Methodology
To write this analysis of my experience, I have read
previous reports from the UMCP-EWB website (http://www.ewb.umd.edu),
collected my own memos, and read transcriptions from more than 8 hours of public
health interviews with community members, the school principal, and staff from
the local health clinic. As a
qualitative researcher, this is my contribution to this collaborative
assessment trip, to capture the story of the travellers and our experience in
Compone, Peru, with the goal of forming ideas for future collaboration.
The Team
EWB team meetings for Peru have approximately 50 members. Of
those, the students who have the opportunity to go on trips are those who are
most proactive and show high competency. Therefore, it is no surprise that this
group is dynamic, smart, personable, and relatively complaint-free. They chose
to be here. And they were chosen.
One student is our Project Leader and makes decisions for
the team. Kevin Hogan, a junior computer science major is our Project Leader.
Each team also travels with a community mentor and a faculty mentor. Ed Miller
is our community mentor. And on Day 6 of our trip, I learned that I am our
group’s faculty mentor. Yes, really. I was asked, “So is your experience more
or less what you expected the role as faculty mentor to be?” My response, “Now
that I know I’m the faculty mentor, let me think about it.” In reality, I have
been so impressed with the leadership potential of undergraduate students that
it has been a joy to be their faculty mentor, and I hope we can create a
similar model in the School of Public Health. I returned the volley, “So what
is it like to have a family scientist as an EWB faculty mentor?”
Ed Miller, Community
Mentor
Ed is an environmental engineer. He is on his third trip
with UMCP-EWB as part of the Chesapeake professional chapter of EWB-USA. He
used to “do more engineering” but now, in his job as Principal Project Manager with
Exelon Corp., he is in an administrative role managing the environmental
program for 3 nuclear power plants including Calvert Cliffs. These trips are
great opportunities to be hands on, plus he likes working with the students. With
UMCP-EWB, he has gone to Ethiopia and Burkina Faso.
On a side note, I also learned that Ed's two daughters, ages 16 and 14 went
to Center for Young Children (CYC) through kindergarten in the blue room. My
son, Leo also “graduated” from the blue room and my son, Julian is currently in
the orange room, plus my husband, Mr. M, is the music teacher at the CYC. Ed recalled
that his daughters were there during the hurricane that brought the roof down.
He had just picked them up. He remembers a letter hanging at the CYC that had
been found in Towson and mailed back, carried there by the hurricane.
Back to UMCP-EWB, Ed has great stories from previous trips.
For one, he shared that for project in Ethiopia, the UMCP college students
carried a suitcase with $10,000 in cash to build a bridge. On his trip to
Burkina Faso, they checked on one of the previously completed projects in which
solar lighting was installed in health clinics. When they arrived, the clinic
was dark and community members said the lights had not worked in a year. The
UMCP team tested voltage, tested all parts of the system and found no fault.
They finally thought to ask about the light bulbs. The community had not
thought they could touch the bulbs and sure enough, new bulbs did the
trick. The example demonstrates faulty assumptions we make and how there is
a need everywhere for really basic instructions. Lastly, he told me about how they worked with
local day laborers on projects in Ethiopia and Burkina Faso. In many cases, the
UMCP-EWB team must buy tools and tool belts for the projects. Upon return to
the US, they typically leave the tools with active laborers, and have found
that the difference between a day laborer and a carpenter is ownership of
tools. Therefore, they find over time greater desire to help with the potential
for job promotion upon the team’s departure.
Kevin Hogan, Project
Leader
When I met Kevin, I had already communicated with him via
email for several days about travel logistics, EWB membership, and health
insurance forms. I expected to see the
Engineering School’s business manager. I was surprised when a junior in college
wearing an orange hoodie sweatshirt introduced himself. He is from Olney,
Maryland, is a computer engineering major, plays saxophone, lives in the dorm,
and can cook microwavable food. For computer engineering, he takes classes in
both computer science and engineering. He is not sure what he wants to do –
he’s an “open book”. As a team leader,
he is a critical thinker and open to feedback from the team. He said leading
the meetings has given him public speaking skills, which he didn’t have before.
He traveled to the airport with his own luggage, two big bags of supplies for
the trip and a medical kit, and not much sleep.
There have been countless examples that show how engineers and family scientists (or perhaps it’s just me) think differently.At our
accommodations in Compone, the indoor plumbing was in disrepair so no running
water inside, a leaky tap outside with cows, pigs and dogs sharing the space,
and the second floor rooms, once unlocked, had been visited by critters who
left “presents” on the floor and mattresses. We discovered that there was a “good” toilet, a less good toilet, and then unusable bathrooms. Me: “Too bad the good toilet doesn’t have a seat and the other one does.” Kevin: “Oh, let me see. That should be easy to fix.” One minute later, the “good” toilet had a seat. Here is a photo of me washing my hair at the outdoor tap with a friendly cow.
We chose to sleep on the floor in our sleeping bags in the first floor meeting room. Here's a moment just before lights out. Kevin is the one visible sleeper in the red sweatshirt and the hat in the center of the photo.
Back to the Team...
Addison Goodley
Addison is a senior bioengineering major. Bioengineering
includes developing health related products like prosthetics, for example. With Addison, I tried to relate my rudimentary
understanding of bioengineering with my rudimentary understanding of
Kinesiology, but did not get very far. Addison will start classes toward his
Master’s in the spring and will complete his undergraduate degree and Master’s
as a 5-year program, including thesis.
He is part of a family of engineers, lives in St. Mary’s County, having moved
from TX as a young teen. Addison ran the two miles roundtrip from breakfast at
Vincente’s house back to our accommodations at the Municipalidad where we slept
in order to retrieve the local phone in less than 18 minutes and commented, “I
don’t think too many people run around here. Even the cows were looking at me
funny.”
