Gendarmes and general life (alliteration :))

I’m thinking that even though Espresso House and Bastos (pronounced bas-TOHS) are expensive, maybe they are worth it; the last two times I’ve been, I’ve had pretty good experiences, people wise. These interesting experiences have both occurred after leaving/while trying to get a taxi back to Biyem-Assi—the neighborhood I’m familiar with. One time when I went, I got a free cab ride home, paid for by a man named Godlove who gave me his business card and told me to call him so we could go out for drinks another day. Sadly, I didn’t. He seemed like a nice guy, but I tend to exercise a little more caution than is necessary in such situations.
On Sunday, I spent several glorious hours reading and enjoying actual quick WiFi (like, youtube videos that load quick) as well as some real coffee at the wonderful establishment that is espresso house. Suddenly, it was seven o’clock and getting dark. I’d forgotten my laminated passport photocopy, which serves as my identification, should the police stop me and ask for it, which they are authorized to do whenever they feel like it, and which they choose to do more often when it isn’t light out. Sprinkles of rain began to fall from the sky and darken the pavement as I walked down the stairs and across the street to wait for a taxi.
After five minutes, and six or seven rejections from taxi drivers it was basically pouring rain. I was trying to create a sort of body umbrella over my bag so my little netbook would stay dry (which it probably would have anyway thanks to its neoprene case) when a fullish taxi stopped and the Gendarme (policeman) sitting doubled with another man in the passenger seat told me to go to Mokolo for 200CFA and continue from there. I figured that couldn’t be worse than waiting in the rain, and arguing with the police seemed like an especially bad idea, given my lack of ID situation. I opened the back door to the cab to discover three men, who were moving as far to the left as possible to make room for me. I felt bad about being soaking wet, but no one said anything about it, so I figured it was alright. The gendarme in front said a few words to me in French to which I responded with either “Oui,” “Non,” or a shrug of the shoulders.
Not much later, my three companions in the back reached their destination and I got the back seat to myself. The driver wiped the quickly fogging windshield with a dirty rag every few seconds so that he could at least see the water droplets on the other side. The car had no windshield wipers. A few minutes later the cab stopped at what turned out to be Mokolo. I deposited two hundred franc coins in the waiting hand of the cab driver and ventured out into the rain which had started to fall in thick sheets that bounced off the asphalt. The gendarme also got out of the cab and motioned for me to follow him, which I did.
We ran/walked across the street until we got to an overhang sheltering a few dozen other rain refugees and joined them ourselves. The gendarme asked me something or other. I think it was whether or not I was afraid of the rain. He then asked me if I spoke French to which I responded not really (rather self explanatory, we’d been having the conversation in French). After that there was silence between us and no one else dared bother me because I was standing with a Gendarme. It was pretty nice.
It’s always funny looking out from places where people are sheltering themselves from the rain to all the other overhangs which are similarly packed with assortments of people who happened to be walking by when the rain began. Images of London or maybe New York pop into my head; hundreds of people rushing down a street heads covered by drab umbrellas with the occasional red one thrown in. A different world. Anyway, not too much time later the rain let up a bit and the Gendarme (I never did learn his name) led me over a few streets to a big hill and literally put me in a cab to the apartment. What a nice guy. Unfortunately he is definitely the exception rather than the rule. This was my most recent encounter with a Gendarme. I’ve had more than a couple others.
The first time I had to interact with one I was walking to an internet café from the apartment. It was the second or third week I’d been in the country and I more or less had no idea what was what. My French was also even worse than it is now (hard to imagine, I know). So there I was, walking along the side of the road, looking around awkwardly and flinching whenever a taxi honked at me when this car full of four or five gendarmes pulls up next to me. First, they asked me where I was going. By the time I’d figured out the word for internet café in French, they had established that I didn’t actually speak French. The conversation proceeded in English, which they spoke rather well. I was then offered a lift, which, at the time, scared the shit out of me. I insisted that I didn’t want a lift and would rather walk. They told me it was dangerous to walk. I told them it wasn’t far, but thank you very much for your offer and advice. I walked the rest of the way. I got to the call box and called my mom who reassured me about the matter. I don’t think that would even phase me now. How things change.
The next few encounters were in taxis, where the taxi driver was pulled over and fined for some or other violation. Not really big deals, but still a pain. In Limbe, however, our bus of awkward white people driven by none other than Julio, our awesome bus driver, got sent back to the hotel by a Gendarme with a large antiquated rifle who, after looking at all of our passports, told us it was unsafe to be out at night. We went back to the hotel. No biggie. On the same trip, another military officer wanted to confiscate all of our cameras because he apparently thought we were spies from Malawi. He eventually let us off the hook after taking pictures with Ashley and Zeus and asking one of them to be his wife.
One night after retrieving snacks from the bakery, I headed home looking to catch a moto taxi (don’t tell Teku!) but unable to find one who would take me for a price that wasn’t ridiculous, I decided to walk to Tam Tam where there are a ton. Halfway through my walk, I encountered a checkpoint. The Gendarme running it got my attention and asked for my ID, which, thankfully, I had. However, he was unsatisfied with it, saying that photocopies were not valid, even if they were certified by the chief of police. Bullshit. He told me he needed to see my real passport, which I didn’t have. I rummaged around in my bag, but I couldn’t find my phone to call Mr. Teku, who did have my real passport. He told me he would have to take me to the station. I used lots of sirs and of courses in my response and he told me to go talk to his friend, who was named Rene and wanted my phone number. I had finally found my phone in the depths of my bag so I had to give him my real number—he would see it if it didn’t ring when he called me. Big Gendarme man came back and told me I could go then, but in the future I should always have my original passport with me; photocopies were unacceptable. Relieved, I continued my walk to Tam Tam and finally got a moto for 150 francs. I now avoid the bakery at night for fear of running into Rene who called me six times the next morning, none of which I responded to.
The most annoying encounter I have had thus far happened the following night. Eric and I were in a taxi on our way to Montee Jouvence to meet up with most of the group at a bar owned by Liz’ host family. The taxi had nearly reached the intersection where the bar is when a Gendarme pulled us over and asked for our IDs. He then proclaimed that they were expired. Completely false. Our taxi driver was beginning to be pretty pissed off, so we paid him and got out. The Gendarme still had our IDs and told us he was going to have to bring us down to the station. Eric called Mr. Teku at this point who told us to wait there, he was coming.
Twenty or so minutes later, when Mr. Teku still hadn’t shown up and we still didn’t have our passports, one of Liz’ host brothers appeared and asked us what was going on. He ended up paying a bribe so that we could go. When Mr. Teku finally did show up several minutes later and found out about the bribe, poor Patieu was given hell about it. We bought him a beer and it was all resolved, I hope. It turns out our IDs weren’t expired at all. Big surprise.
So there they are, all my exciting police encounters. Sorry if it’s badly written. Hope it’s not too hard to read.
A la prochaine.

