Busy busy busy! Ever since my office and I started work after the New Year things seem to be humming at a higher than normal pitch here in MAFRON. By higher than normal pitch I mean a gargling noise to that of a more efficient engine. However, the engine is still located in Honduras and tends to break down…but enough with the metaphors. It’s the dry season here. It’s the hot season here. It’s the hot and dry season here and it’s only getting hotter and dryer. I feel mostly acclimated though perhaps only out of necessity. This is the time where most of the outdoor work for Water/Sanitation volunteers occurs. There is not a drop that falls from the sky for months on end so topography studies for new water systems, and construction of all types is taken advantage of during this time. My region recently received a large sum of funds from Spain for water and sanitation related activities so I have been relatively busy out in the campo (field).
There are always pluses and minuses to these situations. Plus: Tons of money all at once. Minus: Tons of money all at once. I explain a little. It’s great there are tons of new projects for water where people have never not had to walk great distances for it. It really is a beautiful thing to live in some of these very secluded communities for some days without electricity or nearly any water, talking about their lives, how the system could help so much. But there are intrinsic problems that these quick funds not only tend to, but almost always ignore. As aforementioned some of these communities don’t have electricity, and it’s very dry here. There are no year long sources of mountain spring water, therefore pumping is the usual go to down here in the south of Honduras. Pumping requires electricity. Without electricity any given community would have to use a generator, sucking up gas that has to be carried long distances, and that people whose only occupation is farming cannot afford. In the long term as well water systems require investment to make them last for 20 years or more instead of 2 or 3. The investments aren’t huge, but organization and funds usually lack in these situations and the system and community eventually suffer for it. But the funds are here they say! Lets build! If we don’t now Spain takes the money away! So we do studies, we design. And the rest gets figured out later…or doesn’t.
This is how it goes a lot of times, not all the time. I prefer to take a bit of a more vested interest in sustainability of projects. For example I’m looking into the ability to put solar energy in one system I’m designing. The state of Honduras would pay for 40% and I have to look for the rest. But it’s a better option for the furthest and poorest communities that won’t receive electricity lines for years to come. These funds I’m working with now can also be appropriated towards building latrines, always a good thing.
Things aren’t all bad, it’s just important to share a few of the realities of working down here. It’s hard to be a part of projects you don’t think will last because you look around at relatively new systems everywhere that are failing. It comes down to a personal view of mine with development that contradicts the international sentiment: too much money plain and simple. There is too much money and not enough follow-up, not enough people on the ground, not enough community members making their own educated decisions. Progress is more than not, on the international scale, measured in numbers. How much was built, how much spent. Timing, education, local interest and investment take the back seat often. Sure anyone can make the case looking around the developing world and say, gosh they need money, however what they really need in my opinion is organization, long-term not short-term investments in capacity building, governments with greater accountability, local government with greater agency. I think less external funds would force the government to allocate resources with greater efficacy, and deter at least a smidgen of the outright monetary corruption that exists here…but I digress
Things are good right now. There is water work, when I am able to get together equipment and time out rides. I’m also branching out to health promoters in the community to stay productive when other work dries out (no pun intended).
Making the most of my time in and out of my community.
