For nearly two months now, you and I have been engaged in a civil war such as has never been seen before for violence and suffering. Ceasefires have been signed and then rashly thrown aside, and still we are no closer to a permanent peace treaty.
I’m sure you must be as bored of this pitiful situation as I am. You can’t enjoy being pelted with medication missiles (with sexy names like ‘Flagyl’ and ‘Spasfon’) in attempt after futile attempt to annihilate your armies of amoebas. Time after time I thought you had finally thrown in the towel and admitted defeat, only to feel the drums of war echo through my swollen belly in anticipation of the forthcoming attack upon my lower intestine.
I know I have not been a kind and benevolent leader. I have forced you to consume unfiltered tap water, unwashed vegetables, meat of dubious quality and even halal hot dog sausages. Yet these are hard times: gone are the days of full English breakfasts, lamb chops, chicken tikka masala and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (1) . To my mind you haven’t even made an effort to appreciate the delicacies on offer here: fouléré and ndolé are really not that bad, and still you reject them in such a violently definitive manner.
To my shame, I have sought expert advice on how to finally overcome your insolent rebellion. I have visited the Hôpital CNPS in order to arm myself with better bombs and missiles, yet your guerrilla warfare tactics mean that you always evade my feeble attempts to regain power. Eventually, the Hôpital itself defeated me: aspiring bowel-dictators have to run a gauntlet of bureaucrats, doctors, nurses, laboratory workers and pharmacists before they can finally lay their hands upon those precious warheads that promise so much and deliver so little.
Please, stomach, I implore you, decease in your futile uprisings! What good do they serve? Neither of us will enjoy the last month in Cameroon if we cannot learn to live in peace. If you promise to end my suffering, I promise to only feed you mineral water and canned tuna until we reach England, and on your taste buds (2) and my wallet be it.
Yours beseechingly,
Emma
1 Note to parents: all of the aforementioned would make stellar ‘first meals back’.
2 I remember enough from GCSE biology to realise that stomachs don’t have taste buds; this was a rash attempt at humour. Not a very good one now that I read it again, but unfortunately I can’t be bothered to come up with anything better.
Monday, 15 June 2009
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
It's getting hot in here...
[Author's note: I should have published this blog ages ago but unfortunately the Hot Season (see long, miserable rant below) has sapped all my creative energy. It's literally taken me two months to write this entry!]
The Hot Season arrived later than promised, but it’s here and is showing no sign of leaving. The heat is claustrophobic: imagine being trapped in a sauna when someone outside accidentally locks the door. Everywhere you go, the same force presses down on you from all sides. You can’t eat, sleep, work, think. All you can do is sweat. You take five showers a day but the water in the pipes is heated by the sun and comes out scalding. Even your electric fan provides no relief as it can only regurgitate the hot air that surrounds it. You begin to fantasise about grey skies, to hate that fiery yellow ball in the sky that beats down on you relentlessly, showing absolutely no mercy.
About a month of my life went by in this sorry condition. Finally, even the sky could stand it no more, and one day we looked up to see clouds. The rain, which came the next day, was greeted by hysterical VSO volunteers who ran out into their compounds screaming and dancing. I myself stayed outside in the storm until it was no longer possible to remain standing, and then I watched the rain from the safety of my front door. Never in my life have I felt such ecstasy. I think Sarah summed it up perfectly in the text she sent me that afternoon, as the first drops started to fall: “wooooohooooooo”.
Yet the rain, if anything, only exacerbated our problems. Now it was no longer just hot, but humid too. What’s more, the return of the rain reignited a cycle that normally only exists during the wet season: cool(ish), hot, hotter, hottest, thunderstorm, cool(ish)… Like heroin addicts, we have found ourselves gagging at every moment for our next fix of rain.
The lowest point came in the first week of May. I had been feeling rather peaky for a few days but, putting it down to a dodgy tomato, I didn’t bother going to see the doctor. One night, I was edging off to sleep when my fan, which hitherto had made a valiant attempt at ventilating my sauna – sorry, bedroom – spluttered, ceased to hum and slowly drifted to a halt. The electricity was gone. Temporary malfunctions are normal, but when it still wasn’t on the next day I began to worry. I would later learn that a power cable had been blown down near Garoua and that it would take a week for the electricity (and thus the water, as they come as a package) to return.
By this time I was really sick. My health had deteriorated rapidly overnight, and I found that I could barely stand. Furious at myself for not getting treated sooner, I feebly called Abdoulaye and asked if he could take me to the hospital. We arrived to find that, as there was no generator, the doctors were literally powerless to help me. I couldn’t be admitted or tested. A nurse listened patiently to my symptoms, decided I had amoebic dysentery again, gave me some antibiotics and sent me home.
