Well, it has finally come to this: all my years in broadcasting, acting and
serving as a spokersperson for a myriad of organizations have served me well, as
I face my shining hour in the public spotlight this Friday, when I serve as the
M.C. for a....sheep sale! What does one wear for that...?
Today, five colleagues and I -- wedged into a small 4-wheel drive -- went out to
the farm where some 2,000 Sahelian sheep are being brought in from Burkina Faso
to be sold to Ghanaian livestock traders, who in turn hope to make a profit by
selling to Muslims for the Eid al-Adhar (Abrahamic "Festival of Sacrifice")
holiday next week. We had to check the site to make sure it was environmentally
friendly for the sheep; that is, they need shade, food and water so they're not
too stressed after their two-day (truck) trip from the north (the irony of their
pending sacrifice notwithstanding).
The farm isn't very far out of town; it's just outside Accra's port of Tema.
The access road to the farm is deeply rutted and perilous to cross, especially
with an overloaded car. I kept muttering in my best Meryl Streep imitation, "I
hahd a farm een Aah-freeka", and then we all laughed, noting how in these
romantic African movies (mostly set in Kenya), they never show you the road TO
the farm! (Actually, I've been to Isak Dinesen -- aka Karen Blixen --'s
property in the Nairobi suburb of Karen, and it's beautiful).
The town of Tema itself is absolutely teeming with people and extremely intense,
small-time, poverty-driven entrepreneurialism. It's overwhelming and
fascinating and polluted and rough, full of life and color and activity. It
also has, oddly, a great many stacks of car tires and stripped cars being
played/lived/slept/cooked in. This was more fully explained when I got back to
the office. There was an email from my shipping agent advising me that my
container, which is supposed to include my car, had arrived....in Tema.
***
The sheep for "Operation Tabaski Ghana", the sale of Burkina Faso sheep trucked down to Accra for sale for the Muslim festival (for sheep buyers to then sell to consumers), were supposed to start arriving the 10th. They didn't. They got a late start, and didn't get out of BF until Thursday, the 11th. But, we were assured, the drivers were going to go all night so they could arrive in time for the opening ceremony on the 12th. Of course, all our publicity said they were going to start arriving the 10th.
To return to Wednesday's "pre-event visit" for a moment...imagine five project people (plus some Ghanian Muslim sheep buyers, a municipal veterinary specialist, plus one or two sundry others) standing on an approximate 12'x12' cement covered platform with wooden poles at the front two corners, trying to decide how to best run the event. How do we greet people? How do we know who should sit up on the stage? How will I get names to acknowledge people's presence? What do we do when officials show up with their entourage? (They always do; African ministers -- i.e., heads of government departments -- have to be THE most self-important people on the planet!) Esther wants us to paint the cement back wall and footing. It doesn't look good. We all just look at her. Is she kidding? This is a farm. No, she's not kidding.
Suzanne doesn't want the "bigshots" (or "big men" or "big women") to sit in plastic armchairs. She wants "nice chairs". I have visions of these terribly over-sized, overstuffed "fauteuils" (French for "armchairs") that are an African favorite, but to me look as if they belong in a hotel lobby. No, I put my foot down (being nominally in charge), please, not that. They can't sit on plastic, Suzanne insists. And she's tough. Hysterically funny, but tough. Well, they have to have arms, I counter, because a plastic chair with arms is a heck of a lot more comfortable than a "nice" chair without them. And what about these wooden poles? Shouldn't they be decorated, as is customary, wrapped in colorful fabric? And what about the floor of the stage? Hold on, everyone, I stop them. We have a budget. We're on a farm, for heaven's sake! I appreciate your desire to be both culturally and protocol-appropriate. I want it to be nice, too, but I want it be natural. We're on a farm. I have an idea that, as it turns out, is truly inspired: What about straw mats? Everyone loves this, and Jeff says he knows exactly where to get them. (And he did, and they were perfect. Never mind about the chairs -- a mish-mash of large black swivel chairs, upright hotel dining room chairs, and plastic armchairs.)
Okay, now what about the "high table"? local bureaucrat Stevenson asks. A high table? What is that? The way everyone explains it, or at least how I'm understanding it, is that a "high table" is a table the "important people" can gather around and ....eat from? But no, I point out, we're going to have a refreshment table -- over there (pointing vaguely in the direction of another tree). Can't people just help themselves and then sit where they want? No, no, they insist, we need a high table. We go back and forth like this for a while, English...French...Twi... Hausa (the latter two I of course don't understand at all)..with the sheep buyers throwing in their two cents. Suzanne wants to call Raja, the farm owner who has arranged the set-up, to find out exactly what he has ordered.
