On est ensemble

So we are now two full weeks in to the school year. I had a big plan to write a couple more posts before now and then upload them all when I got to Maroua...but then, naturally, the power went out in Meme last Thursday and has not come back...so my computer battery was dead for the last week and a half, until I got here this weekend and could finally use some electricity. It's not as bad as you would think, not having power – I put my head lamp on at like 6pm, cook dinner, read books (I've been reading like several hundred pages a day...), and am usually in bed by 8. Not too bad...for like a night or two. But it does get old. And it sucks not having my computer to watch movies and listen to music.

School has been going really well so far...my kids are great – smart, interesting, REALLY want to be there. I say “kids” but in reality the majority of my students are taller than me, and many of them are older. So instead of hanging out with a bunch of 15 year old kids, I'm really standing up in front of 30 or so men in their early twenties, trying to get them to read out loud and conjugate verbs in the past perfect. It's pretty funny.

My colleagues are really great. I'm the only woman on staff, and I feel more than a little out of place in our staff meetings (which are over three hours long and in French, by the way) as I look around the room and realize I am not just the only woman, but the only white person, and the only person who isn't a native speaker of French. It's difficult to figure out how to be professional and make friends with your co-workers when you just feel like the weirdest person on the planet. It also doesn't help when we all go around the room to introduce ourselves, and in addition to saying their names and what subjects they teach, twelve of the fourteen men I work with noted that they were “single...and looking.” Everybody has been so nice to me so far, and completely professional, but nevertheless it feels like a bit of a complicated social scene to negotiate.

People are really looking out for me though – on the first day of school my principal made a big speech to the entire school (which was actually only about 40 of our 600 students...it rained that morning, and it was Ramadan, and it actually takes a couple weeks for word to get round that school has actually started), during which he talked about school rules, cholera prevention, etc. etc...then stopped and said “Look behind me. You will see a white person. She is Miss Rose. She is from America. That is 12,000 kilometers away. She is here to teach you. She does not get paid. If you are mean to her she will go back to America.” He then told them that the first student who was mean to me would be expelled. That's support, right?

But discipline hasn't really been a big issue yet...the students are SO well-behaved, and I think it has to do with either a) not very many kids get to go to school up here, so if you have the opportunity, you REALLY want to be there; or b) it is just too hot up here to do anything but sit quietly. Either way, it's great to work with kids who listen, do their work, and are interested in what you're saying...although I'm not sure if this reflects an actual interest in learning English, or if kids are just coming to my class to see what ridiculous thing the white person will do next.

Things have been going really well in the village too...getting into a routine, getting to know some people, picking up Mandara little by little...I feel like my village is such a wonderful place, and such an amazing place to be a Peace Corps volunteer – people are so friendly, so welcoming, so helpful. Pretty much every day as I walk to school or go to the market, people (sometimes I know them, sometimes not) come up to me just to say “bonne arrivee” and tell me how glad they are that I am here. There is a wonderful expression here that people say – “on est ensemble” – “we are together”. People said this during training, and people say it to me a lot in the village. It's a way of saying welcome, and even though we are so incredibly different from each other, our minds and our hearts are in the same place. It is really nice to hear...especially when you spend so much time feeling so different and so out of place.

I've started going for runs in the morning...I didn't know if this was okay, but then decided that it would probably fall under the category of “weird things white people do that are silly” rather than “weird things white people do that are offensive”. And it's true – everybody stares...but everybody stares at me all the time anyways. Lots of people call out to greet me, or say things like “Ah! Tu fais les sports? C'est bon!” Often they even applaud – this is my favorite. In Cameroon, you do not say you are going running...you say you are “doing the sports”. This expression confused me for several weeks, as my host dad would come in in the morning, greet me, and tell me he had been “doing the sports.” Trying to make conversation, I would say “Oh, doing what sports?” and he would look at me for a minute like I was crazy, and then say, “THE sports.” Duh.

My Mandara is improving slowly but gradually...earlier this week I got home from class and my neighbors came over to bring me water (there's a pump nearby, and I pay them to fill up big jugs and bring them to my house, as they have a wheelbarrow and I am not strong enough to carry them by myself) and we hung out in my yard, pointing at things and saying what they are in different languages (Mandara, French, Fulfulde, English...). This is how we spend our time together...but I realized that afternoon that it had gotten easier. We were finding more words in common, I was recognizing some of the words they said, and found myself able even to start responding a bit in Mandara (“dyenka” – “I do not understand” – is usually the extent of my ability to respond, but still...it's a start). I also realized that hanging out with them has become easier...not because I magically learned how to speak Mandara, but just because somehow we've gotten to know each other and gotten comfortable around each other, even though we can't really have a conversation. Somehow we have figured out how to talk to each other, even though most of the time neither of us understands the words the other one is saying. I didn't know this could happen...but am feeling pretty encouraged!

Headed back to post today, keeping my fingers crossed the electricity is back. Anyways, I am healthy and happy and maybe possibly even starting to figure things out here. Miss you all, and thanks as always for all the e-mails, texts, and letters. It is always so good to hear from home.