Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Culture (and other...stuff)


Another month is in the books here at post, making for a total of 138 days in-country thus far, and daily life in Guider has taken on a fairly predictable daily routine with a smattering of cultural nuances that can occur even before I step out the door in the morning.  Take, for instance, my first bout with stomach issues after a respectable run of almost four months (there’s a pun in there somewhere).  After a trip to the hospital and pharmacy the day before to dispense a ‘sample’ for testing and to buy some cipro for the malady, my family’s aging overnight guardian, who has a reliably upbeat demeanor every day, was waiting on the front step of my house at 6am to dispense some traditional medicine of his own.  Secrets are hard to keep around here, I guess, but I accept my family’s willingness to publicize my sickness as a sign of caring.  The remedy itself, which resembled the tobacco from a cigarette emptied into a wooden bowl of water, was only slightly less interesting than the process required to take it.  In the spirit of all the other food and drinks I receive from my family here, I assumed this was a quick drop-off and I could take my time on the consumption end.  Wrong.  It was at the same time that I reached out to take the bowl from him that he stepped into my house as if to say ‘the doctor is now on duty.’  As he told me to drink, once again I reached out for the bowl just before he lifted and tilted it towards me to drink at his command.  One small sip and then he pulled it back in close to his chest, chanted a prayer, which we then repeated twice more.  He then dipped his hand in the water and wiped a bit of water on my face, the front and back of my arms and legs, and my chest and back.  He declared the ritual complete with a Ça va and then headed back to his post out front.  While the Peace Corps regional coordinator suggested that I should have just pretended to take sips – probably a smart suggestion given that the water certainly wasn’t boiled or filtered – but it was still too early in the day to consider such practical matters. 

Staying in the compound with my family, I was also stuck for a week without any gas for my stove with which to make my precious coffee and (slightly less important) food.  As is the case for almost everywhere else in the world, the things you really need here in Cameroon are plentiful when you don’t need them, but are scarce when you do – in this case, it was the bottle of gas.  That left me overly dependent on four food sources that I have come to know and love here in Guider: beans & beignets (breakfast-lunch), street meat (lunch-dinner), grilled fish (dinner) and pity plates from my Cameroonian family (lunch-dinner).  Culturally, they still think its hilarious that I cook my own food and clean my clothes, dishes, and the house.  Anyways, the beans & beignets are a fairly simple, yet delicious, meal of beans and spices that are supplemented by fried dough balls that vary in size depending on the amount of dough ripped out of the giant mixing bowls by the Momma’s hand before dropping them into a vat of boiling oil.  The latest beignet Momma I’ve been visiting in the morning, now that I’m branching out from the comfort of the market Momma that speaks English, has been very amused by my greetings in the local language and rewards me by having her toddler deliver the golf ball sized beignets to me one-by-one.  Probably a good method to get a kid used to seeing a white person around, as it isn’t strange for little ones to start crying uncontrollably when I show up --- usually that draws a pretty good laugh from everyone around.  Only 200 FCFA later, or around $0.40, and I could probably go the entire day without eating again.  

Most of the dishes handed over from my family, however, are a slightly different affair that requires a minimum skill of utensil-free eating that I have yet to acquire.  Further complicating the issue is that eating with the left hand is widely considered to be a no-no because many people, uh, clean ‘stuff’ with their main gauche.  Not a good start for a natural lefty, but based on the tutorial I received from the family not long after my arrival, the process is clear.  In the case of the meal pictured below, which is couscous and a slimy green sauce called Boko (not sure how to spell it, exactly), the steps are easy:

1.       Wash hands
2.       Tear off small piece of couscous
3.       Shape couscous into ball and flatten it with thumb
4.       Dip couscous into slimy sauce and try to get as much of it as possible
5.       Eat and repeat until all is done
6.       Wash hands

Eating


In the case for my first time eating couscous and Boko, I also watched Return of the Jedi from start to finish for the first time.  And that’s all I have to say about that.    

Also included in the long list of plates and snacks that I have been given are candied peanuts, peanut sauce & baton de manioc (pictured below), Cameroonian gumbo, dried unshelled peanuts, and a paste-like melon dish (pictured below, at right).  Perhaps its an inherent willingness to try almost anything, but I appreciate and enjoy receiving the occasional knock on my door accompanied by a plate of something new and different.  And now that I’ve been living for a couple months in a compound with four Cameroonian women, one elementary school-aged girl, and an six month old baby boy (all pictured below), I think we could scrap together a better sitcom than what some network execs have been pushing in recent years.  

Baton de manioc with peanut sauce and a melon dish

The newest family.  In the Cameroonian tradition, there are two grandkids, two nieces and one daughter in law all surrounding Grandma in the middle.  Perhaps the only TC Beach Bums baby gear on the continent?

Food and family aside, the cultural aspects of the Peace Corps experience are interesting and fun, but can also be unpleasant at times.  Of the most interesting and unique, in my opinion, is our good fortune to have our big market day on Friday here in Guider, the most important prayer day of the week for Muslims – though all days are important to them, as demonstrated by the requirement that they pray five times per day at 4:30, 13:30, 15:30, 18:00, and 19:30 (ish).  Except for the large cities such as Yaoundé, or the regional capitals such as Maroua and Garoua, which have busy markets every day, most other towns and villages designate one day every week to have everyone gather in the market to buy and sell goods ranging from produce to knock-off designer shoes to buckets of all sizes.  Compared to any other day in the market, the one in Guider probably has a couple thousand more people coming from neighboring villages that fill the streets, alleys, and boutiques to near capacity.  And when the call to prayer beckons over the loudspeakers around 13:15, both merchants and shoppers alike take a break and grab a piece of earth to pray near the largest mosque in town.  I would estimate that the crowd of men gathering to pray (women pray in private) is at least 600-700, the sight of which is quite remarkable as they spill into the streets to stop traffic during their synchronized sequence of standing up, kneeling, and touching their forehead to the edge of their prayer mats.  Hopefully I’ll be able to get a picture from above of everyone gathered for prayer before my two years are over, as it would certainly make for a better one than I managed to snap a few weeks ago.   


Friday afternoon prayer time in Guider

On the less than enjoyable side of market day here in Guider, there will always be a certain amount of riff-raff that comes with having so many more people in town.  At this point, most of the shop vendors and many of the regular market visitors are accustomed to seeing me a few times per week.  On the other hand, the youth from the surrounding villages see me as a pretty good target for theft and not surprisingly, they managed to make off with my cell phone last month by sneaking a hand into my pocket when I was walking through the market.  While I employed the help of some friends in the market to call my recently departed phone, which was answered with the thief’s question of “do you want the phone or the SIM cards” --- I said BOTH, naturally --- I received neither and wound up buying a new phone a few days later.  Its all part of the deal here, as its not possible for the only white guy in town to be anonymous while walking through the market, so I’ll just have to be more aware going forward.  No suggestions needed, folks, everyone has already given me their suggestions about avoiding bandits.   

On the lighter side, I also managed to get a picture of the town’s best street sign on my way home from one Friday market.  Its good to know that no matter how many times I spend a couple hundred FCFA more than I should have for a pineapple, or how many times a young kid yells “hee-haw” at me, I’ll still get in a laugh on my way home…even though I will have to seek out another location if nature calls.


Don't go...don't


1 comment:

  1. Cool stuff Jack. Your painting a good picture of a nice life here. Great sign haha. Adam

    ReplyDelete