Dear Community of Solaite,
I've been coming to your community for over a year now. You've wanted a water system for quite some time. Initially, you rebuffed my ideas about forming a water committee and collecting funds from within the community. After all, I was white. Why couldn't I just bring the tubes already? Then, little by little, you bought into "the process". Maybe it was my visiting multiple times, explaining the same thing over and over again. Maybe it was that I never brought tubes.
You formed a water committee by holding elections. Then we had training. Your committee learned how to manage funds and make receipts, not a small feat considering the most educated adults in Solaite have an equivalent education of an average middle-class first grader back in the US.
Then you collected funds, each time asking if it was enough for me to start soliciting money from afuera. I told you it was about "the process", that I need to show potential donors that you were organized and ready for the project.
I felt ashamed. It was all so paternalistic. And "the process" took so long that there reached a point where I knew it was too late to start a project during my time here. But each month I would still show up while you collected your $0.50 from each home.
A few months ago we decided that having your own volunteer would be best. I couldn't devote enough time to the community. Shortly thereafter, my boss told me that you live too far away to have a volunteer, that Peace Corps Global is tightening up volunteer safety and security, that my site was already a stretch, that Peace Corps sites are going to be increasingly vanilla. I haven't told you this until now, my dark secret in a letter you'll never receive.
Last week we went over the guide to request a volunteer for your community. I answered questions and pretended everything was fine. I'm not proud of this. The thing is, so few people show signs of hope out here. Your enthusiasm is a powerful drug.
We collected funds. You've raised over $60!!! While that won't even come close to buying materials for an aqueduct, it does send a powerful message of what a committed community can do. You gleamed with pride. I emphasized the fact that this was all your money, without any outside help.
Then you started talking in Ngabere. I could generally follow that you were talking about buying tubes for the aqueduct. Maybe you chose to speak in Ngabere because you didn't want me to know that you were tired of waiting. Perhaps you didn't want me to know that you thought my talk was cheap, my ideals BS, my paternalism complete rubbish.
How could you know that I would cherish the thought of you taking the initiative to buy your own materials? How could you know that's exactly what I wanted all along? How could you know?
Fondly,
Oti Grabu
