Building capacity, one dance move at a time
It has been an interesting transition. Less than two weeks ago I was an intern with the largest Christian development organization in the history of the universe, out of an office in the capital of the world's largest superpower. Now I'm working with a small, exciting, chaotic start-up NGO in a town most people have never heard of, out of an office in a basement of a house on the side of a volcano. There are pros and cons with both, of course, but there's definitely something to be said for the chance to help teach English via Cha Cha Slide (disclaimer: I only dance at weddings and in Latin America).
In the weeks before I arrived, ADE staff completed a census of everyone in San Rafael, gathering key data about all sorts of things. One of the most striking findings was that 98% of the population had only a sixth grade education or less. This in a middle-income country in an increasingly globalized - and educated - world.
This finding confirmed the importance of one of ADE's main projects: opening a secondary school in which students from the community have the opportunity to receive a world-class education that fits into the broader goal of local capacity building. Take this week as a snapshot of what that might look like.
On Monday ADE students and staff headed over to the local elementary school to weatherize their classrooms. After the earthquake damaged their building and rendered it useless, they moved into temporary wooden structures meant for emergency housing. More than a year later permanent solutions have remained frustratingly elusive, and when it rains, water comes in through the doors and windows.
So, using a donated sheet of clear plastic and pieces of scrap wood from a neighbor, we weatherized the classrooms with these simple ingredients in such a way that when it's sunny, they can be rolled back to let in fresh air. Today, despite driving diagonal rain, the classrooms stayed dry.
On Tuesday, we set out in our 12-passenger van along the road through the earthquake-affected area, stopping along the way with digital photo and video cameras, which students used to document reconstruction efforts.
This was an opportunity for students to learn more about what is happening in their community and to ask questions they may have never been invited to ask before, such as: Will bags filled with dirt really work to hold a road in place if/when another earthquake comes? Would I want to live in the valley below that sort of structure? Did this construction company ask anyone who lives here before making their decisions?
These are just preliminary questions; the beginning of a new way of thinking in which everyone - even a seventh grader - is a key community stakeholder.
All of this is in keeping with the belief that any sort of healthy and sustainable development (or redevelopment, in this case) must involve local capacity building, and that few endeavors build capacity quite like an innovative and interactive education - whether within or without the classroom, using pens, pencils, books, hammers, nails, cameras, and killer dance moves.
A different sort of spooky
For the past four months, until last week, I was living in northeast Washington, D.C. in what was admittedly not the safest neighborhood. It’s the sort of neighborhood with a liquor store on every corner and bars on the windows of some homes. I eventually began venturing out at night on foot, but it was always a little spooky. I’d purposely empty my pockets of valuables and make it a point to pay attention to my surroundings. It was a matter of using common sense to mitigate the risks without being paralyzed by fear.
So now I’m here in rural Costa Rica, far from the dangers of the North American ghetto. As I mentioned before, I’m staying at ADE’s education center, a work-in-progress tucked into a valley in a little clearing in the rainforest. It’s really beautiful - in the daytime, at least - but I have to admit that the first couple of times hiking down there at night have been a bit spooky.
I walk with a flashlight which lets me see about two feet in front of me on account of the insanely thick fog, which feels like rain on pause. There’s a German shepherd that barks up a storm but has so far resisted its apparent urge to rip me to shreds. That’s been nice. But rumors of coyotes and vampire bats (seriously!) have warranted my complete vigilance and visions of acting quite unlike Gandhi should I encounter such beasts along the way.
On top of that, there have been a couple of close calls with cows - which, take my word for it, are much scarier under the aforementioned conditions than one might otherwise expect - and their many droppings interspersed along the trail of deep mud make me glad to be wearing crude rubber boots.
So this is life in San Rafael de Vara Blanca. Cows and mud and fog and breathtaking beauty and, perhaps, vampire bats. It’s really something else.
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