Scavenger Hunt

Things seem to be improving a bit. I met my mama on Sunday night but she’s actually my grandma. Serge is actually my brother-ish figure. But I call her mama and she calls me “ma bebe.” She speaks really quickly in French (per usual around here) so it’s often hard to understand. I’m really trying with the language thing…I should probably be better than I am, but in my defense I haven’t done a lot of speaking. However, it’s VITAL here to communicate. Serge (my brother of sorts) knows some English but he wants to help me improve which is good. Mama talks a lot and sometimes I can’t tell if she’s even talking to me? But nonetheless, she is really caring and maternal over all. She warmed up my bath water in the bucket this morning so that was nice. Well, actually, I think she thinks that I do not bathe (at all or enough) so she has gone to extreme measures, haha. Cameroonians are obsessed with cleanliness and bathing. It’s definitely a process in the morning…I decided to use a water bottle to dump the water from the bucket on me and to wash my hair. You essentially have a bucket of water and splash it on you…it’s interesting. At least we have this electric thing that heats the water. Some of my friends were saying all they have is cold water and one girl said her bathroom is outside… I think my home stay is somewhere in the middle between wealthy and poor. I visited one girl’s house and she has this HUGE living room and porch area outside and office with a computer etc. It was ridiculous. One other girl’s family is WICKED rich. I guess they are known all over the country for their affluence. In Cameroon, for the most part you are born into money. Her mom made her promise she wouldn’t take a taxi and insisted that she use the family’s personal driver instead. Who knew the perks a developing country may have?

Classes have officially started. It’s actually a more intense course load than I thought it would be. It’s definitely field based in the way they send you out in the community to complete tasks or meet people etc. But we have a significant amount of work. One of the biggest components is the French language program. I actually really missed taking French so it was fun. I think tomorrow or the next day we are taking a trip to the market place and bargaining for items and stuff. There is a lot of other seminar-ish stuff with readings, essays, group work…the usual. A lot of lecturers come in though from different places so that should be interesting. I can’t believe I left the US a week ago today. It’s crazy.

On Monday we did the ‘drop off.’ The staff literally drove to a random spot and kicked us out of the car in pairs to do a scavenger hunt of sorts with a bunch of questions. We had to take taxi rides, get to the University of Yaounde, go to the Centre Ville, buy a present, use a cyber café, go to a specific textile store, find banks, etc. It doesn’t sound overly difficult but when you’re lost in Cameroon it’s pretty darn scary. Trying to communicate effectively is the most difficult part, but luckily people are generally pretty helpful and understanding. I’d say Cameroonians over all are patient, so that’s a plus. We did pretty well and had a couple of funny instances. During a taxi ride I was in the middle and my friend was next to me. On the other side of me was this man in an official suit; I’m not exactly sure what he was, maybe a guard or something? He asked in French if he could ‘sit between us.’ I didn’t really understand the question but my friend was like “no it’s not possible – the tax is moving!” She said it in French and he asked again but that’s just the kind of things you deal with here.

After school today another girl and I went off in search of an ATM. That was an extreme adventure. ATMs aren’t widely available in Cameroon and a lot of times they are kind of sketchy. We took a taxi to this place and there was supposed to be a bank close by. We walked around forever and tried to ask people and they kept pointing and speaking quickly….come to find out it was legitimately right across the street from where we got out of the taxi. So yeah, we walked up and the guard there stopped us. My friend was like, dude we really need an ATM. He kept saying something quickly but we didn’t understand until I heard the word “inutile.” So, I was like OH IT’S BROKEN. COOL. And my friend tries to ask the guard why it’s broken. Needless to say, we got some long winded answer and then asked where another bank was. The French directions were extremely confusing so we just wandered off in the direction he told us and hoped for the best. On the way, we met a lady selling bananas on the side of the street. We decided she looked friendly so we asked her if she knew where a bank was that had a bunch of letters in the name (hence the only thing we gathered from the guards who sent us off on a wild goose chase). We butchered the French I’m sure, and then she goes. “I know English!! What’s your name?” We had a nice little conversation over the banana stand. I think her name was like Stereoskype or something…I don’t know. Anyways, once we redirected her to our question about the bank she goes “THERE!!!” It was right across the street. Go figure. Long story short, we got our money even though I did have to go back twice because I took out 10 when I meant 100, I must add. Oh, and we stopped back across the street to Ms. Stereo-Banana or whatever and avoided giving her our cell phone numbers but bought bananas. We each ate like three on the taxi ride home. The fruit here is either really delicious, or I’m extremely famished. Probably a combination, but I’M REALLY HUNGRY FOR REAL FOOD.
Now I have to go into my mosquito net bed and go to sleep so I will have the energy to take my ‘bath’ in the morning before I eat my bread for breakfast and walk up the big hill to school and be stared at some more.

Alas, life is here is slowly growing on me. OH, and I am going to a gorilla sanctuary on Saturday!!!

A bientot,
Brittany

P.S. I remembered the name of the banana lady is Scholastica. Haha.