After some 15 collective days away in July, I'm finally back again in site for a long haul - maybe until Christmas, with a few days away before that for in-service training and Thanksgiving. Que venga la tormenta, as my APCD said the last day of Reconnect. It was great to be away and it's tough to be back, although I must admit nowhere near as tough as it was to come out to site in the first place.
But, before I get into that, the story up until this point: After a few lazy days in Panajachel we headed over to visit a friend in Santiago Atitlan. After an entertainingly rough ride across the lake we got off and got an eclectic tour of town; the muni, the church, the budget dive we'd be staying at, a local comedor, and aldea Panabaj, the site of a large mudflow in 2005 and muni relocation project. Santiago is a really interesting town, and a unique challenge as a tourism PCV, since the place is already crawling with tourists and tourism projects. It was a fun afternoon, although that night I crashed with some raucous fever. After that we went to back to Panajachel for a final night, and then on to the capital for a talk with CONRED and a night in Antigua. This wasn't in the original plan, but I think Guatemala may simply be a vortex of surprises, because pre-planning seems to continuously render itself less useful here than seems normal. All-in-all the time out of site was a welcome breath of air, but I have to admit that the morning hello's on my way to work today did make me smile in a 'home sweet home' sort of way. I guess that's kind of the best of both worlds, right?
At any rate, la tormenta: The immediate challenge of right now is that having surmounted that golden 3-month assessment period, I'm feeling antsy, as though I need to get something important done about yesterday or so; mentally tallying the half-dozen or so ineffective charlas and radio spots I've done, the small percentage of schools I've visited, the events I've attended and one proposal I wrote, I wonder, how will I organize anything valuable and long-lasting here, based in the fundamental effort and interests of community members; and I start to doubt the value of my potential contribution here. Perhaps I'm undervaluing the social progress I've made in 3 months, but after two weeks straight with your best friend, social progress amongst relative-strangers resonates weakly. But it's the classic PCV story. I've just got to keep it in perspective.
So that said, I've got food, I've got water, I've got love, I've got "animal pairs memory", I've got an awesome little laptop, 24-7 wireless Internet. And Mishi. So really I can't complain too much. A ver where the next few weeks take us...
Showing posts with label milestones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label milestones. Show all posts
Monday, August 2, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Three Months of… Trash!
Yesterday marks the three-month anniversary of my arrival here in site as a Peace Corps Volunteer! Three months living with my host family, getting to feel like home here, and starting to get a clue about my work... and also three months of making trash. Trash management is a big issue in my community, as for many in Guatemala – with rampant consumerism, poorly organized public education, and ineffective municipal management, many rivers and roadsides overfill with trash.
As an Environment volunteer I’ve already done my fair share of preaching to local school kids about the issue, but as the saying goes… preaching doesn’t do much without the practice behind it. Thus it occurred to me to save my trash in these first months and make myself publicly accountable to how well I’m actually doing with the 4 R’s I talk so much about.
Data
ORGANICS!
Much to my initial excitement three months ago, my host family habitually separates their organic and inorganic trash for animal fodder, so a picture of my organic trash right now would look a lot like the family cow! We don't compost paper, so I'll put that under the false heading of ¨Inorganics¨ for now.
Drum roll please... INORGANICS!
This is stuff - in the black bag in the upper left hand corner and a dirty cake box - that I just didn’t want to deal with or is highly tainted with organics: It may not be honest, but I plan to take this stuff and drop it off in a public trash can in the nearest big city with a sanitary landfill the next time I’m there. I’ll report back how this goes. The dirty paper I'll give to my host family to burn in their wood stove, if they want it.
The Cheating Factor
I also need to fess up to having added my own toilet paper – some seven rolls in these three months – to the family and office bathroom wastebins. It just wasn’t something I wanted to deal with. We can assume that’s all going to a nearby barranco. I also have used plenty of styrofoam when someone offered me a snack - you just can't refuse generosity here! - and thrown it in the bin when taking it home would make people think I was an alien.
Reusable
I plan to stuff the soda bottles with the clean plastic packaging I've hoarded these three months (in the two large black bags above) and contribute this to my office’s upcoming ecoladrillo (¨eco-brick¨) drive. Cans make great pencil holders; and clean peanut butter jars for food storage. Possibilities with trash are endless.
