Funny things happen when you're a white girl in Africa.
Exhibit A: At the beach, a vendor offered to trade his artwork for my sunglasses. I considered it, but I couldn't part with the sunglasses, not even for an "authentic" mask made of the fallen rainforest. It was difficult to explain to the vendor that, just as the masks he sells are symbolic of his ethnic identity, my ridiculously oversized sunglasses are a symbol of my ethnic identity, and I didn't want to go the next five months without any souvenirs of my fellow pretentious hipster tribespeople.
Exhibit B: I showed my very sunburned shoulder to my host family. They had never seen a sunburn before!
Exhibit C: A nasty little man offered me 5000 CFA (about $10 US) to touch my skin. If he'd only wanted to touch my skin, he would have just reached out and touched it. So basically, I was prostituted. Great.
Another girl on the program can totally beat that story, though: a man asked to buy her from her (white male) companion....for the equivalent of about $3. Maybe I'm hotter than she is? I mean, I am worth a whopping $10...
In an effort to blend into my new surroundings, I went to an art fair and bought a very cool African dress. I'm like a chameleon, except, you know, a clothed chameleon.
Also at the art fair, I spent a very long time negotiating the purchase of a fairly large wooden elephant. The sculptor asked for nearly $500, and in all my best batting-my-blue-eyes charm, I couldn't talk him into selling it for $25.
Well, my little monkeys, I'm off to watch the Lions demolish Sudan in the Africa Cup. (What the fuck is Sudan doing playing soccer these days, anyway?! Soccer...genocide...seriously, folks. Prioritize.)
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
How ironic would it be to GAIN weight in Africa?
Preface: I'm not a picky eater. I'm really not. I think picky eating is childish.
I'm not a huge fan of onions (I blame this on my mother, because she ate a case of Vidalia onions--raw--while she was pregnant with me), but I'll eat them, and bananas have to be a very particular shade of yellow, but that's about it.
So my first week in Cameroon, I was eager to try everything. By the end of the second week, I was jonesing for anything American.
From what I can tell, they only eat three dishes in Cameroon:
"Sauce tomate" has a good flavor, but is oily and somehow always contains shards of cow bone, and is served with white rice, which is as boring as, well, white rice
"Ndole" is made of some sort of green, and tastes spinachy at first, but has a nasty bitter after taste, and is served with plaintains, which are fine, except that I am so sick of them after two weeks that I don't understand how people eat so many of them
but the worst of all is...
"Eru." As Cassie said, "It tastes like grass fried in oil." And it is served with "Fufu," with is made from casava flour. It is disgusting. It has the consistency of Play-Doh, and tastes something like papier-maché paste.
My host mother has been very gracious, and has encouraged me to tell her if I don't like something she makes, but I don't have the heart to tell her that I don't like any of it. Also, I made the mistake of telling her that I like African fruit. I do like African fruit, but because I told her so, she won't stop buying it for me. Over the course of a week, she has given me:
3 oranges (which were so hard to peel and so full of seeds that they weren't worth the effort)
2 loaves of white bread (there is no whole grain bread on this continent, as far as I can tell)
12 eggs (how am I supposed to finish a whole dozen eggs by myself?)
5 pineapples (that is so much damn pineapple...)
and 5 papayas. I really wish I could like papaya, because in Cameroon, they're fresh from the trees and delicious, but they have the texture of melon, but less flavor, and for some reason, I always think they'll give me diarrhea. I have no rational reason to think so--they have never given me diarrhea. Someone told me to think of it as "eating a very flagrant flower," which helps, but it still bothers me that the seeds look like fish eggs.
Also, when I scrambled two eggs this morning, they came out light pink instead of yellow...
I bought stuff to make chili, in the hopes that my host mom will realize that I'm capable of feeding myself and stop buying me army loads of food. Chili is cheap in America, and expensive here--the ingredients came out to well over $10. Go figure.
So I have already gone to the bougie ass café that caters to white tourists twice--mmm, pizza and chocolate milkshakes. I think it's going to be a weekly ritual, because the only other things I can find here that I like are sweet yogurts, pastries, and chocolate bars.
Yes, ladies & gentlemen, as people starve all around me, I'm going to get FAT in Africa.
I'm not a huge fan of onions (I blame this on my mother, because she ate a case of Vidalia onions--raw--while she was pregnant with me), but I'll eat them, and bananas have to be a very particular shade of yellow, but that's about it.
So my first week in Cameroon, I was eager to try everything. By the end of the second week, I was jonesing for anything American.
From what I can tell, they only eat three dishes in Cameroon:
"Sauce tomate" has a good flavor, but is oily and somehow always contains shards of cow bone, and is served with white rice, which is as boring as, well, white rice
"Ndole" is made of some sort of green, and tastes spinachy at first, but has a nasty bitter after taste, and is served with plaintains, which are fine, except that I am so sick of them after two weeks that I don't understand how people eat so many of them
but the worst of all is...
"Eru." As Cassie said, "It tastes like grass fried in oil." And it is served with "Fufu," with is made from casava flour. It is disgusting. It has the consistency of Play-Doh, and tastes something like papier-maché paste.
My host mother has been very gracious, and has encouraged me to tell her if I don't like something she makes, but I don't have the heart to tell her that I don't like any of it. Also, I made the mistake of telling her that I like African fruit. I do like African fruit, but because I told her so, she won't stop buying it for me. Over the course of a week, she has given me:
3 oranges (which were so hard to peel and so full of seeds that they weren't worth the effort)
2 loaves of white bread (there is no whole grain bread on this continent, as far as I can tell)
12 eggs (how am I supposed to finish a whole dozen eggs by myself?)
