Intention and Realization

CLTS- Community Led Total Sanitation.  

The SINGLE biggest issue is the ubiquitous sanitation conditions in the developing world which result in higher numbers of illness and death than anything else, period.  

Did you know that 80% of those who die from disease in the developing world lose their life to a sanitation related disease?  Nuts huh?  We are talking about AIDS, Malaria, Economic development.. etc… important issue… but if you ask me, there is absolutely NOTHING more important than talking about sanitation and the root causes of the death of so many innocent children.  So billions of people are irresponsibly defecating ALL over the world… what can be done?  Well, there is actually a very simple answer to that question: We use a program that helps a community identify their own problems and discover their own solutions.  Our role is not to give money or direct physical support in sanitation solutions.  While there are many orgs that do, 1), it requires a ton of money and your impact is limited to your fiscal capacity, and 2), it is a horrible idea because then that community and every community around is taught that they cannot make any progress without aid money and they sit complacent until you bring your checkbook to their community.  

 Community Led Total Sanitation avoids these issues because it involves acting as a facilitator and simply works to create an environment and thought process by which problem identification and solution discovery become practically inevitable.  What does this consist of?  We find a community with an individual who really would like to make a change.  We then plan a time to visit the community and ask them to have as many people mobilized to meet with us.  When we show up the crowd is usually quite small, so we send the kids out to gather as many community members as possible.  

Then we simply start asking questions and the magic begins to happen.  “Any kids here ever get diarrhea?”, “Any ever get cholera?”, “How many kids get sick per year?”, “How many die?”, “Why do they get these diseases?”  The answer inevitably becomes: “From our poor Sanitation.” We then inquire: “Oh, really, what is the problem?”  Many different answers come from this, but in one way or another it will lead to the practice of defecating openly.  The next step it when all the fun happens.  “Can you show me where you do this? “ We end up walking around, touring if you will, the areas of open defecation.  By now we may have hundreds of community members parading around with us.  Some laughing, some disgusted, some curious.  I stand right in the midst of all the crap (literally) and people clear away.  I ask why they don’t come closer and the good responses start to come out.  Then we do some nifty visual aids with human feces, which I will spare you with, and things really start getting disgusting.  We start talking more about the kids and whose fault it is that they are getting sick.  In the last community I worked with, 65 children die EVERY year from sanitation related diseases!  In another small community of about 300 kids, they lose 10% of their kids every year!  Yep, 10%!… they lose about 30 kids every year to cholera, typhoid and dysentery.  Seriously, try to tell me a bigger issue!  We talk all about how much fecal matter we are ingesting EVERYday from our hands, flies on our food and our water sources.  

We try to get to a less smelly place and really get down to it.  By this time there are key players that are super disgusted and not willing to let things stay the same.  That is when I bust out the simplest, but extremely provocative quote: “If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten.”  “If you don’t want 65 kids to die this next year what are you going to do differently?”  The next step is to separate those that are serious and those who are not. Community dialogue takes off and I am almost done.   I will then usually ask everyone committed to making a change to stand up and move to another place.  Once they have done so then I get out a clipboard and challenge everyone who is committed to overcoming the open defecation problem to write their name on the list.  I then give that list to the community leader and tell him:  “These are your soldiers, now get to work if you want to. “  

This process has been proven by other groups to have huge impacts and we have already seen massive verbal and emotional impacts.  In the months to come we will be able to analyze the true change that has been made.  Our goal is to carry out such sanitization in every community in West Kaddem and then, from a technical perspective to work with community elders to be able to give them ideas on low cost, labor intensive, rather than capital intensive option, to organize community waste.  I am extremely proud of the work that we have done in this regard and I am excited to spend the rest of my life doing it.  Out of EVERYTHING that we do, there is NOTHING that is more important.  

Cory Glazier

Well…

The school is approaching completion; the solar array is set up along with the computers.  The business development workshops are completed and over 60 community members have been trained. The application appointments are taking place where community members bring to us their business plans in hopes for credit to start or expand their businesses. 

Our community health committee has been assembled and is presently undergoing their comprehensive training process so that they can carry out community health education perpetually once we leave.

Our bookshelves have been built and we are organizing our books and creating our library system.  Our community water filtration system has been fully ratified and supported by community leadership and is only several days away from completion and installation. 

