Friday, January 20, 2012

January 19th






My hands have finally been destroyed. As I am a do it yourself type of gal and a very hands on learner, I decided to learn how to use a mallet today to break up concrete and brick in order to get the floor of our classroom ready to be leveled out. We had to build our classroom around where an old water tower was located and though we have moved the water tower, the supporting ¨feet¨ are still in the ground and need to be broken down. I have decided that the mallet is my favorite worst nightmare. On the one hand, it is great exercise for your entire body (more on that later) and it really lets you get all your anger out by constantly beating down concrete. These past two weeks have been really stressful and so beating and breaking down concrete today and yesterday has really helped me get my anger out in a more constructive, if somewhat destructive way. On the other hand, its hard, long, tedious work that makes you feel as if you are never making any progress (kind of the same feeling I get sometimes managing projects!). It is also dangerous and should never be attempted without safety goggles and a med kit on hand when the inevitable strikes and you end up smashing your hand instead of the mallet against the concrete.

A little more on how working a mallet can be great exercise (feel free to skip this side note but it entertained me while I was ¨malleting¨ this morning). My Peace Corps girlfriends are always complaining about how skinny I have gotten over my service, and while I know for a fact that it has little to do with what exercise I have done and more to do with the numerous times I have gotten amoebas and giardia (a water borne illness, not an STD), I have to admit that construction work is really great for building and toning muscles. So I would like to introduce what I call the ¨Shawshank Redemption Workout¨:

Shawshank Redemption Workout (You Know, Because That’s What Prision Inmates Do is Break up Large Pieces of Rock with Mallets in Their Free Time)

All you need is a mallet and some concrete. Oh, and some safety goggles! No weights and weird gadgets that make your body do strange things required. Basically you need to square your body off to whatever piece of concrete you are aimed at destroying and turn your toes out so that when you knees bend they go over (but not past) your toes. This will keep your knees in line and safe from getting strained or injured. Once you are in this squat position you may start swinging your mallet using one hand or both repeatedly against the concrete. I find that aiming for angles on your block of concrete works better than simply beating directly down on it since you will break off more bits more quickly that way. Please note: this is a one man job. If anyone else moves in to start some concrete destroying, move out of the way because you will most likely be hit by a large piece of concrete (and yes, this has happened to me and is a big joke between the foremen and myself….more so for them).

This workout will give you great toned arms, strong legs and a lot of blisters J

But enough of that and more on the project: Today was a great day. We had three of the five representatives of the parents show up and we are now putting up the final, horizontal column all around the classroom. We have made so much progress in so little time that I think I can safely say, barring a natural disaster, etc. that we will finish the classroom by the end of February or early March! One of the teachers also showed up today (classes start this Monday) and informed me that the first week of classes isn’t really for the kids to learn anything but to get the school in working order and thus the teacher s will be making the kids stuff bottles for me. I have kind of refused to stuff any more bottles and have yet to fill one this entire week. I think part of my brain died a little in the past two weeks sitting for hours on end stuffing trash into plastic bottles so this news is like a message sent from heaven for me. It also makes me a lot less stressed about the project because it means that we will definitely be ready to put the bottles up for this coming week and the following week, so that makes life even better. I also cheated on my ¨diet¨ that my doctor gave me while I am taking my amoeba meds and had coffee this morning, which always makes me feel like the colors are brighter and the world is just a happier place to be in. But this wasn’t just any coffee; its my secret stash of Starbucks instant coffee from Columbia (medium strength) that my bestie Kara gave me from her package that her mom sent her from the states. A day that starts with Starbucks coffee is always a good day (Note to my parents reading this blog: you may send me this coffee whenever, if you like).

Oh and one last note: make sure to always have a med kit on site. This may also seem like a no brainer but while my foremen and workers have gracias a Dios never been hurt, I have (not badly but I have nicked myself quite a bit and I am accident prone). But either way its just a good idea and a good investment.

