Black pig

Gee, we’ve had a calm week in terms of ‘event density’.

This being said, I thought for a moment last Saturday that things were going wrong: a plumber came in the morning to fix some sanitary problem. He told me not to leave home as ‘there [were] military all over town’, ‘because of salary problems’. For a moment I thought they had left their barracks over their own salary problems, as they have on numerous occasions in the past. However, it turned out that they had been posted on a major boulevard to prevent a trade union demonstration over, indeed, unpaid salaries in the state sector (9 months and counting since March 2003). The government, in yet another triumphant attempt to establish its democratic credentials, had decided to forbid the demonstration and to enforce its decision manu militari. As far as I know there were no incidents, the demonstration was broken up peacefully. I haven’t seen any such big demonstrations before since our arrival here though. Somebody told me today that Christmas time is putsch time in Western Africa. With Christmas approaching and prospects for payment of salaries continuing to be dim for the time being, I, uh, well let’s say I do not regret leaving for a few weeks.

Little by little we are getting ready for our departure to the Netherlands on Sunday. M. and T. received their school reports today, no surprises: M. kept up the good work and pays a lot more attention than before; T. is all over the place, easily distracted, but very sociable and ‘mignonne’. A. had her hair done with hair extensions. Unfortunately she looks like an ageing hippie with them (that makes two of us, as I badly need a haircut too. During my illness I grew a two-week beard and my boss’ wife thought that I was beginning to look like Jesus Christ…) and she will have them removed before we leave I think.

M. and T. had a friend sleeping over last Saturday evening, the seven-year old son of a young couple running the restaurant where we went for karaoke recently. The boy, always quite a handful, now misbehaved completely. We left the four children for a few hours with Odile, yet another member of our feudal household. When we came back she was furious, which is a very rare experience with people here. M.’s friend was still up, bouncing up and down on his bed. He had woken up the other three children and, worst of all, grievously insulted Odile by calling her a ‘gros cochon noir’, a fat black pig. A. and I were quite upset, as we always make a major point with the children about showing respect to the people who work for us, correcting them quite severely on the occasions (rare, I must say) where they try to take liberties with them.

I’ve never put somebody else’s child straight in such a harsh manner, telling him to apologize to Odile and not to give a peep again. The next morning I took him back to his parents and told his mother what had happened. She was utterly embarrassed, and uttered something about ‘kids picking up things at school’.

Why am I boring you with such a tedious and perhaps quite trivial story? Because I think, hope, that it’s been a defining moment in M. and T. upbringing. That’s also why I put up such a show, though my anger was real enough at that point. Later I sat Milan down and we talked about it and he understood very well that his friend had been way out of line.

I am not sure though about telling the boy’s parents the way I did. Even though I did my best to tell them in a neutral kind of way about the incident, my annoyance must still have been perceptible. I’m afraid that it may have struck them as an implicit reproach of poor child-raising skills, or even racism, on their part. He’s actually a nice kid, but very dominating as he tries to make up for a lack of parental attention. Due to his parents’ livelihood he is most of the time in the company of local nannies and other personnel, who tend to be far too permissive of kids’ - especially white kids’ - bad behavior. (Ours are no exception, we have had to instruct them explicitly that it is them, and not the children, calling the shots in our absence.) I’m sure that his parents, and certainly his mother, feel terrible about this and that they don’t need any high-horse reminders from anybody. So I’ll make sure I see them again to reassure them before we leave.

So, as you can see, there’s no lack of opportunities big and small for ethical nitpicking if you’re going soft like I am these days ;). Is it the malaria that has forever deep-fried my brains into a permanent state of sentimentality, or perhaps my forthcoming fortieth birthday and a looming midlife crisis? Life in this country, and not least our experiences of the last couple of months, are changing us, that’s for sure.

Good stuff is happening too. The mood is up and we’re seeing the bright side of things again. I am picking up strength and am now working reasonably productive half days. As I know I will only be effective for a few hours, I actually concentrate much more on what is essential and I delegate more. (Is this the birth of an innovative management idea for a bestseller that will make me rich and ensure me retirement in my early forties: work less and be a better manager? Sorry...)

One of the other pleasant discoveries I make here is also how beautiful project management can be if it is done well. I realized this today while in a steering committee meeting of a complex project of micro-realizations in mainly rural areas (I admit I do get my flashes of enlightenment at odd places these days). I’ll spare you the details on procedures, contracts, budgets etc., but the head of the project, George D., who has actually become a good friend, presented the project as an Excel-based work of art presented through Powerpoint. The man has single-handedly, and with a clarity of mind for which I envy him, turned a project that was in deep trouble when I arrived into one of our success stories, potentially offering hundreds if not thousands of people a perspective out of poverty. Occasionally you come across such project managers, and the quality of their work is a pure intellectual pleasure. This kind of experience makes me almost wish I had started working in Development earlier. I just hope the public finance project I am involved in will be equally well managed.