Beyond Us

Posted on by Steve Bliss

In the last two months I have been contacted by two organizations about the stoves. Usually I’m contacted to schedule a training session for a village or some other type of request where I have to go and physically participate in a project.  But these, along with others as of late, were different.

The first one was a Jesuit mission I have worked with off and on over the last five years. Centro de Capacitación y Formación Nuestra Señora del Camino in San Félix, Chiriquí, República de Panamá is the most organized mission I’ve ever seen.  Padre Adonai Cortes is an amazing visionary and leader who is involved with not just the Indigenous but with everyone he comes into contact.  A few weeks ago I was contact and asked to come down to the mission.  When I got there I was taken to a site where they were making bricks with a press they had shipped here from South Africa.  They told me they could make enough bricks in one day using this press to build everyone a stove the next day.  Two days and everyone in a village has a stove. They are excited about the prospects to better the lives of so many and the effectiveness of the stoves and now their efficiency in building them.  It’s quite remarkable actually.  They took the stove building to a new level.

The second was a government organization here in Panama. La Autoridad Nacional del Ambiente is the organization responsible for safeguarding the environment here in Panama.  The Peace Corps here in Panama has been working with them on teaching communities the benefits of the stoves and now they have gone off on their own training towns and villages all over. The director, Laurda, was excited to see me and show me pictures of all the stoves they have made in villages.

They are still using the stove molds (Bliss Burner) model. The reason CS moved away from this model was due to the need (dependency) of an outside entity to provide the mold.  In contrast, using the Tower Stove communities need nothing other than knowledge to create their solution to the problem.   However, in this context, the government will continue to produce the molds and make it part of their work in the communities to save the environment.  So the Bliss Burner has found a home and is alive and well.

In both cases these stoves are easy to build and greatly reduce the smoke and wood fuel use which makes them desirable to communities. The cost is only their time and effort so this is a solution that works well.  While our stoves are just two models of smokeless stoves in the world, and not the most efficient in that long list, our stoves are accessible to those who need it and independent of outside resource needs. Simply put, our stove approach empowers, rebuilds dignity and move communities down the path of progressive community development from the inside out. And we are proud to be a small part in that sustainable endeavor.

Godspeed,

Steve

Wrapping-Up

Posted on by Nick and Sanya

It was not easy leaving the place we have called home for the past eight months. There were many tears, but also special moments and goodbyes. With the pressure of us leaving, everyone felt like they needed to spend lots of time with us during our last two weeks. Unexpected hot weather warranted using the water catchment tank for some good ole’ Slip ’n’ Slide fun.

We were pleasantly surprised by an invitation from Niconar, Llano Ñopo’s priest, to go on an overnight trip to the capital of the Comarca, Llano Tugri, about a four hour drive away. We had heard a lot of great things about Llano Tugri – it’s cool mountain climate and fertile soil.

The journey turned out to be quite the adreneline-packed off-road adventure (who would expect from a priest!?), which of course Nick loved. We toured Niconar’s brother’s farm, with breath-taking views of mountains to the North and the Pacific Ocean to the South. His wife prepared us potatoes, celery, onions, coffee, chayote, and otoe root, all from their property.

We stayed at their house (one room with dirt floors and wood siding) where they generously let us sleep in their beds. It was the first time we had slept in a Ngöbe home and Nick noticed that people woke up several times during the night to talk to each other and walk around. Some say that Ngöbes recount their dreams to each other during the night, and the walking around probably had something to do with the several cups of coffee that everyone drinks before bed.

In the morning we hiked Pena Blanca, one of the most prominent rock peaks in the Comarca. It was very difficult and steep, but we made it and the views were outstanding! Being up there with views from the ocean to Costa Rica felt like an appropriate culmination to our time in Panama.

