| it's been a while... |
[Oct. 13th, 2006|12:18 pm] |
A random and long try at explaining the past month...
Around September 15, Ben and I headed to Douala to visit with the family and give money for school for his youngest brother. We had a really great long weekend and I love spending time with his family. I finally am comfortable enough that I realized I needed to help around the house. Ben’s mom sells beans and beignets every morning. While I wasn’t going to get up at four to help cook, I figured I could was dishes without a problem. I got the strangest looks from people walking by who couldn’t believe there was a white girl washing dishes. Selling beignets is not a glamorous job and people often mock Ben’s mom, so I was happy to show them that there is no shame in making a living for her family. People even teased her about being so rich now that she was able to pay a white girl to do her dishes!!
While waiting to board the bus to Douala, I noticed two young girls with their mother, staring at me. When we got on, the last two seats next to each other were next to them. They were waving out the window to their mom, who left before the bus did. I started to talk to them. They were traveling to visit family in Douala, which they have done on many occasions. Ben and I played with them throughout the entire ride. Upon approaching Douala, we got curious about how they were going to get where they were going, especially since we were arriving after 8 o’clock. The older one, who was 13, said that no one was coming to meet them and they were just supposed to get a taxi to the house. Wonderful. By this point, they started to trust us, and they were super lucky that they didn’t end up next to sketchy people. Ben and I helped get their bags—they were huge, and even I had trouble carrying them, so I don’t know how their mother expected them to do it themselves. Since no one was there to meet them (a big no-no) we helped get a taxi, but they didn’t even know how much they were supposed to pay. Not only that, but their mom gave them a 10,000 franc bill (about 20 dollars). Getting change here is pretty much the biggest hassle in the world, so I stayed with the younger girl and the bags while Ben and the older girl went searching for “small money.” The best they could do was to get two 5000 franc bills. Ben stopped a taxi and asked how much it would cost to take the girls. He said normally they would have to take TWO taxis, but there was no way those girls could do it on their own, so he and Ben finally settled on a price—1000 francs for the girls, which is reasonable, considering the distance they were going. They both thanked us profusely before heading off. To this day I still worry about what happened to them. In hindsight, I realized we should have given them our numbers and asked for them to call when they arrived. I would have loved to go with them, but they were heading to literally the other side of town. Ben and I hadn’t really brought much money either, in an effort to not spend a lot. If it had been day time, I could have continued to the house alone and he could have gone with the girls, but I couldn’t travel around Douala like that at night. I just hope that the taxi driver was honest—he knew that the girls were carrying a lot of money by Cameroonian standards, so I just hope he didn’t take their money and dump them. I am still shocked by the thoughtlessness of their mother and family.
In another tale of wonderful families, on a visit to the orphanage Monday, I ran into little Anita with two girls I didn’t know, since they get new children daily. “Mama, this girl speaks like une blanche (a white person),” she squealed in delight, pointing to one of them. Later, Ben started asking the girl questions about where she was from. She’s 9 and had been living in Europe (which explained why she speaks like une blanche) until a few months ago, when she came to Cameroon. Oddly enough, even though she is quite bright, she didn’t know what country or city she lived in there. She came to Yaounde on a visit and while at Mokolo, the largest and craziest market, she somehow got separated from her aunt. Through a roundabout process, she eventually ended up at the orphanage. And she has no idea where she lives, nothing. And because this is Cameroon, the Ministry of Social Affairs, who in charge of orphans, didn’t get their act together to look for her family with radio, TV, and print ads, which have to be paid for. Of course, the orphanage doesn’t have the resources to do so. It’s so frustrating.
CAPEC, the where I volunteered before, got a new volunteer for a few weeks. Although he is Cameroonian, he has spent the last four years studying in Sweden and is really more of a Westerner. However, my former boss asked me to take him to visit the orphanage, and I gladly obliged. On arrival, he met with the director, which was funny, because the director speaks French, and the volunteer speaks English. Both understand a bit of the other language, but it turned out to be better anyway because they discussion ended up getting heated. After asking me to translate a couple questions, the new volunteer decided he was not satisfied with the responses and started lecturing the director about he should run the place. I was, needless to say, HORRIFIED. A huge lesson that I learned last year was that if you want to make a difference, you really have to take the time to get to know the system and culture and why things are the way they are. It’s not helpful to just descend on a place and start imposing your values. I was so ashamed to be associated with him and that it was me who had brought him there.
Luckily, the director got his revenge. The volunteer asked if it would be OK to take photos while looking around, and the director basically refused. It was something that Ben and I had already talked about with him at length; a lot of groups come in, give a bag of rice or some candy, and then take a million pictures that they then use to show how wonderful they are and how much they do to help the children. The director explained to the volunteer that they used to let people take pictures, but now they don’t like the exploitation. He even told the story of a Cameroonian that now lives in the US who had come to the orphanage and taken pictures. He used one of them—a teenage girl holding an infant—for advertisement of his organization. He came back a few years later and saw how the infant had grown and wanted to again take her picture. The director refused, asking him what he had done in the meantime to help feed her, clothe her, etc. to get her to that age. The man left and never came back.
