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.