Communication and a Map Project

Monday, May 16, 2013

            When I was younger, I used to tell myself the lie that I’m not the type of person to get nervous or anxious.  That was a lie.  In college it might be a big paper or test that did it.  When I started teaching it was standing in front of that new classroom or getting observed by my boss.  When I got to grad school it might be getting into a certificate program or another big paper or test.  When I first got to Cameroon it was passing out of French and living with my host family. 

            Now it isn’t going to talk to an important person in my village that makes me anxious; it isn’t when I have to talk to my boss; it isn’t when I’m about to struggle in another language.  What makes me anxious is the prospect of talking to pretty much anyone in America.  I miss my family and friends so much – way more than I miss actually being back there (other than the food).  It’s not that I don’t want to talk to them, or that when I haven’t for a while I don’t wish I was.  It’s just so hard to really explain what it’s like to live here to people who haven’t. 

            A week or so ago when I was at the National Girls Forum (NGF) Committee meeting, we were reading the applications of PCVs who wanted to participate.  Whether they were amazing or mediocre, one thing that all of the applications had in common was that they used Franglais throughout it (think Spanglish but with French).  There are so many things that are basically impossible to relate without explaining a ton of words that we say everyday without a second thought.  It’s not that they necessarily have a direct translation either.  I’ve always heard people who can speak a different language say that, but I never thought I would be able to – if there is no direct translation to English then how could I ever learn it?  Turns out that I could learn something like that, and now I understand their frustration when trying to translate.  Just a few examples of words like this – derange, fête, sous-prêfét, war, case, and many others.  That’s not even including all of the Peace Corps acronyms – PCV, IST, PST, APCD, CD, NGF, etc. 

            It’s not just the vocabulary that makes it difficult for me to articulate what’s going on here.  Trying to relate an everyday story of a trip from Guider to Ngaounderé means explaining where both are, what it’s like to be on the buses, what the case is and what it’s like, along with a ton of other details that if I told the same story to a PCV here they would get automatically.  It means that a funny 2-minute anecdote turns into an unfunny 12-minute epic.  Since there are a lot of similarities throughout the developing world (a lot of differences too, of course), it’s even easier to tell the stories to PCVs, RPCVs, or development workers from other countries. 

            When people from America are going call, I get excited all day waiting for it.  I want to talk to them, to hear about what’s going on, tell them what I’m doing here.  Then all of a sudden the phone rings and the caller display says Numéro inconnu (it only says that when it’s a Skype call) and my mood changes completely.  I start feeling anxious and I don’t know what to say.  There are times when, I’m ashamed to admit, I either don’t answer or tell the person who calls that I’m busy and can’t talk even though I’m completely available and maybe even bored.  I don’t know which is worse: the anxiety before/during the call, or the guilt after if I don’t answer. 

            On a lighter note, we finally finished our World Map Project at the Lycée Technique.  We got help from some students, from people outside of our region, and from the entire cluster.  One of our cluster-mates who got displaced to the Grand South was awesome.  He bought a majority of the paint and brought the instructions.  It took a lot longer than I thought it would, over a week I think, but it turned out great at the end.  We want to do another at my youth center and then others at the two other high schools, but it’s almost rainy season so we might have to wait.  I have to go back down to the Adamaoua for another NGF meeting this weekend, but today is Unification Day, and I left home 8 months as of the day before yesterday, so Bonne Fête Y’all! 

This is day 2 of the World Map Project I think.  At this point we have finished the grid and are working on drawing the map.  Three from my cluster, a visitor, and our former cluster-member who paid for most of it.  

We thought we were mostly done at this point.  It's crazy how much longer it took - all of that detail.   

At the finish.  a compass rose in the bottom left corner, the Lycée Technique shield in the top left, and the Peace Corps symbol on the top right.  I think we should all sign it bottom right.  I really liked how it turned out, the colors look great.