The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World (6 page)

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 name, 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.

Happily (at least for me), I found a position that fit exactly that description. To their credit, once the decision was made, my parents were only supportive. At the airport, my father told me he was proud of what I was trying to do, and my mother nodded, hugging me tightly and reminding me to be careful. "You are no good to anyone if you get really sick or, God forbid, something worse happens to you."

I always wished my parents would visit East Africa so they could see the work for themselves. I knew that if they went, they'd realize how little there was to fear and how much there was to love. But with four kids still living at home, long trips to Africa were out of the question for them. I promised to call at least once a month and write more frequently.

Because of my student ticket, I had to fly back to Cote d'Ivoire for a day and then return to Kenya via Nigeria. Since I couldn't afford to pay the extra fee to bring my boxes on the flight, I left them at the Hilton.

After landing safely in Nairobi, I was ready to go-again.

When I showed up to work at the familiar office, Marcelina ran to hug me. "Jambo, Jacqueleeen," she called. "You have come back to Maz. We will do all sort of good things now."

Seeing just one familiar, radiant face was enough to make me feel I'd come home. The organization's regional director helped me reach out to women's groups in East Africa, and in my first month back, in early 1987, 1 was asked to do my first piece of real work.

A fledgling women's microfinance organization was hoping to turn a corner in its professional development. After lending to women in Nairobi in both the slums and the city center, the organization's director wanted to know the status of the loan portfolio and how it might strengthen operations. The executive director and I met in her office on the second floor of a nondescript building in Nairobi. She told me she felt proud of what the organization had accomplished and also worried that its systems needed strengthening. I suggested we begin by doing a baseline study of where the organization stood, a sort of diagnostic of both strengths and weaknesses so that it had a chance of real growth in the future. We agreed I'd start working on analyzing the loan portfolio the next day.

I closed the door as I walked into the dingy hall outside the office and let out a little cheer. I had been asked to do something constructive and necessary. I was on my way.

With a pencil, a calculator, and a big green ledger, I examined every loan the organization had ever made and scrutinized every number. Long into the nights, I worked to unravel which borrowers were making payments, which were behind, which loans should have been written off. The process could not have been more tedious, but I worked feverishly with a renewed sense of purpose.

After hundreds of hours of work, I was finally finished. With a deep sense of accomplishment, I made the last entry. I had reorganized and restructured the microfinance bank's entire management information system by hand after piecing together fragments from different books and accounts. The books I received were in such deplorable condition that any half-decent accounting firm auditing it would have recommended shutting down the operation, but I was hoping to give the group a new start.