I’m not really sure how to organize this blog post because it’s just a bunch of random small stories, hopefully it’s not too difficult to follow. First I want to go into more detail about Olivia and our living situation because it’s pretty humorous.
Olivia is 28 years old and has been married to her husband Jo for two years. She went to university in Douala and majored in communications or something similar. She works in advertising at Orange, one of two major mobile phone providers in Cameroon that also has a presence in many other countries worldwide. She loves radio and TV, and hosted a few radio shows when she was younger. She still does a few TV spots, and we were able to go with her to the studio for one of them. Her husband is currently living in Fumban, the city that we went to for the first wedding ceremony. He is living there because his father is very sick and needs help running a local school that he is normally in charge of. Jo will be moving back with us on June 17th, when the school goes on break for the summer. We’ve seen Jo the past two weekends for the weddings but I doubt we will see him again until the 17th. I think the fact that Jo is gone played a large role in Olivia’s decision to house us. I think she would be somewhat lonely with the empty house and Jo gone all the time. Other than that I honestly think she wanted us as sort of pseudo-children, which I think will make more sense as I explain our relationship with her.
The first week or two we spent with Olivia was I guess what I would call the honeymoon period. She was very nice and never got upset with us. Everything is still completely fine with her, but now that she has gotten more comfortable with us, our relationship with her has shifted from one of friends on relatively equal footing (although it was always unbalanced because she is responsible for our safety and for providing us with food etc) from one that is closer to one of parent and child.
Suddenly she began scolding us for what we did wrong. For example, when we moved back into our room after all the relatives from the wedding left, we didn’t know what to do with our extra mattress or sheets that we were asked to bring over from the temporary apartment, so we had rolled it up (it was foam) and tucked on the side of the bed until we figured it out. When Olivia saw this, instead of just telling us what to do with it, she yelled at us for making the room disorderly and then as ‘punishment’ took one of our pillows away, so that now one of us has to use a sweatshirt as a pillow. Another night we accidentally left the fan running when we left the house, even though Olivia was with us in the living room when we left (so really it was no ones fault) and when she walked in the door after we returned, she grabbed me by the ear and pulled me inside and asked me ‘what is wrong in here??’ of course referring to the fan left on. I don’t really feel like going into detail about these occasions, but it’s frustrating, not because she is upset, but because of the way she speaks to us. I would much prefer it if she would simply explain her frustrations to us like adults, instead of yelling at us like children. This is especially annoying because she is close to us in age. I think she mostly acts this way because she enjoys thinking of us like children. I know she really really realllyyyy wants kids, and also she goes way out of her way to take care of us, says I love you, calls me sweetie etc (for ex: one day when I had a cold, she made a special honey tea for me and had me stay in bed and drink it). Also she works extremely long days, usually about 8am to 9 pm, so it’s probably also partially due to being in a justifiably bad mood. I really want to clarify that 90% of the time she is very pleasant and fun. It’s only when we ‘mess up’ that we sometimes see this not so pleasant side of her.
On Saturday we went with her to church (it seems like we will have to go with her every week), and at the end of the ceremony as we were walking out, I tried to hand a blind woman her walking stick. The woman grabbed hold of my arm and seemed as though she needed me to help walk her out of the church. Long story short, she ended up holding on to my arm and holding my hand as I walked her right up to her front door on the second floor of her apartment building. Olivia seemed annoyed but I didn’t really understand why at the time. Once we left Olivia told me that the woman was an ‘actress’, which I was confused by because the woman was very clearly blind. Olivia explained that the woman was blind, but that she can walk home on her own. She just likes to have people come with her to have company. Personally I thought that if I could think of one way to be tricked, it would be by an old blind lady who is so lonely that she goes out of her way to hold a stranger’s hand.
Also, I don’t think I mentioned it but we also have a maid named Danielle. She is young I think, if I had a guess I would say around 18, maybe as young as 15 (although it’s very hard to tell how old people are here because they age very well). Olivia does not trust Danielle at all. She will only let her clean when one of us is home to make sure she doesn’t steal anything. Olivia also thinks Danielle is terrible at her job, but apparently it is very difficult to find decent housemaids around here. I like Danielle , she doesn’t always do a stellar job (she’s particularly bad at cooking... going through a bottle of oil in 2 days b/c she uses so much in the food) but I really don’t think we even need her to begin with, I am capable of cooking for myself and the apartment is so small that the cleaning is minimal. Also, it feels kind of weird being waited on by her. She is very poor, and one day she came in with an IV in her arm and waited for Olivia to return from work for over 2 hours. She had a mosquito borne illness but didn’t have enough money to pay for her treatment, which is why she had to wait to get her pay from Olivia. Matt and I have spoiled her a bit, I often let her eat the food I don’t want, and give her extra fruit that I buy. We also try to wash our own dishes and don’t bother having her do it for us. The other day Danielle asked Matt for a chocolate bar in the fridge that we had given to Olivia when we arrived as a gift for allowing us to stay. Olivia hadn’t touched them and Danielle seemed to really want it so Matt let her have it. Later he told Olivia, who was very upset (not at him but with Danielle) because things like this I guess are very bad for establishing a professional relationship b/w Danielle and Olivia. Oops.
A few weeks ago Olivia decided she wanted me to start singing. She puts in a CD of a band called P-Square (a Nigerian band made up of two twin brothers), prints out lyrics of the songs for me, and has me sing them to her. If anyone could see me doing this I would die, luckily Matt is terrible with technology so the chances of a video are minimal.
Also I’ve been learning a lot about how French is spoken here and it’s quite interesting. At school, my volunteer friend Harold speaks fluently to the children, often to explain a math concept or something about computers. The teacher went up to me after the children were having a lot of difficulty, and told me that many of them are very poor at French. This was bizarre to me because I thought everyone in Douala spoke French. Apparently since most of the children come from poor backgrounds, they live in homes where local African dialects are spoken, not French. French is a sort of second language to many of them (or a poorly learned first language), so Harold’s fluent, complicated French is sometimes difficult for them to follow. I spoke with Olivia about this and she told me about fracamglais (not spelling that right) and it is a language spoken by people here who are uneducated. It is a mixture of French, English (the other official language of Cameroon – although Douala is a French speaking region, not an English speaking one) and local Douala language. She gave me some examples of it, and it is a very ridiculous blend of all three, one word can have parts from all three languages. She said people who are good at French in Douala are well-educated, school or lack of it determines a person’s level.
Last week, I was riding in a taxi, wearing a necklace with two of my grandmother’s gold rings. I always wear the necklace and forgot I even had it on. I was talking to Harold and all of a sudden it felt like someone was punching my chest. It turns out someone had spotted my necklace, reached through the open window in the taxi, ripped off the rings from the necklace and was gone, all in about 4 seconds. I was a little shaken but I’m fine, and just bummed because I really loved those rings. It’s an unfortunate reality here, although my host mom, her friends and my french teacher were all appalled and somewhat shocked, so it’s not so common that they had no reaction.
Well this is getting long so I’m going to have to save some stories for next time!
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