Yesterday, Tuesday that is, the junta directiva (basically the e-board) and I were supposed to meet to make a project plan for the tourism association. Of course I was rather excited due to the fact that making plans and associations in the campo just do not go together. However, since my host dad and I went to our project design and management workshop, he has been rather gung-ho about doing a plan for the tourism association. So, even though most things fall through in Lari, I had high hopes for this meeting. I felt it could be a huge step for the organization and really the community in general.
Well, we arrived at the meeting yesterday at around 930AM even though the initial start time for the meeting was supposed to be 9AM. At 930AM there were about 2 people there, my host dad and I. I wasn’t worried because I knew no one would be there that early. Yes, I said that early haha. We waited around for about an hour and at around 1030AM we began the meeting. All the papolotes (which are big pieces of paper like in the pictures) were up on the front wall ready to be written on, there were about 20 people there ready to contribute, everything was set. I gave a little lecture on how the project planning process would go and such and then we were ready to begin. Everything seemed to be going very smoothly which I should have known was too good to be true. Then, an older man who is on the junta stood up and started talking about how representatives from the municipality weren’t there and how the mayor should be there blah blah blah and that we shouldn’t proceed with this. After that, someone else stood up and mentioned something to the same extent. I was like, here we go again. I could also see that my host dad was getting annoyed. It appeared as though this meeting was going bad fast.
So, my host dad stood up and said that we have to proceed because this sort of thing always happens and if we don’t do anything today we will just be moving backwards as always. I was like thank godddd. Afterward, another man stood up and said something similar about not going forward with the plan until we have a representative from every NGO and from the municipality there. I was thinking to myself, wow there’s a great idea, I wonder why we’ve never thought of that, oh maybe because the likelihood of getting all those people to show up to the same meeting is about as good as my likely hood of marrying a girl from Lari (which is low for the record). Then, I stood up and said something to this extent: “I’ve been here for 6 months and have attended many meetings and at every meeting I really have never seen anything accomplished. Everyone talks a lot and says many things but no one actually does anything. I don’t want to offend anyone but if you continue this way you will not make any progress in your community. I think we need to do this plan today with or without the municipality because as you have seen they are irresponsible. There are many other organizations out there whom can support us financially if needed. We’re all here now, let’s write up a plan and then present it to the authorities later so they can plug gaps.”
That was definitely something I had been wanting to say for the 6 months I’ve been here. The end result of all that arguing was that we continued and worked all day long and came up with a vision, strategies, goals and objectives for the tourism association. It was probably the best day I’ve had in site in these 6 months as far as work goes. We also made a map of all the touristic sites in Lari and made a little circuit for visiting the sites. It was a greatly successful day. The great thing about it was that I was only a facilitator for the discussion. I did not come up with the ideas, I only provided suggestions and tweakings which is really what development should be all about. So, our next step is to present our plan to the members of the association and then form plans of action with activities, people responsible for carrying out the activities, and dates for the activites. However, I think the community and the association has taken a huge step in the process of bringing tourism to Lari and just functioning better as a community!
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