"Fine, fine, thank you" was all that came out of my mouth. Though excited to be there, I was also filled with a deep sense of ambivalence. I wanted to please, to show them how much I could contribute. But I still had no language for sharing my concerns or my aspirations, or any idea how to start a conversation about what they needed and wanted and what I hoped to do. The experience at the conference had weakened my confidence, both in speaking French and in speaking directly. I'd been asked some of the same questions before about why I was there, and I had no better answers now. When I wasn't quiet, mostly I mumbled.
We walked together to the parking lot, where we met an airport van. I thanked them for coming to welcome me. It meant so much, I said.
They shook their heads politely as we climbed into the van headed for the Hilton. As soon as we got into the vehicle, the women stopped speaking directly to me and began a conversation among themselves in rapid-fire French. I couldn't keep up with their words and heard only fragments, which made me feel even more the outsider:
"She is so young ... too young...."
"Not married?"
"She doesn't know Africa." "Where is her French?"
"She needs better French to work here in West Africa."
"Tell me why, again, you have the position with the African Development Bank. That is an important place, a visible place.... It requires someone very serious, not an American.... ..
"Little girl ... "
The women's sharp voices pecked at my heart. This wasn't going to be easy.
After we arrived at the Hilton Hotel and had a coffee outside by the pool, the women left. I retreated to my hotel room, where I planned to live until I found a permanent home, having no idea then that I'd be departing again in less than 2 months. That first night, I fell into bed in a pool of tears.
The next morning, I ran through the city's wide streets lined with tall palm trees, filled with a familiar sense of awe from my wanderings. Women were selling baguettes and African stews by the roadside in front of the imposing St. Paul's Cathedral that towered over the city, its white, modern architecture enormous and soaring. I stopped to look in wonder, but realized I felt more of God's presence in the eyes of the women sitting outside on the street than in the concrete edifice.
Later, I would visit the president's home village of Yamassoukro, where the avenues are as wide as the Champs-Elysees. Around the grand presidential palace was a moat apparently filled with crocodiles fed live chickens each day at 4:00 p.m. The palace's opulence stood in stark contrast to the desperate conditions of so many living within its environs, nearly always in mud huts without electricity. Cote d'Ivoire became a place where just walking down the street filled me with questions about justice and compassion, power and money, and the randomness of where we are born and how much that determines who we become.
In those first weeks, I worked from dawn to midnight every day, organizing a conference for women from 52 African countries that would be translated into four languages. Mr. A, my spineless contact at the ADB, who seemed to have a crush on the sensual Aisha, was always blaming me for anything that went wrong. When the minister from Zaire checked herself into the presidential suite at a cost of more than $400 a night, he called me and began yelling that I better do something about it. When I knocked on the minister's hotel room door, she refused to open it, citing security concerns, adding that she was a minister and so needed a proper room. Because I had no real authority, I turned around and crept down the hall to the elevator, feeling I couldn't do anything right.
Meanwhile, Aisha insisted that I not send any correspondence without her approval. "You don't know Africa," she kept saying. Of course, she was right: I hadn't a clue how Africa worked, but knew enough already to see how different Cote d'Ivoire and Kenya were. I was too intimidated to do anything but keep my head low and hope she would finally appreciate my work. Before long, Aisha moved herself into the office; suddenly we were sharing it. She never introduced me to a soul and tried often to separate us, insisting that I make copies of a research report only when other officials from the bank were there so that she could demonstrate who the real boss was while I played the part of her secretary.
I'd never met anyone so sure of herself. She seemed to do everything deliberately, even the way she crossed her legs and held her hands, the way she swung her body when she walked, as if knowing everyone was looking at her. I hungered to step out more fully in some way, just as she seemed able to do.
One day out of the blue, Aisha invited me to her home for dinner. Quickly I accepted, hoping we could find a way to talk-to start getting some real work done. Maybe we could even take a step toward friendship, since we would be working with one another for the foreseeable future.
In her white Peugeot, we drove through streets lined with contemporary buildings and endless palm trees. Her home was modern and refined without being ostentatious, decorated entirely in white with neutral accents and wooden African carvings. As we sat down to dinner-fish for me and a plate of pineapple for her-she said, "I am on a diet, though I'm not unhappy with the way I look, not like you skinny American girls."
I just smiled and sipped my wine, glad for something soothing.
After dinner, she suggested we take a tour of her home, after which we'd watch a movie. "Come, follow me," she said.
She guided me through the kitchen and past her designer bathroom, stopping in the bedroom, where she announced she wanted to change into something lighter because the heat of the day had been so intense.
When I offered to return to the living room, she responded. "No, no, just take a seat on the bed. I'll be out in a minute."
With that, she sashayed into her walk-in closet, where she'd just shown me an enormous photograph of herself that was surrounded by dozens of beautiful, colorful beaded necklaces hanging on the wall. I sat at the edge of her big bed on the white satin coverlet, hands folded in my lap, fully conscious of my wire-rimmed glasses, pressed linen suit, and swept-up hair, a perfect librarian of sorts.
