Post Conflict Election Post
22 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in DRC
Things have certainly quieted down since the November 28th Presidential elections. In 2006 the Joseph Kabila decided to legitimize his three year rule, with the help of MONUSCO (United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) the exercise was also flawed but with the huge amounts of money and support they were able to hold a run-off election for the presidential candidates and the provincial parliaments. During this period the then Vice President and ex-rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba (who know finds himself at the ICC) along with his personal army raised havoc in the capital setting off a violent stand-off between his supporters and President Kabila’s national guard. The fighting lasted months and killed over 600 people in Kinshasa alone.
This time around the DRC was completely unaccompanied in its second ever multiparty elections; and surprise surprise things went awry. The same folks who contested the 2006 elections reappeared but this time the main opposition Etienne Tshisekede had only an army of words and civilian supporters. He is an old militant politico who has reached his 79 years and appears to have become senile…He has been trying to gain popularity since Mobutu’s time and now is living in a fantasy world where he declares himself president in his own home around 11 some cronies and PooF he’s in. However Joseph Kabila has an iron grip on the country and during the election period turned Kinshasa into occupied territory. Colleagues and friends who spent the electoral period here said they couldn’t leave their house for over two weeks and those who did found the streets deserted but for the Congolese army and police lining the streets. Any protests that manifested were immediately repressed with tear gas, water canons or bullets.
Luckily I, like many other NGO workers, fled the country to neighboring Rwanda. I have a lovely apartment in Kinshasa but staying in it for two weeks straight would undoubtedly driven my partner and I mad. Instead we followed the news via internet and through colleagues up until they blocked all text messages in Congo. Rwanda was a completely different world where order and efficiency rein. Since the Paul Kagame took over after the 1994 genocide he has held power and restored calm. Things there are indeed very calm, organized and clean. Kagame is often praised for turning the country around, developing infrastructure and industry and capitalizing on tourism. At the same time he is criticized for well, being a dictator. It has been 18 years…Here is a very interesting article by one of Kagame’s top advisers on why democracy in Africa just doesn’t work. TNT 14 Dec 11 High times on Democratization in Africa . One of his main arguments is the political violence that democratic elections bring about in Africa is not worth it.
In some ways the events in Kinshasa prove his point, 26 people were killed (much less than in 2006) but the confidence lost in the system here is huge (not there was ever very much). From what I have seen Congolese are very proud people but certainly with the continuation of unfair elections and essentially dictator after dictator they get discouraged.
The elections here are very complicated and not over yet, we await the announcement of the American ‘elections experts’ (I know, oxymoron, right Florida?) on the legislative results early this week. I only know what I’ve been reading in the news but for a more in depth and much more informed perspective check out Jason Stearns’ blog called http://congosiasa.blogspot.com/ .
A CEeS in Congo, Democratic Republic of.
05 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
The following is an article I wrote for the Oxfam Québec bulletin called “Inter Agir” or “Inter Acting” in English.
“On attend beaucoup de toi” was what the siege kept telling me during the pre-departure training. What exactly that means has become slightly clearer in my first few weeks in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
So far the job feels similar to a Masters degree in that I am doing so much research just to be able to wrap my head around the complexity of the status of women in this context. The DRC has been plagued by centuries of colonization, slavery, exploitation of both human and natural resources, dictatorship, war and sexual and gender based violence (SGBV).
Keeping all the intersections straight is going to be my challenge in the next year trying to put together a participative gender justice strategy. This strategy “est beaucoup attendu” especially given that in this vast country Oxfam Québec has two offices, one in the West, Kinshasa and one in the East in the town of Goma, plus four project sites in its environs. There are also three other Oxfams here; Great Britain, Solidarité Belgique and Novib all of whom await a harmonized strategy for their gender programming.
DRC has an area of 2,345,409 km2 an estimated population of 71,712,867 and as many as 250 ethnic groups. Since the Rwandan genocide there has been an influx of Rwandan and Ugandan refugees and armed forces killing approximately 5.4million people. Although it is considered ‘post-conflict’ rebel groups like the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), The Forces Democratique pour la Liberation de Rwanda (FDLR), Forces Armées du République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC), and the Mai-mai continue to terrorize civilians but cannot be blamed solely as even civilians (neighbors, local authorities, family members etc.) have become so traumatized and corrupted by war that just about anybody will commit a human rights violation.
