The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World (5 page)

There wasn't a speck of despair in her voice.

Everyone in the family ate several plates of food. Cissy urged me to eat more, reminding me that you never know when you might eat again.

That night, I slept with my passport under my pillow, hearing gunshots in the night and anticipating the arrival of soldiers, though I knew it was unlikely. In the morning, I took a bucket bath, wrapped in a brightly colored cotton wrap called a hihoi, sitting on my haunches and squealing as the freezing water cascaded down my back. I ironed my blue silk dress with an old-fashioned iron filled with hot coals, watching my hand tremble with the weight, knowing that letting the iron get too close to the fabric would result in disaster. I couldn't recall ever feeling so fully alive getting ready for a day except during those first weeks in Brazil. There was a rawness and a beauty here that brought every emotion right to the surface, and I loved the feeling, loved being in this place where the best and worst of everything seemed to coexist.

After a quick breakfast, we met with exuberant, optimistic women who were clear about contributing to peace and helping to build individual and community prosperity in this country so abundant in natural resources and in human spirit. Mostly I just listened to them as they told me the things they dreamed of doing. We also visited some of the women's newly sprung projects-poultry raising, a new kiosk for selling sundries, a tailoring business. Ugandans were putting their lives back together piece by piece, and clearly there was potential to support them in their efforts.

The trip to Uganda renewed and strengthened my sense of urgency. I wanted to feel useful. I was stunned by the resilience of everyone I met and returned to Nairobi awestruck by the Ugandans' ability to endure suffering and still embrace great joy. That first night back, I slept like a baby, acknowledging the privilege of a secure night of sleep, wanting to live in a world where basic security would not be considered a luxury, remembering again why I loved working in the developing world-if only I could find the right place for me.

I couldn't stay any longer in Kenya looking for things to do. I asked again if it might be time to test the waters of Cote d'Ivoire. Despite my anxiety about what might await me there, I knew it was time to go-and to go with enthusiasm. The regional director agreed, and I started packing, dreaming of all I would do to help women help themselves, not thinking for a minute of all the things that were soon to throw water-as cold as that in the bucket at Cissy's house-on my dreams.

CHAPTER 2

A BIRD ON THE OUTSIDE,
A TIGER WITHIN

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do."

-ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

arrived at the Abidjan Airport on a hot and sticky afternoon, and the .sweet-sour smell of sweat permeated the thick air. My stomach was aflutter, though I also arrived confident I'd be accepted once the women there understood my serious intent and how hard I could work. But I was rattled even before I passed through customs. At a white wooden desk, everyone entering the country was instructed to drop his or her passport into a glass-encased box; then we waited while a man in a uniform gathered all the little booklets and took them somewhere out of sight. No one around me seemed to know what was happening, but within minutes, the man in the uniform reappeared and began returning the passports as if this were normal procedure.

All around me people were shouting and running, though it wasn't clear where anyone was going. Four men in brown uniforms approached me near the baggage belt and grabbed my boxes and suitcases. I found myself in a push-pull match and finally shouted to them, "Please stop!" One of the men laughed loudly as the others joined in, and I focused on holding back tears.

At customs, two men knifed open my boxes, making a mess of everything inside. By now I was soaked with sweat, though I tried to compose myself, knowing that the women who had rejected me at the conference in Nairobi were waiting for me on the other side of the door.

As I pushed my cart full of now-mangled boxes out of the terminal, I spotted the three women standing side by side, like extravagant mannequins, in long dresses of African print, with turbans on their heads and heavy jewelry around their necks and arms-a picture of beauty and composure in the midst of anarchy. I recognized a woman I'd met in Nairobi-let me call her Aisha-who had barely had time for me at the conference once she'd learned I'd inhabit the prized office at the African Development Bank (ADB). As I look back, I can only imagine what had been going through her head when I first approached her, shivering with excitement to "help" her country through my privileged job, when all I seemed to offer was unbridled, naive enthusiasm.

At the time, I didn't think the ADB office was a big deal. I'd told myself that I'd turned down a much bigger opportunity at Chase. What I didn't understand was how important the office was to the West African women. Given that the ADB was making a bet on women in Africa, no doubt it would have made sense to have an African lead the office, especially from the perspective of these women. At the same time, it was an office given to an international nongovernmental organization (NGO) that wanted to prove something to itself and the world by getting something done quickly. Regardless of why I'd been sent, the African women still weren't happy.

"Welcome to Cote d'Ivoire," a tight-lipped Aisha said in French before introducing me to her colleagues, a tall woman from Mali with wireframe glasses and a shorter, more exotic-looking Senegalese woman with extravagantly braided hair and outrageous jewelry. "How was your trip?" she asked.

"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.