Although we have been here over four months some things still bring us up short. A couple of things have come to light recently that confirm (as if such confirmation were needed) that our cultural expectations and starting points remain very different.
The first concerns an eight year old
girl who, we were told, had been physically abused after she had lost
some money. The girl fled but, after suitable discussion with and,
admonishment of the mother, was returned home the next day. Shortly
afterwards she ran away again and was not found for two months.
However, it appears she may have been abused again where she had run
too and so came back to Aru. She was taken in by a family who live
fairly near to her family home. Then, we were told, she was found to
be behaving strangely and, it was believed, this was as a result of
her being possessed. Belief in the power of evil spirits, or curses
and of demons is very strong here. Much mental ill health is seen as
being a result of possession rather than as a health problem. From
the description of the girl’s behaviour it seems that she was
acting in a way that is consistent with her having being seriously
assaulted and having all her stability taken away from her. The idea
that she might be possessed seems to us to be unhelpful, and
potentially damaging. Do we say anything? Do we intervene? Where is
the point of common agreement? Is it anything to do with us?? We have
let it be known that Pete has many years of professional experience
in child protection work and have left it at that. The family the
girl is with is a large, loving family and, we are told, she has been
improving.
The second thing that brought us up
short relates to a cultural expectation. Apparently, in one tribe
fairly near here, if a respected man stays the night (such as a
pastor or a white man etc.) he will be offered a young woman for the
night. We have discussed this with a group who, like us think it is
awful. However, the discussion remained academic until Pete was in
discussion with a guy at the office and some coke was brought in by
Susan (not her name). Susan is working temporarily at Pete’s office
and, when she had left, the man Pete was with said that Susan was
from the tribe which offered young women to respected men. Susan is
in her early twenties so is one of the women who could be offered.
May be she has been put in this position in the past. Suddenly the
idea stops being academic and becomes real!
Rats
They say that in Britain you are never
far away from a rat. Well, for some time now Pete has had the
delightful sound of rats scrabbling above his head in the office.
This wasn’t a problem until the other week when he plugged his
laptop in to charge it, but there was no power, despite the generator
working hard. It turned out that the rats simply could not resist the
nice, shiny, exposed length of copper wire and had eaten through it.
They had done the same elsewhere so it took several days for things
to be sorted out (this is Africa).
When they were, the fix would not meet
British safety standards. Why buy connectors when you can just twist
the mains wires together?
We have seen similar safety standards
here before. At a large conference, shortly after we arrived, power
came from a generator and the bare wires were simply wrapped around
the prongs of an an upside down British style plug. This plug then
fed a four socket extension which had two or three four socket
extensions (for projector, computer, sound amplifier etc) running off
it. We were sitting 10ft away….
Gill is increasingly certain she hears
rats in our home, in the ceiling. As long as they stay there, and
don’t eat the wires, then it is OK!
Bikes
We have previously described our bike
as ‘industrial’ and ridiculously heavy. You’d expect such a
beast to be robust. You’d be wrong.
Since buying this brand new bike when
we arrived, the saddle has started to fall apart and now needs a
cover, the dynamo (which never worked) has fallen off, the red rear
dynamo light has lost its cover and bulb. The rear brakes don’t
work properly (Pete managed to fix the front ones), the steering is
fine but the assembly moves backwards and forward in a way it
shouldn’t. It's not even as if it's had heavy use! Let's hope it
lasts another seven weeks!
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