Jess does da ‘Roon

An issue I may not have touched on.

So currently I’m “in town” – this means I’m not close to anyone’s house that I know of. When the “call of nature” strikes… it’s an issue. If you’re drinking at a bar, usually there’s some trough (yep) for you to squat over (oh the many times I’ve damned men in this country). But if not, let’s say you’re shopping, you better hope that you’re acting true Cameroonian and not drinking a lot of water. Public bathrooms are not easy to come by.

So today I strolled into the internet cafe and asked to “ease myself” – I’ve learned to be delicate (curtsy). Suddenly some guy walks in and a few fast pidgin phrases were exchanged. “May yi follow yu?” (“She should follow you?”) and I’m trudging up the stairs behind this building… into his room?? Awkward. I was too pressed to care. As I walked out, he tried to get my number and asked me to come and visit him sometime (I’ve already been in his bedroom, hell!). Cameroonian men get a gold star for their rough-and-ready mentality of flirting. Anytime is a good time to hit on a “whiteman”.

On a rainy Monday, am I allowed to be slightly more pissy than usual? One should hope. This morning I arrived at the holiday camp that I’m working with, and my partner was late. Due to scholarships and lagging enrollment, right now, over half the participants are deaf. Which is cool, if I was working with a deaf school, but a mixed group (with lesson plans of not hearing-impaired-friendly activities) is really hard. Simon says and the hokey pokey are a bit less… well-received. When I asked the kids to introduce themselves and give one adjective for how they were feeling, I got things like “bored”, “weak”, “tired”… Awesome. Roll with the punches, we’ve got to do more visual activities and work on our translation.

Last Friday I took the kids to the clinic.  ["the kids" are 2 of a family with many kids that I've grown close with through other volunteers] It was supposed to be a simple, “these kids need care and I’m going to take them to get it” sort of deal.  One had ringworm and intestinal worms and the other thought she had filaria. It’s not sustainable, but I knew the family wouldn’t take them so… Neither of them had really ever been to a clinic before, so taking blood was a bit shocking.  The boy, who’s 4, is anaemic and so had to be stuck with a needle in 6 places before they went for the femoral artery to try and get blood. The doctor called me into the office and said “He needs a transfusion.” I nearly laughed out loud. There are no blood banks here, so that means that you have to leave the clinic and franticly search for someone with the same “blood group”. He needs it because he has malaria and it’s destroying the red blood cells he has and he’s grown anaemic to the point where he doesn’t just need iron-he needs hemoglobin. So, knowing that he won’t get the transfusion (his parents aren’t around), we got him on some medicines and the family’s supposed to make “blood mixtures” (mixtures to thicken the blood, one recipe being grenadine and tomato paste.. which sounds terrible and I have no idea if it works). As we left the clinic, after I’d spent $60 (which is not too bad considering all the medicines we bought and the tests they ran on the 2 of them), I started to analyze why I’d brought them at all. Would they take the medicines? (A lot of Cameroonians don’t really like taking medicines) If they don’t get better nutrition, won’t it just happen again? I left feeling lost and depressed. Furthermore, the family wasn’t really all that appreciative. When we came back, after being in the clinic for 5 hours, one of the female heads of the family came up to us in the street and said “Wow! You guys have really been enjoying!”… as if we’d been out in restaurants, partying?! Lesson learned: don’t do it if it’s not sustainable. Money’s not everything.

Update on the rainy season: I’m fighting a war against mold. Leather apparently LOVES mold (who knew rotting flesh wasn’t good for moisture?). My clothes are beginning to show spots of it. I can’t stand it. So the electrician’s coming in the morning to put a light bulb in my closet that I’ll run all the time to keep the temperature up. You would’ve thought growing up in 100% humid NC would give me some preparation for this, but this is unbelievable. What I do like is cuddling up in sweatshirts and having a need of a tobagan (weird word and no I don’t mean the sled).

Ok and to wrap up with something beautiful… the baby in my compound, Junior (there’s a gazillion Juniors here), is I think about a year and half. He knows words like “cat” and “mama” (which he screams repeatedly whenever upset). Today he started saying what sounds like my name – although “Jess” isn’t too hard and gives him a step up to saying “yes”, I’m still pleased. So I held him and he faintly smiled. Babies here don’t laugh as much as babies that I remember, so when they do, you take note of it (which may be a good thing, not to take such pure joy for granted). We danced …which looks a little like me doing a drunk booty dance and he getting his arms yanked around to my lack of rhythm.

Did I tell you I went to the Apostolic church? I’ve been checking out different churches, just to be a part of the culture, get a little God in my life, and mostly to find the most awesome music.  I haven’t found the music yet, but I have found: talking in tongues, crazy church outfits, and old women sleeping in the service. 

I received 4 packages today which makes it an AWESOME day.  None of them were opened, since mom scrawled “Sweet Baby Jesus” and other reverend-ish things (puts the fear o’ God in ‘em).  But the ants found the sweetness of baby Jesus or perhaps something else inside one of them so they all rushed out when I put the package down.  I’m learning to see ants as similar to dust, since they don’t really harm the food – you just brush them off and continue on. Yeehaw.

I went on a little trip to Bangangte, the training site, to give a day and a half seminar on HIV and gender to the new trainees. It was awesome to meet the new members of the club (oh it’s a club, don’t get that twisted). And I got to see my host mom’s new baby, Angel. She’s tiny and her eyes don’t really focus since she just goes from sleepy to breastmilk-coma. My host mom made this amazing fish, bongo chobi (a Bassa dish) with black sauce. Oh dear fish gods! It was profound. She’s going to visit me and teach me how to make it. I felt a little like the wizard of Oz, since during my training the volunteers were like these magical beings that lived in the training house and departed their knowledge upon us.  Now I was disappearing behind the door to stay in the house (pretty sweet room too) and trying to keep them from getting too bored during the really long workshop.

Speaking of workshop, I started a “holiday camp” (there’s no summer here and you wouldn’t want to call it “rainy time camp”) with another NGO that I’m working with.  It started out rough, with only 2 kids coming (African time applies to long term registration as well as just being an hour or 2 late) but now there are more.  The kids have drawing, painting, music, and health classes as well as… dance classes. This means that Aunty Jessie gets to soak in a bit of rhythm (which I learned a helpful neumonic device for: “royal heiness yearns to hurt me” … I never knew “rhythm” needed a device, but jeez is it fun to think of all the different ones for that word! “rhinos hunt youths to have mystery”).  Anyway, they pull out a bongo drum (who needs a CD player when you’re in Africa?) and tried to help the kids to dance more “African” since they’re becoming “corrupted” by hip-hop and R&B.  The kids all got a chance to stand up front and dance to the beat, and when the 10 year old boys were doing pelvic jives, you could see perhaps they could use some more local culture. I resisted the urge to get up and embarass myself trying to find my own “African rhythm” (I definitely have it. Don’t question THAT)

This week’s been a bit hectic with the rain and a broken toilet (plumber couldn’t come since he was at a bar and probably lost track of time/got drunk… but he’s a great guy and he finally came). After being in Yaounde and going on a crazy Lost (you know, the TV show) festival – there’s no other way to watch that show! – I’ve been through a bit of withdrawl.  I missed other volunteers and I missed American entertainment (which is essentially what I would call myself for the Cameroonians, but it doesn’t entertain me exactly). But I’m rebounding with some good old books. That’s all for this muddy-footed girl today. (I’m experimenting with fun sign-outs… )