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6-28-01
(Received 7-17-01; transcribed by Mom)
Dear Mom and Dad,
For the first few days, we’re staying at a small hotel on the beach in Libreville. It’s mostly cloudy, but the sun has broken through & shining on the water. The sea is calm but the undertow is strong & there are lots of huge logs strewn in the sand, maybe from a timber ship, since they’re all the same size & have numbers printed on the ends. There are big leafy beach trees & coconut palms, & a strong cool breeze coming off the water. Earlier today, three dogs were playing on the sand & they were very friendly. Even if they didn’t have their shots, they didn’t bite anyone.
The trip was pretty arduous – we left Philly at noon on Tuesday & drove to JFK, where we unloaded our bags at the wrong terminal. Earlier, because of weather in Tennessee, our tickets and passports were delayed. I think we got them 3 hours before we left. The orientation was good. I think the primary purpose was to get us pumped up for the whole thing & to get to know each other, which it did pretty well. We got $190 for meals and stuff for Philly, the airports, & Paris – I only spent around $90. That first day I felt pretty calm but my body was nervous & so I threw up. I’ve been fine since. Haven’t had much of an appetite but I’m forcing myself to eat anyway. :)
We got to Paris at 8:30 & some people went into the city to sight see. Nine of us got day rooms & slept, which made a huge difference. The night flight to LBV was fine, but it was hard to sleep. We got in at 5:15 am, got our bags & were shipped off to the hotel. I think three people are missing some luggage but everybody seems to think it’ll arrive soon.
The hotel is small & part of it is still just concrete, but there are toilets (no seats) & showers (cold) & we share double beds – not the guys, though, that’s sketchy. Tonight is our first night in real beds in 64 hours. There are fans and a/c but right now at 5:30 it’s about 70 & perfect. Humid, yeah, but not too bad. Saturday we go to Lambaréné for training ("stage") and it’ll be hotter there.
I think I can see Sao Tome on the horizon. There are tons of chirpy birds hre, & I’m trying to tech the two caged African Gray Parrots to say "Peace Corps," but all they do is whistle. There are the same lizards I saw in Mali, & very few mosquitoes. We got more forms to fill out today plus our food and water briefing & general intro from Jean-Luc, the PCMO (Medical Officer). He said in the six years he’s been here he’s only done one medevac & no one’s gotten malaria who’s taken their Larium. He likes to talk about bugs dancing in your stomach & on your food & got an MA in Tropical Health in the US, so I’m confident he knows what’s up.
These logs are really big – I’m sitting up in the bar area that overlooks our strip (10-15 m) of beach, and the logs are each 3 ft. thick & 10-20 feet long. The bar is just like the ones in Mali – broken tile mosaic for the floor & picnic tables, & straw roof with tin top. There are 7 kids next door playing a game like dodgeball where a kid in the middle tries to fill up a Coke bottle with sand while his sisters try & bean him.
6-30-01. Saturday. It’s hard to keep track of the days! Yesterday we had some more briefings – an introduction to the FARM program and more medical stuff with Jean-Luc. Everybody loves this guy & we are psyched for the upcoming diarrhea, malaria, & filaria talks. We’ve been told how long to boil our water (3 minutes! and you kill all de viruses!) & then to filter it in our huge samovar sized stainless steel & ceramic filters. We’ll get those when we go to our families in Lambaréné. Right now they just keep bringing crates & crates of bottled water. We saw our med kits too – they’re the size of a thick briefcase, all hard plastic, and they’ve got everything.
In Lambaréné tonight we’re staying ‘chez les soeurs’ at a French mission, and Sunday we meet our families and get our bikes. Some of us will be staying in a village (no water, no electricity) which is 4 k away from town. I’m actually hoping I’ll be there, because I don’t want to get spoiled living in town & then get a post with no H2O or current. Better to start off tough & get the hang of it. Yesterday we also went in small groups to get our carte de sejour. In Mali your "papiers" are just that – paper with a b & w photo pasted on. But here in Gabon (ok – Libreville – we’ll see who has papiers in the bush) everyone gets really nice laminated cards, with a digital photo printed on it, a bar code, and a shiny hologrammy seal of Gabon on the back. The office of immigration where we got them looks like a DMV – a big waiting room with benches, with lots of windows & tellers & form-filler-outers. There’s even a number system – 170 flashes up, with D1 or B3 underneath, and usually the person goes to the right place. There was still some shouting – "165! 165!" "Suivez vos numeros! (go according to your numbers!)" and people not knowing which booth to go to, only that their number had been called. We got through quickly, maybe because PC has a good reputation (my interviewer asked which program I was doing. I said health, & she said that’s good – Gabon needs you Americans.) Or maybe because Emil, the guy who organized the cartes, knows the right people. I was impressed that things were so calm & people were patient & not crowding up to each window, but I also saw a guy come into my booth, laugh with my interviewer, & offer him 1000 CFA to process his wife/girlfriend/friend a little faster. I still haven’t gotten over how nice our cards are – nicer than any drivers license I’ve had, for sure.
