Big-Mac-with-fries-coke-yes-I-will-go-large-please-and-four-more-sachets-of-bbq-sauce-please being bad for you; estate agents; and Donald Trump's hair.
But where
will it lead, this capacity of ours to normalise the unfamiliar and even the
bizarre? Our meek acquiescence, for instance, drip by drip and drop for drop,
to pay more for rain than for milk? I imagine a conversation in Starbucks, a
generation hence:
Me:
Good morning!
Robot:
Good morning
surprisingly-not-yet-dead Laurence Wood of Bide-a-Wee Incontinence Village,
whose recent online purchases lead me to infer that you may not yet be a
dedicated Galaxybucks customer; how can I help you today?
Me: I'd like a grande aero-cino with an
extra breath, please.
Robot: Would you like that at normal lung humidity, or extra-moist?
Me: Ummm ... normal humidity but helium
enhanced, please. I need a lift ...
Robot: LOL, sir. Would you like a gluten-free, lactose-free, nut-free,
fat-free, calorie-free, bee-free snack to go with that sir? I'd recommend a
raisin. Or an oat.
Me: Actually, I still haven’t had my
sixteen-a-day, so I'd better go with the virtual orange pip ... Oh yes, and
also, do you have a cold hand-wash?
Robot: A frappo-cleano? Certainly sir.
How
will you be paying? Mortgage or krugerrand?
Of
course I will be lucky to be alive a generation hence, to witness this
scenario. (My wife, looking over my shoulder, says she will be lucky if I'm
not.)
Anyway,
in rural Tanzania, ironically cheap water washes away the soil and the roads,
and infected water kills the vulnerable. On the other hand, lack of water is at
the root both of poverty and of its perpetuation: girls have to miss school in
order to collect it, from the moment that they can carry a Starbuck-ful on
their heads. For many girls in this part of Africa, even if there were a
school, they could not attend, because essential household duties interpose
themselves in the difficult business of staying alive.
And
staying alive can indeed be hard. Nearly 1% of mothers die of pregnancy-related
causes, and 10% of children do not reach their fifth birthday. Few earn $2 /
day, and most subsist on porridge, plus what they can grow in the unforgiving
terrain.
Water
problems; poverty; malnutrition; poor transport; no crops; inadequate education;
unaffordable, inaccessible childbirth facilities: these are some of the
root-causes of tragic death that we anticipate might be highlighted in the
current discussions in the eleven women's groups in Tunguli and Msamvu.
Thereafter, we hope that the communities, now motivated and focused, might
begin long-term sustainable projects to tackle these desperate issues.
But will it
work? Will this protracted and meticulous process really arouse the community
buy-in we are looking for, whereby village women truly get to grips with the
root causes of tragedy, and truly determine, with our help or without it, to
make a difference? Well, the WHO says yes it will work, and yes women will feel
empowered; and yes it is indeed the only way to progress.
But are we
missing something? ... let me
think ...
I'm now
writing this from a pool-side paradise on the island of Elba, a glorious
fragment of Tuscany carelessly dropped in the sea when they were making Italy.
From where I lounge in the perfect, tingling Italian sun, I can see a host of
fruit trees laden with lemons, oranges, avocados, bananas, figs, and those
little apricot-coloured ones that aren't kumquats. (Apricots?)
At the feet
of these healthy, fecund trees is the 'June drop': in June, a portion of the
fruit falls to the ground, to leave room for the rest to flourish.
This is
Nature's thinning-out of the crop, to enhance the abundance of the fruiting. At
the right time and with the right help, these mature trees, that began as thin
seedlings, will yield rich harvests.
So it will
be, perhaps, with the eleven women's groups. They began as fragile plants;
barely seedlings: full of the right DNA, but thin and vulnerable. Maybe not all
will reach the same maturity. Maybe some of the projects which emerge will drop
early to the ground.
But, far from
fretting that each fall represents failure of the whole, the important thing is
to know that the groups are there, being tended: an orchard of possibility where
before there was hunger.
Yes, we are
indeed on the right lines.
Water is a
case in point. In the past, there have been many examples of water projects
failing because they were not initiated by those in need.
Good people with kind hearts decided perhaps that a village needed water, and paid for a spring or a well. Even if these sponsors managed to avoid the common problem of some of the money disappearing; and managed to ensure that the rest was well-spent; and managed to supervise the project so that good materials were used and were well-engineered; all of this still falls short of having ensured that lives will be saved, and that girls will be educated. See this link for the sobering facts:
http://www.vossfoundation.org/assets/www.rural-water-supply.net_.pdf
Foreign aid
cannot be there for ever, maintaining the equipment; dealing with standing
water; protecting from infection; encouraging appropriate use; building on
success by incorporating new ideas such as food gardens; changing the
culture; and redeploying well the countless hours previously spent by women and
girls in collecting this wonderful resource.
When, on the
other hand, a village has determined that its objective is to reduce tragic
death, if it then decides that access to clean water is part of the solution,
it will not put up with poor construction, poor maintenance, or stasis in the
primitive culture of subsistence, helplessness, and tolerance of tragedy.
May I finish
with a true story that was one of the reasons Tushikamane began:
We have six
weeks to go until Canon John Green leads a party from Worcestershire to visit
Tunguli and Msamvu. They will get a feel for whether the groups are really going
to work, and whether some of them – hopefully most of them – have truly got to
grips with what they plan to do to move towards the twenty first century.
It was John Green
who encouraged me, exactly three years ago, to go to Berega, to try to help
prevent maternal death, by improving standards in the hospital. I knew in
theory that more than 80% of deaths occurred in the community and never reached
our doors, but I thought that my presence in the maternity ward would at least
help. Then, one awful Saturday night in June, a woman was brought in, the
middle passenger on a motor-bike, dying of complications of pregnancy. She
barely had time to reach a bed before she died. To my indescribable horror, she
was then loaded back onto the motorbike, again as a middle passenger, and taken
back to her grieving children. The unutterable awfulness of their joy turning
to grief when they realised that the returning mother was dead, still haunts me
now.
I don't know
what she died of, but there are so many ways in which a determined community
might have prevented her death with simple interventions: training of birth
attendants not to give stimulants; early transport systems; iron to treat
anaemia in pregnancy such that any bleeding does not kill you; early detection
of pre-eclampsia; clean water and cleanliness to prevent infection; the list of
interventions is long, and the list of common killers is short. The story is
similar and ten times as common for death of under-fives, where clean water is
a huge part of the solution.
We begin with
eleven women's groups.
Maybe some of the groups will not be as strong as
others.
Maybe some will even fail - the June drop of human enterprise.
But if they
prevent just one June drop of that more horrific kind, then Tushikamane will
have succeeded.
