Shortly after coming into the village, we went and met with the village leader and school headmaster to get a sense of their priorities and what we can do to help them. After an hour of discussions, translations and questions this is what we understood they need:
1) A fence is their top priority. They need it to keep cows, goats and more from entering the school yard and to stop motorcycles from cutting across the front garden. This being the space where all the kids are running around playing (generally barefoot), you don't want there to be cow dung everywhere nor do you want the space to be dangerous due to speeding motorcycles. They said that if we think it would be possible, this is what they really need.
2) They also had a fairly new water pump that they had installed... but it was broken. Currently they are using the pump of the house next door, but they wanted to see if it could be fixed. But that's not something a group of teenagers can do, that was just a matter of calling someone to come fix it.
3) They need about ten more desks (they are wooden tables with seats attached) in order to be able to seat all their students. If we get them these, they have to be painted as well.
4) They also need about three more chalkboards so that each class could have one.
5) They have also been accumulating some books over the years, but they have nowhere to put them; they are currently in piles on the classroom floors, taking up quite a bit of space. So, they need about three more bookshelves to hold all the ones they have. If we get them these, they have to be painted as well.
6) Finally, they said that they would always also appreciate school supplies including notebooks, pens and so on.
Clearly, the fence was what they needed most, our only problem with building that for them was that we might not be able to finish it in time; we only have about 5 days and that can be a pretty long process. The school's yard is a rectangle with the front and back being about 55 metres long and the sides being 70 metres long... 5 days... will we be able to? We don't want to just start something we couldn't finish and oblige the next Rustic Pathways group to finish it. (The whole reason that we chose this program over others is because we get to develop the service project ourselves, and if we start something they have to finish, then we kind of took that away from them). But then we realised that it was the needs of the community over whether or not the next group chooses their own project. It's more important that they get what they need and we hope that the next group will agree. So fence it is!
Then, it was between a brick wall and a barbed wire fence; those were the two options that the village superiors were talking about. We all agreed that sustainability was key, so we all said brick wall because it will last the longest. But then, we switched to barbed wire because we found out, from one of the men we were meeting with, that they can also last about 10 years if the posts are durable. It seemed better as well since that way we could get more of it done. We were all set on the idea until we realised how stupid that was... a barbed wire surrounding a school full of 160 running children... that's far from safe. Also, how depressing is that? Our brilliant idea would end up being bad for the kids' morality.
We kept brainstorming and moved to the possibility of still building the posts like we were planning to, but instead of connecting it with barbed wire, connecting it with netting. We build a standard net fence. That seems like the best option.
It was important for us to remember, though, that we are working with them, not for them. So, we sat down and talked strategy, cost and more with the people from the village. We made a supply list, some diagrams and an estimate cost. Now that all that's done, it looks like our goal is to do the fence for one side down the school (70 metres) with about 46 posts 1.5 metres from the ground up, dug 1 foot into the ground about 1.5 metres apart and then stringing the netting across those posts. That's what we will be aiming to finish. We also want to do some interactive work: things that we can do with the kids. So, for that, we were thinking about getting tables or bookshelves (whichever we can afford) and painting them with the village children. By the end of tomorrow we will see how we are doing and if any hidden costs come up and if they don't and we still have enough budget ($300-500 is our total) then we will buy chalkboards, shelves and/or tables and then work on those. (Hopefully we will be able to).
As for the water pump, that's quite expensive and takes a huge part, if not all, of our budget. So, we are going to sit down and see what we can do about that. Maybe it can be something that we fundraise for during the year or something else like that. We will have to see.
What I learned from this last part is to not spend the entire budget right off from the start in case other things come up or we're building and we realise we're missing items or whatever else. I also learned to look at things from different angles: we never even considered the safety issues with a barbed wire fence until somebody else mentioned it. In addition, I realised that things may take a little longer than what you would expect due to the language barrier and the time that it takes everyone to translate and understand the same thing. If I got so much out of our first 2 hours in the village, I am interested to see what will happen next.
