Odd feelings this morning.
First I am getting news about the bombing in Boston before most Americans. To get news first in Burundi is a testament to our rapidly changing world. Usually it is the other way around.
Interesting how Burundians respond to our violence. They seem to feel it deeper, everyone here has experienced despair and pain in some way and so they feel ours a bit more. I also think there is a sense that when these things happen in the US, the last safe place is gone.
Secondly, this week has been very encouraging. To see how the local government leaders have taken to borehole training is quite astonishing. It reminds me again that locals care more about their own people than we ever could. Why we ever thought different is beyond my understanding.
Yesterday we visited a borehole completed a few months ago. Ownership was never given to the local community and so the pump is wearing out with no one to repair. When we explained to the community leaders that they should take on the responsibility they seemed amazed to hear that THEY could be given this task. Those with the money never give up the control and so the well will sit idle like 44% of wells in Africa.
The US is debating now whether it should join the rest of the world and stop flooding the African market with our excess free grain. Our history of propping up our farming industry has decimated the African farmer. Who can compete with FREE?
Imagine China shipping in millions of free cars or TVs, our markets would go crazy and it would not be long before war broke out. However, this is exactly what we have done for decades in Africa with free grain and what we do when we drop in a free well, hold on to ownership and devastate the local market for boreholes.
This Burundi project is all Burundian, our work in South Sudan is all Sudanese.
Sure it's frustrating some times but all growth is...in the end we are building a nation not our own organizations.