Friday, June 19, 2009

Workshop Post III


Written by Tor Erickson on his four months building latrines with the Batwa.

Some of the names in this blog have been changed.

I.

I first met James in his native village of Kitariro in December, 2008. We spent two hours together, mapping out future sites of latrines and talking with families he had grown up around and known his entire life. James had been appointed by his fellow villagers to help me with the task of recording the names of those who were slated to receive a latrine as part of the Rotary 3H grant. They chose him because he could read and write, and also spoke a little English. On our first encounter he was focused and serious. I liked him instantly.

James checking for square.

The second time our paths crossed was during the construction of the Rotary project’s first latrine. Some of the work for the latrine was voluntary, and some of it was paid. By showing up regularly and working hard, James managed to secure one of the paid positions. Nearly every day for a month I worked alongside him digging, mixing and pouring concrete, tying together the wire armature that would form the frame for the latrine, and mixing and applying plaster to that armature. During this time he showed an impressive capacity to apply himself to the task at hand and an equal capacity to speak out on occasion as an advocate for himself and his fellow Batwa workers. When a problem arose, and others would turn sullen and walk away, James would step forward and say his part with an energy that spoke of an intense, inner passion.

The third and last time that we would have occasion to spend time together was in March, 2009, in the village of Bikuto, a tiny collection of mud and grass huts near the edge of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. This time James had been chosen in a democratic process by his village to represent them in a skills-building workshop that I would lead, the goal of which was to place Batwa in the positions of skilled laborers in the upcoming construction projects called for in the Rotary 3H grant.

The nature of my relationship with James had changed since the construction of the first latrine in his village. At that time, his role was that of a laborer and sometimes mason, and mine was that of foreman. Sol and I hoped that during the construction of that latrine, some of the technical skills involved would be picked up by the Batwa workers, James included, but our primary purpose at the time was to finish the project in the way that construction projects are approached in the United States: as fast and cheap as possible. Since then we had established a different set of priorities. Our plan was to take a step back so that we could find the best way forward in working with the Batwa community.

Now my interactions with James would occur in a classroom setting. Success would not be measured by completing a latrine on schedule, or coming in under budget, but instead would be based on the answer to one question: did James and his seven other classmates in the workshop learn the necessary skills to complete construction of a latrine without outside help? We had one month.

Tor going over technical drawings with the workshop members.

The concept of the Bikuto workshop had evolved in the working conditions of the first latrine we built in the month of January. That experience had raised some tough questions about our approach and the attitude of the Batwa towards the Rotary project. In particular, we were forced to ask how to gather community support for a project whose initial conception and planning were undertaken outside of the community. There probably is no easy answer to that question but we thought that a start might be greater community involvement in the implementation of the grant, even at the more advanced stage where we found ourselves. We came up with the workshop as one way to facilitate that involvement.

This was at the end of January. As Sol and I discussed whether or not to proceed with the workshop, a major factor was time. My trip to Uganda was originally supposed to last for two months, and my return ticket had been for February 8th. After a month in country I had changed that to April 8th, but this still left us with precious little time to organize and implement the workshop, especially when you considered the way in which we wanted to go about it.

Sol and I had agreed that the selection of the participants in the workshop had to be democratic. The alternative would have been for the two of us to arbitrarily nominate participants of our choice (subject to the consent of the participant, of course). This would have been time efficient, but we rightfully feared that it would be a continuation of the sort of arbitrary exercise of power that had led to our initial problems with community involvement. By contrast, a democratic process of participant nomination, involving as much of the wider community as possible, would necessarily increase community participation and hopefully spark a deeper community response than we had been achieving. But democratic processes take time, and we were working with four different villages. This meant we would have to meet several times with each settlement to discuss the project, its scope, its intended purpose, and its methods. We would then have to ask each community to elect two representatives to attend the workshop, which would require discussion and meetings on their part. And if they needed more time or had more questions, there wasn’t much we would be able to do to hurry the process without threatening its democratic nature.

All this had to take place in the month of February, so that the workshop could begin in March so that we could conclude it by the beginning of April, when I was set to return to the States. February was a very busy month.