Wait! You mean a HEAD table??? Yes, yes, the others nod happily. I can disposes of this one fairly quickly. No, I don't want a head table. I don't want it to look like a panel discussion. Oh, you're right, everyone agrees. That's for a presentation, or for a workshop in a hotel. And this is a farm. We want it natural. Yes, yes, I'm now nodding happily. At last we're all on the same page.
What about bathrooms? The farmworker, who is from Togo and speaks only French, assures us the bathrooms are fine. I'm not so sure. I don't care if they're latrines, but they absolutely MUST be clean! I tell them I used latrines in Nicaragua that were up in the hills somewhere and they were spotless. (What am I going on about -- Nicaragua? Why am I even mentioning that? Jeez, pretty soon I'll be talking about how my husband died and then they'll feel so sorry for me -- and all I want is a clean bathroom!) Turns out they were just regular western-style bathrooms but I packed toilet paper with our event "tool kit", just in case.
For the record, back at the office Suzanne (Cameroon descent, raised in Strasbourg, later years in London, somewhere else in between, I think), admitted she'd never heard of a "high table", either; that's why she suggested calling Raja -- to find out what it was! We both burst out laughing.
Day of the event: Ismael, the Chief of Party (the project boss) called to ask me what time were we leaving. I thought Esther had handled that, as she was in charge of the transportation, along with Jeff, one of the drivers. Ismael also wanted to know if Bernardin (who by default had become the lead person on this in Accra, because another colleague had to attend a family funeral) had called me. No....uh, oh, this was not going to be good. I'm right. Ismael informs me that the first 250 sheep are not going to arrive in time for the opening ceremony, because their truck driver did not, as it turned out, want to drive all night. Should we cancel the ceremony? No, I was firm about this. We go on, and just tell them the sheep are coming.
I'm pretty annoyed by the time I'm picked up at my apartment because it's 9:30 a.m., an hour later than we were supposed to leave, and the ceremony is supposed to be at 10. I figure there must be a pretty good reason why everyone's late, *I had already called twice), and it turned out that: Felix (one of my communications department staff ) had ordered a car for the media but the car didn't come so he went to find another car but hadn't told Jeff, who was already doing that. So Felix was po'd and so was Jeff. Meanwhile, Jeff, Esther and Daniel were waiting for Bernardin who was on the phone about the sheep not coming and he said he'd be right down but the others thought they had waited long enough and someone needed to be at the event (!), so they were po'd and left, and Bernardin was po'd and said he couldn't take a taxi but finally did and arrived AFTER the ceremony, which went fine except I couldn't pronounce anyone's name correctly and told the representative of the Chief Imam he didn't have to say anything if he didn't want and he said it was up to me (being nice), so I said okay you don't have to and. then thanked everyone for coming (for the umpteenth time) and invited them to have some refreshments The chief imam representative wanted to know why he was invited if he weren't going to speak...what about the closing prayer? (I'd forgotten all about prayers.) So I called everyone back, he gave a prayer, and was really a good sport about the whole thing. Wanted my phone number. No, not that way. In a friendly, business way...I think. Maybe he's going to issue a fatwah.
Finally, it was over. And we never saw any sheep. None of us could stay to find out if they really showed up or not (my container with all my furnishings plus car were arriving). Driving back to town, we were all hysterical. It had all been such a comedy of errors. Now there was horrendous traffic and we were backed up no matter what route we took. What about, Jeff suggested, if we pretend we have an important personage in the car and break all the traffic rules (not to mention USAID regulations) and put on the flashing lights and speed ahead? Sure, go for it! I was in front, I'm white and he's black, two blacks in the back who could be my "staff", so we agreed it was the perfect set-up. I put on my most severe "minister" look. What shall we tell the police if they stop us? Minister of...what? Minister of the Ridiculous, I decided. Jeff couldn't keep a straight face, marveling at how I could just slip right into the "minister" role. Hmph. I told him in no uncertain terms that he just doesn't have the right demeanor to be a minister's driver! :)
We finally made it back to town, all of us agreeing we could only laugh because so much of the past couple of weeks had been so annoying, including this whole ridiculous day. I suggested we have a de-briefing next week, to talk about what had happened, and how we could avoid it next time we did an event like this. Esther sighed, summing it up nicely: "Working for sheep is so annoying."
xxoxoox Love, Grammy
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