These past couple of weeks have flown by. I’ve been very busy with my independent study project (hence the lack of postings). And now, it is coming to a close. I’ve loved my daily life here...especially the mornings. I thought I'd write about them a little bit here.

My official alarm goes off at six, and after getting dressed, I go to the kitchen to help my host Mom with her cooking. She usually prepares coffee and tea, and either an omlette or red beans with tomato. I still am quite clumsy at her electric burner, so she usually gives me the work of buying the nessesary ingrediants at the boutique right outside the walls. She never sends me with a list, but will give me exact change and send me multiple times for individual ingrediants as she needs them. 50 CFA of cooking oil. 2 tomatoes. 100 CFA of sugar. This makes sense, considering the kitchen is so small-- there really isn't room to store a weeks worth of groceries, as I do at my home in the states.

My host Mom watches TV while we eat breakfast (she likes to eat later). It still blows my mind that even though she is my Mom, she is only a month older than me. The fact that she is responsible for two children makes her seem so much more older, so much more mature than I will be anytime soon. Sometimes I wonder who I would be if I had been born into her family. And, sometimes, I think about who she would be if she were American, or a student at Pomona with me. Would we be friends? Who would she hang out with? I think about this almost every morning as I watch her watch TV. Sometimes she likes to sit sort of upside down in her easy chair, throwing her legs over the top or over the side. I like to sit like that at home.

Sometimes other people in the compound drop by to say good morning. I still can't get over the greeting rituals in Fulfulde. The two people greeting one another speak in a consistently low, monotone pitch. Jam na? Jam. Jam ban du ma? Jam ko du me. A fini jam na? Oho mi fini jam. How are you? Fine. Are you doing well? I'm doing greatm. Did you sleep well? I slept well. Much of the same small talk that people make in the states. At first, I didn't get it . From my perspective, it didn't seem like either of the parties really cared about the answers to the questions. The tone seems so bored, and much of the time, the two people don't maintain eye contact. But then again, the greeting ritual in the states would probably seem just as bizarre to an outsider. Why do Americans pretend to care so much about the answers to petty questions like "how are you?" when the answers are always the same?

After breakfast I head into town to work. I usually start out at the cyper cafe, either to write, type up notes, or look up background information online. It is essential to get to the cyper cafe in the morning, because it fills up fast in the afternoon (but you can usually get a computer if you slip in during hours of prayer). The cyper cafe is pretty open air, and its easy to see everyone's business. A guy from Jordan, here almost everyday, cruises Cameroonian dating sites for hours on end. The couple a few computers down is on the state department site, looking for visa information.

Right now, my morning is over and I must run to lunch. Thanks for reading! I can't wait to see everyone again soon.

A Goat and Global Feminisms

Yesterday I was walking home down a dusty road around 5:30. I was hot and tired from a long day of research, reading and writing. I was hoping that my host mom had made that yummy yogurht drink, and that tonight, we would be able to catch up on our favorite soap opera and finally find out if Miranda would take back Leonardo.

I turned a corner and noticed a girl about my age running towards me. She was wearing beautiful purple and green fabric, and was moving as fast as she could with her long and narrow skirt. Then I noticed what she was running after: a large black goat, who seemed to be gallopping just slightly faster than she was. She called out loudly to the delinquent goat in Fulfulde but he ignored her.

My first instinct: I want to help this girl. The goat was running about four feet to my left. I stepped a little in that direction, thinking I would block it or convince it to turn around. The goat immediately understood my action and veered off even more to the left. Crap.

It was then that I realized that I had no idea how to catch a goat. Even if I could get it to run into me, what would I do? Grab it by the tail? In its middle? By its stubby horns? It wasn't my dog, it didn't have a collar. I'd seen those goats wadding around in trash piles, and I believe that they will eat pretty much anything. Would it try to eat my arm?

I decided that the best thing I could do in this situation was step aside and let this girl solve her own problems. She had infinately more experience in the goat world than me. As she ran by me, and smiled and wished her "bonne chance" and she nodded back at me. The entire exchange took about seven seconds, but it kind of sums up the way I feel about "helping" Cameroonians. They know a lot more about what they need than I ever will. My attempts to "help" could cause more problems than they would solve. If the girl had stopped and asked me for help, and explained to me just what to do, I would have been happy to support her in her efforts.

