We had a long and uneventful trip to Bangui on Monday, unless you count the 70km side trip to a sawmill town when we picked the wrong way at a fork in the road. We took the fourth parallel route instead of the northern route. The northern route is favoured by bandits and while it has been quiet for the past few months we heard of an incidence just last week so we took the southern route. Considering there are only two major truck routes from our side of Cameroon to the capital Bangui you would think that it would be a fairly decent road, given the amount of supplies one would think would be needed here. On the contrary, it is a narrow, sandy, pot-holed road with a few nice flat sections. The 700km trip took us more than 15hours so we were very tired by the time we arrived.
We came to Bangui in order to meet with David Zokue, a very knowledgeable and well-positioned man in the capital who is helping Roy, Ben* and I start our own NGO in the country. The NGO, Centre d’Expérimentation et de Formation Agricole (CEFA) or the Centre for Agriculture Development and Training is being formed in order to manage a centre of the same name that we hope to start in Gamboula. We are still working out the details of who, where and when but we have the what down and all this week we have been formulating the NGO’s Status and Regulations according to CAR models that David has provided us with. It has been very interesting and intense and Roy, Ben and I spent three very full days going back and forth from English, Sango and French in order to clearly and accurately get across what we think and then get it down on paper. We finished the initial stage on Thursday after an all night session of me typing it all out in French. Thank goodness I chose a laptop with both French and English keys so I know where to go for all the accents. I spent Friday morning with Ben as he corrected my French, made sure all the nouns agreed with each other and I had all the accents properly assigned. It was tiring and I know he was probably wondering what kind of Canadian I am that doesn’t know her French well. Believe me, it is on the list of things to do!
We met with David on Friday and he picked apart our status with a fine toothed comb. He had just finish chairing a committee that was reviewing the CAR electoral code so he didn’t have a whole lot of time to spare. We made it through correcting the statutes but did not get to the rules and regulations. He promised us time on Monday so rather than leave Saturday we are here for another three days and will meet on Monday to finish editing.
Once we are back in Gamboula we will be looking at nominating a board of directors which will consist of Central Africans and foreigners, including myself. I was originally intending on being a co-director of the project but with Darren and I still plugging away at school I think it is best that a director who can start this summer is selected and work begin. As a member of the board I will certainly have to come out for board meetings once a year and will be involved in the direction and vision of the project. It is exciting and daunting at the same time.
We had a free day yesterday (Saturday) so I met up with Joe* early in the morning and we took a taxi out to see his older sister who lives a few kilometres from town. This is the sister who took Anna, my baby, from Gamboula to live with her here in Bangui even though she doesn’t have the means to properly look after her. Finding garden space near a capital city is very difficult for many reasons I will expand on in a separate post. Needless to say they depend on her husband’s very small salary to pay for all their food, household and medical needs as well as his share of the cities alcohol consumption. They have one meal a day and this is obviously not enough. The meals they do eat generally lack in protein, either in the form of meat, peanuts or beans and you can tell. Anna is weak, scrawny and prone to fevers. Joe was going to bring her back to Gamboula during his vacation in July but I do not want her to wait that long. I have asked to take her back with us on Tuesday which will be far easier on her than going with Joe in public transportation and Roy has agreed. She is as light as a feather so she and I will share a seat in our very full truck. Honestly, if there was ever a child I would choose to raise it would be Anna.
In other news, I know I wrote some time ago that Ben was denied his visa to the United States (don’t get me started...) so he is unable to attend the Foods Resource Bank (FRB) meetings and meet out partner farmers. However, FRB has asked me to come for five weeks without Ben to tell the story of CAR and I have agreed. Darren arrives here in one week (YIPPEEE) and we will have three weeks together in country. We both fly out of Yaoundé on the same day at the end of June; Darren returning to Victoria while I head to Chicago. This also means that I will be in ECHO’s neighbourhood sometime in July which I am really looking forward to.
For more thoughts, check out spoiledfornormal.blogspot.com, my ‘other’ blog that is more musings on the state of the world and how I would love to change it! It is pretty raw so I apologize beforehand.
*I have changed the names of people in order to protect their privacy. I will use the same name throughout so please write me if you want to know who they really are. If I know you, I will tell you.
