The Western World: Ate the Appetizer, Waiting for the Entrée

Having grown quite disenchanted and frustrated with the disorder, disorganization, and dirtiness of Cameroon, and ready to begin celebrating the end of research presentations, five of us decided to head to the Hilton – the fanciest hotel in Cameroon, located in the very center of Yaoundé next to all of the government buildings – for happy hour. We had heard from Peace Corps Volunteers that happy hour at the Hilton was a thing to do, and so after sitting in a classroom for two days listening to thirteen half-hour long presentations on the research we all completed over the past month, it was time to celebrate.

We found a cab from Bastos to the Hilton – paying 40¢/person – and a half hour later, we stepped out in front of the sumptuous hotel. Black market moneychangers were immediately upon us, demanding to change our money. I turned around to them as we headed towards the entrance and told them that we live here. But AT had West African Francs which she had brought with here hoping to change, and had been unable to throughout the entire three and a half months. So she changed the francs, and we headed up to the U-shaped driveway, up marble steps, underneath a Christmas-themed arbor, and through sliding glass doors into a marble-floored, climate-controlled, extremely clean, and quiet lobby. Those four adjectives are anathema to everything that Cameroon is. Needless to say it was a shock stepping through those doors, and we all had the strange feeling that we were back in the West.

I asked a security guard which floor the bar was on – we knew that it was at the top of the hotel, and he instructed us to go to the 11^th floor. We got into the first elevator we have been in since arriving in Cameroon. The elevator, like many, was plated with mirrors. This was the largest concentration of mirrors any of us had seen since arriving. We stared at our reflections, commenting on the weight gained from our highly elevated palm and cotton oil consumption. Arriving on the 11^th floor, we got out, awed by the very clean wall-to-wall carpeting and the windows which allowed us to look out over the entire city.

We sat down in armchairs surrounding a low table and within minutes a waiter came dressed in a suit and smiling kindly came over to take our order. We spoke half in English and half in French. Mixed drinks at the Hilton cost 5000 CFA ($10), but during happy hour you can get a second mixed drink – the same as the first you ordered – for the same price. MB got a mojito, JG got a gin fizz, AT got a piña colada, AM ordered a blue Hawaiian, and I ordered a margarita. I’m not quite sure why, but it seemed like a good choice at the time. However, when it arrived, it ended up being the drink out of all of ours which had the most alcohol in it, which was not such a help to my lightweight drinking habits.

The waiter also brought us two little bowls of peanuts and one of mixed black and green olives. We were blown away by calm and swanky atmosphere of the bar and it was almost surprising to look out the windows over the city and to be reminded of the disorderly and filthy streets, the poverty and need. We spoke about what it would be like to go home in a few days and whether or not places like the Hilton would once again become commonplace. Would we forget the experience we have lived through here? Would we eventually take hot showers for granted again? Would we forget the days we spent without access to running water? The daylong power cuts? Would it feel like a dream? Would traffic lights still seem novel in three months? Would we continue to feel like kissing the washing machine each time we put in a load? Will we be opening our refrigerators for the next month, awed and overwhelmed each time at a) their coldness and cleanliness, and b) the fact that there is always food and we are allowed to take whatever we want whenever we want?

And as we speculated about the changes we would undergo upon returning home, we also reminisced and discussed what we would miss. Taxi rides would no longer cost between 20¢ and 60¢, no more pineapples for a dollar, we would not be able to buy whiskey bottles filled with peanuts on the street, no more plantain fries, and perhaps best - or worst - of all, we would disappear into obscurity again, no longer conscious of our white skin or of every man’s eyes – and woman’s for that matter – fixed on us.

We spent the day Saturday at the SIT office processing our semester and preparing for our now imminent return. Many of us voiced concerns and frustrations regarding the program, but we also discussed all that we have learned. I mentioned valuing the chance to live as a minority (appearance-wise) in a culture. It is a first for me and has certainly made an impact on how I view my actions and those of others. I am curious to see whether this impact will manifest itself as a change in behavior when I return.