The cycle of violence is continual and vicious and Women are suffering from SGBV at alarming rates, and with utter impunity; in South Kivu out of a documented 14 200 victims of SGBV a mere 287 accepted to stand before tribunal . People are very aware of the weakness of the judicial system and fear repercussions and stigmatization therefore the population remains vulnerable.
However, individuals and organizations are collaborating to build hope, power and resistance. Thousands of I/NGOs are spending/donating millions to reconstruct a semblance of ‘Peace and Security’; 1.5 billion USD per annum is pouring into the country for humanitarian efforts in DRC. Projects specific to VAW are among the most highly funded given the regions difficulties; 15 million USD goes directly to such projects from funders like the Pooled funds (of which Oxfam Quebec is a part of) and STAREC.
Two types of projects are going on here, humanitarian relief and development oriented. Oxfam Québec is implicated in both types, as are many other organizations.
One might begin to wonder why the situation for women remains so dangerous despite the presence of thousands of well intentioned folks like me…
To attempt to answer this question I have been looking at research that has been coming from Congolese academics and field researchers as well as NGO monitoring committees. OCHA and Care called for the Fenistein Centre to conduct a study of I/NGO practices in DRC. The Sex and Age Disaggregated Data (SADD) study called Sex and Age Matter criticizing NGOs for not collecting sex and age disaggregated data and in many cases no data at all. “They claim that many I/NGOs operate on analogies and observation only, that they are not founded in research.”
This insight struck me as extremely important for me to incorporate both theory and practice or praxis into my planning, I have thus drawn on articles such as Desiree Lwambo’s (2011) “Men and Masculinities in Eastern DR Congo, before the war I was a man’. This article has given me hope that we can break the cycle of violence by changing our approach from humanitarian and development programmes destined solely for women and sometimes children to one that takes a community approach and fosters the renewal of gender relations.
The article produces glaring results showing that men who receive no or less assistance than the women in their communities become jealous, resentful, and feel abandoned and uselessness. This ultimately leads to the loss of their masculine identity. Often the only way they can manage to regain any control or ‘respect’ is from violent domination of women and resistance to ‘social change’ that helps to advance women’s status. Heal Africa contributed to Lwambo’s research on men’s perceptions of Gender sensitization programs:
Promoting women’s economic activities without combating men’s unemployment or even responding to their feelings of disempowerment is a recipe for male resistance against “gender sensitive programs”. Moreover, male respondents stressed that they, too, were victims of wartime and other forms of violence and needed protection as well as psychosocial and medical help.
Lwambo goes on to say that many of men’s perceptions of gender programs is subjective and not validated by their research but the fact that there is such a resistance is exactly why it should be taken seriously.
In many conversations I’ve had with Congolese colleagues and acquaintances so far have stressed that not enough is being done for men by I/NGOs. Frequently I will introduce myself as the Conseillère en matière d’Egalité entre Femmes et les Hommes and they get all excited saying ‘Yes! It has to be for both women AND men”.
It would seem that according to Lwambo very few other organizations here are doing anything based on men’s needs or on repairing the relationships between men and women. I see this as a great opportunity for Oxfam Québec to take the lead in gender justice in an avant-garde way that will ensure a more community based approach and hopefully a more durable one.
References:
ACORD, 2010. La protection et la réparation en faveur des victimes des violences sexuelles et basées sur le genre en droit Congolais. pg7.
Agama, M., 2008. Legacy of War: An Epidemic of Sexual Violence in DRC. UNFPA
Lwambo, D., 2011. “Men and Masculinities in Eastern DR Congo, before the war I was a man’. p.21
DASH 8
14 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
in DRC
Flying across the DRC, a distance of 1572 km, in a 28-seater plane.
Today is really the first time the human smells of African public transport have visited my olfactory system since arriving 5 weeks ago (by now its 6 weeks and I realize that I have eaten and drank enough local food that my body exudes lovely smells too)! Mostly our mobility has been in the form of 4×4 s and by way of our cherished chauffeurs who smell of soap.
