A new year

Let us begin whee everyone is beginning over here in Africa, with a cheery happy new year to the individual and an even heartier wish for a happy new year to the family. There is nothing like the African wish for good health to a family so far distant to remind me of the difference betwixt he and the states. If I know someone, I will ask after them, but because you, dear readers, are either known by me or know me through this particular blog you are, by a fascinating metaphysical contingency, of enormous importance to my daily liturgy of greetings. We are great ones for greetings over here in Africa and the platitudes go on. But of course by my having chosen just now to write platitudes I misrepresent the African greeting, for the wishes of health are far more genuine than any high five and fist bump exchanged in the states, even though to the outside witness the finger snap seems just as casual.

But I was speaking of beginnings. I will admit immediately that I failed to stay awake to welcome the new year, and so I dreamt myself into 2012, which I think bodes well for having a mystical year as opposed to the last when I was wide awake, dancing in a Lima nightclub with countless menopausal women, and thus danced through the year itself, though some of it was rather like dancing in the dark. (Ovid reference: writing poetry that no one reads is like dancing in the dark. See his Tristia, but make no connection, this blog is not my writings from the black sea, from banishment). 

Shall we begin again? The last day of December found the Americans and Canadiens, Phil, June, Mia, Myself, Jack, Val, and the wonderful Anne, Willie (whom I have not seen since I first arrived in Yaounde five months ago) and their son Mika. We had a scrumptious feast of foods: Phil had caught a Nile perch whilst we were on the safari and he cooked it up something delicious, Mia prepared a cucumber and tomato salad, the Fredericks brought a wonderful casserole of squash and cheese, and I had Alfred's wife make a mysterious dish for me. I might have cooked, but since I have shifted my diet to shah and corn fou fou, my fridge contains only eggs, hot sauce, and mustard. I feel awesomely bachelored. She ended up creating a masterpiece of fried plantains with eggs and spices that all gobbled eagerly. And round that new years eve table we sat with great glorious laughter and goofs. Afterward, Anne poured us glasses of a a creamy South African liqueur and we commenced the games. But first you should know about a Cameroonian custom. The young (and sometimes not so) go door to door and pound a drum and best the earth with their leathery foot soles and sing a song demanding gifts, at which the the owner of the house rewards the interruption. A rather nice twisted confluence of Halloween and Christmas Caroling, I do thing. The first game we played was throw streamers around the house, and it was very fun as the streamers are cheap bits of colored paper that unroll spasmodically in the air, and we soon succeeded in capturing each other in harmless shackled of pulped wood. Following this I blew up several balloons (Anne had really come prepared) and we batted them around, usually with the three year old Mika ad our focus and he delighted in animatedly swatting them, but we all, in our various apertures in the living room, swatted and laughed eagerly into the late hour of 21:00. At this, worn out from diving and leaping after balloons and heaving Mika hither and yon, we retired back to the table to play a card game known to Phil and June called, I think, swat or something, like that, which is played a bit like slap jack crossed with UNO, but it delighted us into the late hours of 22:35 at which point we all retired to our various domiciles happy with our time together and none frayed about the edges of attempting to stay up too late. 

What follows is the most boring day of Africa.

I was really excited for the first. I was to go and witness a promotion ceremony at the military camp here in Ngaoundere, where a member of M'baya was earning a promotion. Alfred said he'd pick me up at nine, the starting time. By this time I am, thankfully, more relaxed into the ides that start times in Africa are governed by invisible fairies who bear the stopwatches of commencement and so was fine with leaving for an event at the hour it commenced. But at nine Alfred did not appear, unworried, I continued to wait. But then at nine thirty I saw him approach rather hurriedly. I rushed out to encounter him the slightest bit peeved. It turns out that he thought I would come to him at nine, so there was some confusion, but it soon vanished and we trekked our way easily with his brother to the camp. Part of the way Principal Hamidiko was with us as he was going to a church far out but in the general direction we traced. But once at the military camp, there was nothing happening. And nothing continued to happen for three hours. At noon, I learned that part of the delay was due to the fact that everyone was waiting for the governor of Ngaoundere whose presence was necessary but who had celebrated New Years in a more doused mode than many of us, and he at last tiredly made his appearance. But now I was not feeling so hot. Or rather I was really hot. I'd eaten nothing at morning, expecting to break my fast with Alfred soon after we left the event, but I had also had little to drink that morning as I did not want to have to clench my bladder through a ceremony. But that was when I thought it would be a short ceremony. But now it was one o clock and I sat down on the ledge after buying and eating a packet of crackers. Unfortunately and embarrassingly for Alfred I think, I fell asleep. The ceremony had actually started, but there was no fanfare, no twirling dance of sharply dressed trim men twirling their firearms. Instead there was a lazy procession of too many persons with unattached epaulettes who waited for a commanding officer to slip an insignia through the shoulder clasp and then button it down. That is actually a good bit of ritual connected as it is with the idea of knighthood and a casual slap on the shoulder. But as more and more went and I felt fainter and fainter I suddenly felt Alfred nudge me and motion me to go. He said, kindly and mendaciously, that he needed to go since we had been there do long. It was now 13:40. We walked back to his home and he generously fed me, but unfortunately it was the one African meal I dislike: Achou (a brittle and pokey green with a bitter taste) with cow skin (a delicacy I cannot quite palate) and water fou fou ( gooey and not nearly as good as its cousin corn fou fou--it is made with manioc). And then I was sick in the afternoon. 

But only Sunday was a bummer. School, this week was spectacular not only had my students remembered most of their lessons but they seemed to have studied a little bit and were eager for the week's lesson of modes of transportation. And so playful, too, they were, cheekily telling me that they flew space ships to school that morning. Ha.
Tonight we had M'baya and I felt a bit badly for my thoughts about the promotion ceremony because for the members of the group it was stirring and they took great pride in the fact that one of the speakers of their dialect had been recognized. Turns out that this man I was drinking besides and dancing with is the greatest marksman in Cameroon and is rather famous for it. Ironically he was wearing a t-shirt bearing the phrase "put down your guns...take up your guitars."

Happy new year, readers.