Chapter 2: Africa

After about 24 hours of fairly smooth travel, I made it to Yaoundé, Cameroon on Thursday evening.  It was so exciting to see Erika and Cia and Chris (former neighbors who invited me to stay with them here) again, although I was basically a walking corpse (running on about 30 minutes of sleep since the morning before); I collapsed into bed at 10 pm...or 4 pm EST...and thought I wouldn't have any issue with the time change at all.  Feeling generally fatigued for the first few days, I hung out with Erika at the house and caught up with the family over the weekend.   I saw a lot of Yaoundé through a car window--it is bustling and colorful and I can't wait to explore it more.  I also played softball with a bunch of American expats (I was absolutely horrific, especially in the outfield, but miraculously managed to score for our losing team).  I beg the family's guard (yes, I know some diplomats who are clearly a big deal here) to speak French with me--although he speaks English--and he does, and it rocks.

While this went on, I was actually getting pretty nervous about the rest of my time here.  First thing I learned about myself when I arrived: I am NOT okay without a plan.  I thought it would be exciting to come to a new place and just get myself involved in whatever came up...but it had me worried sick all weekend (I am not comfortable with traveling halfway around the world and lazing around in a house the entire time) and it proved SO much harder said than done.  Which brings me to this afternoon:

Cia suggested that we visit one of the public schools in the area and see if they were interested in having a volunteer around for 6 weeks.  Points considered: 1) they are not actually soliciting volunteers, and therefore 2) they are probably going to be totally confused when I show up there asking for work.  Also, 3) might they be confused enough by my offer to be offended?  But...oh well!  I was ready to act like a fool on another continent where I am already pretty ridiculous by definition (Caucasian, English-speaking American), and I obviously did not mean any harm.  I figured I had nothing to lose and a lot to gain.

I felt like I was in a movie as we drove towards the school: noticing our whiteness and unusually spiffy car (for the area), kids started running alongside us, calling to us and trying to grab onto the doorhandles.  The sheer number of children running and playing around outside made for a deafening streamline of shrieks and screams as we got out of the car and awkwardly walked up some yellow concrete stairs trying to find the school's headmaster.  We walked into the first tiny room we saw and encountered a pudgy, paper-clip chewing female teacher, and Cia began conversation.  She explained that she was from the World Bank and that I (who she claimed was her niece...but is secretly just her former neighbor and daughter's babysitter of 2 years...how totally sneaky of us) was here visiting for 6 weeks and was looking to volunteer somewhere, that I had some experience with children, was apt and motivated, etc.  It was no surprise to me that paper-clip lady looked at us like we had 39 heads.

Asking what kind of work I was looking to do at a school (not being a teacher), we tried to explain that I was willing to do anything I was capable of that they were interested in having: maybe a teacher's assistant, because two people in a classroom of students is more effective than one, Cia pointed out (to those of you who are totally doubting my French skills: some of Cameroon is English-speaking or bilingual, and these classes would be taught in [some loose version of] my native language).  Still intrigued by the idea of having me--but not convinced that a teacher's assistant was very valuable--she asked: "Could you tell us about your talents?"  I considered that a very legitimate question under these awkward circumstances, but not one that I was really mentally prepared to answer.  Cia immediately said "well, Caitlin is extremely gifted in singing."  The paper-clip lady--who had now been joined by another large woman with drawn-in red eyebrows--lit up and decided that I would teach the children songs.  Okay.  She then asks me if I can draw.  Ummmm, why not?  So, I will now also be teaching the children how to draw.  They decided that they would start with that and maybe come up with ideas later on.  I went with it.  I can sing and do art.

I met one teacher who called himself Mr. Charles.  He led me to his room and I poked my head into a class of what was probably more than 100 elementary school students crammed into a room no bigger than one might see in an American school.  I honestly had never seen anything like it other than in pictures and video footage of Africa.  However, it immediately reminded me of schools I'd seen in Paraguay and Ecuador, re: productivity (or lack thereof), actual education provided (or lack thereof), and dedication of teachers to the cause (or lack thereof).  Simply put, it was a zoo.  This is when I decided to mention again that I was extremely competent in English and would be happy to help out as an assistant during academic instruction, and that I had also traveled to several different countries and some cultural exploration might be interesting for the students.  Of course, I got the 39-head stare from Mr. Charles at that point.  Oh well.

So, I start my self-created volunteer position at the school tomorrow.  Luckily for me, this week is "special" because they are preparing for a holiday presentation on Friday (yes, that is the ONLY thing they will be working on all week) but I will go and observe, and maybe try to prove myself as some kind of actual helpful resource.

I'm not going to deny the obvious fact that this is mostly me not wanting to be a bum for the next month and a half, and I am thrilled to have somewhere to go during the day.  Who begs to volunteer somewhere they're not needed? you are probably asking.  Yeah, I asked myself that, too, but clearly schools here do not have everything they need, even if they're not sure where to put someone who is offering to work for free.  I'm not saying this because I'm some pretentious American who thinks she cans save the world, but this may turn out great for them.  They could realize that I do have a lot to offer, that the kids love it, and that the teachers appreciate the help given their typical 100:1 ratio.  They've obviously never had an offer like this before so they have no idea what to expect.  My extreme fantasy is that maybe they'll want more people to come and do similar things.  But there's also another possibility--what I am extremely afraid of: they could decide that I am a complete waste of time and wonder why offered to be there at all.  They could think that what I come up with to do with the kids is stupid.  I'm hoping that as time passes they might find some more practical uses for me than singing songs and drawing.  But I am confident that I can expand that narrow spectrum of activities and hopefully figure out what to do even with a ridiculous number of students and (most likely) no resources whatsoever.

I have very vivid memories of Keiko Mori, this nice young Japanese lady who spent two weeks in my second grade class.  It was so thrilling for us at the time: she showed us Totoro, brought us rice balls wrapped in seaweed...and she had never seen a lolipop.  Her being in our class made me excited about learning, that's for sure, and I know she wasn't there just for us--she wanted to see how it was done in America and do some of her own learning too.  But it was still awesome.  So that's my glimmer of hope at the moment.