Tuesday October 28, 2003
I’ve been back almost a week now. It felt good to get back here. Getting to Yaounde really helped my state of mind. I got to blab about stuff, gossip, eat cheese, buy equipment, meet new people, get my FedEX (which made me really happy… yay for comic books) relax, and abuse the internet… but getting back, I actually felt like I was coming back to something that wasn’t totally alien. That, and I have a fridge. So, since I’ve been back here is the rundown of events and thoughts:
Some guy in a village up the road killed a gorilla, and she had a baby. They now have a baby gorilla at their house. They wanted to sell it to me. Alex went to go shoot some video of it, but they got cold feet. They were worried that he was associated with someone who would turn them in. Um.. if he knew about it, why didn’t he already turn them in. Sometimes logic loses out to emotion… or maybe they just don’t like technology. I may try to go there with my camera to see if I get a different response. I may tell them I have a potential buyer in the US, but that they want to see some video before they buy.. and then when it comes to buying.. I’ll just ask to see the papers. I am an asshole, but at least I didn’t shoot the mother. If I do go, it will be the first time I’ve ever seen something like this.. a gorilla in somone’s house.
When I was going to take my Meflaquine, I went through my medication bag.. and noticed something had moved. Alex looked a bit guilty, but I couldn’t find anything missing. At first. Then, the next day, I saw something red in the bushes in front of my place. It was a used condom wrapper. The kind that the VSO gives out. So, I waited for a bit.. and then, when I was sitting on my stoop, as I am doing more these days, and he came up.. I said: “hey.. what is that things over there?” He said “what thing”. I said “that red thing? Can you get it for me?” He walked over a few steps, saw what it was, and totally broke down… I had to get on his case again. Another long speech about responsibility… “it isn’t that you took the condoms… I don’t need them, its that you didn’t ask, and you didn’t tell me when I got back”. Another lecture. I fucking hate this. He is 25 years old. I shouldn’t be talking to him as if he were a child. Since then I’ve talked to him several times. I am getting more and more blunt.. and I repeat more and more. He also spent some money on beer that was for our food. I busted him on that as well.. which he refused to cop to.. and somehow, sort of found enough money to buy what he was supposed to. I am now starting to go shopping with him every time… which is what I want to do anyway. The funny thing is that he was supposed to buy 5 kilos or rice… but they were out, so he bought 3 dozen eggs for about the same price. He was a little perplexed at why I didn’t really think that was a good exchange. When I told him that eggs only last a few days…then he began to understand. It is strange to me that he has so little knowledge of food preparation. Our neighbor bought some Mackeral, whole… and he was really excited to show me. He had never seen a large, whole Mackerel before. When I told him that I have seen that before, he was surprised. He was even more surprised when I told him how big tuna really is.
My printer is working great. I have been taking portraits, and printing them out. I am going to be a popular guy in town..although I can’t really afford to print out too many as paper is REALLY fucking expensive here. Wow. But in the meantime, having it is great. It stays at my place, until I leave, then I leave it here. Charlie was already coming up with ways to make money off of it. This is why it stays with me for now. I feel so patronizing sometimes, but then again, I’d rather that, than no printer.
Kitty went away. She was just gone. I was pretty sure that she was eaten by one of the frequently sighted giant snakes in the area. It seems that because there is no real rainy season this year, the snakes are out in force. I have no idea what the correlation is.. but there you go. Two days later, when I started asking around, our neighbor returned her. She apparently wandered off, and they took her in… and wanted to keep her.. because, surprise… she is friendly. Most people are stunned that she is friendly. I tell them it is because I held her a lot when she was smaller (which is hard to imaging, cause she is still really small), and I treat her well. When my neighbor returned her, she immediately crawled on my lap, started purring and fell asleep. She had a hard few days. She is doing fine, and now comes in and out of the house freely. She doesn’t really seem interested in wandering off. Either she did, and met some bigger meaner animals, or my neighbors spotted a kitty, and took her. Who knows. Now that they know she is my kitty, I won’t have any more problems… unless she runs away for real, but I doubt that.
I ate monitor lizard for dinner on Saturday night. I didn’t like it that much, but I didn’t want to complain. I won’t be going out of my way to eat it again, that is for sure. Very fatty, very stringy, and the hands were a little much for me. I mean they looked like cooked child hands. Oh, and I think that monitor lizards are protected. Sigh. There goes that moral clarity again.
