Sunday, September 24, 2006

Facts of Life and Death

I left Meheba a week and a half ago for a FORGE staff retreat. I had been told that I could get a ride to Solwezi, where I could then catch a bus to Lusaka, from a UNHCR vehicle that would be passing my compound around 7:30 in the morning. Vehicles are on time about two percent of the time here, but when it's the only vehicle that will be going to your destination and it won't stop if you aren't out waiting for it when it passes, you can't really chance it.
 
So I went out to sit by the road around 7:00. After about an hour, Augustine, one of our guards and a friend of mine arrived and kept me company while I was waiting. Auggie, as we call him, acts as a guard, a friend, our bicycle mechanic, vegetable supplier (he and his brothers operate a large garden), and my Swahili teacher. I wanted some words and phrases to study for my long trip to Lusaka, so I drilled him about how to speak in the past and future tenses. I practiced with him a bit.
 
"You work very much now," I tried to say.
 
"Yes. Leon is still out sick." Leon, another guard, had been out for over a week. Auggie had described his illness as pimples that had broken out over all over his body, as though he had been burned. I took it to be some kind of severe rash or something. Leon was at the nearest clinic in the camp. Auggie had used the word "critical" to describe Leon's condition a couple days earlier. I had asked if that meant that he could possibly die. Auggie said, no, that it was just very painful. But he also said that nothing they were doing for him seemed to be helping at all.
 
I had considered going to the clinic to see Leon, but I was very busy and didn't really see what I could do about a severe rash that they couldn't do at the clinic. So I decided not to go see him at the clinic before I left.
 
Eventually, my ride - a huge truck that they use to transport people during repatriation - came about an hour and a half late. I hopped in and left for my long trip to Solwezi.
 
Two days later, another FORGE staff member received a text message that Leon had died. That was all I knew. Later, I found out that he had died on the way to the hospital. Cody, the American who I am living with in Meheba, saw Leon the day that he died. He described Leon as being entirely covered from head to toe with oozing, open sores. His eyes had swollen shut, he was talking non-sense, and was in an incredible amount of pain. After the treatments at the clinic had proven to be no help, they took him home and had an "African doctor" come try to heal him. That hadn't worked either. Cody had been the one to insist upon his being take to the hospital in Solwezi, but it was too late.
 
I arrived back home today. I offered my condolences and asked Auggie about it. "The illness he died of was nothing from God," he told me. "It was African's black magic that killed him. Someone cast a spell on him. There was nothing anyone could do to help him."
 
Leon had three children. He had gotten remarried about one month ago. The wages he earned as a guard supported them all. Auggie is currently looking after the children.
 
This situation has flooded my head with questions. I'll share some of them with you. What did Leon die of? Why didn't I take an hour out of my day to go see him? Why did I interpret "pimples like burns" as a rash instead of as open wounds all over his body? Could he have been saved if he had gotten to the hospital a couple days earlier? Why couldn't they help him at the clinic? If they couldn't help him at the clinic, why didn't the people at the clinic take him to the hospital? Would he have lived if he had gotten this same illness in the United States? How much is considered "too much" to spend on saving a poor African refugee's life? What will I do differently next time? What systemic problems contributed to his death? What will happen to his children? How can I help now? Is it helpful to believe that African black magic is responsible for his death?
 
In many ways, we young Americans living here in Meheba have a lot of power and influence. Our presence sometimes means the difference between things happening the way they are supposed to and not happening at all. Sometimes we can do great things with that money, influence, and power. But, often, we miss opportunities to do great things that we could do. Could I have prevented Leon's death simply by being present at the clinic and demanding that he be taken to the hospital? Moreover, are there more deaths that I can prevent? If so, how?
 
I wish there were a little, pocket-sized book that told me how I - Damon Luloff - could make the greatest positive impact on the world. It would have directions written in simple English, maybe some diagrams too. This book would be a great help.

