Lebalkam

For the second time in my life, I experienced an earthquake. Last night at about 4:00 a.m. I heard and felt it all for a split second, and thought "hm, that sounds and feels like an earthquake but it couldn't possibly be." They just don't happen in this part of the world. I decided I wouldn't even ask anyone about it today because they'd surely think I was nuts.

But sure enough, one of my colleagues asked me this morning if I felt it. Strange....

Just like 1986, when I was on the toilet in BFF Annette's house. I heard a rumble and felt a tremor but chalked it up to an old furnace system kicking on. When I came out of the bathroom, Annette was mildly freaking out and asked if I felt it.

Wow, our vacation went quickly but it was just right -- not too long, not too short, and just the right way to forget about work and this dingy place for a little while.

I was delighted to find that things in the office hummed along and that no major crises awaited me. My staff did a good job in taking care of business. The dog is healthy and happy, although she now has fleas since all she does is lie in her doggy bed, which we gave her in July. The cat, who was well cared for by a colleague who reported that she was a recluse the whole month, is perky and pesky as always.

M & K went back to school today. M was all nervous with excitement and couldn’t finish her breakfast, which consisted of a meager piece of toast and some butter. Oh well. In the car on the way to school, she told me her stomach felt ‘funny.’ As usual, she was all tense about getting to her classroom ON TIME and freaked out on K when he didn’t get out of the car soon enough once we navigated through the nutty traffic congestion around the school and finally arrived. Clearly, the child does not have any African DNA -- why else would she be hung up on time and dislike to dance?

She was also stressed about finding out who her teacher is and which friends she’d be with in class. The French system is a little different - teachers only returned yesterday, so class assignments are only posted the morning of back to school, which only compounds the chaos of the first day back. M's tension eased slightly when she saw that the one friend she has been consistently close with the last two years is in the same class, as well as a few of the girls she started to hang out with from her class last year.

K is in the same classroom with the same teacher this year, which we are all very happy about. M questioned it, though, asking 'did he flunk?' As he did all last year, the minute he crossed the threshold of the classroom, he transformed into a perfect child, a little shy but fully concentrated on obeying the teacher and performing his settling in tasks with total precision.

After we delivered him, we took M up to her class. Once we greeted the teacher and introduced Maeve, we ceased to exist. She didn't look back at us once as she strolled in and took her seat next to her best friend. I spoke with her briefly at lunch time and got a jumble of information, not much of which really made sense but at least gave me the distinct overall impression that Day One was excellent and exciting.
Details to follow.

I've gone over the edge. I nearly started crying this morning because I stopped in the Air France office on my way to work but found it closed. Oh, the difficulty in getting anything done here!

I had stopped at Air France to ask them to confirm that K will have kids' meals on his flights. Air France has NEVER gotten this right for us (gripe #1). On Monday I asked a colleague to verify that this time will be different. The colleague left for vacation on Tuesday with not a word to me on the status of my request (gripe #2). Another colleague had a hard time getting a hold of Air France (gripe#2.5). Ultimately, she talked to them but let me know that Air France had no way of confirming a kids meal because the internet was down (gripe #3). Rather than waste anyone else's time on this, I asked what time the airline office opened in the morning. Two co-workers said "8:00," which is just perfect since I pass it on the way in to work. So I stopped, found it closed (gripe#4) and cursed my colleagues, who should know better! (gripe #5).

As background to all of this, I am guilty of my usual 'over-performing' to compensate for what I see as a total lack of planning and focus on the part of my dear sweet spouse. As usual, I am finding myself stressed to the max and angry as a result of feeling like the world will fall apart unless I do something to stave off disaster. To wit:

Who took care of travel and logistic plans for the three kids' who've already gone away or on vacation? Me

Who ensured that all of our travel plans are taken care of? Me

Who sketched out the vacation itinerary and budget? Me

Assembled required paperwork needed in US?

