Reflection: Against the Wind

Every morning in January, the Harmattan trade winds blow savagely across West Africa, carrying with its strong gusts the sands of the Sahara Desert. And, as Fate would have it, we have to ride our bikes uphill against this cruel wind to go from Kongodugu (where we live) to Duguba (where I work). So despite the fact that the past few months of bike-riding have us in prime physical condition, the commute takes us an additional half hour, and we are exhausted when we arrive. We put forth all of our energy, yet the winds slow us down.

Other forces, like the Harmattan winds, also slow our progress. Returning  to our village after Peace Corps’ December technical training and from our New Year’s vacation, we enthusiastically began planning development work and projects in our community. However, this month we learned some lessons about what hinders development work. Here are some highlights:

1) Development Work is Territorial: You might think that development work is the one line-of-work in the world where organizations care more about cooperation than competition, but you would sadly be wrong. Rather, we have found that they have a compulsive canine-like need to mark their ground. For example, Joye recently got village approval to paint a world map on a vacant wall next to the school, which every villager was enthusiastic about until the head of the organization that built this wall (part of a storeroom) for the women’s association saw it. The boss didn’t see it so much as an educational tool than an attempt by Peace Corps volunteers to claim the storeroom as their own project, and so conflict arose. This same individual then saw James snooping around the newly donated women's garden. Never mind that he was only greeting his fellow villagers and trying to give them tips to help them succeed (ie. you can’t transplant carrots). No, clearly he too was trying to claim the women’s garden for Peace Corps as well. And so, we are currently having difficulties working with the women’s association, which is as frustrating as it is tragic.

2) Calling Ahead is Optional: In Mali, time is measured by the heat of the sun, and hours are a foreign construct, so scheduling in advance isn’t exactly a formalized practice. This makes it difficult to hold regular meetings and sometimes makes you wonder why you might bother to try planning a day at all. One specific instance comes to mind from last week, when, after riding against the Harmatan winds to get to Duguba, I discovered that my Malian counterpart was out-of-town, thus cancelling all of my plans for the day there. I then went to chat with a potential work partner, only to find that he was unexpectedly out-of-town too. Of course, neither called to inform me of their absence. Then, on returning home, we learned that my Peace Corps supervisor had visited our site while we were gone. He too had never called me to inform me of his presence. That morning I failed to have three meetings simply because no one bothered to call first. However, I was thankfully able to contact my supervisor quickly and he returned in the early afternoon. But still, you get my point.

3) Village Politics Matter: When we first arrived in our village, we naively believed that everyone was everyone else’s friend. At least around us, it was all smiles, all the time. More recently we have learned that this is not the case: in fact, two people who we both see on a regular basis actually think the other person is annoying/crazy. For Joye, the education volunteer, the politics of the local school are greatly hindering her work. In short, the teachers and the villagers do not get along (each thinks the others are lazy bumpkins, which in all fairness, is true in both cases). This means that school-related issues are less about the children and more about personal pride. Also, it turns out the teachers don’t like each other too much either since they’re competing for the director’s position or a placement somewhere else. As a dismal result, we have recently been assigned another host family so that our former host father has greater leverage in the power struggle between him, the villagers, and the other teachers. He was surprised when we took it somewhat personally.

Two reservations I had in writing this post was that it would 1) put Mali in a critical light, or 2) simply come off as complaining, but I hope to have done neither. When you live amongst African villagers, you increasingly see them less as the homogeneous group known as “the poor,” and more as a diverse set of personalities who happen to be living in similar conditions. And with this view, it is more easy to see how flawed human characteristics can interfere with well-intentioned work. These lessons are simply the reality we’re living in.

To finish, I would like to point out that there is one benefit to biking against the Harmattan Winds. Though it may take longer to arrive at our destination, it builds up strong leg muscles in the process. And similarly, these challenges will build character within us as we strive to undertake meaningful development work in our villages. Some of these accomplishments can be seen in our recent Update Post, and hopefully others will present themselves in the months ahead.

Thank you for reading.  -James (and Joye)