As we wrapped up our discussions, la directrice handed us an excerpt from The Innocent Anthropologist by Nigel Barley. It was his musings on returning from fieldwork in West Africa to the banalities of his quotidian life in England. Many of his ideas struck home. I could completely relate to them and I know that this applied to other students as well as I heard chuckles around the room as my classmates each arrived at certain parts which seemed to so eloquently describe what we were already planning ourselves to feel upon returning home. He describes a “brooding sense of insecurity only heightened by the vast numbers of rushing white people you meet everywhere.” At this point I am unable to imagine what it would look like to see only – or at least a majority of – white people on the streets. It’s not that I notice that everyone is black when I walk down the street here, but when we see another white person we are always excited – who are they? What are they doing here?

I liked Barley’s description of returning to supermarkets. “The sight of the shelves of a supermarket groaning with superabundance of food induces either nauseous revulsion or helpless dithering. I would either go three times round the store and give up the attempt to decide, or buy vast quantities of the most luxurious goods and whimper with the terror that they would be snatched from me.” We are somewhat spoiled here in Bastos with the imported foods grocery stores we have access to, but I still cannot imagine what it will be like heading into Whole Foods. I will protectively hold my bag in front of me and not let anyone see how much money I have; I will likely faint when there are more than five different kinds of cheese to choose from. I cannot wait to be able to put whatever amount of fruit or vegetables I want in my basket and then weigh them at the cash register. Prepared foods are going to seem like a gift from the gods.

I know the shocks will be endless these next few days after I arrive, and Christiane shared with us that students tell her it takes a full three months to reintegrate into the culture. When the cultures are such polar opposites, is it possible to completely learn what you have learned? Barley writes, “It is a common trait of returned fieldworkers, as they stumble around their own culture with the clumsiness of returned astronauts, to be simply uncritically grateful to be a Westerner, living in a culture that seems suddenly very precious and vulnerable.” As I slowly eat a dinner made without palm, cotton, or peanut oil, will I simply cherish what I am eating, or will I compare the prices to those I encountered daily in Cameroon? Will I walk into stores amazed when the shopkeepers neither urge me to buy everything I touch, nor propose marriage to me, nor tell me I am beautiful, and will I forget to analyze why it is that they do not need to resort to desperation to get me to buy something?

There are so many questions yet to be answered about what the switch will be like, but I am grateful above all that I have family and friends in both Massachusetts and in Minnesota who are ready to support me as I begin this difficult transition. I am eager to return, to experience the sanitary, regulated atmosphere of the airport (well, not the Yaoundé airport…), to see the smiling faces of my family at the airport, to eat foods made without oil, to be able to walk barefoot in my own house, to be able to expect toilet seats on toilets, to pet dogs without fleas or mange, and to be able to finally finally relax. These past three and a half months have been such an adventure, but I know that I am ready to go home. I left Boston for Geneva with LA almost exactly seven months ago, and between adventures in France, Poland, Austria, Monaco, Switzerland, Italy, and Canada, have spent a total of twelve days in the US since then.

I don’t know that I have ever missed the United States like this, but a lot has happened in these past seven months, and I am looking forward to discussing and sharing firsthand with my fellow citizens. GP and I walked to the top of Mont Fébé this morning, encountering nearly three hundred Cameroonians walking, jogging, sprinting, and cycling along the way. On our descent, rather than heading up the long hill towards our houses, we went the back way, past the American Embassy. As we walked past the massive building, curbing the urge to shout to the security guards inside the gates that we, too, would be standing on American soil within 48 hours. And yet as we passed the main entrance, we both had a sharp intake of breath seeing the flag at half-mast. When tragedies – or celebrations – occur in one’s home country, it is hard to not be able to participate or share them with those around us. Traveling can be fun, overwhelming, educational, fascinating, torturous, informational, invaluable, inspiring, tumultuous, stressful, and life-altering; the adjectives can keep going forever. When we travel we are constantly learning, working on changing pieces of ourselves in order to feel more at home in our surroundings, but after an extended period of time, the knowledge that there is a place out there where we can blend in without trying and where we understand the nuances and intricacies of everyday life is reassuring and a huge comfort.

I am beyond thrilled to go home right now – actually I have been beyond thrilled for the past two weeks. I know that I will appreciate my surroundings and my family and friends immeasurably, but I also know that after a few months at home, operating day to day without needing to stretch myself and progressively losing that shrewd analytical eye which feels so natural while traveling, I will feel the pull to leave again, to experience something new. They say that love for traveling is a bug you can catch. Considering how many bugs – both with wings and without – I caught while in Cameroon, and considering that I survived and will be benefiting from this experience for the rest of my life, I am ready to continue to catching bugs and dealing with the consequences and benefits. 

