There are certain frustrations experienced universally by Peace Corps volunteers. Like getting sick. Despite taking every precaution of filtering and boiling water, washing hands, etc., you’d be hard pressed to find a PCV who didn’t suffer from a nasty bout of diarrhea at some point or another during their service. Another common struggle is unavoidably being a walking dollar sign. Host country nationals see that you’re from the west and assume you have money. I am asked for substantial amounts of money nearly weekly. It doesn’t matter that I constantly tell people I am a volunteer and receive a small living allowance but no salary. As the old saying goes, actions always speak louder than words. I could tell people I don’t have a lot of money til I’m blue in the face, but whipping out a digital camera (even cautiously) inevitably sends out a much more powerful message.
Some requests are just ridiculous. The first time I attended the Lutheran church in Ihanja, I was overwhelmed by the warm welcome I received. After the service, however, the pastor and seven other people came to my house asking for laki nne (roughly $350 US) to purchase an amplifier for the electric guitar they have. That was irritating. There are children in my village that don’t have enough food to eat and cannot afford to pay for school fees but they “need” a $350 amp? They don’t even have electricity! They would have had to run a generator to use it! I told them I did not have that kind of money but would be happy to donate 1,000 shillings (about 70 cents) to the cause. That did not satisfy them and they said,
“But you know people in America who can send you the money.” Frustrating.
Another time a teacher from a different village sent a child with a letter to my house. The letter was asking for $1000 US (that’s well over a million Tanzanian shillings) to supposedly “spread the good news of Jesus”. I sent the teacher a response back saying that I too, am a Christian and while I applaud his noble effort, I could not give him the money but to please accept the included donation of 1,000 shillings. Frustrating.
Other requests aren’t quite a silly. Neighbors sometimes ask for a small amount of money for bus fare to town to visit a sick relative or for a similar purpose. I’m much more inclined to help them out, however, Peace Corps discourages blatant handouts and would rather have us pay someone for a task or some goods. I wholeheartedly agree with that and would rather pay a villager 4,000 shillings for a 100 shilling banana than simply give someone 2,000 shillings for nothing.
There are very good reasons behind this. Tanzania has been the aid darling of East Africa for decades and decades. Money pours into this country from the international non-profit community and a lot of positive change has resulted from it all.
But there is a negative impact from all the outside financial assistance, too, and this is something I never realized until actually living in country. Even with all the money coming in, Tanzania remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Why? One argument is that after being dependent on aid for so long, people begin to think they are incapable of bettering their situation on there own. The aid money is spent and once it’s gone, people only know how to hold out their hands for more.
Now, I fully recognize the Peace Corps ideal of sustainability as I see misguided efforts all the time, here. The proverb that comes to mind is “Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.” It is not uncommon for a church group from the States to fly over here and drop off a truckload of used clothes. They go back home after a week never knowing that their donation never made it to the intended villagers but instead, is being sold in town for a profit. Or another group will come, dig a well and leave. The pump breaks a month later and remains broken because no one bothered to teach a host country national about proper maintenance. The villagers’ solution? Ask around until they find a new, different NGO that can come and build a new well for free.
The good intentions and selflessness are always there, but few people take the time to really contemplate the long-term impact of their actions in a developing country. As PCVs, our job is to help people, help themselves. We give out education but not things. We teach people how to improve their lives by themselves. We try to address sources of the problem. We may see a family living in poverty, perhaps because the husband’s income is inadequate and the mama never sought employment because she was raised in a culture where women are expected to stay at home and raise children and only men are thought capable of working a real job. So, instead of alleviating the poverty by giving the family money, we hold a women’s empowerment seminar and invite the mama. Sometimes it’s hard, especially when dealing with these matters of behavior change where noticeable change may only be apparent after centuries. You can imagine it would be much more gratifying to give a family a loaf of bread and know they had full stomachs for a day than it would be to have a talk with a group of mamas about gender equality and learn the next day one of them was beaten, almost to death, by her husband.
During one of my first Life Skills classes I was teaching at Masinda, I wondered just how many of my students were actually considering the importance of good role models and how many were still just caught up in the excitement of having an American teacher. I’d like to think at least one person, amidst the sea of blue and white uniforms, went home that day and decided to set a better example for his or her younger siblings. And that’s what you have to keep in mind when the frustrations get you down.
Because of the emphasis of sustainability, the collective scope of work of Tanzanian Peace Corps health volunteers is amusingly broad. One second-year volunteer has a wine making IGP (income-generating project), not because she was worried Tanzanians weren’t getting enough wine but because the mamas in the group are now proud owners and operators of a successful business that is sure to continue thriving long after the PCV closes out her service. The results? The mamas now have enough money to provide their children with a more nutritious diet or maybe mosquito nets. And that’s the rationale behind a health volunteer starting a wine making IGP. Other big projects that require grant money (livestock projects, solar projects, etc) are never completely financed by the grant. Villages are always required to raise a percentage of the funds needed to increase the invested interest.
This is the idea behind my chicken project in Ihanja. There was a community identified need to support local orphans and a group of young adults that were willing to address the problem while creating a sustainable income for themselves. We have drafted a detailed plan for the group’s sustainability and if all goes as planned, the group will be completely productive and self-sufficient when the first eggs and offspring are sold. I am now approaching the middle of my service so I have plenty of time for starting additional projects. If anyone has heard of any successful, sustainable projects in the third world, I am open to suggestions!