The goodbyes started when the women from the Women’s sewing center threw us going away party. They put together a very formal agenda, in typical Panamanian fashion, for the event. Each of the women and some of their husbands gave speeches, there was a prayer, and poetry recited by a 5-year-old. They made Nick and I bashfully dance in front of them, and after a delicious meal they gave us tons of beautiful crafts that they had sewn and beaded. The most memorable part was when one of the more serious women gave a long speech about how we will always be remembered as stars, not just satellites – because we will always be shining in their memories when they make bread and cakes in the oven.

Our final evening concluded with the whole neighborhood (kids and adults) passing by the house commenting how sad and empty it would be without us. There weren’t many hugs, as Ngöbes aren’t known to be the most affectionate people. Yet when we went to say our last goodbyes to Cristina, our manchi (literally “grandmother”), she threw herself around us in a gigantic embrace. At that point it was impossible to hold back the tears.

It’s rather surreal to close that chapter of our lives. Yet we are so grateful to have had such a unique, life-changing experience and met people so different from ourselves. We would like to thank Steve, Jenni, and Contextual Solutions for making this experience possible. We would also like to thank the volunteers who came before us, namely Andrea, who laid the foundation for us arriving in Llano Ñopo with a good reputation.

We would also like to invite future interested volunteers to contact us about volunteering with Contextual Solutions in Llano Ñopo or the Comarca. We would love to share our experience and help set up a follow-up volunteer. Please keep in touch: sanya.paige@gmail.com

Sanya & Nick

A Tale of Two Doctor Visits

Posted on by Nick and Sanya

With a lot of buzz going on in the States right now about the Affordable Healthcare Act I thought I would touch on our first-hand experiences with the healthcare system in Panama.

Our first experience with a Centro de Salud was in our village of Llano Ñopo at 3:00am.  Our friend and neighbor Ovidio unfortunately has Lou Gehrig’s disease, which has rendered him stuck in a wheelchair.  While battling a bad cold he started having trouble breathing in the night.  At three in the morning his mother called into our house, “Chingon!” (my Ngöbe name). We were up in no time off-roading his wheelchair down the rough path to the Centro.

In the Comarca healthcare is free to indigenous people, but very different than the healthcare we would receive in the States.  In Llano Ñopo the Centro de Salud is open 24 hours a day.  However when we arrived we still had to walk to the back of the campus to wake the doctor.  In no time, Ovidio was receiving oxygen, and we were sent across the llano (central grassy area) to wake up someone named José, the nurse.  Overall, we were very impressed by the level of care; Ovidio was doing much better the next day.  After he finished his I.V. and received prescriptions we off-roaded him home again.  His out-of-pocket cost was zero, but patients have to wash their own sheets.

The second part of this post is my own personal experience at a Centro de Salud.  Infections are no jokes when you tromp around in mud like that that’s pictured here.   In a three week period I got a cold, stepped on a nail, got Athlete’s Foot at a hostel, and the normal assault of mosquito and chitre bites (aka sand fleas).  I claim to never get sick and have a ‘superman-like’ immune system, but Panama finally beat me.  I started noticing the smallest cuts and bug bites were not healing.  Then they all were red and warm to the touch.  At the time we were in Bocas Del Toro setting up the water tank project we are currently doing in San Cristobal.  One bite in particular was very infected on my ankle.  At first I was excited to grow my first botfly and become a host of nature.  This rapidly turned into fear as the sore in three days trippled in size with a black ring forming around it and my foot swelling up.

Leishmaniasis is what the doctor said as he squeezed the now extremely painful wound, and peered at it with a flashlight.  This was two hours into our four hour visit at the Centro de Salud in Bocas Del Toro.  This visit was very different than our first in Llano Ñopo.  The place was packed with crying babies and coughing tourists.  Upon arrival, as I was coming to terms with living life hobbling about on a peg leg, we started at the ER side of the building.  Quickly they scoffed me off to the clinic which required walking around the side of the Centro and squeezing in between a chain link fence and an air conditioning unit making an algae-filled puddle on the sidewalk.  We roamed around the clinic and eventually found an unlabeled hobbit-sized reception window.  With a quick nod given to my wound and my passport, I was “in line”.

