This July, Kate and I are traveling around West Africa to scout some new regions for potential CWS expansion. We are traveling to Liberia, Burkina Faso and Togo and will be documenting our trip in a series of blog posts called “CWS on the Road.” The funding for CWS’ expansion trips came this spring from an anonymous donor – THANK YOU for supporting CWS and allowing us to explore the possibility of working in new regions!
After a couple hours back in Tamale – just enough time to enjoy some good food and friends, re-supply our travel bags with clean clothes, and catch some sleep in our own beds – we hit the road once more, with Project Manager Peter Biyam in tow. This time our destination was Burkina Faso, a francophone, landlocked country directly north of Ghana. Several hours of driving and one complicated border crossing later, we found ourselves lost in “the coolest name[d] … capital city in the world” (thanks, Lonely Planet): Ouagadougou. Wonderful Ouaga! Here we would score 1. the most detailed and handy map ever to grace my lap 2. a salad-and-rice-and-tomato sauce obsession that single-handedly fuel the Burkina and Togo exploits of our Ghanian travel buddies (something about the beans-n-rice/chicken-n-rice/food-in-general Burkinabé style did not sit right with the Tamale travelers – culture shock is not a solely Salaminga experience!).
CWS staff do Burkina Faso!
Over the course of a week, we managed to explore the south-west, north-east and south-east of this beautiful country. With our linguistic powers combined (high school French, small small Moré and Hausa), we were able to talk to college grads, cattle herders, chiefs and children that we met along the highway/road/trail/footpath about their water situations. Our strategy was simple: drive to the most remote communities in the least-developed regions, ask lots of questions (“Que’ce-qu’il y a un pumpe dans cette village? Une barrage? Ou allez-vous pour l’eau d’boire?”), and see for ourselves what and how people lived and drank. Along the way we learned lots of new words (puits = well, marigold = stream, fou = crazy, bizarre = you get the picture…) met lots of incredibly friendly, patient and hospitable people, drove down many back-bush roads and only headed for home when the sun set, the rain chased us back, or flooding turned our road to river.
Using rigorous scientific techniques, Kathryn and Peter asses water depth in a hand-dug well. This source was only used for laundry.Peter and Kate smile as a storm blows pastWhile our 4×4 could handle a lot, this flooded “road” was too ambitious even for us.
What we found really surprised me. Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world; its GDP per capita is half that of Ghana’s. These sorts of economic indicators led me to expect potholed roads, few working pumps and lots of unimproved drinking sources. What we found were higher rates of french-speakers in remote villages than english-speakers in Northern Region (an indicator of educational opportunities and integration into the national economy) and well-maintained roads to put the Tamale – Kumasi highway to SHAME. Most importantly for our work, there seemed to be a consistent and pervasive network of functioning hand-pumps in place. Unlike in Liberia, our anecdotal experience suggested that there was an effective public/private supply chain in place to fix broken pumps – we found much fewer broken pumps, and where we did come across them, people seemed more confident about their repair. The two or three villages that we came across who were drinking from unimproved sources were usually small (less-than-five houses) and new: certainly not to be dismissed, but maybe just waiting to be incorporated into what seems like a competent existing water network.
Peter checks out a working pump – this was the oldest model we saw, working since 1985!Just like in Northern Region, women and girls in Burkina are responsible for collecting their family’s water. Here a few gather by one of the village’s several pumps to fetch drinking water for their family. Looks clean!Though most villages have pumps, surface water are still important sources of water for life in rural communities. This lake will be a source of drinking water for the five houses in remote Ambara until it dries up in the spring. The water situation in Ambara is atypical for Burkina, but still deserves attention.
All this is not to say that Burkina Faso is an under-the-radar utopia. Burkinabés’ lives seem to be difficult in many of the ways that life is difficult in Ghana, and the water situation in particular is far from ideal here. The people that we met in our travels, however, had a lot to teach us about a different way of life just north of the border. Fulani women with silver in their hair, Mossi men riding cows to their fields, goats that look like gazelles, poulet yassa and ancient mud-relief mosques took us by surprise and made our trip to our northern neighbor constantly intriguing. For a place so geographically, hydrologically and socially similar to the northern region where we work, we were still forced to constantly reevaluate our assumptions. Though it may not be CWS’ most logical next move, Burkina’s capacity for surprise make me hesitant to draw any final conclusions from our week-long trip.
