BREATH OF LIFE

Since ancient times, the women who did the potting selected the clay, did the actual shaping, fired the pots and used them in their own homes or traded them with neighbors who had other skills. Every pot had a shape and texture determined by the interaction between tradition, potter and material. Perhaps even the weather and the moon played a role. We call this process creation, and it is more than simple technical sequence.

Those who have worked with clay know that the potter only takes part in the creation of the pot. The potter/artist carefully selects the right clay, and even imagines the design, but the satisfaction of the creation is in the moment that potter and clay work together in trying to achieve the best. Creation is thus fundamentally different from imposition, and as such creativity is an essential component for AT.

Creation is a process of celebration, expectation and relationship between creator and created; in fact, it is a process of liberation. Such an understanding of art sheds a different light on the early Genesis story in which God interacts with creation, a story in which we are still taking part. It also sheds a different light on our understanding of development.

Back to pottery; some pots are adorned, others are colored. Some pots are made for ordinary food, others for ceremonial purpose. Sometimes they stand seemingly idle, and yet they engage the imagination of the observer. Some shapes are jubilant and invite joy; others call for contemplation. We know that there is more to art than just its physics or its size; art bears spirituality and art is essential to all life!

Many of us recognize this if we talk about pottery, architecture or flower arrangements. But we lose this sense of "essential breath" if we start talking about soil conservation, water pumps, improved cookstoves, latrines, medicine or a food relief project. These can become projects of numbers and calories instead of projects about people who even in their poverty, still braid their hair or draw an image with sticks in the clay floor of their huts. In that sense I can appreciate graffiti in ugly neighborhoods as proof of unexplored human quality. Apparently there is something in life that goes beyond our direct and rational control, something that wants to come out in spite of sometimes very limiting circumstances. We and our AT, can become instrumental in the service of development only if we are prepared to relate to this "breath of life." If not, our projects miss the point and fail no matter how much excellent technology we bring in. It is this engagement, the joy of the potter, which has fu eled my enthusiasm for working with people; first in Europe, later in Central America and now in the United States.

Not only is there beauty waiting to be revealed, but there is a lot of potential for the ugly to come out. Destruction is often even more apparent than creation. I could have started with a very grim description of the incredibly miserable and violently destructive socioeconomic and political situation of our closest friends, the Maya Qakchikeles, who have challenged us to work with them for appropriate technological change and development. Friends were killed by gunfire just because they tried to work for this change, or they simply died because of inadequate living conditions. At the same time, our developed society is so wealthy that it produces more food than it needs, and more destructive waste than it can handle. But that reality of ugliness needs to be put into the context of the other reality: people who again and again courageously engage in life, partly because they have no choice other than to create new options, and partly because life itself creates. Those people represent what I call "th e other side," that part of society that does not conform to oppressive mechanisms, and they are the people we work with to develop AT.

CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT

Change is a characteristic of life and no positive change seems to be possible without pain. No plant, animal, person, or even rock, is ever the same as it constantly changes its energy level and stage of life. The cycle of life involves youth, reproducing, parenting, aging and dying. If I write about technology I am tempted to cry out against change because I have seen how our technological development has brought with it too many hazardous and negative effects. But I can not stop the change. I rather have to respond to it! Thousands of years ago Southeast Asia was jungle; now, through indigenous knowledge, it is covered with wet paddy fields providing a very sustainable agricultural model from which nobody can, needs or wants to return to jungle. Not all change is a product of our own conscious choices. A child does not choose to become an adolescent. In the same way many of our development attitudes are thrown upon us and we accept them without having access to tools for positive discernment. This is ironic because we believe that we live in the age of quantifiable data and rational understanding. However, humans are gifted with the ability of discernment as a base for conscious choice, more than what is actually encouraged by society. Some are better skilled in rationalizing, others contribute with dreams and visions; together they are called to participate in community by choice. Preparing for conscious choice is the first task of development. Life giving excitement will be the immediate result!

What is development? The term itself is a source of confusion. One extreme is to bulldoze a forest and build apartments or shopping malls. I appreciate the Spanish word (development = desarollo). Des-arollo is the negation of arollo, just like de-velopment negates envelopment. The verb "arollar" means: to roll (up or round), wrap, twist; to carry off, sweep away; to defeat, rout, or confound. (Ref 1) Thus the verb "des-arollar" means: to unroll, unwrap, untwist, etc. This makes sense in English if development is detached from its meaning of "exploitation" and brought closer to its meaning of "liberation," trying to unwrap the purpose of creation. AT puts at least as much emphasis on community development as on economic growth. That sounds impossible but in the next chapter I'll show how economic growth often indeed opposes community development and AT.

AESTHETICS

One way of getting people involved and excited in this liberation is to appeal to their private skills and sense of beauty and aesthetics. I refer not to the imposed values of nicely shaved lawns, but the excited confusion of a child about the many flowers and insects which they later learn to call weeds and bugs. Probably because of my architectural

background I have found great excitement in not only making things useful and efficient, but also in giving the spirit a place to dwell! The producers of cigarettes, cars and other often nonessential products are very aware of the importance of aesthetics when they sell their products with this false motive. Those who want AT to be of service in development can not forget that aesthetics is the breath of life. Everybody has a feeling for it. To develop it will mean to participate in a process of healing, coming home to where we were created! (Ref 2)