Update: Bangui on the Potomac

Last week I trudged through the Washington humidity to embassy row. The facade of the CAR embassy looked even more derelict than usual. Some indeterminate building material (paint?) hung precariously, like the bark of a eucalyptus tree. A piece of paper was taped beside the door. It bore the handwritten message that “The Ambassy of the C.A.R. has moved.” Well, I thought, it has happened. It was only a matter of time.

The CAR government bought this prime real estate shortly after independence in 1960 and then left it to decay. From its innocuous beginnings, the building metamorphosed into a fun house of dangers: rusty springs booby-trapped chair seats, stairs warped so drastically they led climbers downward as they attempted to ascent, light fixtures sprouted colorful exposed wires. Staff learned to pick careful paths through the hazards. Instead of fixing the place up, the CAR government decided last year to put the building on the market. A private couple paid $1.099 million -- cash -- to purchase the house and will likely spend a similar sum to return it to the kind of habitable space they desire.

Meanwhile, nestled between the ‘Sandinista Safeway’ and Chief Ike’s bar, the new CAR embassy announces itself not with a flag (they moved in only a month ago), but with a gaggle of young men hanging out on the porch watching the world go by, just like in Bangui. Inside, employees debated the proper positioning of presidential portraits amid the plastic ficus plants and shiny, lightweight pleather couches. France 24’s talking heads blared from a small flatscreen. The government bought this 2704 Ontario Rd. edifice for $800,000, which, after adding a couple thousand dollars’ worth of furniture, still leaves a tidy margin. The new embassy is not without its oddities: the waiting area abruptly gives out onto a linoleum-floored space, the ghost of a kitchen or bathroom. And here, too, the gaping electric sockets spit wires.

Still, it was heartening to see the evident pride with which the receptionist inhabited his sprawling desk in the entryway. What would it take to transform that pride into a broader sense of responsibility for the building and the institution it represents? Regular cash flow would be an obvious factor; but if it were that simple one would think the $200 visa fee (a $50 hike since last time I checked) would help in that regard, and this doesn’t seem to be the case.

I managed, through no more nefarious means than a little pleasant schmoozing, to obtain my visa within an hour, rather than the official 48-hour processing time. And, by the time I post this, I will be back in Bangui la Coquette.

Sunday in Bangui

I had heard that a walking group met on Sundays at a restaurant near where I'm staying, so early this morning I headed out to find them. I arrived a few minutes too late and set off in the direction onlookers said they'd gone. No trace of them, but I did bump into Gilles, a logging company employee, and his trainer Manuela, the head of the Central African track and field association. After chatting a bit they invited me to join them for their ascent of Mt. Bangui (OK, it's really just a hill).

The hill is the site of one of Bangui's major landmarks, a large, illuminated sign that tries to be reminiscent of the Hollywood one. Only, lately I guess some bulbs have gone out, because at night all you see is "BANG". (If the city slogan, too, were illuminated, the sign would read "BANG la coquette".)

Photos available here.

At TIP

Today I took my first step on Libyan soil. Well, concrete. With the airport here in Tripoli surrounded by construction, my plane from Paris parked far from the terminal, and we passengers had to troop across the tarmac in the late afternoon sun. Tripoli airport is an odd holding pen. The faded glamor of a long ago-modern motel meets third-world dim lighting and endless checkpoints of civil servants. Today a swarm of men in white jackets and face masks met the plane. They handed us forms to fill out about disease and contact information and then bustled off to puzzle over the results. In the duty free shop, one can purchase cans of salted nuts from Sweden, little rhinestone-studded ceramic boxes in the shape of dachshunds, and shelf after shelf of cigarettes. The gift shop is never open, and the restaurant serves little besides dates and cookies. Every time I'm here, at least one airport official will crow over my name and let it roll off his tongue. I know how to respond: “Hua ism arabiy” (it's an Arabic name). Not really, but close enough, especially if it makes their day of tedious work pass a little more quickly.

All that being said, I've not a single complaint about the journey so far. The plane here was nearly empty and I could stretch out across a row of seats freshly upholstered in Libya's signature new-grass green. I had my pick of six films and went with “Tropic Thunder,” none the less enjoyable for the bleeped expletives and fuzzed cleavage, bare legs, and gore.

As I write this I sit in the dusky final holding area before boarding. Here, finally, no one will express shock upon learning our little-known destination (“You're going where?”) I can't help but look around and wonder about what brings this collection of people to a plane bound for Bangui la Coquette. Some are from there, of course, and there are people whose appearance gives them away, like the two nuns sitting across from me. But many betray little beyond a drifting gaze: an eager and canny businessman, perhaps, next to a grizzled aid worker.

And then there's me. Not quite sure where I fit into all this. Anthropologists used to consider fieldwork a rite of passage. This idea has come under extensive critique in recent years, but I have to say it still feels true to me as I set off on this minor adventure. Will people talk to me, and keep talking so that I can sift layers of information? Will I finally learn enough Sango to understand the teasing and arguing that goes on all around me? Despite these doubts, thinking of the experience as a kind of rite of passage helps me face the prospect of all these months on my own, because it's something I know I must do, and, dare I even think it, I get excited at the prospect that it might even go well and I might actually find out something interesting (at least in hindsight – these things can be hard to judge underway). I wouldn't want to fall back a year – to when I was in the throes of grant-writing, with exams on the horizon – nor, obviously, do I feel ready to start next year's task: writing up. I do, however, already look forward to being close again to family and friends, and I've barely even left.