Saucepans and Tents…..
Recently I was involved in a research project to understand the socio-cultural practices, beliefs and attitudes that promote or hinder the uptake of ‘development’ initiatives in fishing communities. It’s intentional that I put development in quotes because my idea or your idea of development are very subjective and mostly depend on the status of whoever you are speaking to.
My duty was to talk and have a conversation with different households, get the answers to the different questions in the predetermined questionnaires to contribute to a large pool of data that eight other friends of mine were collecting. The mode of interview was up to us and I fluctuated between conversation and a questioning style deciding early on that I preferred the latter because the former acted as a catalyst for all the sad, worrisome feelings in me.
My first interviewee was a female, young adult, 24 years of age and recently married to 26-year-old sand miner off to work at the time. She was seated under a tree, chewing on grass and graciously responding to the greetings of everyone that passed by and each of the passersby greeted.
“Munooo!” she replied in singsong style, it was both refreshing and disturbing to watch, refreshing because the sense of community came through and disturbing because she never got tired of answering with same energy in succession.
“Do you accept the interview?”
I asked after explaining all the benefits that come with her acceptance, she laughed softly, unsure of her answer and whether she actually had a choice because I had thoroughly explained the positives and presented myself as the help the community needed.
“Just ask”
She was new to the area, a bride at that and still very happy with her marriage. She believes no one intentionally sabotages development and all want it. She shares her toilet with 6 other households and boils her drinking water always. Her husband has not beaten her yet but she believes it is okay for him to do if she ever does anything wrong.
Next was my first and last rejection of the study, in hindsight, I created the rejection for myself. He was seated alone, outside a local bar with his own pot of local brew that had just been presented to him. His eyes showed eagerness to “drink” his money.
“I don’t think I can help you”, he said.
“Why” I asked, irritated that I had done a lot of explaining and convincing, the best yet. He shooed me off into the bar and suggested I interview the patrons there instead, placing the straw inside in his mouth and enjoying every bit of it.
The Bar patrons were very trepidatious at first with one of them asking for a round of drinks before offering any answers for me. The bar was a traditional hut structure, mud made up the wall and grass thatched the roof. On one end, a man was resting on a mat, the waitress was a woman who looked like she was in her late twenties, her eyes were sharp, she looked straight into yours and welcomed you inside the bar. The other 2 patrons were a woman and man who looked like one more drink would send him into a drunk stupor.
“We are tired of interviews!” they said.
“You people always come here with your papers and pens, ask us questions and never come back!”.
“First give us some money or buy us drinks”.
After so much complaining, I presented my case and the female patron acquiesced. Her husband is younger than her by two years and has another wife, she has 4 children at 28 years and her highest level of education is primary five while her husband stopped in primary four. They fight due to a couple of reasons but mostly because of adultery and yes, her husband has the right to beat her if she ever did something wrong.
“We go to school for our father because he does so much to pay our school fees, he goes through garbage and collects rubbish to afford us education. He does so much”. The girls explained.
I was talking to their mother but immediately I asked why the family believes in education, they interjected. A habit they kept up until their father walked in to answer the rest of the questionnaire. Their mother never went to school and was not comfortable answering questions concerning school or education, she was dressed in stained clothing and preferred to sit in dry dirt at any time. When her husband walked in, she went mute, not offering any answers even with my probing and direct questioning to get her to speak. The girls too kept quiet. Her husband was fluent in English, was in charge of the community radio and had walked in swearing not to continue with the work if more appreciation was not given to him. He had a good understanding of how his community functioned, proposed a better way of constructing toilets for them and encouraging children to go to school. He also suggested targeted training for the fishermen around instead of beating and chasing them off the lakes. He does not believe in gender-based violence and no man has no right to beat his wife for any reason. Looking at him with only the story I wanted him to tell, he was a good man with very, very, very limited opportunities and a hunger to seize any given to him. I left him to his tea and huge “mandazi” served to him by one of his daughters with instructions from their mother. The mother found her voice for me only to wish me well on my journey with a little smile.
I talked to a divorced woman who had no intention of getting married again, a young graduate with a policeman for a father and with no job prospects, a business woman who kept on lying to me but also run a drug shop/clinic. Their community needs mostly revolved around schools, hospitals and better roads.
