and the other reason I haven't been posting... I found out that my internet access is WAY more expensive than I have been thinking. The reason? The logon java applet is a bandwidth hog. Almost 300k of data to log on...and 30K per minute to check your status. Nice that I pay by the amount of data used.. and nice that the company gave me any indication of this... other than including its use in the instruction manual... so.. now that I have identified this bugger, and I'm almost over the anurism... I should be getting back to regular posting.
So, part of my quietude lately is that I am going to spend a few weeks in Europe to visit my parents, and my niece. I have a bunch of stuff on my new computer, like video and photography. With unlimited internet access and some free time, I will be able to fill you all in on some of the exciting changes in Lomie...
see you next week, or this weekend, if I feel ambitious.
I went to test my Sat Modem for Geovic on Saturday. This is my first trip to the Geovic site, which is about 40 kilometers away. I was also supposed to go back to Echambord, and get some more footage of the balsa wood car constructions process, and if possible, pick up a truck or two.. then.. walk home… some 20 miles. I was supposed to leave at 8am sharp, as Charly had a board meeting in the afternoon. At 8:30 I was ready… or so I thought. On my equipment check, I found that my video camera batteries were totally drained. I’m not sure what that is about, because I recharged them a week or so ago, and hadn’t used them. I’m wondering if it is possible that the massive thunder and lightning storm we had may have done something. There were a few bolt of lightning that were accompanied by some phenomenally strong thunder. One pretty much knocked my out of my chair. Anyway, by batteries were dead.. so no filming. Which, to be honest, is a bit of a relief. So bright and early.. at about 10:30, we head out. It’s a 45 minute drive (in Charly’s car). As usual, I really enjoy riding in the car, looking at the jungle. This is a part of the forest around here that I don’t know. Every once in a while, I just get hit with where I live. I mean, 45 minutes of mud huts, with thatched roofs, a forest that is as old as the world, and a thin dirt road that links all human endeavor. So, 45 minutes of jungle reverie ends when I see some 30 people gathered around a metal gate. The Geovic compound. Apparently, they are going “on vacation”, and waiting for their last paycheck. Personally, I think that Geovic had some investors coming in, and beefed up payroll to sweeten the deal. Either way. Aside from the about to get paid Geovic employees, there were several improvised stores… a bar which consisted of a few crates of beer and soda. A few people selling other miscellaneous stuff laid out on the road. The Geovic compound itself is bigger than I expected, and a bit more dilapidated on the outside then I expected. A rickety, but tall, wooden fence, with gaps easily large enough for people to squeeze through. A front entrance that was some aluminum siding… that had seen better days. It sagged, and scraped the ground as they opened and closed the door. There was a surly looking guard at the gate, who didn’t really want to be bothered. Charly did the rounds of the employees, a few of whom I recognized. Charly told me that the last time he came (with a white man), they kept him waiting for an hour. I think that Charly is getting used to the idea that I’ve got some pretty good: getting in to places karma. I tell the guard that I am there to check to see if my sat modem will work there, so that they can set one up. He isn’t buying, but I don’t care. I give him my ID card, and he heads down to consult with those who make the rules. About 5 minutes later, one of the guys that runs the place that I had met with Gary Morris (the president? of Geovic) came up the hill quickly, and someone apologetically, to let us in, after I explained what I was there for. I had no written documents, I had no proof that I was telling the truth.. but we got in just fine. The compound is several large wooden buildings that contain bags and bags of samples from all over their site, a few smaller buildings with other facilities. It looks.. well, better than most structures out here, but still pretty dilapidated. I went out back with two of the Anglophone geologists that I have briefly met before, and set up my gear. Oh yeah. The lead and how to swing it. In a few minutes, we were looking at my Yahoo, and sending a short note to Gary. We chatted a bit, I got some more info on Geovic, its health, and Gary’s schedule. We head out… and on to Ngola, village down the road to drop off one of our passengers. Oh, there is no such thing as a car without other passengers. there are always people stuffed in the car. We get to the village, and I get to see what I am pretty sure is illegal pillaging of their community forest. Ngola has a community forest, but they lost their permit recently for some violations, and infighting. They secured permission to ship out the stuff that had already been cut.. but what I saw was roughly two kilometers of planks stacked up by the side of the road, and people carrying planks out of the bush on their heads. I made some comment, and my concerns were validated. I’m not sure what I can or will do about it, other than send off a few emails to people who monitor this stuff. My guess is that in the grand scheme of fraud and theft and pillaging this is less than nothing. We spent an hour chilling out in the village. I sat in a ‘chief chair’.. which is a chair covered in goat skin. It was comfy, and I had the pleasure of being reminded how extreme the bugs in the villages can be. I got mauled. I was also reminded what it is like in the villages with kids. Pretty much every kid in the area came out to see me. They hid behind the car, and proceeded to dare each other to run out, look at me, and run back. This went on the whole time, until I got up, and they scattered like bugs. We picked up a guy to replace the one we dropped off. This guy then picked up his sick baby, who he was taking to the hospital. The baby had a face full of open wounds, an eye that was swollen shut, and a vaguely yellowish. She was quiet only in so much as she had little ability to really cry. I asked what was wrong.. an illness related to malnutrition.
We drove back, and as I had asked Charly about stopping off at Echambord beforehand, we stopped. He was very interested in the cars, and what I was doing there. He offered to take me down the next time I was going to film stuff. We got there, and the father was sitting outside. The kids were out back finishing up a tractor. We did the hello’s, and I gave my excuses for not being able to spend more time there with my camera. The father is going to be a problem. I just know it. He smells money… and I’m waiting for the strong arm. I am ready for it, and I have also almost gotten more trucks than I think I can sell for a while. We had a short meal, and headed out. I am lucky that Charly was there, as he can just walk off with far less problems than I can. I came back with 4 or 5 new cars, trucks, and a motorcycle.
After a hard week, this was a good, if tiring, day. I really need a few days off.
Sunday, I set up my flood light (I was really suffering from lack of lighting equipment, so I bought a halogen floodlight last time in Yaounde), and build a sort of lazy Susan… set up my camera, and took some product shots. Its looks pretty good. Mostly, I have turn-arounds. I have some ideas of what I can do with this to help show-off the trucks. I’ll be up in Yaoundé in a week or so, to pick up my…. FIXED computer. Actually, they didn’t fix it. They replaced it with a newer and faster machine. I knew there was a reason I put up with Apple. With that, and a broadband connection, I can finally put up a few months worth of photos.. and some video I still have lying around.
Sunday is also the day that Ange (my Alex replacement) moved in. She is Jen’s friend, and we struck a deal that she can stay here until Jen leaves… in the hopes of earning enough money for school. If she handles the pressure well (working for the white people is a real hassle), and Gwinn is comfortable with her staying, she might stay longer. She’s nice, and seems to be pretty excited to be staying here (with her year old baby). We’ll see how it goes.
The weekend ended with a visit from Carey (Peace Corps) and a great rainstorm. All in all, good end to a hard and draining week.
I didn’t have to throw Alex in jail. Alex returned this moring with the radio. The Chief saw it, and complained it was pretty much in the same state it was in months ago before it was supposedly fixed. The chief tried to blame Alex, but I called bullshit on that. It was broken before. I told the chief that I would go to the repair guys place, and we would chat about what the problem was. Alex and I headed up to the repair-man’s place.. and when I say repair man... I mean a guy who has a room with a few old stereo parts.. and a screwdriver. He doesn’t really know a whole lot more than I do about electronics. So, we open it up, and he says: “It’s the chip”. There is a little chip in the radio. He says they go all the time. Yeah. Whatever. He basically says that when there is lightning, it causes the batteries to send a power charge through the chip and blow it. I think the problem is that it is a cheap pirated piece of shit, and the chief has been using it for a year or two, and he dropped it.
I ask him a few more questions, and we leave… or at least I pretend to. We get a few steps away, and I say: “Alex, can you wait a second?”and head back. I noticed during our conversation that he said something about the radio having been there for a while. So, I asked the repair man how long it had been there.. to which he said: Depuis.. which roughly translates as: a while. I asked again, and he said: Depuis depius… a long time. Basically, confirming my belief that Alex had put it in hawk (the repairman is also runs a pawn shop). Alex lies like a rug, but its not my problem anymore. I have the chief’s radio. So, we head back, and Alex starts to plead… he was terrified I was going to throw him in jail. I told him no. I have the radio, and that is all. He kept insisting that he didn’t leave it in hawk… I tell him to go find a cheap radio for me, as I don’t have one. One that is like the Chief’s. He finds the exact (almost.. paint job is different) radio. My plan is to give the new one to the Chief while I get the old one fixed in Yaoundé.
The chief has to take that deal. See, what has been going on here is that the Chief has been trying to get me to buy him a new radio. a real one. He has been telling me all about his high quality radio that comes from Japan that he left me. Insurance scam style. I’m not going to spend time telling him that Panasonic doesn’t label their radios: Pansoanic. I’m just not going to play ball. So, he’s been trying to play me for a sap, and I’m going to let him hang in is own shit as well. I will fix his old one for a dollar or two, and take the other one back (which I have wanted for the house), which is new. He gets to keep his pride, or the better radio. I get a radio for cheap which I wanted, and I get to have this whole thing end. Alex gets, well, nothing. I told him today I wasn’t punishing him.. I would only punish him if I wanted him to change, and since I want nothing from him, why would I bother punishing him.
I had a little breakthrough today. First of all, I am, and have been in a foul mood these past few days. Between Alex and the Chief, and everyone else in town trying to fuck me over on a daily basis, its starting to wear thin. Seriously, I don’t think there is one person in town who hasn’t lied to me since I’ve been here. I don’t think there has been one person in town who hasn’t tried to get something off of me since I’ve been here. Even the kids. I have a high tolerance for this, and am pretty good at setting boundaries that I can live with. I say no a lot. I argue, and negotiate with relish. I understand that ruthless opportunism is a pretty fundamental part of the culture. None of that even really bothers me. My breakthrough?
Oh yeah. I realized that I would be much less annoyed if I could play the same game that they play. I mean, if I could use all the techniques and tactics that I want to, it would be much easier. If I start to play hardball, they all get shocked, and start to cry foul. If I could just say to the Chief: you are lying, and you are trying con me out of money because you think all white people are made of money and stupid, and that is insulting and racist, so fucking stop it, or get out of my house. I say that shit to people I don’t know all the time, and while it is never pleasant, it works. Its part of why many people here are scared of me. The problem is when you know the person, or they are supposed to be someone I should be paying respect to, I can’t. Or at least not without serious consequences. What happenend with Jen was exactly that. Sorel didn’t like getting what she was giving, so she tried to get Jen thrown out of town.
I’m just going to have to keep shutting people down in my own special way: hoisting people in their own petards, patiently wearing them down, making people do work before I do anything, keeping everyone at an arms length, and watching every person who comes in my house, and saying no a lot. The problem is that it takes a lot of energy to do that all the time. Sometimes a good old fashioned ass kicking would be much more satisfying.
I lost my internet connection this weekend. The modem was working fine, but for some reason, it wasn’t able to send and receive data past the satellite. My paranoid self thought that it might be getting blocked, my reasonable self thought that something happened with the subscription. The truth will not be known. It just started again after a break of almost a week. So, it felt a bit strange not being connected. Part of it was liberating. Part of it was frustrating, as it usually is when I find myself without internet. The difference here is that the gap between not having it, and having it is big. I had to write Gwinn an email with instructions to contact the service provider to try to solve the problem remotely, and send that email on a disc with someone up to Yaoundé, have them send it from their account, and wait. I’ve known this for a while, but, I wouldn’t want to be here for so long without being able to connect. I don’t think I would have come here if I didn’t think that I would be able to have some contact with the rest of the world. Not having that connection for a few days, while it didn’t really bother me, reminded me of why.
