Leslie Sheppard's Gabon Web Site (Part 2)



Leslie Sheppard's Gabon Web Site (Part 2)

Dear Mom and all the ships at see,

Weird paper, huh? When I run out of typing paper, this'll be what I'll be writing on all the time. I'm using it right now because I'm at Julie Silva's house in Bitam. She's an English as a foreign language teacher here at the catholic mission. Still Peace Corps, just not so backwards as some. She's dating another construction volunteer in the area named Tom. I'm watching the rain thunder down in the last hours of the day. My chatier's 15km outside of Bitam, normally not a long distance, but oweing to the recent events, I'm not chancing the road in the rain. Wanna hear my story?

Oct. 3, 1996
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Well, thing's have calmed down a lot since then. Pasta, a little pig whom we kept along with another during stage, is cautiously exploring a bowl of old rice we put out for her. She was supposed to be part of the end of stage fete, along with her pen-mate, but since Joe was gone, it wasn't until the day before the fete that we realized she belonged to someone else. So, due to the chaos, she escaped uneaten. Now she hangs out on the site, reminiscing about the good old days of lots of leftovers, and we feed her a bit when we can, because we like her company.

The night before I wrote that introduction up top, I had also been in Bitam, I'd bought some bread, some fruit, an avacado, and a very preety raku ashtray with elephants with entwined trunks atop it, as a housewarming gift for J.J., who had that day moved into the tool storage house (hereafter - the magasin). It was raining as usual, not hard, as it had been earlier, just a medium drizzle. I'd had dinner with a couple of the volunteers, so it was dark as I put on my headphones. Bruce Springsteen started to sing "Thunder Road" and I took off toward home. I drove very carefully, as the roads turn to sluices and slurries of water and mud in the rains. On a downhill about halfway home, all the careful driving in the world couldn't have stopped that truck. Neither brakes nor steering mattered as the wheels tracked along a frictionless rut towards the left shoulder, which for obvious reasons, is actually a meter deep ditch along both sides to hopefully channel some of the water. I counter-steered, disengaged the clutch, and feathered the brake. The wheels caught the edge of the rut and began to climb back onto the road surface! Then, quicker than I could even swear, they found a new rut and slid smoothly into the far wall of the ditch on the right side of the road. Bread, avacados, ashtray, headphones and driver were sent at a considerable rate of speed forward. Luckily, Land Cruisers have almost vertical steering wheels, so I met plastic, not glass.

The start-up lights of the now stopped engine shown back at me. The windshield wiper had somehow been knocked too high, so I switched them off. Amidst the ringing in my ears and the screams of my left shoulder, I could hear Springsteen, faintly, singing "Born to run." For a minute, I just sat there, figuring my shoulder was broken, waiting to collect my wits enough to try and get back on the road. Then a face appeared in my side window. Ca va? he asked, and asked if I needed any help. I thanked him and said I thought I was ok. Well then, he said. Do you think you could give me and my kids a ride up yonder? !!? Only in Gabon would a man have the BALLS to ask someone who'd just careened off the road into a ditch, for a ride! What could I say? Yeah, sure, whatthafuck. A minute later, 12 ADULTS, not kids, had materialized and were singing in the back of my pickup as I drove the same treacherous road toward home. Guess it's hard to catch a cab that time of night on a sunday.

So, like my story? Well how could you? I haven't told it yet! That's just the prelude!

When I arrived home after depositing my cargo, who all said "Thanks you meester" (folks love to practice their English on you), so I pulled into the chantier, stiffly pulled myself out from behind the wheel, and gathered my scattered belongings. Miraculously, the ashtray was intact! I went into the magasin, and caught up with J.J.. He was telling me about Daniel, our oldest and most level-headed worker, havign had come in earlier and ranting to J.J. to what end of which J.J. of course ahd no idea, as he speaks no French so far. As luck would have it, I got to hear the story first hand, for at that moment Daniel came in, tailed by Mayen Mbn, another worker.

