Fin de régime

Our bush trip is quickly fading away, apart from the fact that my Toyota is still in a repair shop as we’re waiting for spare parts from France or even Japan to arrive. It’ll cost me at least 2000 euros, and I guess I should consider myself lucky: an evacuation by plane and recuperating the car would have been much more costly. But what the heck, it was a tremendous experience and we had fun.

The last couple of weeks have been much less enjoyable. I felt débordé, literally swamped in work, without feeling I got much recognition for it. We missed an important reporting deadline and I was held responsible for it, something that still infuriates me. I certainly carry part of the blame by simply not paying attention to it (lots of other urgent stuff), but not all of it: I ascribe a big part of it to the boss’ way of managing things, which makes that you’re never completely sure whether it’s him or you in charge of a file. He himself was actually quite relaxed about missing the deadline, but my Italian colleague started sending me a series of e-mails whining about how the belated reporting effort messed up his section’s work. I tried a conciliatory tone, admitting that I carried part of the blame, but that Nordic openness doesn’t work with all: some enjoy kicking a man when he’s already down. Five days later I’m still angry, even though I am applying all sorts of ways to manage the anger.

Apart from the reporting stress there were intensive talks with the World Bank: this country is up to its neck not only in debt, but also in arrears on its debt repayments to various multilateral creditors, which blocks all sorts of possibilities for much needed aid. We’re now trying to see how we work out a scheme using our budgetary aid to repay one creditor, which will open the way for debt forgiveness from the World Bank, which in its turn would unblock much bigger budgetary aid disbursements from various donors than our single shot of 12 million euros. Capisce? And this is the simplified explanation. In fact the financial acrobatics required to pull this one off are hellishly complicated (coordination between five different donors), and the political and security situation in the country is deteriorating fast, putting enormous pressure on the government to look for quick financial fixes rather than more sustainable solution that take a bit longer to achieve (end of the year).

I can’t deny that I am feeling slightly discouraged these days. There's a fin de régime feeling in the air, even though it could last a while. The rebellion in the North (there’s actually three of them, all of limited scope so far, but creating unrest nevertheless) is gaining force, social instability remains, the Presidential Guard has fouled up a few weeks ago badly by killing dozens of civilians in a suspected rebel zone. The most worrying thing is that the rebellion and government action to suppress it is getting an increasingly ethnic twist: last week, at the funeral in the capital of a government appointed mayor from the provinces murdered by bandits or rebels, people were carrying an enormous banner saying that ‘the [name of a tribe, namely the President’s] people won’t let themselves be messed around with’. It's the first time that the ethnic aspects of the unrest were so clearly brought out. Newspapers too have started carrying articles with ethnic over- and undertones. Furthermore, a friend working in the forestry sector told me he had seen massive movements of nomads, peuhls, quite far South on their way out of the country with their families and all their cattle and other belongings. As it is them who provide the capital with fresh meat, prices will rise, putting new poaching pressures on wildlife.

In the meantime the government has been slowly suffocating the legal diamond sector by imposing exporting thresholds carrying enormous fines if they are not met. Several bureaux d'achat have already been pushed out of the market: less legal diamond buying, so less income for the state. Cui bono?, one wonders. The answer may be found in the fact that people close to the head of State, and the HoS himself I guess, seem to have started handing out diamond exploration and forestry licenses even in nature reserves (it seems that the fee for obtaining a forestry permit is about 750.000 euros). It took me some time to see how corruption works in this country. You will find considerable weak spots and ‘bad habits’, as they call corruption here, in state finances, but the real rot is before money even reaches the State’s coffers. And all thinking is short term, from the head of State downwards. Of course, the short term is important: we managed to convince the World Bank that if they didn’t pay heed to government concerns about the short term (paying salaries, especially the military’s), there might not even be a long term to worry about, as the present regime wouldn’t last and anarchy would ensue. But with such a lack of long-term thinking among it’s leaders it is hard to see where this country is heading. Continuing misery, I guess. With all this rot and increasing insecurity it is not easy to continue to work on projets as if nothing happens and we will actually have the time to implement them. I think again of my darling project on public finance of course.

So, professionally very challenging times. On the private front, M. has started again to revolt against his homework. While trying not to give in to his every whim (even though this struggle has been going on ever since we arrived), but also in order to do everything not to make him lose his interest in learning, we’re trying something new: we won’t oblige him to do his school homework (which I agree is extremely uninspiring) if he reads from a book of his own choice, then writes us a little essay on it which we will correct together. If he doesn’t want that, he’ll do his school homework. First try yesterday: I had invited a friend who is also a diamond trader, Bernard, and had asked him to bring some material to explain to M. the origin, mining, cutting etc. of diamonds, and to show him some stones. M. was thrilled. In the evening he wrote a five-line story, in Dutch. I corrected it, made him rewrite a few misspelled words, and it seemed OK. See if this lasts. My main concern now is not to make him a model pupil, but to do everything we can to make sure that the rigid French school system does not kill his interest in learning, which he obviously has (right now it’s diamonds, mummies, and the ever persisting dinosaurs). I had announced this new approach to his teacher, who was not thrilled, and almost told me I was an irresponsible parent: ‘they must understand they have obligations, even at this age’. Yeah, I guess, but they’ve got the rest of their lives for that. He’s only seven (and started doing homework at the age of five!) Making a child lose half an hour to an hour a day of precious playtime seems too big a price to pay right now.