Unexpected Obstacle

This is the fourth year of repatriation for Angolan refugees in Meheba, which is apparently unheard of according to someone from IOM. Last year was supposed to be the last year of repatriation for Angolans living in Meheba. The consensus seems to be that Zambia wants Angolan refugees to return to Angola and that Angola wants them back. According to UNHCR, there are still about 9,000 Angolan refugees left in Meheba. But very few of them seem to want to go back. In fact many of them are scared that they will be forced to be repatriated. Many talk about being threatened to go back with imprisonment, which is partly true because UNHCR has been telling them that after a few years the cessation clause will be invoked for Angolans, meaning that they will then be considered illegal immigrants by the state of Zambia, and subject to Zambian immigration laws, which often includes imprisonment.

 

Today I was continuing to interview people to recruit participants. I went to a road in a part of Zone F that contains mostly Angolan refugees. This particular road is on the way to the center of Zone F from where I live in Zone C, which means that I pass it twice everyday that I go out to Zone F. Every time that I pass I wave to anyone sitting outside and yell either "Hello. How are you?" to the people I see or "Ngachiri" which I think means "Hello" in Luvale, the most common language of Angolans living in Meheba.

 

I was looking forward to sitting down and talking to the people who greet me enthusiastically twice every day. The second house I went to the woman at first refused to give me her name or the names of anyone else in the community. She was afraid that I would be reporting those names to UNHCR or the Zambian government, which would then use them to create a list of Angolan refugees to repatriate. Eventually, after my translator and I explained as thoroughly as we could exactly what I was doing,  she gave me her name. But she still refused to give the names of others, saying that if they found out that she had given me their names, they would be very upset with her. I told her I understood and then continued on to the next house.

 

I encountered this at all the Angolan houses I went to. Charles, my translator, told me that it was because rumors had been going around that white people would be going around collecting names for repatriation. In fact, some European UNHCR interns who had been staying with us for four weeks or so had been doing just that, so I could see why they were suspicious of me. None of them were rude, and everyone was quite open about the reasons they didn't want to give me their names. I tried to explain to them that the names they gave me were completely confidential, and that, more importantly, if they didn't give me any names then there wouldn't be anyone in the PACE workshops representing their segment of the community. I'm not sure how convincing it was. Only a few gave me their names, and it took almost three times as long for each interview as it had been for the Congolese.

 

As I was walking to the last house of the day, I asked my translator if he thought this would be more successful if he were doing it alone without me at all. He said he thought that they would have no problem giving him their names. It was the fact that I was a white person, which immediately made them think of repatriation. I told him that I had spent 10 months preparing this project and that up to now there hadn't been a single problem or obstacle that I hadn't anticipated. In fact, this was the first one.

 

Charles continued, saying that it would be fine even with me as long as he was there. The people there knew of him and would trust him. I considered whether I should let him continue on his own the next day or not. With most surveys, FORGE trains a refugee to do the surveys, goes with them to a couple and then lets them do the rest by themselves. But I want them to recognize me and build trust between the community and FORGE. I want them to know that I am the manager of the project and be there to respond to any concerns they have about the project, and to show them that I care enough about the community and the project that I'm willing to spend two weeks going out and meeting over half of the people in the community.

 

I finally decided that this was part of building trust with the community. These long conversations were just as important as the short ones in building trust with the community, if not more so. Hopefully, they will soon see that I the project is really happening and that it has the potential to improve their lives in some way, which is one of the concerns that many people have had also; they worry that after I leave nothing will happen. Apparently, they are let down quite a bit. I told them to have high expectations for this project, and once the participants are chosen to go talk to them about their problems so that a project can be made to address them. If everything works out, they won't be let down.