Nasaara Comes to Tea: Part Two

One slow Monday afternoon while hanging out with my Muslim neighbor and her friends, they mentioned the baby naming of a friend’s daughter who had just been born. They invited me to attend the following day and when I asked if I were invited, they urged me to come, telling me it was necessary.

I headed over to my neighbor’s house at the agreed-upon 3 o’clock on Tuesday afternoon. I was wearing the t-shirt and skirt I had been working in all day. My neighbor, Hadiza, and her friend Hawa were dressed beautifully with bouses, pagne, fouillards (head wraps), scarves and jewelry. They were also made up. I immediately felt under-dressed, but was unsure what to do. They sprayed me with perfume, all the while speaking in Fulfulde so all that I could really pick out was nasaara this and nasaara that, which ended up being somewhat of a preview of what the entire evening was to be like.

I eventually said I hadn’t realized it was so dressy and I went back to my house to change. I switched my t-shirt for a silk blouse, put on my dressy sandals, jewelry, and a bit of makeup. Hadiza and Hawa highly approved of my outfight change and a typical 45 minutes after the agreed-upon time, we left.

Hadiza, who was married at 15, has a 7 year-old son, and whose husband recently took a second wife, is somewhat starved for company, which soon become evident after we started hanging out. She is unbelievably sweet and I enjoyed all of the time I spent with her my last two weeks in Bertoua. I just so wish there was something I could do for women like her. She told me about her regrets about not going to high school and how much she would like to work – or at least just do something to keep herself occupied. Instead she sits in the house all day, watching TV series, and chatting with her neighbors and friends. It is not for lack of will or initiative, but instead it is cultural barriers which prohibit women like her from achieving any of the lofty goals they have – most inspired by the innumerable international series they watch.

Hadiza wore 4-inch yellow and leopard print heels to head to the baby naming. I was quite impressed. We teetered the five minutes down the road to the area where the baby naming was. The roads in Bertoua (all 15km of paved roads – not sure actually how many there are, but it CANNOT be more than that) have open ditches on either side of them. Rather than using pipes, ditches are made out of concrete on either side of the road. In town, where there are a lot of pedestrians, these ditches are covered with concrete slabs with holes in them so that the water can still drain, but so that people can walk on them, and thus we have sidewalks.

But in our neighborhood, the three-foot deep ditches on either side of the road are open, so in order to reach the houses on the sides of the road, one needs to walk over what is typically a 10-inch wide wobbly plank. We finally got Hadiza over in her stilettos – let me just mention that she also recently found out she’s pregnant – but rather than the house being right there at the side of the road, we squeezed into a narrow muddy path between two houses, then turned a corner and walked down a dirt path padded with bags of sand and through the middle of which an open sewer trickled slowly by. After several more minutes of walking through these tight dirt paths between houses, we finally emerged at the two room, windowless apartment – not sure if it could even be called an apartment, more like a lodging, maybe? – with no running water, one fluorescent bulb, a tiny TV, a bookshelf upon which the kerosene open flame stove was placed – no not safe – and which was filled with Muslim women, all in different pagnes, sitting on the floor chatting. The room was probably 12’ x 8’ and there were six women there when we arrived, but by the end of the evening there would be close to 15. The baby was sleeping, and was the only one in the room aside from me wearing Western clothing.

Embarrassingly enough, my presence made quite a stir amongst the women as I heard whispers of nasaara and France. After sitting down, I finally spoke up and said in Fulfulde, les di am America – I am from America. France is somewhat synonymous with white people here and I think it is far more common to encounter French here than to encounter Americans so that is what is naturally assumed. It soon became clear that this evening was no longer about the baby. She was put into her little net on the floor and left there – at eight days – while the rest of the woman spoke very loudly, nasaara coming up often.

Of course they turned to me, and in the unbelievably frustrating way that the Peul have here, they told me to join in the conversation and asked me why I was not talking. That command was in French, but as the rest of the conversation had been entirely in Fulfulde and my vocabulary is limited to numbers/monetary values (for bargaining in the market), saying where I am from and asking where someone else is from, sharing my name and asking someone else’s, the customary greetings, and saying that I am a student, I was neither able to follow the conversation nor contribute very much.

