Nathaniel's Blog
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Dec. 21st, 2005
An Audience with a King in it.
Perhaps two months ago, somewhere in the vicinity of the Togolese mountains, I made a lousy prediction. I forecast ceaseless rain for our journey for all territories between Togo and Angola with the sole exception of Niger. It has not rained since that day. It did not rain in Benin, Nigeria or Cameroon. At most we have felt a drizzle, nothing sufficiently powerful to clean a car, nothing longer than an elevator ride. Cameroon has several rainy seasons during which rainfall is measured in meters instead of inches; we are fortunate to have squeezed between them all. Hopefully we will find central Africa during a dry spell; but the rain charts on our Michelin map indicate otherwise. Some of the potholes we drove through in Cameroon literally swallowed the car; I would hate to see them full of water; I would hate to be the one who has to walk through them in advance of our low lying sports car.
We arrived in Foumban on a Friday night and made friends. Somehow the next morning we were being roused by a supremely energetic comic actor who intended us to play a prominent role in some sketches about HIV and sexual health. It was the time of Saturday morning that can only be enjoyed by cartoon fiending six year olds or people who have stayed awake all night. We were rehearsing in front of a crowd of young children under the direction of a perfectionist for whom I had to exhaust considerable reserves of patience. His judgments were sound and the skit was amusing; it is detailed under the Cameroonian section of the HIV/AIDS page. When we arrived at the central square, the sound system was inevitably faulty, so we had to resort to pantomime, which suited Sean's non-speaking part far better than mine. But we managed and then for some reason our director began to lead his entire youth organization-along with the three of us-in an endless and unplanned dance and clapping number that I escaped by pretending to take photographs with our camera that had no batteries. The thousand or so people that were on hand for our shenanigans included chiefs, and impressively dressed fancy men to whom much deference was given. The king of the Bafoum showed up after our performance when the crowd was beginning to grow unruly in expectation of the arrival of its football team, which had just moved up a division. They were the real cause of the event, which was quickly ruined by the lugubrious and interminable speeches of self-important men.
I left early and missed the entire football team's initiation into warrior hood, which involved being individually lifted and shaken by a mighty general and receiving functional metal spears from a triad of elders. It was rumored that the king was upset to have missed our performance, since it is novel to find white people ridiculing in public the sexually predatory behavior of their own kind. It was rumored that we were going to have to perform our skit for a second time. Fortunately, this did not come to pass. This celebration of football triumph was the most traditional and authentic display of African culture I have so far seen in my life. There was not a tourist or a guide in site and the king's body guards had wicked swords and the best hats ever.
I forgot to mention two months ago on the roads around Agadez, Niger that the men who walked along the roadside in the open country carried long sheathed swords and dressed like exiled zen ninjas.
From Foumban we descended the massive kilometer high plateau of Central Cameroon into the radically different climate of the south. We left the congestion of dust for chart topping humidity, and muddy sweat. Rubber plantations, banana plantations, pineapple fields and lines of oil palms thousands deep have taken the place of grain fields and gourd fruit. Suddenly the land is valuable enough to be owned in huge swathes by foreign companies like Delmonte.
We arrived in Duoala, the largest and most dangerous city in Cameroon, on the outskirts of which we were warmly and helpfully met by Happy Francois.
An Audience with a King in it.
Perhaps two months ago, somewhere in the vicinity of the Togolese mountains, I made a lousy prediction. I forecast ceaseless rain for our journey for all territories between Togo and Angola with the sole exception of Niger. It has not rained since that day. It did not rain in Benin, Nigeria or Cameroon. At most we have felt a drizzle, nothing sufficiently powerful to clean a car, nothing longer than an elevator ride. Cameroon has several rainy seasons during which rainfall is measured in meters instead of inches; we are fortunate to have squeezed between them all. Hopefully we will find central Africa during a dry spell; but the rain charts on our Michelin map indicate otherwise. Some of the potholes we drove through in Cameroon literally swallowed the car; I would hate to see them full of water; I would hate to be the one who has to walk through them in advance of our low lying sports car.
We arrived in Foumban on a Friday night and made friends. Somehow the next morning we were being roused by a supremely energetic comic actor who intended us to play a prominent role in some sketches about HIV and sexual health. It was the time of Saturday morning that can only be enjoyed by cartoon fiending six year olds or people who have stayed awake all night. We were rehearsing in front of a crowd of young children under the direction of a perfectionist for whom I had to exhaust considerable reserves of patience. His judgments were sound and the skit was amusing; it is detailed under the Cameroonian section of the HIV/AIDS page. When we arrived at the central square, the sound system was inevitably faulty, so we had to resort to pantomime, which suited Sean's non-speaking part far better than mine. But we managed and then for some reason our director began to lead his entire youth organization-along with the three of us-in an endless and unplanned dance and clapping number that I escaped by pretending to take photographs with our camera that had no batteries. The thousand or so people that were on hand for our shenanigans included chiefs, and impressively dressed fancy men to whom much deference was given. The king of the Bafoum showed up after our performance when the crowd was beginning to grow unruly in expectation of the arrival of its football team, which had just moved up a division. They were the real cause of the event, which was quickly ruined by the lugubrious and interminable speeches of self-important men.
I left early and missed the entire football team's initiation into warrior hood, which involved being individually lifted and shaken by a mighty general and receiving functional metal spears from a triad of elders. It was rumored that the king was upset to have missed our performance, since it is novel to find white people ridiculing in public the sexually predatory behavior of their own kind. It was rumored that we were going to have to perform our skit for a second time. Fortunately, this did not come to pass. This celebration of football triumph was the most traditional and authentic display of African culture I have so far seen in my life. There was not a tourist or a guide in site and the king's body guards had wicked swords and the best hats ever.
I forgot to mention two months ago on the roads around Agadez, Niger that the men who walked along the roadside in the open country carried long sheathed swords and dressed like exiled zen ninjas.
