Superstition, I have found, is a powerful force in many countries. I dealt with it in Honduras, but it was usually manifested as ghosts, or small fears like a woman shouldn’t shower while menstruating. Here in Timor-Leste, superstition is affecting my work.
In one of my communities, we were determining a proper location for the water system’s tank. The tank was to be on a nice highpoint right along the road next to a house. On either side of the road, set back 100 meters or more were 50 meter or higher limestone towers overgrown with heavy vegetation. As we had just placed the tank and were getting ready to leave, the man who owns the house next to the tank location came out and raised a little bit of a ruckus. We had placed the tank directly between two spirit hangouts. Our tank was going to disturb their passing from one limestone tower to another. The spirits would almost certainly become upset and we would die prematurely as a result.
Realizing that this was a serious situation, one that I couldn’t negotiate with easily, I immediately asked the owner where we could move the tank if not at the marked location (for engineering reasons we couldn’t move it far without serious issues). Luckily, he said we had to move the tank only a couple meters towards the man’s house. Problem resolved.
Later I found out that they had already discussed this site with the community and found out it was sacred. The community said that this was not a problem as long as a ritualistic offering, a party, where animals are killed and eaten to mollify the spirits (or, as my cynical side says, the locals’ stomachs). The animist traditions of most villages have turned such offerings into a budgeted expense on our water projects so as to be able to go forward. I’m not kidding when I say that it really is as essential as building the tank for getting the community‘s acceptance. We even have an extremely experienced local, who in extreme situations where a difficult spirit is blocking progress, who is called in to act as a witchdoctor. Pretty crazy, huh?
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