Lately (roughly the last month, minus IST), I’ve been feeling a bit blahblahblah. That is, a general malaise, marked by occasional spikes in my spirit, but for the most part, there’s been a decent amount of pathetic self-pity. Maybe I’m being too hard on myself – this experience has been much harder for me than I imagined it would be – but I feel as though in some ways I’m not living up to my own expectations. Ironic considering that all along, I said I had no expectations, but those little buggers just crept up on me, so insidiously. And now here I am feeling… just crappy. Self-doubts plague me: am I doing enough work? At the rate I’m working, will I really make any legitimate difference or contribution to this community? Am I trying hard enough to integrate? Will I ever feel like I have “integrated”? What will it take for me to feel like a success at integrating, to feel like I belong here? All of these doubts make me feel unhappy. Volunteers tell me this is normal, and that after about a year, things just click and you start to groove. Lately I've been doubting that wisdom - at one year, will things click, or will I just become complacent in my unhappiness? Lately, all of these thoughts have made me consider how nice it might feel to just give up and ship back home to the states.
Anyway, it was in the midst of these kinds of thoughts that I was sitting in my living room this afternoon, about to get ready to go to market, when I heard some ruckus outside my front door. I opened the door to find my two male neighbors, tearing apart my decrepit and badly-in-need-of-replacement wooden stairs leading up to my front porch. Awhile ago, the top step caved in (probably from rotting), so now you must make an almost comically large step up onto my porch to bypass the fallen soldier (impossible for my neighbor’s 5-year-old little girl to accomplish).
About a month ago, when it first crapped out, my neighbors commented that I needed to get it repaired. I know, I said sheepishly. I didn’t really know how to explain to them all the barriers involved to resolving this small problem: that I didn’t know who to go to get it done; how much it should/would cost; how to negotiate (indeed the headache there involved) with the landlord that I shouldn’t have to pay for this since the house should just have sturdy steps anyway; the fact that there are so many other problems with my house that this really seemed pretty insignificant by comparison (holes between the floor and the walls where I once found a tarantula, and where, I recently discovered, mice live; a leaky roof with heavy rainy season on its way; lack of ceiling throughout half the house; insect infestation; spotty electricity… the list goes on). The bottom line was – the mere thought of resolving the problem gave me a headache and it honestly wasn’t that much extra work for me to take a giant step everyday onto and off of my porch.
“Whatcha doing?” I asked my neighbors, who had already dismantled the steps and were now digging into the dirt to remove the pieces that were embedded in the ground.
“Fixing your steps.” My neighbour answered. It wasn’t even a question, “would you like us to fix your steps for you?” It was a statement. Almost as if saying, this needs to be done and since, for whatever reason, you haven’t done it, we’ll take care of it. As if I was their family, and not just their inept white neighbor.
Wow. I was dumbstruck and sat down to watch them work for a minute, not even knowing how to properly express my gratitude. I almost started crying out of appreciation. Did they know that they had just saved me probably a month’s worth of footwork in negotiating who would build new steps, who would pay for them and how much they would cost? Probably not. Beyond that, did they know that their actions spoke worlds to me, said more than they could ever have said with words? Maybe. Just when I feel like I can’t possibly fit in and despite my efforts, I suck at integration (indeed, probably my greatest fear at the moment), my neighbors go and do this. They go and remind me that I don’t need to go home to the US to be happy. I’m already home.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
International Day of the Woman
March 8 is International Woman's Day. This has caused some confusion amongst villagers who were excited to incorporate American traditions of how the fête is celebrated in America. When I told them that Americans do not celebrate International Women's Day, many asked me then why is it called International Woman's Day. Hell if I know, it's your holiday, I wanted to say.
Anyhow, the celebration began on the 7th with an afternoon round-table discussion whose topic was "Investing in our daughters." I was not officially invited so I wasn't sure if I should go, because I still haven't figured out whether having an invitation is necessary for me to attend an event. I opted to come kind of late and sort of mosey by the venue to see if they'd just let me come participate. They did.
I kept mentally noting how something like a Woman's Day round-table discussion would have been really different in America. The discussion was directed by the sous-préfet and though he made an effort to include the women in the community who hold places of importance, a lot of the discutants were men and a lot of the discussion centered on how women were the matriarchs, the foundations of society because it was they who raised the kids who would become the next generation. Women needed to do their jobs, they said, keep the courtyard clean, do their laundry, take care of the kids. No slacking. It wasn't only the men who said this - it was the women too who expounded along these longs and who literally applauded this line of thinking. There was also some discussion of women needing to take the helms, to demand change if they wanted it, though this line of discussion was taken with less fervor.
Soon after I sat down, the sous-préfet broke out of his French to ask me in English if I could address the crowd with an American perspective, noting that he knew I spoke English, but it'd be better if I spoke in French so everyone could understand. I know he was trying to be accommodating and welcoming by acknowledging that French is not my first language, but I've been in Cameroon for almost six months and at post for three, and I've had conversations with him in French, so I was a little baffled and kind of miffed at his assumption that I couldn't address the crowd in French.
I quickly swung past my irritation, though, to focus on mustering up all of my Lit Hum bullshitting skills to develop a coherent speech on the spot. During training one day, one of the language trainers had asked us to come up with 15-minute long arguments in French on a topic without any preparation. She had warned that this might be demanded of us and it would be expected that we would be able to do this by our communities. At the time I found it irritating and impossible. Now, faced with the same demand, I still found it irritating, but I was at least kind of expecting it from the moment I sat down. Here was an opportunity to both share an American perspective on women's rights, and how I wished I could have had time to prepare something and tuned it to Cameroonian culture so I could have said something of value. I spoke for about five minutes, after which the audience applauded me. I mostly felt the praise undeserved because I wasn't sure I said anything of substance or value, but c'est la vie.
The round-table discussion lasted far longer than it should have and I was waning, not having eaten lunch, but immediately following the discussion was a series of sketches and dances put on by the women planners of the whole celebration, which I just couldn't tear myself away from. I made it home around 10 PM, not having eaten since breakfast nor having anything in my house to prepare for dinner.
The next morning, the schedule I'd received said the community should show up at 8 AM for the 9 AM arrival of the mayor and 9:30 AM arrival of the sous-préfet. When I went by the parade ground at around 8:30, Magloire's brother Kasimi, the resident electrician for the entire village, was just starting to set up the acoustics. No chairs were set up. I know that Cameroonian schedules are not always (read: never) followed, but I still can't quite figure out exactly how late to be. If I thought I was fashionably late showing up at 8:30 AM, then Cameroonians may as well be on the runways of Milan. Anyway, I went back home to hang out and came back to the parade ground at 10:15. The Sous-préfet decided to grace us with his presence at 11:15. There was a march and some speeches, and some what-seemed like chaotic dancing and chanting when that was all over. The afternoon brought a soccer match of two all-women's teams, which I missed.
The evening was marked by a dinner and dancing (and obviously, drinking). There were a several women who seemed to have been highly involved in planning the whole event and they were running around stressed out for what seemed like the whole dinner. After dinner, they started the dancing with a "Tournée d'honneur" in which the most-honored guests are invited to dance in pairs to "open" the dance floor. Each round lasts for literally all of 5 seconds, so I think it's more symbolic than anything, and I was assigned to dance with the sous-préfet and immediately I felt like I was at an awkward middle school dance for all excruciating five seconds of it. The dancing (I'm sure) went on til all hours, but I pooped out at 11 PM and caught a moto home.
One of the traditions at parties with buffet-style food like this is that the most important people (sous-préfet, mayor, village chief, notables, etc) get to serve themselves first and then the rest of people in decreasing order of importance. It struck me that this tradition was followed during woman's day. I kept thinking: these women have worked SO HARD to put together these two days of events - creating and practicing dances and sketches for over a month, having regular meetings for a month, attending daily soccer practices, slaving for hours preparing food, doing cotisations (pooling money) to fund everything... all to have just this one day of celebration. The least the sous-préfet and other VIPs could offer is to honor these women and their work by letting the women be the first-served. Just this once. When I made this comment to Magloire later, he said "but really, the women like to do all that work - it's them who want to do it and put together such a ceremony." Hmphhh. I'm seeing that one of my roles as a volunteer is simply to introduce new ideas and see if the villagers run with them. This is definitely something I want to try and introduce for next year's fete.