Our agricultural workshops are underway and attendees are expressing serious excitement about the critical education.  We have redesigned our community waste receptacles to make them cheaper and more replicable and we have let our former garbage collector go and are seeking a new community member who is more committed to the cause.

The Youth are completing their month long Global Citizen Program where they have had lessons and activities in everything from health education to local culture and traditions.  We have assembled and trained our community economic committee designed to supervise and carry out our community perpetual micro-finance fund.

 We have registered our school with the local District Government and we are arranging for a large opening ceremony featuring the District Officer and the District Commissioner. 

We have reevaluated our community center management since the death of our former manager and have hired the man for the job. He is doing an awesome job running the facility which includes our school, the computer education facility and our micro library. 

We have identified and hired two competent computer education teachers and several extremely qualified school teachers. We have met with the parents of the children attending the SCHAP community school and have assisted in the creation of a PTA in order to support them in arranging a school feeding program and other improvements to our school system. 

We have done all this while doing our best to document the whole process and get enough rest in order to have enough energy for the next day.  Nuts…

Seriously, running the project has been like coordinating a symphony, making sure that all the right players are tuned and prepared and all come in a do their thing in the right way at the right time.  This project has surely consumed more energy then perhaps anything that I have ever done in my life and those of you who know me know that that is a big statement.  At the same time, as that which was once conceptual and nothing more than intention, comes in to reality, we are discovering, in practice, how incredible and productive a comprehensive project can really been.  We are seeing and feeling the synergies of our efforts as the same person in our health workshops are joining our PTA, and those in our business development class are now making economic and business savvy comments in our agricultural workshops.

It is hard for me to really come up with something personal to write on this blog as I feel that my life is simply the realization of this project.  While I am here working with these people who I have come to know so well and love so much it adds validation to the countless 16 hour days that Jess and I put in over the last couple years and the countless volunteer hours put in by our committed and incredible team.

 To the team… thanks, you rock.  For those who have given financial contributions… please know that every cent that you have given has been used as wisely as possible to be able to deliver the maximum impact for good that we could muster in this region of western Kenya.

To the friends of SCHAP… thanks for your support, encouragement, belief and prayers.

We are on the final countdown for the week and this week will be just as insane as any other of my life.  But it will be good, and before I know it I will be back in San Diego, eating a burrito and watching the sunset while surfing in Oceanside wondering if this was all a dream.

All the experiences, relationships and successes… how did I get so lucky to be a part of such incredible work?

I hope that you have enjoyed the blog so far and I am so stoked to be surrounded by such awesome teammates who have worked so hard to help bring this all together.

 To the Kenya Team… will never forget working side by side to help make this world a little bit of a better place.

Cheers!

Cory Glazier

The only time that I can find to write is late at night once everyone has gone to bed.  The stars in Western Kenya are materialized magic.  Words don’t even describe how wonderful the nights are out here; most include fireflies, laughter coming from all directions and the middle age girls are heard singing to the younger children.  Kind of sounds like I am writing a fairy tale, but all of the above is so true.  Plus of course the bugs that are cooked right into your beans, the shower with warm, but still contaminated lake water applied cupful by cupful and the foam mats that still let your hips enjoy direct contact with the ground all night.  So great!

 The last couple of days have been incredible.  Rather than chronicling the days, which might be kind of long and boring, mostly consisting of meeting after meeting after meeting for me, I wanted to talk about two of these specifically and some of the things that we are accomplishing out here.

 The first meeting that really was awesome for me was with our Economic Development Committee. 

Background: most of you probably know that micro credit is becoming a more and more popular tool that, if administered properly, can have huge impacts in poverty reduction and community development.  An MFI, Micro-Credit Financial Institution, is usually the entity that is involved with administering micro credit.  One of the major issues is that MFI’s are usually headquartered in city centers and it takes great expenses and effort to make education, credit and accountability available to the poorest rural citizens.  There are other models that have been experimented with in order to be able to overcome some of these obstacles.  SCHAP is among those who are experimenting with innovations that may allow micro credit to become more available to the rural poor through a simple, self-governed and replicable model.  When we met with the Chief last week we briefed him on this idea and he caught onto it and is now running with it. 