A few minutes later, Aisha returned wearing nothing but a white bra and panties, arms stretching as she yawned like a cat, telling me that in fact it was too hot to put anything on just yet. She turned on the television and an old French film blared from the screen, more fuzz than picture. Aisha lay on the bed and began to question me as she gently caressed her enormous breasts: "Tell me, why did you come to Cote d'Ivoire in the first place? What was in your heart?"
I stammered that I wanted to do something good for the world, wanted to be of use. What I really wanted to do was flee, but out of politeness or numbness, I answered her questions as best I could, inserting a comment about how much work I really had to do.
As much as I wanted to see the film, I told her, I really had to get back to the hotel.
"Ah," she said, "you really are a boring girl. Time to go home so that you can work some more." Laughing in a pitying way, she stood up, pulled on a short satin robe, and walked me to the door.
After thanking her, I joined the driver, who returned me to the hotel. As I watched the city pass by, my head spun with a whirling stream of words and visions from the short evening I'd just experienced. I wondered whether Aisha had been seducing me, testing me, or just seeing how far she could push me to the edge. Maybe it was a bit of all three. I thought of the poster-size photograph in her closet: I was clearly out of my league. I'd imagined myself in Africa sitting on the ground with women in a rural village, talking about their hopes and dreams, not sitting on satin sheets trying to justify to a nearly naked woman why I'd come to Africa in the first place.
The next morning at the Bank, I arrived to discover that Aisha had changed the lock to the office. My own key was useless, but one of the guards knew me and let me in. I confronted Aisha about the new lock, and she answered coldly that she feared someone might have been tampering with our things. I never did get another key.
A Nigerian woman named Mrs. Okoro who worked at the ADB befriended me in the hall that same day.
Having seen me at the conference in Nairobi, she wondered what I was doing here. She invited me to lunch, and though I'd only just met her, I spilled out much of what was going wrong without mentioning the prior evening.
She smiled knowingly, saying that this wasn't totally unusual behavior: "Those women understand that power in Africa is as important as money, maybe more important. They want that office because they want power, and you are standing in the way." She warned me to avoid drinking or eating in front of the women.
"You know, they're talking of poisoning you, not to kill you, but to scare you, and let me tell you that they are serious."
A friend in Nairobi had once told me how she ate food only at the homes of family members or the closest friends. "When you're successful, not everyone wishes you well," she had explained, though at the time, this concept was so foreign to me that I hardly believed it. Now here was another woman I barely knew telling me to watch what I ate, especially in front of people who didn't like me.
"You might tell them that it is your family practice to share food together if they want to give you something that they are not eating, too."
The Nigerian woman also advised me not to dismiss voodoo in West Africa, but to heed the warning it brought.
When I laughed, she grabbed my hand and looked at me with a steely gaze. "Trust me," she said. "You don't want to be cursed here in Cote d'Ivoire"
"I promise I don't like the idea of being cursed by anyone," I responded.
"Listen to me," she said, more gravely now, looking me squarely in the eyes. "If in the middle of the night you wake up feeling the cold hands of voodoo spirits clasping your neck, you must promise me that you will pray to Jesus Christ."
She paused to look at me and then asked, "Do you believe in Jesus?"
I just looked at her, not believing what I was hearing.
She rushed on, not waiting for an answer: "Do you have a crucifix in your hotel room?"
I shook my head no. "There is a Bible and a Koran in the hotel drawer."
"Then you must pray very hard, but it must be to Jesus, and He will fight the spirits for He is more powerful than voodoo."
I thanked her for her advice, not knowing if I should laugh or run away. I had never felt so lonely. At 25 years old, I was thousands of miles from home in a place with no close friends. I tried to convince myself that I was as strong as ever, but a noise in the night would cause me to jump out of bed in a cold sweat. I hadn't expected to encounter poisoning and voodoo among women bankers in Africa. Having no skills on which to draw, I simply pretended that everything was normal and tried not to recognize that there might be shadows dancing around me.
About 2 weeks after Mrs. Okoro's warnings, I attended a reception with all of the women and began feeling ill an hour or so afterward. Sharp pains seared my stomach, and by the time I stumbled to the hotel, I had begun projectile vomiting accompanied by a raging fever and the runs. For 3 days, I lay on the bathroom floor, shivering and nauseous as I wept, feeling miserable and sorry for myself. My mind would bounce from half-believing terrifying visions of imagined voodoo gods to brushing off any idea of witchcraft or poisoning as gossip and threats meant to scare silly girls. Regardless of the cause, I couldn't take a sip of water without the vomiting starting all over again.
The person I most wanted near me-my mother-was the last person I could call. I knew she could do nothing to help and that hearing my voice would just cause her to worry. My fever refused to break. I was too afraid to let anyone local know what was happening. The sheer sense of despair kept the same question spinning over and over in my aching head: I left a promising banking career for this?
By the end of the week, I'd recovered physically, though my face was gaunt and pale and my clothes hung on my body, making me look more waif than woman. Thoroughly exhausted, I felt like a failure. I wanted to be myself again, wanted to wake up in the morning excited about the day and to walk down the street feeling strong in my body.