On the lighter side

Three days ago I paid for a haircut. It's the first haircut I've paid for in over ten years. I paid about sixty cents. I had just gotten back from a week-long staff retreat and hadn't shaved in two weeks. My hair was getting a bit long and I was at road thirty-six - the area of the camp that has electricity and a barber shop, which is a little open sided hut with music pumping out of it and about ten electrical clippers inside. I suddenly had the urge to cut it, which usually doesn't mean anything. I get that urge all the time, but usually not right next to a barber shop. I met some friends and stopped to chat, until I mentioned the hair cutting plan and they told me that I should hurry since they would be shutting the power off at twelve thirty and it was about twelve-ten.
 
I didn't really have to say anything beyond greeting the guy who would soon be cutting my hair. I just entered the hut and sat down. In seconds he had a sheet draped around me and had already started cutting. It wasn't until I saw the first big chunk of hair fall into my lap that it occurred to me that it might not have been the best idea to start getting my hair cut with the power going out in fifteen minutes or so.
 
For about ten minutes he worked solely on the left side of my head. I wavered between thinking that it would be pretty funny to walk around for a whole day with half of my head shaved and thinking that I couldn't possibly stand the extra attention that it would bring. I already get stared at enough.
 
The electricity never ended up going out, and when I put on my glasses and looked in the mirror, I was amused to see that I'd gotten the exact same haircut as Jim Carrey had in Dumb and Dumber. I'm sticking with it. I paid good money for it.

First Day of Workshops

One of my greatest fears for PACE was that no one would be interested in coming to the workshops. People trickled in fifteen to twenty minutes late, and we had to commission quite a few children to hunt some people down and tell them that we were starting, but the first workshop was well attended. Only one person did not show up.
 
At one point during the men's workshop, someone told me that the only reason that they bothered showing up was that the project was associated with FORGE. The man mentioned some of the other organizations that work in the camp and said that if it had been run by them they would have all stayed home. The other men nodded. In just a couple years, FORGE has built a reputation for being reliable and holding workshops that people value. I was proud; I have been working for FORGE for two years now and have been working hard to make it an organization that is valued by the people it is meant to serve - namely, refugees.
 
This first class was primarily an introduction to PACE. The big thing we did was to create a list of expectations for the workshops, for me, and for the participants. The resounding concern was that PACE not be a project that comes into the community, has a few weeks of workshops, and then leaves the community without leaving anything of value behind. They were able to site several examples of such projects, and were obviously frustrated with the temporary nature of most development projects they had experienced.
 
When I heard this, I became visibly excited. I could barely stay seated. I blurted out that I had the exact same concern. I wanted to bring something that was truly valuable. I wanted to teach them everything I knew, so that when I left, there was nothing more they could possibly need from me. They would have everything they needed to create change for their community. I felt like we were on exactly the same page.
 
So, one of the expectations reads something like: "We expect Damon to fulfill the promises he makes to us." It's scary and encouraging at the same time. In a world where time is money and a community where a you can expect a dollar for a full day's work, every hour is precious. The fact that they are willing to dedicate at least eight hours a week for three months to a project indicates that they are taking a leap of faith. For some reason they trust me. Wow!
 
_______
 
On the way home I encountered one of the women participants. She lived about a forty minute walk from the meeting place. I slowed down and offered to ride her the rest of the way home, which is fairly common here. Once I even saw a whole family riding a single bicycle. The man was pedaling. His wife was seated on the top tube in front of him holding a baby, and their young daughter was sitting on the luggage rack in the back. I was a bit worried that my bike was too weak to handle even two people, especially considering that I weight about as much as two normal people here. The way I saw it, it would just be rude not to offer. So she hopped on and we rolled towards her house.
 
The one time I had spoken with her before was during the participant recruitment. Out of a group of about twenty people, she was the one who everyone looked to when it came time for them to talk. She asked tough questions and raised important concerns. She challenged my motives and methods more than anyone else I had encountered during the whole two weeks of recruitment. I have come to be intrigued by people who challenge me here. Because I am a relatively powerful and influential person here, people have a tendency to yes me. Few will tell me that they disagree with me or openly criticize something that I say - at least while I am present.
 
