1/23/06

Now that I've been back in Gaya for almost two weeks, and I've dealt with most of the important stuff, I have a chance to take care of some of the more trivial things, like decorations. On my recent trip to Europe I stocked up on postcards and maps from Paris, Amsterdam, Alsace, Brussels and more. In a world of mud-brick, manure, and dust, reminders of places that, while not my world, are at least close to it can be nice. Also, they just add color to the brown/grey cement/sand (mostly sand) background of my walls. As I'm sorting through the pictures, the other day, trying to decide which to put where, Ertchey clap/knocks at the entrance to my hangar. He sees that I have photos, and races up to me to peer over my shoulder- in Chad, the concept of minding your own business doesn't seem to exist. As I show him the postcards, I realize just how incomprehensible my world is to him.

The first picture I show him is an aerial view of Paris, with the Eiffel Tower, and the surrounding Champs de Mars park standing out. Ertchey though, is floored by the rows of apartment blocks, and the vast expanse of the city.

"Hai! Ç'est grand comme ça?" he exclaims in an almost falsetto squeal. It's that big?

"Well, it's the capital of France," I tell him.

"Comment?" He whispers. How?

"See the tower on the left," I say, pointing at Eiffel's famous monument. "It's more than 300 meters tall- I went to the top of it when I was just there."

"Ay-yah!" Ertchey cries, looking shocked. A moment later he points at the Champs de Mars.

"The farmers there, what do they grow in those fields?"

"Well, um...nothing," I say haltingly. It's a park, where people go and walk, or just relax.

"And the buildings," he continues; "they're all made with cement?"

"Yes," I say, "or stone, except for the Eiffel Tower and the really big ones, which are made with steel."

In Ertchey's world, buildings are made with mud, or baked mud-brick, if you have the money to pay someone to shape and fire them. Only the buildings of the wealthy are en ciment- when one bag of cement costs almost $20, and mud is free, you can guess what most people here opt for.

"What about the roads?" he asks, pointing at the tree-lined avenues. "Do cars drive on them?"

"Where else would they drive?" I answer with a laugh.

The next postcard we get to is a photo of Notre Dame de Paris and the Ile de Cîte, one of the oldest buildings in the original center of the more than 1000-year old city.

"La cathédrale la-bas, elle a plus que 700 ans," I say. The cathedral there, it's more than 700 years old.

"700?!" Ertchey stammers. "That's impossible! Is it still there today?"

"Well, it was when I was there last month," I tell him.

We move on. Next I show Ertchey a postcard of the European Union Parliament in Strasbourg, the largest city in the Alsace region. It's a photo of the giant glass-and-steel, horseshoe-shaped chamber and central building at night, seen from the water, and lit up by green and yellow spotlights.

"When Paul and his family were gone last year," I say, referring to the American missionary, "they lived in this city."

"And was that their house?" Ertchey asks, pointing at the parliament building.

If people think that place like that is someone's house, no wonder they think that all white people are rich.

"No, no," I manage to say without laughing too hard. "That's for the whole parliament- they don't live there, it's just their office."

"Ah, je comprends," Ertchey says. I understand.

Next, I show him another postcard from Alsace, this one a snow-covered castle.

"This was probably prince, or maybe even a king's house," I begin. Ertchey is more interested in the outdoors though.

"What's that white stuff?" He asks.

Hmm. How do you explain 'snow' to someone who's never experienced a temperature below 20ºC? Thinking quickly, I come up with, "it's called snow- it falls from the sky when it's very cold, and is kind of like a mix of water and ice." Even ice a foreign concept- in a place where reliable electricity is nonexistent, freezers are hard to come by.

Speaking of electricity, the next picture I show Ertchey is from Amsterdam, a shot of a bridge over one of the many canals that ring the city. In the photo, a streetlamp is in the foreground, with a block of the famous tall and narrow 'Amsterdam style' houses behind, lights blazing.

"The streetlights, they only work at night, right?" He asks.

"Yes."

"Same thing with the lights in the houses, no?"

Should I explain to Ertchey that in a normal, functional country things like electricity work all the time, and are only thought of when the bill arrives? I let it go with a simple, "no, they work all day."

The last photo we come to is of a canal, this one in the daytime. In the photo, a woman in a red jacket bicycles across the bridge, and a small rowboat is tethered at the water's edge.

"Les gens se lavent là-dedans?" Ertchey asks. Do people bathe in those?" I laugh.

"No, of course not- they're really dirty." I say. Between the wrecks of old bicycles, used condoms, cigarette butts and worse, the canals are a place to put the filth on, not take it off. Not that that'd stop many people here though, who dive headlong into rivers and streams filled with manure, urine, soap and pesticide residues, not mention snails causing bilzharia and schistosomiasis.

As I'm showing the postcards to Ertchey, I have slightly mixed feelings. He wants to see them, and on one hand, I'm happy to show him. On the other, though, I feel a little guilty- is it right for me to show off a world to him he'll almost certainly never see, where things are so far advanced relative to here that it's almost beyond imagination? I don't want to patronize him, and hide the reality of the developed world though either. Of course, Ertchey has never known anything but life here, so the photos are just cool pictures. Maybe they don't have any effect on him- for me though, it's a trip.

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