In an Oscar-winning dramatic performance Daniel recounted having chased away 3 intruders on friday night, while we were all in Oyem for the swear-in. (we had left him to sleep in the magasin to guard everything.) By pointing a flashlight and a stick at them, and yelling for help, he had put them to flight, helped no doubt by the appearances of the school director, who came out with his shotgun. At this point Moyenemba, who was obviously drunk, interrupted to ask for a light for his cigarette. Daniel turned and SCREAMED at him in Fang, until Mba slunk into the shadows again. After this, nothing occured 'til sunday, Daniel told me, when as he was sitting at after mass lunch with his family and friends, an occasion stopped in front of his house, and TEN men got out, armed with knives, machettes (later he added spears) and clubs. They promised to kill him, and left.... MmmHmmm...., came my response. Pity, they voice of reason in our group has taken a half-gainer off the 12ft end of the pool. Flustered, but undaunted, Daniel launched into his 2nd retelling of the story, even more animated and furious than before -- Eh, excuse me, Leslie. Can I... Moyenemba, oblivious, interrupted again, but this time, along with the royal thrashing out, Daniel reared back and decked Mba, with all his strngth, across the face. Mba staggered into the hallway and crouched, cradling his now resonating cranium in his hands. Daniel now had my undivided attention. He repeated his story once again for clarity, and I very politely listened, nodding at the appropriate junctures.

Now came the request for a favor. This seems to be the only time a villager wants to spend any time around you. 'Course they spend alot of time around you, if that's any clue. Since he was threatened for defending our chantier, we (actually I, 'cuz I know the lingo) had to take him to the gendarmes (police) up the road on the Camerounion border, to file a report. This I did monday. The officer listened blandly to Daniel's tale, which by now was getting old, and gave him a convocation, or subpoena, for a hearing the next morning. This brings us to when I first started the letter, Monday night in Bitam, after trying in vain to radio Libreville, in order to tell them, and now you as well, that we were both going to be living in the magasin, and when work was over for the day, the chantier was closed, and nobody, but nobody, was allowed in, under penalty of being snuck up on and clubbed by us. J.J. and I made a big production about this, as it made Daniel happy (who in turn keeps the workers happy) and also promised us a modicum of privacy for a while. neat how things work out! Course, I've lost a whole house in the village in favor of a single room in the magasin, amongst tools and bags of cement. But it's quiet here, and in the village there's a commotion, and kids standing in your doorway staring at you, ALL the time. That's how Gabon is, especially if you're not the same color as the rest of humanity. Only through quick thinking upon weird circumstances did we accomplish this modicum of tranquility.

Tuesday came. The workers came. Daniel did not. I was dressed up for my first Gabonsese trial, on enquete (inquest). So, as it was approaching the hour of our enquete, I went searching for Daniel. I found him two villages down, trying to get either the chef du village, or the 3 lads in question, to go with us to the gendarmerie! Seems in Gabon you serve summons yourself. I don't want to say I figured, but the 3 kids were less than willing to accept a ride from their accuser to jail. Therefore, we had to go back to the chantier, where Daniel worked a half day, in his dress clothes, while we waitied for the 3 to pass by in an occasion. Apparently it's hard to get a cab on tuesday mornings, too, because an hour and a half later the three came trudging by on foot, bound for the gendarmerie, in Meyo-kye, 14 kilometers away! As I rolled my eyes heavenward, God took pity and sent a occasion to pick them up. We waited another half hour for them to have a head start, then took off.

When we had all gathered in the Gendarmes office, (which is indistinguishable from any other Gabonese room, dirty concrete walls and wooden slatted windows, except for the presence of 4 tables and a like number of chairs, plus two for visitors, a typewriter, a daybed propped against the wall, and the whines and distorted voices of the radio room beyond.) Daniel began his deposition to the same gendarme, only now instead of his official french looking uniform, he sported a red/white striped t-shirt, jeans and flip flops. The three youths sat politely then each told their side of the story... all this was in french, as opposed to fang, for my benefit. Pointless, but a nice gesture. The gendarme, during all this, shredded a piece of paper and tossed the bits at a trash box, and at no time ever giving the impression that he gave a rat's ass. As the 3rd youth finished, the gendarme asked "Is that all?" and preceded to blast into the three kids! "Are you seriously trying to say you walked 3km at 2am, just to take a walk? Do you WANT to go to prison?" He laid into 'em for a good 20 minutes, while Daniel quietly beamed, pressed my hand and whispered "Everything's okay, now."

