9/2/11

I’ve been in Bandenkop for 2 weeks now and still have yet to move into my house. My landlord, Sam, keeps telling me that the key is with his aunt (who lives in Doala) and that she’s coming. She was supposed to come last week. Then last weekend. Then this week. I went to the village center to get food today—particularly to the beignet lady who sells plates of unsugared beignets and beans known as beans and puff puff in anglophone. The beignets were all out so my community hosts’ wife told me of another place to get food a few shacks down. I went in and asked what he had, which was nothing yet and everything required a 30 min wait. I ordered a spaghetti omelette—of course— and he told me 30 min, and quickly added “40 min max! max!” and I wandered off to kill time in the center. I talked to different gropes of people asking for directions to the library i’d heard about and just chatting. I ducked into the little room filled with 2 or 3 big shelves of books. It made me so happy to see semi-organized books. There was a boy at a computer who I assumed “ran the place” and i said hello and asked him if he read a lot. He laughed and responded yes and then i asked him if he was a student—hoping to have him in my class as the only cameroonian I know that reads for fun. Of course he isn’t, though; he attends the university of Dchiang, which I’m pretty sure is where the chief of my village goes for high school. I wonder if they run into each other..

I poked around the shelves, taking books off to read the covers and thumb through the brown, aged pages. Almost all of the spines are deteriorated on the books, giving the bookshelf a much less organized look and feel, but the old, worn books were categorized into Spiritual, Children’s, Pedagogic (Teaching Books), English, French, and Computers. Most of the books were old textbooks, which explains the categories, but I’m happy there’s a library nonetheless.

Back at the restaurant, and 15 pages in my book later I finally had my spaghetti omelette on a plate in front of me. It took exactly an hour. Who knows why an omelette takes an hour, here. I don’t ask questions. Sam rides up on his moto , just to chat, i guess. I don’t think he knows how mad I am on the inside perhaps, because of my friendly smile and my small town southern charm. I ask him if he has my key yet, and he says it’s coming for the umpteenth time. I tell him that i’m not patient like Cameroonians, and remind him I’m american. That I’ll be teaching his children on monday and I don’t even have a house. He laughs, and we sit in silence for the next few minutes, just looking off. Cameroonians are really good at this sitting and looking business and I hope I’ll be really good at it after 2 years, too.

School starts monday, and I finally got to meet with the Censeur (vice principle) yesterday to talk about the classes I’ll be teaching. Apparently the other computer teacher, Serges, might stay in Bafoussam and not teach this year. This means no german, and possible every grade class of computers (i offered if he doesn’t show) and then first year english. He sent a child to deliver my schedule to me at the restaurant. I’m excited, and a little nervous. I think it will be good to teach so many grade levels. I’ll have almost every student at the school in one of my classes. I’ve also gotten asked by adults if I’ll be teaching an adult english class. Can’t wait to start thinking about a secondary project!