Mullet, Part One: Business in the Front

Well hey there, blogsphere. Did ya miss me? Who are we kidding? Of course you did. Now enough with the formalities- let’s get down to business.

I’ve now been living in Meskine for about two and a half months, and my house is just about as empty as I found it, give or take a few niceties. Upon first seeing the photos my start-up mansion, Charlie suggested that MTV Cribs should come and do a Cameroonian special, highlighting my new abode. So in the spirit of MTV and in the name of Snooki’s unborn child, let me give you a sneak peak of the status of my living arrangement as it would be featured on Cribs:

Me: Yo yo yo waddup y’all!! Welcome to my dope ass crib, MTV! Come on into my concession but watch yoself- I’ve seen snakes all up in this highly polluted and sparsely vegetated desert area that I hope to one day call a garden.

Cut to shot of my bike sparkling in the berating sunlight with that shwing! sound effect.

Me: Awww yeeah you know y’all jealous of my sweet ass ride. Peace Corps hooked it up yo!

Cut to panoramic shot of my sprawling living room- completely empty less one XL plastic mat in the middle of it, and a lone dormroom-sized refrigerator angled in one corner.

Me: Holla at a balla! Y’all KNOW I dropped mad dollaz on that frigo right thurrr- actually I pretty much dropped all my dollaz on that fridge. It’s coo doe- ain’t no thang. Let me show y’all how a true playa stocks the fridge- uh huh we got MAD bottles (of water) up in here. We could pop bottles (of water) all night if we wanted to! Woop woop! PARTAYYY! You know a true playa don’t need to cook her own food- she can just hop on over to the neighbor’s crib and they’ll hook it up. So just bottles on bottles on bottles (of water).

Cut to me opening the door of my bedroom, revealing a sunken-in mattress in the middle of the floor covered by a mosquito net hanging from the ceiling. Next to the bed, a Jane Austen novel. Pan to the corner, zooming in on my fan, which also sparkles and has that shwing! sound effect.

Me: Chicka chicka yeeeah this is where all the magic happens. As you can see, no expense has been spared in the making of this love lair. We hooked it up with the fan over here in the corner for those 130 degree hot season nights, and of course we gotta show Nurse Ann some love for hookin it up with the bomb ass mosquito net that brings the whole room together. Holla atchya boo!

Cue “I Just Had Sex” by the Lonely Island as the camera crew follows me out back to the latrine.

Me: Alright, y’all I saved the best for last- this right hurrr is wazzup! Check it- we got our cement slab with not one but two holes for doin ya business! Don’t ask me why- but try and tell me that ain’t fancy! We got four cement walls- like a boss! Don’t mind the lizards and flies- just keepin it real! Holla!

Alright alright MTV it’s been real- thanks for stoppin by and checkin out my crib. This is Nassara Sarah signing off- a special shout out to all the fellas out there- holla at me! Fo real! There is a serious lack of men interested in casually dating out here in Meskine! PLEASE!! HOLLA AT ME!!!!! Uh sorry. Play on playaz. Peace.

So that’s what’s up. It’s pretty bad- I’ve had about fifteen people over to my house at this point, and every one of them, without fail, has made a comment along the lines of “Wow it’s so big… but so empty. It’s kind of sad.” Cameroonians included. But between a fridge, gas tank, stove and mattress, I pretty much blew my entire settling-in allowance. After I get back from In-Service Training late this month, I’ll start buying some new swag-tastic additions. But until then, I’m doing the zen thing. Don’t hate!

Work has been progressing at an alarming rate. I don’t really understand what happened- I tried to be noncommittal in all of my meeting attendances, and in all of my tete-a-tetes with various people within the community, but pretty much every single structure that I tried to noncommittally observe and every single person that I tried to noncommittally have a casual conversation with has turned into a commitment. So, a quick rundown of the organizations that have lassoed me by the neck and mercilessly roped me in:

