I go to Messok, and the dead start to walk. Coincidence?
Thursday September 25, 2003
I spent a couple of hours talking to Jaap (the Dutchman) this morning. He has been doing development work in Africa for almost 20 years now. Whew. It was a pretty depressing talk, not because of anything he said, but actually more because of what wasn’t said. Basically none of the NGO’s and Charities want to get their hands dirty. They are turning into consulting companies…telling others what to do, without doing it themselves. I guess its easier to raise money if you can always blame the locals for the failures. I then went back to the office to finish up some posters for the Messok branch opening ceremony. I am glad I know how to write neatly. Apparently my poster making skills should be enough to justify my presence for a while. The members of GECEC were impressed. I didn’t really do anything other than write out and letter some lists of things…but I guess that is enough. I’ll upload some images of them later.
At around… 3 pm we left for Messok. I knew little about the place before we left. I knew that it would be a drive of either 90 minutes, or 6 hours depending on the road conditions (and it rained this morning so we didn’t know). Fortunately, it was a pretty fantastic drive through the jungle… passing villages, and animals and birds (I saw some flying Toucans). There were only a few really rough spots, and a bridge over the big river had giant holes in it that I still don’t understand how we got past.
We passed Le Bosque on the way to Messok. For those of you who don’t know, or don’t remember, Le Bosque was the Baka encampment in the Africa documentary that I had running at my place before I left. It turns out that it is pretty much a fraud. OK, maybe fraud is a little strong, maybe selective with the truth is a better description. Apparently Le Bosque didn’t exist until the late 70’s when some nuns decided to come down here and create a Baka village. They rounded up the pygmies and collected them around the church facilities, which happen to be beautiful from the outside (and apparently positively western on the inside, running water, electricity plush accommodations, the works), with meticulously kept grounds and some of the best facilities (medical and educational in the whole eastern part of the country.. which isn’t really saying much, but you get the point). So the whole ‘quaint’ pygmy’s living by the side of the road with little or no contact with the outside world was a deliberately created illusion. The irony is that are such encampments, two outside Lomie for example, but they don’t look as picturesque… Now, don’t get me wrong, it is still pretty close to absolute primitive man, but the images were very selective, and they made sure that the Nun’s plush accommodations and hospital, and school weren’t shown.
We made it to Messok, which is essentially a row of shacks along the logging road. Strangely enough, the Secretary of Defense for Cameroon hails from this little community, and even more oddly, he never served in the military, and even more oddly, his training is as a Pastor. Anyway, his wife is Mayor of the town, and I think they run it like a little fiefdom from afar… the Secretary has a big place in Yaoundé, Lomie, and a concrete house in Messok. I doubt that they spend much time outside of Yaoundé, but I bet there is plenty of money flowing to Yaoundé. Anyway, we made it to Messok around dusk. We headed to the hotel/bar where our accommodations were. We got there, and pretty much immediately I was accosted (verbally) by a drunk man who was basically accusing me of taking away his livelihood with my occidental ways. The pastor (who, as a GECEC functionary, accompanied us on the trip), told the guy that if he wanted to talk to us, he had to get on the floor and prostrate himself, as he was not fit to talk to us. Soon, someone came and escorted the man away.
We were shown our rooms by Kerosene lamps. The rooms contained a wood bed frame with foam on top. Some sort of fabric covering, and a moth eaten sheet, and a chair. The lamp was left as the means of lighting. The floor was dirt, and the ground outside the room was pretty much just mud, with algae rich puddles. The chickens that wandered around were a sort of natural insect abatement program. The water to be used by all was rainwater collected in a used oil drum. Scrawled in chalk on a wall towards the toilet (unless noted otherwise from now on all toilets are holes in the ground) read the word Hilton.
We left our digs, and got ready to make the social rounds. Charlie went to find one of his girlfriends, and Alex and I went down some road, where we entered a mud house, greeted a friend of his, and sat to have a beer by lantern light. Soon Charlie joined us, and slowly a quorum formed. Talk was in a French/Zime hybrid, and was about tomorrow’s ceremony. It turned out that the Mayor would not be in town, as promised, and that the deputy mayor wasn’t sure about his appearance at the event, and the prefect was ill, or visiting family in some other town. They were discussing what to do. I suggested that he might actually be wanting a little something to –motivate- the deputy mayor… and I suggested an interview in the video that we were doing. This seemed to be well received as an idea, and after some more debate, we headed off to dinner in an other house somewhere. There were about 15 of us in someone’s house (again mud and wood), which was lit by a single kerosene lamp. We ate, and then Alex and I were sent back to the hotel to wait while the negotiations happened with the deputy mayor (it turns out I was right, with a little motivation he was prepared to attend). After sitting in the bar watching people dance to music emanating from blown speakers, I crashed.
