I noted in my diary that the
day was auspicious! We delivered the school text books and cupboards to
Mswakini Primary School. We’d already delivered some 200 desks and four sets of
teachers’ tables and chairs. By chance I’d spoken to two brothers at Ngaremtoni
market, and told them I was looking for a furniture factory, and blow me down,
they owned one! The took me to their office for a chat and according to the
signage outside and in, they were chemical importers, sure enough, but they
were operating a joinery factory. They made the desks at a very reasonable
cost, using Grevillea timber, which is not quite so favoured as Cypress because
of termite risk, but Grevillea is suitable nonetheless. Within their contract
they made the teachers tables and chairs, as well as the cupboards to store the
books and to protect them. They were to varnish them with that yukky, sticky
varnish and transport them to the site. These guys were real gentlemen, sharp
as tacks with an eye to business but reliable. Their product was acceptable but
not 'top of the line'. We were thrilled
to see the desks in place with The
Agency's logo drawn on them by the school. So the day marked the Primary
Schools Assistance Project being completed at Mswakini, without a hiccup! But Hifadhi's
projects..... I asked the
Head Teacher, Mr Kamiro about progress. Only 35 female goats had arrived with
no males, so the breeding programme so far, was only a bunch of frustrated
nannies. Only Tsh 200 000/- had been spent on the purchase of goats, and it
turned out that Mr. Kamiro had actually built the goat pen himself in an
attempt to embarrass Big E into getting off his arse! The teacher had done some
research about billy goats and found they were readily available at the Mto wa Mbuu
market. Big E had told me that the price was high at the time of the year and therefore
more economically sound to delay the purchase – his economics were always
different to mine! I warned him, breeding projects do not bear fruit if the
seeds planted! Mr Kamiro was not at all happy with the delay and he
knew that Big E had been paid for the project some fifteen months earlier, so
there was no excuse for any delay.
Big E had tried to tell me
that the furrow for the pipeline hadn’t been dug because the village people had
no hoes or shovels… but I didn’t bite, obviously he was trying to wheedle money
out of me! Mr Kamiro confirmed that the village people grew maize,
so of course they had farming tools! He also told me that he was able
to mobilize parents and or use students to dig the blimmin’ furrow! I
told him that I was very concerned that the water project was seriously flawed
because it was trying to get the water to flow uphill… when I showed him why, he
understood my point of view. I raised the question. There is a borehole and a
pump, owned by the Phosphate Company, and usually, when a company gains a water
right, they have to donate something to the local community. Did they install a water trough for the cattle?
Sure enough, in this case, they installed a large tank and a pipeline to a water
trough for watering the cattle, and it happened to be in the direction of the
school. It had been designed so that the last of the water in the tank would
reach the trough - but only just. Any further, and there wouldn’t be enough
pressure for the water to reach the trough. The uphill slope wasn’t much, so it
would be possible for water to go further, as long as the tank was always full.
Nobody had about mentioned this!
On my return to Sanawari, I
briefed Big E about my meeting with Mr Kamiro. He told me he had paid the
deficit of Tsh200 000/- to the village chairman, but Mr Kamiro was away at a
funeral so probably hadn’t been told about it. He promised he’d take a vehicle
to Mto wa Mbuu to buy some billy goats so the project could be started. And he
agreed that there should be digging equipment in the village, but he told me
the people would expect something, or they wouldn’t turn up for work, and yes I
understood about that. So instead of handing out money, I purchased 3 shovels
and three hoes/grubbers/mattocks and gave them to him. I could account for the
expenditure by way of my official receipt. I also told him that I’d called at
Monduli to talk to a government water engineer and I was impressed with his expertise
and knowledge of things water in his district. He had promised to check the
levels for me and to take Big E with him. Big E agreed to go the following
Monday.
Sometimes things just happen,
not always for the better. One of these was when Mo & Jo met with Big E and
the subject of the projects came up. Seemingly harsh words were tossed around
and both they parted with everyone hot under the collar, and no resolution! No
doubt Big E decided that any sort of action was better than nothing just to get
them off his back… when Jo accompanied us to Mswakini to deliver some extra
teaching aids, the Head Teacher told us that some action had eventuated, and
indeed we found that a reservoir had been constructed beside the water trough. But
dear oh dear, the workmanship was shoddy! I couldn’t understand why he chose
the location because we had discussed that if we were able to pump the water, we
might as well position the reservoir close to the school! So things were still no
better between the field reps and Big E, leaving me a bit like 'piggy in the
middle'. I told Big E, the bottom line was, the projects has to be completed,
and I promised him I would be on his tail, but I was prepared to help. Maybe I
haven’t mentioned, we lived in the same house, separated by a partition that
didn’t quite go to the ceiling, so we knew each other well. Anyway… in the
middle of this the Mswakini School Committee wanted to dedicate the projects
and thank the various people involved, they could see that the water and goat
projects were going to take forever to complete, so they decided to hold a
ceremony for our government’s Primary School Assistance Project and at the same
for the National Parks Authority's new classroom.
