Road Trippin’
Friday
Today we drove to the capital, Yaoundé (and reference to the Chili Pepper’s song in my blog title). On our way we noticed a woman walking to the market with a Confederate bandana tied to her head. We got a kick out of that b/c it’s a good example of how symbolism works or doesn’t work. In other words, a symbol’s meaning has to be viewed in a specific context and I’m sure she had no clue and wouldn’t care about it’s meaning. We meandered through the mountains, the bus’s brakes smelling. This reminds me somewhat of crossing Mont Eagle, except there’s no emergency places for trucks to pull over if their brakes fail.
We had a real treat this morning. We stopped in Bafoussan because this is A’s hometown. The indigenous language group here is Bangua and the people are the Bamaleki who are known for moving all around the world (for trade, education). A is a Cameroonian guy on our trip who went to grad school in the US and now teaches in GA (and has a great Afro-French accent). He hadn’t been home since he left seven years ago and we got to be there for his homecoming. His family met us at his church, the Evangelical Church of Cameroon (section of French Evangelicals). I’m not usually one to get emotional, but even I got misty eyed when he got off the bus and he was greeted by family (including a sister who now lives in Senegal and works for Nestle). I’d love to pick his brain for my new “migration” class in the fall. I could somewhat relate after being in Ghana for a year, but I know it doesn’t compare with being gone seven (ask me sometime how this influenced my view of heaven). A’s mom made sure that a nice young woman was there for him to meet—we teased him about how he was going to get out of the marriage discussion when he returns after our trip for an extended visit.
We entered the church and the choir sang a few songs in both French and English and in acapella. It was beautiful harmonizing that resonated off of the stone walls. It was a large church with a small balcony. There were some paper lanterns hung across the front for decoration. Prayers and welcomes were said and then we got a tour of the church compound—there’s a place that houses some orphans. Then we were served lunch and I tried some new foods. We had cassava which I didn’t care for the texture or the sour taste. There was also something locally called a plum although different from what I think a plum is. We had the usual fried plantains, chicken, etc.
Continuing on our way we stopped for a bush break in a small town (while i try not to drink much when traveling, you can't let yourself dehydrate). The bus pulled over next to the new post office so I ran in and asked for stamps. However, it was not their day to sell stamps. Ok. This whole conversation happened in French which I was so proud of my rusty French and I double checked to make sure I was understanding him correctly. It wasn’t a great place to stop for the women to go to the bush though. However, before we made it to town I was swimming and had to go so we stopped and I went to some family’s hole behind their house. It had 3 walls and a “door” so I was good to go. However, I had to wait for the chicken to leave (the flies were bad too). Everyone on the bus was quite amused by the chicken bathroom story and I’m sure that family would be talking for a while about the white American who used their “facilities” (I use that word loosely).
After we arrived in town I ate dinner at the hotel and a horrible thing happened. They had on American elevator music and I heard Led Zep’s “Stairway to Heaven” slowed down and sung as elevator music. AUGH! It was so WRONG. Aren’t there copyright laws to protect us from such blasphemy? I cannot overstate how traumatized I was! Needless to say, I was happy to leave there and go to a reception sponsored by the US embassy. We talked to some local women involved in the Cameroonian Ministry of Justice (law). At one point the conversation at our table turned to children. I was once again struck by the difficulty of relating in Africa as a single, child-free woman since the majority of women my age have kids. I have no intention of changing the child-free part, and I’ve learned that it’s basically pointless to explain to an African why you don’t want to have children, b/c children are so crucial to people’s identities and culture here few consider not having any. On another note, it’s been really cool to see guys with their babies hanging out talking on the streets. I rarely saw men with babies in Nigeria or Ghana. Also, one of the hotel employees hit on me after he heard me speaking French. I was relieved as I thought I was loosing my touch, although I haven’t been hanging out with taxi drivers here. In Ghana I got countless marriage proposals from the taxi drivers who really wanted a green card/visa. Ha.
