I’ve been collecting little posts I call “snapshots” since I got to Cameroon — some of these are from training back in Ebolowa, and some of them are from here at post in Lokoti. They’re just little snippets from my day. It’s impossible to give you all a complete idea of what life is like here (unless you come visit me!! hint hint), but I hope these 10 little snapshots give you more of a complete idea of what life is like here in Cameroon.
1. It starts to rain. There’s no such thing as a drizzle in Cameroon. It starts as a trickle — a tap, tap, tap on the tin roofs. Les habilles! my host mom cries. She knows what’s coming. It isn’t even as if the trickle slowly progresses to a veritable downpour of rain. It’s more like carrying water in your cupped hands — it’s the water that drips out through your fingers before you release it all at once. It’s a rain that means business, and today its business is soaking through clothes, carving an even deeper trail through the packed dirt paths, and drumming on the roofs until you’re sure they’ll collapse. It comes down harder and harder until you’re all but certain that this time, despite all evidence to the contrary, this time will be the time that the roofs cave in and the water comes crashing down on top of you, but just as it reaches its peak, just as you’re gathering your things for storage in a safelocker, it stops — leaving barely even a trace that it had started. Only a few extra puddles in the road, destined to quickly disappear in the heat.
2. I discover that a wand translates to “magic bread”, Harry’s lightning scar is an eclair, and he attends Poudlard, where he is taught by Professor Rogue. This is the greatest day of my life.
3. “So you put it against the table — no, more horizontal than that — yeah, that’s good,” Daniel says. “And you pull down with your right hand, and then you…hit it,” he mimes. I smack my left hand over the top of a Vimto bottle, and the cap pops off. I raise the bottle over my head in celebration. It’s not quite as good as beeing able to pry it off with your teeth, in the true Cameroonian fashion, but it’s a start.
4. My family is watching soap operas, as per the norm, and on the TV screen, a black man fires a gun into the air. I can’t help but think that in the US, this would be portrayed in a very different light.
5. The birds here are so wonderfully colourful. Bright reds, yellows, and, my favourite, a bright blue, with little red spots on its cheeks. Everything feels brighter and more vibrant here. The birds, the bright patterns on the pagne wrap skirts (a staple item for every village woman), the blue and yellow paint that seems to be splashed on the walls of at least one room in every home in Cameroon. The deep reds of the dirt paths contrast sharply with the green of the grass and trees. Colours seem more brilliant here, in a way I can’t explain or understand. I absorb it while I can. I’ve been told that come dry season, I should expect only dust, coating everything with a fine layer of brown.
6. My local bean mamas are at school, and I’ve forgotten my wallet at home. Luckily, I’ve spent the past week trying to build up a rapport with them, and they have no problem giving me beans and beignets with the promise of money to come. “Pas de probleme, ma fille!” she assures me. When I return the plates, she thanks me. “Tu es trés gentille!” she gushes. I don’t know why exactly returning the plates — her plates — qualifies me to be very kind, but I’ll take it. Half an hour later, when I return with the money, I am again proclaimed to be “trés gentille!” Again, I’m not sure why giving her the money she is owed makes me so very kind, but again, I’ll take it. “Ton sac est jolie!” she tells me. “Oh, thank you — I like it too,” I say. “And you have another sac at home, so you will give me that one as a cadeau!” she finishes. Oh. I apologetically tell her that I do not, in fact, have another petite sac like this one, so I cannot give it to her. “Mais peut être tu vas trouver un sac même plus jolie au marché, n’est pas?” She laughs, and we part ways.
7. In Cameroon, the number of texts you receive decreases significantly from what it might have been in the US. At home, you might have your family members, your work colleagues, your school friends, your hometown friends, the friends you text while you’re reading their favourite book or watching that show they’ve been bugging you to watch for months, your doctor’s office, your pharmacy, your bank, that ONE guy (you know the one), the pizza delivery — you are (or at least, I was) overwhelmed with texts every day. Texting in the US is great, don’t get me wrong, but things change when all of a sudden you have exactly 21 numbers in your phone that connect you to the US, and you all met each other three days ago. Then, a text message is your lifeline — your connection to another person who understands exactly what you’re going through, in a way that a Cameroonian friend, or even a non-PCV American friend, can’t really understand. By the time you get to post, you're a little more settled, you’re figuring things out, your contacts list has expanded, but I still jump up when I hear my phone buzz — two short buzzes, pause, repeat. I play a game with myself to guess who it’s from before I look. More often than not, it’s either BBC or the cell phone carrier, so I try not to get my hopes up. But a kind message, an unexpected “hey! how are things going?”, a pun, a fellow PCV's complaint that is so relieving because you thought you were the only one — they make all the difference in the world.
8. I hear the distinctive “click-kung” of my power converter switching on, and drop everything. It’s a very Pavlovian response. The “click-kung” means it’s time to grab your computer cable, it’s time to grab your hard drive and your internet key. The power is on, but it could be for a minute, it could be 30, it could be two days, but you’re never quite sure, so you don’t want to miss your opportunity.
9. I love preparing food just before the sun’s gone down. I clutch my little metal bowl as I stand in my doorway to soak up the very last glow of light, unwilling to use my candles or my solar lamps until absolutely necessary. As I hover in the doorway — not quite in the house, but not quite out of it, either — I take in the sounds. There’s not much to look at outside my front door, but I’m treated to a veritable symphony of sounds every evening right around 6:00. I'm surrounded on all sides by a smattering of voices. They extend past just my neighbours’ houses, and one can imagine them stretching on for miles — a gentle hum of chatter, a sprinkle of laughter, spread across a little infinity. There’s a crackle of static as a radio is brought to life, and the announcer’s voice, alternating between French and Fulfulde, blends in with the gentle hum of voices. It’s punctuated by the rhythmic thump, thump, thump of someone preparing manioc, a clatter of pots and pans, a group of children running past my compound. The sound of those little rubber flip flops on the hard dirt path is surprisingly distinct. I cannot explain it to you, other than to say that when you hear it, that there is no mistaking it for anything but what it is. Two compounds away, someone drops a metal cook pot. A baby cries, as is only to be expected. The occasional bleat of a goat. As the light fades, the voices are replaced by crickets and frogs, a chorus of howling dogs. Some nights, you can hear music from the Proviseur’s bar, where the same 10-15 songs are played over and over on repeat at full volume. It usually continue long after I’ve gone to bed. When I'm not serenaded to sleep by the cricket in my living room, then it’s to the sound of one Cameroon’s Top 15. Ca va aller, ca va aller, ca va aller.
10. The stars in Lokoti — when it’s clear enough to see them — are magnificent. There’s no light pollution, so the only thing keeping you from seeing every star in the Cameroonian sky are the roofs and trees (and, of course, the rainclouds). I love looking at them, but don’t recognise hardly any of them. This makes a lot of the sayings about looking at the same sky or being under the same stars seem a little hokey. I mean, sure, if you take a step back we’re all spinning through the same stretch of space in the universe. Ok, whatever. But when I look at the stars here, I don’t see the same constellations I’ve become familiar with at home in the States. It’s isolating and freeing at the same time. But regardless of any deeper meaning, scientific or metaphorical, it’s absolutely breathtaking.
