santisteven

we returned to santisteven yesterday after our slightly neurotic journey to fertisa on the weekend.

fertisa is in a rough part of town and we were warned that although saturdays were the best time to go as most people are available, they are also the day of the week in which the men drink all morning and watch football all afternoon (kickball for all you people who think football is that boring american pasttime). not tem minutes into our visit we were approached by one friendly individual - must have been halftime - who introduced himself, gave us advice and breathed noxious fumes into our faces. he was eventually prodded away by some of his less inebriated friends.

so jane and i had a bunch of ideas, had sketched them out on large sheets of paper and were even ready to play a game involving a ball of wool. as has been the case however, we were less prepared for the collective will of the community and when we finally did get started, around an hour and a half after we were supposed to, the conversation turned to our next visit and what they hoped to learn. so... now we have a plan which might have been better than the string game anyway, and it involves some basic concepts that can be researched ahead of time. and we can split it up so that jane tackles recycling (a potential money maker) and i go after preventive health care - hygiene and the like. one thing i might look into is the use of ultraviolet light water purification. there is a lack of potable water in fertisa and this might be a wonderful opportunity, if done correctly, to provide many people with safe water. because of the international conference we're hosting this weekend we don't return to fertisa until december so we have a couple weeks to brainstorm and collect tidbits here and there.

saturday night was quiet. the germans who had spent friday night marooned at our place left during the day and were gone by the time i got back. julia was working early sunday so begged off going out at all. i decided to hit the hay early and did just that after a few dozen games of minesweeper.

sunday was a relaxing day, a planned visit to the botanical gardens did not go ahead as i'm not sure where it is and nancy bolted before i could ask her how to get there. i wandered downtown and just sort of made my way along the malecon, strolling without purpose. it's a beautiful area and the gardens section is incredibly layed out with pools and fountains, monuments and pathways dotted throughout the greenery.

so next up santisteven, the college that we're working at. this time around was actually interesting. jane suggested the trip to bahía, a pet project of hers, and they seemed intrigued. i bounced some ideas off of them and gave them homework - to talk to the people who work at the school and ask them about the processes they use to make the school ecological. this is the school with the recycling and composting programs that would make canadian schools jealous. they have their own garden lining one wall (they are plastered onto the side of a hill - the back of cerro santa ana and the garden stretches up the hill about 40 metres on a 30 degree angle) with compost pits and wonderful decorative shrubery (apparently iguanas are a problem and the gardener has to come up with new ways to prevent them from eating everything everyday). they have also implemented a water reduction scheme with timed taps in the washrooms so that water is turned off after 7 seconds, and installed a purification system so those kids that need it can fill up bottles of potable water to take home with them (instead of buying lots of plastic bottles).

so next week we're gonna have a demonstration over water and contamination - a suggestion they made. i'm going to bring in a homemade filter using a plastic bottle, some sand and such (we'll see how that works...) and perhaps build a few crafts using recycled material.