Fulani girls check out the strangers at their stream.Ancient mosque (from afar); outside the northern Burkina town of DoriUntil next time, Burkina!
After almost a month post-implementation, the new CWS villages (Gbandu, Gariezegu, Djelo, Kpenchila, Jabayili and Yakura) have all hit the ground running for the clean water which they all have access to now! For the first 6 months, the CWS field staff, which includes Peter, Shak, Wahab, Amin and myself will be visiting each of these villages at least once a week. These visits include monitoring the water treatment centers, meeting with the two women that run the centers and performing 6-10 household visits to check that everyone in the village is indeed getting access to the water that is now available. So far the reports have come back and all of these new villages have really embraced the CWS approach. The two women that run the centers have taken ownership of their businesses, adapting the necessary changes needed to make it work for their communities.
Wahab asking some questions to some women pounding Shea butter during a household visit in Gariezegu!
The rainy season is a busy time for the majority of these villages because everyone is farming! The rain also creates some unique challenges for some of the villages because of flooding and rainwater harvesting. In Gbandu, Mariama and Abiba decided to have opening days at their centers on Mondays and Thursdays to make life easier for themselves and for their village. In Gariezegu, Selamatu and Adamu discussed moving their center into town during the rainy season because the walk to their dugout floods, making the water treatment center inaccessible. They are currently awaiting confirmation from the chairman of their village to build a new stand.
Fati and Mimatu, the fine ladies that run the center in Jabayili, informed us that their small, neighboring village, Korboniyili, uses the same dugout as them. There are only 10 households in Korboniyili. We are currently working with the women on distributing safe storage containers to the people of this village, so that they too can have the opportunity to buy clean water. In Yakura, Ayi and Awabu have been busy busy farming! They have been so busy that we often don’t catch them unless we get to Yakura early enough. Even during these busy times, they still manage to operate the water treatment center. In fact, they say that sales have not really dropped since it started raining.
Thumbs up for clean water in Jabayili!Dugout water in Djelo
Water sales are high in Kpenchila. Adamu otherwise known as “Jahamah”(a nickname given to her because she has had 2 sets of twins) and Zuira told us that since it has not been consistently raining, most people would rather come to buy water than risk waiting for a storm that they cannot be sure will come. Zelia and Fuseina of Djelo have been demanding for more safe storage containers to sell. Many of the households have been buying a second safe storage container so that their families can have 20 L more water stored in their compounds. Their polytank tap was leaking but is now fixed! So far these 6 new CWS villages are looking good– more updates to come soon!
-Brianan
Shout out to Shak’s team that implemented in Kpenchila. The woman to his left had a bad cut on her leg when the fellows were here. She wants you to all know that she is making a full recovery!
This July, Kathryn and I are traveling around West Africa to scout some new regions for potential CWS expansion. We are traveling to Liberia, Burkina Faso and Togo and will be documenting our trip in a series of blog posts called “CWS on the Road.” The funding for CWS’ expansion trips came this spring from an anonymous donor – THANK YOU for supporting CWS and allowing us to explore the possibility of working in new regions!
Last week, Kathryn and I packed our bags and headed to Liberia, W. Africa on a scouting trip for CWS. Armed with a guide book, some great WASH maps, and the phone numbers of recommended drivers, we arrived in Monrovia on the 4th of July, excited to be taking the first step towards expanding CWS’ impact to new areas.
Kathryn on the beach in Monrovia right after we arrived in Liberia!
We wanted to check-out the water situation in Liberia for a few different reasons: First, 14 years of civil war (1989-2003) destroyed most of the country’s infrastructure, leaving the majority of Liberians without access to water or electricity. Today,less than 10% of people in Monrovia (the nation’s capital) are on the grid. And that’s the capital of the country! Crazy! Second, Liberia is an english-speaking country. While the CWS team is used to navigating language-barriers, its always easier to get things done when you don’t have to rely on a translator for communicating! Finally, we had access to some awesome information! Last year, a bunch of WASH organizations working in Liberia got together and mapped all of the “water points” around the country.