Organized C's paperwork and mail from the university?

Purchased gifts for Paris family and friends?

Made arrangements for pet care while we're gone?

Already packed for me and K?

I think you get the picture. All of the items on our shared to-do list assigned to G, by the way, haven't been checked off yet. Are they critically important? Not really...otherwise I would have taken care of them already!

Last night I nearly blew a fuse. I called G at 18:00, after a not-so-great day, to say I was just finishing up and was ready to leave the office and run the errands we had planned. He said OK, he'd finish up work where he was. Forty minutes later I called to ask where the hell he was. Already out in the market running errands, so I said I'd go home. I walked outside, but our car wasn't there. He hadn't told me he took it, so I was stuck. Luckily, I got a ride home, and Mr. Live-by-the-Moment rolled home at around 20:15. He got pissed at me that I had already eaten dinner because he wanted to go out to eat. I was already annoyed as hell with him so told him to go out by himself, which he did. I went to bed.

Tonight he will have to pack his stuff and do whatever he needs. I am going to relax. I promise.

Ahhh...put one kid on a plane last week and another today. One more on Tuesday, which will leave me and G with just our little clown Special K. So I guess I can put up with M hanging over my shoulder constantly everytime I sit down.

Today W returned to Cameroon for good. Her departure was not what I expected. Not a tear shed on anyone's part, which in a sad way is reassuring. I took it as a sign that she is just as glad and relieved to leave us as we are to see her go. For the first time in months, I don't have to worry about locking up my valuables when I'm home or hiding all of the phones. And for the first time in years, she will see her mother and other family. I wish her well but am not sure I will ever be able to welcome her back into our home.

Well, it's that time of year again for me to become one cranky bitch over pretty much nothing at all. This is the sign that I need a vacation desperately. Just like last year and the year before, I am so down on this place and the futility of getting any real 'development' done that a change of scenery to recharge is in order.

Specifically, I find myself getting more than annoyed at things that are outside of my power to change. For one, the damn moto-taxis here are feeling to me like easy and justifiable targets. I could crush so many of them with our oh-so-heavy monster SUV. If I see another one of them pull up too close, squeeze into the two inches between my car and the moto-taxi in front of it, make a left turn in front of me from the right turn lane, drive straight in front of me despite my right turn signal showing where I'm going, I will harm as many of them as I can.

Then there's the crappy roads in our nice neighborhood. No one bothers to fix them except for throwing chunky debris (large pieces of concrete, rocks) into the sink- and potholes as filler. This is considered an adequate fix. Add to this mess permanent rainy season lakes in all of the roads and holes, and you get a town full of unwalkable and almost undrivable streets. Yes, yes, the monster SUV is well suited to roaring over all of this, but don't distract me from my loathing and disgust.

And don't get me started on the freakin' trucks here. On a good day, they are nuisances. They routinely double park on roads around the port as they wait their turn to pick up or deliver their loads, which leaves one narrow lane for most traffic to get through. Their drivers are horrible and think nothing of holding up traffic to turn, which usually takes about 20 minutes because they lack rear-view mirrors and their gears are all shot. They drive so badly that they knock over street lights and cement barriers regularly, and tear up the roads horribly by miscalculating turns and crushing curbs and the few patches of repaired road that exist in this city. This week, though, the normal annoyances have escalated into a total breakdown of order. I have had to alter my drive into or home from work every day because these colossal hunks of rusty junk are now triple-parking on the city's main thoroughfares! Triple parking! I have driven on the sidewalk, over traffic medians, and wherever I can to get around them. And I have sat stuck behind them when there is no escape route. How, pray god, can the government here allow these things to totally take over the roads? Why isn't there a port official or a gendarme out there kickin' some trucker ass to make sure that at least one lane is open for local traffic to move?

