What’s mine is yours…

The rain returned eventually, with the 

sweet sound of it pouring into my tank. (H.Schulz)

A constant struggle for me when living in the village is the different cultural expectations of ownership and stewardship. What belongs to me and what belongs to the group? What is to be used now and what is to be saved for later?

I have a wonderful neighbour and village brother who built my house, looks after it while I am away and is one of our translators. He recently named his newborn daughter after me. I am sure that I have some sort of responsibilities for my namesake, but have no idea what they might be. He himself is a generous person who often has other people living with him in his small house and who is often doing things for other people. It is this particular relationship, with its web of obligations that is the hardest for me to navigate.

What makes it even harder is that it is often the small things that leave me in a crisis, such as an umbrella or a bottle of water.

My umbrella was left in my storeroom when I went away. It was about the only thing not packed in a box because it was too long. When I returned, it was the only thing that had gone walkabout. It had been borrowed to give shade to my namesake while they went to fish camp. When they returned, I saw the umbrella in use, but it didn’t return to me. A week later, when I was walking somewhere in the middle of the day and needed it for shade, I asked about it. It was brought out of the house, broken and barely held together with string. It gave me the shade I needed, but it is useless as shelter from tropical downpours.

Why was I so upset about an umbrella? It was that my trust of things left in storage had been broken, that something I needed was not there when I needed it. My neighbour though, saw it as an appropriate use of an item doing nothing to meet a need for my namesake. My tension is that I can understand his reasoning, but still wish it had been left alone and was in one piece when I returned.

Another day I found myself annoyed at a request for a few litres of drinking water, and even more annoyed at myself for being annoyed.

At the time it was dry season. As this was first time in the village in January, it was hard to tell if it is a drier than usual dry season, but it seemed to be that way. Each morning and each afternoon there was a parade of people going along the path by my house to get drinking water from a bush well. The round trip seems to take them about 45 minutes. Meanwhile, my house has two 1000L rainwater tanks.

Before I came to the village, my neighbour had called asking for permission to clean out one of my tanks. We did not communicate clearly, and I thought that rain was falling more often to refill the tanks, so I said yes, as long as you leave me at least half a tank (500L). When I got to the village I found out that there has been little rain, so the tank was not refilling, but that everyone had very much enjoyed getting a container of water from my tank when it was cleaned, as well as from half of the second tank. I was left the half a tank as requested. This probably saved the village one day of walking into the bush for drinking water, maybe two.

My umbrella two years ago when it was new. (D.Petterson)

When I returned, my neighbour turned up asking for drinking water in bottles, and I was annoyed. Why?! I did not make the rain fall, I just caught it. I did not earn it, yet I was reluctant to share it. Part of it was knowing that half a tank will not go far if I’m providing water for a house of six or more people next door. Part of it was knowing that if my water runs out, someone else will be the one walking into the bush to get water for me. Part of it was just cultural annoyance that ‘my’ water should be assumed to be ‘their’ water from a different cultural perspective. A lot of it was annoyance at myself for being a scrooge about water, an essential ingredient for life.

My first week in the village, I was cautious with my tank, but still used it for washing etc, thinking rain would continue to fall like it had the day after I arrived. By week two we’d had little rain, my tank was much lower and I switched to washing with well water and only using my tank for drinking. I still had occasional requests for water, which I would help with, but was not getting regular requests. This seemed like a good balance for me.

Still, the question of what is mine, what I am keeping for later, what is communal, and what I am sharing with others, is an ongoing struggle. Coming from somewhere very individualistic when it comes to possessions, I am having many of my assumptions challenged, which is a good but difficult process.