Thursday, January 27, 2005

Girl Urinates on my Porch

Good Afternoon, Bon Soir, and Beum Beu Goré as they say here in Nanga Eboko. I have started taking Ewondo (local language) lessons for which Peace Corps will reimburse me. The lessons are given by neighbour, Achille. When I leave this country I will be QUADRILINGUAL. I can just imagine sitting through a job interview back in the states while the interviewer reads through my resumé:

“Oh, I see that you speak several languages. French, okay…Spanish, uh huh…wait! YOU SPEAK EWONDO!? Mr. Banick, this is great, we have been looking for an Ewondo speaker. Its such an important language in the world market. PLEASE accept our offer. How does 2 million per year sound?”

“Full benefits?”

“Of course, Mr. Banick, this is America.”

“6 months vacation per year?”

“Well, I don’t think that’s p-”

“Do you want an Ewondo speaker or not, buddy?”

“yes, um, agreed, 6 months vacation. So can we have you?”

“Ma di coupe. That means I eat chicken, in ewondo. And no, you cant have me, I cant stand working 6 months out of the year, that’s rediculous. Good bye NTANGEN (White man)”

Ah, what an interview that will be. Anyway, back to reality.

Yéyé, the little 3 year old who lives in the house behind mine came up to my door the other day. She was just standing on my porch, seemingly doing nothing, with a completely uninterested look on her face. When all of a sudden, she started to urinate on my door step. She’s just standing there, urinating, on my doorstep, like its nothing. I yell “Yéyé! Qu’est que tu fait? (what are you doing?)” She just stares at me, giving me this look like “what does it look like I’m doing white man? A little privacy please!” When she finished she just walked away, casually, like it was nothing. Does she pee on everyone’s doorstep? Is this a facet of Cameroonian Child Culture that I have yet to discover? No, according to her 5 brothers, she just pees where she wants to. So as I’m trying to clean it, my little cat (named black man) comes over to have a taste…just crazy I tell you, the things that can happen on my front porch. Luckily I removed Black Man (my cat) from the puddle before he got to drink it.

The gender of my cat (named Black Man) has been determined. White Man’s cat is indeed a male. Black Man is a male. Thanks for the gender determination tips GMA and GPA.

I know, you are still waiting for pictures. Here’s the deal: I have no AA batteries for Camera at the moment and the one’s they sell here are too weak to power it. I figure, since Blake will be here 2 weeks from today (WOOOHOOO, its about bloody time), and since he is a professional photographer with a full arsenal of high powered photographic weapons, I will let his pictures do the talking. He is going to take MANY MANY MANY pictures of our grand adventures all over Cameroon, and they will all be posted. You can count on that. Please trust me here. As long as Blake hasn’t screwed up his Visa Application, or lost his Yellow Fever Vaccination card, there should be no problems. Please, don’t screw anything up buddy, please.

What else. Oh, I’m getting really good at carrying buckets of water. Its becoming my daily workout. Trekking down the old dirt path to the water source. The best time to go is around 10 a.m. when kids are at school, otherwise the place is like Water world (the water park). Children everywhere, waiting in line to get water, bathing, cleaning, having water fights, staring at me. One of my buckets is labelled “Laundry” in black marker. I was at the water source the other day when I overheard a little girl tell her friend “see, the white man’s name is ‘Laundry’, its written right there on the bucket.” I had to clarify things for these confused little girls. I can handle being called ‘white man’ all the time, but I will not be known as ‘Laundry.’ That is unacceptable.

Since my house is on the dirt road that leads to the high school, I am treated to a parade of gawking high school students everyday around 3pm as they walk home from school. Some of them just stare at me. Some of them make comments about me which I can hear (Either they think I don’t understand French, I am deaf, or they just don’t care). I hear things like “look, the white man cleans his dishes.” Or “I hear the white man keeps his cat INSIDE the house, like a child.” Or, “who is this WHITE MAN?” Sometimes they just yell “BLANC!” or “WHITE.” I tend to ignore or just stare back at everyone, except for the yellers. I always talk to the yellers. They say “WHITE!” and I say “BLACK! Come over here for a minute.” They are usually a bit taken back by my demands, but they always end up coming over. I give them a little lecture about me having a name, that it isn’t White, or Blanc, just as their name isn’t ‘black’ or ‘noir.’ They listen with open ears, and they are usually very good about calling me Allen every time they see me thereafter. That is one of my Peace Corps projects, and it is quite a success.

My other projects involve cleaning my house (a never ending process, the second I finish, the dishes somehow get dirty again, dust builds up again, and all the stuff I put away has found its way back to where it shouldn’t be. I am a very messy neat freak. My house is either a disaster area or it is immaculate.) I also play a ton of SCRABBLE with my post mates Richard and Stan. We play SCRABBLE all over town, usually at a bar in the company of a cold beer. I also read a ton. There is a great library on the University Campus where I will be teaching that Richard is working on organizing. There is a whole selection of books in English and French, covering all subjects.

I am really enjoying myself in Nanga Eboko. I haven’t really started doing much ‘real peace corps work’ here, but I am quickly realizing that ‘real Peace Corps work’ is the stuff that isn’t ‘Real Peace Corps work.’ It really involves hanging out with the neighbours, knowing the culture, communicating, sharing ideas. People are getting to know me and my culture, and I am getting to know them and their culture. It’s a great exchange and I am learning a lot from it just as they are.