Cercle des Jeunes Soucieux pour le Developpement de Meskine (CJSDM) (Roughly translated to: The Circle of Youth who Care about the Development of Meskine): When I rolled up to Meskine for my site visit in November, I went to pay my respects to the Lamido, the traditional leader of Meskine. I told him about the youth development program and what I was coming to Meskine to do, and he told me that there was a youth center in town, which was run by CJSDM, so I should start there. So start there I did. I met with the president of the group, Haman Wabi, within my first couple weeks at post, who promptly informed me that the group had been inactive for the past six months. Awesome. Good start. So we conceived an action plan to relaunch the group- we went back and forth, with Haman Wabi wanting to screen a film to promote awareness about the harmful effects of drug usage (What film? With what projector? Who are we showing this film to? Apparently all of these trivial details had fallen by the wayside in his planning.), and me gently suggesting that perhaps we devote January to recruiting new members, in a way that appeals to the general public, but most importantly by doing something FO FREE since we had approximately zero funds in da bank. He eventually came around, and it was decided that we would put on a big soccer game in January to let the youth of Meskine know that we were starting the group back up and to announce that we were going to have a General Assembly the weekend following the soccer game. We had a couple of meetings to plan everything out beforehand, and depending on the meeting, attendance rates were between three and five members, the president, myself and my community host Souiabou included. Of these five members, I was the only female, and also the youngest person in attendance (Cultural Note: Cameroon perceives “youth” as being those citizens between the ages of 15 and 35. Different strokes for different folks, y’all.). Despite all of these discouraging moments leading up to the soccer game, the game itself was a great success. Bouba, one of our members, managed to rassle us up some speakers and an MC, so we had some tunes bumpin before the game started, and a running commentary throughout. At halftime, the president and I both made speeches, and you better believe I dropped that Nassara Sarah line- it gets a laugh every. freaking. time. Seriously. Then, after the game was over, they had me present a trophy to the winning team, and that’s when the paparazzi came out. It was crazy! They nearly papped me to death. There were camera phones everywhere, and sweaty Cameroonians lining up to get a picture with the white girl. I stuck around until I thought I could dip out without being impolite, then promptly hopped on the back of Souiabou’s moto and peaced. While some celebs would have taken a bat to the overwhelming pap attack and shaved their head in frustration (cough Britney), I kept my cool, and paid my respects to my fans, without whom I’d be nothing. I would make a bomb ass celebrity- just sayin. So the next weekend, we had our General Assembly, as promised. The speakers came out again, and we grooved to some sweet Cameroonian jams until we had enough people assembled to justify starting the meeting. We announced that the meeting was to start at 3:30, but of course when you say 3:30 to Cameroonians they hear “5ish,” so we started at 5ish. Sure enough, people started trickling in, and at its peak, there were 100 people present. Insanity. Of these 100 youth, there were three girls present: me, my neighbor Habiba, and her friend Janette, both of whom I went and got from their homes to drag them along to this meeting. The meeting started innocently enough, with the president, myself, and a few select members sitting in the front leading the meeting, going through our pre-arranged meeting agenda. They had me give another speech, so I threw the Nassara Sarah line their way- winning! That shit is not getting old. After my speech, the president gave a speech about the purpose of the organization and our dream of a brotherhood amongst the youth of Meskine- beautiful, inspirational stuff. What better time, then, for a fight to break out 100 yards away. Seriously- bows were being thrown, cheap shots were being taken- I know, because I, along with every other person attending our General Meeting, was completely fixated on the fight as our president gave his inspirational speech. Ewpz. The fight petered out eventually, and we got back to our agenda as if nothing had happened. But then, we announced that we were keeping the old officers and not electing a new set of officers, and shit. hit. the. fan. Everyone just LOST it. Everyone started screaming, and another couple of fights broke out, but I couldn’t understand a damn word of all the ruckus because it was all in Fulfulde! It went on like this for at least thirty minutes. When Souiabou finally translated the gist of the brouhaha into French for me, I stood up and the crowd fell silent. Not kidding. They listened as I gave my simple explanation for keeping the officers in place, and assured them that we could have elections six months down the road, once they were all actual, dues-paying members. They all nodded their heads in agreement, and that was that. Then, to end the meeting, they presented me with a gift: a picture frame that says SARAH BONNE ANNEE 2012 in string. It was sweet. So after three hours of General Assembly fun, we finally adjourned the meeting. Since then, CJSDM has been ballin out on every level. We did a needs assessment to identify what they perceived the needs of the youth of Meskine to be; we invited a speaker to come and give a speech about the violences committed against young girls, specifically about early marriage, at the local high school for one of the high school’s cultural days; we also had Souiabou and one of his colleagues come in and give a presentation on STIs and HIV/AIDS, and we all bought matching t-shirts and paraded together for Youth Day. Like I said, ballin out on every level. And now we have like 30 members that regularly attend meetings, and even though our meetings are always sausage-fests (all twenty-something males), they’re a good group who are motivated to do good things for their community, so I’m looking forward to continuing to work with them over the course of the next two years.

