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!