Then, the BEST part was that right in front of another guy that works with CAPEC, he started complaining about how CAPEC had done the same thing and that he didn’t want to have CAPEC using any more pictures of the kids and exploiting them. Unfortunately, the guy didn’t quite understand all the French and took pictures anyway, though they were for his own use, and not for CAPEC. He also mostly took pictures of the buildings and such. However, I again was so embarrassed that when he took pictures of people there, he didn’t even ask permission, especially when he filmed the kids taking their baths. I couldn’t get away from him fast enough. I can’t say I was disappointed when a family member got sick and he had to go take care of her (I’m not completely evil, I’m very sorry for the aunt, but not sorry that he left).
I’ve done a bit of complaining here about CAPEC. The truth is, I don’t regret the time I spent volunteering with them. I really learned a lot, had a lot of great experiences, and met some wonderful people. However, a huge part of the learning process involved seeing how Cameroonian NGOs really function. They are a lot of talk and very little action. This is not to say that CAPEC does nothing, but they make themselves sound a lot more important than they really are. The director is also frustrating—she is a kind person, and has been helpful to me in my job search. However, in the four months that I was there, I NEVER saw her interact with a child, which is funny for the head of an organization designed to work for childrens’ rights. She’s just the type that cares more about being seen as important and advancing herself then in the work she does, which is not even close to unusual here.
Jungle justice (taking justice into your own hands instead of going through the legal system) has been a hot topic lately. Every once in a while, the news will show footage of robbers who have been burned to death by angry crowds or thrown out windows. They had a debate on TV a few weeks ago, where a woman told her story, and advocated jungle justice. First, she got robbed on the street, and the thieves took all of the school supplies that she had just bought for her children, which is always a big investment every year. Then, her house got robbed. When the police finally tracked down the things that had been stolen, they called her to the station to identify and claim it. However, they told her she could not take it home yet, because the procedure called for the items, like her TV and other electronics, to another place before being taken home. When she arrived there, they told her they never received it—the police had stolen her things!! A few months later, the apartment where her son was staying with friends got robbed in the middle of the night. The son woke up and beat the thieves. When the police arrived, the ended up putting the SON in jail and sending the robbers to the hospital. To add insult to injury, she then had to pay the hospital bill! Unfortunately, this isn’t even rare in Cameroon. I would like to take the moral high road and claim that I could never advocate jungle justice, but in such a corrupt system, when the police are accomplices in crime and the legal system is complete crap, I don’t know what I would do, especially when it comes to me and my loved ones.
The government actually did something that really impressed me. They lowered the VAT for certain imported products, like flour, certain fish, salt, and rice. While food is cheap here compared to the US, it’s still relatively expensive, so it’s really great to see the effort being made to make it more affordable. They forgot one important thing however: merchants still have stocks that they bought at the old prices and need to sell before they can introduce the lower price. It seems a bit thoughtless to me—they should have subsidized it or something.
My French has gotten so much better. I was in a taxi the other day and the driver was mad because I proposed less than the official tariff, even though it was just a short ride. We discussed for a little while, and I made him laugh by telling him that I am Cameroonian, not white, which is why he thought I should be paying a higher price. The guy sitting next to me was impressed that I spoke French. “Well, I try,” I told him. He responded, “No, you don’t just try. You speak well.” I was so proud! Things like this have happened a few times, and it just makes me that much more comfortable being here. I’ve noticed myself the difference in comprehension. Even writing this now I am having difficulties in English; French words just pop into my head and I have a hard time translating them back into English. I also have picked up a lot of words in Bassa, Ben’s dialect, which always makes people excited. This morning, while waiting in line for beans and beignets, two people were speaking Bassa. I heard one of them say that I understand Bassa, so I turned and said in their dialect, “Yes, I understand a little.” They were shocked. I was surprised too, because I don’t even know them, but I guess people take notice of me here. Anyway, it was just a funny story, and something I will really miss if I have to leave.
The job hunt has not turned up anything. Decision time is coming up; I keep putting it off hoping that I won’t have to face the music. However, Ben and I are trying to be realistic and know that we may just have to sacrifice a couple months apart so that we can be together in the long run. I have no idea where I would go or what I would do, though I have also been searching the internet for jobs in the US. The problem is that I really need to be out on my own so that Ben can get a visa. I sent the papers to my parents through a guy from Peace Corps who was leaving, so they can forward them on. The process for the visa can take six or more months, so I wanted to get started and have a backup plan in case I don’t find something. We’re just hoping that his visa will be approved, because I don’t think either of us could deal with it being denied. I’m still holding out hope and giving out my CV, but it’s becoming half-hearted. So, I could be back home within a month. Craziness, and it makes me cry every time I think about it. I can’t bear to leave my kids at the orphanage and the children of the women who sell peanuts. I don’t want to leave Ben’s family or my friends. And just when my French has gotten really good, I’ll have to go back to speaking English. It’s frustrating and really sad. I would love to stay, and I feel like there will be a lot of people saying “I told you so” or just giving me that look, like I’m the stupid girl who ran off to Cameroon with no definite plans. Although I’ve spent a lot of money, I don’t regret it. I’ve gotten to know a lot about myself, Cameroon, and most of all to decide whether being with Ben is the right decision.
The weather in Yaounde is insane these days. I wrote about the rain in the last entry, but it has gotten worse. It is SO hot during the day and then POURS at night. Getting through the mud in front of the house is a fun challenge every day. I still try to keep busy, seeing friends, going to the orphanage, and looking for work. And that’s all for now :) |
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