I just got back last week from another trip to Yaounde, where I worked on the training design for Peace Corps Cameroon's new Youth Development program (the first trainees arrive next week!). After spending the last few months almost completely unscheduled, and the year before that working 7:30-12:30 Monday-Thursday, a full week of working from 8am to 5pm (okay, fine, we had an hour and a half for lunch and were offered “Coffee Break” from 10-10:30, where we guzzled free hot beverages and baked goods in a way that only PCVs can) was definitely a change, and gave me some doubts about my ability to hold down a normal job in America next year. Still, it was nice to be working, particularly on the very beginnings of such a cool program. The health and agroforestry programs were also doing their training design during the same week, but while they had years of information and sessions and plans, the dozen of us working on Youth Development were starting from scratch. We began in July with the goals of the program (“What should a youth development volunteer do?”), and then this month took that and transformed it into “What does a youth development volunteer need to know to be able to do their job well?” ...and then we had to go out and create those resources, along with all of the official Peace Corps documents (which meant spending hours writing “technical competencies” and “session objectives”, arguing over using terms like “cultural custodian” or “community leader”, “family planning” or “contraceptive methods”, among other more technical PC jargon). It was a lot of work, but at the end of it, I think the program is shaping up even better than most people expected.
I left Yaounde with two other English teachers from the Extreme North, all of us having missed the first week of school, none of us knowing our schedules for the coming year, and trying to prepare ourselves to show up on Monday and teach (even though what classes we would be teaching was still a mystery). There had been some kittens hanging around the backyard at the Yaounde volunteer house, and as I've never owned a cat before, naturally I decided to put one in a box, smuggle it on board a train, and take it back up north with me. She was not a fan of the box, or the taxi ride, or the 16 hour train ride, or the eight hour bus ride the next day...or the bush taxi ride after that, or the motorcycle ride that finally got us home, and when I was finally able to let her out of the box, she proceeded to disappear (which is pretty impressive, as my house is not large, and hiding spaces are limited) for such a long time that I was afraid she was gone for good. But a couple hours later she emerged from I still don't know where, and has seemed to recover well from her traumatization since then. We've had a couple arguments since then, mostly over the litter box (she preferred to use the spare mattress), but have generally worked things out. It turns out we have a lot of the same interests, like napping on the couch and sitting in the yard watching the lizards. She takes this second one a bit farther than I do, though, and is actually an excellent hunter. A game shes likes to play involves catching a lizard, bringing it into my bedroom, batting it around for awhile until I think its dead, but not actually killing it, so when I go to remove it, it springs back to life and runs around the house, allowing the kitten to trap it again. Hilarious.
The two of us arrived in village Saturday to find that the power was out. It took until Sunday for me to figure out that the power was not cut all over the village, but once again only in my house. A proper amount of harassing of the bursar (who I share the power line with, and whose teenage son calls himself a technician, but I think it's maybe only because he's really tall and so can reach the wires on the ceiling), and finally a call to an actual technician friend of mine, and power was restored 24 hours later...although this led to a tres villageois argument between the bursar and my technician friend over whether or not my cables needed to be replaced. The bursar came to my house that night, angrily claiming that the technician was lying and just wanted to make money off me (which is believable, except that he didn't charge me anything even though he spent the whole afternoon fixing cables and taking apart and putting back together all of my various appliances that had stopped working). I told him I didn't really see what the problem was, as long as the power was working (which it was). This whole situation was also another opportunity for the deficiency of my french to be revealed. The technician spent the afternoon screwing and unscrewing things, and asking questions like “Do you have a b;ldfsakd?”, to which I would respond, “A what?” He would repeat, I would continue to not understand, and he would sigh and go fetch it himself, or give up. Then I would ask questions like “What was wrong with my fan?” and he would respond, “The sdlfa'dkjfljhu was broken,” to which I would respond, “The what?” and so on and so on.
Monday morning, I showed up at school, received my schedule from our new vice-principal (who was sent to the village this year along with our new discipline master, meaning that, as my principal said “we are like a real school now”), and jumped right into teaching. I have the four oldest classes this year, and two of those classes are the same students as I had last year – it was incredibly wonderful to walk into the room and recognize so many faces. I spent the first day doing introductions and talking about why we are all here. My new classes were shocked when I made everyone stand up and say their name and what they had done this summer (“What? We have to talk in English class?”), and my older kids laughed when I explained to them that it wasn't sorcery that helped them pass their exams, but actually doing the work, studying, asking questions, etc.