From Foumban we descended the massive kilometer high plateau of Central Cameroon into the radically different climate of the south. We left the congestion of dust for chart topping humidity, and muddy sweat. Rubber plantations, banana plantations, pineapple fields and lines of oil palms thousands deep have taken the place of grain fields and gourd fruit. Suddenly the land is valuable enough to be owned in huge swathes by foreign companies like Delmonte.
We arrived in Duoala, the largest and most dangerous city in Cameroon, on the outskirts of which we were warmly and helpfully met by Happy Francois.
Friday, December 23, 2005
Dec. 20th 2005
We got a lot of mileage out of that "vast trackless wasteland" phrase. I should have held more tightly to my absolute distrust of the Lonely Planet and suspected the phrase of being at least inaccurate. For one, a road is a track and the countryside through which we passed was covered with roads, not just random roads appearing and disappearing without pattern, but functional ones that connect one city to another and experience regular use. For two, "wasteland" is a hell of a word to throw around. It seems most likely to conjure something barren and trash strewn, perhaps the pissing grounds of a city or the uncultivatable lands around harsh desert. To my mind, "wasteland" is not a word that offers an adequate description of a hilly, well forested and increasingly jungular area, populated regularly enough with villages of people who speak Sean's African language. For three, "vast"? That is a matter of opinion. Maybe it was vast.
At this time of year (the only time of year that one would never imagine that we were within hours of the one of the three wettest places on planet earth) the area through which we passed deserves special attention only for its quantity of dust, which was staggering. None of us, least of all the car, have recovered. You could mud wrestle for several hours and emerge far cleaner than the three orange people who stumbled out of their wheezing personal dust bowl named Stingray. In my life at no point have I been so filthy in such a filthy seat, not even in the rank basement of my shared college house which escaped condemnation only through subterfuge. When the many unsettling trucks missiled past us on the narrow mountain road we were forced to stop for five to fifteen seconds while the trail of powdered earth settled and allowed us to see that we were not inhabiting the color brown. During one such intermission (during which we were naturally vulnerable to any second or third truck that might be in the process of slaughtering its way through our completely opaque and unhelpful cloak of invisibility) a rusty chicken walked past our car, leaving dust footprints two inches deep.
At all times we had our windows open. This was air conditioning, air purification and torture by dust. Aggravatingly, the dust tended to enter the car from beneath, behind and inside, especially through the cracks in the upholstery and the rear speakers. Closing the windows would have created an unamusing and more hazardous parody of Cheech and Chong's signature move. So, instead, we allowed ourselves to transform gradually into human attic crawlspace. When we exited the vehicle in Foumban, where the paved road to Douala begins, pedestrians and street vendors laughed at us.
We got a lot of mileage out of that "vast trackless wasteland" phrase. I should have held more tightly to my absolute distrust of the Lonely Planet and suspected the phrase of being at least inaccurate. For one, a road is a track and the countryside through which we passed was covered with roads, not just random roads appearing and disappearing without pattern, but functional ones that connect one city to another and experience regular use. For two, "wasteland" is a hell of a word to throw around. It seems most likely to conjure something barren and trash strewn, perhaps the pissing grounds of a city or the uncultivatable lands around harsh desert. To my mind, "wasteland" is not a word that offers an adequate description of a hilly, well forested and increasingly jungular area, populated regularly enough with villages of people who speak Sean's African language. For three, "vast"? That is a matter of opinion. Maybe it was vast.
At this time of year (the only time of year that one would never imagine that we were within hours of the one of the three wettest places on planet earth) the area through which we passed deserves special attention only for its quantity of dust, which was staggering. None of us, least of all the car, have recovered. You could mud wrestle for several hours and emerge far cleaner than the three orange people who stumbled out of their wheezing personal dust bowl named Stingray. In my life at no point have I been so filthy in such a filthy seat, not even in the rank basement of my shared college house which escaped condemnation only through subterfuge. When the many unsettling trucks missiled past us on the narrow mountain road we were forced to stop for five to fifteen seconds while the trail of powdered earth settled and allowed us to see that we were not inhabiting the color brown. During one such intermission (during which we were naturally vulnerable to any second or third truck that might be in the process of slaughtering its way through our completely opaque and unhelpful cloak of invisibility) a rusty chicken walked past our car, leaving dust footprints two inches deep.
At all times we had our windows open. This was air conditioning, air purification and torture by dust. Aggravatingly, the dust tended to enter the car from beneath, behind and inside, especially through the cracks in the upholstery and the rear speakers. Closing the windows would have created an unamusing and more hazardous parody of Cheech and Chong's signature move. So, instead, we allowed ourselves to transform gradually into human attic crawlspace. When we exited the vehicle in Foumban, where the paved road to Douala begins, pedestrians and street vendors laughed at us.
Dec 16th 2005
Locust Withdrawal and preparation for the Congo.
Most of this afternoon I lay in bed reading King Leopold's Ghost, which details the formation and exploitation of the Congo Free State roughly one century ago. After finishing the book I stood up and stretched; I felt the blood draining from my head and managed to say, "Whoah, Blackout" just before falling to the ground. The sound of my skull's impact with the bathroom door was sharp and prolonged. It echoed as I struggled to understand how Sean and Tuuli were suddenly in the room (they had been there all along). I thought the loud noise might have been the sound of their appearing. Then I realized that I was on the floor and they were staring at me; so I wondered if I had drunk too much and somehow lost consciousness. But I didn’t remember drinking anything and they were both in the middle of reading and writing and would not have left me on the floor. Tuuli rushed over and ended my confusion by asking me if I had really blacked out. That connected the head rush, the loud noise, the pain in my back and the stunned look on Sean's face. Then I had to convince them that I hadn’t performed a stunt for their amusement, which was possible in large part because of the induplicable look of total bewilderment on my face. Perhaps it is necessary to mention that this has never happened to me before. When I said "Whoah, Blackout" what I was intending to say was "Whoah, Headrush." My body just intervened at the last second with a clearer understanding of what was happening.
