2 May 2010
I’m coming up on my first full week back at home after being gone for a while. It sure is nice to be back in Ngong, sleep in my own bed, and play with my kitty Chavez again. I was in the southern part of the country for a good chunk of April, and apparently that was when the heat was the worst so I’m not too sad to have returned right when the rains started. Also, my French friend in town told me my French is much better now than when I left. Schwing! Anyway, I spent one week at IST (In-service training) in Foumban, a cultural-touristy city in the West (read: good food, not as hot) and then a week in Yaounde for a committee meeting—I joined the Environmental Education and Food Security Committee. I had a great time in both places, it was really fun to see all my friends from training again. I figured the Environmental Education committee be a good committee to join, particularly considering the poor treatment of the environment in my town. Plastic bags and sachets are everywhere, people relieve themselves whenever and wherever they feel like it, and whenever you finish with something, say a candy wrapper, you just drop it in the dirt. As some of you who have been to Africa know, this isn’t incredibly uncommon. Establishing some form of trash disposal isn’t generally high on the to-do list for most governments, though the population generally hates looking at all the trash around. The really sad part is that, like most problems, people blame all the trash around on poverty. There isn’t any money to clean things up, and there isn’t any money to change their ways. Which brings me to the first major project I’m undertaking…
Starting a trash collection system! The main thing people told me when I first got here was that our town is too dirty, we need to do something about it. (Often the person telling me this was flinging a bottle cap into the street or letting a plastic bag flutter off into the wind.) I tried to get something going with the chief of hygiene in town, a Monsieur Toloba, (actually a salaried position at the city hall) but due to a combination of an acute lack of French skills on my part, a mutual uncertainty of what the other’s job actually was, and a lack of funds, nothing really got started. Now, though, equipped with my apparently improved French, at least a feeling for how to get something done, some knowledge of where I might be able to find some funding, and a new sense of ambition to get some projects going, I approached M. Toloba earlier this week. Not only did he immediately jump on board, he’d already had something like this planned for a while, including a disposal system practically already in place. The only road block has been the mayor who hasn’t supplied any funds. We came up with a preliminary budget and hopefully this week we’ll get a map of Ngong and jump around to the different quartiers and see where we can install some trash cans.
The big problem in development work is how to make something sustainable. If you just come in and build something, eventually it’s going to break and then if there aren’t the proper resources—be it knowledge, money, etc.—it’ll just sit there broken and unused. What makes me excited about this project is that the city already has a means to dispose of the trash (depending on the month, Toloba has anywhere from 3-6 “agents” who work for him), a person who can be in charge of the project once my part is done, and the means to continue the project at a relatively low cost after we get the initial capital to get it running. I’m hoping to be able to get some funds through a Peace Corps program called SPA, and I believe the clams are provided by USAID. On a side note, if I’m not mistaken this is the only funding that comes to Cameroon from USAID—they pulled out of here a number of years ago. If that falls through, though, I might try something called a Peace Corps Partnership which is a program where I’ll make a description of my program and then Peace Corps will put that description online and people from around the world can donate to it from there. If that’s the case, I’ll make sure to post a link to it on this blog.
I think the toughest part about this project is going to be getting people to actually use the trash cans. Toloba and I are going to have to go around and sensitize many, many people in town as to the importance of the trash collection system and why they should use it. Also, we’ll have to pick the places in town where the trash cans can make the biggest difference. I’m going to make a bunch of flyers in French and Fulfulde and post them around town in the bars, restaurants, boutiques, and basically anywhere public.
Here’s hoping everything works out!
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Yaounde, then and now.
I'm in Yaoundé right now, sitting in the Peace Corps office. IST (In-Service Training) went well up in Foumban in the West Region but I'm stuck back here in the capital until probably Friday because I joined the Environmental Education Committee. I think the main goal of the committee is to meet twice a year and learn about how we can promote environmental education and tackle some environmental concerns in our communities. Anyway, I said I’m stuck in Yaoundé. Like that’s a bad thing.
We flew into Yaoundé back in September and while I’ve traveled through it to get to and from post, I haven’t spent much time of substance here. Mostly just hanging out at the Peace Corps office/transit house or taking advantage of some delicious burgers across the street. When we arrived back in September, I was pretty intimidated by this place. Loads of traffic, pollution, people, poverty. This big third-world city with all the aggression wasn’t exactly where I wanted to spend my time. While I wasn’t determined to stay away, I was pretty set on not spending too much time here.
It’s amazing what a few months can do. Especially a few months in a place, such as the north, which is so drastically different from the south. Many people live in mud huts with thatched roofs and live on far less than a dollar a day up in my neck of the woods. Coming back to Yaoundé, I’m actually stunned. The level of development here boggles my mind. There are multi-story buildings, Mercedes, Chinese restaurants, and even a Hilton. In fact, last night I went to happy hour in the bar on the top floor of the Hilton. I felt like I was in America: I was sipping a Mai Tai, eating olives, and watching a soccer game on a flat screen. It’s amazing how spending four months eating little more than couscous (fufu) and sauce and speaking villageois French mixed with a little Fulfulde can sensitize me to be so stunned when I came back to this capital city, a place I initially thought to be little more than a big, dirty metropolis. I’m planning on meeting my parents in Denmark this summer and that will definitely be interesting seeing how I react when I get off the plane in Copenhagen. If I’m feeling this much culture shock in the same country, I can only imagine what it’ll be like in Europe.