On another note: In contrary to a blog entry a few weeks back, there are a remarkable variety of words that people shout at me as I walk down the street, not just "Nassara". I decided to keep track this morning as I walked into town:

Madame Le Blanc
Ma Blanche
Ma soeur (my sister)
Ma chérie
White man
White woman
Ma fiancée

It can get a little exhausting, but overall, it seems to just be a way of being friendly and saying hello.

what I've learned

So, I've been in Ngaoundéré for a little more than two weeks. I'm still just getting to know the city, and I still feel like I learn something new every single day. I don't have time to share everything now, but here are a few of my favorite lessons:

Lesson One: I am Overstimulated
My first few days in the house, I couldn't help but feel sorry for my host mother, Fadi. She practically never leaves the house, and spends most of her day cleaning, taking care of the kids, or just hanging out. When I spent more than a few hours at the house, I became very ansy and bored. As I left the high walls to explore the city every day, sometimes, I couldn't help but thinking, "thank god I can get out!"

As usual, my feelings regarding Fadi's life say much more about me than they do about her. Somehow, I overlooked that Fadi seems to be one of the happiest people that I've ever met. I'm the one with the problem here. At home, I check my e-mail about five times a day; I follow the complicated lives of the characters in my favorite HBO series; I usually have a novel going; if I want to listen to music, I choose from the thousands of songs on my Ipod. Am I really so addicted to being busy that I can't sit and chill out for a few hours without going crazy?

Lesson Two: How to Bargin
Still working on this one, and honestly, don't know if I will ever excel. I usually regard paying the extra francs as a small fee for avoiding confrontation with a stranger. But little by little, I'm learning, because you really can't get through a day here without knowing how to name your price. The other day, I tried to find a taxi home in the rain. After spending a few minutes looking in vain, I finally found an empty one and hopped in. Then the negociations began.

The driver wanted 1000 CFA (about two dollars), about five times the normal Cameroonian price. No way, I said. I suggested 350, which was very high for the distance I wanted to drive. He told me to be nice because he was an old man, I told him to be nice because I was a student. After about five minutes, I busted out my cellphone and told him that if he wouldn't take me, I would call my good friend Gaston who drives a nice moto. The driver stepped on the gas.

Lesson Three: I will marry a lawyer
I learned this lesson from a traditional fortune teller. After placing my hand on a bed of sand, he drew several geometric shapes and lines. After he analyzed them, I learned that my future partner will be an attorney at law. Sweet.

Lesson Four: A little more Fulbe
I try to learn a bit more of the language as I go along. My favorite expression: "waddatako" which means "impossible!". I remember as "what-a-taco."

Thats all for now, hope all is well!

Ngaoundéré, where everyone knows my name

After taking a nightime train ride through fields and forests, I arrived in Nagauondere, a dusty city in Northern Cameroon, on Friday morning. The suburban area where I'm living is beautiful. The red streets are filled with women in long, beautiful clothing, playing children and baby goats.
I began to explore the downtown area in the afternoon. As I walked further
into the center of the city, it seemed like every other person was shouting my name at me and waving. Hmm, I thought. Maybe this is a sign that I should stay here for my independent study project? Turns out they don't know my name (yet), but were shouting "nassara" which means "white person!" in Fulani, the local language. That first syllable can be hard to hear.

So far, I like this town. My host family is very kind. The father sells plates and pots,
and his wife is a stay at home mom. She's only one month older than me. They have two young children, but they also live in a kind of gated compound that seems to have about twenty members of the extended family. At the moment, it looks like I will in fact be here for my study project at the end of the term, where I will have four weeks to research a subject that interests me. I think I'm going to study the different ways that young Muslim women here find empowerment and liberation in their religion. I've already begun to talk to my host mother a little about this, but hopefully I'll get more information as I become closer to the family.

Before coming up here, I spent a few days in Kribi, a beach town in Southern Cameroon.
Quite possibly the most beautiful place that I've stayed in my entire life. The water was warm
and graceful palm trees extended over the sand. However, Kribi is also the place where the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline meets the ocean. It was quite strange to take walks on the beach in the morning and look out onto the ocean. There were several fishermen in wooden canoes close to shore, and then on the horizon a string e of oil tankers lined up to fill their tanks. A great blazing flame marked the place where the pipeline came to the surface.