A few seconds of daytime unconsciousness are far more disorienting than a month's worth of waking from accidental naps, which impresses me.
This showing of physical strength infused my personal aftermath of Hochschild's fairly devastating book with thoughts of my own mortal trajectory and world contribution. I was glad that Sean and Tuuli felt the need to go and eat since it gave me the opportunity to absorb the book more completely. Like Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States", which is an unparalleled must read for every literate American, "King Leopold's Ghost" left me shocked by my interest in and ignorance of history. Like Zinn's work it also demolished the barriers that are frequently erected in between periods of history for our own referential convenience. I mean that these works so successfully avoid the standard narrative and focus of world history that the distinctions that we are taught to believe in between one ruler and another, one era and another come to seem like a costume. Wearing this costume is a remarkably consistent chain of manipulation and dissimulation perpetrated by the most successful accumulators of power and wealth. I finished both of these books with the sense that I had never been introduced to the truly heroic figures in my culture’s history and like I had never been introduced to its villains. Learning that the rich and powerful of the United States facilitated the devastation of the Congo did not fill me with new pride. These books are not about conspiracies.
Usually, most of what I know about an African country before I enter it comes from books in the Heinemann African Writers Series that I read while teaching in the Gambia. The books I read were generally written in the sixties and seventies and are typically infused with a wounded disappointment that grew out of "independence" going wrong or proving false. They prepared me for slang, names of food, neighborhoods of featured cities and other trivia. The worldview they presented, in general, does not remain. None of them for instance, feature NGOs or development or disaster relief, at most they contain an occasional parody of a missionary.
I felt the need to read up on Congo a bit more thoroughly, since it boasts one of the most prohibitive reputations in the world and since it is always in the news. Though I was aware that King Leopold's Ghost would confront me with the atrocious, I was not prepared for the source of the atrocities and I was not prepared to be totally embarrassed by how inadequately I taught Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"while in Lebanon.
The book held me supine and captive for five or six hours, after which it released me to enjoy a tremendously pleasurable head rush just prior to collapsing in front of my friends just after announcing that I would do so. In the following minutes, laughter completely obscured their concern, probably because I appeared to have suffered no major damage.
We need to eat more vegetables.
Locust Withdrawal and preparation for the Congo.
Most of this afternoon I lay in bed reading King Leopold's Ghost, which details the formation and exploitation of the Congo Free State roughly one century ago. After finishing the book I stood up and stretched; I felt the blood draining from my head and managed to say, "Whoah, Blackout" just before falling to the ground. The sound of my skull's impact with the bathroom door was sharp and prolonged. It echoed as I struggled to understand how Sean and Tuuli were suddenly in the room (they had been there all along). I thought the loud noise might have been the sound of their appearing. Then I realized that I was on the floor and they were staring at me; so I wondered if I had drunk too much and somehow lost consciousness. But I didn’t remember drinking anything and they were both in the middle of reading and writing and would not have left me on the floor. Tuuli rushed over and ended my confusion by asking me if I had really blacked out. That connected the head rush, the loud noise, the pain in my back and the stunned look on Sean's face. Then I had to convince them that I hadn’t performed a stunt for their amusement, which was possible in large part because of the induplicable look of total bewilderment on my face. Perhaps it is necessary to mention that this has never happened to me before. When I said "Whoah, Blackout" what I was intending to say was "Whoah, Headrush." My body just intervened at the last second with a clearer understanding of what was happening.
A few seconds of daytime unconsciousness are far more disorienting than a month's worth of waking from accidental naps, which impresses me.
This showing of physical strength infused my personal aftermath of Hochschild's fairly devastating book with thoughts of my own mortal trajectory and world contribution. I was glad that Sean and Tuuli felt the need to go and eat since it gave me the opportunity to absorb the book more completely. Like Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States", which is an unparalleled must read for every literate American, "King Leopold's Ghost" left me shocked by my interest in and ignorance of history. Like Zinn's work it also demolished the barriers that are frequently erected in between periods of history for our own referential convenience. I mean that these works so successfully avoid the standard narrative and focus of world history that the distinctions that we are taught to believe in between one ruler and another, one era and another come to seem like a costume. Wearing this costume is a remarkably consistent chain of manipulation and dissimulation perpetrated by the most successful accumulators of power and wealth. I finished both of these books with the sense that I had never been introduced to the truly heroic figures in my culture’s history and like I had never been introduced to its villains. Learning that the rich and powerful of the United States facilitated the devastation of the Congo did not fill me with new pride. These books are not about conspiracies.
Usually, most of what I know about an African country before I enter it comes from books in the Heinemann African Writers Series that I read while teaching in the Gambia. The books I read were generally written in the sixties and seventies and are typically infused with a wounded disappointment that grew out of "independence" going wrong or proving false. They prepared me for slang, names of food, neighborhoods of featured cities and other trivia. The worldview they presented, in general, does not remain. None of them for instance, feature NGOs or development or disaster relief, at most they contain an occasional parody of a missionary.
I felt the need to read up on Congo a bit more thoroughly, since it boasts one of the most prohibitive reputations in the world and since it is always in the news. Though I was aware that King Leopold's Ghost would confront me with the atrocious, I was not prepared for the source of the atrocities and I was not prepared to be totally embarrassed by how inadequately I taught Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"while in Lebanon.
The book held me supine and captive for five or six hours, after which it released me to enjoy a tremendously pleasurable head rush just prior to collapsing in front of my friends just after announcing that I would do so. In the following minutes, laughter completely obscured their concern, probably because I appeared to have suffered no major damage.
We need to eat more vegetables.
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Pushing the nightmare further back
Somewhere, of course, the hammer must fall, not because of gravity, but because chance does not have infinite patience and we are moving slowly in a vulnerable machine. As each intimidating country is declawed by familiarity and positive experience, the impassable road, the computer snatching bandits and the unspeakable are all pushed further back. Their deferred mass is now accumulated in Central Africa.
