Vendredi le 11 fevrier
This week was youth week in Cameroon!
Monday: For French class we went to the University of Yaounde. Students showed us around a bit—saw the library (computers with floppy disk drives, what?), a huge ampitheater classroom, and Serge’s (one of the Cameroonian students who attends our classes) oncampus housing. Wow, am I spoiled with TU’s beauty and small size. The best part of the visit was talking to and eating lunch with students there. Talked a bit about their daily lives, about how it’s very hard for college grads here to find work. One student in particular was telling us about his great love for America (the impact of the media is incredible). I thought French people liked American culture; no, CAMEROONIANS like American culture. Very strange sensation to be so idolized—on the one hand it’s an honor, on the other hand you want to snatch your country out of the spotlight. This student was making me kind of sad by his lack of pride in his own country, but when I mentioned this to several other Cameroonians later, they told me that generally Cameroonians ARE very proud of their country. Good!
Got into some good dinner time discussion with Magnus. As usual he was giving me my daily reminder that my stay with their family is not an accurate portrayal of Cameroonian life; he wants me to know I’m spoiled here, and I appreciate that. We were talking about hardship in general in Cameroon (and Africa), and he said to me: “Maria, I’m going to tell you something you don’t know…people here suffer so that you can live well.”
Wow. Well that’s not easy to hear. As I was thinking about how I kind of wanted to cry, he pointed out the example of Cameroon petrol. Gas here in Cameroon costs more than it does in the US; even though petrol is one of the country’s major exports, it’s outside countries that control the refineries.
Also at dinner, the phone rang and Magnus was busy, so he made me answer it. Pressure much? It was a wrong number (I think…?).
ALSO at dinner, Magnus clarified my must-marry-quickly instructions and told me that I need to marry an African. Back at home, he agreed—it’d be too complicated to find someone here in such a short amount of time (whew! I almost got really worried there….). Pretty babies? I’m game…
For homework I had to conduct my first interview. The interview itself was easy—only 16 minutes, and it was with my host dad about his ethnicity (Bamileke). Transcribing however proved to be an extremely tedious task!! Whew! Putting the audio into writing took like 10 times as long as the actual interview itself.
Tuesday: For our afternoon lecture on Cameroon history, we met our guest lecturer downtown and did a little tour of some historic monuments as we had our lesson. Pretty cool except that I was too excited about our next plans to focus....finally!! Time to go fabric shopping! A bunch of us went to Laking to accomplish step one of our African-dresses-to-be; so many choices!!! Very fun!
Back at home I finished reading “God of Small Things” (awesome book!) and then had to (*ahem* I mean “got to”) learn how to do laundry. It actually wasn’t so bad, just a bit time consuming. And frustrating, because I was sitting next to an actual-real-live washing machine as I stooped over my bucket giving myself cloth burns on my hands. Question: if you have a washing machine, why would you choose to use it only for sheets? Oh well, good life skill. At least, it’s a good life skill here in Cameroon where most people don’t have a washing machine—I’ll most likely be putting it to use at my other homestays.
Wednesday: For lunch I finally got to go back to the bench “restaurant” for my 500franc ($1) plate of yummy spaghetti and beans. Afterwards we were free so I went to a tailor that’s a few yards away from school and ordered two dresses!! I’m so ridiculously excited! Hopefully they’ll turn out chouette—for now I’m getting one western-ish style dress and one typically Cameroonian dress, and I’m pretty sure there will be more to come (too hard to resist!).
Thursday: For part of French class we went to a small artisan market. Most of the stuff wasn’t actually made by the vendors (brought in from villages), but was very cool. Lots of jewelry, figurines, masks, sandals, etc. I’m finally getting a little better at “marchander”—for example, when I asked for the price on a card, I was initially told 600franc, BUT, I ended up getting 4 for 1000! Very fun visit…might have to go back some time.
Spaghetti and beans!!!