Piece Number Two

So, I like this one less, and I am taking out the horribly cliched ending because it makes me kind of sick to my stomach. ca va?

On second thought, I am keeping the cliched ending and taking off the title, which is even worse. Try not to throw up.

New Title: Climbing Mount Cameroon (yay, super original, right?)

Six of us went on the trip, and we seemed to make up a pretty good group. We met on Thursday at 10.30 at the apartment, after minor delays for various reasons, including me waking up to find a dying, bleeding rat next to my toilet. Our group departed from the apartment around 10.45 for the bus station with our minimal luggage. Each of us had packed with the intention of bringing everything all the way up the mountain with us. I had what I was wearing plus a change of clothes, underwear, socks, minimal toiletries and a first aid kit carefully stuffed into the lilac l.l.bean backpack I have been toting around since the middle of eighth grade.
Elite, who works for the program and has been a wonderful friend to each and every student, volunteered to accompany us clumsy Americans to the bus station and make sure we were loaded onto a bus heading in the correct direction. After hailing a beat up taxi without door handles on the inside to the bus station, she helped us buy our tickets and suggested that six of us sardine pack ourselves into the back seat so that we could sweat and be sweat on by each other instead of sharing the sweat of strangers.

Although there are supposedly scheduled times for buses to leave, the way it actually works is that they leave whenever they are full. We narrowly missed a large, comfortable looking bus and instead ended up on a large white toyota van with five people crammed into each four person row (full means full). As we were some of the first arrivals to the van, we had a while to wait before it filled up enough to leave and I elected to walk around the area a bit instead of waiting in the bus where I would be spending the next few hours. I found a bar with a refrigerator and bought some deliciously cold water for the ride. Eric, who was walking around with me, bought some soya; Cameroon’s spiced kebabs, for a bit more than standard price. In Cameroon location food can still be more expensive, but it’s nothing compared to the twenty dollar hamburgers at ski lodges back at home, or even five dollar airport coffee. Eventually we returned to the bus and five of us assumed our sardine like positions on the back bench seat while Andrew sat a little further forward on his own.

Six uncomfortable hours later, we arrived in Buea, the town on the foot of Mt. Cameroon (incidentally, also the town that my host family is from). The changes that had been gradual on our long drive there were stunning when we finally stood up and exited the white van to fetch our bags, which had been tied to the roof with long leather straps and a weather worn grey tarp. We bumbled around for a few minutes taking in the greener view and the shocking chill in the air. Just as the six of us were beginning to move away from the bus to a spot where it looked like other travelers were hailing taxis, the bus driver stopped us and offered to drive us to our hotel for free. His gesture of kindness meant a lot after having spent all day in the hot, packed van. We loaded back in and began the ten minute journey down winding roads up towards the foothills of the mountain to Landmark Hotel where we were greeted by a familiar face; Max.

