So, it’s come to an end. I’ve been working, literally, from 8:15 in the morning until 8:15 at night every day — and today, my last day — will be no exception. My flight leaves from here at 1:30am (which is technically tomorrow, but whatever).

Anyway, I feel sad to go. I’m excited to get back to my life in NY and get on with things (my mind feels a bit there already), but I have to say that it’s been a really good experience. In fact, I don’t think I could really say anything bad about it.

It’s funny: I came in here thinking that I understood what problems developing countries have. I really realize now that I both had no idea their size and scope and now I have only the vaguest idea.

On the positive side, I got everything that I was sent here to do accomplished. Basically it was redesign and launch two websites . . . in two months, not too shabby, no? Anyway. Enough bragging.

It was fun. I highly recommend doing it.

Thanks for reading all! And thanks for all staying in such good touch. It made it a lot easier. I’ll talk to you all when I get home and we’ll get hamburgers. mmmm. Hamburgers.

So, I’ve only got one week left here. I’ve got to say that it’s been an eye-opening experience. Although I don’t think that this place defies description, I don’t think that it’s something that could be so easily summarized in a single post. It will probably take me a while to figure out what’s a fair portrayal of how CAR actually is.

That said, having only spent 10 weeks here hardly gives me the right to write some sort of definitive description on what this place is and how it works. However, just for my own memory, I’ll need to think of some way to make it make some sense.

Overall, I think the most important lesson that I’ve come away with from being here is that, if you hope to make any progress in development or humanitarian endeavors, the biggest assets you have are your brain, your will and your patience. And there ought to be particular emphasis on the last two.

I think I came here with a lot of naive ideas of what it takes to get “the job” done. I don’t want to say that I got it all wrong, but I think being here has really made it obvious to me that turning around a country’s misfortune and mismanagement is a job that’s basically never done and can easily be derailed by just about anything. It’s also particularly complicated because of cultural misunderstandings and ignorance (on both the side of the national and the foreign nationals).

For example: this is not, in any way, an egalitarian society. Authority here is revered and accepted. Social hierarchy (e.g., this person is BETTER than this other person) is the way of the walk. I had, and continue to have, a lot of difficulty with his. For example, people of status here (that includes westerners with money) are just called “Patron” (boss) by default. You, being a “rich” westerner (or a wealthy Central African), are expected to spread your largess to those around you. You’re also expected to wield your authority with a mighty fist.

One example of this (of which I have many) was earlier this week, I came home at about 10pm. My building is surrounded by a huge stone wall and there’s a steel gate with a lock on the inside that the security guard is supposed to unlock when people knock. I knocked. And knocked. And knocked. After five minutes of knocking and shouting, eventually the security guard woke up and let me in. Word of this made it to the day guard, who asked me repeatedly why it is that I hadn’t shouted at him and that that irresponsible guard most certainly deserved it and how it would be good if I were to give him a talking-to because what he did was unacceptable. He was upset to learn that I hadn’t and had no intention of doing so.

Stuff like this happens all the time: people getting shouted at. Getting spoken down to. And it is expected. And if you don’t do it, there is something wrong with YOU. You’re not being nice when you don’t do it; You’re a sucker. The idea that people are worthy of respect and have an implicit value and are even, perhaps, equal is not in practice here. Of course, it’s never just that simple. But this is the general idea.

Now I get that I’m probably sounding more and more naive as this goes on. But it’s not that I didn’t realize that this existed – I did – but I don’t think I ever understood the extent to which this system is a part of the fibre of a place and its people; that is, the extent to which there is no understanding of another way of doing things (sort of like my post right now — irony, eh). And I can’t say for certain whether or not it has any effect on people’s sense of what possibilities they have – but I’d be surprised if it didn’t.

To me, having grown up where I grew up, things like people saying “thank you” when you say “hello” to them on the street is disturbing.

I know, I’m not being very articulate . . . I’ll work on it.