For our afternoon class we had our first peer-led discussion over the past two weeks’ lessons. Pretty intense: What is poverty? Can it end? What steps can be made to work towards eliminating it? Is Cameroon today really free? (celebrating 50th year of independence) What is “free”, and do we as Americans even have a right to comment on the state of Cameroon? Globalization—pro and con? Morals—universal or relative? Does one country have a right to impose morals on another? (example: here in Cameroon women and homosexuals have fewer rights, should the western world step in?) Does one country have a duty to “develop” another? Does it have the right? Why hasn’t the aid given thus far made much of an impact?
I know it’s not the same since you’re not here with me, but I hope I can get you thinking a bit nonetheless…
Our deep convo was followed by lots of hip thrusting—by which, of course, I mean ANOTHER DANCE CLASS! A lot of fun, but pretty darn tiring too!
Got to stay at school til 8 since it was Thursday, which was very good for working on homework, oh and for running to the grocery store for a little snack. Grapefruit flavored pop? Genuis.
Back at home, after everyone else was in bed, I went through the kitchen to grab my now dry clothes (nice and unwrinkly too! Yay!) and apparently surprised some little animal. My first thought was mouse, but it was probably actually a lizard. Those things are everywhere. No surprise really, we don’t wash our dinner dishes because the house keeper takes care of them the next day…that guy must be feasting!
Friday: Busy! Today is actually supposed to be a holiday (in honor of youth week), but we had a French test today. Oh well, it least it wasn’t hard. Afterwards a bunch of us went to see the youth parade! Jillions of little kids, and university students too. No candy thrown, but lots of street vendors around per usual. Grabbed sandwiches after that, and then some of us decided to go to the market.
WOW. I had already visited a smaller market that was mainly food, but this was completely different. Not only was it huge and mainly clothes/shoes (western brands like H&M and Steve Madden….where the HECK does these things come from??), but we got a lot of attention. A CRAZY lot of attention. American-wise it was me, my friend Laurel who’s half Chinese, and my friends Janelle and Afiwa who are black; our Cameroonian friend Danielle was also (luckily) with us. It’s funny, because I was JUST telling someone how surprised I’d been at the small amount of attention we’d attracted in Yaounde thus far, and how I hadn’t had the chance to whip out the “sorry, I’m already married” line even once.
Touch. Grab. “Sarkozy! Famille de Sarkozy!” *insert random French sounding last name here* (well, hey, at least they think we’re French!). “La blanche, la blanche”. *insert inappropriate comment here* “Je t’aime!” and other expressed love. I got to use the “married” line probably 3-4 times! Seriously, this one guy decided he had a crush on me, tried to get my number, and followed us around for 5 minutes. Kind of cute. Sort of. I go back and forth from finding the whole thing entertaining to getting tired of it.
We had to be pretty on top of our game—not getting pick-pocketed, sticking together, etc—and so were pretty exhausted (and hot) by the end of our shopping, but it was a really interesting experience, that’s for sure.
Afterwards, I couldn’t go home like everyone else, because no one was at our apartment, so I went to Laurel’s. She lives in a house right behind my apartment (reality check, Maria! You’re really spoiled and might get a bit of a shock with your next host stay…). We enjoyed a nap and a small din-din and then headed back to school where we were meeting our group to go to a Cameroonian beauty pageant! We got there at 7 when it was supposed to start. Silly us, it didn’t begin until 8:45. (By then the place had finally begun to fill up a bit, though it still seemed really empty because it was held in a basketball arena.) Oh well, we had fun talking and playing MASH (4th grade much?) as we waited. First the girls (about 20) came out and strutted their stuff to Mika. Some of our French profs had come with us, and they were hysterical, offering constant loud commentary behind us. While the contestants were changing we got to see a Cameroonian fashion designer modeled. Next up? Dresses and dancing that were more traditional. Then they started each giving a little talk, which started to get a little long, and the night started to get a little late, so some of us left. Unfortunately that meant missing out on a Petit Pays performance—apparently he’s a famous Cameroonian rapper.
Oh well, I needed to get back and pack—we leave for Dschang (pronounced “chong”) in…less than 7 hours. (Guess I should go to bed!) I’ll let you know all about it when I get back in 2 weeks!
