Just over a week ago my stage-mates and I moved to the small towns of Bafia and Bokito to begin our real Pre-Service Training. I'm in the Environment sector (soon to be called "Sustainable Livelihoods") and am based in Bafia, which is the larger of the two. We were prepared for pretty intensive living conditions, but my experience thus far has been intense in ways other than I previously expected. All of the host families speak primarily French and have committed to feeding us breakfast and dinner. Before coming to Bafia I had primarily been worried about the physical facilities and moving out of the comfort and relative security of the hotel. While these worries weren't completely unfounded, I completely failed to think about the other challenges associated with a homestay. In addition, I was completely overconfident about my French skills.
A quick note on that: I placed into an intermediate medium level French class, and was extremely proud of myself. My stage-mates run the gamut in terms of French ability and I was relieved to be middle of the road. Just for clarification, I have taken almost 8 years of formal French classes, and am still extremely mediocre. The Peace Corps language program is incredibly intensive and require intermediate-high competency for placement in a Francophone region. My class has only 4 people and is usually the high point of training each day. Lots of playtime, as long as we speak exclusively French. It's a good thing that the PC is taking our language training seriously though, because it can be something of a strugglefest at my house. In theory I know enough French to communicate relatively smoothly, as long as I'm spoken to directly and relatively slowly. In practice, I understand almost nothing. Rien. I often understand my host siblings, but am struggling to get anything other than the most simple ideas across.
I hadn't prepared myself to live in an environment where I can't fully express myself and have any type of complicated conversation. This has turned out to be the biggest challenge so far, as I've found myself dealing with the more obvious physical challenges (of which there are quite a few). I was quite proud of myself when I remained (relatively) calm and quickly killed the giant spider cruising up my wall. And bucket showers? No sweat. The no-flush toilets are still somewhat of a mystery to me, but I'm making it work. The language barrier is sometimes a source of amusement around here, especially as I try to figure out basic tasks. The first time I asked my host brother how to use the toilet, he looked at me in confusion and then told me that I had to start by taking my pants off. Thanks, bro.
My favorite thing so far about living in Cameroon are the small victories that can be found around every corner. This week's big win? Homemade peanut butter. My host brother took me to the market for the first time and we hunted in vain for some premade stuff, which I was sure we would be able to find. He wasn't so sure, and he was of course right. But my friend TJ picked up some peanuts for me and my host brother showed me how to roast and grind them. Yumyumyum. Another food win: Chocolate spread and banana sandwiches. My new favorite breakfast.
Final thought: a large part of our training has consisted of cross-cultural sessions designed to prepare us for our new lives and success at post. Many of the sessions have been mind-blowing and have challenged my own views on the way that Americans do things. I'm not quite ready to think exclusively in terms of Cameroon yet. One of the more interesting sessions was focused on the concept of Cameroonian (and African in general) time. Things move slowly here, and there's a much greater emphasis on greetings and formality. Because of this, it is much more important to go through the necessary greetings than to adhere to a specific schedule. As an American, I'm used to expectations regarding time and often find myself late for wherever I'm headed. Here, it's not uncommon for people to be hours late for a particular event. When we asked a current Peace Corps Volunteer how late is considered "late", he seemed surprised and answered with "6 hours?" So that might take some getting used to. At first I was appalled, but then I was thinking about the American pace of life and the stress that comes with it. I'm not here to pass judgement on either culture, but it was something I've been thinking about, so I figured that it might be worth sharing.
 |
| View from the hotel in Yaounde. Definitely far from home! |
TL, DR: Life in Bafia is full of new challenges that I'm mostly overcoming. Still working on French fluency and a more stable home life. Haven't starved yet, though!