So, what happened during those ‘lost days’. Oh you know, the Lomié regular rhythm of life. To start with, CIAD (Jen and George’s NGO) had their general assembly. It was a major act of rebellion. They went against the hierarchy. They elected a new board of directors, and started to really clamp down on Elias, the former director who stole all the money. The problem is that it might be too little too late… and done by people who are not used to thwarting authority. As a lifelong authority thwarter, I have been giving them some tips, but I am really trying to stay out of direct participation. I don’t really think that the new guard will really be that different than the old guard. It took all day Saturday to do the assembly. I drew all during the meeting. I’m getting the hang of these things. Go with my sketchbook, and get hours and hours of uninterrupted drawing time… and a show. My favorite part are the elections. There isn’t really much of a democratic spirit here… oh sure, there are elections, but the outcome is pretty much set before it even begins. The candidates announce who they are going to be (all decided in advance), then there is voting. That is also decided in advance. They pretty much want me there as an observer, so that I can vouch for the transparent and democratic nature of the process. They don’t really like it much when I say: “oh I don’t really mind that results were decided well before the vote, or even the meeting today”. I’m not supposed to say that. Its like I stand up in the room and say: “Its ok that you farted, I don’t mind”. Everyone gets stuck on the whole.. how did you know I farted part, but I clearly don’t care if they follow these stupid and totally imposed rules from the outside. Like you can trick people into good governance. We really do think Africans are stupid. I did learn something that I have been looking for a while. It’s a Zime saying that roughly translated goes something like this: “When a strong man helps a weak man in a fight, the weak man will run away”. Basically, I have been looking for linguistic evidence that charity, or helping someone out, is considered lunacy or weakness. This definitely does the trick. Its why ‘development’ just won’t work here. They wait until we show up, and then run away. Our culture is just the opposite. You always take the side of the underdog. So, when people come here to help the weak man fight, and he runs away, we are shocked. They Zime are shocked that we are shocked.
Speaking of weak men, and fighting. I threw Alex out this weekend as well. I knew he was done when he came back from getting new gas bottles in Among M’bang with almost no gas, and no money. He’s been getting particularly greedy again… and I have just had enough. I waited until Sunday to do it, so that I had a whole day to follow through on what I knew was going to be an pain in the ass. I started by taking Alex around to all of the places where he had outstanding chores, or stuff owed. We stopped by the carpenter (who I have been waiting for to deliver my table for almost 3 weeks). 5 minutes later, the carpenter promised delivery at noon that day.
We went to a few other places, and ended up at home, where I said (in my best Colombo) :” Oh, by the way Alex, you did say that you bought that grill right?”
“oh yes” was the reply.
When the Peace Corps volunteers were here and we grilled beef, I paid for a grill. Alex produced one. A week later Yo Yo (my neighbor) came to collect it. Apparently, he had borrowed it, and told me had bought it. Bouffing my money (bouffer, to eat in French slang, is the local word for stealing the money).
I said: “that’s strange, ‘cause Yo Yo told me you just borrowed it”.
“No, I bought it, but not from her”.
“oh” I say “Well, I’m confused, lets go straighten this out”.
He said: “She isn’t there, she’s at Church”.
“Really,” says I. “Thatcher, is Yo Yo at home” I asked her as she conveniently walked by..
“Oh yes, she’s getting ready to go to Church”.
“Great, can you let her know I’m coming over”, as I got up to head over there.
Alex goes as pale as a black man can. He lags behind a minute, trying desperately to figure a way out of this. I’m already in the neighbors compound.
“Is Yo Yo here?”.
She pops her head out, and I say: “Alex was telling me that be bought the grill, but you were saying he bought it… What’s going on here”.
I can be a real bastard, the whole morning was about engineering this moment. Alex will be smarting from that exchange for a long time. She fucking ripped into him. He tried to speak in Zime, she would have none of that.
“In French, I want Ben to know how much of a liar you are”.
That was the start. I let her rip into him for a minute or two as he come up with one lame lie after another.
I then said: “Thank you very much for clearing this up” and headed home.
Alex followed.
We sat on the rattan deck chairs, and I said: “That’s it Alex, you are done”.
He didn’t get it for a second or two, so I got up, asked him for his key and said:” Empty your room, and don’t come back”.
The tears came, the begging, every imaginable plea, whine or flat out begging continued for a few hours, as he slowly packed each item he owns into two small plastic bags. It was pretty much one of the saddest, most pathetic scenes I’ve ever seen. One of the things that bugged me the most, is that he kept trying to negotiate. One more chance.. over and over. No was the answer. Over and over. He told me he was going to the village to live.. which is essentially like a demotion, and was supposed to elicit sympathy from me. I bought him a machete, and a sharpener and said” “good luck, you will need it”.
I basically let him have it, but in a cold emotionless way. I told him that my anger was cold, and that kind doesn’t go away. I told him I didn’t hate him.. I pity him, which is like hate without the respect. I told him he was going to die unless he made the choice to be a man. Blah blah blah. I told him I knew that, as Charly had told him he was not welcome there either, that meant he had nowhere to go. He still had in the back of his mind that this was a negotiation, or a warning, or something. To be blunt: Fuck that noise. I am here for another year and a half, and I need to train some people to learn how to use my stuff so that they can do it themselves when I leave. Everyday Alex is around is one less day that I have to teach someone who wants to learn. He basically said at one point that he would be happy to not talk to me until I was ready to leave, so he could have some of the shit in the house (like my gas stove, or chairs)… Nice to be wanted.
I told him it really hurt me that I had to do this, but nowhere near as much as it was going to hurt him. The brutal truth is that Alex will not survive more than a few months in the village… and if he does, he’ll never make it out again. It is a fucking hard life, and he is a coward , lazy, vain and has a drinking problem. He has no bed, no possessions, no money, no skills, nothing of use to the people in the village. He is dead weight in a part of the world where the word dead will get accentuated in that phrase. I’m essentially sentencing him to either death or purgatory. This was hard for me to do, but I’m not pretending that was doing this for his own good. Maybe it will be, maybe not. That is his choice. I am doing this because he costs me too much money, time and effort. I am not getting a good return on my investment, and I am switching product. I told him there are 6 billion people in this world, and we as individuals are worth almost nothing. I told him if he could give me a good reason I should give him another chance.. I would consider it. He didn’t have anything. I really don’t like having to do this kind of shit. I don’t like having other people’s future in my hands. I resent it. My own future is going to be hard enough, but I really don’t like having my patience mistaken for weakness, and I will sleep well tonight knowing that I gave him every chance to make this work.. and he chose not to. He accused me of crucifying him. I said.. the hell I did. I put the hammer, the nails and the wood on the ground. You did the rest.
So, he slept in Charly’s car last night, apparently. This morning, who should walk by, but the Chief of Karagua, looking for his radio. Apparently Alex never finished dealing with that. If it wasn’t the grill, it would have been the radio that put him out the door. I sat with the Chief, and had to listen to him complain about not having his radio for months (and he is right to be pissed). I hunted down Alex, and let him have it. Publicly, which is the worst possible punishment. He needed to find the radio, or the name of the person who had it by noon the next day. At 11 am he showed up with a name… a name of the brother of the guy who supposedly had it. The Chief came by later, and said he didn’t know who that was. Off I went hunting down Alex. Charly found him first. I had a short talk with him before we met with the Chief. I said:” I think you sold the radio for beer money. If this is true tell me now, and you won’t go to jail. If you tell me it went down, and it turns out that it doesn’t show up, you are going to spend a long time in jail. You can’t steal the Chief’s radio and get away with it, and you can’t ruin my professional reputation for beer money”. A long pause, and a.. “I sent it down”. We met with the Chief. Alex’s answers were wholly unacceptable. I suggested that Alex go down the next day, find the guy, and the radio, or suffer the consequences. The Chief seemed to think that was a fair proposal. Alex left this morning, and is supposed to come back this evening. We shall see. I hope for his sake that he is not lying. I will throw him in jail. Isn’t that why I came here? Come to Africa, throw people in jail. Its all a part of VSO’s slogan: Sharing skills and changing lives. I am sharing my skill at being ruthless, and certainly changing his life. Maybe the new slogan should be sharing kills, and ending lives.
Speaking of ending lives. I have a small update on the GECEC situation. Apparently, the rumor around town is now that they don’t have enough money to give people their money. It is a very localized rumor, and can be explained away as a cash shortage, and a new credit application freeze.. but I’m not sure how long its going to stay as a closely held rumor. All hell my break loose.
Oh, and a final sharing and caring moment. Arlette is no longer representing VSO Cameroon… as of a week ago. I’m not sure if she got officially fired.. but there goes another life I changed. Boy, I am going to leave a large trail of wreckage behind me at this rate. If Cameroon gets many more volunteers like me, they will all be out of jobs, and in jail.
It doesn't begin with a P... but come to think of it, Life in Lomié would make a great musical. I can hear it now, complete with Baka water music. This goes right up there with my Gay Quarterback in the NFL busby berkeley musical. Sigh, what I could do with a large fortune. Alas, money makes people really boring.
Speaking of money, that is what this trouble I was referring to is all about. GECEC is having problems. I'm not sure how much I've written about this, but for the past two months the problems have started surfacing at GECEC. The first being Thomas. Thomas has been stealing money. He's stolen about 2 million (which would be about 4 thousand dollars or about 5 or 6 years salary) in the past year. He did it by taking money for deposit, and then ripping out the record of it. Basically, he's bought a few things with it, but he's probably spent most of it on stupid stuff like beer for everyone. The auditor discovered the gap before the general assembly. He agreed to not go public with it, as the auditor hadn't shown up in a year, and that was thier job. So, after they studied the books, they found that Thomas had been stealing. They also discovered a larger almost 5 million CFA gap in the books. But they aren't sure if it really is a gap, or just bad bookkeeping. I think it may not even be missing, but Charly is making sure that he can take his share if the whole thing falls apart. So, day before yesterday, they confronted Thomas with an offer. Pay back half, and you can keep your job,and not go to jail, as long as you make monthly payments. I'm still not sure the outcome. The police commissioner was on standby... I have not been wanting to be there for this, and I was specifically not invited. So the implicaitons of this are legion. This is the only funcitoning savings and loan for hundreds of kilometers, if it goes down, there is nothing. Not only that, it will be the second attempt in Lomié. I'm not sure there would be another. If word gets out that the empolyees have been stealing there will be a run on the bank.. and there aren't a lot of funds in the bank currently (loan repayment is in the low 40%, and viability for a bank needs to be in the hight 80%). So, the mayor, and the other elite in town would be sure to get thier money out.. which means.. that's right. The regular people who do the bulk of the work supporting an institution like this, repay thier loans, and follow the rules are going to suffer.
Jen has a friend named Ange. She got a job a few months ago cleaning house for a petty functionary. She worked about 10 hours a day, 5 days a week for the whopping sum of 10.000 CFA a month. That is about 40$. She was putting half of it in her account at GECEC, so that she can go to school in the fall. She got fired because the wife was jealous, and the man has not paid her for her last month of work. She is going to lose all of her money at GECEC if there is a run. Ange is 18 and ran away from Batouri and her abusive husband with her baby about a year ago.
