A Moment in the Market

Before I write anything else, I must share my experience in the market this afternoon.  It was unlike any previous time and I think it’s important to hang on to for whenever the deranging gets me down.

I finished teaching and went to grab something to eat from one of the mamas in town.  I was sitting at one of the bars eating koki from the woman who sells it out front.  This is the exact same place and the exact same koki I was eating one day in January when I first met Julio.  The quick back story:  I was trying to eat lunch and this guy, Julio, came up, sat next to me and refused to leave me alone for the entire duration of my meal.  It was again and again, can I have your number, can I accompany you (wherever), why not, I’m not a bad guy, rinse, repeat.  Before arriving at post I was pretty sure that my skin was thick enough to withstand two years of street harassment and attention.  After all… I like attention, right?  Anyway.  That one day with Julio was the first time that it really started getting to me.  I felt like women here get no respect from the men, and everyone acts like because I’m foreign I owe them something, whether it’s money, food, my phone number, or the time to come share a beer with them.  It put me in a terrible mood and was, after that point, a terrible day.

So today when I was back at that spot, with that koki, sitting at a table by myself, I was already feeling guarded against the potential derangers around me.  One guy offered to buy me a drink and I told him, look, I’m eating alone.  I’m sure you’re a nice guy but I just want to eat alone.  He left me without much further protest.  Then the man at the table next to me wished me bon appetit and I cautiously thanked him, afraid his next move would be to ask for my number.  Next, an older, very drunk man emerged from the bar and wished me bon appetit, several times.  He was kind of trying to talk to me but I couldn’t really understand what he was trying to say through the slur.  Then, the man at the next table pulled the drunk guy over and told him to leave me alone.  Completely unsolicited! 

Throughout my meal, the drunk guy tried to talk to me or approach me several times, and the man at the next table over always stepped in and tried to get the man to sit next to him.  He told the guy, let her eat.  After she eats you guys can talk, but for now just leave her to eat.  It was amazing!  At some point another man sat at the table on my other side and he, too, assumed the role of my protector.  He said to the drunk man, “Why are you bothering her?  People come here to relax, not to be bothered.”  He also complained to the bar’s owner that this man was causing trouble and she should do something about it.

When the drunk man reached out to touch me, the first man said, “What, you’re going to touch her?  If a man touched your wife like that you’d break his hand.”  He even lured the guy away from me by taking his beer and pretending to drink it.  It was all so, so, so wonderful.  I thanked them both and they both acted like it was absolutely no problem, just the normal way to act in that situation.  And neither of them ever asked for my number.

I have tears in my eyes as I’m writing this because I know those men can’t have any idea what it meant to me.  Lately all the street harassment has been the number one thing that puts me in an awful mood.  I know, it really doesn’t sound that bad.  People want to talk to me and they ask for my phone number.  But when it happens every single day, time after time after time, and when the attention lacks any semblance of respect, it wears you down.  It has worn me down.  Worn me down, brought me to tears, made me feel like I distrust all men, and like no matter how hard I work I will never fit in, never truly be respected, and never treated like a normal human being.  And I have noticed that people never seem to step in on my behalf.  A few times, scary crazy people have been talking to me, touching me, and everyone in the vicinity looks on and no one intervenes.  And that makes me hate every bystander who would rather watch the spectacle of the flustered white person than actually help.  But today those two men changed that.  They singlehandedly restored my faith in men, Cameroonians, and humanity in general.  And they did it without knowing how important their actions were to me.

I love those men.

I will remember this moment forever, and let it remind me how simple good deeds can mean so much.