Premiers Quelques Jours à Dschang

After a six hour journey on Saturday during which nearly all of us got sick or became sicker, we arrived in Dschang. Dschang is located at over 1400 m of height, which luckily means that it is much cooler in temperature than Yaoundé. (It is really tough typing on the French keyboard because I am quite tired right now, so I will just give a brief description of my host family and will eloquently describe my adventures on Friday.

My Maman is super nice - she is a nursery school teacher. Each teacher is in charge of 22 three and four year-olds so I guess the fact that she has five children of her own is less of a problem. My host father - whom I have only seen twice so far as he travels a lot for work, is an engineer. This family definitely has more money than my family in Yaounde, yet there are some clear differences. For example, they do not have running water, and they do the majority of their cooking over an open fire, but their freezer is much more modern. They also have a computer in the house which the kids play games on, and my oldest host brother who is 17 has is own netbook, but the family does not have a table; instead we eat on our laps in the living room.

The oldest son, as I mentioned, is 17. He is about to start university, but is still waiting for his results so he can figure out which university he will be able to go to. His name is Junior and he is extremely smart. He is hoping to study medicine. We have already talked a lot about everything from politics to education to discrimination to American culture.

The next child is Brandon. He is 16 and in his senior year of high school (all of the kids are really ahead for their ages). He is super outgoing and very funny. His favorite TV show is Gossip Girl and we already bonded by listening to American music together and singing.

After Brandon is the first daughter, Sandra, whom everyone calls Coucou. She does the majority of the housework and I hope that once I am over my cold and able to help around the house (my host mom won't let me for now), I will be able to help ease her workload. She is 15 and a junior in high school.

Constan is 11, I think, and helps out Sandra a lot. I haven't really been able to talk with him much, but hopefully this weekend.

The baby is 2. Her name is Emeraude (Emerald) and she is quite adorable. She is very sure that I am Alison, the student the family hosted last spring and follows me around the house saying, "Alison, Alison, Alison." I have now begun responding to that name. On Monday morning, my first morning in the house, I was awoken at 5 AM by Emeraude screaming Alison while opening my door.

That's all I am going to write for now because my time on the internet is up, but I will definitely post again on Friday. Be prepared for a lot of information!

Tomorrow we are heading off on a day trip to a traditional chefferie (chief's palace) in Batoufam (in case you want to Google Map it). I will fast until midday for Yom Kippur because the chief is feeding us a big lunch and it would be incredibly rude to refuse it. Also I have been sick with a fever for the past two days so I am much more worried about getting better than about fasting.

I did, however, have my own little tashlikht today in a rushing stream. I threw in peanut shells I found on the ground.

Visite à l’Université de Yaoundé I

This post is a bit belated considering it is now Friday and this adventure occurred on Monday, but I wanted to be sure to write about it. We had a short Field Study class on Monday morning, then spent the day at the University of Yaoundé I, not to be confused with the University of Yaoundé II.

Before we left the comfort of the SIT Office, we learned about the history of Cameroon’s oldest and biggest university. The University of Yaoundé I – the “I” was only added when the University of Yaoundé II was created – was founded the year of independence (1961) and it is still regarded as Cameroon’s best public academic institution. University tuition was historically free, but after the Cameroonian economic crisis of the eighties/early nineties, they were forced to start charging tuition. Students currently pay 50,000 CFA/year (yup, that would be $100/year) for tuition.

We were all in shock when we learned this, asking ourselves why it was again that the majority of us pay upwards of $50,000 a year – more than 500 times what Cameroonian students are paying. It didn’t take long for the answer to become obvious.

We walked up the steep road to Bastos’s main street where we all jumped in taxis and headed to the University. I was sitting in the front seat with VE, one of the two Cameroonian students who are taking classes with us this semester. The taxi, emitting strangling sounds, slowly ascended the hill up to the University. We all met at the gate (it had taken three taxis for all of us to get there) and headed inside the walls to the campus.

And this is where we soon realized what our exorbitant tuition goes to. The pavement was pockmarked if that. In many places it was non-existent, and we walked single file in order to avoid the multitude of puddles and the mud that is constant during the rainy season. The dorms had the look of Soviet slums (if such a thing exists), made entirely of concrete with paint chipping, rust marks streaking down the sides, shudders hanging crookedly off of windows connected by wire or string, whatever was available at the time to dry clothes.

Thinking it couldn’t get any worse, we rounded a corner and there we saw the drainage ditches – very common here where this is no underground sewage system – overflowing with people’s garbage. Regardless of the unpleasant smell, the fact that students just toss their garbage out their windows, made me question what exactly they’re learning at this university.