My terminales – the seniors – are a combination of my small terminale class last year (who I knew really well, because there were only 13 of them) and about half of last year's premieres, who passed their exams (this is a super high pass rate, especially for the village), and who were my absolute favorites last year. So basically I have this all-star class of about 25 super smart, motivated, funny students who actually speak pretty good English (I was explaining something to them in French this week and someone called out sarcastically – in French – “We get it Madame”; when I asked them if a verb tense review exercise was difficult, one of them said “It's easy like drinking water!”), ask tons of questions, call me out on my mistakes, and are a ton of fun. They love to discuss things (rare for students here, who are taught to sit quietly and copy off the board) and ask lots of questions about America, which I always love to talk about (I think it's because they are actually interested, but then I remember those teachers I had who could be easily distracted into not teaching you anything if you brought up their favorite topic, and I wonder if I haven't become one of them...).
My premieres – the juniors – are the same students from my seconde class last year, who were a workout. They love to talk through the whole lesson and not pay attention, then get mad at the end when they don't understand anything. I'm hoping the prospect of taking a national exam at the end of the year will make them a bit more serious as time passes. I was nervous about my two new classes, especially as last year's secondes had been such a challenge...but they are so far pretty terrific. The new secondes are fresh off their success on the B.E.P.C. (a national exam they had to pass at the beginning of the summer to get into seconde), serious and smart. The troisiemes (freshman) are nombreux (about 130 on the roll right now, maybe 80 in the class so far), but eager to learn, and I've found that as long as I go slow and use French when needed we get along pretty well. There are a lot of SUPER smart kids in that class, too, and it's always great to have the chance to work with new motivated students. It's fun, too, with the new classes to see the nasara shock and awe factor again – my old ones have gotten used to me and my teaching style (which tends to be pretty different from their other teachers), but for the new ones, I am full of surprises, and I can tell they are still paying attention just because they have no idea what ridiculous thing the white lady is going to do next.
So, we are only a week in, but I am thrilled to be back teaching again, and really looking forward to this year. I guess it doesn't seem this way to you all in America, but for me and my stagemates, it is starting to set in that this will all be over sooner rather than later. We've begun nostalgically saying things like “Aww, our last first day of school!” which I'm sure will deteriorate later this year into “Aww, the last time I get pickpocketed!”, or “Aww, it's my last case of amoebas!” Maybe my happiness with this last first week of school has something to do with my ability to look back on last year's first first week of school and be able to see how far I (and my students) have come. I'm sure I will probably feel differently at times later this year when students cheat or lose interest or it's so hot in my house that my candles literally melt or the power gets cut yet again, but for now I am feeling happy and optimistic, and wonder how I lucked into having such an awesome job.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Hanging with the chief
My village is relatively small, and is not an official “arrondissement” (township?) of the government. Instead of our own police station, we have a traditional chief, who is responsible for solving problems and maintaining order in the village (although for bigger problems, he does refer to the government-appointed prefet (similar to a mayor) and gendarmes in the nearby town). Anything of significance that happens in the village requires the chief's approval, which makes him a pretty important ally if you want to get anything done (or even simply live in) the village. The chief lives in a large compound on the edge of the market with his four wives (each of whom has her own house) and a large quantity of children, varying from babies and toddlers all the way up to teenagers (I'm not actually sure how many are his; it seems likely that at least some are nieces, nephews, or other relations – in Cameroon, it's normal for people to send their children to stay with wealthier family members). I arrived at the chief's compound for the first time last August on the back of the bursar's motorcycle, armed with a letter from Peace Corps explaining who I was and what I would be doing in his village for the next two years. I was replacing a volunteer, so obviously the chief knew about Peace Corps and approved of having a volunteer in his village, but I couldn't help but feel incredibly nervous as I climbed off the moto and followed the bursar inside. Every day in Cameroon, there are tons of opportunities for a nasara (white person) such as myself to commit faux-pas, but here in the compound of this very important traditional figure the possibilities for embarrassing myself seemed limitless, and it seemed certain that I would be unable to make it through this visit without doing something incredibly inappropriate and/or offensive. I decided to try to do exactly what the bursar did, and as he slipped off his shoes before entering the compound I attempted to do the same.
“No, no, don't do that,” he said, stopping me. I looked at the pile of shoes at my feet, then back at the bursar dubiously. I was pretty sure everybody else in the compound was not wearing any shoes. “No, really, leave your shoes on,” he insisted, and so I did. Apparently not only are there a million rules I didn't understand, but these rules would then change when you were a nasara.