One more note (sorry): Make sure when you are writing up your work contract that you discuss whether the workers will be working all day every day including days when they normally go to church because that is important and something that should be added to your work contract. I know people here tend to think that even though the work contract says 7 am to 4 pm are the work hours of every day, they can still go to culto and leave work at 2:00 pm. I am not going to raise the issue now with my foremen simply because it would be offensive to them for me to suggest that they miss going to culto during the week for the entirety of the project. But if you are starting your project out, talk about religion from the get go if you think you will be upset if people miss a couple hours two to three times a week because they need to go to church or culto.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

January 16th































I´m sitting here after a pretty hard day with a green tea face mask listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and laughing to myself about how different Peace Corps must have been for the original PCVs in the 60´s. In today´s day and age of Peace Corps, some volunteers have internet access in their homes (I just got a kindle and get free if sketchy wireless internet access in my house!), running water, indoor sinks (like my friend Katherine in La Palma) and nice beds.
Today was hard simply because we are hitting a sort of wall as far as parents coming to work on the building the classroom. Only one person came and last Saturday only one person came as well. Peace Corps El Salvador is also going through a hard time and everyone is really stressed out. It´s also the time of the year when everyone is cutting maisillo which is what they use to feed chickens and pigs here. It looks like little, white pin heads if you have ever sewn before. If you grind it up you can make amazing flour for cookies that my host mom makes that are pretty good for breakfast. I think as soon as the kids start school the parents will also start showing up in droves. At least that is what I keep telling myself. Everything will get better because once you hit rock bottom there is only up to go. At least we are still on or ahead of schedule. We are putting up the wood for the molds for the upper half of all the columns and should have them done tomorrow. Then the only thing left is to make the upper horizontal columns and then put in the bottles and put the roof up!
Tomorrow I have a meeting at the Agriculture University called La ENA to talk about another Bottle School project – they want to build a classroom for a vocational training center. So I will let you all know what comes from that meeting with them.
At least once school starts I can get the kids to fill bottles with me during their recess time.
Some ideas that I have if parents don’t come to help fill bottles or come to work: make a ton of party invites and make a work slash party day for everyone to come to. This way people can see all the progress we have made and how much there still is left to do. During the party, which doesn’t cost too much to put on, you can make speeches about the importance of collaboration and remind everyone when their work days are.
I am also going to make a huge poster to put up at the school which shows everyone who should be coming which dates to work and who has actually come to have more transparency and accountability. People are a lot more likely to come to work if they know everyone is watching to see whether or not they show up.
A suggestion for anyone wanting to replicate this project in other communities or countries: Always make sure you have a good, reliable source for water. This may seem like a no brainer but in a community like mine where we get all our water for our work from a single faucet (or from the river) this is something that we always need to keep in mind. For the past one and half work days we were without water and had to haul water from the river which luckily is pretty close by. But now we know that we always need to make sure that we have a large trash can or some receptacle full of water in case the water gets shut off due to a broken pipe, etc. For those of you who are wondering why would we need water: you use a lot of water to make cement but even more importantly (maybe) you need to water down the cement that you already have hardened because if you don’t water it every day it will crack and you will have ruined all the work you have done up to that point.

