I am heading to Bamenda tomorrow for the VSO Volunteer Conference. I don't think that I will be able to post for a week. So, I've put up a few entries to tide you over, and I've even done my best to leave you with a cliff hanger. Enjoy, and see you in a week.
Sunday December 21st, 2003
The rather ambitious goal of today was to head down to Karagua, the other village involved with the Gorilla Habituation project. We fell a bit short of that. I spent a full day trapsing around Lomié trying to track down Achille, who was in Among Mbang, either sick, or visiting his girl on the side; trying to get a car to take us down, trying to get food for the trip, sending Mary and Ludo to get water from the pump; trying to get into the CIAD office to get the tents and sleeping mats… I started negotiating at 9 am, and it didn’t stop until 8pm.. with.. well, not much accomplished. I mean, I had some fun doing the over the top negotiating, but I think that the others were a bit nervous about all of the yes/no/yes/no/maybe nature. The status at the end of the day was: one tent and food. No other tent, car, permission to go (well, a note really).
My guests spent the day relaxing around the house… sitting on the porch, and watching Lomié pass by. Everyone stopped by to see who all was there. One drunk crazy man with a bad arm kept coming by. Begging for money. Every time I approached him, he stuck his bad arm out and started to yell that the white man was beating him, then he would collapse on the ground in a heap, again, keeping his bad arm in front of him like a shield. I picked him up, and escorted him away. He came back every hour or so, only to be chased away each time.. and not always by me. My neighbors show far less tolerance of him. My drunk landlady made a visit. Justin, the baka con-artist made a visit. So between negotiating and chasing away crazy people and drunk people begging, I had a busy day with some of humanitiy’s more irritating social traits.
Monday December 22nd, 2003
The day started where Sunday left off. Negotiating. I start the day with a visit from Michel the eco-tourist man in town, who was hoping that I would be going with him into the jungle with my guests.. (who in the meantime have been sitting on the porch and getting talked to by everyone in town.) only to be visibly dissapointed when I ask him if he has a tent that I can borrow. He tells me I have to talk to the ECCO fac guys. Which I put on clothes and do. I spend some time talking to them, schmoozing really, and then they let me take a tent. Very nice of them, I must say. I get word while there that we may have a car. How much are we willing to pay. I say 30, but 40 if necessary. Now I’m off to the hospital with Anne to pay a visit to Jeanne, George’s girlfriend, who has the worlds first case of communicable Heart Disease. Apparently, she went to the hospital the day that George left with Pete, showing similar symptoms. Hey, she doesn’t want George to leave, so she’s trying everything.. including ‘catching’ a heart attack. Sick is sick right? So, why are we visiting? George has the keys to CIAD’s inner sanctum where they keep the tents. It was suggested that Jeanne may have them in his absence. I doubt it.. seriously,.. but Jeanne had called me from her death bed the night before, either to ask for money, or get a message to George. I blew her off. Today, I came with a white doctor to make up for it. So, Anne spends a few minutes checking in on her, and I ask about the keys. Anne and the doctor make an appointment to chat in a few hours. We head back. The word comes through that man with the car is set on the price of 40k (80$ for a 40 mile trip, back and forth for 4 people..well 5 if Alex is tagging along). I get back, and the driver is there. I think the deal is done, but no. The negotiation starts all over again. 25 minutes of over the top “someone get me a knife, so I can cut open my arms and give you the blood from my veins, because that is all I have left to offer” kind of negotiation. He agrees to 40, and with the ECCOfac tent, we have everything. Meanwhile Anne heads up to the hospital for the courtesy visit. We pack, and finish getting provisions, and pick her up as we head out… saving her from a long visit to a place she will probably never see again.
We take the same fantastic ride through the jungle that I took last time down, in a very packed car.. with Alex. I have some fantastic video from the ride. We get to the village Monday at about 2pm. We meet the chief, and some of the other people in town. No question of us going out today. We spend the afternoon and evening chatting with the chief, presenting our gifts, taking a walk to the local fishing hole, and visiting in the village, and cleaning up. The ride got us nice and dirty. We had ant-eater and rice for dinner, then we listened to a bit of radio from Congo (the chief’s pride and joy is his radio so that he can stay on top of world news). Bed at around 9. The Chief and the pisteurs seem confident that we will see Gorillas. I think they are blowing smoke up our ass, but you never know. The important part is: torrow we go looking for gorillas. I am very excited.
Sunday December 21st, 2003
The rather ambitious goal of today was to head down to Karagua, the other village involved with the Gorilla Habituation project. We fell a bit short of that. I spent a full day trapsing around Lomié trying to track down Achille, who was in Among Mbang, either sick, or visiting his girl on the side; trying to get a car to take us down, trying to get food for the trip, sending Mary and Ludo to get water from the pump; trying to get into the CIAD office to get the tents and sleeping mats… I started negotiating at 9 am, and it didn’t stop until 8pm.. with.. well, not much accomplished. I mean, I had some fun doing the over the top negotiating, but I think that the others were a bit nervous about all of the yes/no/yes/no/maybe nature. The status at the end of the day was: one tent and food. No other tent, car, permission to go (well, a note really).
My guests spent the day relaxing around the house… sitting on the porch, and watching Lomié pass by. Everyone stopped by to see who all was there. One drunk crazy man with a bad arm kept coming by. Begging for money. Every time I approached him, he stuck his bad arm out and started to yell that the white man was beating him, then he would collapse on the ground in a heap, again, keeping his bad arm in front of him like a shield. I picked him up, and escorted him away. He came back every hour or so, only to be chased away each time.. and not always by me. My neighbors show far less tolerance of him. My drunk landlady made a visit. Justin, the baka con-artist made a visit. So between negotiating and chasing away crazy people and drunk people begging, I had a busy day with some of humanitiy’s more irritating social traits.