So much GIS Data! Kathryn’s idea of heaven…
Most of these water points are boreholes with a handpump. The map noted if the pump was working or not and listed the implementing NGO. They combined this data with information on village populations and mapped out what they called the “corridor of need” based on water access (#of working water points/community populations). It is extremely rare to find such great information about water access in a country so we were thrilled!
Although the WASH-Liberia Maps gave us a good idea about where working/broken handpumps where located, we were interested in learning what people were doing for their water once their handpump was broken. Did they drink from a surface water source? Rainwater? Something else? How easy it to fix a handpump? Are people fixing them? We also wanted to learn about community structure. How big are the villages? What is the village-leadership hierarchy like? What are the village markets like? Would people pay for drinking water if it was sold in their community? From our experience working in Ghana, we knew that the best way to learn the answers to all of these questions would be to get out in the field and talk to people.
After spending a day in Monrovia, meeting with the Director of Liberia’s Peace Corp office (such an awesome guy who was extremely helpful!) and finding an great driver, we headed out to the rural counties to check out the water situation first-hand. First we traveled to Tubmanburg and spent two days driving around to villages in Bomi, Gbarpolu, and Grand Cape Mount Counties. We stopped-in as many communities as we could and talked to whoever was around and willing to chat!
Our view for about 80% of the day: dirt roads and beautiful jungle!Kathryn checking out a handpump is Gbarpolu CountyTypical village in Gbarpulo County, Liberia
One thing that we were not prepared for was all.of.the.rain. After over 4 years of working in Ghana, we knew that July = rainy season in West Africa. What we did not realize was just how different the weather and terrain would be in Liberia. In Ghana, the rainy season is similar to summertime in a state like Florida. Storms roll in quickly, it pours for a couple hours (most of time its less than an hour) and then the sun comes out again. Not in Liberia. It rained on and off all day, every day that we were there. To put it in perspective, the average yearly rainfall in Seattle is just over 36 inches. In Monrovia, its over 200 inches! The good news is, unlike Ghana where everyone takes a nap when it rains, Liberians are used to the constant rainfall and life goes on!
The plus side of all of the rain…absolutely BEAUTIFUL jungle landscape. It was breathtaking
From Grand Cape Mount we headed back to Monrovia for a night and the journeyed up Gbanga. For the next couple of days we drove around Bong and Nimba County on the hunt for more handpumps, surface water sources and friendly Liberians to chat with.
Another day on the road…Checking out some handpumps……and surface water sources
Overall it was a pretty awesome week in Liberia. Kathryn and I learned so much! Ultimately, we do not think that Liberia would be a good fit for CWS’ expansion. Mainly because there are just so many boreholes! Right after the war ended, there was a huge push for borehole drilling in rural Liberia. Tons and tons of different NGOs came to build wells and handpumps. Coming from Northern Region Ghana, where you can’t drill boreholes, Kathryn and I were floored by how many boreholes there were. Drilling is also very expensive ($5,000-$10,000/borehole) so we could not believe how much money was invested in setting up these pumps. Almost every single village we visited had aleast 1 pump and many had 3-4. While we knew there were a lot of pumps from the WASH-Liberia map, the map only showed villages where NGOs had drilled broeholes. It did not tell us if there were more villages out there that hadn’t been reached.What we learned: there aren’t many, almost every community has atleast 1 borehole with a handpump!
The problem? Pumps break. And they have broken…all over Liberia. If an average village had 3 handpumps that were set up by an NGO in 2005, that same village has only 1 functioning pump now (on average, based on what we saw in our 1 week). And often times that pump will run dry in the dry season. As a result, many people are still forced to drink water from surface water sources like creeks and streams. Although a lot of people were getting water from surface water sources in many communities, the presence of so many boreholes, working or not, would make it difficult for CWS to work in these villages. Even if a community only has 1 working pump, people would be much less likely to pay for water from a CWS business if there is a chance that they can get water for free from a borehole, even if they have to wait in a long line for it or even if there is a chance the borehole is dry that day.
