First day of school (pt. 2)
Today’s english club meeting was to include Akilah given a short presentation on African-Americans. The talk went very well and naturally I had to participate. It was good for them to hear from both of us though. It was even funnier hearing them repeat some of the “slang” terms I was mentioning.
It was hilarious when one of the student’s inquired about the term “whassup?” He kind of confused because one of his professors told him it was spelled “what’s up?” We had a short chuckle and then I had to make sure he knew if he were filling out an official document, he would use the spelling his instructor gave to him. However, if he were just in an informal setting or something similar it was relatively safe to use the slang version. Cultural exchange, ain’t it wonderful.
By the time we finished presentation, there was a question and answer period. The students in the English club are older, most of whom are “terminale” students (meaning they’re seniors). Some of the questions were the same as has been posed by African-American scholars and leaders for years.
Do Blacks want to come back to Africa? Why do Blacks hate Africans? If you’re entire family could move back to Africa, would they? Do African-Americans impose racism on White Americans? Do African-Americans want to research their roots to know where they come from in Africa? And so many other questions that served to show more African-Americans need to participate in forums that would allow for an understanding within the African Diaspora. An understanding with the younger generations, the leaders and teachers of tomorrow, and today for that matter.
One thing we both made sure to mention was that if we were in the states and someone referred to an African-American as a “white man,” there would most likely be a heated discussion or a bit of a scuffle. We were doing our best to ascertain the students knew we don’t appreciate be called by such a name; they would serve as our ambassadors to other students and Cameroonians. Hopefully, in time, people would understand that and cease to recognize African-Americans by such terms.
We ended up spending almost two and a half hours in english club. We had to rush out in order to get to SONEL in time to pay the electricity bill. After a brief tour of the Anglophone section of the school, we headed home.
The Bilingue school is divided into an Anglophone (english speaking) and Francophone (french speaking) section of the school. The original intent was for all students to eventually become bilingual. However, through time there have been problems and that idea is not developing as intended.
I also stopped briefly to speak to Patrick, who happens to be president of the english club. By the time we finished our brief discussion, we’d decided to meet on Monday evening and have a soda while we talked. He’s a very bright young man, and very striking, from what I could discern, he really just wanted to speak to a man about some decisions he needs to make about the future of his life. First, I was honored that he felt comfortable enough to approach me about certain topics. But I also felt shocked, because what could I say that would give him some direction on what to do? My thought? I’ll rely on my training with youth groups and pray that I can give him some inspiration about what to do.
We did make it to SONEL before closing, however, for some reason, they’d already closed all the cash registers and told us to come back tomorrow. Why would you post your closing time for 3:30 and begin closing at 3:15? Everything else in this country moves slowly, but this one thing seemed to want to get ahead of the schedule. Interesting.
So instead, we headed to the market to purchase some items for the english teacher’s dinner Akilah is hosting on Friday. Each month, the english teacher’s ge together to discuss what they’re doing with the classes and to enjoy a meal. Akilah has been fretting over this event because there is so much protocol in Cameroon, and she doesn’t feel prepared to properly host them. She attempted to switch to another month, but she’s the last person in the first cycle, so she can’t switch.
We found most of the items on her list, but were looking for certain vendors in particular. There’s one who she knows sells relatively clean rice and even gives her extra each time she comes. After the “country-wide clean up” for the summit, everyone has been moved around or disbanded because their previous areas were unsightly. This threw a wrench in the plans to find the “best” items, so we did what we could to find the “crème de la crème.”
While she prepared a dinner of mashed potatoes and lentils (she burned the string beans we were to have), I spent my time at the Mobilis shop, GMBC, trying to communicate with Sylvester about the logos I recreated for him. He was very pleased with the logos and want’s me to meet with him in the morning to print the letterhead. Since I’ve got nothing to do, I’m sure I can meet him.
Since we never really talked about compensation, I hinted to him about the pagne Akilah wanted to purchase. It’s a pretty nice design, and I figured they would give it to me at a significant discount, if not for free. He offered to give me a chance to call the U.S. tomorrow when I came. I told him, I’d rather connect to the internet. I’ve been resisting the desire to make an international call to the states; to download email of course. I’ve been holding out, but I’m not sure how long I can last. Is it worth about 20000 CFAs to make the call? That’s about twenty-eight bucks. Hmmmm.