Bisous

Adventure updates, photos (mostly of food and bicycles), and amusing stories (at least I think so).

29 September 2006

This is just a little blog of amusing events from yesterday. I suppose I'll go in order...

Emily and Rachel and I went to lunch at Cafe Delices, a quaint little cafe where the lady who takes the orders and makes the food also has her little baby tied to her back. As a side not, I had an incredible plate of carrots and avacados!! During the meal, one of the construction workers working on the drainage system for the street outside popped into the cafe to talk to us in English. He proceeded to give us a history lesson of our own country with included colombus colonizing the country and all of the "red indians". yikes! Conceptions of America and of Americans here are, well, interesting and varried....conceptions of political correctness do not really exist. Anyhow, after lunch we watched a Cameroonian film at the SIT office, but a huge thunder storm came through about half way throught the film and the power was cut. We napped until it came back on (about half and hour), finished the somewhat boring film, and then...guess what we found in the SIT office??? SEASON SEVEN OF FRIENDS!!! (including the Holiday Armadillo episode!!) We treated ourselves to one episode, and it was honestly like having real friends come visit us. Every joke was funny and it just seemed so comfortable, so normal...I almost expected to walk out the door of the office into Holland and not Dschang. It was a great break for us all to have Ross and Phoebe and Chandler come to the SIT office :) After watching Friends, I went to the tailor's to give him all of my fabric and my designs. Everyone has gone overboard buying fabric here. It is absolutely gorgeous and inexpensive (until you buy tons of it!). But the best thing is that you can get anything you want made. I sat down with my sketch book and designed dress and skirts and some presents and all I had to do was show my designs and explain my ideas to the tailor. His little shop is on the same street as the SIT office. It is basically the size of two ajoined walk in closets with a sewing machine from about the 1940's. He takes your measurments as you try to find the french vocabulary for "gathered" and "pleated" and "strapless". I pretty much explained my ideas with hand motions joined by french conecting words. "You know, like -twirling motion to imitate a full skirt- yes like this but only so far down -point just below the knees- yes like this. It is very beautiful the idea, yes? Oh, and please can the red thing -motion to tie bow behing back like sash- be just above -point to hips- but below the smallest part here -point to waist-" Such fun!
I left the tailors for home and the power got cut again, this time for the whole night. So, Eugene (my darling 14 year old sister) and I sat on the front porch doing our homework. Well, actually it turned into me writing out the lyrics to Shakira's "hips don't lie" so she can learn how to sing it. In the midst of our laughter, my aunt came out with Junior (my three year old brother who is the constant amusement of the family). She was laughing so hard that she couldn't even speak as she pulled down Junior's pants. Junior had proudly gotten himself dressed that morning, complete with 5 pairs of underwear! And to complete the wonderful evening, we had mashed potatoes with beans in them (a dish that is common for this region and really good!) for dinner and, as there was no power, we went to bed at about 9. Oh, to note, everyone is blown away by the tiny lithium light that I brought. My family came up with the idea that you could buy 4, put them in the corners of the room and put big rocks on them (to keep them on) when the power goes out. In this way you could light the room more effectively than with the lantern. My mini light is affectionaly called the "bebe torche" or baby flashlight by all.

Hope this post makes you smile!

26 September 2006

oh....only five minutes left! Anyhow, the converstation was extremely interesting and thought provoking. And, who gets the chance to really meet and talk with such important members of soceity? We are studying Cameroons developmental problems and speaking with the leaders that are at the forefront of the movements we discuss in class. The complexity the we are beginning to encounter is astounding.

And, on a lighter note, we (the fourteen girls of the trip) have discovered that the best way to discourage a man who keeps suggesting marriage is to say that our father demands the price of 150 cows to be brought to him in the United States. The young man realizes that he can not pay this price, yet does not feel that he has been snubbed, and the conversation can continue normally!

I should, barring power outages and such, have time for more stories this week. I would love to hear news from all!

bisous
brianne

Last week we had class every day from eight in the morning until seven at night and I was sick with a cold (not serious but just tiring and annoying). I tried to post yesterday but was stopped first by a frozen computer and then by two power outages and therefore lost the first half of three posts! I gave up and went home to make my papa chocolate chip banana pancakes for his birthday. There wasn't any power in the whole town last night so I successfully made pancakes by lantern light and without baking pouder and with a smashed chocolate bar instead of chocolate chips. They were delicious!!

