Interviewing is a challenging and rewarding process. Until recently, I didn’t fully enjoy conducting interviews because it was exhaustingly demanding and somewhat daunting, particularly in Spanish. However, and this may seem obvious, so many people have so much to share if you simply ask the right questions. There are morsels that pop up in interviews that may never arise in a day to day conversation and those tidbits are beautiful, raw pieces of humanity to witness and learn from. While interviews may be nerve biting and awkward, interviews are also SO COOL.

To contextualize, we are now in our last three weeks of filming for the documentary.  This means we finally interview all the people we have gotten to know the best and with whom we’ve built the strongest relationships. We plan out the lighting and the sound parameters, brainstorm our questions beforehand, and jump in. Now we are immersed enough (averaging six a week), that Arthur and I are really starting to fall into a rhythm. Arthur films, I ask the questions, until about two-thirds of the way through I panic and can find no suitable question, and then Arthur chimes in with the perfect in depth question that I was searching frantically to find. Good teamwork, through and through.

As mentioned in previous blogs, we always ask interviewees how we can be better neighbors. Often, this question is two fold. How can we, being from the US, be better neighbors to Mexico? How can Guadalajara, contaminating pueblos downstream, be a better neighbor to the affected communities, specifically to El Salto and Juanacatlán?

The other day we interviewed our friend and experienced water rights researcher and activist, Cindy McCulligh. Cindy previously worked with IMDEC and researched with Iteso, and knows a lot about water management and the state of the watershed.  The interview was fruitful and rich in sound bites we were missing. Our favorite part, the part we keep discussing, was the end of Cindy’s interview. Although originally from Canada, Cindy has been living here in Guadalajara for ten years and speaks Spanish fluently, worlds better than us.

We conducted the interview entirely in Spanish, until the very end. When Cindy began to answer our better neighbors question, she spoke so passionately that she switched, mid sentence, to English and finished her answer in English speaking with great conviction. At the end, Arthur and I were so touched, we just said Amen and clapped. I’ll save her whole response for the documentary, but the gist was that if we don’t see the other as an equal and value their lives the same as ours, then no action will be honorable nor fair.

If you are still reading, below are some recent observations and ongoing questions. As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions.

A few of our observations so far:

1. People always speak quieter when they begin interviews, so if we set the levels based on the beginning they are almost always too high once the interviewee gets more fired up.
2. It is difficult to find anywhere in Guadalajara and the surrounding area that does not have noise disruptions: from loud stereos to diesel cars to gas, water, and corn purveyors announcing their fare in the streets (with microphones), we are going to have to do some serious audio filtering and keep our fingers crossed.
3. You can see the most incredible sides of people if you facilitate an interview well. They light up and share things you have never heard in daily conversations and at that very moment you know why you are doing what you are doing.

Internal questions we keep returning to:

1. How do we make people comfortable?
2. What questions open people up and allow them to speak their mind while also guiding the interview in the direction we would like to head?
3. What questions put people on guard and break the trust we are slowly building between us?
4. How do we maintain some uniformity while remaining spontaneous and guiding the interview as it flows?

Ashoka Tech

Recently I participated in a moving popular education conference in Guadalajara, Mexico, where we were divided into our generations and collectively defined and expressed the trends of each generation. In my generation, those born in the 1980s and late 1970s, we came up with two succinct differences that distinguish us from older generations. They are:
1) We face problems that are much more complex and pressing – such as climate change, water scarcity, and loss of biodiversity on an unprecedented scale.
2) We possess technological tools to connect the local to the global and create movements and communications that were previously impossible.

The internet has and is drastically changing the ways we connect and information is shared. Innovation and collaboration no longer have the similar boundaries they once possessed. Technology enables solution sharing and movement building in unprecedented forms. For example while the Chinese government has in the past hidden earthquakes for months, after the recent earthquakes in May, Chinese tweeters announced the earthquake before the government knew they had occurred. Similarly, in the Ghanian elections in December 2008, citizens successfully used mobile phones and twittering to monitor election fraud.