Max is an incredibly talented artist from Buea whose acquaintance we had made of a previous trip to the area. He was more than kind to us, personally paying for a taxi that took us around all night as well as accompanying all six of us to the ecotourism agency to make arrangements for our climb. Four of us comfortably rode in the taxi while the other two were chauffeured by Max himself.
The ecotourism agency turned out to by a typical shop front. The distance between it and the street was occupied by several small concrete steps leading to a porch like platform with a few plastic chairs and wooden benches. The inside of the agency was minimal but hospitable with enough plastic chairs and benches to accommodate all six of us as well as Max and the director of the agency; a short, rotund, balding man dressed in a blue striped oxford button down, khaki trousers, and braided leather sandals. A much younger man lingered in the back of the shop behind our cluster of chairs and benches. I probably would not have noticed him had it not been for his pure white trousers and bright yellow Ed Hardy t-shirt.

The business of the evening then began with price lists being distributed, discounts awarded, and arguments waged about how much food and water, and how many porters we actually needed. In a gesture of kindness even stronger than before, Max paid for all of our food which Paul, the younger man in the bright clothes was promptly sent out to purchase before all of the stores closed for the evening.
In a final gesture of incredible kindness, Max directed us towards a restaurant where we celebrated Amelia’s 21st birthday with expensive food and some beer. Curiously, the waitress told us she had no Smirnoff ice, and proceeded to serve a bottle of it to a table outside. We concluded that she did not like us. After another brief outing to clerk’s quarters, a small but lively neighborhood that was not far from our hotel, we went back and attempted a good night’s sleep to prepare ourselves for an early morning departure.

At six o’clock we packed our backpacks, and headed out the door, where we met up with the director of the agency, wearing exactly the same clothes he had had on the night before, as well as Paul, who was dressed in muted browns and greens with rubber hiking shoes. We started walking right from our hotel. The six of us trailed Paul and the agency director up a few hills until we arrived at a small white house where four other men with aged hiking back packs were standing on the porch and attempting to overstuff their already full packs with bottles of water and loaves of bread as well as a jar of peanut butter we had brought along. After a breakfast of bread and peanut butter and some group pictures, we finally set off for hut one; the first of four huts that we would encounter on the trip.

The path wasn’t too tough or steep. It reminded me a lot of hiking in the Wienerwald when I was younger with its dense leafy forest and steep muddy paths ridden with gnarled tree roots. It was only when we reached a clearing and could look down onto the dense tree tops, or saw a tree on the side of the path with roots coming up out of the ground so that a sort of square hollow appeared in its trunk that it was clear I was in Africa and not Europe. For the first hour or two I walked in front of the pack with Paul, our previously flashy dressing guide. He was a quiet 18 year old in trade school to become a welder. He did express interest in marrying me, but wasn’t too persistent when I told him I wasn’t on the market. Hut one was elusively far away and our many water breaks only made it seem further. When we did eventually reach it, it seemed to appear out of nowhere and was a lot larger than any of us had expected. The hut actually consisted of two buildings. Decaying wooden stairs led up to a large building with a wrap around porch where our group of six collapsed on sturdy benches for a water and bread break. Adjacent to this was another white building that all of the porters and Paul congregated around and inside of to laugh and talk and smoke. The porters amazed me. Where as I was having a somewhat difficult time with my light backpack and comfortable running shoes, two of them were wearing plastic sandals and all four of them had heavy packs, yet none of them complained and all were moving much more quickly than I was.

Once we reached the tree line the world seemed to open up. The clouds above us obscured the peak of the mountain, but the view of Buea and Douala below was spectacular. Loose rocks and clumps of hardy grass were the only covering for the rest of the mountain and this made walking more difficult, at least for me. Paul and the porters did not seem phased by it at all. The hut after hut one is called the new hut on account of its being built more recently than the other three. It is constructed of silvery tin which sparkles and glares in the sunlight and can be seen all the way from Buea. During our break at the new hut, Paul told us about and pointed to a tree called the magic stick, on account of its always seeming so close but actually being quite far away. This caused us to start singing a song that had been popular a couple of years ago: “I got the magic stick, shortie you know I can hit once, I can hit twice.” The magic stick continued to seem quite near for about an hour until we finally passed it. After several more hours of determined uphill walking, we began to drift into hut two one by one. I encountered a shirtless Paul wielding a rusting machete to chop scrawny trees for firewood just as I was about to crest the hill that would reveal hut two. He informed me that I looked beautiful when I was tired and I told him I probably looked dead, but thank you.
I finally stumbled into hut two and immediately took of my shirt to lay it on the roof so that hopefully it could dry in the remaining sunlight. I then grabbed a sleeping mat and my sweatshirt and headed up the hill a bit where I rolled out the mat and collapsed into a dreamy daze like sleep for a few minutes. After recovering a bit, I began to appreciate the incredible view afforded by the altitude. The cities of Buea and Douala lay at the bottom of the mountain stretching out towards the horizon where a blue river snaked towards the sea. To the left and right the hills of the mountain stretched out into huge expanses of green grass spotted with collections of loose volcanic rock. It was truly beautiful. The color of the rock was the only thing that differentiated this landscape from the Alpine hikes of my childhood.