The concept:  We, as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), offer business development workshops and help to prepare citizens for credit, by helping them create viable business plans that will assist them in being able to significantly increase their income as well as provide valuable goods and services to their marginalized community.  And not only are we teaching registrants, but we are also training facilitators to carry out the same workshops without us.  Nothing new or revolutionary yet… but wait, there’s more.  We have created a community committee, consisting of 9 quite astute and responsible community members, who are responsible for deciding on which of our applicants will get the credit at the end of the class.  This means that we are not making the decisions, but the community, or at least community reps are. We are simply advocating the case of our students to them.  Once the committee decides, we will be issuing several thousand dollars worth of credit, which will empower many applicants with life changing capitol.  Once the loans are issued and the terms decided the committee will be the body responsible for holding community members accountable.  It keeps getting better; as loans are repaid via our employed manager we will continue to have capitol available for community lending.  Our manager will continually work with community members to create business plans, and periodically the committee will meet to be able to assess the various applicants as reported by our manager and credit will be perpetually lent out.  In other words, we are creating a perpetual or revolving community micro credit fund.  With all power of decisions and accountability in the hands of the community; even a bank account set up solely to receive and store capitol for community lending!  The excellent thing about this is that with some capitol, business training and institutional organization, an NGO, like SCHAP could support communities in setting up such programs in developing regions all around the world with ZERO operating expense except for the initial set up.  Plus 25% interest is charged which covers local expenses and can also serve to increase the size of this pool. 

 So the thing is that this all sounds fine in theory, but it kinda sounds a little too good to be true?… right?… WRONG!  We are doing exactly this and it is going incredibly successful.  The Chief appointed 9 to be a part of the committee and we met for the first time on Thursday.  We took several hours to explain why they were appointed and the vision of what could be accomplished if they took their positions seriously.  They were absolutely stoked to be a part of a somewhat revolutionary solution to a global issue.  To think that their responsible community entrepreneurs could have a reliable source whereby they could apply for credit when they had a valuable service to provide to the community lit them up with excitement. 

 (So, Mikel told me yesterday that I write and talk as though I am always right in the middle of trying to give the greatest speech of my life… haha… he is so right! He meant it as a criticism and to make fun of me and I just took it as a compliment. I don’t imagine letting up anytime, so you’re just going to have to deal with constant cheesy motivational speaker wannabe over here.)

 Anyways, so the business development is going well.  On Thursday we not only kicked off the said committee but we also had an orientation meeting for our business development workshop which commences next week.  We had over forty present, 18 or which were women.  They are stoked for the opportunity to develop their knowledge of business skills and qualify for a loan.  It is incredible how capable and knowledgeable many community members are and how anxious they are to share their knowledge and experiences with others. 

 Next meeting:  I will be brief and massively understate the significance.  

Last week the chief and I decided that we should call the leaders of the region together so that we could catch everyone up on our 5 year game plan and get their input and insight regarding the “whys” of us working in their region. Today was the day and we had our small center packed with over 40 community leaders: political, traditional and religious, representing 10 villages.  There we spoke for about two hours.  We briefed the leaders on the premise and functionality of SCHAP and discussed with them how we could best be of service to their developing communities.  We helped them to understand that we were a bit different from other NGO’s that they may have dealt with in the past… in the sense that we are not coming to really DO ANYTHING at all… getting stuff done has never been our goal… but that we are coming to bring tools and train the community on how they can use those mechanisms to create a brighter future. A computer education facility, a library, a micro credit program and a school that offers quality education, community members trained in health and proper sanitation, and others trained to build inexpensive community water filtration… these are all just tools, and the future that is built with those tools is fully in the hands and control of the community.  It was also fun discussing Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela as leaders to emulate.  We talked about vision, leadership, sacrifice and commitment.  I was hesitant to dive into leadership training, because that is not what the leaders had signed up for or what the chief had asked, they were just there for a brief, to ask questions and to give input, but I got the go ahead from my intuition and a couple of stories, quotes and questions later we could really see their eyes light up with leadership excitement.  Really, it was awesome.  We passed around a signup sheet for any leaders who wanted to come back to take part in a series of workshops solely geared at discussing the principle of enlightened leadership and how they could improve their ability to lead, especially through the process of community development.  Twenty-four leaders committed to sacrifice several more days of their lives simply to learn how to be better leaders.  They forfeit their time; they either walk great distances or make great sacrifices to pay for transport.  They know that they have nothing to gain but knowledge.  And they are pumped! 

