Smatterings of old men, and Big legs

My canvas of Bamendjou is filled with smatterings of old men—a smorgasbord of sagacious rebels, if you will. As my days turn into a gamut of meetings, classes, and demonstrations of agroforestry techniques, I find that these men are my portholes into a stagnant world of bliss. Prosper is my patois teacher. He claims to have been born in 1918, which would place him at 90 this year. My guess is that he’s 60, but maybe he just aged well. He regales me with stories of tribal wars, the times of the British and French, and, of course, village gossip. We meet once a week under the guise of language lessons, but our time together has become more like a bad episode of the View (and since I’ve never actually seen the View, I’m not exactly sure where I’m going with this analogy…).

Next is Charles. Charles clocks in at 72, an age that he looks. He jokes that though he is blind, he doesn’t need to see to know that I’m white. I’m never exactly sure what he means to imply. He too is a gateway to a world past, a wealth of knowledge tapped by no one. I find him most days “sunning” himself, as he says. He claims that old age has gotten the better of him, and he finds himself in constant need of warmth. I joke with him that all the time spent in the sun is going to give him skin cancer. His glazed over eyes respond, so? But I would call him anything but despondent despite his apathetic glances. Maybe he just likes the sun.

That brings me to my last erudite elder. I call him bonne année, Happy New Year, for lack of a better name. My first, shall we say, formal introduction to bonne année was just shortly after the 1st of January. He hit me with his stick and demanded that I give him his “bonne année,” or his new year’s gift. Slightly perturbed, I walked away from him, dismissing him as nothing more than a bitter old man, weather by one too many beers and even more broken hearts. I found him later that week just outside the entrance of one of the primary schools. He was sitting on a rock, waiting for children to pass so that he could throw sticks at them. Chuckling to himself, it was like he was at candy store. I couldn’t help by laugh, and decided that Bonne Année and I would become friends. Slowly, I gave in, and gave him his “bonne année”—a meat stick here, a banana there, and sometimes if I’m feeling especially generous I’ll buy him a beer (which I’m sure is the last thing that he needs, but hey…). Every time I see him, without fail, we shout at each other “Bonne Année” with an intonation fit for a birthday surprise. I wonder how long we’ll keep this up. It’s February, but bonne année and I are still going strong.

On Mondays, I teach English classes to a group of teachers working in the Catholic schools around town—some of them, I think, might even be English teachers which makes me a little fearful of their students’ English levels. This past Monday we worked on how to ask a question, and how to respond. As I went around the room, each group presented their question and answer. One group, however, took it upon themselves to break from the normal “what is your name” mold. This woman, a spunky, fiery one, turned to the man next to her, and asked, “Why is it that you love me so?” He paused, thought about it, and responded with all the appropriate gesticulations, “It is because your legs are soooo big.” I just about peed my pants laughing, which then prompted the woman to think that there was something wrong with the phrasing of her question. She then asked, “Miss Nura, what is the difference between like, love, and lust?” So I explained, “Well, I like my husband, but it would be okay if I found another. I loveee my husband, I cannot have anyone else. And I lust after my husband, I can’t wait to get home to him tonight.” They all snickered. She replied, “Ohh, I get it. I like my husband.”

I’m not exactly sure how it’s the middle of February. Time is, as always, flying by. I feel like I have a zillion projects going on—some successful (a proposed tree planting project at one school has somehow turned into a tree planting project at 42 schools), and some not so successful (turns out I actually hate teaching computer classes and am terrible at it).

But don’t worry; I still have time for country updates (read: skip this paragraph if you don’t think my country reports are interesting, but I happen to like them, thank you very much). I’ll give you the highlights, since it’s been a while: Argentina was, interestingly enough, one of the 10 wealthiest nations in the world (based on rapid expansion of agriculture and foreign investment infrastructure) from 1880-1930. This wonderful honor was unfortunately offset by a 7-year “Dirty War” that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people, and general economic despair resulting in a total economic collapse in 2001. But things are looking up, thanks to the country’s newest president Christina Fernandez (whose husband was elected president in 2003…sound familiar?) whose plans for progress include reducing poverty and improving foreign policy (a novel idea, I tell you…). Armenia, the first nation in the world to formally adopt Christianity, is perhaps most renowned for the Armenia Genocide of WWI, which claimed the lives of upwards of 1 million Armenians, though the Turks still claim it never happened. Turns out that Armenia and Azerbaijan have been having a little scuffle since 1988 over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory I had objectively never heard of in my entire life. And lastly, Aruba—once Spanish, then Dutch, then British, then Dutch again. Made famous by the disappearance of Natalee Holloway in May of 2005, Aruba’s white sandy beaches attract nearly 1.3 million tourists yearly. Technically considered to be a separate autonomous member of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Arubans surprisingly voted against full independence in 1994. For those of you who made it to the end, don’t you feel so enlightened?

I checked my email the other day, and was pleased to know that both the Gap and J.Crew are releasing their spring wardrobes. This is, clearly, a very pressing matter and I’m glad that I waited 20 minutes to open these emails. But that means that spring is around the corner. Maybe the snow is melting where you are, but more than likely Old Man Winter still has a couple more tricks up his sleeves, and you have many a snow day ahead of you. I hope your Martin Luther King/Australia/Ground hog/Waitangi/Ash Wednesday/Chinese New Year/Valentine’s days were wonderful (it’s rather impressive how many holidays are packed into the end of January/beginning of February. Bonne année!