After a scheduled visit to Mti
Mmoja Primary School, Josiah and I made the extra journey to Mswakini to
collect the water drum I’d left there for them to store water and to brew some
of their speciality for the celebrations. At the same time we checked if the
pipe connectors had been located. Big E had told me they were lost and
suspected someone from the village might be making jewellery out of them! At
the village office, we met a group of elders and they sat us down, watered us
(well, loshoro-ed us) and flatly denied they had even seen the parts. They were
angry that water had been cut to the water trough because Big E had instructed someone
among them to dig it up! I left them promising to shake Big E awake. Big E was
despondent about the loss of the fittings and refused to go back there until he
had news they had been located. Secretly I bought new ones to get the blimmin’ job
done! The very next day he sheepishly returned from Mswakini with the fittings,
saying that he had found them, he had hidden them under a bush so they wouldn’t
be stolen and he suddenly remembered where the bush was!
Big E was focusing on his bar,
so the water/goat project wasn’t progressing, but our own environmental
programme with the other schools was going well as was our tree nursery. Luckily
the funding we’d sourced, on condition Big E didn’t get his hands on it, made
us pretty independent of Hifadhi, but
still, he couldn’t complain because Hifadhi
bathed the overall kudos for what we were doing. Our funding also helped us
forge ahead with Mswakini, although I still had to make Big E face up to his responsibilities…
if I could. He was hard to pin down, with boozy nights and still asleep when I
left for the villages in the morning. Around this time, to make our seminars
more kid-related, I wrote a short story which Joshia brought to life in his
reading of it, and as well I developed a couple of role plays that we added to amuse
the kids… and teachers. Mags also tuned her ukulele, and our environmental song
came into being.
When it was Mswakini’s turn
for the environmental seminar, it went down well and I introduced the other bit,
the role play to show how people could cooperate in tree care and keeping
domestic animals and hens from the damaging trees. It was quite a fun day. Afterwards,
we took the opportunity to check on progress at the water project, but nothing more
had been done and the poor workmanship of the reservoir remained an embarrassment.
A beer-breath Big E called to
see me early one morning, so I took the opportunity to tune him up! He reacted pretty
aggressively, but in the end he agreed that he deserved a kick up the arse. A
month later we went back to Mswakini. The water project was becoming tiresome
because of Big E's lack of expertise! It turns out he was there on the Friday before
and on the Monday but didn’t achieve anything because both times the elders
were meeting. In those sessions, typically, they ate meat and drank beer while
they discussed matters… seldom resolving anything. There was a work party ready
to work on Wednesday but the only guy who could fit the connections had a death
in his family so he wasn’t there. I gently requested Big E to organise a work
party for the next Monday and I promised to take him there and spend the day
working them together.
Well it didn’t happen! We
arrived, but a lion had attacked a boma in the village and killed a cow, so some
Moran (circumcised young men) chased
the lion down and killed it! Such an event required a celebration, so a bull
was killed, beer was made or bought and so nothing could be done for a week! I
couldn’t be angry about this, it is part of their everyday life, and I was
pleased they stuck to their tradition. Sure I needed the project to be
completed, but such an event is infrequent and who was I to throw a wet blanket
over such excitement?
The weeks rolled by. Joshia
and I made another trip to Mswakini to check on the water project, and nothing
further had been done. We happened to meet the village chairman at a bar cum
restaurant in Makuyuni where we lunched; he was with a few of the other village
men and they were disappointed with Big
E’s performance, but nevertheless shouted for our meal of nyama choma.
I told them that I would again talk to him and promised to call in at Mswakini on
my return from Karatu where there was to be an Agency conference, if there was still no progress, we would return
to work there on the week of 20 January. The chairman told me that the goats were
steadily dying and supposed fleas might be the problem. Oh joy!
