The Sounds of Silence

For the past week people of the Comarca Ngabe-bugle have been protesting a proposed mine and hydroelectric dam that is to be put on their reservation against their will. Just like last year, all along the Interamericana Highway - the only trans-country road in Panama - people have blocked vehicle passage with logs, metal street signs burning tires, semi-trucks, and rocks. Travel is impossible, tensions are high, and everything is escalating.

Protesters at Horconcitos, one of the protest sites (photo courtesy of Jack Fischl)

burning tire (photo courtesy of Jack Fischl)

The Ngabe's demand that a government contingent of three people - including Ricardo Martinelli, the President of Panama - travel to the Reservation to meet with its government. Martinelli declined to do this but counter-offered to fly the 'Cacique' ("chief" or "leader" of the Comarca) to Panama City for a meeting, but this time it was the Cacique's turn to refuse.

The protesting continued and the following day a call from Martinelli is all it took to turn off all the cellphone stations in the Comarca. Now protesters wont be able to organize as easily and Peace Corps can't contact me except by sending a radio announcement, which may not reach me. 

On returning home on the fourth of February my neighbor, Victor Salinas, engaged me in a conversation and explained how he views the events of the past few days:

We are rich. We are poor but we are rich. There are three mountains that have gold in the Comarca and outsiders want to take it. What will happen if the mine is built? Multi-national companies will get richer and we will get poorer because the mine would contaminate our land and streams. Animals would die and crops wouldn't grow. Look Choy, the Spanish came here five-hundred years ago and took our land, killed most of our people, and stole all of our gold for themselves. Now these Latinos are trying to do it again but we've learned -we're saying "no more"

On the fifth of February Martinelli sent the police to open up the roadblocks. Armed with rubber bullets and tear gas they faced off against slingshot and molotov-coctail carrying Ngabe's. Four Ngabe's have died as a result of the clashes and hundreds more have been injured, including a couple dozen policemen. Last year, only one person died.

protesters and policemen clash (photo courtesy of www.elnuevodiario.com)

A Ngabe man armed with a slingshot (photo courtesy of  http://www.elpais.cr)    

In my attempt to watch the Superbowl I hiked 1.5 hours to Cerro Sombrero where I intended to catch a pickup truck to the nearest town, Tole. It was an eerie hike. Normally the houses I pass blare annoying Panamanian Tipico music but on this day I heard no music. At every house families were huddled around their radios and listening to the news. Each family was listening to the same station because the others were shut down. Even the people I passed on the trail were holding radios to there ears, hanging on every word the newscaster spoke. This is the most important event to happen to these people since the Ngabe's marched on the capital and won the creation of their reservation back in 1997. It is easy to understand why nobody here can think or talk about anything else. 

Upon my arrival in Cerro Sombrero I saw two large groups of people huddled around two small televisions, watching live footage of policemen clashing with protesters on the highway. I joined the smaller group and was immediately overwhelmed by the site of policemen shooting guns and Ngabe's throwing rocks through tear gas. I almost cried when I saw footage of four men carrying their dead friend through a crowd. They just don't show that kind of stuff in the United States.

Before I could process what I just saw a truck pulled up and interrupted our fixation on the television. The driver stuck his head out the window and yelled to us, "muchachos, lets go! Grab your machetes and rocks -we're going to defend the Comarca! Hurry! Lets go!" Upon hearing these words a group of men ran toward the truck. Armed and packed like sardines in the truck bed they sped off down the road to Tole. I felt uncomfortable being the only gringo there and knew I needed to leave but before I could another truck pulled up, filled with men, and  it too raced off down the road.

At the departure of the second truck I hiked home. During the hike my head filled with pressing questions: How will all this end? How many more will die? Am I in danger? How many more days will my food last before I need to re-stock? How can I contact people and be contacted without cellphone signal? Will Peace Corps remove me from my site? If so, how will they do it? After these questions sat with me for a while my worry subsided and as my thoughts shifted I began trying to process what I was experiencing. Immediately I remembered the protest movement in the United States. You can imagine the shock I felt when I had a momentary epiphany that these two groups of protesters - however different they might seem - are actually fighting the same forces: the power of money and extreme inequality. 

