Visits to CECIPROC’s sites

A few weeks ago, by invitation of the program’s director, Dr. Alberto Ysunza, I had a chance to visit La Luz, one of the communities CECIPROC is working with in the coast of Oaxaca.  CECIPROC AC (Centro de Capacitacion Integral para los Promotores Comunitarios/Integral Training for Community Promoters Center) is a nonprofit carrying out different nutrition related projects in the Sierra and Coast of Oaxaca.

During the six-hour car ride to the coast the landscape changed dramatically throughout with the crossing of the Sierra Sur mountains. On the road, Laurencio, one of the program managers, had to swerve many times to avoid hitting a dog, then a cow, a donkey, and even an iguana, while driving curve after curve.

CECIPROC’s current projects include building bathrooms that allow the human waste to be used as fertilizer, training women to grow home gardens, and building brick stoves that reduce indoor pollution and deforestation.  The general focus of the programs is nutrition improvement of disadvantaged communities.  Herdez is one of the financial supporters:  http://www.herdeznutre.com.mx/

I stayed in Cacalotepec for a few days, under the tutelage of Moises, “Moi” for short, one of the community organizers. Moi belongs to the Mixe community, an indigenous group that prides itself in never having been conquered by the Spanniards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixe.  He speaks two different forms of the Mixe language and Spanish.  His sense of humor, story telling skills and hospitality made me feel at home.  I also got the strong sense that he is deeply committed to working with rural communities to improve the quality of life.

At La Luz, Moi oversees the day-to-day running of a project based on the use of human waste turned fertilizer to grow vegetables for home consumption.  It is a similar project to the one two American women are implementing in Haiti:

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/03/28/opinion/1194838983811/american-ingenuity-in-haiti.html

From anecdotal evidence, the main activities of coastal towns like La Luz are fishing, and cattle raising.  Therefore, vegetables intake in the coast is fairly low and most produce is brought from outside of the communities.

 

As the community organizers, Moi and Laurencio explained, it took months to convince the women to use the dirt that comes from the toilets.  CECIPROC funded lab tests to prove the safety of the dirt that results after the human waste rests for 6 months and took pictures of sewage watered crops in Puebla, from where some of the produce distributed to the coast comes from.

 

During my visit, Emiliano, a local farmer taught the women how to prepare a bed to plant vegetables like cucumber, lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, radish, and squash.

 

The visit to the coast will be a highlight of this summer.  Although this area is sometimes unbearably hot, the raining season has started and everything is turning green.  The landscape of the ocean with the lush mountains was simply beautiful.

 

The last day I was in Cacalote, as Moi was driving me to the bus station, I shared with him that I hope to return to Oaxaca and stay in communities to learn the indigenous languages.  He was silent for a few seconds and said that sometimes accumulation of learning can be like acquiring material goods in self-interest.  I hadn’t expected that answer, but when he explained further that as long as you store what you learn to acquire prestige, there is little merit in this.  He mentioned, ‘if you learn something, then apply it as soon as you can, what good is it otherwise?’ Moi has mentioned multiple times that he did not complete a primary education.  However, multiple times I was challenged and impressed by his insight.