Bye Bye Biombo

The Leaving Party
1 week before we left Biombo, everyone began asking what we were going to give them when we went. After we had managed to accept that this was just the way it was going to be - we started to respond by saying we were giving a leaving party. This news was enthusiastically received.

Due to popular demand, and down right peer pressure actually, we purchased a whole live goat, for the not so bargain price of around £60. So our leaving party banquet was tied up inside the camp for a few days. She wasn’t entirely happy about this and made it known by her continual sad crying sounds. At night she was safely locked away in the kitchen. Edd thought it would have been a better idea to leave her tied up by the fence as bait for the Hyenas and then we could have our own private safari outside our camp. The team didn’t agree. They named the goat "Sarah" and were very protective of her. I was not entirely sure if that was a compliment or insult, especially as they were all so keen to slaughter her. But I don’t think it will be very constructive to dwell on the potential meaning behind that particular personification.

Everyone was foaming at the mouth at the thought of feasting on this plentiful helping of meat. All members of the surrounding villages would spend hours staring through the fence at the Goat with the glint of goaticide in their eyes. Without taking their eyes from the goat and slurring their words on the accumulating saliva, they would ask when exactly they would be eating Sarah. If it seems like I am dwelling far too much on the party food and not the other events surrounding the party, this is because for all the locals, the only thing that mattered was the meat they were about to receive. Nothing else DID matter! 

The day of the party came. Much talk had been had about who the chosen butcher would be. This ritual was surrounded in much bravado and honour. Poor old Sarah met her end. Sonia (victor’s wife) took her 3yr old daughter (Eta) along to watch along with several others, and Sarah was cut up on the stone slab of the Orphanage septic tank (like Aslan). While everyone was so transfixed by the carving, no one noticed that Eta had picked up one of the bloody razors from the slab and managed to chop the tiny tips of two of her fingers off. But never mind, there would be goat to eat in the evening! 

The long winded preparation attracted a lot of uncharacteristic help from those not normally caught associating themselves too closely with 'work'. Before long it was easy to see that this was a team building thing, but the underlying advantage seemed to be that it 'bagsied' you first dibs on the “best bits” and a guaranteed place at first sitting. 

At dinner time we were carefully portioned helpings by our oh so helpful team members. As we all ate in the dark, chewing on gristle, bone and whatever else……both Edd and I managed to hold ourselves back from the irresistible second helping. We had said that we then wanted all the locals be let through the fence to eat afterwards as we had promised them. When they were allowed in in a football hooligan style surge forwards they began to descend on the left overs. Considering how much food there had been, we noticed there didn't seem to be much going around, but left the food management to the team for fair division. There were also a lot of locals looking cross and moaning about not getting enough fruit juice or goat. Having seen how much there had been we assumed (perhaps naively) that they were just being greedy

Anyway, it transpired that there had been a lot of controversy surrounding the eating of this Goat. The next day we learnt that one of the most enthusiastic carvers, Batista, one of the builders (who is Hard works biggest foe), had his own private little party with Sarah around the back of the building before the food was served to the masses. He devoured most of the 'best bits' (including the poo tube, which I accidentally stumbled across them cleaning and preparing - yuk) and sent that which he couldn’t eat home to his extended family via a ‘runner’. Just after we had heard this pitiful tale of wrong doing by one of the team members, spoken with much indignation at the injustice of it all, Edd stumbled across this individual along with rest of the team (who had left Batista out of the regroup) having a second sitting at 10:30am the next day. They were huddled around the pot at mid morning, stuffing their greedy faces. Instead of dividing it amongst the rest of the village the night before they had stashed the booty for themselves the next day. We were very disappointed with them all and it unfortunately altered slightly our established perception of their community spirit, although I suppose as Joey said, its only natural human behaviour.

Saying Goodbye
Between the party and our leaving day we visited a few people, giving out a few of the hundreds of requested photos and saying goodbyes. As the time to our departure got closer and closer sadly more and more encounters became increasingly false. People who had hardly spoken to us throughout the whole 4 months would show an enthusiastic interest in when we were going (I can't imaging why), unlike ever before in conversation with us. This followed quickly by "so when you go what are you going to give me?". Sometimes this was accompanied by business ideas or family sob stories and how difficult it was to get a loan in GB. Yes yes yes, this is all true, but the way to help people is really not to give financial hand outs. You see, it is actually incredibly difficult to help people in the way they need to be helped rather than in the way they think they need or want to be helped. A carving on the wall in the orphanage we are now working in in Kenya summarises perfectly what we believe our experiences have been so far. Obviously we are not alone. "People really need help, but they may fight or attack you back after you help. Help them anyway". Yeah right, easier said than done!

