Q: Friggin’ hillbillies.
A: Actually, we prefer to be called “Appalachian Americans.”
That quote is courtesy of the Dukes of Hazzard movie. It’s a gem. I’ve decided to revise my selection of inspirational figures: Nelson Mandela will have to move over to make room for Johnny Knoxville.
I open this entry with the Dukes reference to give you an idea of the kinds of things I do to pass time here in Santa, Cameroon. Truth is, life can be rather uneventful. Nevertheless, several people have asked what a typical day is like for me here, so I’ll do my best. Given the lack of monumental daily occurrences, an explanation of my life in Cameroon should really encompass only two to three sentences. However, I prefer to take the lawyer’s philosophy to explaining things: why use one word when a thousand will do? (to be more accurate, this entry is 1,429 words in length)
Perhaps the best way to give an idea as to what life is like in Santa is to share a few tidbits of my daily experiences with you.
My workday starts with a two minute walk to the council building, stopping to shake hands with about a dozen people on the way. Perhaps I’d better give y’all a heads up. When I get home, I’m gonna shake hands with everyone. A lot. I mean, really a lot. Here is a sample dialogue (animation in brackets - you’ll have to act it out yourself as you read):
Me: Gut monin!
My friend: Gut monin!
(shake hands)
Me: Ha fo yu?
My friend: A dey fayn!! A di sho buk fo smol pikin dem dis monin. An yu?
Me: Umm…..
My friend: Right. English it is.
Both of us: (raise right hand and prepare to really connect on the next handshake) Hahaha.
(shake hands)
Me: I’m going to work.
My friend: Me too.
(shake hands)
(Extended silence)
(shake hands)
Me: Safe journey.
My friend: Shortly.
(shake hands)
I’ll digress further for a moment: you may be aware of the ‘African’ way of shaking hands, where the handshake ends with by snapping your middle finger off your partner’s hand, as he or she does the same from your hand. It is extra cool. It is also really hard to do successfully. My Western-ness glows red when I try it. I try it many times per day.
Onward.
My office is a former prison cell (photo attached). No shelving, cabinets, or anything else you might find in a typical office, other than a desk, one power outlet, a single light bulb, and 8 chairs. Cameroonians love their chairs. More on that another time.
I won’t go into detail about work, since organizational (or institutional) development is done just about everywhere. It just takes on a different flavour in Africa. I’ll just say my job entails advising the Santa Council in finding ways to operate more effectively and efficiently with the resources it has. I know what you’re thinking: That’s hilarious!! Fact is, I do find the work very interesting (and humorous, at times).
After work, I go for a beer. Inadvertently. That is, I start the two-minute walk toward my house, which is invariably interrupted by someone who wants to ‘take a mimbo’. I drink a beer almost every single day. In a forthcoming journal entry, I will discuss booze (including a detailed description of ‘white wine’), food, and the consequential expanding circumference of my mid-quarters. Personally, I find the look quite rathering. Worthy of a brand new Speedo when I get home.
Evenings are very quiet. I usually just lay low at home, read, watch a movie (say, for example, I had intentionally got my hands on the latest Dukes of Hazzard flick) play my flute, or go to the mimbo house (corner store/bar) located about 20 metres from my house to visit with friends.
To make a short story long, not a lot happens in a day in my life in Santa, Cameroon. In so many ways, a typical work day here is not much different from life at home. I go to work, I try to accomplish something, I feel grateful, frustrated, clever, redundant, and merely human. What has my eyes so wide open here more than anything are the small day-to-day activities that people attend to without realizing that it’s part of the culture; the way people dress, women carrying incredible loads on top of their head, men mowing lawns half the size of a football field with machetes, the mayhem of market day. It’s the kind of stuff that’s not so easy to photograph (people don’t like having their photos taken in everyday situations).
Culture exists everywhere, even in my hometown of Calgary, Canada, where, for 10 days every July, people throw animals around as a form of entertainment. We call it ‘cowboy culture’. Most Calgarians (including me) know very little about what it means to be a cowboy, but we do enjoy the violence.
Of course, one significant thing that separates the Western world from places like Cameroon is the standard of living, which I suppose affects the culture. I realize I’ve hardly touched on the poverty issues in all the journalizing I’ve done, partially because I’m still trying to understand what it really means. That’s all I’ll say for now, with a forewarning that, one of these days, I’ll be posting a very long and sombre entry on the subject.
To regress, I’ll elaborate on my daily life by relaying to you a few memorable moments (for me, anyway):
The other night, I passed some valuable time in a friend’s mimbo house, discussing the benefits of owning a radio while listening to a host of African pop tunes, with a sprinkling of songs by Dolly Parton, Don Williams, and some poodle-perm band from the 80’s that I was unfamiliar with. Arguably, something of a non-event, but I can recall thinking to myself, ‘this is so cool, I couldn’t think of a better place to be right now.’
Another episode: I had my first taste of the farming experience when a group of 4 dogs attacked a goat in front of my house one day. They chased the poor little guy over an escarpment, leaving him hanging by his tether, unable to escape. Then, 3 of them distracted him from the flank-sides while the other 3 started chomping at his round-angles. I grabbed my broomstick (I have a broomstick) and ran outside, yelling, “I may look like a city-boy, but really, I’m scared sh*tless of you!!” They cowered and ran. Fast. All 10 of them. It was a moment. I seized the opportunity, and yelled with all my girth, “You want a piece of me!?! You wanna go?!! If I ever see your noses in these parts again….!!!” Admittedly, I’m downplaying the whole story in an effort to be humble (after all, one man against 15 dogs can be worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster, if properly produced). Nevertheless, or more poignantly, irregardless, you get the picture.
Ok, it was 2 distracted kids & a basset hound, but who’s counting?
I had my second experience in the farming world when my buddy Patrick came to realize that my skills in preparing a chicken dinner had not preceded a frying pan. My vegetarian friends may want to skip the balance of this paragraph. You see, it’s a DIY world here (as opposed to a ‘doggy-dog’ world, as I’d once heard), and I take it as part of my responsibility to become one with the environment. That includes slaughtering one’s own dinner. I won’t go into detail, but I’ll just say that I’m that much closer to understanding the philosophy, “if you’re gonna eat it, you should probably know where it came from.” I’m definitely not ready to step up to pigs or cows yet, but if any of you have a live chicken running around your house that you need some help getting sautéed, I’m your man.
I have family members who murder animals as a form of recreation (a melodramatic way of expressing ‘hunting’) who may have accepted the foregoing with a snab of ho-hum. But for me, it was but another moment.
Gotta say, saving the lives of goats and turning flightless fowl into dinner gave me a mean hankerin’ for moonshine and banjo music.
That’s about it for now. By the way, during my most recent spell check, when the word, “irregardless” came up, I added it to my dictionary.
One up for the evolution of language.
Y’all come back now. Y’hear?
eb
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