Development? June 19, 2009

June 18, 2009

My time here is going by so quickly.   I’m already past the halfway point—I just have about 4 more weeks left.  It’s crazy. There’s so little time to do a project that can be sustainable and have an impact.

Anyways, I’m trying.

All last week I was busy and exhausted.  In order to do something that would be useful for the women, instead of just developing workshops that I thought would be useful, I decided to interview the women to collect information on their experience with Project Africa, their challenges and their interests.  I’m working with specifically two women’s groups: one in Shianda and one in Ilesi.  I interviewed most of the women in Shianda but not as many in Ilesi. I did a total of 33 interviews!   Although I didn’t get to do as many in Ilesi, it was nonetheless very helpful to work with the two groups since I found out how different the the two groups are, and I’m hoping maybe another intern will finish the interviews in Ilesi in the future.

The interviews were very interesting and enjoyable but exhausting and difficult at the same time. I had a translator in each location that took me to the women’s homes. Especially in Shianda, the women were very eager for me to visit their homes, since they had never had a mzungu visit their homes. Some women even said that they would quit the group if I didn’t visit them. So, suffice it to say, I had to go to their homes. The crazy part is, after I visit a woman’s home, everyone in the surrounding area goes to her home to demand for money, since they assume that I’m visiting people’s homes to hand out money. They would find it inconceivable that a mzungu would visit one of their homes and not leave anything. My translator told me that after people in the village saw her walking with me, they would all come to her afterwards and ask her to buy things. Then, she would have to explain that this mzunug that she was walking is actually, gasp, not rich. Even the village chief when I met him suggested that I should take him to America. I explained that I’m a university student so I don’t have much money and even after I graduate I plan on pursuing a career in acting so I probably won’t have the money then either.

Back to the interviews. I asked the women about what they had learned or gained from Project Africa, their challenges in life, their suggestions for improving Project Africa and topics and skills they were interested in. Speaking to the women and visiting their homes was interesting, but after doing more than 30 it got a really rough. For one, I’m asking the same questions over and over again, and while all the responses varied, they of course had their similarities, so after a while it wasn’t as exciting. Second, some of the women live far away and far apart. So there was a lot of walking in the field in the sun all day long. I rode on a piki-piki, which is kind of like a boda-boda, except it’s a motorcycle and not a bicycle. My translator and I shared one, which meant my first experience on a motorcycle was with three people. Safe, I know.

Finally, the most challenging part, funny enough, was eating. The people here are big on hospitality, which is of course, a wonderful thing. However, it really challenged my digestive system. Especially in Shianda, each home would serve me tea and loads of food. I would visit about 5 or 6 homes a day. If I didn’t eat the food, the hostess would become offended. So, I was obligated to eat a lot. And I did eat a lot. Even then I couldn’t possibly finish all they gave me so by the time I was heading home, my backpack was very heavy from all the leftovers they packed for me.

The high point was when one of the mamas gave me a hen. So during my 40-minute journey home, I rode a matatu (bus) and a boda-boda (bicycle) carrying a hen. Thankfully, since I was so frightened when they tried to just hand me the hen, one of the mamas got a box to put it in for me, which was a true lifesaver. It was very funny but I was also grateful for the kindness this mama had shown me by giving me a hen, which is a great sign of respect here. I may have eaten the said hen a few days ago—I’m not entirely sure.

Also, I met my first baby Obama! The woman I was interviewing told me that her baby boy had been born on the day of his inauguration. I bought a DVD from here that has like 10 movies in one disc, and although most of the movies were fantasy movies and had no relation to anything political, the DVD was titled Obama. There is also Obama bubble gum with pictures of Obama and his family on the wrappers.

Two days ago, I wrapped up the interviewing process, which I’m happy about because I can stay in town and work in the office for a few days. Going to the field day after day was pretty exhausting, which is why I haven’t written any blog entries until now. I got a lot of good information as well as some good ideas. Also, it was easier for me to explain to the women about sustainable development and to try to undo a little bit of the dependent thinking fostered by the years of aid that has been fueled into the area. Almost everywhere I go, I’m immediately asked for assistance, as in money. So, I explain to them that I’m a university student and I don’t have much money because university tuition is extremely high in America, and I’m not here to do aid. If they tell me they need books, materials, machines, etc, I try to have them brainstorms ways they can get it, instead of waiting for Project Africa to give it to them because they might never do it and they’ll end up waiting for a long time.

