Redefining Definitions

I remember the first day of class at Eastern our professor asked us to define development. In fact, we were asked to define pretty much everything. Throughout the year, we became more aware of all the details involved in our definitions and sometimes it was helpful and other times it just made life seem like a gray mass, everything blending together. Since being in the field, I have had the opportunity to put those definitions to the test.

Yesterday I went to the field for the first time in a long time due to my 3-week hiatus out of Madagascar and few opportunities prior to that. It is always a welcome reprieve from the office to step out into the countryside and mingle with the majority of people who make up this country’s population.

The mission of yesterday’s trip was to escort some ladies from the Ministry of Agriculture and introduce them to some of the farmers we work with in the field. I personally was going in search of a success story for a report I am writing for our donors. We were going to Andina, a commune about 20 kilometers east of the office and a location I have never been to before.

We jostled through some of the most beautiful countryside I have seen thus far. Along the way we passed a Norwegian funded school, a well-built church - much nicer than the surrounding houses, countless rice fields and orchards, and an amazing house built on the edge of a cliff with a panoramic view of the valley – a very difficult structure to build obviously done by a wealthy owner. Along the way, I was told that the people of Andina are known as being business people.

Upon reaching Andina, we ventured down the mountainside, followed by what seemed to be half the village, to the plots where our Farmer Field School (FFS) is practicing agriculture techniques. We sat down in the grassy shade while the ladies from the Ministry of Agriculture consulted the farmers on their troubles with insects and diseases killing their plants. I learned all about biological pesticides – like how to use ash and local plants to kill insects on trees and even how to collect, ferment, and use zebu cow urine as a pesticide.

All throughout this trip I was thinking of my definitions and how life and development is not so easy to define sometimes. After the Q&A on insects, plant diseases, and cow urine I interviewed some of ADRA’s FFS members asking how ADRA has impacted their lives and the community. Throughout the interview, a common theme emerged: relationships. The members testified that through this group of farmers, initiated by ADRA, they have become a tight community forging bonds within themselves and other FFS groups in the area. A new friendliness exists between them and they are even now able to rely on one another with personal problems.

The FFS members mentioned the techniques they have learned as a result of their partnership with ADRA as well as the income generating activities now offered but you could hear in their voices that relationships were the most valuable outcome.
While driving back to the office after the field visit to Andina, I was reflecting on all of this thinking that I may need to redefine my definitions. My original definition of development didn’t include community and relationships but rather the other things this group mentioned like economic sustainability. Along the way, my thoughts were interrupted by the beautiful harmony of my five fellow passengers singing in unison to a Malagasy song, this sound reinforced my redefinition.