Despite incredible advancement, barriers of access and language still prevail on much of the internet. Many tools available in much of the world, are not known or used. The difference between technologies available and how they are adopted in different cultures is fascinating and apparent –I think about this divide often since leaving San Francisco, CA, one of the epicenters of the technology innovation, three months ago. Coordinating Adapting to Scarcity, a community media project on water scarcity, in Guadalajara, Mexico, I constantly find technology skills and habits here are very different. One major obstacle we face in teaching video and social media tools is the internet is too slow in most of Mexico to watch videos easily, especially in the Cyber Cafe’s located in most communities where they access the internet. Another large barrier present here is language: it still prevents many forms of global solution sharing and grassroots networking, however international online networks, such as Wiserearth, are currently working on changing this reality .

So what does this mean for social change? As movements such as 350.org have shown, if we unite on an international scale, our collective voices are impossible to ignore or silence. Internet and social media tools are constantly innovating and evolving; the challenge is how to harness these tools and growth for social change. Idealist is currently expanding its scope to harness the power of its network for global social change. They are turning the ’start local go global’ on its head – by starting with their global network, they are working on building community nodes to strengthen local actors and facilitate collaboration.

For our project, we are in the beginning stages of creating a water scarcity solution video library. Many communities around the world will begin facing or are currently dealing with water scarcity and other related problems. The innovation and solutions exist, the question is how to adapt the right solutions and technology in the right places. By making this information freely available, we don’t need to decide for anyone, but instead provide the solutions for communities to choose for themselves and ask for help if they want.

It has long been my belief that in the field of development, it’s much important to help when asked, and not implement solutions top down. For example one of the organizations I have been most impressed by is the Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group, because they merge social research and philanthropy with engineering and appropriate technology implementation. The internet has the possibility to make solution sharing, technological or otherwise, much more fair and open. The multiplying and viral factor of videos or twitter movements demonstrates the speed and communication that are possible. I’m looking forward to following where these movements go, and helping to channel them toward more positive change.

Facebook: We have a page with 211 fans, which is respectable for a brand new organization based internationally.  Facebook is the single largest generator of visitors to our website.  We share all our blog posts, updates, and many of our photos there.  It serves as a second website, easier to visit and read blurbs instead of whole blog entries. Of course, we have Facebook linked to twitter, so every time we post there it goes to twitter.

Twitter: I initially resisted twitter, thinking we did not have a use for it.  My, how I was wrong.  By following and being followed by many like minded technology, social media, and water related organizations, we create our own interactive community and access highly relevant online movements and trends.  I have found the most influential organizations and resources there.

Flickr: Adapting to Scarcity has a pro account on Flickr which means we can upload as many photos as we want and license them through Creative Commons.  By copylefting them, we can allow them to be shared and manipulated, but only with a shout out to us and never for profit.  Flickr of course also has groups to be created and joined.  We can also tag photos, so they will be more searchable by other photographers.  I have found some cool photojournalism projects, lower budget, only located on Flickr.  It is a respectable and easy way to share a lot of images and information.  Then of course, there is Twitpic, which we need to begin using, but have not yet.

Idealist: Idealist is starting a new movement to expand and reinvent the ways we organize on the internet, moving forward with Idealist as the central nodule.  I support them.  We are listed on Idealist, and received a few really promising volunteer offers through the site.  We look forward to seeing their new project evolve, and where it goes.

Wiserearth: The community of changemakers and collaboration on Wiserearth is impressive, but it is difficult to share larger photos and videos.  We posted a solution on Wiserearth, and the page has been visited 300 times.  I look forward to using the Wiserearth tools more in the future.

Youtube: Stay tuned, we just applied for a nonprofit partnership, and will begin posting videos soon.

The picture is of some of the media tools we are using for our project.

Rooted in Water

Growing up listening to waves crashing and loons calling, I discovered and nurtured my bond to the Earth. My connection with land has always been intertwined with water. All of my experiences with it have tapped me into the rhythms of our planet.

Water feeds the vegetables and animals that feed us, it nourishes forests and its cycle acts as the pulse of life on Earth. With the fluidity of its form, water provides many of our connections to the land. It trickles down to replenish groundwater, and percolates up mountains to precipitate into valleys.

When we contaminate water, land becomes poisonous, vegetables toxic, rainwater acidic, and the cycle of life becomes the cycle of death. I coordinate a community media project on confronting water scarcity in the Rio Santiago watershed in Guadalajara, Mexico. The Rio Santiago is one of the most polluted rivers in the word, receiving much of Guadalajara’s untreated industrial and human effluent.