Path leading to a community creek in Grand Cape Mount county
The thing that frustrated Kathryn and I the most was that out of ALL of the NGOs and aid organizations that came to drill these boreholes from 2003-2005, not one of them set up a system for dealing with pump maintenance. Almost everyone we talked to told us that when their pump broke they had no idea who to call to help them fix it, even if they were willing to pay for parts. We searched high and low for spare pump parts in both local markets and big cities, and they were no where to be found. There is virtually no supply-chain in the country for pump parts. In a handful of communities, we learned that there had been some follow-up, or that there was a person in town that they can call when they need help fixing their pump, but in the vast majority this was not the case.
As an organization that spends a big portion of our budget on long-term monitoring and follow-up, we were upset and annoyed at this situation. We even hunted down welt hunger hilife‘s office in Monrovia to tell them what see saw in the field. Our conversation went something like this:
Your pumps are broken!
People are willing to pay to have them fixed!
Is there someway you can get them parts?
Maybe train local people how to fix pumps?
“oh sorry, we don’t work in those counties anymore.”
So you aren’t going to do anything? People will pay you to come fix their pumps
“No, we don’t work there anymore”
So, incredibly frustrating.
Not all of the water NGOs in the area share welt hunger hilife‘s “drop off and go” attitude. Population Services International is doing incredible work with household chlorination (also in HIV/AIDS, hygiene, sanitation and so much more!). They have launched an awesome social-marketing campaign to teach people how to chlorinate their drinking water and have helped to establish a sales-network for a locally manufactured WaterGuard (PSI-branded liquid chlorine). We met with their WASH program manager on or last day in Monrovia and she was awesome! There is so much that we can learn from PSI’s work, both in Liberia and globally!
One of PSI’s educational signboards in Nimba County
Pumps aside, the community structure in most of these villages is very different from the set-up in Ghana, and would also make it difficult for the CWS system to work well. The communities that we visited were much smaller – like 10-20 one-family households vs. 30-100 multi-family (polygamous) households. If we were to train 2 women to work at a CWS water business, there wouldn’t be very many families left in the town to buy water from them! There were also a lot of other small factors (market-structures, supply chains, availabilty of equipment, etc) that would make it hard for CWS to work in rural Liberia. Not impossible, just too difficult right now.
We think that there are many big opportunities in the water sector in Liberia, just not good opportunities for CWS at this time. Household water treatment and rainwater collection would be great options for this area – if you’re reading this and your organization implements HWTS or RW catchment systems and want more info on opportunities in Liberia, let us know!
More importantly, if you worked in Liberia in 2003-2005 and set up handpumps in rural villages and then left, Come Back! Train people how to fix your pumps, help set up a supply chain of pump-parts. Your job is NOT finished yet! People are willing to pay to have their pumps fixed, but you left them with no one to call and no materials to work with. Its embarrassing.
Overall, our trip to Liberia was incredible. We learned a lot about emergency aid – the positives (SO MUCH support, financially and logistically, that results in big projects. Projects like drilling wells EVERYWHERE!); the negatives (the drop and go mentality of so many NGOs). We learned a lot about life in a post-conflict zone. We learned a lot about what kinds of communities would not be a good fit for the CWS system, which in turn, helps us better define what we are looking for. Finally, we met so many amazing people who are doing really great work: some friendly, smart and super-motivated peace corp volunteers; the dedicated and knowledgeble staff at PSI-Liberia; our awesome hosts in Tubmanburg, Mary’s Meals; and last but not least, our AWESOME driver Jallah, who not only traversed some pretty rough terrain, but also had the best road-trip playlist we’ve ever heard, shared our weird sense of humor and fielded endless questions from Kathryn and I (do Liberians eat monkeys? How long does it take pineapples to grow? Would people pay for water? What did that lady say? Who do you think lived in that house we passed on the left about 1 mile back? How do you tap rubber? What the red stuff in jars on the street?)
Me with our awesome driver/roadtrip DJ Jallah!
We’re back in Tamale for the day and leaving for Burkina Faso and and Togo tomorrow! Stay tuned for more updates from “CWS on the Road!”