5 pineapples (that is so much damn pineapple...)
and 5 papayas. I really wish I could like papaya, because in Cameroon, they're fresh from the trees and delicious, but they have the texture of melon, but less flavor, and for some reason, I always think they'll give me diarrhea. I have no rational reason to think so--they have never given me diarrhea. Someone told me to think of it as "eating a very flagrant flower," which helps, but it still bothers me that the seeds look like fish eggs.
Also, when I scrambled two eggs this morning, they came out light pink instead of yellow...
I bought stuff to make chili, in the hopes that my host mom will realize that I'm capable of feeding myself and stop buying me army loads of food. Chili is cheap in America, and expensive here--the ingredients came out to well over $10. Go figure.
So I have already gone to the bougie ass café that caters to white tourists twice--mmm, pizza and chocolate milkshakes. I think it's going to be a weekly ritual, because the only other things I can find here that I like are sweet yogurts, pastries, and chocolate bars.
Yes, ladies & gentlemen, as people starve all around me, I'm going to get FAT in Africa.
Monday, January 21, 2008
In the beginning, there was misunderstanding.
I hope no one has been stalking this blog too closely, and if you have, I apologize for being such a delinquent correspondant! I have yet to find fast internet in Cameroon, and although the slow internet only costs about 50 cents per hour, it demands sitting in a hot, crowded room that smells like human bodies.
In fact, everything in Africa smells like (sweating) human bodies, or trash, or trash burning, or food cooking.
It is also very noisy here. A few nights ago I woke up because the neighbors were playing music really loud at 4:30 a.m. In America, I would have called the cops, but my impression is that the cops here don't give a shit.
Also, I am planning to blow up all the garbage trucks, because they drive around all day honking an incredibly obnoxious honk extremely loudly. You see, rather than collecting trash twice weekly at specified places, they drive around daily, and honk at the top of every street to inform you of their presence, so that you can run up with your bag of trash. But as far as I can tell, they're useless because the streets are full of trash.
I was surprised to discover that Cameroonians behave more stereotypically American than I do. They eat french fries with nearly every meal, and they eat many of their meals in front of the television, which is almost always on.
An anecdote: On Friday, my host mother woke me up at 6:30 to give me a huge plate of french fries for breakfast.
The other food is sketchy. I find tiny shards of bone in meat dishes.
Another anecdote: Last weekend we had an excursion to the beach. We arrived at night, and our driver told us that the lights we saw offshore were Equitorial Guinea. Imagine our disappointment when we woke up to discover that "Equitorial Guinea" was in fact an oil barge.
But, that all sounds very negative! Generally, I feel like one million dollars. (Or Central African Francs, for that matter.)
I will be here for five months, and I would like to stop feeling like an outsider, but unfortunately, I would be an outsider even if I lived here forever. It is quite a spectacle when the other white girls and I walk around. People shout "Les blanches!" and blow us kisses, and grab our hands. Unfortunately, the words sexual harassment mean nothing here.
Another anecdote: some white girls and I were walking around a park downtown, and one of the white girls was snapping pictures. Apparently that's not allowed, and a park policeman approached, carrying the biggest gun I have seen in my life--including on television-- to tell us so.
Well, my loves, the internet only costs 50 cents an hour, but it's in a hot, crowded room, so I'm done for the afternoon. Many more adventures to come!
xo,
White Girl
In fact, everything in Africa smells like (sweating) human bodies, or trash, or trash burning, or food cooking.
It is also very noisy here. A few nights ago I woke up because the neighbors were playing music really loud at 4:30 a.m. In America, I would have called the cops, but my impression is that the cops here don't give a shit.
Also, I am planning to blow up all the garbage trucks, because they drive around all day honking an incredibly obnoxious honk extremely loudly. You see, rather than collecting trash twice weekly at specified places, they drive around daily, and honk at the top of every street to inform you of their presence, so that you can run up with your bag of trash. But as far as I can tell, they're useless because the streets are full of trash.
I was surprised to discover that Cameroonians behave more stereotypically American than I do. They eat french fries with nearly every meal, and they eat many of their meals in front of the television, which is almost always on.
An anecdote: On Friday, my host mother woke me up at 6:30 to give me a huge plate of french fries for breakfast.
The other food is sketchy. I find tiny shards of bone in meat dishes.
Another anecdote: Last weekend we had an excursion to the beach. We arrived at night, and our driver told us that the lights we saw offshore were Equitorial Guinea. Imagine our disappointment when we woke up to discover that "Equitorial Guinea" was in fact an oil barge.
But, that all sounds very negative! Generally, I feel like one million dollars. (Or Central African Francs, for that matter.)
I will be here for five months, and I would like to stop feeling like an outsider, but unfortunately, I would be an outsider even if I lived here forever. It is quite a spectacle when the other white girls and I walk around. People shout "Les blanches!" and blow us kisses, and grab our hands. Unfortunately, the words sexual harassment mean nothing here.
Another anecdote: some white girls and I were walking around a park downtown, and one of the white girls was snapping pictures. Apparently that's not allowed, and a park policeman approached, carrying the biggest gun I have seen in my life--including on television-- to tell us so.
Well, my loves, the internet only costs 50 cents an hour, but it's in a hot, crowded room, so I'm done for the afternoon. Many more adventures to come!
xo,
White Girl
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