Thoughts and Experiences: 11th SuSanA meeting in Rio

The park of Catete

I have lived in Latin America long enough to learn that when you are a foreigner here, odd things tend to happen to you that are completely unexpected. In the past I have written about the time that I was just sitting in the main square of San Salvador and ended up at a lucha libre (Latin professional wrestling) event or the time that I was hanging out in another main square in Guatemala and ended up having dinner at a Mormon family´s house. So when I walked into CENCA one morning and immediately swung into a meeting and was asked if I wanted to go to Brazil for a ecological sanitation (EcoSan) conference, I was not not surprised because that is how my life so often seems to fall.

Most of the South Americans

So only a couple days of resting up after being in La Oroya, I was at CENCA getting ready to fly off to Brazil. If you have ever spent time with Latins, you will find them to be very relaxed about time schedules. And in 99% of the Latin world, that is completely fine, unfortunately international airports run on a tighter schedule. So, after a meeting ran late, stopping at 2 banks and arriving at the airport 45 minutes before takeoff, we got through security, customs, and meandering through the duty free stores and to the gate right as boarding began. This was far from the end of the travel confusion. Upon arriving at our layover in Sao Paulo, Jose Luis and I accidentally went through customs only to find out that our flight was in fact an international one (because the plane would continue on to Paris). So I have an extra set of stamps in my passport and now have seen lots of the Sao Paulo airport. Be prepared, if you go there, IT IS A CONFUSING AIRPORT. But after a long day of travel, we did arrive at our hostel at around 1am local time.

My Coworker at CENCA Jose Luis

In the morning, we awoke to the world of Rio. It was hot. I am just finishing a summer in Lima and Rio was hotter. I think that had I been coming from the northern hemisphere to this event, I would have died, but instead, I wore long pants and close toed shoes all weekend (I was also sporting my new knock off Lacoste polos that I got for 23 soles a piece). The part of town we were in is called Catate. It is a nice little part of town with cobblestone streets and the metro right there. Pretty cool.

A bar in Lapa

The event took up the majority of our time in Rio (I guess that is how it is supposed to be, right?). 3 long days of discussing poop, but in reality it was very good. We had presentations by various experts on the subject of EcoSan from all around the world, long discussions on the future of EcoSan in Latin America, and lots of coffee breaks (where we received the smallest coffee cups ever, like being given shots of normal coffee). It was a great time to work with other sanitation workers from around the region and world to see what is being done and how it affects the populations with whom we are working. I learned a lot and hopefully will be able to find ways to better incorporate some of the ideas into our processes at CENCA and in the way I live. If you want to know more about the specifics of the conference send me an email or click this link to see the wrap up of the event.

At the conference

One thing that really struck me during this event was the general desires of those attending to have the local populations be involved in the process. I think that everyone there very strongly believed that it was not our job to push this form of sanitation onto the population, but rather to enable them to make the decision. This is extremely difficult because the technology that we are trying to promote takes a little more work than conventional systems that simply flush away the your problems and make someone else deal with it. Everyone is taught that feces and urine are dirty and that they are scary. In many cases this is the case. Human feces is a extremely dangerous carrier of many pathogens, but at the same time these deposits are so full of usable nutrients that are being completely lost because of our fear of what comes out of our own bodies. It doesn't help that every single government in the world still puts flushing, piping and dumping away waste as the highest form of sanitation. In many situations, EcoSan is an impossible or at least difficult goal because of the structures of the zone, but as with so many other issues in the world, it is necessary that everyone looks at other options and seeks ways to deal with problems that is not conventional, but rather is sustainable and looks toward the future.

Our Metro station

Aside from the conference, I did get the wonderful opportunity to see much more of what Rio has to offer. I attended a concert of Seu Jorge at a fantastic venue in the district of Lapa. Jose Luis and I saw early morning swimmers (we think training for triathlons) at the famous Copacabana beach. We rode up to Sugar Loaf. We stood below Cristo el Redenor. We saw a fútbol match between Flamengo and Botafogo (2 of the biggest Rio teams) and we swam at the famous Leblon and Impanema beaches. So look at the following pictures and know that when the Olympics are there in 2016, it is going to be one great party.