A Single Drop Site Visit

AWWC Site Visit
OCEAN Foundation with Joan Jessica Okolo and Mary Omble Wuya
EMPRONET with Olanike and Anna Avong
Nigeria
April 16-May12, 2009
Follow-up conducted by Mariah Klingsmith, A Single Drop

OBJECTIVES:
• Learn more about OCEAN’s and EMPRONET organizational structure and community
• Turn over AWWC seed grant
• Provide technical assistance as needed by the AWWC participants

SITE VISIT:
Community/Organization Information
• Jos curfew was increased to 11:00 pm on April 30, after months of the curfew being at 9:00 pm.
• Nigeria is as expensive as it is purported to be. A simple plate for lunch at the airport restaurant is around $16 and you will be hard pressed to find things in Lagos that can be considered cheap (by developing country standards anyway).
• Sacred Heart Pastoral Center is a good place for safe, clean and fairly inexpensive accommodation
• Anna is the staff inspector fot the Ministry of Ed and the president of Attaka
• Anna is definitely old fashioned in her attitudes and pushes the cultural practices
• Attaka Women’s Association
o economic enmpowerment
o hygiene
o pottery activites
o have a “friend” program which is something from their grandparent’s time when women from different communities would befriend each other, support each other, and once a year they come together to exchange gifts and share and celebrate together
o funding for activities comes from the members and sometimes the government will support a workshop
• 50% of children under 5 sick from water borne illnesses sickness
UN Habitat recruited OCEAN to make needs assessment
• Bokkos water situation
o wells and boreholes with fluctuating water quality
o typhoid and malaria are hand in hand
o Joan mentioned cholera outbreak
• HIV...used to be national 8.5% with population or 120 million...now 140 million and 6.4%
Plateau state is 4.5% but taking population into account is important in correctly determining statistics...328 organizations doing HIV work

• environmental justice and urban planning...impact of incompatible land uses...industry...drinking water of community –thesis focused on Kaduna
• OCEAN’s Ruth and Asebe really working hard and becoming valuable members of the training (Ruth saying there is usually no work to do in the office)
• no Harmatan (a dusty wind from the Sahara that blows toward the western coast of Africa during the winter) this year...climate change and Jos is supposed to be the coolest place in Nigeria
• The Water Board...no one comes anymore to pay their bills because there is no water. The water board defends their lack of service delivery blaming the problem on the lack of electricity. And when there is no electricity there is also no fuel. If there is fuel or electricity then the challenge is not having any chemicals to treat the water. If they are able to treat the water and have the energy to move their system then the problem is the state of the pipes being broken and not able to carry the clean water effectively to the population. Always one excuse after another and in the end there is no service.
• Mary shared her frustration and concerns over the problem of working with siblings. You can tell that Joan is a more laid back, carefree, come what may, cool kind of attitude and she is repeatedly “letting Mary down” by not taking initiative, needing to be told what to do, not making great decisions for the organization.
• Pidgin English of Nigerians is quite unintelligible to the non acclimated ear! This is particularly characteristic of people from the south of the country but almost every Nigerian I met can switch into speaking Pidgin English just as easily as they would another dialect. I accompanied Mary one day to her tailor because they hadn’t finished her dress after 5 months and repeated attempts to get them to complete the work. She walked in and was talking nicely until they started to pretend like maybe she had never brought in material and then she exploded in angry language and threatened to tear the place apart unless they found her cloth and gave it back! It was brilliant and quite a transformation.

