How wonderful Monday was this week, I three upon the board a brilliant set of vocabulary, which the students eagerly copied. Animal, the sound it makes, and a common verb associated with the animal. Thus the sound of a duck is a quack and the duck can swim, waddle, or fly. And so on and so forth. I was very excited to have this preliminary vocab development out of the way because this week we would be practicing comparative adjectives and superlatives. Feeling might, I returned home. And then I came to school on Tuesday.
I had known that there would be a phenomenon called Youth Week, but I fused to let it enter my intelligence in such a way that it would play a role in forming my calendar. But it was not to play a formative role but rather a destructive one. I thought for sure I could teach until noon, but at morning coffee I learned that all non-testing grades had school canceled. Arrggghhh, I watched my intellectual property (my syllabus for the week) grow dusty. So I passed the week by coming to school in the morning to see if maybe there would be a chance I could teach only to have my hopes continually dashed, though on a brighter side my students delighted in seeing me and we spoke a bit of English together while they, very kindly, lamented the fact that they could not be in class. I say "very kindly" but a great deal of the actual reason is that the students have to march for hours. This is the phenomenon of youth week. It culminates in every school marching in Independence Square. And the marching needs to be well rehearsed. But also, and I did not now this until Thursday night, the students practice for a talent show, which brings us to...
The gong show of Ngaoundere wherein someone neglected to bring the gong.
Thursday morning Alfred and I went to a dingy quarter of Ngaoundere because I wanted to try a new drink that is only really served in the morning. Bili-Bili is a drink made from millet. But where shah is smooth, almost food like, bili-bill is sharper and foamy if it sits. It is also a mysterious red color that swallows the light. Not great, it is nonetheless fun to drink because it comes in small pails for 500francs and one serves those around and is equally served in turn. And the cups are the bottoms of calabash gourds. We did not take a lot since we arrived late and it was gone for the day, but after grabbing a quick piece of meat some folks there decoded to share with us do we had a taste. An enormous diffence between this place and Mommy-shah. Is that the latter is small and intimate and the former is rowdy and filled with workers about to head out on their day. Also it had a courtyard wherein a constant impromptu market is in session, and in a delightful manner everyone has a calabash resting on the ground before him or her as though they were school children gathered alongside a river bank preparing to release their boats like so many little rascals.
After we ascended the hill back to our quarter and went to school for the daily disappointment of not teaching, I ran into Oliver whom I hadn't seen all week. He proceeded to tell me that the English club would perform that night. I responded enthusiastically but confusedly because I knew nothing of any performance. Turns out that all the schools that would march on the weekend also have talent shows on the thursday before. How I wish I had known since it would have been great fun to plan a whirlwind to some other schools. The event was to begin at six o'clock, but being accustomed to the fact that Cameroonian clocks are all broken, I was at ease when we did not arrive until seven ten. After all, we should get a chair at least. But it then did not begin for another half hour. It was neat to see my students come in and take their seats as well because I never see them outside their school uniforms and they all came very well dressed. It is also interesting to see who travels together outside the classroom. If I had guessed about close friends before that night I would never have paired those who were together. It was also really wonderful to see the older kids in the class watching out for the younger and making room on chairs for them. They're good kids, I suppose, just with ephemeral memories and that is what I struggle to remember myself.
The show began with a traditional dance number by the youngest classes and they performed admirably, and then everything intensified as the em-cee raised his voice to welcome the youth of Nigeria, the name of a five-male breakdance troupe. And who should lead them than my very own Nana, the same young man who broke dance way back when I did my lesson on Rihanna. It was quite thrilling and everyone was watching eagerly. Then came the strangest dance of the evening. The Chadian dance. Out came six or seven boys in garb, the leading one waving an umbrella, and they bobbed up and down to know rhythm I could figure out, and the crowd went wild, they went wild not for the dance but for what was suddenly happening. Chadians poured out of the crowd and were throwing 500, 1000, 2000 franc bills everywhere and this went on for at least eight minutes. Then there was a long series of lip-syncing, called playback in French, which is horrifyingly popular here. The way in which it works is that a group gets together, practices a dance, and then pretends to be the performer. Some are entertaining, but it is the sort of thing that is neat once or twice and in doses of under two minutes. But tens of these shows of five minutes gets unbearable. Intermittent with these entertaintments, came the out-of-tune / step / energy gospel singers, the unique form of Cameroonian entertainment called the NewsCast, and a brilliant brilliant ColPro school day in three minutes. In the style of Complete Works of Shakeseapre, abridged, these students went through all their teachers and the imitations were spot on, from the physical and tonal characteristics of the principal, to the whistle of bell, to the students who are hungry, lazy, sleeping. It was the highlight. Every time my students were out I felt very proud, so that was nice to recognize in myself. Although I am torn because a show like this should, I still feel, be organized outside of school and not have school canceled for it. Then Alfred, Oliver, and I left because our ears hurt. Two hours later when we came back, the show was still going strong and indeed continued until midnight, and that is just too much playback for me.
The marching on Saturday was as you might imagine, hot and dusty and tedious to watch. But I only saw two or three schools. Lycee Classique and ColPro before retiring to a bar with a chief of Buminda who came with me and Alfred and Oliver, driving us around in his military jeep that Nader would have written a sequel to his first book about. Not just unsafe at any speed, but unsafe at no speed.
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