I have IST (In Service Training) week after next. I will be at a hotel for a week, and rumor has it, they will be showing the super bowl there, and there is a swimming pool. That will be FANTASTIC. Five days later, its HELLO BLAKE NOLAN. For the next month after that, it’s the craziest adventure ever embarked upon. You will read and see all about it.

PEACE

Friday, January 14, 2005

My life in the dust

Whats happenin people,

Its been a while, you look older, as do I. I am a bit dusty after the long journey to the Peace Corps office from my dusty old cow town. Before I wash up, let me update this blog, it been a while.

I may have stated this before, but the trip from my town, Nanga Eboko, to the capital, Yaounde, is done in old beat up prison buses. These things were built by the french sometime in the 60's and they are now used to cover the 150 or so mile stretch of dirt road from my town to the city. The road is dusty and treachorous, very dangerous. The beat up old vans speed around corners at high speeds swirving around herds of cattle and lumber trucks. I always tie a hankerchief around my face to avoid inhaling the massive amounts of dust that fly in the windows. Its the dry season here and that means dust and heat like its nodbody's business. On my way here I was treated to two blown out tires, which is an average day on the road. It took about 5 hours this time. If this trip were done on an American highway, it would probably take about 1.5 hours, no kidding. The amazing thing is that these beat up old buses actually still work. They are never really inspected before they go anywhere, they are just fixed when something breaks, and something always breaks. Luckily there is always a teenager on the bus whose only job is to fix stuff and he is usually pretty good.

Anyway, besides the travel, my new post is FANTASTIC. My house is pretty much set up now. I had a local guy make me all kinds of furniture, I painted the walls sky blue, I painted a mural of a pacific ocean sunset on one of my walls (I miss the ocean soooooo much, even though I havent lived by the ocean in 10 years). I got a little cat who I named BLACK. The cat is actually black and white and grey, but I named it BLACK because everyone in town calls me WHITE. Its name is really "Evindi" which means black in the local language. I am called "ntangen" which means white. So now all the little kids in my neighborhood run around screaming "evindi" looking for my cat. I call the cat "it" because I dont really know if it is a "he" or a "she" The gender of the cat is TBD. When I find out I will get it SPAYED/NEUTERED because I dont want my cat sleeping around, thats not cool. My cat is very nice. Sometimes it thinks its a dog, it licks my hands and it comes running to me when i whistle.

I take a bucket bath once a day to keep myself so fresh and so clean. In exactly FOUR WEEKS I will be teaching BLAKE NOLAN how to take a bucket bath. Blake is from L.A., I think this bucket bath business might be a little intimidating for such a pretty boy, hahahaha, he has NO IDEA what is coming.

My neighbors are all very friendly. The guy across the dirt road from me is my best friend in town. He takes care of everything. He spends his days sitting outside of his house making clothes, yes, he is a taylor. he uses an ancient sewing machine and a REALLY OLD iron that is heated by COALS. Yeah, he puts hot coals insde the iron, and IT WORKS. Straight out of 1870. John also takes care of my cat when I leave, he washes my clothes and he scrubs my floors (dont worry, I pay him well). I like to go out for beers with John, everyone in town knows this guy, it makes me feel cool and not so white.

I bought a t-shirt the other day that says "CRACKER" on the front, I wear it everywhere. Nobody really understands it here, but I think its hilarious. The second hand t-shirts you can buy here are great, and they only cost about a dollar. I got another one that says "Porn Star" Again, people dont understand it here, but as long as I am entertained!

I have started tutoring students in English. I havent started teaching at the high school, I wont start until the third trimester which starts in March. But get this, how does "Professor Allen Banick the Third" sound? Thats right peole, I have been contacted by the local UNIVERSITY to teach english. I havent accepted the offer yet, but they have offered me a very lucrative deal which includes: access to the internet cafe and to a cafeteria which serves large portions of not-so-good food at excellent prices. Hard to resist! I will let you know.

What else? I like kids, and thats good because there is a constant flow of children in and out of my little house. They are very easy to entertain, I must say. they come in and play with my can opener, my nail clippers, and they read through my newsweek magazines. In exchange for my kindness, they get me water from the well, they clean my shoes, and they fetch me beer at the store. its quite an arrangement I tell you.

All in all, my life in dusty old Nanga Eboko beats my life in Bafoussam, although I do miss my friends and tennis in bafoussam. I am quickly making new friends in Nanga and I have two outstanding postmates (Richard and Stan) with whom I play many exciting games of scrabble. Scrabble has become a favorite passtime for me, African nights in the village would be a little boring without it.

Its been a while since my trip to the beach, which was one of the most relaxing weeks I've enjoyed in a LONG TIME. I spent most of the time with Jen, laying in the sand, eating fish and shrimp, drinking expensive beer (prices go up by the beach), and doing nothing. I want to buy property on the coast here before I go. Apparently you can purchase beautiful beachfront property for a whopping 1000 dollars an acre in some areas. yeah thats right. If anyone is interested in investing, let me know.

For those of you who have sent me packages, I have some news. I still havent received any packages and I just found out that all mail is being held up in the port city of Douala due to some postal strike or something. this is good news really because it means the mail isnt lost and that I MAY ONE DAY SEE IT.

Thats all for now. I will be updating more frequently, especially after BLAKES VISIT! WHOOOHOOOO, BLAKE NOLAN come on down. Yeeeeeeahh.

Peace