Our delay in Maiduguri kept us from being on the road south from N'gaundere on the three days of constant daytime banditry as conducted by Chadian rebels who, we are told, specifically dislike white Americans. That fruckus is three days old and the government has scattered forty foot soldiers along the hundreds of miles in some sort of response. It feels like we are being forced to take a far inferior road directly towards Douala. The Stingray has already dealt with a rocksolid underbelly punishing on the mountain tracks of the north, a speed bump jumping of Sean's creation and a full saturation of fine dust. With or without material possessions, we are all quite likely to cross this ruined central area of Cameroon; I fear for the Stingray.
In Cameroon, by some dam in the "extreme nord" we camped. I wonder if that will ever stop being a nerve wracking activity. Every thirty minutes I wake wide up, side rigid, peer through my tent screens, and squint, seeing nothing, sure that my rising will be outlasted by the robber's patience, sure that those were footfalls. Tuuli's screaming doesn't even wake me up-nor does a fire alarm-but a turning door knob or a compression of dead grass on small rocks will jolt me from sleep for a watchdog session. Tuuli abandons her outlying tent and curls into my shelter to escape her terrible dreams. She lies between me and the machete, which is bad; but now we have a dummy tent, which is good.
In cities, I am never so anxious when sleeping. Soon it may be necessary to incorporate guard duty into our camping-Sean favors knives and charging; I am all about a huge stack of throwing rocks and a cutlass of last resort. Possibly, none of this worry and preparation will have been necessary. Hopefully Central Africa will be a continuation of these delightful surprises.
Somewhere, of course, the hammer must fall, not because of gravity, but because chance does not have infinite patience and we are moving slowly in a vulnerable machine. As each intimidating country is declawed by familiarity and positive experience, the impassable road, the computer snatching bandits and the unspeakable are all pushed further back. Their deferred mass is now accumulated in Central Africa.
Our delay in Maiduguri kept us from being on the road south from N'gaundere on the three days of constant daytime banditry as conducted by Chadian rebels who, we are told, specifically dislike white Americans. That fruckus is three days old and the government has scattered forty foot soldiers along the hundreds of miles in some sort of response. It feels like we are being forced to take a far inferior road directly towards Douala. The Stingray has already dealt with a rocksolid underbelly punishing on the mountain tracks of the north, a speed bump jumping of Sean's creation and a full saturation of fine dust. With or without material possessions, we are all quite likely to cross this ruined central area of Cameroon; I fear for the Stingray.
In Cameroon, by some dam in the "extreme nord" we camped. I wonder if that will ever stop being a nerve wracking activity. Every thirty minutes I wake wide up, side rigid, peer through my tent screens, and squint, seeing nothing, sure that my rising will be outlasted by the robber's patience, sure that those were footfalls. Tuuli's screaming doesn't even wake me up-nor does a fire alarm-but a turning door knob or a compression of dead grass on small rocks will jolt me from sleep for a watchdog session. Tuuli abandons her outlying tent and curls into my shelter to escape her terrible dreams. She lies between me and the machete, which is bad; but now we have a dummy tent, which is good.
In cities, I am never so anxious when sleeping. Soon it may be necessary to incorporate guard duty into our camping-Sean favors knives and charging; I am all about a huge stack of throwing rocks and a cutlass of last resort. Possibly, none of this worry and preparation will have been necessary. Hopefully Central Africa will be a continuation of these delightful surprises.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Groundhog Day concludes and we bring Nigeria with us into Cameroon.
After an exhausting week we load the car up and set out for Banki, the border with Cameroon. Just as we reach the junction that turns from the main road towards our destination, a car pulls alongside us with the Nigerian chief of the border post. He says follow him. Ideal. Literally and perfectly ideal. As we passed the checkpoint, men jump up to salute him and we coast through in his wake. Twice or three times the soldiers and police men assume that we are not a legitimate convoy and beckon aggressively for us to stop. But we don't feel like it and finally we don't have to. I feel like sticking my thumbs in my ears, leaning out the window and waiving my fingers around; I feel like shouting neener neener neener. Nevermind that Shamal, our escort and patron saint of border crossings, drives like we are being pursued by a helicopter.
We reach his post and all urgency evaporates. We take our shoes off and enter his house. We watch the last ten minutes of Ghost Busters II, for which I am not prepared, and then listen to Condoleeza Rice lying through her miserable you-can't-touch-us façade about the United States' commitment to treating prisoners of "The War on Terror" with fairness. Our hosts are very impressed with Condi: a very powerful woman; very confident. But they don't believe a word she says. They were shaken and saddened by the United States' decision to ignore the United Nations and the International Community. They ask about the war. We talk about the war and they know a great deal about these issues. (They inform us that the BBC, the Voice of America and Deutsche Welt all broadcast the news in Hausa: the lingua franca of much of West Africa. That makes Hausa speakers unusually well informed about international politics.) Then we are eating rice and pepper sauce along with a casserole dish of meat parts that looks like a choral reef dipped in mud. Also there is short bread and fruit juice. Remember. This is the border. We are supposed to be full of stress; waiting, bowing and scraping, growing confused, earning stamps.
Someone walks into our luncheon and speaks rapidly in one of the three hundred languages spoken in the area. A man just stabbed his wife to death for refusing him something. This is a small town. Sometimes it is easier to shoot armed robbers than to take them to court. You try to pay for information but you can't get it. People are always solving their problems with knives. They have apprehended the wife killer. He will face life imprisonment or he will be hanged. Shamal doesn't even leave the room. This happens all the time. Tuuli is shaking her head. By now, she handles chauvinism and disregard for woman spectacularly well.