We flew into Yaoundé back in September and while I’ve traveled through it to get to and from post, I haven’t spent much time of substance here. Mostly just hanging out at the Peace Corps office/transit house or taking advantage of some delicious burgers across the street. When we arrived back in September, I was pretty intimidated by this place. Loads of traffic, pollution, people, poverty. This big third-world city with all the aggression wasn’t exactly where I wanted to spend my time. While I wasn’t determined to stay away, I was pretty set on not spending too much time here.
It’s amazing what a few months can do. Especially a few months in a place, such as the north, which is so drastically different from the south. Many people live in mud huts with thatched roofs and live on far less than a dollar a day up in my neck of the woods. Coming back to Yaoundé, I’m actually stunned. The level of development here boggles my mind. There are multi-story buildings, Mercedes, Chinese restaurants, and even a Hilton. In fact, last night I went to happy hour in the bar on the top floor of the Hilton. I felt like I was in America: I was sipping a Mai Tai, eating olives, and watching a soccer game on a flat screen. It’s amazing how spending four months eating little more than couscous (fufu) and sauce and speaking villageois French mixed with a little Fulfulde can sensitize me to be so stunned when I came back to this capital city, a place I initially thought to be little more than a big, dirty metropolis. I’m planning on meeting my parents in Denmark this summer and that will definitely be interesting seeing how I react when I get off the plane in Copenhagen. If I’m feeling this much culture shock in the same country, I can only imagine what it’ll be like in Europe.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
"Too much change is a bad thing... just ask the climate."
-Michael Scott
21 March 2010
As many of you have probably already gathered from various things I’ve said and written, the hot season in the Sahelian desert is a doozey. A couple weeks ago we were hitting temperatures that I believe were over 130 degrees Fahrenheit. I don’t know for certain because my digital thermometer stops counting at 122 and just says “HI”. The hottest it’s been inside my house is 105, and I recorded that a couple weeks ago. Staying hydrated isn’t easy, but I do what I can. Also, some volunteers are getting over some cases of heat rash right now. The rains generally stop in October or November and don’t start again in earnest until May or June, though occasionally a few rains trickle down in April. I’m told (and hoping) that once the rains come, things start cooling down a bit.
Last weekend (the 19/20/21) may have been the worst. I was in Bibemi which is a town en brousse (or on bruce as me and my friend text each other because we’re too lazy to go out of our English T9 and type it) about 2 hours away from me. I was there because the two volunteers in that town were putting on an HIV/AIDS training for people in the community and I wanted to come see how it went so I could see if something like that would be valuable in Ngong and if so, how it’s run and set up. Anyway, I arrived in Bibemi in the afternoon and it was hot but actually not too bad because there was a thin layer of clouds keeping the sun off me for the moto rides there. The bad thing, though, was that the humidity was rising, which was bizarre because the humidity doesn’t usually pick up until the rains start. That night I hardly slept because I was just drenched in sweat and every time I rolled over my back or side had soaked the sheet under me. The next night (Saturday) was even worse and when I got back to post the humidity was still there. On Monday night I probably only got about an hour or two of sleep before the mosque’s call to prayer woke me up at around 5:15. I went in to Garoua on Tuesday for my Fulfulde lesson and—let me make a quick aside here. Garoua is by far the hottest city in Cameroon. It’s full of pavement, people, motos spitting black smoke out the back, and very few trees. Some volunteers refer to it as the surface of the sun or, less kindly, the surface of hell. I had to stop wearing sandals there a month or so ago because when I take a moto around town there, the hot air felt like a blow torch on my feet. Back to the story. I was in Garoua for my Fulfulde lesson but I spent a little time in the Peace Corps office beforehand, checking my email and making the most of the air conditioning unit. Expectedly, the heat felt worse when I went outside after the nice controlled climate of the office. I got to the place where I usually have my lesson and the wind was picking up. After about five minutes, my tutor suggested we move inside because he thought it was going to rain. Sure enough, ten minutes after we went inside it started pouring outside. Not necessarily like one of the torrential downpours like we had in the West during the rainy season but definitely a nice, hard rain. It continued for about an hour and a half and was still raining a little bit when I found a bush taxi back to Ngong. The best part was, though, that it had cooled off. Back home, though, it hadn’t rained at all, though it was still pretty windy.
