When bureaucracy means holidays

This blog post might give You what You expect from a “travel” diary – as I travelled for the first time inside Gabon. Even though for bureaucratic reasons, I do have some nice narrations to share with You.

Tuesday, 26 February: Cyril held a presentation about Lassa Fever today. This was quite insightful as this disease is almost exclusively endemic to Nigeria and so it was completely new to me. Suzan had promised to take me to the field when she went, to give me an idea of how this worked, so I went with her. Twice. We couldn’t find the patient though. Well, I got to see the town a bit! There’re no exact residential addresses in Lambaréné and people appear to be moving a lot, so this is apparently not too uncommon. I had found the previous few working days quite frustrating. However, sitting in our bus and passing the river, it hit me. This country is stunningly beautiful, and I get to see it, after not even a week I have already been blessed with a few friendships, before even having actively reached out. I do feel abundantly blessed. Please remind me, when I have to vent again. La vie est belle - life is beautiful and God is good, all the time. In the afternoon I continued my slide reading training and actually made some progress. I just have to ask for the next step in my training, to better understand what I am actually doing there. The internet connection was also rather stable today. In the evening Gerrit, who is about to leave, and I went out for pizza. This was a good opportunity for me to exchange some thoughts and get some food for thought about living in an African country, about how to tackle this scary doctoral-thesis-monster and more. It was a good day.​​

​​Wednesday, 27 February: Friends, this was my first really busy working day! It started in an unusual way for me, as I went for a run with Johannes. This means four rounds around campus, but please tell me that these counts. At 9am I went to administration to get my documents and be fetched for going to the Immigration office, commonly referred to as CEDOC here. As I plan to stay for more than six months, I have to get a residence permit from the capital city, which I wanted to have prepared. Luckily the driver was there to help me out, as I couldn’t quite understand what was happening. I thought everything had gone well until we came back. There I understood, or rather was explained, that the responsible employee to sign my documents hadn’t been in and that I was actually still waiting for a whole file of documents. The prospect of leaving for Libreville tomorrow morning with Dearie and Lidwine started to fade. In the afternoon, we had the scientific meeting. This is a 6-weekly meeting where all the CERMEL staff, and later “only” the scientific staff, gathered. The president, Prof. Kremsner from Tübingen, Germany, was there, too. I did present the study protocol and received some constructive feedback. When all the divisions, among which I belong to Clinical Operations, come together, CERMEL has 60+ researchers. Afterwards, there was a kick-off meeting for the screening in another study, in which I will assist from next week. I’m quite looking forward to this! Later we went out for dinner (again! I wouldn’t have thought that I can grow tired of it), to say farewell to Cyril.

Thursday, 28 February: I would have loved to tell You I went to Libreville to get my carte de séjour, but that didn’t happen. Patience is a virtue that I apparently have to relearn every time I need it. Through my housemates I had just learned that there is a weekly Journal Club, so I attended, and it was really quite interesting! Experimental lab work confused me, but maybe that is just one more thing I can learn during my stay. In the evening, we had a farewell party for Gerrit, that his lab had organized. We went to a researcher’s club. I got to see a new part of town, Chateau, and we had a really enjoyable dinner outside. There’s some staff I pass by frequently, but this was an occasion to have actual conversations and I did enjoy it. Afterwards we went to Summit Club again. I had missed out on the last opportunity as I didn’t overly enjoy it the first time around, but today’s party was really really fun. We went with ten people and had the dancefloor for ourselves for a while, which didn’t diminish our fun at all. When there’s real rhythm and people who do not just lollop from one foot to another, You can truly call this dancing. Gerrit and I had a spontaneous disco fox performance, which made an impression on the others and made me long for dancing school days where I knew even more figures.​​

Friday, 01 March: Just before 11 o’clock, Eric, one of our drivers, suddenly popped into our office to fetch me for CEDOC to get my paperwork. Admin then tried to get me money for my trip in advance. This unfortunately didn’t work because a signature was missing somewhere along the process that had started Wednesday. My latest resolution is not to wonder about bureaucracy too much. Funny enough, Lidwine had just suggested that she knew someone going to Libreville this noon, so I was rushed to get my things packed for the weekend trip. Which would be alone, unfortunately as it had turned out very spontaneous after all. How else could it be, I then had to wait a while until the driver really arrived, but around 2pm we left. The road is even bumpier than I had realized on my trip to Lambaréné three weeks ago, but it is really scenic. Paul, who drove, was kind to make some stops at scenic views and I even got to put on some German music. Driving through tropical forests to the sound of Beginner and AnnenMayKantereit is quite surreal. It must be a small country, as he knew many people along the way. And we stopped quite often. Be it for the numerous road controls (only one passport check), be it for a drink, for greeting a cousin… We even passed a convoy of four-by-fours which presumptively belong to the minister for the interior. This 235km, 4+h drive is so much more exhausting than one would expect, so I spent a relaxed evening at Tropicana hotel where our admin lady Anita had booked a room for me.