The bright side of our afternoon at the university was a visit with a group called Le Cercle, which is a student-led and organized association of Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, and Anthropology majors who offer support to each other in their writing, and who have the chance to publish their work in the association’s literary magazine, “Minerve Infos.” They also have a very small library where they store students’ work. Students can take out papers for five hours at a time. It was like traveling back in time. Not only do they not have computers with which to search for materials, but they don’t even have a functioning card catalogue system. Instead there is a binder with handwritten pages, barely organized, with descriptions of students’ work and the name of the piece. 

After our tour we spent the afternoon with the students. We learned how their average class size is well over one hundred, and nearly every one of them has taken a class with fifteen hundred students in it. We also spoke about academic pursuits, hopes for the future, and the possibility of them leaving Cameroon to study elsewhere.

Nearly every Cameroonian I have met has never stepped foot out of Cameroon. Once in a great while you’ll meet someone who has traveled to neighboring Equatorial Guinea or Nigeria, or the occasional person who has saved enough money to visit relatives in France.

Regardless of the dismal appearance of the nation’s largest and most prestigious university, and of anthropology and sociology students’ inability to travel outside of Cameroon, the dedication and energy devoted to learning remains strong.

Leaving the university, MB and I talked about Mac and about its picturesque campus, imaginative and committed professors, and intimate classes. Would we be able to focus as well on academics and learn as well if our campus were nothing but a field of mud liberally sprinkled with trash? How much of a college campus’s appearance contributes to our ability to call it home and to be happy there? Or are Americans really that cosmetically and materially obsessed that we are unable to study in a saggy sixties era concrete slab building with no windows?

As we continue to speak about development, we agree that it is up to Cameroonians now to improve their country and to initiate the nation’s development projects. Regardless of the appalling state of the campus, I am positive now that Cameroon’s students are dedicated enough to effect the change the country needs and to begin repairing the damage left by the IMF, World Bank, and countless other multilateral and bilateral organizations. 

Visite à l’Université de Yaoundé I

This post is a bit belated considering it is now Friday and this adventure occurred on Monday, but I wanted to be sure to write about it. We had a short Field Study class on Monday morning, then spent the day at the University of Yaoundé I, not to be confused with the University of Yaoundé II.

Before we left the comfort of the SIT Office, we learned about the history of Cameroon’s oldest and biggest university. The University of Yaoundé I – the “I” was only added when the University of Yaoundé II was created – was founded the year of independence (1961) and it is still regarded as Cameroon’s best public academic institution. University tuition was historically free, but after the Cameroonian economic crisis of the eighties/early nineties, they were forced to start charging tuition. Students currently pay 50,000 CFA/year (yup, that would be $100/year) for tuition.

We were all in shock when we learned this, asking ourselves why it was again that the majority of us pay upwards of $50,000 a year – more than 500 times what Cameroonian students are paying. It didn’t take long for the answer to become obvious.

We walked up the steep road to Bastos’s main street where we all jumped in taxis and headed to the University. I was sitting in the front seat with VE, one of the two Cameroonian students who are taking classes with us this semester. The taxi, emitting strangling sounds, slowly ascended the hill up to the University. We all met at the gate (it had taken three taxis for all of us to get there) and headed inside the walls to the campus.

And this is where we soon realized what our exorbitant tuition goes to. The pavement was pockmarked if that. In many places it was non-existent, and we walked single file in order to avoid the multitude of puddles and the mud that is constant during the rainy season. The dorms had the look of Soviet slums (if such a thing exists), made entirely of concrete with paint chipping, rust marks streaking down the sides, shudders hanging crookedly off of windows connected by wire or string, whatever was available at the time to dry clothes.

Thinking it couldn’t get any worse, we rounded a corner and there we saw the drainage ditches – very common here where this is no underground sewage system – overflowing with people’s garbage. Regardless of the unpleasant smell, the fact that students just toss their garbage out their windows, made me question what exactly they’re learning at this university.

The bright side of our afternoon at the university was a visit with a group called Le Cercle, which is a student-led and organized association of Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, and Anthropology majors who offer support to each other in their writing, and who have the chance to publish their work in the association’s literary magazine, “Minerve Infos.” They also have a very small library where they store students’ work. Students can take out papers for five hours at a time. It was like traveling back in time. Not only do they not have computers with which to search for materials, but they don’t even have a functioning card catalogue system. Instead there is a binder with handwritten pages, barely organized, with descriptions of students’ work and the name of the piece. 

