here I fucking go again...
sigh
Sunday November 16th 2003
So, I’ve decided to start a new business. Sort of. Since it is abuntantly clear that donor money is not going to be something I am good at getting. I can’t deal with all the stupid paperwork, and beurocratic hoops, all for a maybe with huge strings attached. More specifically, the SNV isn’t going to pony up…oh maybe they will. What I do know is that what people have to do to get the money, and what it does to their pysche is degrading… I’ve said this before, but it is formalized begging. So, the idea of starting a marketing business is one that I mentioned to Charly… and no surprise… he is all in favor of it. The idea is to take on clients from wherever, and use the money to subsidize the work for the local NGO’s… but to be honest.. I care less about them. It is going to be more to help the GECEC make some money, get some equipment, train some people, and give the GECEC clients a discount. It also put me in a postion I understand. I have something that other people need and want. Since I don’t have to make money for myself, it frees me to lower the prices. I get to manage myself… which will help me maintain my sanity. The only downside is that I’m not really sticking to the VSO mandate of ‘helping the poorest of the poor’… but to be honest.. I don’t really believe that will be helping anything here.. or pretty much anywhere. Every society rises on its middle class… you don’t get development from the bottom up. OK, bold statement, yes… but am I wrong? Can anyone give me an example of a society that rose from poverty to wealth by supporting the poorest first?
Saturday November 15th 2003
I am in a very bad mood, and I feel crappy. I’m getting more and more convinced its the Mefloquine… in fact, I think that I may not have had a malarial outbreak. I think that it might have been the meds all along. Its really hard to tell, but I am spending about a day a week feeling really bad. The good news is that I have no real stress. Even with the SNV shenanigans, I’m annoyed, but it only goes so deep. I realised that it has to do with threat levels. None of this is a threat to me. The worst thing that happens is that I don’t get anything done for two years (well, I could get really sick, but that is a whole ‘nother subject)…So when people show up late.. doesn’t really bug me. Don’t do something well, doesn’t bug me. SNV bailing in an ugly cloud of denial and loose ends.. bugs me, but only so much. It sort of feels like college to me. I know that sounds strange, but I had this feeling in school as well. I live in a little bubble world. I just have to show up, but the real difficult things are taken care of for you.. in this case, I get paid a living wage by VSO, my rent is covered. I have special ‘white man’ status… I’m only here for two years, and there is only so much I can get done. I certainly don’t think that I am going to ‘change the world’ and have no feelings of obligation there. The only obligation I feel is towards Charly and GECEC…but I am pretty confident that I am going to be well worth their investment.. I mean, if I leave the printer, and satellite modem.. I will have already largely brought in more than I will be taking…so anything else is gravy. I pretty much work at the speed I want to work at… do what I want to. Don’t get me wrong, I am working, and there are a lot of demands on me… but they just don’t get to me is all.
people I work with I never really took pictures of people before, but I'm enjoying it here...
Friday November 14th 2003
I get an urgent message.. Rolf is waiting for me up at the SNV building to show me how to use the satellite phone. This is news to me. I throw on some clothes, and head up. I get a brief lesson on how to work the phone. It isn’t complicated. I get a sheet of paper with some basic instructions on how to contact France Telecom if something needs to get re-set.. but that is about it. No billing info, no instruction manual, nothing but a mandate to turn it into a profitable business by December… I’m pretty much to pissed off to do anything but bitch about the SNV all day to anyone who will listen. Most people in town don’t get it.. They are gone. I mean, people were actually relieved (and believed) that the SNV weren’t really going.. it just looked like it. This is going to be an ugly ride down a steep hill. Most of the local NGO’s are toast… what was that stupid movie? Dead Man Walking?
some strange pictures a few odds and ends that I though might interest everyone.
or, the good the bad, and the just plain..ugly.
Thursday November 13th 2003
The official handing over of the SNV building happened today… although, this was as much an official: goodbye Lomié event, as a hello GECEC event. After years of being here, the SNV is gone, years ahead of schedule…with much unfinished business.