Two closing notes. One, GECEC's survival is dependant on me finding money to prop them up. Now that I know that what I can bring in is just going to paper over holes in the books, I am less motivated to work hard on something I don't really want to do (namely, write grant proposals). I don't realy feel obligated, or responsible, really, more annoyed. I mean, it is really going to suck for a lot of people if there is a run on the bank, but I didn't steal the money from the till. I will continue to work on it, and if something comes of it, great, if not. Well, I will probably be chased out of town with the rest of the GECEC crew. Hell, maybe they will even blame me. Two, it is like working with the sword of damoclese hanging over your head here. It seems like, instead of putting the sharp objects away and getting to work, they throw them up in the air, and try to get work done before they have to dodge them coming down, pick them up, and throw them up in the air again.
oh, and the puppy i didn't get just bit my penis.
so.. yesterday, Alan (my neighbor) lent his motorcycle to someone. They used it all day, returned it out of gas, and broken. Things have not been going well next door. D'oh has been sick, and they have very little money. The rainy season is here, and Alan's car repair business is slow. Petit and Patricks school money and living stipend have not come from thier parents. The kids come over regularly to eat here, as they have nothing at home. Alan took it very badly that this man took advantage of him. He apparently beat the living shit out of him, and was only stopped from killing him by other people around who convinced Alan that this guy could work off his debt around the compound better if he was still alive. When I told Petit this story, he said: "oh, I was wondering who the bruised guy doing housework was".
Thatcher (yes, after Margret), the older little girl next door, has been causing trouble lately. She has no mother, but is being taken care of by Yo Yo (Alan's sister). She has been doing things to make sure she gets attention. Breaking things, taking things, and generally causing trouble. The past few days, she has been a bit sheepish, and quiet. Yesterday, she came over to sit in the house. Lolita (yes.. another neighbor child) told her to show me her arms and feet. They were swollen and lascerated. Apparently Yo-Yo wailed on her something fierce. Jen said she heard a child howling for a long while in the afternoon.
These are my good neighbors. It just flat out sucks to be a Cameroonian child sometimes.
So... the rule in my house is no hitting, no fighting. Hard and fast... the kids know that I am serious, and if they start, and I even start to get up from work, they all start to file out.. knowing exactly what the consequences are... they will be kicked out. But, for next door... there is not much I can do, or even feel comfortable judging.
The peace corps volunteers in the east came to Lomie this past weekend. It was the kind of american invasion I can support. There were 8 volunteers who came. Carey, who I've written about, and 7 other, much younger, volunteers. We tried to make burgers, but the only woman with a meat grinder in town hates Charly (my boss), so no go. We ended up grilling strips of beef on my new grill (which really consists of some wires). It was good. The little american oasis here was, well, kind of anti-climatic. The volunteers were, to a person, very nice, very young, and more than a bit vague. I don't know how to describe it otherwise. I mean, I'm sure some of that comes from getting older, but I know myself well enough to know that I was never that vague. At thier age, I was running Mob productions, and running around like a bat out of hell. They seemed kind of shell shocked. All of them had been here for more than 9 months...so it wasn't about being new. It was more about... well, the fantasy of Africa meets the reality. Most of thier observations were pretty much at the very local level, and most of thier jobs are of a much smaller scope than mine. The most important thing that I learned is that the Peace Corps is more like high school than anything else. They have dorm rules in Yaounde, a curfew, and all sorts of supervision. I would go balistic.
On Sunday we made pancakes for dinner. That was a treat. All in all, great fun, and totally american conversations were had... including obligatory star wars references.
My gorilla skull has a friend. Its a panther skull. It is tragically beautiful. I was also offered Ivory, but I declined. If anyone thinks that the elephants, panthers and gorillas stand a chance in hell of surviving are mistaken.
In a related sad topic. There is a fight brewing between which western organization is going to get to support the gorilla habituation project. The one that is going to fund embezzlers and frauds, or the one that is trying to give self aggrandizing liars the money. The end result of this is that the villages are being torn apart by 'conservation' NGO's that really need a 'gorilla project' in their portfolio. Its big money. With a gorilla on your glossy conservation magazine cover you can get a whole lot more donations to pay for the european salaries and plane tickets to see exotic places. Its all about those giant checks they get at fundraising events, and hanging out with concerned and caring celebrities. The biggest irony here is that no one ever actually gets to see the Gorillas...but hey. Those are details right?
I'll write more about the actual details as I get better information.. you know, name names, tell all. This would be a really good article on the savageness of conservation, and the very lucrative end game for this kind of betrayal. If I only knew a good investigative journalist. This is a story that could be told very very well. I just can't write well enough. But I am going to try out some sneaky stuff of my own to get people to lie on film. We'll see.
The real output of all of this.. is tragically, going to be more Gorilla skulls probably.
It all started yesterday morning, at around 7:30am with some negotiation on the price of motorcycle rides to Echambord, which is about 21kms south of Lomié. I tried to get the price way down.. but that didn't work.
So, for 2000k CFA (4$) we all, and by all, I mean Jen, Vieux (a neighbor kid) and myself, headed off. It was cloudy, but cool. I was carrying my camera equipment, vieux was carrying the bamboo grumier truck that Vieux's brother made. He was carrying it so that the family would be complete. That was the reason for the trip. His little brother had finished several new trucks, and I was going to film him putting them together, and talk a little bit about selling them. At the very least, I was buying the ones that he made. So, off we go. Jen was carrying.. um, nothing. The ride was fantastic. The jungle is just fucking amazing, and as soon as you get about 10kms south, it gets to that really nice jungle, and it comes right up to the edge of the road. After about 20 minutes, the bike I was on got a flat....or more accurately, it had a slow leak, and we had to get down while it was getting fixed. Don't think that there were approriate tools. Think, metal wires, spit and some glue. We waited about 30 minutes for the guy to fix it. Off we go again. It turns out that Vieux lives a good 5 kms outside of town.so, we got to the town, and the drivers didn't want to take us the final 5k to Vieux's house... actually, they wanted to get the white man to pay some more...so.. we got down, said, you do what you have to do.. and we walked. Luckily for Jen, who was there to do research for Koko, a vegitable that grows wild in the forest, the local expert
so... Jen found the person she was looking for, and headed off into the jungle to collect plants. Vieux and I walked 5 kms to his house..where, when we walked in, the first thing that happened is that one of the boys there said: "merde".. I just flat out shocked him. I don't think they have ever had a white man in their house, and I was clearly a guest that they had been waiting for.. for weeks. Was I coming, was I not..they were sort of convinced that I was blowing them off...but then, walking down the road, there I was. merde. I sat with the father chatting for an hour or two, the father was gracious, and we had a long conversation... which was.. sort of interesting. There is is trait here that men have..Its this tendency to create a whole logical framework world view based on a few key assumptions that are, well, for lack of a better term, way way off. It is amusing and tragic all at the same time. After a meagre meal of plantains and avacodo (they are really really poor)...we got to the trucks. They were awesome. The kid had a basket full of parts, and built two more totally complex and fantastic machines in front of me. All of which I got on film. The whole family sat around, watched and commented and shouted at the boy.. who was so nervous at first, his hands were shaking badly. A few hours later, two totally amazing vehicles were sitting in front of me.I mean, they make the first truck look simple (I think I posted a few pictures of it somewhere... can someone check for me? If not, I'll post some photos). He also even made balsa wood logs for them. One is a tree lifter, and the other, a tree dragger.
they are like tractors.. but one has a crane...which works, and is counter balanced to be able to lift things without problems.
My coming there and filming.. was pretty much the highlight of his life. Seriously. It is strange having that kind of effect on people.
I really do want to sell his stuff so that he can afford to go to school. He lives a 10 mile walk from school, lives with his 7 brothers, and uses a razorblade, and bamboo to make these things. Sometimes, when he can find one, he takes a plastic bottle and makes windows, on even rarer occasions, he finds some paint, and paints them. And he makes absolutely fantastic vehicles. His mother is going to make special baskets to transport each one. I had to spend a lot of time convincing them of that. They were talking about me taking the kid to the port, and having him assemble them there, as if the rest of the world was just outside the port. Like the port was the end of the world. From there, it was all wine and roses, so why did you even need put them in a container, or box. It is difficult negotiating with people who are absolutely convinced that they understand how the world works... and clearly have no clue. They are sooo sure that the world is like.. well, 15 minutes of video they saw once, mixed with an experience of working with a white guy 20 years ago... Mostly, I let them say what they want without breaking it all down too much. Its just to far.
So.. hopefully, I will get the customized rattan baskets.. which will help in transport and sales...and I can work on getting them out of the country.
So, at about dusk.. we set off to walk back a short 30 kilometers (20 miles for the metrically impaired. After about 10kms, the geovic truck, full of singing workers drove by. One of Jen's friends has a sister who works for them...
and they stopped. I got in the back and hung on for dear life for 30 minutes
I was really, barely hanging on, there were 20 of us in a pickup.. the muslim guy who speaks no french and I, were shoved out of the back, hangin on. There was a lot of singing, as they just got paid, and they were mostly drunk already. It was fun.. and totally scary. I got off and had a very sore calf. I was essentially holding myself in the truck with one leg, wedged under a giant mass of plantains... and got a very bad charly horse. I worked it out with some tiger balm....and that is half the story of my yesterday
Wait.. are these the troops I was supposed to be supporting? Or was is just hte 'healthy' ones who chose a job who's primary description was to kill. I mean lets be honest, there was no draft, and this isn't 1942. So, for those that don't get it... the American Empire is done. These pictures will have more of an effect on the balance of power, and future politcs than September 11th. The amazing thing is how deep this goes, and how little, it seems from here, that the government understands how bad this really is. Even a completely unpresidented (heh) quasi apology is so completely besides the point. This isn't about individuals, as much as the machine always blames its failures on the individuals, this is about a system that fosters a culture of actions without consequences. How could a bunch of kids who kill for money (and a bunch of private contractors who flourish on misery), fly half way across the world to start a war based on total, and blatant lies, do anything less than this? The particular nature of these photos (and apparently the videos put the stills to shame) reveals a deeply troubled national psyche. This is the Bush America. This is our America. This is what we have become. This is what becomes of all countries that fall in love with the idea of war.
Why am I ranting here about this? Because here in Lomié, at the end of the road, and again the end of that one, where people don't care about politics. People are turning against the US. Americans were gods here. Gods of light and power. The power now has limits, and the light has developed a sickly reddish hue.
Apparently I was on national TV this weekend for my valuable participation in the opening of the SNV office in Bertua. I'll be signing autographs at the local Barnes & Noble all week. In other news, the porcupine was recovered. As of last night, he was in his little cage, happily eating bananas. I'll go check to see if he is still there this morning. Yep, still there, and now, fiesty.
Earlier this week I went to Bertua, the capital of the east. I went for another SNV type of event, and I'll spare you the details. It was their office opening, and office openings are pretty much the same everywhere, except here, there is more protocol, and all the speeches are read. Anyway, Bertua is about 200kms away, and it took about 12 hours to get there. Bertua is actually a city. I wasn't expecting that, but it definitely hit that critial mass that you need to achieve cityhood. It was bustling, and clearly growing fast. There are also a lot more white people there, and I think that they are timber industry people, and the like, for the most part. I say this because I was approached several times in the few minutes I was in public by women who were, um.. very forward. Clearly being sexually aggressive to white men pays off in enough cases that it is normal. Very different from Lomié. All in all, I don't think I'll be spending a whole lot of time in Bertua.