I am struck by how a river, providing a green band of life along its path to the sea, can become an instrument of death. In Guadalajara, however, I find hope in the connection of the people to the land and their grassroots effort to protect the water running through it, despite the seeming hopelessness of the situation. They celebrate life by organizing to protect it, to become more numerous and powerful than those who destroy. Movements like these to protect our land have deep and strong roots; eventually, we will prevail.

Here’s a Nopale salad recipe, adapted from a salad our host mom, Carmen, made for us when we first arrived.  Nopales are a vegetable made from young spiny prickly pear cactus pads.

Nopales Salad

Ingredients:

A cup or two of nopales, cut up

Two limes

One tomato

One avocado

Splashes of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salt

Cilantro and a bit of chopped raw onion to your liking

Cut it all up, throw some lime, vinegar, olive oil and salt to taste, and you’re good to go.  Note, nopales are not for the week of heart.  They are gooey.  This is also super good cooked (and less gooey!), with some peppers chopped up too.  You saute the nopales and peppers with garlic and onion, add the sauce, and throw the tomatoes in at the end.  Save the cilantro and avocado for after. Delicous and delectable.

On the other hand, it is so inspiring to witness an entire village rise up, and cover it’s walls and doors and plaza with statements of defiance and pride.  In a land of machismo, I loved meeting with women who were in their 90s and fired up.  I can’t imagine possibly losing your home after that many years.  The youth leave to work in Monterrey and Guadalajara, and this resistance has reconnected the younger generations in the struggle.  It was good to find so much beauty in this movement, and my sentiments upon leaving were much more hopeful.  All in all it was a surreal experience.

I’m going to write about this issue and experience on Adapting to Scarcity, so please visit that site to learn more about the history and deeper context.

Inside their newly founded museum, they mixed recent movements with their town’s history.

Check it out on my project website, Adapting to Scarcity.

I knew it was going to be a syncretic event, but I was unsure exactly how that would play out in a parade.  There were a few priests giving masses over the microphone on the side of the road as various groups danced by with drums, sage burning, feathers flying, and whips cracking.  The contrast in color, energy, and spirit was fascinating.

By the end of the day (about 12 am), we were incredibly excited to leave the throngs of people.  It was an overwhelming amount of folks, many crowded on the side of the street selling tamales, buying pan (bread), sleeping on blankets, and taking in the day.  It’s worth noting that there were MANY vendors selling bunny ears.  Don’t ask, because I don’t know.

I played around with one of the Flip Cameras.  Here’s a video from the early morning when we scaled a bridge to film from above.  It’s not very long, because very quickly the police realized we weren’t press, we just had big cameras.

The game was stopped for the first nine minutes to exterminate a bees nest in the goal box.  The bees proceeded to swarm the media/filming station on the side, and surrounded a large microphone for a while.  The level of extermination was impressive, and about a third of the field was covered in a chemical fog.  Then, after each goal or attempt, the goal box would give off more chemicals.  Poor goalie.

This is a picture of downtown Guadalajara I took the other day.  The October Festival began yesterday, and it really kicks into gear tomorrow, with the procession of the Virgen of Zapopan.  It is a syncratic festival, merging prehispanic, indigenous, and catholic beliefs.  People dance all through the night and then travel with the Virgen at 6 am from a central cathedral to Zapopan, in a procession of thousands (I’ve heard different numbers, but it’s definitely in the teens at least).  We plan to rouse early tomorrow and make it on time.  No promises, but hopefully I’ll post more information, pictures, and videos of the event soon.

Today we went for tortas round two at La Bendicion Super Tortas.  These were more traditional tortas with avocado, tomato, and mayonnaise (difficult to avoid in Mexican sandwiches).  We also cruised the plazas, and lived up the tourist role.  Yes, they do have horse drawn carriages in Guadalajara.  This is particularly surprising to me since people drive like MANIACS here.  Seriously, I’m very happy to not have whiplash yet from riding the bus.

My new favorite bus accessory: jesus on the cross surrounded by fur.  Yep, count it.  Here’s a picture of my favorite Jesus sighting yet.

And a lifted VW bug.  Got to love the class, Mexico.