Tick Tock Bawk

In Dschang... pronounced Chong, which definitely does not sound like what you imagine your typical African university town to be named.  This city of 46000 is wayyy smaller than Yaounde and overall I like it a lot better.  It's not that I don't like the capital, but Dschang is way more calm, not as many people yell 'la blanche' at you on the street, there are beautiful tree covered mountains everywhere you look, along with those unparalleled rust colored roads, and not to mention I am living with a wonderful family...which actually isn't calm at all but I love them.  I live with the Soohs, in a quartier named Foto and I have at least 6 siblings: Heve and Jordan are the older brothers, 18 and 16.  And then Noranic (11), Sinclaire (9), and Ashley (7 months!) are my younger girl siblings, and wouldn't you know it, another Wheat Freet!  He's 7 and just about the most adorable thing you've ever seen.  So all together with Maman and Papa we live in a small house with a well for our water which means I take a bucket bath each morning and have a hole in an outside hut as my bathroom.  Despite those changes which are way different than the US and even really different than Yaounde, I absolutely love living with this family who are kind and gracious and have immediately made me feel welcome.  We sing a lot, mostly American hits, which is where the title of this post was born.  Yesterday, 'Tick Tock' by Kesha was on the television and the younger siblings and I were all dancing and singing when I noticed that our chicken was bawking away outside at the same time.  While tick tock bawk makes for a cutesy rhyme, it really was one of those moments that made me stop and think about how globalization works and my place here in Cameroon.  

I still am having a lot of trouble thinking about and conceptualizing the relationship between the 'west' and Cameroon and despite the fact that Ive been learning these things for the past 3 years, being in this country is making me see it and even feel it like I never could have at Denison.  I can't begin to describe how much I feel like I'm learning here, about my areas of study but also about myself.  ahwh shout out: talk about living outside of the comfort zone.

Today we got to have fried plantains and beer with the equivalent mayor of the city, yesterday we spent all day at a Cheif's digs in Batofaum and on Saturday we're going to explore a nearby waterfall and cave.  It's really all pretty unreal and I am going to try and keep on explaining things the best I can on this blog until I can in person in a few months.  

I hope everyone is doing well and will somebody please eat a chipotle rice bowl for me?  I love the food here, but we were talking about those the other day and it was like I was in Isle Royale all over again.

Love love love!

Gout-lay (how Wheat Freet pronounced my name the first three days)

D'accord Princess

Happy Monday everyone,

I had an absolutely wonderful weekend, so thought I'd share:

On Friday after school I invited two friends, Libby from Montana and Camille from Oregon, to come play soccer with me and my neighborhood friends. We first stopped by this little bar/restaurant on the way home to have a pineapple"top" which is basically carbonated juice and everyone here is obsessed. So after the top we walked down my dirt road and I was really getting a little nervous because I had made a big deal about how great it is to hang out with these kids and I was worried that today would be the day when nobody would feel like playing. But right as we turned the corner everyone came running, and this time most were shouting Court-en-ay...progressss! So we played for awhile, letting our feet turn brown, and then the sun was starting to set signaling our time to go. I was going to show Libby my house and as soon as I opened the wall/gate every child stormed past me and started to run around our walled in house. I just stood there for a second looking back and forth towards Wheat Freet as the fifteen or so kids were running on the roof, hiding under the car, jumping off ledges, ect. Then the thought "one of these children is going to bust their head open, die, all my fault, etc" flashed through my mind and I started to run around after them, flapping my arms yelling "tout le monde, tout le monde!" (everyone, everyonnnnneee) but all they could do was laugh and keep running. So I finally took action and picked the smallest child, Princess age 1, picked her up and put her outside the wall. "D'accord Princess" (okayyy Princess, here ya go) while the rest of them were still on the loose. Libby had tears of laughter running down her face because I had choosen the harmless and most calm child to tackle first... start small, right? Eventually they all were ushered out (with some help from the older siblings) and Wheat Freet, Libby and I were left in peace. The end to a rediculously hectic and wonderful afternoon.