The youths were given orders to return thursday. Daniel was asked to summon the two other witnesses from the first night, and we were free to go! Speedy 3rd-world justice! Who would've thought? Daniel bought me a soda at the bar afterwards and we talked a bit (I don't drink much beer anymore here, hot 20oz'ers cure you quick) then we caught up to the three little 'bandits' on the road, and gave them a ride home. Daniel was happy. First test.... first test passed. Today, thursday, J.J. took Daniel et al (including Moyemba, whose one eye is sowllen almost shut) back to finish up in Meyoteye. I promised him he wouldn't have to talk.

With all the problems this chantichas had, between the fiasco at the first constructor here, the robbery and attack, and other various and sundry that have become so matter of fact.... [EDITOR'S NOTE: I can read this to type it in]
....to make it into print, I feel like this is our place, and we're the guys for the job. Our workers seem to respect us, and between my language, J.J.'s technical, and our combined management, we ought to be able to pull a decent school out of this. Of course you won't hold me to what I just said, will you?

Things are definitely different and weird here, but it's not so bad. Fact is, the only thing that really sets me off-balance is thinking of home, and those left behind. You're probably thinking "Remember, Leslie, the grass is always greener on the other side," but I think you know how good you all are, and how much you mean to me. I had it really good in the states, between those I loved and my footloose lifestyle. I think the thing that made me journey to Africa, to take on this task, the only thing I didn't like about my life then was me. I thought I needed to have something big, something major, so I could point to it and say, "I did this! I accomplished something!" That's just silly though. I know I didn't need to prove anything to you all. it's funny how our longest journey's, to the most unfamiliar territores, are right here between our ears. Africa's just more folks, just like everyone else, plus a lot of bugs and trees and cool stuff, but it's just a place I came to reflect on what I do have, and who I am, and how content I could be if I only let myself.

I've come to many realizations here. It's truly the reason I came. I could leave right now happy with the me I am, but I gave my word to stay, and I always keep my word. Or well at least unless there's a really good reason not to. No, when I look at that little enameled Peace Corps pin I got last friday, I feel proud to be part of this. We're a lot cooler than the Marines, you know.

Oct 4th, 1996
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Told you I'd change my mind, fuckers. After work today we threw a little party. Beer, popcorn, and a 200F a dayr aise. The workers loved the beer and popcorn, but they stared stonily at me when I announced the raise. Seems instead of a piddly 10% raise they were figuring on 75%! or at least 50% more. Now I've got to spend my saturday morning argueing with, yes, Daniel again over why we aren't going to give them any more, and how we're actually being nice, because the raise wasn't scheduled until all the walls were up in the school, a good month away! This is, coupled with the fact that I have to take Daniel to the gendarmes AGAIN tomorrow morning (this is the fifth time) because J.J. can't speak enough french, and the gendarmes are threatening to throw one of the kids in prison in Oyem for a simple, first-time, gonna get whupped by his dad anyway, trespassing and harassment charge! I hope Daniel's proud now, after his hystionic retelling of "The great chantier break-in" (which incidentally, even Gabriel, who came running to his aid with a gun, doesn't believe.) Fortunately for the kid, who I'm sure has learned his lesson 6 times over (I sure have, and I didn't even do anything!) they asked us, the 'patrons' of the chantier, what they should do - freedom or prison. So thank god I got my french down in time! Tomorrow I go give my opinion on the fate of the little bandit, which will of course be to let his faimly handle it, and if it happens again, I'm going to call a pre-emptive napalm strike on the whole area! I am also in the process of not paying Daniel any more money, going to politely tell this rspected old wise man that I'm finished being his ride and his token white guy/authority figure, to the cops! Ingrateful bastards! I left my loved ones to help THESE people?

