Positive Minds | Positive Stories | Edition 010

The village chief's response

I turned to Mr Koulemou, the secretary of the project management committee, who followed my conversation with the experts with great attention. "Could you brief the village chief and act as interpreter," I asked him.

After listening attentively to Mr Koulemou's account, Mr Kpoghomou, the village chief, smiled.

"Tell our guests this ...", addressing Mr Koulemou in a calm and measured tone, with his index finger pointing at me, "this young man was not here the day we chose this project". Then, one by one, he addressed the children, young people, women, the village elders, etc. To all of them he asked the same question: "what was the priority of your group? ".

The answer, given in chorus, was consistent for all the groups: "làkwélî", which means school in Kèplè, the language of the Guerzé ethnic group in Guinea.

 "Tell our guests that the choice of a school as our priority helps us to solve three problems at the same time," he continued.

The most obvious and visible one is the education of our children. They won't have to walk 8 km every day to go to school.

The second is the construction of a culvert on the river. I approved this project on one condition: that the village mobilises its own resources to build this culvert. Look behind you, we have already started collecting gravel and sand.

"The third and most important thing for us is the extension of our village," Mr. Kpoghomo added.

"The extension of your village," exclaimed our experts in stupefaction.

Mr. Kpoghomo paused briefly to chew the piece of cola he had just broken.  Then he continued, "Yes, the extension of our village..." he insisted.

Indeed, wedged between two natural obstacles, a mountain and a river, the village kept stretching out in length to the rhythm of the galloping demography. The only viable solution was therefore to build houses behind the river. But without a crossing, the population was not motivated to live there for fear of being isolated and exposed.

"The construction of the school and the culvert changes that situation," says Mr. Kpoghomo proudly. We could see that the construction of some houses had already started.

After this convincing account by the village chief, our experts had run out of arguments and were unable to react. Mr. Kpoghomo, who did not spend a single day at school, had just given them a lecture on sustainable development.

And as my mother used to say, "Son, education is not synonymous with knowledge".

Moral : "No one has a monopoly of knowledge. He who claims to know everything becomes ignorant. " - Socrates