On the 20th May each year Cameroon celebrates the reunification of the country, which undid the divisions of the French/British colonisations. This is Cameroon’s biggest holiday and in the morning there were parades of all the local schools, some of which put on performances of traditional dances and displays of arts such as karate. The mayor did a walk-past in dashing blue, accompanied by his three male deputies (his fourth deputy was with a group of females from the local opposition party). The Sultan of Pouss was given some sort of decoration. He came with his usual retinue, who were weilding swords on this occasion (literally), and he brought along a group of musicians playing traditional instruments. It was a really colourful and enjoyable occasion and provided illustrations of protocols and hierarchies and also of other less seemly aspects of Cameroonian life, such as its rather aggressive crowd control.
Everybody seemed hyper for the day, even though the majority are Muslims and don’t drink alcohol, and the way motos were speeding around was quite alarming. Also, much activity continued into the evening, which is quite exceptional in Maga. My celebrations started the evening before with a reception in a local bar, “Evasion”, laid on by the lycée. I went along with Halidou, Ruth and Lady Diana. The latter two turned out to be almost the only ladies present but despite this they went ahead with the “tour d’honneur”, a sort of ice-breaking exercise which is used to start off dances. This consists of nominating attractive ladies to take the floor with the most notable men present. Once the music starts the men grab the ladies in embraces which are otherwise entirely out of place here. The music was supposed to last for 30 seconds but happily for Ruth and Lady Di, they cut it much earlier than this. Dancing continued throughout the night, almost entirely with men. To my surprise, Westlife seem to be the most popular band here and Celine Dion and Phil Collins also seem very popular.
On the evening of the holiday I was invited to a soirée in the Sous-Préfet’s residence. There were over 100 hundred guests, including lots of ladies on this occasion. People were decked out either in traditional dress or in suits, and I felt conspicuous for not wearing a suit. After arriving we were shown to our seats and then waited for a couple of hours while nothing happened. People conversed, if at all, in hushed tones and I remember thinking that there was no sound of laughter. The food when it finally arrived was really good, with fish, chicken, beef, lamb and probably goat, together with salads, rice, pasta and other local vegetables such as plantains and nyams. After the food was cleared, there was a bout of the tour d’honneur to start the dancing. It was rather like the session of the previous evening except that there was a much better supply of ladies and the notables were more notable. It did indeed break the ice, and very quickly there was quite a good party atmosphere and lots of dancing.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Visit to Waza Wildlife Reserve
The Waza wildlife reserve, which is billed as the best in West Africa, is around 100 kilometres north of Maroua. Four of us hired a car and headed north early one morning. It was a beautiful clear day and the journey to Waza turned out to be very pleasant. We drove mainly through an almost perfectly flat plain but with mountains rising like islands, mainly in the distance. Those nearby were heaps of rocks which must have been thrown up in some volcanic eruptions. We drove through the small town of Mora which had a surprisingly lavish “Palais de Justice”. The road was quite good but we had the customary incident, which in this case was a blow-out after hitting a pot-hole at speed.
At the entrance to Waza we picked up a guide and then spent the day driving on rough tracks through the reserve. There were some watering holes with lots of birds: marabouts, “grues coronets” (crested cranes)?, herons, occasional ostriches and some birds of prey (which looked like eagles) soaring overhead. There were lots of gazelles and various other bigger animals in much the same mould. The most evocative animals we saw were giraffes, which usually kept at a distance and watched us warily. There were lions and elephants there somewhere, and other animals such as jackals, but we did not see them. We did not see any snakes but I see them occasionally in Maga.
While for me this was a significant experience, being my first visit to a wildlife reserve, I think that Waza must now be a shadow if its former self. Poachers are not controlled effectively and have greatly reduced the wildlife. We came across a group of poachers wading through a watering hole and guiding the fish to an area where they could catch them. When they saw our guide, who is a bailiff, they quickly ran off into the bush. There was one particularly extensive watering hole which was almost completely devoid of wildlife and the guide said that it used to teem with life but the poachers had taken everything. Despite these comments, I thoroughly enjoyed the day and will go there again, perhaps to get a glimpse of lions and elephants.
