Lessons Learned
March 16, 2010
By Fabiola Monje
Editor's Note: As any returning World Water Corps® (WWC) volunteer will tell you, the experience of the field teaches you many lessons in sustainable development—and brings you face to face with extraordinary human beings. People who feel passionately the need for change in their own communities, and who work tirelessly to make it happen. Water For People–Bolivia staff member Fabiola Monje went to the village of Hardeman, recently, for some WWC style monitoring of household latrines. What she brought back, in addition to her data, was a profound sense of the human element in our work.
On the day I met Dona Betty, I noticed how lively it was in her Hardeman Central neighborhood, a little district near the San Pedro municipality, dry and dusty, but with plenty of fruit trees. Here, all of the men leave at sunrise to the "Chaco" (the wetlands), where they labor on large farms, while the women stay to "raise the kids at home," as they proudly say. Some men return home every evening, others just a couple of nights a week. The children play barefoot with an old ball, breathing dust every hour of the day, every day of their lives.
I was in Hardeman as part of a monitoring team of Water For People staff and partners, going household to household, checking the maintenance of ecological composting latrines a year after Water For People had facilitated their installation. Dona Betty was fretting, trying not to miss anything that her neighbors did or said. For Dona Betty, a leader of her community, the activity of evaluating Hardeman's latrines was serious business. She wanted the good grade of "green"—meaning well-maintained and properly used—not just for herself, but for the community as a whole. It was against this backdrop of methodical data collection that we suddenly heard screams from a neighbor. We rushed out to see a gasoline truck crashed into a tree whose leafy branches were tangled with the electric cables that ran across the peaceful town.
Our team stood astonished, almost immobilized, as the scene developed in front of us. Maybe we didn't understand the gravity of the events; certainly we didn't have the image in our minds that in that moment came back to Dona Betty. Terrified but determined, Dona Betty ran to the little shop in front of her house that sold, apart from groceries, small tanks of liquid gas and diesel. The cables sparked like fireworks, and the sparks got brighter. Fire looked imminent, not least because the truck was full of gas. The driver ran from the wreck without looking back, stunned into action by the vision in his rearview mirror of white smoke from the burned cables, wafting over the wooden roofs of the neighborhood houses.
Miraculously, the incident stopped there, before the worst could happen, and we continued on about our business. Dona Betty returned to us and resumed her role as volunteer guide in the evaluation task. Despite her agitation, and even with the fifty-some years she carried on her shoulders, she was determined to continue. But I saw her trembling and nearly breathless because of the fright that had passed. We kept walking the rest of the day, dutifully completing our surveys, while Dona Betty told us the story, in response to my curious questions.
More than two decades ago, the carelessness of a family that left a log smoldering, helped along by the Southern winds, burned all of the trees of Motacú, and within a few minutes, all of the houses on the town's main street. Being a Catholic woman, Dona Betty remembers how she prayed while watching the fierce fire ravage the neighbor's houses, and how (here with a trace of pride in her voice) God protected her house, turning the flames away and down another path through town.
Then, too, Dona Betty remembers vividly how the beloved Father Remo personally helped the victims of the fire. He and his heroism are part of the essence of the town, and the statue that stands in the central plaza captures that well. Everyone remembers him warmly for his unselfishness, for the way that he worked and helped tirelessly after their common tragedy. If one day you have the good fortune to visit Hardeman, any person there could tell you about Father Remo—and about his tragic end on Christmas of 1984. With a bag of toys for the kids and the bicycle that he always carried on his shoulders, Father Remo set out across the Piraí River, but fell from the rickety bridge of tree trunks to his death in the river's fury.
There is much to say about this day in Hardeman, but what I realized that night, lying awake in my little hotel, with its straw mattresses and innumerable funny prohibitions, is that the world is so big that people do not bother identifying all of the anonymous heroes that work for the good of their fellow man. An infinite number of names come to my head, each one with a story behind it… and the world becomes small again before my eyes, because somehow people that are simple links bring themselves together to work as a chain going around the world, giving a little bit towards sanitation, saving a child’s life, and changing the world.
What do you think?
