Massive Update: Dschang!

Friday, February 12: 9:44 pm

Hanging out in my room in Yaounde. Tomorrow we head to Dschang, a much smaller city (or perhaps large village) about a 6-hour drive away (taking into account traffic, being stopped by police, possible other detours and roadblocks along the way...). I'm trying to pack my bag for this 2-week excursion, but unable to decide what to bring, I decided to procrastinate by writing.

Maman gave me three dresses today (in addition to the one that she gave me last week). I'm overwhelmed by dresses!

Simon cut my hair this afternoon, out on the veranda. He has an electric buzzer with different lengths on it, so now my hair is a level 3 (not too short). I think it's still a little longer than it was when I first arrived. I haven't decided whether to give him some money for cutting my hair...it seems like a good thing to do but, then again, he still owes me a bunch of money that I lent him last week.

I also owe Adda some money for fixing my skirt, which was a little bit torn. Just now I was sitting on her bed, watching as she made a vest with her sewing machine. I'm impressed by people who can make their own clothes.

I'm a little nervous for Dschang. I'm just starting to really feel comfortable in Yaounde, and now I'm going to have to start over somewhere else. I'm glad we'll be coming back here after two weeks. Also, it will be interesting to finally see what real Cameroonian village life is like, since that's the way most Cameroonians live (the country has about 19 million citizens, and only about 3 million live in the large cities of Yaounde and Douala. Ngaoundere and Maroua are also fairly large, though).

Last night, we had our second “student night” at SIT, where we stay at the school until 8 pm to do homework and spend some time with the other Americans. It's always fun...it's nice to have a break from the family. Unfortunately, the water has been cut off to Bastos for the last four days (water shortages are common in Yaounde; often, the tap will just stop working for a while), so we could only use oil when cooking (which wasn't terrible!). To do the dishes, we filled a bucket with water from a large garbage can that we keep at SIT for situations like this. Using a block of soap and the not-so-clear water, we were able to “wash” the dishes – but I'm not sure any of them are actually any cleaner now. I was so happy to come back to Etoa Meki, where the water is fully functional at the moment. I took two showers this afternoon to celebrate! The electricity is still a bit shaky here, though...it was cut off again this afternoon while I was trying to charge my computer.

Yesterday we went to a parade for February 11, the National Youth Holiday in Cameroon. All kids have vacation from school for the week and celebrate mainly by riding around, hanging out of cars, shouting and honking. During the parade, students from every school in Yaounde march (militantly, swinging arms and all). Marching along, singing songs about youth in their different school uniforms, they were pretty adorable. The parade went on a little long, though...we watched for two hours and hadn't gotten to the college students yet.

Off to finish packing. Next report will be from Dschang!

Monday, February 15: 8:30 pm

Hello from Dschang! (It's pronounced “chong” and is apparently a German name that comes from German colonizers misunderstanding the original name “Atsan.”) I'm sitting in my bedroom, next to a bunk bed (fortunately, the top bunk is empty during my stay here – I suppose all the children are sleeping upstairs). Ah, the children! There are 7 kids in the family, plus however many kids feel like hanging around (usually 9 or 10 in total). The ages range from about 3 to 20. The 3-year-old, Merveille, is pretty adorable and loves to play with me, though sometimes she smells a little poopy (that's when I push her off my lap). They also have a dog named Rex who hangs around outside and guards the house, but I've been instructed not to go near him, since he's “méchant” (mean). This makes me sad.

The stay in Dschang has been good thus far. We arrived on Saturday, after a surprisingly enjoyable 7-hour bus ride (it's nice to be with Americans for a long stretch of time...we sang all the songs we could think of and played word games. The usual car ride stuff). The first night in Dschang, we stayed at a lovely hotel called “Teclaire Palace.” A few friends and I went on a walk around the city, which is much smaller than Yaounde. Few people have cars here – but everyone seems to have a motorcycle. There are a million motorcycle-taxis, with men in yellow vests giving people rides around the city (unfortunately, taking a ride is strictly forbidden by SIT).

Saturday night we had our first group outing to a night club. It was quite an experience – but one that I don't care to repeat. The men here are very pushy and refuse to give up when they want to dance with you. If you give in and oblige them, they dance aggressively, putting their hands wherever they please. After about an hour and a half, a few of us decided we'd had enough and got a ride back to the hotel. The most fun part of the night was our pre-party at the hotel, which was much more relaxed.