The six of us napped and read and listened to music for a few hours while our guides and porters prepared a meal for us and themselves. I felt bad and like I should have been helping, but my general experience has been to do what I think is expected of me, and I was most definitely not expected to help with the food, so I day dreamed. I covered various topics ranging from Chipotle burritos to Swan Lake before two pots and an assortment of bowls appeared outside the kitchen hut and we were summoned to a meal of spaghetti and a thin sauce of tinned tomato and chewy, fatty chunks of beef. We all shoveled copious amounts of spaghetti down our throats and went back for seconds before realizing that it had suddenly turned very cold outside and we retreated to the inside of the hut to don whatever warmer garments we had brought with us including sleeping bags. Intoxicated with carbohydrates and made stiff by extra layers of clothes, we stumbled back up the hill, rolled out sleeping mats and plopped down on top of them. We looked like fat, happy caterpillars in our hooded green sleeping bags as we watched the stars grow in nudmber above us and the lights of the city begin to sprout beautiful intricate patterns in the valley below. The temperature continued to fall with the setting sun and eventually the wind that had started to pick up forced us down from the hill to huddle around a fire built from the twiggy trees I had seen Paul cutting down earlier. We listened to the porters have animated conversations in Pidgin, which we could understand just enough of to discern the topics of conversation which ranged from history lessons in school to the best football player in the world. We also sipped whiskey from small plastic pouches and washed it down with kool-aid. The mixture of fire and whiskey helped to warm us up.

After inhaling a fair amount of smoke from the fire and listening to a vast array of stories and discussions, including a joking story from a porter named Simon about his plans to obtain political power and embezzle enough money to support his family for several generations to come, Paul appeared with two more pots and the same assortment of plates and spoons. This time, the larger pot contained rice instead of spaghetti, but the smaller one had the same thin tomato sauce. We ate bowls of rice huddled in our sleeping bags around the dying fire and then retired to our room where we laid six sleeping bags and mats out in a row on a raised wooden platform. After attempting to brush our teeth we each wormed our way into our own sleeping bag and attempted sleep kicking our neighbors if they began to snore or encroach upon our sleeping mat territory. The night passed slowly with patches of sleep and patches of tossing and turning and suddenly realizing that it isn’t cold enough to warrant wearing two sweatshirts and three pairs of pants.

5:30, the wake up time we had decided on as a group came sooner than I had expected. One by one we began to roll out off the wooden platform to brush our teeth. We waited until we heard movement next door where Paul and the porters were sleeping before rolling off of our wooden platform and stumbling out into the daylight where a pot of water was waiting for us to make tea with. After scarfing down some bread and peanut butter with the tea, Paul led five of us upwards towards hut three and the summit. One of our group unfortunately had to stay behind because of allergies.
The walk to hut three was far from easy, and at the beginning Paul warned us several times that if we didn’t pick up the pace, we would be unable to make it to the summit and make it down in the same day. It seemed impossible to go any faster even when we tried. The cold wind bit at us and crumbling rock make us lose our footing, not to mention that the mountain at this point was very steep and walking up it without the crumbling rocks would have been difficult enough. A few hours later, we reached hut three where we put on additional layers to guard ourselves against the wind, and stored our bags before continuing up to the summit.

Forty five minutes later Paul led us to a rock with a beat up metal sign claiming that we were at the peak of the mountain. Next to the beat up sign was a cracker tin which he opened to reveal a cheap school notebook and a pencil and then closed again. I am not sure about the purpose of the notebook, but I was far too focused on resisting the wind, which seemed intent on blowing me over, to bother to ask. After spending what was probably less than ten minutes at the summit, during which we were involved in various activities such as taking photos, filming ourselves doing a Cameroonian dance called the Bikutsi, and not being blown off the mountain, we began our descent back to hut three. Much to my surprise I was somewhat good at the going down part of mountain climbing and this placed me once again at the front of the pack with Paul, who was silent and kept his distance, looking back every once in a while to make sure I was still there.

Twenty minutes and we were already arriving at hut three where we picked up our bags and had a short chat with a South African man and his wife who were also climbing to the summit. They had also spent the previous night at hut two and were headed down the other side of the mountain on a trail that would take them a day longer than the Guinness trail, which we had climbed up and were also planning to climb down. An hour or so after beginning our descent we reached hut two where a lunch of rice and fish waited for us. The rice was orange and flavorless, but it filled up our empty stomachs with enough fuel to get us the rest of the way down. After an hour or so of eating and shoving belongings into various backpacks, we continued or descent towards Beua. My skill at descending faltered somewhat and I spent a lot of time falling on my bum and hands and broke out my first aid kit every time I started bleeding. Somehow, I was still a fair bit faster than many of the others, as was Eric, and we continued on ahead of them taking a short break at the new hut and a break at hut one where we met up with one of the porters named Peter who walked the rest of the way down with us. The tree line started a little bit before hut one and once we entered it, the going got much easier and I fell less.