When I got home I glanced at the calendar. Below February 5 was written "Superbowl Sunday." As a sports fan dying to see the rematch of the greatest Superbowl ever I was surprised that in the excitement of the day I had forgotten about the game and furthermore, didn't mind missing it. Noam Chomsky once said, "One of the functions that things like professional sports play in our society and others is to offer an area to deflect people's attention from things that matter." 

With this sentiment in my thoughts I couldn't help thinking about the hundreds of millions of Americans who, glued to their televisions and watching the Giants cream the Patriots yet again, had no idea Ngabe's were being exploited and killed not too far away. 

And probably never will. 

Xmas in the City of Eternal Spring

The group: Omar, John, Moiz, Kate, Charles, me, Jess, Carolyn, and Coy

I almost titled this post "One Thousand Reasons Colombia is Cooler than Panama" because after a week in Colombia we Panama PCV´s wanted to early terminate our PC service, move to Colombia, and never leave. Indeed, we found a new reason to celebrate November 3rd -the day Panama celebrates its separation from Colombia: Panama can´t dilute Colombia´s pristine and pure culture and general perfectness. I should confess that as a PCV I am prone to romanticising things a bit, so I think I should hold off the comparisons until I know exactly how many times cooler Colombia really is (it´s probably closer to 750). Until I know I´ll just stick to writing positively about Colombia.

On December 19 ten of us departed the Panamanian port town of Portobelo and began sailing aboard the Ave Maria through the Caribbean Sea toward Colombia. Also aboard were our Australian Captain, Paul, and Ornella, our sassy Sicilian-Argentinian cook (when she wasn´t sleeping). Things started off without a hitch.

Not.

The first night was so rocky four of us ended up puking over the side of the boat, Kate flew out of her five foot high bed to the wooden deck and hit her head on a metal pole, and the captain had serious doubts about our mettle. Questioning our mettle is not something PCV´s are used to hearing so Omar set the captain straight in one particularly dramatic moment when he said, "We are Peace Corps Volunteers! You think being on this boat is hard for us? You should see what we go through every day. You could put us through hell but we will NEVER, EVER quit on you, Captain."

He was right. We didn´t quit and the rest of the trip went off without a hitch. Oh wait, except when we hit an anchored boat full of overweight middle-aged European nudists (one of which was pregnant) and Omar -to everyone´s surprise- actually said something more dramatic than before. He took one look at some black specks in the water, determined we were going to sink, and announced to everybody, "we´re fu****!"

We weren´t fu****, though, because paint chips don´t sink a boat, and this time everything did go off without a hitch (until we arrived Cartagena late and missed our flight to Medellin, but I am getting ahead of myself).

While the captain navigated with his computer and managed the sails the rest of us paired off and cycled through three hour shifts behind the wheel for twenty-four hours a day. We stayed one night on a tiny postcard island to celebrate Omar´s birthday and snorkled through beautiful reefs off its coast. The rest of our time we listened to the Rolling Stones top five-hundred songs, ate good food, explained to Captain Paul how to save the world, and tried to name as many sailing-related colloquialisms as we could (we stopped around sixty).

Omar and Coy off the coast of a small island in the Kuna Yala´s

The precise moment (and this is too corny for even Omar to make up) we entered Colombian waters a pod of dolphins met, swam with, and seemed to guide our boat for half an hour. We all congregated at the bow to watch them and kept remarking how fantastic and surreal the experience was. Even though it was, by the looks of things the dolphins seemed to be enjoying it more than us.

Later that day we arrived Cartagena but because we missed out flight we spent a night in the airport. But our bad luck did not diminish our holiday spirit and when we finally arrived a quaint house in the heart of Medellin on December 24th we had a Christmas celebration with Omar´s family that not only lasted until three in the morning but made us ever so jealous of everyone who has been lucky enough to be raised in Colombia (come on, it´s just Pablo Escobar, cocaine, and the FARC!). The food was incredible. We sang Xmas songs, hugged and kissed each other, sang Happy Birthday to Omar, and were treated as family. The most heart warming part of the celebration was that gift-giving completely revolved around the sweet-yet-spunky ninety-two year old Grandmother. EVERYONE had a wrapped gift for her and excitedly waited while she opened them.

