80 in January

1/13/08-Actual day I wrote this

I think this is about the longest I’ve gone without using the internet.  Usually I would be very concerned about the Football playoffs, and reading the latest news on American politics, but as I’ve come to the realization that I will have no access to the internet, my need has slipped away. 

I am doing good.  Bored.  Sometimes bored out of my mind.  I have my ups and downs, but stay positive.  I am always looking for small successes to congratulate myself on.   Even if it is just forcing myself to go to the market, or hang out at the youth foundation.  I thought that with time things would get less weird.  That it would be less weird for me to ride my bike, or walk from one end of town to the other.  But it really doesn’t.  It is still weird you just get used to being stared at and saying hello to everyone.  My French is gradually improving.  I think I understand about 80 percent of what is being said.  But often that leaves a huge gap, and me thinking I know what is going on, when I really don’t.  I feel like I’ve gotten pretty good at pretending like I understand whats going on.  I usually listen for a word I recognize, and than ask a simple question with that one word.  Or I say “of course” “really?” and laugh at times I feel would be appropriate.  This works until someone says something they really want me to get and they ask questions, revealing that I don’t actually know whats going on.

My knowledge of Bassa phrases has improved also, and I know when to throw in the right phrases for the correct situations.  I have also learned which ones are the crowd pleasers and which ones people don’t understand when I say them.  “Koko a lam” which means “have a good night” always gets a large reaction.  I also like this one because I can say it as I walk away and people cannot try and speak back to me in Bassa.  So I just hear their cries of surprise and laughter as I walk away. 

One thing that has been difficult is the feeling that everyone just wants money from me.  EVERYONE.  It is from the small price inflations in the market, to the people that I spend a lot of time with who constantly talk about the poverty here and how they cannot afford this or that.  I’m pretty sick of hearing people talk about how difficult it is to find a job here and how easy they think everything is in the United States.  It is also annoying walking through the market or getting food, and later learning that when they were speaking Bassa they were trying to charge the white person more, because I obviously have so much more money than everyone.  I will begin to really listen for the word “Enkana” which means white person.  The thing is it is true.  I do have more money than everyone, no matter how much Peace Corps talks of living at the level of the community, or integration.  I don’t have to feed a family, I don’t have to save any money, I live in a small village, I have money to spend, which is something a lot of people here don’t have. 

I taught my first English class.  I was given the “terminals” which are like the seniors.  Originally I thought this would be bad because they would not care and act up, but it has turned out well.  There were only twenty students for the first class, and the class is an hour, nothing I cannot handle.  It was one of the highs of my time here as the kids were genuinely excited to have me and I was genuinely to have a class.  Hopefully the class will stay this good from here on out.

I have cable.  It took about three weeks of pestering the cable guy but it finally got done.  I get about seven channels, which change every once in a while.  Two are Cameroonian the rest are French.  I have the French equivalent of CNN, French MTV, a French sports channel, and a French channel that is a combination of the history and discovery channel.  The French mtv is pretty sad because they show the same American shows dubbed into French, like dismissed, date my mom, and sweet 16.  This is the great American culture we export to the rest of the world.  Of course I watch them.  I have gained a better appreciation of the corniness and the sexual innuendo when it is translated into another language.  Also I get to enjoy classic American shows dubbed into French.  Everyday old episodes of 90210 are on, I’ve seen Night Rider and Baywatch.  Also 24 and Prison Break are very popular here.  There is a channel on sometimes that shows nothing but 24.  It is a guy with a DVD who plays constant episodes of 24.  I think Cameroon is started to understand the gravity of the war on terror through 24.  The other day I was watching a Cameroonian show with a friend.  It was a competition between different middle schools.  The first part was a trivia game.  Alright normal stuff, all the kids are really excited.  Than they had one girl from each school come up and do a model strut on the stage.  Than she would do a speech, in French and English, on the evils of music and film piracy.  These were very harshly worded speeches too.  The one girl said “all people involved in piracy should be hanged… piracy is a problem larger than AIDS.”  I wish I was making this up.  This was a 13 year old girl who said this.  The funny thing is that I know no place in Cameroon to buy an actual store made CD or DVD.  But in the markets of any village you can find bootlegged movies and albums.  Sorry little girl, I don’t think this problem of piracy will be solved anytime soon.  So the third part was a Karaoke contest.  With all the schools doing the same song.  Of course coming from middle school students each song was basically the same.