Primary School Girls Club: There’s a primary school right in front of my house, so that was one of the first places I started frequenting in hopes of finding some youth to develop when I first got to post. The school was on Christmas break when I first got there, but I still managed to get a solid tete-a-tete in with the principal of the school and his right hand man one day when I just happened to be creeping the grounds when they showed up to do some paperwork. It was a good talk- they briefed me on what they perceived to be the problems with the school system of Cameroon, and told me that yes, they did indeed already have a girls club in place that I could work with. Eggcellent. They also said that the group normally meets once a semester, but that I could call a meeting whenever I wanted to. So when school started back up, I got to meet the two girls club sponsors: Clarisse and Esther, and I instantly fell in love with both of them. They are bad bitches, and got the ball rolling immediately. We had a meeting with all the girls from CM1 and CM2, the two last years of primary school, and in that first meeting we had elections and drafted an action plan and some ground rules. The girls said they wanted to learn to play handball, to learn to do embroidery, to learn to cook, and to sing and dance. So, I went over to the high school and found the handball instructor (bonus points- it’s a woman!), and now she is giving the girls handball lessons every Saturday, and let me tell you from firsthand experience- those lessons are INTENSE! I was huffing and puffing and sweating all over that handball court. Also, I don’t quite understand all the rules yet, sooo yeah. One of my finer moments. For youth day, I taught the girls “Waving Flag” by K’naan, in English and in French, and they choreographed a little dance to it, then performed it for the Youth Day parade. It was freaking adorable. I’m trying to get the video up, but the internet is a biatch. This past Saturday, we started embroidery lessons, another skill that I lack. It went well- I say that because the napkin I was embroidering looked legit, and if I was getting it, then I know the girls were doing it better than I was. I also just printed off these cute booklets for the girls to fill in that are like Why I’m Proud to be a Girl books. I’m excited to work on them together. So yes things are going awesome with the girls club at the primary school. On the other hand…

High School Girls Club: There’s only one high school in Meskine, so I started hanging around it creepily in the hopes of finding some youth to develop. In the process, I’ve befriended the principal and some of the teachers, and have ended up sitting front row center for Bilingualism Day and every subsequent Journee Culturelle I’ve attended. I won’t give you all the details of these glorious days filled with lip syncing and interpretive dance that I’ve witnessed because words wouldn’t do them justice, but I will tell you that they pulled me on stage to dance, then stuck money to my sweaty chest in appreciation of my dancing skills, and told all of Meskine about how the white girl danced at the high school. Seriously. My neighbors who can’t afford to go to school told me they heard about how I danced to Pinguis at the high school. But I digress. So I asked about the girls club at the high school, and again there was one but it only met once a year, so I found the sponsor and told her I was interested in meeting with the girls. She promptly brought me around to every classroom at the school, showing the students that a white person wanted to have a meeting with them (she literally told me that they would only come if they knew I’d be there) during their break. So, at 11:30, there were about 40 girls assembled in a classroom waiting to hear what the white person had to say. I spoke, and they laughed. All of them. Through fits of giggles, they told me that they couldn’t understand my crazy French, and so the teacher sponsor had to translate for me. Awesome. Then none of them would respond when I asked what kind of activities they had done in the past as a group and what kind of activities they would like to do in the future. So, this past week, I approached the sponsor with an idea- I suggested that we do an application, where we ask the girls what sort of activities they would like to do and why they want to be in the club and stuff like that. She said that just wouldn’t do, and I left the school trying to come up with a better idea. Apparently, after I left, the teachers started gossiping that the white girl was here to profit off of the Cameroonians- that I was conducting some sort of research and exploiting the students. GREAT! After hearing this, I went ahead and drafted the application so I could show the sponsor that I had nothing but innocent intentions. She couldn’t be bothered- she was too busy, so I’m going to go back tomorrow and try, try again. Then, on Saturday I had organized a field trip to the hospital for us, but who knows if that’s going to happen. We’ll see. So to review, primary schools girls club goooood- high school girls club not so much.

Okay my fingers are fatigued from typing so that probably means I’ve said too much. If you’ve made it to here, you must really love me. Well, I love you too. Stay tuned for more updates, lovelies. Let’s just call this update part one in a series of two. The series is called Mullet, Part One: Business in the Front; Part Two: Party in the Back, which will detail birthday month in all its glory. Promise.

You know you love me.
Xoxo gossip girl.