Alex, or a friend of Alex’s, had some trouble with the law, and Alex was called in as a witness. Something about support beams for houses, and them being stolen. Turns out some kid stole them from his mother, and then lied about it.. pinning the blame on Alex’s friend. The interesting part here is that one of the local gendarmes let his friend off the hook, but not before taking Alex aside and saying: “finisons”. It litterally means lets finish this. What it really means is it is time to talk about bribes, or grease, or whatever you want to call it. So the deal is: this guy wants to get a camera from the US. He is willing to pay for it, but needs Alex to ask me to get it for him. I’m OK with that. It isn’t really a bribe, more like a little something to keep the local constabulary on the happy side. I let Alex know that the soonest something like that could make it into the country would be with Eric over the summer. That seems to be OK by everyone.
On that note, I have been doing some video CD tests with my new software, and.. they work on the machines here. It turns out that my mistake was actually reading the labels on the machines. They all say DVD, and SuperVCD player (and Sony and…). Not true. There are pretty much all knock offs. Only in the expensive stores in Yaounde (where I got my printer) can you get the real deal. The thing is, no one here can really tell the difference… and I didn’t really bother to look more carefully until my experiments didn’t work. The good news is that I can output the video I am shooting here to VideoCD and keep people happy pretty easily. CD’s are pretty cheap, so I can live with that.
Wednesday October 22, 2003
Arlette, my placement officer (or whatever she is called) didn’t show up to work on Monday, which is when we were supposed to meet and talk business. She had a strategic planning session with some other company or NGO. But that isn’t really why. Since Raymond and Dianna showed up on Sunday, I got a little more detail of what happened. Arlette came out for the emergency meeting… but didn’t even meet with Raymond and Dianna. What was she thinking. Totally stupid, and ill conceived. Raymond and Dianna didn’t even know that she didn’t visit until they called Yusef, the VSO driver, and he was back in Yaounde washing the car. So apparently, Raymond was asking questions about the finances of his organization, and Dianna publically denigrated both her organization, and VSO at a town meeting. Bad idea. Her boss is a very well known Cameroonian development figure, both locally and nationally. Bad, bad idea to publically call him out as a thief and incompitant. I’m sure he is either out and out stealing the money from his organization, or, like many pseudo NGO’s here, it is pretty much a one man show… and since he can play the game well, and none of the funders actually do any real due dilligence (hell, most of them don’t even want to come out to the east… it is soooooo primative doncha know….), he gets funded, and uses the funds as a personal treasury. So it may be a bit early for me to cast any concrete judgement, but the whole NGO business is making me more and more sick. There is this fucked up relationship between the locals, and the funding organizations… which is essentially gussied up begging… or maybe, begging with annual reports. People here aren’t stupid, and the individuals who can understand the ‘western’ business jargon, can also clearly see its weaknessess… and many are clearly not above exploiting it. I know I sound like a broken record, but it just makes me sick. Anyway, Raymond and Dianna came, not surprisingly, to Yaounde very pissed off. The accusations against them included.. being spies, troublemakers, and of course, racist… aside from the spy thing.. its seems true to me. Dianna is Absolutely Convinced that she is right about everything. She makes Eric and I seem like amatures. She also has no sense of humor, and likes Celine Dion. That in and of itself would be enough for me to chase her out of town. Anyway, Arlette was pretty much ducking her responsibilities… so I had to wait another day for my meeting. The good news is that my problems can all be solved with a bit of the ol’ filthy lucre.. and now that Arlette is totally overwhelmed, I am not above using that to my advantage.
I get my fridge, and money to help with the cost of hiring a car to take me to Lomie. Yusef has a friend, who has a friend… I meet them and their 4X4 truck in the evening…and we agree to head out tomorrow morning early.. 4am. At 5:30 they show up.. tire troubles. This doesn’t bode well. I find out a few minutes later, that they also stiffed by Yusef’s friend. We pack the car, and head off to Lomie. That was some kind of ride. The first part went very smoothly. Then the nice paved road ended. We lost a mirror (which was taped on), and there was a sickening grinding noise from the rear axle. As we got to Among M’bang, we stopped for repairs. Being with a white man, all of the prices went up. It took a while to find the problem. The ball bearings were shot. We got some new ones.. and replaced them. This took several hours. It was during this time that I found out they had no real idea where Lomie was…and Yusef’s friend had told them it was a few kilometers away from Among M’bang. Oh shit…125 kilometers of totally fucked up road away. When I told them the distance (without even describing the state of the road… hell I didn’t want to be dumped there..and I paid my money already)… there a littany of curses against Yusef’s friend. After almost 4 hours of grueling driving.. and I mean grueling (even the stupid SUV advertisements don’t show their cars driving on roads like this)… getting us half way, they started growling again. We stopped in Among M’bang, and they took off with all of my stuff, heading back to Yaounde. I quickly hailed a moto-taxi,and offered them 2000 CFA (4$) if they could get to the gendarme’s checkpoint before them, and to tell the local gendarmes to stop these guys. They bike raced off, and on these roads it is no contest. They were apprehended, and stoned to death by the mob in town... Ok.. that last part isn’t true, but I though it would make a great story…basically the story of the worst possible day for these two guys, who were clearly having a bad day already. What they thought would be easy money led to a 18 hour marathon of things breaking, getting ripped off, and having to risk their lives.
