by Derrick Gee

This was our first-ever ride by oxcart.

In addition to regular email contact, at least one or two visits a year are made to Santa Teresa by SCP Board members to support our facilitators. Janet and I generally visit in January. Not only does that permit us to chicken out of the Wisconsin winter but, as it’s the dry season in Santa Teresa, travel is at its easiest. However, it was felt that a visit last November would enable us to work in a more timely manner with the communities and our facilitators to produce a plan for the new calendar year.

We were eager to visit La Chota and El Terrero, the two new communities that we added to our project in 2007. El Terrero is particularly remote and so is seldom visited or supported from the outside. We could either trust ourselves to multiple crossings of the Rio Escalante on horseback or on oxcart. Assuming that oxcarts float, we chose that mode.

Janet rode in one cart with Alma Susana, one of our facilitators. I rode in the other with Marlon Palacio. We guys stood up for the one-hour journey with me clinging for dear life onto the flimsy sticks that functioned as handrails as we were jarred over river boulders and then climbed almost-vertical river banks. Meanwhile, Janet and Alma sat serenely in their cart admiring the lush scenery.

I assumed that the contrasting styles of oxcart riding were something to do with machismo. Perhaps Nicaraguan cowboys hold rodeos where they compete to see who can stay standing in an oxcart the longest.

The trip was worth it. In early 2007, we had asked the villagers of El Terrero to select just one project from our “menu” for their first year in the SCP program. Having expected them to ask for cement to replace the dirt floor of their school or new tin for the leaking school roof, we were surprised when, instead, they chose latrines (outhouses).

During the 2007 dry season, Alma and Marlon borrowed the only truck owned by the mayor’s office, loaded it with twenty prefabricated cement stools and floors plus the requisite tin sheets and nails. With difficulty and encouragement, the gutsy driver hauled the load up the dry river bed into El Terrero.

By the time of our visit in November, the latrines had been thoroughly tested through the 2007 rainy season. The stories from the community made it clear why they had made this project their highest priority. Forever, all the people in El Terrero have used the surrounding forest as their toilet. When the torrential rains come, poop starts moving around. Pigs chew on it and, routinely, both people and pigs get sick.

At the end of our oxcart ride, the whole village gathered in the excuse for a schoolhouse to tell us that this year there had been no sickness. At the beckoning of the village pastor, everyone rose and, with considerable vigor, thanked God for sending SCP and the latrines to their forgotten community.

Umberto Reyes, one of the oxcart drivers, took Janet aside to tell her what pleasure his latrine has given him. During the rainy season there was nothing he enjoyed more than sitting there, perfectly dry, listening to the pouring rain around him!

As we journeyed back on our respective oxcarts, I suddenly realized why the girls were sitting and we were standing. Our cart had traditional, wooden wheels with iron rims. Theirs was an upgraded version-- it had pneumatic tires!

Just as our oxcarts were starkly contrasted, so were our experiences on this visit. On the one hand, it was not only the villagers of El Terrero who expressed appreciation for what SCP has achieved. The mayor, Cristóbal Conrado, the director of education, Carlos Chávez and many village leaders referred to SCP (and, by implication, you, its generous donors) as “a gift from God”.

But the glee was not unanimous. We began to hear rumors that some bills had not been paid even though the money had left our bank account. We have been continually refining our financial control system but, after a thorough investigation by the mayor’s office, we were forced to conclude that implementation was not as good as it should have been. The amount involved is a small fraction of our annual budget. We are operating in a culture where corruption is even more rampant than here at home; in an economy where a few hundred dollars is an awful lot of money. But we, the SCP Board, are the ultimate guardians of your donated dollars. We have taken strong measures to minimize the chance of a recurrence.

Since November, your Board has been on a rocky oxcart ride as we addressed this issue. But now, we are back on track. Our most ambitious plans ever are being implemented. We will add yet another village to our program later this year. El Terrero, right now, is getting cement and tin for its school, some new wells, and barbed wire to keep cattle out of the gardens and orchards. There will be at least two board member visits to Santa Teresa in 2008.

We can expect their travels to be on pneumatic tires once more.