The rest of our stay was a whirlwing tour that thoroughly convinced us that Medellin is the greatest city in the world (back off NY). Omar´s cousins, Carlos and Carlos, met us every morning and showed us their favorite parts of the city. We visited a poor neighborhood via cablecars where a fabulous library was strategically placed to encourage education and development. We climbed the rock at Guatape, strolled through the botanical gardens, walked through the famous Xmas lightshow on the river at night, and went to the Botero Museum on our last day. Day by day we became more obsessed with Colombia. Thoughtful city design, beautiful public works projects, friendly people, and delicious cousine combined in a way that left of speechless (even Omar).

atop the rock at Guatape



Kate enjoying her Arepas con queso with hot chocolate

Although Xmas in Medellin was not a winter wonderland and we were far away from our families, the city of Carlos and Carlos, of Arepas con queso with hot chocolate, and where ninety-two year old grandmothers steal all the attention on Xmas is where a group of people wished not to be home with their families but for their families to be with them -in the City of Eternal Spring.

Structural Violence and the Bottom Billion

The collapse of the Soviet Union meant that free-market capitalism would dominate the world economy. US scholars claimed the system would create mass amounts of wealth and significantly reduce poverty. Looking back on the past twenty years in terms of worldwide averages we can see that neoliberal economics has done precisely what it claimed it would. There are now over 1,200 billionaires in the world (up from 358 billionaires in 1995) and the percentage of people living in poverty has decreased worldwide in both relative and absolute numbers. But these realities hide other, more disturbing, outcomes of this economic system behind a cloak of (over)simplification. For example, the economic rise of India and China has brought most of their citizens out of poverty, thus significantly offsetting the fact that in the year 2000 a billion people were poorer than they were in 1970 and that the median age of death in Sub-Saharan Africa is less than five years (no, this is not a typo).

These "hidden" people suffer from what Dr. Paul Farmer – Professor at Harvard University and founder of Partners in Health – calls "structural violence": that the structure of the neoliberal economic system denies elementary rights to many people through tyrannical governments, lack of health care, neglect of public facilities, lack of education, oppression, and exploitation. Rights violations are no accident. According to Farmer, "rights violations are, rather, deeper pathologies of power and are linked intimately to the social conditions that so often determine who will suffer abuse and who will be shielded from harm."

It’s not only Africa. Haiti, Harlem, much of the former Soviet bloc, Bolivia, Laos, Cambodia, Yemen, Burma, North Korea, and indigenous groups everywhere collectively suffer violent conditions. Economist Paul Collier – former director of the research department at the World Bank – has identified a total of fifty eight countries that fall into the “bottom billion” category: those who are “falling behind and falling apart.” Collier believes we need to refocus our view of poverty. Many of the poor countries of the 1970’s are actually middle-income countries today, yet the International Monetary Fund has offices in every middle income country and virtually no offices in the fifty-eight countries of the bottom billion.  

Why are these countries “falling behind and falling apart” while others are reducing poverty at speeds never before seen? Collier believes there are four characteristics unique to the countries of the bottom billion that make it nearly impossible to climb out of poverty: the conflict trap (i.e. being trapped in a civil war), the natural resource trap (i.e. becoming a one-dimensional economy), the trap of being land-locked with bad neighbors (i.e. being unable to access ports for trade), and the trap of bad governance in a small country (i.e. government leaders stealing aid money or not building infrastructure). All countries of the bottom billion have at least one of these afflictions and most suffer more than one.

Following the horrors of Nazi extermination camps in the Second World War the world demanded a set of rules to ensure such catastrophes would never again be written in the pages of history. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 was the result. However great its intentions, the events in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda certainly show that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been unsuccessful in preventing grotesque human rights violations. Dr. Farmer would say that no state provides sufficient rights to all its citizens. While achieving this might be unrealistic it should be our goal and we can certainly do better than presently.  

In the US we have done a good job achieving civil and political rights. But what about other rights? What about other countries? Dr. Farmer says, "civil rights cannot really be defended if social and economic rights are not... the hesitation of many in the human rights community to cross the line from rights activism of pure principals to one involving transfers of money, food, and medicine betrays a failure... to address the urgent needs of the people were are trying to defend."

Inequality – political and economic – is a threat to democratic government and economic growth. Institutions (governmental, economic, and social) in highly unequal societies tend to be inefficient compared to their more egalitarian cousins. A cycle of inequality emerges as these societies ignore social obligations (such as education) and instead focus on opening up their economies to a world dominated by competitive capitalism. In this world the rule is: if you can’t compete you don’t get to play the game. More concerning, extreme inequality creates political instability and thus undermines democracy. Fed up and with nothing to lose, these marginalized groups frequently resort to violence, coups, and other undemocratic practices. This instability scares off would-be investors and inhibits the gradual process on which economic growth depends.

