8/6/05

I'm sitting with Marc in the glare of the streetlights, drinking one of the ever-present cups of sweet, red tea, and chatting– since (limited) electricity came to Gaya, kerosene lanterns have become less common, and more people seem to hang out by the side of the road at night. It's become a ritual of sorts, to spend three or four evenings a week outside talking and drinking tea, both for the semi-official mission of Peace Corps, to 'integrate with the community,' but also just to be social. Particularly after being gone for awhile it feels extra important– I don't want people here to have the impression that I'm just passing through, and it's the little things like drinking tea and chatting about the obvious that help counter that, I think.

Marc tells me that money has been tight lately, and he's worried about being able to feed his family before the harvest in October. As the staff nurse for CotonTchad, the largest employer in Gounou-Gaya, and a state-run company, it seems like being paid on time shouldn't be an issue. After all, Chadian cotton is sold on the world market every year, and that money must go somewhere, right? Sadly, the money does go somewhere, but as is almost always the case in so much of Central Africa, it ends up as either a deposit in the overseas bank accounts of the tiny elite, a new Hummer H2 for the president's motorcade, or new crates of weaponry in a place that already endured 30 years of civil war.

The stranglehold of corruption is so rampant in Francophone Africa that the French verb bouffer (a slang equivalent of manger, 'to eat') has become the accepted term for those in power, and their financial mismanagement. If you hear, "Il bouffe l'argent," in Africa, it doesn't mean the person is actually chewing on Central African Francs, but simply that money is being wasted or stolen by those in power. This is probably the largest single reason that there's been so little improvement in the lives of people in Sahelian Africa. The cycle perpetuates itself– a perfect example– the government runs the state electric and water utility, STEE, but regularly neglects to pay the employee's salaries. In Gounou-Gaya, when the workers don't get paid they regularly sell the diesel that powers the streetlights and everything else in town, to feed their families. As a result Gaya regularly stays dark at night, with a perfectly functioning generator system sitting idle. Teachers go without salaries and strike for months at a time, leading to school years lasting four months and change– functionnaires like Marc might suddenly not get paid for four months at a time, yet there's always plenty of money to print banners for MPS, the president's party.

Marc's rice fields need to be weeded, an impossible job for one person– he asks me if he can borrow 6000 FCFA, about $11, to hire 12 people to do the work, at 500 FCFA apiece.

"I haven't gotten my salary in three months, and I have to do the weeding," he says. His embarrassment and frustration at having to ask me for a loan is written all over his face. This is a man who served in the Chadian army for more than 20 years, including a three-year stint as a prisoner-of-war near the Libyan border, and his government (who also happens to be his current employer) has utterly failed him. Considering that 6000 FCFA is roughly 1/30th of my monthly salary, which always arrives on time, courtesy of Uncle Sam, I say yes without hesitating. We walk away from the glow of the streetlights, I open my wallet and hand him a 5000 FCFA bill and two 500-franc coins, which he quickly pockets before anyone sees.

My question now, is what do I do when he finally does get paid, and wants to reimburse me? The easiest thing for me to do, and my preference, would be to insist that he keep the money, and that I don't want to be paid back. When his salary does actually come he supports himself and Valaddi, Ertchey, his mother and his four daughters: Tanga, Ka-Idi, Hophyra, and Dakassia, on roughly $91 a month. To be blunt, he needs the money far more than I do, considering that I receive roughly four times that, to support myself alone. I worry that I'll offend him– although he's having a hard time, I don't want him to feel like I'm taking pity on him, which it could easily be misinterpreted as.

While my life here may be challenging at times, especially compared to the life I live back home, it's a cakewalk compared to the day-to-day existence of your typical Chadian subsistence farmer such as Marc. Actually, he has it even a little better off than most, considering he has a steady job that pays him, at least occasionally. People here never get packages of clothing, candy, office supplies and more. They don't have access to the free world-class health care system I do; in the event of a real emergency, no helicopter of US or French Marines will swoop out of the sky to collect them. In that sense, I can never truly integrate– the reality is that I have exponentially more opportunities than 99% of the Chadian population. However much I try to minimize the perception of the vast inequality in our means and opportunities, I know I think of it frequently, and I'm sure my Chadian friends and neighbors do as well. Obviously, the last thing I want to do is inspire jealousy, but I worry that I do so unintentionally. The myth that people in underdeveloped countries are 'poor but happy,' is just that, a myth. People may be happy, but certainly not because they're poor. Chadians aren't stupid– they know that they're poor and live in one of the least developed places on the planet, and this is supposed to make them happy? They know that most of the world no longer lives in mud-and-grass huts, and that a better life is out there.

I sometimes wonder what they must think when they see me– why the hell would someone from one of the most beautiful and highly developed places in the world come here, to live as close as possible to the way they do? Do they think I'm doing my own impression of Paris Hilton and The Simple Life, or do they realize that nothing could be further from the truth? I suppose that's the sort of thing I could explain till the end of time, but the only way to make people truly realize that will be in my actions, not for my own benefit, but because they're the right thing to do.

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