Disenchanted

The first time I came to Macha (a small village in Zambia), I came away feeling enchanted. It was the first place I had travelled to outside of my placement location in Lusaka, and by that point my built up perception of Africa was plummeting. You know how the grass always looks greener on the other side? Well Lusaka doesn’t even have grass, and Macha was abundant with it… even in the dry season. I walked along the red dirt roads with the sun on my face and flowers blooming around me and I felt instantly at peace. I belonged here, and it seemed torturous to have to leave it to return to the congested, noisy, walled in city of Lusaka.

So how is it that fast forward 5 months, I’m speeding down that same dirt road in Macha trying not to yell a profanity as I’m clutching my skirt in one hand and sweating profusely, trying to navigate along the winding paths to find the Peace Club that I was an hour late for? Was it just me, or did things look much bleaker this time?

During my first visit back in October, I came down to attend the opening of Francis Davidson School’s girls hostel opening. As I sat in on the celebrating and speeches, it felt like the epitome of development work done right. This project came from a great need voiced by local families, the funds were appropriated to the right people, and the building of the hostel was done through community effort. The girls who were in most need of a place to safe place to stay were getting their chance at a proper education by being taken out of broken homes and putting them in a conducive learning environment. It truly was a beautiful story.

The problem was that I only came for the end result of all this. I didn’t get to see the behind the scenes work of what it took to build the dormitory brick by brick. I didn’t see the people who were responsible for deciding which girls were most in need of a place to stay. The blueprints, the stress, the anxious moments of “will this actually pull through?” were left from my sight. To me, change looked so attainable, and I was excited to celebrate the end result without having to dig my feet in further.

But my task during my second trip was a little bit less inspirational. As a Coordinator for Peace Clubs in Southern Province, my job also requires me to check in on the peace clubs that we don’t get to observe very frequently living a 5 hours drive away. But still drenched in that enchantment of my first visit, I rode into Macha with an undeniable eagerness. Ready to see peace work in action, I called up the schools to set up appointments.

To my discovery, not only were none of the Peace Clubs running, but the teachers weren’t even willing to meet with me to discuss why. On top of that, the weekend training session I had organized was cancelled on account of an important “sporting event” that every teacher forgot to mention to me when me and my boss had arranged it with them weeks prior. With each excuse given, my heart sank a little more. “Do they even know how much work and stress and money went into planning this trip? What’s the point of even being here if they don’t even care?” I felt useless. And in with my anger came one of the most stressful weeks of my term to date.

Although I try my best to live in that laid back “African time” “things-just-didn’t-go-according-to-plan” mindset, I can’t deny that I am first and foremost a result- oriented Westerner. I couldn’t let this slide, so I quickly became the determined little Mazungu biking around the windy back paths of Macha, hunting teachers down in their homes and desperately trying to find answers. I pulled out all the inspirational messages of encouragement as I sat down with them, and bit my tongue as I heard non-convincing responses to why their peace clubs weren’t active. I walked away many times feeling defeated and tired, but picked myself up the next day to do it all over again.

From my experience in Macha, I am beginning to think that the problem with development work is that it too often skims the surface of issues and gives off the impression that everything is fixable. We hand pick the stories that donors would find heart warming, and in doing so we give a distorted picture of the work it takes for things to be successful. It leaves out the story of me running around Macha, meeting unwilling teachers in their homes and coming away feeling discouraged. Maybe things will change after my week, or maybe they wont, but something tells me that telling a potential donor that no peace club is running in Macha would not make them want to jump in and fund our organization.

I don’t want it to sound like my year in SALT has turned me into one giant pessimist, because that is far from true. For every story I have of disappointing development work, I have a handful of other stories from students and teachers who have been deeply impacted by the work of Peace Clubs. But while I hold onto those stories, I take off my rose tinted glasses... understanding that those success stories don’t always happen over night. Though it would be easier to sit up in the Lusaka Peace Clubs office all day and mindlessly believe that all peace clubs are well on their way, we are doing a greater injustice to the organization in the long run by not getting the full story.  The optimistic side of me will never fade in believing that exposing failure becomes an opportunity to get messy and grapple with issues on the ground. Though it is much less glamourous, they become a part of the stepping stones required for those success stories to take place. In ten years I hope to come back to Zambia and see Peace Clubs in Southern province alive and kicking, knowing that it came from all those "what am I doing here moments" :)