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
go-in' to the cha-pel and we're go-nna get ma-rried
Dimanche le 6 fevrier
THURSDAY
For French class today we learned “market vocab” and then went and visited one!
On Thursdays we have ‘student evening’ and can stay at school until 8:00, hanging out or doing homework. Usually the school closes at 4:30 and our curfew is 6:30, so that was nice. Two other girls and I used part of that time to go visit Catholic Relief Services—we walk by a sign for it nearly every day, so we decided to go check it out and see what programs they’re running here in Cameroon—cool!
FRIDAY
After lunch we had a dance class at school! It was AWESOME. Obviously none of us know anything about African dancing, so we had a good time laughing at ourselves and working up a sweat. The teacher brought in was really good, and she was accompanied by a drummer who taught us a bit on the drums after our dance class was over.
When I got home I found Recess on tv in French, which pretty much made my day.
SATURDAY
We met at school at 7:45 am to take a field trip outside of Yaounde to visit a school of fine arts and a primate sanctuary! We stopped at a big boulangerie I’d never been to first, grabbing breakfast/lunch. I’m obsessed with the fact that pastries here cost half of what they do in France. Chocolate éclairs are yummy. So we were in our van-thing driving through the city, when
*BUMP!*
What? We all turned our heads to see that the driver behind us had just smashed into us. The first wreck (if you can call it that) I’ve ever been it! Not surprising that it was here, I suppose—they are CRAZY drivers. There just seems to be absolutely no method to the madness. No turn signals, no rules about when to turn… Anyhoo, our vehicle wasn’t hurt, and it was the other guy’s fault…so we just continued on our way!
At the fine arts school we got a tour of various classrooms and saw lots of paintings and ceramics made by the students. It was interesting, but my camera started being feisty, so I got frustrated; hopefully it doesn’t poop out on me before the end of the semester!!
At the primate sanctuary we saw gorillas, baboons, monkeys and more. The animals there were orphaned when their parents were killed for bushmeat (illegally, mind you). Though the animals are caged (thankfully), it was pretty much a trek through the jungle, which means it was pretty much awesome. On ride home we did what any group of students does on the bus ride back: sleep.
Walking home I grabbed some sugared peanuts from a street vendor—best 10 cent snack I’ve had since I was 7, and my mom used to give us a dime to pick out a piece of candy when we shopped at Albertsons.
At home I found the housekeeper; Magnus and Therese were at a funeral. It wasn’t until after the housekeeper left a few hours later that I realized that Manuella had been home the whole time too (sleeping)! When they got home we tried to cook dinner, but the gas ran out. Therese and I tried to light a charcoal fire but didn’t have any success and eventually gave up. Anyway, she told me, there will be food at the wedding.
Huh? Apparently I was taking her place and going to a wedding reception with Magnus (she was tired, and besides, African superstition says that pregnant women shouldn’t go out at night…something about demons). Anyhoo, cool opportunity! Therese took a peek at my meager selection of not-wedding-appropriate-attire and told me to wear my green shirt that—unbeknownst to her—still carried a nice scent from Friday’s dance class. Put on an awkward combo of jewelry in a further attempt to dress things up and couldn’t help but think of summer camp in 7th grade, when I—along with the other newbies—tried to patch an outfit together when we found out Thursday night that we were having a dance.
On the drive to the wedding Magnus chuckled over my seatbelt-wearing-habits and pointed out the neighborhood where he grew up. He told me to check the invitation to see what time the reception was starting. 18h, I told him. What time was it? Almost 20h30. He was concerned, because we were going to be about “30 minutes” late—things here generally start 2 hours after they say they do. When we got to the hotel where the reception was held, though, we saw that we were some of the first to arrive. Magnus was far from thrilled. People gradually trickled in, and the bride and groom did not arrive until nearly 22h30!! That was a long wait. Highlight of the conversation between us being:
Magnus: “weddings are really great”
Me: “yeah! Though it’s kind of weird that my friends are starting to get married! I’m not ready…”
Magnus: “but you have a boyfriend, right?”
Me: “erg..no…never have…”
Magnus: “what! Oh my God (<- -in English) you need to hurry!”
