10/19/05

I'm listening to the radio this morning, and hear that Transparency International, a German NGO, has ranked Chad the world's most corrupt country. It's great to know Chad has finally come in first place in something. Joking aside, it's hardly a shock– almost nothing happens here without payoffs, lying, and flat-out stealing. Marc's reaction when I tell him? "Well, that's not a surprise, is it?"

Why is Chad only going backwards in comparison to the rest of the world? Because when 10 barrels of gasoline are ordered by the power company in Gaya, six arrive, the other four mysteriously disappearing. Because teachers will sell the answers to the BAC- 10,000 FCFA will buy you a high school diploma. Because we officially started school on October 1st, and as of today I've taught a total of two hours, since no students have bothered to show up.

The corruption itself is enough of a problem, but the fact that people simply laugh it off, and accept it as "the way things are done," is what makes it such a cancer on Chadian development, destroying any attempt this country might make to advance. I'm talking to Hibé, the director of the theological seminary, and I ask him if he knows why the electricity isn't working yet again– he tells me about the barrels of gas.

"C'est les affairs Tchadienne, n'est-ce pas?" He says with a laugh. That's Chadian business for you, right? Sure is. You wonder why 99% of Chad's population lives in mud or brick hovels, and the other 1% in palaces– Les affaires Tchadienne.

The reason why things are the way they are can be summed up in two letters, repeated to the nth degree. Me. Mememememememememememe! So many people here think of nothing but themselves– screw the rest, as long as I've got mine. It starts with the president, and comes all the way down to Hophyra, who grabs peanuts out of Dakassia's hand, and shoves her to the ground. With little kids though, you expect that sort of thing– for it to continue among the adults who supposedly run the country is disgusting.

What makes it such a paradox is that this selfishness is occasionally replaced by incredible generosity. Take food, for example– when a visitor arrives at a Chadian home at mealtime, it'd be unthinkable to not offer them food, no matter whom it is, or where they are on the social ladder. If President Colonel Idriss Deby were to go visit Mahamat Nomad in the camp on the edge of Gounou-Gaya, nothing less would be expected. Maybe this is why it's so frustrating– the spirit of generosity exists here, but too often its suffocated by greed.

I remember one of the most discouraging moments I've had here, in class, when I'd reached the end of the lesson one day. As I've said before, I'd made it a habit to toss the leftover scraps of chalk to the students. I lobbed a piece no bigger than a pencil eraser towards the students. Three students in one of the first row benches, two men and a woman, jumped up, so eager to grab this tiny piece that they knocked the bench/desk over, while at the same time the woman managed to snare the chalk. One of the men, still half tipped over in the desk grabbed the woman's hand, and ripped the chalk from her fingers. Something like that might be excusable for six-year-olds, but not for people three times that age, some of whom have six-year-olds of their own. I stopped throwing chalk after that– at the risk of sounding racist, I wasn't going to do anything to encourage people to behave like a pack of wild dogs. At the risk of sounding even more racist, at moments like that, "uncivilized" would be a fair description of their behavior.

The rampant dishonesty, in the form of cheating or stealing is just as much, if not more of an issue. Again last year, several times in my classes during tests I would catch students cheating red-handed. A notebook hidden under their desk, five people with the exact same mistake who sat next to each other, one who went so far as to forge my grade and signature. When I confronted them, the response was always the same. "Je n'ai pas triché!" I wasn't cheating! Right; it was simply a coincidence that all five of you answered, "If I were sick, I would... fly with the birds," and "She uses her eyes to touch."

This afternoon Ertchey goes to the market for me– I'm in the middle of planning a lesson (for if we ever actually do have classes), and it's chance for him to earn a little money by running an errand for me. I send him off with a list and 1000 FCFA: bananas, tomatoes, bread, and eggs, for 500 FCFA. Forty minutes later he comes back with the stuff, and I ask for the change– he hands me a 50 FCFA coin.

"Where's the rest?" I ask.

"I had a hole in my pocket, and it must've fallen out on the way back," he says.

So, the silver-dollar-sized 500 FCFA coin fell out, but the tiny 50-Franc piece didn't? Amazing. I can't prove that Ertchey actually spent it, so I simply let it go.

"It's incredible," he says.

No, it's not, it's simple– Les affaires Tchadienne.

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