After two weeks of training and saying farewell to some pretty awesome fellows, I have officially started as Ghana Country Director. It feels so good to be back with CWS! With the 6 newly implemented villages, CWS now has 38 villages in its monitoring rotation. Once the fellows leave, CWS continues to monitor its villages. This includes checking in with the wonderful ladies that run the water treatment centers, as well as doing household visits and taking water samples. Post-implementation, each new village is monitored once a week for the first 6 months and then less and less as the villages become self-sustainable.
It is the start of the rainy season here in the Northern Region of Ghana, which means that many of the villages (that have tin roofs) are transitioning into using rainwater collection techniques to harvest water with their safe storage containers. This is because some villages (like Gbung and Zanzugu Yipela) do not use their dugouts during the rainy season. While sales at the water treatment centers have been low in many of these communities that harvest rainwater, they will pick right back up when the dry season comes underway. As for now, the CWS staff in Ghana is just trying to stay dry with all the rain!
-Brianan
Shak cheesin’ with some kiddos in Wambong & Wahab keeping dry during a storm!Happy 4th of July! — a boy in the village of Cheko shows off his American and clean water pride!The children in Nyamaliga can’t get enough camera action!Rainy season, means rice harvesting! A family in Tacpuli poses with their full bucket of clean water.
Yesterday morning, our 23 Summer Fellows and their Fellowship Leaders boarded the bus to Accra and the 2012 Summer Fellowship Program officially came to an end. I know that I say this at the end of every program, but these 3 weeks truly flew by. It was such a pleasure to work with this amazing group of young people!
The 2012 Summer Fellows with some of their translators and Fellowship Leaders – everyone was up BRIGHT and early for their 5am departure! Photo credit: Kathryn Padgett
Alex, Zoe, Olivia, Kelsey M., Tyler, Leah, Bridgid, Jenn, Krysta, Abby, Evan, Meaghan, Cameron, Matt, Heidi, Megan, Brittni, Marwa, Khadijah, Sarit, Moriah, Mark, and Kelsey B. –
These past three weeks flew by too fast and Tamale already seems much quieter with the 23 of you gone. As a group, you guys were not only incredibly hardworking and inspiring, but also plain fun to be around! I know that there are many other things that each of you could have done this summer, but thank you for choosing to come to Ghana to work with CWS. Thanks to you (and the donors who supported your trip!) 6 communities and over 2,000 people now have access to safe drinking water. 2,000 people.That’s pretty amazing.
As you continue with the rest of your summers, school years, and/or careers, I hope that you continue to remember that impact that you have had here in Tamale, not just on your villages but everyone that you met and worked with while you were here – your translators, taxi drivers, leaders, Abraham, Emmanel, & Daniel, vendors in the cultural center, even the lady who owns the bar across the street! We all feel lucky to have gotten to know you. I am certain that each of you will continue to do amazing things and I can’t wait to see the change that you will make in this world!
Stay in touchand hopefully I’ll see many of you in Boston this summer!
Greetings from Tamale, Ghana! We are team 1, also known as team sparkles and we are made up of Alex, Kelsey, Olivia, and Zoe. Along with our fearless translator Wahab, we are working in the village of Garazigou (though we have come to find out there are numerous spellings of this village which made for an interesting time) . It seems like our weeks are just flying by here even though here in Ghana, as one of our fellow teammates put it, “It’s a Ghana (gonna),”mainly because here everyone takes their sweet time getting from place to place! However, we sped through the building process of the base for the polytank and then began to train the women who are going to be running the center how to make the alum balls that would be stirred into the drums and how to than transfer that water to the polytank where the water is treated with chlorine.
One of the men in the village hard at work on the base!Transferring the dugout water to the blue drums
After we had a very long day of distributing those well-known blue buckets, we waited in much anticipation for one of the most important days of the whole trip…OPENING DAY! And thankfully the day was a huge success! We had a great time entertaining the children while the mother’s filled the buckets with clean drinking water which were all accounted for! We also learned later in the week that a baby from our village was born on opening day. It’s a great feeling to know that this baby boy is going to be able to have safe drinking water for the rest of his life in the village!
The women of the village filling up with clean drinking water!
We are now focusing our sites on the last few days here in Tamale were we are beginning to monitor the people and make sure they are using the water correctly and getting everything else in order for the CWS staff to step in and take over. We have been overwhelmed with the amount of responses we have gotten from the villagers. Many to thank us for bringing them clean water and helping their children stay healthy. It’s when you hear replies like that make all the hot weather and pure exhaustion so worth it in the end.