Anyway, what really happened is that we got to Lomie just fine. I bought them drinks, we unloaded the truck, and I gave them some gas money to get back to Yaounde. I hope they made it all right. I felt sorry for them.
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yum.
oh yeah. I have a video of the head being chopped in half, but I'm sparing you all the sound... for now.
this was in Messok also. My room, the light.. ooooh.
this is in Messok in the early morning. Kids on the way.. to somewhere.
Last ones.. and my second favorite. Again worked a little more.
This is my favorite. I worked it for less colors, and black n white... just to see how it would look.
This one is a little different. Very rough..but the idea is there.
When I showed my pencil drawings. The African style logos got the best response. I chose to work on that direction.
these are my rough first pass at logos for GECEC.
see, this doesn't count as a wall picture because of the wires. Hah.
This is the window that I look at the world from. This may explain much.
Alex taking the video of the Messok opening.
This is the space ship that abducted me. I did not ask for the anal probe. I did not ask... oh, wait, this is just another picture of the water tower. Never mind.
This is another wall picture. That is it for now..but there are a lot more where these came from.
yes, I know, more wall. How boring. I like them though.
Another wall detail, texture, color thing.
another texture, color, detail thing. I really like the walls here.
from my space age bachelor pad baby. Yeah. Groovy.
Does a picture of a van count as a picture of a truck? This is the kind of van we travel around in. This is when we had to get out and walk a bit.. before it cought fire.
except for the other ones that I have.
A picture of a palm tree that I messed around with.
Here they are coming out of the mist.
the giant water towers across from the place I am staying in Yaounde. In the morning. Very cool looking. I'm not sure how they translate to static image format though.
This is a picture of the skit about the store opening, and AIDS. The women are wearing thier Tontine's fabric. Very pretty.
This is a picture of my foot. I have no idea why I am uploading it.
This is a truck with trees on it. I'm not even sure how many of these leave town every day. My next time lapse video might shed some light on the subject, but I think I keep missing many of them. Sigh.
another texture thingee. This time: thatch. There is a lot of it around. It is being replaced by corrugated tin roofs. That makes the rain sound really REALLY loud. I like thatch, but my computer doesn't.
this is my desk.. as stipulated in paragraph 8 of the VSO standard equipment requirements. With my desk, I will change the world. I will fix everything. It will be glorious. I will serve snacks afterwards.
This is a woman in the store that I videotaped the opening of. Still dangling, still mangling.
this is a picture of the store that I video taped the opening of. Is that a dangling participle? Wow, my language skills are diminishing.
for some reason my kitty likes it when I hold her neck..as if I am going to strangle her. It looks like I'm going to kill her. She is wierd.
some woman from the ROLD meetings. She was a trip. Very opinionated.
a page out of my sketchbook. I have three. This is the little one. I have been drawing some, but not a whole lot. Being here hasn't really changed my drawing style.. yet. We'll see if something changes.
Flip flops at the market. These are ubiquitous in Lomie.
last one.. this is the girl that was selling the goods. Goods. Sounds clinical.
This is the first of another series that I just couldn't edit well. A shack with kids in it, making and selling things.
another texture, detail thing. Sometimes I think being here is wasted on me.. I mostly enjoy the little details of life that I can see pretty much anywhere. I think I might be missing the really obvious stuff. Or maybe not.
So, every group meal involves the protocol of who eats when. Here, Paul, the SNV facilitator eats with the women... meaning first.
another pattern, color, texture thing. This time the bamboo poles in my house.
this shot was taken in Messok at the GECEC branch opening. Alex was to the right taking the group video. It didn't come out that well. He tried to treat it like a photo...but I like this shot.
another texture,color detail picture. The mud was moved there by ants. They seem to be pretty good earth movers.
another wall painting. I want to find out who did these.
A wall painting. Very cool. Something about the terminator in there as well.
trucks are a part of my life now. Big ones. Relentless ones. Vroom Vroom.
I'm a really bad editor... I should just have one of these up to creat a little mystique... oh well.
Same store, same town, same photographer.
this is a store near me.. at around 7:30 pm.
its pretty...and it is prettier when you can't hear the music that wails from blown speakers pretty much all the time.
One in a series of night shots of Lomie
another shot right before the storm.
I really like all the signs here. Hand painted...and very cool. The Barber Shop signs are cool enough and varied enough for a full on book. Anyone want to help me write a proposal to do one?
I know that the large postierior is quite the aesthetic here, but this is a bit much...
This is my mug shot of Thomas. He is the operations guy at the GECEC? I'm starting to think all guys named Thomas (or Tomas as it is pronounced) are great.