At the entrance to Waza we picked up a guide and then spent the day driving on rough tracks through the reserve. There were some watering holes with lots of birds: marabouts, “grues coronets” (crested cranes)?, herons, occasional ostriches and some birds of prey (which looked like eagles) soaring overhead. There were lots of gazelles and various other bigger animals in much the same mould. The most evocative animals we saw were giraffes, which usually kept at a distance and watched us warily. There were lions and elephants there somewhere, and other animals such as jackals, but we did not see them. We did not see any snakes but I see them occasionally in Maga.
While for me this was a significant experience, being my first visit to a wildlife reserve, I think that Waza must now be a shadow if its former self. Poachers are not controlled effectively and have greatly reduced the wildlife. We came across a group of poachers wading through a watering hole and guiding the fish to an area where they could catch them. When they saw our guide, who is a bailiff, they quickly ran off into the bush. There was one particularly extensive watering hole which was almost completely devoid of wildlife and the guide said that it used to teem with life but the poachers had taken everything. Despite these comments, I thoroughly enjoyed the day and will go there again, perhaps to get a glimpse of lions and elephants.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Development of Maga
Maga’s artificial lake was constructed in 1979. This was part of an extensive development plan by SEMRY, an organisation which was formed to develop the Logone plain with international financial backing. Canals were built from the lake to provide irrigation for the cultivation of rice and other crops. The new town of Maga grew up close by and a lot of people moved from Gurvidig and Pouss into it. SEMRY built a village with good facilities and a hotel, Safari Danay which still operates to a surprisingly high standard (e.g. an Irish country house from the Blue Guide or a good Logis de France). As part of the plan some factories were built, for example a rice packaging factory. A fish processing factory was also built separately by the Japanese. These are either closed or greatly run down at this stage. Unfortunately SEMRY was state-owned and its senior management were political appointees, which resulted in bad management. Global economic problems and SAPs hit very hard in the 1990s. Regulations have not been enforced, e.g. there has been serious over-fishing. SEMRY is now bankrupt and most of the extensive infrastructure that it put in place is in disrepair. This is a scenario which I need to investigate further to see what lessons can be learnt from it and what things can be salvaged.
Last year SEMRY failed to pay its employees for many months. However its Chief Executive continued to build a luxurious house for himself at its expense. When a staff delegation took this up with him he hurled abuse at them. What followed is referred to locally as a “peasant revolt”. The Chief Executive escaped and has not been seen since but his house was razed and in the resulting unrest two people died, one of them a policeman. A staff committee currently runs what is left of SEMRY.
Last year SEMRY failed to pay its employees for many months. However its Chief Executive continued to build a luxurious house for himself at its expense. When a staff delegation took this up with him he hurled abuse at them. What followed is referred to locally as a “peasant revolt”. The Chief Executive escaped and has not been seen since but his house was razed and in the resulting unrest two people died, one of them a policeman. A staff committee currently runs what is left of SEMRY.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Mayday
Despite its financial crisis, the whole of the council went to Yagoua, capital of the district which includes Maga, to march in the Mayday parade. I went with them, decked out in Cameroonian dress. Transport was in the back of a truck but after I had climbed into it, hitting my head off an iron bar in the process, the mayor fished me out and told me I was to go in his 4X4. He did not come with us since his mother had died and he was in mourning. Even in the 4X4 it was an arduous journey. I am repeatedly surprised by roads even worse than those I have been on. To make matters worse, there had been rain earlier which turned the road into mud, and at times the 4X4 skated all over the road which had a significant drop on each side.
The 80 kilometer journey was interesting since it followed the Logone south for most of the way (in the northerly direction the road goes around 200 kilometers to Kousseri, which is across the river from Njamena, the capital of Chad). There was good vegetation, due to the river, and the recent rains had begun to produce some patches of green. There were places where we could see people wading back and forth between Chad and Cameroon. A friend told me that she was washing clothes in the Logone one day and a man whom she knew waded across from Chad. He was well dressed but just waded to whatever depth was necessary. When he saw her he borrowed her soap and soaped both himself and his clothes, remaining fully clothed. He then rinsed off and continued on his way, letting the sun dry him.
