“It’s a group of old jolly men,” I tell the volunteers that arrive each Tuesday to help me with Seminars for Cerro Pita’s Water Committee. Seven men and two women make up Cerro Pita’s Water Committee, with a mean age around 55. They are all cousins, brothers, sisters, uncles, or nephews and act like they have known each other, and lived together their whole lives (which they have).
We have interactive class every Tuesday where we play games, learn about sanitation, leadership, conflict resolution, working in groups, collaborating with governmental agencies, professionalism, and technical information with regards to aqueducts. They’re not much different than college students, in that a few really want to learn, some sleep through class, and others are there just to scrape by. The seminar is written for a literate committee, and much of the committee is illiterate, so each Monday evening we modify the lesson plan to assure it is friendly for the whole committee.
Every member of the committee, along with the volunteers, brings something to contribute to a post seminar lunch or coffee break, which is prepared by a cook from the community. We have a coffee break in the middle and eat after five hours of seminar.
The Seminars are accompanied by lots of laughter, people breaking out of their shell (myself included as I open every seminar with a self composed guitar piece about the committee) and a few breakthrough moments for the participants that confirms the value of the whole seminar.
Great prose. Sweet pics. Keep recording. This stuff is precious.
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