Three Cups of Tea (part 1)
[This is broken into two parts because I haven't yet finished, but I am at internet and want to take advantage...'cause I feel guilty for not having posted for so long! OH and a new phot one below this one, fyi]
So for those of you who recognize the title reference, Kudos! For the rest of you a quick update is that it is the title of a book about a guy who has been doing amazing things over in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan. I just finished reading this book myself, and this blog entry is not going to be a review of the book, but rather a contemplation of how his experiences compare to ours down here.
So, by way of a bit of background the book was a story about a guy who pretty much literally stumbled into development work. By virtue of his first accidental desire to help, he focuses on building schools. Through fits and starts he eventually completes his first school and ends up starting an entire foundation and building numerous schools throughout the region even into the current times of war.
None of this is particularly similar to our own very deliberate decision to go into the Peace Corps. However, in his struggles with learning the language, the culture, and the people of the region, as well as his ground level community based operation, he has a lot in common with what we, and most PC volunteers deal with.
Still, I plan on discussing the differences, mostly because that is what struck me as I read it. The first most glaring difference is the guiding principal of sustainability. This is a part of the Peace Corps credo, and we are sometimes kind of forced into dealing with it as we work here. It isn’t that his schools are not sustainable, I think they might be given the drive of the populous to be educated. However, funding for the teachers, as well as buying books and materials seems to be largely left up to the government, or else his foundation steps in and helps out…at least until it is not there. This is not to knock what he has done or accomplished, not at all, it is amazing work, it is merely to point out that it does not adhere to the idealism of sustainability. For those that need that concept in a sound-bite (election year anyone)…the whole teaching them to fish versus giving them fish idea.
He goes out and raises the money for the school materials, then he organizes and oversees the construction. There is no trying to get the villagers to raise the money themselves, or teaching them to write a grant proposal to learn how to solicit funds from an outside source, ect… He just does it. There is no arguing with the fact that that is the fastest way to get a school there. However, what did the villagers learn from the experience? They and the surrounding villagers learned that to get something the needed, they had to wait until a rich stranger come into their village…and then he would do the rest. Cynical yes, but you can see it in the book when the other surrounding villages try to convince him to build a school for them next. They, the villagers are not becoming “empowered” by the experience…except, that in a way they are…after all, their kids, and most importantly their girls, are gaining an education! Some of them are now even continuing on to far away universities and will accomplish great things. Many will return to become new leaders for the community and provide new ideas and inertia.
So, is the lack of “sustainability” a bad thing in this case? The answer depends on whether at some future date, a wanderer through the Himalayas stumbles on village after village with empty schools…all waiting for the day someone will come along to give them money for a teacher and textbooks and repairs… I think that the sustainability model, while I do agree with it, also has some obvious deficiencies.
I’m going to skip a bit now and jump to glaring difference number two, village leadership. Thanks in large part to the culture in the villages there, every village had a strong leader, sometimes two because there was the religious leader, and then there was the “chief”. Either way there was someone who could speak for the village as a whole, and that when push came to shove, they would get behind this leader…and in this case go to great lengths to build a school.
Sitting where I am in the mountains of Chalatenango, this seems like an incredible feat. Here we have virtually no local government, and no leader. Instead we have just a few strong personalities, with no one that can speak with the “voice” of the Canton (our word for village). What does this mean? It means that if we ask what the Canton needs, no one can really say…or if they can, you will get a different answer from every person. More importantly from the project perspective, no one can really get behind any one project, therefore when push comes to shove…no one shows up to do anything.
So for those of you who recognize the title reference, Kudos! For the rest of you a quick update is that it is the title of a book about a guy who has been doing amazing things over in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan. I just finished reading this book myself, and this blog entry is not going to be a review of the book, but rather a contemplation of how his experiences compare to ours down here.
So, by way of a bit of background the book was a story about a guy who pretty much literally stumbled into development work. By virtue of his first accidental desire to help, he focuses on building schools. Through fits and starts he eventually completes his first school and ends up starting an entire foundation and building numerous schools throughout the region even into the current times of war.
None of this is particularly similar to our own very deliberate decision to go into the Peace Corps. However, in his struggles with learning the language, the culture, and the people of the region, as well as his ground level community based operation, he has a lot in common with what we, and most PC volunteers deal with.
Still, I plan on discussing the differences, mostly because that is what struck me as I read it. The first most glaring difference is the guiding principal of sustainability. This is a part of the Peace Corps credo, and we are sometimes kind of forced into dealing with it as we work here. It isn’t that his schools are not sustainable, I think they might be given the drive of the populous to be educated. However, funding for the teachers, as well as buying books and materials seems to be largely left up to the government, or else his foundation steps in and helps out…at least until it is not there. This is not to knock what he has done or accomplished, not at all, it is amazing work, it is merely to point out that it does not adhere to the idealism of sustainability. For those that need that concept in a sound-bite (election year anyone)…the whole teaching them to fish versus giving them fish idea.
He goes out and raises the money for the school materials, then he organizes and oversees the construction. There is no trying to get the villagers to raise the money themselves, or teaching them to write a grant proposal to learn how to solicit funds from an outside source, ect… He just does it. There is no arguing with the fact that that is the fastest way to get a school there. However, what did the villagers learn from the experience? They and the surrounding villagers learned that to get something the needed, they had to wait until a rich stranger come into their village…and then he would do the rest. Cynical yes, but you can see it in the book when the other surrounding villages try to convince him to build a school for them next. They, the villagers are not becoming “empowered” by the experience…except, that in a way they are…after all, their kids, and most importantly their girls, are gaining an education! Some of them are now even continuing on to far away universities and will accomplish great things. Many will return to become new leaders for the community and provide new ideas and inertia.
So, is the lack of “sustainability” a bad thing in this case? The answer depends on whether at some future date, a wanderer through the Himalayas stumbles on village after village with empty schools…all waiting for the day someone will come along to give them money for a teacher and textbooks and repairs… I think that the sustainability model, while I do agree with it, also has some obvious deficiencies.
I’m going to skip a bit now and jump to glaring difference number two, village leadership. Thanks in large part to the culture in the villages there, every village had a strong leader, sometimes two because there was the religious leader, and then there was the “chief”. Either way there was someone who could speak for the village as a whole, and that when push came to shove, they would get behind this leader…and in this case go to great lengths to build a school.
Sitting where I am in the mountains of Chalatenango, this seems like an incredible feat. Here we have virtually no local government, and no leader. Instead we have just a few strong personalities, with no one that can speak with the “voice” of the Canton (our word for village). What does this mean? It means that if we ask what the Canton needs, no one can really say…or if they can, you will get a different answer from every person. More importantly from the project perspective, no one can really get behind any one project, therefore when push comes to shove…no one shows up to do anything.
posted by Jon & Katie | 7:06 AM
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