We Shall Overcome

Reporting from Manigri. Three weeks down and counting. School technically “started” this week and that was a truly interesting experience. It was like the gun went off to start the race and half the runners weren’t there and the people that were ready tripped at the starting line and if anybody did stumble along they went crashing into the first hurdle. Keeping up with all the obstacles definitely kept me busy though. My most truly interesting experience happened after the first day of classes. I had two hours with my 5eme kids, but there were only 9 of them in a class of about 50, so we just went over rules and where I’m from and who I am and then we still had about a half hour left, so I said that that was all for today and we just sort of sat there and looked at each other until another one of the teachers wandered into my classroom and started talking to me, which is where the interestingness began. He started asking me where my husband lived and why he wasn’t with me, why I was living alone. I covered using another one of the volunteers as my scapegoat and explained that we are both volunteers, so we can’t live together and that I enjoy living alone. I could tell right away that he was trying to see if he could “get to know me better.” He then proceeded to tell me that he really wanted to know more about white women because he really wanted to marry a white woman one day. In the process of our conversation he asked me if I was allowed to have a “deuxieme bureau” (essentially a second husband) just like the African women. I had to explain that in the United States, we believe in one man and one woman, no extra (though that’s not even true 100% of the time). He became very disappointed, but actually dropped trying to hit on me, so that was nice and moved on to ask me about homosexuality because he said that he had heard of it, but didn’t understand how it was possible. “Possible to love someone of the same sex?” I asked. “No, possible to receive sexual satisfaction from someone of the same sex.” He says. “Oh.” I say. Seriously, how am I supposed to explain that to someone with a limited English vocabulary and me with a limited French vocabulary? I did think, however, that it was good that he at least wanted to know about homosexuality. Here, if two men are found to be together they are sentenced to death, so at least he was asking. With this mentality, I did me best to explain the ways of sexual intercourse without being too graphic (because keep in mind that my students were still sitting in the classroom, and I have no idea at this point how much English they really know). He seemed quite confused about two men, but seemed to understand two women together. He even said, “Oh. That makes sense. I can understand that.” So from a completely homophobic African man, lesbianism got the thumbs up. Quite amusing. I had to be careful and explain further though after I was done, because I could tell that he then thought that all Americans and all Europeans were gay. Everyone just loves everyone! After this, he moved back to asking me more about white women. He was so curious, like we are this exotic species (and I guess we are quite different and strange to him, but it was still amusing in my brain). I tried to explain the concept of dating to him, but it was such a foreign concept that we didn’t make any progress. It’s hard to explain to someone who is now 40 or so how to approach a woman. The relationships here between men and women are like everyone is in early elementary. They just don’t interact with each other, and if they do, it can be assumed that they are sleeping together, and even then, there is very, very little interaction between a “husband” and “wife.” I tried to explain that women like to be taken to restaurants or movies or the beach. He thought that this meant that these were good places to pick up women. I tried to explain that women like to have nice conversations about the day. He thought that this meant that he should talk about love and ask for permission to sleep with her. I tried to explain that if a woman kisses a man, that doesn’t mean that she wants to sleep with him. He thought that meant that white women kiss men all the time and that this really was her invitation to say that it was okay to come to her bedroom. As you can see, between both of our limited language skills and his preconceived concepts of male/female relationships, we weren’t getting very far. The conversation even got fairly graphic at points when I discovered that one of the reasons that he wanted to marry a white woman was because he had heard from a professor that white women are better in bed (and he added that he was also very good in bed—that he liked many positions—remember that I literally just met this man). I wanted to slap him right there, but restrained. For all of the uncomfortableness surrounding the conversation though, it was a “good” one to have. He has stopped hitting on me, and if I can open his eyes just a little bit to the fact that women deserve to be treated as equals, then that’s good. I kept saying the American and European women are very difficult and very complicated and that we like to be superior to men. I hope I got through to him in some capacity.
Otherwise, these last two weeks have been full of typical Peace Corps ups and downs. I’ve had a couple days (on separate occasions) where I’ve spiked a fever of 102 or so, and let me say that Africa is not a good place to have a fever. It is hot enough as it is, fever plus African heat equals no good. I had a humorous run in with a Canadian my second week. I was in the kitchen washing dishes when I heard someone knocking on my door. I came into the living room and there was my neighbor standing with a young, white girl. I sort of did a double take and immediately started searching my brain about how I should know this person. I thought, “She’s white. I must know her somehow.” Turns out that she is her for about four months helping my neighbors set up a private school in Manigri. She’s also working in some of the neighboring towns, so I probably won’t see her at all, but it was funny that I felt like I should really know her only because she was white. I must say, though, that when I told her that I was from Michigan, she said that she didn’t travel very much and that she didn’t know where that was. What?! You are Canadian and you don’t know where Michigan is?!? We’re buddies. We’re neighbors. We’re amigos. I, of course, forgave her though because she’s Canadian and you just can’t stay mad at those Canucks; they’re too nice.
Things are better than they were that first week. Things are still not great, but things are better; I’m slowly starting to figure out the ways of Manigri, and I’m starting to get busy with school finally beginning. Also, I’m getting to know my neighbors better. I really like my immediate neighbors, and I hope that I can get to know them better in these next two years. They seem really well-traveled (I’m not sure if they are; I know that the wife as been to Canada—she knows snow!), they are clearly trying to improve the schools (they are the ones starting the private school—the husband is the surviellent and the wife is the censeur—a woman in a position of power! ), they’ve cooked for me, they’ve let me use their school for cell phone reception (and they said to take all the time I needed), their children are adorable and they aren’t afraid of me (the other day we were playing some silly game where they would give me their candy wrappers, and I would pretend that I was keeping them but them eventually give them back, they just laughed and laughed—it was really cute. Eventually, they started hiding the wrappers in the front of their underwear before they gave it to me; even that was funny), the father is one of the few men in this country who hasn’t tried to hit on me, and as far as I can tell, they didn’t know John, so I don’t have to be compared against him (as he was quite apparently a super volunteer).
I’m definitely still missing everyone quite a bit, and as I figure out this little adventure of mine, I’m keeping everyone in my thoughts.