So, this may lapse into a semi-coherent rant (which may be hard to distinguish from the rest of my posts, but humor me), but what a fucked up situation. So, first, I’ll go through the event, then the implications. We are supposed to show up at 2pm, at three, the sous-prefet shows up, there are to be some testimonials about how great the SNV is, a paper signing and key exchange, then we wander around the building for a few minutes, then dinner at Chez Jacky. I showed up at 2ish… at 3ish the rest of the people showed up. At 4ish the sous prefet shows up.. which is really weird.. Its like a king or royalty or something.. like his arrival in and of itself is the event…which, I guess it is. This protocol stuff would be annoying, if it wasn’t so silly. I got out of having to sit around by being the official event photographer. Rolf even asked me take pictures for him. Two cameras… oooh. I’m a big man now. Oh yeah. Then the testimonials began
It was the testimonials that really got to me. One person after another getting up and saying how much the SNV changed their lives for the better. How good and helpful they are/were. This would be great, if it were true… for example, Seraphim from CODEVIR, the people who borrowed money from GECEC for the portable saw project, spoke about how great the SNV was, and how grateful he was for all their help and support… I know that they are on the verge of collapsing… and largely because the business plan and feasability studies that the SNV did were.. well, not great (and let’s keep in mind here, that these were done by the very same people who are now the SNV’s consulting experts). Somone else was telling me much the same thing about one or two of the other testamonials. One guy, was no longer welcome in his own village… As if this weren’t enough to get me riled… Rolf spoke. Rolf went on and on about how, at first the change was something he thought was bad, but finally, he saw that it was good… (which I agree with, but for totally diffetent reasons).. and how they weren’t really leaving, they were just going to be neighbors, a short 5 hour bus ride away.. and look at all the great stuff they were leaving behind… like the nifty satellite.. and this fantastic new building. This went on for a while. It was pretty uninspiring, and made me understand how badly the SNV wanted, or needed really, to bail on Lomié. Needed is the right word. I’m sure that Rolf and Jaap didn’t want their money, and plans to be short circuited. They are both likable, and sincere… the irony of a sustainable development project bailing, and leaving less than nothing behind is clear. So, then the Mayor was asked to speak. He wasn’t so flattering. He asked point blank: are any of these organizations strong enough to stand on their own? In his opinion, not really. He said it nicely, but was pretty clear that he wasn’t fooled, and that this was going to be a fiasco. Rolf got up to rebut, and fudged and hemmed a bit. He missed a great opportunity to ask they mayor what he, and the city of Lomié were going to do to help.. but he just fudged around. More speeches, some wandering around, and then dinner…which was a huge event, and probably the last big client Jacky is going to have for a long long time. Oh… I forgot to mention…that the titular head of GECEC (the director of the board.. not Charly) gave a speech about what the SNV now GECEC compound was going to do. It was during that speech that I found out that I was expected to be working there everyday..and that I would be doing sys-admin for some decrepid computers that the SNV was leaving behind, as well as managing the satellite phone system. Nice. So, this is what really pissed me off. I am being asked to clean up after the SNV, and the Dutch government. What the fuck is that about. So my big beef? That the SNV created the need for email, and sat phone communication, and then, because of bad planning, are taking it away… no wait, even worse, they are expecting Charly to turn it into a profitable business. They are asking Charly to do what they themselves never had to do… so if it fails, it is of course, Charly’s fault for not being a good manager. The thing is, it is doomed to fail. No one bothered to ever go into costs. I still haven’t seen a bill to understand exactly what the costs are… they don’t even know how it works. I had to tell them that you get billed for incoming and outgoing mail… although there is still debate about that… which is even more stunning.
Bottom line, I have to get this poison out of here as soon as possible. I am going to do what I really didn’t want to do, use my satellite modem for the town. I am going to try to set it up as a viable business, and add in the cost of the future security deposit so that when I leave, GECEC can keep the modem, and take over the billing…without having to suddenly dump thousands of dollars into the system (which is what the SNV is asking them to do). I’m so glad I was asked.
I also have to sys-admin two old wintel boxes running win 95, with 16 megs of ram. I will have to split my time between working on my current job, with my (bad ass) computer that can do exponentially more, and maintaining two pieces of shit that the SNV couldn’t be bothered taking with them. I basically got downgraded because of the SNV’s crappy ass job of leaving Lomié. Yeah fuckers, don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
Now I get how this development thing works. Build a well, poison it, and then blame the locals for drinking out of the well. Nice.
Portraits from Kungulou A few photos from the Jungle... the real, deep, bad-ass jungle..
Hiking, and now I start badmouthing people that have access to the internet...
Wednesday November 12th 2003
Kate and Jed head out for a very ambitious trek across the DJA back to SanMelima, the location of her placement. They are going out with Michelle who heads up PREVERT (I’m not making that up.. with my dyslexic brain I had to read that a few times), an eco-tourism.. um.. company (its basically him). After a morning of negotiations, and preparations.. they were off. Promptly an hour after they headed out.. it started to rain. So, during their stay here, they got to know a lot of the palm wine drinking crowd. They spend a gloriously drunken evening dancing barefoot in the mud, singing, being intitiated into the ‘club’ and being very carefree. Man do I feel old.. or was I ever like that? That just has no appeal to me… the dancing in the mud sounds fun…but it goes downhill from there. The next morning, a delegate from the ‘club’ came by to hit them (and me) up for money. I pretty much killed that idea pretty quick. I’m getting good at the blank stare of death, mixed with the blunt question: Are you asking for money? That might be part of why getting drunk in the mud doesn’t appeal.. the morning after.
