In this case, I called a meeting for Lado Oeste and Ladera separately to obtain and review information in a community setting. I presented the formal tool for analysis: the Participatory Analysis for Community Action (PACA). It consisted of engaging the community to think about and record certain aspects of their community. For example, drawing a map of the community and areas of interest. Other activities included determining and ranking community priorities in terms of priority and difficulty, as well as creating a seasonal calendar. But perhaps the activity people had the most fun with was coming up with the daily schedule.
Each gender split off into different groups and on a piece of paper, each group would jot down a general schedule for a typical day. But the real fun came when they jotted down the schedule they assumed the other gender did during the day.
Once complete each group presented their findings. In Lado Oeste, the men volunteered to go first, and provided a grossly exaggerated schedule. Magdiel, who had been visiting his family at the time, volunteered as the group's spokesman.
"A las 04:00 en la mañana" he started "levantamos y nos duchamos."
Everyone began laughing.
Magdiel continued: "A las 05:00, desayunamos. Y déspues, trabajamos en el campo hasta las seís."
The women, afterwards, presented their schedule for the men. Most notably, they recorded the men as waking up at 08:00 in the morning, not leaving to work until around 10:00a. After an hour of work, they come back for lunch and then work until around 4:00p. Then after dinner, the women joked, the men leave the house and go "al paseo" until returning at around midnight.
Then the men countered with what they thought the women's schedule looked like.
"A las 05:00" Magdiel began "Las mujeres entran al baño y hagan su higiene diario."
Immediately the women took issue with that. "Cómo puede ser que los hombres estén despiertos antes que las mujeres? Como van a desayunar?"
The rest of Magdiel's recitations were respectful and overall a good guess. In both communities, the men often found one crucial element was missing in their presumptions of the women's schedule:
"A las siete, acompaños los niños a la escuela" Yorleni of Ladera presented.
All the men had a palm to the forehead moment.
"Había una abertura en el horiario y pensabamos que ellas descansaban en ese tiempo." Roberto commented. "Nos olvidamos de los niños!"
This was, perhaps, an important lesson learned about the gender dynamics in the community, a result which would be shared in the debrief meeting held with PC Staff Martín.
Nevertheless, everyone said they had fun. I remember visiting community member Aurelia in the following days who was still chuckling about the event.
"Qué hora es?" She asked me.
"9:30" I responded.
"Mira, dijeron que se despiertan a las 4:00, pero mi esposo todavía está durmiendo adentro!"
November 14, 2019
I had left Lado Oeste that morning reminding my host family about the meeting of the day. I made my way to Ladera where the joint community session was to be held in order to meet (Peace Corps staff) Martín and G83 volunteer Tristan "Itoli" before the meeting. As I walked to the meeting area, members of Ladera came out to ask me when the meeting was.
"Hoy. Ahora." I told them. But the confusion wasn't isolated. I found this issue occurred with each house. As I discussed the situation with some neighbors, it seemed that Bernardino had called a meeting for the day prior. Bernardino had planned to get a meeting together to plan food and drink for the meeting this day. However, there was a typo regarding the meeting time on his note and so that meeting fell apart. Then, some people were confused what the first meeting was about and if that was THE meeting we were having. Martín and Itoli arrived, but the meeting was thus far unattended. Children were sent to the far corners of the community in a last-ditch effort to spread word about the meeting in progress.
Following a last minute change of venue (moving downhill 1 house) and a slight delay, the meeting was aweigh. But, there cannot truly be a meeting without food, or at least drink. So the "vaca" (money-collecting bag) was passed around and another kid as courier was sent to purchase ingredients. It ended up being enough for everyone to have a small plate of rice and chicken (not rice with chicken) as well as coffee.
After introducing and giving time for Tristan and Martín to present themselves, I called up representatives of the water committee (Bernardino and Cutilio) to speak. Once they were done, members of the community came up on an ad-hoc volunteer basis to present our findings from the previous use of PACA as well as to discuss lessons learned.
With that concluded, I informed those present that I would be meeting with the water committee in the coming days regarding elevation surveying. As had been transmitted through a meeting with the CONADES earlier (courtesy of Tristan and volunteer Fé), there was a lot of money to be spent in the area. However, CONADES was still in need of certain data in order to begin funding and contracting procedures for the water system. What could be done in the meantime however, was to survey the land and provide that data to CONADES so as to speed things along.
Of course, such a task couldn't be done by the water committee alone and would require community labor. As such, the water committee would engage in fact-finding regarding the logistics of elevation surveying before organizing such an event.
Pictures (Photo Credit: Tristan Odekirk)
The Meeting Begins
Martín Gives Words
Bernardino and Samuel "Chingonblü" Present
the Seasonal Calendar of Ladera
Yorleni Presents Findings of the Daily Schedule
Group Photo
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