Festivities and Funerals

Church turned out to be a rather exciting experience, and by exciting I mean all four of the little kids fell asleep on me during the service. Just when I thought that all was dull, my friend Kate approached me and smiled. No…it couldn’t be, I thought to myself. But no, no, it was. She had bling on her teeth. She and her host mom had matching rhinestones on their teeth. The afternoon just kept getting better as I saw white girl after white girl with corn-rows. It seems like Sunday was Peace Corps Barbie Day.

The week was a blur of training sessions and language classes. Most of the time I have no clue what’s going on, and feel utterly useless and defeated. But I try and remind myself that this is the training period, and that eventually it will all just get better.

Friday was National Teachers’ Day, and since both of my parents are teachers…well, let’s just say there was a party all day. My brother picked me up from “school” (I got to miss language classes in the afternoon!), and I went and met my mother in town. The next six hours were a blur of palm wine, boxed wine, and bottles of huge beers. National Teachers’ Day was like national let’s drink a lot day. One of teachers whispered to me that Castel, my preferred beer, stands for “come and see teachers enjoy life.” Joking aside, Cameroon’s educational situation is fascinating to me. Prior to the economic crisis of the 80’s, Cameroon was one of two countries in the world (Costa Rica’s the other) that allocated more money for education than the military. That, sadly, is no longer true. But it doesn’t seem to stop the teachers from celebrating.

Drinks were followed, rather illogically, by a funeral. After lunch we all piled into a car to drive to the neighboring town of Bamena. I couldn’t understand why we were going there, but then as we were ushered out of the car into a barn, it became apparent that it was not for a joyous occasion. There were about thirty people in this old, airy barn. We sat in silence for a while, and then a man began to speak. He explained that his child, only two weeks old, died from lack of oxygen. It was his second child to die this year. A few whimpers passed through the crowd, and then my host father broke out in song. I couldn’t exactly understand what he was saying, but sadness and remorse are universal languages.

As the song took a more joyful note, my father paused and introduced me to the man. He told him that I was an extension agent for the Peace Corps. The man asked me what the importance of the Peace Corps was. I explained to him, in rather broken French, the lofty goals of the PC—and about the PC’s various sectors. His eyes light up when I told him about the Health sector. I explained that I didn’t know much because I was in agro-forestry. He paused, and asked me what if I could have saved his child if I was in the Health sector. In truth, I said nothing in return. I didn’t know what to say.

So much of this is a learning process—full of lots of mistakes along the way. I make cultural faux-pas all the time, but that happens to me in the U.S. too. I try and use what I’ve learned in other countries here, but it doesn’t always work out. I didn’t want to set a precedent for a lot of eating (I made this mistake at a home-stay in Fiji and had to eat a village’s worth of food every night), but now my family thinks that I don’t like food. I ate all the cough drops in my med kit for dinner tonight. Coupled with the fact that I no longer find boiled plantains appealing, I think that I might die of starvation soon.

Each week becomes a notch on my belt—week two done—and I’m hoping that I’ll still be in the game for a while. Now on to week three. Can’t wait to see what that brings…