While I still
have internet, I thought I’d do another post highlighting a few more amusing and
serious experiences. The first amusing incident happened today during our
session on sexual harassment, where the language instructors/other Cameroonian
staff, and the stagiares were divided into men and women, American and
Cameroonian, to talk about gender expectations surrounding intimacy and sex. According
to the Cameroonian women, the social cues that they look for to determine if
Cameroonian men are interested are: gifts of bushmeat (in the villages) and
chocolate (in the city) and phone credit, and palm scratching (this happened to
me at a bar the other day – it gave me the willies – handshaking is a BIG deal
here, with every human greeting punctuated by shaking the hand of everyone in
the room, and when I was out for a soda (not a euphemism for beer, I was
actually having a soda), a man was chatting with his friends and after
commenting on the fact that I was clearly a Peace Corps volunteer, he shook my
hand, and he used two fingers (while doing the handshake) to scratch my
palm/wrist, which is the symbol for wanting to have sex with someone). According
to the American men, they know a woman is interested when she bakes brownies
and puts on romantic music, and a solo date movie night. Thought the
cross-cultural translation was interesting.
On
a more serious note, the hardest part of my service (other than language) has
been picking up on emotions, and it doesn’t help that I don’t have the French
knowledge to pick up on context clues. I can easily decipher when my family is
angry (thankfully never at me yet), because the voice volume raises
exponentially, and they speak really rapidly. Likewise, happiness is also easy
to determine because of our mutual smiling and laughing (thankfully I’ve been
increasingly more able to share in the jokes/smiles instead of them laughing at
me). However, joking and being upset is not easy to tell. I know this may sound
strange, but so far, my experience with Cameroonians is that they are very
passive. For example, when my host sisters and I went to the market to buy
cloth, on the way home, my host sister asked to see my cloth and said “oh, it’s
beautiful. I wanted this.” Gaah, what does this mean?! Did she mean she wanted
to buy the fabric herself; wanted me to buy it for her; she was complimenting
me on my good taste; or wanted me to split it with her? Who knows? Another
instance was when I went to the bar after class with my fellow stagiares. I
dropped off my books at home, greeted my family, and told them I was going to
meet with some friends, but would be home before our curfew. My oldest host
sister looked at me funny and then said, “ooohh, okay. But then when will you
eat?” I responded “oh, when I get home, there is no need to wait for me if you
all want to eat.” She seemed dissatisfied with this answer, and I still have yet
to figure out if she minded that I was going, or what the deal was. When I got
home, there was no mention of, or semblance of the awkwardness of our earlier
conversation. Other little instances have happened, but it seems that until I
acquire the French and cross-cultural skills necessary to understand context
and cultural clues, I’ll have to be content with the fact that if they were
truly upset about something, I would know. But on the plus side, this weekend,
my family finally let me help them with house chores and cooking after my
repeated attempts to help – yay! Apart from cleaning and cooking several fish,
I made an omelet, shelled peanuts and cooked them, and made a fire.
Another
amusing instance happened when I had a serious conversation in mostly French
with my host brothers and his friends about American women and dating.
My host
brother’s friend opened the discussion with the statement “all Cameroonian
women are ugly; all the American Peace Corps volunteers that come here are
beautiful” (keep in mind that he’s saying this on the veranda where I am
sitting in a small puddle of my own sweat, hair frizzing out in all directions,
zero makeup, and quite sure that the smell assailing my nose is not from the
fermenting cocoa beans, but rather from me... also, he’s saying this in front
of my 14 year-old host sister)
Me: “*audible
snort* Are you joking? I think that Cameroonian women are beautiful. Also, I
think it is one’s personality that makes them attractive (my thoughts: ha,
let’s see how you respond to that one!)
Him: Oh no,
American women are so beautiful.
My host sister:
Every creature that God made is beautiful.
Me: (not wanting
to turn this into a discussion about religion, I nod and smile)
Him: Do all
American women have fiancés?
Me (huge inner
sigh) No, they don’t.
Him: (grinning
ear to ear) Oh really?? Can you call [all the female stagiares in the village]
and ask if they have fiancés for me?
Me: HA (another
audible snort). No, I will not do that for you.
Him: (a stricken
look on his face) Why not?!
Me: Because if
you are interested, you need to talk to them yourselves. And I’m not wasting my
phone credit. And no, I will not give you their phone numbers. (winning smile
to smooth over the blow)
Him: Okay, well
I will talk to all of them, and we will date very, very soon (polygamy is
highly accepted in Cameroonian culture – but not polygyny).
Me: thinking how
to explain the meaning of ‘dream on’ in French, I simply smile and say ‘okay’
We
also have our site descriptions! As previously explained, we’re doing the
bidding system, where we have a list of sites, and choose our top and bottom
three. A little snippet from my top four are (in no particular order):
-
Integrated
Health Clinic in Kembong, in the Southwest region: replacement site, semi-rural,
Anglophone region, having other PCVs nearby, working closely with enthusiastic health
center staff, semi-reliable running water and electricity, and variety of
projects: nutrition, malaria, HIV/AIDS.
-
Integrated
Health Center in Djalingo, in the Southwest (they said this is in the SW, but I’m
pretty sure it’s actually in the North): replacement site, rural, but near to
bigger city, variety of projects – capacity building, malaria, nutrition,
HIV/AIDS, motivated partners.
-
Integrated
Health Center in Bapi, in the West region: replacement site, availability of a
variety of food, water and electricity, reliable counterpart, varied health
activities, francophone region.
-
District
Hospital in Pitoa, in the North: ability to work on the UNICEF SASDE project;
basically an ideal fit for what I studied at Emory, but I’m a little leery that
it’s in the North and advanced conversational skills in French are required,
and otherwise it’d be perfect.
We chat with the
health program directors next week before we head off to a site visit, where we
stay with a current PCV. The Wednesday of the following week, I’ll know the
direction of my next two years, and I couldn’t be more anxiously awaiting that
day!
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