Yagoua turned out to be quite a nice town with lovely trees and some small hills (a rarity in the flat Logone plain). Before the parade started there was some entertainment. At one stage a senior council official with whom I have a lot of dealings took me by the hand to see some traditional dancers. He pulled me through the crowd towards the front and continued to hold my hand as we watched. Homosexual acts are illegal in Cameroon but it is quite common for men to hold hands. Despite this, I felt ill at ease and in order to disengage I decided to take a photo. After taking the photo I was slow to put my hand back down since I was afraid that he would grab it again. When I finally put my hand down I found that my wallet was gone. In addition to my money and my bank cards (with which I had completely failed to access money in Cameroon) it contained an identity card which I had been issued after arrival. Being without this card is a serious matter since it creates circumstances in which policemen look for significant bribes. Another member of the Maga party who was watching the dancers had his mobile phone stolen.
We went to the local police station and reported the theft. They told me that my wallet would probably turn up but without my money. Cameroon has a benevolent type of pick-pocket who, provided that the wallet contains enough money, actually throws the wallet through the window of the police station at night. I got a phone call from the Yagoua police to-day to say that this has duly happened and that the wallet contains my indentity card.
The parade, when it finally took place, was a farce. We marched no more than 300 metres in the space of a few minutes. However a few of us piled into the 4X4 and joined a cavalcade of similar vehicles which formed a sort of secondary parade around the streets of Yagoua, much to the glee of the local children.
As usual, I was one of a privileged few who were invited to lunch by a local person who turned out to be a most agreeable and thoughtful host. He was very interested in where I was from and produced an atlas so that I could show him where Ireland is and what countries I had flown over when going to Cameroon.
The 80 kilometer journey was interesting since it followed the Logone south for most of the way (in the northerly direction the road goes around 200 kilometers to Kousseri, which is across the river from Njamena, the capital of Chad). There was good vegetation, due to the river, and the recent rains had begun to produce some patches of green. There were places where we could see people wading back and forth between Chad and Cameroon. A friend told me that she was washing clothes in the Logone one day and a man whom she knew waded across from Chad. He was well dressed but just waded to whatever depth was necessary. When he saw her he borrowed her soap and soaped both himself and his clothes, remaining fully clothed. He then rinsed off and continued on his way, letting the sun dry him.
Yagoua turned out to be quite a nice town with lovely trees and some small hills (a rarity in the flat Logone plain). Before the parade started there was some entertainment. At one stage a senior council official with whom I have a lot of dealings took me by the hand to see some traditional dancers. He pulled me through the crowd towards the front and continued to hold my hand as we watched. Homosexual acts are illegal in Cameroon but it is quite common for men to hold hands. Despite this, I felt ill at ease and in order to disengage I decided to take a photo. After taking the photo I was slow to put my hand back down since I was afraid that he would grab it again. When I finally put my hand down I found that my wallet was gone. In addition to my money and my bank cards (with which I had completely failed to access money in Cameroon) it contained an identity card which I had been issued after arrival. Being without this card is a serious matter since it creates circumstances in which policemen look for significant bribes. Another member of the Maga party who was watching the dancers had his mobile phone stolen.
We went to the local police station and reported the theft. They told me that my wallet would probably turn up but without my money. Cameroon has a benevolent type of pick-pocket who, provided that the wallet contains enough money, actually throws the wallet through the window of the police station at night. I got a phone call from the Yagoua police to-day to say that this has duly happened and that the wallet contains my indentity card.
The parade, when it finally took place, was a farce. We marched no more than 300 metres in the space of a few minutes. However a few of us piled into the 4X4 and joined a cavalcade of similar vehicles which formed a sort of secondary parade around the streets of Yagoua, much to the glee of the local children.
