Hi Everyone, I have attached pics of my comedor.
Dear Family and Friends,
In June of this year I accepted a three-month internship in Argentina through the Foundation for Sustainable Development (www.fsdinternational.org). I am very interested in international microfinance/microenterprise and felt hands on experience within the field was essential. I also welcomed the opportunity to travel abroad and strengthen my Spanish skills.
I am currently living in La Plata, Argentina (about an hour outside of Buenos Aires) and working in a “comedor” which is a combination of a soup kitchen and community forum. My primary responsibility is to work with a Panadería or bread bakery cooperative they are trying to implement. Due to some delays in the bakery project I have also spent significant time with the soup kitchen.
I am writing to ask for your help in raising funds for a project I am working on. The soup kitchen lacks many basic cooking utensils that you couldn’t imagine cooking without. A donation of just $5 to $20 would go a long way in helping these people purchase supplies they desperately need. Donations will be used to purchase items such as:
If you are willing to donate, please see instructions below for mailing your donations, or paying online through PayPal. Please send your donation by Friday, August 22, 2008 so that there is plenty of time for the FSD office to process the donations and get to me so I can make the needed purchases in Argentina. As FSD is a 501(c)(3) all donations are 100 percent tax deductible. The women of the comedor and I truly would appreciate your donation.
For more information on the specific projects I am working on, or the people I am working with, please feel free to contact me, I would love to share. I am also keeping a blog (www.jacquelynk.wordpress.com) that has stories and pictures of both my work and life while living in Argentina. Though I am enjoying my experience and learning a lot, I look forward to returning to the United States in September.
With love,
Jackie Koehler
CHECKS: Make checks payable to ¨FSD International¨, please contact me for address to send checks.
Please write ¨Argentina – Jacquelyn Koehler¨ in the notes so that the money goes towards my project.
INTERNET via PayPal (you will need a PayPal account to complete the transaction – FSD keeps 5% of PayPal donations for processing expenses):
Visit www.fsdinternational.org and click on ¨Donate¨ in the left column. Scroll to bottom page and under ¨Project Development and Capacity Building Fund¨ click on ¨Donate¨ This will take you to a page where you can sign in to PayPal or sign up for an account. Once you have logged in you can make a donation. Make sure to in the notes to include ¨Argentina – Jacquelyn Koehler¨ to make sure that the money makes it to my project.
All FSD interns are assigned to an organization and have varying hours of work…up to 40 hours per week. My friends Amber is in this situation…she works 8:30 to 4:30 Monday through Friday. I however have it slightly more flexible. Though I came to work with the comedor’s “microenpredamiento” (microenterprise) it is not actually functional yet (more about that later). So that I am not sitting around doing nothing, I try to go in the morning to the comedor to “help” the women cook the meal for that day. They usually start around 7:30 and end at 10. I usually show up about 8/8:30ish, meaning I work a maximum of 10 hours per week (I like to think that I do other helpful things in my waking hours.)
When I say try there are several prohibitors.
As to my actual daily role in the comedor, it is kind of a joke. However, since the panadería is not functioning, I hang out there anyway so that I am at least interacting with Argentines. Of course getting cooking help from a foreigner might not be so helpful…I have finally made myself useful by cutting vegetables and sweeping the floor when they are done. However, my time there has helped me identify several needs of the comedor. As some of you may have read in my previous posts, their kitchen is lacking various basic cooking utensils. The knives in the comedor are comparable to steak knives. These small knives are used to cut hard vegetables such as carrots, potatoes, and butternut squash, not an easy task! They did not have a can opener and one day I had to use a broken knife blade and hammer it into the can inch by inch. After telling my host mom this, she brought me a small manual can opener which I have made good use of since. They use fairly old wooden cutting boards, whose potential hazard for bacteria prevents me from eating the food as much as possible…same goes for the one wooden stirring stick they possess. They also are short on clean wash rags, towels, soap etc.
Though not assigned particularly to work with the comedor, I want to help with their current situation. As a result I am asking my family, friends, or anyone who reads this to give a small donation that can be used to buy some of these basic cooking utensils that most American’s wouldn’t imagine trying to cook without. Most of you have or will receive a letter from asking for small monetary donation which I will use to buy these supplies. I and they would greatly appreciate anything you can give! If you didn’t receive the letter from me, send me an email or comment and I will let you know how you can contribute!