We’re on our way to Goma the capital of Nord Kivu, a city well known for rebel insurgence and rape. The sad reality is that there were 150 rapes here just in the month of October. IT is also well known for its beauty, its climate, mountains, volcanoes, gorillas and huge Lake Kivu.
Our flight is at least 2.5 hours late but the actual flight seems to be going rather smoothly. I have been very nervous knowing that the security conditions of the planes are not up to international standards (ex Czech and Soviet planes banned in international airports). I have been praying to the Goddess and sleeping.
Looking out the window I am in awe of the massive Equatorial Rain Forest, it has been the only thing in sight for the past two hours! I can understand why they call it the 2nd lung of the world. Green, unending jungle as far as the eye can see (from way up here)! In amongst the trees we can also watch the famous Congo River snake along the country in the most amazing pattern.
Looking now at this massive jungle I feel much less nervous; its beauty is truly complex. Knowing that such a dense beautiful forest has and still does contain some of the darkest realities of the world is amazing and disquieting. Unquestionably it is home to some of the most deadly animals, insects and humans in the world. It has a dark and hideous history of slavery, caravans, rubber extraction, torture and war. It is now home to millions of displaced civilians surviving off of grubs and plants. At the same it hides the thousands of rebels and guerilla soldiers raping and pillaging every farmer and villager they come across. It is unpleasant to say but the Congo River here (near Kindu the flight attendant tells me) is almost the colour Red, perhaps from the long history of blood shed.
How do we clean up these wild waters?
Opposés contradictions
30 Oct 2011 2 Comments
in DRC
Take one, Take two. This scene is full of opposites and contradictions.
Driving along the large 8 lane boulevards I double take because at any given intersection cars circulate in all directions…Traffic lights have been installed within in the last few months but as our driver Papa Alfonse says: people don’t respect them; they have to learn. As a passenger I always let my eyes wander and inspect each passing car, I check out the driver, the car model, the funny fur dash boards…everything is pretty normal, SUV, shitty bus, SUV, taxi, SUV…Except until l notice that every other car is a right sided steering wheel…Its fascinating because really anything goes in Kinshasa and apparently cars from Dubai are newer, nicer, cheaper and righty steering wheels (as opposed to those whiney Peugeots from Europe). Apparently its not confusing, just a question of habit.
DRC is considered central Africa and so is not part of the oh so stable CFA, here they have the Congolese Franc one that has fluctuated so much that there was a time when you needed a bucket load of bills just to buy some bread. So to stabilize the economy the generous United States of America has lent their currency so that Congo is a bilingual financial market. Any given bill or price tag can come in dollars or francs, you can pay in one or the other or a combination of them both. Paying in dollars is always at a loss of a few hundred francs though, yet impossible to avoid.
Like manyAfrican nations the beers here are very large and not very good. A regular sized beer is 720ml and is usually a dollar but can cost up to four depending on the bar. A lovely been called Mützig is only available in small bottles (considered regular size by Canadian standards) but is the same price as the big ones. So drink less, pay more.
Ordering grilled fish turns out to be deep fried fish…One four local yogurts costs 500F (.50cents) and four imported yogurts cost $9.00. Local tomatoes cost anywhere from 200F to 2000F depending on where you buy them.
Rent costs on average two to three thousand dollars per month yet the majority of people make no more than a couple hundred dollars a month. DRC is one of the most resource rich countries in the world and yet one of the poorest.
King Leopold reigned over this country for decades and yet never set foot here; the contradictions persist.
In The Kin
03 Oct 2011 1 Comment
in DRC
After 36 hours of travel we arrived in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital city. We arrived precisely at 18h05 the expected time but of course some of our bags did not complete the journey with us. While waiting to take off in Paris I diligently watched as Steffen’s back pack was left ignored on a trolley. All the other bags were loaded into the underbelly of our Air Bus but not his…the flight attendant assured me if would surely be loaded. After two hours of increasing jittery jostling people began sticking their anxious heads out the baggage conveyer belt flaps to locate their belongings (suspected stolen or tampered with). Both of us got one bag and we finally filed our claims and resolving to come back Saturday. Our boss Papa Noël picked us up and pretended he didn’t mind the wait although he had worked all day and worked his way through some traumatizing traffic.