Here's some photos from the event:
Here is the actual day of the march. ALL of the women are wearing dresses made from the same "pagne" or fabric. (Again, more confusion when I was asked earlier in the day - "do they use the same fabric in America? Is it the same fabric the world over?") Some of them just do a kabba (what we might call a mumu in the US), but some ladies get really creative with their dresses. It appears that there were two different pagnes for the woman's day, though I don't know if the distinction between the two signified anything. This is some of the semi-chaotic post-march dancing and hooting and hollering I mentioned.
Anyhow, the celebration began on the 7th with an afternoon round-table discussion whose topic was "Investing in our daughters." I was not officially invited so I wasn't sure if I should go, because I still haven't figured out whether having an invitation is necessary for me to attend an event. I opted to come kind of late and sort of mosey by the venue to see if they'd just let me come participate. They did.
I kept mentally noting how something like a Woman's Day round-table discussion would have been really different in America. The discussion was directed by the sous-préfet and though he made an effort to include the women in the community who hold places of importance, a lot of the discutants were men and a lot of the discussion centered on how women were the matriarchs, the foundations of society because it was they who raised the kids who would become the next generation. Women needed to do their jobs, they said, keep the courtyard clean, do their laundry, take care of the kids. No slacking. It wasn't only the men who said this - it was the women too who expounded along these longs and who literally applauded this line of thinking. There was also some discussion of women needing to take the helms, to demand change if they wanted it, though this line of discussion was taken with less fervor.
Soon after I sat down, the sous-préfet broke out of his French to ask me in English if I could address the crowd with an American perspective, noting that he knew I spoke English, but it'd be better if I spoke in French so everyone could understand. I know he was trying to be accommodating and welcoming by acknowledging that French is not my first language, but I've been in Cameroon for almost six months and at post for three, and I've had conversations with him in French, so I was a little baffled and kind of miffed at his assumption that I couldn't address the crowd in French.
I quickly swung past my irritation, though, to focus on mustering up all of my Lit Hum bullshitting skills to develop a coherent speech on the spot. During training one day, one of the language trainers had asked us to come up with 15-minute long arguments in French on a topic without any preparation. She had warned that this might be demanded of us and it would be expected that we would be able to do this by our communities. At the time I found it irritating and impossible. Now, faced with the same demand, I still found it irritating, but I was at least kind of expecting it from the moment I sat down. Here was an opportunity to both share an American perspective on women's rights, and how I wished I could have had time to prepare something and tuned it to Cameroonian culture so I could have said something of value. I spoke for about five minutes, after which the audience applauded me. I mostly felt the praise undeserved because I wasn't sure I said anything of substance or value, but c'est la vie.
The round-table discussion lasted far longer than it should have and I was waning, not having eaten lunch, but immediately following the discussion was a series of sketches and dances put on by the women planners of the whole celebration, which I just couldn't tear myself away from. I made it home around 10 PM, not having eaten since breakfast nor having anything in my house to prepare for dinner.
The next morning, the schedule I'd received said the community should show up at 8 AM for the 9 AM arrival of the mayor and 9:30 AM arrival of the sous-préfet. When I went by the parade ground at around 8:30, Magloire's brother Kasimi, the resident electrician for the entire village, was just starting to set up the acoustics. No chairs were set up. I know that Cameroonian schedules are not always (read: never) followed, but I still can't quite figure out exactly how late to be. If I thought I was fashionably late showing up at 8:30 AM, then Cameroonians may as well be on the runways of Milan. Anyway, I went back home to hang out and came back to the parade ground at 10:15. The Sous-préfet decided to grace us with his presence at 11:15. There was a march and some speeches, and some what-seemed like chaotic dancing and chanting when that was all over. The afternoon brought a soccer match of two all-women's teams, which I missed.
The evening was marked by a dinner and dancing (and obviously, drinking). There were a several women who seemed to have been highly involved in planning the whole event and they were running around stressed out for what seemed like the whole dinner. After dinner, they started the dancing with a "Tournée d'honneur" in which the most-honored guests are invited to dance in pairs to "open" the dance floor. Each round lasts for literally all of 5 seconds, so I think it's more symbolic than anything, and I was assigned to dance with the sous-préfet and immediately I felt like I was at an awkward middle school dance for all excruciating five seconds of it. The dancing (I'm sure) went on til all hours, but I pooped out at 11 PM and caught a moto home.
One of the traditions at parties with buffet-style food like this is that the most important people (sous-préfet, mayor, village chief, notables, etc) get to serve themselves first and then the rest of people in decreasing order of importance. It struck me that this tradition was followed during woman's day. I kept thinking: these women have worked SO HARD to put together these two days of events - creating and practicing dances and sketches for over a month, having regular meetings for a month, attending daily soccer practices, slaving for hours preparing food, doing cotisations (pooling money) to fund everything... all to have just this one day of celebration. The least the sous-préfet and other VIPs could offer is to honor these women and their work by letting the women be the first-served. Just this once. When I made this comment to Magloire later, he said "but really, the women like to do all that work - it's them who want to do it and put together such a ceremony." Hmphhh. I'm seeing that one of my roles as a volunteer is simply to introduce new ideas and see if the villagers run with them. This is definitely something I want to try and introduce for next year's fete.
Here's some photos from the event:
One of the dances on the evening's program was listed as "Tikar dance." I think it was this one with these three women, but my resident cultural translator, Magloire, wasn't with me, so I'm not sure.
Here is the actual day of the march. ALL of the women are wearing dresses made from the same "pagne" or fabric. (Again, more confusion when I was asked earlier in the day - "do they use the same fabric in America? Is it the same fabric the world over?") Some of them just do a kabba (what we might call a mumu in the US), but some ladies get really creative with their dresses. It appears that there were two different pagnes for the woman's day, though I don't know if the distinction between the two signified anything. This is some of the semi-chaotic post-march dancing and hooting and hollering I mentioned.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Field Trip
I’ve been bugging Magloire for awhile to show me his fields – I’m very curious to see farms here since cultivation is huge element of most Cameroonians’ lives. Every morning when I go running I always see people dressed in drab, dirty, holey clothes heading out to their fields, machete perched on their heads or hanging loosely in their hands. It always makes me chuckle too, when I think about how Americans might respond if everyday, farmers headed down the streets of say, New York, for example, casually waving a machete at passerby’s in greeting.
Anyhow, he said to be ready to go out at 7:30 AM, to which I replied, “that’s a bit late, isn’t it?” The sun starts to come up here around 6 AM, and Magloire had told me before that if he’s going to work his fields, he’ll usually head out at 6 AM. He replied that he didn’t want to disturb me, but I said, don’t worry about me, just tell me when to be ready to go. So I woke up at 5:45 AM yesterday to meet him at around 6:10. We walked about a half hour out to his uncle’s field.
What’s interesting about fields here is that they’re totally in the forest and there aren’t really discernible or obvious boundaries between the farms and the surrounding forest. So we turned off the main road onto a small footpath headed right into the forest. Along the way he pointed out all sorts of different plants – palm trees (from which people cultivate palm nuts, which are pressed to make palm oil), the difference between plantain and banana trees (plantain tree trunks are yellow; banana tree trunks are black), both wild and domestic mangoes, cocoa trees, coffee plants, manioc plants. Every now and again, he would exclaim in surprise, “Beck-kah! You can’t recognize coffee plants?!” I think he’s having trouble understanding how the whole domain of farming and cultivation is totally foreign to me. To which I try to explain, “Magloire, I grew up in cities. Have you ever seen a field in the middle of Douala or Yaoundé?” His response: “Well, not fields, but they have mango trees at least.” Oof.