January 6th through 14th































I actually missed two whole days this week due to getting sick while I was in the capital for some med checkup stuff so sorry not to have updated in a little while. This week was a rough week for our construction process. We are definitely still on track but we are losing a little momentum as far as parents coming to help out. We had about 1 person per day as an average this week, a little worse than last week. But I am confident that once the children start school again (the 23rd of January), we will have a lot more help and at least we can get a ton of kids to fill up bottles, help which we desperately need. I have had a couple of kids come by and help me fill bottles this week but we only have about 62 bottles that are completely ready to go for the classroom. We have a ton of bottles that are halfway or partially full, so I am not worried about collecting more bottles, it´s just filling them that has me a little worried. But I am trying to keep thinking positively and having positive manifestationsJ.
We have finished half of all the walls for the whole classroom minus putting up the chicken wire and the bottles of course. We are finishing the very last horizontal column that goes as a supporting beam that goes in the middle of the walls today and next week we should be starting to put up the chicken wire and putting on the bottles! The chicken wire is the part that I am most interested in seeing since it is a totally new concept and the key point of this project that makes it so unique and special. For those of you who don’t already know: for this classroom we are substituting plastic bottle stuffed with plastic trash for bricks and in this way are helping out the environment and building a classroom at a more than 25% lower cost than a traditional classroom. We have to put chicken wire on both sides of the walls, which are secured with metal pins that are laid into the columns before the concrete is even poured and then we tie the bottles one by one to the chicken wire. Once one side is done and the bottles are secured, we place another piece of chicken wire on the inside part of the wall but we use metal pins and a metal rebar that is weaved (as far as I know) into the chicken wire to have it sit snug against the bottles. I will be including pictures next week so don’t worry J. I am super excited for next week because I have been waiting to see this step of the construction process in person since May of 2011 when I first started talking to the NGO Hug it Forward, which came up with this whole amazing idea. More to come soon!











Monday, January 9, 2012

Days four and five of Bottle School Project






January 4th and 5th 2012 – Days four and five

On Friday I went into San Salvador to have a meeting at the PC office with an agricultural supply store to see if they would be interested in helping out with the Bottle School project in my community. I met some representatives from this agroservicio in the beginning of November at an agricultural university called La ENA (Escuela National de Agricultura). They had expressed interest in helping out with the Bottle School project and thus we made a date to meet. The meeting went so well and we actually managed to create an idea for a future project: since this agroservicio sells a lot of agro chemicals in bottles about the same size and shape that we use now to build Bottle Schools, they came up with the idea to recycle those bottles (after they had been through a rigorous process of washing) to build a classroom in La ENA since they have a good working relationship with them. The funny thing about their idea was that I have already had a conversation with La ENA separately to talk about the possibility of building a vocational training center using the Bottle School method. So maybe in the future we will get all the bottles for the vocational training center from this company! It would be an amazing future collaboration so we´ll see.

Today we worked some more on the foundation but we finally were able to put down our first cinder blocks down to anchor the foundation where the walls will be built on top of. I still can´t believe this project is happening and moving along at such a good pace. The only downside today was that none of the representatives for parents showed up but since its Saturday I really wasn’t that surprised. Hopefully Monday we will have more luck.


Day 3 of Bottle School Project!






January 5, 2012 Day Three

Today went well even with the wind still going strong. Luckily it keeps the temperature down which has been fairly high recently. The weather here is mirroring what we normally see in October with the wind and March with the heat. 2012 thus far has been a little weird weather wise. Only two of the five families showed up today and I lost my two foremen for the entire morning who had to go to Sonsonate to get the funds out of the bank. We finally figured out what the problem was: the bank account number has two numbers at the beginning that you don’t use for the bank account. Wish they had told us that sooner and we could have gotten all of our funds last Tuesday when we first went to the bank. Lesson learned for sure.

I was thinking today as I was stuffing bottles that I should definitely write a little blurb for this blog about the best way to stuff a plastic bottle. It is actually quite the art form as you have to make certain that you are stuffing the bottle from all sides and angles so that in the you’re your bottle is literally as heavy and hard as a brick, which is why we call them ¨eco bricks.¨ See below and enjoy! (BTW one of my foremen made me a new and improved bottle stuffer which is pretty amazing and doesn’t tear up my hands. It’s a metal bar just long enough to stuff the bottle and thin enough to fit inside but its heavier than a bamboo stick and doesn’t break. Its also heavier which helps with pushing down the plastic bags in the bottle to further compact them. It also has a rubber tube that covers the handle bit so that I can push and pull the bar down without the metal tearing across the palm of my hand)

A Good Way to Stuff a Bottle

Total stuffing time: depends on how much experience you have but at least 20 min for a bottle of 1.25 L

Materials:

A plastic bottle

LOTS of plastic bags of different sizes, shapes, etc. You´ll probably want to have at least 200 on hand if not more. They need to be DRY which is the most important thing otherwise your bottle will mold from the inside out and smell really bad. They also can not have any food residue on them. They don’t have to be 100% clean but please make sure they are dry! You can only use plastic bag material, no paper or other materials can be used.