After the dozenth personal cashew wine fund donation request and the inevitable disappointment of it all had died an exhausted death in us, we decided to try and keep a very low profile on the last day. We were going to try and preserve our memories of people as they were and as we worked with them rather than remembering how at the end, what seemed most important was what handouts we were going to give. You see, we were the 4th set of volunteers in this remote village trabanka. Their definition of us 'volunteers' had been defined by their experience of volunteers past. It seems that the volunteers before were mostly returning straight to Europe and had no need of clothing (perhaps they left naked) or any other item they had, including money.....so they must have given it all away. Eeva and Herve, given you were the first i'd be very interested to hear your take on this. Naturally the locals think this is the custom, try to persuade us of this too and get their bagsy in for their chosen item of Sarah and Edu's apparently superfluous and extravagant luggage materials. On the other hand there were a few people who really surprised us with their genuine warmth and kind words of regret that we were going.  One of the builders, Tome, who we named Obama because he was the local political/community spokesman, came with outstretched arms on the last day. He presented us with a beautiful piece of woven fabric. He said it is given between friends. We were so shocked and moved that he had had this present made for us by his friend. And it was so unexpected.  Other heartfelt good byes came from Victor (the houseman and our good friend-family photo right), without whose company we would never have survived our time in Biombo, and Lelu and Olivio the other builders. Mostly other people we had felt close to hid behind the "when will you come again" and "we'll see you in 3 years then" cop out. But it’s easier isn't it than making the process more painful than it has to be? Painful for perhaps being truly sad or painful perhaps for being utterly false. Either way...'goodbyes forever' are usually awkward. Or is it just me? 

Orange-pant family leaving photo left, with baby Edu.

In Guinea Bissau a unique black/white relationship has formed. Because there are nearly zero tourists 99.9% of white people (when we were there only 3 Brits) in Guinea are NGO workers or volunteers. The Guineans are being raised on the most extreme strain of this culture of the whites as a bottomless resource. To be honest, In Kenya, it is easy to see the developed difference. The people here are a lot more used to seeing white people (Mzungo) who are just tourists. They are not necessarily there to help anyone....so the requests for "give me this give me that" and far fewer. Yes this is all very easy for me to say being one of the lucky "haves" in the land of the "have nots", but I believe the negative effect this particular sub product of the process "African development" is being very overlooked.

In the last week we had tried to keep our distance from Femia a little so leaving wouldn’t be so painful. Although I couldn't resist making her a little school bag from a scrap piece of material I had left from sewing the Orphanage door curtain. She hung out with us on the last day, longer than usual until dusk. When the time she got up and said she was going..the same as she always did. She knew it was the last time but I don't think she knew how she was supposed to act. I tried to give her a hug and she laughed at me like I was some stupid fool and slouched off tittering and dragging her jelly shoes in the dirt with her new school bag flung over her shoulder. As she left I turned away from Edd so he couldn’t see my eyes welling up and said "so, then Femia was gone". Having prepared ourselves for the inevitably indifferent goodbye, I couldn't possibly allow myself to be disappointed.  Expecting not to see anyone else now it was dark we ate our last meal, lovingly prepared by Victor.

Later on in the dark, at around 9pm, we heard a little "bon noite" come from the other side of the fence. We responded and asked who it was and the response came: "Femia". We both looked at each other and smiled. Over at the fence was Femia, her older brother and his friend. All three were wrapped in blankets, their huge white eyes twinkling at us in the moonlight through the fence. They sporadically slapped their bare skin to combat the midgies they called "melga". This was only the second time Femia had visited us after dark in the whole 4 months. They seemed to have adopted sad looking faces as the realization had hit them then maybe they would miss Sarah and Edu and they wouldn't see them anymore. I don't think they were acting either and they didn't even ask for anything, except our phone number and to know when we would be back. It was such a touching little gesture, these three little people venturing out in the cold (relatively speaking) and dark to come and see us for the last time with no ulterior motive. Actually, it finally made a change and restored our faith once more just in time for our departure. Today's children are tomorrow's future. If someone were to ask me what initiatives I would support in Africa now, I would without a doubt say 'education of children'. They really do provide unspoilt fresh hope for the future.  

The Experience Overall
Ignoring the inevitable final begging requests for stuff, it was amazing how our experience turned around. Initially during the pain of trying to come to terms with the difficulty of adjusting to African culture with a European attitude and the lifestyle experience in the jungle; we sometimes failed to see how we would be able to come out of the other side with total empathy for the personalities that their lives had developed for them. However, quite the opposite occurred. Instead it was the African's we ended up understanding and loving while at the same time being denied the expected support and solace by our own European brothers. We have not described how we eventually agreed to disagree with the charity management over how the charity was fundamentally run. We did not think that a one sided ranting session on the blog would be a fair and adult approach to the situation, no matter how virtuous we felt ourselves. We have however certainly learnt a lot about the common phenomena that is the “small private NGO” in Africa and its impact/value (or not) to the community.

But in terms of our experience, nothing could have been much more intense than living in the jungle, with only 1-2 hours of electricity a day and having to learn a completely foreign language just to communicate on a basic level with people who had; and always would live there for their entire lives and in effect, would know nothing else. I think it will be hard to find anything as personally challenging as that again.

We are in Kenya now. Life doesn’t feel like such a challenge so blog material has slowed a little. Electricity is almost 24hr, running water and with English as the colonial language, communication is a far less frustrating experience. Initially when we arrived, we thought we would pass through quickly to head for a more desolate nation. However it doesn't take long to see that just around the corner are thousands of children who need food education, and a stable home base. Considering Kenya has long been the famous safari destination that it is, you would be surprised to see the poverty that still surrounds its people.

By Soz