Aside: I've started to realize that a lot of my posts (some like to call them chapters!) have the same literary arc: a problem presents itself, I stress out about it, a solution is found or occurs naturally, and then everything ends more or less happily. It would be nice if all my experiences thus far occurred according to this pattern, but they have not. Take this post, for example...
We knew that in order to maintain people's interest in and commitment to the project we would have to begin work immediately after the meeting. Creating a lot of hype could only go so far in convincing the community that working together with us was in their best interest. Results speak louder than words.
During the meeting we had asked for volunteers to lead out work groups for the new tasks we had proposed. Demetrio—the community's de facto chief—offered to take the initiative on clearing the land where the self-sustaining farm would be located, and Lina—the wife of an evangelical pastor—decided she wanted to be in charge of the compost program we had devised for the women of the community. Both agreed to start on the first steps of their work the next morning. Lina would organize a meeting with the women, and Demetrio would meet with the municipal government's surveyor and myself to mark the limits of the garden.
The next morning in front of the church Demetrio arrived on time, accompanied by Pablo, a man I already knew fairly well, and a teenager whom I had never met. When the surveyor arrived, we walked around the perimeter of the land that was “available” for use by the community (quotation marks because as the rightful owners of the land, it should all be available to be used however they want to). We discussed the best locations for planting certain types of crops, and eventually we had a relatively good idea of the amount of space we were dealing with. In order to measure it, we would have to first clear a few bushes where the outer limits of the farm would be. It was estimated that we would be able to complete that work by the end of the week.
As we walked back at the church, Beatriz arrived with the municipal government's director of public works, and we did a bit of a public mutual debrief of our morning's activities so that the community members present would know exactly what was happening, and, more importantly, so that the government officials would know that the community members present knew exactly what they had promised to do. The surveyor would measure and sketch out the limits of the future farm,
and the director of public works would provide machinery to clear and level the land once the largest plants had been taken out.
Afterwards, Beatriz and I spoke briefly with Demetrio about what tools or materials he would need for his group to complete work according to the schedule we had agreed upon. He supposed that he could bring about five or six people, so he asked for five machetes, an ax, and a sharpening stone. We promised to have them ready the next day. That night Beatriz traveled back to Salta, and the tools Demetrio had asked for were being sent in the opposite direction, thanks to Beatriz's husband Carlos.
Initially we had planned to form the work groups during the community meeting. Since the meeting had gone long and simply getting two leaders had taken about 15 minutes, we were open to Demetrio's advice to allow the groups to form organically over the course of the work rather than formally create them. It was neither the first nor the last time Demetrio would be wrong. The following morning, he was the only one that showed up.
“And the others?” I asked.
“I don't know...” he responded with a smile.
We spent most of the gray-skied morning clearing cactus and numerous wheat-like stalks with our machetes. Demetrio had brought his own and was much more effective than I was, mostly because I was using one of the new machetes that hadn't been sharpened yet. Well, it was probably mostly because he actually knows how to use a machete...
We had a few small-talk conversations about soccer, the USA, and briefly about the meeting, but I wasn't too interested in talking about anything deeper. I was too distracted by the thought of the other four machetes going unused. Why had no one come? Was it Demetrio's inability, or perhaps unwillingness, to motivate others to participate? Maybe he was just apathetic? Had the meeting been unclear or misunderstood?
The next morning wasn't much better. Demetrio arrived somewhat late, and Davíd, another self-proclaimed leader in the community, also helped for awhile. Davíd is a artisan of woodwork, so he showed me the finer details of how to use an ax and machete (i.e. all the details). Throughout the morning I asked both of them why they thought more people weren't coming to help, and I always got the same response—“I don't know”. Truth be told, two 10-year-old-or-so boys had shown up and were enjoying going karate on some helpless plants and trees with the machetes, but they were mostly just an innocuous distraction.
After a couple hours it was noon, and we started to make our way back towards the church a few hundred meters away. That's when I found out that the boys weren't as harmless as I thought. One of the machetes was missing.
Demetrio and Davíd didn't seem too sympathetic. “That's just how it is. Some kids are really bad,” they said. “Some of them even break windows to steal from the school, and their parents encourage it.”
The pair started walking back to their respective houses, but I wasn't about to lose a 65 peso machete to some punk kid on the second day of work. I demanded that they do something to get it back. They talked to one of the boys. He blamed his friend. They talked to the other boy. He blamed the first boy, but went to go look for where the machete might be hidden. Not surprisingly, he didn't find anything. Demetrio then talked to the parents. They said they “didn't know”, even though Demetrio overheard them telling the boys to not tell us where it was hidden. Finally, after pressuring a group of other children, a little search party “miraculously” found the missing machete.
A few minutes later I was packing up the tools to head back to the house, and both Demetrio and Davíd asked if they could borrow the ax to sharpen it. Given the recent incident I was extremely hesitant—and perhaps reasonably so—but I knew I was making a huge mistake as I uttered the words of my curt response:
“I'd rather not. I don't want things to disappear.”
Their silent reaction was numbing. It was true, I didn't trust them yet. But they weren't supposed to know that. I knew that their trust in me could be seriously comprised if I didn't do some damage control. With some help from Beatriz, we came up with a plan to smooth things over. We made a formal note making Demetrio in charge of the tools as leader of the work group—showing him that we do indeed trust him—and I told Davíd that I kept the tools with me so I could sharpen them in town with a machine, saving a lot of manual labor—which was true, even if it wasn't my primary motive. Fortunately, both of them seemed happy with the arrangement.
They were not, however, happy enough to bring more people to the future garden the next day. We did get one more recruit—Luis, the pastor of the Anglican church—but it was now clear that Demetrio's “five or six” helpers were not ever going to come. I tried to stay positive. At least each day we had added one more person to the group, a pattern which could be sustainable over time if retention was high.
It was not. The following morning, Friday, Davíd was busy with artisan work. Luis would “be there in a little while”. And Demetrio, completely missing. After waiting alone for an hour, I gave up and went home, furious. I didn't want to see or talk to anyone—least of all Demetrio—and luckily I didn't have to. I knew what lay ahead, and I wasn't looking forward to it: an entire weekend thinking of how to explain to Demetrio that being a team leader isn't just a title, and trying to figure out a new strategy for including more men in the project. These were two tasks I had never imagined we would have to do, and that made them all the more daunting.
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