I won’t bore you with the details of the next four hours, and just say it requires mostly luck to ever get a doctor to eventually call you into a room.  The doctor was actually really good, he said he thought it was just a bad skin infection but it may be a flesh-eating parasite that requires one injection a day for twenty days! I turned white.  He wrote me up four prescriptions and lab testing.  This required going back to the ER, over the algae pond, to get the wound “scrubbed clean”.  The ER room was full of unlabeled and reused Aquafina bottles filled with various colored fluids.  I think some iodine was rubbed into my ankle as if she was using sand paper to refinish and old piece of furniture. Back over at the clinic, to the lab, I went.  The lab was full of nice equipment but the biohazard sharps container had no lid and was overflowing onto the ground.  The lab tech slapped on the gloves, got out a small new sterile razor and started scrapping, actually digging, into my wound. It hurt! Before she filled her glass slide with tissue, her cell phone rang. Of course she answered it then returned to digging without changing her gloves.  At this point it didn’t even bother me and I just kept thinking soon I would get my pain killers.  One hour waiting at the pharmacy and I was out the door.  Lucky for me the lab results for Leishmaniasis were negative when we went back the next day.

Overall the care was what I needed, I’m not hobbling on a peg leg.  It cost $13 for four prescriptions, a doctor’s visit, and lab testing.  It was slow and confusing but maybe we should strive for a middle ground between the US and Panamanian healthcare systems.

Alive and well,
Nick

Entrepreneurial Women

Posted on by Nick and Sanya

Sometimes the people and projects that end up flourishing are the ones you least expect; the oven project with the Women’s Center in Llano Ñopo was one of these.

It was a Saturday morning in early July when Nick and I wandered over to the Women’s Center to check on the recently completed Rocket Oven. Construction of this oven had been six-weeks in the making and we were worried the women were becoming exhausted. That morning to my surprise and delight, I encountered Olga standing sheepishly over a bowl of flour intently reading how much yeast to measure for a double batch of bread. She announced that the other three women were on their way and they had plans to sell bread for the soccer tournament that day.

The Women’s Center was established by Catholic nuns as a teaching center for sewing and artistry sales. I started going there as a way to make female friends and to learn about the handiwork of the region. After getting to know the core group of hardworking, inventive women, I proposed we build an oven and they start a bakery. They were very receptive to the idea without even knowing all the work it would entail.

Over the next six weeks I have come to know the strength and determination of these women, from collecting 60 gallons of mud and horse manure, to tediously passing it all through a screen, to mixing, mixing, and more mixing. We all patiently waited as the oven dried and shrunk.

One main concern of the women was that they wouldn’t know what to bake in their new oven. We started having periodic cooking lessons using our oven. First, how to bake cakes, from lime to vanilla to chocolate.

Cinnamon rolls were something they had never seen. In no time they were making them with ease. Nick taught them how to do meat and chicken in the oven with a hint of smoky flavor. However, white bread rolls were by far what they wanted to learn to make. This is the type of bread most people on the Comarca are accustomed to and the women decided it would sell.

They were right! The first two batches sold to soccer players and fans that Saturday afternoon. Since then, they have sold to elementary and high school teachers, stores, and of course, us.

The panadaria (bakery) project has been a reminder that in development work nothing turns out exactly as planned and sometimes the projects you least expected turn out to be the most successful. We have also seen the importance of partnering with hard-working, receptive people who are eager to try new things and help themselves. This has been our experience with the Llano Ñopo Women’s Center and we wish them best of luck in their future bakery endeavors.