Me: “um, no rush. I’ve got time!”
Magnus: “no, when you get home, you need to hurry up and get married…”
Oh mygoodness, I was dying. It was the funniest thing ever. Cultural differences much? Apparently Therese is only 23 (though he’s in his 30s—apparently the dude should be 10ish years older so that he’s settled and able to provide for his wife). I did NOT realize how young she is…feels like I should start calling her my “host sister” instead of my “host mom”!
Somewhere in the middle of those two hours of waiting, a woman (who Magnus called “mom”, but isn’t) and her son (?) joined us. Magnus got so frustrated with the waiting and the lack of drinks that he sent the 17 year old boy down the street to buy us water.
Finally the emcee announced the couple’s arrival and we hit up the buffet. Funny how much the wedding resembled an American one! Fancy white dress, 200ish guests, that dun-duhn-dun-dun wedding song, and bridesmaids (terrible lime green dresses though). We were tired, and Magnus was still pretty mad, so we left as soon as we were done eating and didn’t get home until almost 1 am!
SUNDAY
Mass this morning! Speaking of which, meant to tell you a few things about it last week:
1.On the drive there, Manuella sits in my lap. Carseat? What’s that?
2.Mass is completely normal, except at the end they have a blessing for all the kiddos!
This afternoon I caught part of Ice Age and 3 episodes of How I Met Your Mother (in French) on tv! Though I love the crummy local commercials when we watch local stations, I must say I enjoy the commercials on the French stations, because I recognize all the products, and it makes me think of Nantes!
THURSDAY
For French class today we learned “market vocab” and then went and visited one!
On Thursdays we have ‘student evening’ and can stay at school until 8:00, hanging out or doing homework. Usually the school closes at 4:30 and our curfew is 6:30, so that was nice. Two other girls and I used part of that time to go visit Catholic Relief Services—we walk by a sign for it nearly every day, so we decided to go check it out and see what programs they’re running here in Cameroon—cool!
FRIDAY
After lunch we had a dance class at school! It was AWESOME. Obviously none of us know anything about African dancing, so we had a good time laughing at ourselves and working up a sweat. The teacher brought in was really good, and she was accompanied by a drummer who taught us a bit on the drums after our dance class was over.
When I got home I found Recess on tv in French, which pretty much made my day.
SATURDAY
We met at school at 7:45 am to take a field trip outside of Yaounde to visit a school of fine arts and a primate sanctuary! We stopped at a big boulangerie I’d never been to first, grabbing breakfast/lunch. I’m obsessed with the fact that pastries here cost half of what they do in France. Chocolate éclairs are yummy. So we were in our van-thing driving through the city, when
*BUMP!*
What? We all turned our heads to see that the driver behind us had just smashed into us. The first wreck (if you can call it that) I’ve ever been it! Not surprising that it was here, I suppose—they are CRAZY drivers. There just seems to be absolutely no method to the madness. No turn signals, no rules about when to turn… Anyhoo, our vehicle wasn’t hurt, and it was the other guy’s fault…so we just continued on our way!
At the fine arts school we got a tour of various classrooms and saw lots of paintings and ceramics made by the students. It was interesting, but my camera started being feisty, so I got frustrated; hopefully it doesn’t poop out on me before the end of the semester!!
At the primate sanctuary we saw gorillas, baboons, monkeys and more. The animals there were orphaned when their parents were killed for bushmeat (illegally, mind you). Though the animals are caged (thankfully), it was pretty much a trek through the jungle, which means it was pretty much awesome. On ride home we did what any group of students does on the bus ride back: sleep.
Walking home I grabbed some sugared peanuts from a street vendor—best 10 cent snack I’ve had since I was 7, and my mom used to give us a dime to pick out a piece of candy when we shopped at Albertsons.
At home I found the housekeeper; Magnus and Therese were at a funeral. It wasn’t until after the housekeeper left a few hours later that I realized that Manuella had been home the whole time too (sleeping)! When they got home we tried to cook dinner, but the gas ran out. Therese and I tried to light a charcoal fire but didn’t have any success and eventually gave up. Anyway, she told me, there will be food at the wedding.