You can't tell where Nigeria ends and Cameroon begins. There is an invisible line in the middle of this ordinary town that Shamal cannot cross. Only law enforcement and law evasion know exactly where this demarcation rests. The gate between the signs for Nigeria and Cameroon is simply a nod to the expectations of the rare traveler who happens to pass through holding documents and needing authorization. A murderer can cross the imaginary line through town and then turn around and insult Shamal's mother. But, this far north, where banditry is such a problem, where the border is so theoretical, the Nigerians and the Cameroonians cooperate. Shamal can call his counterparts. They will catch his man and chuck him back across the line. He stresses that law enforcement would be utterly impossible otherwise.
The cooperation is especially evident when we are being given free soft drinks on the Cameroonian side, when their official goes and changes our money for us, when they personally take us through the difficult task of processing the documents for our car: "Don't stop their car. We are together. They are important." There is a large obnoxious sign in French that says "Everybody pays at Customs." We didn't.
Nigeria's porous borders (they exist, at least, with Cameroon and Niger) are telling. Shamal considers them to be a concrete example of Nigeria's willingness to extend brotherhood. African affairs dominate Nigerian politics and she is a huge contributor to Peace Keeping forces and mediation talks. Sometimes the Cameroonians cross and vote in Nigerian elections; sometimes it happens the other way around. Their local governments help one another. Citizenship doesn't really matter here. Shamal's friend points out that when Northern Nigeria suffers, much of Niger, Chad, Benin and Cameroon suffer along with them. He says if the southerners try to separate and refuse to share the profits from their oil, nationals from these bordering countries will readily join the north to defeat them. Shamal says they have done it before and they would do it again. The talk of solidarity is nice. The shaking fists and readiness for warfare is more unnverving.
Shamal pays for our accommodation and takes us out for the most amazing fish we have so far eaten on this trip. It is from a nearby river. A tilapia big enough to feed five people. The Cameroonians did not sell Nigerian beer. They ridiculed it. Our Nigerians ridiculed Cameroon's beer; but they still drank it. We tried to remain neutral. We talked politics, law enforcement, colonial history. Nigerians have done their school work.
I feel like it was necessary to bring Nigeria with us into Cameroon. I felt like a pet store fish whose little plastic bag was gently brought into equilibrium with a new fish tank.
After an exhausting week we load the car up and set out for Banki, the border with Cameroon. Just as we reach the junction that turns from the main road towards our destination, a car pulls alongside us with the Nigerian chief of the border post. He says follow him. Ideal. Literally and perfectly ideal. As we passed the checkpoint, men jump up to salute him and we coast through in his wake. Twice or three times the soldiers and police men assume that we are not a legitimate convoy and beckon aggressively for us to stop. But we don't feel like it and finally we don't have to. I feel like sticking my thumbs in my ears, leaning out the window and waiving my fingers around; I feel like shouting neener neener neener. Nevermind that Shamal, our escort and patron saint of border crossings, drives like we are being pursued by a helicopter.
We reach his post and all urgency evaporates. We take our shoes off and enter his house. We watch the last ten minutes of Ghost Busters II, for which I am not prepared, and then listen to Condoleeza Rice lying through her miserable you-can't-touch-us façade about the United States' commitment to treating prisoners of "The War on Terror" with fairness. Our hosts are very impressed with Condi: a very powerful woman; very confident. But they don't believe a word she says. They were shaken and saddened by the United States' decision to ignore the United Nations and the International Community. They ask about the war. We talk about the war and they know a great deal about these issues. (They inform us that the BBC, the Voice of America and Deutsche Welt all broadcast the news in Hausa: the lingua franca of much of West Africa. That makes Hausa speakers unusually well informed about international politics.) Then we are eating rice and pepper sauce along with a casserole dish of meat parts that looks like a choral reef dipped in mud. Also there is short bread and fruit juice. Remember. This is the border. We are supposed to be full of stress; waiting, bowing and scraping, growing confused, earning stamps.
Someone walks into our luncheon and speaks rapidly in one of the three hundred languages spoken in the area. A man just stabbed his wife to death for refusing him something. This is a small town. Sometimes it is easier to shoot armed robbers than to take them to court. You try to pay for information but you can't get it. People are always solving their problems with knives. They have apprehended the wife killer. He will face life imprisonment or he will be hanged. Shamal doesn't even leave the room. This happens all the time. Tuuli is shaking her head. By now, she handles chauvinism and disregard for woman spectacularly well.
You can't tell where Nigeria ends and Cameroon begins. There is an invisible line in the middle of this ordinary town that Shamal cannot cross. Only law enforcement and law evasion know exactly where this demarcation rests. The gate between the signs for Nigeria and Cameroon is simply a nod to the expectations of the rare traveler who happens to pass through holding documents and needing authorization. A murderer can cross the imaginary line through town and then turn around and insult Shamal's mother. But, this far north, where banditry is such a problem, where the border is so theoretical, the Nigerians and the Cameroonians cooperate. Shamal can call his counterparts. They will catch his man and chuck him back across the line. He stresses that law enforcement would be utterly impossible otherwise.
The cooperation is especially evident when we are being given free soft drinks on the Cameroonian side, when their official goes and changes our money for us, when they personally take us through the difficult task of processing the documents for our car: "Don't stop their car. We are together. They are important." There is a large obnoxious sign in French that says "Everybody pays at Customs." We didn't.
Nigeria's porous borders (they exist, at least, with Cameroon and Niger) are telling. Shamal considers them to be a concrete example of Nigeria's willingness to extend brotherhood. African affairs dominate Nigerian politics and she is a huge contributor to Peace Keeping forces and mediation talks. Sometimes the Cameroonians cross and vote in Nigerian elections; sometimes it happens the other way around. Their local governments help one another. Citizenship doesn't really matter here. Shamal's friend points out that when Northern Nigeria suffers, much of Niger, Chad, Benin and Cameroon suffer along with them. He says if the southerners try to separate and refuse to share the profits from their oil, nationals from these bordering countries will readily join the north to defeat them. Shamal says they have done it before and they would do it again. The talk of solidarity is nice. The shaking fists and readiness for warfare is more unnverving.