 Our motto: empowering the capable.  Every single day I am reminded that we have had it right from the beginning.  These Kenyans are SO capable.  They have so much to teach us and they are so eager to learn what they don’t know.  They are trustworthy, honorable, hard working and reliable.  They are dealing with certain disadvantage that I, even though I live here with them, cannot really understand or imagine inflicted upon myself.  Yet they persevere and when offered an opportunity to improve their plight, they take it and run with it. Honored to be a part of what I consider noble work and so excited for the next couple weeks as daily our plans and conceptualizations are materializing.

 Cheers!

 Cory Glazier           

Oimere! (Oh-ee-ma-rey)

Sounds familiar?  It is funny to me how much East African Culture is in our lives and we don’t even know it.  The last couple days for us have been totally unreal.  I remember thinking last trip that we could not have asked for a better, more fulfilling experience… and the sentiment reemerges daily.  We are making progress with all our objectives, we are seeing excitement and development in the community AND we are having a blast doing it! What more could we ask for.

Each teammate here is having a different experience and it is so awesome to see the team members living up to their respective roles. Everyone shares various team responsibilities and project stewardships. That alone is the key to the comprehensive nature of our project… or in other words… that’s what allows up to get so much stuff done. The first couple days were allocated to miscellaneous set up and meeting. Stuff set up, meetings had. Check. The next couple days were allocated to the major meetings in order to make sure that we were deeply connecting to the community in a sustainable way. Yesterday we met with Chief Dickens, who is the political leader over the whole area of West Kadem (comprised of 10 villages, Matoso being only a small section - called a beach - of one village.) Chief Dickens and I discussed for several hours in order to come up with the most effective and strategic plan in order to ensure full buy-in and deep perpetuation of the projects that we are involved with. The rhetoric at every level has been clearly explaining that we are not here to develop anyone or anywhere… we simply bring in the tools and the community chooses what to build and how to build it.  A library, a Computer Ed facility, a school, Health information, Ideas for community sanitation management, education on inexpensive community water filtration projects, Agricultural Information, Business Skills and even micro-credit are not alone “development”… any more that buying a text book makes you an expert.  It is the patronage, the use, the application, the paradigm shifts, the desire, the decision, the commitment, the behavioral change, the attendance, the maintenance and proper utilization… this is development… and that always has been and always will be in the hands of the community itself. That’s how it is in reality and that reflects SCHAP’s policy and mentality… and I am proud to say that.

So, we set up committees. The first committee that we decided to set up last year was a centralized West Kadem community development committee, in order to be our full interface with the entire region. The Chief asked me directly to “strengthen this committee,” so that we did.  The first step was to reactivate them and so we called them together and had a meeting discussing the future and fate of this region.  As I mention a moment ago, there is little credit for us to take in this process… one of the things that I am happy and confident to feel proud of though is our process of helping the leaders involved with these projects see the full vision of what their community could be. If you think that stepping in dog crap sucks… try stepping in human crap. To speak of the health hazards of open defecation and the possibility of having beaches free of human waste through proper education and basic latrine facilities… Their eyes just light up. To increase computer literacy from 0.5% to just 5%… what would that mean for this regions?  If 3% of community members read one book per year… what if we can get that number up to 15%!  What would that be like… what kind of energy and information would that bring in?  To help hundreds of community members to increase their business skills and understanding (we are training business development trainers, who will be carrying out perpetual trainings)… how would that effect the economic growth of the entire region!? What is they could reliably apply for credit to help them start/ expand a business?  What if there is a local school center where even some of the children can receive a quality education (we have parents bringing their children from very far because our school is said to have superior results in the students as compared to others in the region).  If the children are able to overcome chronic worms and parasite with basic hand washing (hygiene) and papaya treatment (health ed, a local naturally grown plant that can be turned into a tea that kills and expels worms and parasites)… what would that look like if they could have the function of their bodies and MINDS that were once stolen by organisms living inside them… what would that mean for the future of the community… Each of these improvements are COMPLETELY within their grasps if they can take some of the tools that we leave behind and commit to basic organizing, mobilizing, adjusting policies and sharing information/ education. Their eyes get as large as grapefruits as they realize not only how incredible the improvement would be, but how possible it is if they just commit that it is what they want. And SCHAP is here to partner with them for the next several years to provide support through the process.

Next we set up several other committees in order to manage and maintain other, more specific aspects of out development initiative who will report to this aforementioned overarching committee. We are working hard and having fun.

