Everyday Angel

I don’t know how many of you may know, but I have a twin brother. You may be surprised, and yes I was surprised too seeing as for the first 25 years of my life I had never met him! Over a year ago as I was moving in to my new house and trying to adjust to my strange new world as a foreigner in my African village when who would God lead up to my front door but my long lost brother!

Bakari, born July 9th 1983 just on the other side of our world and as fate would have it we were bound to meet shortly after our 26th birthday in the village of Manjo, Cameroon. His family lives just outside of here in a smaller village called Namba but here in Manjo he has an adopted family(very typical of Cameroon, the family structure is much more fluid than our very narrowly defined and constrictive family unit in the west) the family here in Manjo quickly became my family. I spend most all of my free-time with them carrying the little ones around in typical African mama fashion (attaching them to my back with a piece of fabric) cooking and eating meals together, allowing my sisters to do my hair and dress me in typical Cameroonian style and asking mamma Rosa to sew my clothes. I couldn’t be more thankful for my family here and what an integral part of my life they have been.

Last week Bakari’s young sister who lives in the village of Namba was sick and in the hospital fighting malaria and typhoid at the same time. We went to visit her and spend some time sitting and keeping his mother company who had been staying day and night with her daughter. As from my previous blog you may know that the hospital is not my favorite place, but when not the patient it is not quite so bad and I can in fact almost enjoy the social gathering place that it becomes.

So we passed the time sitting and hanging out in the room crammed with about 10 beds while the IV dripped into his sister’s arm. After school had let out for the day Bakari’s younger brother Vincent walked the 5 km down to the hospital to come visit and to bring a surprise gift for his sister. Vincent had saved up every 100cfa(equivalent of 25cents) that his mom and dad have given him over the last week because he knew that his sister needed that money more than he needed it to eat during the school day. I didn’t even realize what he had done until we left the hospital and Bakari looked at me and I realized he was almost tearing up and he said do you realize what my sweet little brother did? When I said no he looked at me and said “that boy is an angel” his little brother had seen the struggle of his family to pay for the medicine to heal his sister and he did everything in his power to share the small resources that he had. I think this is probably one of the most beautiful examples of the spirit I most love here in Cameroon, that of giving and sharing no matter how scarce the resource.

Bakari and his little sister at the hospital in Manjo



Vincent on the route back from the family fields after we had spent the morning picking fruit and planting corn in the pouring down rain.

Une Journée de ma Vie

This last week I hopped in a bush taxi and drove up to Nkongsamba, a larger town just 30 minutes outside of my village in Manjo. I had a package awaiting me at the post and also looked forward to doing a little bit of shopping in their market which is a bit more plentiful than the daily choices my market mamas sell in village.
When I know that a package or even a letter awaits me at the post I am filled with anticipation and excitement like a kid on Christmas day. So as I arrived at the post and realized my package was being held ransom by the women in the post office for a total of several hundred US dollars you can imagine how quickly deflated and distraught I become, knowing that the value they were asking me to pay was much more than the worth of the package. Now I have to say this has never happened to me, I have never once had to pay what was being called a “typical customs tax” and this may have to do with the fact that listed on the inventory of the package was that electronics where packed inside. So please don’t think that if you ever were to send me a package in the future I would run into these problems, just make sure you list magazines or chocolate rather than anything that may be of value;) Anyway, I quickly began to question the women demanding the money and asked for all of the official paperwork as to why I was suddenly being taxed when neither myself, nor any of my friends had ever been taxed for receiving a package, let alone at a ridiculous price of several hundred dollars. When they refused to allow me to make copies or to even take a closer look at the “official papers” I quickly realized the issue at hand was more of an issue of where the money would be going. As they say here, someone was trying to “mange l’argent” literally translated to “eat money” a term used to describe issues of corruption that unfortunately are all too common place. When I mentioned my suspicions and frustrations with viewing issues of corruption in this country (while trying to be careful that they didn’t think I was specifically blaming them)the women became very argumentative and quite retaliatory telling me if I see corruption as a problem to “rentre chez moi” or “go back to where I came from.” I literally was so frustrated at this point I thought I was going to cry and decided I needed some time to calm down before I could decide what my next course of action would be.
So, from the post office I walked to the boulangerie in town that has a small café to sit down and have a cup of tea and begin to calm down. When who would walk in but my village fou(crazy) who had apparently followed me up to Nkongsamba and then into the café where he sat down next to me and began yelling loud enough for all around to hear how he had filed paperwork at our town hall for our marriage. Oh my goodness could this day get anymore ridiculous!?! After ignoring and pretending I didn’t hear him speaking to me, my crazy finally left and I took the long route back to find a bush taxi so we wouldn’t end up in the same one. After arriving back in village that afternoon I must admit I treated myself to a few hours of silence and solitude on my balcony reflecting on the crazies and the corrupt who each in their own way create a colorful and captivating life for me here in Cameroon.