1st report about Itiuba’s Project
Here I am, Saturday morning enjoying a little free time with my computer on a chair (the only chair in the house) and my self seating on a table that we put over some blocks that we call sofa.
This is how we leave now, out of the facilities of IICD life, now we are living in one of the poorest communities in Brazil, living in some way as they live. When we arrive to the house it was not ready to receive people, part because the project got out of money so they couldn’t by all the furniture, part because no one check the house before bringing us to it.
The house was without running water on the bathroom and in the kitchen. We only had one tap on the backyard. From there we had to take the water to go to the bathroom, to wash the dishes, to take a shower, etc.
There were (and still now) no table and chairs (just one broken chair that we use as a table, chair, stair, etc), no mosquito nets on the beds, no light in one of the rooms and just two plugs.
I think every one can imagine how nice is to arrive after one month travelling to a house in that conditions… but, is in that situations when you have to remember why you are here, and try to put the best disposition to try to improve the things. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you have to accept what should not be like that. One thing is very clear: Humana will have to learn that they can not treat volunteers as they want; Humana will have to learn that to fight against poverty you have to be living in acceptable conditions so you are strong enough to give the best of yourself in the projects. Humana will have to learn that you are not just a tourist that they are supporting with their money, you are a professional that leaves all your life behind to become in a poverty fighter and so you deserve to be treated as anyone else in Humana staff.
So, because of that, we put the best of our selves in improving the house: we went to the stores to by some materials to fix the water and electricity problem, we find some people in the community that helped us to fix the things, we improvise a sofa with some of the trash that was on our backyard, we cleaned the house, etc. Buying the things was another problem: the project was out of money because the state of Bahia didn’t sent the money to them on time, so, there were several things that we had to buy with our on money (another thing that should be unacceptable after you have paid a lot of money to be here, and after you have made a hard fundraising…. But this thing, anyway, we could understand that it was not totally Humana’s fault). So, part of the things we bought with our money and the rest Mauro (our project leader) took us to some stores were he can pay at the end of the month so we didn’t need to use our money in that things.
That is how we started… but, even though it could look like we were mad and sad, it was not like that, at least not me. I was happy to be here, I was with energies enough to fix my house and to try to see over all this and just concentrate my self in the project.
Our project leader seams to be very cool guy, with a lot of energies and ideas. He was very nice with us, he receive us, talk with us about our tasks, about the project, the people in Humana, etc. He took us to the stores to buy some food and things for the house and he drove us home.
He said to use that we were lucky to be treated like that, because usually the volunteers are almost ignored in all Humana’s projects. I appreciated that Mauro treat us like that and that he wanted to change that thing in Humana, but I don’t think that we were lucky; I think all the volunteers should be treated like that.
After a couple of days we started with our first task: interviewing the families that we were going to work with. In order to do that we were helped by Nega, one of the Humana agents in the area were we are working. She is the president of the association of inhabitants of Cacimbas, the village were we live. She knows very well the community so it was good to be with her. She introduce us to most of the families which was good because we entered into their houses with a person that they already knew, so they felt more comfortable and we too.
Doing the interviews is nice because you can really know the families and their way of life. The interview is long and is not that easy to be done, so, before doing the interviews we had a course in Humana’s office to train how to do the interviews. That was very useful because other wise we would commit a lot of mistakes.
Is very important that interview is well done because this information will be send it to the state of Bahia in order to get resources for the families.
We had to do 12 interviews each one of us. The families were divided in three different communities: Cacimbas, Calderaouzinho and Fazenda Sao Bento. Calderaouzinho and Fazenda Sao Bento are 3km away from Cacimbas so Humana gave us three bikes to go there. I really recommend DON’T use those bikes: they are really dangerous. All of the agents already had a lot of accidents with those bikes. I had an accident too. These bikes look like the cheapest on the market and so they are very low quality. The roads here are not good at all, full of stones, wholes, sand and clay. When you ride the bikes the parts star falling until you have just a mountain of aluminum and screws. When I was riding my bike one of the parts felt down and got stuck on the weal so I literally flew over the bike and felt down in the road; hopefully nothing bad happens to me because I was driving very slowly. After that we decided that it was better to go by walk to these communities.