We met with Rolf about ROLD today (Rolf is the official head of SNV east cameroon, the dutch development organization). Patrice (the head of ROLD) and I showed up, Charly was away teaching pgymies about bookkeeping, but joined in later. So, about 5 mintutes into the meeting, I understand what is going on.. this is a meeting with a venture capitalist. Rolf is a VC…although, he takes pains to note, again, that the SNV is no longer in the business of dolling out money, but in the consulting buisness. If they buy your pitch.. you get.. an expert for a day or two. The funny thing is: the remaining SNV people are the experts. To say I have my doubts.. is an understatement. So, the presentation goes on… I start anwering questions. I mean, I try to hold my tongue, but this is a game that I know better than Rolf. I mean, again, most of this shit is watered down VC buzzword soup. Patrice doesn’t get it all, and I pick up the slack…which I guess I’m not supposed to do. Anyway, I give him the right answers, and find a hole in their new plan. I make my presentation, which is all about exploiting the flaw in their new plan: ask for a marketting and communications expert, and then hire myself on the SNV’s tab… Fits with their new mandate, solves a bunch of problems. It is pretty much a typical Ben solution. It doesn’t really play well. Partially, I went way to far to fast, and partially, the folks here have no real idea of what is going on. The SNV is bailing on them. That is what I reallly got out of the meeting. They lost much/most of their government funding, and have to pull back. They have enough money to pay for their own salaries, but that is it…and this whole consulting thing, is an ugly compromise to attempt to justify the SNV employee salaries, and keep the taxpayers feeling good about ‘helping’. They have essentially been castrated. They are VC’s without the Capital… an uglier thought does not exist in my mind. So, all of a sudden, I feel like I have uncovered the con… and I’m supposed to be on the con artists side… you know, ‘cause were in the same business and all. We finish the meeting with promises of more meetings, and maybe some help from the SNV in writing the ROLD action plan.. or more accurately, in revising the one that Patrice is to write. What a scam.
Portraits from Church Here are a few portrait images of people from the consecration.
ooooh.. and it feels so good.
Tuesday November 11th 2003
I’ve got gas. Yes.. finally. I can cook. This is a huge relief. I really miss being able to prepare food for myself. I really like the food here, and I’m still sort of puzzled as to why people who come here complain.. I mean, there isn’t a huge variety, but what there is, is good.. and I’ve been finding out that all the best stuff if straight from people’s gardens. Most people only go the market to suppliment their diet, or get meat; the bulk of their food they grow themselves.. so a lot of the best stuff isn’t really grown for retail… that is a totally alien concept. I printed out a photo for Isadore (who I just found out spent some time in jail… more on that later) that I took during the ROLD assemblée general, and.. not that I asked, he brought over some fruits and veggies. One was some sort of weird eggplant thing…although, I’m not to sure about that. It sort of looks like a pepper (half way between the spicey kind, and the green kind), and tastes like an eggplant, but more bitter. The other, Izzy swore was a cherry. It was roughly the same shape as a cherry, and it had a pit, but a totally different texture and taste. It reminded me of a leechee (I have no idea how to spell it). Anyway, my plan is now to start swapping my technology services for the fruits and veggies that I can’t find in the market.
So Izzy, spent time in jail.. apparently 4 months or so. I’m a bit sketchy on the details, and who knows what is true…but this is what I heard. Izzy was driving some people around in Among M’bang, and he ended up with a ladies handbag that didn’t belong to him, which contained some money. So, after some sort of accusation, argument, or something like that, whoosh.. off to prison to wait for trial. 4 months later, the accuser never really showed up for any of the trial stuff, and no one could find her, so, apparently, they let him go… much thinner, and older than when he went in.
Consecration photos Here are a few select images from the Consecration... tomorrow: more to come.
a freindly visit.
Monday November 10th 2003
The Peace Corps came. Well, not all of them, but three PVC’s (yes.. another acronym). One (who was here before) who was chaperoning two new volunteers. The Peace Corps is a little more rigorous than VSO with its preparation. 3 months, which involves homestay in some other part of the country.. so you can make all of your newbie mistakes in a relatively neutral location. Before the placement actually takes, you get sent on a courtesy visit…and that is what this visit was. One young lady (ooh.. look at me, I’m all old and stuff) is going to be posted in Mindaru (the truckstop between here and Among M’bang about 2-4 hours up the road),and the second is a rather flamboyant and exubrant guy who is going to be in Ngyola..which is a few hours down the road the other way… in is the end of the road… quite literally. They had a long adventure getting here… passed through quickly, and headed back soon after. They got to stay in the fancy hotel here… the hotel with sort-of running water… and apparently MTV. Whew, I feel a whole lot better knowing that MTV is available here. So the volunteers, they stopped by for a few hours.. we chatted, and they seem nice. The guy (who’s name I forgot, and wouldn’t mention anyway) is a pretty extreme personality… he was trying to save all the bugs that were flying into my house and landing on their backs. It will be interesting to see how the community responds to him. I have this theory that to most people here, a white man in a business suit and a white man running down the street naked would attract an equal amount of attention here, so most of our cultural signifiers will probably be missed. I hope for his sake this is true.
Hi all, sorry for the month long delay in posting. I have been overhwelmed by travel and work.. and the Mefloquine has really been messing with my head. I am only now starting to feel like half the man I was... so, I have entries, and photos and the like. I am going to start posting slowly, and pick up speed until I catch up to the current date...so sorry if this first few posts feel stale.