For weeks Sol and I traveled every day, sometimes together and sometimes apart. In the village of Kabyorwa we met with the Batwa in a circle underneath an emaciated shade tree. In Byumba it was on a patch of grass in the shadow of the newly constructed school. In Bikuto we perched on a bench on the edge of a ravine and in Kitariro I met with the assembled village in the carpenter’s shed. In each community we explained our plans and asked for feedback. In meetings that could last for three hours we brought first one, and then another, and then all four villages on board, each with the promise that they would choose workers by the end of the month, in time for the first day of class. On March 1st, one day before class was set to start, I didn’t know of one single person who would definitely be there. I honestly showed up the first day simply hoping that there would be someone to teach.

Meeting held in the community of Kitariro. The women insisted on weaving their baskets while we talked.


II.

In all the time that I knew him, I saw James wear only two sets of clothes. The first was for everyday and work wear. It consisted of a pair of shorts, flip-flops, a collared, short-sleeved, knit shirt buttoned to the top, and an impossibly battered and faded red hat. He wore these clothes day in and day out, whether we were sitting in our makeshift classroom discussing fractions or pouring concrete in the baking, equatorial sun. The clothes were always clean.

His second outfit I saw only once. It was for formal occasions. It consisted of dark blue-jeans, lace-up leather shoes, and a crisp, new t-shirt. This is what he was wearing on the day he showed up for class. He shook my hand and then went to change into his work clothes.

The workshop was based on a simple premise. If we challenged and engaged the Batwa with something they judged to be worthwhile then they would respond by taking the initiative and applying themselves. The concept of ‘engagement’ was critical to our effort. Anybody who has worked in a job they didn’t care about knows what lack of engagement feels like, and anybody who has done work they care about deeply knows what it is to be fully engaged. You can’t force engagement, you can’t buy it with money and the only way I know how to measure it is in a conversation or by the look in someone’s eyes. And yet if we weren’t able to engage the Batwa we had the overwhelming feeling that our work in Uganda might produce some temporary changes in living conditions, but would leave the Batwa as a people no better off and perhaps even worse than before we had arrived.

The first day of class, it rained. Half of the total class was waiting for me when I showed up at 8:30 and I nervously hoped the rest would arrive soon (sure enough, by mid-morning the next day, we had a full complement of eight students). We crowded into the mud and grass hut of Bunan, a young man of 17 with movie star looks and an ever present sense of humor that was so soft and understated that an hour might pass before you realized he had been making a joke for your benefit. Hunched together in a room smaller than a walk-in closet I pulled out my tape measure while five sets of eyes followed my movements with interest. “This is a tape measure,” I said. “Has anyone used one of these before?” I waited for a moment for the translator, Philemon, to repeat the words in Rukiga. Five heads shook back and forth, no, none of them had. I swallowed. “Okay, well, today we’re going to learn how to use one. A tape measure tells you how long something is in feet and inches. This is an inch. And this is a foot.”

When the rain finally stopped and we emerged from Bunan’s hut, blinking at the light outside, we had spent over two hours in an abstract world of numbers. During that time everybody held the tape measure, everybody took turns reading it, and everyone measured something, again and again. Nobody wandered off, nobody took a nap, and there were no side conversations.

Bunan working on his tape measure skills.

The next day we set about building our classroom. I had spent many long nights thinking about this, and finally concluded that the workshop was going to fail miserably if we weren’t able to erect a shelter to keep the tropical rains off of us and our work. March 1st marked the first day of the rainy season, and we expected to receive torrential downpours every single day we were working in Bikuto. I had conceived of a shelter made from locally available eucalyptus poles and plastic tarpaulins, but the specifics were hazy.

It was early morning, and all but one of the workshop participants had shown up. Everyone was milling around in an excited group, making connections with friends and relatives from different villages that they hadn’t seen in some time. “Okay, everybody, listen up,” I said. Conversation slowly ground to a halt and the group turned to face me. “We need to build a shelter,” I said. “With these.” I pointed to the poles. “And these.” The tarpaulins. There was a long moment of silence, people seemed to be waiting for me to say something else. I had no idea what that might be. “Now?” I suggested.