Today we drove to the capital, Yaoundé (and reference to the Chili Pepper’s song in my blog title). On our way we noticed a woman walking to the market with a Confederate bandana tied to her head. We got a kick out of that b/c it’s a good example of how symbolism works or doesn’t work. In other words, a symbol’s meaning has to be viewed in a specific context and I’m sure she had no clue and wouldn’t care about it’s meaning. We meandered through the mountains, the bus’s brakes smelling. This reminds me somewhat of crossing Mont Eagle, except there’s no emergency places for trucks to pull over if their brakes fail.
We had a real treat this morning. We stopped in Bafoussan because this is A’s hometown. The indigenous language group here is Bangua and the people are the Bamaleki who are known for moving all around the world (for trade, education). A is a Cameroonian guy on our trip who went to grad school in the US and now teaches in GA (and has a great Afro-French accent). He hadn’t been home since he left seven years ago and we got to be there for his homecoming. His family met us at his church, the Evangelical Church of Cameroon (section of French Evangelicals). I’m not usually one to get emotional, but even I got misty eyed when he got off the bus and he was greeted by family (including a sister who now lives in Senegal and works for Nestle). I’d love to pick his brain for my new “migration” class in the fall. I could somewhat relate after being in Ghana for a year, but I know it doesn’t compare with being gone seven (ask me sometime how this influenced my view of heaven). A’s mom made sure that a nice young woman was there for him to meet—we teased him about how he was going to get out of the marriage discussion when he returns after our trip for an extended visit.
We entered the church and the choir sang a few songs in both French and English and in acapella. It was beautiful harmonizing that resonated off of the stone walls. It was a large church with a small balcony. There were some paper lanterns hung across the front for decoration. Prayers and welcomes were said and then we got a tour of the church compound—there’s a place that houses some orphans. Then we were served lunch and I tried some new foods. We had cassava which I didn’t care for the texture or the sour taste. There was also something locally called a plum although different from what I think a plum is. We had the usual fried plantains, chicken, etc.
Continuing on our way we stopped for a bush break in a small town (while i try not to drink much when traveling, you can't let yourself dehydrate). The bus pulled over next to the new post office so I ran in and asked for stamps. However, it was not their day to sell stamps. Ok. This whole conversation happened in French which I was so proud of my rusty French and I double checked to make sure I was understanding him correctly. It wasn’t a great place to stop for the women to go to the bush though. However, before we made it to town I was swimming and had to go so we stopped and I went to some family’s hole behind their house. It had 3 walls and a “door” so I was good to go. However, I had to wait for the chicken to leave (the flies were bad too). Everyone on the bus was quite amused by the chicken bathroom story and I’m sure that family would be talking for a while about the white American who used their “facilities” (I use that word loosely).
After we arrived in town I ate dinner at the hotel and a horrible thing happened. They had on American elevator music and I heard Led Zep’s “Stairway to Heaven” slowed down and sung as elevator music. AUGH! It was so WRONG. Aren’t there copyright laws to protect us from such blasphemy? I cannot overstate how traumatized I was! Needless to say, I was happy to leave there and go to a reception sponsored by the US embassy. We talked to some local women involved in the Cameroonian Ministry of Justice (law). At one point the conversation at our table turned to children. I was once again struck by the difficulty of relating in Africa as a single, child-free woman since the majority of women my age have kids. I have no intention of changing the child-free part, and I’ve learned that it’s basically pointless to explain to an African why you don’t want to have children, b/c children are so crucial to people’s identities and culture here few consider not having any. On another note, it’s been really cool to see guys with their babies hanging out talking on the streets. I rarely saw men with babies in Nigeria or Ghana. Also, one of the hotel employees hit on me after he heard me speaking French. I was relieved as I thought I was loosing my touch, although I haven’t been hanging out with taxi drivers here. In Ghana I got countless marriage proposals from the taxi drivers who really wanted a green card/visa. Ha.
posted by AnthroAnge | 4:32 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home