I look especially white (and fat) on a black sand beach on the Dark Continent.

Here is the only picture of me on the internet so far, courtesy of Sara. It was taken in Limbé, on a volcanic beach. The boy is Steve, the token male in our group.

Notice that my shoulders and face are several shades browner than the rest of me. The equatorial sun is intense, so the bits of me that are exposed regularly are looking slightly more African.

A Brief Return to the United States (Sort Of)

Now, servicemen are not my usual company, but given the frustrations I have had in befriending and communicating with Cameroonians, I felt justified—thrilled, even—to hang out with U.S. Marines on Friday night.

My friend Natalie had met a Marine named Bryan at the pool, and he invited her to bring a few friends to a small party at the U.S. Embassy. Natalie, Cassie and I went. We weren’t sure what we were getting into, but thought, good time or bad, it would at least be nice to spend time with, I’ll just say it: males—there’s one guy in our group of 15 Americans—but better yet, males with whom we could communicate.

I felt more culture shock at the U.S. Embassy than I have felt in two months in Cameroon.

Bryan ushered us through security—“They’re with me.” I was uncomfortable with the privilege, because I have no doubt that the guards would have demanded to see my passport if I were black.

The party consisted of about 30 people, almost all white. In Africa, it’s terrifying to be in a room full of white people.

Some Embassy brat-types were running around playing Tag, some diplomat-types were seated around patio tables, and Marines were hanging out around the bar and the pool table of the house they live in on the Embassy quarters.

Natalie, Cassie, and I were like little kids in a toy store. “They have Tostitos!” “Ohmigod, you guys, look—salsa!” “You guys, you guys, look: there’s a washing machine in that room, and a dryer!” (I’ll spare you a description of the ecstasy of washing my hands in hot water with Moisturizing Aloe Vera Softsoap.)

In short, we couldn’t believe we were still in Africa. And technically, I suppose, we were on American soil, but, I mean, seriously.

Even in America-in-Africa, though, we were the center of attention.

Bryan introduced us as “College Girls,” and I cringed, just knowing that everyone he addressed has watched one-too-many Girls Gone Wild.

The Navy Band members were fascinated with us, and if she hadn’t already, Cassie won my admiration forever. When the bassist told her she was beautiful, she said, “Sorry, but that’s just getting really old here.”

But seriously—seriously—I was eating Tostitos the whole time, and I drank a Heineken, and I ate a chocolate chip cookie.

The highlight of the night, though, was that we couldn’t get a cab home, so Bryan had to give us a ride in an official armored vehicle: a gigantic white SUV with air conditioning.

As we struggled to climb in—this thing was at least a meter off the ground—I said, “Ladies, this is our tax dollars at work.”

We were embarrassed to be seen in such an opulent, gas-guzzling monster, but considering that over the course of my lifetime, far more of my parents’ and my tax dollars have gone to support the Armed Forces than my public education or—God forbid—healthcare, and considering that the Marines (in Cameroon, at least) literally just stand around all day, and drink American booze all night, I felt justified—thrilled, even—in getting a ride home from the U.S. Military.

It was difficult to go back to Cameroon, but not because I had to take an ice cold shower that night, but because yet again, I had to chew the cud of American privilege. It doesn’t taste good, folks.

In the midst of a country where electricity and running water work only intermittently, I had stood in air-conditioned comfort and washed my hands in hot water. In the midst of a country whose drinking water makes me sick, I drank a European beer. In the midst of mothers burdened with hand washing their entire family’s clothing, I daydreamed of washing my clothes in the Marines’ machine. All courtesy of tax dollars that would far better serve Americans in their public schools, libraries, hospitals, public parks, and fire departments.

But the Tostitos were delightful.

Text messages I have received from Cameroonians

The day after I fell in a ditch, my French teacher sent me the following message:

GOOD AFTERNOON EMILY. I GOT YOU HAD AN ACCIDENT YESTERDAY. PLEASE ACCEPT MY SINCERE SYMPATHY. IT SHALL BE WELL WITH YOU. ABRAHAM (FRENCH CLASSES).

I responded with somthing along the lines of, 'Thank you. I'm sore, but it could have been worse,' to which he said:

YOU DON'T MEAN THAT! IT WAS THAT SERIOUS! I UNDERSTAND. BUT PROMISE NOT TO LET THE PAINS OVERCOME. JUST BE STRONG. IT'L B OVER SOON. OK?