On Wednesday morning when I woke up, I had a little sore throat and it looked foggy outside, though I didn’t feel the humidity that usually comes with that. The best way I think I can describe it is by saying that the air looked like the top of a mountain that’s in a cloud when you’re skiing. Things are hazy but you can still make it out and as you move along things materialize, flash past, and disappear. Similar to fog but the two things always seemed different to me. Anyway, the haze was so strong that a tree a few hundred feet from my house had a distinct whitish hue. Thankfully, though, it was noticeably cooler. When I left for the hospital at around 8:30 it was only about 85 degrees out, so naturally I wore a long sleeve shirt. As I walked over I noticed that I was coughing every so often. At the hospital, the doctor told me that the haze in the air was dust, not fog. Crazy. We’d had a few harmattan days back in January but this was much worse than they had been. For those who don’t know, harmattan is the name for a weather pattern that happens in West Africa in late-December or early-January. After the rains have stopped for a while, some big, gusty wind patterns carry dust from the Sahara south and it makes everything dusty, dry, and white. Some people have been telling me that this is the harmattan but I ask them what were those days in January, then? Why is it here now, in the middle of the hot season? “C’est comme ça” everyone says: “It’s like that.” Great response, guys. I ventured that maybe it was climate change and then the response was “Oui, oui, c’est comme ça, aussi”: “Yes, yes, it’s like that, also.”
The break from the heat has been nice but the dust and dryness is tearing apart my throat. I’ve taken to drinking more tea, keeping my windows and door closed, and not going out when I don’t have to. Even so, everything in my house has a noticeable layer of dust on it and my throat still hurts. Oh well, it’s only a few weeks until IST (In Service Training) down in the West region and then I’ll get a break from either the dust or the heat--which I know will return, and soon.
Like Michael said, “Too much change is a bad thing… just ask the climate.”
21 March 2010
As many of you have probably already gathered from various things I’ve said and written, the hot season in the Sahelian desert is a doozey. A couple weeks ago we were hitting temperatures that I believe were over 130 degrees Fahrenheit. I don’t know for certain because my digital thermometer stops counting at 122 and just says “HI”. The hottest it’s been inside my house is 105, and I recorded that a couple weeks ago. Staying hydrated isn’t easy, but I do what I can. Also, some volunteers are getting over some cases of heat rash right now. The rains generally stop in October or November and don’t start again in earnest until May or June, though occasionally a few rains trickle down in April. I’m told (and hoping) that once the rains come, things start cooling down a bit.
Last weekend (the 19/20/21) may have been the worst. I was in Bibemi which is a town en brousse (or on bruce as me and my friend text each other because we’re too lazy to go out of our English T9 and type it) about 2 hours away from me. I was there because the two volunteers in that town were putting on an HIV/AIDS training for people in the community and I wanted to come see how it went so I could see if something like that would be valuable in Ngong and if so, how it’s run and set up. Anyway, I arrived in Bibemi in the afternoon and it was hot but actually not too bad because there was a thin layer of clouds keeping the sun off me for the moto rides there. The bad thing, though, was that the humidity was rising, which was bizarre because the humidity doesn’t usually pick up until the rains start. That night I hardly slept because I was just drenched in sweat and every time I rolled over my back or side had soaked the sheet under me. The next night (Saturday) was even worse and when I got back to post the humidity was still there. On Monday night I probably only got about an hour or two of sleep before the mosque’s call to prayer woke me up at around 5:15. I went in to Garoua on Tuesday for my Fulfulde lesson and—let me make a quick aside here. Garoua is by far the hottest city in Cameroon. It’s full of pavement, people, motos spitting black smoke out the back, and very few trees. Some volunteers refer to it as the surface of the sun or, less kindly, the surface of hell. I had to stop wearing sandals there a month or so ago because when I take a moto around town there, the hot air felt like a blow torch on my feet. Back to the story. I was in Garoua for my Fulfulde lesson but I spent a little time in the Peace Corps office beforehand, checking my email and making the most of the air conditioning unit. Expectedly, the heat felt worse when I went outside after the nice controlled climate of the office. I got to the place where I usually have my lesson and the wind was picking up. After about five minutes, my tutor suggested we move inside because he thought it was going to rain. Sure enough, ten minutes after we went inside it started pouring outside. Not necessarily like one of the torrential downpours like we had in the West during the rainy season but definitely a nice, hard rain. It continued for about an hour and a half and was still raining a little bit when I found a bush taxi back to Ngong. The best part was, though, that it had cooled off. Back home, though, it hadn’t rained at all, though it was still pretty windy.
On Wednesday morning when I woke up, I had a little sore throat and it looked foggy outside, though I didn’t feel the humidity that usually comes with that. The best way I think I can describe it is by saying that the air looked like the top of a mountain that’s in a cloud when you’re skiing. Things are hazy but you can still make it out and as you move along things materialize, flash past, and disappear. Similar to fog but the two things always seemed different to me. Anyway, the haze was so strong that a tree a few hundred feet from my house had a distinct whitish hue. Thankfully, though, it was noticeably cooler. When I left for the hospital at around 8:30 it was only about 85 degrees out, so naturally I wore a long sleeve shirt. As I walked over I noticed that I was coughing every so often. At the hospital, the doctor told me that the haze in the air was dust, not fog. Crazy. We’d had a few harmattan days back in January but this was much worse than they had been. For those who don’t know, harmattan is the name for a weather pattern that happens in West Africa in late-December or early-January. After the rains have stopped for a while, some big, gusty wind patterns carry dust from the Sahara south and it makes everything dusty, dry, and white. Some people have been telling me that this is the harmattan but I ask them what were those days in January, then? Why is it here now, in the middle of the hot season? “C’est comme ça” everyone says: “It’s like that.” Great response, guys. I ventured that maybe it was climate change and then the response was “Oui, oui, c’est comme ça, aussi”: “Yes, yes, it’s like that, also.”