Today we also made great strides in the construction process of the school.  We purchased the stones that we need for the rest of the foundation.  They are being carried here as I write this in the middle of the night as the donkeys who carry the carts do better with such heavy loads at night time.  Tomorrow we make the journey into the nearest major city center in order to purchase other necessary materials needed for the construction of the school. We are building on faith, hoping that we will be able to attract the necessary funds to finish the project… if you have not, please watch this short video

about the school we are building  www.blocks.schap.info.

Everyday we balance our day between playing with the kids, eating amazing fresh fruits, developing our relationships with each other, riding motorcycles across one of the most incredible landscapes on the

planet, watching breathtaking sunsets over Lake Victoria and working with the community in order to share our technical capacity, ideas and love which may end up increasing the quality of life and happiness of our brothers and sisters. What more can I say…

Cory

A big what’s up from Western Kenya.  My name is Cory Glazier and I am the project director out here with SCHAP. I want to apologize ahead of time… I know that I have a very well written and funny team, so their posts are going to be a lot more fun to read then mine, but I want to give some core updates as far as what we are accomplishing on a day to day basis and the progress that is being made out here. 

Daily I am stoked, surprised by how much we are able to get done and even to immediately see the impact that our presence and our capacity is able to make on the people of this region.

SCHAP’s motto, from inception, has been: empowering the capable.  I cannot tell you enough, how right we were to select those words and gear the objective of our organization towards searching for and developing the most effective ways to empower rural citizens. Citizens who are SO smart,  SO responsible and SO capable to be able to have the tools they long for and need in order to take the development of their own community into their own hands.  

Today was an awesome day.  We are all working very diligently to get all of our misc prep work done before our official programs get started. We are meeting with all the necessary people, gathering the necessary supplies, doing our last minute on the ground requisite research and having find-out sessions from various community members in an attempt to refine our methods and content so that it is perfect for our audience. Good stuff.  

This morning I met with the contractors who are working on the school building. Because I was not here for the commencement, we had to send out some money so that we could start the foundation. Once I was here I was able to meet in person and really negotiate the rates and streamline the construction process so that we will be able to build the structure in the time that we are here. In the negotiation process we were able to get the price down about 90% from their initial ask prices. We will be taking the procurement and transport of all materials into our own hands in order to further decrease the price. Allowing us to complete construction within the previously determined budget of about $20,000… of which I believe we have raised about half. 

After that meeting, we set up our temporary solar array to provide power for team logistical purposes and to test out the charge controllers, solar panels and inverters that we have that we will be using for our larger solar system that will power our computer education facility. Next we walked the community to find the right type of fine sand. We found some course sand and gravel that we needed to build a demonstration bio-sand water filter which will be an incredibly inexpensive exciting way for the community members to increase the quality of drinking water without the need to pay for expensive chemicals, purchase coal or perpetuate the intensive wood collecting for boiling.  We set up the demonstration filter and had serious curiosity, skepticism, interest and excitement. Like other aspects of our project we will do with this what the community demands. From teaching individual how to construct their own, to setting up a large scale devise - capable of filtering water at the lake shore for hundreds of community members and their daily needs.

Later in the day Berkeley and I started meeting with farmers.  Our goal was to check their level of understanding in terms of the principles of soil fertility. We also we needed to survey the homestead style farms and glean whatever information we could from the field in order to enhance our curriculum for our agricultural workshops that will commence next week.  That process was really fun and interesting. It was super cool for me to see Berkeley in her zone. We worked tirelessly (especially Berkeley) the months before departure to study agriculture specific to this very region. To see her asking all the right questions and proving her knowledge and capacity to become an effective servant of the community was very rewarding. A full day for sure and about a month more worth of full days ahead of us. We are four now, but we have five more on the way making a total of nine community development workers. All prepared to make a significant impact and provide a valuable contribution to the people of Matoso. We absolutely love being here so much! There are no comforts or luxuries that we aren’t happily willing to leave back in America in order for us to have the opportunity to spend such a fulfilling time here in Kenya with the people. 

We had a meeting with the teachers of the school two days ago. In this meeting we communicated with them, as I would like to communicate to readers now… we are not here to DO anything. We are not here to DEVELOP a community. We are NOT here to tell anyone what to do or how to do it. We are simply here to offer our knowledge, experiences, training, technical capacity and love like a tool box. Inviting the community to take the tools that we have brought and build for themselves a brighter future. 