Though our time here in the village has come to an end, we look forward to hearing from the CWS staff all the progress our village has made in its implementation process.
From left: Olivia, Kelsey, Alex, Wahab, and Zoe in front of the CWS sign!
On Monday, our team had our opening day on which we unveiled our newly-built water treatment center to the Village of Gbandu. In the week leading up to opening day our team worked with some of the villagers to build a permanent stand that was accessible to the people of the Village. We had trained two women, Mariama and Abiba, to treat and clean dugout water to make safe drinking water for all the villagers. On Sunday, we had distributed safe-storage containers to every household (the blue buckets you see in so many pictures) and talked to them about the center’s opening the next day.
Moriah, Kelsey, and Peter training the women.Abiba and Mariama!
Our opening day got off to a slow start. Due to another group’s taxi driver being arrested that morning our driver, Husla, and our translator/ project manager, Peter, were running an hour and a half late. Perhaps because we were rushing, perhaps because Husla just wanted dinner, we ran over a Guinea Fowl on the road to our village. In the name of mercy (which Kelsey still contests), Husla and Peter grabbed Mark’s knife, jumped out of the car, and ran back to kill the Guinea Fowl. By the time Peter and Hulsa got back to the car, both Moriah and Kelsey were screaming at the top of their lungs—Kelsey about the immorality of roadkill, Moriah because she has a deathly fear of birds and did not want a dead one sitting on her lap. The rest of the ride our team debated about the rights of animals vs. children when it comes to being hit by a car.
Mark and Kelsey in the taxi pre-Guinea Fowl incident.
The animal deaths that day did not end there— our team decided it was a good idea to bring a goat as a gift to the village and commemorate the opening of our water treatment center. In Ghana, though there are hundreds of goats running around, the slaughtering and eating of goats are very rare. Villages will do it only once or twice a year. Watching the villagers prepare the meal was a unique experience. Everyone on our team was affected by the sad noises the goat was making as he was tethered to a tree. He sort of sounded like a waling child to be honest. When they went to kill the animal Mark insists the goat sounded like he was screaming for help. We could choose to think of the experience as horrifying, but for those of us who are not vegetarians we found it was important to see exactly where our meals come from. Also the event was such a treat for the villagers, it is almost hard to feel bad for the death of the goat.
So many people came out!!Clean Water!!!!
The Ghanaians have some incredibly interesting techniques that make the most of the meat they are preparing. We looked over once and it seemed as though a villager was sucking the blood out of the goat’s leg, but he was actually blowing the goat up through an artery. By doing this, the meat of the goat would separate from the skin and could properly be prepared. When they finished cooking the meat they separated it into three portions, one very small portion was for our team, one was for the men, and one was for the women. The men had a feeding frenzy where the man holding the bowl was jumped on and the meat scattered everywhere. The women were more diplomatic in their distribution- Mariama and Abiba were in charge of handing out portions. Mark and Moriah took small pieces and gave the big ones to our translator and drivers.
Kelsey enjoyed dancing with the children!
All in all the day was a huge success. Children seemed to pop up out of nowhere and clung to the closest Salaminga (white person) and we danced and laughed all morning. The women were thrilled, the kids were entertained and the men…well the men were stoic. There was some live music, we listened to drums (Mark tried but he couldn’t seem to find the beat) and everyone was dancing. We ended up filling 24 buckets of water one for every household in the village! Seeing the women walking back to the village with their baby blue CWS buckets on their heads is an image none of us will forget.
Walking home with clean water!
Soon after, everyone seemed to get the memo saying it was Market time and the crowd cleared out. We cleaned up a bit, bid farewell to our women and headed home. We ended up stopping at Swad for a celebratory meal. Nothing says congratulations on opening a water treatment center like some authentic Chicken Curry! We went with another team and it was great to just sit back and bask in the pride we all shared for our villages.
