Once more to the village

Wednesday July 22, 2009

Before we could get back to Boa Bakundu, we made a stop at Bai Panya. Bai Panya has talked with Mr. Benjamin in the past about expanding their current water system. Bai Panya wasn’t much better than Bolo. (Other than Bai Panya having a piped water source already) The village follows two different chiefs. It has no water committee. The most frustrating part is that they don’t maintain their current supply. Tanks have not been cleaned in years. Air release valves are broken and cocoa farms surround the catchment. After seeing these problems, we made a list of suggestions for the village to show ETHOS that they are serious about this project. These recommendations should be easy for the village to implement within a couple of months. Hopefully, they will realize how fortunate they are to have a system in place already. Mr. Benjamin told us that the native dialects have no word for “maintain.” Perhaps that is why it is a difficult concept of this village to grasp.

Everyone in Boa Bakundu was excited for our return. Many of our friends said the village did not feel the same while we were gone. The Raf-cut Motel (our house) is coming along nicely. The only work that remains before it opens on Sunday evening is painting, installing some doors, and moving in audio equipment. Rafael also bought a huge generator to power the whole compound. Since we had plenty of light, we played cards with friends until well past 10:00.

Thursday July 23, 2009

Today was our last day of community work. Each quarter was assigned a section at the storage tanks to backfill. While Mark attended the water committee meeting, Brian and I supervised and participated in the backfilling efforts. As usual, some quarters were well prepared while others didn’t even have enough shovels to be effective. Eventually, we organized a dirt moving assembly line of sorts for each quarter. Villagers would begin the process by filling buckets with dirt. Then, buckets were passed from person to person until they reached the tank. After spreading out the dirt, the buckets were passed in another line back to the beginning. It was a very efficient system if the quarter had enough buckets available. Some quarters (especially our quarter, Dibamba) had difficulty understanding the concept of an assembly line. Men would carry full buckets all the way to the tank instead of passing them down the line. Other workers would just leave their station without having someone to replace them. At the end of the day all quarters except Carrefour and Tombei finished their backfilling.

After the work ended, we trekked to the chief’s palace to sit in at the water committee meeting. By this time the meeting was about five hours long. The committee had much to discuss concerning the sendoff on Saturday. In addition, they were short about 80,000 CFA (~$160) to pay for the party. So, much of the meeting was dedicated to locating sources for this funding. The preferred sources were people who had not paid previous fines or collections. The funniest case of the day was a man who was accused of stealing two plastic chairs. The committee fined him 10,000 CFA, 2 plastics of beer, and one goat. That would be the equivalent of a council in America deciding that you should give them $20, two cases of beer, and McDonald’s for everyone. When the man finally came to pay his fine, it was reduced to two plastics of beer and 5,000 CFA. The beer was put to good use as each of the committee members had one for themselves. If only council meetings in the US were run in the same manner. The meeting was still going on when we left at 2:00 PM.