Huh? Apparently I was taking her place and going to a wedding reception with Magnus (she was tired, and besides, African superstition says that pregnant women shouldn’t go out at night…something about demons). Anyhoo, cool opportunity! Therese took a peek at my meager selection of not-wedding-appropriate-attire and told me to wear my green shirt that—unbeknownst to her—still carried a nice scent from Friday’s dance class. Put on an awkward combo of jewelry in a further attempt to dress things up and couldn’t help but think of summer camp in 7th grade, when I—along with the other newbies—tried to patch an outfit together when we found out Thursday night that we were having a dance.
On the drive to the wedding Magnus chuckled over my seatbelt-wearing-habits and pointed out the neighborhood where he grew up. He told me to check the invitation to see what time the reception was starting. 18h, I told him. What time was it? Almost 20h30. He was concerned, because we were going to be about “30 minutes” late—things here generally start 2 hours after they say they do. When we got to the hotel where the reception was held, though, we saw that we were some of the first to arrive. Magnus was far from thrilled. People gradually trickled in, and the bride and groom did not arrive until nearly 22h30!! That was a long wait. Highlight of the conversation between us being:
Magnus: “weddings are really great”
Me: “yeah! Though it’s kind of weird that my friends are starting to get married! I’m not ready…”
Magnus: “but you have a boyfriend, right?”
Me: “erg..no…never have…”
Magnus: “what! Oh my God (<- -in English) you need to hurry!”
Me: “um, no rush. I’ve got time!”
Magnus: “no, when you get home, you need to hurry up and get married…”
Oh mygoodness, I was dying. It was the funniest thing ever. Cultural differences much? Apparently Therese is only 23 (though he’s in his 30s—apparently the dude should be 10ish years older so that he’s settled and able to provide for his wife). I did NOT realize how young she is…feels like I should start calling her my “host sister” instead of my “host mom”!
Somewhere in the middle of those two hours of waiting, a woman (who Magnus called “mom”, but isn’t) and her son (?) joined us. Magnus got so frustrated with the waiting and the lack of drinks that he sent the 17 year old boy down the street to buy us water.
Finally the emcee announced the couple’s arrival and we hit up the buffet. Funny how much the wedding resembled an American one! Fancy white dress, 200ish guests, that dun-duhn-dun-dun wedding song, and bridesmaids (terrible lime green dresses though). We were tired, and Magnus was still pretty mad, so we left as soon as we were done eating and didn’t get home until almost 1 am!
SUNDAY
Mass this morning! Speaking of which, meant to tell you a few things about it last week:
1.On the drive there, Manuella sits in my lap. Carseat? What’s that?
2.Mass is completely normal, except at the end they have a blessing for all the kiddos!
This afternoon I caught part of Ice Age and 3 episodes of How I Met Your Mother (in French) on tv! Though I love the crummy local commercials when we watch local stations, I must say I enjoy the commercials on the French stations, because I recognize all the products, and it makes me think of Nantes!
Friday, February 4, 2011
bah bah, bah bah (this is the sound of settling)
Mercredi le 2 fevrier
Sunday: I went to mass with my host family…in English!....at the monastery! What a coinkydink. It was cool because the front wall/doors just sort of disappeared, and there was additional seating flowing out. Seemed a little unnecessary, because those were full while the front was empty, but Magnus said everyone has their usual spots, so maybe a lot of people were just missing. People definitely trickled in quite late. Manuella made friends with everyone, walking around the whole time; meanwhile Magnus read the first reading.
Great new food? Sugar cane. Yummmm.
That afternoon seemed like an impossibly long stretch of time to sit in front of the tv, so I disappeared into my room for awhile. Pretty sure I took a multi-hour nap. I felt kind of bad about that; on the plus side, I actually did my two-a-day (shower) as expected.
Cutest thing ever? There’s generally quite a bit of noise outside, but suddenly, I heard a lot of laughter mixed with shrieks. I peeked out the window, and there were 20+ kids playing across the road where they’re building a new apartment building. Some of them had made a makeshift slide out of a board and a pile of dirt, but most were occupied with a pulley on the unfinished building. They were taking turns pulling each other up. Granted, I was pretty worried, because this looked dangerous, but they were having SO much fun!