In any case, the field trip (haha, no pun intended) was really fun and informative, not to mention beautiful. Afterwards he headed out of the forest and down the road to his much smaller field where, the day before yesterday, he had cut down three stalks of bananas. He said we would carry them back to village on our heads. I still haven’t mastered that skill (or even really tried… it’s pretty intimidating) though I know enough about it to know that the trick is that people wrap a piece of cloth in a circle and put that on their heads before loading whatever it is they’re carrying. The “coussin” (or “cushion”) gives a more flat surface to work with and helps stabilize the load. We hadn’t brought any cloth to use as coussins, so instead, Magloire fashioned coussins for us out of dead banana leaves. Next thing you know, I was walking back to village with a stalk of bananas perched on my head, greeting passerby’s in Tikar. Granted, I was still using one hand to stabilize my load the entire way, but still. Yesterday, for a short time at least, I was hardcore fulfilling objectives two and three of Peace Corps service: cultural exchange.
Anyhow, he said to be ready to go out at 7:30 AM, to which I replied, “that’s a bit late, isn’t it?” The sun starts to come up here around 6 AM, and Magloire had told me before that if he’s going to work his fields, he’ll usually head out at 6 AM. He replied that he didn’t want to disturb me, but I said, don’t worry about me, just tell me when to be ready to go. So I woke up at 5:45 AM yesterday to meet him at around 6:10. We walked about a half hour out to his uncle’s field.
What’s interesting about fields here is that they’re totally in the forest and there aren’t really discernible or obvious boundaries between the farms and the surrounding forest. So we turned off the main road onto a small footpath headed right into the forest. Along the way he pointed out all sorts of different plants – palm trees (from which people cultivate palm nuts, which are pressed to make palm oil), the difference between plantain and banana trees (plantain tree trunks are yellow; banana tree trunks are black), both wild and domestic mangoes, cocoa trees, coffee plants, manioc plants. Every now and again, he would exclaim in surprise, “Beck-kah! You can’t recognize coffee plants?!” I think he’s having trouble understanding how the whole domain of farming and cultivation is totally foreign to me. To which I try to explain, “Magloire, I grew up in cities. Have you ever seen a field in the middle of Douala or Yaoundé?” His response: “Well, not fields, but they have mango trees at least.” Oof.
In any case, the field trip (haha, no pun intended) was really fun and informative, not to mention beautiful. Afterwards he headed out of the forest and down the road to his much smaller field where, the day before yesterday, he had cut down three stalks of bananas. He said we would carry them back to village on our heads. I still haven’t mastered that skill (or even really tried… it’s pretty intimidating) though I know enough about it to know that the trick is that people wrap a piece of cloth in a circle and put that on their heads before loading whatever it is they’re carrying. The “coussin” (or “cushion”) gives a more flat surface to work with and helps stabilize the load. We hadn’t brought any cloth to use as coussins, so instead, Magloire fashioned coussins for us out of dead banana leaves. Next thing you know, I was walking back to village with a stalk of bananas perched on my head, greeting passerby’s in Tikar. Granted, I was still using one hand to stabilize my load the entire way, but still. Yesterday, for a short time at least, I was hardcore fulfilling objectives two and three of Peace Corps service: cultural exchange.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
flying coyote
Today was a blessed day of nothing, much needed. Work has an ability to simultaneously depress me and buoy my spirits, a balance which is, despite its inherent ambiguity, definitely exhausting. Therefore, it was a wonderful feeling to wake up this morning to face a day, or rather a morning, unburdened by the necessity to head to CAPJ, at least not til the afternoon. It gave me needed time to rest (well…after drawing water, which still stresses me out). I spent most of my day reading an entire book, after which I spent some time pondering why, when I have enough time in one day to read the entirety of a book, I can possibly be so exhausted?
I came to the following conclusion: You know those cartoons with the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote always chasing and trying to catch him? I have a distinct memory of one of those episodes where the Road Runner heads towards a cliff, but in his stealth stops short, so as not to fall. Predictably, the coyote (not as wiley as his name might suggest) doesn’t stop in time, but keeps going, right over the edge of the cliff. There’s a moment where, hanging suspended in mid air, he realizes he’s going to fall a quite far distance before he splats on the canyon floor below him. He feebly holds up a sign declaring “uh-oh…” (or something like that) before gravity grabs him a throws him to the canyon floor the way a penny supposedly rockets to the earth when thrown from a skyscraper. Further, as salt in the wounds, the lightning-fast Road Runner inevitably reaches the canyon floor before the coyote and hangs around just long enough to rub in how badly the coyote has failed to catch him, before he “meep meep”s and jets off again.
Here in Cameroon, in this context that is so unfamiliar, I feel completely like the coyote, like the ground has completely been swept out from under me. However, in some sick, twist of fate, I’m not falling down, but falling up, sideways, and every which way except what I’d expect. To my horror, the one rule I’d expect – gravity - is not even operating. To be honest, even a mile-long drop would be welcome at this point, because at least I’d know to grimace as my body slammed into the ungiving Earth.
Instead, everyday I struggle simply to understand my context, to understand the priniciples under which Cameroonians operate (ie that gravitational principle). I’ll give you an example. Beginning this week, Magloire has been mentioning how he’s needed to make mud bricks. When I ask what he’s building, he says a house. For him? Yes.
Now, Magloire already has a house, a pretty nice one at that, and I’ve noticed several improvements over the three or four months since I first saw it (ie ceiling installed, walls painted, curtains hung, etc), which would indicate to me that he has no intention of moving (why invest all that time and especially money improving a current home just to move?) so naturally I inquired why he’s building a new house. His answer was basically, “because.” Well, if there’s anything I’ve learned the hard way, it’s that when you ask a question here and get an answer that does not answer your question (which happens more often than I’d like), you probably didn’t ask your question right (ie there’s something that goes unsaid and understood in the Cameroonian response which is not immediately apparent to you). So I tried again, “But… you already have a house. Why are you building another one?” Again, the response is something along the lines of “why not?” Okay. Fuck. I guess I’m the idiot. I give it up for the moment.
But today, as we left the CAPJ, we passed the site where he’s building the new house and I said again, emphatically “I still don’t understand why you’re building it.” He laughed, as he often does at my incessant questions, chuckling “you still don’t understand?” And then explained that his father had bought the land and if he didn’t build on it then the people who live around that site would slowly parcel it off. Building on it is a way to protect it from encroaching neighbors. And when the house is built, he can rent it out and make a little money.
Okay! Now there’s an explanation to the question I asked. Why was that supposed to be obvious to me? Why did I let him make me feel so stupid for asking about it in the first place? Afterwards he tells me that my questions surprise him. Who owns land in America? Anyone can. And how do they keep others from encroaching on it, he asks? I try to explain that a person can do whatever he wants with the land and the “contract” he has to the land is what keeps people off (and of course, the government and judicial system, which, in contrast to Cameroon, actually work) – a person doesn’t have to build on it to keep people off. But dimly, I see that here is another fundamental difference between how America works and how Cameroon works (or doesn’t, as the case often is), and probably the root of our mutual lack of understanding.
But this entire process, just to uncover this tiny morsel of a new understanding took a whole week from when I first encountered something I didn’t understand to when I began to understand it. And I’d say that’s a fast turn-around, because most people are not as cued into my utter confusion as Magloire is.
The entire process is positively maddening, exhausting, frustrating, and at times, rewarding. Imagine walking into your kitchen, and opening your fridge to discover that instead of keeping foods chilled, it cooked them, and finding that your oven instantly froze foods – now your butter’s melted, milk’s spoiled and your chicken that you were preparing for dinner is a frozen chunk. But then, adding insult to injury, when you call the landlord/repairman/anyone to ask “what gives?” they look at your sideways, as if you’ve asked why 2 plus 2 makes four, and say simply “because.” What you need is someone to explain that math for you, but it’s so evident to them, they can’t imagine having to explain it to anyone. It just is.
But not to you.
That’s what my everyday is like. Spoiled milk and frozen chicken and meanwhile I’m floating in space like a coyote on a wayward mission to the moon, gravity having taken a raincheck. If that picture is totally nonsensical and non sequitor for you, then congratulations. You understand just a sliver of what I’m facing every-god-damn-fucking day.
In this context, I have plenty of time to doubt myself, whether I’m doing any good, and whether I’m “measuring up” (to what, exactly, is a whole new question – the very lack of any measures, objective or otherwise, makes self-analysis extremely difficult). More often than not, I’ll cling to a recent event as proof of how well I’m succeeding or how miserably I’m failing in this whole experience. Lately, it’s been a bit more of the latter than the former.