The ride back was as usual, brutal and long. Two things of note. There is a category of clothing that, for lack of a better term I'll call 'ironic' clothing. I first noted this when I was with Gwinn in NY years ago, and we saw a bum (and I distinguish that from a homeless person) wearing a shirt that said: 'Expect the unexpected". Apparently he didn't read his shirt... or maybe he did. Anyway, I saw some ironic clothing here recently. On the ride back, when I got out to push the van out of the mud, a villager... and I mean deep village inhabitant... was wearing a baseball cap, the kind that a generic tech company from the late 90's made in support of their PR efforts. This one said "building a better tomorrow" with a super slick, and ultimately generic logo. This villager is sporting a fancy cap (fancy by Cameroonian standards), that he probably counts as one of his more valuable possesions. I wonder if this ranks up as one of the more usefull things this company did.
The other piece of ironic clothing was a pair of pants that a Baka was wearing when he was selling me the baby porcupine. They were those purposely ripped jeans, with the heavy fraying. Now people here all wear clothes that are ripped (except the elite), but they spend a lot of time and energy trying to avoid that. It never occured to the Baka that the pants were torn on purpose, he thought... well of course that is why they sent them down here. So, he was happy to be wearing these torn pants, not because he thought they were fancy, but that it was ok, as most of the clothing worn here is torn...so these fit right in.
By the way, there is a lot of used European clothing here. Most of it Dutch. Apparently, much of it is gathered as donations, shipped down here, and then sold to the local inhabitants for a profit to the middle man. Nice.
Yesterday was 'labor day'. Here, it is a bit different. Only the elite have jobs, so labor day is a celebration of superiority of those who have jobs, over those who just work the field... which isn't considered work. It was, of course, celebrated with a large amount of drinking. Today is quiet though. Most people are really really hung over.
Yesterday i got a baby porcupine.. I was going to raise, breed, and eventually eat. Last night, someone stole it. I think it was one of my neighbor's kids... he, uncharacteristically spent a few hours hanging out with me yesterday. I was thinking.. I wonder if he is doing this because he thinks it will help him steal the porcupine...and I thought, wow.. I am cynical...but yeah, maybe. Sure enough. At least he didn't take the hutch I had built. I also got pretty ill last night. A food allergy that seems to be new in the past few years for me. Intense headache, followed by vomiting, and then a sleep that is more like being passed out. Today, I had to deal with an unrelenting slew of demands on me. It never stops, and everyone tries to take advantage of me on everything. One example. This girl died tonight. She was 22. Her family asked me to make up some posters with her photo, a few words, and the dates of her life. I stopped what I was working on, and did them. I have now learned that I have to get paid up front for everything. I printed one of them, and not the full 10 they asked for. Then they said.. oh, we forgot to ask you to put her name on it, and we can't pay for them... can you give us a discount. So, I already do this at cost.. not including my time. I then get shit for being a white man. Oh, and the kicker.. she died of AIDS.. of course, she didn't according to people here. She died of slow poisoning. I mentioned that to Alex, who said: "of course that is what she died of, but you can't say that, and what good would it do anyway".. so I told him about the 14 year old girl who said: "aids doesn't exist, no one ever dies of it, you just made it up to keep me from having sex, and making babies". Makes me feel real good about spending my time doing favors for folks like that...
I miss by baby porcupine.
It is February now. I start working my ass off again. Calendar for the mayor, posters, site for the gorillas (…like they use the internet). The fridge is still broken. I eat like shit. I get tired of waiting for the tables and chairs that Alex ordered (yeah right) a few months ago. I scrounge/steal a great table from the SNV building, get some shelves, and do some general clean up. It feels very productive. The fridge even works for a few minutes…before its craps out. I will never have a working fridge. Izidore is now avoiding me as he has not been able to fix the fridge with two months time and a bunch of money. The gorilla site is uploaded. Thank you Locke. I then spend a day waiting for the mayor to pick me up to take some photos for the Calendar. He never shows up, but I don’t really care, I get to draw some. I get used again and again by locals for my computer skills. I don’t mind being used so much (well, I do, but I can handle it), but when people are rude to me about it, and act as if I am some sort of lapdog… It pisses me off. This time it was the local debt collector, and a priest. It is Saturday the 7th of February. Alex’s women problems are piling up. Some girl comes by and delivers me a subpoena for him… and some girl that he has been hitting on (I call her no-name lying girl) comes by with a sob story, and I get to listen as Alex isn’t there. She is Jen’s ‘friend’ as well…but she really can’t deal with her either anymore. I sit patiently for a few minutes trying to play my new gameboy, and she is really bugging me with some sob story about her parents getting killed in an industrial accident in France when she was a baby. She is so totally full of shit. I’ve had it. I am tired of Alex. I type up a countdown list. “Alex’s final 5 fuck ups” and post it on the wall in the living room. He is pretty freaked out…as he should be. I finish Final Fantasy. It is very good. I mean, really good. Even the story is good…or at least the little things in the story are good. I work on lightwave, but it is very limited as it doesn’t work with Panther on my Mac. Lightwave 8 is only two months late. Looks good though. I look at Charly’s financial planning report for the year. This is another kind of final fantasy. The numbers are kind of scary. I will be responsible for bringing in half of the annual budget in outside funds. I am now a fundraiser. Not only that, but GECEC is not a viable financial organization. Maybe it will be in the future, but right now.. its not looking that strong. Microfinance is not all its cracked up to be. The Lions (the Cameroonian national team) loses. The are clearly physically more talented than their opponents, but the don’t share, have no cohesion, and all want to be the ‘star’. I think there might be a national lesson in this..but that would be… well, snotty. The Dutch descend. A few Dutch people drive a truck down here for “Pere Paul” one of those religious types hell-bent on turning the baka into good Christians. He has been here 30 or so years. His niece came down with them to do a radio story. They are nice, if a bit lost… and surprised that Pere Paul is no longer here. He is old, and went to Yaoundé to live. His parish here is falling apart in less than 3 months after his departure. Entropy rules. CIAD’s main funder is in town. There is a huge clusterfuck of politics, money and lies. George (he is great) has a bout of honesty in front of the donor, and when asked, tells the truth about CIAD’s lies. Ooooh. They didn’t expect that. I make valentines day cards with Petit. He is trying to sell some. It is really dry, dusty and hot here now. There is about 3-4 inches of fine red powder pretty much everywhere outside. The trucks hauling trees generate a 40 foot cloud of red dust as they pass. February 11th, the festival of youth. Basically, all the children march in rows, singing about their great leader. I film it. The good news is that they aren’t really good at it, and couldn’t really care much about the parade. I’m finishing up the GECEC calendar. The mayor’s? Don’t count on it. Lolita is a hermaphrodite. Now its Friday the 13th. I feel sick..but its really a reaction to a massive shift in barometric pressure. Then a rainstorm. The first in a while. The change in pressure was so massive and sudden, that I pretty much passed out for a few hours while my body reset. That night, I heard yelling out front. I peek out. I see a naked man yelling at a group of people near my neighbors house. Next day, I see that Alex has a fucked up hand. Apparently, the naked guy from the night before got mad at them for stripping him, pouring beer on him, and sending him home (he had peed on their house without permission). He came back with a machete and an axe. He got wrestled to the ground after trying to hack his brother to bits. Alex got hurt a bit in the process. I rest for a day or two. Then, some VSO volunteers show up to visit the Gorilla project. Some VSO officials show up. I meet with SNV. There are fund raising documents to write. They look suspisiously like project proposals to clients, minus the clarity of purpose. Jen heads to Kargua with the other volunteers after an.. awkward exchange with CIAD folks. The kitty, who is doing great, brings a tree frog in the house to torture and kill. The tree frog jumps on the wall, and stays there most of the night. The kitty is not amused. I collect it the next morning, clean it off, and let it go outside. It is magnificent. I have my review with Charly and Arlette. It goes fine. I couldn’t care less. My fridge still doesn’t work, and we are now in late February. Jen and George head off to the forest with the Baka. I have a day totally to myself. It is great. I play with lightwave again. I seem to be having a really easy time with it. For some reason, not working with it and thinking of totally different things for a few months has really made it easier for me to use. I get some cool models done, but the Panther/Lightwave problems limit what I can do greatly. Iphoto craps out on me. It can’t handle the amount of pictures I have in it. I lose my whole photo archive system. Sigh. More working on lightwave… and the refrigerator repair man came back to town. Oh my. I might actually get a working fridge.
Karen (from the Peace Corps) stops by and treats me to dinner and brought down some veggies. Some Canadian lady talking about “adaptive flexible process management” comes by. She is really annoying, and scoffs at us volunteers (because she lived in Congo for 10 years… so what could we possible know) until she finds out that I have internet access. Ha. Gwinn has a birthday far away. Alex fucks up, and lies to me about it. Two strikes out of his five gone in 10 minutes. He lost another one a bit back, so he has two left. He is now genuinely scared. I make ID cards for GECEC employees.. you know, so we can tell each other apart. I go to fix Eccofac computers, they are the people who are supposed to be protecting the forest and the animals in it.. but are likely to be the largest source for the bush meat trade. An HIV positive guy hits me up for money. He has an elaborate story, but I believe him, cause.. well, he’s an asshole, and liars are usually nicer. I still don’t give him money, but I try to find some other solution. It highlights a huge problem with volunteers and development. The need far outweighs the supply… and those that are willing to help basically come down and get drowned.. while those who are less giving, or less inclined to give, stay and further the problem. I fear that only massive and sustained violence directed at the rich will cause any kind of structural change needed to fix the MASSIVE imbalance we have created. George leaves. He has a party where the people who have been trying to destroy him.. were all weeping and singing about him leaving, and mentioned, casually, that as the last white man in town, I was not responsible for helping them. Monday, Jen’s problems begin with them. Sorel is trying to get rid of her. To much of a reminder of George. I am getting a new video camera when Gwinn comes. The 24p Panasonic, with cinema gamma. I am very excited. It should make what I do work with PAL (with a bit of conversion) better, and the look we got working on the Hellboy stuff before I left is really good. It really can look and move like film. I’m hoping that it will allow me to really take my video work to another level. Things with Jen and CIAD are getting worse. Jen publicly denounced Sorel in front of their clients (CIAD’s). Public humiliation is about the biggest insult here possible. I am preparing for Gwinn’s visit. She should be bringing a bunch of computers and other supplies with her. Getting that past customs requires preparation. I am getting some governmental stamps on papers. My computer is dying, or dead really. I’m not getting power anymore. This really sucks. I have some battery time left. I am turning the screen brightness all the way down, and using a flashlight for screen illumination. I probably have about 5 hours of time before I am totally cut off. This sucks. Brian, another volunteer, wants to come down for a few weeks.
The past two months have been an ever increasing spiral of chaos. Not all bad, not all good… just a lot of travel, movement, work and the like. I am going to recap them in a whirling miasma of impressions and events with the hope of trying to catch my blog up to more recent events, and start posting regularly again. I do want to, however, flesh out a few of the past two month’s events in detail…but I am going to do that in a more democratic manner. That is to say: tell me what you want me to elaborate on, what you think is interesting, and I will pick a few of the most requested topics and elaborate.