I should also mention that I had had an upset stomach since the night before and the cold yellow cool-aid looking (and tasting) drink that was offered to me by the 18 (just guessing, but she was without a doubt younger than me) year-old mother was anything but appetizing. I was also quite sure that it was made with water that would make me sick and as it was cold, I assumed it had not been boiled, but I drank it to be polite, because clearly entertaining a nasaara was a huge deal.

I asked Hadiza which of the slightly older women was the grandmother of the baby. She pointed to a woman who could not have been over 40 and who I am guessing was somewhere around 35. If the baby’s mother was 17 or 18 and this woman had had her daughter at 15 or 16, it was totally possible that she be around 35 years old.

Eventually someone borrowed a camera from a neighbor, which sent the women into such a joyous mood I was astounded. They were thrilled to have a camera and pulled the baby back out of the net/tent, lifting her up by one arm – never mind the lolling head or the fact that she was 8 days old – and put her into someone’s arms.

We soon headed outside and took at least one hundred photos in the waning twilight, at least 75% of which I was coerced into being in. I was extremely uncomfortable about the switch in the focus of the party from the eight day baby to the twenty-one year old foreigner, but there was really nothing I could do except continue to be bashful, keep my eyes down, and congratulate the mother on the recent birth of her daughter.

Walking home, I asked Hadiza why there had been that focus shift. She explained to me that my presence served as something very significant in the baby’s life. The fact that there was a nasaara at her baby-naming was a really big deal and likely something she would be reminded of for the rest of her life. Cameroonians latch on to any sign or reason that may mean success later on – and the presence of a nasaara is a certain sign from which only good can come. 

Nasaara Comes to Tea: Part One

People in Cameroon are friendly and enjoy visiting each other, but the sense of propriety in visiting and the constant presence of the television can make it an uncomfortable experience. My mom’s friend who is a doctor was in a moto accident two weeks ago. She went several times to visit him while he was in the hospital, and has been heading over to his house every few nights to visit him since he got home. On Monday night, she and I were sitting in the living room together when she looked at me and said, “On part.” (We’re leaving). Of course she didn’t ask if I wanted to go – why would she do that? So I got up and followed her out of the house.

We walked for fifteen minutes on a rutted dirt road with the only lights coming from the sparsely illuminated houses on either side of the street. We arrived at the doctor’s house just as his other visitors were leaving. There were no lights on, and we could only see each other’s faces thanks to the light of the television. Maman introduced me, he greeted us, and we sat down. He never once spoke to me, aside from telling me that he is Anglophone. The awkward silence lasted a good ten minutes, with both of them watching the television and me looking around in bewilderment that this was considered a visit and in anger that I was dragged here.

Finally the friend opened his mouth, long enough to ask my Maman for money. He asked her several times. This is a man who lives by himself (i.e. does not have a family to support) in a very nice house and he was asking my Maman – a primary school teacher whose husband left her who is now raising three children who are not her own? Yeah right. The visit consisted solely of him asking her for money, and her trying to defect his requests.

He eventually offered to walk us home. As we walked along, I asked him in English what kind of doctor he was. He could not understand me – a bewildering problem with Anglophones that I completely do not understand – and so I asked in French. He answered in English, “I bring babies. I am a women’s genitalia doctor.” Okay, that was a nice way to put it. I let him get back to asking Maman for money for a while.

He asked me what I thought of the fact that everyone in Cameroon is black. “Well I didn’t expect them to be Chinese,” I responded.

We finally got to the corner we were going to turn into our house. Maman talked to a neighbor while the doctor told me, “I studied in Canada.” “Oh, where in Canada?” I asked him. “Cape Town.” Oh really….? I thought. Never heard of Cape Town, Canada. I asked him, “Do you mean Quebec?” Pronouncing it several times with both the English and French pronunciations. “Yes,” he affirmed, “Cuba.” Go figure. He asked my Maman for money a few more times for good measure before we said good night and headed onto the path to our house.

This was an odd visit – not only because he is an odd guy – but because there was very little interest taken in me. It sounds narcissistic, but I have grown used to being barraged by questions every time I meet new people. It wasn’t his lack of interest that surprised me, but rather his inability to engage with people. Maybe it is to be blamed on the accident.

The next day, however, I would have a polar opposite experience. 

