Kunowledge

If he didn’t deserve the name, it wouldn’t be his name. This is how he got the name.

Setting: Earthquake-ravaged Pisco, Peru circa July 2008.

The mission: To build earthquake-resistant sanitation units which included a toilet, shower, and large sink for the less-fortunate residents of Pisco. The unit had been designed, and prototypes had been built. However, documentation containing information on how to construct such units was scarce. The deadline for completion was approaching and plumbing needed to occur on a fast and efficient basis.

Enter: one British and one American voluntario. Mike (aka Mixto) and I had been given the task of organizing a list of all of the materials needed to plumb a sanitation unit. We had a drawing of the unit with no parts labeled, a list in Spanish that may or may not be parts that were bought for previous units, and no experience plumbing. Read the rest of this entry »

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It was a Wednesday night, and I was getting nervous about leading the “Intercambio” cultural exchange with the local kids. Earlier in the day, at the 8 AM organizational meeting, I had raised my hand to volunteer to PM (project manage) Intercambio that night. Now, 5 minutes before I was supposed to be out there, I realized that I knew so little Spanish and was so unprepared that I was about to make a fool of myself in front of genuinely good kids.

So when I raised my hand to lead Intercambio, Jimmy (our de facto leader at the time), asked “what are you going to do?”

“Teach them how to play baseball hopefully.”

“Oh! You’re the baseball coach. I was wondering when you were going to get here! We should get a game organized at a field somewhere once you teach them how to play!”
“Yes? Okay.”
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