Red Tables + Jewelry Making + African Orphans

It’s an interesting combination. Here’s another interesting combination: fair + trade. The motivation behind the jewelry making + African orphans is to begin a micro enterprise sort of thing with a few of the students at Project Hope and Charité so that they can learn a skill and generate some income. The words fair + trade have a couple definitions, “trade carried on legally” or “trade in which fair prices are paid to producers in developing countries.” I can’t vouch for the first one being true but the second definition is the goal of this whole operation.

I have been the middleman between my African co-worker Stephane and the Fair Trade Consultant Team (that’s what I’m calling them) in the States. It’s been an interesting process. After weeks of international skype meetings + emails + trips to the market, today was the day that things finally got rolling. The red tables are where it's all happening.

Here are some pictures from the first training day with the kids and one last interesting combination for you: banana leaves + glue + gloss + fishing line.

Stephane doing some demonstrating

cutting the banana leaf into strips

rolling up a banana leaf to make a bead

applying the glue and gloss

stringing the beads

coming soon to a fair trade store near you!

How to evaluate a Taxi

I don’t have a car in Bangui. I don’t mind. The process of getting from one place to another is more interesting when you don’t have a car. I ride around in taxis a lot since it’s a 10-kilometer distance to get to the orphan center.

The past few weeks I’ve gone “under cover” interviewing taxi drivers and critiquing their taxis trying to find a good reliable ride to work.

What are the criteria for a “good” taxi? This can be tricky. My taxi evaluation checklist changes depending on the day and the type of experience I want. However, there are a few basic things you should know to look for when evaluating a taxi.

Inspecting the vehicle:

1. Does the Taxi have four wheels? If a taxi has four wheels it’s in business. For a lot of people the evaluation ends here… I’m a bit more demanding.
2. Can you get in and out of the car? It’s usually a bad sign when you have to reach through the window to open up the taxi door from the inside. However, it’s even worse when you can’t get out and have to reach out the window to open the door. To avoid potentially getting trapped in a taxi with a taxi driver you don’t know (and to avoid the embarrassment of pulling of the handle to a door that won’t open from the outside) I recommend always reaching through the window and opening the door from the inside upon entering a taxi.
3. Can you see out the windshield? Ideally the windshield should be free of cracks but that is very idealistic. I’m ok with settling for a taxi with a windshield you can see out of and doesn’t look like it will break in a million pieces the next time the wind blows.
4. Does the taxi function properly? Meaning, does the car sound “healthy” or are there lots of crazy noises coming from all over the car making it seem like the car may break in half or the engine blow up at any moment? Pay attention, some taxi drivers are quite clever and try to cover up the “unhealthy” car noises with loud music. Don’t let yourself be fooled!

Interviewing the driver:

1. You can tell a lot about a taxi driver by what’s painted on his car and pasted to the windows. Paying attention to these things will give you a good preliminary assessment of the driver. For example, if there’s a Bible verse on the bumper you know he is at least a little bit religious; enough to think that a Bible verse could protect his car. If, however, there are words like sexy, hott baby, or cutie sprawled across the back window you can assume the diver will tend to be a bit egocentric. Other things you might see once inside the car include, but are not limited to: McDonalds happy meal toys, images of Miley Cyrus and Chris Brown, and Chinese good luck charms… interpret accordingly.
2. Ask questions about anything and everything. If you are going to be putting your life in the hands of a chauffeur, you have the right to know everything about him. These questions may lead to in-depth conversations about family, politics, or culture and may even lead to photo albums. If, during this stage of the interview process, the driver appears particularly distracted from the task at hand (getting you safely from point A to point B) they have failed.
3. If the taxi driver asks you to marry him at any point during the trip cross him off your list immediately. (Unless of course you are looking for a Central African husband in which case you will need to move on to a more focused evaluation. I’m sure there are a lot of perks to marrying a taxi driver including having a personal chauffeur and a husband who earns money.)
4. Quiet taxi drivers who don’t like to talk much can be good. However, before filing his phone number with your list of reliable taxi drivers be sure you can understand him when he does talk. Calling a taxi driver you can’t communicate effectively with is more frustration than it’s worth and rarely works out.
5. The last part of the interview is testing the taxi driver’s integrity. This happens when you pay them. I’ve found it is best just to give them the going rate. If they demand more do as you please but cross them off the list. No one likes a taxi driver who tries to overcharge.