After our tour we spent the afternoon with the students. We learned how their average class size is well over one hundred, and nearly every one of them has taken a class with fifteen hundred students in it. We also spoke about academic pursuits, hopes for the future, and the possibility of them leaving Cameroon to study elsewhere.

Nearly every Cameroonian I have met has never stepped foot out of Cameroon. Once in a great while you’ll meet someone who has traveled to neighboring Equatorial Guinea or Nigeria, or the occasional person who has saved enough money to visit relatives in France.

Regardless of the dismal appearance of the nation’s largest and most prestigious university, and of anthropology and sociology students’ inability to travel outside of Cameroon, the dedication and energy devoted to learning remains strong.

Leaving the university, MB and I talked about Mac and about its picturesque campus, imaginative and committed professors, and intimate classes. Would we be able to focus as well on academics and learn as well if our campus were nothing but a field of mud liberally sprinkled with trash? How much of a college campus’s appearance contributes to our ability to call it home and to be happy there? Or are Americans really that cosmetically and materially obsessed that we are unable to study in a saggy sixties era concrete slab building with no windows?

As we continue to speak about development, we agree that it is up to Cameroonians now to improve their country and to initiate the nation’s development projects. Regardless of the appalling state of the campus, I am positive now that Cameroon’s students are dedicated enough to effect the change the country needs and to begin repairing the damage left by the IMF, World Bank, and countless other multilateral and bilateral organizations. 

Stage II

The biggest difficulty I have had so far in Cameroon regarding poverty and a lack of money revolves around my little host brother, Serge. I wrote in my previous post about he was taken in by my Maman just a week before I arrived. Two days ago, I found out a fuller version of the story.

Serge’s mother died in childbirth – or at least in his infancy – and he was raised by his grandmother, an older woman who didn’t necessary value education, and instead benefited from Serge’s constant help around the house. He first went to school when he was somewhere around eight or nine years old, but by then he was already too far behind to be able to catch up. As a result, he is illiterate and even struggles with counting.

I am not sure why this overwhelms me so much. Of course this is something that I even expected coming to Cameroon, but not someone living in the capital city, where every corner has a school on it, and if there’s no school, the building belongs to a government office. Of course it’s a wonderful thing that my host family took him in, but the cultural differences and the ways of dealing with problems are almost overwhelming. It does not seem to me like there is any action being taken, which makes me extremely frustrated.

He is working on learning his numbers and letters, but it is hard because there is only so much babying you can do with a thirteen year-old boy. He is nowhere near hitting puberty, however, so could easily pass for eleven. He always wants to spend time with me, but has no concept of why I have to use my computer to read article, or why I am taking notes.

Practically everyone I’ve ever encountered has been raised with the understanding that by working hard and studying we can get ahead and achieve our goals. When I think of the value put on studying and learning in my family, school, and community, I can’t even begin to understand or contextualize Serge’s position, even though I should be able to patient and understanding.

This feeds directly into the steps of culture shock we have gone over as a group this past week. Culture shock is a very real thing and people can be seriously affected. There are four stages to culture shock. Stage One is at arrival when everything is exciting, we are really curious, and everything seems wonderful and has a positive spin on it. Stage Two is the hardest to get over, and it is likely that we will continue to delve back into Stage Two when certain negative things happen. Stage Two is classified by a lack of patience, caused by an inability to understand why people do things a certain way. People in Stage Two are in a very ethnocentric mindset. They are easily angered – even by absolutely benign minute details. Stage Three is when we begin to accept the culture around us as different and begin to understand how to operate within it. And Stage Four – everyone’s ultimate goal – is to be integrated into the culture to the point where discrepancies between one’s home culture and adopted culture aren’t particularly noticed anymore.

Throughout this past week, I have fluctuated dramatically between Stages Two, Three, and Four. Thursday afternoon was a Stage Four afternoon, but weekends are hard, and I can feel myself falling back into Stage Two. It is Serge’s situation that really upsets me. I know that I should have expected to see poverty like this, but I think it is even more the lack of intellectual curiosity that upsets me. And it isn’t even that he’s not curious – because he is – it’s just that he has no idea what is out there in the world and that it is all at his fingertips, if only he makes the effort.

