One Week

Alright. I believe that I have figured out the functioning of Etta Projects enough to paint for you a picture of what this thing is that I am doing down here. This will be exciting if it comes out at all clearly because it hasn’t quite been a week yet.

Etta Projects is the name of the organization which encompasses many distinct programs, such as the children’s program of which I am in charge. In Montero are two centers of operation; Etta I & Etta II. By and large these centers offer the same programs: a comedor or dining hall to serve nearly 100 children one, well-balanced mid-day meal (today it was liver, a treat), a before and after school program and workshops covering pertinent nutrition and business skills for the community’s mothers.

I work at the second center and newer center which services a population in a rural and impoverished area of Montero called La Pampa. The challenges specific to my center relate to the less-developed structure of programs as well as the poorer, less literate population of women and children which occupies La Pampa. Until the last year or two, the Comedor that is now operated by Etta Projects was under the control of Padre something or another and his Parish as charity. As one might guess, the long-term functionality and sustainability of this Catholic charitable meals project was limited given the community’s total lack of disposable funding.

I explain this because I perceive it to be significant in the history of this organization because of a pattern of dependency without accountability or commitment that formed. Etta Projects now struggles to overcome the scars from the previous system in terms of engaging the mothers as active players in the well-being/nutrition of their children--For example, how to hold mothers accountable, how to engage interest and explain the long-term benefits of the children’s nutrition and the mothers’ continued learning. While Etta projects feels as though its created unique, accessible and beneficial opportunities for this community through its program for nutrition and soy in their protein-deficient diets, tutoring and application of learning for their kids and practical skills for making products to sell- few women lack the personal incentive to seize these opportunities perhaps because, on a day by day lifestyle, the mothers are not geared to think in terms of long-term benefit.

Because the organization is small, it is great to get a read on the procedures and outcomes of the administration’s actions and to learn more about the trials and pitfalls of larger concepts of international development and poverty reduction. But all this just makes up the background and is only one layer of the difficulties it faces.

And so, for me day to day it is a little different. I face quite challenging decisions daily about which book to read aloud to the kids, do I show the pages while I read or after and is a side-hug or a high five is a better method for validating a 10 year old. Yes, today we did self-portraits with construction paper and talked about our interests-a common group interest was ice cream. It’s pretty comical and refreshing to see that they are just normal kids that want fight over chairs, pencils, whose turn it is. It’s also hilarious that when I try to discipline I give a stern face and nearly go cross-eyed while I search for the correct verb and conjugation and by that point they stare blankly at me and then we’ve usually forgotten what it was we all were upset about. Maybe that’s what it will feel like to be 90, too. The funniest part is that the kids are always intrigued by the tall white girl that leads their classes and I just have to smile a lot while they stare. I find myself leaving rooms with a swarm of 8 little girls where ever I go. This becomes a fun game when I just walk in circles, but less fun when I want to use the bathroom. It feels great to be in a role that feels rewarding and pretty natural (I’m not referring to speaking Spanish, which on the whole still feels awkward) but rather to able to be with the kids all day and just slather them with love and support. Can you say that, slather…as if love and support are butter?