L'Américaine au Cameroun

The thing about these French-speaking countries is everyone speaks French. And basically, nine weeks ago I didn’t speak French. Peace Corps uses these modified language guidelines for judging proficiency. It’s a ten level system, ranging from Novice Low to Superior. Nine weeks ago I tested in at Novice-Low:

“Speakers at the Novice-Low level have no real functional ability and, because of their pronunciation, they may be unintelligible.”

My first night with my host family in a nutshell. My host mom and sister came to pick me up in Bandjoun and pretty quickly established that I couldn’t understand a word they said. My host sister just gave up after a while, but my host mom kept going and I trailed after her with my French dictionary. That first night was a whole bunch of her questions and my responses of “Je ne comprends pas.” Finally, my host mother – and mind you this is a woman who speaks pretty good English but taught two other American PCVs French before I came to town and she knows the drill – looked at me, pointed her finger and said “Tu vas comprendre!” (“You are going to understand!”)

In order to go to post in an Anglophone province (Cameroon has two provinces that were colonized by the British and where English is the main common language) a PCV must test to Intermediate-Mid and to Intermediate-High French for a Francophone province. Bangou is in the West province, a Francophone area. Now I think this is great, and am looking forward to learning French (and also to the confused looks that will come in Europe when people try to figure out why this white lady has an African accent) but I was really stressed out by the language exam.

See, the thing is that I am ready to go to post. I get along great with my host family and like Bandjoun. I’m making friends with the other stagiaires and definitely having a good time, but it’s time to go. I want to be in my own apartment with my own things, which I can clean or not whichever way I choose.* I want to start working and getting to know my town. I want to read and hike and cook and talk to people. I do not want to stay here in training. But, if you don’t pass your French test, you get two more weeks of French classes tacked on after everyone else goes to post.

Now I am not concerned about being able to talk to people. I can get my point across in the market, in the taxis and around the neighborhood. The week of site visit I traveled around with no problem. When I came back from site visit I was telling my host brother a story about my trip and after a while, he started laughing before I got to the funny part. I asked him what was so amusing and he said, “It’s funny to watch you look for the word you want.” I told him to be quiet, because a few weeks ago he couldn’t understand anything I said.

But I passed my French test. I am now at Intermediate-High. I’ve given my final presentations (two half hour presentations in French, thank you), filled out the mountains of paperwork, received my bike and motorcycle helmets and am now just waiting for the days to pass before getting to post. Today is the 20th, by noon on the 24th I’ll be a Peace Corps Volunteer instead of a trainee and by the evening of the 25th I’ll be unpacking in Bangou.

I’ll have another P.O. box once I get to post. It’ll be in Banganté, the closest town of a decent size. Stuff sent to Yaoundé will still reach me. The address:

B.P. 31
Banganté
Cameroun

À la prochain.
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*One could say that, like most things, the concept of cleanliness is a cultural concept or one could say that Cameroonians have a weird idea of what’s clean. As far as I can tell, Cameroonian cleanliness revolves around le combat de boue, or the battle with the mud. Every evening, Cameroonians wash their shoes and every morning they walk to work or the market though the mud; when they return home, they wash their shoes again and on it goes. But in the kitchen, behind the stove, there may be sixteen years of accumulated dirt, grime and oil splashings all over the wall. What I mean is, if I don’t want to, I won’t clean my shoes at night but I will wipe my kitchen down with some bleach-water. Of course, then I will be known around town as la blanche with the dirty shoes.