Heather's Gone Again: Golomoti

I’m glad mom got a chance to come with me for 4 days to Golomoti, the town I have spent quite a lot of time in while running the Vertical Gardens project. We work with 2 groups of 15 people, and this time our consultant had 2 days to teach each group how to build their vertical garden and transplant their seedlings. The training felt a bit long to mom and I, and we both had plenty of suggestions on how to make better use of the time (ie. Shortening the amount of time she and I sat around watching). It was quite a lot of work, but the participants seemed to be excited by it and we are hopeful it will be a successful project. The project has been designed so that we would train 30 people, and then each of those 30 would have to cascade their knowledge to 4 additional families, so that the project benefits a total of 150 households. To help them, each of the 150 households would get a pail, sack, seeds, panga knife (kind of looks like a machete but not so sharp) and the head of a hoe (they will make the handle themselves). The supplies were given to the 30 we worked directly with, and they will distribute to their trainees.

Justin, the director planned a mini program for my mom on the last day so she could meet some of their beneficiaries and see some of the work they are doing. We met with an HIV+ boy named Jonathan, visited the Support Group (and were given some handmade grass brooms and treated to some songs), and saw the outdoor nursery school they organize for children in the village. At the end, Mom was presented with a gift – a huge Ngoni shield. Not sure what she will do with it, but it’s the thought that counts! Each of the stops came with the requests for assistance that I knew would be there and that I warned mom about beforehand. Jonathan needs food and transport to the hospital for treatment. The support group needs training and more income generating activities. The Nursery school needs a building and furniture and food and supplies. I used to be offended by all the requests and hints of requests thrown at me but I suppose I can understand that people want to take chances as they see them. It’s just unfortunate that my ability to fulfill requests isn’t congruent with their perceived correlation between a white face and large bank account. I’m already doing what I can.

I also find the culture of allowances and supplies very interesting and sometimes frustrating. Each of the 30 participants would receive 950 kwatcha as a lunch allowance for each day they were in training. That’s only about $7 a day, but a lot of money for people in a village, and way more than is required to pay for a lunch locally, especially when you consider none of them actually went anywhere for lunch. Also, I’m sure some of the tools we gave them are things that they would already have at home. It’s not that I begrudge them the opportunity to acquire new things, but when I mentioned to the driver that I believe in participants making contributions, and that we probably didn’t need to give them things like a bucket because they would have things at home already that they could use, his response was that they were “incentive”. My question is this: why do I need to provide incentive to encourage someone to want to help themselves?