Sylvia's Journal

This morning we went to the Cascades de Man. It is the touristic attraction of the region. People go here just for the waterfalls. It is the end of the dry season and so the waterfalls were not as spectacular as they are during the rainy season, but nice enough. The road there and the waterfall ‘amenagements’ as the French call it have added an element of ugliness to what is otherwise beautiful mother nature. The road to the entrance, where the ticket man sits, is hardly navigable in the current dry season. I can imagine that during mud season only 4×4 can get there, and not easily.

Once in the area of the waterfalls the tourists are helped by a steep set of uneven steps and a railing. That was helpful. Once down in the waterfall valley large slabs of concrete and preformed benches and platforms have been put in place willy-nilly without any sense of esthetics. They are practical as you don’t have to jump across rocks but also an eyesore. A small mildewed pavilion puts the finishing touches on the “amenagement.” It is run down, fungus on the walls, garbage – it will be fixed the guide told us. He is not paid by the ministry of tourism and lives on tips. I wondered whether the man who collected our entry fee (200 CFA which is less than 50 cents) is an employee or also a volunteer, and if the latter, whether he can keep the change.

There is a bridge made from vines that the villagers made in order to cross the cascades. It is in rather poor repair and fortified with man-made ropes. Our guide showed off, walking a few meters onto the bridge, saying that we probably couldn’t do it but he was and experienced guide. “Huh,” I puffed, “I can do this,” and we were all allowed to take a few steps on the wobbly rope bridge. Clearly, there are no lawyers here who make the rules. It is not that difficult when one has no baggage but I was wondering about women having kids on their backs and wares on their heads when a deadly force races by several meters below.

We returned to the concrete slabs and made our way to the big cascade. A large pool in front served as a self-cleaning swimming pool. Two small boys in their underwear were having a great time. Higher up the cascade formed a series of plateaus, nooks and crannies which enticed many adults to partially disrobe and take a shower while posing for their friends.

There is a steep path to the top of the cascade which we declined to take – our shoes were the wrong footwear and it was too hot. We also declined the two hour walk up to the ‘dents de Man,’ two large boulders that could have been the teeth of a giant.

On our return we went back to La Paille, the Senegalese restaurant where we are taking all our meals outside work hours. Today the waitress was rather sullen, eating a banana in a rather seductive way while taking orders. It looked as if taking an order was a tremendous effort on her part, as if she’d rather had the customers go away.  But she had an amazing hairdo and I was allowed to take a picture. It is the only smile she gave us.

I ordered again a Cieboudien (also affectionately called a Tjep), Senegal’s famous rice and fish dish, but with chicken. That was a mistakes as the chicken must have been of the elderly kind – little meat and sinewy.

Back in the hotel we went to check out the conference room and found the trainers of a workshop that had just finished. The topic, according to the banner with logos of the International Rescue Committee, the French, the EU and the Ministry of Health indicated that the workshop had been on the “Renforcement du système de santé.”  Interesting, I though, we are doing the same, but we are doing it with American money; and as I have learned along the way, usually the French and American development aid groups work in parallel without much contact and sometimes even in direct competition.

Here we are, working on intersectoral coordination when coordination within the health sector is hardly happening.  We ended up chatting with the organizers and discovered that they had been training midwives in safe motherhood and delivery practices. That too counts as health systems strengthening (everything counts as health systems strengthening – abbreviated as HSS- these days). The representative of the International rescue Committee mentioned she was not invited to our event so we quickly extended an invitation as she is clearly another critical player in the HSS dance.

Two things are abundant here: prostitutes and insecticide.  The former are recognizable by their very (very) tight and very (very) short dresses that leave nothing to the imagination and the latter by the constant affront to the senses and (it works!) the dead bugs in the shower. I don’t think anyone reads the labels in order to understand that these two practices are not good for anyone’s health. On the other hand, I am heartened to hear (on TV France) all the climate-related inventions made by young and not so young people around the world and in particular in developing countries to make everyone’s life better, humans, fauna and flora.

The hotel we stay in now is a little simpler than the previous one. If that one was half a star, this one is zero star. Some things are better, others worse: the airco makes less noise, the room is larger, the bed is larger, the door lock is hardly secure, the shower works until my neighbor starts to shower, and the water supply is on and off, as is the internet connection.

Breakfast this morning was rather chaotic and of the basic kind: a section from a limp baguette, an omelette and a Lipton teabag dipped in water that boiled awhile ago. In the other hotel we had a luxury breakfast: juice, croissants or pain au chocolat (both rather limp and a bit too sweet for my taste), jam, butter and a vache qui rit wedge in addition to the bread and omelette.  The fruits we added ourselves (papaya, watermelon, pineapple). When out in the country in most developing countries we stay in hotels that usually don’t cater to foreigners with expense accounts and so the lodgings are rather basic and payment straightforward: in cash.

I left the previous hotel without paying my bill because, contrary to what they told me on check-in, they don’t take credit cards. They would take Euros but I had none. “We don’t take dollars!” said the receptionist and her helper who was dressed in a lacy Victorian dress. “Why not?” I asked. “Because the Euro doesn’t fluctuate but the dollar does.” I offered them a really advantageous exchange rate but that didn’t work. In the end our accountant picked up the bill while I was cruising around town looking for an ATM.

What I had not counted on was that it was the end of the month. Everyone who receives money in the bank at the end of the month, not just from Man but from wide and far had come to Man, some spending their last 300 CFA on a taxi ride. People sleep in front of the ATM. When we made a tour of the city around 8:30 AM the lines were at least 100 meters; the ATMs without lines were already empty. A kind of monthly black Friday. We checked out all the ATMs in Man to no avail.

Last night we tried again and found the lines short, about 15 people waiting in a more or less orderly line, all men. The first 7 were crammed into the air-conditioned portal of the machine itself, and the rest waiting outside. An man in police uniform bypassed us all saying he had urgent business. I hassled him so much that he made mistakes with his password, exiting mumbling ‘zero, zero,’ (everyone laughed). He came back in again through the exit door, once again bypassing everyone. No one seemed to mind very much – they are used to abuse of authority according to my colleague F. My hassling distracted him (guilty conscience no doubt) and it took three tries before he had his money (and very little of it, about 15 dollars worth of CFA). It was a (very small) taste of obnoxious behavior of people in uniforms.

Of course it is nothing compared to what I read in the Congo book that I have now nearly finished. There I wouldn’t have dared to contradict a person in uniform as those folks are dangerous, even if they don’t wear a uniform. I am learning about despicable behavior of Heineken in the DRC that makes we not ever want to drink a Heineken again.