The Wild West -- Part 2

Visiting rural communities in countries like this is always a bit of an affair. White people in white 4x4s are an event. The effect of the white 4x4, which is a symbol of aid, is greatly enhanced by the inclusion of white people, who are a symbol of power. Most aid organizations rely heavily on so-called "national staff", nationals of the country who do most of the actual implementation. Foreigners (white or otherwise) generally operate behind the scenes, managing projects from their offices in larger towns. When foreigners go into "the field", they're generally doing some kind of assessment or evaluation. Local people know that the decision-makers are foreigners, so when they see white people (the easiest kind of foreigner to spot), they know it means a chance to ask for more aid.

I don't mean to sound cynical about that. You and I would do the same in their place. But it does mean that visiting rural communities usually boils down to an exercise in listening to people enumerate all the things they need, from the reasonable (potable water) to the iffy (pots and pans) to the downright silly (internet).

Anyway, this is a long way of saying that I'm used to being something of a 2-hour celebrity when I show up in one of these villages. But I've never before done so as an envoy of the Secretary-General, and I guess I just didn't know what I was missing.

When we rolled up in the villages, they were expecting us. They had erected tarpaulin, under which sat dozens upon dozens of chairs in neat rows, audience (i.e. the entire village) on the one side and guests facing them, albeit at a considerable distance, as though it were a dais. So great was the distance in one village, in fact, that the spokesman used a megaphone to shout across the divide at us. He even held the megaphone before the mouth of the ancient and bemused village chief, who was in any case speaking in the local language. Another village had a spokesman who didn't need a megaphone, no matter how far away he was. He could have had a career as a circus ringleader, so wildly dramatic was he.

There were speeches. Oh, so many speeches. When you arrive, you must shake every single hand. You must listen to the opening welcomes: from the spokesman, from the village chief, from the prefect or the sub-prefect. You must sit through the monster we aid organizations have created: the village committees. The committee on women. The committee on youth. The committee on early warning (seriously). The committee on agricultural cooperatives. It seemed to me that every villager belonged to at least one committee; that some committees were created just so that nobody felt left out. Of course, more committees means more support from aid groups who are feverishly looking for Community!Based!!Grass-roots!!!Solutions!!!! (Sorry, now that WAS cynical.) In one village, our foreheads were anointed with flour as a symbol of peace. After each speech, much applause. Ceremony occupies a tremendously important place in Africa, and impatient westerns must learn to endure. When the speeches are over, you must ask for "les nouvelles" -- the news -- of the village, the collective equivalent of the individual obligation to ask after the health of a person's family. Before leaving, you must humbly request the road -- permission from the elders to take your leave.

Not all of the ceremony is irksome. In 38 degree heat, I much appreciated the ceremonial offering of water to the guests. And I was presented with a boubou, that most famous of African garments (the long robe, usually white, accompanied by a pillbox hat when worn by men). In fact I was presented with two, since the village women were scandalized by Version 1, which was for a man and therefore far too big.

Frankly speaking, I'm not sure how much information we got out of that exercise. But it's always good to head into the bush now and then and remind yourself what people in rural areas are living through. It reminds me why I do this for a living, and how distant the capital really is in a place like this.