XMAS!

I survived my first Christmas away from home!  After finding out that Lee, Luca, and Gisela would all be out of town for the day of, I was firmly prepared to have an absolutely lonely and depressing holiday spent crying and planning my return the US.  On December 23^rd, when I was juggling all the invitations of exactly no one, I subtly asked my counterpart what she was doing for Christmas.  She avoided my gaze and mumbled something about how busy she would be, but what was I doing?  Hadn’t people invited me over?  I told her curtly that no, no one had.  She laughed awkwardly and that was that.

Anyway, fortunately, after that point the invitations started rolling in.  By the end of the day I was committed to spending Christmas with Leonard and Carine, Geoffrey and Barbara (Anglophone neighbors who are very friendly and I’ve been getting to know.  Geoffrey weirdly insists on calling me “Tonia” as a special nickname.), Alima’s family, and John (Another Anglophone friend from the neighborhood).  So things were starting to look up.  Then on Christmas Eve as I was working on my secret santa gift (details to follow after the exchange because I am pretty proud of how it turned out), my doorbell rang.  It was Leonard and Carine’s son telling me that I was expected for a Christmas Eve dinner at the Landlord’s house.  I went over with Ricky, Leonard, and Carine, and we joined the landlord and his family for a feast!  I was reminded of the Christmas Eve party my family went to every year growing up, and this was a nice substitute.

When we sat down, Richard (the landlord) asked us what we would like to drink.  “We have whiskey, wine, and cognac.  But we’re drinking wine with dinner and cognac after, so you’d better start with whiskey,” I was instructed.  For anyone wondering the role of alcohol in Cameroon, there is a lot of it.  We drank well and we ate well.  The menu was braised fish, baton de manioc, fried plantains, potatoes, and cabbage.  We ate with our hands and everything was wonderful and I felt happy to be fêting with nice people.  It actually felt like Christmas Eve, with the synthetic light-up sapin de noel in the corner of the room.  Conversation drifted between French and English for the whole night as we discussed music and love and everything in between.

My landlord is a cool guy.  He’s 75 years old (but like all Cameroonians, looks way younger – not a day over 60) and shared the story of how he met one of the first Peace Corps volunteers EVER.  He was studying in Senegal in 1962 and met PCVs back then.  I guess he has had connections with the Peace Corps ever since.  He’s also generally really nice and chill about the fact that I paid rent more than halfway through the month.  “Don’t worry!  We operate on trust!”  He assured me.  Anyway, it was a lovely Christmas Eve and the first time it felt like the holiday season.

The next morning I woke up and was too consumed in working on my sercret santa present to remember to do Christmas.  After I finally tore myself away from it, I ate scrambled eggs and hot chocolate and spice cake, and opened the gifts that my family sent six weeks ago.  I thought opening presents alone would be sad, but it was actually great – I got to dwell over the pages of my new African scat guide without regard to anyone else’s schedule or desires.  My gifts were wonderful and all perfect and relevant (a jar of chocolate almond butter just as my Nutella reserves dwindled!  A learn to crotchet book to occupy my free time!  A lovingly homemade calendar of the cats!  More!).  Around 1 I went over to Leonard and Carine’s for Christmas dinner of rice and stew and fried chicken and cous cous and legumes.  We spent the day eating and drinking and playing scrabble and fêting.  The day turned out to be way less depressing than anticipated and it was actually lovely.  I stopped by Geoffrey and Barbara’s and Alima’s for a bit and they fed me more until I burst.  Anyway.  It was a nice Christmas, and although I was sad not to be with my family, I got to talk to them on the phone.

Last week water was out for five days.  I was freaking out and totally unequipped to deal with life sans eau.  I bought another water jug and made friends with a local moto guy who filled them for me.  Suddenly luxuries like showering or flushing the toilet were out of my reach and the dishes piled up as I used my only remaining drops to water my thirsty herb garden.  Basically life is super hard.  Then water went out again this week and was out for Christmas!  Oh to live in a developing country!

Our Westies Girls Club had another of our weekly sleepovers last week at Lara’s.  It was a ton of fun – wine, eggplant parmesan, girl time, American time, Maureen in from Adamawa, Bailey’s hot chocolate with candy canes.  Lara’s house is amazing and she’s stupidly bien integrée, greeting an infinite stream of visitors to her house.  I also finally got to explore Bafoussam a little and learn the ropes of where to get food, where to go shopping, etc.  It is a nice place but Bafang really has everything I need.

I agreed to teach English starting after winter break.  My counterpart said I can use the class time to also teach business/enterprise or life skills or whatever I want.  Also I went to a cyber café in Bafang and was impressed by how decent and inexpensive the internet was.

Cultural notes of Cameroon:

-          People pee everywhere.  All the time.  A guy was walking me home from a late event and stopped on the road, mid-conversation, and whipped it out as I tried not to break eye contact.  The world is our latrine.

-          Even though I live in a Francophone region, I am picking up some Anglophone Cameroonian English quirks.  If someone says something surprising, instead of saying “really?” they will say, “true?”  And no one ever says “hello.”  It’s always “good morning” or “good afternoon” or “good evening”.  Some of my Anglophones are also trying to teach me a little Pidgin, telling me to say “I no go finish som” when I’m not going to finish my beer.

-          Produce here is not like produce in the US.  Everything is smaller and scrappier and dirtier than you would ever see it in America.  Our oranges aren’t orange.  Our apples are slightly bigger than golf balls.

-          It’s rude to cross your legs here, which is horrible because it’s an impossible habit to break.  It implies that you think you’re the most important person in the room, so to do so around an official or authority figure would be really disrespectful.  I am trying so, so hard to break the habit but when I’m alone in my house I indulge in long, private, sessions of leg crossing.

-          Cameroonians will state obvious facts by forms of making conversation.  “You are returning home.” “You are reading.”  Yes, yes I am.

-          Everyone wants to buy my moto helmet.  I have no idea why it’s such a hot commodity, especially since very few moto drivers actually wear one of their own.  A guy in the car with me yesterday harped on the issue for hours as he pleaded with me, a little too aggressively.  I would have bopped him on the head with it, but then we would have continued to be pressed against each other in the car for another half hour on our way to Bafoussam.

-          People will call me “Mama” as a sign of respect.  Sometimes it’s weird when it’s women who I also call Mama.  Can we be each other’s Mamas?  Also sometimes old-ass men (including my 75-year-old land lord) call me Mama and I want to say, dude, you could be my grandfather.

Now I’m headed to Foumban for the West volunteer Christmas celebration, and after that, onto Bamenda for New Years!