One year ago we were about to launch what has been an interesting journey to the other side of the world. It’s hard to believe, the time has gone so fast. We’ve picked up some French, learned how to get around and get things done Cameroon-style, and, we hope, started to have an impact with the skills and knowledge we’ve shared with our host organizations. It seems like it really does take a year to find your stride in a place so different from home. We’ve just recently started exploring Ntarinkon market, rather than going to Bamenda Main Market, and found a really good place for soya just a short walk from our house, and started hiking the surrounding foothills. There’s some sense of regret that we missed out on these things while we were figuring out how to buy furniture and bed sheets, and arguing with our landlord, and trying to sort out just what exactly it is we’re supposed to be doing here! But at the same time, we know we’ve just reached a different stage in our cross-cultural adjustment.
We really wanted a nice classy restaurant to celebrate our anniversary, we found we are both still pretty healthy at our mid-service check-ups, we hosted site visit for one of the incoming trainees, Kiyomi was hit and moderately (not quite so bad as “seriously,” right?) injured in a traffic accident, and our laundry was stolen. It’s been an eventful few months. But a year in also seems like the right time to do the whole reflective retrospective bit.
Some themes that have emerged:
While we like some things in Cameroon and some people in Cameroon, we don’t really like living in Cameroon. After growing up as military children, we figured we had this living in new places for two years thing down. But military family members aren’t sent to the third world. We’ve learned, we’ve adapted, we’ve found our stride (and lost it again… and found it again! And…darn thing is slippery and small and hides…), but we really don’t like living in the third world. Maybe that seems obvious – developing nations are developing exactly because nobody wants to live in an undeveloped nation – but it was a revelation. We have found things and places and people we like, we have been moderately happy (or at least maintained no more than, as Freud is wonderfully misquoted, an ordinary level of unhappiness). But the idea that we can be really happy anywhere, because we’re flexible and open-minded and adventurous, and also, by the way, we’re trying to do the deeply rewarding work of making our world a better place…yeah, not so much.
One of the reasons we don’t like living in Cameroon is that it’s hard to work here. The process goes something like this: While chatting with a colleague a Great Idea emerges, you are really excited about it and so is your colleague, you begin planning to Implement the Great Idea, and find at your next meeting that your colleague (who shows up late) has not done any of his/her share of the work, excuses ensue or it is strongly implied that actually you were the one who was supposed to take care of X things. You agree to split the remaining duties, calls to your colleague confirm that (in slightly annoyed tones), yes, everything is taken care of, and at your next meeting you discover that, in fact, nothing has been done. Your colleague helpfully suggests ways you can continue to do the work on your own. The Day of the Great Idea arrives and anything still left to your colleague has not been done, no one actually shows up, or those in attendance complain that they’ve come to take part in the Great Idea (the one you’ve busted your hump to Implement to bring Benefit and Improvement to their community), and you haven’t even provided them with food and beer and “gadgets” (pens, notepads, T-shirts, key-chains; what we would call “chachkies” or “give-aways”) and laptops or money, so why are you wasting their time?
We’ve discovered that it’s a real challenge to provide all the motivation not only for yourself, but for everyone involved, by yourself. And it’s even more challenging after being hit/seeing your spouse hit by a motorcycle, and then having laundry stolen off your front porch, to stay motivated.
Not all poverty is created equal. Cameroon is a country rich in natural resources, a population filled with apathy, and a government sitting on considerable wealth. People are hungry because there are no roads to get abundant food from one part of the country to another. People are poorly educated because teachers are government employees and can go months, or even years, without collecting a paycheck. We know people who are forced to ask family to support them, or subsidize themselves by selling market goods or doing other side work in order to feed themselves while they wait for their actual paychecks to eventually arrive – with no promise of when that might actually be. It puts into perspective the continual problem of teachers not showing up for classes. But in general, people here (at least where we have traveled) are not hungry, and are poor only when compared to the West, where cost of living is also considerably higher. There’s a great priority placed on accumulation of material goods as well. Like in America, people may have a new car and large television and host elaborate parties at the expense of being able to pay their bills, but the level of consumerism here hasn’t yet experienced the backlash and resurgence of simple living going on the States.
