Wedsnday December 4th, 2003
More students trickling in. Exactly what I didn’t want to happen, but knew would. I am getting better at telling them all to organize themselves. The tragic thing here is that kids are so used to being told what to do in the most blunt and absolute terms that when I try to be reasonable, it backfires.. so I am blunt, then later I explain. Alex on the other hand, gets a long talk, and I make him spend the evening writing lists of student’s names, and other basic organizational things. He can barely write, and has no organizational framework at all. I have to teach him the fundamentals of organizing and planning. I believe he is the definition of functionally illiterate. I also wonder if he has had a learning disability his whole life. Whew. Trying to learn here in school is hard enough, no supplies, 100 students in a class, and it costs money (so many students have to stop for a few months to earn enough money to continue). Imagine being disylexic on top of that. Oddly enough, it is probably both easier and harder. On an absolute level, it is much more difficult, but in this context he can function normally. That strange duality of reality strikes again.
Today I spent most of my time making a poster for the Gorilla Habituation Project. Actually, the second of two posters. I am pretty happy with them. I did a flaura/fauna dypthich with an animus anima theme… One with a monkey face as the main image, the other with a flower. What pleases me most is that I took all the photos as well…so I got to do the writing, make the logo, take the photos, do the design, and print them out. Full service.. although I have run out of A3 brochure paper, and that will be impossible to find here. They are heading out to Europe with George as soon as he leaves.. which, I found out today, will be a week sooner than I thought.
George’s friend Pete (also in his 50’s I presume), is really sick. George came by today, and told us that he is heading up to Yaoundé with Pete first thing in the morning. He also asked us if Pete could spend the night so he wouldn’t have to walk so far in the morning (George lives about a half mile from the bus depot). Of course we said yes. Jen gave up her matress, and we started getting ready. Pete showed up at the door, after having taken a motorcycle taxi here. Oh my god. Those fucking stoic british people. Pete was really sick. I mean at death’s door. Apparently he had been having problems on Mt. Cameroon. Pain in the chest, tightness around the chest as a whole, loss of feeling in the extremities, a hard time breathing… Even I have read enough stupid health brochures to recognize the signs of a heart attack. He was pale, very pale, sweating, and having a hard time breathing. It was like he was running a marathon, only he wasn’t moving. We sat around for a while, chatted, and tried to take his mind off of the situation. I, of course, was really bad at it, and kept trying to find out if there was more that we could do. After a while, George went home, and Pete just wanted to lie down. He did, and started sweating even more, breathing harder, and soflty moaning. Oh shit. I was sure that he was going to die…and he wouldn’t even complain. Everything we tried to do for him, he would have nothing of. I wanted to get the nun who runs a medical center,but no. I spent most of the night listening to him breathing… and got up several times to see if he was still alive when I couldn’t hear the breathing. At 5 am George came by, and they headed off to catch the bus. Now that is the part that is really stunning to me. I will assure everyone her and now: If I feel that bad, I am spending the money on a private 4X4 and getting the hell out of here as fast as possible. I am not a stoic british man. I am a whiney American wimp. I will raise enough fuss to get me out of here as fast and as safely as humanly possible. I mean, sitting in a cramped bus for 8 hours (minimum) smacking over every bump while your heart is giving way? No wonder a little tiny island ruled half of the world.