The Kindle in Africa

Along with the infamous CVS trip and painting my toe nails, heading to Barnes and Noble is one of my favorite pre-departure rituals as I get ready to head off on a trip. I have traveled a fair amount and know what types of books to pick out before I leave; adventure stories, classics, paperbacks – essentially anything captivating with many pages and small font. And yet three and a half months in a developing country seemed like it was going to require a lot more than five or six good paperbacks. Never mind the fact that I already had to bring four books with me as well as my French dictionary.

On a recommendation from SR who had already left for Nepal, I approached D about bringing his Kindle with me. I have never really had an interest in them, considering how much delight I take in holding a book – with pages! – in my hand and that satisfying feeling of closing it when you’re done. But I was already worried about the weight of my luggage and figured this would help matters somewhat.

I did consider the fact that I was already bringing a good number of electronics with me – my iPod, cell phones (both American and international), portable hard drive, camera plus an extra lens, Flip video camera, and digital recorder. Did I really need one more thing that had the potential to be stolen, to be broken, and which needed ot be charged? But my greatest fear on any trip is running out of reading material, so I figured it might just be worth it.

·      As a side note, when I headed off to France for three months in May, I made my traditional Barnes and Noble trip, but I was also lucky enough to have a sizeable library in the Priory where hundreds of books were available to me. I cautiously saved the majority of the books I had brought for my solo travels in July – completely aware that there would not be much to do on the farm I was WWOOFing at other than read and write – and so I took full advantage of the Priory’s library and the books my co-workers had brought along with them. I finished the last book during our first few days in Nova Scotia so clearly my rationing had worked well.

D generously agreed to let me take his Kindle with me and so the day before I left, amidst pills, underwear, cast off sweaters, and shoes scattered around my floor I reset the Kindle and began the process of downloading books. I downloaded eight books, figuring that would be enough for a while. I also figured I had D’s pre-downloaded copy of Moby Dick on there as a back-up in case I somehow found myself reading more prodigiously than expected.

I didn’t start using the Kindle until about two weeks into our time in Cameroon. We were busy, I was exhausted from days spent in the sun trying to get used to this overwhelming country, had a lot to write in my journal, and also had a sizeable amount to read each night for homework.

Nevertheless when I finally began using it, although I felt subconscious using something electronic to read in front of my host family, I enjoyed its portability, especially when we began traveling around Cameroon. I don’t want to gloss over the fact that it’s electronic – this has been difficult more than several times in this country where simply having a camera makes you a novelty, never mind the idea of a computer. And now here I am with an electronic book?

We were not allowed to use computers on the 12 hour train ride north to Ngaoundéré and were reminded to hide iPods well if we decided to use them. With theft rampant on the train we all kept our bags locked the entire time. But was it okay for me to read from an electronic book? I figured our white skin made us targets enough and luckily I was not traveling alone so it was safe.

It’s not only that the Kindle makes me an target of potential theft, but the actually the far worse problem I have had is that it catches the attention of one and all. It is nearly impossible to read the Kindle in a public place without someone asking me about it. I suppose it is similar to when iPods were first invented and the presence of those white earbuds and a small apparatus in hand was enough to start a conversation with anyone.

Before I left Yaoundé, I had headed to the expat grocery store – DOVV – to stock up on chocolate and cookies for the paper-writing coming my way and on mangoes and avocado for the bus ride to Bertoua the following day. The skies opened up as I was checking out, and as I had nowhere to be, I figured I would wait in DOVV with the many other Cameroonians seeking shelter from the blinding rain and wind outside. I took out my Kindle to read, fully engaged in Edwidge Danticat’s The Dewbreaker when two of the DOVV security guards came up to me. What’s that they both asked, one of them grabbing it from me for closer inspection. Is it a telephone? I laughed and launched what would be the first of many explanations of what a Kindle is, why it is practical, how much it can store in it, how the screen does not hurt one’s eye like a computer’s, and why I am not a huge fan because I prepare holding a book in my hand. Cameroonians are always curious about the price, and yet my favorite reaction they have is “les blancs sont trop forts.” Translated as something like white people are just too much. Meaning all we do is spend time thinking up crazy technologies which make our lives easier but which are not quite necessary.

One interesting thing about Cameroonians’ reactions to the Kindle is that they believe that it makes reading more accessible for some reason. You have to understand that books are rare in this country. Kids are not read to, people do not read for pleasure, and books are expensive and hard to find. Shockingly enough it’s possible to count Yaoundé’s bookstores on one hand (and this is a city of 3 million). And we’re not talking B&N or Borders.

