Week Three

This week has been all about two things for me: first, site prep began on Site 2 on Wednesday, which was a major event. So of course Tuesday was spent running around town picking up supplies and trying to make sure everything would go off without a hitch. Which it mostly did, except for the message I received from Chelina at 8 am on Wednesday morning, saying that she was on site for the beginning of the first day, and no one had a list of the people who were supposed to be working. It turned out that was because I had both copies of it. Oops. Once I texted her the full list of names, though, work was able to begin. By Wednesday afternoon, the crew had already cleared almost all of the trash from the river. On Thursday, they began tackling the mountain of trash that has collected on the banks. They have already made a huge dent – the site looks completely different.

Chelina has also spent much of the week coordinating with the engineer and interviewing contractors. The engineer made his first site visit on Monday and another on Friday. Since they have both gone well it seems like construction on the foundation will be able to begin next week. Yay!

But the engineer has actually been only a minor focus for me. Instead, my other big project this week has been getting the CBO’s constitution written. After our first meeting last Saturday, I prepared a draft for the next meeting, on Wednesday. At that meeting we went over the draft (which I basically adapted from another group – fixing grammatical issues, removing stuff that didn’t apply, changing or suggesting changes to other parts), discussing every issue in detail. From who can be a member to how officers will be elected, we went over everything. So that meeting dragged on for ages – almost three hours, probably. Then I spent the next couple of days fixing everything we had talked about so that we had a tentative final version. We met again on Friday and had another read through. There were only a few more minor changes, but otherwise the constitution has been approved! Now all we have to do is have elections, which are set for Monday, and then file for registration with the government.

I have also started taking tentative steps to get another part of the CBO off the group – starting our first income-generating project. A group visiting from Colorado did a demonstration of how to make liquid soap on Thursday, so Chelina and I took a couple of the women from the CBO to see it. This soap can be used for bathing, laundry, dishes, and any other cleaning that needs to be done, plus it’s cheaper than the soap the women use now. If they start making it and selling it they should be able to find a pretty decent market for it. So overall, it was a busy, productive week. This coming week I’m looking forward to starting construction on the foundation, getting the CBO registered – and of course, the constitutional referendum on Wednesday.