29th Abril, 2014 11:12am
We have just had a refreshment with the mayor –an hour long
and now we wait to continue with the next steps. Our project isn't moving at the pace we all
want, but this is the way these things go – gotta go with the community and
their pace – I have learned that well at work.
You can’t push people with projects; you need to make sure there is
understanding and a level of comfort before moving forward with work.
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| Refreshments at the city hall building |
The mayor is a great host and has been working with us on
everything. It’s great to have the community’s leader so interested and involved
in what we are doing - and I do think that he is genuinely interested in what
we are doing and wants our input on his ideas. There have been times that he has
asked “what do you think?” and then he takes some of it into his ideas by
expanding on or asking questions. One concern is that he has a great vision,
but we are not sure that he has plans for all the ideas – example, he has a 20
year plan, but when asked about a 5 year plan, he didn't have a solid answer. I
think that is true for politicians anywhere, but I do have a feeling that us
asking about some of these things will get him thinking about some of those
plans. He has done a lot since taking office in January, and he is all around
the community, which is great to see and very promising….
Gotta go engineer now…
JLC
29th Abril, 2014, 8:50pm
Great project news! We presented our aquaponics project to
some community members this evening and they seem very excited and interested
in it. They were asking all of the “right” questions, meaning they were
thinking about how it could really pertain to them and be of use to them; from
asking if they could grow cattle feed in it (before we asked them what they
would want to grow), to asking if they could use this idea with families at
their houses. It is so exciting that they are asking these questions because
their concerns and visions are in line with our concerns and visions - we are
looking for this being a pilot project, with the hope that they will use the
concept to build more. It is fantastic that we are all on the same page.
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| Our aquaponics presentation. (me on the right) |
There was a slight problem at the landfill though. We had
asked them to dig a trench, which they did, but they also put part of a cap on
part of the landfill while we were running errands today. This is an issue
because we might need that area to be accessible, but now it isn’t so much;
perfect example of some miscommunication.
They did what we asked, but also did something else that they thought
was being helpful, but wasn't and we didn't know about it until after it was
done. Oh well, what is done is done and
you just have to work with what happens – go with the flow.
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| Discussing landfill plans with the mayor and team |
Speaking of flow, we are going to be building our leachate [“garbage water”] collection system tomorrow; it will be interesting to see how that goes.
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| Measuring length of pipe needed for leachate system. |
Outside of the engineering side of things, we were visited
by the kids again – of course. This time
they were bolder, with more of them coming in to say hello, which then
escalated to them taking my camera and taking photos of EVERYTHING with it.
They were jumping all over us wanting to be picked up and swung around, or they
started playing a game of tag. They kept
asking us to play futbol, but after last night, we are too tired so told them
that “Shaggy”, who had left for a walk, had the soccer ball. Which was not only
false, but also made them very unhappy, which I felt bad about - until I look
at the time and realize that I am not encased in sweat as I am writing this
tonight. It’s nice to have one night
that isn't too sweaty.
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| Hanging out with the kids. |
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| Trying to get my camera back. I was not successful. |
I should get going though as I would like to get the dirt
off soon…it’s everywhere from the landfill...one of these days I will write an
entry on the nitty gritty of being here.
I had a friend who, a while back asked me to write about the “facts of
life” and I will….just not now.
Buenos
Noches, JLC
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