The trees finally spit us out in front of a prison and a field of cows. We followed Peter down several more rolling hills until we finally reached a main road. Several taxis passed us up before one took pity on us and stopped. The three of us shoved packs into the trunk before loading ourselves in with two other women and heading into town. Peter graciously paid for the taxi ride when we arrived at the agency where the three of us collapsed onto the wooden benches on the concrete porch and chugged bottles of water.

After taking several minutes to recover, I created a new mission for myself: I was going to find a shirt so that I could have a clean one for that night. This began and ended with me speaking to a vendor selling football paraphernalia about a block away from the agency, but in between I visited a few other vendors on different streets to see what was available. Eric and Peter put up with me for a little while before going to buy food and sitting back on the porch. I eventually migrated back there as well with the additional possession of a low quality Eto’o jersey that set me back three thousand francs. An hour of sitting on the benches passed and the liquor pouches left over from the night before came out and were consumed, washed down with some top grenadine generously donated to us by Peter. An older man appeared and began to chat with Eric about having been invited to the Boston marathon in his youth, but having been unable to obtain a US visa, he was unable to go. He proclaimed that he had run the Mount Cameroon marathon a few months ago. I was incredibly impressed. It took me two days to walk up and down the mountain. The marathon runners make it up and down in less than five hours. Half an hour later I wandered across the street and purchased some more whiskey packets to keep life interesting; an hour later the rest of our group finally piled our of a taxi and we showed the agency director that we had in fact made it alive.

When we finally made it back to the hotel to take much anticipated showers, we found that there was no electricity or running water. Hardly a hindrance; the hotel manager gave each room a set of candles and each of us showered using a plastic cup and a bucket of water by candlelight. I might not have sparkled, but I got several layers of dirt off with that shower. I then donned my new Eto’o jersey and we headed to clerk’s quarters for some excellent braised fish and some more drinks. By midnight each of us were back in our beds at the hotel on the verge of falling asleep from exhaustion. The next morning, after paying for our stay, we departed in two small groups for the bus station to fold our sore bodies up into contorted positions for six hours and listen to various salesmen who happened to board the bus. The first sold newsletters of witchcraft which reminded me of celebrity tabloids back at home. One preached to us, which seemed fitting as it was a Sunday, and the last tried to sell Ginseng powder, claiming it was a cure for all sorts of maladies and also offering various life advice. I enjoyed his spiel the most. After six hours of being curled up around my backpack with my legs over the wheel of the bus, it finally pulled into the bus station in Yaounde and, to my surprise, I was still able to stand up. I carefully uncurled myself and made my way back into this city that has become my home. We caught a cab back to the apartment where I focused very hard on not moving my sore legs for several hours.

Overall, the trip was incredible. Max, Peter, and our bus driver from Yaounde to Buea were excellent wake up calls to the human capacity for kindness to strangers and near strangers, something I find myself forgetting in a city where I am constantly warding off whistling men. Their kindnesses have helped me to try and give everyone I come across more of a chance. If I assume the worst then the worst is far more likely to come out in a person. There is nothing like climbing an active volcano to remind you of the grandeur of our planet, and nothing like meeting the people of Buea to remind of the goodness of humanity.

Please excuse the fact that this is horribly written. Kthanks.

Creative Writing Pieces

So, there are two of these, and they are both pretty long. I'll post them separately so as to overwhelm anyone who chooses to torture themselves by reading them less.

The General Ridiculousness of My Life in Yaoundé

Who do I think I am?

I can see it in their eyes. They resent me; and I can’t blame them. They are three majestic looking African women. I am a puny white girl. I am walking back to what I have come to realize is a very expensive apartment in the heart of the capital city. They sit in front of a small building which I might have described as a shack several weeks ago, but is in fact a normal business arrangement. Usually, they gut shiny silver fish into huge metal bowls, occasionally donating some fish innards to a passing dog. Today, there are no fish in front of them. They watch a wiry teenage boy push a wheelbarrow filled with crates of Isenbeck beer towards them, and rise to help him unload the commodity into their building. I have come to realize that this is a bar. In the evening, they grill the fish they are always gutting and the three or four tables outside of the small wooden building are places for their customers to sit and drink, and maybe eat fish. It is late afternoon now, four o’clock. I am walking back with an empty plastic plate and a large avocado, products of a failed trip to the omelets shop. It was closed. I am watching a small girl in a brightly colored kabba as I pass them. She is in the way of the wheelbarrow with the Isenbeck. I can’t help thinking that she is unimaginably adorable. This is when I look up at the women, who are just beginning to arouse themselves from their slightly less than sturdy plastic lawn chairs in order to help unload the Isenbeck. I see them looking at me. Who am I? Why am I constantly walking by them, purchasing random things, thinking my life is hard because I have to walk on various missions for thirty minutes to find mangos and to not find headphones? Who the hell do I think I am?

