Final report

Alright then. Fine. Contest #6 was invented by me, therefore the results come quickly.

The short answer: I lost.
After a project is implemented, a final report is written. That will be the long answer.

Total contest tally: 0/5, awaiting the results of submission #5.

* * *

Final Report

Project Title:  Emergency support to vulnerable egos affected by the writing contest drought

Trayle, 17 October 2010

Overall Purpose: To contribute to my own happiness by having some fun writing

Achievements: Significant improvements in happiness and fun are evident within the target population. Ongoing, qualitative and quantitative monitoring and evaluation exercises continue to demonstrate an improved level of autonomy, ego-satisfaction and humor. The style of the blog in question has improved and focused, comments are increasing and the audience is becoming wider. The Technorati Authority of this blog has increased from 1 to 110, although the Google rating remains at 0. This shows minor improvements, but is also evidence that long term investment is needed to have an impact upon the overall purpose.

Specific Objective: To "win" at least one of these damn "contests"

Achievements: Although the specific objective for the current project was not yet achieved (see discussion on indicators), it is part of a wider, integrated approach of 10 coordinated efforts from various sources. The 15th of October 2010 indeed had the highest number of visitors in the history of the blog (59 total).

Objectively Verifiable Indicator: The number of visits to this blog on Blog Action Day (October 15, 2010) will be twice the maximum number of visits on any other day (baseline value: 45 visits).

Means of Verification: Google Analytics

Achievements: Google Analytics showed 59 visits during the project implementation period, an improvement of 31% from the baseline, and the highest number of visitors ever in one day. It is hypothesized that seasonal effects impacted baseline value of the indicator (see graph for long term seasonal variations). It should be noted that the baseline measurement was made on 7th of September, after two significant changes in status of the direct beneficiary population (moved to Haiti and got a new domain name) and thus the baseline value is artificially high (high interest season, new domain testing hits). Long term averages show about 9 visits per day, and thus 59 visits in one day is an excellent improvement (555% above the long term average).

The Tao of Water

I am an amateur blogger. 
I am a professional humanitarian aid worker in the water sector.
I am thus obliged to participate in this here incredible extravaganza called “Blog Action Day 2010 Water.” 

But don’t think I do so begrudgingly.  To save the world, you have to focus and today that focus fits me pretty well.

* * *

Water is simple: three atoms, two elements, one small molecule.

Add another molecule and those tricky little hydrogen bonds start complicating things. Water doesn’t behave the way it should. Water is subversive. Little rascal. And that is precisely what makes it important.

Add solutes, energy, people and the rest of the world and water gets complicated. Very complicated. Very quickly. And very important.

* * *

A link poem
(But don’t let the links distract you just yet…)

Water is or is not
accessible, distributed, shared,
contaminated, cleaned, protected,
managed, exploited, recycled,
used.

Water creates or controls
diarrhea, malaria, malnutrition, 
HIV, health, bodies,
food, animals, products, energy,
productivity, livelihoods, economics,
life.

Water detains or develops
women’s choices, education, social structures,
religion, land issues, conflicts, wars,
politics, corruption, human rights,
history.

Water is oceans, tsunamis, floods and droughts, climate change.

Water is simply
part of a complex
violent, calm, deplorable, luxurious
system of which we are
a small part.

 
*  *  *

Words on a blog are linear. Water is not linear.

If you spread out all those words in a circle on the floor, take colored string or paint or sand, and started connecting each idea to all those others with which it has a relationship, you would end up with incredible art, perhaps a mandala, about water. One day I will do this.

* * *

Today, I will let others take you on the journey through those ideas. Although I am qualified, I will let others explain and expand on that simple list of words. I will let others cite numbers and statistics.

Get out of your pool (so you don't ruin the computer), sit in the shade (so you can see the screen) and follow links and learn about water and the world in which we live.

Trust me, water shapes your world and a world bigger than yours. Those iron-sheeting shacks, those mud-pressed-in-sticks huts, those billion slum/desert/jungle dwelling worlds aren’t so far from yours.

