Badmouthing the President

No, it's not like the DixieChics, despite my general distaste for W., it is, however, about an event that happened currently in my village. A good one. One, I count as personal victory, if however petty, against one of my adversaries in village, the village health committee president. His name is Ali. I'll give you a little backstory to refresh and give a little perspective of individuals involved.

If you don't already know, the president, Ali, has been a constant source of frustration for me during my tenure in village. Him and the asshole chief nurse, for the past two years, have been closer in peas in a pod. Beside the chief nurse being outright rude and dishonest to me, Ali has been dishonest, and an all over slimy fraud. Together, they've made doing my job extremely difficult. In an ideal Peacecorps health volunteer set up, these two positions, the chief nurse and health committee president should be my closest colleagues. Not so much with my situation. Okay, enough of that. I've already written about the whole saga of why my house wasn't reconstructed in a timely manner, right? right. (Go to April 22nd blog)

I also just found out part of the reason, they didn't care to rebuild my house, is the 9,000cfa they were paying a month went to one of the health committee members' family. Convenient, huh. Okay, so the whole story winds up to the fact that because of their horrid behavior towards me, Peacecorps is not going to replace me. The health committee knew this and didn't care so that brings me up to the event I'm about to describe.

Last Sunday there was a health committee meeting with the new major and I attended in hopes of getting the health committee to co-sponsor my theatre groups' series of sensibilizations that I need to do for the survey project I'm doing. I sit there listening to the Pres(Ali) talking verbosely(he likes to hear himself talk, alot) about how the committee really needs to get it's act together and get active(He's saying this for the benefit of the new major, putting down others to make himself look good). So after of about two hours of listening him blame all the problems going on in their current projects on other members of the health committee, I finally get a chance to explain what I'm doing with the theatre group and my request for the "motivational" payment for doing all these sensibilizations to benefit the community. Long story short, they said no, because that amounts of money wasn't already in their yearly action plan and they couldn't possible afford it(Which is BS). I told them, Okay, if you can't budget for it this year then put it in your annual action plan when you do for next year. The new major, not knowing any better, comments, "Well, that should be okay, since your replacement can make sure that happens". He unfortunately didn't make the connection that my house would be used by incoming nursing trainees after I'm gone, although he had been talking about it early with Ali.
I said, "Well, there isn't going to be any replacement."
And Ali, trying to act innocently stupid says, "Well, why not?"
I turn to him and say, "You know why."
He get's all indignant and says,"no, I don't, what do you mean?"
I smile and then ask, "You really want me to explain it?" Seeing that we're in front of the new chief nurse, all the health committee and about half of the clinic staff who just happen to be sitting nearby listening.
He patronizingly says, "yes, I want you to explain it"
I say, "Okay, it's because of you, and you alone"
"What? Me?"
"Yep, you"
He laughs and says "how?"(Burkinabe tend to laugh when they are in an uncomfortable situation, don't ask me why, but they do)
"You are the one who lied to me and my boss when she was here that your committe couldn't afford to rebuild my house. Then a month later you begin building the office there and the thousands of bricks there" As I point. "You lied to my boss again in February when she asked that you fix the house by then end of the month and you didn't do anything til April. It took you six months to rebuild two walls, that in reality took two days to do. And that was only after the District Doctor made you do it."
He replies, "That wasn't the work of just myself in was the work of the whole Health committee" and I retort
"Fine, but who's controls the health committee? The president. You should be ashamed of yourself! I like this village, but this village will not get another volunteer because of you and your health committee."
After that the whole committee was giggling nervously and the new chief nurse was trying to calm me down, but I was having none of their bullshit. It seemed to me they were laughing at my accusations, but in reality they didn't know how to respond. The president try to brush me off, but the evidence was to clear with the unfinished projects laying empty and ruined next to our meeting site.
After the meeting, the chief nurse, told me that I should get so upset over how the committee rejected my proposal. I told him I expected the rejection, but I refused to let them act like they were innocent over the reasons for no replacement. I've had to deal with them for two years and I'm done. I won't work with them again. I told him I'd like to work with him, but I won't work with the committee again.
Needless to say, I felt gratified i finally got to tell that bastard off, and in front of everyone who knew about the situation, including the most important person who didn't, the new chief nurse. I think he's finally realizing the broken system that was in place before he arrived. That's it for now, take it easy.
L