I feel this way often in Yaoundé. I almost want to go up and say “It’s not my fault! I didn’t ask to be born a rich American and for you not to be. Maybe that’s not why you’re angry. Maybe you think I’m lazy? Well, I can’t argue there, by all African standards I am immeasurably lazy. But look! I’m admitting it! I’m trying! Really, I’m a nice person!” But even if I could say all of that effectively in French, they would probably just think I was slightly crazy, or arrogant, or both. Maybe I am.

Walking the Walk, and Daily Life with the Elakias

Sometimes, I think it’s a wonderful idea to walk around the city. I like walking. Usually it turns out well. I’ve learned to deflect the ever so common “Ma Cheri! C’est comment?!” with laughter, smiles or just plain ignoring, depending on the situation. I feel shock proof. I am fine. I can handle it all. I walk into the bakery to buy cookies for my host siblings. I am thirsty. I buy a small bottle of topamplemousse. It tastes like sugared seltzer water, but it is delicious. I take several sips, seal the bottle, place it in my blue canvas messenger bag, and walk out onto the dusty orange street that has more potholes than asphalt, towards home. It is getting dark. Crap. That is not on the list of things I have shock proofed myself against. Dark is bad. Scary even. Anything can happen in Africa in the dark. I walk quickly. The Tam tam market seems so far away, and that is only halfway home. In my hurry, I trip over my feet. A man sitting at a wooden table underneath a beach umbrella adorned in triangles of primary colors with dirty laminated signs hanging from it says something to me. I assume it is unkind and shoot him a hurt look after recovering my footing and continue my hurried walk, trying to escape from the darkness. I am sweating a lot. Even though it is getting dark, it’s very hot out. There is a dark patch on my light grey V-neck top where the strap of my bag crosses my body. I feel something dripping down my leg. I walk faster. The dark is catching up. I put my hand on my bag to shove it aside as I pass a large dumpster and I stop. My bag is wet. The topamplemousse. Shit. I open my bag to discover the nearly empty bottle with its lid seemingly secure resting where I had left it. The little grapefruits that adorn the bottle give me sinister looks. I curse and throw the mostly empty bottle into the dumpster. The men sitting next to the dumpster in old, moldy green car seats are taunting me. My frustration clouds my ability to decipher their language. I zip up my sticky bag and walk on. All of my books will be slightly moist. I try to hail a cab. One. Two. Three. Four. Five turn me down. Fuck it. I’m walking. It is dark now. There is a slight choking feeling in my throat. The frustration is getting the better of me. But I’ve made it to Rond Point Express. I dodge behind the flock of moto drivers so they can’t oogle and yell at the silly white girl. I can make it. I do. After several hills which seem like small mountains and minimal stumbling over large rocks which have become invisible in the dark, I arrive at the rust colored gate with the gold Mercedes symbol. Deep breath. Ring doorbell.

The night guard opens the gate. “Bonsoir!” He is one of the more sane people in my household, but I don’t get to exchange pleasantries for long. Ten year old Gracias runs down the three white tile stairs that lead onto the concrete ground where cars are parked at night and children play during the day. “Auntie Carrie! You’re late!”
“Um, sorry?” is the response that falls out of my mouth before I can kick myself into the more polite version of Carrie that I attempt to keep up in the house. “I’m going to put my stuff down,” I tell her. She follows me into my room. I just wanted a minute to take a deep breath. Oh well. I dump the contents of my sticky bag onto my untidy bed and carefully separate out the book I am reading. It seems to have suffered minimal damage. I place my journal and French book on my colorful plastic shoe rack to dry and tell Gracias I am going to the bathroom so she will leave. But then Sarah comes in and takes my hand.

“You will eat now,” she says softly while looking me straight in the eyes in that completely unashamed and alarming way which only the mentally handicapped can manage.
“Two minutes Sarah. I’ll be there.” I go wash my face and take about twenty deep breaths before I feel like I can deal with other humans. I walk down the T-shaped hallway and make a left into the kitchen where Sarah is waiting for me with a plate. She attempts to put four huge boiled plantains on my plate, but I refuse two of them. I am then led to a large pot of Ndole sitting on the stove. I am learning to like Ndole, but the meat in it will probably always be beyond me. I’m pretty sure it’s chopped up cow knees or some equally undesirable part of the animal. She dishes two large pieces of the bone-and-cartilage filled chunks onto my plate and minimal vegetables. It’s really not my day. “Is there any Tangui?” I practically beg. She takes a bottle of what I am well aware is filtered tap water out of the fridge. Whatever. I don’t feel like arguing. I’ll deal with the stomach trouble I know will be the result of drinking it. Both of us march to the dining room through the beige brocade curtains up the single step onto the raised platform where I set my plate of food on the white imitation marble table decorated with little circles of imitation jade on each corner of the tabletop. I walk to the cabinet across from the table to pull out a woven placemat. Sarah half heartedly protests. I lay my placemat down under my plate of food and bottle of not-Tangui and take a seat on a white wooden chair with a green cushion to match the jade ornaments on the table. Sarah sits down across from me. I eat. She stares.

