All Access Pass: President Monteiro

During my first week here my roommate Julian joked about his “all access pass”, while displaying his face ala Vana White. A white face gets you anywhere here. Walk past guards without at word at the British Consulate. Investigate a construction site. Enter the nicest hotel with no problems. Walk into a police station, and you’re the chief’s best friend automatically. Pretty much standard practice for my father at home. But he would have a field day here with the pass.

Pre-departure training set me on the path to think about these things. Jumping the queue seems harmless and fun. But what if it’s at the hospital? A white man’s bleeding baby toe trumps any emergency, even if a local has been waiting all day. And it’s all part of the African cultural package. All accepted without a peep or a mikey meow. The simple hierarchy is whiteman, than the richest to the poorest black man, than the woman and finally the child. (Photo: Me and Joseph Smith an intern with my organisation during an awareness campaign)

At the age of around 10, young boys are taught to serve tea at village gatherings. The whole lesson is to correctly determine the status of everyone, based on wealth, age, power and gender, and serve accordingly. Status can change based on the prosperity of the crop season, or marital status. Boys do this for years so that they eventual understand the hierarchy of the villages.

It is very evident at work. I get served first anytime there is tea or munchies. People in the streets either call me “white boy” or “sir”. Colleagues are starting to call me “professor”. Only if they knew my true identity! Hahahaha! Another older volunteer is branded “doctor”.

So. On Tuesday there is a huge lineup at the bank. After a few minutes of waiting, without any advancement, the manager picks me out of the line and takes me aside to personally complete my business. What do I do? I say “no thanks” of course. I’ll wait. Ya, right!! Not! I accept the service. I was also told not to force western morals and norms on people here! hahaaa! Maybe I’ll change my mind next time. I’ll have to think about it.

My skin may also be the reason I got some face time with the former President of Cape Verde last night at a dinner party. He was the guest of honour. It was pretty sweet to talk frankly with him about Sierra Leone’s problems and potential solutions. I expressed my disappointment about the transportation infrastructure, especially the airport and connection to the city and beautiful beaches, making it almost impossible for tourism and business to naturally flourish. He happily disagreed and pointed to job creation as the key requirement. But when I asked if he would return he laughed and said NO because of poor service from the airport to the hotel. “…first class on the ferry (from airport to Freetown)..” he laughs! Funny man. We joked for a while. He was concerned and surprised with the poor conditions of Sierra Leone. “… at the British Consulate, there was no water in the washroom! … there were lots of people at the meeting! … no water.” He scrunched his nose up to insure that I got the idea that the toilet was full of nice smelling refuse. I got the idea that he had to go really badly. And there was a long queue. That he jumped. Very Seinfeld-like. I invited him to Ottawa, and he invited me to his island country. He gave me his business card with a yahoo email account. (Photo: Shaking hands with Antonio Monteiro, former President of Cape Verde)