OK. So, I left off in mid January. I have lunch in a shack in town with George and Kira (beans if you were interested). On the TV next door a Nigerian soap opera is playing. It is spectacular in its low budgetness. One light, one camera, one take. The actors walk in front of the lighting rigs and off the sets while the camera is rolling.. and you get to see it all. Lots of yelling and wailing. I want to make one of those. Then I travel… for two days. The first is.. well, easy. The bus has a few empty seats, which I have never seen. It is the first day of the Africa’s Cup.. soccer. The driver came pretty close to flying back to Yaoundé. I hung out with Iza, who is going home. She is the first of our flight of volunteers to pack up and go. She is going back for a bunch of reasons. Boyfriend, mediocre placement, money. The works. Day two of travel. I ride in the fancy VSO car, on pavement the whole way. Before that, I get a few hours of internet time… heaven. On the way there, we discuss the shortcomings of VSO’s training with the head of training. I get to Bamenda for our Annual conference in the evening. Say hi to all the other shiny happy volunteers. OK, not so shiny, but it is good to see everyone. It is also interesting to see everyone after the harsh reality of Cameroon has settled in for a few months. I also get to meet volunteers who I have not met yet. We have dinner, and watch football. From here on in, soccer (what a dorky word) will be referred to as football. I mean, seriously, why in the hell did we name our game football. There are only a few times in the game when you kick the ball. It should have a better American name like.. battleball.. or something. Anyway. We watched the match. Cameroon looks mediocre… but I’m not going to say anything about that for fear of death. Two days of meetings. Boring, hypocritical, and ultimately useless drivel. I doodle, and enjoy the gaps in between to share stories with other volunteers. My stories don’t seem that different than most other people’s.. they just seem much more frequent. Its like I have packed 2 years of the most extreme stories into 6 months… like a greatest hits compilation of volunteer experiences. So, I sort of patiently wait for what I really came up here to do. Kill a pig. Dave and Brian bought a pig, and we are going up to Dave’s placement to have a barbeque. Mmmmmm, spare ribs. We spend the morning doing errands, and getting up to his place. Nice placement. All in all, the teachers seem to be having the most stable and rewarding placements. VSO should stick to what it knows best. I carry a few cases of beer on my head. The locals (Bamenda is Anglophone, but I can hardly understand a word) are cracking up at me. I was supposed to assist with the slaughter and preparation.. but Dave has.. something else to do, and Brian is going to film it. Farhan (who is also there) doesn’t want to get too involved with the killing. So its me.. The guy they brought in to guide me is really intent on letting me do it all. I do it all… except remove the intestinal sack from the stomach area. It started by me dragging the pig to the ground, stabbing it in the heart with a dagger. Looking it in the eye, and holding it down until it died. Then cutting it up, removing the hair, and cooking it. It is amazing that there is this moment where it stops being a pig, and becomes meat. It took all afternoon. The meat was good. Dinner was great. I’d like to write something here about cruelty, meat, vegetarianism, and stuff like that.. but truth is, I didn’t have any real agenda with this. I just wanted to help and learn. I did both. The locals liked me. They kept saying how much of a bad ass white man I am. Killing a pig isn’t all that. I left the next morning, and took the bus back with Ed (a teacher in the far north) and Ana (his girlfriend who was visiting). I got invited to have dinner and watch the next football match at Steve’s house (he is an expat who works for the power company). Sarah (another teacher from the north), a totally great, and probably insane, Irish volunteer made dinner. It was totally fantastic. Ed and I watched the football match in the street with a bunch of Cameroonians, while the expats all had fancy parties in their expensive pads. We would have, but we couldn’t figure out Steve’s TV. Cameroon won. I get a package from Gwinn. YEAH. I really really like getting these. Thanks everyone for the birthday card. These packages keep me going for at least a month. The highlights? A new gameboy, comics, movies, malarone (my new anti-malarial).. a baseball hat. I do some shopping and get ready to go back to Lomié. We improvise on the way back.. and take a several hour detour cross country. Beans spill everywhere after we hit a huge bump in the road. I get in a big yelling argument with a baggage guy in A’mong M’bang (pronounced: bon-ban). It was a huge yelling fight over a few bucks for bags. He was drunk, and pissing me off. I went off. It felt really good to be able to give as good as I get. The bus was totally overfull on the way back. The worst its been yet. 24 people, plus kids. We get back and Alex broke Jen’s bike. He is in trouble again.
Thursday January 22st, 2004
So, the past two days have been filled with relentless demands on my time… for computer work. Considering we have no power, this is a problem. I keep telling people I can’t do anything to help them, but they still leave with expressions like: fucking white man, all I want is my _ fill in the blank _ and he wouldn’t give it to me… Sigh.
The sous-prefet died. He is the regional power here, and people seem to be running around like the world has changed. Apparently he has been sick for a long time, so this is no surprise, but there will be some heavy drinking this week.
Wednesday January 21th, 2004
As there is no electricity, so I get to draw. I spent most of the day drawing. Ooooh yeah, felt good. The kids next door watched.. and JR spent a few hours trying to copy the drawings that I was doing. I like the kids next door, and they are great one or even two at a time.. but as soon as three or four show up.. well, the amount of time they can play without whacking each other in the head, or breaking something decreases exponentially. Maybe I can make a cage for them, and let one or two of them out at a time.
Tuesday January 20th, 2004
The power is out. It has been mostly out for the past week. I am using my solar panels regularly to keep the computer stuff going. We get about an hour or so a day. I don’t really mind, as the SNV are in town, and I am working with Jaap and Charly on our funding pitch to do marketing support for the community forests here. I like Jaap, but man is he bitter, and have no idea of what he is doing. The good news, is that after some presentation, and my best –sell snow to eskimos- act, he seems to be convinced that this is a good idea. Whew. Thing is, I do think it is a good idea. I’m not sure if it is enough, but good lord, they need to do something to support these communities. He knows it, but he has no idea what to do, and is, frankly, burned out and bitter. I can understand that. He has worked hard on this for years, and there is no appreciation of his efforts. That being said: if you are doing this for recognition of your goodness.. find another job. No one is ever happy when someone else comes in and “helps” like this. So.. what am I proposing? I’m glad you asked. A series of radio spots, some short TV spots. I would do a set of ‘news’ stories, and a set of ads… tangent: if that sentence doesn’t explain the complete bankruptcy of the ‘news’ I don’t know what does. News is nothing but an aesthetic. Tangent over. I would do some flyers, a brochure (real printing, not just my inkjet), a website, a power point presentation for public speaking engagements, The heart of this though, is a short documentary, and a short advertisement video.
water fights are universal.
Monday January 19th, 2004
More video work, more photos, and more calendar work. I finished up some video work that I have been doing (for the funeral a few weeks ago), photos of the town for the Mayor’s calendar, and the actual designing of the calendars (the one for the Mayor, and the one for GECEC). I am going to have some trouble with these. Charly bought some thick paper that cannot fit through my printer. I am going to try to find some glue to see if I can work something out, but I am pretty limitted by the available materials…although, as usual, the real limit is going to be the aesthetic one. As long as I keep pretending that it takes me a lot longer to do the work I do than it really does, I should be fine. I’ll still have enough time to work on other things for myself… although, I haven’t been doing much of that lately. Still, I think that I will start picking that up again as I have more room for action, rather than just reaction in my day to day now. Oh, and the Tatiana, JR, Lolita and D’oh had an extended waterfight today. It started with a floor cleaning, and ended in a full on soaked house. It is clean though… and the dust has been getting really bad.
Sunday January 18h, 2004
I still have no fridge. Izzy ran out of gas, and Alex has to go back up to Abong M’bang and get more. Apparenly there were some leaks in the pipes, and Izzy had to start over. Sigh. I’m never going to get a working fridge here again. I do make light of it, but it is a real problem. Nothing here is built for single people (not single as in not married, but as in sole, alone, not part of a larger family). The fridge is the great equalizer. It allows me to cook enough for days at a time, shop for days at a time, and keep enough variety in my diet so I don’t get ill. I have been without for a month now, and my diet is clearly not as good as it was when I had the fridge. Hopefully, Alex and Izzy will figure it out, but I am not tremendously hopeful. The problem is, they have both made it a matter of pride… and so, it is hard for me to take it away from them. Well, not them, but Izzy.
There are some Chinese merchants in town. The have a big car, and fill it full of stuff, and drive down the road selling things until they run out, or hit the end. It is a collection of the worst quality crap available. Alex found some picture frames he wants. I am going to loan him enough to buy some. He wants to sell the framed pictures at a premium.. and he even has a few buyers (I verified this myself before agreeing). I helped him negotiate the price down, and now he has a business of his own. Not a chance I’ll see the money again, but I do want to support his efforts at being responsible. Funny thing. Chinese people are white here as well… so he wanted me to negotiate with my brothers to get a better price. I didn’t, but I gave him a few tips on negotiation with merchants from the rest of the world… like the idea of a quantity discount.
Saturday January 17th, 2004
I got a present today. George came back to town carrying a package from Todd. He sent me a Peanuts book. Fantastic. Aside from making me happy and laugh, I look at it, and it reminds me of everything we do/did do well.. better than any other culture in history. It is the best of america, and it is now sitting on my coffee table.
I have gotten to the stage where I ration my media, and it actually makes it all much better. Scarcity enhances value... so what does that mean for an information/consumer society based on ubiuquity and entertainment? Either we have built an economy on a currency in perpetual decline, or nothing. Probably nothing.
The neighbors kids (who have names.. JR the oldest boy, Tatiana the oldest girl, Lolita the middle girl, and D’oh the youngest girl… apparently named after the Simpsons) came over again today. Now I am half called the white man, and half called Ben. Anyway, they used a toilet for the first time in their lives. It was a group activity, which included a lot of laughing, and lamenting the fact that you can only get so much shit to come out before you are done. I sent them to get more water after they used almost everything we have in the house to flush. They are to small to carry the buckets, so they used empty soda, and water bottles. It took them a while, but they were very excited. Very.
Thursday January 15th, 2004
Alex came over this morning with a black eye. Hah. Apparently I’m not the only one who wants to belt him. He wouldn’t really tell me much about why, but someone hauled off and belted him. I’ll post the photo I took of him. It is not flattering.
Kira, the boy that George is essentially raising, wandered over today. It is a bit surprising that I haven’t seen him in a few days. He usually is over all the time when George is out of town. Apparently he has been a bit sick. Anyway, he smelled of piss. He had peed on himself, and had been wearing the same clothes for a while. I washed him, and payed some attention to him. The neighbors where he stays when George leaves, are heavy heavy drinkers. They are also constantly having trouble. They are also the patriarchal familly in town (the grandfather’s name is.. Lomié). Anyway, they were very happy to let us take care of cleaning Kira. What bad news. I can only imagine what is going to happen to that boy when George leaves.
Athough, funny thing happened as we were discussing it when a girl came over to visit Jen. She had a bag. A simple plastic bag with school books or food, or whatever. Kira’s first instinct was to reach for her bag and ask what was in it, and could he have some. She wasn’t interested, and pretty much ignored him. He kept at it for a minute, and then gave up. I started talking about how much of a trouble maker Kira was (‘cause he is bigtime), and I wondered what the future was going to be like for him. A minute later Alex strolled up, and went through almost the exact same gestures and questions. We started laughing. Tragically, Alex is the model… which is a shame, because Kira is a good kid, and smart as well.