Thankfully, she tires of this after several minutes and leaves. I attempt to negotiate the cow knees and give up, but I finish my plantains and vegetable before returning my plate to the kitchen and sneaking quietly into the comfort of my room. After a much needed shower, I lay down on my bed with my moistened book. I get through about three pages before Manfred, the incredibly spoiled two year old, pushes open my door and heads straight for my paper covered armoire, which he begins poking holes in. There is already a forest of finger holes from previous attacks. He is quickly followed by Ella, the much more tolerable three year old. Reading in my room is a lost cause. I usher everybody out and retreat to the porch with my book where I am nibbled by mosquitoes and other hungry insects, but able to read in relative peace for a few minutes. Then Gracias informs me that she needs to plait my hair and I completely give up on the damp book. At least there are fewer bugs in the parlor.
I sit comfortably in front of the television on the floor while Gracias nestles in a plasticky grey armchair behind me, an evil looking comb with a pointed end in her hand. She uses the end of the comb to carve out sections of hair all along the sides of my head. She is making me into Alicia Keyes from the music video “Empire State of Mind” which played several minutes ago on TRACE, the African variation of MTV. This is a vast improvement over the usual plaiting which comes with brightly colored plastic beads in the shapes of both cowry shells and monkeys. I can’t complain too much.

The plaiting takes forever, or an hour at least. Daddy comes home and TRACE, which he does not approve of, is switched to Africa Magic: the channel which plays Nigerian films and soap operas. The characters all speak very quickly, and although it is English that they are speaking, their accents are very strong and I understand little of what is being said. My Alicia Keyes hair turns out pretty well, but forces me to stay awake long enough to participate in “taking the texts,” my family’s Jehovah’s Witness version of nightly Bible study. I routinely reach varying degrees of anger during this family gathering, and attempt to avoid it to varying degrees of success. Once or twice, the gathering has turned into “preach to Carrie” time, but this is not a usual occurrence. Thankfully tonight we learn about how we should appreciate all things great and small before saying a quick prayer. I then escape to bed. What a day! I can’t help contemplating the twists, turns, and general ridiculousness of my life as I attempt to fall asleep against a wall which is sandwiched between me and the Africa Magic blaring television.

The Joke Isn’t Always on Us!

There are so many moments when I am forced to look at my life and laugh; sometimes because crying only makes it worse, but oftentimes because really, it’s very funny. Twice a week there is dance class, traditional Cameroonian dance class. The whole group goes; all thirteen of us awkward white people who can’t shake the right parts of our bodies fast enough or sometimes even at all. It’s generally a very good time. Our accompaniment is made up of traditional drums played by Marcel and Nono. These drums vary; there is the large hollow log called a Balafon, the widely known Djembe which actually originated in South Africa, and the wooden xylophone type instrument; sometimes small bongos make an appearance as well. Our teacher is called Alain. Marcel, Nono, and Alain all get a huge laugh out of watching all of us and our complete disability to replicate pretty much all movements demonstrated by Alain. Our enthusiastic, yet largely failed attempts to copy Alain’s movement always leave us drenched in sweat by the time we descend to the floor for the yoga-esque movements which we have learned are a signal that the end of class is coming soon.

Class has just ended, and it is ‘le huit mars:’ women’s day. Alain invites the class to a show that he is going to be in later that night. Six of us decide to go. We change into our women’s day outfits and walk out of the dimly lit studio with its partially sprung wooden, and partially concrete flooring surrounded by colorful artwork which takes up all available space on each of the walls. We follow Alain, Nono, and Marcel down the dusty alleyway to the street where we manage to hail some cabs that are headed in our general direction. We help Nono and Marcel not so carefully put their instruments into the trunks of the taxis and split; four people to the back of one cab and three to the other. The cab I am in pulls up across the street from Yaoundé’s very large and extravagant Hilton hotel. Nono, Alain, myself, and Amelia stumble out. I help Nono get the Djembe out of the cab. It has its own Djembe backpack. I put the Djembe backpack on my back and Amelia and I file across the street after our instructors. We enter what seems like an overly extravagant restaurant for Yaoundé, where a waiter dressed in a suit of yellow women’s day fabric asks us if we’d like to be isolated or together. Amelia picks the together option for us, and when we learn that together means we would be split up and placed at tables where neither of us knew anyone else (and everyone else spoke only French) we quickly change our response to isolated, at which point we are ushered over to a table in the far corner. The tables are long and covered in white table cloths. The chairs are also covered in white cloths which are elegantly tied at the back. There is a stage at one end of the room and directly across from it a large buffet of silver chafing dishes. A round table in the middle of the room is also covered in a white table cloth and silver chafing dishes. On the other two sides of the room, long, dressed up banquet tables take up as much space as possible. There are bottles of wine on each table along with enough silverware for two courses and a plate of small round deep fried things which turn out to be similar to pound cake.