The jackasses responsible for paving the road we live on -- an interminable project which started last October and is nowhere near finished -- decided to tear up part of our driveway as a favor to us. The new road will be higher than our driveway, so I guess they figured that while they are at it, they will make the driveway apron level with the road. Nice thought, except that they are demanding money now to do it. We keep telling them that we didn't ask them to tear it up, so they shouldn't ask us for change. We are at a standstill with them, which means we can not pull into/out of our driveway and garage and have to park out on the still un-paved road.

Have I mentioned the beggar mentality that prevails even among the 'elite' here? The government issued a state of emergency the other day and paraded around in flood waters for the media to witness their concern for their people. They called a meeting today to see what assistance international donors are going to provide for people displaced. Keep in mind that it rains every year and floods occur every year. But OK, there are people flooded out again this year and they deserve to be helped -- BUT FIRST AND FOREMOST BY THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT. But the government is totally out to lunch. When we asked them today what does exactly their emergency declaration means, they said "it means that the situation is urgent." I'm not kidding. When pressed for details on what special powers or provisions they would enact (um, how about re-orienting parts of the national budget to meet critical needs?), or what they are doing to address chronic, predictable, structural issues, they had no answer whatsoever. But what they did have were lots of grave faces, pseudo-worry, and pleas for aid.

Given my state of mind, I pledge to stay in my house all weekend. It will do no one any good for me to be out stoking my rage on the pot-holed, truck and moto-taxi-clogged, rain-soaked streets here. Then again, there is really nothing to do here anyway so I guess it's a good time to plan vacation details.

It seems that rather than champagne, sparkling apple juice was mistakenly served for the official toast at the offical 4th of July party. Oops.

That's nothing compared to the rather offensive gaffe committed by honoring a certain entertainer who died recently with a moment of silence and the playing of taps, which is supposed to be played only for military veterans. Never mind that many consider the entertainer to have been of questionable character, and that our murdered PCV did not get such honors from her government (although the host government did honor her sincerely it its speech). Who vetted that?

Please, read this: http://www.slate.com/id/2222022?nav=wp

Now, read this to get a sense of what the July Fourth 'celebration' here was really like: I suppose ours last night looked festive enough, with tents and lovely pictures of the US, flags, bunting, and party lights. Music was provided by iPods. Food: corn-on-the cob, mini hot-dogs, and mini chicken legs. No dessert except for an enormous cake that was left less than half eaten by the end of the evening. For the first time, yes, someone did sing the national anthems. However, I would advise returning to the recorded music again next year. It was definitely neither elaborate nor a hot ticket, though it was much more 'exclusive' this year due to budget cuts. The cuts also resulted in wine in twist-off bottles. I am sure the French loved that.

We are the bad Americans in our tiny community this year because we've chosen to eschew the 'un-official' celebration today. I don't enjoy 'forced fun' events, and today's would certainly be one. Over a hundred folks from a major religious organization in town to perform medical surgeries are there. They do amazing things, but I really don't feel like schmoozing with them all. Plus, the pool at the party location has been emptied for cleaning, and without it, I can't see sitting around under tents sweating it out just to say we did something on July Fourth.

We're in full blown rainy season, which means much cooler temperatures. Like below 80 degrees. Unfortuntely, it doesn't mean things are all that much more comfortable here, as the humidity envelops everything like a big, wet, thick wool blanket. The a/c in our bedroom is not working, and since it's the weekend, we can't get anyone to look at it until Monday. Which means that I slept in the living room last night and plan to do the same tonight. Oddly, we were in Accra a few days ago to pick up Chimene, and it was very pleasant there. Same coast, so how are they much less humid?

After being in Dakar and Accra back-to-back, this place is feeling even more like a pit. We went to the new mall in Accra that we've heard so much about. Is it amazing? Depends on where you're coming from. I would not really buy anything in any of the stores, which are nice but ridiculously overpriced. When you are a K-Mart/Target/Walmart shopper like me, it's hard to imagine paying more for basically the same quality of items. But the South African grocery store is another story. Yes, the produce is all imported and ridiculously expensive ($9 for a bunch of cherry tomatoes, anyone?) but the dry goods were plentiful, not too pricey, and not full of bugs. It was a marvel just to walk around the place. We didn't get to go to the American-style movie theater, but I'll bet that it's worth the $10 or so they charge for a ticket to see first-run movies.