Saturday morning I woke up at my normal 630, walked to school, and hopped in a large van with everyone to head to a village outside of Yaounde. There, we visited a really cool art school and afterwards took a tour around Africa's largest gorilla sanctuary. There were a number of chimps, monkeys, and gorillas and even a few random donkeys. However I think one of the coolest parts is that the woman who gave us the tour was from the US and had moved to Cameroon to work at the sancutary after 30 or so years working as an interior designer for law firms; talk about making a job switch! Anyway, I just thought it was inspiring to meet someone brave enough to uproot completely because of a passion.

Saturday night I went out with some friends and danced for a little bit which was really fun and the next morning woke up to lots of French homework. Sometimes I forget I'm here for academics. Then, my older brother Patrice took me to a soccer game between Yaounde's team and a team from the west; afterwards we visited a friend who gave me a coconut (did you know that you have to use an axe to break them open?!) and then we stopped one more time to another friend who had just given birth so I got to hold this 13 day old baby for half an hour. We got home, I ate one of the spiciest meals of my life, and called it a night. All in all, a wondeful weekend.

FYI, I should be more connected this week before we leave for Dschang (chong) on Sat. for two weeks which is a much smaller and not as connected city. Thanks again for all your well wishing!

Love,
Courtney

La Blanche

Bonjour to all from Golf, Yaounde, Cameroon, Africa.

Before I delve into my new series of stories, I must make a reference and correction to my last post... I suppose I was in a hurry to utilize my internet cafe minutes as best as I could and made a big typo saying that my host family doesn't speak a lick of "french"... I clearly meant to say ENGLISH, they speak absoluetly no english, so sorry for the confusion. Also, I asked one of my French professors if "Huit Freet" is a common Cameroonian name and she had absolutely no idea what I was talking about so we tried a few different pronunciations and she started cracking up. Turns out my brother's name is Wilfrid; I guess with a really heavy Cameroonian accent it starts to sound like wheat freet... who knew. So that solves that.

This week Ive really been feeling good; I finally feel like Im getting a grasp on this city, this language, and the ways of life here. My host family and I get along really, really well and I spend my evenings talking and eating with them. For those of you who had the assumption that I would be coming back to America 20 pounds lighter, think again. All I do, all everyone does, is eat bread. Not to mention the tons of food my host mother puts on my plate after im done eating; last night I got 3 extra large potatoes and unfortunately for me its really rude not to finish sooooo unless Im careful Im going to live up to my host mom's expectation of "tous les américans sont gros" aka all americans are fatties. But I walk close to 3-4 miles a day at least so I'm banking on that to help me out.

I've also become the favorite neighborhood "blanche" / neighborhood white girl and spend 430-6 pm everyday playing soccer and dancing with the group of 10-15 kids who live near me. Everyday as I turn the corner on the rust colored dirt road michelle, mami, chantal, jeano, jeanu, princess, lydia, stephanie, grace, sozzo, and stella run to greet me yelling " la blanche! la blanche!" Im working on them calling me court-en-ay (how everyone here pronounces my name) but its extremely heart-warming nonetheless. And yesterday, right before I turned the corner to greet all my new friends I happened to meet the first division professional Cameroon rugby team on the street. They initially stopped to say hi to me because I'm a La Blanche but when I saw them all wearing rugby jerseys I initiated a real 20 minute conversation and have now been invited to all of their games along with all my friends! I love how certain parts of home are following me all the way over to my small street in the neighboorhood "Golf" in Cameroon. Im working on getting one of their jerseys before I leave.

So that's a brief look into my life here; as soon as I can figure out how to upload pictures somewhere Ill work on doing that. Everything is going really well: my french is improving rapidly, I can navigate myself around the area, I love my family, the food isnt horrible (only a few experiences with intestines) I have a lot of great new friends, american and cameroonian, and Im just overall really happy. I grapple with my place here and what it means to be a la blanche in cameroon on an everyday basis but I really do feel like Im participating in an extreme exchange of cultures and when I think of things in that way it helps to put things in perspective for me. I miss home and my family and friends a lot, but feel the love travelin' through and over all the land and oceans. Hope you can feel it being sent back.

A bientot,
Court-en-ay