¡Hola!
Phewwww! I’m exhausted. I am currently knee deep in an construction project to build thirty improved cookstoves in a small nearby town called Copey. I love this project and it's certainly keeping me very busy while I wait for the high school director to make the official teaching schedule for the school year that started three weeks ago. Stove construction has been so much fun, albeit a huge challenge. I've learned to write a grant, purchase lots of fun building materials like hammers and saws, work with a toothless mason from another town to coordinate our travel and work schedules, solicit transportation and gas for materials from the town hall, organize the beneficiary families, give presentations about the improved cookstoves and keep meticulous records and receipts for the good ol' US government.
The process has been such a learning experience, but I think the biggest thing I’ve learned is how to deal with men dealing with a woman in charge of a massive construction project. The two to three days a week that we construct concrete tables, iron-enforced walls, and clay stoves, I work with two assistants, Pepe and Willy, and my mason, Lin. In addition, I am constantly running or riding back and forth to the home base to find and carry planks of wood, bags and blocks of cement, power tools, saws and hammers back to our job site. In this route, I encounter an average of 20-25 tigueres (young men) who hiss, scream and holler when I walk or bike by.
My mason, Lin, is actually the best man to work with. He’s worked with five other Peace Corps Volunteers in the past and knows how hard women work and how offended we get when you tell us we can’t lift blocks, mix cement or carry heavy things. He lets me put ceramic pieces together, saw wood, hammer nails and supervise him, just like he should. The others, however, aren’t so understanding. I’ve been collecting quotes since we started three weeks ago and have documented them below.
Top ten quotes overhead on the worksite:
10) “You don’t know what you’re doing.” – Marcos, a 10-year-old watching me place cement parts inside the stove.
9) “Let me do that.” – Every man I’ve ever worked with on this job.
8) “Ay, Bea, you’re too delicate to be lifting such heavy blocks.” – My uncle, Elvio, grabbing blocks from my hands.
7) “Bring me my lunch muchacha.” – My assistant, Pepe, demanding his lunch and soda be brought to him under the tree.
6) “But Bea, you’re going to get too strong, let me do that.” – My assistant, Willy, telling me to let him carry buckets of cement.
5) “She’s not a normal woman is she? She’s a hard worker and likes to get dirty.” – Overhead while my assistant, Willy, was talking to Lin as I cut chicken wire in the dirt nearby.
4) “I want a woman who can work as hard as she does. Look at those legs.” – Obnoxious street tiguere.
3) “Peace Corps certifies women as stove technicians?” – A skeptical neighbor.
2) “Damn that rubia (blonde) is the jefa (boss)?” – A street tiguere confused that I am the boss.
1) “Let her do it, she’s strong, hardworking and knows what she’s doing more than any of you do.” – My mason, Lin, scolding all the haters and supporting me 100%.
And if you think it’s only the men that say ridiculous things, you’re wrong. Sometimes, it’s the women who give me the best quotes.
Here’s the top six:
6) “You can build a stove but you can’t cook on one?” – Doña Shiomara when I told her I don’t know how to make rice and beans.
5) “Lin – you are an abuser, carry that bucket of sand for Bea, girls shouldn’t be lifting heavy things you loco.” - Doña Margot while I was hauling bucket after bucket of sand as my mason, Lin, took a cigarette break.
4) “All this time in the sun is going to make you dark and ugly.” – Doña Daisy while encouraging me to stop mixing cement in the sun and drink coffee with her on the porch.
3) “Don’t you dare carry those without gloves, you’ll scratch your little hands.” – Doña Yesenia when I picked up a cement block with (god forbid) my bare hands.
2) “You’re bleeding, sit down before you faint.” – Doña Ana when I (barely) cut my finger on piece of zinc.
1) “Well, all this construction work isn’t going to help you find a boyfriend.” – Doña Lule in response to my saying, “I am single.”
Yes, these quotes are obnoxious, frustrating, irksome and spiteful, but I’m happy to be showing them that a woman can do this project. I am proud not just because the stoves we are building help women, children and the environment. I am proud because I am illustrating to an entire community that women can build things, mix cement, use their hands and boss men around. I’m breaking down ugly stereotypes and gender barriers one improved cookstove at a time!
I'm off to clean up an ant infestation in my cookie butter jar...
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