"On my weeklong trek, I had noticed that none of the Waodani villages had God's houses. Tiwaeno had once had one, and so had Tzapino. Now they didn't. I asked the People why. They simply said that they couldn't build them. Of course they could, I told them. They could build a Waengongi onco in the same way they built their own oncos! They explained that they could only build durani-bai - like the ancient ones had - not 'proper' churches.
As the conversation went on, I realized that when outsiders had built the crude little board church in Tonampade, with cement posts and a tin roof, everyone decided that this was what a 'proper' God's house should look like. The Waodani didn't know how to make boards, they didn't know what that mush was that got so hard and supported the building, and they didn't have the money to buy tin roofing.
The Waodani in Tonampade would not even attempt to fix the church floor, which had begun to rot. When I asked them why they didn't fix it, they said they couldn't because they did not have permission. 'Permission from whom?' I asked. They didn't know the answer to that, but what they did know was that they had not built it or paid for it. They did not know whose it was, but they knew it definitely was not theirs."
Tuesday, 25 May 2010
The damage wrought by unwitting "helpful" missionaries...
This, a short extract from Steve Saint's "The End Of The Spear" (p148), is a great illustration of how outside "help" often fails to help... but actually positively hinders, painfully, badly. Don't worry about the strange names for the tribe (Waodani) or vocabulary ("Waengongi" is the Waodani word for God, "People" means the believers) or places - but understand the point. So, so many lessons in here...
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A thoughtful piece, and has, I believe, a parallel with the way Australians attempt to help the indigenous population. Part of the problem is definition: who are Australian aboriginals? An Aboriginal person is defined as a person who is a descendant of an Indigenous inhabitant of Australia, identifies as an Aboriginal, and is recognised as Aboriginal by members of the community in which she or he lives. It thus makes it very hard to find a "solution" to their health and welfare issues when the definition is so broad, but if we were to focus on the groups living in remote areas, with little in common with the European style of living, it ought to be obvious that European style solutions will not work. Your church example reflects the insistence in Australia of building conventional housing for people who do not value such material goods, and have little interest in maintaining them. It is a frustrating issue, I have no idea of the solution, but am convinced that it will not be found in Western thinking and values, because we are attempting to inculcate our culture onto another where it is generally resisted.
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