-Sanya

 

 

 

 

 

Bocas del Toro / Agua Potable

Posted on by Steve Bliss

So another year has gone by and we find ourselves in Bocas del Toro installing water systems for another indigenous village. This time we are on Isla San Cristobal in a community where Peace Corp volunteer Kim Woods has been stationed for about two years. Kim has done a great job organizing the project to bring clean drinking water to the community. She has the community members involved with the the project and actively working along side the volunteers that came from the states. And what’s more amazing is the community is actively involved this week while Kim is in the states. That shows a strong commitment from the community which is very encouraging to me. As I’ve mentioned in past blogs, we prefer to work with Peace Corps volunteers on projects because of their community commitment.  They do all the project prep work and follow up which makes our work easier and guarantees a high rate of success for the projects.

Often times it is us, the affluent, who impulsively decide what the third world needs. And more times than not we simply dump short sighted solutions on communities while the community stands back and wonders what we are doing. I’ll spare you my rhetoric about empowerment approach vs. handouts as I’ve said enough about it in the past. It’s good to see local people active in recognizing the need for clean water and owning the project by creating the solution themselves. Good work Kim. Before we left the project site yesterday Nick and I asked the community not to finish the project through the night so the group could help.  We were half joking but the community is so motivated it could have been a possibility.

The volunteers from this group have come here all the way from the small town of Camby Indiana, USA which is just south of Indianapolis. They are part of a church youth group from the non denomination church simply called Camby Community Church. The youth pastor, Mark Lynch, is one of the parts of humanity that I’m thankful to know. He’s a genuinely real person and often that is hard to find in the pastorate. I appreciate the work he does and the time he spends influencing the kids that pass through his door. They are better people because of his influence. No matter what age you are, Mark is a good person to know. The group is hard at the project and additionally they are doing vbs programs with the community kids. Good work Camby!

This will be the last project for our volunteers Nick and Sanya. They are probably the best volunteers we have had. They are truly here to volunteer their time irregardless of the job that needs done. They came with extensive smokeless stove experience and have worked hard in that area of initiative. But additionally they have lived on site in Llano Nopo for the last few months rebuilding a green house and growing food in the community. They also have worked installing a large water catchment system in that community. They have moved forward all of three of our initiatives without any complaints just pure willingness. They are a rare breed of person, especially these days when cultural narcissism is as common as a middle name. I’ve been very encouraged by them. Not only for their willingness but their rare ability to do things well. They are capable learners not afraid to approach and handle any task. I will miss them. Good work Nick and Sanya and good luck in the future!

It’s important to mention the source of financial support for this project. For years now I have worked with my local Boquete Rotary Club. It is comprised of some great people who care for the community. They have always been willing to partner with us, Contextual Solutions, on projects like this as we make a great team of complimenting competencies. Thanks to the programs of Rotary International, Shasta Valley Rotary and the Boquete Rotary we have been able to do some great projects.

Thanks to all who made this project possible,

Godspeed,

Steve

Another Water Project in Bocas

Posted on by Steve Bliss

Last year, Contextual Solutions was able to effectively collaborate with several NGOs, the Boquete Rotary Cub, the Peace Corp and others to complete a water catchment project in Panama. The funding for this project received last year, through a Matching Grant with the Shasta Valley California club, was $11,700.  We installed 21 catchment systems.  The systems were installed in communities of indigenous people in the Bocas Del Toro area.  It is estimated that 95% of these people live in abject poverty.  Our systems will provide safe drinking water to more than 600 people for the next 10 to 15 years.

Prior to our systems, these people obtained their drinking water from pozos (a hole in the ground) that can only be described as “nasty” as they were typically surrounded by various sources of contamination.   Effective collaboration is what made this a successful project. There were two Peace Corps Volunteers involved.  Their involvement is crucial as they provided the “boots on the ground”.  They live in the communities and know where best to locate the systems.  They also provide ongoing instruction to the people concerning the long term care & maintenance of the system. Contextual Solutions conducted the site assessment, design of the catchment systems, site construction and general oversight while the other organizations provided financial, volunteer and logistical support.  However, we hardly made a dent in the water problems.