(But please, please, I beg you… remember two things: Hiesenberg and Bias).

* * *

Today, my contribution will be an introduction to the Tao of Water.

You have probably heard of the Tao Te Chieng. It is a series of 81 chapters of (sometimes cryptic, always relevant) Chinese wisdom compiled around 500 B.C. in which water is a reoccurring theme (my bias).

In chapters 8, 15, 32, 36, 39, 43, 61, 66 and 78, water or its properties are mentioned.

8:
Higher good is like water: the good in water benefits all, and does so without contention. It rests where people dislike to be, so it is close to the Way.
Where it dwells becomes good ground;

15:
…their relaxation was as that of ice at the melting point. Simple as uncarved wood, open as valleys, they were inscrutable as murky water.
Who can, in turbidity,
use the gradual clarification of stillness?

32:

Heaven and earth combine, thus showering sweet dew. No humans command it; it is even by nature.
The Way is to the world as rivers and oceans to valley streams.

36:
This is called subtle illumination. Flexible and yielding overcome adamant coerciveness.

39:
When unity was attained of old, heaven became clear by attaining unity
valley streams were filled by attaining unity…
What brought this about was unity:
without means of clarity, heaven may burst; without means of steadiness, earth may erupt; without means of quickening, spirit may be exhausted; without means of filling,
valley streams may dry up,

43:
What is softest in the world drives what is hardest in the world.

61:
A great nation flows downward into intercourse with the world.

66:
The reason why rivers and seas can be lords of the hundred valleys is that they lower themselves to them all;

78:
Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can withstand it, because they have no way to change it.

(Translations used without permission, although I have indeed purchased the book from which they came and recommend it as a nice translation. From THE ESSENTIAL TAO - Translated and presented by Thomas Cleary)

* * *

Words to live by. Literally.

I hope you enjoy Blog Action Day about water. I hope you let the links destract you.

I hope you stick around and check out my adventures and adventrues.

I hope you leave a comment. Do you have a link that might fit in my poem? Did I miss a water reference in the Tao?

* * *

End note 1

In doing what I do, I work in a broader field than just water. We have a nifty acronym: WASH. This stands for water, sanitation and hygiene (though I try as much as I can to get even boarder than that). As a wild WASH woman, it is my duty to also share with you some related news about today, October 15, 2010:

Today is also Global Handwashing Day.

Handwashing is important. It the most cost effective way to prevent diarrhea (Lancet). More so than clean water. Admittably, water helps in washing hands… (although when you are in the dessert, rubbing your hands with dirt and sand can also clean them), but don’t get me started on handwashing, just check out some of the interesting stuff online. (Just remember Hiesenberg and bias as you read.)

* * *

End note 2

“I am an expert.”  (hits television…)

I have asked you readers to trust my qualifications, to trust that I know what I am talking about, to trust I have some authority to blog about water and that maybe my links here are “good” ones. In fact, I do.
I don’t mean to sound egotisitical (although sometimes I play that game here in blog-land), and in fact I am quite humble and insecure.

“…and thorough.”

My point is not my personality, but rather if you don’t trust me (and why should you?), drop a comment and I’ll send you my CV (especially if you want to hire me).

Everywhere there's signs...

Shameless editorial note: Please come back the 15th of October to help me win contest #6.

* * *

Don't get the wrong idea from this post. Haiti is not getting back to normal.

It is not being reconstructed. Or deconstructed. Or inducted.
But people live here. And they are living. And to do that, things are constructed.
As this happens, the landscape changes. Shapes of slumped buildings adjust themselves, they become lighter, they become transparent.
Their pieces are laid in neat piles.
It is like wind is blowing around the rubble, the iron bar, the cement.
Shifting desert sands and dust, but a thousand times heavier.

* * *

I was in a certain meeting the other day. It lasted two days. It was many things... Many things were said and said again. And again. Somethings were said only once. Some things were brushed aside.

