"There is Nothing but an Airport Here"

Near Iringa's dusty airstrip that sees one flight a day to Dar es Salaam, the villages of Nduli ward remain ironically isolated from the remainder of an otherwise NGO-saturated town. Village officials note that Nduli, despite being the gateway where practically every single NGO professional in Iringa launched their local careers, has not seen any NGO activity in years. And even in one instance where an NGO did show up, it was a small-time trial that never became something significant before its abrupt end.

The contradiction might be explained by the conspicuous absence of government focus on this particular ward. While major political offices and government buildings line the downtown areas of Iringa and its nearby suburbs, the same cannot be said of Nduli. The only sights that welcome visitors arriving by plane are dusty villages where idle villagers while away daylight hours sipping sodas on makeshift street-side cafes. The local government has not put up any effort to spruce up the area based on the possibility of an "airport economy."

The government's negligence is particularly well-illustrated in an example that is more relevant to the area's farmers. The village officials spoke of the government's agricultural subsidy program of the yesteryear, designed to increase yields by directly bringing in high-quality fertilizers and seeds. A year after grand promises are made by touring government officials, the villages here have yet to see a single drop of government input. The attitude of the village officials as they recalled this painful memory is just one of disappointed dismay, knowing that they have little leverage on the government.

The resulting lack of trust toward outsiders is fully understandable. In a country where socialism was a prevailing governing ideology for decades, and government jobs remain highly coveted to this day, the government is undoubtedly the most trustworthy institution in the minds of many rural residents. So if the government can break promises without a proper explanation, there is little else that the farmers here may be persuaded to depend upon to change their predicament of perpetual impoverishment.

And for the multitudes of foreign NGOs and charities holding their idealistic goals, the lack of the government's active cooperation, or at the very least, public blessing, often means a "no-go" signal for entering a particular area. The guestbook of one Nduli village chairman, for instance, shows only one NGO professional visiting in the entire year before I showed up. This is a stark difference to districts south of Iringa town, where several NGOs offering similar programs may end up vying for supremacy and hearts of the local people.

Perhaps it is the lack of competition that led to the cautious interest villagers shown to my Tanzanian colleague as he started to describe the details of the suggested new project. Of course, the interest cannot offset the general sense of pessimism that this suggested trial will, well, remain a trial and go no further. But the fact that the local leaders are willing to take a chance, no matter how reservedly, does show that the villages' desires for external support, in an environment where the support, whether Tanzanian or foreign, is few and far in between.

The underlying sense of slim hope, underneath all the pains of abandonment, ought to be the most desirable sight for a true development professional. After all, development folks exist to focus their energies on those who lack any sort of resources, not where people have become used to running an economy dependent on constant streams of foreign aid money being pumped in. It is where people have the littlest hope that NGOs are most useful for expanding upon that hope. It is where most people feel that they are forgotten that NGOs remind them that the world is still around to help.

Sure, the villagers could be right that this trial will remain a trial and never be effective before failure and shut down. But in many ways, it is the constant efforts that matter the most. Perhaps one organization's strong presence, no matter how temporary and ineffectual, can bring about realizations in other organizations of a previously under-served area. And if those organizations can act upon their renewed instincts to serve, then the impact is already realized. After all, there is no power more empowering than blowing away people's pessimism and fear of empty promises.  

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