Hi everybody!
So I am in Maroua for a regional Peace Corps meeting, and the electricity, and hence the internet, was out most of the day yesterday and all day today until a few hours ago. It finally came back, so I’m going to try to get a quick post up before the “lumière” cuts out again.
The past few weeks at post have been very busy, but super fun. It is “fête” time in Cameroon- there is some sort of celebration almost every week until the end of the school year. Two weeks ago was Bilingualism week, which I got the honour of organizing as the English Department head. And last week was Fête de la Jeunesse, or Youth Day. I’ve also been trying to take more Fufulde lessons with Cheryl and our tutor, Mahamadou.
Before I left for my IST conference in December, I tried to go for a run every morning. Since I live in a fish bowl, everyone noticed. Teachers started making comments at school- Tu es forte! Quoi!? Une femme qui fait le sport!? The day before leaving, the gym teacher at school found me and insisted that it was NOT ok for me to go running alone. He proposed that we should work out together and that he would make a schedule and devise an exact routine, complete with cardio and calisthenics and muscle strengthening and proper stretching! Well, Cameroonians often talk about future plans but rarely follow up on them. So, I smiled and nodded my consent, my brain preoccupied with my eminent departure. I consequently forgot all about it. And of course, a few days after I had gotten back and school began again, I am woken up by a knock on my door at 5:15 A.M. Obviously, it’s the gym teacher, ready to go! I begrudgingly coalesced- I mean, I was up and awake at that point anyway. It turned out to be super fun and hilarious and it was interesting to see the differences in fitness training between cultures. He had me do all these ridiculous things like flap my arms pretending I was a bird, perform a hopping motion that was suspiciously reminiscent of leap frog, and attempt some pretzel like stretching exercises that my inflexible limbs refused to allow me to perform correctly. It was still pitch black dark when he first came and got me, but by the time all this craziness began the sun had started to rise. We drew a mini crowd and all the Cameroonians were fist dumbfounded, and than absolutely tickled by the “nassarra” faire-ing le sport. I even considered the possibility that maybe the gym teacher was having me do all this silliness as a great prank, but he was right there with me the whole time and made sure to observe the kids in gym class that day at school; and again they were doing all the same exercises! Gym teacher came the next morning as well… and this time the Vice Principal came with him!! If it was possible for my life to get more ridiculous, I think it just might have as I simulated wing flapping and toad hopping motions with the administration of the West African high school I try to teach English in….
I have a papaya tree in my front yard. It’s pretty giant. Now is “le moment” for papayas and the tree has been producing fruit like mad. I’ve become severely addicted- I mean like I gorge on papaya until I make myself sick. I think I’m subconsciously afraid that I’ll never see fruit again (at least until the next fruit season begins!) The fruit grows realy high up on the tree and usually Djoulde gets it for me with this super long pole thing he has with a hook on the end. Well, Djoulde’s been pretty busy lately with his nursery/garden. He hasn’t been to my house all that much. But there were 2 papayas that were becoming quite ripe and I didn’t want them to spoil. Of course I could have just walked over to Djoulde’s garden and asked him to help me. But if you know me, you know how stubborn and impatient I can be- my favourite maxim being “I can do it myself!” So, I fashioned my own long pole out of sticks and duct tape and wire shaped into a hook. I climbed about ½ way up the tree until I decided I couldn’t go any further without risking breaking a tree limb and falling to my death. The Papayas were still a ways up, and balancing on a precarious branch on my tiptoes while trying to loop the hook around the Papaya stem enough to pry it loose was a rather strenuous undertaking. But I succeeded and knocked one down! It thudded to the ground after hurdling past me and missing my head by only a few centimeters (and papayas are NOT dainty/light fruits. And it fell from a pretty steep height, so it picked up quite a steady velocity). Ignoring this blaringly obvious warning, I went to work on the second papaya (still directly beneath the fruit) It probably goes without saying that the second Papaya fell and hit me directly in the face. Yeah. I was terrified that I was going to have a black eye and have to explain how I got it to everyone in Hina, thus exposing my glaring stubbornness and stupidity. Luckily, it only left a red mark on the left side of my face that I chalked up to “sun burn” to anyone who noticed and inquired about it.
Bilingualism week- We celebrated the supposed bilingual nature of this country two weeks ago. The two official languages are English and French. (All those pesky tribal languages and various dialects don’t count. “We must only speak English and French. They are the countries that colonized us, so we don’t have a choice.”- this said by the principal to the kids… maybe I’m jaded, but I were a student, that would certainly be the last argument to motivate me to learn either of these languages. In fact, I would probably motivate me more to actively rebel against learning either of these languages of the countries that raped, pillaged, and enslaved my ancestors… or maybe I’m being overly dramatic. Still, when I try to convince my kids of the importance of English, I attempt to emphasize the benefits of being able to speak both English and French in Cameroon. For example, all of their universities are bilingual, so if a student does continue on to higher education, even if they are studying Chemistry, all of their classes could be taught in either language at the professor’s discretion. And obviously, most employers in the professional realm look to hire bilingual employees. Granted, these arguments can be rather unconvincing to most of the kids in Hina- who have never and will never leave the village limits- but I’d like to think it’s at least a little better than telling them they must speak French or English “because I said so”/ “that’s the way it is”/ or “they are simply the languages of our colonizers.” Anyway, throughout bilingual week, all teachers, students, and administration were to speak only English on school grounds and in the administrative block. Francophone teachers were to give at least 15 minutes of every class in English. These were great ideas in theory. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out as planned in practice. But the majority of teachers and a good amount of students did truly make an effort. So, Friday was the big day of all the festivities. The president of English lub gave a speech, a couple kids read poems in English, I tried to play jeopardy with English Grammar, and then we did a debate on the role bilingualism plays in being a professional in Cameroon. It went alright- I got very little direction about how the activities should be run, and then of course, the day of is when everyone and their brother decided to add their two cents on how things should have been done… mais ça c’est Cameroon. And I think the kids had fun, which is what counts!
