Youth Week

It's youth week here so I've spent the week attending the socials of my host sibs and on Friday went to the parade. There isn't much to say about the parade -- we all got sunburned and saw endless schoolchildren march. It was a little repetitive and seemed propagandistic to me with the all the pictures of President Biya. Plus, it seemed miserable for the children marching.

The socials though definitely gave me a lot to think about. Every school has one during youth week and they are more or less talent shows combined with a pageant for the school's Master and Miss. On Wednesday's we went to Helen's school where the motto is "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom." Getting ready for Helen's social though was an experience in itself. So I go home after french class and put on my best clothes -- jeans and a favorite top. I show Helen looking for her approval (I was under strict orders to not braid my hair, wear jeans -- basically look as American as possible) and she goes "It's okay." So I change into another outfit which earns an "It's alright." Then, I put on a third top which gets "No, put on the first one! It looked good, why did you put on the other ones?!" Um, because you said it was just okay. Anyways, I learned for Cameroonians "It's okay" is really "It's good" -- which is reflective of all expressions here, there seems to be little emotion used in communication. At home, if something makes me happy I clearly express it in both my language and tone, certainly not true here. In retrospect, I must look overly excited about everything. My host family must think I'm bizarre (for this, and a million other reasons!). Of all people, I understand Melanie, the 15 year old, the best. When she saw my outfit, she exclaimed "Oh my God!" The language for middle schoolers is truly universal. If I ask Melanie how school was, she goes "It was cute."

Either way though, my outfit was a joke, everyone else at the social looked infinitely better than me. There I was, white girl dressed for class and everyone else looked like they were going to the club. The socials take place from noon till 6, but since this is the only time for the kids to not wear their uniforms, everyone was dressed to the nines and clearly were trying to mimic the styles of American rap, R&B videos (Everyday, I disappoint my host brothers with my pathetic knowledge of American pop culture. If only they loved the Barenaked Ladies or David Gray).

The weirdest part of the social was when the MC made this joke about AIDS. Like, too soon? I asked Helen about it later who simply said "He was a comedian, everyone knew it was just a joke" After pressing her even more ("what though, if someone in the audience was sick") she made a really good point, "Here it's okay to say that, but you would never make a joke about the president here and you do that in the US." The lack of freedom of speech here creeps me out, there is just no other way to put it. One of Helen's teachers got arrested even for criticizing President Biya after an off duty security guard heard him talking in a taxi ride. And Helen said she would never talk politics at a cafe for fear of someone hearing her. My brother Jacko talked of "spies everywhere" and said that Biya's guards have x-ray glasses. I don't know if I believe that, but the point is Cameroonians do and that they leave in this culture of fear. The most ironic thing though is that when Cameroonians talk about Egypt and President Mubarak, "Thank God he is gone. 30 years is too long for one man." Um, what, Biya's been president for 28 years. I can't tell if the irony is lost on them or if they simply see the situations as different.