I followed the bursar into the compound, where about fifteen or twenty men (all of whom were barefoot, I noticed) sat on a mat on the dirt floor of a large straw hangar. The chief sat facing them from a reclining chair – a fancy version of something you might lounge in on your lawn in the summertime in America – his feet propped up, looking simultaneously powerful, intimidating, and totally relaxed. A plastic chair was immediately produced and placed next to him for me to sit in, while the bursar joined the barefoot men on the mat at his feet. The chief and I shook hands and I introduced myself, then attempted to muster up all of my shaky French to answer his questions. What was I doing here (teaching English?), had I chosen this village (well, no...Peace Corps sent me here), how long would I stay, etc. etc. I bungled my way through his questions, attempting correct answers, and ending most sentences with “I'm very happy to be here”, knowing the words for that in French and hoping that it could not possibly offend. We sat in awkward silence for a bit, and at some unseen signal, the bursar got up and we said goodbye to the chief and left.
I didn't return until this June, being busy with school, travel, and sickness, and also figuring that the chief had more important things to do than hang out with some awkward nasara. Then a volunteer who lived in Meme a few years ago came back to visit, and I accompanied her to visit the chief. Now that I was more experienced in the village and in French, this visit was less intimidating, and I realized that despite all his grandeur, the chief is actually a pretty laid-back and friendly guy. He asked me about school and why I never came to visit him (whoops) and insisted I return the next morning to make a “photo de famille” – family portrait. We did, and I promised to return to his compound after my trip to the south.
So I went down to Yaounde for a few weeks, and upon my return I went back to visit the chief as I had agreed, mentally preparing myself for the awkwardness of being the only person in the room who is a) a woman, b) sitting in a chair (besides the chief), and c) wearing shoes (except, I noticed, for the chief's guard, who lost a leg to diabetes and wears a prosthesis with a built-in shoe on it)...not to mention having white skin, speaking English (or French, really...all the conversation that happened in the compound except between me and the chief was in Mandara or maybe a little Fulfulde), etc. The chief was reclined as usual with men on a mat at his feet, but he sat up and smiled when he saw me and I shook his hand, bowed a little, and looked at the ground (a sign of respect). A plastic chair once again materialized at his side and I took a seat, smiling and attempting to remember everything I had ever learned about appearing polite and respectful in Cameroon. We shot the shit for awhile (“How was your trip?” “How have things been in village?”), and men filtered in and out of the compound, shaking hands and taking their shoes on and off. A car pulled up and two important-looking men came in. “Salaamaleikoums” went around the room and then they sat down and everybody raised their hands and began to pray. I was feeling pretty uncomfortable and even more out of place, when I realized that this was pretty much the same as every other religious situation I had ever awkwardly and accidentally found myself in, and I could employ the same coping mechanisms I used when people, for example, said grace before dinner – sit quietly with my hands in my lap and look at the floor. Perfect.
The chief proceeded to disappear inside with the newcomers, telling me he would return in a minute. We all sat around for awhile (me awkwardly in my chair, the men on their mat on the floor), some of the men chatting in Mandara, others nodding off. A few goats strolled out of the compound and off towards the market, followed by a nervous looking peacock and her baby (peacocks are status signals here, and all the important people have at least a couple). Then to my surprise a giant tortoise came ambling nonchalantly across the compound, and mentally I kicked myself for making fun of my Mandara tutor, who had attempted to teach me the word for 'turtle' a few days ago – I had laughed and immediately forgotten it, never having seen a turtle in the desert of the Extreme North. I guess you never know what vocabulary you will need when you are a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon. The chief's guard – an ancient, toothless man with diabetes, one leg, and apparently a few words of French – struck up a conversation with me. We began with the universal conversation-starter, the weather:
“It's been raining.”
“Yeah, that's good.”
“White people like the cold, don't they?”
“Yup.”
...then moved on to other topics:
“You have diabetes medicine in America, don't you?”
“Well...yeah?”
“Next time you go, you'll bring me some, right?”
“Of course.”
People are always asking you to bring them things from America, and this used to really annoy me and send me off on a typical Peace Corps tangent about how not all white people are rich, and about how I'm here to share skills and information, not just give presents, etc. but now that I'm a worn out second year volunteer, I tend to just agree to whatever they ask. I could see the guard was attempting really hard to think of things to say (“What the heck do you talk to a nasara about, anyway?”), and after the weather and diabetes, we moved on to airplanes and finally Ramadan before the chief reappeared. We hung out a bit more, and he explained to me that the two men who had arrived were important marabouts (spiritual healers?) from Mora. After about an hour of small talk and awkward silences, I figured it was about time for me to go. Unsure how to make my exit, I suddenly just blurted out:
“I'm going to the market now.”