As another example of how fascinated I was by how engineers
think, Addison fashioned this bottle cap on our outdoor water tap, which had
been dripping enough water 24 hours a day to fill a bucket within less than 20
minutes. We know this because we flushed our toilets with those buckets, which
were purchased in Cuzco for water quality testing, but came in handy as a basic
necessity with our living conditions.
Nelson Quispe
Nelson is a senior, mechanical engineering major. Nelson’s family came to the United States five years ago. I
asked why and he gave me several answers—first, they felt lucky to get visas;
second, they came for higher education; and third, so Nelson could get hearing surgeries
at Georgetown. He wore hearing aids from a young age until he was 16 years old.
After 3 surgeries, he said that he can now hear the wind. He’d like to go to
UMCP for graduate school in bioengineering. His “dream job” is to work at NIH.
He takes futbol seriously – even brought his cleats to Compone for pick up
games. If ever in a Peruvian restaurant, invite Nelson to advise you on what to
eat.
Maria Coehlo
Maria is sweet, bright and a joy to get to know. She is a
sophomore, 19 years old, and has two brothers, 18 and 16 years old. She came to
UMD considering architecture, but decided because she is good at math to apply
for civil engineering, which I have learned, is also known as structural
engineering. She is from Brazil, lived in Uruguay for 11 years, and speaks
Portuguese, Spanish, French, and English fluently. Her dad, who works for
Brazil’s Embassy, will have to move to new post in a year. She’ll finish her
degree and decide whether to follow her family wherever they are placed.
Maria is a natural educator. Watching her teach Annibal and
Rafael how to conduct monthly water quality tests at the spring box and send
them to UMCP, she was clear and confident. She stopped at regular intervals to
check their understanding of the enormous amount of information. She confirmed
information with Ed and translated masterfully.
Zack Lawrence
Zack is a freshman. Like Kevin, he is a computer engineering
major. He’s half Chinese. Annibal, the President of Ayllu San Isidro who has
been the anchor of this project, affectionately called him “Chino.” Zack is the ultimate optimist. A small group hiked up to a peak at sunset.
Upon return, Zack remarked, “What’s a trip to Peru if you don’t get lost at the
top of a mountain in the dark in the rain?” He’s a quiet presence, working
tirelessly on learning to count to twenty in Spanish, and always there and
ready to help.
Kelly Latham
Kelly works for the national office for Engineers without
Borders (EWB-USA) outside of Boulder, CO. Because this project has had “issues”,
she met us in Cuzco for the adventure. She is an environmental engineer and was
a Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras with her husband, also an engineer doing
similar work to hers. She speaks fluent Spanish. She has a daughter, Anna, who
is 2 years old.
 |
| Kelly with Nelson and Kevin |
It has been so valuable to have Kelly be part of this team.
At many points, she has strengthened and redirected my understanding of the development
projects, of the EWB mission, and how our small piece fits into a much larger
picture of sustainable development. EWB is not an aid organization. This is not
a community service project. Therefore, the community has to buy in (literally)
for a project to be successful. In response to our living conditions within the
municipalidad (municipal center), she noted that she has seen much poorer
communities house EWB students, feed them, and demonstrate gratitude for the
project. The expectation is that for a project like this one, which is about
improving water quality, the water commission or the local municipality will
pay for our presence. They may not be
able to afford the cost of the proposed project (materials, tools, testing
equipment), but preparing our living quarters and paying a community member to
prepare our meals can be their investment. In contrast, if a community shows
that they don’t mind seeing us here, that they would be grateful to have clean
water, but that they are not invested in the project, then likely 10 years from
now, the project will not be sustained.
Public Health Team
Graciela Jaschek
Graciela is completing her Ph.D. in Epidemiology this
spring. She is originally from Argentina, lived in Switzerland, France, Spain,
and England and for the most years of her life in Silver Spring, MD where she
raised her two children. She has a
background in community organizing, and is really interested in seeing public
health data be used appropriately. As our public health Spanish speaker,
Graciela conducted all of our interviews while Greg and I struggled to
understand and celebrated moments of full comprehension. After the first day of
interviews when I worried that she would be exhausted, she said, “I’m so
excited. I feel like a pinball in a pinball machine.” Each day, I would attempt
to ask a few interview questions in Spanish to which the interviewee would look
at Graciela who would translate and then respond. Needless to say, I was humbled and incredibly
grateful for Graciela’s presence and qualitative interviewing experience.
Greg Raspanti
Greg is a first year Ph.D. student in Environmental Health.
He is also a full time Graduate Assistant with the Global Public Health
Scholars program, so we have worked together for the last semester since I
became Director of the program. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Moldova.
Surprisingly, the language is not dissimilar from Spanish. Greg’s emerging
expertise in applied environmental health bridge our two “schools” well, with
water testing methodology, study of GIS mapping, and study of environmental
contamination.
Lis Maring (me)
I’m a faculty member in the Department of Family Science,
SPH and discovered on Day 6 of 10 that I am the faculty mentor on this Compone, Peru
Assessment trip. I am the Director of the Global Public Health Scholars
program, a living and learning program for freshman and sophomore students. I also am a Family and Consumer Sciences
Specialist with University of Maryland Extension (UME). My areas of research include healthy homes,
adolescents and families, community violence, substance abuse, at-risk youth
and families, child care and after school programming and cross-cultural and
international research on families. I am a qualitative researcher and am interested in
resilience, looking for opportunities to broaden the protective factors that
lead to positive health outcomes for individuals and families.
No comments:
Post a Comment