Recyclable
Cans, plastic, and paper are recycled in the region. The town’s can-buying man passes in pick-up every Wednesday announcing his presence with much ceremony with his megaphone (yocomprolatashierrolamina...), and I plan to take advantage. My current obstacle with recycling plastic and paper is that cans are about 10x as valuable, so one person uses nowhere near enough paper nor plastic to sell it to anyone. We’re talking about possibly starting a recycling center here in town to sell to buyers in the city, but until then I’ll just be holding onto the stuff.
Analysis and Implications for Future Work
I am pretty satisfied with my trash production, at least with the small amount of stuff I plan to throw away. I seem room for improvement, though; volume-wise my three biggest sources of trash are toilet paper, canned beans, and plastic packaging.
For plastic, my goal for the next months is to try to buy more grains and bread from bulk using re-usable plastic bags; for cans, I'm going to try to make more beans from dried bulk, especially on the wood stove if I can. Really I’d need an environmental engineer to do the analysis for me and tell me whether buying canned beans, making them from dried on the gas stove, or making them on the wood stove is less environmentally costly, but nmot having access to this at the moment, I’m going to guess the more local the better.
I’m not sure I’m ready to tackle the toilet paper issue, but I’ll think about it. At least I’ll be getting some GladRags from the US next month, which in concert with the fabulous DivaCup will eliminate my waste from sanitary pads!
Thanks folks. Keep an eye out for another trash update in another three months! (Yay, something to look forward to...)
As an Environment volunteer I’ve already done my fair share of preaching to local school kids about the issue, but as the saying goes… preaching doesn’t do much without the practice behind it. Thus it occurred to me to save my trash in these first months and make myself publicly accountable to how well I’m actually doing with the 4 R’s I talk so much about.
Data
ORGANICS!
Much to my initial excitement three months ago, my host family habitually separates their organic and inorganic trash for animal fodder, so a picture of my organic trash right now would look a lot like the family cow! We don't compost paper, so I'll put that under the false heading of ¨Inorganics¨ for now.
Drum roll please... INORGANICS!
This is stuff - in the black bag in the upper left hand corner and a dirty cake box - that I just didn’t want to deal with or is highly tainted with organics: It may not be honest, but I plan to take this stuff and drop it off in a public trash can in the nearest big city with a sanitary landfill the next time I’m there. I’ll report back how this goes. The dirty paper I'll give to my host family to burn in their wood stove, if they want it.
The Cheating Factor
I also need to fess up to having added my own toilet paper – some seven rolls in these three months – to the family and office bathroom wastebins. It just wasn’t something I wanted to deal with. We can assume that’s all going to a nearby barranco. I also have used plenty of styrofoam when someone offered me a snack - you just can't refuse generosity here! - and thrown it in the bin when taking it home would make people think I was an alien.
Reusable
I plan to stuff the soda bottles with the clean plastic packaging I've hoarded these three months (in the two large black bags above) and contribute this to my office’s upcoming ecoladrillo (¨eco-brick¨) drive. Cans make great pencil holders; and clean peanut butter jars for food storage. Possibilities with trash are endless.
Recyclable
Cans, plastic, and paper are recycled in the region. The town’s can-buying man passes in pick-up every Wednesday announcing his presence with much ceremony with his megaphone (yocomprolatashierrolamina...), and I plan to take advantage. My current obstacle with recycling plastic and paper is that cans are about 10x as valuable, so one person uses nowhere near enough paper nor plastic to sell it to anyone. We’re talking about possibly starting a recycling center here in town to sell to buyers in the city, but until then I’ll just be holding onto the stuff.
Analysis and Implications for Future Work
I am pretty satisfied with my trash production, at least with the small amount of stuff I plan to throw away. I seem room for improvement, though; volume-wise my three biggest sources of trash are toilet paper, canned beans, and plastic packaging.
For plastic, my goal for the next months is to try to buy more grains and bread from bulk using re-usable plastic bags; for cans, I'm going to try to make more beans from dried bulk, especially on the wood stove if I can. Really I’d need an environmental engineer to do the analysis for me and tell me whether buying canned beans, making them from dried on the gas stove, or making them on the wood stove is less environmentally costly, but nmot having access to this at the moment, I’m going to guess the more local the better.
I’m not sure I’m ready to tackle the toilet paper issue, but I’ll think about it. At least I’ll be getting some GladRags from the US next month, which in concert with the fabulous DivaCup will eliminate my waste from sanitary pads!
Thanks folks. Keep an eye out for another trash update in another three months! (Yay, something to look forward to...)
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