We found our hotel, a meal and a bed, not to stir for 12 hours. We of course were picked up no later than 13h to go to work for the afternoon…sounds horrible but we supposed it was better than lying in bed all day. The office is conveniently located next to the President Kabila’s private office…this is quite something given that the election is in two months from now. There seems to be an excellent security plan in place which consists of floating us across to Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo (not to be confused with the Democratic one in which I find myself). However the whole security issue seems like it still needs to be panned out. Upon pressing P-N for info regarding who to call in case of emergency he explained everything and said he’d have the contact info for us before he leaves for Montreal next week.
Over the weekend we were meant to be taken on a tour of the city and then to see the Bonobos but after about 3 hours in the truck (we had recuperated our bags no problem) we were then sent to pick up the boss’s son at the airport. Why we had to go along is a mystery but it did give us a chance to be traumatized by the midday traffic. All in all we spent 9 hours in the car. Granted we ended up having a lovely dinner on the Congo River, but it was not exactly how you would imagine your first Saturday in Kinshasa.
However, we are quick learning that spending a day in a car here is quite typical; this city is crawling with SUVs, mini pick up trucks, vans and buses. There are giant 8-lane boulevards with street lights and traffic lights that count down from 88. Walking this evening we were nearly run down twice, of course they swerved but there was definitely the feeling that it was intentional…The feeling of white supremacy and colonialism is still extremely present and the separation is devastating. It is as though since independence there has been no integration of blacks and whites that resulted in anything but big walls with barbed wire. People seemed shocked to see us walk to the super market—it’s not dangerous in broad daylight and a block away from our hotel—but it’s simply not done. In fear of my legs turning to rubber and perhaps some habits from Cameroon I refuse to call our chauffeur for such a task.
We have already found the Kin Market where no white people shop and the prices are slightly more reasonable—note this city is far more expensive even than London England! Rent is around $2000/mth, a box of Bran cereal is $20 and gas is the same as in Toronto.
So far we feel excited to be here, pleased with the office, confused with many things and cooped up in a shitty little hotel room that regularly has water and power loss…Luckily we love each other’s company and know that things can only improve!
Vive la coopération!
Refresher
25 Sep 2011 2 Comments
After many moons and quiet starry nights I fled to the city of Toronto and felt that perhaps I didn’t have time for blogging while trying to complete my Masters…well its done now so I’m back!
The newest adventure set to commence on Wednesday September 28th, off to the Congo I go! Kinshasa that is, Democratic it says. I will be working for Oxfam Quebec as the Gender Justice Advisor.
*Disclaimer* None of the content seen in this Klog represents the views of Oxfam Quebec and is in no way related. It is my own knowledge and experience that will clog these pages…
FYI Klog is not a knowledge management system, it is a Kongo Blog. Simple.
So off I go but in the meantime I am having an incredible time out on Vancouver island crossing things off my pre-departure list (only 123 items long)! The only important thing left is Bug spray…fairly crucial as I hope to avoid the whole repeat malaria scenario. Oh right and my passport which is still in the mail…No worries though, off we go (we being my partner Steffen and I, Youpiee)!
So hopefully this has revived and refreshed a little bit, I will do my best to keep it up!
How I Fall Asleep
25 Sep 2011 Leave a Comment
in Poetry
I have to read children’s storybooks to fall asleep at night
I have to force myself to wander through the rabbit hole
To get to the magical land of happy endings
A land of courage and cupcakes, salty licorice whips
Of rainbows and secret gardens
Of time travel and new love
True love
Not fake love or unrequited love or hate love
Not a land of wars, exploitation, submission or objectification
I have to read children’s storybooks to fall asleep at night
Because when I wake up in the morning there are streams of sunlight piercing through grey snow clouds
Illuminating my dreams of wonderlands
Revealing the harsh gritty world of women’s suffering
This reality is not just a wrinkle in time
It’s a constant, everlasting power struggle
An epic tug of war with BIG PLAYERS
On one side we have:
MILITARISM, CAPITALISM, IMPERIALISM, COLONIALISM AND THE HEAVY WEIGHT PATRIARCHY
On the other side we have:
Women and their children
On the sidelines we have:
Husbands, fathers, lovers, brothers, sons, grandpas, uncles
Who, deep down want to cheer on their
Wives, sisters, mothers, lovers, daughters, nieces and aunties
But cannot-will not because they are shackled to their gender role
and they are afraid of committing heavyweight treason.
