cameroon log

makin' movies

I get to play with editing, and video footage, and the world bank.

Thursday October 2, 2003

The past few days have consisted of me editing the video footage for the World Bank meeting. I wake at dawn every day, work ‘till noon, rest my brain for a hour or two at lunch (deal with some social niceties), and again work until midnight. People do not seem to comprehend the concept of total immersion. They look at me as if I have some sort of sickness, which is probably not far from the truth… Alex is mostly stunned that I can concentrate basically without stopping for 14 or 16 hours at a time.
After a day or so I start to find the story in the images. The footage I shot was on my third day here, so I was a little out of it, and didn’t really have all of my brain available to cover all of the shots I needed. I’m trying to make do with what I do have. I am having some real fun with this, I only hope that I can take it to completion. There is no way I can get anywhere near what I want in 3 days. By major revision #6 it starts to be almost visually coherent. I have 5 minutes of introductory narrative (without the narration). I remember little things about editing video footage that have been burried in my brain for a long time. I can’t really edit in Final Cut, so I haul everything to After Effects, which I am more familiar with, and the interface idiom works better with my brain anyway. I need a script for some voice over, more video footage, the correct names of people, places and things, but there is a skeleton there. There are also a few edits that I like. The audio is a mess. I need to get some real audio software to clean up the crap audio that I have.
One concern that I have is that the amount of work necessary to make a coherent video presentation is lost on my audience. They seem to think that the work is in the video camera, and not in the editing. I try to explain the sheer volume of detail, and technical work that needs to happen for a piece to come together, but for them just looking at the video of people they know is so exciting, the subtleties of meaning, narrative and context are lost. That, and TV makes it all seem so easy, or at least natural and invisible. This might end up being a real barrier to me being able to do what I want… because without the appreciation for the time and energy required, there will be no support forthcoming. I have to do some pandering work next. Portraits of Charlie, and fellow office staff, for example. I am a cad.
So the meeting was painful and interesting all at the same time. Painful because the corruption in the Cameroonian government is so pervasive, and the world bank so removed and innefectual. The apparent topic was some fund that the Cameroonian ministry of the environment and natural resources (MINEF… which is pretty much the organ that sanctions the rape of the forests in the name of protecting them) was supposed to be managing was slated to give support to, among other things, community forests. The World Bank was there to follow up on how the fund was being managed, and to see if there was truth to the rumors that the timber interests were just using the community forest as an unregulated pillaging grounds (which is.. apprently very true). We had 3 hours of time slated, and over 2 was given to prepared speeches, and avoiding the issue. I may have really put my foot in it, but after a while I just couldn’t keep my big mouth shut. I raised the problem of the lack of papers for CODEVIR, and how the system was, maybe not intentionally, blocking the ability of the community forests to manage their own resources… so if they really wanted to help, here was a way right here and now to help out. I then pushed Herve to speak, who was reluctant, but spoke anyway. It turns out that one of the late-comers to the meeting was the petty bureacrat who was blocking the papers… I called him out in front of the World Bank. Big mouth strikes again. If it was my country, I would have gone for blood, but as it is not, I tried to instigate debate, and keep my mouth relatively shut. The government ministers began to talk of forms that were not filled out right. I said that obviously if that was the only problem, then they could have helped the community do it right, as they have no experience with this kind of paperwork… so the real problem might actually be a problem of will and priorities. Whoooo weee. The defensive backtracking from the petty bureaucrats was stunning, and was clearly not lost on the World Bank folks. Anyway, the dam broke, and out came all of the stories of stalled, stifled and sabotaged efforts by the local NGO’s in dealing with the government functionaries.
I felt better. It was like a blister popped. It may make things worse, as the World Bank folks leave, and the humiliated bureaucrat is the only authority left on the ground. I apologized to Herve afterwards. I also found out that the World Bank was there pretty much to take over from the Cameroonian government because the fund was so extremely poorly managed. What a shock. I got some business cards, and pushed them for some specifics. One last note. Charlie is a sharp guy. When final questions were asked, his were: what can you do to help us concretely… we see lots of strategic discussions, but nothing ever makes it to the ground. Of course the question was completely ignored.
So my plan is to throw the names of the World Bank and these folks specifially, around to help get the letters of transit signed, and threaten/cajole whomever I can to keep the process going. This is of course a lie. The World Bank couldn’t give a shit about this little project. I also am willing to shamelessly whore my camera out as a motivation tool. I will be trying to go to these meetings with a camera in hand to ‘document’ them… which I am, but the real goal is to use the WhiteMan With Camera™ power I seem to have here to get what I want. I’m hoping that the camera will be the carrot, and the World Bank, the stick. This is both unethical, and furthers the system of corruption. Why is it that the ruthless only work for themselves? I just hope it works.