After lunch a former co-worker of mine, Alex, invited me and Juana (one of my counterparts) to his classroom to pick up some eco-bricks. As all of you are aware of, I’m in the midst of constructing a Mayan Educational Center which will be made primarily out of eco-bricks (plastic bottles stuffed with trash). Our community is in charge of collecting about 7,000 to 8,000 eco-bricks. Alex had told me that his class was going around collecting bottles and I remember being frustrated because they were not coordinating with me. I had no idea when they were collecting the bottles and most importantly part of my job was to go around to the schools to teach the children not just about eco-bricks but about the environment and the effects of trash. Eventually, I put all that aside and figured that I’d appreciate any help in the overwhelming task of begging people to stuff bottles.
As we entered the classroom we were asked to sit down and the students began a short presentation they had prepared for us. To my surprise, these students went incredibly above and beyond any expectation I had of their bottle collecting process. This class went around to 16 communities and the urban center and collected a total of 3,000 bottles! Not only did they collect all of those bottles but they used their creativity to teach all of the children about environmental preservation and the negative effects of trash in the environment! They dressed up as clowns to make it lively and entertaining for the children, one student used a magic trick of changing a 5 Quetzal bill into a 100 Quetzal bill as a metaphor for the potential everyone has to change the municipality for the better, it was awesome! Everyone in development work talks about how the goal is to work him/herself out of a job and this is precisely what happened! Here I was thinking I was missing out on an opportunity to educate children when these students had put together their own environmental education workshop that was phenomenal! I felt so proud! (Can’t you tell by all the exclamation marks!)
After the presentation, Alex asked a simple question, “Do you remember who told us we could make a building by using these plastic bottles?” Everyone looked around without saying anything. There was an awkward silence and someone in the Mayan Council mentioned that they had worked together to propose the idea of building a center but then Alex repeated the question again emphasizing the use of the bottles. Alex finally said, “Carolina!” at which point everyone understood the question and said “Oh of course! This wouldn’t have happened without Carolina.” It was great! At first, you may think it’s disappointing that they didn’t immediately say Carolina but I was glad that the Mayan Council referenced themselves first. Why? It’s their project!! I’m just a facilitator, I want them to own it, I want them to tell everyone how they built this amazing center not that some American came in and built it for them. I’ll never forget Senator McFarland’s advice when I was a trainee “you can never want it more than they do.” So true!
But I digress, we filled the entire trash truck with our 3,000 bottles and went picture crazy! The students were swimming in the bottles they were so proud of the hard work they completed. I, of course, was beaming with pride and taking pictures as well while emphasizing how awesome it feels to accomplish a goal and how anything is possible with teamwork. We rode through the town to the municipal salon where we are storing the bottles so the entire town was able to see the Mayan Council and their new-found bottles.
The community has been involved in this process 110%, I couldn’t ask for better collaboration and it was a good motivator on my part that I can’t let them down. I’ve been sulking about trying to find funding but now I’m pumped again and ready to continue the search to get this thing built!! (Shameless plug: donate here!! C’mon are you gonna spend $20 to buy dinner or are you gonna help empower the Mayan population!?)
Below is a collage of pictures but you can see more and in better quality if you check out my Facebook profile.
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