Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Meet the Neighbours

Sat here in the clinical whiteness of what I currently refer to as home, tap-tapping away the minutes before slumber seizes what’s left of my day and wittles October down by another degree or two, all to the disturbingly distressing bleating of the neighbour’s goat which arrived today, unheralded, and whose days, I suspect, are numbered … much like it was but only in the singular but now is to the tune of three. There’s foul play afoot and I don’t think it’s got anything to do with the chicken.

Most of the livestock that finds its way through the gates of my compound tends to end up cooked, unless of course you happen to be a lizard, in which case your demise is seldom celebrated in a culinary manner but instead you are lobbed over a wall into a festering pile of fester to be devoured by whatever passing beast finds its fancy tickled by the prospect of dead lizard.

Personally I don’t have issues with the lizards, in fact, as previously mentioned, the fact that they keep the dead insect count down means while I don’t lure them into my house, nor do I necessarily want to wake up to find one sharing my bed they do make the housework that much easier. Live and let lizard as they say ... clearly not in Fulfulde though where the maxim appears to be Kill it and eat it, unless you don’t want to, in which case just kill it. Not nearly as catchy but I suspect it loses something in the translation.

So, yes, the compound is now stalked by a goat whose days may just exceed those of the cockerel that turned up the day before. The last time there was a resident rooster was when I arrived back here post-summer and my morning slumber was disturbed by said cock’s ultimate cockadoodle-doodling after which it was well and truly cockadoodle-done. There was a chicken here a couple of weeks back but she barely lasted 12 hours, bought as she was to celebrate the return of the worlds most annoying laugh and the neighbours’ number 2 daughter whose frankly quite tiresome and distinctly clichéd crying at bathtime had been conveniently wiped from my memory.

As part of the ongoing cultural exchange twixt yours truly and the local populace I couldn’t let the opportunity pass and so spent a good twenty minutes explaining the intricacies of “second child syndrome” ... the neighbourette seemed convinced but then she is living with the dictionary definition so I don’t think that’s that surprising. The constant wail, the lack of any coherent vocabulary and the cataracts of snot that grace her permanently bawling maw do little to endear her to anyone it seems but the multitude of things that go ‘bzzz’ and her immediate family. Her penchant for dropping her shopping wherever the feeling strikes is admirable in its brazeness but it makes the morning trip from front door to exit of compound something that one must negotiate with a great deal of skill at a level which is beyond my ability at silly o’clock in the morning. Thankfully thus far she appears to be donkey like in her performance and tends to keep close to their kitchen area which must do wonders for the family’s intestinal fauna. Best not think about it too much.

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I’m now sat back in the olfactory assault zone also known as the Woila Cybercafé itself graced by another of Cameroon’s more sullen members of the fairer sex from whose massed ranks all those who find themselves working in a customer facing industry seem to be plucked. The one here is a little less sour-faced than her contemporary at the Sahel but not by a lot.

Service with a smile is a concept as foreign as plumbed in toilets and the words please and thank you. Actually service itself is pretty thin on the ground so guess I shouldn’t be too surprised.

As I said, sat in the olfactory assault zone of the Woila Cybercafé whose steps are graced by one of Maroua’s innumerable egg vendors and one whose accident quota is clearly quite high. The steps are strewn with baked on egg and the cadavers of a million and one flies which, for whatever reason, have decided to end their lives there. It’s not nice but it’s the fastest connection in town and vaguely reliable.

It’s Tuesday though and so I can’t stay long. The in town tasks have been achieved and now I must sally forth from whence I came … until the next time.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Leg or Breast

There's a time and a place and I am currently experiencing both. The time is now, the place is here and you good people are the consumers of what could easily turn out to be a long stream of barely coherent weekend babble from the fingers and the mind of this nomadic scotsman.

The trials and tribulations of my solitary Monday to Friday existence tend to be exacerbated by a shortage of people with whom I can verbally spar and so it is here that my linguistic spleen must be vented if only to ensure that the other volunteers who have the 'pleasure' of my company at the weekend don't get inundated with what is known in the business as 'pent up chat'. The peculiar word based sense of humour tinted spectacles through which I view life and the world doesn't take too readily to translation and so it is that my life is one observed with looks of perpetual befuddlement on the part of my colleagues, neighbours and friends. Does it bother me that they don't quite get it. Not really; I'm only doing it for me.

And so another week passes. With the last entry's wholly uncharacteristic conciseness, I revert once more to the stream of cranial effluence in which my train of thought has been replaced by the Heart of Gold and its Infinite Improbability Drive. Hang on to your pants people, we could end up anywhere.

Have adopted a peculiar approach to the hoards of crawling, jumping and wriggling multi-limbed lifeforms that seem to hang out chez moi. Two questions go through my head as they sashay through my open door and hurl themselves against my light: Are you dangerous and can I eat you. No idea why, perhaps I'm lacking something in my diet. I'll let you know if and when the time comes for entymological edibility experimentation. I'd ask around for recipes but, alas, insects aren't halal and my village mostly is.


from: i101.photobucket.com


School is as school always has been, and aside from the volume of student that habitually frequents our four meagre classroom spaces, the challenges of the job are few and far between. Curriculum teaching, as I suspected, is not for me. All that jumping through hoops to appease well-meaning ministerial types and to salve their corpulent, corruption-addicted souls with the pretence that they are achieving something has no effect on the level of awareness of the impoverished but, by in large, content members of this central african society. The books with which I am armed and from which I am meant to be teaching are of a level so far above that of their intended audience that I might as well be gargling with jelly and spitting it at the board for the amount they would gain from it.

Having just tested all 521 of them I think my jelly spitting needs some work. For large swathes of Godola and its environs, spring and sawdust appears to be the head filler of choice. Some of them have so little between their ears that you could hold your ear to theirs and probably hear the sea although you'd have to fight through noxious clouds of BO to get close enough. It's probably not worth the effort.

The last two weeks have seen the loss of yet more teaching days with the international day of the teacher absorbing last Friday in a fit of pyjama clad excitement and then yesterday, as you'll doubtless be aware, was the end of Ramadan. Not a good time to be a sheep as you know your days are numbered. Fête de Mouton is 60 days away although if the Fête des Enseignants was celebrated in a similar manner I'd now be curried, which is nice. I'm not, just in case there was any doubt.

So Ramadan is Ramadone and life returns to normal for the legions of Muslims who habitually starve themselves twixt dawn and dusk. Hopefully the students will be a little more receptive now that they're not starving and dehydrated in class. The school director seemed to get a small amount of sadistic pleasure in troughing through plates of beans during the 30 minute breaktime, but I suppose I shouldn't be that surprised given his vociferous and outspoken criticisms of Islam. The tolerance levels here are high which is just as well given the inherent racism and tribalism that exists throughout. Still, either way, donned in Boubou I strolled the streets to shouts of "Al-Hadji!" and "bonne fête!" ... visited those friends who do the Allah thing and helped them celebrate. The place was crazy with legions of Cameroonians and Cameroonlets similarly bouboued and looking quite the part.

And so another week of joy looms. Tonight there's a rugby match happening I believe and in a salute to times past I'm off to buy a cockerell, a trumpet, some red, white and blue material and I'm brushing up on my Marseilles. Afterall, it would be rude not to.

Saturday, October 06, 2007

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