03 February 2007

Jacques N.

A week ago I spent a weekend on a half private, half professional mission into the provinces. Our microrealisations project was to send a car to a town called B. near the Cameroonian border where a so-called ‘antenna’ run by a a local NGO accompanies local community based organisations in realising their ‘micro-projects’. My colleague PYL, the doctor who took such good care of me when I was sick in November 2005 and whom I have come to like ever more as the committed and selfless colleague he is, came along with me. I have come to believe that this microproject approach is key to whatever else we try to do in this country: get grassroots organisations involved, make sure that local initiatives are rewarded. The microprojects program finances both economic and social projets. So on our way to and in and around B. we visited: a school in the process being built, a pork farm, a carpenter’s workshop, a joint storage space for traders. Inevitable I had to meet the mayor and the prefet, both remarkably unimpressive.
One should not idealize the programme: it is not always easy to get the counterparts into mobilizing their share of the cost (in the form of construction materials, local labour, etcetera). In some cases it turns out that they have turned to other locally active donors to get that part financed by them, which to me undermines the whole concept of ownership. Furthermore, decades of development aid have had their effect on mentalities: I was quite irritated to hear the leader of the carpenter’s workshop under construction complain about a poorly manufactured door that had been purchased centrally for him by the programme’s management unit. A carpenter saying a wooden door (a gift one at that!) poses a problem for his project! I bluntly told thim that this should be the least of his worries.

We spent a few very pleasant hours in a local woman’s backyard being served homemade rhum. For a moment I had visions of myself getting killed by illegal alcohol in literally the middle of nowhere, but we were fine. Thinking back though, we must have taken a risk: the difference in destilling temperatures between methanol (poisonous, can kill/blind you) abnd ethanol is only 20C or so, and I am not sure the women, with her ramshackle destilling installation, was even aware of the difference.

Upon our return to the capital on Sunday , I heard that Jacques N., one of the drivers at the office had died of ‘fever’ after a long walk while on leave. I don’t think he was even 45, leaving behind no less than 10 children (among which 4(!) pairs of twins) with his wife, and an unclear number (between 1 and 4) of illegitimate children. Sure enough, I learnt soon afterwards that he was suffering of AIDS and had resisted treatment…. So his premature death could have been avoided had he taken his antiretroviral drugs. I also suspect that his wife must be infected, putting their children at risk of becoming orphans within the next couple of years.
I can’t say I was particularly close with Jacques but the story of his wife and children is affecting me, and I am trying to see what can be done to help them. Jacques being one of the rare locals with a relatively wellpaid job, all sorts of people are already hovering over the family in the expectation of money (his widow will receive a few months of salary). Raising money to give to the widow (hich e have already done) will not help much, she would be under tremendous pressures to ‘redistribute’. I have already decided that I will probably pay for one or two years of primary school inscription costs for the children, and I will try to mobilize colleagues to see if we cannot pay for his wife to undergo HIV testing and then establish some sort of trust fund to pay for ARV drugs for a couple of years to come so her children will have a mother for a few more years. We’ll see.

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May 17, 2008 10:45 PM  

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