Two taxi drivers so far have successfully made it through my evaluations. One, a spunky driver named Africain, made it past the interview and vehicle inspection (there were no cracks at all on his windshield!) but failed in the follow-up after he tried calling me Monday at 6:30am. Taxi drivers who interfere with your sleep are not acceptable. That leaves one. He seems quite promising.

a long blog post without any pictures of cute African kids

7:00am—It’s one of those rare overcast mornings. Ellen is out of town so I’m not going for my typical early morning run (I’m not allowed to go running in Bangui by myself) and PHC is on vacation so I don’t have to go out to the center to work. I turn off my alarm and fall back to sleep.

7:45am—Oops! I jolt awake realizing there are probably already at least two people waiting at my door for me to wake up.

I quickly pull on my below-the-knee length skirt and go unlock the door for Giselle, our house help. A few minutes later Odette is sitting on my porch announcing her arrival, “Amy! Mbi ga awe!” Odette comes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday selling fresh fruits and vegetables. “Mo lango nzoni?” she asks. Did you sleep well? Yep and I’m still half asleep. Thanks for asking.

I eat my breakfast of mango sauce, the African version of apple sauce, along with my daily dose of malaria medication and by 8:30am I’m in the office taking care of emails and odds and ends for work.

9:30am—Isaac, our day guard, comes into the office to inform Caitlin and me that we have visitors. Visitors? Who? My mind is still not in Sango mode. From his explanation all I gather is someone named Tambe, kids from Project Hope and Charité, and someone died. This doesn’t sound good! I quickly check the PHC student master list on my computer trying to figure out which of the over 1000 PHC kids might be coming to visit or possibly be dead. It is mango season after all and there have been a lot of deaths recently due to people falling out of mango trees (but no PHC kids that I’ve heard of).

I go outside to greet the visitor, praying that nobody has died. It’s a PHC girl who has been asking to come over to my house for weeks. In general I try to avoid letting anyone who asks come hang out at my house. That would get really crazy really quickly! The thing about Africans, though, is that they are persistent and don’t like taking no for an answer. “Mbi ga to sala kwa-ti-li ti mo,” the girl with the last name Tambe told me. She came to do my hair. I’m very relieved that no PHC kid had died. Apparently Isaac was trying to tell us our visitor was the daughter of a Grace Brethren pastor who had died and she’s a PHC orphan. I guess I’m not used to people getting introduced by who their dead father was.

9:45am— Despite being slightly annoyed at the interruption in the middle of my work by this persistent little 6^th grader and the cousin she brought along, I quickly finished up my emails and go to get my hair done. I sit in my living room in front of Oulda Tambe for the next hour getting my hair braided up while Giselle mops floors and dusts around us quietly humming African hymns.

11:45am—Oulda is almost done braiding Caitlin’s head now. Giselle is finishing up our laundry. Oulda’s cousin, Ornella, is eating peanuts out of a Scotch whisky bottle and I am sitting here with them with a head full of braids pretending to do work but actually writing a blog that I will upload later when I have internet.

Noon—They’ve finished Caitlin’s head and have now informed us that they don’t have anything to do this afternoon so they’re just going to sit in our house if that’s ok. Um… no it’s really not ok. A few minutes of awkward silence and peanut munching. Caitlin and I have work. How do you politely tell Africans who invited themselves over that they need to leave?

12:18—They finally got the hint. Well not exactly. We tell them we have to go back to work in our office. “A yeke sengue si i gwe na mo ti douti kete na bureau?” No you can’t come with us to sit in the office. You need to go home. We can’t go home. Our house is far away and we have no money they say. How did you get here? They come without asking and won’t leave until they get money for a bus home. Oh and hey… while they’re at it… “I have a ceremony at church on Saturday and I wanted to ask you if you can buy me new clothes. I don’t have any nice clothes to wear,” Oulda informs me. “Pardon, mbi lingbi ti vo fini bongo ti mo ape.” Seriously? No I am not going to buy you new clothes!!! If I bought clothes for every PHC girl who asked me I'd be broke in no time! We pay for their bus ride home.

12:20—I’m sitting in the corner of the finance office that belongs to Caitlin at the moment. It’s closed today. Isaac is back. He informs Caitlin that Gabin is here to talk to her. NO!!! She rolls her eyes. Be sure to tell him he can’t get money today she tells Isaac before he sends Gabin in to “talk.”

12:27—Gabin is leaving the office (with money). Persistent. That’s what these Central Africans are.

12:45—I think I've worked enough for one morning. Giselle is finished with cleaning our house and washing our clothes and dishes. I’m hungry. Maybe I’ll go back home, lock the door, and eat some mango pie. Hopefully nobody else comes to visit because that would mean I’d have to share my mango pie.