On Saturday we had an optional trip to an art school in a town called Mbalmayo followed by a visit to a Gorilla Sanctuary in the Forêt de Mefoua. We were allowed to bring host siblings so I brought Serge. Four or five other Americans brought their host siblings as well. At the Gorilla Sanctuary, the guide gave us the tour primarily in French and many of us had questions about their work and about the primates (we also saw chimps and some very small monkeys). While the children (who ranged in age from five to sixteen) were curious to see the monkeys, not one asked a question nor seemed to find the guide’s information interesting. The kids instead (perhaps save for the sixteen year-old and a twelve year-old girl who’s quite mature) were obsessed with borrowing the American students’ cameras so they could take hundreds of pictures. It was not so much the joy of capturing a gorilla’s human-like scratching of his head, as it was to hold an expensive apparatus and to feel the power of pressing the shutter. While I know it was great for my host brother to temporarily forget his situation and to play with the other kids (almost all of whom live in houses much nicer than ours), I was frustrated that he didn’t seem engaged. But it is true that we in the US are conditioned to learn from a very young age, especially in intellectual liberal upper middle class families like the one I have grown up in.

Gorilla Pondering the Humans

After other American students asked for their cameras back, my brother kept insisting on taking mine. I refused, saying that I would rather hold it, and that I wanted to take pictures. How do you explain to a boy who owns three pairs of pant, four t-shirts, one sweatshirt, and one pair of underwear that you don’t have money to buy another camera if something were to happen? How do I convey that while I will happily buy my brother a 2000 CFA ($4) soccer ball, my brother’s running down a path with my $700 camera and expensive lens is just too much for me to watch. (I think a part of me wanted him to understand – like I want everyone to understand – that DSLR’s shouldn’t just be treated like point and shoots, but there go my Stage Two feelings right now…..)

We were listening to some music on my computer this afternoon and my brother insisted, “Je suis le DJ,” so I let him hold my computer on his lap and scroll through the songs. Yet without being able to read, he wasn’t able to choose any songs. And here goes my temporary Stage Two mood again – I so want him to be able to read, but it’s beyond unreasonable for me to expect him to be studying all the time.

I know this Stage Two feeling won’t last long – the majority of last week I was at Stage Three – but for some reason this situation with Serge has made me profoundly upset and has caused me to feel completely helpless.

I’m sorry that this blog post has taken such a moody, negative turn, but I guess I just want to express how confusing culture shock is and how I, who am typically positive, optimistic, and have a go-getter attitude, can feel this way. I promise the next one will be light-hearted. 

Student Night

On Thursdays we have student night. We have the afternoon off of classes and are allowed to stay at the SIT Office until 8 PM at which point the SIT drivers will bring us home. This past Thursday I went with two other students – AT from Middlebury and AM from Rice – to the tailor to get the cloth we had bought made into clothing. AT and I had skirts made and AM is having a dress made. They should be ready by next Thursday. The tailor we went to for our first time is quite fancy. To begin with, she is on the main street in Bastos, the quartier the SIT Office is in, and the most shi-shi quartier in Yaoundé. Bastos is home to the majority of Yaoundé’s embassies as well as to many UN agencies.

The tailor’s shop was air conditioned with a corner full of mirrors, and beautiful brocade silk tunics hanging on a rack. This is only the shop where she makes her transactions and takes measurements, the actual tailors (who are all male in this case) work at a shop a bit up the street. The woman called up to the shop to have one of the tailors come down, and it was he who took our measurements. We paid half the cost of our clothing up front and will pay the other half when we pick them up next week.

Not feeling satisfied for the afternoon, we decided to go to Marché Mokolo, Yaoundé’s second biggest market (after Marché Centrale which is reputed to have a ton of bandits and to not be safe for foreigners). We were feeling daring and feeling ready to take full advantage of our free afternoon. I was in search of a mirror (I have yet to find one in my host family’s house) and a soccer ball as a present for my host brother.

If I thought simply walking around the streets of Yaoundé was overwhelming a week earlier, I don’t know how I would have dealt with Mokolo. But we are clearly growing quickly, and the three of us bravely and calmly walked through the packed pitted sidewalks, ignoring the calls of “Les Blanches!!,” “Mes cheries!,” “Venez ici mes amies!” and the stray hands pulling at our arms, bags, and hands. Wearing sunglasses helped I think because it gave me more license to ignore those around me, which sounds awful, but there is really no other way to make one’s way if you don’t ignore all those trying to attract your attention.