Saturday December 20th, 2003
One of the topics of discussion at dinner last night was the Gorilla Habituation Project. Mariacah and Ludo were very interested, and after dinner we talked about what they were going to do during their trip. We decided that a trip down to Lomié to see Gorillas would be the perfect contrast to being in the extreme north of the country for the rest of their vacation (anne is in the exreme north for those who don’t remember). The only problem is that CIAD is closed for vacation, no advanced warning, and it is getting close to Christmas. Well, we decided to go for it. We all headed out in the morning to catch the bus back to Lomié for some Gorillas and Christmas dinner. First of all, the baggage carriers at the bus depot know me. We got out of the cab, and immediately, they took our bags, and set them next to the bus. I asked how full the bus was.. with us, it was full. Hmm. I head back to pay, while the others hunt down a bag or two to hold some of our stuff. Since we decided on this so last minute, we weren’t exactly neatly packed. I buy the tickets, ask Anne to grab some seats in front, and we wait. I was ready to wait a few hours, but after an annoying negotiation over bags on the roof.
-2000 for the baggage.
-no way. Last month I came this way with much more and only paid 500
-2000 or its not going
-500 and it is.
1500
500
1500 or you aren’t going
bullshit. Nothing, and I’ll put the bags up myself
1000
I hand him 500, and grudgingly, the bags go up.
We start loading the bus… and some woman comes up.. no more tickets for this bus..what? I was here a few minutes ago, and there were still 8 places… well the white people came.. and filled up the bus. What? Fucking white people.
Whatever. We load up (with an almost full bus.. 19 instead of 20+) and take off. I realise that the prices here are directly related to the number of white people. More whites, exponentially more money. I also noticed that near the holidays there are a lot more cops out, stopping people. Half of the bus said this was a good thing, and designed to keep crime down around the holidays. A more cynical minority said: yes, but the cops are the criminals. I would tend to fall in that camp. I mean, I realise the cops aren’t really paid well, so as a Chrismas bonus they stop a few more people, take a few more bribes. All in all we got stopped 8 times, including one with a full paper check. This doesn’t include the one guy who stopped us less than 100 meters after that last one, and everyone in the bus started laughing, and the bus driver said: you have to work this out with your buddy a bit better, he just hit us up a 100 meters back. It also doesn’t include the cop that we blew past.. he was just impotently blowing his whistle to get us to stop…and we were on a downhill, so weren’t stopping for anything… zooom. Its not like he has a radio, or phone to call in back-up, so on we go.
We get into town, Alex is there… sniffing around all the busses that come into town to see what he can see. He helps us take the bags to our place, after I convince Ludo and Mary (what she is called here, as no one can pronounce Mariacah –fucking dutch-get some real names.. I mean, really) that I know Alex, and its ok to let me help. We open the door (which Jen locked on her way out to spend Christmas with her friends at Kribi- a beach town apparently really worth going to), and I smell something odd. Maybe just jungle must with a door being closed for a bit. I go to put the Christmas haul in the fridge.. and find that it is broken. Not only is it broken, but Alex starts to boast of how he rewired the power so that he could turn on the porch lights to make it easier to get around at night, and to make the house look lived in. Apparently in the process he crossed some wires and blew the motor on the fridge. He is pretty amazing. He managed to break the only machine in the house that was working from outside. At a certain point you just have to marvel at the initiative and prowess of always being able to break something when I leave. This time, even a locked house didn’t stop him.
We all crash early, after explaining to Ludo and Mary the basics of cleaning with no running water. Tomorrow we start the Gorilla oddessy.
Friday December 19th, 2003
Today I did some food shopping. I really spent like a madman. I bought a couple of bottles of wine, some smoked ham, good cheese, chocolate, dried fruit, spices and other totally indulgant food stuff. I probably spent a months salary on the food.. well, that and two magazines. A 3d magazine, and a mac magazine. This was my birthday and christmas all rolled into one.
Pete, George’s friend, is still in the hospital here. He is waiting to get sent home. He spent 4 or 5 days in intensive care,but he is out, and stable. He is waiting for the european doctor and tank of air to come from Europe before he can leave.
I had dinner with Matthew. Anne and her sister (mariacah) and her boyfriend (Ludowig) joined me. We all had a great time. Kara (from the John’s Hopkins project) stopped by before she was heading back to the US for the holidays. We had a fantastic dinner spread, and I brought one of the bottles of wine, and we had a Cameroonian feast, with Chocolate for desert. Yum.
On the way to his house, which was somewhat hard to find… with some very unhelpful watchmen giving bad directions…we got stopped by the military. We were a bit lost looking, and a car stops ahead of us, and out come two gun toting army men. “Papers” came the order. As I am digging around my pocket for my ID card, Anne tells me that she and her sister both forgot their papers. Oh shit. This is an offense that can earn anyone jail time, but most likely a fat bribe.. escpecially at christmas. At least Ludo had his passport. Anne told them that she and her sister didn’t have their papers. Bingo. These guys knew they were in for some serious pre-holiday white man bribery, or jail. I started talking my head off. It was my fault, I dragged them last minute out for dinner… they could take us back to the hotel and we would be glad to show them the missing papers. If they really wanted, we would go to the station with them, while we went and got the papers. Guns got menacingly tilted in my direction. Fierce good cop bad cop stuff (well, really just bad and not so bad).You name it.. it came out. So then it came: OK. Finissons. Bribe time. I went into overdrive. I have no money, I am a volunteer, would be walking around in this neighborhood if we had money? Its Christmas, you can let us off… and on and on. This went on for a few minutes. They kept saying, well our boss is watching us, if we can’t show the ID cards or money, we will get in trouble…finally, one of them broke. “We’re wasting our time”. I knew we were good. A few minutes of them debating, they let us go. Thank you, merry christmas, deep contrition for the lack of respect for the laws of a country we were guests in… but.. no bribe, no jail. Whew.
Wednesday December 17th, 2003
So, spent the day hanging out with people, socializing, and stopped by the VSO offices briefly. There are CIAD problems (George and Jen’s NGO). Jen was fired, and the conseil d’administration isn’t really taking responsibilty for having had a director who stole a whole wad of money. In fact, they are starting to blame George for brining it out in the open. Nice. Arlette called me into her office. She was beside herself. George wrote a nasty letter about her.. and he was attacking her. I read the letter, and it wasn’t so bad.. so I spent an hour or so talking her down. Basically, I tried to show her how things may look from the other side, and that maybe George was worried. His placement was almost over, and the structure was falling apart (throwing away two years of his life), his friend was in the hospital after having had a heart attack, and his girfriend was pressuring him every way that she could to take her with him. Maybe George was a little stressed, and maybe she could give him the benefit of the doubt..and besides, he didn’t finger her specifically, he just said there were communication problems. The really nast part here is that I sort of accidentally encouraged George to write that letter. Ooops. Well, all in all it may have turned out for the best. She ended up talking to the CIAD board of directors, and at least solved the Jen being fired problem (which I also had my fingers in). The best part of this for me, is that I think that I have a pretty good understanding of how to deal with Arlette… and that will help me in the long run.
