Graham Creek; The Real Deal Village Experience

Plenty and Rotary began the Graham Creek well project about two years ago. The villagers used to get their water from holes they had dug in the ground to collect rain water, they bathe and do their laundry in a stagnant and grey looking creek nearby (although not Graham Creek, that one is a few miles away and very nice looking).

I conceptually knew that people lived in places like Graham Creek, but actually experiencing it is another thing altogether. The village has about a population of about 100 people, all of the buildings have thatch roofs except one of the churches (there are two). They have a small health post which has only basic first aid things and a two room school with two teachers. The only electricity sources are two generators for the churches that run on diesel fuel. Most of the resident have flashlights to navigate their way around at night, it gets very dark at 6 every night.

 Graham Creek is 6 miles from the nearest road other village, which mean anything that you want from town has to be carried in or brought in by horse. The message hadn't reached the village of the exact time of our arrival which meant we had to carry all of the supplies we needed to bring. Hana and I carried a long PVC pipe Gary had to carry a box with tools and connectors on his back and Abib had to carry the tools along with us each carrying our own packs. It took us 3 hours because Hana and I had to slow down twice for every tough spot and Gary needed frequent beaks with the heavy load. We made it to the village at 1 o'colck, which meant we had missed lunch, luckily I had brought a pack of cookies so we snack on that all afternoon.

The path through the Jungle

The village is a beautiful place. Thatch roof houses are scattered among the Cahoon palm trees; pig, chickens, turkeys cats and dogs roam free; the men walk around using machetes as walking sticks; the women have babies hanging from their heads, children on their hips or laundry baskets on their heads; the kids run around or play football on the field. It's a pretty nice life in many ways, free of the media influence, the city crime rates, and  light and other pollution. It kinda felt like a summer camp to me in many ways, that one step removal from the hustle and bustle of modern society.

They all carry their babies this way, then they hang them up from hooks inside the house

The Piglets that roam around the village

It's not all smiles and songs living life that far from the closest amenities. The people are very small, Hana at 5'2" was taller than almost all of the villagers, which would be fine but then you look at their diet, they eat a very limited diet; very different from the idealistic images we westerners have of small villages; there diet is based on corn tortillas, which they use as their cutlery as well, they are normally served along side some caldo (meat in a broth that spicy/salty) there might be a few leaves in there. We also had ramen noodles one night (a strange thing to eat out there), eggs a couple of times and a heart of palm stew, all served with stacks of tortillas. The diet is very limited in vitamins and other micro nutrients. On top of that the village recently got a shop which sells nothing but sweets, chips and soda; the trash gets scattered around the village. 

The addition of the solar powered pump well is very exciting and has many positive health benifits. It was very exciting to witness the moment when the water first flowed directly into the kitchen of the Alcalde's house. All the villages were working very hard to get the trenches to their homes. 

Gary and Abib fixing the pump

We had good reception among both the villagers and the children with our lessons on proper sanitation practices; hand washing, teeth brushing, keeping animals away from the clean water, Dracula sneeze, etc.. We used the song Happy Birthday to show the kids how long they should scrub their hands for, and we could hear them singing it all over the village.

The day's opening ceremonies at school
"The Land of the Free, by the Carib Sea"

The children in the classroom

It was a great experience and I learned a lot by just being there and witnessing it all. A mix of aw, confusion, beauty, and concern. It's easy to forget that every society has its downfalls and no one has got it right yet. It got me thinking about how to create progress and development with out the pitfalls of chronic disease and media saturation that we have in the west.

Any ideas?

That's all for now

Mariel

Beautiful Hibiscus