Gettin' Some Community Action

This morning, Duncan, Judith and I went to the PHCC to meet with some previously trained Village Health guys to talk about forming a community health group to be established and run by local people with our support.  As was the case with the women's group, its incredibly difficult to organize something like that within a community of people who have had public goods provided in an emergency relief situation.  It doesn't help that in a place where we are wondering if it is ready for ox-powered agriculture or not, basic needs are still so pressing that people need food before they are willing to talk about organizing for things such as a community education program.  And many are not getting it.  Likewise, its difficult to organize a of individuals to become  the primary stakeholders in a group and are willing to take ownership and leadership in its management and direction, especially on a volunteer basis.  After decades of direct relief during the war, the transition from relief to development is, at times, unbearably challenging.  But you have to start somewhere, even if its with a defunct community group.  The objective is to organize a group of core individuals who will in turn lead the mobilization of a larger group--family, village etc.--and give them the support necessary such that the program is sustainable without the direct management by an NGO.  It is not to directly provide the services or goods themselves.  That way, when the NGO packs up and leaves, those services or goods can be provided sustainably by the local community.  Or so the theory goes.

From there, I had afternoon English class.  Lot's of "I am Bret" "He is Titus" "He is happy" "She is not sad" and the like.  We also played a few games with flashcards of animals and vegetables.  We had a 10 minute diversion over whether or not there is cabbage in Pagak.  The best part of class was, though that I found a Sudanese guy who is pretty good at English and starting tomorrow will teach the class with me.  I hope that if we can get him in front of the class teaching, he can maybe take over for me when I leave.  It also still leaves me with about six weeks for crash course teacher training and plenty of time to come up with a curriculum for absolute beginners and the necessary materials for such a course.

I rode the good feelings on over to the NCDS compound where Judith was having her youth group meeting for a social marketing piece on the importance of education.  The discussion went fine and I was feeling good until the session started to wind down.  One of the guys about my age had said during the discussion that he was willing to come to these sorts of programs and support them because while he was living in Ethiopia he had to go to school barefoot and without supplies.  Sometimes he just wouldn't go.  Eventually a Catholic organization gave him shoes and school supplies and he seems to have a sincere desire to work with local groups on community improvement.  Pretty groovy.  Until he pulled me aside afterwards and asked me if I could find him some glasses because he really needed them.  How do you respond to that?  There are a lot of great groups that collect used glasses donations and ships them to areas around the world where they are needed.  Unite for Sight provides people in developing areas with free eye exams and corrective surgery.  I had to tell him that I just don't have any glasses but that I would look into some things and get back to him tomorrow.  I thought maybe there is an organization or something that I could contact and while I couldn't get anything to him per se, maybe we could work something out in the future for the rest of the community.  The sad reality is that even if there were a supply of glasses ready to be distributed and sitting in Juba, the only way to get anything into Pagak is via a $3000 charter flight from Juba or via Addis Ababa and a punishing overland trip across Ethiopia.  Sudan's infrastructure is just so poor that even something like eye glasses will remain unavailable in Upper Nile for quite some time.  

In Cambodia, these things really wore me down.  I remember the girl who would learn your name and then find you everyday to ask for just a little bit of money.  Over the years I've become a bit hardened to people asking me for things or perhaps just desensitized.  But still, on days like today, somebody asks me for a pair of glasses and I find myself down, brooding in the dark somewhere and sad for what I will have to tell him tomorrow.  He took a piece of paper at the end of the meeting and mentioned something about writing me a letter.  I hope for my own sake that I misheard him.  But I know that is probably not the case.