Time Comes and Time Goes
20 Novembre 2008
I’m realizing that after all this time in Africa, there must be something about me that has changed, but it’s nearly impossible for me to recognize since I witness my own actions everyday. But, one thing is for sure, I believe that I’m changing into a young woman that is a force to be reckoned with, and if I can honestly say that after I’ve been in Africa or anywhere, I’ll always feel accomplished. Nothing goes down without a fight, and in every capacity I hope that I can always give my best energy and most positive outlook.
So one movie that I KNOW TELEPATHICALLY is playing in the U.S. is the new James Bond, and I’m really sad I’m missing it… so maybe could someone go with me when I get back if it’s even still in theatres?
23 Novembre 2008
I have so many things to bring back to the United States, I don’t know if it’s even possible. If my luggage cannot hold the cadeaux coming, you know it’s going to be good… get excited!
My all-time favorite Mekouti (my crazy lover artist’s) quotes, sent via text message to me:
“I adore the horse because he never leaves his master. With him I am coming always at the hour of the opera. Even though the roads are soaked, he finds a way. It is strength and love.”
“Only she understands me. Mekouti, who will understand you? She. But who is she? Do you know to what I compare her? Say no.”
This weekend, I was a 13 year-old girl again as my mom took me to buy bras because I, of course, made the mistake of commenting that her bra was pretty since she took it off right in front of me the other night. So she says, “We’ll have to get you some, they are so cheap here.” Turns out, they really are only 500 CFA ($1 each), but are probably the most hideous bras you have ever seen. So we go into the market, where bras are sold out of a bag under a tiny little umbrella with more bras hanging off of it. Then you sit down under the umbrella on a tiny little bench with the vendor who goes through the garbage bag full of bras and tries to find something you like in an appropriate size. I let my mother choose 2 bras (soutiens) for me since they were all so beautiful, I just couldn’t choose. As we were looking through them, my mother found one that she thought was so pretty, so I bought it for her even though it cost me 500CFA! Anyway, she was thrilled… and now we have matching bras. Cute, huh?
Laura and I had a great encounter with a man who wanted to marry us on our walk home. We were walking, and an English speaking Cameroonian comes up to us, and the convo goes a little something like this:
“Hello! Hello mes filles! You are so beautiful! Too beautiful for me, where are you going?”
“We’re just walking. Thanks.”
“Oh, you are just so pretty. You are just too beautiful for a *nigger* like me.”
[So I just go off because he says this] “Why would you call yourself that? That is a horrible thing to say. That is absolutely not true.”
“Okay. Okay. I’m a sports trainer, can I go with you?”
“No.”
“But where do you live?”
“In America. You will never see us again.”
“Yes. Yes. I will. Las Vegas. I go in Las Vegas. I’m a rapper. You know 50 Cent? That’s me. G-Unit? That’s me.”
“Okay, that’s really not you. We have to get home.”
“Am I bothering you?”
“Yes, you’re trying to date us as we’re trying to walk home.”
“What are your names? Where are you going? Can I go with you? I will see you in America.”
[Laura says] “This is Allison, I’m Tiffany, and we don’t have time for this, we have got to get home!”
Guess who scored a Thanksgiving dinner with the Marines. Oh yeah, yours truly.
On Friday, we decided to break down and order a pizza from Espresso because we have found that as a general trend in Cameroon, one goes about 5 days of eating as little Cameroonian food as possible, and then becomes completely famished and resorts to binge eating. So Friday was binge-eating day. It started off normally for breakfast, but then when we got into town, we found that ice cream man had MINT VANILLA SWIRL soft serve for the first time ever! It was delicious! Better than Dairy Queen if you can believe that. Anyway, so we had that about 5 times that day since it’s only 50 cents a cup. Then after that, we had to get kettle corn because it was right next door. Then – we ordered the pizza, which was horribly overpriced, but absolutely delicious. We have this joke, because on the menu the pizza is obviously trying to be called “cheese party,” but is instead written “Chesse party.” So we ordered a Chesse party pizza, which was a your typical American thin crust pizza with mozzarella, feta, and goat cheese – delicious, but was a painful taste of what the first week of food in America is going to be like because it pretty much destroyed our stomachs. After all that, when I got home, my mom had made sweet potato fries, which were unbelievably good – but one more thing I didn’t have the tolerance to put into my stomach.
I’ve found something to be very sad about Cameroon. Because in general, Cameroonians cannot buy things to decorate their homes, they have the most ugly (but precious to them) things on display. For instance, we have a Spongebob McDonald’s toy on top of the TV, which my mother told me she bought in the market, and it is prominently displayed on top of the TV next to a calendar cut-out of puppies and a dandelion on the wall. All of those things Americans shamelessly toss into the garbage. Especially McDonald’s toys, which get left in Happy Meal bags and on restaurant tables, when it’s considered an item of value in Cameroon.
There are Christmas lights in the center of the city in Yaounde! As we were walking home the other night, very close to dusk, the lights at the Carrefour came on, and it had Christmas lights all over it. It was a beautiful reminder that even though it’s 100 degrees, it’s still Christmastime!