All of us loved the children!Moriah and Kelsey with the children
Following every team’s opening we rented a bus and drove four hours south to some waterfalls. It was really fun to finally be able to sit back, relax, and actually try to soak up some sun. The scenery was gorgeous! Yesterday we worked hard to monitor the households in our village, and found that many households understood the concept of keeping their buckets and cups clean. There are others that we have found still need a little work. We had a problem today with our stand, Mariama and Abiba had filled the Polytank without the water completing it’s twenty-four hour Alum process. The result was turbid water in the Polytank. Discovering this was frustrating, but it is exactly why we have a week here after opening day to look after our village. Now we will be able to tell households that need work certain things they can do to keep up cleanliness, and we can insure that the women know exactly what they are doing when they treat the water.
Over all Team Six has been having a wonderful experience together and cannot wait to get back to Gbandu tomorrow!!
Team #5 (a.k.a. Team Global Pack a.k.a. Team AWESOME a.k.a. All Girls’ Team!)
After about a week of learning more of what CWS is all about, and the important processes that we will implement in new communities, the team finally was able to visit the new village for the first time. It is called Djelo (pronounced like the tasty Desert treat, Jello), and is about an hour to the east of where we are staying in Tamale.
Amin and Brittni sitting on top of the Jeep
The first time our team showed up was both exciting and a bit nerve-wracking. In this culture, it is important to first talk with the chief of the village that you are visiting to introduce yourselves and ask if they are interested in working with you. This way you know that the villagers will accept the help, and know what is coming. In any case, we searched for the chief, but he was traveling at the time, so we talked to the assistant chief, who gave us permission to go to the dugout to test their current water source. We then set up a time to talk with the chief the next day more about how we can work with them to provide sustainable clean water.
Though we were all expecting a really formal meeting, when we arrived on the second day, we were surprised in a couple ways:
a) The meeting was much more casual than we expected! The kids put together a low chair for the chief to sit in, and benches for the elders. We were not inside the chief’s hut, and by the time we really got into the discussion, a lot of the community was standing around listening, and even jumping in at times.
b) Some of the children were hanging out with the elders during the meeting! Our team has noticed that the kids in the villages are brought up in much more of a community fashion than we are used to in North America. In other similar cultures, the fathers and other male figure-heads are not necessarily very involved in the upbringing of the children, but in this case they were very willing to play with them and keep them company even in the context of a meeting with the chief and another organization.
c) Though it is a given that in these villages the animals have free range, it was not expected that they too voice their opinions on the matters at hand. During our meeting, one particular goat had very strong opinions, and was not afraid to share them. As hard as we tried, we couldn’t keep from laughing.
Once we had complete permission to go ahead with the CWS model, there was a dilemma that still needed to be solved. At this village (and others in the area), there are two dugouts. One is much closer to the village than the other, but is also smaller, and sometimes dries up in the peak of the dry season, so the villagers then use the dugout that is farther away. This brought up the dilemma of which dugout to put the implementation center. We asked the elders what they thought, and here are some highlights of their discussion:
a) They could put the center in the village itself so that they could take water from either dugout. The chief had some concerns with that though, because it would be a lot of work for the two women that actually run the center. He was worried that they would tire from it, and then maybe not even do it at all, which would negate the whole purpose of the project in the first place.
b) If they put the center at the small dugout, they said they were also willing to pay for and build a second Polytank stand by the other dugout if they thought it was necessary. With these two points discussed, they came to the conclusion of putting the original stand by the smaller, closer dugout that is used more often anyway.
Though they came to a great conclusion, there is still an interesting factor that stems from the second dugout. If the women and children, and the rest of the community that come to get the water have a second, dirty dugout with no implementation center at it, how do we keep them from using it anyway? This is a problem that the team will discuss with the villagers in the coming days, but is something that is hard to monitor. It is not a huge concern, however, because of the initial excitement that the village expressed about finally having clean water. One interesting thing that the elders said was that they used to think that people were getting sick from the water because their enemies were mad at them. Once the Guinea worm was eradicated, however, they now realize that it is the water itself that is making them sick, and not their enemies. With this realization, they know they can take control of the situation, and using clean water will make a difference for their health. Knowing that they have this understanding gives our team confidence that they will choose to use the clean water for drinking even though they still have access to a source of dirty dugout water.
