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| January 30, 2009 |
Goz Amir refugee camp
Goz AmirKoukou
Jan 30
Today we met a man who is 109 years old! He wore an astonishing hat, played his stringed instrument and sang ancient songs of marriage, birth and the land. Also a love song.
We also interviewed a 90 year old woman who has renamed herself "ColinPowell"-- she is known today by that name in the camp. Others in Goz Amir camp are; "Condoleezza", "Moreno-Occampo" (of course), and now there are lots of baby "Obamas". In fact, after greeting us yesterday, the very first thing the Oumddas did was to congratulate us (most heartily) on our new President OBAMA.
"ColinPowell" told us some of the stories told to her when she was a child, by her grandmother; of a time when elephants, lions and tigers filled the forests. People hunted them for food -they ate elephants and antelope,not tigers, and they lived in fear of being eaten. In the days of Colinpowell's childhood they grew cotton in her village and picked it to weave cloth, the children learned to repeat the songs of all the birds, they picked flowers and they searched deep in the bushes where they found odd things to wear around their necks. They never thought of another kind of future--they never thought there would be terrible times such as these.
Colinpowell spoke of the first time she heard about cars--things made of iron "with 4 legs" that could run very fast. She declared she would run after it and was told she could run after it but she couldn't catch it.
Years later, a car actually approached her village. The people were terrified. They ran and hid from the loud noise which was unlike anything they'd ever heard. She said they thought it would cut them up.
When, much later, someone told her there was an iron thing -called a "plane" that could actually fly in the sky, she refused to believe it. Eventually she made her husband take her to Nyala to see if such a really thing existed. After she saw a "plane" she said she now believes anything can happen.
There is much talk of an imminent attack (Chadian rebels looting their way toward Nd'Jamena for another coup attempt) so there is an emergency evacuation plan for the aid workers here in Koukou and we keep our bags packed.