A day in my life in Maga

My alarm goes off at 4.40 a.m. I scan the floor with my torch before stepping outside my mosquito net. I found a scorpion in my bedroom a few nights ago. Unlike some other volunteers, I have not as yet found any snakes in my house, although I had to deter one from entering my gate. The usual occupants of my house – bats, lizards, frogs and spiders – are welcome since they help to keep it clear of mosquitos. There are also owls nesting in the roof. I woke one night to the sound of heavy breathing. I searched the house (all two rooms) but found nobody. Then I heard the screech of a barn owl and there was hissing and frenzied excitement in the roof as the nestlings anticipated being fed. The nestlings are now almost fully grown and very active. At times it sounds as if there is a football match in the awning of the roof but I have learnt to sleep through this, as also through the Muslim calls to prayer which can start as early as 3.30 a.m. At times in semi-consciousness I can hear calls from several mosques, some rather like the lowing of cattle in the west of Ireland. The cocks have not yet begun to crow.

I do yoga exercises for an hour. It is normally so hot here that you have to walk or cycle very slowly and avoid doing anything energetic, otherwise you will dissolve into sweat. A session of yoga in the “cool” of the morning is therefore one of the few ways to keep fit. It also helps keep all the joints and muscles in trim and ready to withstand the squashing and buffeting which they get in the buses. The very few vehicles that are here are all loaded to an unbelieveable extent before every journey and the “roads” are mud paths with big potholes.

Before breakfast I take my anti-malarial prophilaxis and drink lots of water so as not to be sick. Breakfast consists of fruit in season, quaker oates, bread and tea. Only food grown locally is available here and the choice is always very limited. At present I can get oranges and bananas once a week on market day, and also dried dates which I eat with my quaker oates. Later on in the year there will be mangoes and mangoes and mangoes. Honey is also available, which I take on my bread.

After shaving and showering, at around 7.30 I head for work on my bicycle. It is currently mid-winter here (this was written in January). The temperature sometimes falls to a low of 20 degrees at around 7.30 a.m., climbing above 35 degrees in the mid-afternoon and not falling below 30 degrees before I go to bed. I still only need to wear a shirt in the morning but my colleagues wear several layers, including heavy over-coats and woolly hats, rather like people in ski resorts. In a few months’ time the temperature will never fall below 35 degrees and will be mostly in the 40s.

On my way to work I pass the local primary school and often groups of children jog along with me or hang out of the back of my bicycle on their way to school. Curiously they say “Bon soir, nasara” but later in the day this changes to “Bon jour, nasara”. Apart from its use in the early morning greeting, here the word “soir” usually refers to the afternoon, rather like the word “evening” in my native Limerick. “Nasara” is the Fulfulde word for a white person and is usually intended in a friendly sense. During school holidays it is very quiet on my way to work and sometimes I see fascinating bird life, especially birds of prey such as eagles and vultures.

I am nearly always the first to arrive at the Maga council building. Work is supposed to start at 7.30. Less than half the employees ever turn up for work. Very few come every day, on time or for a reasonable length of time. Those who do come to work shake hands with all those already there and have ritual conversations about the cold and whether they slept well and some sit outside chatting all day and do no work at all. Tuesday is market day in a neighbouring village and it seems to be accepted that almost nobody need work on that day. I have regular meetings with my working party on Wednesdays at 9.00. I am usually the only one on time. If the Secretary General is in his office I tell him that I will call him when I have a quorum. On a good day that will happen by 9.30, on a bad day by 11.00, if at all. Quite often the Secretary General, who is the most important member of the working party, will have disappeared by the time that the meeting starts. Members are capable of turning up at any time during the meeting, later in the day or not at all, without alerting me or apologising. At the meeting they sometimes take calls on their mobile phones, which is especially disruptive since all Cameroonians shout into their phones and they have voices like megaphones. Other people at times enter the room, shake hands with everybody, converse with some and ask somebody to go outside for some purpose.

