What have I learned? That success can feel a whole lot like failure.
From the beginning I struggled with a community unwilling to work together. It wasn't until month 17 of my service that we finally got (on our third try) an aqueduct committee that showed signs of moving past their differences for long enough to work on the aqueduct! It gets better? It gets better!
We had been looking at a new spring to add to our system to supplement the low flows in the dry season but were unsure about its potential success. They had connected a spring in the same general area that's a tad lower in the past but had issues with the water from the higher spring leaving at the lower spring instead of heading to the tank. Using system measurements from the last volunteer, I assumed that the "fence to the rice field" was what I thought it to be.
I was super hesitant to haul 90 pound bags of concrete and the accompanying sacks of sand and gravel 30 minutes uphill to construct a spring box on a spring that we 1. didn't have dry season flows for (Was it enough to make it worth it?) and that 2. we didn't have very precise altitude measurements (Would the water from the higher spring back flow? Would the water still reach the tank if we connected the two springs in a break pressure tank?). My fancy formulas and hydraulic grade lines left me thinking this wasn't going to work out.
I had expressed my hesitance to the committee, but while I was out (just like that TLC show but with less paint) they went ahead and connected the new spring; a pipe stuck into the hill led down to the main line and connected with a T. I went up there and checked it out and everything looked great.
But that's the goal right? To work ourselves out of a job. I know they don't need me. They now know that they don't need me. My initial reaction was one of self failure - I should have been able to say that it would work. Once I got over my ego and accepted that it was ok that I was wrong and they knew it, I was able to be thoroughly happy that they had taken the initiative to first off meet without me coordinating it, then decide to do the work and THEN carry through getting workers up there and finish it.
We plan to use our remaining project funds to construct an actual spring catchment in the next couple of months. (Because that's all I've got left!!!!!)
This might seem like something insignificant that I keep going on about... but I was talking to another volunteer (before I got over the feeling of failure) and she said, "That's great! It sounds like it clicked. What did you do?" That made me stop and think. What did I do? I encouraged them, yes, and talked through the problems with them and we laid out the options, but I also got frustrated and bitter and thought things like "Well if you don't want to work with me, I don't want to work with you. So there." So that's the key to more sustainable development work? Acting like a bratty 7 year old? I guess I'd have to say it worked...
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