That is who SCHAP is and what it means to be a part of SCHAP. It means increasing your value and capacity as an individual in order to become an empowering servant to others. 

Cheers!

Cory

March 27, 2010

I am sitting in the Dark here in the Niger Delta. No lights, which is a typical occurrence out here. The rain is pouring down and the lightning and thunder are exploding right outside my window. It is hard to put into words, but the natural forces out here seem so powerful and intense on every level. I LOVE IT!

Let me give a recap of what we have been up to here in Nigeria for any friends or family members interested/ concerned. I am sorry that I have been pretty MIA lately. All or good reason though: things have been very busy and very interesting lately with lots of progress to show for it.

So, basically here is the recap. I came out here in Dec 2009, because I had met the Gov of Bayelsa State in the Niger Delta and he wanted to sponsor some community development projects in his state. After two months of reconnaissance and project preparation, things in the state government got real rocky as a reflection of the instabilities at the national level. Long story short, these extreme distractions prohibited the state government from taking community development seriously and we were not getting the attention that we had when we began. Then I went home and regrouped for a month. I had so much invested out here that I had to give it al one last shot before I threw in the towel on this one, knowing full well that I may come home empty handed, but as Jess will tell you, I never REALLY come home empty handed, whether meant to be or not. So, I got out here and again, the initial reception was extremely positive and gave me optimism that the projects would come to pass. Then things really started falling apart down here. The EFCC, an international organization that investigates government corruptions and embezzlement of government funds, showed up to in town and started investigating the place and I knew that nothing on my side would ever happen. During this process, one night while I was playing wii (yeah, super random right?, never played it in my life and I am out here playing wii one night with an Olympic gold medalist, not in wii though) I meet this very nice Canadian lady. Super rad, she had tons of experience and contact out here. I tell her what I am all about and she is like, “well I know this person and this person etc.” So a couple days later Nelson and I jump on a plane to Abuja, the capitol of Nigeria where we start to meet as many people as we can. We had a bunch of meetings with the World Bank, various Embassies and other stakeholders in the Niger Delta. Then one day when we are at the market, we meet this lady who runs a television program that airs on a Nigerian Station. She is very cool and is like mega connected. So she starts making introductions and we keep meeting with more and more influential people. After about a week, after meeting with professional soccer players, Senators, World Bank Officials and Embassies and being highlighted on said television show, we decided that mission was highly accomplished and that it was time to wrap things up in Bayelsa and start the decent of our trip. What had we accomplished in this process? We were able to establish and extremely well funded and influential support network who we will be able to work with for the rest of SCHAP in our sourcing for funding for projects we will be carrying out all over the world.

Once we got back to Bayelsa we still managed to keep ourselves pretty busy. We have been able to connect to two different World Bank Organizations who operate here in Bayelsa. We have picked their brains specifically about projects here as well as what it would take to collaborate. We have learned SO MUCH its nuts. So stoked and excited about the progress that we have made and how it has helped me to feel more mature and equipped and capable in my position within the organization. All the while, we try to spend as much time as possible in communities in order to carry out my informal research.

That is pretty much the story. Nelson will be heading back to Utah in a couple days and I will be heading out to Uganda and Kenya for a couple weeks in order to take care of a couple things and run some very important preparation activities with the Matoso in order to prepare for out Aug trip. Should be a good couple weeks. In order to get over to Uganda from Nigeria I have to have an overnight layover in Ethiopia so I will be forced to spend a day exploring a new African city/ country. Kinda stoked about that: Addis Ababa. That will be my 8th African country! Starting to figure out the “Dark Continent.” Life is good. Got to keep things interesting. Despite how busy things get I try to never lose sight of the reasons that I am here. Every time I go to a community, it is SO easy for me to see all the things that could be done in order to massively increase the quality of life and create opportunities of serious progress and development for my brothers and sister out here. I love it out here. I love the landscapes and the people. I will miss this place hard core, but it is time to move on for now, but looking forward to being able to get back here as soon as possible. Just don’t tell my organization, I told them I will try to stay around for a couple months this time so that we can keep cranking out progress on our domestic operation.

Hope you find this interesting. All is well. I send my love and all that good stuff.