As usual, I was one of a privileged few who were invited to lunch by a local person who turned out to be a most agreeable and thoughtful host. He was very interested in where I was from and produced an atlas so that I could show him where Ireland is and what countries I had flown over when going to Cameroon.
Democracy, Cameroonian Style
The president of Cameroon is Paul Biya. He has been in power for 25 years, is 75 years old and has recently changed the constitution to enable him to stay in office for a further term. Announcement of this change was the spark that ignited the riots which caused our departure to Cameroon to be delayed, although there were already many underlying sources of grievance, including huge increases in food and fuel prices. The Government puts the number of deaths in the riots at 40 but NGOs say that the real number is greater than 100. I have heard it remarked that Biya wants to stay in office since he would be jailed for embezzlement if he resigned. There was a census in Cameroon in 2004 and the results have not yet been published – some allege that this is because its publication would make the rigging of elections more difficult.
Cameroon has an elected parliament and has provision for a senate but this has not been implemented. Parliament can make laws but many of them are ignored. The prime minister and all ministers are appointed by the president and don’t need to be members of parliament. The president also appoints the people who head up Cameroon’s 10 provinces, and these people have much more power than government ministers, the latter mainly filling an advisory and standard setting role. There is a cascade of appointments from provincial to divisional, sub-divisional, district and council level. The Sous-Préfet is at council level and is the most powerful person at that level. The councillors are elected and they in turn elect the mayor. The mayor appoints deputies from among the councillors to form his Executive. Apart from this he inherits his management team. There is a Secretary General at council level who is appointed by the Sous-Préfet but is a member of the mayor’s team. In practice he is the most powerful person on the mayor’s team, and there are a number of other state appointments on the mayor’s team. Thus the mayor needs to achieve things by influencing rather than by authority. Laws providing for decentralisation of responsibilities were published in 2004 but they have not been enacted, and a further law which is to provide for transfer of resources to councils to enable them to fulfil the new responsibilities has not yet been published. Thus councils are in the invidious position of being expected by their electorate to provide water, schools, health centres, roads and many other services but they don’t have the means to provide them. Meanwhile the state is not filling this gap. Maga’s 41 councillors are all from the opposition party. This is a result of a weird system where each party puts forward a list of candidates and the electorate vote for the lists. Maga’s councillors feel that they are marginalised by the state (ironically, in one of the villages that I visited the chief and his notables were government supporters and felt marginalised by the council).
The chiefs are traditional leaders from families on which their succession is based. There are lots of princes and princesses. Their local power on issues such as ownership of land cuts across state authority at times. They perform a bottom-up function for the state on matters where consultation is sought and they organise local committees to look after matters such as maintenance of wells and pumps. They also act as tax collectors for the councils and the state. The meeting in the Sultan’s palace referred to earlier was attended by all the chiefs in the area and at the meeting each chief was given pre-signed and pre-stamped receipts for taxes which are levied annually on all adults (around €2 per annum). Police frequently stop people to check on their identity cards and if they don’t have a receipt for tax payment presumably they will have to pay a higher bribe than would otherwise be the case.
Cameroon has an elected parliament and has provision for a senate but this has not been implemented. Parliament can make laws but many of them are ignored. The prime minister and all ministers are appointed by the president and don’t need to be members of parliament. The president also appoints the people who head up Cameroon’s 10 provinces, and these people have much more power than government ministers, the latter mainly filling an advisory and standard setting role. There is a cascade of appointments from provincial to divisional, sub-divisional, district and council level. The Sous-Préfet is at council level and is the most powerful person at that level. The councillors are elected and they in turn elect the mayor. The mayor appoints deputies from among the councillors to form his Executive. Apart from this he inherits his management team. There is a Secretary General at council level who is appointed by the Sous-Préfet but is a member of the mayor’s team. In practice he is the most powerful person on the mayor’s team, and there are a number of other state appointments on the mayor’s team. Thus the mayor needs to achieve things by influencing rather than by authority. Laws providing for decentralisation of responsibilities were published in 2004 but they have not been enacted, and a further law which is to provide for transfer of resources to councils to enable them to fulfil the new responsibilities has not yet been published. Thus councils are in the invidious position of being expected by their electorate to provide water, schools, health centres, roads and many other services but they don’t have the means to provide them. Meanwhile the state is not filling this gap. Maga’s 41 councillors are all from the opposition party. This is a result of a weird system where each party puts forward a list of candidates and the electorate vote for the lists. Maga’s councillors feel that they are marginalised by the state (ironically, in one of the villages that I visited the chief and his notables were government supporters and felt marginalised by the council).
