Some things that seemed really, really normal to me last week (just to show how acclimatised I am after over six months here…)
on Mischa in Cameroon (Cameroon), 17/Mar/2010 06:05, 34 days ago
I think 40 degrees Celsius is cold weather.I found out that the reason the parents at one of the schools I work with at Maga don’t want to pay school fees for their children is that a few years ago the headmaster of this school stole so much money from the school fees and exam entrance fees that he got arrested and sent to prison.The same afternoon I, my national volunteer, and the current headmaster of the school at Maga waited for two hours at the house of the Lawane of the market (the top chieftain in Maga) to try and get him to help us convince the parents to pay their school fees before it occurred to one of his assistants (who had been there the whole time) to tell us that the Lawane was away that day.The important official I went to see at the Ministry for Basic Education to complain about corruption in the World Food Programme’s delivery of food to primary schools spent along time denying there was any corruption (“If they demand money and boxes of fish that’s not corruption. That’s just asking politely for a gift”). Once we’d finally agreed that there was corruption and he’d given me his number to complainif it happened again I got up to leave. He told me to sit down again, and explained that he loved me and would like to marry me.I had an argument with the Sultan of Pouss about whether I should learn to use a rifle so I could go hunting and shoot wild birds. He thought this was a brilliant idea. I thought I would probably shoot some innocent citizen of Pouss by accident.I had a discussion with the teachers at one of my schools about whether it was a good idea for me to start cultivating a rice field (as they pointed out, there is plenty of cheap child labour available). They want to help me earn more money so I can afford to buy a motor bike. The teachers at another school are also trying to help me get rich quick: they’re trying to set me up to marry their headmaster.There were several women who took off their tops while waiting for the bus in my bus stop. Breasts are apparently not considered particularly erotic in Cameroon, and many women (particularly older women) are completely unselfconscious about baring them from time to time. The bus stop is also partially burnt down because someone had set up a kitchen selling food in a building made of dry rushes.When my bus stopped by the side of the road because a crucial part had fallen off the wheel about twenty children and several adults followed me with great fascination and lots of laughter and chanting to watch me buying a bottle of water (fortunately the crucial piece fell off near a village with a shop). The thrill only intensified when it became clear that I was going to give away my old empty water bottle (a highly valued object) and a brief scuffle ensued between several small boys.The bus also stopped several times en route so that the bus driver could buy fish, buy wood, sell fish, pay bribes to a few policemen, and pray. One of the perks of being a Cameroonian bus driver is that no-one will ever complain if you stop the bus to make a bit of money on the side.A parcel sent to me from England with chocolate in it arrived having been opened. Exactly half the chocolate had been removed, and then it had been resealed and sent on. The meal I was most excited about eating was a cheese and tomato sandwich with real cheese in it, well worth the 85km trip to the province capital to get hold of. The thing that seems strangest to me is being given a massive sheaf of very pointless forms in incomprehensible English to fill in, sent over by the UK government so I could justify them funding my presence in Cameroon. Up till now my job has been mercifully free of paperwork.