As for the actual Panadería (bread bakery) in which I came to work with, the outcome is still in the air. The Panadería’s physical location will be in a small room that is directly connected to the comedor. The actual room is about as precarious as the comedor – tin roof and walls, round wooden beans support the structure, some of which are badly burned from a fire that occurred in the previous comedor location. One wall is made of brick…and I can’t quite figure out why but part of it is slightly collapsed in. There are spaces between the roof and the wall, leaving the room exposed to the outside. There is no water or electricity currently in the room. When I arrived, the business was not yet functional (and still is not). Due to a grant received by the previous intern, they were able to buy all the materials necessary to make the needed repairs on the room. They also have everything they need to start the business, including a 30 kilo mixer and ingredients to make the first batches of bread. However, security is also a problem. The door currently has no lock (actually has no door knob at all the door is usually swinging open) and there is concern about security of the expensive equipment (the mixer). Marta (my supervisor) wants to and has started to build a small shack on the property where her son can sleep/live so there is someone there looking after the place at night. I personally am not convinced that it is the best or most cost effective way to create security (I think a good door lock and maybe a chain and lock securing the mixer would be sufficient), but have decided to let her do what she thinks is best – I do not live there, I do not know the best security options. However, have not offered my “seeds fund budget” to help with that particular project.)
They have all the supplies to work in fix up the room so they can start the panadería. Daniel, Marta’s husband, can do all the repairs, but he works and I think does a lot of advocating for the community so doesn’t have much spare time. When I arrived, I figured the quickest way to get the repairs done and start the business was to pay someone to do it – after all I came to work with the Panadería and wouldn’t get that chance unless it was finished. Each intern is “given” (I am pretty sure I am paying myself here as it was not free to come…) a $200 seeds fund budget for the project they decide to do. For some that may be all they need, and if greater needs are identified they can write a grant for a project. I didn’t write a grant because I felt the Panadería already had all the materials they needed. I offered my seeds fund budget to pay someone for the repairs. The quote we were given was the equivalent of about $150.
This was four weeks ago and the repairs still haven’t been finished. The guy has come several times and has accomplished some, fixing cracks in the wall and closing the gap between the ceiling and wall. However, the “reason” I have been given (fairly legitimate) is that the wet and humid weather prevents the concrete from drying so we have to wait for better weather. I have since also asked my host dad, Claudio to help out. Claudio is currently unemployed so he is home all day and has vast experience with pretty much anything house/remodeling related, and also mechanic/automobile related. Claudio has volunteered to help with getting all the electrical related stuff squared away and possible plumbing/water as well. Claudio and I (and Miriam, my host mom) went to the comedor with Daniel so he could explain to Claudio what all needed to be done. Hopefully tomorrow, Claudio and I will go to the comedor/panadería to get some much needed work done.
Lessons Learned: If I could go back I would probably have used my seeds fund budget for something different. Had I realized that paying someone was not going to be a quick and easy solution, I would have tried to organize a work day with people in the neighborhood and asked Claudio sooner for help. However, I cannot go back in time, but am hoping that within the next week or two we will have a functional building and hopefully a functional Panadería.
Weather has definitely turned cold and dreary again. This morning it was about 10 degrees Celsius, which I think is about 50 Fahrenheit, but it is also really rainy which makes it seem super cold (and there is no central air…anywhere, which means never actually getting warm L ) So I decided I had to go to my comedor to see if anyone was cooking (they don’t generally cook in the rain because the roof has leaks in it that prevents them from cooking in the rain). There was only one women there today accompanied by her two-year-old son. I am glad I ended up going because she needed help since she was by herself.