Shamal pays for our accommodation and takes us out for the most amazing fish we have so far eaten on this trip. It is from a nearby river. A tilapia big enough to feed five people. The Cameroonians did not sell Nigerian beer. They ridiculed it. Our Nigerians ridiculed Cameroon's beer; but they still drank it. We tried to remain neutral. We talked politics, law enforcement, colonial history. Nigerians have done their school work.
I feel like it was necessary to bring Nigeria with us into Cameroon. I felt like a pet store fish whose little plastic bag was gently brought into equilibrium with a new fish tank.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Groundhog Day in Maiduguri.
Then it is five am. We are at the Major's table. The soldier who referred us to NAF is going to receive a letter of commendation. Air Force officers give each other vigorous hi-fives when they hear that their checkpoint is the only one that did not ask us for a bribe. We are learning about the UN Peace Keeping operation in Congo. We are eating brains. We are eating locusts. We are dancing for the first time since Accra. The Major's chauffeur will be driving us home. The chauffeur is sulkily drinking soft drinks. And we have started Groundhog Day. We need to meet more of the Major's friends, see his photographs, talk about Fela Kuti and are treated to a decoding of selected passages of his pidgin English. We are expected to return tomorrow afternoon.
We return the tomorrow afternoon. A homemade table tennis set is prepared and a checker's set is revealed. Horseplay ensues. The people we are supposed to meet begin to arrive. We meet the television anchorwoman/reporter for Maiduguri's TV station. Her husband has been destroying us at table tennis for several hours. (Apparently it is only the Chinese who give Nigerians any trouble when it comes to table tennis; for whatever bizarre reason it has become their national mini-sport.) We meet a gang of friends from Abuja who have been contracted for roadwork in the area. They have never been here. Everyone is telling us we have to come to Abuja. We have to go to Lagos. They will host us in Jos or Port Harcourt.
The residents are begging us to remain for one or two days. They want to show us their town. They want to introduce us to some people who are working on HIV/AIDS. They want to put us on television. Then they have measured us for clothing. They have filmed us for television and we have to wait for the tape of the program and the gift of the clothing. We realize that we will be in Maiduguri for a solid week.
Then I am singing Fela Kuti songs with a man who is continuously offering me women. All the time we are shaking each other's hands and eating animals. I am looking at amazing photographs from the Democratic Republic of Congo on the Major's laptop. I am looking at young boys gloating over severed heads, young boys crossing a bridge brandishing heads on long sticks. Awful corpses. There is a python stuffed full. There is a python cut open and there is a man inside, looking green, being dead. There are behind the scenes shots of Peace Keepers that would be impossible for a journalist to take. They are the most ethnically diverse group I have ever seen photographed in my life, which has included sufficient time at international schools and in New York. We learn that these soldiers had to give their stuff to thirteen year old boys with guns because they were not allowed to engage in warfare with the rebel groups. We learn how the Peace Keepers were humiliated and used and how they quarreled with one another and enjoyed themselves. We hear atrocious things involving child prostitution and amusing things involving cookouts and horseplay. There was no breathing room between the most disturbing things I have recently seen and some of the most heartwarming evidence for transcending all this bravado about nations.
The company was too good to leave. We got a simcard for our telephone and joined their network. We visited people's homes. Sometimes we tried to avoid NAF in the evening times and always we found ourselves there. Most nights we were the last to leave. It was best to enter our dismal powerless hotel in the last extremes of exhaustion. Sometimes we came home and found ourselves locked out. Then we stumbled through this dumpy warehouse of ruined hotel things; in the cavernous unoccupied first floor we tumbled over wooden things and made noise. One night Sean sprayed me with water and we fought in the dark. I began kicking everywhere, connecting with nothing and getting wet. Eventually, I changed my strategy, heard him laughing and knocked him over something hard. Then we quit.
We went all over Maiduguri's market and found amazing music. We hung out with a man who had collected cassette tapes of traditional music from various tribes dating back to World War II. We sat with him and listened to his stuff, buying meat off the heads of passing vendors and sharing it with him. For seventy cents, we bought the tapes that we liked: the official band of the local king performing in 1942; some Fuulani's that passed through a few decades before; Canoury music; something popular with the Hausas that sounded like Baliwood music; hours of entrancing music.
I found a store that was brimming with original vinyl LPs of Nigerian high life music from the late sixties and the seventies: Fela Kuti; Prince Nico; Ikenga; the Doves. It was candyland. It was hipper than anything in the United States. But they wouldn't sell the records. They were for copying. Cool. That is so Nigerian and cool. They have pride in their stuff and they aren't going to sell it to me because I'm offering cold cash. Instead this was a kind of library; so, I respected the rules and set them to work for perhaps sixteen hours copying these amazing popping, crackling records of songs about African unity and African corruption sung by men in knee high, high heel boots and frilling leather shirts, backed by enormous bands of everything filling my blank tapes.
Then we had to figure out how to thank our hosts and Tuuli found a woman who baked cakes. We had more days at NAF. More table tennis. More real and interesting conversation. More wandering around the market. Mending of clothing. Buying of sandals. And then we had to leave. We were dressed in shimmering new fitted Kaftans (Tuuli in her colorful printed dress) sitting at a large table of our friends and we were eating a truly awful cake. We shared it with everyone at the club: Tuuli and Queen (the Major's friend) minced around with cubes of it on little trays. Low and behold they presented cake to the ultimate authority of the border post we would be passing through on the following day.
Incidentally, Northern Nigeria seems to be a total no-go zone for caucasians, of whom we have seen precisely none in the last two weeks. This is the first such blackout of our trip and it is welcome.