Thus began the very worst twenty-four hours of my life. I lay in a stupor on my bed, drifting in and out of consciousness, drenched in sweat, summoning the strength to sit up only so that I could down another gulp of some vile solution that was meant to restore my energy but only made me feel more lethargic. I awoke in the middle of the night to find that it was so dark, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. My eyes didn’t pick up the faintest trace of light, not even the outline of my bedroom window. It was at this point that my body remembered that it had amoebic dysentery and decided to resume the activity for which this disease is so famous. A superhuman effort got me to the bathroom, where after a long and laborious battle with death and despair I realised that I couldn’t flush the toilet. No water. Remember that my house is very small and that the bedroom is squeezed up next to the bathroom. Desperate for water, I crawled into the kitchen and opened the fridge, realising to my horror that I hadn’t cleaned the bloody thing out since the power cut began 36 hours earlier. So there I was, trapped in a pitch black, baking hot, overbearingly smelly concrete block, sicker than I’ve been in my life, feeling ridiculously, pathetically sorry for myself.
Since then, my health has yo-yoed but I haven’t fully recovered. This seemingly never-ending bout of sickness and hot weather has coincided with the heaviest period of work in my contract: organising and facilitating a three-day workshop, writing a report of our data-collection efforts over the past six months and using that report to draft a five-year action plan. I’ve decided to see it as a challenge and have come up with several strategies to beat the heat and thus survive the last few weeks. Here are some of my more successful efforts:
Soaking my pyjamas and sheets in water, then lying (in pyjamas, on sheets) in front of the fan. Pros: hot air from fan is still cooling on wet skin. Cons: sheets/pyjamas dry within minutes, and whole process has to be repeated; inevitably wake up the next morning with a cold.
Renting the salle de conférence at the Baptist Mission, which has air conditioning, in order to actually get some work done. Pros: with a bit of fiddling, air conditioner can be encouraged to produce arctic conditions. Cons: costs a small fortune; having to return to the sauna after experiencing relief from suffering is almost unbearable.
Spending every conceivable moment at the swimming pool. Pros: only viable way of getting total relief from the heat. Cons: can’t spend all my time in the pool (only open from 10am to 7pm, skin goes wrinkly if I spend too long in the water); haven’t yet figured out a way to write my report and swim at the same time.
Treating myself to goodies (ice cream at expat restaurant, weeny £4 tub of Nutella, real milk/cheese/butter) whenever I feel really down. Pros: makes me feel better instantly. Cons: I always feel down and therefore always try to justify purchase of goodies, meaning that I’m running out of money at a rather alarming rate.
A combination of these efforts and all-in-the-same-boat solidarity with the other volunteers has got me through the last few weeks, but I’d be lying if I said I was still relishing my experience in Cameroon. It seems that Africa has had enough of me and wants me to leave as soon as possible, and increasingly the feeling is mutual. I just hope and pray that the rains will come soon so that I don’t finish my year on a bad note.
The Hot Season arrived later than promised, but it’s here and is showing no sign of leaving. The heat is claustrophobic: imagine being trapped in a sauna when someone outside accidentally locks the door. Everywhere you go, the same force presses down on you from all sides. You can’t eat, sleep, work, think. All you can do is sweat. You take five showers a day but the water in the pipes is heated by the sun and comes out scalding. Even your electric fan provides no relief as it can only regurgitate the hot air that surrounds it. You begin to fantasise about grey skies, to hate that fiery yellow ball in the sky that beats down on you relentlessly, showing absolutely no mercy.
About a month of my life went by in this sorry condition. Finally, even the sky could stand it no more, and one day we looked up to see clouds. The rain, which came the next day, was greeted by hysterical VSO volunteers who ran out into their compounds screaming and dancing. I myself stayed outside in the storm until it was no longer possible to remain standing, and then I watched the rain from the safety of my front door. Never in my life have I felt such ecstasy. I think Sarah summed it up perfectly in the text she sent me that afternoon, as the first drops started to fall: “wooooohooooooo”.
Yet the rain, if anything, only exacerbated our problems. Now it was no longer just hot, but humid too. What’s more, the return of the rain reignited a cycle that normally only exists during the wet season: cool(ish), hot, hotter, hottest, thunderstorm, cool(ish)… Like heroin addicts, we have found ourselves gagging at every moment for our next fix of rain.
The lowest point came in the first week of May. I had been feeling rather peaky for a few days but, putting it down to a dodgy tomato, I didn’t bother going to see the doctor. One night, I was edging off to sleep when my fan, which hitherto had made a valiant attempt at ventilating my sauna – sorry, bedroom – spluttered, ceased to hum and slowly drifted to a halt. The electricity was gone. Temporary malfunctions are normal, but when it still wasn’t on the next day I began to worry. I would later learn that a power cable had been blown down near Garoua and that it would take a week for the electricity (and thus the water, as they come as a package) to return.
By this time I was really sick. My health had deteriorated rapidly overnight, and I found that I could barely stand. Furious at myself for not getting treated sooner, I feebly called Abdoulaye and asked if he could take me to the hospital. We arrived to find that, as there was no generator, the doctors were literally powerless to help me. I couldn’t be admitted or tested. A nurse listened patiently to my symptoms, decided I had amoebic dysentery again, gave me some antibiotics and sent me home.