Anyway, to bring this to a close, there are a lot of things here like the examples above that make you realize how far CAR has to go. And not just to be like the west, but to just be able to be productive and in whatever way healthy. And that will take time, patience, and a lot of effort on everyone’s part.

Yo, so here’s a new and improved draft for the movie. Again, just a draft . . . nothing is final until the ladyfriend says so.

Also, Sharone sent me this. It’s amazing:

While Jenna was here, she befriended some of the deaf people around Bangui and we sort of stumbled into making a short video of the situation for the deaf in CAR. I put up something up on it a while ago, but here’s the grande oeuvre (or a draft of it, anyway).

It still needs some work, but it’s almost there. When it’s finished we’ll put it up on the official blog, but here’s the latest version . . . Let us know what you think!

Oh — and some have already mentioned problems seeing the captions: I’m working on making them larger, but it’s a long process.

Further, if you’re seeing the player controls over the movie, simple keeping your mouse off of the movie will make the controls disappear.

So, bad news: the peace process here has ended. All of the parties have walked out b/c the president chose to extend amnesty only to his own forces and not to others involved in the peace process. From what I’ve been hearing from people outside of Bangui, the response has been immediate: violence is breaking out in the north of country.

People in Bangui aren’t concerned yet, but . . . This country is only as big as France. Ironically, this is one of the situations in which you hope that the civil infrastructure is bad enough that the rebels can’t reach the capital (there are three or four anti-gov’t forces) . . . but that’s how the last coup happened, so we’ll see.

Hopefully I’ll see you all at the end of August 🙂

[Honestly, I wouldn’t worry: although the situation is serious, it’s really a resumption of what was going on before and not an escalation beyond that]

This is just a little clip about one of the more unexpected things going on at the office. A bit of an intro: there are very limited restrooms here, so men tend to go wherever they feel so inclined. There is a designated spot, but what I found mindblowing (besides peeing in plain view of all ones colleagues) was that the area is also right next to someone’s office.

I don’t mean to be rude and judgmental (because what are people supposed to do? Hold it until they get home?) . . . but I really was surprised that peeing on someone’s office space is okay (but not in front of it).

We were looking at the length of days here (being only 4 degrees from the equator, there is virtually no variation at all in the length of the day) and found that the longest day here is 12 hours and 20 minutes long. The shortest? 11 hours and 53 minutes.

Anyway, I promised I’d talk about my work. Basically, my role is multifaceted. It is:

1. To take what is happening here, from a humanitarian and development perspective and report it to the rest of the world (which is really the rest of world that’s interested in donating money at a governmental and organizational level to help CAR’s humanitarian situation and their development).

So to that end, the Blog has to maintain a tone of urgency and clarity over what the issues are and what can be done to ameliorate them (to whatever extent is possible). But it’s also a fine line because the UNDP (who I work for) has to maintain good relations with the government and with all the NGOs that are working here. So, you need to tread lightly when criticizing anything, bearing in mind that you or someone you work with might very well find themself across the table from someone who was responsible for X, Y or Z problem.

2. To redesign and improve the hdptcar.net website (increase its ranking on google, get more traffic in general, et cetera). When you searched for Central African Republic in June (before I arrived), hdptcar.net website came up on the bottom of the fifth page. This is pretty unbelievable considering that it’s a blog about CAR that is updated several times a week. Since I’ve been here, we’ve been able to move it to the top of page 3 (with a little help from Qiana). Traffic has remained the same . . . so if anyone has any ideas, that’d be great.

As for the design, they wanted to move it over to a different platform. Right now it’s a blog, and they wanted to move it to a content management system called Joomla. I tried to convince them that it was both overkill and unnecessary to do that. It worked and I just finished and launched an upgrade and redesign to the site last night. Huzzah!

3. Improve the Ministry of Planning’s website (http://minplan-rca.org/) — people from SIRIUS will sympathize with this greatly — the edict from the minister is “make it move.” Awesome.