 

Example Design - click for larger image

Funding this year will be from another Matching Grant of $20,000 from Rotary Club which will afford us the opportunity to complete thirty more systems and repair the existing aqueduct of San Cristobol. The Boquete Rotary club is the host club and Shasta Valley club their international partner. This project will ensure the entire village of San Cristobal to have clean drinking water for years to come.

Site assessments have been completed and materials are being procured and staged for the project to begin July 16th. Again we anticipate with effective collaboration we will have a successful project.

The specific scope of the project would be finalized June 7th and 8th and materials will be then purchased and staged. On the 16th of July a group of volunteers from Camby ,Indiana USA will come and assist the locals in the installation of their water system.  Any additional work will be completed by Peace Corps, Contextual Solutions and members of the local community.

The Collaborative breakdown of responsibilities are as follows.

Rotary Club

  • Funding
  • Accounting
  • Project Construction Oversight and Inspections

Peace Corps

  • Site Determinations
  • Community Planning
  • Material Distribution (from drop off to village)
  • Project Construction (managing local involvement)
  • System use and management training to community

Contextual Solutions

  • Site Analysis
  • System Design
  • Material Procurement
  • Material Distribution to Islands
  • Project Construction
  • Volunteer Management

Give & Surf

  • Material Procurement
  • Material Distribution

 

Bring sustainable agriculture to indigenous students

Posted on by Nick and Sanya

School starts next week in Llano Ñopo and 90 high-school students will move into local dormitories unsure of where their meals will come from. Contextual Solutions is dedicated to assisting these students to sustainably produce their own food in the form of meat chickens and egg production.

We can’t do this without your help. We must first raise $950 to build the chicken coop, and purchase laying hens, which will in-turn will bring lasting change to these students.

To support this project, simply visit the Contextual Solutions donate page - any amount helps!

 

 

Adjusting to Llano Ñopo

Posted on by Nick and Sanya

Without lights or cars the sky is infinite

It’s been over a month since we moved out to Llano Ñopo on the Comarca Ngöbe-Buglé and time has flown by. We are beginning to integrate into the community, making friends, and adjusting to the pace of life without electricity, internet, or vehicular traffic. This lack of modern ammenities has freed up time for other activities such as getting to know our neighbors, learning Ngäbere, swimming in the river, and star-gazing.

Getting some help charging the lantern

Sanya getting a geography lesson from kids in Llano Ñopo

Hanging at the river

The hardest thing to get used to has been the food situation. Lack of agriculture and food production is a big issue in the indigenous parts of Panama. Much of the ancient farming knowledge has been lost over the generations as many men leave seasonally to go find work elsewhere. Deforestation and slash and burn techniques have just added to the already poor soil that plagues the Comarca. This lack of any food industry on the Comarca results in external food trucks bringing in food supplies twice a week and charging exorbitant prices for rice, beans, canned meat and fish, and processed crackers.

Nick preparing the greenhouse

One of our main objectives in Llano Ñopo is to support the agriculture endeavors of local families interested in growing their own produce. To this end, Contextual Solutions has constructed a greenhouse and supplied some seeds for experimenting with different varieties of crops.

Beans sprouting up in the greenhouse

Our next agriculture project is to promote hands-on agricultural education with local students by completing a hen-house and greenhouse at the student dormitory. Along with their daily chores they will take care of the chickens, collect eggs, and learn the basics of food production. All of this will help the dormitory to become less reliant on outside food imports and bring local variety and nutrients to the students’ diet.

Sanya placing the mud stove on the stone base

During our latest trip out we began construction on a mud rocket oven, designed by Flip and Jon Anderson. So far we have constructed the mud rocket stove and the stone base that will support the oven chamber. By using one of Flip and Jon’s super efficient, smokeless rocket stoves, the oven can run on very minimal amounts of wood and bake anything from bread to whole chickens to pizza. People in the village are very interested in this project and excited to see the final project. Upon returning to Llano Ñopo we hope to finish the oven and spread the technology to anyone interested in making their own. We also plan to initiate a rocket stove campaign where we teach families to make their own mud cookstoves, eliminating dangerous three-rock fires that are all-too common in the Comarca.