The break from the heat has been nice but the dust and dryness is tearing apart my throat. I’ve taken to drinking more tea, keeping my windows and door closed, and not going out when I don’t have to. Even so, everything in my house has a noticeable layer of dust on it and my throat still hurts. Oh well, it’s only a few weeks until IST (In Service Training) down in the West region and then I’ll get a break from either the dust or the heat--which I know will return, and soon.
Like Michael said, “Too much change is a bad thing… just ask the climate.”
Saturday, February 27, 2010
"What’s in a name?" or "They call me alhadji, ‘cause that’s what I be."
21.2.2010
Since arriving in Cameroon, people have given me many names and called me many different things. At first, it was mostly just “ ‘Arley” with a rolled R, Spanish style. In French, they generally don’t pronounce H’s. Then my homestay mother started calling me “Tangi” which she told me was the name of the chief of Bamena’s nephew and I later came to find out was also an honorary title given to a father of twins.
Upon arriving in the North of Cameroon, people started referring to me a little bit as “Ali”, though that name never stuck too well. For some reason when I say “Harley,” people here like to hear “Alim,” which is also fine. To add another element of confusion to the equation, they do use the letter H in Fulfulde, so some of the Fulbe people can pronounce my name. For some odd reason, however, many people are unable to hear the R when I say my name so to a lot of people I am “Haly”—even my Fulfulde teacher in Garoua knows me as this. I’m pretty sure I’m in his phone that way. To top it all off, some people (mostly in the market) still call me “Hassan,” which was the name Harvard, the volunteer before me, went by. Yesterday, I also got called “Baudouin,” the French NGO worker in town. Furthermore, when somebody says “aller” or “allez” (to go) I always look up to see if somebody is calling for me. As far as I’m concerned, all of them are fine.
The only thing people call me here that tends to get on my nerves is when I’m called “Nasarra” which means white man. Now don’t get me wrong, I am fully aware that I stick out like a sore thumb and I don’t mind when people call me Nasarra when they are asking me something or want to get my attention for some tangible reason. What I don’t like is when I’m walking down the street and somebody from out of nowhere just shouts “Nasarra!!” from across the street with no other reason than to just point out that I’m there. Usually I ignore it but sometimes I give them a dirty look or shout back “Sannu balaajo” (Hello, black man!). Sometimes I imagine that some people think if they don’t say Nasarra when I walk by, I might disappear with a *POOF*, like my existence is contingent upon responding to a semi-racist request for attention.
Recently, however, people have been calling me something different. I have two boubous which are some traditional Arab/Muslim garb and it’s like a ankle-length shirt with matching pants that are basically like pajama pants. Needless to say, the boubou is incredibly comfortable and with the long sleeves on the top part it keeps the sun off you and thus keeps you a little cooler. Anyway, add to this my recently purchased tan, black, and white head scarf, also like what many Muslims wear and very effective in keeping the sun off my head and keeping me cooler, and I’m starting to look like a real Fulbe! (“Tres bien integre” as my counterpart says: very well integrated.) When I’m walking down the street now, some people have started calling me “alhadji” which I find simply hilarious. For those who don’t know, the term alhadji is like an honorific title given to Muslims who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca. For example, my landlord here is an alhadji (I also have another theory that all landlords here are alhadji’s but that’s for another time) and many people simply call him “alhadji,” or “Monsieur alhadji.” Anyway, I’m quite pleased with my new nickname in town. Maybe if people keep insisting on calling me “Nasarra” I can get them to start calling me “Nasar-hadji” instead. I wonder if they’d get the pun.
Alhadji-out.
Since arriving in Cameroon, people have given me many names and called me many different things. At first, it was mostly just “ ‘Arley” with a rolled R, Spanish style. In French, they generally don’t pronounce H’s. Then my homestay mother started calling me “Tangi” which she told me was the name of the chief of Bamena’s nephew and I later came to find out was also an honorary title given to a father of twins.
Upon arriving in the North of Cameroon, people started referring to me a little bit as “Ali”, though that name never stuck too well. For some reason when I say “Harley,” people here like to hear “Alim,” which is also fine. To add another element of confusion to the equation, they do use the letter H in Fulfulde, so some of the Fulbe people can pronounce my name. For some odd reason, however, many people are unable to hear the R when I say my name so to a lot of people I am “Haly”—even my Fulfulde teacher in Garoua knows me as this. I’m pretty sure I’m in his phone that way. To top it all off, some people (mostly in the market) still call me “Hassan,” which was the name Harvard, the volunteer before me, went by. Yesterday, I also got called “Baudouin,” the French NGO worker in town. Furthermore, when somebody says “aller” or “allez” (to go) I always look up to see if somebody is calling for me. As far as I’m concerned, all of them are fine.