Wednesday January 14th, 2004
So, I have written a lot about what has happened, and my reactions to them. Emotional reactions, phsyical ones. I have not really written much about how I feel in the broader sense. I think that might be because I have been so overwhelmed with this new world, that it has been pretty much all I can do to keep up. I think this is starting to change. The whole winter holiday crush was so extreme, that things feel calmer now, and I feel like I have enough room inside for more than just reaction. I feel like my tourist phase is over. I feel like I am really here. I also feel like I have let go of a lot of my past. Not memories, but the habits associated with the moral and practical realities of living in the US and Europe have warn off enough for me to feel.. well, like I am changing. I feel adrift. It is a good, if unsettling feeling. The world is a big place. I like that feeling. It is something I have been missing for a long time. I also feel like I can peel away what I care about and what my environment pushes on me. It is liberating. Very. I have no idea where this is all going to lead me, but I do know that I am going to be a very different person. The biggest difference is the feeling of weight being lifted off of my shoulders. Ironic that I have a job where I am ‘officially’ supposed to be saving the world, and I feel none of that. You are constantly reminded of just how insignificant you really are here. Every day. For me, that is a huge relief. The wieght of pretending that what we do with our lives is important is such a burden. I just want to spend my time exploring, and working on how I live. How I find my way… not with propping up some mass delusion of self importance. Anyway, this is going to be a turbulent time for me, but we are all here to suffer and die right? That is better than being numb and narcisistic.
Tuesday January 13th, 2004
My neighbors, well the store next door really, is run by Mauritanians. A small Islamic country north of here. Anyway, we (the US) dropped off some military folks to make our presense felt, and pay a few corrupt officials to let us wander around in the desert and talk tough about terrorism. Well, shortly after that, our neighbors stopped looking at me, and actually shuddered when I walked by, and have been asking Jen a ton of questions about me. Great. They were really nice to me, and then all of a sudden… fear. I wonder if they know I am american and jewish? That would be a joy now, wouldn’t it. Well, I hope things settle down. I hope there isn’t any trouble… although, the worst I can imagine is being run out of town.. but that is highly unlikely. I may just have to do my shopping eleswhere. Fucking asshole American Military. The worst part is that this ‘fighting terrorism’ is total bullshit. You can’t fight terrorism, it’s a tactic, not an enemy. And even if it were, you can’t fight it the way that they are pretending to. Life here is not nearly organized enough to do that. Many people here have never had identity papers. There hardly any real government control in the sense that we measure it here. What we are really doing is trying to keep poor people poor and harmless. We are making freedom of movement, freedom of speech and assembly pay to play activities. It makes me sick to my stomach to think about how much of a total fraud this all is. Actually, that doesn’t make me sick. It is that most people want to believe it.. that is what makes me sick.
Monday January 12th, 2004
Gwinn is coming. Sooner rather than later. My first visitor. This should be quite a trip. I am very excited.
Gwinn's first guest blog is here... everyone rejoice.
gwinn blog entry
march 26, 2003
Intro
It will quickly become apparent what my focus of interest and learning has been while visiting Ben in Lomie: i.e., I wanted to discover what it takes to manage the basics of daily life in a place where most modern conveniences and a centralized utilities infrastructure do not exist. While I’ve observed some things about the society itself (and I will certainly make some anecdotal comments about that later on), I’m not at a point in my French-speaking ability, or social integration, to have much data upon which to base any opinions or conclusions. That’s really Ben’s area of expertise [as he’s had far more experience(s) here than I] and one upon which it would be foolish for me to transgress at this time.
I will say that from the moment I arrived, I began to feel more alive than I have in quite some time. One has to pay attention here to everything. People are in motion constantly. Every activity, from dealing with the most basic bodily functions to having a conversation about the logging industry with a neighbor, requires one’s full engagement. It is simply not possible to slide through much, and, while it can be really tiring, it is also exhilarating and eminently interesting.
So, I will dive into more of what I know (or at least have a better capacity to understand) based on my observations and experiences, so far. I hope this is as interesting to you all to read as it has been for me to live.
Around the House
Household maintenance is more than a full-time job here. As in the “olden days” in the U.S., (and most parts of the world today) women seem to spend the bulk of every day taking care of the basics: cleaning the house, doing laundry, getting/preparing food, and gossiping…(more on that later).
Water
I’ll start with my biggest adjustment and household maintenance consideration: there is no running water here at all (in the bigger towns and cities, e.g. Douala and Yaounde – yes; in Lomie, and all other villages – no, as far as I can tell). This lack means that every single drop of water has to be lugged from one of the town pumps, the closest of which is about 75 meters away. The pump is usually open from 6-10am, and again from 3pm until dusk. Most people fill up several 4-5 gallon buckets at a time, which, when full, are balanced atop the head and carried home, one at a time. I am not nearly coordinated enough to do that, so I carry one at a time back to the house, sloshing a good portion of the hard-pumped water onto my pants and into my shoes. Usually, we get two buckets of water in the morning, and two at night, which have to serve all our water needs: dish washing, drinking water filtering, cooking, sponge baths, toilet “flushing”, watering the garden, etc. On laundry day, I try to rope someone else (i.e., Ben and the infamous Alex, who lives in a room in Ben’s house) into also filling up one of the bigger “tubs”, which holds around 10 gallons. It’s a bitch to carry, even with two people, and there is no way I could do it, even with my slowly strengthening biceps and triceps.
There’s also a lot of waiting around time involved in getting water. I believe there are three other wells/pumps in Lomie; the one near Ben’s house is in the middle of downtown and there is always a line of buckets/people waiting. (It’s clearly a kid responsibility to get the water, so there are always hordes of kids hanging about, playing games while waiting for their turn.) Oftentimes, I’ll go put my buckets in line, head back to the house for a bit and watch from afar as my buckets get moved up in line as the people ahead of me fill theirs. This method works only so far: if someone further up in the line isn’t around, people from behind start jumping ahead, and at a certain point, all order breaks down. Then it becomes a more complicated negotiation of who is deemed worthy of more respect (and can thus fill their buckets first), who has the chutzpah to push their way up to the front of the line, and most likely several other societal nuances that I have no clue about. As a white person, I seem to be afforded a bit of privilege (sometimes) so if it’s unclear about who’s next, someone will often take my buckets and even offer to pump the water for me. I always say, “C’est pas necessaire – tu veut pomper?” And they always seem to want to do it, so, of course, I let them. I’m still not clear on why this happens: Is it a respect thing? Do they get some sort of increase in status by helping me, a white person – and more than that, a white woman with long blondish hair? This is what Jen (Ben’s roommate) seems to think, although I really don’t know… Anyway, I’m not entirely comfortable with it all, but again, I’m happy to let someone else pump (it can get really difficult, as the water table falls rapidly since the pump is well used.) So far, only one (teenaged?) boy has offered to actually carry my buckets back to the house – and I said no thank you. As with the whole pumping thing, I’m not clear on what it means for someone to do things for me, so I didn’t know if that meant he would expect to be paid, or if he thought it would give him license to hang around…or what.
Washing Clothes and Dishes
Again, having to pump/carry all of your water dictates how much cleaning/washing you really want to do.
Doing dishes is pretty straightforward: I heat up some water on the gas cook top, pour it in a dishpan, wash the dishes, dump out the dirty water, get (cold) clean water, rinse and stack.
The necessity and frequency of doing laundry, like everything else, is subject to interpretation: clothes are always worn for more than one day, most often for at least three or four sweaty days at a stretch. Most people here just don’t have/can’t afford much in the way of any possessions, e.g., 3-4 shirts, 2 pairs of pants, a pair of shorts and one pair of “proper” shoes and some flip-flops. Even though I did bring a substantial number of clothes (more than I needed), I’ve adapted to not doing more work than I absolutely have to in this climate and have realized that deodorant can go a long way toward keeping clothes in the “okay to wear again” category.
But, when it is time to do laundry, it all happens in a big tub, by hand. You dump in a bunch of powdered soap (Note: we, the white people, use “fancy” – “Omo” -- laundry soap. Everyone else in Lomie uses the same soap for everything: it’s a big square chunk of all-purpose soap that seems to work fairly well, but doesn’t have the advantage of modern perfumes that help lend the illusion of clothes cleanliness) into the water, then add the clothes, stir them around and let them sit for a couple of hours. According to the soap box, your clothes will magically become clean in a couple of hours. This is apparently not true, as my somewhat chapped hands will attest to. Scrubbing everything with a brush is required, as the red dirt of Cameroon (you Midwesterners, think Oklahoma dirt) infiltrates everything from the moment you step out of bed (or accidentally touch something to the cement floor or anywhere else.) Keeping your clothes clean here is an art, and most Cameroonians have mastered it. Being starched and well-dressed is a point of pride here, and it is amazing to me how many people manage to sport completely clean, crisp white shirts. I walk out the door, and instantly have dirt all over me. I don’t know how they do it.
Oh, and it seems I made a good move when I first got here without even realizing it: I had been here for just a day or so, and I decided to do Ben’s laundry for him. I sat out on the front porch steps to do it -- this activity was apparently noticed by the entirety of the Lomie community. Now everyone thinks I am an extremely hard worker, and a good “wife” for Ben! One can never underestimate the power of a good (if inadvertent) publicity stunt!
Food and Supplies
The stores here seem to sell only canned or packaged goods, and you can buy only a limited number of fruits and vegetables anywhere (bananas, a few tomatoes, onions, potatoes and pineapple, some eggs periodically, although since refrigeration is a luxury here, the egg quality is definitely not a sure thing, as my egg-buying experience of yesterday illustrates: I bought 5 eggs, only one of which was good) during the week. There are no leafy greens to speak of, and it seems difficult to grow them (e.g. conventional lettuce) here, although that may just be because it’s currently the dry season. Ben’s roommate, Jen, has a garden in back of the house, and although now it appears somewhat barren, they tell me they got quite a bit of food from it at the end of last year: peas, carrots, green beans, peppers, herbs (basil does really really well here), radishes, and a few other random things.
Each Saturday, there’s a town market, and if you get there early (5am) you may be lucky enough to get some better tomatoes, manioc, herbs and spices, etc. Everyone here, and I do mean everyone, has a “field” in which they grow their own food so what makes it to the weekly market is only that which is surplus, and that is really not much.
You can, however, buy prepared meals from various women/mini-storefronts throughout town. A “plat” is around 500CFA, which is less than a dollar. This involves taking your own pan/dishes, walking down the main drag, asking each person what they have to sell that day, making a decision and having them dish it up. The standard fare seems to be some combination of: rice, beans, fried plantains, manioc, koki (like a spicy polenta molded and wrapped in a little palm-leaf pyramid) and meat. Despite what I initially intended, I’ve eaten pretty much every kind of dead animal on offer, even monkey. I will not eat monkey again, as it made me ill – both physically (we think something was wrong with it, because everyone who ate it got sick) and mentally. Once I saw the little hands floating in the pot, well, that was the end of that.
The condiment of choice is piment: I don’t know how it’s prepared, but it’s obviously got some sort of extremely spicy pepper in it. It’s pretty yummy, and a little goes a long way.
In general, the food here is quite good, and much tastier than my un-African-traveled mind expected. Much to my surprise, I think I’ve actually gained weight on this trip, as we eat very well every single day. Food and other supplies are also pretty cheap: Ben has allotted 5000CFA ($10) /day and between the two of us, we have not yet spent that much money in a day.
I’ve also had several women offer to teach me how to cook “Camerounais” and if I end up coming back here, I will definitely learn how to do it. (Not least because I will be an object of ridicule if I continue to get “take-out” every day! One of the neighbors, Yolanda, or “Yo Yo”, as she is affectionately called, asks me every day, “Gwinn. Pour quoi tu ne fait pas la cuisine?”
Personal Hygiene
Taking care of one’s body here certainly requires an adjustment of personal hygiene standards.
