Monday, October 29, 2007

Maybe it's not normal...

SO this week was a busy week full of stalkers, art shows, sheesha and even a deadly, cramped car rides in the night.

One thing that I think I haven't made quite clear is that nearly everytime I am in a taxi, or standing still somewhere, or sitting somewhere, men approach me. Now, in the first few days/week, it was difficult for me to walk by someone when they said 'Hello' and not at least say hello back, as it is very rude here not to say, for example, "good afternoon/morning/evening" when you get into a cab or someone walks into a room (no one says hello only good aft/morn/eve). I have learned quickly that everywhere you go as a white woman in Africa, nearly every single person that you are within eyesight of will stare at you, and many will say, "hello" or "WHITE MAN!" or 'white man! buy this!' etc. etc. What is also quite enjoyable, is the hissing that is prevalent in Cameroon - this hiss is used to get a persons attention and is quite irritating as it is something that has been typically been associated with prostitutes in history, but I am informed and have observed that many people do it to many people...fine... but still rude and odd. SO, what I have learned is that replying to these men gets you into trouble and they will harass you and not leave you alone, so you need to ignore it and keep walking which is difficult for me because it feels rude. ANYWAYS, the problem for me, aside from the rude-nature of it all (on their part and on my part in terms of my necessary response) is that I don't want to be THAT type of foreigner. I can see why people get bad impressions of foreigners here, because you appear snobbish. I don't want to do that or come off that way. The other more important thing to me is I don't want to become a citizen of the 'expat community'; this is a community of foreigners within a community. Basically all the foreign people only or almost only hang out with other foreigners. I have been so dead-set on travelling southern africa without the aid of a tourist group/trekking company because I wanted to meet and interact with locals. I want the same here, but is it ever difficult. I have been trying to selectively give people chances to prove that they're not like every other hissing, gocking and drooling man here. So, so far, I have given my number to a few different guys I thought were nice enough; the main recipients being Ahyuckfuc Alfonz, a taxi driver who wanted to take me out for dinner, Fredrick, an attractive, bearded economics student at the University of Buea and Derek, the DEPUTY MAYOR of Buea. I thought, ok these guys seem decent... however I have soon discovered that all the warnings about the true intention of Cameroonian men is for the most part, true and will reveal itself in a absurdly short period of time. Prime example, Fredrick started calling/texting, and days after we first met in a taxi, I received a text (following a simple enough text of good morning, hope you have a good day) which said, and I quote, "Hi baby, how is ur day? Hoe cool, Missing u. Take care of ur pretty soft body. Urs in lve." to which I of course replied that those types of words were inappropriate for two people that just met (baby, soft body and love that is). To which he replied "Ok, i am sorry maybe I am a litle too fast. But then i think I am begining to fall inlove. Maybe love is blind. What do u think? Pls kate i will not hide my feelings from u. Is life. Never knew i will c u. But i saw u n i like u. I have been thinking abt u since ystdy. pls accept my request. Reply + n u shall discover true love. Fredrick" (Please note: I copied these texts verbetum (with spelling, punctuation etc exactly. Also, people can't say names like Kasia or Amber here so I go by Catherine and the associated nick names - aka Kate). I of course replied telling him that you can't love someone without knowing eachother etc. Anyways... that's a fine example. Friday night, I went out with Derek, who I thought must be decent as he was the right hand man of the mayor...must be a decent, educated human being right? Nope! I brought a couple friends with me and we went for a drink with Derek and his friend Derek (funny I know). Both were completely silent while my male friend Awa was present, afterwhich he got talkative. Immediately afterwards, we were outside for a cigarette and he asked something along the lines of (i can't remember the exact phrase) but something like 'so are we dating now?' I was like.. um... PARDON? I don't even know you! Anyways, he had a very strange sense of humor characterized by lying, then saying he was joking, such as saying he was 45 when I think he's 31 etc. etc. He listed his interests as 'drinking, smoking and having a good time' and when i asked him what he did at work he said (and this is ENORMOUSLY reflective of the prevalent attitude of nearly all Cameroonians), "i go to the office and I collect my salary." I of course followed up and said, right but what do you do at the office, and he basically said that he reads a newspaper. THIS is the man who is responsible for development of Buea, for water, roads, garbage pick up etc. that is very lacking in this town... and what does this elected official (who won my 82% because 'the people knew I was trustworthy and would get things done') do with his time? 'Go to the office and collect his salary.' To say the least, I was extremely unimpressed. Ah well, he paid for our drinks and the taxi....hahaha. The final character, Alfonz, is a taxi driver that is stalking me. He calls me 5 times a day, from different numbers so I can't block him or avoid the call and actually stalks me. I was at the seamstress getting some clothes made and he called. I told him I was too busy with work etc. to get together and hung up (as connections are poor here so I essentially pretended I couldn't hear/understand). I walk outside and who is sitting there in his bright yellow taxi? Non-other than my personal stalker Ahyukfuc, or however you spell his name, aka Alfonz. He proceeds to interogate me about 'being at work' etc etc. and asked that he could have 10 minutes of my time, just to talk. None the less... i'm a bit concerned that he was able to find me since I didn't tell him I was at the seamstress and he also informed me he had seen me out the night before with friends... CREEPY to say the least. SO I've decided to learn to lie so I can avoid this all, however, how the heck am I supposed to meet anyone here? Women don't talk to me and when I try to talk to them they become veyr suprised and reclusive, and tend to laugh a lot when i try to make conversation...not too hopeful. Oh well, going to keep trying I guess. Anyways, those are just stories to convey what day to day is like here and how TRUE stories of women in foreign countries and marriage proposals are. OH, p.s. derek called on Sunday and ended the call with 'love you!' i was like um... ya... ok bye. GOD!