First thing the next day, I called the three African women who had greeted me at the airport and asked them to meet in my office. We chose a time before noon, and I spent the morning thinking and rehearsing what I would say to them. As I walked to the African Development Bank, I waved at the popcorn vendor and the shoeshine man whom I passed daily, and they both greeted me with big smiles. When I'd first arrived, I'd thought I'd have more time with people like them. I'd wanted to know who low-income people were so I could be of greater service, but I had spent most of my time in big institutions with people who chattered and hobnobbed at conferences and did very little listening. It was time for me to go.
The women walked into the office dressed even more elaborately than usual in their long multichromatic robes crowned with towering turbans. They seemed to span half the wall as I stood alone in front of them, all skin and bones, a woman disappearing, arms crossed protectively over my chest. I wore a blue cotton skirt and a short-sleeved white blouse and looked more schoolgirl than banker. I told them I was leaving, fumbling through half words in a tinny voice: "What I don't understand is why you've been treating me so horribly-worse than I would treat a dog."
"We don't hate you," Aisha responded. "We actually like that you're a nice girl with much to offer. What we hate is what you represent. The North comes to the South and sends a young white woman without asking us what we want, without seeing if we already have the skills we need. And this from an organization that says it wants to promote solidarity. We've seen this too many times before. Africa will never change if it's always like this."
I agreed that the organization should have negotiated with the African women first in order to be effective. At the same time, I insisted, there was no excuse for the way I'd been treated in Abidjan. I'd come with the best of intentions and was ready to listen and to work hard. None of the women had explained their positions to me. They seemed to see the world as an unbridgeable divide between North and South, and we had never broken the logjam.
As I spoke, I could feel something shifting inside me. An African friend once told me that to be successful on her continent, I should learn to be a bird on the outside and a tiger within. Finally, I could feel the stirrings of the cat. I was leaving behind the little girl who wanted to please, recognizing that if I were to be effective, I would have to stand on my own two feet and be myself. I was finished with being pushed around just for being young, white, and American, just as these women, so regal and dressed in glorious colors that only a blind person could miss, were sick of being invisible because they were black Africans. I had left a banking career to come here and be useful, and if I couldn't contribute, then I would leave.
I finally understood: In order to contribute to Africa, I would have to know myself better and be clearer about my goals. I would have to be ready to take Africa on its own terms, not mine, and to learn my limits and present myself not as a do-gooder with a big heart, but as someone with something to give and gain by being there. Compassion wasn't enough.
I think that was the moment when humility in its truest form-rather than an easy but false humbleness-began to creep in. Until then, I'd been too vested in knowing the answers and in being right. For the first time in my life, being right had nothing to do with being successful or effective. I also began to be more honest about what was happening around me-I couldn't stand all talk without action, and too many expatriates and elite Africans seemed to revel in it. I wanted to work directly with poor women themselves.
I wasn't ready to return to New York. I felt unable to face my boss at Chase and tell him I'd failed unequivocally, and yet the thought of staying another night in Abidjan was out of the question-at least if I could help it. I knew I would return to Africa but not to Cote d'Ivoire, at least not anytime soon.
M Y FAMILY WAS LIVING in Germany, where my father worked with the army. I'd already planned to go home for Christmas anyway to see them and my boyfriend, but I would need to find the extra money to fly a little earlier. With less than $1,000 to my nam
e, I spent another $400 on a ticket at the youth rate and caught the evening flight to Paris, taking my suitcases and leaving everything else I owned in boxes at the Hilton.
In Paris, I awoke to 2 feet of snow. The airlines had gone on strike and the only viable means of transport to my family in Heidelberg was via train. Still dressed in my cotton skirt and short-sleeved blouse, I headed off with only a lightweight sweater in my suitcase and was reminded of the many immigrants who had come ill prepared to new lands. Upon leaving Abidjan, I had just been too numb to consider anything but getting on the plane, as exhausted as I'd ever been.
At my family's home in Heidelberg, I tried softening the story for my parents, who had feared my move to Africa in the first place. But I couldn't hide the jaundiced skin hanging on my now much thinner frame. My mother suggested, or rather insisted, that I stay a few weeks in Germany, then return to New York to a career where I could prosper. We got into one of the only major arguments of our lives.
I reminded her that she and my father had encouraged their children to fly as high as we could, and this was my way of doing it. She responded that she feared losing me, had seen evidence to corroborate her concern, and knew how little communication would be possible once I went back.
"I hear that," I said, "but at the same time, you and I both know I won't be able to face myself if I don't go back to Africa and do something positive. So far, I've done nothing but fail there."
"But what will you do now?" she asked. "Everything was vague the first time you decided to go," she said. "What is different about this time? Will you have a real job description?"
I told her I'd figure it out once I returned to Kenya, where the organization's East Africa office was located. I liked the director, and it would be an easier way to find something for which I might be of use either there in Kenya or in a neighboring country. I had a long call with the president of the global organization in New York City and the regional director in Nairobi and asked if I could return to work in Kenya, at least for a limited amount of time. But this time I had two conditions: I wanted to work on tangible projects with concrete outcomes, and I would only work with women's groups who invited me to assist them.
The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World Page 4