This week was probably one of the most trying weeks of my time here, not because anything happened to me personally, but because I empathized greatly with the plight/situations of those around me. On Monday, I assisted Teckla with doing wound care for a man who had gotten in an awful motorcycle accident. The next day, a young woman came in who was about the deliver her baby. Pauline calmly cleaned her office at the health center while I anxiously tried to read my Smithsonian magazine to the background of her guttural grunts and moans. After about ten minutes of hearing these groans increasing in succession and strength, I grabbed Pauline and asked her if we could please check the woman. An hour and a half later, the woman was in labor, with me as the assistant. I didn’t actually do anything as the assistant during the delivery itself, other than feeling a huge adrenaline rush and I implored the woman to ‘go, go, push, push’ whenever she had a particularly strong contraction. She delivered a healthy baby boy, and after the placenta was delivered and Pauline cut the umbilical cord, she handed me the baby to wash it off, soap and dry it, and then bundle it up. Despite knowing that children are pretty hardy beings, I was scared to death of harming the wriggling, wrinkly bundle of baby. I was also the first one to rock and hold the baby boy – eee! I brought the baby over to his mother, who didn’t seem pleased at all to see her son, and in fact, did not want to hold the baby at all (I understand that she is probably exhausted, but good lord, it’s your baby!). Although, to be fair, the mother’s lack of enthusiasm to have a baby could also be due to the fact that she’s 17 years old. The whole experience was absolutely amazing, and served to reaffirm, yet again, that I will not be having children anytime soon. I also proved my worth as a pseudo African woman by carrying a 10-liter bucket of water on my head for half a mile – woohoo!
On Wednesday, Kate and Adrian came up to visit me in Mamfe and Kembong. I decided to meet them in Mamfe and from there, we all went to the hanging German bridge, taking pictures and tentatively crossing over the wobbly, timbered bride that’s suspended 400 feet over the now-shallow river. It was a cool experience, and it was great to experience it with friends. From there, we headed back to Kembong. Once there, all the children and some of my neighbors gathered to meet these strangers, before Kate, Adrian, Pauline and I headed for roast fish and beers at Chop My Money. Despite a minor fiasco where Pauline flipped out that I was having people pay for their own drinks, even though I had made it clear that if people wanted to join us, that it was an ‘American’ invitation (a Cameroonian invitation is one where the person inviting people is expected to pay for everyone else’s drinks and food – not happening with my PC budget), we had a wonderful time and went back to my home to chill out on my veranda. Although I enjoy living alone, it’s also great to have visitors – but on the flip side, although I was super happy to have them with me, it was nice to have my space back.
Backtracking to Monday of this week, there was a most disheartening incident that occurred with my teenage neighbor girl, Precious. Precious’s father died when she was young, and she is the youngest daughter of five girls, several of whom still live in their uncle’s family’s compound with their mother. Precious has told me before how she has had problems paying for school fees, most notably because her mother gave her uncle the entirety of her school fees, and her uncle proceeded to ‘chop the money’ (take it and spend it for other purposes, also a euphemism for corruption). Consequently, Precious was ‘driven from school,’ meaning that the school staff goes through and if students haven’t paid the entirety of their fees, they don’t get to stay at school. Quite literally all of the students that gather at my house on a daily basis have been driven from school at one point or another. Anyway, the point is that Precious really wants to be in school – a great, and somewhat rare, thing. On Monday, I heard these heart-wrenching sobs coming from near Precious’s house. I immediately went over to investigate, finding Precious curled into the fetal position, sitting on her veranda. I immediately gave her a hug, started rubbing her back and making soothing noises as I waited for her crying to abate so that she could tell me what was wrong. Other children had gathered around, and wanting privacy, I asked her if we could go to my house. She acquiesced, and after we went into my house, I sat her down and asked her what was wrong. She proceeded to tell me that she had gotten angry with her mother and her uncle and had spoken harshly to them because both refused to pay her school fees, and provide for her. She said that the situation had come to a head during Youth Day, and that her mother had refused to feed her, even acknowledge her because her daughter was angry and had spoken harshly. She then told me that her uncle had beat her, and was a wicked man. She had gotten in another fight with both mother and uncle that day, and her mother refused to acknowledge her, while her uncle accused her of being a prostitute, and told her that if she wanted to pay her school fees, that she should earn them by being a prostitute (it’s worth mentioning here that her school fees were 3,000 CFA, the equivalent of $6…), and he proceeded break her spirit by telling her that he was going to call his father from the grave to deal with her/haunt her (resurrection is a big deal here, so for Precious, this was a very real, horrifying threat). He then proceeded to beat her again, telling her that he would not only not give her the money for the remaining school fees for this year, but also would not pay for her next year of school (my thoughts: pshaw, he didn’t even pay for this year’s school fees). When people asked why he was beating her/why she was sobbing uncontrollably, he proceeded to tell people that she was a wicked girl who did not want to go to school, and that he was beating her so that she should have the desire to go to school. Precious again expressed to me her ardent desire to go to school, particularly as all of her friends whose families weren’t able to pay their school fees are now pregnant. To make matters worse, the awful uncle is my landlord, David. Precious’s spirit was completely broken, and she could scarce tell me the story without her voice cracking/breaking down crying every other sentence. I was livid. How on earth does David get off thinking that it is in any way, shape, or form okay to completely break the spirit of a 16 year-old girl, just because she wants to go to school??! After making Precious dinner so that she could eat, I formed a plan of action with her. I asked her what were the absolute things that she needed for her school fees, books, etc (a total of 10,000 CFA, $20), and told her that I would pay for it under the condition that she must sweep the outside of my compound once per week (a 30-minute task, at most) and help my cleaning lady, Rita, every Tuesday morning from 6-6:45 before she went to school – all for two months. I also wrote the school staff a note saying that I would be coming the following day to pay the school fees, and under no circumstances should she be driven from school. It was incredible how much her demeanor changed – she offered me a tentative smile, and seemed, for the first time since I found her sobbing, actually hopeful. The next day, I went to the school and paid the remaining balance for Precious’s school fees, test books, and work books. From there, I negotiated a meeting with Felix Tanyi to chat about what to do, both of us deciding that the next course of action would be to mediate a discussion between Precious and her mother. At first, Precious was not at all open to the idea, but after chatting with her, she understood that things as they were could not continue. I orchestrated the time, and had the negotiation/intervention in my house. Felix mediated the discussion, which was ideal due to his status in the community, and his ability to converse in Ejagham. The meeting brought a the much-needed resolution to the issue: Precious would be getting fed and acknowledged at home, her mom would support her school efforts, and Felix gave her his business card with his personal line, so that she would have recourse if anything like this should happen in the future. At this time, nothing would be done to deal with the uncle, lest he take it out on Precious. After seeing how relieved Precious looked, I was happy. And after all was said and done, Precious chatted with me on my veranda saying how grateful she was that I intervened, and how good of a person I was – unnecessary praise for the actions that I knew to be right, especially if the end result is the restoration of spirit/happiness for this girl.
The next few days passed uneventfully, and before I knew it, I was heading to IST with Layne, Julia, and Pauline. It was an absolutely incredible feeling to see everyone again (and very overwhelming, but in a good way). We celebrated the first night together with a delicious meal with our counterparts, followed by watching a traditional Northwest masked dance routine – a fabulous end to a somewhat trying week!
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