Monday: First day of classes (8-4:30)! We had a debriefing session regarding our homestays—interesting to hear about the variety of hosts!—and culture shock before starting our French classes. The French classes are nice and small; there are four of them, and we cycle through professors throughout the semester.
For lunch, the two Cameroonian grad students who sit in on our classes with us showed us which restaurants in the area have meals for 1500 CFAf or less (‘bout 3 dolla), which is our daily stipend from the program. I joined some kiddos in eating in the boulangerie in the supermarket (“Dovv”); bread/sandwiches/pastries are so much cheaper here than in France! Love it!
Monday I started understanding the flow of my household better
-when we eat: at 4:30 right when I get home, before Therese leaves for her night classes. I never knew that eating so much could legitimately be a struggle, but I’m not used to having lunch (1:00) so close to dinner, and there’s no turning down food here; I’ll adapt.
-what to bring to do in front of the tv: homework; novel (I’ve started reading The God of Small Things)
-what Magnus really likes to talk about (which is important because 1. if anyone talks at dinner, it’s him 2. We spend the whole evening together): church, current events (Egypt!), his newspaper, anything contrasting the States/Europe with Africa, history.
Tuesday: Class. Started our “Field Study Seminar” course which is preparation for our ISP. This and our “Thematic Seminar” (what I like to call ‘all things cameroonian’) are taught sometimes by our academic director, but mainly by outside lecturers. For example, our prof today (and for the next two days) is in charge of training peace corps members placed in Cameroon. Sweet. We also watched the movie ‘Mister Johnson’, but unfortunately it was sort of lame.
For lunch I went with three others to a little restaurant next to Dovv. “Little” is probably not the right word; I mean this place is a little shack that seats maybe ten. It also included a small bar, which is where (I think) the food (lots of fish and lots of rice) magically appeared from. Good thing I learned how to eat a fish at lunch, because I (sortof) then knew what I was doing when I went home and had it for dinner! Finally tried cassava (staple here), which I didn’t really care for (BUT people eat various parts of it, so maybe I’ll have better luck next time.) I was also put in charge of peeling/cutting a mango for ‘dessert’ and largely succeeded; I’ve decided mango is really delicious.
Tuesday TV Time: Played with Manuella and her little toy keyboard. Also, I was even left home alone with her for a few minutes, which I’ll take as a compliment. Also, she took a few steps without holding onto anything!! She is simply adorable. Magnus gave me a plate of honey to eat. A PLATE. I gave up on that and was going to sneakily wash it down the sink, but discovered that our water had been cut off. Shucks.
Wednesday: Minor Crisis. I woke up about 2 am to the sound of rushing water; after laying there for a moment, I freaked out, realizing that the water had come back on, and thinking that it was my shower that was running. So I jumped out of my mosquito net and ran to my bathroom, but my shower wasn’t on. Duh. (It had no reason to be, but I tend to be pretty groggy in the middle of the night.) Nope, instead, I realized that BOTH the hallway bathroom sink AND the kitchen sink were running full blast. AHH! The bathroom sink was drinking as quickly as it was running, but the kitchen sink was not and was spilling all over the floor. Apparently when I had tried both of the faucets the day before—not realizing the water had been cut—I had accidentally then turned them both all the way ON instead of all the way OFF. Whew! Lesson learned. I cleaned up the mess and scooted back to bed without getting caught, thank goodness; let’s go ahead and call that a small miracle—I have no idea how I woke up to that.
At 7 I was up again to get ready for class. French. Field Study Seminar (how to prepare for/conduct interviews). Thematic Seminar; the first two weeks of this are focused on ‘development and history’. Tough questions of the day: what is development? Can “underdevelopment” end? Do people really want poverty to end? If so, who does? Tough statistics of the day: 46% of people in sub-Saharan Africa live on less than $1 a day (extreme poverty line); 80% of Cameroonian forests have been exploited by Europeans; 3% of people in the world control 97% of the wealth; less than 56% of people in Yaounde have running water; the average life expectancy in Europe is 30 years more than that in Africa.
