I will usually work with the building crew on whatever project is currently underway. If it’s something they don’t need my help with I’ll go work on something else. We have a lot to do just to keep up with the maintenance on all the buildings at Eden, so there is always something for me to be building or fixing. I like to work with the men so that we can be learning from each other. I tell them that they should be either teaching or learning while they work. We have a few young men on the crew and they are learning on the job from the experienced men. Due to living in a respect culture they are also at the bottom end of the hierarchy so they get the hardest and most menial of jobs, like moving bricks or mixing cement by hand. This can be a challenge to deal with because the young men often have good ideas to make the work more efficient, but because of their age they aren’t given a voice and are shut down by their elders.
As a foreigner this is a cultural situation that I have to work through with Guveya. We talk about things like this and try to come up with middle ground solution so that the young men don’t feel suppressed and the older men don’t feel disrespected. It seems like there is always something like this happening and I’ve learned to talk to Guveya first to find out what the culture expects and we work through it together. I don’t want to be the foreigner with all the answers who comes and makes others conform to my expectations. Learning that just because something works back home doesn’t mean it will work in Africa is a valuable lesson that can head off a lot of frustration.
