Books, Bathrooms, and Buildings

So projects are beginning to take shape.  Our first endeavor was to organize a latrine building project.  After talking to many groups in the community and asking them what they wanted me to accomplish for them in my two years here, nine times out of ten the first and almost immediate response has been: “We want toilets.”  Well, okay then.  Throughout Peace Corps training we talked about the various situations that latrine projects have encountered.  For some reason I haven’t gained an insight into, when people build their houses, they don’t incorporate or plan toilets—or latrines, into them.  Perhaps it’s the cost of the cement needed.  Most houses are built with mud, sand, and water.  Granted, you could build a latrine with that too, but good solid latrines are built of cement, which can be pretty expensive.  Pretty much every latrine here is reminiscent of the outhouse.  It’s a little shack with a vent pipe that covers a deep hole in the ground over which you squat.  I know that right now you’re thinking of your white (clean?) porcelain commode with running water in your own sanitary and tiled bathroom at home and thinking “ewwww, they poop in that?”  It’s really not as bad as you think.  If can keep the odor down and the bugs away, it works just fine.  And anyway, it’s loads better than having to find a place in the bush or your rubbish pile.  Anyway, of all the situations we talked about in training, I have found very little to no evidence of those same obstacles here.  Perhaps the most important indicator of all is that people are asking for them.  Organizations that have traditionally helped communities build toilets have found their efforts and monies go to waste because they didn’t do the groundwork beforehand to make sure the people were ready to use them and just went ahead and built them.  As a result, these same organizations now make the communities do a considerable amount of the work beforehand to facilitate a sense of ownership and make sure a lot of education about the connections between defecation and disease take place first.  But the fact that people are explicitly asking for help with toilet acquisition means they are already a great deal past that.  At least, that’s what I think.  Time will tell if I’m right.

So, Kwesi and I, through various community leaders, collected the names of households requesting toilets.  So far there are 76 of them.  An organization in the district capital, Nkwanta, called World Vision has a program to help communities with the purchase of the cement and the vent pipe.  Their budget can only cover about 25 toilets, so that’s where we’ll start.  I’ve asked the local government to cover the cost of the skilled labor—the cement layer.  Surprisingly, the District Chief Executive said the amount “was too moderate.”  I think he expected me to ask for more money.  I’ll keep that in mind for next time.  The 25 households have to do most of the work, though.  They have to dig the hole, build the structure (with local materials that don’t much or anything at all), and pay 10 cedis to help with other expenses.  Imagine…a whole, new, sanitary outhouse for the cost of 10 cedis and a whole lotta work.  If they want to put metal sheets on the roof instead of thatch, then they have to figure that out for themselves.  Although, if the District Assembly really wants to give me more money, they can fund that or more than 25 toilets.  We’ll see what happens.

Project #2.  The government junior high school is one building with three classrooms, a teachers’ office, and a big empty which is labeled “Library.”  Inside this room is a small blackboard, crumbling tables, a large pile of sand and fishing nets (*shrug*), four bookshelves, and lots of bats and guano in the ceiling.  Not a single book.  Other than school books and the novels I have that float among PCVs between sites, there is not really anything for anybody to read in this village.  This means children and adults can read, but without anything to practice with, their abilities are minimal.  How simple, I thought.  There is already a structure and even book shelves that only need a little TLC.  There are also many organizations that organize book donations to Africa.  This is also a project common in the PCV world.  This I’m sure we could do lickity-split, granted I can find the right organization.  Once we get some books, then I can make a reading club.  Voila!  Then this monster came along….

I had a meeting with the school teachers a few days ago.  They want me to help them build a computer lab.  Oy.  Alright, I told them, let’s think this through.

ICT (or information computer technology) is a relatively new subject in the Ghana school curriculum.  Unfortunately, the government doesn’t really have enough money to pay for the introduction of a new subject (the new teachers, their trainings, the materials, test materials, etc.) AND the cost of building and furnishing computer labs to all of its schools.  So what happens?  Teachers in (most likely) rural villages must teach ICT to students who have either never seen a computer, or never touched one, by using the old methods—lecturing and writing descriptions on the blackboard (what’s lovingly referred to as “chalk and talk”).  Imagine trying to teach the parts of a computer (the screen, the mouse, the keyboard, etc) with no actual computer.  Imagine trying to learn it, then writing an exam on it.   Very few students pass their exams in ICT.  There is no doubt as to the need of computer labs for students to gain experience on.   Perhaps, they thought, we could take over the long pavilion that’s not being used, build a structure with two or three rooms and put the library inside there too.

The biggest problem with computer labs in, well, Ghana, is that of sustainability.  Communities want them, but the problem is they’re not always aware of what it takes to keep them.  Many labs here have many computers that don’t work.  You can’t really just call the office IT guy that knows how to magically fix everything to make sure the computers keep running.  Or, for that matter, call the nice people in India.  But also:  Who will pay the electric bill?  Who will keep the computers updated and virus free?  Whose job is it to monitor the students while they’re using the computers to make sure they’re not looking at porn (that’s IF we put internet in there)?  What about a printer?  Is the money the district gives you for ICT stuff enough to cover these recurring expenses?  Can we replace the computers in five years when they’re (reeeeeeaaallly) out of date?  We need fans to keep them cool, a locked door, and a massive voltage regulator to keep the electricity from frying the computers from the inside out.  And somehow, we have to find a way to keep the dust out.

These teachers would not be detracted.  They came up with a solution to every obstacle I threw at them.  I still possess a healthy dose of cautious skepticism, but it is my job to help them do what THEY want, not what I want.  But we can’t very well not try since we all know that to give these students a leg up in the world, to get outside this farming community, they need to know something about the world of technology and have some access to it.  Even if the harried pace of the technological world doesn’t fit the slower pace of a traditional African village. 

So here I am, fast becoming the “volunteer who builds stuff.”  There was a lot of discussion about this during training.  There wasn’t a discouragement from “building stuff”, but just a cautionary note about staking your success on how many tangible things, or buildings, you bring to your community.  Peace Corps is about “behavior change” something my culturally relative theoretical self struggles with, but nonetheless, I see the great value of it.  We are here to educate, influence, lead by example, not just come in and give “stuff” away.  There are plenty of organizations for that, so Peace Corps is supposed to do the harder of those development methods.  Still, all of this bows in deferment to what the community wants.  I am but an aid and an advisor in their own development visions.  If they want a computer lab, then, dammit, I’m going to do my best to help them get it.  There is no ignoring the great need for it.  Besides, with adequate preparation before hand, I can inject the behavior change after we get the proper tools.  Wish me luck!