Hollandais (Wednesday, 2011 July 13)

July 14, 2011

I’m in an Airbus 330 watching a movie on the flight to Brussels, which turned out not to be direct but instead a two-parter from Douala to Accra (Ghana), then to Brussels. I had no idea people flew to Ghana from Douala, but lots of people got off, to the point that the flight’s not full right now, so I guess there’s a demand (or maybe they were making a connecting flight?). The movie probably has a name, it’s some "boy is going through middle school and his life sucks" thing, but the subtitles are in Dutch, thus the title of this blog entry. Begrepen?

Boris helped me get to the airport, after he got cockblocked by his girlfriend’s friend. He’s trying so hard and you can just tell he’s not gonna get laid — not that he smells of desperation, but there’s definitely an odor there and neither of his girlfriends are too dense to notice it. It sure was a surprise to hear him talking for hours about how he wanted to knock boots with this chick, only to finally meet her and realize that she’s probably in 3e. (His last girlfriend, who he dumped yesterday because she wasn’t putting out, was at least in 1ere.) Meanwhile he’s trying to set me up with all kinds of women — I made the mistake of commenting on the attractiveness of one yesterday and he keeps calling me "trembleur", when what he doesn’t understand and what I can’t make him understand is that I’m not afraid, not at all, but (like the man says) "There’s nothing in my heart", and that silence makes it difficult to motivate myself to go through all the hassles and negotiations that it requires pour qu’on s’entende, that one understand each other. It’d be bad enough in English, but I have even less desire to do it in French. Thus why I was outside Boris’s room teaching his family how to play Street Fighter a little bit better. Goal 2, I guess?

The airport was a fascinating trip. I spent a lot of time checking out people, looking for the ones that were "one of us", which apparently turns out to mean "science fiction fan-looking types", beards, glasses, white hair, and a pocket full of pens. Stereotyped everyone else, of course — he looks like a former Organization Volunteer; she’s on business; he came to visit a friend; she looks like she’s Gone Native; etc. I can’t wait until I get to a place where people start looking distinct again — like people and not merely extras. Found myself slipping into Special English (i.e. Anglophone accent) when addressing some European dude. I doubt I could have done anything to make him understand me. There was a certain amount of Cameroonian shenanigans around the airport — people outside weighing suitcases, selling bags so you can get under baggage limits, wrapping things in plastic — but inside it was fairly calm, and when I refused things like luggage carts, I got "You don’t have to pay for it!" from insulted-sounding Cameroonian stewards.

I can’t sleep on the plane, even though I’ve had two glasses of wine (which, BTW, come in these adorable little plastic bottles), but I’m a little bit more awake now that I’ve eaten a bit of dinner (took my chances on the salad and the bread; decided to skip the fish in white sauce and the "brioche cheese"). I was really looking forward to this flight, ’cause somehow I got it into my head that I was going to have this huge block of unbroken free time and I was going to be super productive, but that free time is supposed to be sleeping time and I’m not, so I’m probably pretty much fucked. On the up side, neither the ear infection that I may or may not have has been giving me any problems, nor does the giant sucking foot wound seem terribly infected. (Take your doxy, kids. It’s a wonder drug.) I have mosquito bites all the fuck over, most annoyingly on my knee, and I itch so much. But I made it out alive and that’s worth a hell of a lot.

The flight ladies on this red-eye are surly-looking, not sure if that goes with the flight time. I think I’m sitting next to a Cameroonian Notable — he doesn’t speak English hardly at all and he’s got that air of "The world will arrange itself for my benefit". There’s a pair of cute French chicks sleeping in the row behind me. Whereas I haven’t shaved in three days and I think I might look like a lumberjack.

I had this fascinating moment where I realized that at the airport, Boris was lost in a world he didn’t really get; where suddenly the norms made automatic sense to me, and I could swim instead of staggering around on fins. Thought to myself: "I’m an Organization Volunteer, motherfucker, and I don’t give a shit about the rules."

Boris saw me off at the gate. I waited until he was gone, and then I carefully set down my backpack, reached inside. Took the Cameroonian wallet, with my Cameroonian identity, from my pocket — switched it with my American self from the bag. Is that really all it takes?

