example of the typical small scale corruption that exists all over the world but that is more frequently (and regrettably) attributed to Latin American politics. Of course I was not privy to this information right off the bat. It was something I had to figure out after weeks of offering ideas that I thought were great, but others seemed to dismiss as almost certainly useless. As a new program assistant looking to develop inroads into the larger donor circles of wealthier countries and/or foundations, I was imagining ways in which we could build capacity. As a program that serves only 22 children in a town of over 20,000, we are not exactly the perfect candidate for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, if you know what I mean. So off I went, spouting ideas that even to me, at times, seemed completely out of reach.

But something great has happened: nothing that I can take personal credit for, but something I was glad to be a part of. In order to build momentum for supporting the children and adolescents of Camoapa (many of whom have seriously been “left behind”), we at Hogar Luceros del Amanecer held a meeting and invited representatives from all the other children’s programs in town to help organize a Community Alliance. We invited the Vice-Mayor, whose primary function it is to serve the children. Knowing that he isn’t given too many responsibilities, or any really (he’s of a different political party than the Mayor), it was quite a disappointing blow when he informed us only minutes before the meeting that he would not be coming. But what initially seemed to be nothing but a letdown, turned out to be exactly what was needed to incite the community into action. How dare he not show up!? they screamed. So we stormed the castle. Community members wrote a letter to the Mayor, demanding his support. He called a meeting with his Vice-Mayor and his council members and anyone who was anyone was there, representing, including the local radio station and TV channels. A Youth Commission was reinstated, with three representatives from Hogar elected to the board. The first official and noticeably upbeat meeting was held on Monday and plans were made to hold regular weekly meetings of the same sort.

The community got its day in court! And this must be what it means to be a community organizer in Latin America. Poco a poco…