I’ve noticed that among Peace Corps and VSO blogs there has been a definite outbreak of losing it. Here is a selection for your interest.
..saw a guy that is usually really nice and cool. The first thing he asked me was also, “what do you have for me?” Now, still kind of annoyed from the guy in passing just before, I decided to talk this one out.
Starting out, I was just giving him a hard time about asking me for things, but then before you know it, I found myself in this conversation where this guy along with one other are telling me how I need to find a husband here and that women are meant to prepare food. I was all the rage and thought, “this conversation cannot actually be happening.” oh wait, it absolutely is.
I rebutted back that women do so much but are not being respected here. I work here for free and people don’t respect me, calling me names and asking me for things. The guys just kept going on about how men provide and that I need to find a good husband here. So I said, “it’s 10am, what are you doing here not working?”
Then I started asking what it is that men actually provide, and I am not joking, this is what he said, “we make babies”. SERIOUSLY? It was absolutely the most absurd conversation I’ve ever had. They make babies? The last time I check, all that is required of men in the “baby-making process” is have sex, which as far as I know, isn’t hard work for them.
And this from Emma in the Far North from a longer post entitled Bake a Cameroonian event in 20 easy steps:
8. At midday on the day of the event, receive notice from the sous-préfet that the event cannot possibly take place as high school students (most of whom are over twenty, despite what their ID cards say) should not be allowed out after 6pm, when your event is scheduled to commence.
9. Organise the event for a different day/time, return to the sous-préfet and receive a lecture on how better to do your job. Resist the urge to smack the sneering, whiny, backstabbing, hypocritical little bureaucrat in his sneering, ugly little face by staring fixedly at the photo of Paul Biya (taken at least twenty-five years ago) framed on the wall beside him.
And this from a Peace Corp volunteer on the debauchery of Youth Day:
Tonight I wonder down the row of “bars” between the meat stand where I usually buy from and the motto stand. The street is loud tonight, choked with all the kids I had seen marching in the parade this morning spilling and stumbling out of the bars clutching whisky sachets or beers that cost a day’s salary.
I usually don’t get bothered too much anymore now that more people know me (or at least ‘of’ me) but tonight I get plenty of drunken ‘oooh le blanc!” and “ooooooo bwhee!” and so fourth. Getting to the motto taxi stand I search first for a Muslim driver, then failing that I spot a driver that isn’t laughing and surrounded by friends, one sitting by himself looking lonely.
I figure that if I had to make a guess he would be the one least likely to be drunk and thus the best ride home for me. Of course as I get closer I see a half empty whisky sachets dangling out the corner of his mouth, just as he sees me and starts beseeching me to buy him another because, after all, its youth day and he’s a youth (he does look about 15)!
I figure this might be one of the only places you’ll hear people asking you to buy them alcohol to celebrate them being a kid.
Moving on the to next guy, he wants to charge me 50% more for the motto ride because it had just rained today and the road to my house always turns into a big mud whole, especially now that they had just “leveled” it.
Finally the third guy agrees to take me for the proper price (20c) so I hop on and hang on as the noise, the bustle, the deranging of downtown Batouri thankfully drops away behind me to be replaced by the peaceful croaking of frogs and chirping of insects in the swamp near my neighborhood. On the way back we pass for the “police car” of our district. I noticed that he must be sober tonight as he wasn’t driving around with his lights flashing.
our man in cameroon 