Here we do have a brand-new supermarket, American/French style. It's been under construction for over a year, and I thought we'd never see it open. We've visited it every day since, just to feel like we are not in such a dumpy post. M has declared it her favorite place here. It has everything: toys, hardware, kitchen stuff, food, wine. It's kind of like a Walmart superstore with overpriced items. Even though you can find almost everything in it at a better price elsewhere, it will probably become our most frequented supermarket here. It's right down the street, and they have a huge parking lot, something which is worth a few extra dollars in my book.

And speaking of extra dollars, I was shocked to learn that President Obama has signed a bill to authorize payment of overseas comparability pay http://www.afsa.org/062509afsanet.cfm. This is huge (and one more reason to love the Prez). For me personally, it will mean roughly an extra $20,000 a year in salary. I'm not making any investments yet, but this is very, very encouraging.

I am sitting in a hotel lobby waiting for my ride to the Dakar airport. I've been here for an enjoyable week of training on disaster management. It sounds odd to say that. But the training was good and the weather is perfect.

Being here makes me realize what a backwater my current post is. This place is a real city with real amenities. A decent airport! Good roads with bridges! Tunnels! Working traffic lights and lanes that drivers pay attention to! Taxis! No moto-taxis! Grocery stores! Bakeries! Restaurants galore! Tree-lined streets and neighborhoods! Funny what you notice when you come to a place that is so close yet so far. I marvelled at seeing real trash trucks on the road here. Though they certainly also have real city problems to go along with all of these nice things, I would definitely come back here to visit and/or work. Lovely.

On Friday a group of us went out to Goree Island, one of Senegal's, if not West Africa's, most famous sites. It's just a quick 10-minute ferry ride from downtown (on a real ferry boat!) Three things struck me. First, the place is incongruously beautiful. I was not prepared to marvel at lovely cobblestoned streets and old buildings. There are old colonial houses that I would have killed to get in and film to add to my housing idea book. Two, the place is a total tourist site for Senegalese. Never mind its history, the place was crawling with school kids and other folks who were just there to have fun, mostly on the beach. Three, they do a shitty job telling the story of what really went on on this island. The restored Maison des Esclaves was not as imposing as the slave houses on Ghana's Cape Coast, and our 'guide' was a tired, old fat man who really shouldn't be giving presentations. He annoyed the crap out of me. First, though Senegalese, he was trying too hard to sound American and ended up slurring his words together so that the sound was familiar to our ears but it was all almost incomprehensible. And he sounded like he was mouthing the words to a recording. I was tempted to see if he had a battery pack in his back. If I could have yanked them out to stop his presentation on the slave house I would have.

M is getting all geared up for her birthday party. She was working diligently on her invitation list the other day and added a name I didn't recognize as one of her friends. She proceeded to tell me that the girl was new at the beginning of the semester and that K always says that "she always looks like this [and stuck her front teeth out over her bottom lip.]" Right then and there I knew exactly who this friend is because I have noticed the girl, a darling little brown thing with the most prominent, unfortunate rabbit teeth. I didn't say a thing to Maeve, but I thought "oh my god, I hope K makes that remark as naively as M just related it to me, rather than to make fun!" He is such a sweet child, usually. Though he torments M mercilessly I really hope he's not going to turn into a playground meanie.

I knew that as soon as I would put in writing that I had a productive week, I'd pay for it. ON Monday morning I felt not quite overwhelmed (I am SO over that emotion) but definitely not with a clean slate. C'est la vie. In this business there will never be a point where I reach a total comfort zone, but I take great satisfaction in the fact that my productive days/weeks are coming more frequently.