Thus began the very worst twenty-four hours of my life. I lay in a stupor on my bed, drifting in and out of consciousness, drenched in sweat, summoning the strength to sit up only so that I could down another gulp of some vile solution that was meant to restore my energy but only made me feel more lethargic. I awoke in the middle of the night to find that it was so dark, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. My eyes didn’t pick up the faintest trace of light, not even the outline of my bedroom window. It was at this point that my body remembered that it had amoebic dysentery and decided to resume the activity for which this disease is so famous. A superhuman effort got me to the bathroom, where after a long and laborious battle with death and despair I realised that I couldn’t flush the toilet. No water. Remember that my house is very small and that the bedroom is squeezed up next to the bathroom. Desperate for water, I crawled into the kitchen and opened the fridge, realising to my horror that I hadn’t cleaned the bloody thing out since the power cut began 36 hours earlier. So there I was, trapped in a pitch black, baking hot, overbearingly smelly concrete block, sicker than I’ve been in my life, feeling ridiculously, pathetically sorry for myself.
Since then, my health has yo-yoed but I haven’t fully recovered. This seemingly never-ending bout of sickness and hot weather has coincided with the heaviest period of work in my contract: organising and facilitating a three-day workshop, writing a report of our data-collection efforts over the past six months and using that report to draft a five-year action plan. I’ve decided to see it as a challenge and have come up with several strategies to beat the heat and thus survive the last few weeks. Here are some of my more successful efforts:
Soaking my pyjamas and sheets in water, then lying (in pyjamas, on sheets) in front of the fan. Pros: hot air from fan is still cooling on wet skin. Cons: sheets/pyjamas dry within minutes, and whole process has to be repeated; inevitably wake up the next morning with a cold.
Renting the salle de conférence at the Baptist Mission, which has air conditioning, in order to actually get some work done. Pros: with a bit of fiddling, air conditioner can be encouraged to produce arctic conditions. Cons: costs a small fortune; having to return to the sauna after experiencing relief from suffering is almost unbearable.
Spending every conceivable moment at the swimming pool. Pros: only viable way of getting total relief from the heat. Cons: can’t spend all my time in the pool (only open from 10am to 7pm, skin goes wrinkly if I spend too long in the water); haven’t yet figured out a way to write my report and swim at the same time.
Treating myself to goodies (ice cream at expat restaurant, weeny £4 tub of Nutella, real milk/cheese/butter) whenever I feel really down. Pros: makes me feel better instantly. Cons: I always feel down and therefore always try to justify purchase of goodies, meaning that I’m running out of money at a rather alarming rate.
A combination of these efforts and all-in-the-same-boat solidarity with the other volunteers has got me through the last few weeks, but I’d be lying if I said I was still relishing my experience in Cameroon. It seems that Africa has had enough of me and wants me to leave as soon as possible, and increasingly the feeling is mutual. I just hope and pray that the rains will come soon so that I don’t finish my year on a bad note.
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Bake a Cameroonian event in twenty easy steps
1. Take one apparently simple idea and spread across a group of colleagues. For example: a human rights letter-writing contest for high school students, with a prize-giving ceremony where the winning letters are honoured before being sent to the authorities.
2. Sprinkle colleagues liberally across Maroua, contest rules in hand, to speak to school directors and large, intimidating classes of teenagers.
3. Choose a day by which your event shall be ready. Change the date a minimum of three times.
4. Prepare the different layers of your event: a speech for the President (he cannot be expected to write it himself); awareness-raising talks and activities; a theatre group; an ensemble of young men who claim to be able to rap; a group of girl dancers who cannot be more than fifteen but who dance as if they were on stage at Spearmint Rhino.
5. Scour the city in search of prizes, using liberal amounts of emotional blackmail.
6. Pour in a large bottle of logistical problems: chairs, lighting, sound systems, refreshments, security, scheduling etc. Mix well until nobody is quite sure of what he or she is supposed to be doing.
7. Request permission from the sous-préfet well in advance of the event.
8. At midday on the day of the event, receive notice from the sous-préfet that the event cannot possibly take place as high school students (most of whom are over twenty, despite what their ID cards say) should not be allowed out after 6pm, when your event is scheduled to commence.
9. Organise the event for a different day/time, return to the sous-préfet and receive a lecture on how better to do your job. Resist the urge to smack the sneering, whiny, backstabbing, hypocritical little bureaucrat in his sneering, ugly little face by staring fixedly at the photo of Paul Biya (taken at least twenty-five years ago) framed on the wall beside him.
10. Submit seven copies of each required form to the sous-préfet’s office, only to be told that the form (of which you were given a hard, not an electronic, copy) ought to have been typed. Laboriously copy the entire form into a Word document, taking care to use the same font and spacing between lines. Argue with colleagues over whether the slightly faded letter in the corner of the original form is a C or an O.