Anyhow, I promised that this blog wouldn't be only about food. This past weekend our group traveled to BAmenda which is in the anglophone part of the country (the western part). The sprawling tin roofs of the city are surrounded by a mountain landscape that is dotted with waterfalls. Stunning. It is impossible really to use words for the weekend as, at this point, my head is still churning with thoughts and questions. Most interestingly, we visited the fondom of the BAfut people. A tour of paradoxes, our guide (dressed in a navy suit) was one of the fon's 47 wives. She spoke to us of the importance of maintaining tradition as we meandered through a museum built by the Germans, the same people who colonized the tribe. We also met the chief (fon) of the Bafut> he was sitting on the worn stone foundation of the oldest building in WEstern AFrica (kept intact by a fire that has gone out for 600 years and which also serves to preseve the building and appease the ancestors) holding his cell phone in his hands and speaking to us in English. Hopefully this brief picture highlights the complex relationship between tradition and modernity, the constant battle and unending questions.

Along with meeting his majesty, we also had the honor of having lunch at the house of the leader of the main opposition political party in Cameroon, John Fru Ndi. He actually won the presidential elections of 1992 but they were overturned by the "democratic" government.

16 September 2006

Beignets....pronounced benyays.
My papa works for the university of Dschang, a good job but one which must feed 9 mouths. Here the women contribute as much as the men, if not more. Traditionally, the women cultivate the familys land (pretty much a huge huge garden), but my family lives in a very compact residential neighborhood. So, to supplement the family income, my maman and aunt make and sell beignets. There are two kinds; one is like a doughnut (flour and sugar and yeast) and the other is made from bananas and a half and half mixture of maize flour and white flour. Each night my aunt peels about 70 bananas into a huge wooden bowl and then smashes them with a 'pillon' or a large wooden bat like smashing utensil. To make the corn flour she also must remove the kernels from the cob (and this takes alot of cobs!) and let them soak in hot water overnight. She pours the already soaked kernels into a bag and carries it on her head to the neighborhood market half a mile away to have it ground into flour, which depending on whether the machine decides to work or not, may take about an hour. She carries the flour home and mixes it with the white flour and then mixes the batter together (in an even 'huger' wooden bowl) by hand. Actually I should say 'by back' because its truly and aerobic workout....like performing the job of an industrial blender! The batter then sits overnight with the yeast to rise and my maman and papa rise at 3 30 in the morning to start frying the beignets in palm oil. Each batch of batter makes approx 600 beignets, which are then sold for 10CFA apiece. So, if nearly every beignet is sold, my maman and aunt make about 20 dollars a day, a very significant contribution but for an unbelievable amount of work. For the time Im with my family, Ive taken on the job of banana smasher, teasing my brother that my aim is to become stronger than him (the size of my upper arms seems to be a culturally universal source of humour!). And, tomorrow morning I am rising at 3 30 with my maman to observe and hopefully help with the process. So, life is difficult, but it is also filled with laughter and teasing and...the most recent source of amusement...pipecleaners! I brought two bags of the fuzzy wires and broke them out last night. My family had never seen them, and I will end by saying that when I got up this morning, all of my little siblings were still sporting bent neon furry glasses!! (when asked, my 3 year old brother explained to me that he can see the television better with them:)
I love hearing from everyone, so thanks
bisous
Brianne

