African Heat

The heat here is impossible to explain unless you’ve experienced it. If you’ve been to Burning Man- that drug-fueled Bacchanalia for Rich White People in the Nevada desert- you think you know heat. You don’t. Here it is unrelenting, oppressive, penetrating and finally unstoppable. The sweat pours off us at night, it pours from us in the morning, it bathes us in the afternoon even while we sit in the shade and drink cool water out of plastic bags. We have sweated non-stop since the first seconds we emerged onto the tarmac at the airport, and after the first few days of unease, frustration and nausea we give in, surrender ourselves to the pouring waves of hot air like a swimmer to the surf, like an outnumbered general staring at the advancing ranks of an infinite enemy. There is nothing we can do. We accept the fact that a new short sleeve guayabera-style shirt will be filthy with sweat and dust in two hours (not that we’ll stop wearing it) and that within minutes of showering by dumping a bucket of cool water over our heads the heat will make us want to do it again (not that we will).

I become convinced while I am here that this is where the laid-back African attitude about everything- things happening on time, things happening at all- is rooted. It is not just that it is too hot to make it much of anywhere on time (though it is). It is that the heat has permeated everyone’s mindsets here just like it permeates their skin, making giving in to the natural flow of things a way of life more than a choice. There is no point in worrying about the heat- unless, I suppose, you are one of the infinitesimal percentage of Africans who have air-conditioning- so there is little point in worrying about other things like a schedule or a phone call. On the main force that faces everyone here all day, every day, there is only surrender- dab your forehead with the ubiquitous colored hanky that everyone here carries, and tough it out.

SPEAKING AFRICAN

In America, if you are white and talk black you are a jerk, and probably a racist who insults the intelligence of black people with your failed attempt hip ghetto solidarity (unless you're Eminem). Here, you are communicating more effectively. It's called Pidgen English, and it works. For example, if you need to find an Internet Cafe and you say to someone on the street "Excuse me, do you know where I can get online and check my email?", you will likely experience a minute or so of wild gesticulating before the person tells you something you only partly understand. If, on the other hand, you say "I need Internet! Email! Do you know where is this?" the same person will likely immediately say something like "Ah! You take Tro, there, you tell the mate first junction, there, second floor, you see. You understand?" Which means, pack into the minibus (tro tro) with everyone else, tell the money taker guy First Junction stop so he lets you know when you get there, once you're there you'll see an Internet place up on the second floor, where you can post an update on your Internet site for all your American friends to read who will think you're being alternately condescending, a braggart and showoff, completely off base about everything based on their experiences of Africa, or that you are providing the most interesting insights they've ever read. You understand?

AFRICAN CELL PHONES

Buying a cell phone plan- with monthly minutes and nights and weeekend cheaper and etc.- is an idea that may as well be from the moon over here (as one woman put it when we told her about 'nights and weekends'- "Oh, nobody in Africa would call all day during the week then"). It is one of the trillions of ironies of a place as desperately poor as this one that just about everyone here has a cell phone. Of course, these phones rarely work, because everyone buys units for them when they can afford them, which is rarely- at least with anyone we seem to know. The other problem is that everyone's phone is constantly running out of batteries, because charging it requires steady electricity and in our case it would require plugging it into the one outlet in our rooms overnight, which would mean unplugging the fan and trying to sleep, which is NOT an option. To combat this, everyone we know is an expert at taking a cell phone apart, removing the chip inside, and installing it in someone else's phone who has more batteries, units, etc. Before I got here I had never seen this done, and yet here it's routine. An example perhaps, of some pretty ingenius creativity in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Or maybe the whole thing is just one more frustrating example of a system that doesn't work in a country where everything seems to be broken or out of service all the time. Take your pick, and depending on the hour of the day and if we can figure out whose chip is in whose phone calling which phone number, we will agree with you either way.