Virtually everything in the building is not working. Most bulbs are missing, most sockets are broken, fans have disappeared and there is air conditioning which does not work. There is a helicopter landing pad which was used in 1982 but there is no toilet. There used to be a photocopier, computer and printer but all broke and were brought to Maroua to be repaired over a year ago. In any case there is no electricity since the council has not paid its bills. The council is in severe financial crisis, salaries are four months in arrears and there is no money for materials of any kind. My job - strengthening the capacities of the council - is to change all that! It would be easy to throw up my hands in despair but when I see the widespread hunger, disease and death around me I am much more strongly motivated in my work than I have ever been previously. Despite the lax behaviours (which I am trying to change), I get very strong commitment from the mayor, his deputies, the councillors and the staff of the council. I am encouraged by progress to date and I think that good improvements can be made.

At around 12.30 I usually venture out into the midday sun, to the mocking accompaniment of laughing doves, and go to my house. I do not find any mad dogs or Englishmen, but the local primary school runs two shifts and I see large numbers of children going and coming in all directions across the wasteland with their school-bags. Some of these “children” are in their late teens but have not yet made the grade for secondary school.

Although work is supposed to continue until 3.30, unless there is a meeting in progress there is usually nobody left at work when I leave. The afternoon is not a good time for meetings since most people are Muslims and break for prayers. Although the prayers usually take only around 10 minutes, washing and conversation take up a lot of time and they do not all say their prayers together, with the result that it can take the best part of an hour to get everybody back in the meeting, if at all. It makes more sense to have lunch and then work in my house in the afternoon since it is the hottest time of the day and I can use my fan and drink chilled water from my fridge. I can also run my laptop from the mains and recharge it. I have persuaded the mayor to buy a new computer (not yet paid for) and have set it up in my house where I am training my assistant in its use.

Lunch usually consists of beans, which I have previously steeped in water for 24 hours and then boiled for 2 hours. I make up a sauce for the beans with onions and tomatoes and also eat some bread and bananas. I put more effort into preparing my dinners but the choice is very limited. I could eat in a “restaurant” for €0.50 but the food is awful and probably unsafe. The highlight of my week is fresh fish, “capitain”, a lake equivalent of sea bass which is excellent if you can get it. There is great demand for fish from Maroua and Kousseri, nearby cities, and it is necessary to go to the lake at 10.00 in the morning to buy directly from the fishermen as they come in from their night’s fishing. I can usually only do that at week-ends. The choice of other food is extremely limited. Since I have only a gas ring, I buy beef or goat’s meat which has been cooked at the side of the road and I re-cook it to get rid of germs. It can be very difficult to find these or any alternatives since the local people have run out of money and there are few customers to attract vendors. I am often reduced to vegetarian curries and pastas (with very limited vegetables, such as potatoes, carrots and yet more beans) or to opening canned food which I bring from Maroua.

Visitors call to my house most days. These are a mixture of neighbours, work colleagues and a collection of teenagers who seem permanently bored. Some of them arrive when I am preparing meals and in Cameroon the custom is to share whatever you have, however small. At week-ends I can have as many as three visitors before 7.00 a.m., to whom I may have to give breakfast. I have had to draw a line and refuse some of the teenagers who turned up regularly at mealtimes since this was causing havoc with my provisioning. However, most week-ends I escape to Maroua to meet other volunteers and some Cameroonian friends and this is a very pleasant change from my bucolic existence in Maga.

In the evening I have a small amount of time to do some extra work, read a novel or listen to music on my ipod. We rarely have power cuts at this time of the year, except when a neighbour on the same line has not paid his bill, but between March and September there are storms and rains which can result in power cuts for as much as three weeks per month. There are only 12 hours of daylight, from 6.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m., and when there is no power in the evening, usually the only thing I can do is play my tin whistle and my harmonica. My children used to tell me that of all the instruments that I have tried to play, the tin whistle annoyed them most. I therefore usually reserve the tin whistle for storms, which are deafening. Occasionally also I venture out to a local bar if it is showing a football match. I have to put on a large amount of mosquito repellent since mosquitos like the bars too, especially in the rainy season when the air at night is full of insects and one can have the sensation of being attacked by dive-bombers. I always bring a torch so that I will not step on a snake. The moonlight can be absolutely beautiful, and when there is no moon I can see the Milky Way more clearly than I have ever seen it before.

I normally go to bed between 9.00 and 10.00. At this time of the year at night I hear just the screeches of owls, the hissing of lizards and barking of dogs. There has been no rain since September but once the thunder showers begin in March huge numbers of frogs and toads will appear from nowhere and there will be a loud chorus of croaking. The snakes will have a feast.