I also went shopping. I’m on a quest to find inkjet photo paper. I found some stuff that looks promising (it isn’t specifically inkjet paper, there isn’t any that I can find in Youndé). Even finding this paper was really difficult. I went into every store that even looked like it might sell paper. Now I just have to go back and negotiate.
Tuesday December 16th, 2003
Today is my 37th birthday. I got up at 4:45 am, and headed to the bus stop. We were crowded as usual. We left at around 6:30, as usual. The difference: the holidays are approaching, and this bus was direct to Yaoundé. There was another difference due to the approaching holidays: Bush Meat Fandango. We must have stopped 10 times between Lomié and Among Mbang to buy meat. Monkeys, Prorqupines, Ant Eaters, small deer creatures.. the bus was full of dead animals. The roof was full of dead animals. Then, we got to town. We stopped for a few minutes, long enough to take all the meat off, and send it up ahead to avoid the checkpoint. We passed the very lame checkpoint, and picked up the meat again. The system for passing the checkpoint consisted of putting the dead animals in briefcases, and getting a well dressed man to ride on the back of a motorcycle with the brief case… as if he was going to some meeting. Between that and the bribes, it worked. All the meat made it across…and no one really even broke a sweat. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. I even got to Yaoundé relatively early. Early enough to hang out with Anne, Wynette and Leanne. George is in town as well, but Isabelle is already back in Canada. I think she is going to end up going home early…
Monday December 15th, 2003
I had a SNV meeting over dinner at Chez Jacky’s. We discussed CODEVIR collapsing, a flyer that the SNV may want me to do for them after they saw the Tontine flyer I did for the GECEC, and well, general business ignorance. The dinner as usual, consisted of bushmeat, fried plantains, and rice. Also, as usual, it was good. So, this afternoon, Charly showed up and told me that the SNV was interested in a flyer, and could I work up an estimate. By dinner it was done, and I brought it up. We discussed it for a bit. Rolf, who I like, but in a kind of isn’t he cute patronizing way, talked about the difference between graphic desing and communications, as if I had no idea what what that would be… or more succinctly, as if I was a graphic designer. I smiled and nodded. I just want their business. During dinner the discussion got a bit more complex. We discussed the imminent collapse of CODEVIR, and they made it clear that we should not confuse a “case” with the whole Community Forest experiment. I pointed out that it was one thing to say that when you are in Bertoua, and the other partner in this venture is even farther away…We are here. When CODEVIR has problems they come to see us, and more importantly, they come to see Charly, taking a lot of his already fragmented time. I also asked them what kind of responsibilty do they feel towards the success of the CODEVIR project. Jaap went off. He got very defensive… sucker. Fell for my trap. I said: I’m not telling you, I was asking you. If you feel you have none, then let us know so that we can make appropriate adjustments to how we work with them.. that is to say: not work with them. That was our bomb. Without support, CODEVIR wasn’t worth our time. This worked, and we started talking about solutions. It became very apparent that Jaap, who I also like, really didn’t do a good job. He said stuff like: “how could we have known that they needed management training”, and “it wasn’t my fault that the buyer I had lined up in Duala went out of business”. Wow. That is the SNV’s expert market consultant. He’s been here 7 years, and I’ve been here less than 4 months, and I already have a better grasp on what isn’t working. Not to say that knowing will make it easier, it just means that there will be a whole brand new set of mistakes to make. So, as I said, we started talking about solutions. At first, they thought it was another bid to get money from them.. but I said.. “no, we don’t care who does this.. as long as it gets done”, and “frankly, we don’t have the time to do all of this”. That seemed to work. Rolf countered with: this money that you are loaning to CODEVIR isn’t yours so don’t get to uppity. Fair cop. When the posturing died down, we talked about two main holes in the whole Community Forest project: creating a market, and business management. So now the identification of these problem areas are not confined to this blog. Oh.. one last note. At one point in the conversation, I was offering suggestions on how we could build a market for Community Forrest wood, and basically said something about being a broker (one of the problems with the whole community forest idea is that no one took into account that the major buyers won’t want to have to deal with 50 new small sellers… duh). Jaap said: we were already being accused of having something to gain from this, so we backed off. I asked why, what is wrong with you (the SNV) getting something out of it? He was stunned, and we didn’t persue it further.. but this is a big philosophical problem here. Is the problem that people make money off of their work, or is it what they do with the money they earn? I mean, I’m not being stupid. I understand why they say that they try to stay away from the whole arugment of: what is your cut in all of this? You can always retreat to: we have no monetary interest in this, so we are not a threat.. but bottom line, no one here trusts that, and everyone here knows that they have an interest.. it just isn’t monetary. Ironically enough since their budgets have been cut, they probably would have been more sustainable if they had had a more clear interest.
Sunday December 14th 2003
Today I switched from mefloquine to doxycycline. We’ll see how it goes. From what I have been reading, it might take weeks for me to know if my brain problems are drug related, or something else. Other than that, today was a slow day. Cleaning, preparing for a week of SNV meetings, and a trip to Yaoundé to avoid having to get drunk with people here.
Saturday December 13th, 2003
I’m not feeling great. Its not like I’m really feeling ill, but I just feel tired. I’m sure some of it is the amount of work I am doing, the equatorial climate, the barometric pressure shifts, diet, and lack of consistant sleep due to noise, and a kitty that likes to jump on my face, or box my nose when I’m sleeping. This being said, I had tontine presentation this morning. So, we were supposed to start at 10 am. At around 10:30, a few presidents trickle in. At 11 Madame Adjoa (the head of CADEF, a womens ngo..which, as far as I can tell, consists of.. Madame Adjoa on evenings and weekends talking a lot. Does she like to talk or what… that and she likes hats.) strolls in with some story about something at the market. I don’t really know, and didn’t really care. No Charly. At around 11:15 a motorcycle shows up with a note for me. When all is ready, send for Charly at the mayors house (read office). I make some excuse, and head up to the mayor.. Madame Adjoa follows. Nice meeting. We show up almost an hour and a half late, and then take off to go find the guy who called the meeting. Whiskey was being served in large quantities, and I was offered a glass. I politely declined, and after the obligatory protocol, headed down to the meeting.