So today, while Magloire and I were sharing a drink (at the only bar in town with refrigerated drinks), I was already in a fragile state when he mentioned that Stacy, the volunteer who prospected my post, and was good friends with Magloire, adapted uber-quickly and seemingly without problems. Now, I know enough to know that the average American does not adapt that quickly here and certainly not without more than a few hitches. Furthermore, I know Stacy (she’s still in Cameroon), and I could probably ask her about her specific problems if I really wanted to. The rational part of me was telling me, “ don’t compare yourself to her - Magloire surely doesn’t have the whole story and plus you are doing a good job adapting too.” But the emotionally vulnerable, judgmental, and already slightly depressed part of me gained the upper hand and I was pretty much a party pooper for the rest of the evening.
I know Magloire was concerned by my turn to a depressed state, and furthermore, one of the things that’s been getting me down lately is the lack of a real close friend, someone to confide in here. So I told myself, “Becca, if you want to develop your friendship with Magloire, you have to open up to him,” so in what was my most courageous moment of the eveing, I confessed that his comment about Stacy had made me feel like a failure in some sense. He had no idea, and felt terrible and assured me that was not at all what he meant and could I forgive him. And that made me feel a little better. Only slightly, but it was certainly an improvement over the Negative Nancy that I had been ever since he first made the comment.
Meanwhile, I’m still a floating coyote, frustrated, sometimes-depressed, emotionally-exhausted, with spoiled milk, and throwing frozen chicken bricks, and asking people to explain basic math.
I came to the following conclusion: You know those cartoons with the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote always chasing and trying to catch him? I have a distinct memory of one of those episodes where the Road Runner heads towards a cliff, but in his stealth stops short, so as not to fall. Predictably, the coyote (not as wiley as his name might suggest) doesn’t stop in time, but keeps going, right over the edge of the cliff. There’s a moment where, hanging suspended in mid air, he realizes he’s going to fall a quite far distance before he splats on the canyon floor below him. He feebly holds up a sign declaring “uh-oh…” (or something like that) before gravity grabs him a throws him to the canyon floor the way a penny supposedly rockets to the earth when thrown from a skyscraper. Further, as salt in the wounds, the lightning-fast Road Runner inevitably reaches the canyon floor before the coyote and hangs around just long enough to rub in how badly the coyote has failed to catch him, before he “meep meep”s and jets off again.
Here in Cameroon, in this context that is so unfamiliar, I feel completely like the coyote, like the ground has completely been swept out from under me. However, in some sick, twist of fate, I’m not falling down, but falling up, sideways, and every which way except what I’d expect. To my horror, the one rule I’d expect – gravity - is not even operating. To be honest, even a mile-long drop would be welcome at this point, because at least I’d know to grimace as my body slammed into the ungiving Earth.
Instead, everyday I struggle simply to understand my context, to understand the priniciples under which Cameroonians operate (ie that gravitational principle). I’ll give you an example. Beginning this week, Magloire has been mentioning how he’s needed to make mud bricks. When I ask what he’s building, he says a house. For him? Yes.
Now, Magloire already has a house, a pretty nice one at that, and I’ve noticed several improvements over the three or four months since I first saw it (ie ceiling installed, walls painted, curtains hung, etc), which would indicate to me that he has no intention of moving (why invest all that time and especially money improving a current home just to move?) so naturally I inquired why he’s building a new house. His answer was basically, “because.” Well, if there’s anything I’ve learned the hard way, it’s that when you ask a question here and get an answer that does not answer your question (which happens more often than I’d like), you probably didn’t ask your question right (ie there’s something that goes unsaid and understood in the Cameroonian response which is not immediately apparent to you). So I tried again, “But… you already have a house. Why are you building another one?” Again, the response is something along the lines of “why not?” Okay. Fuck. I guess I’m the idiot. I give it up for the moment.
But today, as we left the CAPJ, we passed the site where he’s building the new house and I said again, emphatically “I still don’t understand why you’re building it.” He laughed, as he often does at my incessant questions, chuckling “you still don’t understand?” And then explained that his father had bought the land and if he didn’t build on it then the people who live around that site would slowly parcel it off. Building on it is a way to protect it from encroaching neighbors. And when the house is built, he can rent it out and make a little money.
Okay! Now there’s an explanation to the question I asked. Why was that supposed to be obvious to me? Why did I let him make me feel so stupid for asking about it in the first place? Afterwards he tells me that my questions surprise him. Who owns land in America? Anyone can. And how do they keep others from encroaching on it, he asks? I try to explain that a person can do whatever he wants with the land and the “contract” he has to the land is what keeps people off (and of course, the government and judicial system, which, in contrast to Cameroon, actually work) – a person doesn’t have to build on it to keep people off. But dimly, I see that here is another fundamental difference between how America works and how Cameroon works (or doesn’t, as the case often is), and probably the root of our mutual lack of understanding.
But this entire process, just to uncover this tiny morsel of a new understanding took a whole week from when I first encountered something I didn’t understand to when I began to understand it. And I’d say that’s a fast turn-around, because most people are not as cued into my utter confusion as Magloire is.
The entire process is positively maddening, exhausting, frustrating, and at times, rewarding. Imagine walking into your kitchen, and opening your fridge to discover that instead of keeping foods chilled, it cooked them, and finding that your oven instantly froze foods – now your butter’s melted, milk’s spoiled and your chicken that you were preparing for dinner is a frozen chunk. But then, adding insult to injury, when you call the landlord/repairman/anyone to ask “what gives?” they look at your sideways, as if you’ve asked why 2 plus 2 makes four, and say simply “because.” What you need is someone to explain that math for you, but it’s so evident to them, they can’t imagine having to explain it to anyone. It just is.
But not to you.
That’s what my everyday is like. Spoiled milk and frozen chicken and meanwhile I’m floating in space like a coyote on a wayward mission to the moon, gravity having taken a raincheck. If that picture is totally nonsensical and non sequitor for you, then congratulations. You understand just a sliver of what I’m facing every-god-damn-fucking day.
In this context, I have plenty of time to doubt myself, whether I’m doing any good, and whether I’m “measuring up” (to what, exactly, is a whole new question – the very lack of any measures, objective or otherwise, makes self-analysis extremely difficult). More often than not, I’ll cling to a recent event as proof of how well I’m succeeding or how miserably I’m failing in this whole experience. Lately, it’s been a bit more of the latter than the former.
So today, while Magloire and I were sharing a drink (at the only bar in town with refrigerated drinks), I was already in a fragile state when he mentioned that Stacy, the volunteer who prospected my post, and was good friends with Magloire, adapted uber-quickly and seemingly without problems. Now, I know enough to know that the average American does not adapt that quickly here and certainly not without more than a few hitches. Furthermore, I know Stacy (she’s still in Cameroon), and I could probably ask her about her specific problems if I really wanted to. The rational part of me was telling me, “ don’t compare yourself to her - Magloire surely doesn’t have the whole story and plus you are doing a good job adapting too.” But the emotionally vulnerable, judgmental, and already slightly depressed part of me gained the upper hand and I was pretty much a party pooper for the rest of the evening.
I know Magloire was concerned by my turn to a depressed state, and furthermore, one of the things that’s been getting me down lately is the lack of a real close friend, someone to confide in here. So I told myself, “Becca, if you want to develop your friendship with Magloire, you have to open up to him,” so in what was my most courageous moment of the eveing, I confessed that his comment about Stacy had made me feel like a failure in some sense. He had no idea, and felt terrible and assured me that was not at all what he meant and could I forgive him. And that made me feel a little better. Only slightly, but it was certainly an improvement over the Negative Nancy that I had been ever since he first made the comment.
Meanwhile, I’m still a floating coyote, frustrated, sometimes-depressed, emotionally-exhausted, with spoiled milk, and throwing frozen chicken bricks, and asking people to explain basic math.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Yesterday was interesting. Magloire and I had our prise de contact at the ecole protestant and afterwards headed to market. On the way, I saw a bull by the side of the road, a bunch of men beside it. Magloire said they were going to slaughter it.