Things are way better back home than we knew. Being on hold for forty minutes with the cable company is small potatoes – once you get that appointment for someone to come out between 8AM and 7PM, you’re pretty well guaranteed someone will be showing up that day. If you take a taxi, you get that whole taxi to yourself; in other means of public transportation, you always get your own seat, and for long trips, usually with a seatbelt! If you have to wait in line somewhere, at least there is a line to wait in, and not an oppressive crush of humanity on every side of you, pressing toward the front with no order or civility. In a restaurant you’re guaranteed (except in very rare cases) that everything on the menu is available for your order. You won’t wait thirty minutes for someone to take your order, you won’t wait an hour or more for it to come out, you won’t find your waitress asleep when you want the bill. And if she’s surly at any point, you may be able to get something comped if you call the manager, instead of that being standard demeanor. Plus, there’s pizza, and ice cream, and Mexican food, and turkey sandwiches, and sausage, and…
A smile and kind word (without a marriage proposal or request to be brought to “your country,” without even knowing what country that is) can change the tenor of an entire day. It’s sad but true to say that sometimes whether our morning taxi driver is in a friendly mood sets the tone for our whole day. On the other hand, after about six incidents of “hell-lo-ooo,” “whitemanwhiteman,” or “hey, baby,” paired with lots of hissing and lip smacking, that also sets a certain tone for the day, and we dream about walking down the street and being invisible again. But it does remind us to try to smile and say hello to the non-derangey people, and maybe make their day better too.
On expectations, we really didn’t think we had any. But, of course, it’s impossible not to. We expected:
To learn about an awesome and very different culture
To make great host country national (HCN) friends who would share their rich heritage and traditions with us while being interested in learning about ours
To bike to work on a sparsely populated dirt road every day
To work with organizations that had some idea of what they wanted collaboration on work-wise
To glimpse large African fauna now and again and debate how close they were and relative risks of an encounter
To be too busy attending cultural events and learning to make indigenous dishes to possibly have time for movies or computer games from home
To actually speak French
To have a favorite coffee/tea/local hot beverage place to hang out with our HCN friends
To live in a family compound with people who would become like a second family to us
To live in something strongly resembling a mud brick house
Things we didn’t expect:
Trash everywhere, also human waste everywhere with people routinely dropping off on the side of the road even in a city to urinate and/or defecate
People constantly asking us for money, our belongings, marriage, free passage to anywhere but here, etc. while being dressed better than we are
Strange assertions about the US, such as: there is no poverty, our president is from Africa, Rhianna and Jessica Simpson are sisters, there are no black people, everyone has servants, there are no trees – everything is paved, anyone can bring anyone they want to into the country – the only reason we won’t take someone to our country is obviously due to some grave personality flaw, etc.
Level of general drunkenness
General lack of motivation to do any work – another volunteer was decried as a horrible task master for insisting on at least four hour workdays
Napping in the workplace and surliness if interrupted
So many volunteers close by
So much traffic and pollution
Being told with surprising regularity what women don’t know about or can’t do (often things Kiyomi is well informed about and does)
The Big Man culture that prioritizes so much that we detest in our own culture: toady-ism, favoritism, consumerism, chauvinism, insert most any other unpleasant “-ism” here
Constant verbal harassment when walking down the street
“Corruption at every level” really is just that
Pretty consistent water and electricity with constant drips and power surges
Access to cheese and peanut butter but at extraordinary cost
Obsession with all things “Western,” while also adhering to “our culture” (a phrase most often brought out around topics such as women’s equality, girls’ education, homosexuality, and why these things are bad)
The number of men unwittingly wearing women’s clothing
A level of “Christian-speak” sans Christian activity that makes American Christian hypocrisy look like a small problem
To be fair, it isn’t everyone or all the time that we find frustrating or discouraging. We frequently meet kind and generous people who are eager to help us on our way and want us to have a good experience of their country. We’ll never forget the older gentleman who, seeing us looking a bit lost after coming into Yaounde a bit late and through a different agence than usual, said, “My children, where are you going?” We told him, and he told us exactly what to say to the francophone taxi drivers, and how much we should pay. He had us repeat it back to him to be sure we wouldn’t send ourselves to some different part of town than we intended. Then there were the farmers who saw us across a ravine, well off the path we meant to hike, who yelled to the herdsmen grazing their cattle nearby, who came and found us and took us to the trail we wanted, and walked it with us until we were past all the forks that might lead us astray. Recently nearly everyone has been apologetic on behalf of the motorcycle taxi that hit Kiyomi, almost as though it was a reflection on them personally that this happened, and very forgiving of her very rude use of the left hand! One mami gave Kiyomi a package of cookies along with her well-wishes when we passed by her boutique.
So, is there a wrap-up thought? We don’t really know at this point – we have another year though to figure it out. For now we’re just looking forward to an impending family visit and, really, when you live in the developing world, family is a very good thing indeed!