The chiefs are traditional leaders from families on which their succession is based. There are lots of princes and princesses. Their local power on issues such as ownership of land cuts across state authority at times. They perform a bottom-up function for the state on matters where consultation is sought and they organise local committees to look after matters such as maintenance of wells and pumps. They also act as tax collectors for the councils and the state. The meeting in the Sultan’s palace referred to earlier was attended by all the chiefs in the area and at the meeting each chief was given pre-signed and pre-stamped receipts for taxes which are levied annually on all adults (around €2 per annum). Police frequently stop people to check on their identity cards and if they don’t have a receipt for tax payment presumably they will have to pay a higher bribe than would otherwise be the case.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Visits to Villages
A man (Moussa) from a local development organisation was doing a survey of deep water pumps in the Maga area and I accompanied him in order to get to know the villages, their chiefs and their needs (Halidou acted as interpreter since practically nobody in the villages speaks French). The night before we started I asked Moussa how he planned to spend the days and he said that he might just work for the morning since it gets extremely hot. He turned up as agreed at 7:00 the next morning and casually remarked that if we went far out into the bush we might not make it back that night. I hastily threw a few things, including a torch and a mosquito net, into a bag and joined him in his 4X4. We visited a lot of villages that day, crossing extremely difficult terrain by following what looked like animal tracks, and ended up in a very remote village where we slept in the open. We hung our mosquito nets from poles that we stuck in the ground and the villagers gave us mats to sleep on. They were not expecting us but killed a chicken and cooked it with rice for us. They also gave us boiled milk straight from the cow. At that stage we had eaten nothing for 14 hours. The next day we visited several other villages but I ran out of filtered water and insisted that we go to Guirvidig to buy some (and some bread for breakfast/lunch). Moussa worked through the week-end and into the next week but at least he agreed to go back to Maga at night.
The deprivation of the villagers is enormous. Most of the deep pumps are broken or working badly. Many villagers are faced with drinking water from shallow, unsafe and unreliable wells or bringing water large distances from other villages. In some cases the villagers, and particularly their children, drink water from ponds and swamps used by livestock. As you go further into the bush the tracks that serve as roads virtually disappear. For several months in the rainy season many villages are completely cut off (even in Maga there are weeks when you can’t go out of your house and when it is impossible to go to a neighbouring village even in a 4X4). The rainy season brings high risk of disease since there are no refuse collection services anywhere and no latrines in many villages, with the result that all sorts of stuff is floating around. There are risks of flooding (I have come to realise that there is also an appreciable risk of flooding in Maga because the ditch of the artificial lake sometimes breaks). Many villages have no school and many of their children never go to school (particularly girls, who have to fetch water and perform other chores), even in the dry season. Where villages have schools, more often than not they have fallen into disuse because the villagers are unable to pay teachers or because the villages are too remote to attract them.
When we were sitting in one village talking to the chief I noticed a large flock of birds flying by. They looked rather like a flock of starlings but the flock was enormous and flew past continuously. It still had not passed when we left, half an hour later. I was told that they were “bêtes” which eat grain. The likelihood is that most of the harvest will be wiped out. The defence against these birds is to spray them at night from a plane in order to exterminate them. The last time that this was done was 2001 and they have since recovered and are now everywhere. The local remedy is to cast nets over trees at night and then bring the birds to Maroua to be eaten, but this makes a trivial impact. The government has put in place a service, including planes, to spray the “oiseaux granivores” but I am told that the resources have been diverted to other, probably private, uses.