Today is our last day by the ocean. Everything is hotter inside. We’re not supposed to take all our stuff to our host families, because it’s too intimidating, so I’ve put my stuff into my blue back and my red bag. Makes me wonder what the heck I need the stuff that’s left in my big green backpack for! It’s mostly clothes, camera stuff, film, my blanket and little pillow, can opener, frisbee, pens, etc. Our non-essential bags will be locked up in Lambaréné so we can get at them if we need to.
Yesterday we also took a tour of LBV, on a bus. ALL THE STREETS ARE PAVED!!! It’s hilly, and houses are built into them. We saw the PC office, & were told the PC House (La Case de Passage) is behind l’Ecole Normale, near the university. We saw the BIG ASS private residence of Pres. Bongo – there were at least four houses on a huge hill behind a wall, covering about 3-4 square miles. It was ridiculous. Then we saw the "Presidence" – the residence of the President. He gets to live there too. Elections are every seven years – the next one is 2005. He always gets elected. We saw our bank, BiCiG (Bee-Cee), and we went by the artisan market, which Ed (the regional leader in Franceville) said had mostly WEST AFRICAN ART & CRAFTS. I really was hoping for some more culture here. It’s very different from Mali. You can see the wealth and the French influence everywhere. There are very few men in boubons, and very few women in traditional tailored outfits. Most people wear loose Western style clothes – suits & skirts & blouses. The taxi system seems to be the same but the buses have actual seats, not just benches. And there are a few real buses. Because the roads are paved all the buildings are a lot cleaner too. Traffic stills snarls downtown but there are freeways Avenue Bongo) that go by the major stops – Bongo Airport, University Bongo, the ministries, etc.
The nicest thing has been feeling the same euphoria that I felt those first few nights in Mali – a sense of being in the right place, that this is where I’m supposed to be, & that a lot of who I’ll become will be built right here. Our trainer, Helen, is awesome, all the staff is awesome, & even our interim ambassador is a good guy, funny and serious and direct. I’m really looking forward to the homestay and getting started on learning the ins and outs of the culture, something that hasn’t really been addressed. Unlike in Mali, where I’d studied stuff and heard explanations from Cherif, and then a very frank briefing from Claire on cultural no no’s etc., we haven’t had anything here and are mostly expected to ‘pick it up as we go along.
I want to speak Bambara to all these people and I know they won’t understand! Now we’re in Lambaréné chez les Soeurs de l’Immaculate Conception. It’s 125 years old and all us girls are in a big dorm room like Madeleine or Annie. The bus ride was 4-1/2 hours, plus 2 hours at the beginning for gas and tire changes. There were lots of log trucks okouné) with trunks 15 feet long and 3 feet thick. Lots of mango trees and banana palms and coconut palms and 3 other palms, and more trees and then lots of brush and vines. It was breezy but got more humid as we got further in. We saw some dead monkeys for sale and small villages, mud or mud-cement or wood plank houses. There were goats and dogs and chickens in yards, people cooking, kids playing or washing, men sitting in the shade and talking, or selling stuff
We were welcomed at the mission by dancing girls! Here, they paint their faces white with flour, and have thick raffia headbands that have tails down their backs like raccoon tails, and then they have raffia (it’s like straw) butt-enhancers which they can shake in circles.
Oh! We crossed the equator. There was a sign and we took pictures.
July 3.
So it’s the third night in our host families and I have to finish this letter because Nancie is leaving tomorrow and taking our letters to mail in the U.S. Training and homestay are really keeping me busy. Sunday night our families took us home. I live 3 houses down from the PC house and 2 minutes from the school that’s our training site. I have a shower (cold) and a toilet and good food and a nice mama. I LUCKED OUT. I haven’t spent any money yet, on taxis or lunch. But I also don’t know where anything in town is or how to get there or how much to pay. There are people in the village who are gonna be ready for anything because they have to fend for themselves everyday and here I am begging my mama to let me eat out twice a
Our school is a regular school, all grades, I think. There are 3 buildings around a central area – the whole deal is about the same size as a high school track and field area. It’s at the top of the hill in Atongawanga (Ah TONGa-wanga), my neighborhood. You can see my house from the place we have our coffee break – it’s the next row of houses down the hill. It’s a nice house – tile floors, a big living room, 5 bedrooms, gas stove and fridge, where they keep beers to sell to the neighbors. Mama’s a policewoman and her husband is in LBV (he’s a principal).