This seemed about as good a way of doing things as any, and after discussing what I would buy at the market (“umm, food?”), the chief disappeared into his room again and came back with a can of Malta (basically a non-alcoholic beer-type product that Cameroonians love). It was Ramadan, so we couldn't eat or drink, but it's rude to send a guest away without eating or drinking, so this apparently was the compromise. I thanked him and promised to return again soon, feeling accomplished and relieved to once again have made it out of the chief's compound without doing anything terribly inappropriate.
As I hung out waiting for the chief to return from the marabouts and watching his menagerie stroll in and out of the compound, I had ample time to think about the real purpose of my visit. In linguistics, we talk about “phatic” expressions – things you say not to convey any information, but simply to open the line of communication and acknowledge that the other person exists (for example, “hello”). The purpose of my visit to the chief seemed to me purely phatic – I was going just to remind the chief that I knew he existed – and as an American who values efficiency, it was difficult for me to see why this visit should last more than five minutes. At first I became restless during awkward pauses and while the chief went off to do other business, knowing that it would be rude for me to leave but also feeling like I had accomplished the true “purpose” of my visit. But then, looking around at all the other men who were just waiting around for the chief too, I realized that just greeting the chief and acknowledging his existence wasn't enough. Sitting and waiting while the chief wasn't even there had its own purpose – to demonstrate my respect for him. Important people in Cameroon do this all the time – a prefet will announce that he will arrive to begin a ceremony at 10am, then not show up until noon, sometimes making hundreds of people wait hours in the sun, for the sole reason of seeing them demonstrate their respect for him. For Americans, with the monetary value we place on time, and also the importance we place on equality rather than hierarchy, being made to wait is one of the most difficult things to get used to...but it has the same function as addressing someone as “sir”. This again is one of the challenges and (often) joys of being a Peace Corps volunteer – learning how to redefine “purpose” and “success”.
“No, no, don't do that,” he said, stopping me. I looked at the pile of shoes at my feet, then back at the bursar dubiously. I was pretty sure everybody else in the compound was not wearing any shoes. “No, really, leave your shoes on,” he insisted, and so I did. Apparently not only are there a million rules I didn't understand, but these rules would then change when you were a nasara.
I followed the bursar into the compound, where about fifteen or twenty men (all of whom were barefoot, I noticed) sat on a mat on the dirt floor of a large straw hangar. The chief sat facing them from a reclining chair – a fancy version of something you might lounge in on your lawn in the summertime in America – his feet propped up, looking simultaneously powerful, intimidating, and totally relaxed. A plastic chair was immediately produced and placed next to him for me to sit in, while the bursar joined the barefoot men on the mat at his feet. The chief and I shook hands and I introduced myself, then attempted to muster up all of my shaky French to answer his questions. What was I doing here (teaching English?), had I chosen this village (well, no...Peace Corps sent me here), how long would I stay, etc. etc. I bungled my way through his questions, attempting correct answers, and ending most sentences with “I'm very happy to be here”, knowing the words for that in French and hoping that it could not possibly offend. We sat in awkward silence for a bit, and at some unseen signal, the bursar got up and we said goodbye to the chief and left.
I didn't return until this June, being busy with school, travel, and sickness, and also figuring that the chief had more important things to do than hang out with some awkward nasara. Then a volunteer who lived in Meme a few years ago came back to visit, and I accompanied her to visit the chief. Now that I was more experienced in the village and in French, this visit was less intimidating, and I realized that despite all his grandeur, the chief is actually a pretty laid-back and friendly guy. He asked me about school and why I never came to visit him (whoops) and insisted I return the next morning to make a “photo de famille” – family portrait. We did, and I promised to return to his compound after my trip to the south.
So I went down to Yaounde for a few weeks, and upon my return I went back to visit the chief as I had agreed, mentally preparing myself for the awkwardness of being the only person in the room who is a) a woman, b) sitting in a chair (besides the chief), and c) wearing shoes (except, I noticed, for the chief's guard, who lost a leg to diabetes and wears a prosthesis with a built-in shoe on it)...not to mention having white skin, speaking English (or French, really...all the conversation that happened in the compound except between me and the chief was in Mandara or maybe a little Fulfulde), etc. The chief was reclined as usual with men on a mat at his feet, but he sat up and smiled when he saw me and I shook his hand, bowed a little, and looked at the ground (a sign of respect). A plastic chair once again materialized at his side and I took a seat, smiling and attempting to remember everything I had ever learned about appearing polite and respectful in Cameroon. We shot the shit for awhile (“How was your trip?” “How have things been in village?”), and men filtered in and out of the compound, shaking hands and taking their shoes on and off. A car pulled up and two important-looking men came in. “Salaamaleikoums” went around the room and then they sat down and everybody raised their hands and began to pray. I was feeling pretty uncomfortable and even more out of place, when I realized that this was pretty much the same as every other religious situation I had ever awkwardly and accidentally found myself in, and I could employ the same coping mechanisms I used when people, for example, said grace before dinner – sit quietly with my hands in my lap and look at the floor. Perfect.