This is Bertrand. I work with him. He is the collection agent for GECEC.
this looks like what it feels like before a storm.
she is cute. I hope she is not dead when I get back to Lomie.
this is what I feel like on mondays and tuesdays after I take my meflaquine.
these cows are cool. Two get slaughtered a week for the town.
cows moving right near my place. On the way to some grass patch to eat before being eaten.
This is in Yaounde actually. Taken from the apartment where I am staying, early in the morning... with some more cool light.
This is Lomie, downtown, at night. I like these abstract pictures...or sort of abstract.
Patrice and Charlie after having been elected to thier new positions.
This is the market in town. This is the center of market in town. This is pretty much all of the market in town. That isn't really true.. there is a little more around back.. but it is not very big.
There is a variant of the baton which I want to try, called the Blinde... I guess after the armored vehicles. You mix in peanut butter, or dried fish, or meat into the magnok while it is still mushy. It hardens in place, and you get a tasty little snack.. that apparently is good for up to two weeks. Yummy. Who wants some?
Most people eat this as a side with meat, or vegitables (when there are some) and fish. I am strange. I eat it with peanut butter as a snack. It is very filling.
The cassava, a tuber like a potato, is pounded into a mush, and then wrapped while still mooshy. It hardens in its wrapper. It is the consistency of... of...well, its chewy. It has almost no real taste on its own except for a vague starchy flavor.
This is the magnok being unwrapped. It is always well wrapped. Each baton costs 25CFA... which is about... um... 5 cents.
This is a baton de magnok. This is what I eat alot. It comes wrapped in a leaf.
this was also not taken by me... of Lomie's main street.
I didn't take this picture. I like it,and it gives a pretty good idea of what the main road in Lomie looks like. This is pretty much downtown as well.
This is the pretty forest after it has been cut and loaded. This was taken from my house looking at a 'Grumier'. Even in death,they are magnificient.
it looks like aliens are trying to get in my house. I will fight them. I will not become a pod person.
just another in an ongoing series of photos that are of texture, color and detail with no real context.
...well, its my kitchen. What else can I say.
another shot of people watching the skit on commerce and AIDS. The tires are toys. Like the hoops you see kids playing with in Bruegel paintings, the kids use a stick to wheel them along.
the jungle is even more impressive when there is dense fog.
it just never ends... or at least it seems that way.
This is what you all came here for, isn't it? The jungle is bad ass.
I have no idea why I have this picture.
these goat pretty much live on my deck, and eat the grass in front of my house.
sorry for all the pictures of me staring at the camera. I think this is after I had my meflaquine for the week. At least I look a little more human.
I look like a mental patient... maybe I am.
I look pretty scary... oh yes I do...
This is a picture of the crack under my door. I really like it.
This dog had bloody ears, and was sitting in front of the store that was celebrating its opening later in the day. The flies kept landing on the open sores... but from far away, what a cute doggie, you know?
they are amazing, and I like taking pictures of them.
This is the church where the Pastor does his work. Hopefully, with a new robe soon.
Charlie looking like a little boy, while planning to take over the world.
um, this is just something that I liked. No real significance.
here is Alex taking pictures at the store opening. I fear I am a bad influence... he seems to have picked up my habit of making faces when photographed.
this is a friend of mine. We share the bathroom.. well, with him, and a few dozen of his friends.
this brochure was entirely lettered and drawn by hand. Awesome.
this is a nice simple shot of my bedroom. Spartan? A bit.
this is a still shot from my day as the videographer of the store opening. They were watching a short skit about the store opening, and of course, AIDS.
the sky here is amazing. This captures the color and the feel of light.
I can't resist a bad joke. I am so 12 years old.
or, the greeks meet the Peace Corps...
Sunday October 19, 2003
Last night was interesting. I was invited to Karen Kelly’s (Peace Corps program officer) for dinner. I met Kara (the PHD student from John’s Hokins), her girlfriend (I believe), a Peace Corps volunteer from the extreme north, the assistant director from the American School, and Karen’s Husband, who, it turns out works in the embassy (and not as a janitor). Dinner was fantastic. The food was a first class, healthy spread. If I were to place it in an American context. Upscale bay-area ethno-eclectic. Not that it would have to be the bay area, but you can find this in well off, well educated Berkeley houses, for example. Fresh Tofu, Cabbage and pinapple salad. An eggplant-potato dish, A sort of tortilla/flat bread, ginger juice (to be cut with water), and home made ice cream and brownies for desert. MMMMMM good. Conversation was fun, and skipped around to many subjects. I whipped out my Lomie tales. Geovic was a topic of conversation… and once again, I have a really big mouth. I didn’t realize that Karen’s husband worked in the embassy, so I was talking about what I knew, and what I conjectured about Geovic, and the sous-prefet’s drunken babbling. As long as it stayed on the casual observation level, we were talking about it. As soon as I went into some of my theories, the conversation ended. I’m not drawing any conclusions about what that means, other than I pushed the conversation out of the black and into the blue. I mean seriously, the only choice for him was to politely be quiet. That is why he can work in the embassy. Tact. I have little. Of course I have a different agenda, and no one is going to just tell me what is going on. Of note: he said that the US government had not given funding to Geovic…but I distinctly remember reading that on the website, and a few other places. If I am right, I’ll definitely send off a note. I brought the CIA stuff up again, to not much response. We talked of butterflies and prostitution. I am not really fit for genteel society, but I think they are pretty used to that. All in all, it was a great meal, and fine company. I’m going to join the Peace Corps folks who are going down to Ngoila next month for a few days to see them kick off their project. Video camera obligatory.
