Games
The chief occupation of villagers in Mbatu (besides farming) is sand and gravel mining. Every day, the big gravel trucks will come down the main road in the village and pick up workers who wait by the side of the road with their shovels. Usually the truck will stop and the people will climb into the back. Last week, the truck did not stop, but instead just went merrily along past the waiting workers. My best guess is the driver was just being a jerk. The first worker threw his shovel like a javelin into the truck bed, and took off running. The truck can’t move too fast on the dirt roads, but it definitely wasn’t slowing down, and the guy was running as fast as he could. Eventually, he took a running jump and got a handhold to pull himself up. The second guy couldn’t throw his shovel because of the man already sitting inside, so he had to do the running and jumping while holding a shovel. I thought they would be furious, but 2 minutes later when the driver stopped to talk to someone, I noticed both men grinning.
Names
Cameroonians like names. At least, Mbatu villagers do. My first day visiting village they started the debate about what my name was going to be. Because there was a schism when they were first deciding, I ended up with two names. The teachers at the school called me Lum, or Ngialum, and the villagers called me Ngiabih.
After going to visit the school and getting confused for Darcie (my replacement) by at least half the students and teachers (welcome back from holiday, are you teaching today? Madame, are we going to the lab?) I started the walk back to town. I don’t like walking in front of students because then they like to gossip about me, so I was walking painstakingly slow to stay behind them. Students do the 6 km walk daily, and have to do chores when they get home, so they’ve learned how to amble along slowly. Eventually, they invited me to join them by asking me questions about the internet. As a side note, these random conversations are when I think I actually educate the most.
While walking with the students, a person on the side of the road called out “Ngiabih!” to greet me and I of course responded. This startled all of the students and they exclaimed “Madame! You have an African name!” They were then very jealous and asked me to give them American names. Most Cameroonian children already have an American (or “Christian”) name, along with their African name and the family name. These names are most often from the Bible, but they could also be any word in English that their mother liked. Examples include Thankgod (A boy’s name: I had 2 students named this last year) and many names like Prudence and Blessing. The very happy child in the picture is named Chanel.
If I wrote my name like a Cameroonian it would be LACKER Allison Bih, although the order is not consistent. I told them that they already had American names, but they insisted on new ones. Kevin, Joe, and Ben, you all have random Cameroonian students named after you now. They called each other by these names for the rest of the walk.
Kids
In Cameroonian households, children do the work. Everything from washing clothes to taking care of younger children is the work of anyone older than 7 and sometimes younger too. When I went to visit my old compound, this gave the kids an excuse to stop “real” work, and instead they ran around trying to feed me. They smashed some palm nuts to get “kenet”, the center of the nut. It tastes like coconut, but after you chew it you spit it out.
They also spent awhile climbing trees to get me guavas. It isn’t really guava season yet though, so out of the 12 they gave me, 2 were ripe. They seemed content enough to eat them however when we shared them out.
On the bus back to Buea the woman next to me had 3 kids. She looked to be about 20 at most, and her oldest child was maybe 4. She was having difficulty holding 3 children on her lap so she handed the youngest to me. This baby was maybe 7 months, so I spent the next few hours trying to keep her head from bouncing too much on the bad roads. When we got to the rest stop I ended up wandering around buying mangoes while carrying an infant child. Many people told me I had a beautiful child, which I didn’t deny.
Telling the truth
…which leads me to my next story. Sarcasm is a form of humor that is absent in almost all Cameroonian interactions. Because of this, at first I refrained from using it, but eventually I learned that they really do appreciate it. One of the favorite stories told by my small neighbors is when I was walking them home from school (they do it on their own usually, being grown up children of 5 and 7, but I happened to be there). Even though they are two years apart, they look alike, and a random person happened to ask me if the two children whose hands I were holding were my twins. I said “yes”, because quite obviously they were not, but it amused everyone. Another example is when I was walking with the students to town and explaining the internet. One was saying how he wanted to find a wife through the internet, and I was trying to explain that people can say anything on the internet. The boy told me that he would ask for a picture. To try and prove my point, I said “they could send you a picture of a cat. Does that mean that you found a talking cat?” At first they all stared at me for awhile and I thought I had made a mistake. After all, their tabloids and folk tales refer to talking animals and almost everyone openly admits to believing in sorcery. After a moment though they started laughing and we kept referring back to “talking cats” whenever I said you couldn’t trust what was on the internet. “Anyone can say anything, in real life or on the internet. For example, I am a talking cat”.
