Peace Corps? Try Posh Corps. My pad in Edea is pretty slick ya’ll. That was for my Memphis fam. I don’t actually use that phrase.
First, old business. Somehow I advanced to Intermediate Mid after my Language Proficiency Interview. Not really sure how I pulled that one off considering I just wanted to move up a level at the least. I think they really don’t want to have to pay for the extra two weeks of housing for any trainees that don’t make their language level. I don’t think I’m anywhere near that level since some things were going over my head in my Novice Low class, but I guess I’ll see how this next week goes when language classes resume. At the least, I think my host brother is willing to work with me at night on my French and I’m going to try and have my first French teacher (they switch you every few weeks to get used to different accents apparently) tutor me if she has the extra time. My French still sucks as evidenced by my week in Edea.
Speaking of Edea, starting the second day I tried to take down bullet points of things I thought I needed to blog about when I could finally return to my laptop. This is the tale of Max’s site visit to Edea. Enjoy.
Saturday June 25th, 2011
The day had finally arrived when the Education PCT’s would leave the village of Bafia, the place we had been getting used to living in, to travel with our community hosts to the place we would be calling home for the next two years. My host’s name was DJAME Emile( pronounced Jahm like “We be Jahm-in”), or Emile Djame as we would call him in America. I still can’t get used to the whole last name thing first. I tell everyone my name is Max Miller not Miller Max. I will return to Monsieur Djame.
I digress, two Super Amigos (at least I know our bus was a Super Amigo. Not sure about the other one. Not sure why I wasted my time typing this. You don’t care what my bus was called you want to know about my post) were loaded with our hiking packs, backpacks, moto helmets, and most importantly US!
At first, Robert Rob Robby Bob (Yes, that is only one person and yes we actually call him that. No, a nickname does not have to be shorter than his first name. We’ll call him RRBB from now on. He’s a Michigan grad, so of course he’s an elitist, but he’s actually quite entertaining to converse with. We do get our digs in at each other from time to time all in good fun. The cross cultural experience has already begun) and I thought we had it made for the first leg of our trip to Yaounde. While Nate and Barrett were wedged in four to their seat we only had three of us in the very back and ample room to spread our legs. That changed very quickly when we pulled into what I can only describe as the Super Amigo launching station.
When we started backing into this place I knew we were in trouble. People were flocking to the windows, as they do every time a bus moves at a pace that they might be able to make a transaction. RRBB got charged the white man price on some peanuts, but still forked over the 100 CEFA. We declined pretty much everything else and RRBB even shut the window to prevent being hassled by the food peddlers. We both decided the bread loaves were looking pretty tasty considering we weren’t going to be eating our usual Saturday lunch with our host family and decided to each get a half loaf. When the girl asked us if we wanted mayonnaise on them we declined vehemently. She found this very funny. Things were still looking good for us. It appeared we were just gassing up for our trip to Yaounde. If you haven’t noticed, my assumptions tend to be wrong in Africa. I’m not sure if I was usually off in America too, could be.
This is when the people started piling on. First, an old woman to the back between Mr. Djame and I and then another man got in taking our seat total to 5. Three was comfortable. Five was not. For some reason, Cameroonians and possibly Africans in general, don’t like to ride with the windows open. It’s hot as hell here, why they want to increase the temperature is beyond me. Still haven’t got a good answer for this when asking Cameroonians. Luckily, we were behind another PCT and both of us had our windows open to at least get some air flow to our section in the back. Not very easy to find a comfortable seat when wedged in like sardines (also a bread loaf condiment if you so choose. I choose no). I finally decided to use the old-yawn-and-reach-at-the-movies on RRBB. He gave me a look, but allowed it because it removed our shoulders from impaling each other. The problem was my other arm. It was still stuck in the side of our new seat companion. I said screw it and put my arm behind him as well, figuring he was already sweating on me so might as well get comfortable. This was okay for a few miles. Until, he too, decided to put his arm behind the old woman next to him. Which meant his arm went directly on top of mine, particularly the armpit region. If I haven’t already mentioned, deodorant is scarce, bad quality, and expensive here so not many Cameroonians wear it. I cringed, but went with it. Integration at its finest peeps.
We finally made it to Yaounde after a rather uncomfortable ride, a common theme in this narrative you will see, and let off some passengers before heading to the train station so the people heading to the Extreme North would be in place for their night train. At this point Mr. Djame and I headed for Mvan (pronounced like the name Vaughn) to catch a Bucavoyage bus for Edea. Once we had purchased our tickets we had to sit around and wait a bit until our bus was ready to go. While we waited people came around peddling various things in her post. As my Aunt Kathi eluded to in her letter, Cameroonians are hustlers. They will hustle anything. Obama flashlights, fake jewelry, sleeves of cookies it doesn’t matter. I don’t think they necessarily do it to hustle you on money, unless you are le blanc in which case they will make as much money off of you as possible, but rather to make some extra cash to feed themselves or their family. Anyways, one guy came around with some soap. Sounds harmless. Except that the soap was called MAN SEX and featured both a naked man and naked woman. Marketing in Cameroon can be quite pornographic apparently.