The chief proceeded to disappear inside with the newcomers, telling me he would return in a minute. We all sat around for awhile (me awkwardly in my chair, the men on their mat on the floor), some of the men chatting in Mandara, others nodding off. A few goats strolled out of the compound and off towards the market, followed by a nervous looking peacock and her baby (peacocks are status signals here, and all the important people have at least a couple). Then to my surprise a giant tortoise came ambling nonchalantly across the compound, and mentally I kicked myself for making fun of my Mandara tutor, who had attempted to teach me the word for 'turtle' a few days ago – I had laughed and immediately forgotten it, never having seen a turtle in the desert of the Extreme North. I guess you never know what vocabulary you will need when you are a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon. The chief's guard – an ancient, toothless man with diabetes, one leg, and apparently a few words of French – struck up a conversation with me. We began with the universal conversation-starter, the weather:
“It's been raining.”
“Yeah, that's good.”
“White people like the cold, don't they?”
“Yup.”
...then moved on to other topics:
“You have diabetes medicine in America, don't you?”
“Well...yeah?”
“Next time you go, you'll bring me some, right?”
“Of course.”
People are always asking you to bring them things from America, and this used to really annoy me and send me off on a typical Peace Corps tangent about how not all white people are rich, and about how I'm here to share skills and information, not just give presents, etc. but now that I'm a worn out second year volunteer, I tend to just agree to whatever they ask. I could see the guard was attempting really hard to think of things to say (“What the heck do you talk to a nasara about, anyway?”), and after the weather and diabetes, we moved on to airplanes and finally Ramadan before the chief reappeared. We hung out a bit more, and he explained to me that the two men who had arrived were important marabouts (spiritual healers?) from Mora. After about an hour of small talk and awkward silences, I figured it was about time for me to go. Unsure how to make my exit, I suddenly just blurted out:
“I'm going to the market now.”
This seemed about as good a way of doing things as any, and after discussing what I would buy at the market (“umm, food?”), the chief disappeared into his room again and came back with a can of Malta (basically a non-alcoholic beer-type product that Cameroonians love). It was Ramadan, so we couldn't eat or drink, but it's rude to send a guest away without eating or drinking, so this apparently was the compromise. I thanked him and promised to return again soon, feeling accomplished and relieved to once again have made it out of the chief's compound without doing anything terribly inappropriate.
As I hung out waiting for the chief to return from the marabouts and watching his menagerie stroll in and out of the compound, I had ample time to think about the real purpose of my visit. In linguistics, we talk about “phatic” expressions – things you say not to convey any information, but simply to open the line of communication and acknowledge that the other person exists (for example, “hello”). The purpose of my visit to the chief seemed to me purely phatic – I was going just to remind the chief that I knew he existed – and as an American who values efficiency, it was difficult for me to see why this visit should last more than five minutes. At first I became restless during awkward pauses and while the chief went off to do other business, knowing that it would be rude for me to leave but also feeling like I had accomplished the true “purpose” of my visit. But then, looking around at all the other men who were just waiting around for the chief too, I realized that just greeting the chief and acknowledging his existence wasn't enough. Sitting and waiting while the chief wasn't even there had its own purpose – to demonstrate my respect for him. Important people in Cameroon do this all the time – a prefet will announce that he will arrive to begin a ceremony at 10am, then not show up until noon, sometimes making hundreds of people wait hours in the sun, for the sole reason of seeing them demonstrate their respect for him. For Americans, with the monetary value we place on time, and also the importance we place on equality rather than hierarchy, being made to wait is one of the most difficult things to get used to...but it has the same function as addressing someone as “sir”. This again is one of the challenges and (often) joys of being a Peace Corps volunteer – learning how to redefine “purpose” and “success”.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Locked Out
The other day I was heading back to post after spending the weekend in Maroua. I had had a successful weekend, eating good food, spending time with friends, getting some work done. That morning I had bought phone credit, gone grocery shopping, and was feeling like a successful, prepared volunteer as I crammed myself into the bush taxi. We made great time and didn't make a single stop (it's normal for a car to stop several times on the way to village, for prayer or to show identification to gendarmes or because you break down) and I was enjoying myself thinking about how I would spend my time in village this week (visit the chief, swing by the Catholic mission, start planning lessons, try and practice some Mandara...). We arrived at the turn-off for my village in no time at all, and as I climbed out of the bush taxi I saw my favorite moto driver, Amada, waiting for me. He grabbed my bags and I put on my helmet and climbed onto the back of his motorcycle. Everything was going perfectly, until halfway down the three kilometer dirt road I realized I had left my house keys in Maroua. Shit.