The only thing people call me here that tends to get on my nerves is when I’m called “Nasarra” which means white man. Now don’t get me wrong, I am fully aware that I stick out like a sore thumb and I don’t mind when people call me Nasarra when they are asking me something or want to get my attention for some tangible reason. What I don’t like is when I’m walking down the street and somebody from out of nowhere just shouts “Nasarra!!” from across the street with no other reason than to just point out that I’m there. Usually I ignore it but sometimes I give them a dirty look or shout back “Sannu balaajo” (Hello, black man!). Sometimes I imagine that some people think if they don’t say Nasarra when I walk by, I might disappear with a *POOF*, like my existence is contingent upon responding to a semi-racist request for attention.
Recently, however, people have been calling me something different. I have two boubous which are some traditional Arab/Muslim garb and it’s like a ankle-length shirt with matching pants that are basically like pajama pants. Needless to say, the boubou is incredibly comfortable and with the long sleeves on the top part it keeps the sun off you and thus keeps you a little cooler. Anyway, add to this my recently purchased tan, black, and white head scarf, also like what many Muslims wear and very effective in keeping the sun off my head and keeping me cooler, and I’m starting to look like a real Fulbe! (“Tres bien integre” as my counterpart says: very well integrated.) When I’m walking down the street now, some people have started calling me “alhadji” which I find simply hilarious. For those who don’t know, the term alhadji is like an honorific title given to Muslims who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca. For example, my landlord here is an alhadji (I also have another theory that all landlords here are alhadji’s but that’s for another time) and many people simply call him “alhadji,” or “Monsieur alhadji.” Anyway, I’m quite pleased with my new nickname in town. Maybe if people keep insisting on calling me “Nasarra” I can get them to start calling me “Nasar-hadji” instead. I wonder if they’d get the pun.
Alhadji-out.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Egypt v. Cameroon: The Match
I arrived at the bar (Chez Linda) at 5:20, thinking the match started at 5:30. When I arrived, however, I saw tons of people glued to the TVs and realized the game was already twenty minutes deep. Woops, better start betting on the safe side when somebody tells me when a game starts. Anyway, I grabbed a beer from the fridge and snagged a causiere (a plastic beer container) and tipped it over near the back of the back room next to my friend Amadou, a pretty mild mannered guy who was sipping on a fanta, and started watching the match.
Cameroon scored first and everybody in the whole bar that I could see (indeed, probably most people in the town and even the parts of the country with electricity) erupted in applause. We all jumped up, shouting, toasting to the team and some people even started singing and dancing. A couple people went into renditions of the Kirikou song which goes something like this: “Kirikou, il est petite comme ca, mais il est forte! Il est forte!” (Kirikou, he is small like this, but he is strong! He is strong!) They replaced Kirikou with “Samuel Eto’o,” the captain and best player on the national squad, and it worked out pretty nicely. I’m not sure there’s anything like watching soccer with Africans, especially when one of the teams playing is the national team. It’s makes the sport… interesting.
Anyway, the game went on and the Egyptian team equalized before the half ended. About ten minutes into the second half the Cameroonian team had a good shot on the goal but wasn’t able to capitalize. A few people in the room applauded the effort but one guy actually started cheering, “C’est bonne! C’est bonne!” (It’s good! It’s good!) Immediately, several people started yelling at him asking him who he was supporting. The second he said Egypt Amadou got to his feet (along with most of the room) and started advancing towards the guy. Like I said earlier, Amadou is generally a very calm guy and the only time I’ve ever seen him upset before was when Cameroon nearly blew it against Zambia the previous week. He was one of the first to grab the guy by the shirt and call him a Chadian, though several people quickly separated them—though whether to prevent the ensuing fight or to try to grab a piece themselves, I’m not sure.
Anyway, I thought this was a minor scuffle so I kept an eye on what was happening basically in front of me and also kept trying to watch the game. I can’t really go into details because I couldn’t understand everything that was going on but what I did catch was essentially people getting violently angry at this guy for not supporting his country. Somebody turned off the TV, one or two people tried to keep 30 people away from the Egyptian supporter, and I went into the next room to watch the match and keep an eye on the fight. Patriotism certainly runs high here. After about twenty minutes of scuffles, the guy was dragged out of the bar, on one arm by his friend who was defending him and then on the other by the owner of the bar who I’m pretty sure I saw taking a swing at him at one point—though I don’t think he connected and he may have been trying to “break it up”.
A couple minutes after the fight broke up, I went back into the room (there was still about 10 minutes left in the second half) and sat down back on my upturned causiere. Tempers were still high and people were still arguing, yelling and pissed, not only at the Egyptian supporter but also at how the match was now tied. After I’d sat down for a couple minutes, another guy stood up at a comment from somebody else and took a lunge at some guy who I guess was a friend of the guy who’d been kicked out. I left the room and went to talk to the guy who worked at the bar and he asked me what happened. I was starting to get carried away and I said, “There was a guy who was supporting Egypt!” He shook his head and replied, “It’s only football….” I snapped out of it and realized that was the most rational thing I’d heard all night. Talk about being grounded.
Yes, soccer is a big part of life here. The vast majority of people loves the national team and watches them play with a fiery passion. But is it really worth getting into a fight over? I understand the implications of nationalism and the need to support one’s country, especially when the national team has historically been pretty good and is a point of national pride… but is it really worth coming to blows over? I certainly can’t answer that question.