And from some guy who asked for my nuber as I bought bananas on the street:

DEAR EMILY. SEEING YOU THE OTHER DAYWAS LIKE A DREAM THAT WILL NEVER COME TRUE I THOUGHT. MEETING YOU WAS LIKE A HEALING THAT TOOK PLACE IN MY HEART. PLEASE I AM BEGGING YOU TO SET UP A TIME FOR US TO HAVE A FACE TO FACE TALK. THANK YOU AND TAKE A GOOD CARE OF YOURSELF. BY JULIUS.

I have of course ignored all of his subsequent calls, and today got the following message:

Emilie my dear. It has been quite some-time without me hearing the fervent voice of yours that keeps me stray when thinking of you. Dear please help me 2 meet u.

I 'spose a SCAR is a pretty decent souvenir.

Last night, I fell in a ditch.

All pain aside, falling in a ditch in Yaoundé is just about the most vile thing that could ever happen to someone. Cement ditches are the only infrastucture that's consistent in this town: there's one on each side of every street. They contain not only trash, but rotting food, and--I wish I were exaggerating--raw sewage.

Street lights are sporadic at best, but it never occurred to me that, security aside, there's a very practical reason not to go out at night, which is that you can't see the ditches you may fall into.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I fell head-first into a cement ditch about three feet deep and two feet wide. My head hit the opposite side, but my shoulder caught most of my weight, and my legs were splayed over the top. Thank G-d no one saw me--a white girl in a ditch would have been instant laughingstock of the nation.

I picked myself up quickly, appalled at how utterly disgusting the situation was. I lost a flip-flop and couldn't be bothered to look for it, so I walked home, one half of me covered in mud/sewage and one shoe missing.

Of course I had to pass by a bar full of men who no doubt wondered what the hell was wrong with me.

When I reached my house, I immediately jumped in the shower with my clothes on. Only then did I realize that Iwas bleeding profusely from my left knee.

After using nearly an entire bar of Dial soap on myself, I santized my knee and realized that the cut was deep. And wide. My host mother had left town that morning, so I called Teku, the progam director, who immediately came over with his wife to take me to the hospial.

A Cameroonian hospital, suffice it to say, would be condemned in the U.S. Supplies are few, the rooms simple and not very clean.

It was particulary unsettling to hear the nurse yell at her assitant that the tools weren't sanitary. (And uncomfortable, because I wonder if they bother to sanitize them for Cameroonian patients.)

The nurse gave me a shot that was supposedly anaesthetic, but apparently African anaesthetics don't work, because the stitches hurt like bananas and I wimpered like a little baby. She asked why I was crying, and I don't know how to sass well-enough in French to say, Fuck you. I'm getting stitches; I'll cry if I want to.

Today I looked at them, and I've watched enough Grey's Anatomy to think that I wasn't sutured correctly...

Also, everything hurts, especially the bump on my head.

But whatever, I'll have a sweet scar and not a bad story to go with it. I wasn't a very accident-prone kid--never broke anything or needed so much as a stitch--so how perfectly appropriate is it that last night, in Africa, of all places, I needed medical attetion for the first time in my life?

Come and get me, PETA! Bring it on, ALF!!

Preface: I've been living with my host family for about three weeks now, and I haven't slept through the night yet.

I'm horribly allergic to something in my room, so until I discovered a stockpile of generic Claritin in my suitcase, I woke up wheezing and snotting and blew my nose 'til it bled. That, or the neighbors watched TV so loud that I could hear the characters breathing, or people played drums all night long because Cameroon won the soccer game--c'est l'Afrique! The noise issue is now under control with a variety of loud fan/iPod/ear plugs.

Just when I finally got those issues under control, a mouse moved in under my bed.

Incidentally, it lives in a crocodile skin that my family stores under my bed. (Yes, this freaks me the hell out.)

Mice are small, but when they live under one's bed, one realizes that they make a shit ton of noise. So this freakin' mouse woke me up many nights in a row.

My host brother tried to kill it, but apparently this particular mouse is immune to poison.

Yesterday, I killed that motherfuckin' mouse with my own hands.

I stepped out onto my balcony and discovered the mouse just chillin' on the railing, not a care in the world, least of all my fatigue.

So I picked it up, held it in my fist and shouted at it, Thanks a lot for keeping me up all night, you fucking motherfucker!

Out of sheer spite, swinging it by the tail, I bashed it against the wall.

Well, no, not quite. I very seriously considered doing so, but it occurred to me that the mouse could have rabies or the plague, either of which would be fairly bad news.

I did, however, whack the fucker off the railing and watch gleefully as it fell two stories to its death.

Tonight--unless the crocodile springs to life, I suppose--I may just sleep through the night.

Sex Tourism is Vile, or: Women's Studies Classes Only Make Life More Difficult, but You Should Take Them Anyway

Saturday night, we went clubbing.

