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Friday, July 20, 2012

Rain


Whenever I think about rain I think about the Family Guy episode where Weatherman Ollie Williams says, “It’s gonna rain!” or “It’s raining sideways”. So here we are in rainy season and I find myself looking up at the sky and thinking, “It’s gonna rain!” Let’s just say that working at a beach has given me a very acute sense of when it’s going to rain.

Anyway, the rain brings big changes to Poa (my village). First of all, everything is starting to get green. The trees and bushes that have been dead-ish for the past 7 months are most definitely not dead now. There are little rivers that trickle during the day, and right after it rains are somewhat reminiscent of the flash flood scene in 127 Hours.  Also, it’s really awesome being able to sleep comfortably at night.

Another one of the big changes is that everyone is in the fields. The way it used to be was that everyone was around all the time (again with a village comprised of for the most part subsistence farmers, when it’s too dry to plant, what else are you going to do?). Now, it’s almost like a ghost village in the morning (CSPS patient numbers are down at the moment), it slightly lightens up during the repose (nap time), and then drops slightly during the evening, only to pick up again (slightly) at night.

It also messes with attendance at things like baby weighings, and other meetings, and if it was a consistent change that would be okay and easy to deal with but it’s an inconsistent change. Sometimes people show up, and sometimes they don’t with little rhyme or reason, and the pattern is expected to continue throughout rainy season (which will go until the rain stops where it will start being cold season again).

This year the rainy season came a bit late (and by a bit I mean a solid month). Put together with the past two rainy seasons being less than spectacular this had some people worried, but now that it is solidly here people are cautiously optimistic and are saying “ca va aller”. It should be pretty smooth sailing unless the rainy season ends early.

But rain means, things are green, things get wet, things leak, and it is awesome. 

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Success?


How do you define success?

Let’s say you do something by accident, you didn’t mean to do it but it worked out anyway, that can be a success too, right?

You can spend weeks planning a project and have no one show up. You can organize a meeting to help people make some money- something that people always profess to want or need; and no one shows up.

This is all kind of frustrating. But this can mean one of many things. Among them are: something came up and the person was legitimately busy and couldn’t come (why they didn’t call is a mystery), they forgot (also possible though forgetting something like that in less than 24 hours is hard to believe), they’re not interested and this is a way of expressing that, and so on and so forth. But because your job is a facilitator you say no problem, if you still want to do it let’s reschedule. And because you’re a representative of the United States you can’t show anger, or annoyance, or anything like that.

Now you go about dealing with the frustrations.

Since there are no pools here (or beaches) I’ve been running daily. It helps a bit with the frustrations of people not showing up or just anything.

While I was running these kids showed up, and started running with me. So we ran, and we ran, and we ran some more. The kids sat down and took breaks but since I was running in circles anyway (I found a 400 meter circle so it’s like running on a track), they were able to rest, catch up, and then repeat the cycle. The kids then started emulating the push ups, crunches, and pull ups I was doing too so we did that together. And then, we discussed the importance of hygiene and such. So something totally unplanned, turned into an educational experience.

So how can something with no planning whatsoever, be more “successful” than something I sat down and actually planned?

Then it started raining and the kids disappeared, but it was nice while it lasted. I’m sure once everything is done being planted they’ll come back though.

Motivation


People have different reasons for engaging in activities. Those reasons can be selfish, they can be selfless, they can be resume building, altruistic…you name it it’s a reason.

The first time I brought up a project idea here the response was, “what’s the motivation?” Having just arrived at site I responded, “If they want to (do the activity).” My counterpart looked at me as if I didn’t understand the question and then said, “If people are going to come to this project (I think it was when I first had the CPR project idea) then they’re going to want money to come.” I explained that the course is actually quite costly in the US (maybe a slight exaggeration) but we would be doing it for free and that should be the motivation in itself. He gave me this dubious look that said, “I see where you’re coming from but I’m not sure other people will.” So we decided that if we got the support of the higher up agencies (those responsible for the nurses, teachers, etc) then maybe the motivation issue wouldn’t pose that much of an issue.  Since then the project has been shelved indefinitely until I can find another way to approach the entire idea.

But the underlying problem remains the same. Being a volunteer without financial resources making an effort to work without financial resources in a capitalistic society built mainly around subsistence agriculture is a tough job. The way I see it is this, if I’m giving two years of my time to be here, and not make any money, then you can give up an hour of your time to learn a skill that will help you for years down the road.

To get people to do what you want them to do usually involves some ego stroking, telling them they’re special, and that they can really help. For example, for my exponential hygiene project (30 people teach 10 families each about personal hygiene) I worked with the centers of alphabetization (teaching people to read and write in moore) because well, these people can read and write to some degree, and the lessons covered in the moore books (yea, I read them too) deal with hygiene (like don’t pee in the well you get your water from). So I went to the groups, told them that everyone in the village respected them because they could read and write and because they were motivated, etc. It was most definitely true, but it also helped to get my point across. I also mentioned that because I’m a foreigner if I go around saying things people will listen but not necessarily adopt because I’m different and I don’t know how life really is here (and it’s true I’ve been here for 9 months- not 20 years). So by telling people that I can’t do this but they can- really helps people get going.

On the other hand, you have the incredibly altruistic people who will help you out no matter what you ask them to do, whether it be gathering people for a meeting, helping dig a 130 meter long trench, or coming along as a translator.

I guess it breaks down a little like this:

In different societies you have the same types of people. You have mean spirited people, you have nice people, you have motivated people, you have lazy people, you have happy people, you have depressed people, you have altruistic people, you have selfish people, and the list goes on. They might manifest themselves slightly differently but anyone that says people in the US are way different than people in Burkina Faso or vice-versa has to look harder because deep down, they’re not. Sure, they might have the whole not rushed, everything will work out mentality that the US doesn’t quite have but I don’t think that defines the people that defines a way of life.

So if this rule is true, can you count on the volunteerism and altruism of the people you’re trying to work with to aid with your projects (without overusing the same people and creating a burn out effect)?