After 3 months – under the skin
Can I just say I know nothing about the women in the picture other than they sold calabash (wooden bowls) on the market and were in a local GIC (a sort of trade collective)!
This month I wanted to talk again about work, because I finally feel, after 3 months, that I am beginning to see a little under the skin of this place and how complex the issues are.
I now have my national volunteer. This is a Cameroonian person who works alongside each VSO volunteer and is supposed to translate from French into Fulfulde and prevent us from making the worst cultural gaffes. H wasn’t my first choice, but I was outvoted by the other 3 on the panel. My concerns are that she has immediately allowed herself to be sucked into the commune politics, but to be fair any person of ‘lower’ status would be. A, the secretaire general (SG) is forever calling her into the office and asking her questions rather than speaking to me. Secondly she struggles with my French. Some people struggle with my French, others don’t and I’m never quite certain whether it is an issue of will, listening or intellect, but having to repeat yourself over and over again is very tiring. Finally, I am beginning to realize that I have adjusted well to the heat. I have more energy to work through it than she has or maybe it’s about will. The other day she fell asleep! On the positive side I have begun to get more access through her to the women who never leave their concessions (compounds).
On the surface Bogo is a predominantly muslim, sleepy town (90,000) with 2 bars that sell bottled beer and one that sells bil-bil in the Christian area. There are tiny little shops that sell no more than a small market stall, no cafes, restaurants, hotels – one place that sells barbeque meat and a Nigerian guy who cooks spaghetti omelettes in the evening. There is a market every Thursday which is the day everyone buys their food.
I have been told by a number of people, but I don’t know whether this is 100% true yet, that all the women who sell at that market are either divorced or prostitutes or both. This includes a large number of very pretty, very young women. Prostitution is rife amongst young girls and older married women except among the latter age it barely seems to carry any stigma at all. It’s a cultural thing that they do it for extra money. Amongst the young it is explained away as poverty, bad education (but most girls don’t go to school so no education really) or poor parenting. All of these women are covered from head to foot, but only a few cover their faces.
In the meantime among the young men who have no jobs (it’s not uncommon for a person never to have worked since leaving school and be in their mid thirties) it’s a life of dossing about, popping pills and smoking marijuana from Nigeria.
Because socially there is nothing to do everyone has lots and lots of sex from about 12 onwards.
One final word about relationships – exclusivity is alien. I am not sure how much men and women talk intimately. They don’t eat together, pray together, live in the same houses. Parents choose the partner the first time at 14 and these marriages may not last. After that women make their own choices and I’ve met women who are on 3rd or 4th husbands. They are phlegmatic about polygamy. There’s humour and wit in there about their competition, but not outrage. I’ve seen men being very tender and gentle with their children and introduce me proudly to their young, beautiful wives and with obvious affection to their ageing wrinkly wives. They don’t seem to get worked up about emotional stuff. Maybe it’s just the endless unrelenting heat zaps that element of passion out of you.