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
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| 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.
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| Baton de manioc with peanut sauce and a melon dish |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Don't go...don't |
