the story of eve

this is the story off eve. he is the night receptionist at our hotel. he's maybe 23. we got to talking last night about what my company is doing here and the need for infrastructure and how most of the people here in gabon live. we started talking about how people like me, from the us or europe, come here for business and never see the poverty here. we live in a nice hotel in the north end of the city, right on the beach. our driver picks us up, we drive south down the bord du mer, following the coast and into downtown. we pass high rise hotels, apartments, ministry office buildings. we get out, work all day (around the table of course!), get picked up, maybe go to a restaurant or back to the hotel for dinner...i told eve that its so nice here, and then asked, knowing the answer, if everyone else lived like this because i don't see the poverty i expected. he said the government is ashamed of it, so they keep people like me away from it. he said "vous devez vous ourvrir au peuple" - very roughly translated into english as "you must open up to the people" - you have to go see them because they live just a few blocks east of the bord du mer. so i asked him if he was familiar with the term social justice: “of course, la justice egalité.”

he said many gabonese are frustrated. parents make so many sacrifices to get their kids into school. and when they graduate, there's nothing for them to do. there are lots of major companies working here for oil, natural gas, timber, various ores - but these trades hire few locals. eve left his family and village when he was 16 to go to school in port gentil. his parents worked in markets to make enough money to pay for his education. his goal was to graduate in the top 3 of his class because companies recruit there but only hire the top 3. after his first year he was in the top 10, after his 2nd he made it into the top 5. he spent his last two years top of his class. but when he graduated with his baccalauréat, he found that he didn't get hired because he didn't come from a "known family". he says he discovered that only the students with a "real" family name, someone connected to the political elite, get hired. most likely the handful of families connected to the original french colonial powers and still clinging to the invisible hand of the french. he finally found a term job at a bank. when president omar bongo died, people from all over the world came to pay their respects and hotels needed people. eve found a job here and has worked here ever since and has now been promoted to an evening receptionist. his parents are disappointed - all of his education and he's only a receptionist. but he's proud of his job and glad he has work - most of his friends don't. we talked a bit more about life beyond the bord and he went to tell a story about bongo just before he died.

he was frail, knowing his time here was coming to end. he did one final address to the nation on live television. he was reading from a script and it was riddled with mistakes. so he stops mid-sentence and asked "who wrote this? what do you people do?" he went on speaking from his heart saying that he would be in heaven soon and would have to account for what he's done - being part of creating a country where 80% of the people are poor and only 20% have access to resources (that ratio is better than many resource-poor countries). he went on and called out many of his political peers for taking advantage of the system. that political leaders wasted the potential of gabon and that the people deserved more, that they needed water, food, education, jobs. he went on to say "dieu n'est pas content, parce que il y a une solution" - god is not happy because there is a solution. eve believes that the new president, ali bongo (omar's son) understands this and is trying to find help. that's why he's asked my company to be here and is making changes to diversify the nation's economy to enable more local jobs.

we talked a bit more about life in gabon for the average person, about eve's girlfriend, his dreams for a family, his faith. he said, "my parents made so much sacrifice just so that i have this job. there's nothing else for me to do. i have faith in god that things will get better. when you trust in god, you let everything else go because you have to believe that god has something big for you."

well, eve, i hope so. for you and your future wife and your children and for the million and half people that live on the other side of the bord du mer.