I guess the longer I spend here the more I realize I don’t have any answers to my questions, only more and more questions. Nothing to do but keep asking them, right?
Cameroon scored first and everybody in the whole bar that I could see (indeed, probably most people in the town and even the parts of the country with electricity) erupted in applause. We all jumped up, shouting, toasting to the team and some people even started singing and dancing. A couple people went into renditions of the Kirikou song which goes something like this: “Kirikou, il est petite comme ca, mais il est forte! Il est forte!” (Kirikou, he is small like this, but he is strong! He is strong!) They replaced Kirikou with “Samuel Eto’o,” the captain and best player on the national squad, and it worked out pretty nicely. I’m not sure there’s anything like watching soccer with Africans, especially when one of the teams playing is the national team. It’s makes the sport… interesting.
Anyway, the game went on and the Egyptian team equalized before the half ended. About ten minutes into the second half the Cameroonian team had a good shot on the goal but wasn’t able to capitalize. A few people in the room applauded the effort but one guy actually started cheering, “C’est bonne! C’est bonne!” (It’s good! It’s good!) Immediately, several people started yelling at him asking him who he was supporting. The second he said Egypt Amadou got to his feet (along with most of the room) and started advancing towards the guy. Like I said earlier, Amadou is generally a very calm guy and the only time I’ve ever seen him upset before was when Cameroon nearly blew it against Zambia the previous week. He was one of the first to grab the guy by the shirt and call him a Chadian, though several people quickly separated them—though whether to prevent the ensuing fight or to try to grab a piece themselves, I’m not sure.
Anyway, I thought this was a minor scuffle so I kept an eye on what was happening basically in front of me and also kept trying to watch the game. I can’t really go into details because I couldn’t understand everything that was going on but what I did catch was essentially people getting violently angry at this guy for not supporting his country. Somebody turned off the TV, one or two people tried to keep 30 people away from the Egyptian supporter, and I went into the next room to watch the match and keep an eye on the fight. Patriotism certainly runs high here. After about twenty minutes of scuffles, the guy was dragged out of the bar, on one arm by his friend who was defending him and then on the other by the owner of the bar who I’m pretty sure I saw taking a swing at him at one point—though I don’t think he connected and he may have been trying to “break it up”.
A couple minutes after the fight broke up, I went back into the room (there was still about 10 minutes left in the second half) and sat down back on my upturned causiere. Tempers were still high and people were still arguing, yelling and pissed, not only at the Egyptian supporter but also at how the match was now tied. After I’d sat down for a couple minutes, another guy stood up at a comment from somebody else and took a lunge at some guy who I guess was a friend of the guy who’d been kicked out. I left the room and went to talk to the guy who worked at the bar and he asked me what happened. I was starting to get carried away and I said, “There was a guy who was supporting Egypt!” He shook his head and replied, “It’s only football….” I snapped out of it and realized that was the most rational thing I’d heard all night. Talk about being grounded.
Yes, soccer is a big part of life here. The vast majority of people loves the national team and watches them play with a fiery passion. But is it really worth getting into a fight over? I understand the implications of nationalism and the need to support one’s country, especially when the national team has historically been pretty good and is a point of national pride… but is it really worth coming to blows over? I certainly can’t answer that question.
I guess the longer I spend here the more I realize I don’t have any answers to my questions, only more and more questions. Nothing to do but keep asking them, right?
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Photos on the Wall
9 January 2010
In Cameroon, whenever a new person, such as myself, enters a village or town, he needs to go around to all the notables in the community, such as the chief, mayor, sous-prefet, etc., and introduce himself and why he is there. I did this in Ngong and then also had to go to Garoua to do the same with the people a step up. I had to go the Gendarmerie (sorta like the army barracks) twice because the first time, the Commandant was in Yaounde. When I returned a couple weeks later, he still wasn’t in the office but I decided to wait for a little while and took a seat.
A TV blared in the background, playing something like afro-reggae-pop which I found surprisingly catchy. The guard there didn’t really ask me anything but worked on his paperwork and occasionally shot a glance at the TV. I looked to my right and on the wall was a tagboard with some photos and captions on it. In one photo, four people lay on the ground and when I looked a little closer, I realized there were others standing around them.
The people on the ground were dead, shot by Chadian rebels who had made a raid across the border a few years ago.
Another photo was a close up of a man missing half his head. He was also shot by Chadian rebels. The photo was odd because his face was still almost completely intact and he looked eerily like he could have simply been sleeping—save for his mouth which was open and, though not disfigured, seemed to express pain, or surprise. I’m not sure which.
Yet another photo showed a person missing most of his intestines.
You get the idea.
I’m not trying to alarm anyone; these photos were taken several years ago when Chad was much more unstable and were a decent distance away from where I am currently living so don’t fear for my safety at all. Cameroon is the most stable country in the region and one of the most stable in Africa.