The day after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s murder – and two months before his own murder – Robert “Bobby” Kennedy gave one of the greatest speeches of all time. Titled On the Mindless Menace of Violence, Kennedy’s words ring as true today as they did over forty years ago: 

… [W]e seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire… Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.  

… [T]here is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter. This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.  

…We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others… But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can. 

So how to fix this flawed system? Dr. Farmer argues for an overhaul. We need to "redistribute some of the world’s vast wealth" to reduce inequality, provide human rights to all and provide a preferential option for the poor. Collier says we need to overhaul our system of aid, use military interventions appropriately, develop effective laws and charters, and provide trade benefits to those in need. He calls on conservatives and liberals of the world to work together.

The neglect of those in poverty in this era of affluence is our world’s greatest regret. To overcome it is our greatest challenge.

Ode to Chaco

In the business world it is always refreshing to find a company not only supremely confident in the quality and craftsmanship of their product but that backs it up by boldly going where few others dare to: offering a lifetime warranty.

I purchased my first pair of Chaco´s for hiking in Alaska and in anticipation of travels in the Middle East. Although I loved the highly adjustable single-strap design and uniquely designed sole what really sold me on the $100 sandal was its lifetime warranty, but not for obvious reasons. I was fairly certain they would last a long time so the idea of replacing them wasn´t on my mind; I was looking for a versatile and well-made product and in Chaco I trusted because they offered more than words and promises: they backed their confidence up.

 "would you like your check, sir?"

After three years of traveling through twenty countries on five continents I still thought my Chaco´s would last forever and I became (like so many before me) a passionate advocate for a Chaco-led life (more on this later); life without which isn´t really "living" after all.

Tragedy struck in country number twenty when my invincible sandals were put to their toughest test: Panama. More specifically, the Comarca Ngäbe-Bugle in Panama. My Chaco´s failed this test. Conditions in the Comarca, I´ve now learned, are perhaps the most ideal for destroying a pair of Chaco´s. Incessant tropical rain creates muddy conditions which turn pathways into an ATVers paradise. While this is splendid in a place that has never heard of ATV´s, this mud is also kryptonite to Chaco´s when combined with immense amounts of hiking (thus, on a Peace Corps Volunteer).

My first pair of Chaco´s broke within my first three months in Panama. Chaco´s policy is to send a new pair for a broken sole (they informed me they could not do anything about my broken Chaco "soul" though) and replace a broken strap for $20. Send them the broken pair and they send you a new pair: very smooth. I was worried I would have to pay $50 to send my sandals internationally but again, Chaco saved the day. As a PCV I only had to email a photo of the break to get a new pair. Phew! It was just as easy to replace my second pair five months later when they, too, broke.

Of the nine PCV´s in the Comarca from group 66 seven of us own and practically live in a pair of Chaco´s. Most of us have had to replace them at some point. In an extreme example my friend Jake just broke his third pair here and is walking barefoot everywhere, refusing to put his feet in anything else while he waits for his fourth pair to arrive. (Not really).

Kayla's Chaco's after I attempted to fix them...

The irony is that we continue to use a product that continues to fail us. Why the stubbornness? Because Chaco´s are by far the best foot wear here. Other options:

• Boots keep the mud down and are good for crossing rivers but are so hot. Although is rains in sheets here it does not make sense to wear rain gear at eighty degrees; you will just get soaked with sweat. It´s better to remove the gear and embrace the rain bath. And without raingear boots fill with water. Verdict: obsolete.
• Hiking boots are good during the dry season but are worse than boots in the wet season. They are harder to clean, fill with water because I refuse to wear rain gear (you would too - trust me), and my laces have broken four times. Verdict: obsolete.
• Teva´s or Keen´s. Teva´s lose their velcro after a short period of time and are harder to clean than Chaco´s. My only friend here with Teva´s were given to him used by his dad and if he wasn´t so cheap he´d have Chaco´s. Keen´s are nice sandals with better toe protection than chaco´s but are a nightmare in the mud. My only friend here with Keen´s just told me she was buying a pair of Chaco´s for precisely this reason. Verdict: obsolete.

