So, at the end of 2010 I thought I would throw together some nice quotations and a couple of thoughts. They are not in any very logical order, unlike Wikileaks, but I hope they’ll give you an idea of my year. A year in which I had varied experience, perhaps more varied than ever before, with UNICEF, UNHCR, International NGOs and for the first time the Red Cross. A year with too many planes …A year to discover how huge Indonesia is, for instance.
Picture: Nigeriens, (not Nigerians) who Google.
Let’s start with that flying experience: On Egyptair I was a bit surprised to hear the automated announcment “When you see the No Smoking sign come on please be ready to extinguish your cigarettes” – It illustrated just how new the planes are that they use on their middle of the night flights to smaller countries in Africa. Talking of which the UN flight to Abeché had to turn back when one of its two engines started sounding like a bent bicycle wheel and was clearly not giving any power. That plane had also seen the world, many times.
‘We are all rats’ from my line-boss in Geneva urging me to get the year-end reports written. Apparently it comes from Swedish – the dogs are chasing the cats, the cats are chasing the rats … and we are all rats.
‘Les enfants vont pisser sur les examens’ Trying to get exams out to the refugee camps my man told me we could not put the exams in the public lorries which all carry mountains of passengers including children on top of the freight.
I did a lot of training workshops this year; in a workshop I co-facilitated in Accra there was a session on ‘Women and disabled’
In Niger, the participants in my training workshop (pictured) all Googled me while I was giving my introductory talk. Apparently I was acceptable, because we did continue the workshop.
My Jargon Watch antenna were as lively as ever. I saw that the ‘Girl child’ may at last be dead. I spotted only one example this year, in Sudan.
And the referendum in Sudan: ‘Don’t register if you are not going to vote”. This is because separation will be approved with 50% + 1 of the registered voters, but there must be a 60% turnout. Not often do we hear people being advised tactically not to vote.
“We provided the sand” – Beninois cynical comment on local participation in a large Benin-Chinese construction project when asked what Benin had contributed.
« Les Dernieres heures » – name of a coffin and flower shop in Benin
“La porte de non-retour” a gate-like monument leading to the beach where the slaves were put on ships in Ouidah, Benin. They mainly went to Brazil and Haiti. Nearby there is a village founded by some who came back from Brazil. This is the home of voodoo and at least one Grand Maitre has started advertising on the internet.
“We would like people to come to see the truth about our country.” Said in a country which makes it almost impossible for you to get a visa, won’t allow internal travel without additional permits, makes you check in to the internet using your hotel room number, doesn’t allow visitors to get SIM cards and whose youth are fleeing extremely hard and long military service in very large numbers.
“Abeché is in the past; forget Abeché” told by my superiors when UNHCR left its intermediate base at Abeché where I had been based for over a year. Poignant for me as I had done 14 months of my best professional and practical work there in a great team. A shock to discover it all regarded as some sort of aberration; a double shock to find myself a sort of clerk in Ndjamena endlessly rewriting the same document for the remaining part of the contract and regarded with suspicion if I wanted to go to the field.
In one country while training government officers and teachers on what to do to save education in the face of a disaster: I will do nothing until my superior tells me what to do [– even if the school and the kids are being washed away before my eyes]’. [my additional words]
I discovered that Pushkin had an Eritrean ancestor (see picture in Asmara. Pushkin is the upper one with the book in hand. The lower one is friend Eyob of the Eritrean Red Cross).
In Entebbe, my near neighbours, the Pentecostal church, still noisily do the whole gamut of healing, talking in tongues, holy rolling etc three nights a week and all Sunday! You need ear-plugs.
And … I added two African countries to my list: Gambia and Eritrea. Indonesia too.
And, following a trend started when Obama and I were in Accra and Istanbul at the same time, I jetted in to Jakarta just after he left.
Nostalgia
In Togo from the period they were under the Germans, a few buildings and apparently some very old people who speak some German. In Indonesia there was Dutch influence (picture is of canal in Jakarta Old Town, not Amsterdam), and in Eritrea I was often spoken to in Italian and the architecture of Asmara (a most attractive city) shows Mediterranean influence. A young shopkeeper cum student greeted a very old lady in Italian, and cheerfully saluted his age-mate with ‘Ciao, Bella!’
The odd ‘senior moment’ as I turned 63
For the first time in my life I went to the airport with the wrong passport. Luckily I live so near the airport here in Entebbe that I could get the right one in time. I also managed to miss a flight to London because it was timetabled near midnight. I was a whole day late.
And some new words
What in Eastern Africa we call Boda-boda (motor bike taxis, from the fact they used to be used at the border between Kenya and Uganda) in Lomé and Cotonou are called ‘zemijan’. The Chadian word is ‘clando’ ridden by the ‘clandoman’. Clando is from ‘clandestin’, though they are found absolutely openly and everywhere. In Cotonou there seems to be no alternative form of transport and they swarm like bees. Boys taking drugs in Chad are called Colombiens, much to the fury of one of my colleagues from Colombia.
And 2011?
I end 2010, one of my busiest years, on an ironical note – I have absolutely no work at all lined up for 2011. But that’s how consultancy turns out to be …
Picture: My trusty travel bag and grab bag which takes the 15kg allowed on UN flights
