Dawn of a New Day: Middleclass Yovo

When I wake up from the belly of this ship, I climb the stairs to a height where there is a window to the outside world. The natural light overwhelms the artificial fluorescents that blur the line between night and day.

This window is a porthole to the dock and the flat blue waters between our air conditioned world and the visible mainland. Beyond the abandoned, broken down pier in the distance the edges of the city shacks prickle the shoreline. Though it is beautiful from my window I know that a trip across this rickety line quickly remedies any romantic notion of poverty.

Children and goats play on the sand which is both a public toilet and rubbish dump. If you are a Yovo (a white person) walking through the shanty streets you become somewhat of a Pied Piper. The small children run after you gleefully chanting,

‘Yovo, Yovo!
Bonjour!
Ca va?
Ca va bien, merci!’

How well is it going, really? And I wonder if Yovo has the same ambiguity of Mlungu in South Africa. To many it means a person who happens to be white. To a few it captures the inhumanity of the colonial oppressor.

I don’t know. But while my bloodline may have been on this continent for over 400 years it does not grant me a real understanding of living in these conditions.

From this window there is a line of people parallel to the ship that, having missed the Screening Day, wait to hear if there is an empty surgery slot for them.

It’s through these same windows, when God has turned the earth enough to fling the sun on the other side of the ship that a line of patients walk down the gangway on their way home. One surgeon alone is removing about 30 cataracts a day. He creates a constant trail of temporary eye patches that trickle down the gangway into remote villages.

This afternoon Marie is leaving to go back up North to her home in the neighbouring Niger. She is a tough lady. She has a ‘I don’t care’ sideways cock of the head reminiscent of Hilary Swank in Boy’s Don’t Cry. She’s going home with her condition greatly improved though her muscles need considerable exersize before she can experience the status the majority of her ward companions enjoy soon after surgery. The first time I took Marie up to a view of the harbour to escape the fluorescents she looked ready to fight. She had not seen a great expanse of water before and did not like it. A few visits later she was casually leading the new lady patients to the balcony edge to point out the harbour activities. Her sideways cock of the head broke into a mischievous grin.

There are sweet moments that I know I would not want to be anywhere else but here: to walk with friends through the streets and enjoy the simple pleasure of eating peeled pineapples ice cream-style. To be filming in the Operating Room witnessing yet another life changed forever. To find a midnight moment alone with Him on a Deck 8. To walk in the darkness of a city street when the light of a semi-jan reveals a dust haloed silhouette of Mother and Child.

While the fluorescents of a windowless cabin hide both reality and fresh light I hope that the everyday dreams of a middleclass Yovo will neither keep me from the window nor the will to stumble across blurry lines.