​​​​Saturday, 02 March: What better way to start a Saturday morning than with a swim in the ocean, with a view on sandy beaches and palm trees? I never knew the Atlantic could be this warm. I then headed off to Libreville CEDOC around 8am in the morning. If You wonder why I would go there on a Saturday, yes, they do open on Saturdays. I had the majority of people at CERMEL who I had spoken to tell me so. And no, I did not get my Carte de Séjour today. This happened to be the day they moved offices within the building, so the security guards advised me to come back Monday early in the morning. This sounds annoying? Yes, it is. But also, the start for an unforeseen short holiday! I went to a museum that Gerrit had advised me, and the guided tour was just so special. The Museum for Arts and Traditions is small, and to be revised this year, but the tour gave me an extremely interesting insight into local beliefs, ceremonies etc., shown here through masks, instruments, You name it. I would not dare to retell any of the stories due to their complexity. Should You ever happen to land in Libreville, and You have the slightest interest in culture, do take a couple of hours off and so spend it on a guide here. Libreville does not have too many touristic sights, but I did walk past the presidential palace, past St. Pierre Cathedral to Cathédrale Ste Marie (thanks to Verlin for the clue), never being too far from the waterfront. I spent some time inside the church and found myself in some sort of confirmation classes. Afterwards, due to the very hot and sunny weather, I needed some refreshment and stopped at an Engen garage, which felt somewhat familiar as this is common in South Africa. I didn’t see many trade chains at all in this country yet, and all others seemed local to me. Afterwards, I decided to keep on walking to take in some of the city’s atmosphere and to avoid having to negotiate taxi fares. I ended up walking along the beach to get back to the hotel, which was just as idyllic as You might picture it. I paid the price though with a proper sunburn. Cloudy weather and staying indoors had protected me up until then, but not anymore. In the evening, Gerrit also arrived to be near the airport for his outbound flight tomorrow. What better way to end a Saturday than with a swim in the ocean, with a view on sandy beaches and a hint of the palm trees? And my granny always said salt water helps healing, so take this burnt skin! At some point I thought something had scratched or bitten me, but we figured it was just trash. Pollution of our ocean is real, folks. Don’t litter. Afterwards it was yet another dinner out at a restaurant by the beach, the first “white” place I came across in Gabon so far. Having life music there just added to my newly found taste in this unplanned holiday.

​​Sunday, 03 March: Yet another morning swim was just great to start the day. I always am the one who swims furthest, and, in the evening, we were the only ones. Maybe this has to do with many people not being able to swim, or so I heard. There’s nothing like the ocean, and with a warmth like this, I could spend the whole day there. This morning I also met one more guy who knew some German and had seen the place, which I found quite remarkable in contrast to Lambaréné, where most people You come across don’t seem to be mobile. Apparently, You can learn German in school here, for whatever reason. While I had previously thought to be returning to Lambaréné this morning, I needed a change of plan. So, I had arranged meeting with a colleague at short notice, who was in town to see her family. She took me to Petit Paris, a neighbourhood with several fabric stores. Your girl is a serious case of shopaholism, and this was a serious relapse. Be excited for the clothes I will have made of this! Doria, You have been a Rockstar showing me around and negotiating for me. I would have never got the salesman to lower the price and give me a coke. Yep some news here, I actually start enjoying coke in this weather, if it’s cold. She then further advised me how and where to find a driver to take me back tomorrow. As You might have realized, there’s no formal transport system that I’d know of, so You have to know people, or at least places, and also common prices. Later that afternoon I decided to spend some more time at the hotel, and I had a nice long evening swim. I hope You start to understand how soothing being in the sea is for someone born for the ocean like me, when You spend stirring times in muggy weather each and every day. I then got the evening to write You this, sitting on the beach and hearing, but not seeing, the water. It started raining (it’s the tropics after all) and what I find most notable are “silent thunderstorms” that I saw several times. That is, lightnings, but no sound and sometimes not even rain. It’s beautiful.

​​Monday, 04 March: I got up early and squeezed my two backpacks and me in a taxi to get to CEDOC. It thought I was quite early at just after 7am, but there already like 100 people waiting in front of me. Soldiers were organizing the queue and whenever somebody told me where to go, someone else told me something else… I did eventually get into the building though and got admitted with priority because I had already my completed file from the authority in Lambaréné. Just before I could enter the waiting area, the machine that printed the numbers broke down and I was very kindly shown where to sit while they fixed it. Well, three different places… But eventually I got a number and waited. After my paperwork had been checked, I waited. Then got my documents back with a new number. Then waited. After having paid, got a new number again, and waited. Despite the lengthy process, the office was actually really well organized, with employees plus screens plus soldiers/policemen (?) (whose main competency seemed to be a loud voice) making sure everything went in an orderly manner. Luckily, my papers had been well prepared by CERMEL, there had just been two inquiries. It didn’t seem quite credible that I’m neither married nor have children yet, but they eventually believed that. Moreover, the German letters in my surname (Sträßner) caused some confusion once more. I could convince them to use the international spelling from the bottom of my passport and after just 3.5h, I got out with my preliminary residence permit. After that I still managed to get to the pick-up point for my ride home to Lambaréné, which Doria had organized for me. The driver was good but being squeezed between two men in the backseat is never fun, especially not in the heat. Why do men, wherever You go in the world, tend to manspread (sit with legs wide apart)? When I arrived, it was already late afternoon. How beautiful it was to realize that this actually felt like coming home a bit! I just unpacked, freshened up, got my refund for the weekend’s extensive expenditures and caught up with some colleagues. Luckily, I was not the only one with an exhausting day, so we cooked at home tonight.​​

Although being nothing that I couldn’t handle, I must acknowledge these last few days have been fatiguing for me. An article I just stumbled over put this nicely. Being thrown into an unfamiliar situation is unsettling. Everything suddenly becomes a cognitive act. What do I say when trying to get a taxi, and why did he just not stop for me? Is this too expensive or just Libreville being expensive? How do I top up my phone again, and where? It’s a challenge for my ambiguity (in)tolerance – do I accept the way things are and people act, or do I complain about it?

See You, take care,

Doro

026 days in Gabon

#Doktorarbeit #doctorat #Ankommen #Gabon #Gabun #Reisen #Libreville #thoughtful