She doesn't speak English, French, or Swahili, which makes it pretty much impossible for me to talk to her most of the time. One of my translators, who lived near her, cycled just behind us, so I figured this would be an excellent opportunity to hear what she had to say. I asked her what she thought of the first workshop.
 
She said, "In the past we have worked with people like you and have gained very little from working with them. I am excited because this time it appears that you will be leaving us with knowledge that we will be able to use after you have left." It sounded like she was just flattering me. But that optimism meant something to me coming from her considering how critical and suspicious she had been the last time I had talked to her.
 
After I dropped her off in the middle of the compound in which she lives - where there were fifty people scattered about - and I started off in the dark for home, I wondered at what point the big problems will start coming. When will people start losing faith in this project? When will people who may not directly benefit from the project start interfering? When will I accidentally do something unfair or say something offensive? Something has to go wrong somewhere along the line. I am expecting it. But I don't think I'd complain if everything keeps going like it has been.

Surveys

Today we had the third workshop. Yesterday was the first workshop that I really presented any information at. The first one was just an introduction. Yesterday I wondered how we could possibly get through everything that I am planning to cover in just three months. We seemed to be moving at a glacial pace. We jumped right into problem identification and started to create a survey. I am pretty sure that this will be the first survey that has ever been created and administered by refugees living in this community. The UNHCR, WFP, and other NGOs seem to give surveys every once in a while, but people come to not trust them after a while. They answer questions and then never see anything come of it. I am hoping that this will be the exception to that rule.
 
Today we made a lot more progress than yesterday. I should have expected that. It's been a long time since most of them have been in any kind of structured educational setting. They don't really know what to expect. And we are still discussing things in very abstract terms. For example, I present a list of questions to guide them in forming questions for their survey that will be asking people what kinds of problems they have in the community so that we can create a community development project. What kind of project? Well, that depends on the problems that we identify. It's all so vague at this point. In fact, that's been the problem in explaining this project since I started it. Everyone always wants to know what the project is about. They want to hear an answer like "education" or "agriculture" or "HIV/AIDS". Most people don't seem to know what to do when I respond, "It's a project to teach people how to make their own projects".
 
But today moved much more quickly. I think they are excited about administering a survey that they created. I probably could have come up with a survey in 10 minutes similar to the survey that they created in 3 hours, but I am certain they would not be as excited about administering it. Maybe I'm just seeing what I want to see, but they seem to be proud already. I spent quite a bit of time yesterday just trying to convince the women's group that they were in a better position to make the survey than me. When we got to the part where they were supposed to decide what questions to put on the survey one woman said, "You tell us. You are the teacher, and we are the students. You know what should go there." I actually enjoyed disagreeing and telling her that they had all kinds of knowledge that I didn't have about the community and the culture that made them better suited to write the questions. I don't think they are told that the knowledge they have is useful and valuable very often. Many NGO workers here are quite rude and condescending towards them. Sometimes it seems like succeeding is as easy as showing some respect. How hard is that?
 
One of the participants told me yesterday that ideas and thoughts were racing in his head after the workshop. He hadn't experienced anything like that in a long time. I was so glad to hear that because I was worried that it was not stimulating at all and was kind of boring for them. Sometimes it's so hard to know what's going on in the heads of people you are teaching. Then he told me what an opportunity he thought the workshops were. He said that a class such as this would probably cost someone two million Kwacha to attend, which is currently about five hundred dollars. It was flattering to hear such a large figure being attached to the PACE workshops. I'd never thought of this in terms of how much it was worth in dollars or kwacha.

In the Field

Today was the first day of the surveys. The plan was that I meet a few of the groups to videotape them and take some pictures. I'm trying to document all the steps of PACE on film so that I can show all the PACE supporters exactly what they are supporting.
 
