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Reality Crawls
by Tanya Conlu
“You’re still there?!?” was the incredulous response from fellow volunteers who had gone home before me when I emailed them greetings from Nigeria.
I landed myself the most remote and forlorn placement in the country, tasked to promote sustainable livelihoods to a forest-dependent community. While the thought of volunteering for a primate conservation NGO in the middle of a rainforest in Africa sounded very romantic, I had to contend with the realities of living in a place without electricity, piped water, decent meat and vegetable supply, and cellphone signal. Simply existing in such a desolate area took up most of my time, from gathering water to cooking with a kerosene stove, washing in a dirty stream, and chasing lizards away from my bedroom.
The greatest challenge, however, laid in instigating change in my community, and this had been my greatest frustration. Though I appreciated their respect for my staying, I always envied other volunteers who were very productive and who seemed to be making great waves in their placements. Everyone else was always busy with work, whereas I was mostly staring at the trees around my village, waiting for my target beneficiaries to come back from their farms. I was dealing with people who went to farm all day for five days a week. During the two days they were around, there were a million other more important things like making palm oil, braiding hair, selling farm produce, and attending church service. I was at a loss as to how to start my projects, since I couldn’t even gather people for meetings. I resorted to house visits, but this was slow, inefficient and energy-draining. Little did I know that slow, inefficient and energy-draining would be my catch phrase for the next two years. It took me some time to get used to the Nigerian way of (not) getting things done.
A few months after my arrival I realized I had to change my “success indicators”, redefine my goals, and start from scratch. The cooperatives I thought were already in existence still had to be formed, and in a society where trust and cooperation were foreign concepts. Used to a you-are-white-therefore-obliged-to-give-me-money mentality from colonial times, nobody was willing to invest any counterpart in the projects I wanted to start. Gone was the stakeholder approach I was shooting for. I also had to skirt around gender and leadership issues, which the traditional chiefs were very touchy about. None of my past experiences ever prepared me for how “unready” my community was for the dreams I had for them. In the end, it was I who had to constantly adjust. I had to reshape my project, change my perspectives and even compromise my values, taking into consideration their culture, their needs, and the level at which they were prepared to accept change. Every small step was a great feat, and I wouldn’t say I found the formula to be effective, but I managed to scrape my way and get a community development programme going. I started small groups and individuals with snail farming, one of the simplest farms to manage, to introduce the concept of animal domestication as opposed to hunting for bushmeat. I gave the youth equal opportunities at a chance to train for vocational skills, a revolutionary method against the traditional appointments by the chiefs. I reorganized a community-based group, injecting participatory and gender-sensitive approaches. I urged the women to think for themselves instead of leaving all the decisions to the men, and also tried to get men and women to work together.
Countless times, particularly when I almost broke my neck trying to carry water the African way (on top of the head), or when, for the sake of being acculturated, I had to down several shots of palm gin at six a.m. town meetings, I would think of simply walking out and flying home. Why persist in wasting my time for people who don’t want to be progressive? I was most surprised that while things were still happening slowly, the days were getting too fast towards the end of my term. I still don’t know what it was that made me determined to stay. Sometimes I think it could have been just the difficulty of getting out of that village!
On hindsight, although my livelihoods project probably didn’t take off as I had wanted, I probably shook the foundations of their culture and beliefs more than I had realized. It would be nice to think it was all worth it, but progress as I previously knew it crawls at a chameleon’s pace in my Nigerian village. The best I could hope for is that I’ve started people thinking that yes, life could be better. For two years I seemed to be banging my stubborn head against the hard wall, but I sure hope I made a dent.
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