As
of early last week, I felt kind of like I had hit a plateau in terms
of integrating into my new community. Creating a life for yourself in
a new place turns out to be a pretty interesting process composed
primarily of gradual inclines but interspersed with steep
accomplishments. I was worried that I had kind of fallen into a rut
with my integration, and that my life would just kind of stay the
same for the foreseeable future. And my worries were compounded by my
lack of progress on the work front. My stage-mates and I joined our
communities at an interesting time of the year in terms of work-we
got here in late November and it seems like a lot of offices go on
break for the last two weeks of the year or so. I can only speak for
the Bamenda region, but people here are primarily Christian and
celebrate Christmas in a big way. So I wasn't too optimistic about
getting anywhere on the work front before the holidays and decided to
just introduce myself to potential work partners before break begins.
And
it took three visits, but I finally got to meet the country director
for Heifer International Cameroon. And on my fourth visit I even got
to meet one of my work counterparts and begin to set expectations. So
more to come on the Heifer front, but it's good to know the ball is
rolling on that front.
Speaking
of balls, I had my first tennis lesson last week. There have been
quite a few "am I still in the Peace Corps?" moments in the
past few weeks, but the hour that I spent on the court was one of the
most pronounced. There are definitely some advantages to having a
city at my fingertips, and the tennis court and resident tennis pro
are definitely two of them. Given that I'm not going to really be
learning another language during my time here, I figured I might as
well come home with a new skill.
This
past weekend was filled with adventures and some pretty high-quality
steps towards integration. I spent Saturday with Cynthia, Eric, a
Cameroonian Eric, and the newest American to come to Bamenda, Edith.
We headed up to Ndop, a subdivision about an hour away. Or, it's an
hour away if everything goes right. This being Cameroon, actual
travel time is usually double the expected, and this trip was no
exception. About 20 minutes into our trip, we stopped for gas and
continued on our way. That is, until a few kilometers up the nearest
hill, when the car sputtered and quit. It turned out that the gas
station attendant had filled the car with petrol (diesel) instead of
gas, and terrible things were happening to the inside of the car. I
know pretty much nothing about how cars worked, and was pretty
oblivious to the severity of the situation. My postmates informed me
of the necessary steps to right the problem and the unlikeliness that
we would be able to continue our adventure. It must be said that this
was a completely unnecessary problem to encounter (as Eric said of
the gas station attendant "he has one job!") but I have to
give the auto "mechanics" of Bambui some credit for fixing
the problem remarkably quickly (two hours or so…). This is
especially impressive if you know that the first step towards solving
the problem involved a man crawling under the car and banging on some
part with a big rock (was he hoping to drain out the fuel that way?)
right in front of a lumberyard. But we continued on and eventually
made it to Ndop, where we visited a tea plantation/menagerie of
sorts. The whole experience was a little unsettling and involved
chimpanzees, boa constrictors, and ostriches. Our Cameroonian friends
were much more in awe of the animals than we were, but it was a
beautiful drive and nice to spend a day away from Bamenda with
friends. And the evening brought a long-overdue opportunity to show
off my skills at the game of Set. A big thank-you to all of my TB
friends-turns out all of those hours finally paid off.
That
would have been enough adventuring for me for the weekend, but I had
promised my friend Bridget that I would accompany her women's group
(the Unique Sisters) to greet the new fon (chief) of their village.
An interesting cultural note: fons do not die, they merely "go
missing". The reason for our visit was that the old fon had gone
missing and had been replaced by one of his sons, and the Unique
Sisters wanted to formally introduce themselves to him. I'm not sure
if I heard this right, but as far as I understand, the new fon will
always be a son that is born after his father becomes the fon, and
often is born to a second (or later?) wife of the fon. Polygamy is
legal in Cameroon, and is almost always practiced by tribal leaders.
Anyway,
I have changed in many ways since coming to Cameroon, but there are
certain parts of my character that have very much remained the same.
My lack of timeliness definitely falls into this second
category-Bridget and I arrived late to the palace and missed the
formal introduction to the fon, coming just in time for refreshments
and gossip among the women. Luckily, there was another group that
came in after us so I was able to observe the introduction protocol.
And then the fun began, when both groups danced for the fon. I was
never known in America for my dancing ability, and this is another
thing that has unfortunately remained very much the same. I gave it
my best shot, but all of the women very much knew all of the moves,
and I very much did not. In addition, they had all come in matching
uniforms, and I don't have one. Needless to say, it was easy to pick
me out of the crowd. But all of the women were incredibly welcoming,
and I look forward to attending more Unique Sisters events during my
time here.
When
I came home, I was proud of my work towards integration for the day
and was a little exhausted from all of the weekend's excitement. But
my neighbors next door were all playing jumprope (girls) and soccer
(boys), and I've been wanting to join them ever since I moved in.
Today was that day, and I headed over to join in on some jumprope
fun. My French is still pretty rough (and they're all Francophone),
but it was really fun and I again felt really welcomed.
After
the games were over, I decided that was enough. I needed some time
alone and went up to get some supplies for dinner. But when I came
back, my landlady/neighbor stopped me and invited me over for dinner.
She and her family have been very accommodating and friendly ever
since I came, and I couldn't bring myself to refuse. But luckily, she
prepared a dish that was far too spicy for me and I took a few bites
and was quickly excused from the rest of the meal. Unripe bananas and
dried fish sauce-definitely not something I've ever seen stateside.
And I don't even want to talk about the amount of fried grasshoppers
that I saw being eaten today-literally unacceptable. Turns out that's
really a big thing here.
Peace
Corps Volunteers are encouraged to have secondary work projects in
addition to their primary ones, and I was hoping that mine could be
some sort of work at the local high school. Many government high
schools are bilingual, which means that there are two sections-one
taught in English and the other in French. It does not mean that
students typically receive instruction in both, which is what I had
previously assumed and was disappointed to learn was not true. But
after a few initial visits during the past two weeks, I headed back
today for another meeting with the Form 2 chemistry teacher who had
been my previous contact and whose class I had sat in on last week.
Unfortunately, I hadn't been told that this week was "rascal
week", when teachers often don't show up for their classes, as
all of the exams have already been given. It turns out that teachers
will sometimes miss their own classes in order to have time to grade
papers, and I observed this firsthand this afternoon. When I showed
up to observe again, I was faced with a teacher-less classroom and a
lot of students without any kind of assignments to do. It should be
said that I have no classroom teaching experience, (although I did
audit Methods of Teaching Science this past winter!) but I didn't
want the students to just sit around and cause trouble. So I gave it
my best shot and we struggled through a review of balancing
equations. The students were actually much better behaved that I
would have expected, given that my presence is very much still a
novelty on campus and I'm planning to head back on Wednesday.
Hopefully their actual teacher will be back and I can just help as
needed, but I'm not too optimistic on that front.
TL,DR:
Last week finally brought some progress on the Heifer front, and this
weekend finally included some outings. There was a menagerie, a male
cat named Lady Grantham, and lots of palm wine. Only time will tell
how this week can possibly compare.
P.S.
For anyone that remembers my misadventures with my hot water coil,
they continued this morning when I found part of the prong stuck in
the socket from the last time I used it. Needless to say, it's
something of a lost cause and needs to be replaced already. There's
nothing quite like the quality control in this country…
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