Ceremonies bring out the worst in people

Last night, after the 135-minutes program to launch my Amour & Vie team, a health-education project, in the community that I had been planning for the past 44 days, after the feeling of everything that was stressing me out being drained in one minute, like letting water out from a bathtub, had passed, I was left angry.

I was pissed at the number of people who were pissed that there weren’t anymore of our matching t-shirts to give them. I was disappointed in the number of people who had thought it was appropriate to ask me for money when I asked them to help me out. I was frustrated at the number of people who has expressed their disappointment in the free snacks we had offered them.

That morning, I had been working with one of my team members, Jean, to find a place where we could plug in our speakers for the ceremony. There were several houses in the area, but each required a discussion of how much money we would give them.

“You see now, Madame,” Jean said after we had shook on a 1000 CFA deal, “you can’t do anything here without people asking for money.”

“Oh Jean,” I replied. “I saw that a long time ago.”