A day´s work

Long ago, I mentioned that I spend my mornings working with an organization clled Hogar de Cristo. Specifically, I work with their micro-credit program, which gives smalls loans to individual women who work together in groups of 10 or more. Each of these ¨banks¨of 10+ women has a director who is in charge of collecting weekly payments and depositing them in the bank. Hogar follows this structure because it promotes accountability not only to the organization, but also to the neighbors and friends who make up each bank. Subsidiarity - good work, Hogar.

We spent the first month shadowing Promotoras - the Hogar employees who visit the women who are behind on their payments. Working with them gave Santiago (my site partner) and I a good sense of how the program works , but was otherwise frustrating and unfulfilling work. After a few meetings with Hogar folks and our Rostro director, we found our niche within Hogar.

Every day I´m out in one of three communities (Arbolito, where I live, 28 de agosto, or5 de junio) meeting with women to...well...to accompany them, I guess. I have a tough time feeling like this is work - usually I have the sense that I´m playing hooky from what I should actually be doing. Hogar believes strongly in ¨accompaniment and empowerment¨ and thus, my job is to visit their clients to sit and talk. That´s it. So no, it doesn´t feel like work, but this may only be because I enjoy it so much.

Today Santi (my site partner) and I met a woman named Victoria. She makes all sorts of jewelry and spent almost two hours giving me an impromptu lesson in macrame. Unbeknownst to us, her daughter was making lunch in the kitchen during my lesson, so when she suddenly appeared with two plates of food (a huge pile of rice with a side of mashed potatoes and a hamburger the size of a silver dollar - we feast on a carb-heavy diet), Santi and I had no choice but to push aside our beadwork and chow down. Over lunch, our questions pulled out her story - she was a teacher in Guayaquil (major city across the river) for years, and her plan is to open a kindergarten in the house across the street. She gave us plenty more on the Minstry of Education, on private vs. public school here in Ecuador, on corruption and misappropriation of funds in the education system. I ate, frustrated and small.

She also shared her thoughts on culture of interpersonal relations here in Guayaquil and in the country as a whole. In the jungle and the mountains, people build community. They live together. They share. Here on the coast, they´re more selfish and individualistic. Can we change that? Sure, she says, but it´s a long process. People don´t organize here. Things aren´t fair, but they don´t work together.

So now what? All I can change is me. Yes. True. And believing that is the only way to survive community living. Lead by example. Still, I know voice plays a role. My life will be my legacy, but when I need to use my words, God, please take them. My life is yours. My voice is yours.

Today´s prayer intentions: for grace, trust, and patience

For Iris

In a few hours I head to work with several dozen Ecuadorian kids who are waiting for me with homework questions. In an effort to continue to process of turning Rostro´s programs over to Ecuadorian direction, we´ve been talking to community members about what they want us to do with our two-hour-a-day after-school program. They want us to teach English. Their kids can´t add, they can´t find Ecuador on a map of the world, and they can barely read in Spanish, but parents want us to teach English.

To be sustainable, it needs to come from the people. Yes. I know this. But I can´t help but feel like the people have a grossly skewed vision of the world that makes English and anyone who speaks it into a superhero or a savior. What do I do? I shut up and listen, at least for now. Wisdom welcomed.

Today´s pray intentions: for Catherine; for young idealists to find the strength to create change, especially the folks from Villanova; and in thanksgiving for Patricia´s growing home.