I think that the projects shouldn’t send the volunteers out of their communities to work because you loose a lot of time in doing that. Here there is no public transportation to go there, the bikes are awful, if it is raining the roads are full of clay so it is very difficult to go from one place to the other. I know that Humana decided that the volunteers should be living inside the community were they are working in order to make them know better the community and to save time moving from one place to the other, so it looks like no sense to make us go to two different communities to work instead of making us work only were we are living, which will give us more time to know much better our community.
The families here are very poor, most of them have no latrine or any place to go to the bathroom; just few of them have running water. Most of them have a very low income so they can only eat beans, flour, and corn. Almost none of the families eat vegetables or fruits, and just few of them give milk to the children.
In some of the houses there are more than 10 people living with less than U$S200 a month.
The good news is that the running water arrives to the community so in a short period of time everybody will be able to have water in their houses and so, have a vegetable garden.
One of the things that we are learning here is that in Bahia the biggest problem is not the lack of water but the lack of education. Here there are a lot of agricultural activities that can be done with almost no water, using native plants that are used to this climate. But, people here almost don’t know anything about that. Some of them don’t know because they didn’t have the opportunity, others don’t know just because they don’t want.
Humana has here some technicians that will help people to improve their agricultural techniques so they can get more from the soil. These people are working very hard, doing some researches and finding founds to develop some projects that will help the communities. I have with me a book that Mauro borrows me that talks about what can be cultivate in this part of Brazil, is actually a VERY GOOD book that I will take to IICD so next volunteers can read about that before coming here.
When I came here I thought that this was a desert with almost no chances. After reading that book you realize that this is a very reach area, and that A LOT of things can be done here. Is good if next volunteers read this book because then they will have a better idea of Bahia before coming, which will give you more tools to work here.
Now that the volunteers arrive, Humana start giving some courses for the people in Itiuba and in Cacimbas. We have to go three times to Itiuba to give English and computer classes. Our classes are very popular and people here really like to learn; they are all the time asking for more courses and more hours of classes. Next week we will start with dance classes, origami classes and theater classes in Cacimbas, our community. Here the idea is to make some things for the teenagers so they have something better to do than be drinking or having sex.
Apart from that we will start today with a cinema every Saturday. The idea is to put funny but educative movies so the community gets fun and education at the same time. Here there is no fun for young people: there are just some bars were the people go to drink and just one place were they can play videogames. This is way we think that the cinema is a good idea.
Every Saturday, before the cinema, we will talk about some important issues: recycling, sexual education, nutrition, taking action, etc. The idea is take advantage of the people who go to the cinema to have fun and teach them something important.
Now we are planning our first community action that would be to reform the little square they have here: make more banks, paint it and put some plants.
We are planning too a recycling action. The idea is to ask the people from Cacimbas to separate the trash so the recyclable material can be sell and the organic material can be use in the soil as a fertilizer. The rest of the trash has to be burn, because until now we can’t find a better solution. But anyway, at this moment all the trash is being burn, so it will make a big difference to diminish that.
Yesterday we participated too in a meeting with the community organized by Humana’s people. They are trying to make a free market here so the community can sell things and get more money. Here all the people go to Itiuba to buy fruits, vegetables, meet and other stuffs. The idea is that since December people will not need to go to Itiuba anymore because they will have their free market over here, and so, the money stays into the community.
One of the things that needs to be done to make the free market is clean the area that will be used to put the tends. We were thinking and we will offer to Humana organize that community action so we can collaborate too with the free market project.
This free market will be good for the next volunteers too because they will not have to go to Itiuba on Saturdays to buy the vegetables and fruits.