The second part of the evening was.. a little different. I met up with Isabelle, Kate and Rebecca who are all VSO volunteers. Kate is on the other side of the DJA doing a project with Arlette’s husband. Apparently, the project is a good idea, but not much is happening. She seems to being doing pretty well. She has a good way about her, and is enjoying the country.Rebecca is doing some NGO networking (I think). It was nice to see both of them. I think it is difficult for Rebecca here. She’s coping, but I think that she is encountering some of the complexities of life, and Cameroon. We met up at the Hellenic institute for a disco party. Yes, that is correct. The orthodox greek community center hosted a disco party. Fankinsense, Mirh and Andy Gibb. You should have seen those priests in the black robes dancing. OK, I’m kidding… but it did look like a room full of rejects from the Soprano’s (not that they were Italian.. they were actually from all over).. The rotund mullet sporting, fu-manchu growing plate smashing greek guy was a trip though… and the only black person there was selling the beer. It was very uncomfortable, and no one could dance. The expat community here is freaky… as it is everwhere. More freaky than everything was the juxtoposition between the two parts of the evening, and that this was more exposure with only white people that I’ve had in months. This is a strange place.
...or ben has a big mouth.
Saturday October 18, 2003
I didn’t get the ATM thing right. It is the most cost efficient way to get money here… the daily limits are annoying, but since I have my Paris account, and my SF account, I will be just fine. Two days of internet at the VSO offices… and some dirt. First of all, the half days of half working were in full effect. Friday, the office closed at 1, which is just about when people got back from lunch. I was booted. No internet for me in the afternoon.
I have been staying at the VSO pad, I instigate conversations about development, expatriots, morality and other such lofty topics. My points are the following: We are still colonizers… and volunteers and NGO folks, in particular, are hypocrites of the first magnitude. We (well, most of us) are here to import a behavioral code, and keep the economic imbalance in full effect. The NGO’s here have totally different salary structures for people who are from here, and those who come for Europe or America. It doesn’t really matter what skills, or education they may have. Most companies also have this from what I understand, but they aren’t preaching the alleviation of poverty.
If any of you were worried that I had lost my ability to piss people off by being an arrogant asshole… you can relax. I can still be a pompous ass. I got into a big discussion with someone here over values and morality. They were saying that folks here who work for the diplomatic corps, get paid western salaries, go from their air conditioned office, to their 4X4’s, home to their gated and guarded home full of flat screen tv’s, and all other fancy western conveniences had a responsibility to interact with the people here, and that they couldn’t create policy that helped people without knowing them. My argument was that exposure (or lack of) had no correlation with the effectiveness of policy. I had two points: it is totally arrogant to think that we can predict the results of policy. We suck at that. The laws of unintended consequences are much bigger, and more complex than we can fathom. The second point was that the well meaning, and integrated are capable of even more damage than the isolated.
I gave the example of the SNV (who were for the most part active in the field) who lobbied to get the community forest status created as a legal entitity. They got the status created, without considering the full impact of something like this would have. The noble idea was that these communities could manage their own resources, and it would be much better. This belief (IMO) was heavily influenced by their relationships and interaction with people ‘on the ground’. They were working with educated, willing and.. maybe.. capable folks who wanted this status. The problem is that, in a nutshell, the community forests have turned into an upolicable looting fest. Without having thought through the consequences of the legislation, and the power structures behind the personalities, they left a bunch of children with bags of candy in a schoolyard full of bullies. Now they are shocked that the bullies have taken the candy. Shocked. So shocked that they are moving away from direct action, to becoming …essentially… management consultants. I mean, fuck, just what the Cameroonians need. A herd of well meaning management consultants.
The psychic damage that will be wrough by the failure of the community forest initiative is totally devastating because it will take away something that the ruthless timber exploiters could never touch: hope. Only after building up hope, can you destroy it… to be replaced with a numb sense of hopelessness. (The painful question here is: was the failure avoidable?)
