...and Back...

The day dawned bright, but not early enough, so I lay in bed and plotted Butters' untimely demise.

After breakfast, we carried out some evaluation activities; I will outline what I saw as the major challenges and lessons of this work in a later post.  40km (one-and-a-half hours) later, we were in one of the nearby villages to meet the beneficiaries and local partners of our project in order to glean strengths and weaknesses.  There were two stellar points that morning.

The first village we visited – 
40kms (1.5hrs) from town

One of them was greeting the nurse of the local clinic and noticing something odd.

What is...  Dear, sweet Lord.

When I realised I was struggling to include his clammy sixth finger in our handshake, my smile became more of a rictus.  The rest of that meeting was spent in pretending I wasn't staring at the 5.5 fingers on each of his hands.  I'd already been fighting this losing battle with one of the residents at the hostel; it was like they were following me.  Logically, I know there is nothing special about these extra digits; realistically, I wanted to examine them thoroughly.  Hang the project, I wanted to know if he'd ever stubbed it anywhere, if he was ever worried they'd hook on something and come clean off, if he could move them, if they'd help in playing guitar or piano...

There were some smooth roads - 
“Belgian,” I was proudly informed by a native

The second highlight was having one of the local partners ask me for my contact details.  This was not surprising in and of itself, of course.  No, that came as I was writing down my name and email.

“I also want to visit the Philippines one day.”
“Ha ha, ye--  You want to go--  Visit the--  Sorry, what?”

The English was much more mangled, obviously, but I was more amused by the idea that I either looked Filipina or that my last name had grievously misled him.

A rare view out the back window

The rest of the day passed uneventfully until we approached the regional official of the village - he was well-spoken, well dressed, and warning us of the area that we planned to visit the next day.  I'd already been looking forward to the moto ride there and was in no mood to be dissuaded, but he made a persuasive argument of a small group of rebels who'd passed nearby due to some clashes over territory.  This story had been corroborated by some of our beneficiaries earlier that day – the women who'd been sexually assaulted didn't feel entirely comfortable with these wandering groups of men making no visible effort to improve this country's economic or social situation, but seemed content to pillage and rape its citizens.

A much more common sight – 

bulling out of a rut as high as my head

So that night was filled with whispered horror stories of the warring factions of the rebel group that had initially been created to protect this nation and the vulnerable, but now mainly fought over territory (and the accompanying bribes from aid organizations and aid recipients alike – talk about overhead costs).  The members were ordinary citizens, it was said - perhaps with magical powers, certainly with a lot of control.

The most recent story talked of a topless protest by the women of a nearby village.  They approached the rebel leader's house and tied him up with a mosquito net while he was unarmed and busy laughing at the idea of a topless protest.

...I've always been against the Slutwalk, but maybe...  Is there any way of starting an army of bare-breasted Amazons – only, uh, with the option of keeping both breasts and wearing shirts?  (Note: I am heroically willing to sacrifice bras for the cause.)

Anyway, the priests counselled us not to go, our chauffeur shared stories of another international organization's workers who were now being treated for grave injuries at the central hospital, and my coordinator tried to champion the Save the muzungu! slogan as he hadn't been keen on going on the moto ride from the start.

I firmly stated that either I was going, or nobody was – all the while fighting the guilt of not telling Carrottop that I was probably about to do A Stupid Thing.  I took another icy bath, too disappointed by the thought that we might not go the next morning to even scream very much.

At breakfast, the very same priest who'd forbiddingly called me prey the night before cheerfully announced that everything would be fine.  I goggled at him in disbelief – again, it was this absolutely mad psychological and physiological roller coaster to which everyone seemed accustomed.  Rather than taking it easy all along until the situation called for action or following through on previously decided plans, this country seems to revel in leaping from one extreme to another with very little in-between.

Our external evaluator had wisely absented himself from most of the speculation surrounding this issue and calmly readied himself to leave with us in tow.  We approached the moto station (for lack of a better word) and set about hiring four men who were interested in braving the route.

They were all interested.  Mine didn't even try to trick me – just parked himself in front of me, pointed at the space behind him, and accepted my fee without question.  I would discover the reason for this later, but at the time, I was just happy at the deal.  However, I was somewhat worried by my driver, a slight youth who didn't look able to support the weight of his t-shirt and skinny jeans, much less a moto.  I would give thanks for him later, but at the time, I wondered if I had a death wish.

I created a burqua from my scarf, settled myself well away from my driver so as not to disturb him (i.e. send him flying at the first bump and somehow end up at the reins like on a Looney Tunes cartoon), held on to the back of the moto with all my meagre strength, and prepared myself to enjoy the sunny ride.

Part I

Part III

Appendix