Nebaj

Nebaj

The last two days I caught a ride with a friend up to Quiche and then took a bus to Nebaj, a bustling but small town in the middle of the Ixil Triangle. Teresa and Halle stayed behind, as the 7 hour trip two days in a row would have been a bit much. The scenery was idyllic and the atmosphere lively. I went to go do some interviews for some research I’m involved in and I was able to finish what I needed to on Wednesday afternoon, not too long after arriving. I took the evening to wander the small town, sit in the main plaza, people watch and then go to bed. In the morning I went running down a dirt road to a spectacular waterfall (my pictures just don’t do it

justice). It was so nice to be in a place where I didn’t have to look over my shoulder and worry about being shot/robbed/kidnapped/blackmailed/etc. After my run I wandered the market, which was incredibly crowded and interesting. Most transactions were taking place in Ixil, the local language. The women all wore traditional clothing with beautiful green cloth woven in their hair. On the way home we stopped at some old ruins. All in all it was a nice reminder of what Guatemala has to offer.

In Nebaj, I interviewed someone from Soluciones Comunitarias, an organization that I greatly respect. (You can google them; they have a good webpage). They are a for-profit organization that is partially subsidized by Community Enterprise Solutions, an American non-profit. They sell reading glasses, water purifiers, seeds, stoves that use less wood and other items that have profound impacts on quality of life for people in rural areas. They work with local women, who become “microentrepreneurs” taking these products to people in far-flung regions of Guatemala. By using local women they gain access to the local language and knowledge. I like that they charge for the products. I think this is very important for several reasons.

1. People who buy the products really need and value what they are getting. This, in contrast to NGOs who just give things away. (For example the Canadian doctors who gave eye exams and then gave away glasses, only to find broken glasses left on the roadside a few blocks away).
2. By being for-profit they are creating employment for local women. Even if the women leave SolCom, they take the training and self-confidence they have gained. While intangible, I think this is invaluable.
3. The organization is much more accountable for funds because they are counting every Quetzal, trying to attain sustainability.
4. A model that doesn’t rely on donations is much more likely to be scalable (growth potential is much higher).

Overall, a wonderful trip. I hope to go back someday…and maybe do one of the backpacking trips from Nebaj through the Cuchumatanes to Todos Santos…

Response to a comment

Another bus driver dead. I got a ride to the school this morning and there was quite a bit of traffic. We finally passed a bus that was surrounded by an ambulance and police. There was a large pool of bright red blood on the pavement. The driver had been shot and killed, probably for not paying his "war taxes" to the gangs, or maybe for resisting a robbery. It was the route that I ride to the school. I'm going to try to ride the bus less. On a happier note, we visited lake Atitlan last week. The picture of the cute kids is from Panajachel.

I got a great question/comment on the last post. I wanted to respond because I think it raises some crucial issues to things that I haven't figured out. I'm especially interested in these questions because I'm trying to figure what ProGuate (our non-profit) should look like and what it should do. If you have a thought/idea/etc. please leave a comment. I'm interested in generating ideas. Derek asked what I thought about the role of subsidies and charity in education. Here is the email I wrote to Derek in response.

As for the questions--the easy one first. We'll be here until April 6. Now the hard one...subsidies for education. I have no idea what the answer is. I don't oppose a free education from the student standpoint. I don't see dependency as an issue for studnets--they are working hard to learn. I wish the government here were able to provide a quality free education for all students. That just isn't the reality.

The problem I see is that the schools and their administrators become dependent on outside subsidies. I've met too many school directors here who believe that if they could just get sponsorships from the USA for students, then all their problems would be solved. While everyone, without exception, has had fantastic intentions and generally very good educational skills, the business and organizational end is generally in very poor shape. Educators here (or in the US for that matter) are never trained to run a large business, which is essentially what they are doing. Subsidies to their operations often just allow them to continue poor practices. I'm not saying that sponsorships are always bad, or should never be used; I'm just concerned about which institutions receive them and how they efficient that institution really is. Are they really using their resources effectively? How far are the donated dollars really going?
Two other issues arise. One is the long-term instability of subsidies as a source of funding. Donors can be fickle and if a school is overly reliant on donors as a source of funding, problems can arise.

The other issue is only a problem if you are worried about scale. At the end of the day, even if every person in Utah sponsored a Guatemalan student, there wouldn't be enough sponsors to cover them all. When you look at the number of people who live at the "bottom of the pyramid" you realize that those in the developing world far outnumber their wealthy counterparts. There just isn't enough charity money out there to empirically make much of a difference. Like the starfish anecdote, this doesn't mean we shouldn't donate or make a difference in the life of one person where we can. But philosophically, I'm more attracted to financially viable solutions because the potential to scale them is much greater (think microcredit).

So, is there a financially sustainable solution for education in Guatemala? Is there a way to use subsidies and donations effectively without creating dependencies? Are there times when we should take off our financial glasses and just open our wallet? I hope the answer is yes to all these questions.

Sorry for being long-winded. I look forward to discussing this more.

Chris