I tried to keep focused.. I did really. But after 15 hot minutes of protocol babbling, I started to drift. After two hours of talking, it was my turn. I was expected to read the flyer, but.. well, I’m not good at sticking to the protocols. I waxed as eloquent as I could in vaguely disinterested, and hunger impaired french to sell the presidents on the idea of putting their money in GECEC… but it was clear that half my audience wasn’t really strong in french, and were also as distracted as I was. They were mostly there to get the free food or drinks that accompany these kinds of presentations. At around 4, still having not eaten for the day, we ended. Whew. On the way down to the bar where we were going to get drinks, I excused myself, went home, ate, and relaxed for about 5 minutes. Oh man.. I hadn’t realized how lousy I was feeling. I muster enough energy to go down to the bar to be social for a half hour, chat with the ladies. I’m pretty checked out at this point, and I am relieved when Alex shows up with some banal complication about getting paid for the photographs we (I) took for the Consecration thing. I use this as an excuse to fuck off home, play some game boy, and then go to sleep.
Thursday December 12th, 2003
I have a lot of work. Logo work, poster work, making price lists, figuring how how much to charge, stupid meetings, and potential new clients. I have a meeting with one. The president of a local community forest. They want to do a promotional video. I go through what they can expect for how much. The price doesn’t seem to bother them. We’ll see. I put together an estimate for them to sign. We will see how that goes over. I am really having to start at the basics here and see what works business wise. There are benefits to no beurocracy (it is much easier to do business… you don’t even realize how stilted doing business in the US has become until you do business where there are no rules). The flip side is that there are no rules.. and getting money from clients is difficult. I’m also contending with the cultural differences. How do you talk about deposits, or discuss pricing at a day rate in a society that doesn’t factor in time to the cost of goods sold equation. I like most of it, but I am going to have to spend a lot of time on basic paperwork management since there is no one here that can do it for me. That is going to greatly reduce the amount of work I can actually do. I also have 50 tontine flyers to prepare for Saturday’s presentation… Did I mention that I am presenting the flyer to the assembled group of tontine presidents. For those who don’t remember, tontines are the semi-formal women’s collectives that manage money.
Wednesday December 10th, 2003
One of the girls that I photographed during the school photography blitz brought kitty back today. She was totally filthy, somewhat feral, and even more skinny. I warmed up some water, and washed her… which drew meek protest. Then, I dried her off, and put her down. She took one step and collapsed. After a few hours, and some eggs, she is a bit better… two steps, and she falls over. She has trouble lifting her head up. I think its pretty much 50/50 that she survives the next few days. I’ll see what I can do. The girl that brought her said that she saw her in the market, where she had apparently been hanging out for a few days. So, the power of information dissemination in full view. The missing cat poster worked. People knew what she looked like, and where to bring her. I also think there was another benefit.. but this one is speculative. I believe that someone took her originally. She is a cute, friendly and healthy kitty, so somone snagged her. When they found out that she wasn’t a good Cameroonian kitty (she likes to sit on people’s laps, and likes to be petted, and fed) and that the white man put up a poster looking for her, they dumped her out the door, and she made her way to the market. I believe this, because there is no way that this kitten survived on her own for two weeks in the bush. There are bigger animals out there that would have her as a little snack. We have also had several brutal rainstorms. So, that is my theory on the unseen coercive effects of information.
Sunday December 8th, 2003
While online I notice that Gwinn is on a machine that can use the Ichat AV feature. I try to connect..and it works. Fucking amazing. I was talking with Gwinn while in Lomié. I would have loved to talk for longer, but I’m already afraid that my connectivity bill is going to be astoundingly large… and this might just bankrupt me.. but it was great to hear her voice… it made being here seem.. well, farther away actually. It was also strange, in that is was sort of an impulse, and not a planned event, so we were casually chatting and marvelling at the ease and power of Apple’s stuff that it seemed way too.. ordinary. I can’t wait to get to Yaoundé with this stuff. Free global chatting. Excellent.
The consecration video is a hit. It has been playing in the bar across the street pretty much all day. I have a potential new customer out of it as well. This bodes well.. although, late in the evening, one of the new-elders came by and wanted to know why I didn’t film him when his wife was giving him a gift. I told him no one asked me to…this went over well enough, but I wouldn’t want to be in his house that evening.
I made the missing cat posters, complete with picture, and reward offered. We’ll see what that does.
I mefloquined again.. but this time, I am drinking several bottles of water a day.We’ll see if I go nuts or not.
Saturday December 7th, 2003
I played my Game Boy today. Lots of resting and relaxing. I feel pretty good today. I have Alex go out and test the video on different players, and it seems to work well…although the translation to PAL is still really really bothering me. The highlight of the day had to be the Alex and Petit juggling show.
Petit came by to hang out, and show us his new juggling tricks. He is practicing almost every day. Alex, on the other hand, stopped practicing, except for a few minutes here and there. So we all started a bit of juggling, and I started talking about different tricks. I brought up the apple eating trick. After not being able to explain it successfully to Alex and Petit, I sent Petit to get us some apples. I did my eating thing.. Jen tried, and couldn’t really get the hang of it, which really supprised me as she is a FAR better juggler than I will ever be (she is working on 5 right now, I will probably not get past 3 in this lifetime). Then Alex and Petit went at it. This is when the entertainment really started. I started to try to teach Petit how to do the trick, and Alex started teaching him as well. With total authority, he was telling Petit the nuances of eating the apple. Petit wasn’t really getting the hang of the trick, largely due, I believe, to the fact that throwing a perfectly good apple in the air is pretty much a totally alien thought. I mean, eating apples here is pretty rare… so risking one falling is a bit difficult…but Petit is very smart, and very talented.. so he started getting it a bit. Alex meanwhile, was coaching and correcting away. Then it was Alex’s turn. He pretended to juggle, and started to eat the apple. After faking it, he actually tried to do it.. with little success. It was fun to watch, but we hadn’t even started. We then got the Alex and Petit juggling show…They did an improvised and totally unselfconscious act for us. Petit moonwalked across the floor jugling, with Alex deriding him the whole time…but never juggling. Then Petit called him on it, and Alex faked his way around the fact that he couldn’t do it. His faking wasn’t even a real attempt, it was more slapstick than anything else. This was pretty much the pattern. Alex not doing a trick, or doing a very simplified version of a trick, while Petit did all the real work. I would be a great act if they could actually take it on the road… Alex is pretty clearly not as capable, so uses his only talent: his mouth. The thing is, he isn’t really that mean, and overall is pretty ineffectual, so he never delves into the bully territory… and Petit doesn’t just sit back and take it..but he is clearly not as good with the witty banter as Alex. All in all, with the power going out and the whole scene by candle light, it was a very pleasant diversion. I mean really, who needs television?