I’m beginning this task this week. It’s not looking like it’s going to be particularly easy.

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So, in effect, my position is a writer, designer, project manager, and developer. I work in a boiler room at the Ministry of Planning with one other American (who happens to be from Columbia as well), a Swiss fellow, and a German who is my boss. Everyone is SUPER motivated (i.e., works all the time). That said, they are very smart and detail oriented with a “lets just get it out the door” attitude.

It’s a great environment to work in . . . and, honestly, it’s in stark contrast to the overall working climate in CAR which seems to be very slow. This is referred to colloquially as “capacity.” The capacity here is quite low: many people don’t have a lot of experience using computers, networks, email, et cetera. So we, as resident experts, end up also doing a lot of basic IT support (e.g., setting up printers, installing drivers, getting rid of viruses), even though it’s not really what the group is here to do.

I have more to say about it, but I’ll spare you . . . this post is already too long.

Oh, and tomorrow, I’ll have a surprise video for you. It’s childish, but honestly, it’s unlike anything I have ever seen at any workplace in my life.

As an aside: we just moved our office over to the ministry of planning which happens to be a half a block from where I live.

I also found out that the woman whose apartment I’m staying in isn’t coming back until the 21st of August. That means that I’ve been living here, rent-free, for the entire time that I’ve been here — and entirely by myself or with Jenna . . . which is nice because that means that the $3200 it cost to get here will be defrayed slightly by what I’m getting paid.

Anyway, I’ve realized that the entire time that I’ve been here, I’ve completely avoided talking about my job. The reasons for this are two-fold: one because it takes me a long time to sort out my feelings about these things, and the other is because three days after I arrived, my coworkers here found my blog (internet dorks all).

Suffice it to say, that makes for an environment in which it’s difficult to talk about what I’m doing (for fear that I might offend people I spend all of my time with). That said, I’d say the experience so far has been very positive in many ways and I’ll definitely post more about it later.

So, last weekend, after stopping at the crocodile lake, we arrived at the village of Boali and it’s attendant waterfall. The view and the place were absolutely beautiful. Honestly, it’s definitely the nicest thing I’ve seen here: very peaceful, the people were nice, and there was also no one there even though it’s a dyed in the wool tourist attraction. Well, that’s not entirely true: there were two other Chinese tourists . . . but even still, basically no one.

Boali is basically the source for all the power in CAR as well. There are two hydroelectric powerstations there: Boali 1 and Boali 2. Boali 1 only has one hydroelectric turbine out of 3 that works and Boali 2 has no turbines that have ever worked (i.e., it has never, ever, generated any power at any point ever). Nevertheless, Boali 1 (which is visible in the later part of the video) is a very pretty building, even if it basically serves no purpose.

3/4 of the way to Boali is this little park called Crocodile Lake. The name is pretty much self-explanatory: it’s a lake full of crocodiles. The whole thing is really bizarre, starting with driving about 10 km off of the main road, through a series of these super small villages along a narrow dirt road in the middle of the bush to get to the park. Kids came running out of their clay brick huts to wave (or stare).

After about 15 minutes of driving, you arrive at the entrance (which is this totally overgrown driveway that, unless this old man hadn’t come out to meet us, would have led us to believe the place wasn’t there).

He charges you the entrance fee to the park ($2.50/person) and forces you to buy live chickens on a string ($5/chicken). We only opted for one (but ended up getting another one on the spur of the moment because of some arcane crocodile “fairness” doctrine that said that it was unfair that one crocodile should eat while the other feasted on delicious chicken). Anyway, the video that follows isn’t really material you should watch around a meal (or if you feel bad about watching animals get hurt).

On the walk down, the guy slapped the chicken into his hand to make it squawk . . . for some reason I found this as upsetting or more than watching the chicken get eaten by the crocodile.

As for the soundtrack . . . it just seemed like a good fit.