11. Call the DJ to make sure the sound equipment is ready and working. Receive assurances that it is.
12. Prepare your inspirational, educational speech to the high-school students. Adjust the speech when a Cameroonian colleague informs you that your welcoming words to the invited authorities are in the wrong order – it’s the délégué and then the proviseur, duh.
13. Arrive on the day of the event to find that none of the authorities have shown up and the microphone isn’t working. Send colleagues on fruitless expedition to locate operational microphones.
14. Bake high school students in forty-degree heat for two hours while microphones are sought. Resign yourself finally to the fact that you will simply have to shout.
15. Cringe in horror as the President reads out his opening speech in a barely audible whisper with his back to the audience.
16. Improvise an entirely new schedule on the spot to account for missing microphone. Cue much chair swivelling, self-consciously over-enunciated speeches, and the sound of “what should we do next?” echoing across the compound at the end of each activity.
17. Dazzle high school students with succession of sketch shows, dance troupes and games, originally intended as awareness raising activities but now serving the higher purpose of distracting students from the heat, the lack of refreshments and the fact that prizes have yet to be given or even mentioned.
18. When presenting inspirational, educational speech to increasingly apathetic high school students, try to ignore the fact that the local drunk, who has somehow slipped past security, is busily constructing a fort behind you out of tables used in the game show.
19. Due to lack of genuine authorities, when awarding prizes, pounce upon random members of the audience, give them inflated titles and insist that they hand out awards instead.
20. As the ceremony draws to a close, flee with the high school students to ensure that you will not be part of the clearing-up committee. Congratulate yourself on an event well organised and pray that you will never have to organise another.
2. Sprinkle colleagues liberally across Maroua, contest rules in hand, to speak to school directors and large, intimidating classes of teenagers.
3. Choose a day by which your event shall be ready. Change the date a minimum of three times.
4. Prepare the different layers of your event: a speech for the President (he cannot be expected to write it himself); awareness-raising talks and activities; a theatre group; an ensemble of young men who claim to be able to rap; a group of girl dancers who cannot be more than fifteen but who dance as if they were on stage at Spearmint Rhino.
5. Scour the city in search of prizes, using liberal amounts of emotional blackmail.
6. Pour in a large bottle of logistical problems: chairs, lighting, sound systems, refreshments, security, scheduling etc. Mix well until nobody is quite sure of what he or she is supposed to be doing.
7. Request permission from the sous-préfet well in advance of the event.
8. At midday on the day of the event, receive notice from the sous-préfet that the event cannot possibly take place as high school students (most of whom are over twenty, despite what their ID cards say) should not be allowed out after 6pm, when your event is scheduled to commence.
9. Organise the event for a different day/time, return to the sous-préfet and receive a lecture on how better to do your job. Resist the urge to smack the sneering, whiny, backstabbing, hypocritical little bureaucrat in his sneering, ugly little face by staring fixedly at the photo of Paul Biya (taken at least twenty-five years ago) framed on the wall beside him.
10. Submit seven copies of each required form to the sous-préfet’s office, only to be told that the form (of which you were given a hard, not an electronic, copy) ought to have been typed. Laboriously copy the entire form into a Word document, taking care to use the same font and spacing between lines. Argue with colleagues over whether the slightly faded letter in the corner of the original form is a C or an O.
11. Call the DJ to make sure the sound equipment is ready and working. Receive assurances that it is.
12. Prepare your inspirational, educational speech to the high-school students. Adjust the speech when a Cameroonian colleague informs you that your welcoming words to the invited authorities are in the wrong order – it’s the délégué and then the proviseur, duh.
13. Arrive on the day of the event to find that none of the authorities have shown up and the microphone isn’t working. Send colleagues on fruitless expedition to locate operational microphones.
14. Bake high school students in forty-degree heat for two hours while microphones are sought. Resign yourself finally to the fact that you will simply have to shout.
15. Cringe in horror as the President reads out his opening speech in a barely audible whisper with his back to the audience.
16. Improvise an entirely new schedule on the spot to account for missing microphone. Cue much chair swivelling, self-consciously over-enunciated speeches, and the sound of “what should we do next?” echoing across the compound at the end of each activity.
17. Dazzle high school students with succession of sketch shows, dance troupes and games, originally intended as awareness raising activities but now serving the higher purpose of distracting students from the heat, the lack of refreshments and the fact that prizes have yet to be given or even mentioned.
18. When presenting inspirational, educational speech to increasingly apathetic high school students, try to ignore the fact that the local drunk, who has somehow slipped past security, is busily constructing a fort behind you out of tables used in the game show.
19. Due to lack of genuine authorities, when awarding prizes, pounce upon random members of the audience, give them inflated titles and insist that they hand out awards instead.
20. As the ceremony draws to a close, flee with the high school students to ensure that you will not be part of the clearing-up committee. Congratulate yourself on an event well organised and pray that you will never have to organise another.
