Home Sweet Home

This is my first blog entry EVER…if you’re trying new things, might as well go all-out. New continent, new language, and blogging, all at once. It’s great to have the option of keeping so many friends updated this way, although I’m still struggling with the mechanics of it. Because it’s taken me so long to get this piece posted, I don’t think any of the details are new; Chris has covered everything in his posts. But perhaps the pictures will amuse you. Not sure how typical these long posts will be once we get rolling with work, but for now they’re just the antidote for our French-saturated brains, so enjoy!
Let me tell you a bit about our place, or chez nous in French. We live in a neighborhood (quartier) called Djoungolo on a gentle hill, and depending on the weather, we can see much of Yaounde and/or a sea of clouds spreading out before us. Our house is situated beneath several large cement water towers, industrial-sized magic mushrooms that make it easy to find our way home.
A tall wall (a good 8 feet I’d say) covered by bougainvillea vines surrounds the place, and we enter through a gate under the watchful eye of a guardien, Albert during the day, Francois at night, and Amadou on Sundays. The dog, Kibibi, usually runs up to greet us, hoping for a pat on the head…we have to be careful, though, of her ears, the tips of which are wounded and usually seeping some blood. People dress very nicely here, and dog-blood stains are definitely not part of the dress code.
Once inside the surrounding wall, we’re in the yard. It’s rather large, grassy in some places and muddy in others, with various interesting trees, a defunct tetherball pole, a driveway of sorts, a small garden, and a separate dependence (guest room) where our co-worker Gilles lives. In the middle of the yard sits the house itself, locked and barred and screened at every opening to discourage thieves and mosquitoes. We enter through the veranda into the cool cement-floored sitting room with its jungle-themed prints. Yes, as Chris mentioned, the only light fixture when we arrived was our friend the boa. (We’ve since located another reading lamp and plugged it in by the couch.)

By popular demand: a boa-photo! This is only the part that's lit up; it continues a few more feet to the left.

We sleep in a four-poster bed overhung by a large mosquito net (moustiquaire), and it feels a bit like clambering into a small box-tent every night. At this point, we’re still adjusting to everything (time change, language, way of life), so we sleep quite a bit, generally a good 9 hours each night. The rain on the roof really is a lovely sound, as are the birds in the morning. One time, I awoke at what must have been about 5am, because I could hear Imams chanting from afar, calling the faithful to prayer.

So here's the thing about being a living in Cameroon: you’re expected to hire household help. Aside from the guardiens, there is also a woman named Marie who comes three times a week to help around the house. (The folks for whom we’re house sitting have hired her for some time, and they didn’t want to stop her salary while they were away.) She does dishes, cleans the place up, does laundry (by hand!), and would even cook if we wanted her to. It is a very, very strange feeling to have someone else do your housework. But she knows how best to do certain things (like how to wash a large amount of clothing without a machine, or how to soak fruits and vegetables from the market in bleach-water so that the bacteria on them will not upset our fragile whitey digestive tracts), so it’s a blessing to have her around.

For example, on Monday she washed some clothing for us and hung it on the line to dry. ‘Dry’ is an important state here, not easily achieved, but very important for clothing. Since it is often rainy and/or humid this time of year, clothes do not line-dry quickly, but less-than-dry clothing can contain eggs of unwelcome worm or insect visitors. (The eggs will not survive once the fabric is completely dry.) So when we returned to see clean clothes flapping on the line, we decided it would be wise to let it dry the rest of the way on the porch in case of rain. The next day, when we went to check the garments, I found a small visitor on my pant-leg.

On Wednesday, I asked Marie to get some fruits and vegetables for us from the market. We’ve been to a few fixed-price grocery stores, but have mostly held back from buying produce there, since it’s supposedly much cheaper at the open-air markets, where you have to bargain for the best price. Now, if I were to go to market moi-meme, the prices would be considerably higher (whiteys are assumed to have more resources and charged accordingly), plus I’m not confident that my French is up to par yet. So Chris and I prepared a small list for Marie (to which she added several of her own suggestions), and gave her the amount of money she requested (roughly $10) to cover the purchases plus taxi fare. When we returned home late in the afternoon, ohhhh joy, a cornucopia had sprung forth. On the counter, a large wooden tray of bananas, oranges, mandarines, and papaya. In the refrigerator drawers, more papaya, a pineapple, tomatoes, peppers, green beans, celery, parsley, lemons, ginger root (how I love thee!), carrots, lettuce, leeks, onions, and a couple of huge avocados. All of it had been soaked in the requisite bleach-water, then rinsed with fresh filtered water.

Chris and I certainly enjoy cooking together, but life in Cameroon seems to call us forth to new heights of culinary resourcefulness. Instead of frozen boneless skinless chicken breast (not-so-available here), Chris has purchased and cut up a whole chicken from the butcher counter (no head included, but the feet were there), and we made our own chicken soup, as well as using the meat in another sauté or two. To help heal my sore and scratchy throat, in lieu of my usual Throat Coat tea bags, I made a nice mixture of hot water, fresh lemon juice, ginger root, and molasses-colored Cameroonian honey. French toast is a dignified end for stale baguette remains. Virtually all milk here is powdered – I can’t wait to try making yogurt!

Currently, I’m reading Barbara Kingsolver’s latest book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It’s highly enjoyable, full of good ways to view what you eat and where you live. A soothing and centering read during a time of so much transition. I hope you’re all feeling at home and eating food that nourishes you. There you have it: my first blog post ever.