The work or lack of it

Above is the commune building on the outskirts of the town.  There was no running water, a well or toilets there.

 

This update is mainly about the work. Six weeks in and I haven’t done anything yet to save the planet, Africa, Cameroon, Bogo – at most possibly a slight impact on a few individuals. I make little black babies cry if they haven’t seen a white person before – their little faces creased in terror – while their mums get the giggles. I remember A* screeching when the first black face looked in on her pram.

In theory the work is very well thought through – a carefully documented 5 month process which encourages the staff of the commune to undertake a participatory audit of where they are now, where they want to go and what they need to change to get there. In practice the structures are so entrenched and hierarchical and people so rarely turn up for work that any sort of schedule getting people together is virtually impossible.

I have had a formal introduction to 4 out of about 24 people and no one will work with me until I am formally introduced. The premier adjoint who is the person who is supposed to introduce me keeps promising to do so and then doesn’t so the first weeks have been a lot of sitting around, reading anything I can lay my hands on to try and understand the system and asking questions. No one volunteers information or provides any sort of induction.

I don’t think the issue for Bogo is plastic bags and diversifying the market anymore. The market won’t diversify because if people are only buying the absolute essentials there is no market for different goods.

It seems to be, according to the staff, (Bogo residents might say something different if I get that far) enough wells, road surfaces, toilets and upgrades to school classrooms, getting parents to send their children to school, especially girls, and collecting taxes more efficiently without the tax collectors taking an unofficial cut.

Although I attended one of the two full council meetings per year last Saturday which would have been a perfect opportunity to introduce me, they didn’t, so even VSO are a bit concerned now. I have a list of demands to make to the premier adjoint of things he has to do if they want to keep the placement, but I could be a week turning up every day waiting for him to show. I did check out with VSO about my being a woman in a very traditional Muslim village, but apparently this guy asked for a woman.

 

I get cross, then I resign myself to waiting then I get cross again. Some volunteers hang in and manage to get it to work 5-6 months in – others get their placement changed. I think there is some discussion going on at a national level about whether the Far North are really receptive enough to work with. Some staff want ‘les blancs’, but only for status or a belief that we bring funding which sometimes we do as we can then prove systems are in place to offer good stewardship of funding, but why would they truly want to change? If you were in a position of power would you really want to give up that privilege and the opportunities to take a bit on the side if everyone else is doing it? Most men with big families would not be saintly in these circumstances.

 

I have times when I get frustrated and bored and it doesn’t help feelings of isolation and homesickness not to have anything to do, but many volunteers just settle into enjoying their social life and travelling – easier when you are in a town! There is no pressure on you to do anything so you can use all this free time as you wish and I find myself reading and lazing about more and more. I have enough money to live on so why worry? It’s vaguely unsettling. Do I make a fuss? Would this be seen as politically naïve? Is this really how I want to spend my time? Am I mad not to welcome having a rest? In a way not to do anything mirrors the behaviour of the people we are supposed to be changing. However, some people with patience and perseverance are making it work. Is this about people skills and diplomacy? I haven’t got an answer yet. On the one hand I don’t want to admit defeat, on the other, how many months can I wait doing nothing?

 

On the plus side I love living in an environment where cows, bullocks, sheep, goats, chickens, horses, donkeys and lizards roam freely about the streets and are comparatively tame. Some of the horses and donkeys get hobbled which isn’t brilliant, but they don’t have ropes digging in to them and there are degrees of hobbling, presumably in response to how far they wander off. People are superficially very welcoming although obviously as yet my Fulfulde isn’t brilliant. I am having French and Fulfulde lessons 3 mornings a week which I love from Jean Poste at the catholic mission. Learning new stuff is very fulfilling and bits of being here are so beyond anything I have ever experienced before I would not have missed it for the world. The markets are just extraordinary mainly because of the numbers of people selling such small amounts. You buy a little pile of tomatoes or onions or mangoes. I went to a 3 hour Baptist church service on Easter Sunday in the nearest town, Maroua of over 800 people all singing and dancing and which had been preceded by 40 baptisms between 7-9am! I went to a catholic service in Bogo the week before which is all drums and incense. People live through their senses here in a way that is infectiously joyous.

 

I don’t remember in my life having ever taken such pleasure in drinking cold water.