We returned to Mswakini the
day I suggested to sort out the messy water project. Big E had teed up the
village men, but when we arrived there was nobody to be seen! The young men who
were to dig the furrow were in the process of selecting a bull to kill for yet
another celebration! I pulled rank! We rounded them up and set off to the pump
house, as usual the wee Maruti was overloaded with men wanting a lift. There
were about 40 women and children filling containers at the pump, which had been
started by an old fellow whose job it was to operate it. We hadn’t been told
about him either! I asked him to stay and we went to the Phosphate Company
reservoir to make sure it was filling. The Moran
had begun to look for blockages in the pipeline to the cattle trough, this is
what the elders had complained about ages ago! Water hadn’t been flowing there for
months! We assumed that was why Big E had the men digging it up! They were
digging up sections, cutting the pipe and testing them for blockages, so thank
goodness I had bought those extra fittings! As I worked and watched, I compared
the work-soiled women with twenty litres of water on their heads, ready to walk
for an hour, to the fancily clad, jewellery-encrusted Moran and pondered
how the responsibility for water to be delivered to the household, was always on
the women and children. This is why the men were reluctant workers! One guy
used his fancy sword to cut some scrub, but it wasn’t as effective as you might
think because it was made of shit-metal! A toy really, for show. Two guys
worked at a time while the rest rested. I have no doubt that if we’d asked the
women to do the job, they would have done it, because it was in their interest.
It simply wasn’t of interest to the Moran,
it wasn’t their role! Gradually the blockages were cleared from the pipeline, and
after we’d put the pipes together, I asked old guy to wind up the pump, but at
the water trough there was only a piddling trickle! The Phosphate Company’s
reservoir needed be at least two thirds full, or there was no hope of Big E's
reservoir ever getting a drop! What to do? I suggested that we cut the inlet to
the Phosphate Company reservoir and hook a line into the outlet so the pump
which would force water to the reservoir. There were enough bits and pieces fittings
for me to hook up the lines, although I had to jerry-rig one piece by encasing
it in cement, but it worked! We found that the standpipe 200m towards the
school from Big E's reservoir would flow water if the reservoir was more than
half full, this made the reservoir effectively half its capacity, but in the
circumstances, it was a victory. What we didn’t know was the operator of the
pump had a line directly to his house as a perk for doing the job! Had we
known, we could have upgraded that line quite easily, but we were out of time!
I was reasonably happy with
the outcome, but the major flaw was the fuel for the pump. Within the budget
there was provision for 12 months’ worth of fuel, and then the goat project was
supposed to cover the cost. Simply it was never going to work. The goats fell
to disease and there was no funding for vet costs. Then it transpired that the
herdsman hadn’t been paid so he slaughtered and ate the offspring, so maybe the
disease was but a myth all along. Nobody else kept goats tightly in a pen, which
could have been a reason they became sick. I was unable to take this part of
the project under my wing but it was obviously mismanaged or misjudged by Big
E.
Ugomvi, as the word sounds, means bad feeling and there was another
source of Ugomvi! Big E had a lady friend who had returned home and managed to fool
a secondary school into fundraising for Hifadhi
to buy bicycles so Big E could hand them out to people who helped with Hifadhi’s projects. Already the wife of
one of the recipients had asked me to take it back because it led to extreme
jealousy in their village. At Mswakini, the bicycle caused ugomvi because the recipient was selected by Big E, as his gift to him,
rather than going through any democratic process. The whole project wasn’t the
success it should have been and I took the lessons on board. I pointed out to
Big E and Josiah what I had learned… the project was a very good one and very
well thought out, but ownership of the project was with Hifadhi instead
with the village people. They had forgotten that the village people are
intelligent people and if you go there and say, 'I have money, so this is what
you are getting.' They will say ' Ok then do it!' The village people didn’t feel
the project was theirs and with only occasional visits from Big E there was no enthusiasm
from the village men. The same when it comes to maintenance, they saw it as Hifadhi's
project so Hifadhi
should maintain it. There should be thorough discussion and negotiation from
the outset, and a sense of ownership should be generated. Villagers will accept
advice and direction but without ownership, the project was always be flawed.
One Saturday at home, Big E
wanted to chat, as we sat in the mid-morning sunshine, he told me he had been
frustrated at the goings on at Mswakini. 'Look', I said gently, 'the people of
Mswakini needed to own the water project. Every item brought taken the village
should have be signed for by the village authority and it should have be noted
in the village log book (all villages have them - or if not, at least the
visitor book). Once the project was complete, sign it over to the village and
make them responsible for all maintenance, repairs and future extensions. The
goat project isn’t working, so abandon it by offering the remaining goats to
the people who carried out the most work. Make it the job of the Mtendaje to
collect money for the fuel, that’s his role. He is the one who collects taxes
on behalf of the government. Sign the bicycle over to the school for the use of
the teachers to run errands.' Big E nodded.
I didn’t think too badly of
Big E really. He had thought out the project and gained the funding. Yes, he
misused funds, no, actually he stole them, he was taking advantage of an
opportunity that wouldn’t happen again. Just the same, he genuinely wanted to
better the life of those Maasai people… and it’s seldom that you get things
right on the first attempt.