While writing this blog post I was trying to decide which is more impressive: how tough Chaco´s are and how good their customer service is or how rugged the Comarca is. Just before my head exploded from being unable to answer this great quandery it dawned on my that I can be equally impressed by both of them and thankful for how they enhance my life. (This is the kind of perspective you develop when living a Chaco-led life). Happy Hiking!

Summer´s Here (haha!)

Every year summer arrives the part of the Comarca south of the Cordillera Mountains sometime during the first week of December. Just like in the United States it is an exciting time: children are finishing the school year, corn, beans, yucca and other foods are beginning to ripen, and there is no more mud! According to my journal, summer started this year on December 6 because that was the first time in many months we didn´t have any rain. I am tempted to consider the first day of summer the 5th, though, as that was the night Lela hauled her cooking rocks out from her "kitchen" and into the open air. That night we huddled around the fire and felt the excitement of summer while Lela prepared rice and chicken under the brilliant lights of a full moon and stars. The conversation during dinner focused on fact that seven dogs now spend the majority of their day in my 12´x12´ house.

For most of my first year in site that number fluctuated between a manageable three and five dogs and has held strong at four the past four months. That all changed on November 18 when I woke up to the sound of three whimpering puppies curled up with their mom in the corner of my house. Pregnant Puma finally had her puppies. I was excited and honored she chose my house to have her pups in but Armodio felt differently. Armodio, sixteen and famous for being the family´s best hunter (he´s incredible accurate with a slingshot), said the puppies are no good because Puma is "good for nothing." I understood this to mean she doesn´t hunt (which is true) so I responded, "well she´s really cute - she´s good for looking at. haha." He clearly misunderstood my sarcasm for stupidity (this happens far too often) and before walking away he gave me a quizzical look then chuckled awkwardly. I interpreted this to mean two things: "I´ll never understand Scott" (probable) and "Scott is weird" (definite).

Since the birth of the puppies my days have been filled with excitement and my nights have been filled with a growing melody of animal noises that to my complete lack of surprise is even more annoying than before! To the owls hoot and the frogs burp comes the roosters roost and the cicadas song. The crescendo grows with the dogs bark and the pigs snore (he sleeps against my house) and everything culminates in the screeching sound of three whining puppies.

Despite this and the little piles of puppy poo and pee on my floor, their cuteness and entertainment more than make up for the extra work of cleaning up after them and my lack of sleep. And I am closer to them now because they almost died twice today. In the morning Armodio killed a highly poisonous Coral snake slithering near the house. In the afternoon I noticed my guitar case had become part of a large termite home (this is a painfully clear sign that I need to practice more). I removed the guitar from its cubby and began scraping away the termite home with my machete when a large scorpion began scrambling up the case and toward my hand. I simply shook the case and the scorpion fell to the ground. At this point all I should have needed to do was stomp my foot. I was not that lucky.

Whereas the puppies once stayed curled up in a cute ball of fluff all day in the corner of my house, they now whine and wander around aimlessly. I have to dance around to avoid these adorable miniature moving landmines, two of which happened to place themselves just inches from where the scorpion fell. Of coarse a scorpion strike would kill these fur balls so I acted fast. I scooped up the puppies with my left hand and let my machete take care of the threat with my right.

Such is the level of excitement in Bajo Cerro Name in the Comarca Ngabe-Bugle as we welcome summer into our lives again.

Unofficial Peace Corps Degrees

My friend Tim had to leave Panama before he was finished with his service because civil unrest made his presence in his area too dangerous. This is not common in the Peace Corps although it does happen. I saw Tim two days before his departure and asked him how he felt about leaving early. He replied, "You know Scott, I haven't even been here [in Panama] a year, yet I know I've learned far more here than I did during four years in college."

Two weeks after Tim returned home I attended a training seminar on the construction of composting latrines. One night while we were cooking dinner on my friend's propane stove I shared Tim's words with fellow volunteers. We agreed with Tim about the value of our PC experiences and, in doing so, were led into a discussion about what degrees and minors we unofficially earn as PCVs. This list does not include the skills we develop (such as time management and problem solving); rather, it is a list of the knowledge we have attained listed as degrees we think we deserve.

