January 19, 2002

Dear Mom and Dad,

When I got the Katherine Graham book and the one on the Balkans, I was psyched -- enlightening reading! I will be improved and more knowledgeable. They look imposing and nerdy sitting next to High Fidelity, Snow Falling on Cedars, and White Teeth (excellent - you should take a look), but I picked up the Graham and now am wisked away in it. I'm not a biography person -- it seems odd to read mostly other people's lives, worse than trying to live through your children, a worse escapism than novels -- but I appreciate that I'm trying to sort out my life and here's a woman who did the same thing and was plenty confused about it too. It's startling to me that people succeed any more, everything looks so daunting from where I am -- how did you guys, or Fran and Larry, or Peter and his wife or Jane and Mark or Claire's folks or Denis or n'importe qui -- do so well? I'm à la fois blithely optimistic, everything will work out, job and career and house and husband will fall into my lap, and grimly certain that my luck will run out as soon as I get home, like a bush taxi running out of gas between villages, and then it'll be a downward spiral. Borrowing money from you, working at Borders, oh, please no.

Anyway. Things are going well, at least in my head -- I've been getting out more and doing what I can actually call work -- meeting the other two pharmacists, quizzing bar owners about condom sales, not running away from lycée boys but coming over and talking shop with them and plugging my Condom Union -- where we convince shopkeepers to stock condoms, and work on the NGOs to improve supply to backwaters like Ndende. Big plans. There's also my renewed resolve to do exposées, especially in the primary school, so I'll be embarrassed this week as I introduce myself to the four principals and proposed teaching the 12 year olds about sex. Should be interesting -- I'm hoping to get the sage-femme to come along. Maybe the pediatrician too, for the boys. That covers the students. For adults, it's harder to change/influence behavior, but by doing exposées hosted by the corner bars I should get a decent audience. I've got condoms to hand out and that will help a lot. I never imagined that day we got our wooden penises that I'd ever feel comfortable with it, but now I love pulling it out and shocking people (and showing them, in practical terms, how to protect themselves).

The neighbor girls in their last year came by tonight for help in English. They are so nice and I just don't know how to be their friend, so I try to help and listen and smile and say encouraging things about coming by later, though I know how easily I can get overextended. One saw my bike and mentioned going for rides at night on Destin's bike -- he's the brother of Arsene, my facilitator, and the fiancé of another neighbor -- he works as a photographer here, and will only speak English with me. So I proposed she come get me when she's got the bike, and we can roam around town like Hell's Angels or something.

The first three days in Ndende after vacation were hell -- definitely the worst depression (I was also sick) I've had. I didn't want to see anyone, didn't want to teach. My family was great, esp. Papa who voiced his concerns -- "We don't know if you're alive in there if you keep the doors shut! Exercise will kill that flu -- get out of the house!" Their concern and affection was very touching and made me feel worse -- "they're so nice! I'm being silly." and that made me guilty and more depressed that I couldn't even please them, and that I was causing them worry.

But now things are rolling -- I taught Saturday, and my kids said, No, madame, stay with us, we like you, when I mentioned I'd be gone for a lot of seminars and they should think about another teacher. I brought it up knowing their reaction, and needing to hear them chorusing in my approval -- pretty shameless, but it didn't hurt anyone and certainly helped me. My neighbor passed on a remark from one of my students that since I came, he/she is interested in English, that I'm fun, and 'simple' -- the standard compliment for PCVs. French are "compliqué" -- mean, picky, whiny, impatient -- but we are easygoing and friendly. All nonsense, of course -- that French that come here are here for very different reasons than we are (money vs. discovery/adventure) but I will always accept the compliment, and gladly.

I'm sure once I actually get started on all these projects I'll meet frustration and obstacles but right now there's the exhilaration of big ideas and getting things done, and working with people, which is the most important. One of the lessons from the Katherine Graham book is that you can grow into a job; you're not necessarily born with the people or other skills needed to do things properly. That's a great comfort. When I make mistakes, it will be ok, as long as I learn from them.

Feb. 6. So the tournée is in full swing at the lycée -- yesterday was great with the 7th graders, they were polite and smart and attentive and loved the condom song I got from Abigail. I left glowing and imagining the entire school singing the song after three weeks. Ha! Today I had the troisieme -- they're like 10th graders, only they're all 21 or older and rude as hell. I went in and quickly realized it wasn't going to be the same pleasant experience as the day before. I tried the humor tack, the "I'm fed up with SIDA too: tack, the hip-older-sister-giving-you-the-straight-shit tack. They made noise and shouted stuff, "No way! She's (a woman with AIDS I met) spreading the disease! All babies are born HIV+!" Fine. Noise doesn't bother me. I just tell them and keep telling them and if they'd rather believe that Nigerians put the virus in the condoms and that AIDS is a myth, that's their problem.