Friday December 6th, 2003
Today and yesterday I worked on getting the Consecration video out to video disc. I am using Imovie’s import features, and doing some of my very basic editing in it as well. It is a very well made piece of software. There are a few annoying limitations, but for what I am trying to do it is perfect. I am basically capturing everything, and cutting the clips down to the best parts, and then very roughly assembling them.. and adding some sound on top. Most of the improvements I would recommend to Apple would be in the sound department. I spent a day capturing and editing (the video is about 45 minutes long), and a day converting it to PAL (I am still looking for a good solution), and buring it to disc. Tomorrow is the day I hand it over to the Church folks. It will be intersting to see their reactions. Alex is very very happy. He smells money.
So, usually my brain is fuzzy for a few days a week, and then as I get closer to the end of the week, I start to think a bit more clearly. Not this week. I don’t feel quite as out of it, but I am still pretty vague. I’m going to take my meds again this weekend, and hydrate a lot. I’m not sure if not drinking enough water is making the reaction more severe, or if travelling has something to do with it…so a final week of steady water intake, and no travelling will be my best judge… besides, I still think that the muddy brain is better than Malaria. The thing that is bothering me a bit is that I am not having some of the other side effects. Emotional swings, intense dreams, psychotic episodes… that stuff. Am I just adjusting to being here? Is is a dietary thing? Is it something else?
Kitty is still missing. I have been back a week or so, and I think that she is either dead, or stolen. I am going to have to wratchet up the pressure. I think it is time for me to introduce the concept of a “missing cat” poster to Lomié. I may even offer a reward.
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.
Tuesday December 2nd 2003
Well, students came trickling in all day, Alex wasn’t around to manage the process, and yet again, I get dinged for helping out. The good news is that I did eventually find Alex, chew him out, and get the process in somewhat of an order.. the group of students (another 15 or so) finally got it together to come in one group. I spent a long time explaining to Alex that our deal changed… and that he was going to learn how to do simple project management before he touches any of my equipment again. Flush with some pocket money, he seemed to be fine with that. We’ll see how long that lasts.. both the contentment and the money.
My brain is really fuzzy. I can barely remember where I am much of the time. I feel totally disoriented, and incapable of concentrating for more than 15 minutes. I find myself obessively staring at some particular detail for a few minutes before I am even aware of what I am doing. I really need to change the meds. I am pretty sure that this is meflaquine related.
Speaking of fuzzy brains.. I met my landlord. Well, the woman who owns the property… the landlord is her nephew. He is a total crook, and of course a well respected business man in town. She is a total lush. She is in her.. oh lets say 60’s, and is drunk all of the time. She hassled Jen when I was in Yaoundé last week. This week she is hounding me. She came by when I was doing some photographs, and she started to hassle Jen. I stepped out, and introduced myself. The exchange was… well, slightly amusing, but largely, tragically, indicative of many of my exchanges with drunk people here.
-You owe me money
-I do? I don’t think so, my boss pays my rent here
-I didn’t get my money.
-You should speak to my boss about that then, I’m sure he’ll pay
-I did. He said he already paid.
-OK, then we’re good
-I’m going to go to the police, and get you thrown out if you don’t pay.
-OK. I think that might be a good idea, lets go…
-Um.. you need to pay, because my nephew hasn’t given me the money, and there is no contract
-This seems to be a problem between you and your nephew to me.
-You need to pay
-No, no I don’t, and throwing me out isn’t really going to help you is it?
-No, I guess not, but you need to pay
-No I don’t, you need to solve this with your nephew
-My nephew is a crook and he steals money from me, a poor old woman with a health condition. I suffer, oh how I suffer (on and on like this for a while)
-And this is my problem how exactly?
Etc… for about 20 minutes… sigh.
Monday December 1st, 2003
Izadore left me two giant squashes before I headed to Yaoundé. Today, I cut them, and cook them. I make enough soup to feed us for a week. It takes about 6 hours of cooking over a slow (gas.. yay) flame. It is spicey, and good. I use lots of spices that I bought in Yaoundé. Did I mention that? I did manage to find time to do a bit of shopping for spices. I have also noticed that Lightwave (my 3d application) doesn’t play well with Panther (my new OS). The good news is that I have enough work to do on other things, that it isn’t a major problem.. but who knows when I am going to be able to get the next version of Lightwave… and that is a problem. It is supposed to be released this year, but rarely do launch dates actually match up with the press realease… and then, of course, it has to get to the VSO office, and finally, I have to pick it up. Sigh. My guess is that no 3d until sometime in January or Feburary. That is what I get for upgrading like that. The good news is that everything else works, and After Effects 6 is a great upgrade. They pretty much improved all of my favorite things.. So, I’m really looking forward to playing with it.
Alex came in with some sort of story about how all of the kids at the highschool were not going to be able to take their exams because the local photographer took their pictures, took their money, and was nowhere to be found; and a dossier without photos is a captial crime… so no photo, no dossier, no exams… etc. So, after some negotiating with Alex over terms and timing, I agreed to take the pictures. My terms were: they all come at once, because I didn’t want to be hassled every five minutes when another student showed up, and I wanted to get paid enough to reimburse the precious supply of photo paper that I have here (I have had a hard time finding more paper, and what I have is limitted). He agreed, and the mayhem began. It was originally 15 students. When all was said and done, it was somewhere in the low 30’s. For the most part, they came in one bunch, and Alex did deal with the organization… until the evenening, when a slow and steady trickle of students heard that I was taking pictures, and kept stopping by. I said no to everyone, and told them to organize a group for tomorrow through Alex.