I rode my bicycle up and down almost all of the center of Zone F, which is called Village 68. I got some serious practice with my Swahili greetings. I probably greeted some people five or six times, zigzagging all over the place. I met most of the PACE participants out in the field. It was really exciting and encouraging to see them hard at work on conducting the surveys. They've only been a part of PACE for a total of four days now, and already they are willing to take their afternoons and evenings - the only time of the day when they really have any time to relax - and do some serious work.
 
I was trying to imagine what would have happened if I had come to them with a survey that I had already prepared on my own and told them to go out and administer it to 200 people in the community. I can't picture them working with such enthusiasm. Even Charles, my translator, said that he was really impressed with them. "They are just coming along very nicely." He told me that he was listening to how they were conducting the surveys as we were videotaping. "The way that they are asking the questions, it is just fine. I was thinking yesterday in the class that they might not be ready; they might have some problems. But they are just doing very well." I was glad to hear that because I had felt the same way. I told Charles that it seemed that most people had a tendency to rise to the occasion in such circumstances. It's hard to be confident when you are studying something academically in the classroom, but then when you are out actually doing it, things just click.
 
In just four days they will have talked to 200 people. My head spins at the thought of doing that on my own - especially when you consider translation. Translation - ugh. I've got a love/hate relationship with translation. Without it, I'd be nowhere. But my inability to speak Swahili makes everything I do take about three times longer than it would otherwise. Everything I want to say or present to them has to be translated into Swahili - the agenda for each class, directions, guidelines, questions, everything. And everything that they produce in class has to be translated back into English so that I have a record of it. I'm no longer considering learning Swahili to be something fun that I'm doing on the side. It's a part of my job now. I'm studying an hour a day, and trying to find people to speak to who don't speak English or French, so that I have to speak to them in Swahili.
 
In less than a week we should have the results of the survey all ready. I'm interested to see what they find. I'll let you know.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Entrepreneurship

It's amazing how you can be somewhere for quite a while before you start to notice certain things about the place and the people who live there. I remember when I was living in Guinea and my parents wrote their first letter to me. Somewhere in there they asked, "What are the major industries?" I had just arrived and said that I didn't really know. I'd seen place where they made metal roofing and had also observed some people making bricks on the side of the road out of dirt or clay or whatever had been where the hole was that was next to them.
 
I hadn't really given a ton of thought to how people make their living here. It's easy to say that 90% of people here are unemployed (not an accurate statistic, just my estimation) - meaning that they aren't receiving a paycheck from an employer - but that's missing the big picture.
 
A few days ago I was getting a ride back from Solwezi on a paved road. This road, like many paved roads in Africa, has loads of potholes in it. There are small stretches of the road where the potholes have been patched by government construction crews, but at least half of the road remains severely pocked, doubling the amount of time it takes to get from Meheba to Solwezi.
 
Through the windshield I saw some children throwing dirt onto the road ahead. "What are they doing?" I wondered aloud, thinking that they were goofing around or playing or just trying to annoy drivers. The driver explained that they were patching up the holes. Near the far end of the "construction zone" they had lain a couple branches on the road. This was where the drivers were supposed to slow down and give them some money for their work. Our driver didn't even pretend to slow down for the branches, causing the first few children we passed to shout at the vehicle, but then as we passed the last worker, he tossed a few thousand Kwacha out the window.
 
As we shot off, I looked through the rear window and saw the last kid running back towards his coworkers with the bills crumpled in his fists, held high above his head.
 
I couldn't get over how cool it was that they were fixing up the road for drivers and actually making a little bit of money off of it. Most drivers probably make enough that it's well worth it for them to toss a couple bucks out the window even for a few hundred meters of flat road.
 
That got me thinking about all the other ways in which people make money in Meheba and in Africa in general. There are people who make stools out goat skin, people who make hats out of straw, people who make beer out of bananas, people who repair bicycles, people who buy things in Lusaka or on the border of Congo, transport them back and sell them for a small profit, people who rent out their stereos for special occasions, almost any way you can think of to make a little money.
 
