July 21, 2006

Because this blog is all about transparency and honesty, I am duty-bound to provide a correction.

In my last entry I wrote about Bec’s “Patron Saint of Recklessness”. Well, I got the gist of it wrong. What Bec meant is that she knew all sorts of folks in Central Asia who did all sorts of stupid things. But they lived, so she assumed that there was a supernatural being watching over them. Until she started noticing many of them bore scars, and they all had friends and family who didn’t make it when they did the same mystifying thing.

So I didn’t get it 100 percent right, but I don’t think I got it 100 percent wrong, either. Why? Well, if Bec was able to talk to these people and notice the scars, something was probably looking over them as they took incredible risks with their lives simply to get from one place to another. …

Things here are going. I met the Associated Press correspondent for Cameroon yesterday. He’s Cameroonian, and he gave me a good understanding of how little I understand about the country. Basically, Big Paul here is really Big Paul. And if you cross him, bad stuff is on its way. Plus, business is so opaque and corrupt in Cameroon that many Western news agencies don’t even ask for reporting on it, even though there are serious privatizations of public assets going on. In the end, a lot of money ends up in the pocket of a government minister, or a former government minister who has finished his time on “the farm”, if you catch my meaning.

Of course, a banner on the main Bastos road advertising the ruling party congress being held today says “The RDPC Says No to Corruption and Misuse of Funds”. Priceless…

I’ve noticed that having a Mac is really a conversation piece. Or maybe, as Rebecca says, the entry card to a cult. Basically, whenever I’m in the Espresso Bar, the shwankiest and most expensive Internet café in town (but the only one where a fella, or yuppie, can get a decent latté) and I see another Mac, there’s instantly something to talk about. Usually, it starts out as a question about where to get the thing fixed if it breaks. The answer? Not in this part of the continent: back up all your files and get ready to take it home for care. But like a member of any cult, I’m not going to change computers simply because it would be logical and make my life easier. No, I’m now one of them.

So Bec and I had dinner with a guy who studies fish diversity on a Fulbright fellowship up in one of the far-away provinces. There are electric catfish in the rivers here that will make you look like Don King. He’s a Mac guy I met on Wednesday. Then yesterday, I met a guy who’s starting up a digital recording studio in Yaoundé. He’s a good guy to know since I wanted to report on music piracy here.

Finally, I’ve discovered there are few public toilets in Yaoundé. And the ones you can find you probably don’t want to use. So all the guys just pee on the side of the road, usually with their backs to the thoroughfare and sometimes even with a tree to block the view. I admit I’ve had to do this when out with friends. Women, I assume, have bladders the size of basketballs, because I have no idea what they do.

There is a point to this. As I mentioned, there’s a construction site behind our apartment. There are no porta-potties (or as I used to think they were called, porta-parties), and few trees or bushes on the site. So half the time I go out on our balcony, there’s a guy holding his junk in his hands aand taking care of business. It’s really disconcerting.

Bec says I shouldn’t worry about it. If the guy cared, he would have a) found a bush or b) turned his back to the balcony. Somehow this doesn’t make me feel better.

On that note, have a good weekend.