Our village is finally on board with the idea of an infrastructure project, so now it’s time to get to work. Our current task? Visit every one of the 50 families that the village leaders prioritized to receive aid. Luckily, we don’t have to do this alone. The leaders of the Women’s Committee, as well as the village elders, all assembled in a big group to take us to the houses in question, since we’d never find them all on our own. I was worried this survey might take more than a week, as Mayan hospitality demands that you provide a meal and coffee to any visitor. Luckily, the leaders had the foresight to explain that the committee wouldn’t have time for that during our rounds. Um, or maybe the prospect of feeding a dozen people was just too daunting?

We want to help really poor families make changes to their homes that will improve their overall health. Concrete floors, to prevent parasite and disease transmission. Stoves with chimneys, to reduce smoke inhalation and subsequent respiratory disease. Sanitary latrines, to prevent groundwater contamination and some pretty horrendous communicable diseases. Our task this week is to interview the families, ask what kind of aid they want, take measurements, and assess what their real needs are. In some cases, there is a big gap between “wants” and “needs”.  

Here I am, surveying a patch of ground where the absentee owner (working illegally in the US) says they plan on building a second, outdoor kitchen to complement their fancy masonry house that already has a painted concrete floor, kitchen with beautiful tile stove, and multiple bedrooms. Really? REALLY? That sort of crap makes me crazy- we’ve got people living in mud huts and pooping in the river here, for Christ’s sake! But that is how it is, everyone wants to milk the system for whatever they can get out of it. And some extra building materials at Uncle Sam’s expense would be quite nice, thank you, even if it is yanking aid out of a neighbor’s pocket. And to make it worse, this luxury house has no bathroom. Why don’t they at least have us help them build a latrine? I guess it’s not sexy enough and won’t impress the inlaws.

The next stage is to compile all of this data in a spreadsheet and analyze it, figure out raw materials needed and price the project, then decide who to disappoint and who to surprise. This last part is tricky: we want to be as fair as possible, and Mayan culture sortof demands that to a fault. But we need to address the human reality of the situation, as well. Is it really fair to build that concrete floor for the outdoor summer kitchen in the brand new luxury house? Couldn’t those resources be better used to give their neighbor a little extra aid, so she could have a concrete floor for her mud hut and ALSO replace her latrine that looks like this? These kind of decisions aren’t easy to make. To make it worse, you can’t give someone something they don’t want, no matter how great an idea it is, or they will never use it. That has been proven time and time again.