First Post...Segunda Parte

As previously mentioned, Stephen, Dan, and I work at the Centro Buen Pastor en Caguas. Caguas is a 20-25 minute drive south of San Juan into more of a foothills terrain. The center is run by a group of Salesian nuns. This group of nuns laid claim to this beautiful 18-acre plot of land at the beginning of the 20th century. The land around the Centro consists of a few farming plots, but mostly a hilly rain forest. Technically, this area is between Caguas and Guaynabo, two fairly large towns. The area in between has developed into a low-income community called La Loma. The community is plagued by an overwhelming amount of problems: a terrible economy, widespread drug use among its citizens, violence, lack of government funding, lack of public services, and an overwhelming sense of apathy towards self-betterment by the people who could possibly make a difference. The Centro Buen Pastor is a mixture of a convent, a community center, and retreat center. The nuns reached out to the town and to various contacts in San Juan to help them best use the land and their will power to support the community. The aggregate result over many years is a tightly knit group of leaders and stakeholders in the Centro, coming from all parts of San Juan with a variety of skills.

Over the past few years, a collective effort titled Proyecto Siempre Verde (Project Always Green) developed steadily. The idea of the project is to make the rain forest more of an ecotourism attraction. In doing so, the hope is that the community will have an avenue of potential unity, the project will bring in revenue, and that the revenue will create self-sustaining jobs for La Loma members (tour guides, maintenance, management, etc). The nuns truly believe in the powers of eco-therapy and the spirituality inherent in nature. A lot has to happen before any of this is realized, though. We are in the midst of developing trails through the forest. There is much to see and learn while in the forest and this is precisely what the project is trying to capitalize on. Puerto Rico’s formation is unique to the Caribbean. A mixture of lava, tectonic plates, and sea vegetation deposits resulted in PR having thousands of endemic species of plants and animals. The man that knows everything about all these species and about everything in general is Fernando Silva. Essentially, he is in charge of Proyecto Siempre Verde. He is also a cross between Bill Murray and Jean Reno. The man is amazing, I can’t say enough about him. He is a professor at one of the larger universities here in PR and he also is the founder of the environmental agency INCICO. Fernando speaks and people listen. He speaks clearly and extremely slow, as if everything he is teaching you is the secret to a happy life. I love it. He also routinely and nonchalantly catches lizards, snakes, and other animals with his bare hands.

Anyways, over the past year or so, Fernando has carefully selected and trained high school and college-aged students from La Loma to become tour guides once the trail preparation is completed. This past weekend, the tour guides and us voluntarios stayed overnight at the Centro. This weekend was a trial run for the tour guides, but it also was a chance for us to get to know them better and to learn what they have been learning. This proved to be extremely difficult. I understand 100% of everything that people like Sylvia, Fernando, and Sister Nancy say, but the youth seem to have a different language. They speak unbelievably fast and don’t pronounce all of their syllables. For instance, they don’t pronounce “r” or “s” at the end of words. For someone still trying to learn more and more Spanish, a missing “r” or “s” is devastating to comprehension and the learning process. We definitely experienced some resentment from the group, but overall, everyone seemed to get along.

Recently, and after incessant grant proposals, the Centro Buen Pastor has received a decent amount of funding from various organizations. This funding will go towards the development of Proyecto Siempre Verde. For instance, parts of the trail need stone steps, some areas need bridges over the creek, and certain points would benefit greatly from established lookout decks. United Way is coming in September to help us create an office for PSV. Last week, we began the conversion of an old maintenance building/shack into the PSV office. This shack was disgusting. I’ve never seen so many cockroaches, lizards, and rats in one location. For a video that shows some of the destruction, check out Stephen’s blog. It seems to me that much of what I will be doing in the immediate future is working side by side with the tour guides, architects, and Fernando, preparing the trails. Once we make some headway in that department, I will get a chance to put my business skills in action. Being a marketing major, I think part of the reason I was selected for this position was because they need someone to help them bridge the gap between the trails being established and the actual people coming in to take part in the experience. I think I could really make an impact here. I don’t mind breaking my back at the start because it gives me more than enough time to familiarize myself with the project and its philosophy. I’m confident I’ll come up with something beneficial, because after all (in the eloquent words of Jay-Z), “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business…man!”

To help in developing the trails, the Centro enlisted the help of the nearby University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras (the professor is an old friend of Fernando). A class of about 16 architecture students focusing on community service projects will be working with us to professionally design our work plans. We met them this past Monday and they seemed very enthusiastic about the project, at least more so than the tour guides. They also spoke better Spanish. We could understand them much more than the tour guides. They also were very friendly and interested in what Stephen, Dan, and I had decided to do here in Puerto Rico. We went to a local authentic restaurant/hang out after the workday and got to know each other better. All in all, it was a solid, productive day.

The nuns, though, if they could speak English, would most definitely tell my blog readers: Don’t get it twisted! By that, I mean, the word “tourism” is misleading. As I mentioned, eco-therapy and the soothing powers of nature are the focus of the entire project. Even before Proyecto Siempre Verde became a reality, many groups (youth groups, students, business offices, etc.) have been coming to the Centro to partake in various group therapy sessions. As you can imagine, establishing the trails and an educated tour through the forest would be an excellent addition to the already successful therapy weekends. From what I gather, the ideal weekend retreat group would have a schedule something like this (beginning Saturday morning): brunch, slide show introduction to the Center and its programs, taller (group activities), lunch, daytime tour on the trails, dinner, break, nighttime tour highlighting the many nocturnal creatures present, sleep, morning bird watch, breakfast, conclusion of weekend.

That is where the Santurce crew is at right about now with its job situation. We will be heading to the Cantera project for the rest of the week. Cantera is another project much like PSV, but it is much further along in its establishment. We understand, though, that fresh ideas are stocking out and that there might be a place for us, or some of us, to help out over there. Hopefully by next week I will have some sort of solidified work schedule, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I weren’t any enlightened than I am now. ¡Asi es la vida!

Keep reading. That last post was almost straight business. No me gustó. I’ll try to make some funnier posts next time around.