Then it is five am. We are at the Major's table. The soldier who referred us to NAF is going to receive a letter of commendation. Air Force officers give each other vigorous hi-fives when they hear that their checkpoint is the only one that did not ask us for a bribe. We are learning about the UN Peace Keeping operation in Congo. We are eating brains. We are eating locusts. We are dancing for the first time since Accra. The Major's chauffeur will be driving us home. The chauffeur is sulkily drinking soft drinks. And we have started Groundhog Day. We need to meet more of the Major's friends, see his photographs, talk about Fela Kuti and are treated to a decoding of selected passages of his pidgin English. We are expected to return tomorrow afternoon.
We return the tomorrow afternoon. A homemade table tennis set is prepared and a checker's set is revealed. Horseplay ensues. The people we are supposed to meet begin to arrive. We meet the television anchorwoman/reporter for Maiduguri's TV station. Her husband has been destroying us at table tennis for several hours. (Apparently it is only the Chinese who give Nigerians any trouble when it comes to table tennis; for whatever bizarre reason it has become their national mini-sport.) We meet a gang of friends from Abuja who have been contracted for roadwork in the area. They have never been here. Everyone is telling us we have to come to Abuja. We have to go to Lagos. They will host us in Jos or Port Harcourt.
The residents are begging us to remain for one or two days. They want to show us their town. They want to introduce us to some people who are working on HIV/AIDS. They want to put us on television. Then they have measured us for clothing. They have filmed us for television and we have to wait for the tape of the program and the gift of the clothing. We realize that we will be in Maiduguri for a solid week.
Then I am singing Fela Kuti songs with a man who is continuously offering me women. All the time we are shaking each other's hands and eating animals. I am looking at amazing photographs from the Democratic Republic of Congo on the Major's laptop. I am looking at young boys gloating over severed heads, young boys crossing a bridge brandishing heads on long sticks. Awful corpses. There is a python stuffed full. There is a python cut open and there is a man inside, looking green, being dead. There are behind the scenes shots of Peace Keepers that would be impossible for a journalist to take. They are the most ethnically diverse group I have ever seen photographed in my life, which has included sufficient time at international schools and in New York. We learn that these soldiers had to give their stuff to thirteen year old boys with guns because they were not allowed to engage in warfare with the rebel groups. We learn how the Peace Keepers were humiliated and used and how they quarreled with one another and enjoyed themselves. We hear atrocious things involving child prostitution and amusing things involving cookouts and horseplay. There was no breathing room between the most disturbing things I have recently seen and some of the most heartwarming evidence for transcending all this bravado about nations.
The company was too good to leave. We got a simcard for our telephone and joined their network. We visited people's homes. Sometimes we tried to avoid NAF in the evening times and always we found ourselves there. Most nights we were the last to leave. It was best to enter our dismal powerless hotel in the last extremes of exhaustion. Sometimes we came home and found ourselves locked out. Then we stumbled through this dumpy warehouse of ruined hotel things; in the cavernous unoccupied first floor we tumbled over wooden things and made noise. One night Sean sprayed me with water and we fought in the dark. I began kicking everywhere, connecting with nothing and getting wet. Eventually, I changed my strategy, heard him laughing and knocked him over something hard. Then we quit.
We went all over Maiduguri's market and found amazing music. We hung out with a man who had collected cassette tapes of traditional music from various tribes dating back to World War II. We sat with him and listened to his stuff, buying meat off the heads of passing vendors and sharing it with him. For seventy cents, we bought the tapes that we liked: the official band of the local king performing in 1942; some Fuulani's that passed through a few decades before; Canoury music; something popular with the Hausas that sounded like Baliwood music; hours of entrancing music.
I found a store that was brimming with original vinyl LPs of Nigerian high life music from the late sixties and the seventies: Fela Kuti; Prince Nico; Ikenga; the Doves. It was candyland. It was hipper than anything in the United States. But they wouldn't sell the records. They were for copying. Cool. That is so Nigerian and cool. They have pride in their stuff and they aren't going to sell it to me because I'm offering cold cash. Instead this was a kind of library; so, I respected the rules and set them to work for perhaps sixteen hours copying these amazing popping, crackling records of songs about African unity and African corruption sung by men in knee high, high heel boots and frilling leather shirts, backed by enormous bands of everything filling my blank tapes.
Then we had to figure out how to thank our hosts and Tuuli found a woman who baked cakes. We had more days at NAF. More table tennis. More real and interesting conversation. More wandering around the market. Mending of clothing. Buying of sandals. And then we had to leave. We were dressed in shimmering new fitted Kaftans (Tuuli in her colorful printed dress) sitting at a large table of our friends and we were eating a truly awful cake. We shared it with everyone at the club: Tuuli and Queen (the Major's friend) minced around with cubes of it on little trays. Low and behold they presented cake to the ultimate authority of the border post we would be passing through on the following day.
Incidentally, Northern Nigeria seems to be a total no-go zone for caucasians, of whom we have seen precisely none in the last two weeks. This is the first such blackout of our trip and it is welcome.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
The run up to Groundhog Day in Maiduguri.
I am referring to Bill Murray's film not to anything involving rodents or snowflakes. I felt like I was having Bill Murray's Groundhog Day in Maiduguri. When you do not have electricity or water in your place of lodging, you are forced to go out-especially when it is necessary to exterminate thousands of mosquitoes in your one small room by spraying it full of toxic gas. You can only sit at a restaurant for so long and then, without friends or standard hokey pokey healthy entertainment options, you must find a bar. Lack of electricity is a direct cause of alcoholism, poor behavior and crime, to say nothing of economic slow down. Despite having preposterous reserves of oil, Nigeria provides Maiduguri with electricity for at most a couple of hours each day, some days it provides none whatsoever (Of course, the populace attributes this shortcoming to corruption and regional favoritism-corruption could very easily cause a civil war in this country).