For lunch I went with kiddos to this little restaurant about halfway between the office and my apartment. By “restaurant”, I mean 3 benches surrounding this man who cooked spaghetti and beans for us. Yum!
Good night at home! Magnus can be really quiet (okay, and kind of intimidating), but he also gets really excited when he’s talking about a subject he loves. We talked a lot tonight! He talked about unemployment in Cameroon, general difficulty of life in Africa, corruption in the government here, rising prices, and how Africans show “I love you” instead of say “I love you”. Oh! And apparently he buys real-estate? And owns the apartment building we live in? And would like to teach a class starting in 2013 about how to make money? Wait, and he’s written two books? What? And one of them is about how he grew up in a polygamist family? He whipped it out, and I read it on the spot. Like I said, it was an interesting evening!
Bed time now! ‘night
Maria
Sunday: I went to mass with my host family…in English!....at the monastery! What a coinkydink. It was cool because the front wall/doors just sort of disappeared, and there was additional seating flowing out. Seemed a little unnecessary, because those were full while the front was empty, but Magnus said everyone has their usual spots, so maybe a lot of people were just missing. People definitely trickled in quite late. Manuella made friends with everyone, walking around the whole time; meanwhile Magnus read the first reading.
Great new food? Sugar cane. Yummmm.
That afternoon seemed like an impossibly long stretch of time to sit in front of the tv, so I disappeared into my room for awhile. Pretty sure I took a multi-hour nap. I felt kind of bad about that; on the plus side, I actually did my two-a-day (shower) as expected.
Cutest thing ever? There’s generally quite a bit of noise outside, but suddenly, I heard a lot of laughter mixed with shrieks. I peeked out the window, and there were 20+ kids playing across the road where they’re building a new apartment building. Some of them had made a makeshift slide out of a board and a pile of dirt, but most were occupied with a pulley on the unfinished building. They were taking turns pulling each other up. Granted, I was pretty worried, because this looked dangerous, but they were having SO much fun!
Monday: First day of classes (8-4:30)! We had a debriefing session regarding our homestays—interesting to hear about the variety of hosts!—and culture shock before starting our French classes. The French classes are nice and small; there are four of them, and we cycle through professors throughout the semester.
For lunch, the two Cameroonian grad students who sit in on our classes with us showed us which restaurants in the area have meals for 1500 CFAf or less (‘bout 3 dolla), which is our daily stipend from the program. I joined some kiddos in eating in the boulangerie in the supermarket (“Dovv”); bread/sandwiches/pastries are so much cheaper here than in France! Love it!
Monday I started understanding the flow of my household better
-when we eat: at 4:30 right when I get home, before Therese leaves for her night classes. I never knew that eating so much could legitimately be a struggle, but I’m not used to having lunch (1:00) so close to dinner, and there’s no turning down food here; I’ll adapt.
-what to bring to do in front of the tv: homework; novel (I’ve started reading The God of Small Things)
-what Magnus really likes to talk about (which is important because 1. if anyone talks at dinner, it’s him 2. We spend the whole evening together): church, current events (Egypt!), his newspaper, anything contrasting the States/Europe with Africa, history.
Tuesday: Class. Started our “Field Study Seminar” course which is preparation for our ISP. This and our “Thematic Seminar” (what I like to call ‘all things cameroonian’) are taught sometimes by our academic director, but mainly by outside lecturers. For example, our prof today (and for the next two days) is in charge of training peace corps members placed in Cameroon. Sweet. We also watched the movie ‘Mister Johnson’, but unfortunately it was sort of lame.
For lunch I went with three others to a little restaurant next to Dovv. “Little” is probably not the right word; I mean this place is a little shack that seats maybe ten. It also included a small bar, which is where (I think) the food (lots of fish and lots of rice) magically appeared from. Good thing I learned how to eat a fish at lunch, because I (sortof) then knew what I was doing when I went home and had it for dinner! Finally tried cassava (staple here), which I didn’t really care for (BUT people eat various parts of it, so maybe I’ll have better luck next time.) I was also put in charge of peeling/cutting a mango for ‘dessert’ and largely succeeded; I’ve decided mango is really delicious.