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Vacances (Sunday, 2011 July 10)

July 10, 2011
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I’m writing this from Boris’s apartment in Douala, where I am kicking it for a few days before flying home. I think technically we’re not supposed to be here if we can avoid it, and certainly not while clandoing for a few days to start your vacation early, but Boris is from my village, and he insisted — "At least three days" — so I couldn’t very well refuse, could I? I’m just being a good Cameroonian. That I love cities, and want to get an insider’s view of this one, is just gravy.

I think I packed everything I wanted. I’m a little afraid I’m going to forget something, but it isn’t the same kind of panic that I had when I was preparing to embark on this whole two year adventure. People can mail things, or you can just buy them, and most of the things I brought from home, I don’t use anyhow. I’m a little worried I’ll fail the people who asked me to bring things for them — either Volunteers, who asked me to bring (for example) hard drives, or Cameroonians who asked me to see if I can’t buy on their behalf computers or cameras or whatever. There are a few, the ones I love best, who have asked for adorable things. Sure, Samuel, I’ll bring you a Rubik’s cube! Sure, Guillaine, I’ll get you some hand sanitizer! Whatever you ask!

I’ve been moody the last few days. I don’t think this is the same "I got dumped" blues I’ve been coping with for the last few months — at least, I hope not, since as Allison says, it’s poor form to spend more time moping than the relationship itself lasted. Instead I think it’s a preview of what I’ll have from leaving this place for good in a year. Partly it’s melancholy, even though this time I know I’ll be coming back. Another part is anxiety coming from a voyage into the unknown. Home is familiar, and I tell myself that this will just be like that time in college when seeing the New York skyline again at winter break, I cried. But even familiar means potentially unknown, and nobody likes the unknown, right? (So then why am I a Volunteer?) Let’s be honest — most probable outcome is that I’ll bore people to death with too many stories that start with "In Africa, …". But I worry about fitting in, about being a foreigner even at home. Service changes you — we all agree about this — starting with our liver, but other organs too. And if home is where the heart is…

Of course, this is all coming from someone who usually goes out of his way to be different from other people. And I’m still planning on wearing a boubou on the flight home. So maybe it’s just the more mundane worries of trying to fit everyone and everything into three and a half short weeks. Given an even more finite timespan than normal, I’m even more terrified of a spare moment than usual, with the predictable result that I’ve already double- and triple-booked some days. Shit! This is why I have a calendar! And I just realized I haven’t contacted Garwood at all! What are you doing, comp sci??

This week’s advice: take a deep breath, and think about root beer floats. I’m going to eat and drink so much, guys. I told Barbara I was going to put on at least 10 kg, which is going to take a certain amount of effort, but I think I’m up to the challenge. I’m going to make hamburger smoothies. I’m going to double fist chocolate soy milk and raspberry vinaigrette. It’s going to be the land of roses.

It’s raining here in Douala — rainy season, you know — which is rendering the terrible, soup-like climate downright bearable. We’re in a neighborhood with a slight Fulbe presence and we ate dinner at a restaurant where we sat on a mat on the floor. You can see the airport from the window, and periodically you can hear a plane taking off.

"I’m sorry, mum and dad and bro
I couldn’t stay. I had to go.
To London. With someone.
Before I come undone.
‘Cause where I’m from’s a humdrum town and I don’t want to die."

—Vanilla Swingers, "I’ll Stay Next To You"

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Sister (Friday, 2011 June 24)

June 24, 2011

I know I haven’t been writing much lately. I’ve been traveling a lot and the other thing is I just haven’t been as stressed out recently, maybe because I’ve been traveling a lot. And if I’m not stressed, I don’t write as much.