In Ilesi, after the women wrote me letters in which 90% of them asked me for money or something along those lines, I made a speech to the group in which I explained that I’m here sincerely because I want to get to know them. When they say they want to be my friend and then immediately asks me for money, I don’t feel that they truly do want to be my friend. It’s important that I explain this because it would be really inappropriate for the rafikis abroad (their pen pals) to receive such letters. I also tell them that I’m a university student and I don’t have much money and that I am working for Project Africa but I’m not getting paid. I also say that I sincerely hope to be their friend and although I can’t give out money, that I will be able to benefit them in some way. Thankfully, they were receptive and so I hope that maybe some of this aid mentality will change, a bit by bit.

Now I’m in the process of typing up the interviews and preparing reports about what I found out. There’s a lot of good information that will hopefully be useful to the office and future interns, because I know I have a much better understanding of the situation after doing these interviews. I’m doing several things with the information. First, I made a list of topics of interest brought up in the interviews for each group. Then I took the list to the group meetings in which we did a prioritizing activity and I had them vote on the 3 topics that they were most interested in. Thankfully, (with some small guidance on my part) both groups chose the same three topics: HIV/AIDS, Health & Nutrition and Microenterprise/Personal Finance. So starting next week, I’ll be preparing workshops on each of these topics. The women in Shianda also really want me to do a workshop on baking a cake (which would be challenging since there aren’t any ovens in most homes) so we’ll see about that.

Second, some of the women mentioned to me that they wanted to interact more with other people and visit different places, including their friends abroad. Since that would be costly and difficult, I suggested that we instead start locally, fostering more exchange between the group in Ilesi and the group in Shianda. The groups are very different so I think an exchange would be really beneficial and they could really learn from each other. The group in Ilesi has adult education classes and tailoring classes, but as a group they seem less cohesive and social. They are, however, preparing the women to take competency exams for primary school and secondary school, which is really great. On the other hand, the group in Shianda is overall more friendly and social, takes more initiative and has more skills in regards to making handicrafts, but they don’t have regular classes.

So, my hope is to get a rafiki (pen pal) program started between Shianda and Ilesi so they could make more friends and exchange information. Also, a letter to a foreign country is expensive to send and takes longer to reach. These letters could just be delivered by the program coordinators, so the women wouldn’t have to worry about finding the money to pay for postage and since the letters would come more quickly and frequently, they would get more practice with reading and writing.

I’m also hoping that we can implement a monthly visit where 2 or 3 people from each group could visit the other. The locations are probably 45 minutes or so away, and most of the women have never visited the other location. In addition to all of this, I’m making a list of the skills and talents of the women in each group. Each group will have the list for both groups. The list of topics that they were interested in learning about was very long and I noticed that other women in the group could teach these topics (i.e. Farming, Raising Cows, Plaiting hair, etc). So I narrowed the list down by crossing out all the topics that someone in the group could teach instead of me. So, when I leave, they can go through the list of topics they’re interested in and then see the list of skills and talents to see who could do a workshop on that topic. If it works, that would make my project more sustainable and also it would be empowering for the women to learn how to share their knowledge in front of a group, since many of them don’t have that experience.

So that’s what I’ll be working on for the next 4 weeks (long explanation, sorry!). I’m pretty happy with how work has been going so far.

Other news: I made garlic bread with cheese for my host family today. It was actually mainly because I just wanted to eat it, but it was also a cool opportunity since my host sisters had never eaten cheese before. I’m not sure what my host parents thought of it, but luckily, my host sisters really liked them.

I went to a youth conference at my translator’s church. I sang a song in Japanese and a song in English in front of everyone. The other Duke student that works for Project Africa, Elizabeth, and I also danced with the youth and smaller kids in front of everyone.

One of my favorite moments here: When I brush my teeth and go outside to rinse my mouth, I lift my chin to gargle and my eyes open up to a beautiful night sky. I’m always awed and it always makes me smile.

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