So...

So, have any of you noticed how often I begin my posts or even multiple paragraphs within one post with the word "so"? I've started to notice this unacceptable abuse of an unnecessary word, and will try my best to reform.

I have 2 weeks left in Belize to finish up the projects I'm leading while helping others finish up their own projects. It is crazy to think how little time is left and yet how much we have planned to make happen in those 2 weeks! Yesterday and today have been full of lots of little details and meetings with partners to make sure all the pieces are in place for these last 2 weeks to run smoothly and sufficiently to accomplish all necessary tasks. I'll get into some more detail, but first I have to rewind a bit and go back to Friday morning BEFORE the adventure to San Pedro and share 2 more birthday details. First is the happy birthday sign over the staircase:

This poster has been through a lot of birthdays! (I resisted a serious urge to start that sentence with "So,") It was put up originally over a month before I came for a team member from last wave named Shelbi for her 20th birthday. A few weeks later it was Sarah's birthday and the sign was still hanging, so they just put another piece of paper over the "helbi" in Shelbi and wrote "arah" over it to make it say "Sarah," who was also turning 20. That's what it looked like when I got to Belize. A week or two after I arrive, if you remember from an earlier post, it was MacKenzie's 20th birthday, so they put more paper over the name "Sarah" that said "MacKenzie." Finally, as it was still hanging for my birthday, they changed the "0th" in 20th to a "3rd", as shown above, and simply covered up the "Mac" and the "zie" in MacKenzie with yet more paper to make the resultant "Ken" shown above! To my knowledge, mine is the last birthday.

I also had one present to open in the morning before we left. There is quite a story to this. The week before last Lindsay's brother Jonathan came to visit for a week. He did a lot of adventuring around Belize, including a jungle trek for which he bought the standard instrument of choice of Belizeans: the Machete! He didn't intend to bring it back to the states with him as he had no room in his luggage and we joked about him giving it to one of us. He heard it would be my birthday 5 days after his departure, so the day he left I found this package on my bed:

 In case you can't read it, the note on this conspicuously machete-shaped gift says, "To: Ken It's a surprise! Don't open until your birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

Birthday morning came and revealed this bad boy!

Hmm. Now that I'm conscientiously trying not to start each paragraph with "So," I'm now having to resist the urge to replace every instance with "Anyway". Without using an unnecessary word, let's move on to yesterday and today!

Yesterday in the morning I finalized a street sign template for the street names in Succotz. We also went on a price hunt to different sign makers to get various quotes and find the best price on the job (as well as for printing the map brochures). It was a productive morning and really helped lay out the time frame for the rest of this project.

In the afternoon I did additional computer work, but also taught the computer class. One student, Orlando (the one I mentioned previously who only has 8 fingers) is progressing amazingly. Obviously he doesn't work much on typing, but when it comes to the other computer skills we're focusing on, he's doing really well. We learned a lot more about Excel and were able to focus on not only learning basic things it does, but especially how to apply those functions to basic problem solving in business scenarios. We made up a fictional company and entered in hypothetical transportation costs data and used functions in Excel to help us organize and use the data to make hypothetical business solutions. That way, he not only learns what a spreadsheet is and how to enter things, but thinks about ways to use its powers to solve a problem and help out a business.

After computer class, Kyle, Lindsay, and I went to Succotz to scope out every street corner to see how many already had poles infrastructure in place for the signs. We were delighted to discover that most of the street corners already have places to hang signs on the power poles (very common street sign place in Belize) and that will save us a LOT on costs! 

Rainbow: a good omen shines over the village of San Jose Succotz!

After scoping out the street intersections, we returned to San Ignacio for dinner just as the remaining vacationers from the team arrived from San Pedro. Our wonderful cook, Mama Kay, is out of town in El Salvador this week (I believe she went to go see the temple open house) so we are eating out each night, paid for by the team funds that we'd usually pay Mama Kay with. We ate last night at a really nice and fun Kriol-themed tourist restaurant in downtown San Ignacio called "Flayva's". I'd eaten there one other time. The staff knows all of us and is very friendly. After dinner we finished the night off with our usual Monday night planning meeting.

Today began with more work in Succotz on 2 different projects. I primarily went around recontacting some of the businesses we tracted out, soliciting for some of the larger businesses to advertise on the tourist brochure. The advertising is projected to be immensely effective based on the distribution plan of the brochures and comparison to the virtual lack of advertising structure currently in place. Furthermore, the funds generated from the advertising will be invested back into the village by providing the village council with more money to subsidize the cleanliness initiative, education, and public health. 

We also revisited some locations of a former project: the adobe stoves project. I haven't written much about this project as it was primarily the work of the former waves. This was a great project that gave better cooking facilities to various poor families in Succotz. They formerly would cook in enclosed buildings over little pit fires--i.e., lung cancer waiting to happen. The adobe stoves provide the user with a self-venting system which can cook much more than a pit fire at a time and more efficiently while getting the smoke completely out of the house and away from vulnerable lungs. We built 5 such stoves in Succotz this summer and some of them simply needed some revisiting to finish a few loose ends and improve their efficiency. Meanwhile, the sustainability of the project is already in full swing as various individuals in the community are teaching others how to build the stove and so now at least 2 more stoves are being built even without HELP International's involvement! I only helped a little at the end of the morning today as I was doing business contacting around the village, but I helped a little at the end.