They exchanged looks, and finally Simon, one of the students from Bikuto, said, “We need tools.” We had tools. They needed nails. We had nails. They needed ladders. We built ladders.

An hour later I stood back and watched as eight Batwa men attacked construction on their new classroom, setting poles, hammering in cross beams, and dragging tarps onto the rafters. And from the top of a precarious, homemade tripod ladder, James led the way, hammer in hand, pocket full of spikes, working with a focus and ferocity that spilled over onto his fellows.

I began to feel hopeful.


III.

I’m not sure what it was specifically that caused James to excel in the workshop. Certainly a part of it was that he had at least a year of high school education, whereas most of the others hadn’t made it past third or fourth grade. And certainly part of it was that he was gifted with a natural intelligence and curiosity. He remembered things after being told one time, and if he didn’t understand a concept you could watch him working it over in his head, trying to sort it out until it made sense. And part of James’s success was due to his leadership abilities. Again and again the others would turn to him as a spokesman for their concerns or problems, and on any given project he would naturally take the lead, moving the others to their positions with short, snapped commands that grew quickly angry if he felt his performance standards weren’t being met, and then calm down just as quickly when they were . But I never saw this produce resentment or lead to a fight, and any crew James was working on produced the most efficient and cleanest results. I think his success was dependent on all of those things but none of them explained it completely. At least one other in the class had as much education as he did, and in the final exam that I administered, James finished second in both technical and verbal skills (first would go to James’s friend and neighbor, Godfrey, who aced the test with a grace and ease that left me choked up with pride). Instead, what it might have been, the common thread that extended through all of his work, was that James would invest himself in whatever it was that he applied himself to.

James had a habit when he was working of holding one hand, fist loosely folded, tucked just above the small of his back. To watch him he could have been a British gentleman out for a stroll, or the image that came to mind more often, an artist at work on his easel. With the other hand he would hold his mortar trowel or set of pliers and do the work in front of him. From time to time he would step back and appraise his progress. Whereas most of the others talked constantly while they worked, telling jokes and stories, or complaining about the factors in life that created hardship, James worked in almost complete silence. It wasn’t that he wasn’t personable, or enjoyed conversation. At lunchtime I could often hear his voice rising above the others in a tale about this or that, stories that usually ended in a cacophonous riot of laughter. Instead, I believe his silence at work showed a deep focus on the task at hand.

James in his Red hat standing next to Godfrey in his red shirt and Beth, our translator.

I could walk away for an hour and return to the jobsite and without a doubt point to the area where James had been working. The wire was tighter, the wire ties neater, the mortar smoother and more evenly applied, the concrete better compacted. This kind of attention, which is actually the ability to see oneself reflected in the products of one’s hands, cannot be taught, it can at best only be nurtured.

Teaching the workshop was exhausting and demanding. We had so little time, and there was so much to learn, that I pushed my students to the limits of what I thought they could take, mentally and physically. We would work as long as we could bear it in our open-sided classroom and then when the collective brain had reached its maximum level of saturation and attention began to wander, we would turn to back-breaking physical labor for a break. The raw materials involved in our latrines were sand, rock, cement, and water, and we carried all of those things again and again and again. I watched a 100 pound man sling a 120 pound sack of cement onto his head and jog with it up and down a valley. We raced with bags of sand and jerry cans of water. And when the day called for digging, the class fell to it with a vigor and determination that I was hard-pressed to match.

And then when our bodies were exhausted, we would sit down again in the shade of our classroom and return to the abstract concepts of square, and straight, and plumb.

The steep hillsides of Bikuto added greatly to the physical challenge of carrying 100 lb sacks of cement, sand, and gravel.

Some days were better than others. Some days I would struggle with and fail to get past what I thought would be one, tiny concept, and some days the attention of the class would be so scattered that we would simply drop everything and devote the day to work with a wheelbarrow and shovel. I had plenty of time to reflect back on teachers in my past, many of whom I had shared with Sol, and their infinite patience in dealing with us students day in and day out.

But then there would be days where the work flowed, and the students would jump to the next task, seizing initiative and leadership for themselves, taking the chalk from my fingers and drawing their own diagrams on the board to clarify the concept of fractions. I learned to live for those days and simply grit my teeth and bear it on the others.

