A very exhausting week had gone by, but I wasn't nearly as tired as I was apprehensive. Why? Beatriz was leaving.
From the very start of the planning of this project back in July, my name had been in the spot I least wanted it to be: director. To most people it would be strange for them to hear me say that. There are countless times where I've stood out as a natural leader, even when I didn't intend to, or indeed even when some of the people I was “leading” weren't very happy about it. The truth is, though, that I would much rather just follow someone else and have a specific task to complete. The problem is that in doing my work I always seem to be able to find time to see the errors of the other people working alongside me, and then feel the need to take control so as to minimize those errors. I suppose the jury is still out on if that is a fundamentally positive or negative aspect of my personality. Either way, not having Beatriz to follow scared me to death. I began recognizing all of the things that she had been able to accomplish so easily, realizing that my talents were nothing next to hers.
But this is what I chose. I could have backed out whenever I wanted to. Certainly I did not have the wit, tact, and spontaneity that draws everyone to Beatriz, but I did have one thing: dedication. A lot of it.
With that in mind, we cleared up some technical details and laid out a general plan for the following three weeks until she would be back again. We moved into a rented house (with a large room that conveniently can be used as a depository for donations) which was actually quite cozy once we cleaned out all the cobwebs and arranged a few pieces of furniture. Bathroom, hot water (electric heater), and gas stove, all for $125/month. A steal. We became fast friends with our landlord—the local justice of the peace—whose wife even promised to make us homemade bread every week.
As for the project plan, we settled on a single objective: do a house-by-house survey of every home in the community. Even though we already have a general idea of the necessities of the Wichí, to begin organizing the community—the first phase of the project—it would be necessary to have a very clear idea of how many families live in La Misión, and know exactly what problems they are facing. Given that there are only four of us here permanently—two social workers from the UAP (Silvana and Laly), a veteran ADRA volunteer (July), and myself—such a large scale survey would be very time consuming without some extra help. So, we decided to run a class in the town of Rivadavia to formally train students and adults in the art of surveying, promising a certificate and the possibility of future work in the area.
Preparing for the class was a little intimidating. Because of our lack of internet, we had very little source material, and it had been quite some time since Research Methods from college. Even then, my knowledge is oriented much more towards the construction and analysis of a survey or test than it is on what we needed to train people in: the interviewing process itself. In the end, however, that didn't matter as much as I thought it would. Silvana and Laly came up with some great material and activities on their own, and it turned out that what was much more helpful was my extensive training in PowerPoint layout and organization (a skill acquired from my wonderful psychology professors). Apart from the 15 elementary school teachers who dropped out of the course at the last minute because of conflicting meetings, things have gone incredibly well after the first week of classes. Even if the 30 people who did show up didn't fully understand the lecture I gave on Thursday, they were at least nice enough to pretend they did!
When we weren't working on the class, we were doing our best to inform members of La Misión about who we are and what we are doing. This was without doubt the more challenging half of our workload. There are so many barriers between “us” and “them” that it is very difficult to communicate effectively. It is not simply that our language and culture are vastly different. A long history of manipulation and false promises has made the Wichí extremely skeptical of outsiders, even those—maybe even especially those—who come in the name of help and support. In order to get our message across, we either have to oversimplify it or spend a significant amount of time explaining it in detail, neither of which are very appealing options. By simplifying we run the risk of having the other person fill in the details themselves, which can lead to serious errors—for example, thinking that we are a political group. By spending too much time on any given conversation, we are limiting the already small amount of time we have to reach other members of the community.
Most of the time the most we can expect is a muffled si or a slight nod of the head, but every once in awhile there are a few that open up and talking feels much more rewarding. For me this usually happens with the men of the community, with whom I feel more comfortable as I ask about fútbol or the history of La Misión or what they do for a living. Of course these topics are somewhat superficial, but they also create exactly the kind of confidence we are trying to gain, opening the door for more serious ideas—ADRA, plans for the future, community organization, etc.—to be discussed.
This was perhaps most true as we conversed with two of the teachers from the bilingual annex (Wichí-Spanish) to the elementary school in the community. Other times when we visited on other business, Beatriz and I had talked with them briefly as they sat outside watching over children at recess. Those times that we met they seemed to be rather non-plussed by our presence, and they were quick to mention other projects that had come before and failed. At one point one of them, Demetrio, had even spoken against the housing project in the name of all Wichí (“Los Wichí no estamos de acuerdo con...”). Later on we discovered that he might have in fact had the right to do so, because he is the de facto cacique of La Misión (see previous post), although most in the community do not recognize him as such. With this new information I felt the need to speak with him again, and although he still maintained some distance I think something changed in that moment. As I spoke, I could not help but voice how dedicated we are to helping La Misión, how much we feel their pain, how committed we are to not let things keep happening that way, and how this time things will be different.
Clearly what I say—or what anyone in our group says—is not the only important factor in achieving the closeness we are looking for. Having a bilingual aid, even though she is from another community, has been elemental to much of our progress. But after that conversation, I stopped feeling nervous about confronting the issues and, more importantly, I started to see a change in how people reacted to me. Now they seem to be listening more to what I say, and are more likely to enter into a real conversation--even offer to help us reach out to others.
And Demetrio greets me with a smile.
Other moments that stand out:
“You guys need to have neighborhoods with streets and houses. You have to stop living like animals”, the words of the agricultural surveyor of the municipal government to one of the pastors of the Wichí Anglican church in La Misión.
Talking with the two cooks at the “school cafeteria” (3-walled structure with a grill over a hole) about what they make for the children, where they get their food from, and what they thought about our project.
Discussing the possibility of a bilingual dictionary with Demetrio and his co-worker
Realizing how expansive and disperse the community really is. In some places you could walk for almost two miles from one end to the other.
Mispronouncing “democracy” multiple times during my presentation.
Talking with a nearly deaf elderly man who had been sleeping with the radio on full blast playing Lady Gaga. When he finally came out to talk to us, he was legitimately interested in everything we were doing, and made sure he remembered our names.
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