Although our arrival was unexpected, large reception parties materialised in most villages. Some came with spears, bows and arrows, swords, machetes, and other weapons. In one village there was a fierce-looking man on horseback with a bow and arrows who offered to bring me riding (which I declined). I asked him what he used the bow and arrows for and he said that they were for defence against bandits and lions. I don’t think that there are lions in the vicinity but in another village later that day we were told how they had killed a bandit with an arrow.
The deprivation of the villagers is enormous. Most of the deep pumps are broken or working badly. Many villagers are faced with drinking water from shallow, unsafe and unreliable wells or bringing water large distances from other villages. In some cases the villagers, and particularly their children, drink water from ponds and swamps used by livestock. As you go further into the bush the tracks that serve as roads virtually disappear. For several months in the rainy season many villages are completely cut off (even in Maga there are weeks when you can’t go out of your house and when it is impossible to go to a neighbouring village even in a 4X4). The rainy season brings high risk of disease since there are no refuse collection services anywhere and no latrines in many villages, with the result that all sorts of stuff is floating around. There are risks of flooding (I have come to realise that there is also an appreciable risk of flooding in Maga because the ditch of the artificial lake sometimes breaks). Many villages have no school and many of their children never go to school (particularly girls, who have to fetch water and perform other chores), even in the dry season. Where villages have schools, more often than not they have fallen into disuse because the villagers are unable to pay teachers or because the villages are too remote to attract them.
When we were sitting in one village talking to the chief I noticed a large flock of birds flying by. They looked rather like a flock of starlings but the flock was enormous and flew past continuously. It still had not passed when we left, half an hour later. I was told that they were “bêtes” which eat grain. The likelihood is that most of the harvest will be wiped out. The defence against these birds is to spray them at night from a plane in order to exterminate them. The last time that this was done was 2001 and they have since recovered and are now everywhere. The local remedy is to cast nets over trees at night and then bring the birds to Maroua to be eaten, but this makes a trivial impact. The government has put in place a service, including planes, to spray the “oiseaux granivores” but I am told that the resources have been diverted to other, probably private, uses.
Although our arrival was unexpected, large reception parties materialised in most villages. Some came with spears, bows and arrows, swords, machetes, and other weapons. In one village there was a fierce-looking man on horseback with a bow and arrows who offered to bring me riding (which I declined). I asked him what he used the bow and arrows for and he said that they were for defence against bandits and lions. I don’t think that there are lions in the vicinity but in another village later that day we were told how they had killed a bandit with an arrow.
Marriage, Life and Death, Cameroonian Style
Parents here expect their children and grand-children to look after them in old age. They try to have their daughters married from as young as thirteen (for which they receive a dowry) and press them to have as many children as possible, with the result that many girls drop out of school. As far as I can judge, the wives get spent at an early age and the husbands take other wives, also young, retaining or divorcing the former wives. It is not unusual for men in their fifties, and even sixties, to take young wives and to continue to have children. There is a local chief who has 47 children and his sixth wife is currently pregnant. They don’t seem to consider whether they will be able to support the children, but look to the state or council to provide facilities for them. Men also have a lot of extra-marital affairs with “free women” and illegitimate children abound. It does not look as though there is any real bond between husband and wife in most cases, other than contractual.
Part of the logic here is that mortality will be high and that lots of children are needed to provide enough survivors to look after the old. A link does not seem to be drawn between the high birth rate, the lack of capacity of water supply, schools and health facilities, and the general worsening of very impoverished conditions. Illness and death are everywhere here. Within my small circle of friends in the space of a few weeks, there have already been numerous deaths, including children and people of all ages. Most have been caused by malaria, and this is not the bad time of the year (which is from October to December, after the rainy season).