 Here is Jake, doing some repairs on Natalie's adobe stove.

Here is an all-new adobe stove in the making, completely begun by the people of the village themselves at a new location! This is the real fruits of such a project--to know that we haven't just built 5 adobe stoves to benefit 5 families, but that we've taught members of a community something new that will spread after we leave to bless many more families than that!

My business contacting had some good results, as well as some interesting discussion in general about the Succotz Revenue Generation project and its potential effects as well as pitfalls. Considering potential weaknesses was especially important for two reasons. First of all, if we recognize weak spots, we can try to prevent some of them in advance. Second, as not all weaknesses are preventable, it gives valuable insight into the nature of development work. It can give insight into how a project might be improved upon when implemented elsewhere. Furthermore, it reminds us to be humble and remember that there is no "silver bullet" for development work. I am hardly the first person to attempt to reverse the tide of poverty in a village--even this particular village--and should not expect this project to solve every possible problem there! Knowing this helps us remember to remain specific in the goals we want to see come to pass and focus on key areas where our particular skill sets can make the greatest impact that could perhaps win a battle even if not the whole war. I would love to see poverty eradicated from San Jose Succotz, but this one project alone will not do that. However, I do expect it to make a difference. Ultimately, the results I specifically see coming from my project are as follows:

1. Increased revenue to the village council, enabling them to:

    a) Make improvements to village infrastructure and trash collection system in the short term

    b) Subsidize education and public health in the long run

2. Increase the tourist-based revenue flow to private businesses in Succotz, thus helping those willing to work who currently struggle despite their best efforts to provide for their families.

3. Create a platform for further development projects especially via the increased link to the tourist industry, relevant national government agencies, and other partner non-profit organizations.

Not everyone will see a major business increase, but some definitely will. Not every child's education will be improved or decreased in costs, but some will. The public health system will not be completely perfected, but it will be improved. Ultimately, I believe that the impact will be very real, even if there will still be more to do for a very long time. 

After the morning in Succotz and a quick bite to eat, the whole team headed to the national capital of Belmopan to spend the afternoon at an orphanage, where we dropped of a number of care packages sent from the states with supplies such as toothpaste and brushes, clothes, hygiene items, etc. This is not a long-term or continuing project, but rather something we focused on just this afternoon. There were about 30 children there, all very eager for attention and most of them extremely bright. Once again, we are not in a long-term partner arrangement with this orphanage this year but were last year and the team last year recorded that they were not a good partner organization at all. We saw that for ourselves today. Our focus is on sustainable projects with continuing impact. There are literally scores of organizations who come to countries like Belize, do some sightseeing, visit orphanages and take pictures, then go back victoriously in the name of development work. Certainly visiting orphans is nice, and today was wonderful, but to come for a day or two and then leave does not make much lasting impact on the conditions of the lives of those therein, hence why today's visit was a one-time thing since we had care packages to deliver anyway. We quite enjoyed it, but it made me want to cry to see the poor conditions that these children grow up in. To change the orphanage would come down to somehow changing the hearts, minds, and methods of the rather irresponsible caretakers there. From all our observations today and in a needs assessment visit some team members made last week, the caretakers mainly just talk in the kitchen all day while the kids run around wild all day with absolutely no structure to their lives. They desperately need parental CARE but indications reveal very little available to them. Fortunately, other organizations do exist which focus specifically and entirely on orphanage reform around the world and I hope someday they visit the orphanage we visited today and focus on making long-term lasting changes there.

On a positive note, not all orphanages in Belize are like that. In fact, you may have been following the orphanage construction project we are working on I've written about several times before. That orphanage, where we are building additional small single and double room housing units, is a very trusted operation which provides a much better atmosphere for the kids living there than the one we visited in Belmopan today. I've focused a lot in this post on the sustainability of the projects we are involved in as it is very important to me that non-profits focus on making real change in the communities where they work. Too many international groups promote "volun-tourism" where people just visit sights and orphans, as described earlier. To be blunt, I believe this is largely a waste of the funds of those who invest in such organizations. There is already too little by way of funding for work like this to use it ineffectively! I know that may sound somewhat harsh, but I strongly believe that significant reforms are needed in the NPO/NGO world if the goals we all desire for humanity are to become a reality.

I'll get off my soap box now and conclude with some pictures from our orphanage visit. Once again, though not a long-term focus, it was an enjoyable afternoon and eye-opening to additional problems which still plague this struggling country. The kids were all great.

Ashley and Maren (not pictured here) led this mini-project and before our visit put together a small activity to help the kids focus on life goals and plans. In this way, even though we were only able to visit this one time, our visit was able to hopefully at least do a little bit of good for the kids beyond the supply drop-off. It was a great success, as you can see here the kids eagerly participating.

Sarah gives some one-on-one attention to an adorable 3-year-old named Jamesey.

 The kid in blue is Edgar. As part of the activity, we asked the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up. After he told me he wanted to be a police officer, I told him I wanted to be a ninja when I grew up. He looked and me and said, "You're already grown up. It's too late now. You can never be a ninja!"

So, (sorry--old habits die hard!) overall yesterday and today have been particularly thought-provoking. I have been so grateful for the chance to help here, despite the limits that exist to development work. I am grateful to have been raised in a loving home and not an under-cared for orphanage. I hope with time we will someday see problems like that disappear forever as well all pool together to make one small difference at a time, specifically differences that are long-lasting and life changing!