We are happy to report that, despite the persistent efforts of our nemesis, and with the help of some bug repellent and Benadryl gel, we’ve been in Cameroon for a month now without contracting malaria! And yes, though it’s hard to believe, we’re celebrating seven years of marriage here in Bafia. Would we have guessed back then where we’d be today? We certainly had high hopes for where the adventure would take us, but we probably would have said something along the lines of, as long as we’re together, we’ll be happy. Here in Peace Corps Cameroon we’re “The Married Couple,” which people think is cool, and then they proceed to tell us about the other married couples they’ve met in the Peace Corps… all of whom are now divorced. We’ve gotten our response down to, “we came together, we’ll leave together.” We’ve definitely had our highs and lows over the years and, looking back, we’ve come through, sometimes struggled through, a lot together – mosquitos and giant spiders and linguistic challenges and cultural confusion have nothing on us! Each time we just catch each other’s eye and shrug, knowing we’ve been through bigger (okay, that maybe was the hugest spider I’ve ever seen…), badder, harder. We’re not sure what others come in expecting – if it’s to save or fix a relationship that’s not working, just like that more popular band-aid of reproducing, a mysterious illness causing explosive yuck at two in the morning when the electricity is out and your spouse has “hidden” your flashlight really isn’t going to do it. If you’re newly-wed and haven’t been friends with your partner for years, and maybe haven’t really touched on any of the “better or worse” stuff yet, maybe hold off on moving to a developing nation. Or if both people aren’t in this whole Peace Corps thing 100%, see above, it’s kind of enough to make one consider spousicide. But we’re certain of how good we have it in each other, and this journey is not a fix for anything, but a chance for each of us to see the other rise to meet some crazy individual challenges and goals (and to experience the “sickness and health” in a whole new way…), and be completely impressive doing it.
It really has been a rollercoaster ride though! We picked our previous analogy better than we knew. And not just day to day, but hour to hour. Some moments we are cursing the cultural or linguistic challenges that make basic communication into a huge production, or the fact that the sudden and inexplicable lack of those little creature comforts you can sometimes take for granted – like electricity, or running water – makes EVERYTHING a challenge. The next moment we’re talking with our host-mom and not grabbing the dictionary every other word, successfully navigating our way around town, being welcomed by a community host like long-lost family. Sometimes it’s even more simple than that: warm beignets in the morning, spotting hornbills flying overhead, the perfect view of the mountains, a nice cold Top Pamplemousse, or the shared excitement of the water being back on! We definitely aim to keep our updates upbeat, because we are happy to be here, and at least 80% of the time is great.
Before joining the Peace Corps consider that 20% of the time, you may well hate your life and wonder what you are doing. Getting up first thing in the morning for training is not going to be any better than getting up for work, and will probably be worse. Peace Corps wants highly motivated and independent people to send out to build capacity in the developing world; Peace Corps Training believes you’re approximately sixteen years old and very irresponsible. And also grounded. If it’s raining, you can’t wash your clothes. It sometimes rains for weeks, but your host family will still be unhappy that your clothes aren’t washed often enough. (Bring a portable clothesline, and “clothes for a week,” is about 3 shirts, 3 undershirts, and 3 bottoms you can interchange – we packed way too many clothes.) A lot of places, and Cameroon specifically, view women in terms of services they can provide for men (yes, services). Peace Corps training for some reason likes to have different culture groups makes lists enumerating these kinds of important cultural things. It can be disturbing and disheartening to see half the human population reduced to words like “materialistic,” “jealous,” “weak,” and “property,” and have that be what you’re greeted with when you walk in every day for a week. (We’ve also met several Cameroonian men who are really good people and treat the women they work with as the competent people they are.)
We’ve found it really interesting to note that living in Cameroon is strangely like the United States about fifty years ago. Dad goes to work in a suit every morning; Mom may work outside the home, but her primary responsibility (solely hers) is to keep house and raise the kids (if she can’t work and keep house to the expected standard, it’s her responsibility to hire a housekeeper); sons play sports; daughters set the table and distract the younger kids; everyone has dinner together, usually some form of starch and meat, around the TV. This raises the question; is Cameroon like the US circa 1957 because Peace Corps (and other international development efforts) has been here for the last fifty years, or simply because it has been fifty years? Will gender equality come to Cameroon in twenty years because that’s the natural progression of cultural development, and women are starting to be more educated and ask why domestic responsibilities are solely theirs? (Even if the woman is the sole income earner, she is still also solely responsible for household duties.) Or will it have something, anything, to do with international efforts to increase the number of girls given access to education worldwide? We don’t have the answers, though we suspect they are somewhere in the middle. We do continue to believe that we’re here for a reason, and that if we can help one person make their own life a little bit better in some way, that’s something, and impacting one life to some benefit it worthwhile. Only a month in, we can say ours already have been.
Happy anniversary! Congratulations!!
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