Halidou’s mother fell ill and I went with him to visit her in the Pouss hospital. The hospital can accommodate around 15 patients, has almost no equipment and has only one qualified nurse and no doctor. It serves around 50,000 people, and some Chadians also cross the Logone to go to it. Halidou’s mother seemed extremely unwell and they were unable to diagnose her illness (which turned out to be malaria). I gave him money to have her brought to the Maga hospital, which has some equipment and a doctor, where she was diagnosed and given treatment. She has now recovered but I think she would have died if left in Pouss. All medical treatment has to be paid for and most people cannot afford to pay and just do without it. I have heard many stories of people who have died for lack of money to pay for treatment and medicines (which cost trivial amounts in our terms).
The mother of another friend has been having some sort of fits and she and everybody else thinks that she has been put under a spell by somebody. She probably has something like cerebral malaria but even the best educated people believe in sorcerers. There are of course local “healers” with dubious methods.
The bonds between parents and children are also weak in many cases. Children are left to roam unsupervised, and with no rubbish collection service they are constantly sifting through bags of decaying material, some of which they eat. On one occasion I tried to burn some rubbish but did not do a good job and decided to let the fire smoulder and then dispose of it. Later I heard a sound outside my window and saw three young children (less than four years old) at the spot where there had been the decaying remains of fish and other food, but there was none left. Not surprisingly, child mortality is very high. Apart from illnesses, accidents are frequent. In the past few weeks two children have drowned in the lake, another has had his foot crushed while trying to catch onto the side of a truck and another broke both his wrists in a fall from a tree after he was attacked by bees.
There is currently a financial crisis in the Council and employees have not been paid for five months. Nearly 100 employees are affected (including teachers and others employed by the council) and several have told me that they go for days without eating. Most have families, the average size being around 10. When some food is available, the father gets first call, then the mother and then the children, if any is left.
Part of the logic here is that mortality will be high and that lots of children are needed to provide enough survivors to look after the old. A link does not seem to be drawn between the high birth rate, the lack of capacity of water supply, schools and health facilities, and the general worsening of very impoverished conditions. Illness and death are everywhere here. Within my small circle of friends in the space of a few weeks, there have already been numerous deaths, including children and people of all ages. Most have been caused by malaria, and this is not the bad time of the year (which is from October to December, after the rainy season).
Halidou’s mother fell ill and I went with him to visit her in the Pouss hospital. The hospital can accommodate around 15 patients, has almost no equipment and has only one qualified nurse and no doctor. It serves around 50,000 people, and some Chadians also cross the Logone to go to it. Halidou’s mother seemed extremely unwell and they were unable to diagnose her illness (which turned out to be malaria). I gave him money to have her brought to the Maga hospital, which has some equipment and a doctor, where she was diagnosed and given treatment. She has now recovered but I think she would have died if left in Pouss. All medical treatment has to be paid for and most people cannot afford to pay and just do without it. I have heard many stories of people who have died for lack of money to pay for treatment and medicines (which cost trivial amounts in our terms).
The mother of another friend has been having some sort of fits and she and everybody else thinks that she has been put under a spell by somebody. She probably has something like cerebral malaria but even the best educated people believe in sorcerers. There are of course local “healers” with dubious methods.
The bonds between parents and children are also weak in many cases. Children are left to roam unsupervised, and with no rubbish collection service they are constantly sifting through bags of decaying material, some of which they eat. On one occasion I tried to burn some rubbish but did not do a good job and decided to let the fire smoulder and then dispose of it. Later I heard a sound outside my window and saw three young children (less than four years old) at the spot where there had been the decaying remains of fish and other food, but there was none left. Not surprisingly, child mortality is very high. Apart from illnesses, accidents are frequent. In the past few weeks two children have drowned in the lake, another has had his foot crushed while trying to catch onto the side of a truck and another broke both his wrists in a fall from a tree after he was attacked by bees.
There is currently a financial crisis in the Council and employees have not been paid for five months. Nearly 100 employees are affected (including teachers and others employed by the council) and several have told me that they go for days without eating. Most have families, the average size being around 10. When some food is available, the father gets first call, then the mother and then the children, if any is left.
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