2 years to complete the project. One year of planning. One year of construction. $10,000 of donations. Dozens of local workers. Two Peace Corps volunteers. Over 100 bags of cement. Over 300 bags of sand. Loads of wood, rebar, piping, blocks, and supplies. Countless motor boat trips to the hardware store. And a whole lot of other things.
All of this together created the 7000 gallon water catchment tank and water system of Ununo village. It will benefit around 100 people from 10 household located near the shoreline. These families will now have legitimate access to water at the ease of their own homes.
The tank was not my idea, but it became my project. The volunteer before me, Ben Gruver, gathered all the funds and came up with the plan. He did all the initial work and took care of all the official paperwork and financial arrangements. Unfortunately, the start date of the project kept getting pushed further back until it was too late for him to do the project. Luckily, I was placed at the same site in UFO and was able to take over the project.
In his last days in Chuuk, he purchased the bulk of supplies and got them to our village. Stage 1 was complete. I expected that I would just be an overseer of stage 2. Unbeknownst to the both of us, there was also a stage 3, 4, 5, 6, 7……. And each stage would become excruciatingly slow as time progressed.
The projected timeline of work on the construction was 6-8 weeks. We hit a few logistical and personnel setbacks and were delayed a little bit. The construction just wrapped up last week after a full 365 days of construction!
The reasons for the delayed construction work are a plenty. I will just list a few to make things simple and not get into all the nitty gritty that I dealt with along the way.
1. Its hard to get supplies to the work site. To buy any materials we have to take a motor boat and go to the main island of Weno island of Fefan
2. Although we are on an island, we had no sand. Due to cultural funeral restrictions we were not allowed to take sand from our local shores for a 6 month period. We were forced to go to other islands and steal sand. This was also a long and laborious process. One bag of cement requires at least 3 bags of sand. They need to be dug up and carried by hand all the way to the site.
3. People are lazy. Ben and I both hoped that the community members, especially the youth, would be heavily involved in the construction and work quickly to get the job done. To my chagrin, the youth expressed no interest in being involved. The workers were almost always the old men leaders of the community.
4. People are lazy. People are lazy. People are lazy.
5. The beneficiaries didn’t see their benefit. After a few frustrating months of trying to get people motivated to work on the tank, I came to an interesting conclusion of why the men weren’t working. The men didn’t see the immediate benefit of having water at their houses. The women are the ones who want and need the water. The women do the dishes, wash the clothes, and feed the family. The women walk a mile every day with buckets of water to take care of the family. The men have their water already, because the women work to get it. The women wanted the water tank, but the men were the ones who had to work. This created a mismatch of interests that slowed the progress of the construction to a snails pace.
6. Its hot and rainy in the tropics. Weather can be a significant factor in the number of work days committed to a project. Rain and heat can often dissuade people from working.
7. They weren’t getting paid. One of the tenants of Peace Corps projects is that we are not allowed to pay our workers. They are supposed to work for their own benefit. The payment of their work is the completed project and the water at their houses. It allows them to have a sense of ownership. However, this created a problem because there were other projects on my island that people were getting paid for. So instead of coming to work on the tank for their families benefit, the potential workers would go work on the paying projects.
8. There is a hell of work to be done in building a water system. I envisioned that the tank would be a one-two-three process. Just build some wooden frames and pour cement inside. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The tank took about 30 separate steps of frame building and cement pouring. And each step takes several days. I had no idea there were so many small things to be done in a project such as this.
9. Everything was done by hand. The lack of any machinery also slowed things down significantly. Carrying supplies by hand, mixing cement by hand, building each and every inch of the giant tank without more technology than a hammer and saw. I appreciated the back-breaking hard work that was necessary for this type of construction work.
Although the project was full of frustrating moments and setbacks, I am still extremely proud of the outcome. And I am also extremely proud of a few people who worked tirelessly on the project. I mentioned that most people forwent their responsibilities and chewed betelnut on the road instead of working, but there was one man in particular who worked his ass off for this project.
This man didn’t even need water. He already had running water at his house. He did this project out of the good of his own heart. And he was a work horse. He is built like a hefty gorilla and could probably crush my skull with a single punch. He smashed giant boulders with his hands to clear the site, he carried double loads of materials to the site, he moved the blocks, poured the cement, pounded the nails, laid the pipe and did everything else necessary to build the tank. Many times, he would be the only one working on the tank. He didn’t mind. He just worked and worked.
I wish that the youth had been more involved and followed the example of our foreman Serapion. One of the main reasons why Ben did this project was so that the youth could learn useful skills. He wanted the youth to know how to do things. He hoped this would be a perfect opportunity for everyone to work together and teach the next generation valuable skills. Instead, just the old crafty men did it all.
The lack of teamwork was very disappointing to me not only because of the slow progress, but it also shattered my vision of the efficiency of collectivist societies. The Chuukese pride themselves on working together. They constantly talk about working as a community and sharing everything. Their society is built upon the foundation of group work. I see evidence of this collectivist lifestyle on a daily basis with food, work and family connections. But on this particular project, that all went out the window. It was a one man show and the community just sat by and watched.
In the end, the people on the shoreline got their water. They didn’t work for it, but they got the benefit. Thanks to Ben’s initiative, Serapion’s work ethic, and my persistence. I hope that they appreciate the significance of this large scale project and it lasts for years to come. I have heard of water tanks that have been functional for 50 years and still provide viable water to needy families, and I have heard of others that get a broken pipe and fall into disrepair in a couple years. I surely hope ours falls into the former category.
My legacy (along with Ben’s) now literally cemented in our village. We were will be remembered for decades as the volunteers who brought water to Ununo. I am proud of my achievement on this project and am now looking into other options for something to build. Maybe a basketball court. Maybe a bathroom for the school. Maybe a 50-story skyscraper hotel resort with 36 holes of golf and 3 pools.
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