Today I experienced my first traditional Malian meeting. In keeping with true Malian fashion, I arrived an hour and a half late (to be fair, someone told me they’d come get me when it started, and they never did). But, the thing is, you don’t really need to be on time to these things. As one of my trainers said during PST: “Malians love to repeat things. Over and over again.” It’s the entire basis for their education system and their language. And, and incredibly important aspect of traditional community meetings.
The meeting I went to today was a large community meeting for the water committee. Today they welcomed other members of the community to come and voice their concerns about possible changes to the water fee collection process in the village. The village is divided into thirds and different water committee members are responsible for collecting 500CFA per adult, twice a year, and this is money is used to repair pumps and taps, build communal soak pits and wells, other various needs. Unfortunately, there are some people who never have money collected from them (they technically live outside all three of the “zones”) and others who claim they don’t have the money to pay. This has made it hard for the committee to accomplish the projects they want to and harder still to budget. They have proposed instead, people pay 5CFA for a small jug and 10CFA for a large jug when filling them at the pump or tap. It means more effort on the committee members part (locks on pumps & taps, having to watch them & collect money, not collecting all the money at once). However, it should provide them with more fund (most people use 1-2 large jugs of water a day), and more control over who’s paying. Clearly, there’s some push-back from this, but let me explain how the meeting went first.
The youngest (or least-respected: only female, newest to the village/community) speaks first. They voice their concerns to the second youngest. The second youngest affirms as the youngest is speaking. When finished, the second youngest repeats the youngest’s concerns to the third youngest, adding in and of their own concerns. The third youngest affirms as the second youngest is speaking. This continues until everyone has had the opportunity to speak and be heard. It takes a while, obviously, and sometimes information from the eldest is dispersed in the opposite direction. And although it’s long and painstaking, there’s something really beautiful about paying that much attention to each member of the group. (It’s also a lot easier for me to understand what’s going on when everything is repeated so many times.)
Because I was late (and I am a woman), I didn’t get the chance to speak, which is probably good, because I didn’t really understand what was happening prior to the meeting anyways. I did get to learn what people’s concerns were: 1) if they were doing work on their house, it would be too expensive to pay for that much water to make bricks 2) if they couldn’t afford the 500CFA, they won’t be able to afford this either, even incrementally 3) the kids need to be able to fill up their bathroom kettles without paying (because the kids will spend the money on something else if their parents send them to school with it). I got to hear these issues reformed and restated by the last 20 or so regular community members of the water committee.
The members of the water committee are more or less equal (over 60, mostly men, movers and shakers in the community) and don’t usually follow the traditional community meeting structure. This means the discussion part of the meeting took two and half hours and the decision making part only took 35 minutes. They decided 1) if you’re doing work, you don’t have to pay for water 2) people can appeal to the committee if they can’t afford the fees 3) the taps at the school will be controlled by teachers, so kids can always have access and 4) they’ll start charging on November 1st.
It was really interesting to observe this kind of meeting, but I’m glad I didn’t get asked for my opinion at any point. I understand that many of these people in my village are struggling to get by, but I also don’t think I hold any answers. I don’t even think I could explain how Americans get their water, or water authorities, or water meters. But it’s neat to see them solving their own problems. The committee has been running for over 40 years and has organized two solar powered water towers (providing six taps each), four pumps and countless wells. I’m starting to think they don’t need me here.