Work Progress Report, Month One

9/23/07

From reading this blog, you may get the impression we are spending most of our time trying to adapt and survive in our new village. This is mostly true, but we also have a Peace Corps job to justify the use of taxpayer dollars. Our job title comes under the rubric of “Village Development”.

Our village, Iva, has requested in their application for a Peace Corps that we work with four main village groups, under the authority of the village mayor (pulenu’u) who is also the head of our host family. The groups are:

Taule’ale’a or untitled men. These are men who are out of school and who primarily do the physical work of the village, mostly on the plantations.

They want to provide the labor to build e new 14 room primary school on a large tract of land near the secondary school. The Village Council committed to provide 25% of the cost for school building materials.

Our job is to assist the village in getting the funds for the remaining 25% of the materials and 100% of the funds to construct a 2,100 security fence around the school. So far, no formal applications have been submitted.

Autalavou or village youth. This group is unmarried with a wide range in ages from very young to older, some with children.

They want to teach computer skills to the youth, especially the older youth who are unemployed and have dropped out of school. They hope computer skills will help them get a job.

The village currently has access to no computers, nor to anyone with knowledge of computers to teach even fundamental word processing. The only computers in the village are located in a beautiful facility at the secondary school, where there are no computer classes, no internet, and limited access to computer lab for students. The computer in the principle’s office sits covered with a cloth. The computer lab was funded by a grant.

Women’s Committee. This is the second most powerful group consisting of married women, with some unmarried mothers.

They want sewing machines so village women can make their own clothes and avoid buying them at the store. They need some one to teach them how to use a sewing machine, and they need land to construct a building to house the machines and hold classes.

At present, no funds or site exist.

Village Council. This is the most powerful group that has decision making power over all other groups. It consists entirely of 130 titled people (Matai’s, Orators, and Chiefs). All are men, except one woman.

We have yet to meet with a council representative. They say because of language difficulties. Their Peace Corps application states a need to manage the mangrove trees and find uses for the hundreds of acres of unused farm land. I sense there are other unstated projects.

Maybe we can meet with a representative to get a better handle of their requests.

Miscellaneous Requests: We have been approached by individuals asking for money to mainly re-establish farms and lifestyles destroyed by the two major cyclones (hurricanes) of the early 1990’s. Since we are Americans, ergo millionaires, their requests seem quite reasonable to them.

Each group and individuals within these groups have their own agendas. We have been trying to meet with these groups and their leaders to learn more about them, and try to understand how we may assist.

With all these requests, the villagers are slowly getting over the fact that we are not coming with money. Our job is to help the villagers find ways they can help themselves, either by applying to the government or NGO’s for grants, or to find ways to finance their projects. This is a difficult concept in a subsistence economy where the primary source of government funding is foreign aid and primary source of income for families is from remittances of family members working overseas.