LM
1) A fence is their top priority. They need it to keep cows, goats and more from entering the school yard and to stop motorcycles from cutting across the front garden. This being the space where all the kids are running around playing (generally barefoot), you don't want there to be cow dung everywhere nor do you want the space to be dangerous due to speeding motorcycles. They said that if we think it would be possible, this is what they really need.
2) They also had a fairly new water pump that they had installed... but it was broken. Currently they are using the pump of the house next door, but they wanted to see if it could be fixed. But that's not something a group of teenagers can do, that was just a matter of calling someone to come fix it.
3) They need about ten more desks (they are wooden tables with seats attached) in order to be able to seat all their students. If we get them these, they have to be painted as well.
4) They also need about three more chalkboards so that each class could have one.
5) They have also been accumulating some books over the years, but they have nowhere to put them; they are currently in piles on the classroom floors, taking up quite a bit of space. So, they need about three more bookshelves to hold all the ones they have. If we get them these, they have to be painted as well.
6) Finally, they said that they would always also appreciate school supplies including notebooks, pens and so on.
Clearly, the fence was what they needed most, our only problem with building that for them was that we might not be able to finish it in time; we only have about 5 days and that can be a pretty long process. The school's yard is a rectangle with the front and back being about 55 metres long and the sides being 70 metres long... 5 days... will we be able to? We don't want to just start something we couldn't finish and oblige the next Rustic Pathways group to finish it. (The whole reason that we chose this program over others is because we get to develop the service project ourselves, and if we start something they have to finish, then we kind of took that away from them). But then we realised that it was the needs of the community over whether or not the next group chooses their own project. It's more important that they get what they need and we hope that the next group will agree. So fence it is!
Then, it was between a brick wall and a barbed wire fence; those were the two options that the village superiors were talking about. We all agreed that sustainability was key, so we all said brick wall because it will last the longest. But then, we switched to barbed wire because we found out, from one of the men we were meeting with, that they can also last about 10 years if the posts are durable. It seemed better as well since that way we could get more of it done. We were all set on the idea until we realised how stupid that was... a barbed wire surrounding a school full of 160 running children... that's far from safe. Also, how depressing is that? Our brilliant idea would end up being bad for the kids' morality.
We kept brainstorming and moved to the possibility of still building the posts like we were planning to, but instead of connecting it with barbed wire, connecting it with netting. We build a standard net fence. That seems like the best option.
It was important for us to remember, though, that we are working with them, not for them. So, we sat down and talked strategy, cost and more with the people from the village. We made a supply list, some diagrams and an estimate cost. Now that all that's done, it looks like our goal is to do the fence for one side down the school (70 metres) with about 46 posts 1.5 metres from the ground up, dug 1 foot into the ground about 1.5 metres apart and then stringing the netting across those posts. That's what we will be aiming to finish. We also want to do some interactive work: things that we can do with the kids. So, for that, we were thinking about getting tables or bookshelves (whichever we can afford) and painting them with the village children. By the end of tomorrow we will see how we are doing and if any hidden costs come up and if they don't and we still have enough budget ($300-500 is our total) then we will buy chalkboards, shelves and/or tables and then work on those. (Hopefully we will be able to).
As for the water pump, that's quite expensive and takes a huge part, if not all, of our budget. So, we are going to sit down and see what we can do about that. Maybe it can be something that we fundraise for during the year or something else like that. We will have to see.
What I learned from this last part is to not spend the entire budget right off from the start in case other things come up or we're building and we realise we're missing items or whatever else. I also learned to look at things from different angles: we never even considered the safety issues with a barbed wire fence until somebody else mentioned it. In addition, I realised that things may take a little longer than what you would expect due to the language barrier and the time that it takes everyone to translate and understand the same thing. If I got so much out of our first 2 hours in the village, I am interested to see what will happen next.
LM