14 September 2006

La nouriture...or, due to popular demand, what I am eating.
First we shall begin with a small history lesson. The currency in Cameroun is the FCFA, or Camerounian franc as the country is a former colony of France. (in addition to the residual name of the currency, there is also the residual morning French baguette for breakfast. There is a small section of West Cameroun that, when the country was taken from Germany and divided after WWI, remained under British control. There is still a great internal division between the english speaking and the french speaking people in Cameroun and this division can be seen even in the bread that is eaten for breakfast; the anglophone population eats a british style loaf while the francophone population virtually survives on the baguette.) Back to the franc...before 1994 the ration was approximately 1 French franc: 50 FCFA. But, in 94 the currency was devalued and the ratio became 1:100. It has been increasing ever since and with the strength of the euro the current ratio is now 1 euro: 650 CFA. Due to the (rising) weakness of the CFA it is nearly impossible for the country to import much of anything and most products, including food, are made/produced locally. Quite a long winded explanation to say that there is virtually no variety and we eat about the same thing every day. Bananas, papayas, avacados, tomatoes, plantains, prunish things, and really sour green oranges are abundant, but most the diet is ALL carbs (good thing youre not coming to visit me here dad!). The most shocking thing i suppose was the fish head in my rice last night, but I covered its eyes with my spoon and we were fine. It is impossible to find anything familiar here. I have found one bakery that has imported pinapple yougurt that tastes sooooo good (there is no other dairy at all). And yesterday we found a restaurant that has...it so wonderful that youll never guess...CHICKEN! Comparatively, its very expensive: a normal lunch costs around 350 to 600 CFA, ie. 60 cents to about a dollar and the chicken costs 2000CFA or about 4 dollars. Oh, it also comes with plantain frites that are fantastic...and Mama Titi herself serves them to you in a small peptobismal pink dining room with a tv that blares american gangsta rap music videos...it really doesnt get much more eclectic than that! And in addition to Mama Titis, there is the UNCAU cafe which serves real Camerounian coffee in mini mismatched tea cups with two sugar cubes and little party spoons. You can also order omlets there at a rate of 15 cents per egg, the same price as a cup of coffee. It is the Camerounian version of JPs and, needless to say, is probably our favorite spot. And, on the food note, I should probably head home and attempt to help with dinner...mostly Im there for amusement but I do snap the green beans!
Think of me today if you eat cheese or drink milk ;)
bisous
Brianne

12 September 2006

Welcome to Cameroon, where nothing ever works but everything always works out! ...a saying that one of last years students left... Yes, i am here. currently im sitting in an internet cafe near my house in dschang. the city is nestled in beautiful verdant mountains. its a postcard view from nearly everywhere. so much to recount and so little time...and a very frusterating french keyboard! the group that i am with is fantastic and energetic and diverse and very caring. we spent the first week in fongo tongo, a rural village near dschang when its dry, but far away if its raining...i am now an expert bus pusher. in our week of seclusion, we formed a very tight group bond which makes it muich easier to navigate this new life with friends. in fongo tongo we hiked through the rain forest to visit some fam,ous waterfalls and we were welcomed by the grand chief of the region...which has only ever happed one other time in the programs 15 year history. he welco,ed us with a traditional dance ceremony... and believe it or not, he honored my dancing by kissing a bill and placing it on my forehead as i danced by him!!!! it is a traditional thing to do, but anyone who has seen my dance moves will probably wonder why he chose me! probably more of a blonde hair thing and less of a rhythm thing. anyhow, we moved to dschang 3 days ago. i am living with the family njoko in foto which is about a 15 minute walk away fro, the university. ...for the moms...julia and rachel live in the same neighborhood and we all walk together. i have 3 sisters, 2 brothers, maman and papa, and an aunt...and anyone else who happens to stop by, which is all the time here! i love the daily challenge of living life in french and discovering a new culture. my papa works at the university and my maman gets up at 330 every morning to make banyos, kinda like donuts sortof, and then delivers them to stores around the town where they are sold. my papa gets up and helps her every morning...which is an amazing dynamic in this very gender divided soceity. i am the 7th student that my family has had, thus they are all used to being patient and being stared at all the time! the two oldest sisters, carrine and eugenne 16 and 14, are wonderful. i love talking with them and they with me. my papa loves to learn and engage me in very interesting conversations such as gender division, global warming, and global perception of developing countries. i love it and am very very amazed that my french can navigate such topics, albeit rather choppily! oooh, i have much to tell, but i need to head home to help with dinner. as this internet cafe is quite close to my house, my posts should be more frequent for the next month. i would love to hear from all, either by comments on this blog or by email ...brianne.carpenter@hope.edu, or by snail mail...an accurate adj here... if youre ambitious. know that i am well and happy! bisous, brianne