Tuesday TV Time: Played with Manuella and her little toy keyboard. Also, I was even left home alone with her for a few minutes, which I’ll take as a compliment. Also, she took a few steps without holding onto anything!! She is simply adorable. Magnus gave me a plate of honey to eat. A PLATE. I gave up on that and was going to sneakily wash it down the sink, but discovered that our water had been cut off. Shucks.
Wednesday: Minor Crisis. I woke up about 2 am to the sound of rushing water; after laying there for a moment, I freaked out, realizing that the water had come back on, and thinking that it was my shower that was running. So I jumped out of my mosquito net and ran to my bathroom, but my shower wasn’t on. Duh. (It had no reason to be, but I tend to be pretty groggy in the middle of the night.) Nope, instead, I realized that BOTH the hallway bathroom sink AND the kitchen sink were running full blast. AHH! The bathroom sink was drinking as quickly as it was running, but the kitchen sink was not and was spilling all over the floor. Apparently when I had tried both of the faucets the day before—not realizing the water had been cut—I had accidentally then turned them both all the way ON instead of all the way OFF. Whew! Lesson learned. I cleaned up the mess and scooted back to bed without getting caught, thank goodness; let’s go ahead and call that a small miracle—I have no idea how I woke up to that.
At 7 I was up again to get ready for class. French. Field Study Seminar (how to prepare for/conduct interviews). Thematic Seminar; the first two weeks of this are focused on ‘development and history’. Tough questions of the day: what is development? Can “underdevelopment” end? Do people really want poverty to end? If so, who does? Tough statistics of the day: 46% of people in sub-Saharan Africa live on less than $1 a day (extreme poverty line); 80% of Cameroonian forests have been exploited by Europeans; 3% of people in the world control 97% of the wealth; less than 56% of people in Yaounde have running water; the average life expectancy in Europe is 30 years more than that in Africa.
For lunch I went with kiddos to this little restaurant about halfway between the office and my apartment. By “restaurant”, I mean 3 benches surrounding this man who cooked spaghetti and beans for us. Yum!
Good night at home! Magnus can be really quiet (okay, and kind of intimidating), but he also gets really excited when he’s talking about a subject he loves. We talked a lot tonight! He talked about unemployment in Cameroon, general difficulty of life in Africa, corruption in the government here, rising prices, and how Africans show “I love you” instead of say “I love you”. Oh! And apparently he buys real-estate? And owns the apartment building we live in? And would like to teach a class starting in 2013 about how to make money? Wait, and he’s written two books? What? And one of them is about how he grew up in a polygamist family? He whipped it out, and I read it on the spot. Like I said, it was an interesting evening!
Bed time now! ‘night
Maria
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Africa in Miniature
Now that I’ve unintentionally scared away 98.4% of my potential readers, let me tell you a bit about Cameroon.
It’s called ‘Africa in miniature’ because of:
1)the great number of peoples/languages—250+
2)the variety of geographical features (including an active volcano!)
Brief history:
1472 First official foreign contacts? Portuguese explorers
1887-1917 German colonial period
1919 French and British split Cameroon thanks to a League of Nations mandate
(2 of the 10 Cameroonian provinces are Anglophone, the remaining are Francophone)
1960 French Cameroon declares independence
1961 British Cameroon declares independence
That’s the essential info, but I’ll be learning lots more and will keep you posted.
It’s called ‘Africa in miniature’ because of:
1)the great number of peoples/languages—250+
2)the variety of geographical features (including an active volcano!)
Brief history:
1472 First official foreign contacts? Portuguese explorers
1887-1917 German colonial period
1919 French and British split Cameroon thanks to a League of Nations mandate
(2 of the 10 Cameroonian provinces are Anglophone, the remaining are Francophone)
1960 French Cameroon declares independence
1961 British Cameroon declares independence
That’s the essential info, but I’ll be learning lots more and will keep you posted.
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