Impact of the Observer

One of my biggest projects here has been to to revise our impact assessments and create a cloud-based system for managing all our data. 

Salvador and I spent lots of time writing and revising questions, generating lists of every installation we have ever done, and putting it all into a database I customized. The dream is that in the near future we will have a map of all our installations, with info and a photo of each, updating live from our database. We also plan to generate automatically graphs of how many technologies we have installed and how many people we have served. 

These are all grand ideas. And real life tends to get in the way. Of course the internet is sometimes down or painfully slow, making a cloud based system difficult to use. 

But even more interesting and perhaps vexing is what happens in the field. I was glad to get the opportunity to go with Salvador the first few times he administered the survey.

I shouldn't have been surprised but I was that the answers we received were not always the whole truth. After all, Salvador had been the person who had installed the technology and I was the gringa representing the organization in the States that paid a share of the costs, making it affordable to them. Of course they wanted to appear grateful and that things were going well. 

But things were not always going well. Sometimes it was apparent from the partially inflated biodigestor bag. Sometime they told us outright. But when it was time to answer the survey questions, they gave very positive answers. 

One of our beneficiaries was cooking on gas from the biodigestor when we showed up.

This is somewhat unavoidable. There is always bias. But Salvador and I had to regroup and figure out a bit how to give the survey to get more realistic answers. 

As I travel to Managua to head home today, he gets on his motorcycle to visit dozens of families and try out our survey again. I look forward to seeing what it yields. 

But this shouldn't obscure the impact we are having. When we ask what they are doing with the money they are saving with our technologies, many times they think a moment and then answer more or better food. 

To me this is a symbol of the level of poverty these folks face and what we can do for them. With a biodigestor they breathe less smoke, they are participating less in deforestation and they are contributing less to climate change by using the methane from their animals' manure to cook. But perhaps what they feel most is they can afford a little more food, feel a little more satisfied and stave off malnutrition in their families. 

I am grateful to be part of an organization that helps people live healthier lives while protecting the environment at the same time.