It seems that poverty forced one to become entrepreneurial just to get by. Almost everyone here receives income by some means, and very few people go around begging, meaning that almost everyone essentially has his own business. I think that's pretty damn impressive.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Unexpected Obstacle

This is the fourth year of repatriation for Angolan refugees in Meheba, which is apparently unheard of according to someone from IOM. Last year was supposed to be the last year of repatriation for Angolans living in Meheba. The consensus seems to be that Zambia wants Angolan refugees to return to Angola and that Angola wants them back. According to UNHCR, there are still about 9,000 Angolan refugees left in Meheba. But very few of them seem to want to go back. In fact many of them are scared that they will be forced to be repatriated. Many talk about being threatened to go back with imprisonment, which is partly true because UNHCR has been telling them that after a few years the cessation clause will be invoked for Angolans, meaning that they will then be considered illegal immigrants by the state of Zambia, and subject to Zambian immigration laws, which often includes imprisonment.
 
Today I was continuing to interview people to recruit participants. I went to a road in a part of Zone F that contains mostly Angolan refugees. This particular road is on the way to the center of Zone F from where I live in Zone C, which means that I pass it twice everyday that I go out to Zone F. Every time that I pass I wave to anyone sitting outside and yell either "Hello. How are you?" to the people I see or "Ngachiri" which I think means "Hello" in Luvale, the most common language of Angolans living in Meheba.
 
I was looking forward to sitting down and talking to the people who greet me enthusiastically twice every day. The second house I went to the woman at first refused to give me her name or the names of anyone else in the community. She was afraid that I would be reporting those names to UNHCR or the Zambian government, which would then use them to create a list of Angolan refugees to repatriate. Eventually, after my translator and I explained as thoroughly as we could exactly what I was doing,  she gave me her name. But she still refused to give the names of others, saying that if they found out that she had given me their names, they would be very upset with her. I told her I understood and then continued on to the next house.
 
I encountered this at all the Angolan houses I went to. Charles, my translator, told me that it was because rumors had been going around that white people would be going around collecting names for repatriation. In fact, some European UNHCR interns who had been staying with us for four weeks or so had been doing just that, so I could see why they were suspicious of me. None of them were rude, and everyone was quite open about the reasons they didn't want to give me their names. I tried to explain to them that the names they gave me were completely confidential, and that, more importantly, if they didn't give me any names then there wouldn't be anyone in the PACE workshops representing their segment of the community. I'm not sure how convincing it was. Only a few gave me their names, and it took almost three times as long for each interview as it had been for the Congolese.
 
As I was walking to the last house of the day, I asked my translator if he thought this would be more successful if he were doing it alone without me at all. He said he thought that they would have no problem giving him their names. It was the fact that I was a white person, which immediately made them think of repatriation. I told him that I had spent 10 months preparing this project and that up to now there hadn't been a single problem or obstacle that I hadn't anticipated. In fact, this was the first one.
 
Charles continued, saying that it would be fine even with me as long as he was there. The people there knew of him and would trust him. I considered whether I should let him continue on his own the next day or not. With most surveys, FORGE trains a refugee to do the surveys, goes with them to a couple and then lets them do the rest by themselves. But I want them to recognize me and build trust between the community and FORGE. I want them to know that I am the manager of the project and be there to respond to any concerns they have about the project, and to show them that I care enough about the community and the project that I'm willing to spend two weeks going out and meeting over half of the people in the community.
 
I finally decided that this was part of building trust with the community. These long conversations were just as important as the short ones in building trust with the community, if not more so. Hopefully, they will soon see that I the project is really happening and that it has the potential to improve their lives in some way, which is one of the concerns that many people have had also; they worry that after I leave nothing will happen. Apparently, they are let down quite a bit. I told them to have high expectations for this project, and once the participants are chosen to go talk to them about their problems so that a project can be made to address them. If everything works out, they won't be let down.