So that was my argument. By preaching (and it is preaching.. just like the church) the power of sustainable development, self-governance, and talking up all the benefits that would result from it; then not following through, the well meaning have done more to crush the spirit of empowerment and progress than any isolated western expat could ever do. This opinion was not well received.
I also questioned the whole notion… which is prevalent in the volunteer/NGO community… that people here will make things better for themselves by doing things the way we do in (your country’s name here). I have been here a only month… or two.. .and I seem to have a more sophisticated understanding of power dynamics and social dynamics than people who have been here years. I don’t believe that we ‘we’ do will work here. This is actually what really pissed people off. I made some sweeping pronouncements, as I have been …occasionally… known to do, about how things work here to people who have been here for a while. They seem to get pissed off as much because I am not wrong, as that I am saying them.
One of the more interesting tangents to me was, in a roundabout way, about identity. There was some outright denigration of a French guy who came here to do business, and who talked about how much better it was here. Less rules, everything is cheaper, and he lives like a king, with maids, prostitutes and lots of stuff. I said that while his lifestlye choices were not things that I liked, I totally understand what he is talking about. I talked about how some people thrive in certain evironments, and don’t in others. They talked about how obstructionist, and unfair everything is here, and how could I say that things were better here. I said things aren’t a matter of better or worse,but that I felt more comfortable here in some ways because I could face the bureacrats, and corrupt officials and try to work things out myself. That it was a system, partially because I am white, and partially because I have money (relatively speaking) and partly because of my personality, I can get what I want.. and some things that are very important for people in the US (like where you live, and what car you drive, and what TV you watch) are not important here. So I could totally understand why he liked being here, and that I couldn’t fault him for it. They said that I was just benefitting from being white and rich, and that made me..um.. morally dented? I said: if it was simply a matter of that, why wouldn’t all white people thrive here, and be effective? I also said that there were many people who ‘couldn’t’ live in Lomie for lack of balanced diet, health facilities and running water and thrive. Am I a bad person because I can be effective in an environment like that? Am I more racist? Am I morally dented? Do I care?
Anyway, the summary here is that there has been lots of discussion about these issues here, and as usual, I am out of synch with just about everyone.. except Isabelle, who is a bit of a freak as well.. but we end up talking about making documentaries, and the politics of working for a rich American NGO as a volunteer.
So the VSO dirt. In brief: at least 4 placements have gone very south in the past few weeks. Brian, a computer teacher has been fired for being to expensive… His placement really just wanted free labor, and when he refused to teach students directly (basically saying there were qualified Cameroonians who could do that).. they realized he moved from one side of the balance sheet to the other. Since they couldn’t fess up to that, they came up with some totally ludicrous personal accusations, and suspended him. Raymond and Dianna’s postings pretty much imploded. Both of them have been fired, or asked not to come in to work. I’m not sure how much their personalities (or hers in particular) caused this, and how much the placements were ill concieved. I think the town is ready to tar and feather her, but I think some of it may have been because she asked some very public questions about where money was going.. as did he. Arlette, the VSO program officer for the east went out for an emergency meeting which apparently didn’t go well. G… is working as a midwife for one of the richest men in Cameroon, one who, apparently, is the muscle that helps the president keep control over the Anglophone areas. If there is political opposition, it mysteriously dissapears, or dies.. and this man has been implicated. She isn’t really comfortable there, and is totally isolated. She has left for Bamenda. On the not totally impoded front: Jennifer’s (I think) placement is being held up because some minister feels threatened by the work her organization is doing, so no work can be done. Suzanne has not had anything to do for the past 5 weeks. Nothing. She should be starting soon though. Jonathan can’t get into, or out of town unless he uses the chief’s taxi service (it’s the only motorized vehicle in town) and the chief makes him pay white man fees, which Jonathan can’t afford. That, and apparently, he has no support in town, so I’m not sure how well he is doing. There have been people who have been writing to the VSO office here offering suggestions for improvement and changes.. which are met with hardcore hostility and accasions. This should be a pretty interesting few months on the VSO as organization front. There are a lot more of us here than they are used to having at any one time. I’m not sure if they will be able to cope with the shear volume of crisis brewing.
On yet another front. I went printer shopping (as well as all sorts of stuff) shopping today. To be effective in my job, I need a printer and some paper, and ink. The whole mess will cost close to $800 (probably around $1500 if I got everything I needed). In the grand scheme of things, not a large amount. I just don’t want to wait the 6 months the paperwork would take to file for a grant. I may just break down and buy the printer with my own funds. It pisses me off though. I don’t want to have to do it, and I don’t think that I should have to. For doing marketing, communications and publicity, these are basic tools. You’d think that there would be some effort made towards having some funds available for me to be able to go equipped. I did get a pre-departure grant, but that was for all of the stuff I might need and it was roughly $800. Shoes, or printer… that is quite a choice to make. So, the bottom line is that: I’m not going to throw out 6 months of my 2 years on a pissy matter like this. I’ll put in the grants for other stuff, but I am going to get the printer. It doesn’t mean that I can’t be pissed off though.