I've been thinking a lot about my Grandfather lately, who passed away last week. I was sorry I couldn't be there with my family for the memorial, but I think he would have been happy that I'm doing so well here. He loved living in other countries and did work to empower marginalized Americans and people abroad. Little things have been coming up that reminded me of him all week long. This morning, my host mother suggested to me that I go running, as the students they have had before have apparently been very athletic. I hadn't been considering it, but then decided that it would feel good. I donned the most conservative athletic clothing that I had and
took to the streets. Nevertheless, it felt like every single person I passed was staring or shouting
"Nassara" at me. I remembered that my father told me that my grandpa started to go running in the states in the 1940s, where he probably received similar reactions from people on the street. I kept taking deep breaths, and I thought that maybe he would be proud if he was here.

a few more photos

So I just arrived in Yaounde, the capital city of Cameroon, and it seems like the lap of luxury. I've already delighted in icecream and a hot shower, and hopefully this week I will find sushi and some american medical products. Right now I'm sitting in the library at the World Bank. Although I don't agree with many of their politics, I'm not about to complain about their high-speed connection, which will allow me to post a few photos today. Above, there is one of my youngest host sister, who could totally school any other three year old in a child modeling conest. Also, one of some roof tops in Dschang, one of my french class (which was usually outside at the University of Dschang, and made me feel like a young, aristocratic girl in a Henry James novel.) In my French class are my professor Andre, my friends Chloe (in the red shirt) and my two friends Julia.

oh, technology

Okay, as you may notice, I'm new to the blogophere and often experience issues. The last post, for some reason, published in 1 point font. Uploading photos here can be really difficult. On my camera, and on another computer, this one of me with my host family looked great, but is coming up really dark on the screen here in this cafe. What does it look like on your screen??

While I'm waiting for this to load, I have a confession to make. While staying with my host family, I've become addicted to Venezualan

Soap Operas. The family favorite, Saborati, is translated in French as Destins Croisés, or Crossed Destinies. Attempted murders, love triangles, adoption disputes: this show has got it all. Nearly every Cameroonian woman I meet seems to be really into it as well.

On a more serious note, I continue to be shocked by the amount of corruption in this country. Students regularly pay their teachers off for grades; in fact, sometimes the only students who pass are the ones who pay. When my host mother went to the hospital to give birth to her son, the nurse told her she needed to pay extra under the table to get the proper service. I've heard that 40% of Cameroon's wealth goes into paying people off in corrupt interactions. Several Cameroonians I've talked to don't think that the country can go on like this; many seem to think that some sort of monumental change is on the horizon. I hope to gain some sort of understanding about what this change could be by the time I leave.

a weekend with the chief

I just spent this past weekend at the house of the chief. This chief's village was a fw miles outsideDschang, and has a population of about 300,000 people. A chief from a village this size can have up to fifty wives, but this cheif explained to methat he prefers to keep his family small so he can provide healthcare and education for everyone.

I was able to hang out with four of the five wives. For the fourth wife, polygamy seemed to be the ultimate feminist lifestyle. Thanks to the other wives, she told me,she is able to take time off housework when she is sick. She also can pursue a career in nursing without worrying about who is taking care of her children. Other wives also seemed pretty happy with their lives, though all of them told me that, naturally, conflicts arise when everyone is splitting housework and time in the fields. Of course, my stay at the chief's was only long enough to get a superficial feel for family dynamics. I'm sure there would b much more to discover.

Two of the wives took me with them to two funerals on Saturday. Both events took place in courtyards of large houses, each of them packed with people and decorated with bright colors. At first, each time, I felt supprised that someone had died. I guess I'm probably used to the sevices in the states that are so somber from the beginning. But then then ceremonies started. All the women gathered in the middle of the courtyard and began to wail, chant, and hold eachother. It was really quite moving. I stayed on the periphery at the first ceremony, but the second time someone took my hand and led me in. I did my best to do as the others were doing, and hopefully, didn't look like too much of an idiotic foreigner.

Alright, I've got to run to lunch. Thanks for leaving comments! If you have any questions, please post, and I'll do my best to answer! I apologize for the grammer errors-- this keyboard is quite temperamental!!

Burnin' in da Mop

Greetings from Bamenda, a charming Anglophone city in the Western providence of Cameroon. I`m here for a few days with other SIT students. To prepare for the trip, my French teacher took half a period to teach us some pigeon English, which is essential for shopping in the markets here. My favourite phrase so far is ‘dis chop chop be burnin’ in da mop.’ Translation: my food is spicy. At first it felt problematic for me to be speaking in this manner, but then my teacher explained that speaking pigeon is a way to show respect. Speaking ‘proper’ English in a market setting is considered condescending.

Other news: this week all of Dschang was abuzz with news about ‘la femme.’ ‘The woman’ has been making her way across Cameroon and apparently arrived in my city on Monday. Although I have yet to see her, she reportedly has no face and has a dead baby strapped to her back. She might appear at the door of your house disguised as one of your friends, and ask to use the bathroom. Once you let her in, she vanishes, and your entire family dies. Scary, right? Especially when you wake up at 3AM to a weird clanging noise outside your window. To protect guard against her, you scatter ashes around your house and put branches from peace trees on your door. The long, leafy branches were on nearly every house this week.