We arrived at my house and I went about trying to locate a pair of spare keys. I always leave my house keys in my cubby in Maroua, not wanting to carry anything superfluous in case my purse gets snatched. Super paranoid about getting locked out, I had also planted spare sets of keys in strategic locations to avoid a situation like this. My postmate – who had just left for the south on vacation – had a copy at her house in a nearby village, there was a spare in my box at the Peace Corps house in Maroua (currently sitting next to the originals) which I had intended to give to another volunteer, and there was a spare securely locked inside of my house. As I sat down on my stoop next to a goat I realized that all my elaborate back-up plans had led me to do an excellent and thorough job of pranking myself. Plan C? I called my principal.
“I'm locked out of my house...do you know anyone in village with a spare key?”
“Of course not. You have all the keys. No one else should have copies of your house keys.”
This is true. That is incredibly unsafe...and in every other situation, it would be very reassuring...but I had kind of been counting on a key magically materializing. I proceeded to text my postmate, who was en route to Ngaoundere, to see if the guy watching her house could find my spare key and send it to me. As I waited for her response, I called him myself.
“Le numero que vous avez compose n'est pas disponible pour l'instant...” His phone is off.
Fortunately, everyone in Cameroon has two phone numbers (there are two main cell phone providers here, and one will have better reception than the other in certain places, so most people have both), so I tried the second one. Indisponible. I began running down the list of phone numbers I have for people in her village (which turned out to be quite a few). Indisponible. Indisponible. Indisponible. I was getting pretty desperate as I made it all the way to the bottom of the list, calling the second phone number of my Mandara tutor. It rang! And he picked up! I explained the ridiculous situation, and asked if he could get in touch with Claire's housesitter.
“Oh Bello? He's out working in the fields. He won't be back until tonight.” Shit. I hung up the phone to find a text from Claire, informing me that my key was securely locked in a trunk in her house. Awesome.
So I made one last phone call, to my moto driver Amada who had just picked me up from the Maroua car, asking if he was willing to pick me up again to take me back to Maroua. His French isn't that good, but I managed to get across that I wanted him to come pick me up, and he said he was getting on his moto immediately (in fact, he would spend the next half hour hanging out at his house and presumably taking a nap (it was hot that afternoon), before coming to get me). I passed the time at my neighbor's, sitting on a low stool in the mud-walled entranceway to their compound with four of the older women (ranging from probably late thirties to sixties). My neighbors speak approximately three words of French, but coupled with the approximately fifteen words of Mandara I have learned, we got by okay. And when I say “got by okay” I mean we both just said things to each other that the other didn't understand, and then everyone laughed a lot. They asked me what was happening, and I explained in Frandara (Mancais?) that I had left my keys in Maroua. There was a lot of discussion and each woman seemed to have a different interpretation of what I was trying to say. Then Tata – one of the mothers (rather than grandmothers) I know best, who is a typical big African mommy, missing a couple teeth and always with a giant grin on her face – asked me some more Frandara follow-up questions (“Cles? Baka? Haa Maroua?”). Her eyes widened and she shot off in rapid-fire Mandara to the other women. This was followed by everyone bursting into fits of laughter. I had made myself understood.
Forgetting one's keys is stupid in any location, but the idea of “locked out” is I think particularly ridiculous here, where there are usually at least five, and up to twenty or thirty people all living in the same compound, so there is ALWAYS someone at home. The idea that a house would be empty and everyone would be gone long enough that it would need to be locked up in the first place must have seemed pretty bizarre to my friends in village, making my predicament all the sillier. Oh, the goofy things that white people do.
