A week in the life...

Hello friends and family, Cassie here.
After a few phone conversations with family in which I couldn't think of any news to report, and then looking at my calendar which already has most days this week filled up, I decided to write a post to give you all an idea of what it is that we do with ourselves all the time.

Sunday:

a.m. meeting in a community about an hour's walk from Moro Moro. My role will be to discuss how to advance on a project in which 27 families want to build dry latrines, and hopefully to plan a workshop on homemade fertilizer. Mostly, though, I will be trying my hardest to understand what on earth is going on, as these people know each other really well and seem to understand even when three people are talking at once.

Afternoon on the square helping with the church bake sale. Also, we're hoping to track down three or four different people who usually come into town for market day so we can plan different work project's throughout the week.

Monday:

Trip to Vallegrande (nearby larger town) to do the following: waste hours on the internet (first priority, of course); visit electric company to figure out options for running electricity to a water pump that will serve 7-8 families with water; visit local agricultural research organization; do some shopping at the hardware store.

On the way to Vallegrande, we hope to find the leader of one of our water projects so we can arrange sand delivery.

Tuesday:

Cassie to a community called T'arco, where we have funds to do a water project this year but have only begun planning, then on to another nearby community where we're trying to get to the pipe-laying stage of a water project. In the afternoon, I hope to meet with some local high school kids to talk about plans for an eco-challenge competition that they thought up and want to hold in April. I also need to talk to a guy from another institution that works in the area about finding chickens to buy so that some folks can cook for a workshop we're hosting together in two weeks. Andy will be doing some agri-stuff all day.

Wednesday:

Both us of are going to separate locations to help some folks with their latrines. I'll go from there to another community to try to gently explain to a guy why we cannot pretend his neighbors don't exist and exclude them from the water project we were planning to do for him. It will probably not be fun for me.

Afternoon meeting with some folks in town about the local library. We're also hoping to convince the school director to let us organize some field trips to take the kids to see various sources of water problems in the area.

Thursday:

We're crossing our fingers for this day. We have plans to cap a spring in a community where there's been some conflict between the future beneficiaries and people that own the land where the spring sits. The agreement is written and signed, and on multiple different occasions we've been told by the owners that they're all for it. Then, yesterday as we sat eating our lunch an old lady who is among the group of people who owns the land approached us and told us that she'd changed her mind and said over and over again "I'm not giving it to them. It's not to my advantage." Then, we talked to her son the very next day, and he said go for it. So....we're not really sure what to do with that yet. Considering that the lady's daughter and four small grandchildren are among those that stand to benefit, and that the community will probably use about 20% of the water that's available even in the dry season, we're having a hard time being understanding of her concerns. All I know is that we will probably leave the house that morning with knots in our stomachs, anticipating a struggle. We'll be praying that both our Spanish skills and persuasive skills hold out for this one.

Friday:

No fixed plans yet, but this evening a group of 4 young women will hopefully arrive from the city to spend the Carnaval holiday with us. They are MCC workers who volunteer for a year of service. They're about half-way through their terms and want to see Moro Moro and what we do here. Hopefully we can show them a good time.

Saturday:

Peach harvest! A farmer that Andy has become friends with invited us to help him and take home as many peaches as we can carry. Hopefully with our four visitors we can do some serious harvesting.

As we've already come to expect, maybe about 60% of these plans will actually come to pass. We'll let you know how it goes!