Werk It

"Iko wahipi?!” 

The three other men in the unmarked white van burst into surprised laughter as I hung on for dear life at the back.   

I assumed my new coworkers were laughing from the sheer pleasure of basking in my Swahili glow – most people have that reaction.  Unfortunately, they still didn’t tell me where we were.  We passed a surprised woman in the middle of hoeing her field as I tried to work out how I would start my next blog post…

To recap, I was going a little stir crazy at home.  I was noticing, for example, that lizards were congregating in our annex.  For some nefarious purpose, no doubt, and it was driving me mad.  The way they froze and lounged on the wall, all innocent-like, when they knew I was watching.  If you think I don’t know that your Malian comrades warned you about me; think again.

Thankfully, a tiny frog in the kitchen evened our armies.

…As I was saying, it was getting a little hard to stay sane.  On the weekend, after a joyful Women’s Retreat at my church and a brutal game of Ultimate Misfit Frisbee after all the yelly, competitive people had gone home and only the Canadians and kind people were left, we discovered that the front door to the main house was stuck and we were forced to use the kitchen door.  I was at the point of homicide when I overheard a Congolese teammate sorrowfully note that it was undignified for men to enter through the kitchen, but things started looking up on Monday - after this conversation:

“We’d better be meeting our partner organizations today.  I’m not dressing this nice [read: shaving my legs] for no reason.”

“[Kermit]!  You should always look nice!  You are a girl!”

I womanfully refrained both from strangling her and from telling her to pop a Midol and talk to me in a week when she was rational.

As of Tuesday, I am a proud volunteer with the Centre d’Assistance Medico-Psychosociale – run by the Pentecostal Foreign Mission of Norway (PYM) in association with the Communaute des Eglises Libres de Pentecote en Afrique (CELPA).  They are mainly involved in trauma healing with victims of sexual violence, and the demobilization and reintegration of child soldiers.

After a kind warning from my new boss about not catching a moto every day for safety reasons (hah), and a note that I should dress comfortably in the office, but more formally for the villages – except with pants, because we might have to cross rivers (what) - I was ready for my first day on the job.  First, we had an informative meeting that lasted two hours and went over all the upcoming projects for the next one to two years (which were all beginning at the end of the month).  I was encouraged to help develop a diagnostic questionnaire for mental health and felt perfectly at home and not at all panicked.  I looked at my team - two psychologists, one administrator, one driver, one manager, and one Maman who opened and closed the gate and mopped things – in charge of integrating mental healthcare within 8 territories (34 health zones), and mentally rolled up my sleeves.

The second day involved a trip to a village about an hour out of town.  The countryside here is beautiful, and the roads were everything I dream of (like a disco pang-pang on steroids).  Full disclosure: I would highly recommend a sports bra.  Luckily, I am footloose and fancy-free in that regard, so I could properly appreciate the scenery to Yesudas crooning Gori tera gaon bada pyaara and the Biebs warbling Baby.  Unfortunately, my bladder insisted upon having its views heard.  By the last 10-15 minutes of the trip (by which time we were already half an hour late for our meeting due to the condition of the roads, accidents, and a line of trucks stopping for no good reason) I was in A State. 

 

I planned to ask delicately for the powder room the minute we stepped out; Je vais mourir seemed like a good way to begin.  I was told that we would meet the secretary first. 

Don’t mind me – I usually shamble from wall to wall panting like a gorilla in labour.

When I finally had the key to the Holy Grail that was the bathroom, I did not hesitate.  I used to worry about the idea of village facilities, but today proved that anything’s good enough.  I don’t even remember what the bathroom looked or smelled like – all I remember is heavy mouth breathing and blessed relief. 

After this level of excitement, I was ready to handle anything – even a Pontius Pilate of a director who was reluctant to do anything even vaguely helpful in case it would offend someone, and a difficult health zone official who seemed to want to view our budget simply to see if we had included ‘Bribery’ in it.  In the end, we received stamps which amounted to permission to start a counselling centre, haggled a bit over pens and paper for it, set up a tired nurse to lead it, and that was that.  The psychologists would then be on call (to a certain extent) for chronic or difficult cases.

I was able to enjoy the trip back much more – we stopped to buy things from a market, where I gracefully refused the offer of a struggling grey rabbit and bought bananas instead.  One young girl caught my attention and kept pounding one fist in her other palm – either meaning that she wanted money or she wanted me incapacitated; I stayed in the van.

The route curved over hills and beside fields – everyone seemed to have right of way, except if your car was loaded with raw bananas and three men on the boot, in which case you were moving at roughly the speed of a fat goat.  Villages, shops, and markets seemed to grow on either side of what could only generally be called a road (in that it didn’t have trees in it).  Young children on their way home from school (identified by their white shirts and blue pants or skirts) dove out of the way of the car, and trucks and motos going both ways amiably shared the road with their mates that were in the process of breaking down or being fixed. 

We got back close enough to the office (which is behind a hospital) to see that there was a fiery protest going on outside.  I was a little wary because I’d heard a week ago that a grenade had been thrown into a car for some inexplicable reason. 

“The wives of soldiers are protesting because their husband are not being paid.”

“But there is no violence?”

“Maybe no.  Maybe yes.”

“Indeed.”

“They are trying to set fire to tires.”

“Well, it can’t be that hard, can I help--”

“The soldiers are stopping them.”

“They’re stopping their wives.  Who are fighting for their pay.  In my country, a fist is usually enough, but can I go see--”

“I think they are throwing rocks.  We can walk to the office!”

“Maybe we should think deeply about staying in the metal car where nothing can burn our eyeballs.”

But it turns out I only said this in my mind, so I muzungu’d out of the van in my sweaty skirt and threadbare flats, over rocks and broken things, in front of an entranced audience of street vendors, shopkeepers, motorcycle drivers, and children, past a flaming something oozing black smoke, beside importantly whistling men in camo and guns (who only succeeded in herding the shouting women in bright pagnes to one corner an hour later), and into our office.  It was 1400h then – by 14h30, I discovered that the protesting women were widows of soldiers (likely seeking pensions), and most of the shenanigans were under control (or at least the fire was) by 1500h.

Another day, another franc.