My house here, besides having a million children, is nice. In some ways, it's nicer than my house in Yaounde – I have a bathroom connected to my bedroom that's just for me, and there's more space here than in our apartment in Etoa Meki. Even so, despite the existence of a sink, toilet, and shower in my bathroom, the water rarely works. I was able to fill my bucket outside and take my first bucket-shower (of many to come, I'm sure).

Today we had a lecture about the Bamileke, an ethnic group that lives around the Dschang area. What intrigued me during the whole presentation, which someone had mentioned to me once before, are the similarities between the history of the Bamileke and that of the Jews. Some Bamileke scholars, for example, assert that it was the Bamileke who built the pyramids. After settling in Cameroon, they adapted quickly to a cash economy despite their attachment to old traditions. Today, they are among the most commercially successful in Cameroon, in addition to being in control of most media outlets. Many Cameroonians from other ethnic groups are suspicious of the Bamileke and stereotypes of them as stingy and greedy abound. There is also evidence that the French committed acts of genocide against the Bamileke during colonization. Sound familiar? Apparently, a girl last semester thought about doing her independent study project on the similarities between the two groups, but ended up changing her mind. It would certainly be an interesting topic.

Tuesday, February 16: 9:16 pm

I'm exhausted! Lots of walking around today, then coming home to play with small children for a while. We played a form of Truth or Dare (“Action ou Verité”) combined with Spin the Bottle, except it was a bottle-opener instead of a bottle. The Dares mostly involved someone having to hug or kiss someone else (and everyone there was related, so it wasn't exactly the most exciting). Fortunately, I was only required to kiss the baby, whom I kissed on the head.

Cameroonians love television. Even in tiny houses made of mud bricks, there's always a TV, and it's always on. The kids in my house love the Disney Channel (we watched High School Musical and two episodes of Suite Life of Zack and Cody yesterday), but also Canal 2, the local Cameroonian channel. Unfortunately, the local channel mostly features terrible imported soap operas, such as “Veidhi,” an Indian soap that seems to consist mostly of dramatic extreme close-ups. Then there are the Latin American soaps dubbed into French, like “Tourbillons de Passions,” which the family, and particularly my host mom, loves. My host mom tried to explain the plot to me, but it was confusing...something about a woman's friend acting as a surrogate, then having the baby and disappearing in a plane crash, then reappearing years later to claim the baby. Or something like that. And there are lots of young women marrying old rich men for their money.

Tomorrow, we visit a “chefferie” - the home of a traditional chief in a nearby village. Apparently, the chief has, in the past, offered marriage to some of the female students, inviting one to become his 25th wife. We're supposed to take this as a joke and say we're very sorry but we need to return to the US.

French class was hilarious today...the professor here is a middle-aged man who giggles a lot, particularly when telling us stories about previous students farting in class. He also laughed a lot when another girl in the class explained the concept of boycotting; she was saying that some Americans don't eat bananas because of the unjust labor practices of banana companies, and he laughed, saying, “And you think that will change the labor practices?!” I suppose it's an American thing – thinking we can change the world with our individual actions.

Took another bucket shower this evening. My only real issue is that the water is very cold. I think some people heat it on the stove before washing.

Today for breakfast I had the usual – hot milk and bread with margarine – but dinner was a little odd: two bananas. My host mom said she's had 5 vegetarian students before, so it's no problem (she's had 20 students in total), but she also doesn't seem too interested in actually cooking non-meat food. In Yaounde, my host sister would always cook a sauce and leave some aside before adding fish. Here, though, my host mom cooks the fish or meat right into the sauce. This leaves me with whatever the starch is, usually plantains or bananas. I'm not excited for nights when we have cassava or corn couscous...that stuff is terrible without a sauce. I might ask her if I can help cook at some point and try to leave some sauce aside. (I tried to eat some sauce taken from the fish pot, without eating the fish itself, but it tasted so fishy that I couldn't bring myself to do it.) Unfortunately, she seems to cook earlier in the day while I'm at school. We'll see what happens...

Wednesday, February 17: 8:46 pm

Both the electricity and the water to the house are cut tonight. We sat in the living room, in the dark, and sang for a while – my host sister, Leticia, is about 14 and has a lovely voice. She started with Christian songs in French, which my host mom, host brothers, and little 4-year-old host sister joined in on. It was an incredible moment.