We went to "Club Safari." I could write an entire semiotic analysis of that name, but I'll spare you.

There were a number sex workers lined up outside. I could write an academic defense of sex workers, neatly integrating feminist/queer and Marxist theory, but I'll spare you.

The music was almost all American, and mostly Snoop Dogg at that. I could write a feminist attack on Snoop Dogg, and a Marxist rant about global capitalism and the music industry, but I'll spare you.

The clientele consisted of:
-Sex workers
-Sex tourists
-A terrorist
-The best-dressed Cameroonians I've seen yet
-Us

I could say that the sex tourists were the ickiest, nastiest white men I've ever seen and that their comb-overs, white button-downs, expensive whiskey, and thin gold necklaces brushing against exposed chest hair just screamed Midlife Crisis, but I know better than to make such a sweeping generalization, so I'll reserve judgment.

Now, I wish that life in the United States had equipped me with any other way to describe a brown man with a dark moustache, wearing a white tunic and pants and a kaffiyeh wrapped turban-style around his head--perhaps, an "ethnically distinct person of ostensible Middle Eastern origin"--but, frankly, his behavior discouraged all such efforts. Terrorist, terrorist, terrorist.

Subversive little rebel that I am, when he approached me to dance, I thought, "Fuck you, George W. Bush, and your bullshit War on Terror! I am dancing with the enemy!"

But by "dancing," I mean, being totally objectified as he rubbed his penis up and down my leg. Ew, ew, ew. He asked me to leave with him. Yeah, right, sure, Mr. Terrorist, like they haven't warned little white girls like me about men like you.

Despite all that, clubbing was really, really fun.

Cameroonians love to dance and are freakin' good at it. Everyone dances with everyone--guys on girls, girls on girls, girls on guys, multiple people on each other--just not guys on guys, because homosexuality is illegal here. (Women are safe because, you know, we're not sexual creatures in the first place, so we can't be homos.)

When Cameroonians go clubbing, they deem it unsafe to leave after a certain hour and stay at the club until sunrise. I can't keep it up that long, so I made my host brother and his friend take my host sister and me home around 2:00. I was so tired I could hardly stand up, but they drove around, pointing out all the sex workers, and dragged me into a strip club.

I think they thought it was funny and were trying to shock me. Unfortunately for them, I am not easily shocked. I told them, "We have prostitutes in America, too, you know..."

The moral of the story is: I've taken several women's studies classes, which were wonderful and rewarding, but that night, they made my life a lot more difficult, because I don't know how to explain them in French.

Les rues de Yaoundé: No Man's Land

On Friday, I took a motorcycle taxi to class.

This may not strike the reader as a particularly blog-worthy event, so allow to me explain:

The streets here are terrifying. Terrifying.

Each street is roughly 3.5 SUV-friendly lanes wide, but the lanes aren't marked. You drive on the right, supposedly, but the middle lane is for passing, and if the driver wants to pass the person in the middle lane, he goes over to the left lane. At any given time, 100 or so motorcycle taxis ("motos") zipping in between cars. So essentially, the lane system is null.

There are no speed limits.

In the entire city, there is one intersection with a traffic light. Intersections, therefore, operate on a "No lifeguard on duty--Cross at your own risk" sort of system.

Sidewalks are rare, so you walk on the side of the street and pray not to lose your toes to a moto.

Taxis operate differently. You don't hire one to take only your party to a specfic destination; rather, you name a landmark, they take you if they're headed that direction, and they pick people up as they go along. I think this system is brilliant, and that we should do it in the U.S. to make taxis cheaper for everyone and to reduce carbon emissions...

...however, Americans would flip a shit if they were expected to sit that close to strangers. It's totally standard to have six passengers in a taxi--four in the back, two in the shotgun. It's uncomfortable, but considering that I can anywhere in the city for about 40 cents, I can deal with it.

Oh, and everyone honks, all the time. To say "Hello," or "Yes, you can get in the taxi," or, "No, you may not get in the taxi," or "Fuck you," or, "Hey look--a white girl!," or just if it's been more than 12 seconds since you last honked.

It usually takes around 76 seconds to find a taxi--there are thousands of them--but Friday morning, I waited an entire six minutes and was about to be late for class, so when a moto pulled over, I didn't wave him past as I usually do.

I was wearing a skirt, and several people were watching--a little white girl boarding a moto is quite a sight in this town--so I knew that straddling the seat would end badly. I sat side-saddle, held onto my books with one hand, and put the other arm around the driver's waist.

Luckily, traffic was light and I didn't have to go far, because I definitely could have slid right off the back of the thing.

But the moral of the story is: I'm a freakin' badass!