Village politics

Wow, the politics in this village are crazy! We’ve just got back from the community centre where we had an impromptu 3 hour meeting with the women of the village which turned into a massive debate about village politics.

We went to the community centre at 3pm for what we thought was a meeting with a couple of members of AIDECO to discuss water treatment options for the soapy water runoff from the communal washing area. However, due to a big miscommunication beyond our control, about 20 women unexpectedly turned up for a meeting to discuss our project in the village (we had planned this meeting with the women for saturday and had thought everyone knew this, but obviously not!). Despite being a bit shocked and unprepared we decided to go ahead and discuss the project since there were so many of them there. There was one girl there who could speak French so she acted as a translator.

The first thing they told us before we’d even said anything was that they would not accept our project. We worked out quickly that they were referring to the works that are due to start on the earth irrigation channels. AIDECO have funding to line 640m of channels with concrete to reduce the loss of water through infiltration into the earth and therefore increase the flow of water to the fields. This work has good intentions but in reality lining the earth channels means that all the trees that grow alongside them will no longer have any water and will die. This work was due to start this week and the site office (a tent!) and all the materials were on site on Monday but the work has now been called off after a massive argument between the women of the village and AIDECO yesterday.

So once we’d explained that we had nothing to do with the work and that the first we knew about it was when we arrived in the village last week, they were more willing to listen to our ideas. We discussed the work we will be doing in the village but the meeting soon descended into a debate about AIDECO. It appears the organisation is very unpopular amongst the villagers, particularly because they feel that they are not consulted about the works they are proposing and do not listen to their views and opinions. AIDECO’s unpopularity puts us in a difficult position but we hope to be able to facilitate the communication between the association and the people of the village and to find solutions to the problems that the people agree with.

I think we ended the meeting well by saying that AIDECO had invited us here but that we want to work with everyone in the village. This seemed to go down well and they said that we are very welcome here. Phew! There are so many issues in this village, it’s impossible to stay out of the politics!

After 3 hours of heated debate we got back to the house and our next door neighbour randomly bought round a hoover for us which actually sprays the room with dust! Very useful! We’ve given up for the day and are now making pizza and bean burgers.