A Volunteer's Perspective on Reef Doctor

While I don’t have extensive experience with the workings of NGOs (non-government organizations), I think that most would operate a little more smoothly than Reef Doctor. The people here are paid 100 pounds a month (about 200 dollars) and right now wages are behind for everyone. Finances are tight all around actually, and this month rent was late, as well as only half of what was owed. They are waiting on grants from the World Wildlife Federation, as well as from the director, Rod Stein-Rostaing, and until those arrive, they are literally living from hand to mouth. The day-to-day operations, like having enough fuel for the boat, and enough fuel for the generator, seem to be no one’s responsibility, and dives have been cancelled as a result of not enough fuel – or not enough dive tanks. As you already know, the back-up generator failed a couple of days ago, but since it was the back-up, you might think that they would have gotten a main generator before that one failed. But they didn’t.

The cook is in the enviable position of living on site, and since she knows she cannot be fired, she puts little effort into preparing the meals. There was so much theft when she was given money to buy food, with people consistently getting too little to eat, that now the practice is to give her one day’s supply of food at the beginning of each day. She still steals a lot, which is obvious even to me, for when we get fish, we get twice as many heads as tails. She and her family eat the tail ends (the choice portions) and serve the remainder to us. As I mentioned before, the director and a few others have taken to eating their breakfasts separately and on their own dime, but that still leaves suckers like me choking down rice gruel for breakfast.

The programs that they have in place in the Bay of Ranobe are various, and all have been thought up by the Reef Doctor staff. They are implemented through a fisherman’s association, but there seems to be little investment by the actual community at large. There are no fishing zones, and while they are guarded during the day and marked with buoys, there is still covert fishing done at night. The most successful conservation ideas are ones that can be demonstrated to the indigent community as useful, and since the slow growth of coral does not put food on the table, convincing the villagers seems to be an uphill battle. The villages do see a return in the way of dive fees for recovering sites that are becoming popular with divers, but this money still does not make up for the lost revenue of the fisherman, instead going to general community projects.

The volunteer program here is really quite self-directed, as in there is no plan or set of expectations for what a volunteer is expected to do and learn, which can be disconcerting in your first few days here. Still, of all the volunteers I’ve spoken to, all have enjoyed their experiences here and have learned a lot. And I am too actually, even if the above gives another impression.