Jess does da ‘Roon

There are many things about my post that make it a bit unusual when I think about my “Peace Corps experience”. There are plenty of things that are more luxurious than I had imagined before coming. In spite of my huge house, fun furniture, abundance of food choices, night life options, electricity, and English-speaking surroundings, water is not one of those amenities. Recently the squalor has worn thin since the water company has shut off water for my part of the neighborhood for nearly 2 weeks now. Let me “put some flesh on the bone” as I’ve heard Cameroonians say. This means that I bathe with a bowl of water in order to conserve. It means the dishes are layered and I think twice before eating in the house. It means that I haven’t washed clothes in forever and the pile is large enough to give a small child fright in the night. After waiting and waiting for the water to come on in the house, finally we went to carry water. I was hesitant to carry it myself, partly because I’m lazy and 20L are heavy. But also because I’m focused on trying to be integrated into the community and I’m supposed to be a professional. When I go to the public tap, I see no one over 15 years old. Add that to the fact that I happen to stand out with my skin, and the whole town was staring at me. I attempted to load the jerry can onto my head and delighted in the effortless bath of water dripping down my glasses, shoulders, and spine.

That part was written about a week ago – we’ve since gotten water, which makes me skip around the house in glee.  Last night a crazy rain storm blew in and I cackled as I carried bucketloads of dirty water from the roof into the house – the only one insane/brilliant enough to be out in the storm harvesting the sweet glory.

Yesterday I got home, sweating in my clown kabba (the big billowing dress with blue and yellow bubbles on it… yes I wear stuff like this), and there were 6 girls waiting for me. It took me a minute to shift gears from the AMAZING nap I was about to partake in to hanging out with these really sweet girls who hunger for role models.  (That sounds self-righteous huh? When I asked them what we should do, they responded, “Teach us something.”) So I pulled out the string and taught them how to make a really simple friendship bracelet. Cameroonians are amazing at this because they braid hair so well.  But they’re not always used to it and so it’s sort of a foreign concept.  If only they could see the hoards of girls in America doing all sorts of stuff with embroidery floss in the summertime (they still do that, don’t they?? please tell me that hasn’t gone out of style with nano pets and the Cheetah girls)

Update on Lucy: she’s good. Upset at me since I haven’t been able to hang out as much recently, but good. One of the women in the house (there are like 3 aunties and a grandmother in the house.. one older brother type who’s irresponsible – no other men) just gave birth. And… named the kid after me. This is something that I jokingly complained about since I came to post, that I didn’t have any babies named after me – only a dog that died.  But the fact of it is, the namesake has obligations here. I don’t want to have to pay for this kid. So I reluctantly wrote my name on an envelope for them to put it on the birth certificate. But being stubborn, I wrote down “Jessie Lee”… since I don’t want too much commitment and it not having my FULL name somehow makes me feel better. I sound callous but I’m a bit upset at the lack of care for the children already in this house (rickets, ringworm, unsupervised and dirty).  Grrr.

For those of us who are fans of Dane Cook, I’d like to call upon his [brilliantly hilarious] sketch about the commercial for Kool-Aid with the talking big bowl of punch who used to go busting through walls and exclaim, “Oh yeahhh” in this sort of fat gurgled voice.  Dane claimed that if he was a kid in the commercials, he would respond indignantly, “Oh NO! You will clean this mess up you big glass bowl with tights!”

I would like to send the same type of angry response to the snow that has attacked the east coast of my home nation.  “Oh NO!”

My college roommate and best friend, Kate, was set and loaded to the brim to come and visit Cameroon.  And the snow in NYC kept her back a day since in spite of modern technology, we haven’t figured out how to fly through the air in dangerous weather conditions.  This is mind-boggling since I’m sweating it out in a bathing suit top sitting in my living room.  How can it be snowing ANYWHERE?  I proceded to freak out; I like to think of myself as well integrated into Cameroonian culture but I still had made plans.  When someone pays enough money to choke a poodle to come and see me, I make preparations.  But I’m spazzing out in this restaurant after learning about the flight cancellation, and my friend says in this calm purr, “Honey. This is Cameroon. Relax. Everyone will understand.”  While I tried to be upset for awhile longer, eventually I submitted to the fact that everyone would just have to push plans around like finger paint until we got it figured out.

So far it’s fine.  The driver that was supposed to go with me to Douala is relieved to relax today I think.  I’ve got another day to figure out how to say in French to the chief of the airport police, “I’m important and I need to get into baggage claim because this other important whitey is coming and she doesn’t understand French.”  Grr to French.