The next community was a unique story for me, it was where I met the inspiration for this story. He was the village pastor, calm and composed and took some time to think about his answers, sometimes too long I asked his wife to answer. She was quick and always gave a perspective to them before giving the “yes” or “no”. On the question of community needs, he gave the first two as schools and hospitals but the last shocked me. In his usual composed tone, he said,
“Big saucepans for when we have community functions such as meetings, weddings and mainly funerals so as to cook food’.
Apparently, the community has to walk to other villages to borrow saucepans when the need arises, and it does, always. It’s sad that I have to concentrate on the saucepans instead of all the other seemingly predictable development challenges but I liked and would invest in this one. It evokes feelings for me, it hits home and sees the humanity and possibility for them. They need these saucepans and need them now; you want to change their lives? buy them saucepans first and lift this burden off them and any other development initiative you want for them will work because you broke the barrier with it. It sounds simple but imagine the burden and feelings someone has to go through when looking for saucepans during a funeral. Should I start a fund to buy them saucepans? I don’t know but the seriousness of his face when he said it lives with me.
The tents came in when I interviewed an 80-year-old woman in another village.
“My daughter! Buy us those things that we can put up to cover us during funeral functions, when one of us loses a relative, we sleep out in the cold during vigils and hold the funeral in the scorching sun. Just buy us those things, please…”.
I was dumbfounded, amidst the water scarcity, salty water, non-existent literacy rate, you want tents? Of course, she wants a tent and the community needs tents to converge, if not for funerals but for happier meetings where they can discuss and exchange ideas. Ideas that can move them forward.
“How many people are in your household?”
“50 people” He answered confidently.
“How many wives do you have?”
“4”
“How many of these are below 6 years?’
“19”
I was shocked and I looked shocked while my 54-year-old male interviewee looked back with a confused look on his face. His face seemed to ask “Why are you this shocked at my success?”. I wished I’d talked to this man further, to visit his home and talk to his wives and children. Do they feel loved by him, what do they think of their siblings? where do they all sleep? He is Muslim so 4 wives are acceptable to the prophet and the faith. Does he wish he could have more? He has 4 acres of land that he farms and assured me he always has enough food for his 50 strong household, do the children think the same? What are their goals in life?
Anyway, he also wants schools, hospitals and capital to run a better business.
“How old are you”
“17”
“How old is your husband?”
“19”
“At what age do you think girls should get married?”
“20”
I was sad for my interviewee at the moment and decided not to go off script to ask why she was married at 17 with a 2-year-old on her arm already. She spoke of her husband with pride telling me how they were ready to shift to a much better place than they were currently in. He also had another wife but she had left so she was the only one around. At 19, he was already divorced and on his second marriage, life!
“What are the 3 most pressing needs for your community?”
“I don’t know”
“What are the 3 most pressing needs at home”
“I don’t know”
She was not intentionally withholding information; she actually did not know. She was comfortable and for her life was as good as it could get. School was a ritual she did till primary five. I suggested some ideas and she accepted some of them adding that she did not know what other people needed. For her home, she remembered that maybe a better house could be an upgrade for them. She was happy when the interview ended and sheepishly added that the questions were so hard!
“We do not have role models to motivate children to study, even those that studied further than the average person here, come back and does what we do, so what is the point in trekking over 5km every morning only to become like the rest?”.
I got this response from a number of people in the different communities and it hurt more from the most learned individual I met. He dropped out after his S.6 and settled in the village he was in to try his hand at fishing. He sometimes acts as a motivation for others because he can speak English but this ceases to impress when one cannot afford food so they end up fishing with him for the same income.
“Instead of traditional schools, build us vocational training schools instead”. He added
The education system needs to change in my country, do we all have to learn English? maybe. Basic science is important for us to understand WASH initiatives and anyone needs Math. But our high school, is mostly irrelevant for most people. We study wheat growing in the Canadian Prairies for heaven’s sake! and draw the New England map as examination. We study almost nothing about agriculture in Uganda, we study about our country through personal experiences. Luganda that is mostly used by us, is a personal endeavor while English must be passed for you to proceed to any level.
Maybe everyone does not need to go through Primary, physics, chemistry, Biology, among others and some communities just need skilling straight away, teach them to grow crops effectively, teach them to fish, teach them to build boats, teach them to trade, teach them to create value immediately they can understand in the language they already understand. Let us stop assuming one size fits all, and everyone must regurgitate the reasons Seyyid Said changed his capital to Zanzibar so as to have a shot at a better life.