I am home today not being productive but for a good reason. Miss M is really sick - diarrhea, fever, and throwing up. She is sleeping on the couch now with her guardian cat/angel watching over her.

Been a long time. I will try to stay more up-to-date, but the truth is, I have found another great way not only to let all my peeps out there know what I am up to, but also to see what everyone else is doing. It's called Facebook, and I love it.

The advantage here, of course, is that I can write more detail and rant and rave in such a way that my friends won't think I'm nuts. For example, I could write about the bloody stools and projective vomiting I had last week. But I'll keep to more interesting subjects.

Like work. I have felt incredibly productive lately. This is quite a feat for me. Although I am not sure that it's actually true, I love going home after long days in the office feeling like I have actually done something of value. Although I've intentionally tried not to, I have been coming in for a few hours over the weekend and have found that it really gives me an edge when I come in to face the week on MOnday morning.

I feel good about where my team is, too. We're an interesting mix: me, two middle-aged African men, one middle-aged French/American man, and one young African woman. With the exception maybe of the last, we are all pretty new to what we are doing. We had a really busy April, but we ROCKED IT. The boss here threw a party last week to acknowledge our work.

Last week the day after I last wrote an entry I came into the office to learn that the three-year old daughter of one of my colleagues had died the previous night. The child was otherwise healthy. She had been throwing up and not feeling well so the parents took her to a clinic. It sounds like someone administered a drug improperly, and that is how she died. I just can't imagine having to deal with something like that. This is, I suppose, one of the reasons I work in development. No one should have to pay with their lives for things that are simple to fix. That this happened in one of the better clinics in the capital tells you how much work we have to do here to improve health and the health system.

Today there was a public ceremony for the volunteer, Kate, who was killed. I ended up sitting right behind the volunteer's best friend from her village, who was there with a whole contingent of about 16 people from her site. There was a brief slide show which showed Kate living, working, and loving life with people from her village. When a slide came up of Kate with her friend, the woman just in front of me, she began to wail and shake. It was terribly painful to see how this woman was suffering.

Last week a Peace Corps Volunteer was killed here. It was shocking and terrible, and days after, it's still painful, even as removed from the person/situation as I am. The American community here is small, so anything that happens necessarily has a short, powerful ripple. And as a female RPCV who served in Africa, this felt like family and touched close. THen there's the friendships with the staff who has to manage all of this. It's so incredibly hard on them. I mean, can you imagine having to go and retrieve a body? Taking to the US on a plane to deliver to family? Investigating the crime scene?

This morning I had to go to a public event for work where the Big Cheese spoke, and it just so happened that the subject was very germane -- prosecuting and investigating gender-based crimes. I don't know much detail about the Volunteer's death, and even if I did I would not feel right about posting it here. But even so, I sat there wondering about this young woman who loved what she was doing and was cherished by her community and had to ask if she had been a male volunteer if she would have been killed. A question with no answer. The Big Cheese lost her composure as she spoke this morning, and I actually felt grateful to have someone at the helm here who is feeling this so deeply.

This afternoon a contingent of RPCVs here attended a memorial service at Peace Corps, and being with the Peace Corps staff and volunteers felt right. So very sad, but right.

In a comforting twist, because so many PCVs came to the capital for the ceremony, RPCVs and embassy families were asked to house them for a couple of nights. Guy and I were thrilled to do so. It has been therapeutic for us to dote on and spoil the four lovely individuals who are at our house. There's not much we can do in such situations except for wining and dining and in general, just taking good care.

