DAY 47

As I sit here, in my office at work, tryting to write this before A) the internet connections goes out or B) the electricity goes out, or C) someone comes at me with an impossible IT problem to fix, I am left realising one thing : The novelty of it all has worn off.  Good lord I am in a foul mood the past few days.

I fully realise that I am in my culture-shoc phase. I know that. The "newness" and amazement of the whole experience is disapating and making way for frustratipons at getting used to my new life in my new surroundings. Everything here is so god damn complicated and it takes forever to get anything done.

I have been trying to get an ADSL connection in my house. Seems like a simple enough request. Can you believe I have been at it for a week and I still have not finished filling out the Request Form? The Internet provider needs my complete address, which of course has never been given to me. I just know I live in what the locals call "Yégéré" next to the bus terminus called Dandé.  Well, thats not enough for the Onatel Corp who provides ADSL lines. Nobody fucking knows what my address is! My landloard doesn't know, my employer doesn't know, my illeterate security guy doesnt have a clue what an address even is... and I sure as hell dont know!  Even my water bill which came this week did not have my complete address on it! So what the fuck am I supposed to do.  Oh...when I do figure out what the fuck my address is, its not even garanteed I will have ADSL because its not available everywhere... And did i mentipon the price... 80$ a month for a 256 kbits connection. REFUCKINGDICULOUS.

And I am just gettting started.

So... afrians have a funny way of dealing with hierarchy. If you are older, you are automatically the boss. Doesn't matter if you don't even know how to turn on a computer.... if you are older than me, you can tell me what to do in my job. Thats real fun. Nothing I like more than having a senil old man telling me every morning what he thinks I should be doing, even though hes not even in my department. "Oh he's been here for years" they tell me, "he's very important" yeah, well he's an idiot and he has no fucking clue what he's talking about. So, there I sit, smiling and noding politely, going through the five minute "good morning" process which you must go through about 25 times... 1 for each employee. fuck, it takes 2 hours just to say hello. Good lord, back home I would just sit in my cubicle and poke my head out when I really  needed something from someone, and would only say hello to the people that deserved it.  So  basically, I get my marching orders from about 10 people everymorning. To which I have to smile and nod and pretend like I care and then go through some motions just to make it look like i actually listened... the irony is, thats what they all do... ITS CRAZY.

So... you sit in the office, which doesn't have actually any windows, with 3 computers generating heat, in weather the climbs regularly about 40 degrees, so you drink water like mad, water that i have to bring from home because my water is filtered... the water at work, if i drank it... well it could kill me. So I sit in my office, with no really windows, and 1 fan circulating the hot air around... sweating my ass off, wondering why i only brought 3 litres of water and why its all gone by 10am.  Now drinking all that water makes you want to piss... but there is now way in hell I am pissing here. Nasty. I will wait until I get home or just do like everyone else and piss wherever the hell I feel like.

While I am on the topic. People just shit and piss wherever they are. Convenient yes. However, disgusting as all hell. So, there is shit everywhere you fucking go. I walk to my neighbor's house, not even 400 meters away, but there is so much shit i have to step over, human and animal. So the shit dries up eventually, and the strong winds spread the shit particals all over the place, so you end up breathing shit, and like it or not, eating it. YAY! Worms for everyone. And you know you are eating it because you can smell it in the air.

So, after all this, I finally get to go home to my villa, and thank my lucky stars that Awa is there to cook and do all the running around to buy the food, because I could simply not do it. Buy your groceries is such a chore, you have no idea. going to the market can take up to 4 or 5 hours to buy what you need. I  once spent 35 minutes arguing over the price of bedsheets. Imagine having to do this everytime you want to buy a cucumber or a fucking pound of ground beef while the flies buzz around you. Never mind that they think its really strange that a man is going to the market. Apparently, shopping is reserved for women. Nonsense.  And of course, since my skin is white, the prices magically shoot uip. One guy was trying to sell me a batik for 10000 CFA. I laughed in his face and told him he wasn't getting 1 cfa over 1500. I am so done getting screwed over.