Bathing
As a wimpy-ass American girl, who is accustomed to sitting in front of her computer all day long, I have to say I’ve realized that I just don’t need to be that clean if it means having to carry big buckets of water to get that way! Everyone else here seems to have no problem (undoubtedly for the reasons I mention above) being fairly stinky, so the sheer fact that I wear deodorant every day puts me in a sweet-smelling category all my own. (Cold) sponge baths are the only option, and I’ve been happy to realize that I can survive on them quite happily.
Defecation
Using the toilet is an experience somewhere between that of an outhouse, and a perpetually backed-up toilet on a septic tank system. I should also clarify “toilet”: it is a toilet bowl, that sits over a hole in the floor that apparently leads to a somewhat larger hole in the ground below the house. There is no seat, no lid, and, most importantly, no tank. So, one hovers over the bowl, hopes that the laws of physics and gravity work as they should, and takes care of business. Then, afterwards, you take a big bucket of water and dump it into the bowl itself, again hoping that everything rushes away, down into the hole in the ground. If you don’t use enough water, things tend to make a reappearance and it’s an unpleasant situation all the way around. However, most people here really do just have some sort of pit latrine out back of their house, so in comparison, I feel pretty fortunate. Oh, and I was also very relieved to find that the little store next door sells toilet paper. No Charmin, but it ain’t leaves or newspaper so thank god for that.
Electricity & Telephone
As you’ve undoubtedly figured out, electricity is available, but there are no telephone capabilities (except satellite phone.) The electricity has, so far, been pretty reliable since I’ve been here. I believe it runs off of a diesel-powered generator, and is shut down between 8-10am every other day (why, I’m not sure.) I did hear that last year the electricity was off for ~3 months (again, I’m not sure why) which would certainly change some things about how people live here. No stereos blaring the same Shania Twain album every few hours, no cold beer (quelle horreur!) and no satellite TV, just to mention a few.
As far as the telephone goes, there is no countrywide infrastructure (although I did see some wired phones in Yaounde), and it seems as if there are no plans to put one in. I believe there are fewer than 5 satellite phones in town, as they are quite expensive to buy/use. I brought one from the US for Ben’s boss, Charly, and just the equipment itself cost around $1000. That’s more than most Cameroonians make in an entire year, and in several years for the vast majority. Making a call costs an average of at least $2-3/minute, so you begin to see why, until someone figures out a way to make cell phones affordable here, that outlying villages will remain essentially isolated. I did see several ads for cell phones in Yaounde, and I believe they are affordable enough for many people who live in larger commercial centers to have one.
Money
Cameroon’s currency is called the Cameroonian Franc (CFA), and the current exchange rate is about 600CFA = $1. There’s not much more to say about money, other than most people don’t have nearly enough (or any) and are constantly trying to figure out a way to get more.
Oh, I do have one other thing to say about money: in general, it seems like things cost the stated price, i.e., there is less “bargaining” for basic supplies than I had anticipated. I do think I’ve been ripped off a few times, to the tune of a hundred CFA ($.20) but so far, I’ve not been seriously cheated. I think Ben has had some different experiences with people trying to blatantly take advantage of his ignorance early on in his sojourn here, but as of yet, that hasn’t happened to me. (This is most likely due to the fact that I haven’t had to purchase any big ticket items – Ben has dealt with all of that, and is savvy enough to know when to negotiate.)
Transportation
Vehicles
In town, the vehicle of choice is the motorcycle. There are a number of motorcycle taxis, upon which you can get a ride for about 100CFA/kilometer (???). Many of the area NGOs also have motorcycles, and you can see people zipping about all day long, doing what, I’m not exactly sure.
Several people have cars in varying stages of working order, and they seem to spend quite a bit of time getting them repaired, obtaining the necessary parts, etc.
Other vehicles on the road include various NGOs’ 4x4 SUVs (although one does wonder how long something that has essentially been turned into the vehicle of choice for American soccer moms can really last on the rutted paths that pass for roads here), a few bicycles and the ubiquitous Grumiers. Grumiers are the really big trucks that continually haul away the last of the Cameroonian primary growth trees from the local area rainforest.
In order to get from one town to another, most people have to take the “bus.” The bus costs about $10 to get from Yaounde to Lomie (~300km). I know Ben has written about the “bus” before, but the experience is so intense, it deserves another telling. First off, the “bus” (and I promise I will cease placing it in quotes here in a minute) requires some definition: it is actually a passenger van (usually Toyota), with a couple of special modifications made to it. Steel bars have been welded across the ceiling, to provide for reinforcement. This is an absolute necessity, as the amount of stuff that’s piled on the van equals the height of the van body itself. It also seems that an additional bench seat has been added to the interior, so that instead of it holding the 10-12 passengers for which it was originally designed, it’s possible to cram in at least 20. On the trip down, we were sitting 5 people to a seat, for a total of 24 (including the driver) and I am using the word “sitting” loosely. The trip took us around 9 hours, and for 5 of that I had a woman sitting squarely on my lap. (At several points I wondered to myself if having a leg that “fell asleep” for hours on end could result in a required amputation.) There is not one millimeter of space to move in, and all of my previously held notions of what “dirty sweatiness” might entail took a quantum leap into another dimension of meaning.
All in all though, and I know I’m weird, I enjoyed the trip down, as I was squished up right next to a window so I could see everything and everyone we drove by. I know the novelty would quickly wear off, but my first time was pretty interesting.
Roads
The roads here are all dirt. I saw a few paved roads in Yaounde, but even there, dirt appears to be the norm. As far as I can tell, the notion of a “road grader” is nonexistent, (or, more likely, there’s simply no money to pay for one) so the roads are full of ruts and holes and giant bumps requiring a slow-down to about 5mph each time one is encountered. So, what could really be about a 4-hour trip from Yaounde to Lomie ends up taking at least 9 hours, and apparently that’s considered making good time. During the rainy season I hear that the roads are completely impassable and it is not uncommon to be stranded for days at a time while one waits for the roads to dry out enough to attempt to traverse.
Society/Culture
As I mentioned before, this is a big one and a topic upon which I don’t feel that I know much about, so far. Much of what I’ve “learned” has really been told to me by Ben and/or Jen. I have no reason to doubt what they say (most of you know Ben, in particular, has this annoying habit of being right almost all of the time), but it is important to know that I don’t have much first-hand experience to base my opinions on. Also, the fact that I am a woman (and to a somewhat lesser extent, although obviously significant in its own way, a white woman) would undoubtedly lend itself to a different experience than Ben’s if I were to actually live here.
People
Most everyone I’ve met to date has been very warm and nice – men, women and children. People tend to live in large family units, and it is the norm for a few adult women to live in the same house with at least one or two men, and a whole passel of kids. Polygamy is also in practice here, and I know of several men who all have more than one wife – everyone lives together in the same house, and from the tiny bit I know about it, all seems to work fine.
The “houses” are more like compounds, containing a main structure and a few smaller structures. I’m not sure how everything is arranged, but I do know that most everyone (except for Ben, ‘cause he lives in the white man house) has a traditional Cameroonian kitchen, which is to say, one cooks over an open fire.
I’ve had primarily superficial interactions with most adults I’ve come in contact with, with the exception of a few people: Alex (who we think is about 25, but seems to have the emotional maturity of a teenager), Petit (who is somewhere between 15-19; he is a complete ham, is rumored to be an amazing dancer, and he loves to draw), Charly (Director of the GECEC – credit union -- Ben’s boss, late 20s or early 30s, smooth operator, handsome and amiable, probably one of the – if not the – most sophisticated people in town), Brigitte (late 20s, works with Ben, seems nice and friendly, although I have a hard time understanding her French so it’s hard to really make any sort of connection), Eric (mid-20s, Charly’s brother – he runs all of Charly’s “other”, i.e., under-the-table businesses, super nice guy; I’ve been tutoring him in English most afternoons for about three hours, as he is attempting to pass his baccalaureate exam for the third time), and Patrice & Antoinette (couple in their mid-30s, fairly sophisticated, Patrice is one of the very few – less than 5 – people in town who has been outside of Cameroon; they invited Ben, me, Jen and Brian, another VSO volunteer who was visiting for a few days, to dinner last week and put out quite a spread. We even had a bottle of wine, which indicates a truly special occasion, and a really big deal. They’re both pretty nice, although, again, a bit hard to read, I think not only because of the language barrier, but also because they have enough experience with white people to be a bit wary, and rightfully so.)
So far I’ve had no problems with men yelling at me, wanting to touch me, making rude comments or anything like that. Of course, it’s also entirely possible that because I can’t understand Cameroonian French terribly well, any semi-undesirable comments have just passed completely over my head! But in any case, I just say “bonjour”, smile and continue on my merry way.
The women have been uniformly nice, and, apparently open to and interested in getting to know me better. As with women everywhere, I do feel that tiny bit of reserve that manifests itself in the “glance of assessment”: who are you, what are you about, will I need to compete with you in any way, where do you fall in my social hierarchy, will I be able to trust you, etc. As a white woman, I think I exist outside of their hierarchy, which is an advantage in some ways, but not so much in others. As an American, I and my behavior are subject to review against everyone’s notions of what Americans are like, how much money we have, what we know and are capable of, and how we can benefit them. It does seem to be possible to make real female friendships here (Jen seems to have made a few real friends) but I’m unsure as to how the whole equality thing would play out. I clearly have more material advantages than anyone here (men or women) and I can leave at any time. Additionally, it’s clear that I will be leaving (soon, in a week) and while I may come back, that will also be for a set period of time. It’s certain that I will not live here for the rest of my life, and while my generation of Americans has adopted more nomadic living habits, that is really not the case here. People do move to different villages (marriage being a primary motivator), but as it takes a lot of effort (and time) to get even a finger-hold of stability established, most people seem to live, and die, in the same place.
Kids run around wild everywhere, and their parents seem to pay very little attention to them as long as they are out of the way. Any misbehavior results in some pretty serious yelling and often a beating, as corporal punishment is alive and well here. Ben is very patient with the kids (much more so than me; I’m more in the camp of “oh they’re cute until I’m sick of them” and then I flip over into “children should be seen and not heard” mode) so they are constantly in and out of the house, rolling about on the floor, playing with rocks, screaming loudly, and just generally having a good time being kids. One activity that occupied the little neighbor girls early on was braiding my hair. Apparently they all learn how to braid at a very young age, and were fascinated to touch my (straight) hair and put it into braids.
Several of the children appear to be either mostly or entirely neglected. One little boy comes over almost every day, and he has been dubbed “no name” kid because no one knows (or can elicit) his name, nor where he lives. A few of the little girls have varying problems (like a propensity for theft, or pooping in the so-called water cistern – which doesn’t actually hold water) and it’s not uncommon to see them wearing the same dirty, ill-fitting clothes day after day. Sigh.
Communication
Since there are no telephones, the only way to talk to someone is to stop by and see them in person. People come by the house several times a day, for various reasons, and I’ve been surprised at how nice it’s been to not hear the ringing of the telephone all day long. There’s something about having to talk to someone f2f that makes the communications more human, solid and real. I like it quite a bit, although the constant stream of traffic can make it difficult to engage in tasks (like writing!) that require a certain amount of focus.
In general, people here seem to act much as they do in small towns the world over. They are concerned with, and talk about who is saying/doing what about/with whom, who is perceived as having the most power, who owes whom money, etc., etc.
Work
Some people here have “office” jobs, like those that work at GECEC with Ben, but the vast majority of people seem to be some sort of a merchant. Someone gets a hold of a few cartons of cigarettes and a bunch of bananas and Voila! Insta-Store, with nothing more required than a chair and small table. I noticed this in Yaounde as well, and was struck at how it seemed that the entire city was one big marketplace. Little tables lined every street, and it is obvious the commercial and entrepreneurial spirit runs rampant here.