On my way back home from market, I stopped to watch the slaughter for awhile. They had killed the bull and were now dismembering the body, part by part. An anglophjone man and his friends, also watching, explained certain parts of the process to me. When the butchers pulled out one of the chambers of the four-chambered stomach, still full of undigested grass and started cleaning it, I asked if people eat the stomach. “Of course. They call it the bible because it has so many pages (layers),” he laughed at his own joke. “So if I go to a restaurant and ask for the bible, they will serve me the stomach?” I asked. Yup. He was right, it did have an incredible number of folds, and I thought of all the villi that are on the surface of the stomach to absorb food as I looked at the now-clean, nubby stomach tissue. Next, as they chopped apart the abdominal cavity, one butcher took the lungs, now unattached, and dipped them in the blood that had pooled on the bull’s skin. Like a giant paintbrush, he used the lungs to spread the blood across the skin. “It is to give it (the skin) a nice color, like a dye” the Anglophone man told me. I figured they’d use the skin to make leather goods but then the Anglophone man said that they’d eat the skin, so I wondered why it needed to be a nice color.
I watched as another butcher slowly squeezed would-be shit juice from the large intestine and then dipped the membrane in a bucket of water from the nearby stream where I always see people doing their laundry. Another butcher took a machete and began hacking at the spinal column, as if the bull were a tree he was chopping down. Oh and I almost forgot to mention the reason they were butchering this bull – it had been pregnant but had a breach delivery – the baby bull had died during childbirth, still inside the mother. One of the first things they pulled out from the mother’s body was the giant uterus, baby’s legs poking out the bottom. The Anglophone man told me “Whats [that is, white people – often pronounced like “what” here] like to eat the baby meat, not Africans though.” I wasn’t sure about the validity of that statement, especially since as I watched the bull become less and less a bull and more and more dismembered meat, I was becoming more and more vegetarian.
In any case, then an interesting thing happened. Right there, as we watched a bull get butchered up into sellable meat pieces, like some sick twisted Discovery Channel Special, the talk turned to politics. “Do you support Clinton or Obama?” the Anglophone man asked. Instead of answering, I threw the question back at him. “Obama,” he said. America needed a black president, “ someone who would not do harm, like Bush.” I asked if he knew that Bush was in Rwanda at the moment. Yup, and Condaleeza Rice too, he said.
I found the discussion interesting because, even here, in this small villagee quite out in the forest, people were keeping up with American politics. They were keeping up with a country half a world away, when I, an American, barely managed to keep up with my own country’s news when I lived there. What power America must wield when people across the world, even people who don’t have electricity, manage to tune into the news and find out what’s up in the grand ole’ U.S. of A. It was a bit sobering.
I left them to go home and relax before my animation with the high school health club. I had planned an animation about HIV transmission, and bolstered by what I thought was last week’s successful animation, was hopeful it would go swimmingly well.
I started by asking is anyone could recap what we discussed last week. Crickets. Finally, someone raised his hand to explain that we’d learned about the difference between HIV and AIDS. Good, I thought. I asked if anyone remembered the game we’d played to illustrate how the immune system works and how HIV destroys the immune system. Crickets, again. Finally the same guy raised his hand and gave incorrect answer. Crap, I thought. Maybe I was too optimistic last week.
I hoped that things could go better today, but I don’t think they did. For one, I get the sense that the kids are afraid to ask me questions, or just nervous to speak up at all, so when the comprehension isn’t there, it stays that way because they wont ask me a question to be sure they understand.
This led me to start reflecting on my work with Magloire, who is certainly NOT your typical Cameroonian. All through training, we were warned that we had to be very patient with people, that Cameroonians rarely came on time to meetings, and sometimes just never showed up, that drinking starts at 8 AM and is a full-time job – in essence, that our American sense of urgency need not apply here. On the contrary, my work with Magloire has never borne out the truth of these warnings – he is always on time to our frequent meetings, he works very hard, rarely drinks, and always understands things pretty quickly.
I began to realize that there’s a disadvantage in working with someone so much more in tune with an American work ethic; namely, I’ve been a little blind to the reality of work with people other than Magloire. It’s almost as if my comprehension/integration scale is in fast-forward with regards to my work with him, but is in slow motion with the rest of the community. Only I didn’t realize it until yesterday. Now I’m starting to realize the reality of working with people here – how slow it might actually be. A few days ago, Magloire chuckled at something I said and said “Oh, Beck-a, you are still too American.” When I asked why he said that, he replied “ You still expect things to work like they do in America, whereas here they just can’t work like that.” At the time, I was really stung. I thought I had come a long way in adjusting my expectations, in being flexible, and trying to just appreciate Cameroonian life. I was glad I was wearing sunglasses so he couldn’t see my eyes well up at what I took as a huge insult and he intended as a joke.
But now, I wonder at the validity of his saying that. Perhaps I have been blinded to certain realities – but if so, it’s at least partially because he himself is such an exception to these realities. As I walked home after the health club animation, I got to chat with some of the members. This is one of my favourite parts, the chance to shoot the shit with the health club kids. I think it gives them a chance to get to know me and be less scared of me. As we were walking, a girl, 12 y.o., said “I still have questions about the difference between HIV and AIDS.” I encouraged her, said it was fantastic that she was asking questions – why didn’t she ask them during the meeting? So then, I tried to explain by way of analogy how HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. I used the example of malaria – a parasite enters the body and then causes the symptoms, the malaria illness itself. HIV is like the parasite, I said – it enters the body and causes the AIDS symptoms. Then I asked her to explain the difference to me. She began by saying “First, there’s malaria and a germ in the body…” and then she trailed off. CRAP. Clearly, my analogy had not made anything clearer, but merely confused her more and now she thought that malaria was somehow part of the difference between HIV and AIDS. I tried once more to explain before giving up. How could I make this understandable??
After the health club, I had my Tikar lesson, during which I started to feel like shit. I had felt especially tired after running in the morning, a fatigue that had lasted all day. I started getting a headache and just felt like I was wilting as the lesson continued. Finally, I cut the lesson short and went home, totally wiped. For the first time ever, my neighbour brought me some dinner. I had been hoping for awhile that she would invite me over, but I didn’t know how to finagle this. And she just showed up with a plate of food for me, unasked. I asked if I could come and eat with her and the family, but I don’t think she understood my question. In any case, it was a well-timed, happy surprise for me – it means that my neighbors are starting to warm to me, and this makes me happy. They’re a young family (their two kids are adorable but still frightened of me. Whenever I say hi or try to have a small conversation, they still just stare at me without responding) and both are teachers. They’re not originally from Ngambe Tikar, but I’ve been trying to figure out how I can get into their good graces for awhile. This was a positive sign for me. I asked Carenne, who had brought the food over, if she could show me the whole process of making koki – if we could do it together. She smiled and said sure.
Later, when Magloire came to check on me, I was feeling better and I ended up showing him me “St. Louis, Then and Now” book. As he looked at the photos of St. Louis now, he commented that he wasn’t sure he could live, eat like that – there wasn’t enough nature. And indeed, concrete sidewalks and tall buildings everywhere doesn’t leave much in the way of nature. But I pointed out to him, imagine how it is for me here; “you say you couldn’t like there because it’s so different. I say I can’t live here because it’s so different.” He just chuckled.
On my way back home from market, I stopped to watch the slaughter for awhile. They had killed the bull and were now dismembering the body, part by part. An anglophjone man and his friends, also watching, explained certain parts of the process to me. When the butchers pulled out one of the chambers of the four-chambered stomach, still full of undigested grass and started cleaning it, I asked if people eat the stomach. “Of course. They call it the bible because it has so many pages (layers),” he laughed at his own joke. “So if I go to a restaurant and ask for the bible, they will serve me the stomach?” I asked. Yup. He was right, it did have an incredible number of folds, and I thought of all the villi that are on the surface of the stomach to absorb food as I looked at the now-clean, nubby stomach tissue. Next, as they chopped apart the abdominal cavity, one butcher took the lungs, now unattached, and dipped them in the blood that had pooled on the bull’s skin. Like a giant paintbrush, he used the lungs to spread the blood across the skin. “It is to give it (the skin) a nice color, like a dye” the Anglophone man told me. I figured they’d use the skin to make leather goods but then the Anglophone man said that they’d eat the skin, so I wondered why it needed to be a nice color.
