Up early this morning to ready ourselves for our initiation to the project we will be working on and the philosophy behind Free the Children and the Me to We projects. The community we will be visiting is Bella Vista, a small community along the amazon river ( of which there is a multitude) . This community is one which other communities children come to for school. About 82 children study at this school. However, a number of the class rooms have started to disintegrate due to the climate and we are going to be working with the community members to build three new class rooms.
The partnership philosophy that Free the Children has is that the community as a whole must be empowered in the process and they are expected to contribute 10% of the cost of the project and a minga ( community work party) must also participate and work side by side with us. Our project with Bella Vista is the first one for this community and their first experience with Me to We. We are given extra preparation about what our presence will mean and possible interpretations and expectations of us. We don our steel toed rubber boots, hard hats, work gloves and goggles, rain gear, water jugs and head up river for 35 mins to the community.
We arrive amidst a soccer tournament and villagers are all around. We exchange greetings as we head to the work site. We begin to receive an orientation to the site just as the rain starts to fall ( we re in the midst of rainy season). We move undercover for the rest of the instructions as the wind howls, thunder crashes and a torrential rainstorm begins. Within the hour it dies down enough for us to head outside and begin work digging 1 meter sq. holes for pilings, creating cement forms for these pilings, cutting and bending rebar to go into these foundational pilings. By lunchtime we are all soaked and we head back to our camp for lunch and to dry off.
Two hours later we head back to work again at the same tasks for the afternoon. It isn't raining now and in fact the sun comes out for a little while. Community children gather round, some passing us nails, other watching curiously. The local men work with the architect to make sure they understand the design and next steps and they guide our work as well. By 5 pm we have accomplished a solid piece of work as we clean and pack up the site.
The boat ride back up the river is filled with songs and laughter. We arrive at Minga lodge at 6 and have an hour to shower etc till dinner at 7 followed by Spanish classes. Our day ends at 9:15 and folks head back to their rooms to chill out for a bit. Power ends at 10 and we tuck ourselves into our beds with our bug nets as sounds of critters, bugs and falling rain send us to sleep.
No photos with today's blog as Me to We policy is for no work camp photos to be taken untill the relationships in the community are built and it feels natural and permission is granted by those we are working side by side with.
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