Workshopers crowd around to get a look at one of Tor's teaching points.

And over time, the lessons started to catch on. Mixing concrete to a given ratio, measuring to within a quarter inch with a tape measure, building the wire armature for our ferrocement floors and walls, correctly placing steel reinforcement in the foundation, explaining the effect of water on concrete and mortar mixes, and, most difficult of all, precisely laying out the perfectly square perimeter of a foundation with stakes and mason’s line. Not everyone got everything, and there were some students who were clearly excelling: Godfrey and James from Kitariro, Bunan from Bikuto, and Christopher from Byumba, but as a group they began to consistently demonstrate the ability to complete tasks on their own. I took on the habit of splitting the class into two groups, leaving one to erect the plywood forms for the walls, or stretch wire mesh over the floor armature, while I worked on technical skills with the second group, and invariably when we went to check on the first we would find work progressing beautifully.

Kenneth, Tinfayo, and Bunan (from left to right) marking the depth that the concrete should be poured for the footing of a latrine .

I couldn’t help but notice that when I wasn’t around they were starting to perform more efficiently and produce better results than when I was. I could only assume that without me present they were tackling the problems on their own without relying on me as a motivational spur.

This was the best possible news we could hope for as after four short weeks of class I would leave Bwindi and any information or skills that I had failed to pass on would leave with me.


IV.

Christopher (Tofa) honing his skills with the square.

In the end there was a test. The test was a comprehensive review of everything we had covered in the past month. It had a technical, skills-based section that covered items like wire-tying, testing soil for its ability to support a structure, and laying out a foundation. The test also had a verbal section that asked the participants to name the four ingredients of concrete and to explain the function of wire mesh in ferrocement.

Passing the test meant a pay raise and a job working on future Rotary projects. Failing meant a handshake and a thank you. This decision, to make failure an option, was perhaps the most difficult choice we had to make going into the workshop. Our final decision was based on two factors. First, making failure a distinct possibility would give a greater sense of importance to the work in the class. The second factor arose from a practical standpoint. It was possible that Sol would be working with these people for a long time to come, and if they were unable to competently and efficiently perform the work he needed it would inevitably lead to problems. Better to confront the issue now, up front.

Administering the exam took just over nine hours. I met with one student at a time in the shade of our tarpaulin classroom. In attendance over the course of the day were a growing number of guests. The only thing we asked of a guest was that they participate in the exam by acting as an assistant to the student, holding the end of a tape measure or pulling on a sheet of wire mesh. The mood of the day was focused, but not somber. Bunan answered questions with the same ease and intelligence that he had exhibited for the past four weeks. Godfrey demonstrated a stunning competence and knowledge. James was so nervous and determined to do well that we stopped halfway through to take a break where he could take a few deep breaths.

For some of the others, it was more of a struggle. Those who had demonstrated a high level of engagement through the workshop saw it reflected in their performance on the exam. For those whose attention had been elsewhere, or who tended to take a backseat while their fellows did the lion’s share of the work or answered or asked most of the questions, the test didn’t go so well.

Of the eight students in the class, four passed. We informed people of their scores in the same way we had tested them, one at a time in a private talk. Sol delivered the news, but simply sitting there and observing when he informed those who hadn’t passed of the results was a gut-wrenching experience. Likewise, for those who had done well feelings of pride and happiness on my part were enough to bring tears to my eyes. As I tried to congratulate James on passing and explain in just a few short sentences what I thought his potential was, I was forced to stop a number of times as my emotions threatened to overwhelm. He watched me, his face an unreadable mask, nodded when I had finished, and turned around to walk away without a word before I chased him down to shake his hand. If all goes well, these will be the men to lead the Rotary construction efforts in Southwest Uganda.

It remains to be seen whether the workshop will produce the results we desired. In my time in Uganda I learned that community ownership of a project can be an elusive thing to catch. For now my hopes rest with four talented, young men, one of them wearing a battered and sun-weathered, red baseball cap.





Tor smiling for the camera and contemplating a sequel to his adventure in Uganda!