Discussing aspects of worst case scenarios, someone said "...if people build without control."

Life happens, my friend, and it is not controlled.

Walls and roofs and floors are no longer separated. They are being broken up. Piled up. Recycled. They are being built back from blocks that fell.

* * * 

I am not a bleeding heart aid worker. I am not naive (though my father may argue otherwise). I am not one who instantly identifies with a suffering population, believing I can solve their problems because I mistakenly think I understand them and feel their pain.

But I do think it is important to take off those damn yellow glasses and try to see something from another point of view than your own. Forget your own priorities for a second. Just one second, then go back. That's how we might start to get a realistic view of whatever it is we are looking at. It's not that we can ever be inside, really inside, something else; we are outside and will remain so (and there is value in that). But just a quick flip of perspective, upside down, once in a while is good. Question it. Then go back to where you were perched before, with a little clearer view.

Living. Eating. Bathing. Gambling. Carrying on after. Of course people are picking up old blocks and putting them back together. People aren't waiting for the engineers to come. They are not waiting for development projects with seismic retro fitting. They are not waiting for our project frameworks. They are living. And they will continue to do so.

Everyone has an agenda and a bias. I tried to loose my own, but maybe it is easier for me because I do not claim to be an expert on Haiti or reconstruction or normal.

* * * 

Messages are passed, as in other parts of the world, by taxis - or tap taps.

Many have heartfelt messages of faith (though most are french or creole, here is an english one).

Some are less deep and less meaningful. Most are spelled wrong.

This is my favorite. It is in creole. The driver translated for me (and did some awesome driving so I could catch a photo of it). I understood that it says roughly: "I would be ashamed if I were you."
With Rambo below.
Classic.
Excellent.

"God directs my affairs

fizzy drinks."

And if three people do it...

There is a fun treat at the end, after the business.

* * *

So, the contests continue, although I seem to be cheating a lot. But I make the rules, and no one seems to be objecting. (Uh, maybe that's cause no one is reading.) It's gone from contests to competitions, to submissions... to this. In my defense, the process has been transparent, I am not trying to manipulate the data, just have some fun.

To the right you will see a little widget for Blog Action Day. I normally won't put any advertising or such on my blog, but this is to fully participate in the endevour. You can read about the event or sign their petition to save the world.

Contest #6:  In terms of my contest rules, this is not a contest. So I will make it a contest with myself.

I previously discussed indicators. In aid work, these indicators demonstrate that you have achieved your objectives at/to various levels - in other words, show if you have "won" or not.
In my line of work, indicators must be SMART:
- S - Specific
- M - Measurable
- A - Achievable
- R - Relevant
- T - Time-bound
(Not as easy as you think.)

So in order for this to be a real contest with myself I have devised a contest FRAMEWORK, which includes a smart INDICATOR to measure the success of my OBJECTIVE. (Which is how it works in my world, but I won't give you a lessson of aid project frameworks today. For those of you in my line of work enjoy the following...)

* * *

Project Title:  Emergency support to vulnerable egos affected by the writing contest drought

Overall Purpose: To contribute to my own happiness by having some fun writing

Specific Objective: To "win" at least one of these damn "contests"

Objectively Verifiable Indicator: The number of visits to this blog on Blog Action Day (October 15, 2010) will be twice the maximum number of visits on any other day (baseline value: 45 visits).

Means of Verification: Google Analytics

* * *

There you have it. Spread the word. I will make a lot of noise to remind you on the 15th.
I promise I'll make it "good" - though what's good for me, may not be good for you...

* * *

"You know, if one person, just one person does it
they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. 
And if two people, two people do it,
in harmony,
they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them.
And three people do it,
three, can you imagine,
three people walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out.
They may think it's an organization. 
And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,
I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. 
And friends they may thinks it's a movement.

And that's what it is, the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar.

With feeling. 

So we'll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here and sing it when it does.  Here it comes."

-The younger Guthrie man