When I came back from the trip to Nepal I took last year during which the Darkha school was built and nearly finished, I began to think and wonder about the next steps to take in our work. At school I found all my classes easily adapted to the work I had done in Nepal so I was constantly applying HANDS in Nepal to everything I was studying and making it the base for my learning. It worked out quite well.
Apart from the goals I had personally for HANDS in Nepal such as creating databases of people who have donated, creating a book-keeping and filing system, and creating a new website, I was beginning to develop goals for the actual physical work that would be done with the HANDS in Nepal funds during the next trip. At school my professor Debbie Young tenderly warned me not to take on too much, that it was more important to have one school built and successfully functioning than 3 built and not even being used. I took that advice to heart and made it a personal mantra, slow down and focus on quality. This mindset led me to investigate new areas for HANDS to begin focusing in.
The Spring semester of 2011 led me to arranging an Independent Study class with Dr. Young in which we agreed that she would meet me in Nepal during a section of her world-tour sabbatical when she would be in Bhutan, Nepal’s eastern neighbor. She set me up to study via e-mail with her and she titled the Independent Study “Community Development.” All books and assignments were focused around different theories on working with and within communities to bring about change. The readings and study I undertook led me to have a clear idea of the practice and importance of such work as asking questions to the community at large, and individuals, and moving forward from their answers alone. Simply being the facilitator to keep them thinking and brainstorming until they reach an acceptable solution to their own problem. Just imagine the entitlement and empowerment created if they can help themselves solve their own problems. Its entirely possible and often its those immersed in the area of conflict that know it best and have the knowledge required to resolve it, they just need tactful extraction and organization of that knowledge.
Community Development Meetings are what Debbie Young wanted to convey the importance of to me. She prepped and primed me with readings and assignments in the U.S. and then she waited for me patiently, for 3 days in Darkha village while Bree and I left directly from my last Friday morning class in Boulder, CO and traveled all the way straight to see her. We met and began the very next day with the first meeting. She had already conducted one or two while waiting for us so this was around the 3rd one and the community was already somewhat used to how it would go. They gathered inside of a classroom and awaited orders. Very typical mindset that we found everywhere we went, they wanted us to order them to do something that would make us happy, and then temporarily everyone would be happy with it. The first 10 minutes of every meeting consisted of us working to change their minds about what we wanted.
There was always a clear shift in peoples attitudes, a general loosening up and relaxing, when they realized that we had nothing to offer except questions. The shift from us to them began to take place. But still most of the people in Darkha and other villages are not used to being asked what they want, or how they want to something. They are used to working with whatever they can get and making it work. They are used to getting the last, the least, if its anything at all then they are happy. Here we are having a formal meeting in which we are trying, even forcefully raising our voices, to tell them we want to do whatever they decide is best for themselves, but that we need them to first formally discuss between themselves what they want, how to do it, and who is going to be involved.
At this point in the meeting the people shift their thinking again to start thinking about how they would typically organize themselves, because to be certain they are very familiar with organizing committees around such things as forest ownership and use and school maintenance and staff employment. They are familiar with the process of working together to keep something in the community and not controlled by one individual. But often their methods are sloppy and who gets to partake depends on who knows who and who is better friends or who may be in someones family, etc.
So far I have only been a part of about 3 community meetings. But now that Debbie Young has left our company, Bree and I will hopefully go back to the villages tomorrow and conduct at least 3 more on our own. Currently I am waiting for more news of the strike we heard rumored might be in place tomorrow. We have already been delayed on this trip by a bad sickness Bree and I both came down with at different times, so now if a strike comes tomorrow we will be crying in our milk tea about having to again delay the departure of our trip. I plan to come back to this page soon and write more about the specific topics usually discussed during meetings, but for now I will leave it at this.