March 20, 2010

After several weeks back here in Bayelsa, it is becoming increasingly uncertain if we will be able pull funds out of the Bayelsan State Gov in order to carry out our projects. While visiting a friend in Yenagoa we met a wonderful new friend, Mary Ellen. She has been working here in Nigeria for the last five years as a Canadian Diplomat. She is super connected around here and very interesting. She started to give us contact details for various other people who work with organizations interested and capable of supporting community development projects. SO Nelson and I got on a flight and headed up to Abuja, the capitol of Nigeria. This place is unreal. From the poverty stricken creaks to what they say, is the fastest growing city in the world. Abuja is a relatively modern place, with pre-planned streets, movie theaters and more land rovers than La Jolla.

Since we have been here we have met with the Director of Education of the World Bank, a friend who does political consulting and is very networked around here, as well as Samson Siassia, a former professional Footballer, who has some interest in Community Development, who will hopefully be connecting us to some big players. We have a couple more meetings with the World Bank this next week, hopefully one with Microsoft, and perhaps a couple more political figures here in Abuja… just doing our best to learn and understand this side of the system, so that we can utilize resources like these all over the world. It is a fascinating experience and, like I like it, every day is very interesting and unique experience.

Lots on my mind and a bit hard to focus, so I am going to leave it at that for now. Wish me luck, until next time…

March 8, 2010

So here I am (I think that I start most of my blog like this, but what else would I say if I am writing about my own experiences and circumstances) here in the Governor’s house, awaiting my next appointment with him. Quick recap: As the President of SCHAP, I had the opportunity to meet with the Governor of a Nigerian State, Bayelsa, and was able to discuss with him the principles that I believe are critical for sustainable rural development. He invited me to come to his state to consult him/ work with him on some state sponsored development projects. So for the last four months, with the exception of my recent month trip home to San Diego, I have been here researching, developing, preparing and learning how to play the political game here in Nigeria. Why am I here? That is a very tricky question. As President of SCHAP I am away from my baby while it is in a very important growth stage. I remain here, however, because it is giving me a wonderful opportunity to become an expert in my field. I have learned more about development and about how to get things done here than I have in the years of reading books. Not only am I learning, but if/ when this project is officially accepted and passed, I will have an opportunity to be able to have relatively massive impact for good, and where those opportunities arise, I must go. Despite the militants and the kidnappings. Despite the headaches of working with “the system.” Despite the malaria and the opportunity cost and the people I have left at home and the terrible food and the man-eating pythons… I am here because there are few others, so if I was not working on poverty relief and community development here, who would be?

I flew in here on Monday and have spent the last couple days getting organized and calibrated. We have our logistics and made the connections that we need in order to precede. Hopefully this meeting that I am about to have will be a major culminating and telling experience in the progression of our project.

So guess what? Yesterday I made bread by myself for the first time of my life. I came here with very little money and provisions, so Nelson and I will be providing for ourselves: Oatmeal and some protein powder follows our early morning Yoga session… and then we spend the rest of the day salvaging food where we can and living off bars and fruit to stay sustained. At night we eat our loaf of bread with… oh wait, we eat it with nothing…haha..last night, dinner was bread and water. I love it though. I love to get in touch with circumstances that force me to think more about survival. We, as animals, which we are and often forget that we are, are designed to perpetually consider the various aspects of our own survival. While we are in America, we worry about car accidents or loosing our job, but rarely we have require the thought process that we need to consider in order to preserve our life between the people who look at you and see a handsome ransom, or the calorie counting that we do to make sure that we are getting the necessary building blocks of life on any given day.

How is Nelson doing? He is doing fine. He is a former missionary companion from my service in Toronto and he was my first companion in my very first travels to Africa. So, in many sense it feels like things are really coming full circle. He is well. He is loving the adventure. We have met some pretty interesting people and have had some interesting experiences and we are just getting warmed up. He is a good sport and a pleasure to be with. Although, he just disappeared and I am not sure where he went. Hopefully he didn’t get snatched. ☺.

How long will I be here? Well, I brought about two months worth of provisions. I am going to pursue my research and the community workshops that I hope to commence soon for the next 60 days or so. By then I will either be on me way home, or we will have a funded project and I will be working around the clock to mobilize for and execute. Short answer: I don’t really know.

So while I am here I am learning and growing. I brought some awesome books and yoga DVD’s. I have a wonderful field to work in for continual and arms-reach research, so I am pretty much in Paradise in ways. Say a prayer for me that all will be well for my personal affairs at home and our project affairs and safety here. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and I will respond in my next post.

Godspeed.