A stick to smush down the plastic bags. Mine is a metal bar which is like rebar of 3/8 in size with a rubber tube around its curved handle. But you can use a bamboo stick or branch of a tree. Gloves or an old sock is recommended for your hands.

Strong arms (just kidding, but if you fill enough bottles you will have them)

Stuffing

When you begin the process of filling your bottle remember: you have to make sure the entire bottle is stuffed to capacity, so go slow and make sure all sides are fully packed to the max before continuing on in your stuffing. Don’t add too many bags at once. You also want to make sure you are comfortable and best situated to give yourself the best leverage for pushing down your stick into the bottle. I prefer sitting on the floor with the bottle or on a bench with the bottle between my legs. Other people prefer to sit or stand with the bottle on a table but try out different positions and see what works best for you. Also, use your whole body to push down onto your stick when you start to really fill up your bottle, you don’t have to just use your arms.

To start, I usually stuff in about 4 or 5 bags and then use my stick to push them all down to the bottom, making sure to fill even the ridged bottom. It helps if you use your stick, sliding it along the sides of the bottle as you turn it to evenly compact. Once you have the bottom nice and compacted with various bags, keep on going until you reach the top. Remember, you can always fit another bag in there. Once you have the entire bottle filled almost to bursting (don’t worry, it won´t break but it might break you), then you know that you have filled it enough. Make sure to continuously slide the stick down along the sides of the entire bottle and smush into the center as well.



Day two of Bottle School Project






January 4, 2012 Day Two

Today was even better than yesterday. We had all but one of the families represented to work on building the classroom and I had some kids and a friend of mine come help to fill bottles. So far we have enough bottles full and ready for one whole line of one wall. Technically we have enough bottles for the whole classroom but a lot of them are missing some plastic trash and need to be stuffed some more. Luckily, we have enough plastic trash thus far to fill them. It was still pretty windy today but not as bad as yesterday. We finished some of the columns and main feet for each column today so when we finally finish the foundation (which we should be getting to in the next two days or so) we will be ready to put up the iron bars for the foundation and columns for the walls. We still need to get the sand, cement blocks and gravel for the foundation and the beginning of the walls but tomorrow the foremen are going to go to the bank where the funds will hopefully be ready and waiting for us, but money does move rather slowly here.

One evaluation for future project managers of projects like this, and this may seem like a no brainer but bear with me: Make sure that you get a fair price for your labor. Foremen here and I believe everywhere will try and take you for all they can get. I have worked tirelessly to get my foremen to lower their labor fees and we finally settled on a final budget and work contract which everyone signed and THEN I remember something crucial which is when I calculated their work days, I also calculated Sundays which they most likely will not be working, so they are getting paid one day a week to not work. Stupid, I know. But what makes me feel better is I did get them to pay a helper out of their own pay, so that Sunday will go to him. It is so hard trying to pay people what they ¨should¨ be paid. The pay here daily would be slave wage labor in the states so I have a hard time paying someone to do an entire days work of hard labor with little rest in the hot sun for only $8 a day. That’s when they are a foreman who is certified to do the work and they work at least from 7am to 5pm. If they are just another worker helping with the labor they get paid about $4 a day. I am paying my workers for the whole job that they are doing instead of on a daily basis but it´s about $12 a day but they work every day of the week minus Sundays from 7am to 6pm and they don’t really rest at all except to eat. I am definitely over paying them by peoples standards here but I know these guys, their families and their living conditions which makes it a lot harder and makes it hard for me to be impartial and get them to work for less. But I have learned so many lessons throughout this project and this is just another one to add to the list for any future development work that I may do.