A BIG DAM WASTE (Day 7)

Standing atop the high rock ridge that bisects the Kager community, I can look to the north and see the largest body of water in the area (about the size of a really large retention pond in a large US subdivision). It appears to be a man-made dam that has formed a pond, about 2-3 kilometers from Kager. No one in Kager knows much about it, so we decided we would take the pickup and check it out.

We drove to the next village, Ngulu, which is just up the road from Kager. After asking a couple of locals, we finally found someone to direct us down a dirt path where we were told we would find the dam at the end of the path. We could tell from the deep tracks in the path that some large equipment had been down the same path some months earlier. Finally, about a half mile later, we broke into a cleared area with the pond before us.

It was obviously man-made, a large earthen dam at one end and small berms on two opposite sides. It lay in the middle of a very small valley and a very small creek flowed into it from the east. Some cattle were drinking from the east shore and several women were doing their laundry nearby, a small boy was filling his jerry can from the pond.

As we walked around the pond, a man and his friends came to meet us. He introduced himself as Ernest Tiko Olik, a local farmer with two wives and four children. He shared he was one of two men recently trained from the local Homa Bay district at the Polytechnical Agricultural School at Mombasa. He shared with us the dam was called the Otit Dam (otit is a type of firefly) and it had been built less than 5 months ago as a joint project between the Kenyan government and an anti-poverty NGO (whose name escapes me).

We shared with him our surprise to see no fields being irrigated from the pond, that the dam’s earth walls were beginning to erode because nothing had been planted on them, and that livestock had open access to the pond and it was already showing the ill-effects of contamination. Ernest explained to us there had been little invitation for the local community to be involved with the project, and the one farm that was to serve as a model farm had given up on demonstrating the use of irrigation from the pond. He shared that most people in the community don’t understand how the pond is expected to be used and managed. There had been no training of the community as to how it could benefit them.

Ernest thought intentions behind the pond were good, but it had failed to bring about the intended benefits due to almost no communication, low community involvement and poor execution. It was clear that unless something changes in the near future, the pond would soon be fully contaminated by livestock and would eventually just erode away, too.

Unfortunately, Kenya is littered with projects of this type – ones that are started but not finished, ones that are done to the community, not with the community. Lots of time and lots of money spent, but in the end, no real long-term transformation.

That night after dinner, we had the opportunity to discuss with the Kager church leaders the vision for the Jubilee Village Project – that it be church-centered, holistic and sustainable. That we had no interest in building another Otit Dam -- that without the church leading the Kager community in its own transformation, we would be destined to fail. It was a great night of sharing our hearts and seeing the Kager church leaders “get it” – that we are there to help and support them, not tell them what needs to be done.

Together, we were all reminded of what the Bible teaches of the Body having many gifts and its members having many roles – how awesome it is going to be to see how God uses all of us to accomplish His plans for the village of Kager

To God be the Glory.

Ned