Monday, 9 February 2009
The Culture Itch
It’s now been over five months since I first arrived in Cameroon. When I was in Ecuador, it was at this point that the cracks in my “aren’t different cultures fascinating” smile started to show. The truth is that, after five months of eating unfamiliar food, struggling with a foreign language and providing mirth for everyone around you with the funny way you do things, the sheen starts to wear off the colourful new culture that so fascinated you in the beginning. Difference is suddenly bad – why can’t people simply drink tea and eat sandwiches like they do back home? Why does even the most basic procedure require one to break through layer upon layer of red tape? What’s so amusing about the way I hold my fork?
Fortunately, the five-month itch hasn’t bothered me in Cameroon nearly as much as it did in Ecuador. I cite two reasons for the change. Firstly, I went home for almost three weeks in January and therefore managed to get my fill of all things English: tea, Branston pickle, mince pies, tea, Stephen Fry, The Guardian, port, tea, old country pubs, tea… Fausto and I even went to Madame Tussauds, that venerable English institution of wax celebrities that I somehow failed to visit as a child. (I was excited to learn that I’m taller than Robin Williams, disappointed that the same is not true of Tom Cruise, and confused as to why David Beckham is in there twice.)
Secondly, I’ve already had my ex-pat illusions of England shattered. In Ecuador, whenever I missed home, I would indulge in British romantic comedies with such English luminaries as Hugh Grant and Colin Firth. Imagine my disappointment upon discovering that life in England is not a perpetual cricket match of jolly garden parties, easily embarrassed vicars and terribly affable young chaps lounging around country manors drinking sherry. Now every time I miss something from home, I remind myself that what I miss probably doesn’t exist in the form that I imagine and that, even if it does, I probably never ate, drank, watched or read it anyway.
David Mitchell (of Peep Show fame) recently wrote in his column in The Observer: “We British love to judge our close class competitors – people incredibly similar to us and therefore most threatening. We're quite tolerant of genuinely different ways of life but, for those very like our own but with just a hint of either the stuck-up or common, we reserve our highest octane vitriol.” I’ve recently realised that this is not only true of keeping up with the Jones’s, but can apply itself just as easily to the British expat. While I’m overly tolerant of most Cameroonian practices, however bizarre I find them, the slightest unusual (and by that I mean un-British) behaviour on the part of my Canadian colleagues is mercilessly ridiculed.
Take the David Mitchell article, which was a diatribe against people who hated Christmas. I showed it to my Canadian colleague Sarah as she, like me, believes Christmas is sacred and should be celebrated in as cheesy and ostentatious a manner as possible, whether or not you have children or believe in God. After she had finished reading, Sarah pointed to a word and asked me what it meant. “Bauble?” I asked in surprise. “You don’t know what a bauble is?” When I explained, she said, “Oh, you mean Christmas balls.” Perhaps it’s because I have a mental age of thirteen, but if someone says ‘Christmas balls’, all I can think of is stripping Santas. I eventually discovered why the word ‘bauble’ never travelled as far as Ottawa – try saying it in a Canadian accent. The best you will be able to muster is ‘babble’ or ‘bobble’, the long vowel being rendered completely unpronounceable. Incidentally, I learnt over the course of this conversation that bobble hats don’t exist in Canada; when it’s minus forty outside you have to make do with a ‘pom-pom hat’. Clearly the Canadians need our help.
Cultural itchiness aside, things are going well here. I have a 6-month plan that will allow me to finish work by July, so I’m trying to pack in as much sightseeing as possible. On Sunday I and a group of hungover VSO volunteers braved the hot African sun to see crocodiles in a lake outside of Kaele. After around 2 hours of patient grumbling, we managed to spot a tiny brown splodge on the surface of the water which, I am assured, was a croc’s eye. Some children threw stones at the splodge and it vanished beneath the water. Next week is hippos.
Fortunately, the five-month itch hasn’t bothered me in Cameroon nearly as much as it did in Ecuador. I cite two reasons for the change. Firstly, I went home for almost three weeks in January and therefore managed to get my fill of all things English: tea, Branston pickle, mince pies, tea, Stephen Fry, The Guardian, port, tea, old country pubs, tea… Fausto and I even went to Madame Tussauds, that venerable English institution of wax celebrities that I somehow failed to visit as a child. (I was excited to learn that I’m taller than Robin Williams, disappointed that the same is not true of Tom Cruise, and confused as to why David Beckham is in there twice.)
Secondly, I’ve already had my ex-pat illusions of England shattered. In Ecuador, whenever I missed home, I would indulge in British romantic comedies with such English luminaries as Hugh Grant and Colin Firth. Imagine my disappointment upon discovering that life in England is not a perpetual cricket match of jolly garden parties, easily embarrassed vicars and terribly affable young chaps lounging around country manors drinking sherry. Now every time I miss something from home, I remind myself that what I miss probably doesn’t exist in the form that I imagine and that, even if it does, I probably never ate, drank, watched or read it anyway.