I guess the point I’m getting at is that while I sat in a chair, waiting for the Commandant of the Northern Legion and listening to a blaring television, I saw these photos of people senselessly murdered. I felt an odd sense of disconnect. Disturbing: yes. Graphic: yes. I didn’t know what to make of it. I still don’t. I’m not going to lie and say I was rattled to my core to see a real life photograph of what we so often read about in the paper (or skim over) and see in movies (and subsequently ignore), but even through the detachment I felt, it was puzzling to try to make sense of.
Maybe I’m still trying to figure out what it means to me to see a picture of a man missing the back part of his head. Maybe it means nothing to me, or maybe it just means I’ll have a faint reminder in the back of my head when I see the name of his town on a sign as I drive by.
There isn’t anything I can do about it, that’s for sure. I do, however, hope to remain mindful of it, and of death, which I feel people acknowledge so much more here than in the US, because it happens so much more often and is so much more a part of life.
In Cameroon, whenever a new person, such as myself, enters a village or town, he needs to go around to all the notables in the community, such as the chief, mayor, sous-prefet, etc., and introduce himself and why he is there. I did this in Ngong and then also had to go to Garoua to do the same with the people a step up. I had to go the Gendarmerie (sorta like the army barracks) twice because the first time, the Commandant was in Yaounde. When I returned a couple weeks later, he still wasn’t in the office but I decided to wait for a little while and took a seat.
A TV blared in the background, playing something like afro-reggae-pop which I found surprisingly catchy. The guard there didn’t really ask me anything but worked on his paperwork and occasionally shot a glance at the TV. I looked to my right and on the wall was a tagboard with some photos and captions on it. In one photo, four people lay on the ground and when I looked a little closer, I realized there were others standing around them.
The people on the ground were dead, shot by Chadian rebels who had made a raid across the border a few years ago.
Another photo was a close up of a man missing half his head. He was also shot by Chadian rebels. The photo was odd because his face was still almost completely intact and he looked eerily like he could have simply been sleeping—save for his mouth which was open and, though not disfigured, seemed to express pain, or surprise. I’m not sure which.
Yet another photo showed a person missing most of his intestines.
You get the idea.
I’m not trying to alarm anyone; these photos were taken several years ago when Chad was much more unstable and were a decent distance away from where I am currently living so don’t fear for my safety at all. Cameroon is the most stable country in the region and one of the most stable in Africa.
I guess the point I’m getting at is that while I sat in a chair, waiting for the Commandant of the Northern Legion and listening to a blaring television, I saw these photos of people senselessly murdered. I felt an odd sense of disconnect. Disturbing: yes. Graphic: yes. I didn’t know what to make of it. I still don’t. I’m not going to lie and say I was rattled to my core to see a real life photograph of what we so often read about in the paper (or skim over) and see in movies (and subsequently ignore), but even through the detachment I felt, it was puzzling to try to make sense of.
Maybe I’m still trying to figure out what it means to me to see a picture of a man missing the back part of his head. Maybe it means nothing to me, or maybe it just means I’ll have a faint reminder in the back of my head when I see the name of his town on a sign as I drive by.
There isn’t anything I can do about it, that’s for sure. I do, however, hope to remain mindful of it, and of death, which I feel people acknowledge so much more here than in the US, because it happens so much more often and is so much more a part of life.
Observations:
7-11 January 2010
“Welcome” in Fulfulde is “Jabbama,” which rhymes with “Obama.” So, whenever anybody welcomes me here, I want to say “Yes, We, Can!”
Cameroonians are amazed when Americans play soccer. I’m not any good, I don’t really have the right shoes, and in all honesty I’d prefer basketball or football, but everyone loves seeing me out on the dirt fields at 6:30am on Saturday mornings: “Eet’s Mister ’Arleeeeeey!”
It’s the cold season and so far the hottest temperature I’ve recorded is 97.8 Fahrenheit. I drink roughly 3 or 4 liters of water a day. I probably sweat 80% of that out, yet because of the dryness and heat, it evaporates almost instantly so the only time I really see or feel it is when I’m exercising… or sweating profusely in a room with little ventilation. I also leave a bucket of water in my room at night and splash some water on the floor in the hopes that when it evaporates, it might keep my room from being so bone dry. The verdict’s still out on whether or not this works… I still wake up with chapped lips every morning.
People give Nescafe a bad rap. Sure it’s crappy, tastes like dog breath, and is ready in 30 seconds—but when you add condensed milk (which is really more like condensed sugar with milk flavoring) you can hardly tell the difference between that and a Vanilla Latte. And, hey, it’s ready in 30 seconds.
A bout of constipation following a bout with amoebic dysentery isn’t nearly as welcome as one might think. And vice versa.
They don’t say “what can you do?” in Cameroon. Instead, they say “On va faire comment?” which literally translates to “One will do how?” I can’t think of anything else that seems so inherently Cameroonian to me.
I just finished my seventh book since I’ve been here. One of those books (Home by Marilynne Robinson) I read twice, partially because it was so damn good and partially because it painted such a good portrait of Middle America and I guess I didn’t fully appreciate it until I’d lived here for a little while.
