My Life in Bafang: A Constant State of Swamp Ass

Due to security concerns in the Far North region, I was promptly and unceremoniously uprooted from my home and family in Meskine. My final days in my village are a blur of storms: a storm of heaving sobs, the storm that was attempting to consolidate my pack rat collection of possessions into a few suitcases, and a hailstorm. No seriously. When the car came to get my bags and me on my final morning, golf ball-sized chunks of ice came pelting from the normally cloudless sky. Lucie said that it was the Far North region forbidding its Peace Corps Volunteers to leave. And yet leave we did.

We left by Danay Express coaster bus, with all of our worldly possessions piled high and strapped to the roof, and crammed into the empty back seats. The Maroua cluster left our case (travel house) in Maroua teary-eyed and somber, after having just said our goodbyes to our dear guardian and his family. We arrived in Kaele soon thereafter, where we found a band of monsters in sombreros letting the wild rumpus begin at nine o’clock in the effing morning. Once it had been established that there was no way in hell that we were going to be able to fit Ricky’s four suitcases, three footlockers, two mattresses, refrigerator, water filter, bike, gas tank, stove, television, satellite dish AND HIS DOG (oh and the rest of Kaele cluster’s belongings) all onto our one coaster bus, we made arrangements for another bus to follow us to Ngaoundere with their things, and the whole Xtreme gang piled in and hit the road.

I can only describe the eight hours that followed from my perspective in the second row window seat, where my personal space was more often than not being assailed with hostile sing-along/ dance combinations from Josh, of the Kaele wildling clan. The Maroua cluster, in their sorrowful and unsociable state, had all chosen window seats, leaving only a column down the center for the Kaele wild things, which led to a lot of sloshing of their shared boxed wine grape juice-flavored ethyl alcohol down the line, and completely-unreasonable-and-not-at-all-sensible-or-acceptable acoustics of their Disney Classic sing-alongs, which lasted the entirety of the eight hour bus ride. Around hour four, Earl could [not not] be heard from the back row singing-screaming along to “Under the Sea,” interjecting with a running commentary on his clearly irrepressible love for The Little Mermaid, with shouts of “THIS IS THE PART WHERE THE TURTLES DRUM!” then erupting in his own display of air drumming on his own imagined turtle shell, and “GOD THIS MOVIE IS THE BEST! ISN’T THE LITTLE MERMAID THE BEST??” and so on and so forth. When it would grow quiet in the back row, I would turn around from my seat out of curiosity to find Earl, a pair of gas tanks affixed just behind his obtrusive ginger head, leaning across Joanna, smoking a cigarette, and I’d just turn right back around because surely this was not real life. Meanwhile, Aloyicious kept nervously glancing my way from two seats over and mouthing to me that “We shouldn’t be on this road. We are not safe,” as he broke out into his distinctive Gigi sweats, only further contributing to my unwavering conclusion that this was, indeed, not real life. We were all functioning at hazardously high levels of absurdity, as I suppose one must do to survive an ad hoc exodus, and I maintain that none of it was real life.

However, here I am, in my manse upon a mountain in Bafang in the wild wild West region, with only excessive viewings of Pitch Perfect as a coping mechanism for my sudden and unexpected loss. My life here is entirely different from what it was in the Xtreme:

Meskine, Xtreme : Bafang, West ::

Heat and heat rash : coldness and a constant state of swamp ass ::

Bathing…on the odd occasion : VERY noticeable if I skip a day of bathing, as I did today (see “Constant State of Swamp Ass”) ::

50-yard dash to my outdoor latrine : Two (COUNT EM!) flushing toilets in my house ::

Sleeping naked over [very temporarily] soaking wet sheets : Sleeping under wool blankets in a long-sleeve robe, leggings and socks ::

Waking up in the middle of the night to chug water and/ or dump water over my head : Cannot get up in the mornings because I do not want to get out from under the covers ::

Full pagne ensembles, complete with head wraps so that villagers don't call me "gorko" (dude) : Wearing whatever the hell I want to (read: lots and lots of leggings as pants) ::

Dry, dry, arid, dry, dry, dry, dry, dry, dry, dry : Wet, damp, dripping, moist, rainy, sodden, soggy, sopping, oily, moldy- oh so very, very moldy ::

Sand : Mud ::

Flipping my shit over the month of carrot season : Carrots every. freaking. day. (along with all other imaginable produce) in the cobblestone-paved market ::

Keeping bottles of water in the refrigerator in an effort to consume tepid water instead of nearly boiling water : Keeping my tomatoes out of the refrigerator because they keep freezing ::

“Speaking” broken Fulfulde- sometimes French : Speaking English- sometimes French ::

Nights at the bilbil cabaret with intermittent electricity fueling the obnoxiously loud music : Nights at Leonard and Carine’s watching the news, playing scrabble and splitting a bottle of wine ::

Working in the shade of Lucie’s overhang on a plastic mat on the sand, occasionally dozing off or stopping to eat : Working in a fully furnished library (!!), cataloguing books (!!) using electricity (!!)- working 6 hour shifts with no naps and no lunch breaks ::

My village fam, my hearts : New friends ::

Getting weird in Maroua with the Xtremies : ??

I am still happy- just a different sort of happy. Pouring one out for the Xtreme. Sey yesso, wuro am. Mi yidi ma.

peace love and THIS IS THE PART WHERE THE TURTLES DRUM