Trust and Village Politics

When I got to my village, I kept hearing stories about the preschool that last, real, volunteer built. My official counterpart, who I don’t really work with anymore told me that it was mismanaged and that the director of the Nursery school was stealing money and resources and not paying the teachers. Knowing not to take just one person’s word for it, I set up a meeting with the Director. After a long meeting, which included receipts, he explained everything that happened to the school to cause it to be in its current state.

So the Nursery School was started to have a running capacity of 100 children. It was funded originally by an NGO. Then the NGO also purchased a corn meal grinder to be able to pay for the teacher’s salaries and the running cost of the school. The community was responsible for the shelter for the corn meal grinder and some of the supplies for the school. Also, the NGO wanted them to, when they make profits, plant 8,000 trees and give out a grant of around 450 dollars to a local women’s group for a project.

The last volunteer set up this project towards the end of her service. It really looked like a good plan. Unfortunately when she left, the only one in charge was the director. Because he had the money in his personal bank account and the school was struggling financially, people started turning against him in the village. This caused people that should have volunteered to help build the structures to demand money.

Then there were problems with the corn meal grinder. It was bought brand new, but the mechanic that put it together didn’t assemble it correctly. That caused it to break down… which in turn caused the villagers to assume that he bought it second hand. Then there was another spate of mechanics that broke it more of couldn’t fix it, all demanding money.

So after talking to the director, he told me that the employees haven’t been paid in 8 months, the grinder was working finally, but now well, the school did not yet have a constitution and was not registered with the gov’t, and was running with only 40 kids. He had already begun making charcoal to get some money for the staff. That was going well. Actually, pictures after #9 below are the finishing steps of preparing the charcoal to be prepared. More on that in a bit.

Ok, the headmaster of the primary school, probably the person in the village I work closest to, the director of the nursery school and I were summoned by the Chief of my area. This Chief is probably the 4th most prominent chief in all of Zambia. He is a really smart guy who used to be a journalist. Anyways, we explained what happened at the school and our plan looking forward. He gave us a few ways that he could help. That includes getting the money back from the mechanics that couldn’t fix the machine. I ten talked about our painful shortage of teachers, a need for more class rooms, and the fact that there is only one person at the clinic and he only has a high school diploma. Chief Mwamba was very skeptical about the village because he knows it is mired with village politics and stealing. I was telling the chief that, with me around, this new headmaster and staff of the primary school, and some other people I have met that have seemed eager and motivated to work, that now is the time to invest in the village, and I will do what I can to bring people together.

The meeting went really well. The chiefs have a lot of clout. Literally the NEXT DAY we got another trained staff member at the clinic with the promise of a registered nurse in the near future, 3 new teachers and money to begin building 3 more classrooms! So awesome.

Then I sat down with the headmaster of the school and brainstormed on how to build trust between the different sectors in the village. We decided to have a large meeting where we invite the heads of he court, agricultural office, clinic, nursery school and primary school. We also invited a government rep, the people on the committee in the village responsible for development, the guy that is supposed to inform people about government welfare programs, some of the village elders, and a person from an NGO called World Vision. So this is what you are looking at under #’s 6, 7, and 8. 6 was the meeting itself. 7 was all of the clinic workers sitting around a Peace Corps book they found, scheming about how to get me to do a funded project. And 8 was lunch. You can see an example of some of the food if you look closely.

The meeting was getting these groups together, presenting their responsibilities and goals in the village, discussing development priorities for the village as a whole so we can all work in the same direction instead of against one another, and talking about how we can work together on projects that are of shared interest. We also talked about how to make information about services that the government provides more accessible. The meeting was great. We even talked about building trust by opening up the books of each sector to one another and setting up some checks and balances. I was thrilled and think that is laid a great groundwork for future projects to be more likely to succeed.

Ok, what else do we have for pictures… so number 1 is a tour around the village with people from a national heritage preservation organization here in Zambia. So when the Chief of Mwamba dies, he is embalmed. A special group… the ones dressed up in black… are responsible for this. So they pick a site and stay there for a year ding this process. They will cook beans with salt, use the liquid and pour it into the body. Then they will literally smoke the body on a rotating stick for the whole year. Now these guys can’t bathe, shave, or see their families for this entire process! It was really cool to hear about it. Well, at every one of these sites, they leave a large piece of ivory in a bowl. The national heritage people now want to preserve the sites. That was a really fun day.

Number 2 is our little “market”. You are looking at just about all of it. It is two little stands.

Number 3… One of the radio stations called Radio Mano and the ministry of education people came for youth day. So the radio people were interviewing kids about their lives in the village. Then there was some dancing. The one pic is of some of the kids in our drumming club. The last one in that group is when 2 guys held up these sticks and the girl was dancing up a storm while balancing on them.

4 are just 2 kids that were at the youth day thing. I love my superhero t-shirts.

5 is how I charge all my stuff. Very important activity of each day is making sure those chargers stay in the sun. Probably takes up more of the day then it should…

# 9 was the charcoal making. So basically you stack up logs, smaller at the bottom to bigger at the top. Exhausting work. Then, the pics you see are us covering it with mud so that the heat cannot escape. You then keep a hole open and set it on fire from the bottom. After letting it burn for a bit you seal the hole and the logs get really hot and basically cook for a week. Then you take it out, let it cool, and you have charcoal. Anyways, the process was absolutely exhausting, but fun and earned me some great integration points with the villagers. One of the guys was showing me his contortionist abilities and I told him he was clearly in the wrong business.