After a bit, though, the Christian songs somehow transitioned into Lady Gaga...quite the interesting interpretation of “Bad Romance.” Eventually, that turned into Christmas carols in English.

Today was a cool day – we visited a chefferie, the palace of a traditional Bamileke chief. The chief, wearing corduroy pants and a fleece (not the traditional outfit), sat in his bamboo throne and answered questions. He then showed us around the grounds, a mix of traditional symbols and modern additions (satellite dishes on bamboo roofs, televisions in most rooms). Like all chiefs, he has many wives, but wouldn't tell us how many (apparently, it's offensive to ask the question). My guess is 25 or so. Some of his children were running around near us, and I asked a little boy if he liked living here. He said it's very good and he likes playing with his siblings. When I asked him how many brothers and sisters he had, he shrugged and said, “Beaucoup!” (“A lot!”)

On the way back to Dschang in our little minibus, the driver pulled over to buy a dead partridge from a boy on the side of the road. The boy ran up and handed him the unplucked bird by the feet. For the rest of the ride, the bird sat on the seat next to him.

The game of “Spin the Bottle/Truth or Dare” continued this evening. Most of the dares this time involved crouching down and apologizing to people. When it was my turn to give a dare, the only thing I could think of was, “Act like a dog!” or “Act like a giraffe!” As far as Truths go, the main one seemed to be, “Say something you stole,” with “What's your favorite food?” a near second.

Oh, and I finally met the dog, Rex, today – turns out he's not mean at all, the kids are just scared of him because he follows them around and wants to play. He seems very sweet and loves being pet; sadly, he's very skinny and has serious ear mite issues. Oddly, he wouldn't eat the bit of bread that I tried to give him this morning – my host mom says he only likes meat. Weird.

Saturday, February 20: 7:19 pm

My first bout of sickness has arrived. Yesterday afternoon, while attempting to do some research at a microfinance institution, I suddenly felt incredibly nauseous and had to go outside (the research wasn't really going anywhere, anyway). Feeling too sick to walk all the way home (it would have been at least 45 minutes), I broke the SIT rules and took a motorcycle-taxi back (it was really fun). If there had been regular taxis, I would have taken one, but unfortunately, there are only moto-taxis here.

When I got home, I decided to just sleep all afternoon. When I woke up, I had a fever of 101.9 and my whole body hurt – sore throat, achy muscles, and extreme pain emanating from a cut on my thumb. I took some Advil and went back to sleep. The night was pretty rough – whenever I was awake, I fantasized about floating in a pool of cool water. Everything was burning. I struggled to open the mosquito net to take more pills and check my temperature, which had risen to 102.1. I called an SIT staffperson, who said we would go to the hospital in the morning.

Fortunately, when I woke up today, I felt much better – the fever had disappeared and my muscles weren't sore (sadly, my throat was still in a lot of pain). The SIT staffperson, Valerie, came by and I said that since I was feeling better, I preferred not to go to the hospital. It's my impression that hospital visits here are generally a waste of time and money, unless you have a serious concern. I decided that if the fever returns tonight, it's a sign that I have malaria and need to see a doctor.

As of now, my temperature has been hovering around 99 degrees, so I think I'm okay. Advil, sleep, playing with 4-year-old sister, more sleep, more Advil.

Monday, February 22: 9:55 pm

Two things that struck me this evening:

1)My host brother, Blondel, came to me asking for help with some homework (he's in 12th grade). He had to interpret a graph from a textbook regarding weather during various seasons. However, his problem was that he didn't know when each season began or ended. In Cameroon, he explained, there's only the rainy season and the dry season – no winter, spring, summer or fall. Cultural problems with importing textbooks from France? I'm sure it's not the only one.

2)There was a commercial on TV tonight. A family sat outside, making some hot chocolate. Suddenly, a man (presumably the father?) came stumbling out of the doorway, wearing no shirt and a talisman around his neck. Based on his facial expressions and sounds, he was evidently possessed by the Devil/some sort of evil spirit (sorcery is feared by most Cameroonians with whom I've spoken). All of the kids ran away and hid in the bushes. But as soon as the possessed man drank the hot chocolate, he woke up and was suddenly wearing a black suit with a white tie and acting jovial. The kids ran back, smiling. The message: this hot chocolate acts as an exorcism aid?

Feeling much better today – fever gone, throat only mildly sore. Conducted several interviews, about ethnicity and microfinancing. A productive day!