David Mitchell (of Peep Show fame) recently wrote in his column in The Observer: “We British love to judge our close class competitors – people incredibly similar to us and therefore most threatening. We're quite tolerant of genuinely different ways of life but, for those very like our own but with just a hint of either the stuck-up or common, we reserve our highest octane vitriol.” I’ve recently realised that this is not only true of keeping up with the Jones’s, but can apply itself just as easily to the British expat. While I’m overly tolerant of most Cameroonian practices, however bizarre I find them, the slightest unusual (and by that I mean un-British) behaviour on the part of my Canadian colleagues is mercilessly ridiculed.
Take the David Mitchell article, which was a diatribe against people who hated Christmas. I showed it to my Canadian colleague Sarah as she, like me, believes Christmas is sacred and should be celebrated in as cheesy and ostentatious a manner as possible, whether or not you have children or believe in God. After she had finished reading, Sarah pointed to a word and asked me what it meant. “Bauble?” I asked in surprise. “You don’t know what a bauble is?” When I explained, she said, “Oh, you mean Christmas balls.” Perhaps it’s because I have a mental age of thirteen, but if someone says ‘Christmas balls’, all I can think of is stripping Santas. I eventually discovered why the word ‘bauble’ never travelled as far as Ottawa – try saying it in a Canadian accent. The best you will be able to muster is ‘babble’ or ‘bobble’, the long vowel being rendered completely unpronounceable. Incidentally, I learnt over the course of this conversation that bobble hats don’t exist in Canada; when it’s minus forty outside you have to make do with a ‘pom-pom hat’. Clearly the Canadians need our help.
Cultural itchiness aside, things are going well here. I have a 6-month plan that will allow me to finish work by July, so I’m trying to pack in as much sightseeing as possible. On Sunday I and a group of hungover VSO volunteers braved the hot African sun to see crocodiles in a lake outside of Kaele. After around 2 hours of patient grumbling, we managed to spot a tiny brown splodge on the surface of the water which, I am assured, was a croc’s eye. Some children threw stones at the splodge and it vanished beneath the water. Next week is hippos.
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
The Naked Man of Maroua
I had been in Maroua barely one week when I was asked a question that I honestly never expected to hear in the orthodox environment of northern Cameroon.
“Have you seen the naked man yet?” a returned volunteer innocently inquired, as we wound our way across town in the back of the VSO jeep. I admitted that I had not. Our driver, Aziz, let out a snort of laughter.
“You’ll meet him soon enough,” he promised.
And, sure enough, I did. A couple of days later, liberated from training for a few blissful hours, I embarked upon a brief yet illuminating tour of the local produce market. My chief aim in this endeavour was to photograph the fly-infested slabs of meat that had so filled me with horror on our first tour of the city. And so it came to pass that the first time I saw the naked man was through the lens of my camera, poised and ready to photograph sliced animal remains. He appeared as if on the distant horizon, a lone figure of matted hair and leathery skin among the conservatively-dressed market traders. It was all I could do to stop myself taking a quick shot, Hungry Joe-style.
It is said that you can set your watch by the naked man. Every day he completes a circuit of Maroua city centre, beginning at roughly the same time and taking the same route at the same serene pace. At midday, for example, he can usually be seen outside the MDDHL office; he reaches the central market by late afternoon. Vendors always give him food; any who dare refuse find that their wares are soon marinated by a fresh stream of urine. He has no possessions as far as anyone can tell, and never seems to require more than basic food and water. Perhaps he is preparing himself to take orders as a Franciscan monk, in which case someone really ought to warn him that there are no abbeys in the Far North Province.
Stories abound as to the origins of the naked man. My favourite is as follows: he fell in love with the wife of his best friend, who came home one night to find the pair in bed together. Stricken with guilt, he promised his friend that if ever he betrayed him again, he would cast himself out from society. He resisted the call of his loins for a few days but finally heeded to his lover’s charms once more. Awaking the next day to the terrible realisation of what he had done, the man ran from his friend’s house, leaving his clothes behind, and from that day forward abandoned civilisation for the life of a vagabond.
Romantic as it is to imagine that the naked man is doing penance for a doomed love affair, the likelihood is that he is simply another victim of mental health problems for whom the State and society can do nothing. Hospitals here can treat malaria, typhoid and amoebas – they even tried to recommend a cream that would cure my freckles – but they cannot help people who hear voices or experience violent mood swings. Such people are left to fend for themselves, abandoned by families who cannot cope with their behaviour.
Then again, perhaps the naked man is not so crazy. In a country where temperatures can soar above 40 degrees, it must be nice to be able to dispense with the inconvenience of clothing. And why pay for food when you can get it for free? Anyone who can get away with doing as he pleases, eating whatever takes his fancy and defacing others’ property without so much as a word of abuse against him is, in my book, an absolute genius.
“Have you seen the naked man yet?” a returned volunteer innocently inquired, as we wound our way across town in the back of the VSO jeep. I admitted that I had not. Our driver, Aziz, let out a snort of laughter.
“You’ll meet him soon enough,” he promised.
