Disclaimer: this post is not for the weak of heart or stomach. This is also not for the obsessively hygienic or the picky eaters of the world. You’ve been warned.
For those of you wondering how one maintains standards in the Peace Corps, I’ll give you a hint:
One does not.
Last weekend, I found myself fortunate enough to be eating a pear in Ngaoundere. A real pear! Pears aren’t easy to find, and they’re expensive to boot. My friend and fellow stagemate Katy was visiting, and she had been generous enough to buy a pear, not just for herself, but also for Candice and I. I scooped out the inedibly bruised bits with a spoon (ok, so we have SOME standards) and commenced to eat what was possibly one of the best pears of my life. Candice watched me carefully, and after a moment said,
“….you know that you’re eating that pear out of the garbage, right?”
“…yyyyyeeeees.”
“Ok. I just wanted to be sure that hadn’t been lost on you.”
It had not, in fact, been lost on me that somebody, probably noticing the inedibly bruised bits and not the deliciously edible bits around them, had thrown my beautiful pear into the garbage. And it had not been lost on me that I then, with fewer reservations than I really should have had, ate that pear out of the trash.
In my defence, the pear had been resting neatly on top of a cereal box and was not so much IN the trash as ON the trash. But in my defence…there really is no defence of my actions. Over the course of the last 7 months, my standards have dropped dramatically, to the extent that I am unashamedly posting on my blog about how I ate a pear out of the trash bin. I brought two suitcases to Cameroon with me, and pride didn’t fit in my carry-on.
To be honest, I’m rather looking forward to seeing how much I can disgust my friends and family when I get back to the States. Is that weird? Living in Cameroon has become a big game of “will or won’t this probably kill me?” Is there three inches of mold on that bread, or can most of the mold be scraped off? If it’s the latter, it’s probably fine. Are the bugs in your popcorn big enough to be picked out? Go ahead and pick ‘em out — besides, you already poured oil on those kernels, and olive oil is expensive. Can you delude yourself into thinking that your concrete floor is adequately cold enough to replace a refrigerator? Then you’re probably fine eating that yogurt.
Please let it be known that I don’t necessarily endorse this style of living. There’s probably a reason that I’ve already had two types of worms in country. There’s probably a reason why the most commonly repeated word in this post is probably. But I will say that nothing will ever go to waste (and no matter how much you try, you will STILL throw away more food than your neighbours).
Personal hygiene is a whole other can of beans. I’ve successfully gotten my hair-washing schedule down to once a week, and I could easily get it down to every other week if I really wanted to try. Whenever Candice and I get together, we’ve got a really great game called “Dirt or Tan?” I highly recommend you try it at home — good, unclean family fun. I’ll give you a friendly hint: it’s dirt. I’ve given up on washing my clothing after a single wear, and instead wash it only if it is visibly dirty or if I can smell it before I put it on. Am I making my sheets dirty, or are they making me dirty? Who can really know for sure?
Please don’t take my poor cleanliness habits as a reflection of Cameroonians. While styles of dress and in particular conceptions of clashing do not always align, you can count on Cameroonians to be quite fastidious with their clothing and personal hygiene. While at home, Cameroonian mamas will wear the same clothes every day until they fall apart, if they are going out even just across town, they dress to the nines. When it comes to care of their shoes, Cameroonians defy logic. No matter the season, their shoes will be spotless. It’s as if their shoes magically repel mud in the rainy season and dust in the dry season. I’m jealous of their sharp sense of style and their impeccable shoes — but I also watch my neighbours scrub their shoes every morning before they leave for school, and quite honestly, the work isn’t worth it to me. My secret? Find a pair of shoes in up-for-grabs that almost exactly matches the colour of the dust, and them wear them until they fall apart.
Depending on your point of view, Peace Corps will either do wonders or will do a number on your self-esteem. First of all, no matter what you look like or what you’re wearing, people will still notice you, whether or not you want them to. I hadn’t washed my hair in a week and I probably hadn’t bathed in two days, and someone told me I looked beautiful. Unless you change your nationality and the colour of your skin, it honestly does not matter what you look like, because you’ll still get marriage proposals. Take that as you will.
No matter how hard you try, you’ll never be as clean as you would be in the States. You’ll get pimples in places you didn’t know you could get pimples. Dirt will settle into the cracks of your heels and you will never, ever, ever be able to scrub it off. You’ll wash your hands only to find five minutes later that dirt has yet again settled under your nails (I recommend nail polish). You’ll stop wearing deodorant and not realise it for a week. What was an unacceptable level of oiliness in the States will now become your hair’s new normal. But on the flip side? Nobody will care, or even particularly notice. I mean, if you are actually obviously filthy, sure. Nobody’s going to miss the fact that there are tracks of dirt on your feet that more or less exactly follow the outline of your sandals. But the hair, the clothes, the pimples, the feeling of never being really truly clean? Just embrace it. This is the reality of your next two years, so cover your mirror and embrace it in all of its grimy, smelly, sweaty glory.
