United Nations and Sierra Leone: The war is not what scared me!
Originally posted on my blog [http://tinyurl.com/UN-and-sierra-leon-4]
Chapter 4— Being a woman
My life in UNAMSIL at this time still felt very secluded. It took a few months to settle in. I could feel myself making an effort to remain who I was, and not blend in with my surroundings in the ways I perceived as ugly. At work, I didn’t even have complete equipment. The little bit of water testing that had been done was carried out using my limited equipment and the people that had used it seemed to have no idea what they were doing. There were packages that should not have been opened that were opened. They had spread my equipment around, contaminated it, and misplaced all the manuals.
It felt like I was wasting my time just to get organized. And still so much equipment was missing, so I had to make orders from Europe that I was told would not arrive before 2 months and yet my contract was for 6 months. And to make matters more confusing, the orders had to be made online, yet I did not have access to the internet during the day, because this was special privilege and my password only allowed me to be on after 5pm.
Gaur, the Indian man in my unit, took me under his wing the most. He was being very kind with me. He was a meek, calm older man that appeared slightly like a grandfather though what I understood was his children were somewhat young. He, along with Mulaki the Tanzanian that was full of jokes, were the only ones that seemed to care when I asked questions about the unit. They were at least trying to do some work. Many others would just make almost everything sound impossible to do, and sounded annoyed when anyone made any request from them. Gaur was the only one that asked about my family, and how I was doing in Sierra Leone and where I did my shopping and asked me if I knew how to buy food. He was a kind man. But he was a slow and relaxed worker.
He took me to the bases that surrounded Freetown, which included Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Ukrainian, Nigerian contingents and also Jordanians in the hospital. It was necessary for me to go with Gaur, because I did not have my license yes. I did not know how to drive a manual car, so needed time to learn then get my license. In any case, there were seldom any vehicles available, so teaming up with others in the unit was something we all had to do to get anywhere. This was my first exposure to doing the testing and to confronting the battalions. It was Ramadan and I noticed already, certain cultural habits from different countries. Perhaps I wasn’t dressed completely conservative, I was wearing a t-shirt and khakis. The Ukrainians were staring at me, almost in a strange way as if I was from Mars, the Bangladeshi were extremely polite and grateful I was aiding them, the Pakistani soldiers could not control themselves and I received whistles and cat calls even when I walked around with Gaur, and the Jordanians could hardly look at me. I did not understand the reaction of the Jordanians at the time. Perhaps they did not want to see an uncovered woman during Ramadan, perhaps they were completely perplexed because there seems to be no doubt on their minds I was Arab, but they didn’t understand my attitude.
The ratio of women to men working for the United Nations was striking. The mission was 17000 in battalion and 1200 civilians. The number of female civilians was approximately 200 females. The number of females in the battalion I did not have a number, but I would estimate to be less than 2%. Not surprisingly, with no doubt due to these ratios, I hardly had any privacy. Everyone seemed to know where I was, where I had gone and when I walked I could feel people staring at me.
Whenever Gaur had an errand to get equipment from the UN storage which was on the other side of town, he would also take me with him. Often he would promise we would stop at these far away battalions, but more often than not, by the end of the day he found he didn’t have time, so we never got to that part. That in itself conflicts with my personality. I like to get things done. I looked around, however, and I was the only one annoyed. Everyone else was very familiar with the system, expected things to take longs, so I knew I just had to accept it since everyone above and below me in rank, was quite OK with the pace of things.
When Gaur would take me on those rounds, he would conveniently make leisurely stops at restaurants, and he would invite me and enjoyed chatting with me. he would take this time to help me with my household errands also, and he would take me to buy locks, lights, utensils, and food, whatever it was that I needed. It was a big favour in many ways, because I had no vehicle and no other means of doing these errands. Then he started to have to make stops at his house, and I would have to go with him and wait in the car. Then he would tell me that there was a full Indian food lunch prepared by his maid so insisted I go in. He was very proud of his food and his culture. He was insulting everyone around us too, telling me the Africans don’t have culture, don’t care about family and only cared about sex and taking money.
But over time I was starting to feel uncomfortable with him. I didn’t like my dependence on him; it seemed to make him feel like he had some kind of ownership over me. And he purposely allowed it to be dependence, because he had this manner of not completely answering my question so that I would have to go back to him and ask him more. If I did have errands with him, I tried my best to avoid the stops in the restaurants and especially to his house.
The first time I had malaria, I had to call into work and I was sitting at home with a fever. My chief Samuel sent Gaur to take me to the hospital, but he felt so free he came directly into my house and knocked directly on my bedroom door under directions from my houseboy. So he took me to the hospital for a blood test, but after that said he had some errands and took me to his home so I could lie down and watch television. (This was quite a luxury. First, he had a television and second, they had a powerful generator that they were able to run during the day). But it was just a feeling, I became so uncomfortable. He even insisted I lie down in his bed while he went for his errands but I refused, explaining that I wanted to watch television.
After time, Gaur kept inviting me to Indian parties, but I kept refusing. Then he kept mentioning that his friends were coming with their “girlfriends” and would like me to come too. I did not let that pass by me… I asked him if these friends were married, and he said yes, but they had girlfriends here. And then I made clear that I would have no place there since I was nobody’s girlfriend. I don’t think he thought I was, but it was like he was dreaming. It was like he had this strange childish crush on me. Was he not criticizing all the Africans for not having family values? I was confused.
From then on, even though I knew somehow he was a nice man, I really tried to distance myself from Gaur. My office was already planned to be in a small container that was far from the rest of the Engineering unit. It was planned this way, because it was the only place they had room at the moment, and they could also add water pipes and other things for my laboratory work. I was a little upset about this at the beginning, because it was really about a 10 minute walk to the rest of Engineering and I knew with all the bureaucracy I would have to walk back and forth a lot for no reason, and also it would be difficult to get information. In general, it was frustrating working with everyone, because they were not very co-operative and for the most part lazy, difficult to communicate with, so I imagined the situation would be worse if I was far from everybody.
Gaur informed our boss that he would share the office with me. I didn’t like this idea at all, partly because he was kind of too lazy and relaxed and partly because I knew he would feel even more like I was his possession. So I argued the possibility and said it didn’t make sense, there was no room because it was going to be a laboratory (this was true), and the issue was dropped. And… the point was taken. After this time, Gaur became more afraid of me, and never asked me again to Indian dinners.
In general, I was apprehensive about social things in Sierra Leone, because the only source of entertainment seemed to be nightclubs. There were no movie theatres, no libraries, hardly any cafes, and not even so many restaurants. I was reluctant to go to any nightclub and feared it would be another China House. In addition to all of this, I only seemed to know men so far, so I didn’t exactly feel comfortable going out with them all the time, especially with all the misunderstandings I had already encountered. And I had no vehicle, so I was completely dependent on others. I was really beginning to feel lonely. I was constantly surrounded by people but I really didn’t fit in — nor did I want to.
