MUSOOLI COMMUNITY - 8 Community Projects Support

Within 15 minutes, we hit our first road-block, a military guard post disallowing us from driving further. We went the other way around the airport only to discover yet another military guard station; however, these guys were friendly and let us through. We continued on this path towards the town we had only seen in aerial images. We stopped off in a larger remote fishing village where we picked up waters and met a young boy of 12 or so and an other young man of about 25, who both agreed to come along and join in our adventure of Sharing. We believe in sharing our project experiences with some of the locals on each expedition, so we now had amassed our team of six, Chimu, Chaski, Elia Saikaly our Film maker, Abed-the driver and his wife, and the two young villagers from nearby.

Within 5 minutes drive, we found our community we were seeking. We drove up to our envisioned community on the Peninsula and met with our soon-to-be translator and friend, Josh. Josh, was hard at work with a trowel in the hot sun making mud bricks in his tiny fishing and farming village called Musooli-Bunonko. Immediately upon meeting Josh, who’s face was covered in mud, we knew he had a great heart and by noon that day, only 2 hours after arrival in this new country, we had our first meetings arranged with roughly 300 community members for the following day.

The next morning our entire team of now 7, met in the designated gathering place with all of the village residents. Basically everyone was there except the three village elders, who felt it was a waste of their time. We met for about two hours to explain the Inti Raymi Fund’s reason for showing up, to listen to their issues and ask them “What do you need?” and “How can we help?” We felt confident that the entire village heard the same thing and they were all on the same page, so our team left the village to allow the community the time to discuss and decide their fate of their self-determined project for the following day.

On the following day, we returned only to find an empty gathering place and a summons by the three leaders to their house for a private meeting. Since this was “not our first time at the rodeo”, we knew all they wanted was for us to provide them the money allowing the “leaders who know best” to decide how the money is to be spent in the village (or kept by them). Knowing the elders were leading through fear tactics, and knowing the whole community was ecstatic just 24 hours earlier in our meeting, I refused the private meeting!

We believe in Transparency which we learned while attention annual UN Conferences for Indigenous Peoples Issues, so we refused their offer and demanded a public meeting for everyone to hear and to be involved with this collective community project. All of the locals were shouting… “don’t give the money to the leaders, they’re just going to take it like they usually do”. We later found out that the leaders repeatedly had taken community members land and illegally sold it to wealthy government officials in the capital city, rendering the locals as indentured servants working lands once owned by them.

Rejecting the meeting with the elders evidently did not sit well with the three leaders so they called the local police, who quickly arrived and tried to ruin the village’s project. Upon arrival, the police demanded to know who we were and demanded that we head to the police station for questioning. Knowing the realities of this underdeveloped country’s policing power and fearing the worst, I bought a little bit of stalling time to figure out how to hide the $25,000 I had brought to share with the village. I was not about to let the community down after 2 days of workshops and discussions and our promise to financially support their dreams.

While heading to the escort car leading to uncertainty, probable theft of our money or worse, I pretended to have a “diarrhea attack” and demanded that I use the outhouse before heading to the police station. Holding my bottom to show my point to the police while walking to the outdoor latrines, the community laughed with delight. Upon arrival inside the latrine, I was hoping to find a safe spot up high or between boards, somewhere to hide the $25,000, which I had in small plastic bag. Unfortunately, there was only one place which I believed no one would look…deep into the 1 meter deep pile of feces and urine of the latrine! Inside the latrine was hot as hell, smelly as death and full of flies swarming around inside this hot-box. I quickly scrambled into action, tying a tracer string around the money in the plastic bag and duct taping it all firmly together. With my lamp stuck on my head, I leaned inside the poop hole to see where I should throw the community’s money for safe storage. In the event I couldn’t come back, I could at least fulfill my promise and ensure I could tell someone who could discover it for the village at a later date. I then threw the stash down and backwards, behind anyone’s view while squatting using the latrine. Covered entirely in sweat, with the stench of feces permeating my nostrils, I proudly emerged from the latrine an accomplished man!

Knowing the community’s money was now safe and unafraid of the theft of the money, we happily marched off for interrogation. Well this interrogation would be better called a kangaroo court at best. Watching the policeman, the three elders (crooks), the chief inspector and a few thugs with machine guns revealed their true unprofessional intent of just extorting what they could get from us Mzungus (white men). I was very angry at their insinuations about needing some funding themselves, so I just gave it back to them with a very defiant argumentative response, which the chief inspector saw us as a clear problem compared with their usual extortion victims who come from a long lineage of oppressed and intimidated people. After about 90 minutes of this “BS”, the three elders somehow where happy with who we were and why we were there and welcomed us to their community, but something still wasn’t right. The Elders were unable to shake my hand in fear of me giving them an “evil eye” or “casting Ju-Ju” on them as they feared I was a witch doctor, because I was covered in tattoos and jewelry.

Upon successful wind up and refusal to pay any bribes to the police and refusing to pay for some of their requested remodeling and computer equipment they asked for in the police station, we heading to the hotel to regroup for the next mornings restart. Message got back to the village that we did not succumb to the pressures of the elders or police and that we would be back as promised the following morning.

We returned to receive an African Heroes’ salute “Muzunguzungu” which literally translates into the “aimless white wanderers and/or rich person” in Swahili. In any event, they were smiling and happy to see our promised return which is all that matters.

During this day we had a lot of catching up to do, since our previous day was spent at the police station. After hours and hours of workshops with all the locals voting and narrowing down their options, they decided to collect the money into eight distinct groups due to their diverse needs and interests among the village.

Once the distribution and security of the cash was decided, then we had to go back and retrieve the cash, which was stashed inside the “very filthy latrine”. We proceeded to the latrine with minimal followers; however, our cameraman filmed the entire event. Earlier in the morning, we stopped by a medical supply house so we could purchase a set of medical rubber gloves. Upon opening the hatch, the stench and flies came out and covered our team. I stuck my head inside the latrine door, crawled inside to reach the bag of money using a stick. The money after several days of the latrine use, was now completely buried in the feces with only the tracer sting showing. With a little maneuvering and a twist of the stick, I looped the string tied to the money, then hussled back to the community meeting where all members where quite surprised at the greenish/black lump on the end of my stick tied by a string (see photos below).

We proceeded to explain what we did and why, which was simply to protect what was rightfully theirs in the village disallowing it to go into the hands of the greedy. After all the yelling and laughing was over, it was time to “launder the money” so to speak and literally hand wash it for distribution into eight distinct segments for the community’s enjoyment and use. Laughingly, we all agreed to shake hands during the money awarding ceremony, through tapping elbows instead of the traditional handshake for sanitary reasons.

At the end of the day, this beautifully hopeful community had a wonderfully interesting experience full of thought provoking business and social enterprise ideas (see photo of workshop ideas on wall). Most importantly, they were treated with Dignity and Respect and they knew the Mzungu was there to truly help them and really cared about them. This was their greatest take away, unconditional acceptance.

We had a fantastic adventure sharing many wonderful, but sometimes scary moments with this community. The takeaway for us was an amazing experience and the self-satisfaction knowing what we did to help others. We put a lot of happiness into a village which often loses hope at the hands of those who Abuse Their Power!  We wish them well with their new projects.