The difficult part is that many of the students can’t really afford even my reduced prices (I charge half of what the going rate is here)… so by asking for any money at all, I am exluding many kids. If I don’t charge, I’m going to be completely burried in requests. More importantly, I will be constantly hassled for one or two photos at a time.
Saturday and Sunday November 29-30th 2003
I returned to Lomié…barely. Saturday morning bright and early, I left Santa Barbara in Youndé… after a brief negotiation with a cab driver for a private cab… I get to the bus station… which is generous. It is basically a patch of dirt where the van’s stop, lock and load. I got my ticket, and sat my stuff down. I was pretty burdened with paper and other junk I got in Yaoundé. Apparently Saturday before the first of the month, no one travels. Pay day is Monday. So a long and slow 3 1/2 hours later, the bus is ready to go. We head off to Among M’bang. It takes us 4 very dusty, and very bumpy hours. I, of course, didn’t bring water or food… and for some incomprehensible reason didn’t bother to get either while at the bus station before leaving. I was assuming that I would have a few hours in Among M’bang to kill, and I would eat and drink there. We get there at almost 3:30 pm. I get off, and ask about busses to Lomié. The last one is out there on the street doing its final loading before leaving. I haul ass over there, negotiate my seat (paid a premium… well, 2$ more…) and my bags.. and squeeze in just as the driver was yelling to leave. Everyone moans.. cause I am a big guy… We are totally overloaded. Totally. We head off. The sides of the bus start to buckle outwards… making very loud groaning noises. I’m sure we aren’t going to make it. We get about 20 minutes out of town.. and we get stopped by the cops. Well, one cop. The other was sitting in his car… a beat up old mercedes, with sheepskin seat covers… doors open, music blaring… hand down his pants. We get the usual hassle (the first cop we saw out of town took a quick bribe, so we barely even had to stop), but a simple bribe isn’t going to do it. Apparently we have moonshine on board… and we are all accused of trafficing intoxicants. 45 minutes of slow menacing bribery later.. we head off again. The kicker here is that the building right off the side of the road is… a moonshine bar. Nice. So we trundle off.. very very slowly. The welded metal bars that have been added to help support the weight of cargo are starting to bend. I used my hand to measure the bowing that was going on.. almost 3 inches outward every bump and ditch. 3 inches each side. That means the sides of the van were bowing outwards almost a half a foot each time we bumped. Several times I heard very loud cracking sounds. Some I could identify as the welds giving way, and other times.. I was sure I was going to die. The good news (sort of) is that we were so overloaded, the driver could only manage to do about 15 miles an hour. The road was abismal. Ruts that I swear you needed to repel down. 5 hours later we make it to Mindouru. That is the half way point. It is now very dark. We pause for a bit. I get a little food, very little. I have a splitting headache from the gas fumes that seem to be seeping up through the floor, and being squashed between 4 other people in our row. Oh, but there is hope.. two people are getting off here. Nope. No. False hope. We take on two more, both with cargo. After an ugly packing job, we set off again. Two hours into the last leg, a 4X4 passes us. The road is blocked up ahead. We will have none of that. We press on. Another hour, and no blocked road. Maybe the obstacle has been cleared. Another 45 minutes later, and out of the darkness we see a Grumier pulled off by the side of the road. OK, We pass another.. and another. Finally, we see a Grumier in the middle of the road, facing us. Now we see what the problem is. He was heading up the hill, and stopped. Once these trucks stop, they can’t start again unless the road is dry… otherwise they slip all over the place, and spill their loads. We sit and ponder if there is room to squeeze by on either side, when word comes down that there is another truck behind this one. A long discussion ensues. We are going to try… the deciding factor was watching a 4X4 go off road, and make it past. I suggest that we unload the van before attempting it, as the sides are a bit muddy. Oh no.. we’ll just plow on through. The van gets about half way before it gets stuck about 2 feet deep in mud. Now we begin to try to push the car out of the mud. The driver floors it everytime we get any traction.. and sinks us in deeper. Any discussion of physics is useless. Why would he not accelerate, it is only making things easier.. and what do I know, stupid white man. So, I stop pushing… and considering that I am about 80 pounds heavier than most of the pasangers.. it is a big difference. Finally, I suggest, from the sidelines, that they take the load off of the top. It is now around 11 pm. My head hurts something fierce… mosquitoes abound. The sky, however is magnificient. We unload the roof. There were half a dozen large barrels of whiskey.. each weighing probably 150 pounds… a bunch of other heavy stuff, and then.. here is the kicker… about 15 boxes of scrap metal. Each box weighing at least 100 pounds. No fucking wonder the sides were bowing. At this point, I just sit back and take it easy, as some of the men start to dig the van out of the mud… shovel.. vroom…move forward 6 inches, move 6 inches down, shovel, vroom.. you ge the idea. At around 12:30 there were cheer of triumph. The van was freed from its viscous prison… there were many self congatulatory remarks… “see what the black man can do when we all work together”… was my favorite. I mean the irony is just… well, stunning. So we spend 20 minutes loading up the van, with all the impossibly heavy cargo, get in, and away we go… for 10 minutes. The van breaks down. The co-pilot gets to work… he pulls up a panel, and starts messing with wires and belts by flashlight… while we all sit in the car. The smell of gas is now overhwelming. I am getting lightheaded, with is only a slight relief from the pain. Vrooom… the van works again. Cheers from everyone… and away we…no. No. The van breaks down after 5 minutes. The driver wants us all to stay in the car, but a few of us don’t comply. I sit outside, on the damp road and stare at the sky for about 20 minutes while the van is getting re-fixed. When it was all done, we headed off again… driving very very slowly. At 3:30 in the morning we get to Lomié. I have not eaten or had anything to drink the whole way. I stagger home, and fall asleep.. for a few hours. The last thing I remember from the day.. was the Osama Bin Laden sticker on the back of the van.
