La Villa Betania

Approximately 5 kilometers Southwest of Masaya’s Central Park and 25 minutes by foot from my home, there is a quiet village that few people know about. It consists of about 60 homes, 250 people, excessive amounts of dust as well as dogs, roosters, and pigs. It has one water source, a well located at the end of the second street, which serves the entire community. With no public lighting, the residents resort to barbed wire as a primary defense of their homes. And to top it off, the unpaved dirt roads make it virtually impossible to commute with any comfort whatsoever.

Welcome to the Villa Betania. A place I’ve come to know well because it is the focus of my work. The term Villa is a familiar one. But Betania was named after the late daughter of an American man, who constructed a majority of the houses in her memory.

I first came into contact with Villa Betania during my second week on the job. It was 6:00PM on a Friday evening, and I was accompanying the local development division of my organization as a bystander once again. Just like the other rural training sessions, we set up shop in a primitive commonplace – dirt floors, no furniture, an overhead light, and out in the open, welcoming mosquitoes and all other living creatures that wanted to make an appearance. The meeting began as expected, with our team doing the talking, the 30 community attendees doing the listening, and the little kids running around and doing the distracting. I just sat there in silence, desperately wondering how I could contribute to this training session and desperately questioning what benefit, in general, my presence was serving.

As our local development leader, Maria Lidia, carried on in her comforting voice about the importance of leadership and the importance of working as a team, a voice in the back angrily interjected.

“How do you expect us to work as a team, when we have leaders here who make decisions on behalf of the community without consulting anyone?”

The tension rose. My ears perked up. And the diatribe continued.

“How can we work for the future of our community like this? What good does it do if these people are in charge?”

The venting went on for an hour. Our team hardly said a word. And it all culminated in the man who was being attacked, standing up, and walking out of the meeting.

Fortunately, the argument came to a halt and we were able to preserve the final five minutes of the meeting for its intended purpose: to review the list of goals the community had set out to accomplish in 2008.

1. Potable water
2. Paved Roads
3. Neighborhood Watch program
4. Day Care Center
5. Public Lighting
6. Creation of a Park
7. Formation of a Youth Group

I’m not sure what it was, but something about the disagreement and the goals for 2008 intrigued me. As if the community had unintentionally dragged us into their personal struggle and asked for help. Obviously, I wanted nothing to do with the politics and tension between the community members. But in terms of organizing and consulting with the community to help reach their goals for 2008, I felt like I could possibly make a difference.

Call me naïve, for it is now six week later and my work has drifted away from most of the goals except one – lucky number 7. You see, when I first arrived there had been plenty of talk in the village of youths taking a more active role in the community, especially since many of them were on scholarships and proving success in their new opportunities. But just because there was talk didn’t mean anything was happening. I decided to attend a meeting with the youths, and ask them if they wanted assistance and help organizing a community project. I’m not sure if kids just say “yes” to everything or they actually wanted help from a Gringo, but they accepted my offer.

Since then several things have happened. We officially established ourselves as Unidad Juvenil, or Youthful Unity, and meet multiple times a week in the evenings or on the weekends. After several brainstorming sessions, we decided to launch an illiteracy fighting project in the neighborhood. Just this past Saturday our group of 10 conducted a survey and about 25 illiterate residents expressed interest. And, just this morning, I went with 5 members of the group to the local government office, reported our findings, and set up a meeting and training session tomorrow in La Villa Betania to officially kick off our project.

Some people ask - If you work for a microfinance institution, why are you primarily working with community projects and youths?

Practical Answer: There is an entire division in our organization dedicated to local outreach, with the hope that through education and training people will form cooperatives or even pursue microcredit one day. Plus, I’ve been out with the credit promoters, witnessed microfinance in action, and although it is fascinating, it seems rather procedural and systematic.

Emotional Answer: Imagine life in the village from the description above.

Need I say more?