As of today, we have 2 more weeks with our host families before moving into the monastery for the final week. I re-read the first entry in this journal today, and it’s absolutely unfathomable to me considering where I have come from. I’ve been trying to reflect, in the past few days, on my time in Cameroon since we’re coming so close to the end. I realize that I have learned so much, and one of my greatest fears is that I will not be able to express those realizations efficiently to people in America. It would be completely unjust for me simply say my time in Africa was, “great or fun,” because that is absolutely not true at all. It hasn’t been “great” and most of it hasn’t been “fun.” I have to think of a good adjective for those people who are just asking to be polite.
24 Novembre 2008
Every single morning my bedroom smells like weed. I think it’s coming from outside, but it’s something they should try to learn to control.
My mother was telling me today about the black magic that still has a huge stronghold on Africa. One of those practices is sending boa constrictors through the toilets into other people’s apartments so that they will bite them and kill them… and afterwards they steal all of their things.
A roach was crawling on my back last night, obviously he was inside of my mosquito net, but since I was dreaming so deeply, and exhausted I didn’t wake up to actually kill it, but instead had a restless night sleep as I just kept swatting it off of my back.
So on Friday is our fabulous, or not so, dinner with the Marines. Because they are unavailable on Thursday, Nora, Laura, Abbie, and I are going to go out for a nice dinner at Café Yaoundé, a pretty upscale European restaurant in Centre Ville. Then on Friday, the marines invited us over to their house for a little dinner party, saying that they would provide the sides if we provided the turkey. Well, since turkey doesn’t exist in Cameroon, we’re going to buy roast chicken and try to pawn it off as turkey… they won’t know any better. Really, the cinch of the deal was the fact that Logan – my dear Marine friend – said that the pool was right behind the Marine house and we could definitely take a dip to “get that Cameroonian scent out of our nose..” Plus, they are going to drive us home in their air-conditioned armored tank… so we decided to take the deal, and put up with the maybe not so intellectual Marines for swimming, some good food, and Americanisms. However, this kid is really a piece of work as he refers to himself as the “pimp daddy” since he coordinates all the party plans for the Marines, and he also suggested that his experience has been just like ours since, you know, he lives in a fully furnished American apartment, while being driven around in a bullet-proof Escalade, and he told us we could take our chances with Cameroonian corn on the cob (which we have bought and eaten off the street at least a dozen times and not gotten sick) saying that eating it was like “handing a drink to an alcoholic – it’s just not smart.” Can you tell this kid is brilliant, yet? I’m sure this Friday is going to be one to remember. Nora, Laura, and Abbie have decided they are going to refer to me as the Pimp Momma while we’re there.
As Abbie and I were exercising this morning, Mekouti ran past and slapped us both on the arm, rather forcefully to say hello. The loving text messages have ceased to subside and instead have actually intensified. Today’s actually point blank said, “Je sais que tu sais que je t’aime.” (I know that you know that I love you.)
On Friday, we went to visit another artist who lives up the hill from our quartier named Fdona, and we arrived to the most amazing house ever. It was like we had arrived to the Willy Wonka house, as the entire thing was a mix of painted pipes and awnings and masks and doors, all brightly painted. Inside he offered us some wine and snacks as one of his good friend serenaded us on guitar. It was really cool, and his home was amazing. We all thought Christiane should get him to be a SIT homestay family.
25 Novembre 2008
There are quite a few stories that Cameroonians like to tell, which often times it’s difficult to know whether or not are true. However, some of them I’d like to believe are true since it would be truly American to not know about ongoings in Africa. For instance, Cameroon has discovered a plant that is said to be a cure for AIDS, but is currently too lethal to administer to patients. In either case, the French won’t allow Cameroon to send the plant out for testing or research because if it does cure AIDS it will be recognition and beneficial for Cameroon. How sick is that? Which, I actually lean toward believing because the French still have a very strong paternal control here, especially with the current Biya administration – seeing as how he spends nearly half the year in France.
We passed a mechanic shop on the way to the market and chained to one of the steering wheels of a gutted, rusted out car frame was a very large gray monkey. It very clearly wanted to be off of that chain and more or less charging us.
The top news story this morning was that 7 people had died instantly from buying and eating poisoned “buea” (remember the Bisquick drink) from a street vendor. Apparently, there are a lot of occasions when flour is replaced with lime (the chemical) because it is cheaper, and no one can tell… until they’re dead.
My mother told me a story about how there are diamonds underneath the Palais du Congres, but no one knows about them. She said there were a few Chinese explorers who came to Cameroon and discovered the diamonds, but since the Cameroonian government wouldn’t let them be extracted, when one of the explorers died, they filled his corpse with diamonds and shipped it back to China in a casket. Now, how true is this story? And where do they get this stuff from?
Chickles still isn’t fat enough… he’s just roaming around outside the house, eating garbage. That’s what he is getting fat of off… garbage. Delicious.