Degrees:

• Literature: I am well on my way toward reading at least one hundred books during my PC service. My list includes Atlas Shrugged, The Grapes of Wrath, The Brothers Karamazov, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, War and Peace, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy to name a few. A lively debate among PCVs about these novels round out the major.
• Education: The entire philosophy of the PC rests on education; empowerment and capacitation are the keys to a successful and sustainable service. Whether it is seminars, lectures, or hands-on teaching, nearly all our work rests on education.
• Development Economics/Political Science: PCVs love to debate and discuss these two subjects more than any others. By far. A seemingly unlimited supply of books on these two subjects floats through the PC community to enhance the discussion.
• Diplomacy: In order to balance our values with our community's we rely on diplomacy. PC work itself leads many people into the field of diplomacy.
• Outdoor Education: PC service seems like a long camping trip. Getting to my site involves hiking at least 1.5 hours and neighboring PCVs are up to seven hours away.
• Community Organization: Much like education, community organization is a large component of PC work. This is especially true for Environmental Health Volunteers where success depends on the community's contribution to projects and being organized into effective groups.  

Minors:

• Spanish: This should be a major for me since I will be living in a Spanish-speaking country for two years. But in the Comarca where I live the Spanish is improper. I think of it as hick Spanish. That's enough for at least a minor, right?
• Medicine: PCVs are given a medical kit and are expected to self-medicate minor ailments. Numerous gastrointestinal issues and recovery from them improve this knowledge.
• Public Speaking: Seminars and lectures involve knowledge transfer which means that PCVs are expected to practice their public speaking skills in Spanish often.
• Management: PCVs teach their communities the importance of management and they also manage the projects they undertake.

Peace Corps in Panama: Giving Back this Holiday Season

Dear Family & Friends,

As many of you know, I am currently serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Western Panama. For the past year I have been living in a small village with members of Panama’s largest indigenous group, the Ngäbe. My job as an Environmental Health Volunteer is to work with the local community to improve their access to clean water and effective sanitation systems. As a Peace Corps Volunteer I strive to leave a sustainable impact on my community, Bajo Cacicón, through empowerment and capacitation. Many of you have expressed interest in contributing to my Peace Corps work. I am now at the point in my service that it is easy for friends and family to get involved.

(If you have already heard my story and would like to contribute to my project, you can scroll down and follow the link at the bottom. If not, please read the story of my project that follows.)

My work thus far has focused on identifying my community’s strengths and weaknesses, their most urgent needs, and the challenges associated with the extreme poverty of the region. Using my Peace Corps training, community organizing skills, and much-improved Spanish, I have facilitated a variety of community meetings and discussions. Through this process the community was able to unite and determine their primary need of new latrines.

Currently without latrines, the people of Bajo Cacicón use Quebrada Plata, a nearby stream, to go to the bathroom. Quebrada Plata is also the sole place for bathing and washing, and the water is used for both cooking and drinking. This environmental and public health nightmare leaves the locals with regular bouts of e.coli, giardia, and amoebic dysentery. Children are the most at-risk group and suffer awful consequences due to the exposure of these pathogens. Bloated bellies and severe diarrhea are common symptoms among children and exacerbate malnutrition and other poverty-related health problems.

The people of Bajo Cacicón and I have developed a plan to solve this problem. We will build 46 latrines for families within the community to improve the health of over 300 people. Basic latrines will ensure that all dangerous pathogens are contained a safe-distance from Quebrada Plata and will no longer threaten the health of the community.

Because the Peace Corps seeks to empower and capacitate we are requiring each family to contribute 50% of the construction of their latrine. This contribution will be in the form of materials (supplying sand and wood) and labor (transporting purchased materials to the community and construction of the latrines). The easiest way for you to help the families of Bajo Cacicón is to send a donation for the purchase of required materials. The monetary cost of building a latrine for one family is $102.

I am asking each of you to consider the health and well being of a community that has been under-served by its country and is working hard to make positive changes. I feel fortunate to be living and working with the people of Bajo Cacicón. Please contribute the amount you are able and consider paying for at least one family to complete this project.

Children of my host family bathing in a stream

To donate, visit my Peace Corps website and use a credit or debit card to make a contribution. 100% of your donation will go directly to build latrines in Bajo Cacicón. Feel free to send me an email with questions or comments. I would love to hear from you. Also, please forward this email to anyone that might be interested in my project. Thank you for your time and consideration. Any amount you can give will significantly improve the lives of the children and adults of Bajo Cacicón.

Sincerely,

Scott Mortensen

(scottbmortensen@gmail.com)