So the lights go out, again, the room is sprayed into a haze of brain death, and we have to deal, somehow, with our wakefulness. In a town that is scattered with sizeable Sharia courtrooms in an area that is famously strict with its Islam, it is not easy to find a bar. We hear of two: one is incredibly far outside of town in something people call a slum that we have been warned about and the other is at the National Air Force Officer's Mess, where I was to live my Groundhog Day.
The drive to Maiduguri was sometimes frustrating. Several checkpoints were tedious and pushy. Some peon from the seventh or eight unessential branch of the armed forces invented a huge shouting nonsense about our papers of ownership, which he wanted to be issued in Nigeria (?) and blathered about taking us to the police or his supervisor. We were glad to speak to his superior; we offered him water, which he declined and then started speaking over one another in loud and offended, though sufficiently playful, tones about him refusing our gift and how offensive this was and how we felt unwelcome. He respected our proof of ownership, saw our stubbornness and sent us off. Even when you get away from these encounters, it is hard not to start cursing and slamming the dashboard when you are pulled over ten minutes later to go through the whole stupid impromptu role playing festival again.
We were not prepared for the Air Force checkpoint (what on earth the Air Force is doing manning a checkpoint in the middle of arid scrub brush underneath their dismal tree beside their board of nails was not immediately clear). The chief inquisitor of that post was simply friendly. He suggested we go to the National Air Force Officer's Mess (hereafter called NAF) and hang out with him. He suggested, also, that we lodge at NAF. Ok, fine, sure, we'd love to, let's have your number, so great to meet you, be calling in just a minute. Goodbye. As we drove away from that checkpoint we shared our nightmare ideas about what staying in a barracks or spending more time with the armed forces would involve and we laughed at the idea of getting in touch with a checkpoint soldier.
But that night, spurred by a blackout, a general lack of options and the assurance of a civilian that NAF was the place to be on Friday nights, we found ourselves quarrelling with motorcycle taxi drivers outside the gates in front of uniformed guards with the M16s.
Apparently we were early. It is members only until midnight, when the party officially begins for the paying public. We mention to the bouncer that we have been referred by a member of the Air Force, so somebody goes and collects the Commanding Officer, AbdulRazhaq (the Major). He asks where we are from and decides to offer us a waiver for the evening. He lets us be seated, encourages us to wait four or five hours until the party kicks off and then excuses himself to join his table of guests. We have been awake since seven am; we slept awfully the night before; we have driven five hundred miles and we think the idea of staying in this enormous plastic chair courtyard for another five hours is fairly inconceivable. We offer him a beer out of gratitude for his hospitality and he suggests that he may join us shortly.
I am referring to Bill Murray's film not to anything involving rodents or snowflakes. I felt like I was having Bill Murray's Groundhog Day in Maiduguri. When you do not have electricity or water in your place of lodging, you are forced to go out-especially when it is necessary to exterminate thousands of mosquitoes in your one small room by spraying it full of toxic gas. You can only sit at a restaurant for so long and then, without friends or standard hokey pokey healthy entertainment options, you must find a bar. Lack of electricity is a direct cause of alcoholism, poor behavior and crime, to say nothing of economic slow down. Despite having preposterous reserves of oil, Nigeria provides Maiduguri with electricity for at most a couple of hours each day, some days it provides none whatsoever (Of course, the populace attributes this shortcoming to corruption and regional favoritism-corruption could very easily cause a civil war in this country).
So the lights go out, again, the room is sprayed into a haze of brain death, and we have to deal, somehow, with our wakefulness. In a town that is scattered with sizeable Sharia courtrooms in an area that is famously strict with its Islam, it is not easy to find a bar. We hear of two: one is incredibly far outside of town in something people call a slum that we have been warned about and the other is at the National Air Force Officer's Mess, where I was to live my Groundhog Day.
The drive to Maiduguri was sometimes frustrating. Several checkpoints were tedious and pushy. Some peon from the seventh or eight unessential branch of the armed forces invented a huge shouting nonsense about our papers of ownership, which he wanted to be issued in Nigeria (?) and blathered about taking us to the police or his supervisor. We were glad to speak to his superior; we offered him water, which he declined and then started speaking over one another in loud and offended, though sufficiently playful, tones about him refusing our gift and how offensive this was and how we felt unwelcome. He respected our proof of ownership, saw our stubbornness and sent us off. Even when you get away from these encounters, it is hard not to start cursing and slamming the dashboard when you are pulled over ten minutes later to go through the whole stupid impromptu role playing festival again.
We were not prepared for the Air Force checkpoint (what on earth the Air Force is doing manning a checkpoint in the middle of arid scrub brush underneath their dismal tree beside their board of nails was not immediately clear). The chief inquisitor of that post was simply friendly. He suggested we go to the National Air Force Officer's Mess (hereafter called NAF) and hang out with him. He suggested, also, that we lodge at NAF. Ok, fine, sure, we'd love to, let's have your number, so great to meet you, be calling in just a minute. Goodbye. As we drove away from that checkpoint we shared our nightmare ideas about what staying in a barracks or spending more time with the armed forces would involve and we laughed at the idea of getting in touch with a checkpoint soldier.
But that night, spurred by a blackout, a general lack of options and the assurance of a civilian that NAF was the place to be on Friday nights, we found ourselves quarrelling with motorcycle taxi drivers outside the gates in front of uniformed guards with the M16s.
Apparently we were early. It is members only until midnight, when the party officially begins for the paying public. We mention to the bouncer that we have been referred by a member of the Air Force, so somebody goes and collects the Commanding Officer, AbdulRazhaq (the Major). He asks where we are from and decides to offer us a waiver for the evening. He lets us be seated, encourages us to wait four or five hours until the party kicks off and then excuses himself to join his table of guests. We have been awake since seven am; we slept awfully the night before; we have driven five hundred miles and we think the idea of staying in this enormous plastic chair courtyard for another five hours is fairly inconceivable. We offer him a beer out of gratitude for his hospitality and he suggests that he may join us shortly.
Archives for Nathaniel's Blog:
July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006