In the school courtyard, which is dirt, there’s a soccer pitch and a small garden of manioc and taro. Manioc is a tall (3-4 feet) weedy-looking plant with skinny leaves and red stems. You pound the leaves to make sauce for rice (it’s kind of like dry bitter spinach) and the roots you soak in water for awhile, then pound and shape it into little sticks that look like hearts of palm, but are chewy and sticky and taste fine with tomato sauce. Taro is like potatoes.
Today the uncle came home with a small antelope! It’s about the size of a daschund, pretty cute really, but I’m pysched because it’s gonna be a tasty dinner. The first night they fed me porky-pique, which was ok but had a lot of the skin and hair still attached. We eat a lot of fish too – carpe et capitaine. Fried is yummiest. Fried chicken, too – mmm :). The second night we went into town. Ali, the Libanais across the street, dropped us off in his truck. Virginie, my sister, is trying to get me to get him to take us dancing and out to the bars. She’s chaud-chaud – a mover and shaker. She’s tons of fun. We had dinner in town at a bar – brochettes (shish-kabob) – mm! mm! Yummy. They bought me Cokes which made me really burpy, but at least it’s not giardia. Giardia makes you stinky burp. We hung out for awhile en famille – me, mama, Begonia (she’s 3 and a firecracker), Virginie and Geraldine, her friend. My language prof was there too and so that was fun. I felt really good being there, my family loves me and really appreciates my French ability. They speak Fang and taught me a little, and because they’re from LBV originally they mix a lot of French in. I think they said that I’m the best trainee they’ve had, but who knows. Plus, it’s early. :) After dinner we came back to the neighborhood and stopped at Carrie’s house around the corner. They were making brochettes too, and I had a grilled chicken foot (pretty good—mostly skin). We hung out some more and the women started singing and dancing and the men inside the house got mad and shut the door so they could watch soccer. Liz lives across the street from Carrie and she came over with her mom and kids too – it was a big block party. Plus, it was Carrie’s birthday, so that was nice for her.
My family’s given me a new name – Aubonne – Nkogué, which is my last name. Aubonne is the last name of mama’s mom and mother in law and her husband’s last name is Nkogué. So now they say that to me all the time, and I respond Eh? which is yes. I keep wanting to say Nse, like in Mali, when people say your last name.
I’m still missing the familiarity of Mali but things are taking shape here slowly. There’s a Malian family, Ibrahim Doumbia and Kadia Keita, with 2 boys. I’m gonna try to visit them tomorrow maybe.
It looks like it’s gonna be a lot of hands on training, going out and doing stuff and practicing health and French skills together to have an idea of how things will work at post. Right now I don’t feel like I’ve done much but I have, just being with the family and doing training. It’s 8-5, with 12-2 for lunch. And things are busy in the evening with all the people coming by and dinner to prepare. The cell phone here is 27-14-21; Adéle Mengué is my mama. I think we’re on London time, 1 hour earlier than Paris. Good times to call are 1 pm or between 7 and 8:30 pm here. I think the country code is 00241 or something like that. My health is excellent so far, nothing to really complain about. It’s not hot and the high temp is only 31, maybe up to 34. I guess with humidity it sucks, but I think I can sweat it out, literally.
Well, I’ve been here a week – just took my second Larium. So far, so good. I feel like I’m in the right place – Tom and I were talking today about enjoying ourselves and wanting to do another tour somewhere else. We’ll see how we feel in two years, though – I’m sure things will be different. But it’s true that it’s sort of seductive – PC takes care of everything and gives you all the tools to do your job, and you get to have the experience and see another culture and have that for the rest of your life. I wouldn’t be anywhere else right now.
OK everyone, time to sign off. I don’t have email but I’ll write each week. Mama says it’s cool if you call here but I may not always be here. Just say, "Bonjour, eskuh Anna (Aaanna) ay la?" If I’m around they’ll get me. Mail works well, I think – people have been getting letters within 1-3 weeks. I’ll be here till mid-September but that address will work for my 2 years – while we’re here people bring our mail when they come in from LBV and afterwards I can pick it up. Send pictures and KoolAid/Gatorade packets for when Mr. Diarrhea comes for me! Send news, even if it seems boring.
Well, that’s the first week! Lots of love to everyone and good wishes. Here’s Nate Stewart’s address, which I got from his dad just before I left New York:
Nathan Stewart
Peace Corps
P.O. Box 208
Lilongwe, MALAWI
CENTRAL EAST AFRICA
His and Mike’s shared email is atlanticcanada@hotmail.com – he can check it every 6 weeks or so. His dad told me he’s in a village of 22 families called Niyka, where the men all work in the forest preserve. He’s having a blast and the village just loves him. I’m sure that those of you that know Nate are not at all surprised. :)
Love,
Hannah
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