And, sure enough, I did. A couple of days later, liberated from training for a few blissful hours, I embarked upon a brief yet illuminating tour of the local produce market. My chief aim in this endeavour was to photograph the fly-infested slabs of meat that had so filled me with horror on our first tour of the city. And so it came to pass that the first time I saw the naked man was through the lens of my camera, poised and ready to photograph sliced animal remains. He appeared as if on the distant horizon, a lone figure of matted hair and leathery skin among the conservatively-dressed market traders. It was all I could do to stop myself taking a quick shot, Hungry Joe-style.
It is said that you can set your watch by the naked man. Every day he completes a circuit of Maroua city centre, beginning at roughly the same time and taking the same route at the same serene pace. At midday, for example, he can usually be seen outside the MDDHL office; he reaches the central market by late afternoon. Vendors always give him food; any who dare refuse find that their wares are soon marinated by a fresh stream of urine. He has no possessions as far as anyone can tell, and never seems to require more than basic food and water. Perhaps he is preparing himself to take orders as a Franciscan monk, in which case someone really ought to warn him that there are no abbeys in the Far North Province.
Stories abound as to the origins of the naked man. My favourite is as follows: he fell in love with the wife of his best friend, who came home one night to find the pair in bed together. Stricken with guilt, he promised his friend that if ever he betrayed him again, he would cast himself out from society. He resisted the call of his loins for a few days but finally heeded to his lover’s charms once more. Awaking the next day to the terrible realisation of what he had done, the man ran from his friend’s house, leaving his clothes behind, and from that day forward abandoned civilisation for the life of a vagabond.
Romantic as it is to imagine that the naked man is doing penance for a doomed love affair, the likelihood is that he is simply another victim of mental health problems for whom the State and society can do nothing. Hospitals here can treat malaria, typhoid and amoebas – they even tried to recommend a cream that would cure my freckles – but they cannot help people who hear voices or experience violent mood swings. Such people are left to fend for themselves, abandoned by families who cannot cope with their behaviour.
Then again, perhaps the naked man is not so crazy. In a country where temperatures can soar above 40 degrees, it must be nice to be able to dispense with the inconvenience of clothing. And why pay for food when you can get it for free? Anyone who can get away with doing as he pleases, eating whatever takes his fancy and defacing others’ property without so much as a word of abuse against him is, in my book, an absolute genius.
Saturday, 24 January 2009
Dark deeds are afoot...
Yesterday I met a friend for lunch. I asked her how things were going in Mokolo, the small town where she works.
"You mean, apart from the riots?" she replied.
Riots?
Apparently it started about a week ago. Several girls at a local high school suddenly came down with a mysterious illness, characterised in most cases by a sort of epileptic fit. It was not long before another high school reported a similar phenomenon. The girls were taken to hospital where they were found to show symptoms of diseases common to the area, such as malaria and typhoid.
This was not, however, the conclusion drawn by the local community. The fits were instead taken as absolute proof that the girls had been possessed by evil spirits. But who would do such a thing? The culprit, in everyone's eyes, could only be the local school director. He was, after all, from the south; furthermore, he had studied in Spain, where he had picked up a style of dress markedly different from the local fashion - including, on occasion, bracelets. There was no doubting that he was a wizard.
Retribution was swift. A group of high school students started a demonstration that was quickly joined by most of the town. Teachers fled from their classrooms as their pupils were recruited to the cause by large gangs of protesters. The director's house was burnt down; his wife escaped with minor injuries. The director himself was cornered in his office by a mob clearly intent on killing him, until mercifully a police envoy managed to scatter the would-be assassins.
The director and his family are currently hiding in my friend's compound, unsure of what to do next. Curiously, it seems that this is not an isolated case of mass hysteria: people from the south of Cameroon who hold high positions in the north are often accused of witchcraft or other heinous sins. The south is considered to be more developed and its residents better educated, which is why many southerners, especially teachers, are sent by the government to serve a stretch in the north. The hope, ostensibly, is that the balance shall be evened out, but the more common response appears to be jealousy and hostility on the part of the 'less-developed' northerners.
The incident in Mokolo also brought home to me the influence of ideas about witchcraft and sorcery in northern Cameroon. Beliefs such as those described above are not confined to rural towns and villages; even the President of my organisation is a strong believer. We recently learnt that he consults a 'marabou', or sorcerer, on a regular basis in order to cast spells on those he wants to control. For example, if he wants to seduce a woman, he rubs a lotion over his hands and arms and then does the same to the object of his attention by shaking her hand, squeezing her shoulder or stroking her arms. The victim will then fall under his power and agree to marry him. The spell does not last forever, which is perhaps unfortunate for the woman who suddenly wakes up to find herself married to President Math. (I can't help feeling, however, that this is how most seductions in the West are carried out, only with the man drenched in Lynx or something equally repugnant).