I feel kinda spoiled at my post. I have electricity, which a good number of the volunteers around me don’t have, and I can get just about anything I need at the market. Garoua is only 40 minutes away and while there’s not a terribly large number of things to do there, there is free internet at the Peace Corps office, and mini-pizzas at a boulangerie (bakery) downtown. Consequently, I’ve seen a good number of the office episodes from this season and am not craving cheese as much as I probably would be otherwise.
In Cameroon, we eat huge portions of food. Partly it’s because so much of each meal is just simple carbs, and partly it’s because your burn a lot more calories here walking everywhere and also just hanging out in the heat. If/when I ever come back to the states, prepare to see me put on some massive weight.
Even with the visor down on my moto helmet and both vents closed I still always return from Garoua coughing and with a sore throat. Never underestimate the power of dust and pollution on the old respiratory system.
P-Square just might be God’s gift to man. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, look up the song “No One Be Like You.” It’s Nigerian R&B/Rap and in pidgin. I can’t get enough.
I don’t like watching Anthony Bourdain here for the same reason I had reservations (heh heh) about watching it in the U.S.: it makes me hungry. Except here, I don’t really keep snacks in the house aside from fruit, and a sliced orange doesn’t really cut it when Tony’s chowing into a big bowl of spicy Pho in Vietnam.
One of my friend’s daughters died a couple days ago. I think it was malaria. She was only a few months and old woke up sick one day. They tried to take her to the local hospital that afternoon but since it was a Saturday, it was closed. She died en route to the regional hospital in Garoua. Sometimes, things just get incredibly real here. It will definitely give me some more sense of personal purpose when I start doing malaria programs.
I can feel my English declining by the day. Maybe after two years I really will earn that superlative I got at Thanksgiving: Least likely to be able to speak English at COS.
“Welcome” in Fulfulde is “Jabbama,” which rhymes with “Obama.” So, whenever anybody welcomes me here, I want to say “Yes, We, Can!”
Cameroonians are amazed when Americans play soccer. I’m not any good, I don’t really have the right shoes, and in all honesty I’d prefer basketball or football, but everyone loves seeing me out on the dirt fields at 6:30am on Saturday mornings: “Eet’s Mister ’Arleeeeeey!”
It’s the cold season and so far the hottest temperature I’ve recorded is 97.8 Fahrenheit. I drink roughly 3 or 4 liters of water a day. I probably sweat 80% of that out, yet because of the dryness and heat, it evaporates almost instantly so the only time I really see or feel it is when I’m exercising… or sweating profusely in a room with little ventilation. I also leave a bucket of water in my room at night and splash some water on the floor in the hopes that when it evaporates, it might keep my room from being so bone dry. The verdict’s still out on whether or not this works… I still wake up with chapped lips every morning.
People give Nescafe a bad rap. Sure it’s crappy, tastes like dog breath, and is ready in 30 seconds—but when you add condensed milk (which is really more like condensed sugar with milk flavoring) you can hardly tell the difference between that and a Vanilla Latte. And, hey, it’s ready in 30 seconds.
A bout of constipation following a bout with amoebic dysentery isn’t nearly as welcome as one might think. And vice versa.
They don’t say “what can you do?” in Cameroon. Instead, they say “On va faire comment?” which literally translates to “One will do how?” I can’t think of anything else that seems so inherently Cameroonian to me.
I just finished my seventh book since I’ve been here. One of those books (Home by Marilynne Robinson) I read twice, partially because it was so damn good and partially because it painted such a good portrait of Middle America and I guess I didn’t fully appreciate it until I’d lived here for a little while.
I feel kinda spoiled at my post. I have electricity, which a good number of the volunteers around me don’t have, and I can get just about anything I need at the market. Garoua is only 40 minutes away and while there’s not a terribly large number of things to do there, there is free internet at the Peace Corps office, and mini-pizzas at a boulangerie (bakery) downtown. Consequently, I’ve seen a good number of the office episodes from this season and am not craving cheese as much as I probably would be otherwise.
In Cameroon, we eat huge portions of food. Partly it’s because so much of each meal is just simple carbs, and partly it’s because your burn a lot more calories here walking everywhere and also just hanging out in the heat. If/when I ever come back to the states, prepare to see me put on some massive weight.
Even with the visor down on my moto helmet and both vents closed I still always return from Garoua coughing and with a sore throat. Never underestimate the power of dust and pollution on the old respiratory system.
P-Square just might be God’s gift to man. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, look up the song “No One Be Like You.” It’s Nigerian R&B/Rap and in pidgin. I can’t get enough.
I don’t like watching Anthony Bourdain here for the same reason I had reservations (heh heh) about watching it in the U.S.: it makes me hungry. Except here, I don’t really keep snacks in the house aside from fruit, and a sliced orange doesn’t really cut it when Tony’s chowing into a big bowl of spicy Pho in Vietnam.
One of my friend’s daughters died a couple days ago. I think it was malaria. She was only a few months and old woke up sick one day. They tried to take her to the local hospital that afternoon but since it was a Saturday, it was closed. She died en route to the regional hospital in Garoua. Sometimes, things just get incredibly real here. It will definitely give me some more sense of personal purpose when I start doing malaria programs.
I can feel my English declining by the day. Maybe after two years I really will earn that superlative I got at Thanksgiving: Least likely to be able to speak English at COS.
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