I watched as another butcher slowly squeezed would-be shit juice from the large intestine and then dipped the membrane in a bucket of water from the nearby stream where I always see people doing their laundry. Another butcher took a machete and began hacking at the spinal column, as if the bull were a tree he was chopping down. Oh and I almost forgot to mention the reason they were butchering this bull – it had been pregnant but had a breach delivery – the baby bull had died during childbirth, still inside the mother. One of the first things they pulled out from the mother’s body was the giant uterus, baby’s legs poking out the bottom. The Anglophone man told me “Whats [that is, white people – often pronounced like “what” here] like to eat the baby meat, not Africans though.” I wasn’t sure about the validity of that statement, especially since as I watched the bull become less and less a bull and more and more dismembered meat, I was becoming more and more vegetarian.
In any case, then an interesting thing happened. Right there, as we watched a bull get butchered up into sellable meat pieces, like some sick twisted Discovery Channel Special, the talk turned to politics. “Do you support Clinton or Obama?” the Anglophone man asked. Instead of answering, I threw the question back at him. “Obama,” he said. America needed a black president, “ someone who would not do harm, like Bush.” I asked if he knew that Bush was in Rwanda at the moment. Yup, and Condaleeza Rice too, he said.
I found the discussion interesting because, even here, in this small villagee quite out in the forest, people were keeping up with American politics. They were keeping up with a country half a world away, when I, an American, barely managed to keep up with my own country’s news when I lived there. What power America must wield when people across the world, even people who don’t have electricity, manage to tune into the news and find out what’s up in the grand ole’ U.S. of A. It was a bit sobering.
I left them to go home and relax before my animation with the high school health club. I had planned an animation about HIV transmission, and bolstered by what I thought was last week’s successful animation, was hopeful it would go swimmingly well.
I started by asking is anyone could recap what we discussed last week. Crickets. Finally, someone raised his hand to explain that we’d learned about the difference between HIV and AIDS. Good, I thought. I asked if anyone remembered the game we’d played to illustrate how the immune system works and how HIV destroys the immune system. Crickets, again. Finally the same guy raised his hand and gave incorrect answer. Crap, I thought. Maybe I was too optimistic last week.
I hoped that things could go better today, but I don’t think they did. For one, I get the sense that the kids are afraid to ask me questions, or just nervous to speak up at all, so when the comprehension isn’t there, it stays that way because they wont ask me a question to be sure they understand.
This led me to start reflecting on my work with Magloire, who is certainly NOT your typical Cameroonian. All through training, we were warned that we had to be very patient with people, that Cameroonians rarely came on time to meetings, and sometimes just never showed up, that drinking starts at 8 AM and is a full-time job – in essence, that our American sense of urgency need not apply here. On the contrary, my work with Magloire has never borne out the truth of these warnings – he is always on time to our frequent meetings, he works very hard, rarely drinks, and always understands things pretty quickly.
I began to realize that there’s a disadvantage in working with someone so much more in tune with an American work ethic; namely, I’ve been a little blind to the reality of work with people other than Magloire. It’s almost as if my comprehension/integration scale is in fast-forward with regards to my work with him, but is in slow motion with the rest of the community. Only I didn’t realize it until yesterday. Now I’m starting to realize the reality of working with people here – how slow it might actually be. A few days ago, Magloire chuckled at something I said and said “Oh, Beck-a, you are still too American.” When I asked why he said that, he replied “ You still expect things to work like they do in America, whereas here they just can’t work like that.” At the time, I was really stung. I thought I had come a long way in adjusting my expectations, in being flexible, and trying to just appreciate Cameroonian life. I was glad I was wearing sunglasses so he couldn’t see my eyes well up at what I took as a huge insult and he intended as a joke.
But now, I wonder at the validity of his saying that. Perhaps I have been blinded to certain realities – but if so, it’s at least partially because he himself is such an exception to these realities. As I walked home after the health club animation, I got to chat with some of the members. This is one of my favourite parts, the chance to shoot the shit with the health club kids. I think it gives them a chance to get to know me and be less scared of me. As we were walking, a girl, 12 y.o., said “I still have questions about the difference between HIV and AIDS.” I encouraged her, said it was fantastic that she was asking questions – why didn’t she ask them during the meeting? So then, I tried to explain by way of analogy how HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. I used the example of malaria – a parasite enters the body and then causes the symptoms, the malaria illness itself. HIV is like the parasite, I said – it enters the body and causes the AIDS symptoms. Then I asked her to explain the difference to me. She began by saying “First, there’s malaria and a germ in the body…” and then she trailed off. CRAP. Clearly, my analogy had not made anything clearer, but merely confused her more and now she thought that malaria was somehow part of the difference between HIV and AIDS. I tried once more to explain before giving up. How could I make this understandable??
After the health club, I had my Tikar lesson, during which I started to feel like shit. I had felt especially tired after running in the morning, a fatigue that had lasted all day. I started getting a headache and just felt like I was wilting as the lesson continued. Finally, I cut the lesson short and went home, totally wiped. For the first time ever, my neighbour brought me some dinner. I had been hoping for awhile that she would invite me over, but I didn’t know how to finagle this. And she just showed up with a plate of food for me, unasked. I asked if I could come and eat with her and the family, but I don’t think she understood my question. In any case, it was a well-timed, happy surprise for me – it means that my neighbors are starting to warm to me, and this makes me happy. They’re a young family (their two kids are adorable but still frightened of me. Whenever I say hi or try to have a small conversation, they still just stare at me without responding) and both are teachers. They’re not originally from Ngambe Tikar, but I’ve been trying to figure out how I can get into their good graces for awhile. This was a positive sign for me. I asked Carenne, who had brought the food over, if she could show me the whole process of making koki – if we could do it together. She smiled and said sure.
Later, when Magloire came to check on me, I was feeling better and I ended up showing him me “St. Louis, Then and Now” book. As he looked at the photos of St. Louis now, he commented that he wasn’t sure he could live, eat like that – there wasn’t enough nature. And indeed, concrete sidewalks and tall buildings everywhere doesn’t leave much in the way of nature. But I pointed out to him, imagine how it is for me here; “you say you couldn’t like there because it’s so different. I say I can’t live here because it’s so different.” He just chuckled.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Up and down, round and round we go
Oof. Life here is so bizarre. I’ve been in village alone (i.e. without Magloire) now for almost a week since returning from my banking trip. This has left me without a ton to do, since he is the very life force behind CAPJ. I’ve had one meeting with GICALAN and today I worked with the club santé, but two meetings does not a whole week’s worth of work make. Yesterday, all I did was suduko. That and cook an okra-tomato dish that was delicious (I think it was the addition of citron). Otherwise I sat around the entire day doing suduko. I didn’t even leave my house once. In fact, when I was getting dressed today, I actually thought, “hmm, I guess I can wear the same clothes as yesterday because it’s not like anyone saw me wearing them yesterday.” At times, I enjoy this lifestyle that allows me to be a complete slacker. At others, I don’t know what to do with myself.
In the absence of the all-consuming schedule I’ve become accustomed to practically all of my academic life, I’ve taken to what some would call neurotic record-keeping; I now keep a record of all my daily activities and one of everything that I purchase. I have a little journal for recording random thoughts, new discoveries and tidbits of info that I want to remember (especially people’s names when I meet them); I write blog entries in addition to maintaining a personal journal; one of my recent projects has been to try to make a more accurate map of the village – around dawn and dusk, I’m out trying to determine which direction the roads face and I’m figuring out distances by timing how long it takes to walk in a given direction. In other words, I’m applying my near-neurotic study habits to my daily life – with interesting overly recorded results. Besides all that, I’ve got a mile-long to-do list for basic home repairs and maintenance and the house can always use a good cleaning (it seems to be immune to sustained cleanliness); in essence, despite Magloire’s absence, I’ve still got a lot to do.