So other than my fun adventures with the creepos of cameroon, I have been out with people here for food/drinks a lot this week and started going to church groups where we're recruiting people to get trained as peer educators (to teach others about HIV) which was great since it made me feel like I was actually doing something; I also got to see some drumming for the first time. I was amazed by this people's ability to harmonize and lead song... so wonderful! I also got the opportunity to go to an art exposition at this really amazing/beautiful french cultural centere here in Buea. The art was pretty great, it was catered and of course I got hit on by one of the artists and had the opportunity to make use of my new 'turn down' skills. I have been really really emotional all week (hormones) and was having a really rough day as the night before, after hours of discussion, my boss was unable to conclusively say exactly what I was supposed to be doing here or day to day for work etc. So i really didn't feel like being around people or chatting, yet we were supposed to be leaving for Douala that night after the art show to go to a house warming for another intern in Douala. Of course, Awa bailed, so did Robert and Amber and I, two white girls, ended up going to Douala at 8pm (not exactly safe at night). So we arranged for the car driver to take us directly to the address so we wouldn't have to get out and get a taxi (we paid a pretty penny for it but definately teh right decision, although the driver had to ask directions and the only reason we found it is that a guy going to the party noticed us in the cab and thought 'hmmm white girls...must be going to the party' and asked us exactly that through the window and showed us to the apparetment). THe drive to douala was pretty brutal, 7 people in one small compact car for over two hours in the heat, traffic and on the bad roads. None the less, we made it there and were surrounded by AIESEC dances... which I wasn't too excited about as a result of the mood I was in. Amber and I, instead, ended up at the appartment of 4 Lebanese guys upstairs smoking sheesha, eating pineapple and talking about our countries. It was pretty awesome as all I wanted was something that i enjoyed like sheesha, or a nice sit down meal or a coffee shop (all things I've been craving lately). We went out for food around 1 am and because of our fine lebanese connection, were seated at an already closed FINE restaraunt where we were treated to steak and fries with warm (non-dirty) bread and avocado! What you need to understand is that Buea has no 'fine dining.' most restaraunts are actually very dirty wooden tables with table cloths that are plastic, with turkey's on them and are from approximately 1981, you are served out of coolers that have been probably sitting there since morning... SO Amber and I were in heaven by the time the bread was brought out. Bread in Buea comes from these very dirty wooden display cases that are never cleaned, so we were excited for the non-yellow, actually fresh, non-dirty bread. It was exactly what I needed and our friend paid for it too! He then took us to L'orange Metalique, a club full of white people (young and old), asians, black people (of course), lebanese and even asians! It was more white people than I had seen since I had been in Africa, and it was really odd but we had a good time dancing! It was like we were home again, dancing up a storm amongst a mixed crowd of people and not feeling completely like foreigners, when the power went out and we were reminded of where we were. We eventually made our way outside to see the owner running with a fire extinguisher....not a good sign, so we left. Amber and I wanted to go home but our friend (neither of us knew his name/couldn't say it properly), tried to take us to a different bar, eventually we convinced him to get us home. We had a great sleep on clean sheets! (also a novelty), and had hot showers in the morning in an actual bath tub. We went to a bakery in the morning and got ham/cheese croissants and it was quite the weekend! It was these experiences that made me once again realize....hmmm this isn't quite all normal... where I live, how i live, what I eat etc..... actually quite different. Don't underestimate the worth of a warm shower and nice, quiet meal... this is what I learned. Luckily though, i wasn't cast down into sadness by this experience, into missing home and the pleasures of Canada, but instead was simply revitalized to keep living with my toilet without a seat, cold showers and dirty bread! Why not! I haven't really gotten sick and it's all part of how people live here! It's simple and it works! Anyways, my point is that although I've said in previous blogs that it's strange that I don't find all of htis strange, well it's because it's so easy to just adapt and forget, it's so easy to just be glad you're not in a thatched hut, sleeping on the floor and eating dog, but sometimes, when you are reminded that nice restaraunts and hot showers exist, you remember again...hmmm this isn't how I normally live! Anyways, glad I went even though I totally didn't want to.

Some other things to mention. On the way home, there was a man on the side of the road holding up an alligator he had killed; he was simply standing there trying to sell an alligator. The things people do here for money, thye things they sell....pretty interesting!

Another thing; as I noted earlier, I was very affraid I was here for no reason. I ahven't done much work at my NGO since i've been here and the more I pester my boss for specific tasks, the less she has to say. The saturday, the conversation we had on saturday, kind of crushed me because it became clear to me there was very little i would get to do here. So i spent all weekend in torment, only to get back on sunday having found out that somehow things had been worked out and it looks like we might be able to get the project, the project of my dreams which aims to help orphans and vulnerable children, off the ground (i'm doing everythign i can to show her we can do it and did some work over the weekend and so did she), as well as work will be possible at the HIV/AIDS clinic... so i'm a bit more hopeful now... but the weekend was full of listing pros and cons about whether to start looking for something else. I have also started to reconsider med school, perhaps somewhere in Africa (so I can get resource-poor training) or in Poland... that's some other stressful news but we'll see how that all works out!

Anyways, sorry this was so long, I'll try to write a little blog about small things I haven't yet mentioned about living here! Thank you all for your emails (i've gotten a few) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE keep them coming! They are lifesavers when you're feeling down! And believe me, i don't find your lives in Canada boring (as some of you have told me is your reason for not writing), so please keep me up to date!

1 comment:

lynzo said...

i miss you more than i love poutine

i'm so sorry that i haven't written more and i promise to as soon as i get my head above water

BUT i know you will appreciate this gorgeous photo of me (scroll down to the bottom):
http://biology.queensu.ca/~campbelm/people.html

You do excellent work Ms. Heith