We survived our journey up to the north to one of the national parks here. It was quite enjoyable. Maeve and Kieran did not kill each other on the 8-hour trip up or back, and I only got mildly annoyed with Guy once. We saw lots of animals - antilopes of all kinds, monkeys, baboons, warthogs, crocodiles, hippos, and lions. We literally happened upon three of the latter as we were slowing waaaay down to drive down a little stone embankment in the road, and they were right there. The minute they saw us they got up and started to walk away. Amazing. Our guide said most people don't even get to see one lion, so we were incredibly lucky. We did not have so much luck with elephants. We saw their tracks and fresh poop, but none of them -- the largest creatures in the park.

Ugh, Maeve lost a tooth and for two nights in a row, the tooth fairy totally forgot to pick it up! Thank god for Maeve's naivete and easy acceptance of the lame excuse I came up with -- the fairy was probably just really busy. In a way, this is the reality Maeve's grown up with, and I'm glad that she's not rebelling against it. She knows we all have bad weeks, even the tooth fairy!

I had to take Maeve to the hair dresser on Monday. Her hair was the worst it's ever been. It truly looked like a rat's nest in the back. She just won't take care of it, though, and won't subject to braids (which is what she really needs) or getting it cut. So I endured her tears and the embarrassing amazement of the hair dresser at the state of things, and had it straightened and trimmed up.

We leave for Pendjari National Park tomorrow. I am looking forward to getting out of the 'big city' for a few days and hope to see lots of animals. Even if it means having to put up with Maeve and Kieran's bickering for the 6+ hours it will take us to get to our overnight destination.

When we were home this summer, Guy and I bought a whole bunch of cheap kids' kites in Big Lots or one of those other end-of-the line stores. They were only $2 a piece, and we figured they'd make good birthday presents. Of course Maeve and Kieran wanted to try them, so they each got one, too. They haven't been too successful getting them up in the air in our yard. Unfortately, the steady sea breeze we used to get has been cut down by the houses built up on the beach and a three-story building going up in what used to be an empty lot across from our house. We took the kites to the beach today, though, and wowie, we had no problem getting them up there. With the constant wind, all we had to do was unwind them a bit to get them in the air. Maeve and Kieran were thrilled. They are also in a horribly competetive phase, so it was a constant battle to see whose would go higher.

Well that was quite a hiatus. Things have been, um, interesting.

Winnie is now in a convent boarding school in a city about 45 minutes from here. She pulled some major crap on us, and Guy finally reached his breaking point. She will return to Cameroon for good at the end of the school year. I have to say that I am relieved that she is not in the house. I had reached my breaking point with her months ago, and the more there was a disconnect between me and Guy on what to do with her, the more stress there was at home. Now things are feeling much more peaceful and 'right.' Except that Maeve is having a bit of a hard time with this. We are trying to reassure her and love her as much as possible to make sure that she doesn't suffer too much from no longer having her big sisters in the house.

There's a new sheriff in town, and I am delighted. The new boss is tough but a lovely person. She's shaking things up a bit here, which is causing stress for some folks. Including me (remember there are negative stressors and positive stressors). I came to the conclusion after my last stint as acting boss that I really do not enjoy being the big cheese right now in my career. When you are the one doing everything, it makes it very hard to do anything well. And if there is anything I hate, it's feeling like I'm doing a half-assed job. Doing a half-assed job will not position me well for the next assignment. Who will want a program officer who has done everything but program officer work? So she's helping me to re-focus, and I welcome that.

Our houskeeper/nanny has been AWOL this week. We heard through the grapevine that she took her sick mother to Lome, but she hasn't tried to contact us. I hope she comes back. Maeve and Kieran are on vacation next week, and the house is trashed. Guy actually got out the vacuum cleaner 2 days ago.

The dog had a terrible case of conjunctivitis. I mean really terrible. People would take one look at her and recoil in horror. It was so bad I thought at one point she'd lose her eye. Thank god for old tubes of pink-eye medicine we'd used for the kids, which cleaned up the infection nicely.

The cat keeps pooping where she's not supposed to. I cleaned up the litter box and whole area surrounding it yesterday, but came home to find a big dump in our dressing room. I can't figure out why she's doing this.