We went in and out of a couple of stores. We went into a shop selling kitchen goods and bought ten pieces of silverware as there had previously been two forks and four spoons at the SIT Office, which made eating lunch quite difficult. The silverware was 100 CFA apiece (20¢). The next shop we went into was to buy a soccer ball for my host brother. It was owned by Asians, although the majority of the employees were African. There is a large Chinese population in Yaoundé (more to come on that later). The guy I asked said the ball cost 3000 CFA ($6) but I ended up bargaining him down to 2000 CFA ($4). He even pumped it up for me.

The real fun came when we crossed the street. Although accosted on all sides, we were moving along quite fine, moseying in and out of different shops, looking at pre-made clothes and at shoes (AM was in need), with me still on the lookout for a mirror. At one point, a young guy in a yellow shirt and stylish jeans began walking alongside me, demanding to know what I was searching for. “J’ai besoin de rien,” (I don’t need anything), I kept telling him, trying to lose him like we had already done with so many guys following us. He kept pestering me, demanding to know if there was something I wanted, guessing there was, and insisting I tell him. I finally gave in and told him I was looking for a mirror. “Attende là,” he told me (wait there). He put his arm up and screamed something. Seconds later a man came running. Our new friend explained I was looking for a small mirror, and off the man ran. I asked our friend how that man would find a mirror. “Oh, il est vendeur des mirroirs,” he explained to me (he sells mirrors).

Our friend – who ended up being named Junior – led us back to the area where he appeared to be based. There were a dozen women seated in this little nook in the market, most of them doing each other’s hair. The best set up we saw was one woman who was having her hair done and who was simultaneously doing another woman’s make up. Junior asked us the typical questions/comments – what are you doing here?, where do you live in Yaoundé?, you’re American?, Obama!, can I have your number?

Luckily we were saved at this point by the man coming back with the mirror. I had already told Junior I wasn’t interested in paying a lot for a mirror. I asked the man how much it was. 6000 CFA he told me ($12). “Quoi!??!?!” I exclaimed. At home, I explained, this would cost $1, $2 at the most. (I almost forgot to mention the large “Made in China” gracing the backside of the mirror). Junior bargained on my side as we three Americans tried to emphasize that we would, under no circumstances, pay $12 for a radio. I did need a mirror, however. The whole idea of stepping out of the shower and heading to class without any idea as to whether or not I was presentable was becoming a problem. We ended up bargaining him down to 3000 CFA ($6) – an absolutely unreasonable price for a cheap mirror made in China, but at least I was able to do my hair the following morning.

My beautiful $6 mirror

We kindly thanked Junior, I caved and gave him my number, and we headed off, feeling ready to head back to the office. About thirty seconds down the street, AM, whose shoes were falling apart, spotted some Toms knock-offs (people actually wear Toms everywhere here) and stopped to ask how much they cost. She bargained the man down to $12 and as she was handing over the money, Junior reappeared, angry that we hadn’t told him we also wanted to buy shoes. At this point, AT, who had remarked to us how much she loved Junior’s bag – a European type leather man purse – asked him where she could get one like that. “Venez avec moi,” he commanded, and headed off nearly running back towards where the hair-doing women had been. He ducked into a passageway on the right, and headed back into the bowels of the market. We walked down a narrow hallway bordered by stores selling packaged hair (for weaves) on the right and quite sizeable chunks of beef on the left. We ended at a bag seller. Junior told us to wait there and disappeared.

We likely should have been scared, but this is what traveling is all about, and so we graciously accepted the stools offered to us by the owner of the bag shop, who was clearly delighted to have us foreigners in her store. “When’s the last time do you think white people came back here?” AT asked us. We all agreed it had been a very long time ago, if ever.

Two minutes later Junior returned carrying two faux leather purses. AT expressed her disinterest and we headed back to the main street. As we walked along, Junior asked how much she’d pay him for his bag. (This is what AT had been hoping he’d say all along). She was honest with him, explaining that she only had 2000 CFA with her. He said that was too little – which it was – and we emerged back onto the busy street. Junior walked with us for a while, then finally said he’d sell it to her for 3000 CFA ($6). AT borrowed 1000 CFA from me, Junior took his belongings out of the bag, and handed it over. The top zipper is broken, but with tailors on nearly every corner, it likely won’t be a problem to fix.

We said goodbye to Junior, he told me he’d call me to invite us to go out with him, and we stepped onto the road to attempt to flag a taxi. A taxi driver on the other side of the street with an empty taxi yelled from his window to find out where we were going, and agreed to take us. It seemed luck was on our side on Thursday. We were the only ones in the taxi on the way back to Bastos, and we arrived safely back at the SIT Office, grinning like fools, and eager to share our experiences at the market with our ten fellow students.