The day after we got permission to begin the process, we brought the materials for the first steps and began building the Polytank stand. When we went with the masons to decide a good place to put it, the chief actually came to help! This was another unexpected, welcome surprise because some of the other elders followed him there too.
Masons building the Polytank stand
This was really cool because they got to see some of the process instead of sitting back and remaining uninvolved. While the masons were building with our help and the help of our wonderful translator, Amin, they were also joking around with each other. It was great to see how they interact on a regular basis, and not just within the context of a meeting. We were all expecting them to be the officials of the village, and completely serious all the time, but it was great to see their personalities come out a bit in a more casual setting.
We have learned a lot as a team, and look forward to getting to know the women, children, and other villagers better as we work more closely with them in the next steps of the process!
Our team after day 1 of building the poly tank stand (left to right, Krysta, Evan, Meagan, Mohammed, and Abby).
Naaaaa from Ghana, if you don’t know what that is it’s the response to just about everything here in Northern Ghana. We are team 3, made up of Evan from Virginia, Abby from Maine, Meagan from Indiana, and Krysta from Ohio. We have been matched up with our translator, Mohammed and our taxi driver, Nkatey (pronounced like Cartier) to implement CWS into the village of Yakura. It is about an hour drive from our home at GILLBT to our village.
Our first day in the village was Monday, June 11th. As we drove into Yakura for the first time, we could see the apprehension on everyone’s faces as we passed. “Who are these people? What are doing they doing here?” We met with the chief and elders for the first time and set up a community meeting for Tuesday.
The community meeting on Tuesday was wonderful. The entire village was enthralled at the prospect of having clean water. Meagan was our point person to talk to the chief. She explained the importance of clean water to maintain health and showed them the difference in 3M tests of the dugout water and clean, boiled water. Her speech was respectful, informative, and gracious. After the meeting, there was a jubilation dance. Women started bumping their butts against one another and got Abby, Krysta, and Meagan to join in. A man invited Evan to shake it out along with him. They took us to the location where they wanted to build stand: under some shade, next to the deeper dugout, and raised above the ground to keep from getting wet. The children came out and walked with us hand-in-hand while skipping along. Earlier before the meeting, we were teaching them children’s songs like “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and “Are You Sleeping.” Without asking them, the children started singing to Meagan with songs of their own. Communication extended beyond individual languages.
Wednesday we began building the stand for the polytank. In the morning, we could see a parade of men over the tall grass each carrying a block on their heads. There wasn’t a mason in the village and it was too expensive to hire one, so Mohammed mixed the cement and plastered them together.
Image Men of Yakura carrying blocks for building the polytank stand
Thursday we finished building the stand and collecting other materials. Soon we will start training the women and finish the building the treatment center. We hope to host opening day either Monday, June 18th or Tuesday, June 19th.
As a team we are excited to continue our progress and help the people of Yakura receive access to clean drinking water. Naa-oon-ni-tib-e-ow—God bless you.
We were super excited to start building the water treatment center today after there was so much excitement in the village of Jabayilli yesterday at the prospect of clean water. As we were driving in, a woman pointed at a water bottle full of clean clear water in Cameron’s lap and asked if she could have it for her baby. We knew that was a good sign!
As the villagers gathered around us and Matt began telling everyone what we were there for, their response was incredibly welcoming and receptive. After we passed around the results from the water samples we took from their dugout (pictured below), rumbling erupted among the crowd as they finally understood the reason they have been feeling so sick for so long.
Water sample from the Jabayilli dugout
Purchasing the necessary materials to build the water treatment center was quite an adventure; upon seeing a foreigner, the price mysteriously rose.
As the local stone mason helped us build the base of the water center, the elders managed and directed us from their comfortable seats on the hill, throwing in comments here and there on the strength of the women (apparently we would make excellent stone masons). As you can see from the photo below, Heidi was especially excited to be working with cement again after writing a 30-page lab report on the art of concrete.
Heidi with a trowel full of cement.Cameron playing with a kid from the village.Megan hard at work cementing the bricks for the base.Matt with a bucket full of dugout water.Our team with our indispensable translator, Nestor, after building day 1.
We are all looking forward to tomorrow morning when we will return to our village to complete construction of the polytank stand.
