ok, ok...I've told you very bad things up to now.
But also that this is the best job ever.
And I don't mean "being an expat", I mean " building aqueducts, bringing water"
there are a lot of expats who implement project like "improving education quality though enhancing the capacity building of the head teachers", or (new from yesterday) "teaching to people who came out from 'social mobilizer' university how to be a real social mobilizer".
All this is good, almost all the projects at the end have some positive outputs, but all this people suffer from invidia penis when I say: "I opened the tap and water was flowing".
Nothing is better than water.
Try to imagine your life without water:
you have to carry a bucket of 20 liters of dirty water for 5 kilometers and then you have to wash your face, brush your teeth, rinse your clothes, drink, cook, shower and so on. AH! you really want to have more water next to home.
Anyway this is just to say that when you go first to a village, and you gather all the people around you, if your first sentence is "we would like to bring water" the all stand up making an ovation and they run to kill a goat to honor the honorable guest.
If you go and say "we would like to stop you cut the clitoris and sell your daughter for three cows", they will not kill any cow. Or, maybe the worst, is when you say something that sounds like: "We are here to teach you how to use better your territory". At the end you are a white coming with good shoes to tell them that their millennial culture sucks and you know how to make it better with few steps. It is not necessary to be particularly proud to get pissed off.
In Tanzania there were four or five project at the same time. I was running the water project and the Country Coordinator (a woman i would never to look alike, selfish and ridiculously careerist, in that small NGO we were working for) was leading a project of "Land Use Planning"...they were going in the Savannah with a GPS to mark borders between Masaai villages (and I wont tell you how many conflicts can arise for the territory) and the people was making sacrifices to chase them away.
But they loved the Water Project and the man who was leading it (my supervisor. I will tell you about him next week).
The same people who fled their meetings, were digging trenches eight hour a day when the pipes arrived.
One day there was this official ceremony in Ilikrumuni village, because the community finished to install the main line. They invited also Kate, the nasty Country Coordinator. I delivered the message reluctantly, and she didn't know whether to be pissed of by the prospect of spending a whole day with me or whether to be gay to have to possibility to show to the community the she was the boss.
When we arrived, the school class was decorated with flower, women were singing, men were wearing jackets, and tons of rare food was prepared for all of us. Rice, meat, potatoes, fried bananas, pilau, fresh fruits and vegetables.
After the speeches and the food, then they bring the goat, full, roasted underground, and we started to eat again.
I had my revenge: "You see Kate, for the Water Project they don't kill goat as sacrifice to chase us away. First time you eat one?"
But also that this is the best job ever.
And I don't mean "being an expat", I mean " building aqueducts, bringing water"
there are a lot of expats who implement project like "improving education quality though enhancing the capacity building of the head teachers", or (new from yesterday) "teaching to people who came out from 'social mobilizer' university how to be a real social mobilizer".
All this is good, almost all the projects at the end have some positive outputs, but all this people suffer from invidia penis when I say: "I opened the tap and water was flowing".
Nothing is better than water.
Try to imagine your life without water:
you have to carry a bucket of 20 liters of dirty water for 5 kilometers and then you have to wash your face, brush your teeth, rinse your clothes, drink, cook, shower and so on. AH! you really want to have more water next to home.
Anyway this is just to say that when you go first to a village, and you gather all the people around you, if your first sentence is "we would like to bring water" the all stand up making an ovation and they run to kill a goat to honor the honorable guest.
If you go and say "we would like to stop you cut the clitoris and sell your daughter for three cows", they will not kill any cow. Or, maybe the worst, is when you say something that sounds like: "We are here to teach you how to use better your territory". At the end you are a white coming with good shoes to tell them that their millennial culture sucks and you know how to make it better with few steps. It is not necessary to be particularly proud to get pissed off.
In Tanzania there were four or five project at the same time. I was running the water project and the Country Coordinator (a woman i would never to look alike, selfish and ridiculously careerist, in that small NGO we were working for) was leading a project of "Land Use Planning"...they were going in the Savannah with a GPS to mark borders between Masaai villages (and I wont tell you how many conflicts can arise for the territory) and the people was making sacrifices to chase them away.
But they loved the Water Project and the man who was leading it (my supervisor. I will tell you about him next week).
The same people who fled their meetings, were digging trenches eight hour a day when the pipes arrived.
One day there was this official ceremony in Ilikrumuni village, because the community finished to install the main line. They invited also Kate, the nasty Country Coordinator. I delivered the message reluctantly, and she didn't know whether to be pissed of by the prospect of spending a whole day with me or whether to be gay to have to possibility to show to the community the she was the boss.
When we arrived, the school class was decorated with flower, women were singing, men were wearing jackets, and tons of rare food was prepared for all of us. Rice, meat, potatoes, fried bananas, pilau, fresh fruits and vegetables.
After the speeches and the food, then they bring the goat, full, roasted underground, and we started to eat again.
I had my revenge: "You see Kate, for the Water Project they don't kill goat as sacrifice to chase us away. First time you eat one?"
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| typical picture for report: children happy around the new tap. |
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