Finished stone base for mud rocket oven

Experiments with Mud

Posted on by Nick and Sanya

Between trips to Llano Ñopo, Steve had a project for us to build a large scale fuel-efficient cookstove for the Boquete Handicap Foundation. On weekends this foundation has a benefit meal and serves all of its clients and their families for free feeding up to 150 people. For this situation, we decided to use an industrial sized version of Contextual Solution’s Tower Stove.

The only change we made was we decided to use a mud recipe developed by our friends from Oregon, Flip and Jon Anderson. They have extensive experience with mud rocket stoves and rocket ovens in Haiti; their work can be found online at Recho Roket. Here is the recipe we followed:

5 parts clay
5 parts organic matter (rice hulls, sawdust, and/or manure)
1 part potash water
1 part sugary syrup (in our case sugar cane syrup)
1/2 part chopped straw

After we gathered sugar cane we boiled it for a few minutes. When it cooled we strained it for the syrup portion of the mix. We made potash water by putting ashes in water then straining out the ash. Potash water is loaded with potassium which strengthens the mud.

We tested the clay at Finca Selah according to Flip and Jon’s website and found it adequate. We just had to pass it through a 1/8″ screen. For organic material we combined manure (passed through a 1/4″ screen), rice hulls, and sawdust. Straw was chopped into pieces in lengths of about 6″ or less.

A muddy-footed Sanya stomps the organics into the mud.

The best part about Steve’s design is anyone can make bricks. The only cost of this stove was the wood and the screws which can be reused many times.

Stacking the bricks according to the Contextual Solutions Tower Stove design.

Once finished, we lit a fire in order to burn out some of the moisture and organics.

Ta da! The new mixture performed great on this initial test run and the best part is all the materials were completely free. We plan to come back to visit this stove and track its progress over the next several months.

Water Project in Llano Nopo

Posted on by Nick and Sanya

Last weekend we participated in our first project with Contextual Solutions in the town of Llano Ñopo, located a little over an hour off the Interamerican Highway in the Comarca Ngöbe-Buglé. Though not far from the highway that connects the modern cities of Panama City and David, once the road ends at Llano Ñopo, life takes on a slower pace. Nick and I have had to adjust to this slower pace as we’ve noticed our bodies don’t want to work as hard or long in the Panamanian heat as they did back in Oregon.

Bridge to Llano Ñopo

Preparing for the water project started with helping Jenni plan and purchase the food for the 30 Canadian “Students Without Borders” volunteers. The students would be coming to spend two days in Llano Ñopo to carry out the construction of gutters, downspouts, tanks, and platforms for a rainwater catchment system. It was tough thinking of meals that didn’t need to be refrigerated, wouldn’t spoil too easily, and were light enough we could carry the kilometer from where the road ends into town. Overall, the meals were a success, except for for the mysterious disappearance of five loafs of bread, which Jenni remedied by making a delicious Cobb salad from the sandwich makings.

Installing Gutters

The project we completed was a water catchment system installed on the roofs of the dorms, which currently experience shortages with the municipal water system. The number of students will almost double this academic year, creating an even bigger strain on the system, hence the importance of the self-sufficient rain harvesting tanks. Steve designed the system to include four large and three small tanks, totaling 3,500 gallons of water storage capacity.

Students Without Borders 2012

During two days, the collaboration of the 30 Canadian volunteers, several Contextual Solutions volunteers, the Boquete Red Cross, and the Rotary Club of Boquete, made it possible to install the system. Nick and I have also decided to live in Llano Ñopo as Contextual Solutions in-field workers, so we are able to implement projects more effectively, and follow up on them more easily. We are eager and excited to monitor the performance of the tanks during the first rainfall of the season.

-Sanya