As night fell and the bright lights of the brand-new oil field wrapped this hamlet in their golden glow, Neurmbaye Elie, a local farmer, pointed across the field before him.
There, Mr. Elie said, just left of the blazing gas flare, under the streetlight, once stood the village initiation site. Animals were sacrificed there, spirits were supplicated, and the village boys became men. Then it became part of the oil complex, fenced in, a patch of earth not unlike the rest; the village got about $130 for it.
Now, he worries. What if the spirits, displeased, sprang from that sacred ground and spread willy-nilly across the land?
Oil is bringing big changes to Chad, some cultural, like the one Mr. Elie worries about, others practical, like the way the World Bank will be overseeing how Chad manages its new wealth. Chad, among the poorest countries in the world, is now Africa's newest petrostate.
| Continue Somini Sengupta's New York Times article "The Making of an African Petrostate"
| Also: "Like living on a pier where most of the boards are missing"
posted in articles on February 22, 2004 11:03 PM | t (0)
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