Arg. Maybe I should try to set up a paypal donation thing: ‘save Ben from the bureaucracy’ fund. Hell, with 10k , and no paperwork, I could make an enormous difference. Benny Struthers… I can see it now. Do it for the children…
Wednesday October 15th 2003
Wednesday was travel day. I was supposed to be able to hitch a ride up to Among M’bang (where the highway starts) with the SNV, but I was dumped in favor of some refrigerators. So, at 4:45 am I left my abode to head to the ‘bus’ station. Its actually just across the street. At about 6:30 we headed out. I waited, and I got a good seat in the front. The roads were bad. This is what I expected when I headed out here, but was surprised by the good condition of the roads. This is much more of what I had in mind. The road had deep ruts from the logging trucks, was very slippery because of the rain, and had been either washed out, or was still submerged. There were a few moments, when we were heading downhill, that we were just skidding. The van (packed with 20 people) was skidding horizontally down the hill, and giant logging trucks, that are well known for not stopping, or moving for anyone, were coming at us. We skidded off the road a few times. We had to get out the van to walk across a muddy area, and the van tried for about 10 minutes to cross it as well. Then the fun started. In front of me, puff… a cloud of smoke appeared. We stopped, pulled up some metal plates. The battery had cought fire. We put it out, stripped some wires from the inside of the car, and fixes the battery… or a few minutes. Poof, again with the smoke. Again with the stopping, again with the fixing. This time, a damp rag was placed over the whole thing to make sure that it wouldn’t catch fire again. Again… poof. This time the flames were getting bigger. This was all directly in front of me, btw. Someone pulled the metal plate off, the rag, and some paper were on fire. I grabbed them, and threw them out the window before they hit the can of kerosine sitting next to them. Luckily, the competing van company’s van passed us… or tried to. We were blocking the road. We took some tools from them and started trying to fix the van. In this other van was none other than Patrice, the man who had won the election the night before to be the head of ROLD. We chatted for a few minutes while the repairs continued. He said that the other van didn’t seem to be as full. I asked if they had room for me. They did. I cut out on my estwhile cohorts, and took the working van.
Every once in a while, there are police checkpoints on all the roads here. One, maybe two cops (gendarmes) who make the driver stop, get out, and present the papers. Sometimes they look at the bags on the roof to determine if there is any contraband. We encountered one of those. He saw some bags on the roof, and wanted them brought down for inspection. This could be a prelude to confiscation, a request for a bribe, whatever. The driver was asked about the contents of a particular bag, to which no one in the van claimed ownership. After 3 or 4 requests for idenitifaction, a woman owned up to it. When asked what was in the van, she relpied meat for her family. Stuff she bought at the market, goat to be specific. The Gendarme asked for the bag to be brought down and inspected. The woman made some comment about him taking it. This pissed him off. Oh, I was out of the van, and by the side of the road for this, in full view of the gendarme. I’m not sure how much different the exchange would have been without my presence. Anyway, he got very huffy, and said.. roughly… I have 28 years of experience, I am the most decorated cop in the east, and you accuse me of stooping to take your nasty meat? Maybe I will, just for that comment. To which she said nothing. He asked her for her papers after berating her for being rude, with comments like: you can’t be married, because no man would be with you with a mouth like that, and just because you have a beard like a man, now you think you are a man. Side note here, female facial hair is common here, and this woman had a slight beard. When she didn’t answer, he again asked for papers. Now, everyone was getting a little nervous when she didn’t provide them. You just produce your papers on demand. Not producing them causes real trouble. So people started trying to make things better by asking her to apologize and just give him the papers. She apologized, half assedly, which he dismissed as to little to late. He talked of hauling her in to the station. Finally she produced the papers, which someone had to take out of her hands, and put into his ‘cause neither were going to move an inch. Now, I should be clear here. She was not being beligerent, just clearly annoyed, scared and evasive. After about 5 more minutes of him insulting her, her tribe, her name, her lack of husband (the truth of which was beside the point), he told her to change her attitude, and be thankful that she found a cop who was as compassionate as he was, and let us go.. without taking the meat. Back in the van a lengthy discussion ensued. The conclusions of which were: he had the right to do that, but most cops are totally corrupt. She was a total idiot for not just showing him her papers. The rule of law was indeed a good thing… as well as papers.With no further mishaps (except for hours… hours of very scary roads, we made it to Among M’bang. The road from Lomie to Among M’bang is 125 kilometers long. It took 7 hours. Apparently, it gets worse. George told me that wheels often go flying off. One interesting fauna notation. The rain brings out the ants. There were two or three ant columns crossing the road. Shit. There is nothing that scares people here like ants. I understand better now. The columns were like topograpghical maps of rivers. There were offshoots, and it didn’t go in a straight line… but the main flow was almost 3 feet wide, and it extended beyond the boundaries of the road, so I have no idea how long it was. Even driving down the road I could see the ants moving, and the mass churning along. That congo-line of ants could devour and destroy anything in its path.
