Off to the field

Heading off to ‘the field’ is always an adventure- this time it’s off to Batouri, a small town in the Eastern Province of Cameroon, deep in the rainforest. The East is the poorest, least-developed part of the country- perhaps the equivalent of the Deep South in the US.

Getting out of town for a trip is difficult anywhere, and Yaoundé is no exception. Rush hour is in full force, and in addition to all the private cars, buses, and trucks, taxis and motorcycles are everywhere, swerving in and out of traffic, running the few traffic lights that exist, and generally causing roadway chaos, the flies and mosquitoes of the road. We catch the brunt of the ongoing downpour as we leave, just after 7:00 AM, stopping first at Mathieu, our driver’s, house to pick up a suitcase, followed by a stop to collect Aurèlie, the Program Manager responsible for our work in the East, and finally Serges, a Cameroonian intern who has been working with Aurèlie for awhile on this project. By the time we actually get on the road it’s close to 10:00, and we have a seven-hour trip ahead of us. Fortunately the road opens up, and it’s (mostly) well-paved, making the trip a smooth one, for the moment.

One thing I notice as Mathieu and Aurèlie chat and we fly down the road- Cameroonians (or at least these two Cameroonians) TALK REALLY LOUDLY. I attempt to listen to last night’s Rachel Maddow Show podcast on my MP3 player, and even though it’s at the highest volume and the headphones are jammed into my ears, I seem to be hearing more of their practically-shouted conversation than anything else. I try not to get annoyed, and chalk it up to a cultural difference, but it’s challenging not to feel at least a bit frustrated. I can manage though- if I can’t handle something like that, I probably shouldn’t be here to begin with.

About two hours into the drive, we make a stop at Ayos, a larger town on the way to the East. Mathieu needs to take a break, and we all take the opportunity to stretch our legs and get some fresh air. It’s orange season, and women are lined up along the edge of the rest area, with piles of green-peeled oranges sitting in pyramids at their feet as they sit under umbrellas blocking the otherwise fierce sun. I’m loitering by the passenger door of the pickup (our ride), when someone suddenly slams their hands on the hood. I spin around to see what’s happening, and I see a little boy, who looks to be about 12 years old. I stare at him for a second, puzzled, and look at his face. His features are locked into a permanent sort of half-smile/half-grimace, an expression that reminds more of Gollum from the Lord of the Rings than anything else. His ears protrude, and he wears a faded black t-shirt printed with a lipstick kiss colored like an American flag. He scrambles around the side of the car with a shuffling-type motion, grabs a rag out of his back pocket, and begins scrubbing away the mud and dust that are caked onto our fender.

After looking for another second, I realize that he's clearly mentally challenged and rather than try to create a problem, I stand back as he goes about his business, frantically scrubbing the dust off the truck. From what I can tell, having a disability is challenging enough in places like the US or in Europe- I can’t imagine how much harder it is in a place very much still in the developing world, like Cameroon.

Mathieu comes back to the truck, and sees the boy.

“Tu as vu le fou?” he asks, laughing. Did you see the crazy kid?

“Yes,” I answer.

I don’t say anything, but the fact that he’s laughing disturbs me. I know I’m not going to change it though. I know I come from a place where political correctness is enforced far more strictly, but this just seems wrong to me. Over the years I’ve heard that in many places in Africa, laughter can be used to cover an uncomfortable situation. I don’t think that’s what this is though- it simply seems mean-spirited, like the taunting of a bear in an old-time circus.

I understand that Mathieu is a driver, not a professional, and that he probably hasn’t had the experience and the perspective that others might. Still, I’ve seen this sort of thing in other Cameroonians I wouldn’t expect it from, people with PhDs, who have lived and worked in places like France, Belgium, and the US. With someone like Mathieu, I can almost understand it, but for some of the others, it’s shocking to me- they’ve seen enough of the world to know that that really isn’t OK.

Maybe it just comes down to the fact that no matter how educated or well-traveled you might be, at the end of the day you’re still a product of your culture and your society, and if that society has raised you with the idea that mental disabilities are something to be mocked and laughed at, advanced degrees and thousands of frequent flyer miles aren’t likely to change anything.