Femininity. Feminized.
An ideal, cursed dichotomy wrought in conflict
Femininity. Feminized.
Beautiful and Unseen
Soft spoken and Silent
Caregiver but Carefree
Intelligent but Not Assertive
Mothers and Lovers
Sexualized and Exclusive
Labourers but Unpaid
Victims but Survivors
Women have so many expectations placed upon them that they are set up to fail
And if they do succeed they are the exception that proves the rule
So I have to read children’s storybooks to fall asleep at night
Because each day I’m grappling with the truth about women’s struggle
The struggle to survive, to support their families, to live and yet feel dead inside
To find a place to stand, to smile
The struggle
I spend my days listening to CBC news and reading articles
By academics, feminists and activists
And I’m wondering how all of these truths cannot outweigh the lies
How they cannot counter a transnational Neo-liberal patriarchal war machine
Each day there are thousands of people crying out, writing out, acting out
But no one hears—or rather everyone hears
But no one knows who’s in charge…
How can we reason with a machine?
One that violently forces its way into every crevice and facet of our lives?
I have to read children’s story books to fall asleep at night
Because the horrors of violence against women flash behind my eyes
Images of women being
Threatened, terrorized and tortured
Stories of women
Robbed, raped and refugee
Cases of women
Brutalized, battered, belittled
Examples of women
Forced into pregnancy, prostitution, and public humiliation
Everyday women
Sold into sexual slavery,
Cheated, chained and charred
Exploited, evicted, erased
Displaced
STOP Shaming Trafficking Oppressing Patronizing STOP
I have to read children’s storybooks to fall asleep at night
Because this is the shit nightmares are made from
And although to those dropping bombs and wielding machetes
These women are faceless, nameless and useless
They are NOT to me!
They are my sisters, my mother, my neighbor—they are me.
Violence is happening right outside my backdoor
It’s not far away or other
It’s our country’s troops in Afghanistan
Our government’s investment in fighter jets and cutting social services to pay those debts
It’s domestic abuse dubbed a family affaire
It’s the 400 some native women either missing or dead
It’s the 1 in 4 women who will experience some form of sexualized violence
It’s the women who make up most of the 90% non-combatant casualties in conflict
And the women who are 70% of the world’s starving or near starving
There is an imperative here, one of feminist anti-violence solidarity
That we cannot let be high jacked by
Imperialist, capitalist, post-modernist
NON SENSE feminism
That just wastes time and distracts us from the real issues at hand
Which are freedom, equity and security of person
The right to live in a dignified manner
To be respected, nurtured and comforted
To give birth to spring flowers of justice and peace
So that I do not have to read children’s storybooks to fall asleep at night
So that these violent realities will float off to never never land
I will go bravely into the night with a coralline necklace warding off fear
And I will wake up to blue skies and sun shining down indiscriminately
On all our faces not burning a one
I want to wake up feeling fully refreshed
Ready to trot off to OISE to study
Chocolate and strawberries,
Xs and Os
Butterfly eyelashes and
Public policy based on a ‘hug it out’ model
All the ways women are loved
I don’t think this is asking too much, and it doesn’t have to be just this way
I just don’t want to have to read children’s storybooks to fall asleep at night.
SAFARI Time!
07 Apr 2010 2 Comments
in Cameroon
I have never been to a Zoo. I don’t know why but its just something I haven’t managed to accomplish in my 25 years. I have of course seen a few animals in cages here and there (Harrison park comes to mind), and certainly aquariums but never the African Lion Safari or Mexico city Zoo. Nada.
Africa may feel at times like a zoo but really its just chaotic and they keep their zoo’s au naturel conveniently stuffed way up in the extreme north of Cameroon!
(There may be other places on the continent with animals but I haven’t been to them yet so I can’t be sure).
After a lengthy celebration of my 1/4 of a century existence I decided to put an end to my limited zoo-like animal experience and get myself up to the Waza Nation Park aka SAFARI TIME! Some friends and I rented a great 4×4 with no shocks, a leak in the gas tank and a weak tire to carry us on our African Adventure tour extraordinaire!