But it is hard to imagine how books could be more accessible with the use of Kindles considering that one still needs to pay for and download the books. And considering how few people have access to internet, I’m not sure how this is possible. I explain to the DOVV security guards that my home library makes it possible to download e-books for a limited amount of time. But it sounds so absurd and frivolous here that it is almost embarrassing to share. In Bertoua, for example, the public library closed because the librarians stole all of the books. So the fact that we even have libraries is a big thing, never mind that there is internet access at libraries, that library catalogs are online, and that libraries – state owned! – enable their patrons to download books.

The Kindle’s biggest adventure so far happened in Ngaoundéré. I was living in my Maman’s house in the compound which consisted of a living space – devoid of any furniture, of course – and a bedroom in which the light did not work. I sat on the floor in the living room to do my homework, and when it was time to go to bed, I gathered up my headlamp, water bottle, tissues, alarm clock, iPod, and Kindle and headed into the bedroom, shutting light off in the main room on my way. Except for one night when, leaning over collection of buckets and boxes by the light switch with my hands full, I fumbled for the light switch and lost my balance, dropping the Kindle in the process. No it did not crack, but instead dropped like a blade onto the cover of one of the buckets which popped up, and the Kindle kept going, into the bucket – which was also conveniently was my bucket of extra water. I dropped everything else I was holding and quickly snatched the Kindle out of the bucket, shocked at what had happened and hoping with all my might that it wasn’t dead.

I pulled it out dripping, dried it off in on my t-shirt, and began shaking it, dismayed at the drips being flung out of it with each flick of my wrist. I retreated into my bedroom, knowing it was useless to be upset, but already imagining a cold and bleak ISP period lacking reading materials. I turned it on and was amazed that the book I was reading – Steve Stern’s The Frozen Rabbi, highly recommended – came on the screen. I read for a few minutes, but next thing I knew, the search bar appeared, claiming that I had attempted to search “uk79jdf.” Which I certainly hadn’t. I tried to undo it, at which point the Kindle decided to have a life of its own. I tried turning it on and off a few times, but each time “uk79jdf” was searched. I figured the Kindle had been through enough trauma for one night and so left it leaning vertically behind my pillow while I consoled myself by listening to half of a Car Talk episode before drifting off.

The next morning I thought about what I would do if I were at home. I would probably submerge it in rice, like people do with drowned cell phones. But how do you ask a host family who can barely afford to feed everyone in the house for some extra rice for an electronic item – a book, at that! I tried plugging it into my computer but that, too, produced no results. (I did not have a plug in my room so was unable to plug it directly into the wall).

Later that day I made the necessary call to the US to explain to the owner of the Kindle what had happened. Luckily he was not too upset, especially as I explained the hunch I had had since before leaving that the Kindle would not make it home from Africa. He laughed and told me not to worry. He said it was not necessary to bring home the carcass. I reluctantly ignored the Kindle for the next few days, (by this time it would not turn on at all) attempting to use Ray and Tom’s near-constant laughter and soothing Boston accents as a replacement for my pre-sleep reading.

The day before we left Ngaoundéré I decided I was going to resurrect the Kindle. I plugged it into my computer and left it while I went about my packing. About 40 minutes later I looked over at it – my computer had gone to sleep by this point – and a message appeared on the Kindle screen saying it was in the process of resetting. I didn’t want to get too excited but I couldn’t withhold from jumping up and down just once, thinking it was too good to be true, but also kind of feeling vindicated because I knew I hadn’t drowned it completely.

Lo and behold the Kindle came back to life. Just in time, in fact, for me to watch as the animal in my room, which I had been hearing during the whole stay in Ngaoundéré, ran across the top of my curtains, introducing itself to me as a sizeable rat. I was so elated with the Kindle’s rebirth that even the presence of a rat in my bedroom couldn’t make me upset.

Right before leaving Yaoundé – and dependable internet – I realized that classics are free on Amazon and so downloaded Crime and Punishment which I absorbed myself in throughout my first somewhat depressing and definitely lonely week in Bertoua. The Kindle now serves as my incentive for transcribing – after every ten minutes of interview that I transcribe, I read for a few minutes then had back to transcribing.

I will likely not use it when I get back home, but I must say, the Kindle and I have certainly built some strong bonds over these past few months. I also have the “Kindle spiel” down pat for every Cameroonian who is boggled by what I am holding in my hand.