Other work consists of, obviously, housework and fieldwork. For example, Brigitte, who I mention above, is the Controller for GECEC, so works all day long in the office – then tends her field during the evening and/or on the weekend. The women (and some, although fewer, of the men) work extremely hard here, and manage to pump out a number of kids to boot.
Entertainment
From what I’ve observed, many people seem to have satellite television, and most everyone has some sort of stereo or radio. Music blares loudly and continuously from the several bars that line Lomie’s main street, and unfortunately, people here seem to like the worst of bad North American pop (think Celine Dion). I have heard some great (recorded) African music, although I have no idea who the artists might be.
It doesn’t appear that there’s much in the way of live musical performances (other than some infrequent drumming, and the music the Pygmies make, both of which I have yet to see/hear) which is somewhat surprising to me, considering how much singing I hear on a regular basis. For example, last Sunday, one of the women’s tontines* met at the house next door. After their meeting, they all stood outside the front door in a large circle, singing, clapping and dancing, taking turns dancing individually in the center of the circle. I have no idea what they were singing about, but it looked like they were having a lot of fun doing it.
*Tontine = a women’s collective. Each member contributes a certain amount of money to the group “account”, which is then used to make certain business investments. For example, one of the women’s tontines here in Lomie is raising money to buy a grinder.
So, my computer is working, and soon, I will have a guest blogger to keep everyone up to date, and give a fresh perspective. I have been a bit swamped. When I got back, Jen was pretty much on the verge of not only being fired by CIAD, but the director is also a deputy mayor, and threatened to have her put in jail if she didn't leave. Needless to say, I have been in political overdrive for the past few days, trying to prevent this meltdown. Things seem to be stable enough for me to write a bit, and get back to working. Things are never boring here.
the miracle of satelite communication
Sunday January 11th, 2004
locke > traceroute 81.255.24.153
traceroute to 81.255.24.153 (81.255.24.153), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 dyson.cliq.org (131.161.246.1) 0.538 ms 0.538 ms 0.463 ms
2 ge-0-1-1-40.pa.via.net (157.22.13.131) 2.625 ms 2.628 ms 2.651 ms
3 f17.ba01.b003123-1.sfo01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.28.41) 3.336 ms 2.720 ms 3.214 ms
4 g1-0.core02.sfo01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.6.5) 3.661 ms 3.477 ms 3.458 ms
5 p15-0.core01.sfo01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.4.69) 3.462 ms 3.500 ms 3.316 ms
6 p14-0.core01.ord01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.4.186) 49.213 ms 49.291 ms 49.475 ms
7 p6-0.pr01.ord03.atlas.psi.net (154.54.2.238) 50.519 ms 49.218 ms 49.304 ms
8 Ge3-1.CHICR2.Chicago.opentransit.net (193.251.250.57) 49.356 ms 49.178 ms 50.65 ms
9 P4-0.CHICR1.Chicago.opentransit.net (193.251.243.213) 49.561 ms 49.326 ms 49.449 ms
10 P9-0.NYKCR2.New-york.opentransit.net (193.251.242.249) 84.206 ms 84.530 ms 83.873 ms
11 P11-0.NYKCR3.New-york.opentransit.net (193.251.242.210) 83.707 ms 84.681 ms 83.829 ms
12 P4-0.PASCR1.Pastourelle.opentransit.net (193.251.241.133) 158.822 ms 158.882 ms 158.730 ms
13 pos6-0.ntsta202.Paris.francetelecom.net (193.251.126.157) 159.55 ms 159.694 ms 159.342 ms
14 pos14-0.ntaub201.Aubervilliers.francetelecom.net (193.252.161.30) 159.446 ms 159.127 ms 159.197 ms
15 pos9-0.nrpoi101.Poitiers.francetelecom.net (193.251.126.169) 166.178 ms 167.138 ms 166.123 ms
16 pos9-0.nctou301.Toulouse.francetelecom.net (193.252.100.85) 167.603 ms 167.217 ms 168.64 ms
17 POS-1-0.TLSG1.Toulouse.raei.francetelecom.net (194.51.162.94) 172.82 ms 171.940 ms 172.301 ms
18 ATM-1-0-0.511.TLS11.Toulouse.transitip.raei.francetelecom.net (81.52.11.186) 167.470 ms 167.944 ms 167.686 ms
19 81.54.148.58 (81.54.148.58) 181.854 ms 181.65 ms 180.388 ms
20 193.252.234.196 (193.252.234.196) 177.609 ms 182.327 ms 195.756 ms
21 193.252.234.201 (193.252.234.201) 183.541 ms 182.712 ms 184.319 ms
this is what it takes for my packets to go from Lomié to Locke. How cool is that.
Friday January 9th, 2004
I seem to be having some trouble with the Lomie.net set up. Locke has been all aces in getting to the bottom of the problem. Lomié will be online for real soon… well, at leat it will have email. I have had several people come up to me and want to know when they can start looking for husbands and wives (white ones preferably) on the internet. At first I tried to explain the limitations of the system that is going to be set up here.. but I soon gave that up. Now the answer is… you can’t do that from here.
Thursday January 8th, 2004
There is a baka con artist here.. that I believe I have talked about before, who tried to sell me honey this evening. Justin. So.. most Baka are very shy, totally nice, and don’t mix with the Bantu. Justin is… well, he carves wooden objects, hangs around town drinking palm wine, and is pretty much a con artist. He ripped George off. I have given him nothing, and plan on giving him nothing. He is a bit confused by me, but undaunted. Last night George and Jen were working and talking about CIAD politics, which are fucking brutal. I was working on my computer, chatting. A knock on the door. My favorite Baka, Justin… with another Baka, who was very shy. Justin wanted to sell us some honey. Now the thing is, I really like honey and have wanted some pure jungle honey… especially the kind harvested by Baka. They climb straight up the trees using vines and such… Tarzan style, people hand up burning sticks afterwards, and they wave the smoking sticks around the hive, reach into the hole in the tree, pulling out honeycomb… getting stung. Down below, people are making baskets out of leaves to hold the goodies. They come down, and leave as fast as possible (bees, apparently, are like sharks, and can smell the honey from far away, and come after it). So, this is what I want some of… but Justin came at a bad time, is the wrong person, and wouldn’t take no for an answer. When I told him I was working, and that he should leave because we weren’t interested… he got mad, insulted me, and then walked into the house to talk to Jen and George (who were oblivious to the goings on). I got mad, got up (I am easily more than twice his size), and chased him out. One step further, and I would have kicked some pygmy ass. I only like to fight people who are much smaller than me…
Oh, and speaking of people I want to hit, Alex came back triumphant. Motor, freon, and other assorted fridge repair parts and gas for the stove.. Someone told me afterwards, this was the most responsible thing he has ever done in his life. I think that Charly even threatened him bigtime before he left to get the stuff. Now it is a matter of seeing whether or not Izzy is a bit of a fraud as well. He so hypes his ability to fix everything, that I have my doubts, but I really want to give him the chance to solve this for me if he can.
Wednesday January 7th, 2004
Charly got a new car. There are roughly a dozen vehicles in town, not including the logging trucks, busses (read.. vans), and those just passing through. Now Charly has one. It is purple. It is a toyota. It has tinted windows, and low slung suspension. It has furry seats. It is a pimpin’ vehicle. It will last about a month here before breaking down. I think he blew the speakers getting it down here. Seriously. Charly has a slick urban aesthetic, but lives in Lomié. I suggested that he raise the suspension, but I was told that would hurt the car in the long run. I thought… hmm. Long run. That is optimistic. Half of the people think: wow. GECEC must be doing well, Charly got a car… I’m going to put my money there. The other half think: wow. Charly got a car… I’m not putting my money in GECEC, he’s stealing it all to pay for a car. I think: selling bootleg whiskey, gas, and illegal cable is profitable.
We had an innaugural toast at a bar.. at the other end of town… you know, not to mix with the hoi polloi, and to have an excuse to drive. It is, of course, less than 150ft away…but we all drove anyway. Pulled a table outside, so we could drink and admire the fine automobile, which has been named.. um.. something in zime that means little girl. We drank, and toasted, and the driver had to drink soda.. much to his chagrin. Oh, did I forget to tell you that Charly doesn’t drive? Oh sure, he has a license, and he did drive someone else’s car back from the new years bash drunk beyond comprehension (I’m too drunk to walk, that is why I have to drive), but he bought the license straight up and drove the other car…well, about 150 feet. See, Lomié isn’t that big. It takes almost as long to turn the car around on the main road as it does to drive from one end to another…but people here make people in LA seem like hiking fanatics. I wonder where he will get parts when it starts to break down.
Tuesday January 6th, 2004
I am sending Alex to get fridge parts so that Izzy can fix it. They both really want to, and I really want the fridge to be working. So, I give Alex money, warn him, and send him off. After he gets on the bus, someone tells me that Alex has never had this much responsibility given to him before. Great. Well, if he fucks it up, I have enough to go to Charly, and get his endorsement of my evicting Alex.
when misery becomes normal.. is it tragedy?
Monday January 5th, 2004
CIAD politics are getting bad. CIAD, for those of you who need a refresher, is where Jen and George work. The newest update is that the current directrice Sorel, has decided not to come back to work after the holidays. The office is locked, and no one has the keys. The pisteurs from the Gorilla project have not been paid in.. well, a long time. No one can do anything. She might be in Yaoundé doing politics with George (not VSO George, but the head of the board of directors.. a powerful native son of Lomié). Who knows, but clearly, being here is a priority.. which is interesting since all of the funding may fall through as they have apparenlty, not lived up to the requirements from the donors. Sigh. Self destruction seems to be a great skill here abouts.
Saturday January 3rd, 2004
Surprise. Alex is back. Apparently he wasn’t really welcome at the funeral.. and even more.. It happened a day late, so he didn’t need to rush out there as he had isnsisted. They made him sleep on the ground, and generally ignored him. He isn’t drunk though.. so that is a plus. He did find out more about what happened to his sister though, and it is pretty horrible. She was hemoraging vaginally, or uterinely (is that a word?) for a few days before Christmas, but her uncle (where she was living in A’mong M’bang) didn’t want to take time away from the Christmas masses and other religious events to take her to the hospital, so they waited until after Christmas. When they finally took her, it was too late, and she apparently had a massive bleeding session, and died less than a half hour of getting to the hospital. My thoughts? One of three things probably happened. One, the least likely in my very unprofessional opinion, is that she had some biological malfunction upon reaching puberty. Two, she had an abortion that was badly done, and bled to death. Three, she was raped, and had been damaged in the process, and then bled to death… or any combination of the three. Not pretty thoughts, but hard to ignore. The tragic thing is that Alex attributed it to some family curse, and left it at that. I didn’t chose to bring up my thoughts on the subject as I don’t feel it is my place, or that it would help in any way… but damn.
Thursday January 1st, 2004
I got out of last night’s heavy drinking binge because they told me the wrong place. I mean, I knew exactly where it was, when I realised that it wasn’t where they told me it was, but still. I had my out. I had a nice dinner with George and Jen, walked to the salle de fetes, saw no one, and snuck home. Lame, but as I passed the SNV building (where it was) I saw Alex there (who was wearing a scarf in honor of his dead sister), taking with Izadore, and both were visiblly drunk from 60ft. I got home, and fell asleep.