Our first thought when we walk into the room is ‘What did we get ourselves into?’ which is quickly followed by ‘we can’t afford this!’ Amelia and I question each other. I have 2000 CFA, she has 3000. We are sure a meal here for one person will cost between 7000 and 10000. The banquet hall is perhaps forty percent full. Everyone who is there looks affluent. The women all wear women’s day dresses, and some of the men wear suits made out of the fabric of the day, while others sport business suits. Everyone is making small talk and nibbling the fried appetizers on their tables. Everyone is also African. Amelia and I eye the friend pound cake balls hungrily while waiting for the rest of our group.

They arrive four or five minutes later, and they share our fear of not being able to afford anything. We sit around our isolated, white-robed banquet table and laugh at the ridiculousness of our lives. A woman in a pink women’s day suit holding a microphone makes welcoming announcements in French. We hear her say something about our awkward table and we giggle to ourselves. Eventually someone convinces Amelia to question our hosts about the price of food. She comes back with wonderful news. This is a sponsored event and all of the guests will eat and drink for free! The evening has just improved. A lot. Several people go off on Smirnoff Ice finding missions and the rest of us tuck into the fried pound cake balls with zest before heading off to the chafing dishes, which are being opened by men and women in black and white uniforms. I am particularly excited about the two trays of salad which are covered in very sanitary looking cling film that is being removed by a uniformed waiter. Salad is very uncommon in Cameroon, and one of my favorite things to eat. This salad is delicious. I heap a plate full of it, as do many of my companions. I wolf it all down in a manner that is much too quick to be any version of polite. Seconds are in order.

There is dancing too; Alain in a turquoise silk shirt appears with three rather scantily clad women. I do pay attention to the dancing, but not half as much attention as I pay to the food. I think I had forgotten to eat lunch, so I am particularly hungry, and the food is particularly excellent. Overall, the experience is a wonderful success. Unfortunately, we have to go. It is nearing eleven o’clock, and we don’t want our host families to be worried about us. I arrive home to a locked door. Everyone has gone to bed; even the night watchman isn’t there. I guess women’s day is a holiday for him too. After I ring both bells; the one that looks like a light switch and the one that looks like a button, six or seven times, my eighteen year old host brother unlocks the door to the compound and lets me in. He scolds me lightly for being late, something which I have learned to shrug off as playful teasing. I go to my room and, with much displeasure, realize that there is no running water. Showering will have to wait until the morning. I lay down on my bed and fall asleep almost instantly, despite the blare of Nigerian soap operas from the other side of the wall.

Running Feet and Working Feet

There are moments when I’m taken aback by my privilege in regard to the hardships of others. There is the very obvious, like the women I so often run past with huge, heavy looking bags on their heads. They are always well dressed, because, in Cameroon, everyone dresses well. Bright pagne cloth wraps around their bodies and usually covers their heads too. It is their feet which always strike me. They look swollen in their blue or green plastic flip flops. Maybe it is only because my feet are so thin that I think theirs look swollen and ill. I know my feet haven’t had incredibly easy lives, but that was all more or less self-imposed. That was for an art, not for survival. I feel like their feet have known much more pain than mine, yet my arrogant skinny feet run right past their painfully swollen ones, and my feet think nothing of it. Never before have I been forced to so blatantly examine the arrogance and privilege I thoughtlessly enjoy than when I run for recreation past women carrying sacks of corn, cocoyams, cassava, or something else on their heads up a steep hill to a market that is not close so that they can sell it and maybe earn enough money to feed their families. It’s almost as if I’m highlighting my privilege by running for recreation next to them.

For some reason, this does not shame me enough to keep me from running. Maybe it would if their quiet resilience was the only form of human life I encountered on my excursions. If the herds of school children didn’t point and laugh at the silly, slow white girl; if the taxi drivers didn’t “Bon Courage” me from their windows during rush hour; these are the things that make me running on some of the same roads where women carry huge sacks on their heads marginally okay.
There are other things that happen which make me angry; like when the man who slices pineapple at the top of Carrefour Vogt imitates my slow jog while I pass him and shouts “Ma Cheri, I love you!” at me, or when the school children point and laugh, or when a man tells me that he will join me “la prochaine fois.” Sometimes I garner an audience from the top floor of the next building while I stretch after running, but that doesn’t make me too unhappy. They are far away and not shouting things.