A few general observations about Messok. First of all, this is the first time I really felt tall. Lomie has enough outsiders that I don’t feel so extraordinarily large, but Messok was another story. I was a giant. Sitting I was as tall as most while standing. For most people of Messok, the idea of going to Lomie was like visiting the big city. The idea of Yaoundé was positively outrageous, and the concept of life in the US is pretty much so far out there, I may as well have antennae. It is a full on Trucking town, and the wild west feel of Lomie is nothing compared to Messok. There was a saloon that served a local moonshine, there is a sheriff’s office, chickens, pigs, goat and dogs roamed freely, and houses, or huts were pretty much set up where ever people wanted to live. The truckers are pretty much like cowboys who, instead of cows, herd wood, taking it to market. The Hotel/Bar where I stayed was pretty much a brothel (although I use that term very loosely) if it needed to be, and every woman dancing there could be encouraged to share one’s company for some beer and ‘getting home’ money… say less than $1. I feel strange even putting that crassly. I think the truth lies closer to: there are no distractions in town outside of drinking, and having sex. I think it is a much to mark time, as it would be for money.
Next morning, I got up, and walked around town shooting some video. I got some really great images. Kids knocking fruit off of trees, a monkey tied to some man’s house (apparently just for the time that it takes for the monkey to get used to the new environment, then they get let go to roam free). The “salle de Fetes” where the day’s celebration was to take place, and a few other establishing shots. I did get a great shot of the ‘promotional’ poster announcing the upcoming event. A sheet of paper with marker writing. This was the only ‘advertisement’ in town. Alex met a friend who offered him breakfast, which consisted of a corn type gruel, beans, beignets, We headed back to the hotel, where I proceeded to letter the banner for the ceremony on a roll of fax paper. It took me a couple of hours. The man who was harassing me the night before made a command appearance. He started off accusing me (white man) of destroying pretty much everything in Africa. He thought that the GECEC was my company, that I was coming in to town to steal everyone’s… well, everything. When I explained that it wasn’t my company, he said… it was some French person’s company.. when I told him that wasn’t true, he was bewildered. He was positively stunned when I told him I was American. Then he asked if I had come to kill him. Anyway, this slightly unpleasant conversation went on for the entire time I was working on the banner. He did tell me that I couldn’t be Jewish because I didn’t have an evil look in my eyes.
When I was done, we headed to the “salle de Fetes” to set up the room. I put up posters, and set up the video. The festivities were about to commence.
The opening ceremony was broken into three parts. The initial presentation, the ribbon cutting ceremony, and the food afterwards. The initial presentation was a dull affair, with French style speeches (pompous with lots of flourish, positively Baroque) read from paper. A presentation of the posters that I did by Charlie, which seemed to go over well. The biggest moment of the proceeding came when Charlie explained that I was going to be working for the GECEC, and that I was American… lots of murmurs and an expression of surprise. We broke, went to the GECEC office for the ribbon ceremony, which went as expected, and came back for food. There was a benediction, then the plenipotentiaries were fed, followed by the women, men and then the stray people who had heard that there was food. There was a bottle of horrid champagne as celebration.
After the celebration, came some interviews. The interview with the deputy mayor was a hoot. He put on his ceremonial ribbon which looked like it was left over from a beauty pageant, and pontificated in extreme ceremonialeese. There were a few other interviews, and then a trip back to the bar, where the deputy mayor forced Charlie to buy a round of drinks, and give him a free ride to Lomie. We waited around for a few more hours until everyone was ready to go. I stood outside and played with some kids, and crazy people. I am a serious magnet for drunks, crazy people and kids… and when I mean crazy, I mean it. The kids stand around and make fun of the crazy people, and think that I am the strangest creature around.
While the whole ceremony was unfolding, there was apparently another drama in town… a dead child came back to life. The story goes a little something like this: when someone dies here, they lay the body out for two days, and on the third burry it. As the mass for burial began, the child started to warm up, and sweat even. The mourners were stunned, and started to try to revive the child. After some time, the child woke up, and asked what everyone was doing there? He is slated to be back in school on Monday. Most people seemed focused on the dead coming back to life, but for some reason I just kept thinking about how many people actually get buried alive.
Our return was uneventful. I started to feel pretty ill. I had only one meal in the 36 hours of activities, no water (note to self: always bring water), and several beers that had been foisted on me (although I was able to keep it to less than 3 the whole trip). I’m not sure how sick I am really, but I have one hell of a headache.