Last night I lay on the tile floor in my room on top of my sleeping bag, beneath a mosquito net with 2 candles lit beside me.  I started to read a book my brother had sent me but couldn’t concentrate for thinking about the day that had passed, for thinking of a friend of mine: Diogenes.  30 years old, married, 3 beautiful children.

We are in the middle of a wood saver stove project.  We’ve brought in a bricklayer from another part of the country.  I’ve loaned him my bed where he sleeps in the bat filled communal house.  He’s not used to life without electricity or potable water and offered to quit if the project couldn’t raise his salary slightly.  So, I spent the day yesterday trying to help in anyway possible: asking families if they could budget to give a free meal, to make sure to put someone strong to help.  Most families’ husbands work in another part of the country so they have paid Diogenes to help.

I thought of Diogenes hopping from house to house mixing the cement, digging the holes, wheel barreling more sand.  For a minute I thought of my trip home for Christmas.  I thought of me taking a hot bath or shower, lying on a couch, watching a movie, scented candles and cherry pies.  I imagined Diogenes on my grandmother’s couch in clean pajamas watching a movie like my dad would with a piece of warm apple pie and ice cream on top.  I felt a deep longing for Diogenes, my friend, my genuine friend who makes me laugh, worries himself for my safety and health and all I wanted was to take Diogenes home with me, give him a job and watch someone hand him $80 at the end of the day instead of $4.  I wanted to teach him to drive and teach him English, take him to Elisabeth’s farm, and show him an indoor bathroom with tile floor and a flushable porcelain toilet. 

My mind shifted, like it always does, to all of my other friends here: Telma, Elisa, Don Beto, Rosario, Marina, all the hope filled children in the school.  How can I keep living such a divided life?  Making genuine honest relationships, falling in love with all the people around me knowing that it is all something I will leave behind.  But, it isn’t this that worried me.  Because we all leave good things behind, that’s something I’m becoming accustomed to.  What worried me is the huge difference between my two lives.  How can I pretend that this isn’t all just an experience for me, a choice that I have made for myself?  How, in my community, do I not always feel a little elevated with my opportunities; my future. The fact that all of the things that they want so badly I have gladly left behind, but could easily return to if I wanted.  

I thought of my latrine project.  Something I put together with lots of hope and ambition, perhaps a bit over my head.  I sent it off and it sits on the internet.  I come to the capital, send messages and it sits on the internet.  This is how I communicate back home.  I get back to my community, a woman with a huge container of water on her head asks me how the project is going; I can’t imagine what kind of process they might think the project is going through. Some people have no idea how the internet works, have never seen a computer.

When I worry myself about the project, when I lay awake wondering if it will really happen I realize, selfishly, that it is for me that I want the project so badly.  Not that I personally want a composting latrine and not even that I think they are all that great.  It is, shamefully, my reputation; my pride, that makes me worry.  I cannot leave my community without leaving something physical behind.  Latrine project or no latrine project I know that I will leave behind something, something indeed more valuable than any sort of physical possession, something worth more than clean pajamas and a night at the opera.  It will be filling and satisfying and it will hurt, but it will be love and I will carry it with me and nothing else in the whole world will feel or be more important.

So then I think who cares about the latrine project then?  If it fails then oh well?  Sometimes lots of effort, time, passion is dedicated to something that just ends up being a failure and some failures are not worth dwelling too much upon.  So, if it doesn’t happen, I say to myself, I just tell my community that I’m sorry; don’t worry there will be more projects in the future and I can say good bye, plan for my next adventure and I’m off.  My life is that easy.

So, here I am: In the midst of possibility, time to make a huge decision.  Do I simply in my mind continue to sway back and forth on the issue between:  It doesn’t matter, I’ll just be patient, If it doesn’t happen, Oh well; or, do I go for it, invest it all 100%.

As I lay on the floor last night I made a huge commitment.  I said to myself; “Let it be a stupid decision, let it be a selfish decision, let it be a mistake, but, I’m going for it, all the way, this project will happen, because if money is the only thing holding it back, I myself can sacrifice that much.”  I’ve never been in monetary debt before, thank God, but aren’t we all in debt really?  Isn’t everything loaned to us?  Even our own bodies we have to leave behind in the end. 

Maybe it is part of a strategy.  You all know me so well and have been so willing to help me when I’ve needed it sending me candles, chocolates, incredible letters, clothes, books to read, c.d.’s, always asking if there is anything I need.  But, asking for money for a project for people that you don’t know who may never fully realize or appreciate the donation or the sacrifice is tough.  It’s an easy email to skip over and forget about because there are just too many causes in the world asking for plain old boring money.

So, get ready.  Just call me Sally Struthers. Here goes my strange plea:  Right now I ask you:  If you have a little money lay it down for the cause.  If you don’t have money, think of that as you sit on your porcelain toilet filled with clean drinkable water. If you know people or organizations who have money ask them to lay some down for the cause.  Because the next email will be a plea to help me pay off my credit card bill, just kidding.

But, seriously guys, help me out, because I really want to make this project happen.  As soon as all the money is donated, the project begins and we wanted to be able to begin in the first days of January but could begin as early as November. $6,000.00 is alot, but not really, not if we all contribute a little.

Here’s the old website

https://www.peacecorps.gov/resources/donors/contribute/projdetail.cfm?projdesc=519-094&region=latinamerica