And of course, because I am white, apparently I can give stuff away like I am fucking santa clause. I cannot walk downtown without being constantly asked for a gift! One guy asked me for my watch! He came up to me and told me since he was an athlete (yeah, sure!) he needed my Timex Ironman watch more than me. I laughed and told him to get lost. I have stopped being polite. Its just not worth the trouble. If you are polite, they follow you around the city. One guy actually waited outside the cyber cafe for 2 hours while I did my thing and  was still hounding me to buy him a fucking Sprite when i got out. Well, too bad for him because I called my chauffeur and he did not get a sprite. ha ha!

its just not possible to help everyone. Its not. Believe me I tried.  Here is how it works. One guy comes over and tries to sell you a pack of kleenex for 50 cfa. The kid is about 6 or 7 years old, you fall for the starving african routine, you hand him a 100 CFAs and he runs awaty smiling and waving making you feel like you just had your private World Vision commercial and you are the poster boy for VSO. But no, it doesn't end. See, he is part of an elaborate plan where he runs off and tells al lhis older brothers about the sucker sitting in the cafe that is so gulible he'll even buy kleenex at twice the price.  next thing you know you are surrounded by pushy teenagers and young me trying to sell you everything from (and I kid you not) calculators, to watches, to shoesl, to pants, to hats, and one guy tried to sell me underwear. JESUS! I am am trying to enjoy a nice cold beverage in a coffee shop... if i wanted to buy underwear I would go online like normal people. GO AWAY. and it doesn't stop. As long as you sit there, trying to ignore them, they will keep coming: Would you like to buy some sunglasses?  I see your shoes are dirty, how about I clean them for you? Of course my shoes are dirty, have you seen the dust in this fraking country? Thats why i bought the fucking kleenex at 100 cfas because my nose is full of dirt and dried up shit! Finally, I am done drinking my Coca-Cola, so I grab a cab and head home.

But see, even at home there is no respite. My lovely nightwatchman, even though he is not married and has no girlfriend or children, somehow manages to round up half a dozen kid everynight. So, of course, seing starving children is not an easy thing to do. World Vision commercial take two!  Here I came with chocolates, bread and a bit of change to hopefully ease their hunger pangs a little bit.  6 kids split a 50g chocolate bar last night... and it was like they had won the lottery!

But least I am home. I can relax right? sure... because there is nothing else to do. No TV... and as you know, NO INTERNET.  But doesnt mattert, since the goverment will turn off the elecrtricity between 7pm and 9pm anyway. So i get to sit in the dark for 2 hours wondering what the fuck I am doing here. I already read all the books I brought. And by the looks of it my flashlight battery is about to give out. So what to do, what to do. I  decide spying on my nightwatch guy might be interesting, so i sit by the window, quitely watching him, wondering how he manages to keep such marvelously scultpted abs.. the man must be close to 45 years old. I guess eating my leftovers must have something to do with it... but this game is getting tiresome... well i guess I'll go to bed.

So I toss and turn, the heat is unbearable. The brillant architects still havent figured out that concrete spends the entire day soaking up the heat from the sun, and then at night, keeps the inside of the house unbearably hot. And since there is no electricity, I can even turn on the fan... I try to ignore the fact that I have an AC in my room, because thinking about the AC with the absent electricity might actually make me go nuts.

So, I get up, go sit outside for a few minutes to cool off. But, I am attacked by  mosquitoes as I try to have a conversation with Ahmed, the nightwatch guy. But he can barely speak french. So I talk at him. I know he doesnt have a clue what I am saying, but it is nice to talk to someone and laugh at my own jokes. he laughs when i laugh, so its almost like I am having a conversation.  Eventually my fear of malaria gets the best of me and I go hide under my mosquitoe net in my room. But its hot.

Sometimes, I go to the Arabic grocery store. Its the only store in the city which is set up like a real supermarket, like we have in Canada. Prices on the packages. Refregierators, check out counters, shopping carts. I go, because I need to feel normal. I need to feel like I am not trapped in some weird twilight zone episode were you breathe shit daily and the government gets to decide when you can turn on the ligths in your own damn house.

I know, evenutally, I will get used to all of it. I know in a couple of months I will read this back to myself and laugh my ass off, but right now, its not funny.

But, believe it or not... even in the middle of this.. even as I walk through a giant field of garbage and shit, I don't believe I have ever been happier!