“He who handles poverty badly will handle riches equally badly.” –John Steinbeck
These past weeks I have helped plant rice, which was a first. They make a hole with a stick and then you drop a couple of seeds in the hole and you don’t cover the hole. It was easy, but it took longer to clear some of the plants that had re-grown in the lot than it did to make the hole and drop the seeds in.
I’m getting ready to make the move over to my own house, at the end of July. My community held a minga to fix a couple of things at my future home. Like the roof that has a couple of holes, the termites that had made a home on the roof (they need to move out before I move in) and a “shower” was put in. I say shower but its just four sticks with black plastic surrounding and stones on the ground (so the floor doesn’t get muddy). Oh and the plastic only cover three of the four sides (privacy is not an issue here, for the community). I am working on getting the other side covered. In the future, I hope to have a minga of my own to build a dry compost toilet for myself, since as of now I have to share the bathroom with the boys from the school, not an ideal situation. I can’t wait to move in to my own place. It will be nice to make food for myself and not be surprised with different type of jungle meat or having soup fish for breakfast.
On the note of privacy, its been quite the experience. The indigenous do not have issues with privacy. They take showers in the middle of the day and not in an enclosed place. I have seen most of my community naked at some point. Women breastfeed their babies and just whip them out without second thoughts. I do love my privacy so I will need the fourth side of the shower. Just my American upbringing I guess :)
I’m hoping to get a community bank started soon, so that maybe the handouts won’t be necessary. It will be a great way to teach money management and get the community to save and buy things for the community from their own pocket.
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