• Jibam - The location and story of the little village called Jibam were intriguing.
Citizen Action project site for Rapid Gender Assessment...they were contracted through WaterAid through UN HABITAT and there was a little tension when they told me this because the program was originally written to have the local NGOs as the main implementers and then Water Aid stepped in and somehow used their political sway to get control of the contract.
It is a program designed to create an interface between government and communities
3 month program. They held focus groups, this is where they found their most valuable information
• attitudes towards water and their perceived greatest needs)
• budget tracking of government spending on water and sanitation projects
• cultural barrier... “shitting in the house” it belongs outside in the fields
• sentry rocks guarding the community against enemies and invaders
Project Implementation

OUTCOMES
• One Saturday was devoted to field work for their HIV/AIDS
• Community visit to WASH implementation project site
• BSF training for OCEAN, EMPRONET and respective community leaders who will help to train the community
• Introduction to the AWWC/OCEAN partnership and the BioSand filter at a farewell lunch for OCEAN’s colleagues and partner organizations.
CHALLENGES
• My arrival coincided with a myriad of challenges that were unusual and unexpected but all seemed deliberate on interfering with our work. The queue for fuel at the two or three major gas stations was a minimum of 2 hours and the few black market options, decrepit gas pumps near mechanic’s shops or men selling their fuel by the gallon out of jerricans on the roadside, were double the price.
• The women were not prepared with their budget, mold fabrication, or materials identification despite repeated efforts to have them prepare prior to my arrival. They were sent several instructive emails with suggestions, tips and guidelines for procuring the necessary materials and making the basic arrangements. When we were buying the materials in the hardware market there were repeated comments revealing the surprise they felt about the amount of materials required, the costs and the time spent to collect all of the materials for the BSF project. Mary at one point exclaimed that she had no idea that the materials cost so much, to which I replied that that is why you do this canvassing work before you write a project proposal budget.
• The proposed and requested site visit to Anna and Olanike’s community in Kaduna was thwarted by time constraints, the reality that Olanike would not be present, and the kidnapping incident of a 45 year old Canadian Rotary Club member female whose whereabouts were unknown for two weeks and whose ransom was 20,000,000 Naira ($130kUS).
• The day before the training was supposed to start Mary starts talking about how they should have gotten the mold prepared long before and that in Africa everything is done with cash so they couldn’t do anything without cash
• “I’m sure everything will work out” attitude and then later saying oh we should have done this before...we need more money...there aren’t any of those rooms left...things you thought were in place and end up being different
• The way these women budget and plan leaves much to be desired. Always adding costs, making assumptions to avoid physically going to check the prices or availability, saying “well you know this is Nigeria,” trying to defend the changes with arguments. The training was supposed to be for 7 people max. The $500 was to cover accommodation and transport and food for the Kaduna visitors and the food at the workshop. The number has increased to 12 and now we are being asked to pay for extra fuel (which makes sense to pick up the women from the guest house), transport for all, something small for OCEAN’s two staff and Mary thinks the participants should receive per diem. It’s extremely difficult at this point to say no because all these additional costs will take away from their project implementation or come out of their own pocket.
• They gave the lunch contract to their friend who wouldn’t tell us the prices, was late twice, skimped on lunch the third day because he didn’t have money (although that was his own fault because we had asked him several times for the total), and then finally laid the price on us
GENERAL COMMENTS
• They wanted support with Excel, sending and uploading pictures, and creating and maintaining blogs
• the women sang for me on the fourth day of our training...the song about a mother...they say that in Nigeria you can be called a mama, no matter your age or status, if you are hard working and prove yourself
• women should be the mainstream group and not an interest group when talking about issues of water...Mary read that in an article and we were talking women and gender in depth. Mary is “tired and bored” of talking about women in their development work.
• I was given the nickname of Chundung. This is apparently a Nigerian thing to do to give someone a nickname. Cundung is some kind of small graceful deer-like animal

FOLLOW-UP AND FUTURE PLANS
• follow the progress of the two BSF implementation projects. Olanike and Anna’s project will be starting in June when Olanike returns from school
• Send CDs that work along with additional materials they have requested

ACTIONS FOR AFRICAN WOMEN AND WATER ORGANIZERS
• Connect these ladies with Bob! The rural....has a lab and equipment from UNICEF but they aren’t using and haven’t set up the lab yet. They are very keen to learn about the PML and also have someone to help them set up the facilities they already have.
• Examining the Conference schedule considering the comments of the Nigerian participants.