One of the first pieces of
information about I learned about Cameroon was that it is a bilingual country,
with both French and English as its official languages. That was great news to
me, as I had studied both languages and considered myself to be passable in one
and fluent in the other. Only once I arrived here did I realize the extent to
which this official bilingual status is wildly misleading.
In a formal
sense Cameroon does have two main languages. And like in Canada (the only other
English/French country) the divide between linguistic groups is divided
geographically and is a lingering effect of colonization. The Anglophone
portion of Cameroon (where I live) is adjacent to English-speaking Nigeria, but
elected to join Cameroon when the two countries were gaining independence. Eight out of Cameroon’s ten regions are
officially Francophone, and nearly all government officials speak French,
regardless of their current post. There are bilingual high schools, (particularly
in the Anglophone regions) but students must commit to a single language for
all their instruction, effectively creating two separate schools within a
single campus. This creates an odd mirror to the official country dynamic.
A
surprisingly small number of Cameroonians are fluent in both French and
English, even within the Anglophone minority. But Cameroonians tend to be
extremely multilingual, and nearly everyone here learns their local dialect
before being exposed to English or French for the first time in school. The
resulting effect is that casual conversations among peers are frequently
carried out in a language other than the official regional language. And I
can’t really speak for the Francophone regions, but here in Anglophone
territory the lingua franca is Pidgin English, as I’ve mentioned before. People
here understand my “Grammar English”, but not any better than their Francophone
counterparts understanding my halting French.
My city is
only a 45-minute drive from the border with the closest Francophone region (the
West Region), but it isn’t a trip I make often. The next big city (Bafoussam)
is over an hour past that border, and the road for much of the trip is
horrendous. It’s all paved, but only barely, and the overstuffed buses that go
between the two cities are far from pleasant. A common rumor is that the roads
are kept poor in an attempt to keep the Anglophone section of the country
disconnected from the rest of the country. I can’t speak to the validity of
that particular one, but it feels awfully convenient if it is true. Cameroon’s
linguistic identity is fractured at best, and the terrible physical connector
between the two regions feels awfully symbolic.
One of the
upsides of traveling to the West Region is that the tickets are quite cheap. A
one-way seat on a “coaster” 20 seater runs a mere 1300 CFA, (just over $2) a
reasonable price for the length of the trip. I try not to think about how much
less time the trip would take if the roads were up to standards. The buses are
run through independent companies, called “agences”
by Francophones and Peace Corps Volunteers. These agences are efficient mini-machines themselves, always a blur of
passengers, motor boys, and traveling salesmen. The popularity of the
Bamenda/Bafoussam route means that the buses fill and leave quite frequently.
Because of this, the average wait time at one of these agences tends to be rather low. So it wasn’t until recently that I
realized that these places are the best example of pure English/French
bilingualism that I’ve found so far in Cameroon. All professionals (all agence employees and most informal
salesmen) need to speak both languages to be able to attend to the diverse set
of customers. Newspapers are sold in both English and French, which is rarely
seen elsewhere. I can’t even remember finding any English publications in the
aisles of upscale grocery stores in the national capital of Yaoundé. Even the
passengers waiting for buses make an effort to translate their needs and wants
to passengers with other language preferences.
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| General madness at Amour Mezam-pretty standard. |
On an entirely unrelated note, my
half-birthday passed recently. Like everyone over the age of nine and a half
(my freshman year roommate in college notwithstanding), I was more than prepared to
let the occasion go unmarked. Birthdays themselves are non-events here, but
I’ve been encouraging some of my neighbors that I’ve become close with that
they’re worth celebrating. I’ve made more than a few birthday cakes over the
past year and a half, but I can’t keep up with the constant stream of birthday
announcements (and thinly veiled
demands for cake). One of the kids in a family that I’ve become quite close to
celebrated his first birthday at the beginning of the month, and his brother
turned three a few weeks later. So when the mom, a good friend of mine, asked
about my birthday, she was disappointed to learn that it had passed in
December. She thought about it for a moment and then decided that the only
solution would be to celebrate my half birthday in June.
Her older
children have been baking cakes with me for a while now and they were quite
excited about the prospect of baking on one their own. They weren’t entirely
prepared though, and came over once to ask to borrow some flour, eggs, baking
powder, and my cookbook. I laughed and handed them over, only to hear them
knocking a few minutes later. This time they needed some cocoa powder and a
cake pan. Again I agreed. The third time they came over to tell me that the
cake was finished! But could they have a candle to put on it?
We took the
candle and went over to their house, where the cake was fresh out of the Dutch
oven. Their mom cut the cake in half, broke the candle in half, and put the top
part into the half-cake. They then started to sing a version of the Happy
Birthday song, but I cut them off halfway. We shared my half of the cake- but
I’m sure that they put the other half to good use.
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