More about women. To fill the void of life without a religious studies class, I’m trying to go to a different church service every Sunday. This week I went to an amazing one in an Anglican church. It was packed. Half of the service was singing, and the ten plus choirs had lovely names like ‘echos de paradis’ and ‘voix des anges.’ I was squeezed in next to one made up of women in their forties. They chit-chatted among themselves through out the service, complimented each other, offered me a hymnal, and asked me if I wanted to join. In a funny way, it reminded me of sitting in the Motley, the Scripps college edgy-feminist coffee shop. I felt that same fuzzy feeling I get when a group of women get together and really take pleasure in each others personalities without competing or gossiping. Indeed, the church seemed quite progressive: a woman priest made the sermon. Next week, I might hit up the Ba’hai center, which is just down the road from my house.

Okay, that’s all for now. I only have a few more hours here, and I wanted to buy some ‘fine wrappas’ for my host mother (pretty fabrics). Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday wishes; I’m sorry I’ve been bad about correspondence, but I will respond in time, I promise! I’m thinking of all of you and I hope that life is going well!

most striking moments

When I wake up in the morning, I always take a few moments to breath and prepare myself for the day ahead. If I’m ready and open, it seems that nearly every moment here offers some sort of opportunity to learn or experience something new. A new song, idea, point of view, smell, work of art, French phrase, way of talking. My internet time is pretty limited, so for now, I’m just going to include a list of the top five most striking moments, experiences and observations so far:

1. My walk to school in the morning has started to become routine, but it still is so fun, envigorating and beautiful. I leave the house and start down a red dirt road that is usually very muddy from the rains. It is always teaming with school kids in blue uniforms, chickens and speeding motorbikes. I walk on it around the lake, to a stone causeway that stretches across the water. From there, its up a hill and and across a plateau that offers a beautiful view of the mountains. This walk is a great way to start the day and remember how lucky I am to be here.

2. Yesterday my host sister took me to her church deep in the heart of down town Dschang. I had never been to a Jehovah's Witnesses service before. Everyone in the congregation; women, children and men alike had the chance to make comments about the weekly lesson. Several people afterwords encouraged me to come back and asked if I knew about the message of the church. I don't know much about this religion, but I'd be interested to learn, especially as it seemed to attract many young Cameroonians.

3. My host family's sense of hospitallity continues to blow me away. Although they don't usually have breakfast, they know most Americans do, and offer me bread with hot milk and sugar every morning. I get at least three hugs when I walk in the door. If I mention something that I like, it usually shows up on the table in the next few days. Even though they usually speak Bassa, they speak French when I'm around so I can learn and practice. They are so kind and I'm so lucky to be with them.

4. Many Cameroonians will state the obvious in order to start conversations. For example, if you arrive home, someone may ask or say "you've arrived home?". If you are eating, they may say, "are you having your breakfast?" Tydane, the seven-year-old girl in the family, is particularly fond of doing this with me. Its like having a consistent second-person life narration. Still takes a little getting used to, probably due to my deeply ingrained east-coast cynism.

5. I've met so many incredibly educated young people who cannot find jobs. People in their twenties with masters in Italien, Sociology, Education, Economics who can't find work in part due to problems with corruption. This certainly challenges American stereotypes that say that all Africans are uneducated.

Okay, thats five things. There is so much more to say, but it will have to wait till later. Hope all of you are well.

I'm here!

Hello all !

So, I’m starting to settle in life in Dschang and I think I’m going to love it. I met my host family on Saturday night and they are incredibly kind, welcoming people. The father, Andre is a math teacher who just got a promotion in another city. They were going to move, but they put it off for a month to host me ! Mirabelle is a very sweet woman in her late twenties who is in her third year of law school. She has a lot on her plate, as she also has three children, Tydane , Triomphe and Temperance. They are all under seven. Also present in the house are Mirabelle’s sister, Jael , who is 15 and Andre’s brother, a twenty five year old who studies Italien litterature.

We've already had many interesting conversations about life in the United States, US policies diplomacy in Africa and the 2008 elections (they're rooting for Obama). Interfaith Alliance folk-- last night over dinner I tried to explain separation of church and state.

Okay I have to run to class now; more later, I promise!

trying to avoid melt-down

I leave in less than a day. All that is left are a few little tasks and expeditions before the big departure. Make the water purifier work. Write thank you notes. Review French verbs. Have final cup of coffee at favorite coffee shop (modern times on connecticut ave, in case you were wondering). Spray down the mosquito net. Cram everything into backpack.