I understand that some might say this is simply a case of me attempting to impose my ‘Western values’ on a situation I don’t really understand. I’ve been living in Cameroon less than three months, and it feels like I’m learning something new constantly. Still, I don’t feel like that this case in this situation- maybe I am projecting my own values, but laughing at the unfortunate circumstances of a mentally disabled kid in a small town feels messed up, no matter who you are or where you come from. The truth is that saying something to Mathieu or to any of my other colleagues with whom I’ve witnessed this would do nothing, aside from making things awkward. Maybe that’s the lesson to be learned from this, one more in the continuing tales of acceptance that come from living in a foreign place. The world can be a complicated place, and sometimes it takes the least fortunate among us to bring that to light…

Poorest of the poor?

I'm back in Juba, sitting in the dining room at the Shalom Hotel this morning with Taban, one of the accountants for the organization. We're having the standard breakfast of omelettes, fruit salad, and fresh bread. The hotel is owned by Eritreans, so everything can come with a dusting of beri-beri spice (the distinctive flavor you always taste in Ethiopian and Eritrean places), if you ask for it. I do.

We're chatting, and I distractedly keep an eye on CNN– the sound is off, so I can only follow so much– plus, it'd be rude to watch too intently. I swallow a few multivitamins and my daily dose of Doxycycline (an anti-malarial pill), and we continue to talk.

I mention to him that I'm heading home- going to Nairobi this Sunday, London Tuesday, and Florida on Wednesday. I'm excited to be leaving, and I suppose it probably shows. It's not that this has been a bad experience in every way, but it definitely has not been what I'd hoped for. I feel like I've spent the better part of the past five months on a permanent camp-out, and frankly, I feel like I did that for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer. In any case, I'm not writing this to rant- that'll be the stuff of individual conversations with some of you.

"I have a brother in the US," Taban says, seemingly out of nowhere. "One in Australia too."

"Really?" I ask, surprised.

"Yes, they were resettled during the war."

"So they came as refugees, right?"

"Yes. The one in America is in Fargo, North Dakota."

I can't help but laugh a bit as I picture an enormously tall, rail-thin Sudanese man who'd never known days cooler than 25º C cruising around in Fargo, a place where I'd imagine 'cold' doesn't begin to do justice to the bone-chilling frozen-ness of the place. Odd how the US government tends to settle refugees in some of the least-expected places. I wonder how they decided on Fargo?

Like many of the Sudanese men and women working for the organization, Taban tells me about how he spent most of the past few decades out of Sudan. He left his village in 1985, as the north-south civil war was at its worst. As we finish our omelettes, he tells me about how people in the village, called Kajo-Keiji, managed to get ahold of an anti-aircraft gun, and shot down one of the north's Russian-built Antonov bombers. Supposedly, the wreckage is somewhere in the nearby mountains. With the war escalating he fled to Nairobi, where he attended university, and became an accountant.

As we talk, I realize something, my own misperception.

One of the things I've noticed, I tell him, is that I think working in this amorphous 'development' thing, it's easy to lose sight of the reality on the ground, and in some cases, that includes the positive. Working to do things like install hand-pumps, distribute seeds, or train people on the proper use of ox-plows, we spend most of our time working with the 'less than one dollar a day' segment of the population.

When all you see are the people who have nothing, it's easy to forget that while this is a large segment of the population in a place like southern Sudan, it's not the only one. There are entrepreneurs, scholars, and professionals, people like Taban. Honestly, it's encouraging. Working with people in villages, providing things that feel incredibly basic, and teaching things that seem so simple, it's easy to lose perspective, and feel like there's no hope for this place. As challenging as things may be here though, there are reasons to feel positive, and the reminder of this sometimes comes in the strangest places- in a hotel dining room, in this case. Taban came home- he tells me about how his brothers have talked about coming back as well, to do what they can to rebuild their country.

I hope they do. Southern Sudan clearly has a very, very long way to go as it moves forward. For the time being, at least, the government and the people here will probably continue to need the support of NGOs, most of which are led by expats. If things work how they're supposed to though, and the goal is to 'build capacity,' (a phrase you see constantly in reports), eventually a new group of Sudanese professionals will be ready to take the helm.

If that happens, I know a good accountant...