After the laughter died down and normal conversation resumed, Tata pointed to her shirt and said two words in Mandara that I *did* understand: “Patele. Shagra!” 'Patele' means pagne/fabric/clothing/etc., and 'shagra' is a versatile term that means 'it's good'. The other women echoed her sentiment, and as I looked around the little room I realized that all the woman there were wearing my old t-shirts (which I had given them after cleaning out my house a few weeks ago), and were really excited about it. As we were all laughing about this (and I was attempting with my limited vocabulary to find a way to say “You're welcome! I'm glad you like them!”), Amada finally pulled up and I began my return to Maroua.
We stopped at the “gas station” (a wooden crate on the side of the road filled with old water bottles that now contain gasoline; you pay an eight year old and he funnels it into your motorcycle) before heading out, and I was starting to chill out a bit. Then, approximately five minutes later, the moto sputtered to a stop.
“Umm...what's going on?” I asked.
“Oh, it's no big deal. I had like NO gas in my moto when I came to get you, so it just hasn't gotten down there yet.” This did not make a lot of sense to me, but I got off the moto, Amada shook it back and forth a few times, it started back up, and we set off again sans probleme. About an hour later, we were starting to get close to the city and I was letting go of my frustration, when the moto sputtered to a stop again. In the middle of nowhere.
“Umm, Amada, what is the problem?” Amada inspected the moto, laughed, and said:
“Hmm. Maroua is far, huh? I guess I should have put more gas in!”
I climbed off the moto and looked to my left, then to my right. Fields and mountains and a few cows. No “gas stations” in sight.
“Well...what are we going to do?”
“Il n'y a pas de probleme,” Amada reassured me with a smile. It seemed to me like there definitely WAS a probleme, and like we were going to be walking to Maroua, when Amada climbed back on the moto and once again performed his magical moto shaking moves, and somehow the moto sputtered back into life and we were able to ride out the last few drops of gasoline to make it to the next gas station.
We made it into the city hot and tired (and sunburned...I spent a lot of the ride picturing my sunscreen, safely locked away in my house in village...) but uneventfully, and as Amada dropped me off at the Peace Corps house I decided to take this whole experience as a sign from the universe that I should spend another night eating ice cream, taking showers, using a toilet, and enjoying the internet. And so that is what I did.
Often in Peace Corps, you will have days where everything you try to do – no matter how simple – will just fail completely. In fact, most mornings as I leave the house, even if I am just planning to visit a friend or go to the market, I try to remind myself that it's pretty likely that things will not work out at all as planned, and that that is okay. One of my favorite things about Africa is that no matter what you try to do (easy or complex, normal or new), absolutely anything can happen to you. Sometimes these things are incredibly frustrating (like getting locked out), but even the frustrating things usually lead to funny and wonderful situations (like hanging out with friends and eating ice cream). And at the end of each day – whether or not you can call it a success – you almost always end up at the very least with another ridiculous Africa story.
We arrived at my house and I went about trying to locate a pair of spare keys. I always leave my house keys in my cubby in Maroua, not wanting to carry anything superfluous in case my purse gets snatched. Super paranoid about getting locked out, I had also planted spare sets of keys in strategic locations to avoid a situation like this. My postmate – who had just left for the south on vacation – had a copy at her house in a nearby village, there was a spare in my box at the Peace Corps house in Maroua (currently sitting next to the originals) which I had intended to give to another volunteer, and there was a spare securely locked inside of my house. As I sat down on my stoop next to a goat I realized that all my elaborate back-up plans had led me to do an excellent and thorough job of pranking myself. Plan C? I called my principal.
“I'm locked out of my house...do you know anyone in village with a spare key?”
“Of course not. You have all the keys. No one else should have copies of your house keys.”
This is true. That is incredibly unsafe...and in every other situation, it would be very reassuring...but I had kind of been counting on a key magically materializing. I proceeded to text my postmate, who was en route to Ngaoundere, to see if the guy watching her house could find my spare key and send it to me. As I waited for her response, I called him myself.
“Le numero que vous avez compose n'est pas disponible pour l'instant...” His phone is off.
Fortunately, everyone in Cameroon has two phone numbers (there are two main cell phone providers here, and one will have better reception than the other in certain places, so most people have both), so I tried the second one. Indisponible. I began running down the list of phone numbers I have for people in her village (which turned out to be quite a few). Indisponible. Indisponible. Indisponible. I was getting pretty desperate as I made it all the way to the bottom of the list, calling the second phone number of my Mandara tutor. It rang! And he picked up! I explained the ridiculous situation, and asked if he could get in touch with Claire's housesitter.
“Oh Bello? He's out working in the fields. He won't be back until tonight.” Shit. I hung up the phone to find a text from Claire, informing me that my key was securely locked in a trunk in her house. Awesome.