We planned to arrive at dusk to see the animals before bedtime but like most things in Cameroon we arrived about two hours too late and it was already dark. So we shacked up in some funky bukaroos (round huts with a straw hat finish) that cost about $5/person (amenities not included…except at the other huts where we had to sneak over to). Luckily we were all tired beyond belief after two nights of birthday festivities so we happily feasted on our resource cooking recipe which included baguette, vache qui rit (cheese like substance), mushy avocado, tuna a la onion and most importantly Piment (spicy salsa that makes food tolerable). To wash it down we had elegant metal cups filled with Vin Chaud (Mulled wine…its that hot here).
We got up bright and early and realized we had stayed at the foot of a beautiful rock face with an incredible view of the landscape. As we sat eating mangoes and more vache qui rit we spotted a family of wart hogs walking along the cliff near us. This sparked us into action and we forgot about the fact there was no coffee to be had.
We hired a driver in Maroua, a familiar face to the volunteers and he should have been our guide but we hired a guide anyways as is the protocol. He was in fact just an old man who smelled terrible but knew the park really well. I started asking him some questions and discovered that he had very little information to give me; apparently his job was to sit up straight and shift his gaze quickly from side to side in order to spot animals for us. Ceri another volunteer spotted them before him almost every time.
One thing the guide could tell me was that the park is 170 000 hectares (I don’t really know what a hectare compares to but it sounds big) We spent about 5 hours in the park driving around looking for animals and we were not disappointed. Within the first minute of entering the park we spotted Giraffes! They are truly amazing, larger than life and so elegant
We saw loads of other animals but none nearly as impressive as the Giraffes! Often there are elephants to be seen but since they like to stomp around they had stomped off towards Chad…We got to see many different birds (all impressive but I can hardly remember their names since they were all told to me in French or Fulfulde), Antelope and their brothers (Damalisse maybe). A mongoose, warthogs and loads of monkeys!
At around 11 the hot African sun reached the middle of the sky and our guide did well to inform us that this would cause loads of animals to seek water. Surprisingly in the very desert like climate there were a few watering holes and so we came to one in order to wait for the animals to come to us. Our guide kindly let us know that we were being rather stupid to sit at water’s edge because we were scaring off any animals that maybe wanted to come. So we took refuge under the shade of a tree a ways up the bank and waited. It was a spectacular scene that unfolded slowly slowly. It felt like watching the discovery channel where a huge herd of antelope approached and took every precaution to watch for lions. They would slowly go down to the water and drink a few at a time while the others looked out. All of a sudden two crazy monkeys ran flailing and jumping into the crowd and basically started to stir shit up. The antelopes were all spooked thinking it was a lion but soon realized it was only monkey business and they started to push and shove a bit. It was great because the monkeys did get bullied out of the way but soon came back with their big brother and they once again scared the shit out of the antelopes!
The pictures do not do the place justice and unfortunately my camera battery died so there is no photographic evidence of the trip back to Maroua which left us with a flat tire that all 7 of us couldn’t fix without the help of 2 huge muscle men biker dudes who stopped to help us (they were coming from London en route to CapeTown)! Once that was fixed we carried on toward Maroua and eventually ran out of gas (which I hate to say I told them all so it would happen)! Although I admit that it was the best running out of gas scenario imaginable since it happened on a long downhill stretch, everyone just went silent and we rode for a good 5km right to a little gas stop.
Amazing!
Climate of Extremes
06 Apr 2010 4 Comments
in Cameroon
Climate of Extremes
The Extreme North of Cameroon deserves its name; nothing about this place is insignificant or inconsequential. The weather is harsh beyond belief and it is the polar opposite of the weather I grew up with. Here there are three seasons that are drastically different;
The rainy season starts around June and lasts until September or so and brings torrential downpours that can flood whole villages and render roads impassable.
The ‘cold’ season (which a Canadian might call summer) is somewhere around December and brings lots of dust and a cool breeze. During that time I got to put on the only sweatshirt I brought once or twice.
The rest of the year is called the hot season which starts around February March and lasts until the rain quenches the desert thirst.
Many people warned me about the hot season and would tell me horror stories about having to read lying down to avoid dripping sweat onto the page, or having no work because people can’t do anything but sleep during the day.I tended to listen to these warnings secretly hoping they were exaggerations but certainly felt a slight queasiness in my stomach thinking about it. Although it must be said that the dust everyone talked about in the cold season didn’t really materialize so I did remain somewhat sceptical.