But I’m in no rush to do any of it. Sometimes I chide myself for not being more proactive – for example, for being nervous to approach the landlord and ask her (AGAIN) to please just sign the damn lease that I originally asked her to sign at the beginning of December and can we please work out a deal so I can get my damn ceiling installed that was supposed to have been done before I even moved in? But then I remember something my good friend Dani, former lifeguard, once told me in high school. Dani told me that up on the lifeguard stand, with no one to talk to and pretty much nothing to do (honestly, how often does a drowning or anything resembling one really occur in Clayton??), she would get painfully bored. “Sometimes, I’ll be sitting in class or just doing something and I’ll think something interesting. Then I’ll tell myself, ‘wait, don’t think about this now. Save it for the lifeguard stand!’” she said. At the time, I laughed.
Now I understand. I’ve got a ton to do, but if I do it all now, with typical American expediency, what will I have left to do afterwards? Plus, I don’t have the money to do some of the stuff, like buy living room furniture. And since I’m in Africa, I may as well operate on Africa time, ne c’est pas? So I suppose to spend an entire day doing suduko (actually it was one of those megasudukos and of course, right near the end, after working on it for more than 15 combined hours, I made some fatal mistake and now it is unsolvable. CRAP.), because theoretically I AM working hard. Just in African terms, not American.
Anyhow, in contrast to my utter boredom yesterday, today I had a totally exciting meeting with the health club at the high school. I did an animation about HIV manifests itself in the human body. Which means that I had to write my own “workshop” and then teach it. In French. To students who seemed more nervous to talk to me or ask questions than I of them. I think it went well. Of course, I find it harder to gauge here than in America. Is the silence when I ask them a question to check for comprehension a sign that they haven’t understood or simply a sign that they are nervous because they don’t know how to act with this crazy white woman who’s calling the different white blood cells “factories” and “Mister Captain” according to their function in the immune system? I felt good when we played a game to illustrate how HIV attacks the immune system, and the kids were all laughing (if you’re having fun, you’re 1. engaged and 2. going to remember what you’ve learned much better), and I also felt a lot of the confidence that I usually had when I facilitated workshops for PHE, but I know that it didn’t go perfectly. So, there are things I could improve, and I will try, but I still felt pretty good with today’s work.
After the animation, I walked back toward market with three of the kids, including one of my favorite – a tiny little boy who is far too bold for his age (today he told me he’s 12! I can’t believe it, he looks like he’s only 8 or 9). The very first time I met with all the 35 or so kids of the health club, everyone was very quiet and nervous to introduce themselves. But not Idrissu. He stood right up and cracked a joke that had everyone laughing. And he’s always ready to step up and be the center of attention. I like his swaggering confidence – it’s unlikely in someone so young, and I think I can use him to my advantage somehow, I’ll just have to figure out how. So I’m walking back with them, and for once I’m able to hold a semi-normal conversation.
It’s one of the harder things to adjust here – not knowing what on earth to say, a problem that arises both because I don’t have the same capacities to express myself or ask questions in French as in English, and because I feel like I lack common ground with the people here. My conversations with friends at home are based at least in some capacity on common ground, shared experience – if nothing else, living in and understanding a shared culture. Here I feel like I have very little common ground with people (though it is expanding little by little) and this makes conversation challenging.
Today, however I felt like I had been hit with the chatterbox stick. I was chatting with people left and right, most of whom I hadn’t met before. When I had about 30 minutes to kill before heading to dinner, I was thrilled when the Surveillant Generale (the disciplinarian/vice principal type guy at the high school) invited me to have a drink. And we managed to chat for the whole time! Miraculous! Even his questioning of whether he could by my boyfriend didn’t bother me like usual (this was the first of three such conversations today. I swear to God the romantic attention I get here is enough for a lifetime. I will so happy when I get back to the states and my unshaven legs, baggy clothes, and general plain style of living I employ here will receive the lack of attention it deserves) – this time, instead of the “I already have a boyfriend” tack I usually take (and which is usually easily countered with “but he is in America – how will that work for two years?”), I asked whether he was married. When he said yes, I told him it could never work. I will be no one’s “deuxième bureau.” (i.e. no one’s “dish on the side”) We had a good laugh over that, and were able to move past.
I guess I just find the life here a bit bizarre. One day it’s nothing but suduko followed by a sense of guilt at my slovenliness; the next it’s a high of succeeding at things which had previously inspired terror. Oh this crazy crazy life – how can I make sense of you?
In the absence of the all-consuming schedule I’ve become accustomed to practically all of my academic life, I’ve taken to what some would call neurotic record-keeping; I now keep a record of all my daily activities and one of everything that I purchase. I have a little journal for recording random thoughts, new discoveries and tidbits of info that I want to remember (especially people’s names when I meet them); I write blog entries in addition to maintaining a personal journal; one of my recent projects has been to try to make a more accurate map of the village – around dawn and dusk, I’m out trying to determine which direction the roads face and I’m figuring out distances by timing how long it takes to walk in a given direction. In other words, I’m applying my near-neurotic study habits to my daily life – with interesting overly recorded results. Besides all that, I’ve got a mile-long to-do list for basic home repairs and maintenance and the house can always use a good cleaning (it seems to be immune to sustained cleanliness); in essence, despite Magloire’s absence, I’ve still got a lot to do.
But I’m in no rush to do any of it. Sometimes I chide myself for not being more proactive – for example, for being nervous to approach the landlord and ask her (AGAIN) to please just sign the damn lease that I originally asked her to sign at the beginning of December and can we please work out a deal so I can get my damn ceiling installed that was supposed to have been done before I even moved in? But then I remember something my good friend Dani, former lifeguard, once told me in high school. Dani told me that up on the lifeguard stand, with no one to talk to and pretty much nothing to do (honestly, how often does a drowning or anything resembling one really occur in Clayton??), she would get painfully bored. “Sometimes, I’ll be sitting in class or just doing something and I’ll think something interesting. Then I’ll tell myself, ‘wait, don’t think about this now. Save it for the lifeguard stand!’” she said. At the time, I laughed.
Now I understand. I’ve got a ton to do, but if I do it all now, with typical American expediency, what will I have left to do afterwards? Plus, I don’t have the money to do some of the stuff, like buy living room furniture. And since I’m in Africa, I may as well operate on Africa time, ne c’est pas? So I suppose to spend an entire day doing suduko (actually it was one of those megasudukos and of course, right near the end, after working on it for more than 15 combined hours, I made some fatal mistake and now it is unsolvable. CRAP.), because theoretically I AM working hard. Just in African terms, not American.
Anyhow, in contrast to my utter boredom yesterday, today I had a totally exciting meeting with the health club at the high school. I did an animation about HIV manifests itself in the human body. Which means that I had to write my own “workshop” and then teach it. In French. To students who seemed more nervous to talk to me or ask questions than I of them. I think it went well. Of course, I find it harder to gauge here than in America. Is the silence when I ask them a question to check for comprehension a sign that they haven’t understood or simply a sign that they are nervous because they don’t know how to act with this crazy white woman who’s calling the different white blood cells “factories” and “Mister Captain” according to their function in the immune system? I felt good when we played a game to illustrate how HIV attacks the immune system, and the kids were all laughing (if you’re having fun, you’re 1. engaged and 2. going to remember what you’ve learned much better), and I also felt a lot of the confidence that I usually had when I facilitated workshops for PHE, but I know that it didn’t go perfectly. So, there are things I could improve, and I will try, but I still felt pretty good with today’s work.
After the animation, I walked back toward market with three of the kids, including one of my favorite – a tiny little boy who is far too bold for his age (today he told me he’s 12! I can’t believe it, he looks like he’s only 8 or 9). The very first time I met with all the 35 or so kids of the health club, everyone was very quiet and nervous to introduce themselves. But not Idrissu. He stood right up and cracked a joke that had everyone laughing. And he’s always ready to step up and be the center of attention. I like his swaggering confidence – it’s unlikely in someone so young, and I think I can use him to my advantage somehow, I’ll just have to figure out how. So I’m walking back with them, and for once I’m able to hold a semi-normal conversation.