In the middle of my spiel, where I explain how you live seropositive for awhile before developing AIDS, the proviseur (headmaster) comes in. "What kind of disorder is this?" he says. Everyone's really quiet. This proviseur was sent special to Ndende to crack down on discipline, and things are apparently better, but so far I see discipline coming and going like rain -- a lot at once, then nothing at all for a few days. "You think I don't speak your language? I'm Africain like you, I have black skin, I'm from Port Gentil, that's the most sauvage place in Gabon. You don't believe me, ask M. Remnoundou [my counterpart - I'm teaching in his PE classes], he's from the same region." The kids are all quiet and are thinking what I'm thinking -- this guy went to school in France, he's evolué, he's nothing like us. Yeah, he's Africain and black but cut this brother-brother crap. You've got your Frenchified accent and your nice car and lawn mower [o my god, huge status symbol] and suits and salary and big important guy attitude and you love to power trip -- ok, so I don't know for sure if the kids are thinking this too. But I wouldn't be the least bit surprised. "This woman comes to inform you about AIDS and you say ma founa? Ma founa! What is that? You think I didn't hear everything you've been saying? No. That's it, class is over. Madame, pack up your stuff, we're done. This class is excluded for 4 days. I will not tolerate this behavior. Come on, let's go. If you have tests between now and Saturday you will all get zero." He sweeps out, disgusted. In his office I ask what the kids were saying, Ma founa. "They were speaking "en langue," in their language." Thanks, big guy, I already figured that out. "But what does it mean, Ma founa?" "Oh, that everything you were saying was lies. That none of it was true." OK. I'm dismissed, I walk home, brimming with anger. Not at the kids. Their reaction is nothing new. Noisiness and disbelief, hey, no big deal! I'm made because I didn't even get to the part about protecting yourself. I didn't do the condom demo. This shit is important! Do not deny me the chance to give information! Why punish the whole class... someone might have gotten something out of it. I know some of what I said sank in. Goddamn French discipline, goddamn power tripping evolué proviseurs, goddamn a country where rumour spreads faster than truth and sinks in deep. The people are drowning in misinformation and I'm a fishing pole bobber trying to be a lifeboat.

Times like these I want to find a friend and just grit my teeth and bitch for 5 minutes, but the neighbors aren't home. I slap my rolled up fiches in my palm and see my house, and two guys in front, digging.

The terrace is finally happening.

Six months after it was first mentioned. This, I'm sure, is probably pretty rapide for Gabon. You just gotta put things like that (like my fridge, for example) out of your head. That way when they come you can get excited. Don't get your hopes up, quoi.

Sorry for the franglais. It's inevitable. Tomorrow Mali plays Cameroon in the Africa Cup semifinal. If Mali wins, Ulrich, my 16 year old neighbor debrousses (cleans) my yard. If Mali loses I make him 10 pancakes. I'm hoping for a Mali-Senegal final :).

Feb. 18 - Mali lost, I made pancakes, the final ended in penalty kicks, now everyone's over it and thinking about the World Cup. I'm just back from Tchibango to see Kara -- it's a nice little city, hills, a couple restaurants, street food. A big river with crocodiles that eat young swimmers from time to time. It's hot now, so that I don't want to leave my house because it means putting on pants. My bars are on the windows now and the terrasse is slowly coming along. I've been taking pictures.

Soon, IST - inservice training. Rumor says we'll be in the same fancy hotel on Pointe Denis that EE had -- 3-course French dinners, a/c, beach, no distractions. I'm psyched for a change, to see people, chill out. They've evacuated Franceville region on an unconfirmed Ebola case and I'm just hoping things get back to normal. I'm enjoying my new fridge and I've started playing soccer with the girls team, and running at 5:45 am so no one sees me (or if they do, they don't comment). I'm still gaining weight and sometimes I could care less and sometimes, like presently, I despair about it. If I can stick with the soccer and the running I should at least stabilize.

I put shelf paper on my kitchen shelf this morning, using tacks, and my brother asked if I really did it myself, "w/o any help?" Yup. "But that's man's work!" We got into a lightheartedly antagonistic argument about men's and women's work, typically African, where he tried to push my bottons. 'Yes, the 10 commandments says women can't wear shorts or pants!" I try to get him to think critically ("c'est pas normal!" - What is normal? Only what we've done in the past) and he resists because it's more fun that way.

I read Beryl Markham's West with the Night, which sounded like it was going to be "flighty whitey in East Africa drinking tea and ordering around noble savages" but it wasn't at all. More like Little House on the Prairie meets The Black Stallion, and then gets a pilot's license and takes no shit from anybody. Pioneering women, you gotta love 'em.

I got to read the NYT Magazines at Kara's -- those were good. You should send a few instead of recycling them - I will appreciate them gobs more than the paper mill. This no mail thing isn't so bad -- I'm getting used to it. Almost 2 months now so hopefully there'll be a lot once the strike is over. It's probably tough not hearing from me -- the more active I get the less inclined I am to write - I keep forgetting that you don't know I'm doing great unless I tell you. So I am. Students are great, friends are great, work is great. I'm having fun and life seems normal, most of the time.

I love you,

Hannah