Other thing that next volunteers should know is that transportation here is very bad. From Cacimbas to Itiuba you have 3 or 4 busses (it depends on the day) that leave between 6 and 7 am. Then, from Itiuba to Cacimbas you have 3 busses that leave Itiuba between 12:00pm and 12:30pm. So, if you miss the bus at noon you will have to stay in Itiuba or find some one to drive you home. Sometimes there is a buss in the afternoon going to Itiuba and a bus coming from Itiuba at night, but is not always and is a scholar buss, so if you wan to take it you have to ask for an authorization in the City Hall. You NEVER know the time the busses are leaving, is really unpredictable: sometimes they go early, sometimes they go late; so, is better if you are in the buss stop some minutes before the time. Most of the times the busses breaks, so you have to wait more than one hour until some one fix it.
I can see that this report could looks like to negative, don’t misunderstood me: I am enjoying my time here and like my project, but there are several things that needs to be improve and the only way things will be improve is if we realize that this things exists. So, that is way I’m writing about everything: the good and the bad things; but, at the same time, I’m doing my best here to improve the bad things. I know that this project is new and Mauro and all his staff is doing their best effort and that is way I’m not mad or sad, I’m just realistic.
I’m pretty sure that most of the things that need to be improved are going to be better at the end of our period here. For example, the house is much better now after our work on it. Mauro promise us that we will have a table and chairs as soon as the project gets the money.
We will talk with Mauro about the convenience of making the volunteers work in their own community in order to save time and to get a better knowledge about the community.
Two extra things. The first one is about health. The health system in Itiuba is terrible. One of the agents of Humana felt down of his motorbike and broke a bon. There were no ambulance to take him to the hospital, and they make the surgery just 5 days after the accident. So, please take care here, don’t ride those bikes on the roads, don’t do dangerous things, and, if some of the agents of Humana take you in their motorbikes, please use helmet.
Second thing, most of the times Humana will ask you to fundraise material and stuffs for the projects. I think they should reconsider that taking account that you are living in an isolated place, with no telephone or internet, and in a very poor community were the inhabitants can’t donate anything. As Humana knows, doing fundraising takes A LOT of time and need of preparation and tools. So, they should reconsider that, because you need materials to do your activities and that can’t depend on your capacity of doing fundraising or material raising in an isolated and poor place.
I almost forgot, one more thing: LEARN PORTUGUSES BEFORE COMING HERE. You CAN’T WORK without knowing Portuguese. Min Jung, a Korean girl in our team is depending ALL the time in some one to go with here to do the work with the families because she can’t speak Portuguese until now and that is very uncomfortable for her because not all the time she has someone to go with here. In the meetings that we have every Monday all the people speaks in Portuguese so you will not understand ANYTHING if you don’t speak the language. Also you will get very depress if you don’t speak the language because you will not be able to talk with people, to hang around with the members of the community or to talk with the agents; so, take it seriously: DON’T COME HERE WITHOUT KNOWING THE LANGUAGE, YOU WILL HAVE A VER VERY HARD TIME.
Something for you to be happy: the people from the community are VERY nice. They always welcome you to your houses and offer you water or coffee. One day, one of the mothers of a family I interviewed came home to offer me some corn that she cocked for me: they have almost nothing but even though they want to share the nothing they have, is their way to say thank you for your time with them. On the other hand that put me more pressure to do my job as good as possible because these families really believe in me, and really believe that this is their chance to improve their lives. Another thing that really makes me happy is one of the volunteers agents that Humana has in Cacimbas, his name is Tacio. He is a really nice guy that help us A LOT to improve our house. He was always asking if we need something, offering his help and coming home to invite us to do something on our free time. He was really happy to have us here, and we are happy to meet him.
One curios thing: at the beginning, when Mauro said to the agents of Humana that the volunteers were coming, no one of them want us in their communities. They didn’t know what we were going to do and they were afraid of which kind of people were we.
After two weeks here now all the agents wants volunteers in their community, so they are fighting to see who will have the next group of volunteers. Knowing that make me feel very good because it means that our work is being appreciated and useful.
Another extra comment deserves the co-project leader, Rodrigo. He is being very nice with use and all the time he is asking about how we are going and what do we need. Today he said to us that once we finish with the interviews we can see if we can start helping the families with latrines and vegetable gardens.