From Among-Mbang on, the drive was relatively easy… except for the child that had been run over by a van (dead by the side of the road, and the van passangers standing around crying. A few police stops.. and the VSO land rover heading the opposite direction. I did manage to stop them, and find out that Arlette, my coordinator, was going to be out of the office because of an emergency meeting with Raymond and Dianna.
I made it to Yaounde. Took a taxi to Isabelle and Leanne’s pad.. well, it is sort of the VSO crash pad. I was totally filthy. Totally. That is not somehting I say much. I don’t really get bothered by dirt, and this didn’t bother me.. but I was a salty-ass country fuck if I do say so myself. I got the the pad, and caught up a bit with Isabelle. That was fun. We talked some dish about VSO and some of the drama in other people’s lives. I will post a few things in the next few days that will curl your lips.
Yaounde looks different after a month in Lomie. In some ways, bigger. In some ways, less so. Sidewalks are a strange phenomena. Stores with rows and isles is different. I guess that it is apparent that I have a better idea of what is going on around me, because all of the prices are going down, or I can negotiate much more easily. Taxi fares are better, someone tried to snake me out of some change… but I am pretty comfortable with what I cam doing, and how much things should cost. I still have a long way to go,but I already notice the difference.
Today I got money from an ATM, and if I got it right, I paid almost 50$ for the service. That is pretty damn high, and I might resort to western union tomorrow. I spent hours on line, and I still have a huge amount of work to do tomorrow. But for tonight, I am going to check out some theatre, meet a few people, and enjoy my evening.
Tuesday October 14, 2003
Monday and Tuesday were all day meetings for ROLD. ROLD, for those of you who don’t know, which should be everyone… is an association of associations doing development work in Lomie. It has..sort of… been around for 4 years, or maybe even 6. Anyway, the past two years have been a total loss. The director had a bad preganancy. There was a lot of infighting… and nobody paid their dues, so the organization couldn’t really do anything. The meetings were the General Assembly for the ROLD which happen every two years. They brought in a moderator from the SNV to help. The first day may as well have been in any US disfuncitonal organization that brought in a management consultant to help them. Buzzwords, presentations of warmed over business flow charts, and organzational models. Blah blah. Thing is, here, it still has some of the –wow, this is new- value. Not much, but some. Then we did some –group- work. Basically, doing an analysis of the opportunities and risks at a strategic level. As it is in the US, there were the: ‘we don’t need no stinking strategy’ folks, and the.. ‘all value is strategy, tactics are for the little people’ camps. It was interesting to see some of the differences… or the different results achieved with these methods in a different context. As in most places, those with a command of language, and in specific business language, talked and led. I was pretty quiet Monday. So were half of the people assembled. Especially the few Baka that were represented. Every session started late, and finished later. We didn’t finish one of the exercises as desired, and had to come back early the next morning. Oh, I forgot to mention. Charlie asked me to come in and work on Sunday, because we all had to prepare for the meeting on Monday. Turns out.. that really meant that I had to write out the agenda on big sheets of paper, while everyone else sat around outside and chatted. What really pissed me off is that I wasn’t prepared, and I didn’t get to bring my Ipod, or pencil to work with.. which would have made the work pass faster.
Tuesday was political… we got into ammending the statutes, and elections happened. We also finished the strategic work early in the morning. I spoke up and out much more on Tuesday. When I figured out what the exersice was really supposed to be about, I pretty much, politely, took over… getting us to where we needed to go in a short period of time. I may have annoyed some people, but I don’t really care. When we got to the statutes and stuff, I really started to ask some more pointed questions about power, responsibility and mandate. I started to ask because they want a VSO volunteer to help them pull this thing together… and I wanted to know what they were driving at, and how they expect to get there. I may even want to take over more of the marketting functions of this thing, as it offers more range than the GECEC. But that is another story, and may not ever even become one. So, I got into the fray a bit. I was commenting to someone at the meeting that politics seems to be strategy, but with a blood. So, out came the factions, the small town dirt, and the coalition building. I had to explain to people that I wasn’t going to be voting. That got most people off of my back. The new president, or whatever the official title is, is a strategy guy… Patrice. We’ll