We finally had our bus called over the loudspeaker, which I understood none of, of course. We made our way to the bus and I saw a girl selling shrimp skewers and my stomach overpowered my mind. I bought one for both of us since Mr. Djame had paid for our taxi ride to the bus station. Slightly cold, but nothing like the “worst chilli dog ever” that Dad, Ben, Tizzle, Lauren, Jared, and I all suffered through at the Browns game. Didn’t vomit on the bus either so I’d say win.
Getting back to my point about the windows. A fight actually broke out on the bus because a lady was mad at the man in front of him for not shutting his window and was proceeding to shut it for him. He was rather unhappy about this fact and kept opening it back up. It was like two little kids on the school bus, except I think I saw the female passenger take a couple of swings at the man. Mr. Djame explained that it was because the woman had a child and that was her reason for wanting the window shut? Why she couldn’t just switch seats so that the child was away from the window I’m not sure. I decided to keep my non-existent parenting tips to myself.
While on the road at another random bus stop with people selling food, a man come on board selling skewers of meat. They looked tasty, but I thought I had already tempted fate with the shrimp skewers and would pass this time. Mr. Djame bought one for each of us. I didn’t want to be rude so I accepted of course. This would be mystery meat #1 (and that my friends is known as foreshadowing). It was pretty tasty, but incredibly spicy and I soon couldn’t tell if I was sweating from the heat or from my mystery meat skewer.. I asked Mr. Djame what the meat was, but he wasn’t sure. As of July 2nd, I haven’t started howling at the moon or anything so I’ll count that as another win.
We finally hit the city limits after the lights had gone down. It seemed to be pretty alive with lots of people walking around. Much different than Bafia at the same time, but could also be because of the streetlights and consistent electricity. Mr. Djame explained that he wanted to get some food before heading to my new residence and quickly flagged down some motos for us. Now, all the Bafia moto rides have been pretty smooth so far, but once we got off the main road this was like taking an ATV path on a moto. We were slaloming pot holes, gunning it over hills, and banking around corners. Never thought I’d be so happy to wear a moto helmet in my life.
We got to the restaurant, which looked like a little mom and pop shop, and I soon discovered pretty much was. It was an outdoor patio which was pretty much connected to a house. The owner, Chantel, was very welcoming and let me speak my broken French at her without laughing hysterically in my face. She put us at a table and went and got us some beers. Mr. Djame ordered ndole (enn-doh-lay), macaba (mah-kah-ba), and rice (I don’t think you need me to pronounce that one). Ndole is kind of like a cream of spinach type dish, with fish. And I should mention that they throw the whole sha-bang-a-bang in there. So each bite was kind of like a cracker jack box, you really didn’t know what your bite was going to contain. It was dangerous, though, because you could go for a big bite and almost end up with a lip piercing you didn’t sign the waiver form for. Macaba is kind of like potatoes, nothing too special there. All in all it was a good meal and definitely needed after about 5 hours of crammed bus rides. After downing two tall beers and filling my stomach we finally headed to my new residence.
Once I unlocked the door I was pretty impressed. The PCV before me had left me a ton of stuff. In the living room, I have a couch, two chairs, four foot stools, a coffee table dealio, a mini-fridge (more on that later), a fan, iron and ironing board, ps2, two more tables, tons of kitchen stuff, various kitchen supplies and tools, two black-and-milds, and probably more I am leaving out. I have three bedrooms, but I think I am converting the smallest into my kitchen because he had his kitchen, and by kitchen I mean bottle of gas and stove top and a kitchen table, in the living room. The other bedroom has a bed frame I just need to buy another mattress. In my room, there’s a loveseat and an air conditioner! Okay, it doesn’t actually cool the room down, but it does oscillate and it blows directly on my bed so I’m not bitching. I also have running water, which I do not take for granted after this last month in Bafia. He also left his lockbox so I don’t have to buy the one I was given in Bafia and lug it to Edea. There was also a sleeping bag and just a lot of random ass stuff that he left behind. It kind of looked like when we moved into our place on Hunter and it looked like the guys had just realized the night before they had to be out, grabbed the essentials, and jetted. But, like I said I’m not complaining because it’s a lot less I have to buy, so thank you very much Greg.
I took a cold shower, which felt amazing after cleaning up some stuff, and was ready for bed. Saw a giant cockroach in my kitchen cabinet and decided to lay down the law early. I don’t think I’ve killed many cockroaches in the states so my knowledge of American cockroach speed is limited, but this thing was like Usain Bolt. Seriously, sign him up for London 2012. I had to chase him for a couple minutes until I cornered him in the corner (I was going to edit this sentence but I think I like the redundancy better). Sorry little guy, but I had to set a precedent so the other bugs know not to come around le blanc’s house. Plus, I mean you guys live through nukes so I don’t think your fam is going on the endangered species list anytime soon.
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