They Call Me "Señorita de Los Baños"

I know, it's not the best nickname or title I could think of but "Señorita de Los Baños" is the name I've grown used to these past few months. "Jamie" is too difficult of a name to pronounce for some and "The Señorita" just isn't specific enough. Since coming to site, I knew continuing the work of the previous volunteer would be a good place to start my work. Gina, had worked in a small community called 15 de Abril just outside of the center of Guadalupe connecting 23 families to the sewer system and providing them with basic bathrooms. Her counterpart, an enthusiastic health promoter in that community, was set on continuing their work and wasn't going to let me off the hook until I agreed to help her.

My counterpart Blanca. She's a force to be reckoned with.

Way back in August, I began the grueling grant proposal process to fund the installation of 20 more bathrooms. Blanca found families to participate in the project and I wrote the grant proposal for Peace Corps as well as for the organization that we hoped would fund it, World Connect, while running around between hardware stores trying to figure out our budget. In September, the grant was approved by Peace Corps and was passed along to World Connect. As we waited for the grant to be approved by World Connect, we started a series of educational sessions with the participating families. Attendance to these sessions were required by a member of each family, in addition to digging the ditch for the piping and building a protective structure around the bathroom once it was completed in order to participate in the project.

We held the educational sessions in Blanca's front yard on Sunday afternoons.

In the educational sessions we talked about routes of contamination, handwashing, proper water treatment and storage, trash management and maintenance and use of the toilets. Now that I've gotten used to "la hora peruana" I didn't expect people to show up on time but I was surprised at the constant struggle of getting people to arrive at all regardless of the time. I started bringing prizes for the people who arrived on time and would even ride my bike around the neighborhood knocking on people's doors to remind them there was an important meeting about to start. The sessions which should have taken only a month and a half ended up lasting from the end of October all the way through February due to the holidays and people's preference to Sundays at the beach over Sundays learning about proper sanitary and hygienic practices. But we made it through the sessions and during that time our grant was approved by World Connect and the funding for the project was deposited into my account in December.

Señor Eleutorio, one of my favorite people. A single dad of 5, when it came time to dig the ditch and install his bathroom, he and his oldest sons worked so hard to help us and were so happy when it was done. It made all those times I had to pull him out of his house and remind him about the meetings worth it.

In mid-February, 8 families had completed all of the educational sessions and were ready to begin construction. The sanitation department had promised to offer their time and labor for free to serve as part of our community contribution for the grant. They started by making house visits with me and marking out where the families would need to dig to lay the pipes.

Future bathroom location

In the meantime, I made some major purchases at our local hardware store. I had visited the hardware store so many times before checking out prices and making my budget without ever buying anything that the owner was surprised to see me finally ready to make some purchases. It was scary spending so much money. Since the money was in my account I made sure I was on top of my money constantly trying to keep track of what was part of my living expenses and what was for the project.

Our material storage house, AKA Blanca's bedroom

Delivering sand and gravel for cement-mixing

The next 2 months were filled with bathroom installations, coordinating with the very eager albañil (mason) who also happened to be Blanca's husband, begging the sanitation department guys to show up on time or just be honest and tell me if they would be showing up at all, rescheduling educational sessions for families who hadn't attended all of them and keeping track of our materials and buying new parts as needed.

Our first installation was done in the house of Señora Juana. She was so amazing, she dug the entire ditch herself because her husband is not in the best shape and couldn't help.

Our albañil, mixing up some concrete

Checking to see that the pipes worked and there were no clogs or leaks, we ended up finding an old t-shirt that someone had either tried to flush or just dumped into the sewer box for some reason...

As I carried three measly 1/2" water pipes, I turned around to see Señor Eleutorio's son carrying eight 4" sewer pipes!

Señor Eleutorio and his sons working hard

I made some cool friends during our house visits

Before construction began, I was struggling through the project basically pushing slowly forward because I knew that if we weren't moving forward we'd be slipping backwards. The families were getting restless, asking me when they would get their bathrooms without ever realizing that they were holding themselves back by failing to attend the educational sessions. Other community members were finally realizing there was a project giving out free bathrooms and all of a sudden wanted in on it. I was forced to be the bad guy every time a community member asked Blanca if they could get a bathroom and she would turn to me saying, "Oh, I guess we'll have to ask the Señorita..." It was hard to say no to so many people but our work as Peace Corps volunteers is not about handouts. I made it clear that I wanted to work with people who wanted to work with me.

I resented the fact that the families I worked with didn't seem to appreciate my work until they the physical benefits of the project, actual bathrooms being installed in their neighbors houses. Families with their bathrooms completed thanked me and invited me to lunch, people waiting for their bathrooms asked me when the could make up for their missed educational sessions and more and more community members wanted in on the project. But then I noticed a change in myself, too. Once construction was well underway and we were completing bathroom installations all over the neighborhood, I felt all my hard work leading up to that, everything I had done between August and February, was worth the sweat and tears it took to get there. It helps to see the concrete results of your labor.

One of our first installations, all hooked up to both water and sewer and ready to go!

Blanca likes to make people pose with their toilets

By the end of March, we found that we had enough money to add 6 more families to the project! I had spent months saying no to families we'd thought were too late to the party and was finally given the chance to be the good guy. We found 6 more families and did a quick round of educational sessions so we could finish up the construction process in a timely manner.

Some families were quick about building the rooms/structures to protect their bathrooms.

Some even went as far as to add a shower to the system and make their bathroom complete

One of the sanitation guys teaching a little girl the basics of plumbing

Upgrade!

At finishing the first 20 bathrooms, the ladies of the project got together and made a huge lunch feast to thank me and Blanca for our work and celebrate the end of the project. It was wonderful and I finally felt like I had done something worth while during my service. The rest of the project will involve house visits monitoring whether or not the families have improved their sanitary and hygienic practices and are taking good care of their bathrooms. There was enough money left over in the budget that we'll be able to buy waste baskets and soap for the families. In my final six months here I hope to keep working with the community by motivating our project committee to figure out what other projects they could do and how they could find funding to carry them out but because I want to try working in other communities as well, I'll be stepping back from 15 de Abril a little.

I was in charge of peeling all things peel-able: eggs and potatoes.

Moms in the kitchen

Waiting for the music to play and the drinking circle to begin