O.K. That was just to give you the flip side of the great coin of African life here. In two years, we will never make connections anywhere near the power of our people at home. We're always outsiders, even from each other, I find. People, I guess, naturally take from strangers, and give to family. Folks here always take stuff back to their wives and kids, even their salaries! Today both Daniel and Moyenmba took their 2nd beer back to their wives. We'll never ne like them here, no matter how 'grass roots' we try to be. Too much is too different. I have always thrived on the love of those close to me. It being so far away, and there being no local source (save J.J. and Julia) makes it hard.

Now I'm going to try to be more uplifting, because by the time you read this I'll be a month further into this and hopefully wiser and more content for the experience. Pasta's still hanging around. She'll eat from our hands now, and we've made it known (and it's a big joke now) that she's our buddy, so Xmas dinner better be turkey. I know he'll stick for me for all I've got, but if Pasta and I are dog/person buddies by the time this is over (this chantier) I'm going to ask Gabriel if I can buy her from him, and take her to my next chantier. Hell, people have pets here, why not a pig?

The road in front of our chantier, with it's head in Bitam and tail at the Camerounian border, is probably older than this country. It was not made for motor vehicles (I've made that abundantly clear, I'm sure. (By the way, shoulder's much better) The road winds, dips and rises past more than a dozen villages, most of whom have only existed in their present location since the government, in order to better count it's constituents in the different regions of Gabon, moved all villages from their age-old locations, far back in the forest, to the side of the road. This was called regroupment. I've seen a couple of old villages down south, which are still occupied from tmie to time, due to the village plantation being nearby.

Even though these villages are kilometers apart from one another, foot traffic abounds. As soon as day breaks, as we're rolling out our wheelbarrows, somwen with huge baskets strapped to their backs, or basins of laundry, are making their way down the road. Men follow with machettes, or chainsaws, or the odd shotgun (held together with pipe clamps invariably) to harvest, or cut lumber, or hunt. The women return in the evenings, their packs loaded down with wood or produce from the plantation. The men return too, empty handed save the chainsaws balanced perfectly on their heads as they stroll home. Always in groups of two or three, or alone. No corporations here. Next day when buisness calls us down the road, we see the products of the men's labor: stacks of beautifully sawn, straight, chain-saw cut lumber. This is the efficency of a people left to their own devices, and I ask myself, what is it we expect to teach these people? Since when has progress improved their lives? Between the love/hate relationship I have with the people amongst whom I live, this is a question I wrestle with almost daily, as I sit and reflect on the day's madness,or magic. What is it that has possessed man, especially white european or american manm to wander to the far places of the earth, whether for conquest or simply exploration. Seems everywhere we go we find folks who have been there for eons, and happy for it, or folks who were happy 'till others like us came and tried to improve upon something we didn't understand.

---Well, J.J. came to the rescue. I posed the above question to him, and he handed me a xeroxed portion from a book about Gabon we'd been given at the swear-in, but I hadn't read it. In it, it described the birth of the construction program in Gabon, how peace corps had gotten involved, and, more importantly, why. I won't go into details (for once in my life) but suffice it to say it reminded me that I, who am loved and have friends at home, I am over here to be me. Maybe I won't make connections as strong and as lasting as the ones I have with you, but I will make connections. I'm a simple, decent fellow from America. I'm not rich, powerful, or glamorous. I'm just folk. Maybe folks here won't have to travel halfway 'round the world to learn what I am coming to know.

Lordy, all that bitching for one uplifting message! Sorry, guess that's the price for a free-association thought process letter, to be turned into a best-selling self help book at some future date.

I just today received 3 letters from Libreville, from another constructor who'd been there. They were dated the 27th of August. One month + 6 days. Not too good.

