by Missé Nanando, Chad, October 1997
THEME = SOCIAL CONDIT.
Ndjamena is a small town or a large
village - whichever you prefer.
A traditional way of life and the modern world rub
shoulder-to-shoulder here
It's Friday 3 October 1997. Two college football teams, taking part in the schools' competition, are hammering it out on the playing field. Suddenly the referee blows his whistle to halt the game. What's happened? A herd of cows and sheep have invaded the pitch and are slowly making their way across. Players and spectators remain indifferent to their "journey". They simply wait for the animals and herdsmen to leave the field. There's two Americans watching the game and they can't make out what's happening. An elderly man, obviously a teacher, sets them straight: "It happens all the time. We're used to it". One of the Americans replies: "It may be fine by you, but it's nothing to do with football..."
Take a short walk around Ndjamena and you'll see for yourself that Chad's capital is both a large village and a small modern town. A large village in the sense that it's not just animals wandering about which gives a rural appearance to our capital. There's other things as well.
Go into certain areas of Ndjamena and you'll come across fields planted with millet, sugar cane, groundnuts, maize or vegetables. In front of public buildings, there's sentries on duty. Just turn the corner and you'll find the little patches of ground they cultivate during the rainy season. You don't have to go far to see millet with green leaves sprouting up, with the white-washed walls of buildings as background. Because of this vegetation, insects abound in Ndjamena. During the rainy season, the surroundings of the university, the Higher Institute of Education (ISSED) and the National School of Administration (ENAM) turn into millet fields.
Get to know how things are run locally in Ndjamena, and you'll understand better why our capital looks a bit like a large village. In Chad, every village worthy of the name, has a chief. Well, the same system exists in Ndjamena, where a traditional form of chieftainship seems to have sprung up in each locality. How do you become a "Ndjamena chief"? Well, you've got to be male, getting on in years, and prepared to undertake the same duties as village chiefs. Ndjamena's "chiefs" really make things happen. When officialdom decrees that something must be done, Ndjamena's "chiefs" let the people know in their particular areas. They also act as judges in local affairs, not bothering with official judicial procedure. They have great influence, so if you want to do anything in their area, you've got to get their prior "go-ahead". The sort of cases they deal with on a daily basis include: settling marital disputes; judging petty larceny cases, cases of adultery, cases of unwanted pregnancies. Many Chadians explain the existence of Ndjamena's chiefs in the following way: "Chad is only just recovering from years of internal strife, and because of this, people are more inclined to regroup themselves in their own clans. That's why Ndjamena's now got these local "chiefs". They appeal to people's immediate needs".
Another reason why our capital looks like a large village is the fact it's surrounded by nomad's encampments - sometimes right next door to luxurious villas. Just imagine - you've got the sites and smells of a city intermingled with the smell of horses and donkeys and the early morning mooing of cows! Ndjamena's citizens are delighted with this, as you can well imagine, especially when they want to sleep in, at the weekends.
However, the people seem to be getting used to sharing their city with farm animals, even when they're disturbed when milking-time comes (that's the womens' and childrens' job) and when the roads are blocked by the animals making their way to pasture.
The whole question of town-planning seems to have passed the authorities by. In some places, a major road can abruptly end on private property. And of course, it's always possible to fall headfirst into a pool of stagnant water!
Ndjamena's got its fair share of juju. It was thought that with all the churches and mosques springing up like mushrooms in recent times, this kind of thing would be falling by the wayside. On the contrary, what's usually taken to be a practice associated with village life, is increasing all the time in the nation's capital.
You've only to look around to see objects associated with juju - broken calabashes and pieces of bark plunged in a reddish liquid and mixed with flour. Even in front of educated people's houses, there are various kinds of rare plants growing, which are carefully watered. For the "layman", these are ornaments. For the house owner, they're powerful totems to protect him and help him prosper.
A number of harmful traditions continue. For example, the excision of girls. Parents simply ignore the government's and the civil society's efforts to stamp out this practice, and continue to excise their daughters. When the girls have recovered from the operation, they dance through the streets just like in the villages. They go from house to house to sing and dance, asking for money and food.
The village-type atmosphere is also found in the houses, with many people living together. While some do manage to find a job in the city, others just lounge around doing nothing, and yet they seem to be well cared for, well-clothed and eating as much as they want.
The lack of adequate sanitary arrangements in and around these over-crowded houses, is serious. Bathrooms and toilets are primitive in the extreme, and activities connected with these two rooms, are frequently performed out in the open. Last August there was an outbreak of cholera, and the local authorities made a point of finding out those who hadn't proper latrines, and fining them accordingly.
Perhaps we ought to reflect for a moment on Ndjamena's particular and peculiar situation. How is it, at a time when "globalisation" is the "in word", and elsewhere twinning takes place between different towns, Chad's capital continues to look like a large village? It's strange, because go for a short walk in town and your're sure to come up against many kinds of large and expensive cars. A senior government official tries to offer some kind of explanation: "Oh, we're waiting for our oil to come on tap and improve the country's economy. Then we can develop our capital". But isn't true development first of all in the mind, before becoming an economic fact?
END
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