So I made one last phone call, to my moto driver Amada who had just picked me up from the Maroua car, asking if he was willing to pick me up again to take me back to Maroua. His French isn't that good, but I managed to get across that I wanted him to come pick me up, and he said he was getting on his moto immediately (in fact, he would spend the next half hour hanging out at his house and presumably taking a nap (it was hot that afternoon), before coming to get me). I passed the time at my neighbor's, sitting on a low stool in the mud-walled entranceway to their compound with four of the older women (ranging from probably late thirties to sixties). My neighbors speak approximately three words of French, but coupled with the approximately fifteen words of Mandara I have learned, we got by okay. And when I say “got by okay” I mean we both just said things to each other that the other didn't understand, and then everyone laughed a lot. They asked me what was happening, and I explained in Frandara (Mancais?) that I had left my keys in Maroua. There was a lot of discussion and each woman seemed to have a different interpretation of what I was trying to say. Then Tata – one of the mothers (rather than grandmothers) I know best, who is a typical big African mommy, missing a couple teeth and always with a giant grin on her face – asked me some more Frandara follow-up questions (“Cles? Baka? Haa Maroua?”). Her eyes widened and she shot off in rapid-fire Mandara to the other women. This was followed by everyone bursting into fits of laughter. I had made myself understood.
Forgetting one's keys is stupid in any location, but the idea of “locked out” is I think particularly ridiculous here, where there are usually at least five, and up to twenty or thirty people all living in the same compound, so there is ALWAYS someone at home. The idea that a house would be empty and everyone would be gone long enough that it would need to be locked up in the first place must have seemed pretty bizarre to my friends in village, making my predicament all the sillier. Oh, the goofy things that white people do.
After the laughter died down and normal conversation resumed, Tata pointed to her shirt and said two words in Mandara that I *did* understand: “Patele. Shagra!” 'Patele' means pagne/fabric/clothing/etc., and 'shagra' is a versatile term that means 'it's good'. The other women echoed her sentiment, and as I looked around the little room I realized that all the woman there were wearing my old t-shirts (which I had given them after cleaning out my house a few weeks ago), and were really excited about it. As we were all laughing about this (and I was attempting with my limited vocabulary to find a way to say “You're welcome! I'm glad you like them!”), Amada finally pulled up and I began my return to Maroua.
We stopped at the “gas station” (a wooden crate on the side of the road filled with old water bottles that now contain gasoline; you pay an eight year old and he funnels it into your motorcycle) before heading out, and I was starting to chill out a bit. Then, approximately five minutes later, the moto sputtered to a stop.
“Umm...what's going on?” I asked.
“Oh, it's no big deal. I had like NO gas in my moto when I came to get you, so it just hasn't gotten down there yet.” This did not make a lot of sense to me, but I got off the moto, Amada shook it back and forth a few times, it started back up, and we set off again sans probleme. About an hour later, we were starting to get close to the city and I was letting go of my frustration, when the moto sputtered to a stop again. In the middle of nowhere.
“Umm, Amada, what is the problem?” Amada inspected the moto, laughed, and said:
“Hmm. Maroua is far, huh? I guess I should have put more gas in!”
I climbed off the moto and looked to my left, then to my right. Fields and mountains and a few cows. No “gas stations” in sight.
“Well...what are we going to do?”
“Il n'y a pas de probleme,” Amada reassured me with a smile. It seemed to me like there definitely WAS a probleme, and like we were going to be walking to Maroua, when Amada climbed back on the moto and once again performed his magical moto shaking moves, and somehow the moto sputtered back into life and we were able to ride out the last few drops of gasoline to make it to the next gas station.
We made it into the city hot and tired (and sunburned...I spent a lot of the ride picturing my sunscreen, safely locked away in my house in village...) but uneventfully, and as Amada dropped me off at the Peace Corps house I decided to take this whole experience as a sign from the universe that I should spend another night eating ice cream, taking showers, using a toilet, and enjoying the internet. And so that is what I did.
Often in Peace Corps, you will have days where everything you try to do – no matter how simple – will just fail completely. In fact, most mornings as I leave the house, even if I am just planning to visit a friend or go to the market, I try to remind myself that it's pretty likely that things will not work out at all as planned, and that that is okay. One of my favorite things about Africa is that no matter what you try to do (easy or complex, normal or new), absolutely anything can happen to you. Sometimes these things are incredibly frustrating (like getting locked out), but even the frustrating things usually lead to funny and wonderful situations (like hanging out with friends and eating ice cream). And at the end of each day – whether or not you can call it a success – you almost always end up at the very least with another ridiculous Africa story.
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