Don't let the most negative parts of your life become the biggest thing in it. It really is a matter of perspective. If I fumed about the workers or the roads or the food (or the lack thereof) or the lack of running water, lights, music, cold drinks, conversations in english, or a thousand other things, I would be sick constantly, or worse, I'd quit. But I write my compaints and my fears in these letters. I vent, I fume, and I work things out. And then I reflect on how beautiful this place is, and how amongst all the birds and insects you hear at night, I also hear monkeys, and things 99% of the world will never see, let alone hear, as I am.

I can do this not because of where I am, but because I, from sheer necessity, have to leave my fears and bad feelings behind, break 'em off a bit at a time, work through them, and let them go away, or I could not survice... anywhere.

Sunday, Oct 6, 1996
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Can you see, even in my complaining, from my little bursts of inspiration, that I'm becoming better? When I can pull back from the day to day foolishness, I see me, dealing with situations I could've never approached before, and striding over problems that would've stumped me before. Ha! Should Carolyn see me now!

Also, I told you about that letter from Ellen. That was so wonderful it almost stunned me. I know how different Ellen and I are, and that I had done something to make her truly proud of me makes anything this place can throw at me worth it. I do have the best sister a brother could have, don't I?

Some random observations before I say goodnight. I found a piece of sheet metal perfect for my sidecar here. If I can haul it around for two years, do you think customs'll let me through?

There is a big spider in the outhouse behind the magasin, one of those ones who spins the web with the zigzag-y thing in the middle. Herb & Jenny had em in the haystacks. Anyways, at certain times of the day, I find time to reflect on this spider, due to her convenient position. I've seen her go for flies now three times, running up on em, grabbing them with her forelegs, running back to her kitchen and wrapping it up, all in the blink of an eye. Watched another spider spinning her web one night. When you go to bed, sometimes you'll throw your shirt over the nail driven into the wall, and by the next morning it'll be ATTACHED to the wall, the bookshelf, the ceiling (roof) and a dozen other things. With all the buggies here, spiders have to be VERY industrious.

Slowly but surely, I'm trying to get into a routine here, so I'm slowly able to write people. I wrote Byron tonight, and I hope to get a letter out to aunt Dot soon (next time I get to a mailbox). She's sent me 3 letters! Please thank her for me and give her my love! And anyone expecting letters, tell them to write me and remind me! Or is that a too obvious trick to get mail? Oh I probably mentioned it allready, but I got the "Barrytown Trilogy" from Penguin Books. It's great! You should read that other copy. Start with "The Snapper" because it's the first complete story. I think you'll like it.

Tomorrow starts another letter. I LOVE YOU! Let that be a bright point to focus on. Your son is fine, and he's doing something really good. Let that be another. Stay strong. Talk to you next week. (like this, of course.)

Love, Leslie
XXXXOOOO

When this story was posted in October 2004, this was on the front page of PCOL:

Director Gaddi Vasquez: The PCOL Interview PCOL sits down for an extended interview with Peace Corps Director Gaddi Vasquez. Read the entire interview from start to finish and we promise you will learn something about the Peace Corps you didn't know before. Plus the debate continues over Safety and Security.

Schwarzenegger praises PC at Convention Governor Schwarzenegger praised the Peace Corps at the Republican National Convention: "We're the America that sends out Peace Corps volunteers to teach village children." Schwarzenegger has previously acknowledged his debt to his father-in-law, Peace Corps Founding Director Sargent Shriver, for teaching him "the joy of public service" and Arnold is encouraging volunteerism by creating California Service Corps and tapping his wife, Maria Shriver, to lead it. Leave your comments and who can come up with the best Current Events Funny?

Peace Corps: One of the Best Faces of America Teresa Heinz Kerry celebrates the Peace Corps Volunteer as one of the best faces America has ever projected in a speech to the Democratic Convention. The National Review disagreed and said that Heinz's celebration of the PCV was "truly offensive." What's your opinion and can you come up with a Political Funny?

Read the stories and leave your comments.