I spend all of Sunday recovering… playing my new Game Boy Advance games. So, thanks fo Gwinn, Tomas, and Forest, I have enough games to keep everyone happy. Tony Hawk is a big hit with the locals.. although they call it a skiing game.. and from where they are coming from.. it may as well be… It is 8 hours to the nearest paved road, let alone enough to skateboard on. They also like MarioKart.. but Metroid is still the reigning game. From my end, I got two turn based strategy games: Fire Emblem, and Final Fantasy Tactics. Fire Emblem is a great game… good balance, enough depth to keep it interesting, and the interface is very easy. The swords and sorcery stuff doesn’t really do a whole lot for me.. I mean, I like it..but in and of itself.. it just.. well, doesn’t send me. Final Fantasy Tactics, however, is a fantastic game. Wow. Steep learning curve, complicated interface, and also a swords and sorcery fantasy..but wow. Great gameplay. I am really enjoying the process of managing my ‘clan’.. I have almost 20 characters to manage, and I need to change their jobs, and equipment regularly… keeping an eye on balanced skill development. Some of it complex enough that I actually have to take a few notes to remember what is going on.. but I think that has more to do with the Mefloquine than the game. I also really like the story. No, seriously… it borrows heavily from ‘never ending story’ and other –kids get sucked into a fantasy world stories.. but there is a creepy subtext that I like… and it isn’t accidental. So it totally makes the swords and sorcery stuff work for me. I just needed that other layer to make it work. The best part about the game: I will be working on it for a long time. I mean, I finished advance wars 2 in a week. This game actually has me looking forward to playing again, as I don’t know what is going to happen.. and depending on my mood, I can manage, fight, or get into the story. And that is this weeks edition of GBA game reviews from Lomié. Tune in next week when I try to explain what an “Ollie” is to Petit.
One last note: kitty is missing. It seems that everytime I leave, she goes missing.. although this is a bit more worrysome as she has already been missing for a few days.
Friday November 28th 2003
Note taking day. I spend most of the day typing up notes from the workshop. I am tired, but totally relieved that this thing is over. My brain is still funky…I ready to go back to Lomié. I get a whole lot of shopping done. Tupperware, printer paper, lots of printer paper, kitchen utensils. I’m very glad I have this written down, because I can’t think my way out of a paper bag. I’m, once again, carrying big bags of stuff all over Yaoundé. I break out: Finding Nemo as a treat. Oh yeah. Totally enjoyable.
Thursday November 27th 2003
My brain is a bit better, but not a whole lot. We improvise like crazy, and thankfully, time runs out. There are some good things that come out… some basic communication problems, problems prioritizing, and some clear conflicts of interest.. but all in all, this is a management problem that cannot be solved by workshops. There is also a high level of distain, if not straight up prejudice from many of the VSO program staff here. I found out that we have to go through a ‘cultural sensitivy’ screening, and training.. but not the staff. Hmmm. I think that someone really fucked up there… I hate to think that it is related to the whole –only white people- can be racist thing.. but there might be some of that going on.. its either that, or total incompetance. So, one of the big cultural differences.. is the role of a volunteer. I think that Volunteers are perceived as the lowest rung of the totem pole here (hmm. Totem pole). The belief seems to be that we should know our places, and act accordingly. We, on the other hand, come here thinking.. we’re all in this together.. a clubby kind of thing…mixed with some: look at what I have given up to come here…Anyway, the mix of the two is kinda ugly. I wonder how it is in other Program Offices. I’m sure a lot of this has to do with the culture and personalities here. Well, whatever, I’m here and not there… and I certainly have no desire to fix the VSO…which needs some serious help.
Wednesday November 26th 2003
Ug. Today was day one of the workshop. It started well enough… ok, that isn’t true. I find it hard to keep focused for more than 30 or so. My brain is totally fuzzy. I can’t concentrate, and I forget stuff… lots of stuff. I’m pretty sure it’s the mefloquine. I slog through the first couple of exercises.. and realize that our agenda is for shit. They are totally in a different place than advertised. They have a common view of the future, they just don’t know how to get there. This is a ‘change management’ problem… and I was prepared to do some visioning stuff. I just threw up on my keyboard…not really, but seeing these words typed out in front of me.. makes me even more ill than I feel. So, in a hurried huddle during lunch, we change the agenda. My brain is totally out to lunch. We do more stuff… then finish up. We have dinner out. It is pretty fun.. but I am really not altoghether here. I really don’t like this feeling.
Tuesday November 25th 2003
Another day of preparation in the VSO office. I give a bit more of my brain to the impending nightmare workshop. I try a last ditch attempt to disuade Caroline (the head of the office) from having the workshop, as I believe that until the problems with Arlette and Alice (the program officers) are taken care of. There is also Catherine (from VSO international) who is in town for a week to help raise money… which they really need. So, my pitch was: is this really the best use of everyone’s time right now? Can it be done later? No dice. We are on for tomorrow. We have a simple set of exersises that we are going to run through.
I am feeling totally discombobulated… my brain is fuzzy, and I can’t remember a thing. Is it the mefloquine, or am I just not really excited about this workshop.
Monday November 24th 2003
A day in the VSO office. I spend about half of my brain opening my new fedex package, and a third downloading stuff from the internet.. and about a minor sliver on the purpose of the trip… the workshop. I am very happy to get the package. All sorts of goodies. Raiders of the Lost Arc on DVD, comic books, silica (for drying out my machines)… oooh yes… goodies.
Sunday November 23rd 2003
A day of rest, and some preparation for the meeting this week. I have no idea why I agreed to do this… and I have some real trepidaiton. As it gets closer, it feels like the last thing I want to be doing… it pretty much represents everything that I think is wrong with western business… but Anneke is nice.. I think that, as usual, I am a little too much. I pretty much said what I think about development, VSO and other stuff last night as we chatted. She looked very shocked… but today seems to have internalized it. We spent a bunch of time talking about the politics, and personal relationships of the people that were going to be there.
