Kumba

This weekend the girls and I went to Kumba at the request of our AIESEC friend Tbong Arnold Tbong. We call him Arnold. Aya and I went on Friday night and wanted to get there before dark, so we made it to Mile 17 (the van-loading transfer place- basically a muddy parking lot with vendors and chaos) by 6:30. Arnold told us that it would take an hour from Buea to Kumba at most, so we knew we were cutting it close but we should have been fine. That is if the van filled to capacity quickly, which it didn’t. I can see now why Africans are generally not the most punctual. Their transportation is the epitome of unreliable. We sat in the van for 3 hours waiting. There were no other vans to Kumba. We finally got there at 10:30 which was fine because Arnold’s sister from The States was visiting and she had set the trend in their family to stay up late. In fact, she didn’t serve the family the dinner she’d prepared until we got there at 10:30. Aya and I felt really bad but it’s the way of the amazing African host to suffer for their guests’ comfort.

Arnold’s family is pretty interesting, at least to a non-African. His now American sister moved to the US when she was 21 with her husband. She studied at night college and then got her masters and now is a K-3rd grade teacher in Newark, living in Easton, PA. She is the second girl of 8 kids total, Arnold being somewhere in the middle. Arnold’s mom is his father’s second wife. His dad is the chief of their tribe and the district magistrate or something, which means that he’s entitled to having many wives. He has three total. We met wife #1 and she seemed very demure and of course, welcoming. One of Arnold’s brothers lives in China, and the oldest sister lives in Yaoundé. We’re going to see her next weekend when I go visit Janet the ambassador. We’ll be able to stay with the sister Nelly, and that will be really nice. Also Vitalis, (the friend who is still very interested in Star Trek tapes ) has a sister there so that will be really nice to diffuse the Arnold family-ness.

And here’s why diffusion will be a good thing. I had never really given Asher, the American trainee from the US who’s been staying in an African home with her boss and boss’s family since we got here, always complained about the way the family treated her, until this weekend. In African household kids are seen as free labor, sort of like how my dad sees us. JK, it’s not even close. When we got to Arnold’s the kids (his sibling and half-siblings) snatched our shoes and went to clean them. I have literally never seen my sneakers that clean since the day I bought them, and they had layers and layers of red African mud plus Glens Falls Hospital grossness on them. They did this throughout our 3-night stay in Kumba. Also, the royal treatment extended to Arnold paying for EVERYTHING, which was his prerogative so ultimately I let him after much resistance, but it gave me a really weird feeling to let him pay for our food and drinks and transportation and everything. I don’t even want to think about how far back this weekend has set him. And finally there was this overarching feeling of overprotection and possessiveness. When we went to the market Arnold and his half brother Hilary wouldn’t let us look at whatever we wanted, we had to go to stands that were secluded because they were convinced we’d be stolen from them or mugged or something if we walked where everyone else was. Also, at the club we went to with Arnold and his weird uncles and Yvette, the now-American, there was a drunk guy who kept trying to dance with Laura and I, which is normal anywhere in the world, but the men in our party WAY overreacted. The guy followed our group out to the taxi and asked Laura for her number and she said no thanks and got in the cab and we thought that would be that but the men we were with actually ended up yelling and punching and beating the guy. I believe that was the turning point at which Laura and I decided their protection was unnecessary and creepy. Lastly, I plan on climbing Mount Cameroon this weekend, and Arnold kept saying “if I had my way you wouldn’t climb the mountain, it’s really cold and very slippery in the rainy season blah blah”. I am SO glad not to be an African woman, because I would have to put up with this crap from men all the time and it’s ridiculous. I could analyze this more objectively from an anthropological perspective but I’m tired of doing that all the time so I am just going to say that it sucks for African women. SUCKS.

Kumba overall was great, as was living with a family, though Laura and I both decided that we no longer envy Asher’s opportunity to live full-time with one. I drew several portraits of Arnold family members and one was really good. Tatiana and Cynthia, Arnold’s sisters braided my hair and Aya’s and I think we look pretty good. I have gotten many compliments from Cameroonians and trainees so it must be OK, although I don’t have a mirror (SO liberating by the way, everyone should go 8 weeks without a mirror at some point in their lives).

On the subject of hair, here goes some observations. Appearance is very important to Cameroonians. I don’t even know what the GDP of Cameroon is, but just think really really really low. And somehow people are dressed quite well, albeit mismatched at times or wearing what an American would try to sell at a yard sale. Overall though, they have great fashion sense and work with what is available to them in the way of clothes. But what really mystifies me is their hair styles. I always wondered how the got their hair to be so beautifully straight and glossy, and a few weeks ago co-workers revealed their secrets. They wear wigs. Their real hair is usually pretty short and braided in cornrows to their head. Then wigs are sewed to the corn rows. I cannot imagine how uncomfortable it would be to wear a wig like that for four months at a time. But that’s the norm here. The other thing is hair attachments. These are strips of hair (plastic Africa-textured hair in any color imaginable that are sold all over the place) that are glued to real hair or sewed in a mysterious way. Finally there are braids. Braids would be no good if there was nothing artificial to work into them, which is what Aya and I finally opted for this weekend. We bought what is called mesh, and that mesh was braided into cornrows of our real hair and then the ed were dipped in boiling water which makes them just grip togther enough to look real still but keep the braid from unwinding itself. Quite ingenios. Right now my head is itching so bad. Any African woman mustn’t get her hair wet (not sure why yet- to be answered later) so they walk around with plastic bags on their heads a lot because we are in the rainy season. Also shampooing a wig or attachments or braids is a no-go. I was advised to keep the braids in for one month but I don’t know if I will even be able to fall asleep tonight with the itching like it is now but I will really try to suffer through it 

Another observation about Cameroonian appearances: they all know how to walk in mud so that they don’t get a spec on them. I am only slightly clumsy and focus VERY hard on trying to keep on solid dry-ish clay rather than deep mud wherever we go, but I still find myself with must between my foot and flip flop every time I walk outside. Still, and I am till not used to the squishy feeling and the clean-up. But what people here lack in speed they make up for in treading carefully and cleanly. I never see dirty hemlines or shoes or sandals or toes. It’s amazing. And the clean-shoe obsession is African, not Western. We tend to sacrifice the appearance of our footwear because we can buy more shoes when the ones we own are old or dirty, but when you can’t you protect and constantly clean the ones you have. In fact, Westerners like the broken-in look to some extent, but that is not attractive to people here. They like brand-spanking new.

Cameroonians are just immaculate all around though. They have spotless taxis and hallways and porches and carpets (no vacuums though, so again, I have no idea how they achieve this). I think cleanliness is a HUGE value to them. They shower despite limited running water at least once every day.

One Cameroonian friend Helen, (going to live in the US on Thursday actually, it’s really a cool think to be here while she gets ready to join her sister in Baltimore) said that she loves the way white people smell. I think that it’s really funny that we have a smell. But I get what she means because I noticed a distinct African smell when I first got here. I don’t smell it anymore.