My most active latrine leader and I calculated that we needed 50 pounds of rice and 22 pounds of chicken to feed 100 people. I figured that there were enough leftover funds to buy the rice ($25) and the leader promised to write a letter of solicitude to the local government representative (AKA our neighbor called Honorable Representante) for the chicken (valued at 22 * $1.50 = $33).
At about that time I disappeared for a week to go find my friend and family in Panama City, and by the time I had concluded my Break Time the guy who had promised to write the letter had left to go work in Panama City without ever writing it.
I stepped back. Clearly March 17 was not a feasible date so I pushed the date back to March 31. I tracked down another letter-writing competent beneficiary and asked him to write the letter, which he did within a day.
Before I knew it, a week was left before the Inauguration and it was crunch time. I cornered the other main latrine leader and asked him to advise half of the beneficiaries of the party date and time. He also agreed to go down to the store on the Interamerican highway to buy the rice for a good price and bring it to my house.
Then I dropped the bomb on my host family. “Is it okay if you guys host the Inauguration?” Translation: “Is it okay if you host 100 people on your property, some of with whom you don’t get along, and cook for them and clean up after them?”. They said yes.
I spent the next couple days advising the other half of the beneficiaries and simultaneously checking up on their progress of building a house around the latrine platform. I also asked the Representante almost daily if he was going to be able to provide the chicken and in what quantity.
The day before the Inauguration I went out to look for Representante in his usual hot spots and found out he was outside of the area for pay day. The reason chicken was such a point of worry was because it needed to be bought at the store on the Interamerican highway, a 1 hour 40 minute walk down or a quick car ride with unreliable transport. Also it needed to be bought the day of for a 10 am start time due to lack of refrigeration. At 7 pm, I finally got a hold of him through a new technology in this area called the Cell Phone and he promised to go down to the store early in the morning to get the chicken.
My cat was ready to sacrifice herself for the party if the chicken didn't show up.
The Saturday of the party, we started cooking at 6:30 am. By we, I mostly mean my host mom. The dad who agreed to host the event never even showed up after work on Friday (normal) so she did what she’s best at and stepped up. The raw chicken arrived at 10 am along with only a scanty amount of event attendees, and all of them were people I had personally invited. A few others trickled in, but I assume that the latrine leader never advised the other half of the people about the event.
We started the program at 11:30 anyways and I gave a heartfelt speech about the importance of washing the latrines and covering the seat to keep flies away. I also talked about how everyone present now knew how easy it is to build a latrine slab, and it is their responsibility to organize another community project and solicit funds.
We ate and I then returned the $5 deposit that every family was required to put down before receiving materials. I had explained the purpose of a deposit several times before but most people were still very pleasantly surprised to be getting paid at a party with free food (those silly gringas…).
There were 25 pounds of leftover cooked rice so every family took home a huge doggie bag. There had been just enough chicken though because the Representante only had bought 2/3 of what we had solicited.
Only the ancient grandmother remained at my house, resting on the hammock . I breathed a sigh of relief to be officially finished with the latrine project. If my latrine leader had actually done his job and advised the rest of the beneficiaries about the party, there would not have been enough chicken to go around and people would have been unhappy.
It’s funny how things work out.
Epilogue: To top the day off, I headed down to the creek to bathe soon after the event had finished. In my deep thoughts I forgot to whistle a warning to announce my arrival to the bathing spot. I walked in on an elderly neighbor bathing naked. Oops. Well, that makes us even because last year he did the same to me.
Afterword: My role in this latrine project and as a development worker/volunteer in general is to “build capacity”. In retrospect, this usually means “being on other people’s backs and getting a lot of exercise walking around”. Sure, it would have been a lot more painless for me to have coughed up the $33 to buy the stupid chicken. But instead I bothered 2 guys to write the letter, and then bugged the Representante to the point of embarrassment so that he came through with his promise to buy the chicken. Evidently I was not relentless enough with the latrine leader who was supposed to advise the other half of the invitees, but it’s all good.
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