African Mornings
Mornings here in Cameroon are probably not so different from mornings in most developing countries, or even rural areas for that matter but anyone that has ever spent more than one day with me knows that I’m not what people call “a morning person”. Here is a list of things that my half conscious sleep-state and pillow smothering battles with each morning by 6:00am:
• Roosters crowing – an obvious one that plagues billions of people worldwide.
• Dogs barking – I don’t know if it’s the incessant crowing of the roosters that triggers this but it is particularly bad whenever I look at my watch and realize I only have one more hour of sleep.
• Goats screaming – I’m not sure what the noise a goat makes is actually called but these goats scream. To make matters worse whenever I’m half asleep it always sounds like they are screaming my name as if I need to get up and talk to them. “Mmmmaaaaaaatttt Mmmmmaaaatttt”
• Ducks quaking – just tack it on to all the other animal noises
• Car and/or Moto engines revving – This is tough to explain but it seems like throughout this country every small neighborhood doubles as a mechanic shop. I guess people have trouble starting their vehicles in the morning...
• Trash trucks blasting their horns – *Disclaimer* only on Thursdays. It took me nearly four months to realize what this sound was. Every Thursday is trash day here in Bangangté and the trucks go out in huge numbers. To display their dominance on the roads, each truck was equipped with a horn that sounds like a mix between a tornado siren and a river barge. Foundations shake, babies cry and the sun shines a little less bright…
• Crows on my tin roof – This is the Big Mac of all my morning enemies. There are battling civilizations of crows living on my tin roof. Wars are waged each morning for territory and power. Crow Generals may come and go with the battles but the fight maintains. These flying beasts march feverously on my tin roof with their heavy raptor-like talons, when they land it sounds like bowling balls being dropped on my roof. I wouldn’t be surprised if they used such weaponry.
My Love for Dogs
Is waning. I think I’ve mentioned the guard dogs in my compound before on this blog and how I thought after my first couple months they would warm up to me. It’s been six months at post and the situation still hasn’t changed other than the fact that I’m just more careless with my entry and exiting of the compound. Last week I entered the gates of my compound and was greeted by the two dogs, all seemed fine. I kept my alpha male dominance face on and proceeded to walk to my door. The female dog, who just had pups, started barking uncontrollably, her usual move despite the fact that she’s cool with me petting her when she’s by herself. When she freaks out barking like that it fires up the male dog. As I was walking to my door he ran and charged me, typically it’s a fake charge and he stops a foot or two in front of me and shows his teeth. This time he came in hard and latched on to my shoe. He didn’t bite too hard but kept the kind of grip and growl going that said “I could freaking rip your leg off right now if I wanted to”. Panicked, I took a small Jif to-go peanut butter container out of my pocket that had just been gifted to me by my wonderful post-mate and threw it into his cage all while screaming “Vien Ici!” (Come here). I was yelling at my neighbor/owner of the dog who was standing 15 feet away on his porch, he did nothing but laugh... The dogs ran into the cage after the peanut butter and I quickly locked them up.
Any dog whisperer advice would be cool…
In Closing
I haven’t written on this blog in months so it was difficult to choose something to write about, a lot of worthy bloggable stuff has happened since my last entry. Instead of choosing something, I copped out and wrote about stuff I deal with everyday. To name a few things that have happened: I went to the beach for a week and met up with all the volunteers in my training group, had an awesome Christmas at my house, great New Years Eve in Yaoundé, went waterskiing and sailing on a nearby lake with the mayor of Foumbot (forgot I was in Peace Corps for an afternoon), great MLK day celebration at a nearby volunteers house, started teaching English and Computer classes at a local NGO/youth space, started working with a women’s group that produces and sells shea butter, been introduced to a couple other groups in the community I can work with further, had many lonely nights at my house, been yelled at from people on the street to return home because of the color of my skin, have also been thanked for being here, met many more amazing people than shitty people and overall have been having a blast during the first quarter of my Peace Corps service and I wouldn’t trade one day of it.
Much love folks, hope it was an okay read.
-Matt
