Home Stay in Dschang

About a week ago we all moved to the city of Dschang. Dschang is in the Western region of Cameroon, about six hours west of Yaoundé. Yaoundé is the capital of Cameroon and thus a very urban city while Dschang is a smaller, more rural, college town.
Sunday we moved into our new families. My family consists of my father who is a mechanic, mother who is a secretary for the Dean of the University of Dschang, my eldest sister Nadine who is about 23 and studying accounting and her 20 month old daughter Devine who is adorable, and my two little brothers Kevin who is 19 and Freddie who is 17. The house is very different from my house in Yaoundé, a lot less modern, but comfortable. There is no running water in the home and electricity cuts occur regularly so I’m glad I have a flashlight! The floors and walls are made of a concrete/mud mixture, everywhere besides the kitchen and bathroom which are tiled, and the roof is tin. This area is cooler and rainier (very loud on a tin roof) because we are living in the mountains, but I can’t complain because the scenery is out of this world!
We have our classes (which are now completely in French) in a room at the university which is about a 30 minute walk from our house. This area is home to an ethnic group called Bamiléké so our first week has focused on their history, traditions, and culture. The Bamiléké have a rich history because they are very attached to their traditions even when they move away from this region which because of a lack of space they have had to do throughout the years. However, this makes them not very liked by other Cameroonians because they don’t integrate well into other areas. Coffee is very important to the Bamiléké because this was their main crop that they fought against the French colonizers to take control of themselves. I don’t like coffee, but in our classroom a woman comes and sells coffee every morning, and all the other students say it’s great!
For every lecture we have now we have a field visit that corresponds. It really helps being able to see and experience what we are learning about and I like getting out of the classroom and exploring. One day we went to the local history museum. I love museums and this one was really well done. Each area of Cameroon had a room that was decorated to correspond with the geography of the area (orange walls and a sandy floor for the desert, green walls and bamboo on the ceiling for the rain forest). Another day we went to the Chefferie of Batoufam. The village of Batoufam is about two hours away, but still Bamiléké. A Chefferie is like a traditional kingdom. We met with the chief or chef of the Chefferie and were allowed to ask him any questions we wanted to. Some interesting responses were to questions like: how many wives and children do you have? He would not tell because saying a number would put a cap on the amount he will have and he doesn’t want to name a specific number in case there are more to come; however, I met 13 of his wives and was told that that was not all of them... Another interesting question was about how he became chief. He was “arrested” or taken by surprise when he was visiting Batoufam for his father’s funeral and taken away for 9 weeks for initiation. After that time he is given at least 4 wives off the bat and given 9 months to prove himself or in other words, father a child of both sexes. During this time the village is not allowed to have celebrations or cultivate crops (they borrow from neighboring villages) because the king-to-be is supposed to have pressure on him that if he doesn’t father a boy and girl his whole village will starve. After he has done this he was presented to the village as the chief. After talking to the chief we took a tour of the kingdom and had a gourmet lunch made by his wives of course.
This weekend we were supposed to go to a waterfall but because of the rain they said that the roads would be too rough to get there. Instead, we visited the museum of Bamoun which was really interesting. Then we went to a monastery. The monks have 300 hectars of coffee trees which they sell all over Cameroon and export of France; they also have bees, avocado trees, mangos, chickens, cows etc. It was a really interesting tour.
Yesterday I got to go to the open-air market in Dschang. It was VERY overwhelming and crowded, but I really liked it. Everyone was out doing their shopping because today (Monday) is election day and everything is closed, no school, and we are not allowed to go outside because the police don’t want anyone out besides if you are going to or from your voting location. There is a lot of corruption within the voting system in Cameroon so they are trying to take serious measures to become more honorable. My host mom is working the polls so I’m excited to hear about her day! I spent the day doing laundry (by hand!) and working on homework.
This next week we are studying women in Cameroon and this coming weekend we will travel to Bamenda, an English speaking region.
I’m excited to go to Bamenda and then go back to Yaoundé. I like Dschang, but I miss my Yaoundé host family. They are more interested in my life I think. All the students have felt that way because since the program was originally based in Dschang most of these families have hosted 15 plus students! It is nice because it is easy to come into a family that knows all about exchange students, but at the same time, they don’t find you quite as interesting. I really appreciate these families though. They take you in as their own which is wonderful. Cameroonian people are so warm and such good hosts. I can’t say I expected such a warm welcome and to feel accepted, but I am happily surprised!
Everyone in the group is starting to get their first bout of sickness. One girl got a stomach parasite from eating a guava before washing it. We just have to be careful about fresh foods and filtered water. Other than that everything else is going well. I feel more and more comfortable in Cameroon every single day!