Anyway, riots and sorcery aside, I made it back to Maroua with few hiccups (leaving my house keys in England being one of them). I had a wonderful time in England, ate twice my weight in mince pies and Christmas pudding and even managed to smuggle some marmite and bags of PG Tips into Cameroon. I also discovered to my delight that quite a few people have been kind enough to read my blog, making me feel very bad for not updating it very often. From now on I promise an entry at least every two weeks. Next week: the Naked Man of Maroua. You have been warned!
"You mean, apart from the riots?" she replied.
Riots?
Apparently it started about a week ago. Several girls at a local high school suddenly came down with a mysterious illness, characterised in most cases by a sort of epileptic fit. It was not long before another high school reported a similar phenomenon. The girls were taken to hospital where they were found to show symptoms of diseases common to the area, such as malaria and typhoid.
This was not, however, the conclusion drawn by the local community. The fits were instead taken as absolute proof that the girls had been possessed by evil spirits. But who would do such a thing? The culprit, in everyone's eyes, could only be the local school director. He was, after all, from the south; furthermore, he had studied in Spain, where he had picked up a style of dress markedly different from the local fashion - including, on occasion, bracelets. There was no doubting that he was a wizard.
Retribution was swift. A group of high school students started a demonstration that was quickly joined by most of the town. Teachers fled from their classrooms as their pupils were recruited to the cause by large gangs of protesters. The director's house was burnt down; his wife escaped with minor injuries. The director himself was cornered in his office by a mob clearly intent on killing him, until mercifully a police envoy managed to scatter the would-be assassins.
The director and his family are currently hiding in my friend's compound, unsure of what to do next. Curiously, it seems that this is not an isolated case of mass hysteria: people from the south of Cameroon who hold high positions in the north are often accused of witchcraft or other heinous sins. The south is considered to be more developed and its residents better educated, which is why many southerners, especially teachers, are sent by the government to serve a stretch in the north. The hope, ostensibly, is that the balance shall be evened out, but the more common response appears to be jealousy and hostility on the part of the 'less-developed' northerners.
The incident in Mokolo also brought home to me the influence of ideas about witchcraft and sorcery in northern Cameroon. Beliefs such as those described above are not confined to rural towns and villages; even the President of my organisation is a strong believer. We recently learnt that he consults a 'marabou', or sorcerer, on a regular basis in order to cast spells on those he wants to control. For example, if he wants to seduce a woman, he rubs a lotion over his hands and arms and then does the same to the object of his attention by shaking her hand, squeezing her shoulder or stroking her arms. The victim will then fall under his power and agree to marry him. The spell does not last forever, which is perhaps unfortunate for the woman who suddenly wakes up to find herself married to President Math. (I can't help feeling, however, that this is how most seductions in the West are carried out, only with the man drenched in Lynx or something equally repugnant).
Anyway, riots and sorcery aside, I made it back to Maroua with few hiccups (leaving my house keys in England being one of them). I had a wonderful time in England, ate twice my weight in mince pies and Christmas pudding and even managed to smuggle some marmite and bags of PG Tips into Cameroon. I also discovered to my delight that quite a few people have been kind enough to read my blog, making me feel very bad for not updating it very often. From now on I promise an entry at least every two weeks. Next week: the Naked Man of Maroua. You have been warned!
Friday, 12 December 2008
Volunteering week
Last week was volunteering week in
It was at the same meeting that the idea to produce a documentary depicting the work of volunteers in the Far North of Cameroon was conceived. A couple of days later I was asked if I would like to co-produce this documentary, mainly, it seems, because I have a Mac laptop with groovy movie-editing software. Within a week I found myself being chauffeur-driven to various locations in and around Maroua, eating lavish dinners put on by traditional chiefs, visiting schools, watching cultural events and occasionally filming volunteers doing some actual work. I also met the regional representative of
All this has taken place alongside preparations for Human Rights Week, the busiest time of year at MDDHL. Fortunately most of the events of HRW were film-worthy, so I was able successfully to combine my two responsibilities (as most people reading this blog probably realise, even one responsibility is usually too much for my poor brain to handle).
HRW was a truly breathtaking example of Cameroonian event planning in action. On Wednesday, for example, we were scheduled to visit Maroua's detention centres (mainly the prison and the holding cells at the police stations). This was an annual event, the date for which had been set at least a month beforehand. On Wednesday morning, however, it transpired that nobody had actually informed the detention centres that we were going to visit them. You're probably thinking, surely that was the point? Alas, not in
The next day was a visit to the authorities themselves, for which we also needed, and were granted, written permission. By far my favourite authority was the Lamido. Each town or village in
On Monday Muslims in the Far North Province celebrated the "fête de moutons" (literally, sheep festival, although I believe the official name is' Tabaski') an event similar to Christmas in that everyone goes to church in the morning and then stuffs themselves with food in the afternoon. We dressed up in our finest and went to the largest mosque in Maroua to watch the prayers, a truly spectacular event: thousands of Muslims praying and chanting together. In the name of VSO documentary B-roll footage I got to bring the camcorder with me; I'll try to upload the footage to the internet as soon as I'm somewhere with a decent internet connection.
That's it for now. I'll be back in the
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