It’s one of the harder things to adjust here – not knowing what on earth to say, a problem that arises both because I don’t have the same capacities to express myself or ask questions in French as in English, and because I feel like I lack common ground with the people here. My conversations with friends at home are based at least in some capacity on common ground, shared experience – if nothing else, living in and understanding a shared culture. Here I feel like I have very little common ground with people (though it is expanding little by little) and this makes conversation challenging.
Today, however I felt like I had been hit with the chatterbox stick. I was chatting with people left and right, most of whom I hadn’t met before. When I had about 30 minutes to kill before heading to dinner, I was thrilled when the Surveillant Generale (the disciplinarian/vice principal type guy at the high school) invited me to have a drink. And we managed to chat for the whole time! Miraculous! Even his questioning of whether he could by my boyfriend didn’t bother me like usual (this was the first of three such conversations today. I swear to God the romantic attention I get here is enough for a lifetime. I will so happy when I get back to the states and my unshaven legs, baggy clothes, and general plain style of living I employ here will receive the lack of attention it deserves) – this time, instead of the “I already have a boyfriend” tack I usually take (and which is usually easily countered with “but he is in America – how will that work for two years?”), I asked whether he was married. When he said yes, I told him it could never work. I will be no one’s “deuxième bureau.” (i.e. no one’s “dish on the side”) We had a good laugh over that, and were able to move past.
I guess I just find the life here a bit bizarre. One day it’s nothing but suduko followed by a sense of guilt at my slovenliness; the next it’s a high of succeeding at things which had previously inspired terror. Oh this crazy crazy life – how can I make sense of you?
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Double Good
Two good things happened today: I had a particularly productive meeting with GICALAN and afterwards I tried to make my first “complicated” dinner meal: fettuccine alfredo with vegetables.
The meeting with GICALAN was scheduled for 13h00. I went by Veronique’s (the president of this GIC) house after my 6:30 AM run to remind her, but she wasn’t there. Fortunately, I ran into her on my way home. It’s a good thing too, because she thought the meeting was at 15h00. I asked if that was alright, if she thought people would come at 13h00 if she told them the change just hours before the meeting. She assured me that they would. I was doubtful.
Imagine my surprise when, in fact, everyone had shown up by about 13h35. This is practically a record for timeliness – most of my previous meetings have involved people showing up as much as an hour and thirty minutes late, with the first arrivals usually around 15 or 30 minutes late.
So in addition to the relative timeliness (maybe I should change all of my meeting times at the last minute), I feel the meeting was relatively productive. We were doing a problem analysis – the ultimate goal of which is to (1) narrow down how we want to tackle the problem and (2) develop a plan to do so. Their identified problem was “poverty.” This is frustrating because everyone here seems to think that the white person will come and bring money. A significant part of my initial work thus involves educating people that I bring my brainpower, energy, and ideas, but (probably) no money. This exercise turned out to be very helpful, because we were looking at causes of and results of poverty, in order to try to come up with some potential solutions to solve those problems.
There have been times in the past in working with this group of women when I’ve felt like nothing was really accomplished, when I felt like the group didn’t quite understand what the hell we were doing (hell, I didn’t totally understand…), but this time, people seemed to get it, and I felt like I finally clicked with my role as facilitator. There was even a moment when I stopped myself speaking mid-sentence to internally acknowledge that I had spoken a French sentence grammatically correct without having to think about it, when previously I would have had to pause and think about how to phrase it correctly. The group appeared to understand what I was saying, the objective of our meeting and (maybe it’s too much to hope for) the future direction of our work. I think this because they came up with great ideas for how to address the problem of poverty.
There is one woman in particular who I’ve noticed is really smart. She pointed out that one cause of poverty is the huge family size (lots of mouths to feed) and that a potential solution could be more information about family planning. This is a fairly insightful idea and requires an ability to see and analyze the “bigger picture.” Usually, I’d have to plant an idea like this in the women’s mind to get them to think about, but she came up with it without any prodding from me. I’ve noticed that she often has insightful ideas like this in our meetings and often understands better than others what I’m asking or saying. I have a vague sense that I want to find a way to work closely with this woman. A woman this sharp in a small village like this is a gem.
Anyway, the work and the meeting was a total high. And it pretty much made up for the fact that no one showed up to my next meeting even after I waited for an hour (best advice I can give anyone doing work in Cameroon: always, ALWAYS have a book with you. You never know when you’ll have to wait for an indeterminate amount of time for one reason or another. There have been so many times already when I have kicked myself for not bringing a book with me.)
Anyway when I got home, I decided without much planning to finally try some “real” cooking. My power was unexpectedly working last night, so I thought it would be on again tonight. It wasn’t but that didn’t stop me from making a solid-first-effort-quality fettuccine alfredo with vegetables. Though it didn’t quite taste like any alfredo sauce I’ve enjoyed in the States, the consistency and taste were surprisingly close, considering that I was working with a hyper-processed cheese (slightly past its expiration date, no less) that doesn’t require refrigeration and powdered milk. Leftovers re-chauffed tomorrow will be sublime.
The meeting with GICALAN was scheduled for 13h00. I went by Veronique’s (the president of this GIC) house after my 6:30 AM run to remind her, but she wasn’t there. Fortunately, I ran into her on my way home. It’s a good thing too, because she thought the meeting was at 15h00. I asked if that was alright, if she thought people would come at 13h00 if she told them the change just hours before the meeting. She assured me that they would. I was doubtful.
Imagine my surprise when, in fact, everyone had shown up by about 13h35. This is practically a record for timeliness – most of my previous meetings have involved people showing up as much as an hour and thirty minutes late, with the first arrivals usually around 15 or 30 minutes late.
So in addition to the relative timeliness (maybe I should change all of my meeting times at the last minute), I feel the meeting was relatively productive. We were doing a problem analysis – the ultimate goal of which is to (1) narrow down how we want to tackle the problem and (2) develop a plan to do so. Their identified problem was “poverty.” This is frustrating because everyone here seems to think that the white person will come and bring money. A significant part of my initial work thus involves educating people that I bring my brainpower, energy, and ideas, but (probably) no money. This exercise turned out to be very helpful, because we were looking at causes of and results of poverty, in order to try to come up with some potential solutions to solve those problems.
There have been times in the past in working with this group of women when I’ve felt like nothing was really accomplished, when I felt like the group didn’t quite understand what the hell we were doing (hell, I didn’t totally understand…), but this time, people seemed to get it, and I felt like I finally clicked with my role as facilitator. There was even a moment when I stopped myself speaking mid-sentence to internally acknowledge that I had spoken a French sentence grammatically correct without having to think about it, when previously I would have had to pause and think about how to phrase it correctly. The group appeared to understand what I was saying, the objective of our meeting and (maybe it’s too much to hope for) the future direction of our work. I think this because they came up with great ideas for how to address the problem of poverty.
There is one woman in particular who I’ve noticed is really smart. She pointed out that one cause of poverty is the huge family size (lots of mouths to feed) and that a potential solution could be more information about family planning. This is a fairly insightful idea and requires an ability to see and analyze the “bigger picture.” Usually, I’d have to plant an idea like this in the women’s mind to get them to think about, but she came up with it without any prodding from me. I’ve noticed that she often has insightful ideas like this in our meetings and often understands better than others what I’m asking or saying. I have a vague sense that I want to find a way to work closely with this woman. A woman this sharp in a small village like this is a gem.
Anyway, the work and the meeting was a total high. And it pretty much made up for the fact that no one showed up to my next meeting even after I waited for an hour (best advice I can give anyone doing work in Cameroon: always, ALWAYS have a book with you. You never know when you’ll have to wait for an indeterminate amount of time for one reason or another. There have been so many times already when I have kicked myself for not bringing a book with me.)
Anyway when I got home, I decided without much planning to finally try some “real” cooking. My power was unexpectedly working last night, so I thought it would be on again tonight. It wasn’t but that didn’t stop me from making a solid-first-effort-quality fettuccine alfredo with vegetables. Though it didn’t quite taste like any alfredo sauce I’ve enjoyed in the States, the consistency and taste were surprisingly close, considering that I was working with a hyper-processed cheese (slightly past its expiration date, no less) that doesn’t require refrigeration and powdered milk. Leftovers re-chauffed tomorrow will be sublime.
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