This Billy Collins poem has been playing in my head on repeat all summer long. It seems especially appropriate today. I'm so excited!


aristotle

This is the beginning.
Almost anything can happen.
This is where you find
the creation of light, a fish wriggling onto land,
the first word of Paradise Lost on an empty page.
Think of an egg, the letter A,
a woman ironing on a bare stage as the heavy curtain rises.
This is the very beginning.
The first-person narrator introduces himself,
tells us about his lineage.
The mezzo-soprano stands in the wings.
Here the climbers are studying a map
or pulling on their long woolen socks.
This is early on, years before the Ark, dawn.
The profile of an animal is being smeared
on the wall of a cave,
and you have not yet learned to crawl.
This is the opening, the gambit,
a pawn moving forward an inch.
This is your first night with her, your first night without her.
This is the first part
where the wheels begin to turn,
where the elevator begins its ascent,
before the doors lurch apart.

This is the middle.
Things have had time to get complicated,
messy, really. Nothing is simple anymore.
Cities have sprouted up along the rivers
teeming with people at cross-purposes –
a million schemes, a million wild looks.
Disappointment unsolders his knapsack
here and pitches his ragged tent.
This is the sticky part where the plot congeals,
where the action suddenly reverses
or swerves off in an outrageous direction.
Here the narrator devotes a long paragraph
to why Miriam does not want Edward's child.
Someone hides a letter under a pillow.
Here the aria rises to a pitch,
a song of betrayal, salted with revenge.
And the climbing party is stuck on a ledge
halfway up the mountain.
This is the bridge, the painful modulation.
This is the thick of things.
So much is crowded into the middle –
the guitars of Spain, piles of ripe avocados,
Russian uniforms, noisy parties,
lakeside kisses, arguments heard through a wall
too much to name, too much to think about.

And this is the end,
the car running out of road,
the river losing its name in an ocean,
the long nose of the photographed horse
touching the white electronic line.
This is the colophon, the last elephant in the parade,
the empty wheelchair, and pigeons floating down in the evening.
Here the stage is littered with bodies,
the narrator leads the characters to their cells,
and the climbers are in their graves.
It is me hitting the period
and you closing the book.
It is Sylvia Plath in the kitchen
and St. Clement with an anchor around his neck.
This is the final bit
thinning away to nothing.
This is the end, according to Aristotle,
what we have all been waiting for,
what everything comes down to,
the destination we cannot help imagining,
a streak of light in the sky,
a hat on a peg, and outside the cabin, falling leaves.

a few days to go.....

Hello! Thanks for stopping by. This is my first entry of a blog that I will update from Cameroon. Except, at the moment, I’m not actually in Cameroon, yet.

Just a little background, in case I haven’t seen you for a while. I’m going for a semester with a program called School for International Training (SIT). While I’m there, I’ll live with several host families and take classes in French on Cameroonian culture and development. For the first month I’ll be in Dschang, a university town, and then I’ll be going to Ngaoundéré, a town in a Northern region of the country. The last month I’ll have an opportunity to choose where I would like to go for an independent study project. I’ll probably choose a topic relating to my major, religious studies, or my minor, theatre.

I'm leaving in a couple days, and my feelings are similar to those of the countless students who have studied abroad before me. For one, I have the same giddy feeling I get when I have a crush on someone. I can’t stop thinking about Cameroon, and every little detail I learn about the country seems fascinating. That’s not to say that I don’t have my anxieties. One hundred “what ifs” seem to dangle above my bed every night as I fall asleep. What if I’m sick the whole time? What if I’m lonely? What if my host families don’t like me? I’ve packed two bags chock full of stuff, but what if its not the right stuff?

And then there is that other question that keeps coming to me: why am I doing this? My aunt Jeanette asked me this question a few weeks ago over brunch at Teaism and I couldn't seem to articulate a response that sounded and felt right. I know the quick and easy answer: I'm going because it sounds like fun, and an important and interesting way to supplement my education as a religious studies major and as a human being.

But, of course, it’s more complicated than that. The United States has a complex and troubling history with Africa, and I can’t escape being a part of that as I go to Cameroon. I’d like to think I have some grander reasons for what I’m doing. However, seeing the hilarious and thought-provoking play THE UNMENTIONABLES at Woolly Mammoth Theatre reminded me of how arrogant and silly it is for Americans to go abroad believing that they have the knowledge and expertise to improve lives and solve all problems.

So, for the moment, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is okay if I don’t know exactly what I’ll be getting out of this semester. I’m going to commit to being ready and open to experience what’s there. Maybe I’ll only figure out why I went when I get back.