Saturday November 22nd 2003
I’m off to Yaoundé to do an organizational development workshop for VSO. I am facilitating, along with Anneke, a Dutch woman I haven’t met yet, but who works as something half way between a volunteer and a program officer. I cought a ride with Wynette (one of the residents of Santa Barbara in Yaoundé), who had been in town for about a week studying the forestry process. The car was crowded, but the ride was relatively easy. Nice 4X4 pickup, we made it in.. 7 hours? 8 hours? Whatever it was, it was pretty painless. As we headed out of the dense forest, and into an area where it hadn’t rained in a while, I got a glimpse of what the dry season is going to be like. The plants on either side of the road were red… completely covered in dust. As the Grumiers barrel by, the kick up a ton of dust, which settles on the plants. It is a bizzare looking landscape. Like creepy red tentacles reaching for the cars that pass by.. trying to infect them with the same disease that is killing them…
Thursday November 20th
Today was day three of Arlette’s visit. Surprise, she is leaving early. So much for me getting a ride up on Friday… some story about having to go to Abong M’bang to deal with some legal problems. Right. Anyway, we met about ROLD… and getting a volunteer for ROLD. It was an uncomfortable meeting.. as Patrice continued to insist that money was forthcoming from the SNV… and he tried to present the ROLD as a more cohesive entity than it really is. We talked about me working with, and for ROLD. I nodded, and didn’t say a whole lot. I’m starting up the marketing business regardless of what happens with ROLD, wich will be nothing… or very little. No one is there to really pay attention to it. So we went on and on.. and…until it was time for them to leave. I’m really glad that I have no expectations of them… as long as I get internet access, and a place to pick up packages.. I’m good.
We are getting to the end of Ramadan. The prayers this week have been getting louder and more furious. The muslims are getting grouchy.. because, not only are they not eating, but they aren’t sleeping either. The prayers start at 3 am, and go for a full hour… broadcast, of course. I haven’t been sleeping, and I don’t even have to pray. I will be glad when its over. I’m tired of getting woken up at 3… and the cadence is such that every time you start to drift.. it changes, waking you up again.. or is that just me?
Wednesday November 19th 2003
I ate elephant today. Not only that, but I got a bunch of other ‘whitey’s’ to join me. Basically, Alex came in and told me that there was elephant available, and wanted to know if I wanted any. I said.. ok. It came in. I had a bite, and after initially looking at me with horror, the others also had a bite. I am the devil. All those pure souls… tarnished. All this good karma earned.. down the toilet.
So, first of all… its pretty good. Not good enough to justify killing, but rich nonetheless. Second of all. The elephants that are killed here, are mostly killed for the ivory. The corpses are left to rot in the forest…Word gets around, and some locals find the body, and start cutting it up, and hauling the meat back. My not eating it will not stop the killing… and it will rot in the jungle either way. Let me clear. This is not justification. I ate the elephant before I knew that this was how it worked. But is it better to eat the elephant, or not?
This relates to another observation that I’ve had. Its about garbage. So, garbage is thrown pretty much on the ground… all over the place. Up ‘til about 20 years ago, every piece after a month or two, would turn into dirt again. Then along comes Mr. Plastic. Mr. Plastic doesn’t go away.. and yet, there is so little of it, that it doesn’t really cause much of a problem… it just gets burried in little bits and pieces all over the place…and if it does get to be too much, it gets burned in neat little piles. So.. what this makes me think about is our giant dumps. We don’t scatter our trash around.. we stick it all in one place. There is no way that it can easily re-absorbed…I mean, I get that we have so much trash that if we spread it around it still would be a problem. The observation here is not about our nasty habits, it is about how we look at other people. We see people throwing trash all around, and think its dirty and nasty… but actually, here, it’s the opposite. Putting all of your trash in one place is considered nasty… just like wiping your ass… why would we want to smush the shit around our asses with a piece of paper? And having a toilet? Why would you do that? Collecting all the shit in one place? Shouldn’t it be spread around a bit?
Dinner Chez Jacky… with Arlette, and one of CIAD’s funders… a funny dutch guy from an organization that barely even visits the organizations that it funds.. they have very little staff. This guy spends about 3 weeks a year in Cameroon. The SNV and other donor organizations don’t have a lot of respect for them, but I would love to do a study (well, not really, but you get the idea) of whether or not randomly handing out money is any more or less effective in the development process. My guess is that there is a small difference, but that the overhead incurred by having people ‘on the ground’ and checking things, and all the rest of the bureacrats, doesn’t come close to justifying the increase in cost… Man, would that change the development world or what? Any grad students out there looking for an earth shattering topic?
So, at dinner, Arlette pretty much completely dismissed Jen, and insulted the rest of us… she pretty much couldn’t give a shit about us.. which I understand. We are just meat… tourists. And most of us don’t get a fucking thing accomplished. This added to the fact that we are out in the sticks.. well that is just the final straw.
Tuesday November 18th 2003
Clearing Out the SNV building I got two Gorilla skulls. Oh man. They are very very cool. It almost makes up for them bailing… well, almost. So, there is a large gorilla skull and a small one. The large one is.. massive. Larger than my head, huge teeth, and it has a sharp edge on the backside that I can’t really figure out. The small one has a giant crack along the back. Apparently the cause of death.
Arlette showed up late in the afternoon. We, the volunteers of the east, had a meeting in which she told us that our –comitee of the east- was welcomed by the program office, but they have no money for us, and aren’t obligated to listen to our recommendations. She did however answer a lot of questions that I have with one tidbit. The VSO’s funding is drying up… well, that may be an overstatement.. but they have less money now, than before. This puts everything in perspective. They had just started to impliment a massively ambitious (and massively flawed) new strategic direction, and the legs got cut out from under them. There is also no small amount of denial about the implications of this. Their funding comes primarily from the government, so when it gets cut, it isn’t coming back, and is probably soon to be followed by more. Not only that, but a wounded organization tend to suck protective money to the beurocratic layer, so there will be even less money available to do the actual work. On top of that, they are cutting 5% across the board, instead of cutting vertically.. so basically each program office has been asked to get more ambitious with less. This is a total recipe for pain… if not disaster.
Arlette also took us out to dinner Chez Jacky, so how bad could it really be?
Monday November 17th 2003
I already have a potential client. The mayor. He wants to do a brochure and a video promoting Lomié. So, clearly not the poorest of the poor, but he has money, and the product will help move Lomié out of the realm of the media invisible.. to the impossible to find. I would also like to make a plea… anyone who has work that can be done remotely.. I want it. Simple stuff, boring stuff… that is what I am looking for. 200$ here, 500$ there… if I can do a total of 1,000$ worth of work.. that pretty much frees me up to work for free for people here… I will also happily work for old equipement (well, video equipment, and laptops really, specialty inkjet paper.. everything else will be to difficult to get here). Anyway, I’ll make a more formal pitch to people in the future…but consider this a bug in the ear.
Arlette is supposed to be making a visit this week. She is my program officer. She, of course, will not show up today, as scheduled. It will be tomorrow..and it will be because she is sick, or something.