Following instructions

When I arrived in Chad I decided to employ a house-help. It is common practice amongst ex-pats all over Africa to do this and although part of me struggles with the concept (I've read The Help...) it is a mutually beneficial arrangement - I get my house cleaned and someone gets an income they might otherwise not have.

When I first met Odile we talked through the different things she was to do and she asked about washing the curtains (something I never do at home!). She suggested washing them every two weeks and, not wanting to dampen her enthusiasm for her new job, I replied that every two months would be enough. Even that seemed a lot to me, although everything does get very dusty during the dry season.

Odile has been working for me now for 2 months and so today when I returned from the office I found every cushion cover and curtain in the house (including the shower curtain and my mosquito net) had been washed. Unfortunately it poured with rain today so while the aforementioned soft-furnishings are clean they are definitely not dry. Odile told me she would iron everything the next time she is here but as she only works two mornings a week that won't be until Thursday.

I decided I can live without curtains in the living room for a few days but that, as I am on the ground floor, I definitely need curtains and a mosquito net in my bedroom  So I have hung them up whilst they are still wet - it's as good a washing line as anywhere else - and I hope Odile won't be too upset that I have not waited for her to iron them.

I hadn't really thought about that first conversation with Odile until today but she had obviously remembered it and was determined to follow the instructions I had given her. I am now wondering what else I might have said - I guess I will find out in time...

Laissez Passer

For the last couple of weeks two members of staff have spent numerous hours taking the three company owned vehicles and the two vehicles that are privately owned by international staff through an annual inspection. They would leave the office first thing in the morning and head off to the designated police station where these checks take place and inevitably they would not return until the end of the day.

The process involves presenting all of the vehicle’s paperwork for seven different checks including customs (all vehicles here are imported), ownership, taxes and insurance. The vehicle’s chassis number is verified and some rudimentary inspection is done on the vehicle, such as checking the lights and the indicators. A document is stamped and signed as each of these checks is ‘passed’ and once all seven checks are done you are issued with a ‘Laissez passer’ (‘pass’) sticker to be affixed to the windscreen of the vehicle.

It is not uncommon here to be stopped by the police, who ask to see your vehicle’s paperwork and will inevitably find that one or more of your documents is somehow not in order. If you pay the policeman an on-the-spot ‘fine’ you are allowed to go on your way. A vehicle with a ‘Laissez passer’ sticker should, as the name suggests, be allowed to pass without any further checks being required so the theory behind this is a good one. Unfortunately as with many things in Africa the practical implications have not really been thought through and what should be a fairly straightforward process becomes, in reality, something that takes days to accomplish.

• All vehicles are required to be inspected at the same police station in July – so there are a huge number of vehicles to be processed
• Each check is done by a different official so you battle to get to the front of one ‘queue’ (I use the term loosely because in reality it will be more like a scrum), and then you have to start all over again for the next check
• There is no published information about what this process should cost but there do seem to be a number of ‘fees’ that need to be paid. This is not unreasonable; after all we pay to have an MOT test each year in the UK, but the fees seem to vary and there are no receipts…

People inevitably get frustrated at the length of time the process is taking – it is hot and tempers are short – so it is a pretty volatile place to be. I felt bad that I was asking two of my team to go through the daily ordeal of battling their way through this process. I know they hated it – one of them said he would rather do anything else – but the appearance of a white woman at the police station would only have complicated the process even more and made the fees higher!

Language Learning

As I try to speak more French I increasingly find that I am half way through a sentence and I realise I don’t know the French word I want to say. I ‘um’ and ‘ah’ a bit, trying to retrieve the word from my brain (although in reality it has probably never been there in the first place) and then in desperation I say the word in English, with an inflection that implies a question. I am surprised at how many times the person I am speaking to says ‘Oui’ and then repeats the very same word but with a French pronunciation. This week, using this technique, I have learnt the French for:

flexible

complication

measure

economic

social

individual

Another technique I find helpful for remembering words is to think of another English word meaning (almost) the same thing I want to say. So:

To ask is demander

To stay is rester

To look is regarder

And so on. But my favourite French word so far is the word for raincoat – it is impermeable, which is just what you need a raincoat to be…

10 ways my life is different in Africa

Living and working in a country that is not your own inevitably means a change in lifestyle.
On a day-to-day basis (and in no particular order) for me these changes include:

1. I put more salt on my food - it means I don't wake up in the middle of the night with cramp
2. I eat less meat (see previous blog)
3. I rarely drink alcohol
4. I drink more 'sodas' (Coke, 7 Up, Fanta, etc)
5. I go to bed earlier
6. I get up earlier (not always by choice!)
7. My driving style changes
8. I don't watch TV (although I do bring and borrow DVDs)
9. I wash up in cold water
10. I shower in cold water

I could go on but as the title of this blog was '10 ways...' I won't!