¨You need to take your watch off¨

I have to admit – I asked for it. I really did. When I said I wanted a ton of work RIGHT when I got to my site, I was worried about being lonely, about having too much time to sit and think about what I’d gotten myself into, about feeling useless and like I wouldn’t be able to find enough work to fill up 2 years. Well, my boss took that request to heart. Since the day I arrived at site, I have had something (more like 3-5 somethings) to do every single workday. And most weekends as well.

The good news: I took off my watch. You’d think after living in a few different Latin American countries where time is relative, very few people wear a watch (and those that do are doing it for style), and it’s a complete accident if everyone is on time to a meeting, that I would let go of some of my anal-retentive tendencies when it comes to time. But, no. Last week I was stressing out about how we were going to provide 500 people with snack and tie off every detail of the Reproductive Health march coming up, and Adilia (my counterpart) finally said, “You need to take your watch off.” So, I did. And I was 85% stress-free. Until the day of the march, of course.

So, the march: the idea of simply having a health talk for all the Mi Familia Progresa groups in my town (which is a government-run subsidy program that basically pays women to take their kids to the health post for checkups, receive health talks, and make their kids go to school) to celebrate Reproductive Health Month turned into a 500 person march celebrating the month as well as women’s rights and self-esteem. Each group of Mi Familia Progresa was given a talk on a certain topic (breastfeeding, self-esteem, women’s rights, family planning, etc.), made their own materials for the march, and then were told it was a mandatory activity (and thus wouldn’t have to come for their checkups in September).

You should have SEEN the giggles in these meetings when we told them what we had planned. I mean, for this town, it’s weird if a woman talks much above a normal level unless she’s yelling at one of her kids, so it’s a pretty ridiculous idea that a ton of women would get together and parade around the town shouting things like “MY BODY BELONGS TO ME,” or “NO ONE DESERVES ABUSE,” or “IT’S MY RIGHT TO DECIDE HOW MANY KIDS I WANT.” We were a little worried about the authorities being into it, but they ended up making us invite every school band in town. Not only did the local mayors lead the parade, the Municipal Mayor came all the way out as well. We invited about 5 more organizations (before begging them for materials and snacks, of course), so we added another 250 participants to our groups to make it a 500-person march. Even though my group did not win most animated (it took us the entire route to get our chant down pat), it was so crazy to see these women marching through their town holding signs up with things like “INCEST IS WRONG,” and “I AM NOT AN OBJECT,” and “I HAVE VALUE.” Yeah, they were still pretty meek and didn’t shout as loud as I’d have liked. But at the very least, they did it. Sure, we pretty much made them, but the fact that they know that something like this is possible now, is pretty awesome. Now only if we could convince them without having to bribe them with snacks and threaten taking away their monthly stipend…