My accomplishments today – I opened 15 cans of spam (which was not easy) half of them I opened the “difficult way” until another woman came and showed me the real way you were supposed to open them. (It is hard to explain, but it is the type of cans you are supposed to be able to open without a can opener, however, if you don’t know how it works, it makes it harder.) Then I opened several cans of peas – however, the comedor does not have a can opener. So I used the blade of a large meat knife (I don’t know what happened to the handle) and pounded it into the tin little by little with a knife sharpener and worked my way around the edge of the can until it was open even for me to pry the top of. As a result I know have a cut on my finger….its a wonder I only have one. Anyway for all that work, the food looked gross…I wouldn’t have eaten it. But I am glad I went to help since Rosa was there by herself. I also spent some time chatting with my supervisor Marta afterward – which really just gave me ideas for more projects that could be done for the comedor, but that I don’t have enough time here to help with.
I look pretty stupid next to her dressed up ready to return to school...
This weekend I met my host sister, Florencia. Many of her friends live very far away from the school so they come to La Plata on the weekend, and Florencia’s parents act as surrogate parents for many of these students. As a result, there are always young people around on the weekend, which is nice. Florencia has a boyfriend, which makes her less available to hang out with me, but one of her friends, Stephanie took me downtown to run some errands. Stephanie is very outgoing, so she is always talking (which is good because then I have to talk less) and she is also patient with explaining the things I miss in Spanish. Another friend, Perla, said we should go out dancing sometime. Unfortunately they all have short trips via ship in the coming weeks and no one will be returning to La Plata for several weeks and shortly after that they have two weeks of vacation in which many will return to their homes. One girl, Patricia (Perla’s sister, but not in the naval academy), did invite me to her home in Missiones (northern province) near Iguazú Falls, which I believe is the largest natural waterfall in the world (per Claudio). Patricia also said we could cross the border into Paraguay to go shopping because everything is cheaper there. Unfortunately, I think it is against FSD regulation to leave the country…I am not sure what I am going to do about this yet. (It is also 18 hours away which is another road bump…)
I met my supervisor for the comedor today also. Marta lives in the barrio Altos Hornos de San Lorenzo – which is also where I live. However, she lives in an area that they refer to as “asentimiento”; the people that live there do not own they land. After the 2001 economic crisis, many people came to the city (I am assuming to look for work or government help) and settled on this open land. The houses are varying degrees of shacks. Tin roofs and walls on concrete slabs seems to be the norm. Marta is from northern Argentina (Missiones) but said that many of the people that live near here are from other countries – Bolivia, Paraguay, and maybe Uruguay also. One house she pointed out she said a Yugoslavian woman lived there…I will have to get to the bottom of that, it seems like an awfully long way to come.
The comedor where I will work is more impoverished than I had imagined. All the interns had visited a comedor during our orientation week which appeared to be in a fairly normal looking neighborhood and it was housed in a solid infrastructure. The people who came to eat looked like any other children in the neighborhood. However, my comedor, La Estrategia de Caracol (I believe the translation is Strategy of the Snail, I am not exactly sure of the significance) is located in a fairly precarious looking building. There are holes in the tin roof and the major wooden pillars that support the structure were salvaged from the first structure that was destroyed in a fire. The bathroom is an outhouse in another tin shack. The concrete floor has cracks and there are spaces between the walls and ceiling that need to be filled.
After my first visit with Marta it appears as though the panadería, or the baking cooperative, has not been fully realized yet. They have bought an industrial strength mixer, but it is sitting in Marta’s living room because the comedor is not secure enough to house such expensive equipment. The price of flour is also sky-rocketing making it not cost effective to make and sell the bread.
On Wednesday I will go to the comedor and help them transplant some plants in their garden (their first intern helped to create this garden) and I will get to meet all the women that help out at the comedor (members of the community who volunteer their time.) After I meet everyone, I think I will then be in a position to stop by the comedor whenever I want. I want to start talking to the women to find out the needs of their community and comedor and their interest in growing the panadería. After learning of their needs, I will have to make a “work plan” for my internship. Each intern has $200 available to realize a project and longer internships (which I think I qualify for) will have the opportunity to apply for additional grant moneys. After my first visit with Marta it seems as though their major need is man power to make needed infrastructure changes to the comedor. They already have most of the supplies, but Marta’s husband seems to be the only one available to make improvements and he has limited time. I am not sure if this is because of lack of trust or confidence in using other man power, or just lack of available funds.
The next couple of weeks I will spend getting to know the women of the comedor to realize a plan that will be meaningful and beneficial to the local community.