To my dismay, in the last week of February that queasiness turned into an extreme fever, headache, dizziness, and body aches just as the sun decided to make its unabashed and forewarned appearance. After six months of living in the extreme north I had hardly any sickness to speak of, a sore throat at worst, but with this onset of ailment, thus began my collection of tropical diseases.
I have been dutifully taking Doxycyclin every evening since arriving here and always sleep with a bug net but nevertheless I wound up at the Bogo hospital to take a malaria test which proved positive.
The Bogo hospital it must be said is a hideous place, not to be visited by anyone with a weak immune system.
The malaria test is a finger prick and nothing more but I have only ever had the Red Cross prick my finger before and was uneasy when the nifty pen like needle was not produced…the lab technician (or so he claims to be) came at my index with just the head of a large needle and stabbed it right in. After his back woods experiment on my blood came back he informed me that I had malaria. I was never seen by a Dr. except to be prescribed an antimalarial and some Paracetamol, the pharmacist who seemed to have just come back from the market handed me a drug that wasn’t prescribed to me along with the P-mol and said that’s all they had.
Here most people will not even see a Dr.; they will self-diagnose and buy strange drugs from a vendor in the market-neither of them seems to know what they are. I once saw a man selling chewing gum to people claiming it was for headaches. They will also turn to traditional methods which usually involve Neem leaves, smoke, and lime juice depending on the ailment. A lot of people trust the traditional methods more because the hospitals here, although they use ‘modern’ or western medicine are not properly staffed or equipped and generally let people down.
Luckily for me the drug they gave me was by fluke the best one on the market but still it was intense; an 8 pill a day treatment for 3 days left me extremely distressed and finally caused me to vomit on the 2nd night. My support network had nearly all travelled for work reasons so I found myself alone in the village with only my Cameroonian ‘guide’ Djawe (a moto taxi man by trade) who came to my rescue. I had to work very hard to convince him to take me to the hospital at night because he claimed we would not find a Dr there, and besides, he said, God would take care of me. Being a bit of a sceptic I insisted we go, and we did in fact find a Dr but I’m still quite sure he’s not even qualified to shovel manure since without even examining me he tried to give me all kinds of injections and whatever medication he spotted on his pitiful shelf. I left with some antibiotics I had no intention of taking and felt that I had dodged a bullet by arguing my way out of his treatments.
The next morning I called in VSO to send a car and take me to a hospital in Maroua. I found a friend there and brought her along for support. I was beyond happy when the Dr actually took my vitals and sent me for tests. With a few days rest I started to feel much better and found out from the tests that the malaria was gone! To my chagrin they also told me I had amoebas and the flu. I had to then spend the next week taking a drug called flagyl which made me so high and sick it felt as though I was taking magic mushrooms for breakfast. All throughout this hideous experience I found out that these awful tropical illnesses were not even half as bad as their cures
From one extreme to the next I have made it through this past month feeling very weak and ridiculously overheated. The temperature is making it up to 48 degrees and is so stifling until one day the light changed and it seemed as though a storm had rolled in. I was in a meeting in Maroua when it started and had to travel back to Bogo that night; the moto taxi man said it was a sand storm. I looked around and found nearly everyone wearing surgical face masks or Arab scarves wrapped around their faces, it reminded me of the swine flu outbreak last year in Mexico. I arrived at home that night exhausted and still recovering from my illnesses to the impossibly extreme layer of dust covering my entire house. I had to spend a few nights nearly suffocating in all the poussière until I could find a free moment to clean everything. The only good thing about the dust was that it temporarily stopped the extreme heat…
The dust has lifted and the heat is back, I’m feeling better but still working on cleaning out the stomach and am still suffering from an ear infection so it seems as though it will not end! I have now become very familiar with the hospital in Maroua but am still shocked and appalled by the methods they use to take blood samples (has anyone ever given blood from a vein in their hand?!)
International Women’s day
21 Mar 2010 Leave a Comment
in Cameroon
http://www.cuso-vso.org/act-now/campaign-for-change/Rebecca-Boyce.asp#0