One of the more tiring things about this country is being around people who don’t really get it. Maybe it’s Westernization; I don’t think it’s the language because my host family in Bafia is as reassuring as the family I’m among right now, the "family" of an Anglophone lady named Barbara who started a conversation with me on the way down to Yaoundé. She’s about my age, married, no kids, job with a bank, and the "rest" of her family is in Yaoundé; this is just a bonus offshoot. She’s my big sister now, and I’m her little brother. Her "sister" Patience is a teacher and her "mother" Thèrese is a vice principal in a bilingual high school here in Bafoussam. Everyone knows about Organization Volunteers and how we work; a Volunteer named Jill was here once. I’m picking up a bit of Pidgin, the grammar of which could probably be written on the back of a business card, but the vocab of which is a little slower going. "Hear" can mean "to understand". "Chop" is "food" or "to eat". Thus Timothy’s nickname for Jake, "Boss Man Go Chop". Also, a great phrase to know in Pidgin: "Ah go chop your pussy, na?" "I’m gonna eat your cat, OK?" We’re breaking open a bottle of wine now, which dovetails nicely with the last week of Hilton Happy Hours, sachets, and box wine. I’m gonna spend the night here; as "mom" says, "An African house is never too small."

Passed through Bafia a week ago to see if I could see the new stage, and to see my host family. Nadege just composed the Bac, I’m rooting for her. Interesting cultural side note, Nadege used "air guillemets" when we were talking about a certain Volunteer and his "host sister"/ex-girlfriend. Astride is still.. Astride, and Hyacenthe and Christelle are still there. My host family got a new stagiaire, who was sick while I was there, and once I got chased off the grounds of the training center, I retreated into the role of protective family member. Our new stagiaire is like a part of my family now, just as thoroughly as Barbara. The new stagiaire says Astride just keeps telling her about all the guys from the stage that she wants to have sex with. Some things never change!

At first I was a bit skeptical of the new stage, but what I saw of them on balance gave me a certain amount of confidence. They’re about to embark on site visit, and we got a couple near us (including the redhead Preston), so I might be able to show the new kids around the block. I’m excited to see how this all plays out! We need more nerds in my region.

I spent the last week in Yaoundé for Mid-Service, a set of medical tests that revealed only that I haven’t been trying hard enough to get intestinal parasites. We’re all very disappointed. After Jenny performed it drunkenly once on me, I’ve started wearing my hair in a braid, which looks slightly less ridiculous than the ponytail I have been wearing since I got here, and slightly less "aging ungracefully" than the hair-down style I default to otherwise.

One other somewhat interesting thing is the weird American that apparently passed through Foumban (tourist destination in the West) and was unable to purchase some traditional art pieces because he was refused. Two different Foumban art vendors have contacted me to ask me if I can act as an intermediary. The American in question called me and spoke to me a little in a French with an accent I couldn’t figure out at all, like the kind of accent you might expect to find on a German used to American English who was trying to learn French. He asked to speak only French so he could improve his French — which wasn’t too bad; verb conjugations were very fluid and there were no awkward pauses. Maybe he was reciting a preprepared speech. The whole situation tweaks me in a bad way — something doesn’t add up here. Both vendors? An American with a distinctly non-American French accent? Someone who was unable to buy something? I’m terribly uneasy, already trying to limit the damage and trying to figure out the "angle". Some kind of reverse-419? Who’s conning who? But for the moment I have very little information so all I can do is wait.

So all in all it’s life as usual in Cameroon. Summer vacation is the best! Lots of love to you all 🙂

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Vomir (Thursday, 2011 June 2)

June 2, 2011
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[I think Sandiego is a much better name than Santiago, don’t you? Sure you do.]

Dear Diary!

We made our way back to Mountain Reflex the next day, and it was much quieter this time. Ran into Bennett and Amanda, and of course Cherry Drop, at the Transit House and decided to splurge on a fancy-ish offworld dinner. There are only a couple fancy restaurants in Mountain Reflex, and Cherry Drop’s already jaded of all of them, but we outnumbered her so we went to the Steak House. Correspondingly, we ordered steak. For a beverage, I ordered juice — hold the sachet.

Cherry Drop was ranting about Las Vegas or some other attraction on Earth when Amanda caught my eye. "Cherry Drop says you stayed at her place last time you were here."

Uh-oh, I thought. "Yeah."

"She says you were in a bad state. That –" (her voice dropped) "– you kept talking about the meaning of love and stuff like that."

Thanks, Cherry Drop, I thought to myself. Still, it could have been worse. And why had Amanda’s voice gone quiet like that? Was she trying to preserve my dignity (to what effect?), or did she want to talk more personally about that particular subject? I didn’t really think I could handle that conversation, so I dodged. "God is love," I said, "Statistically speaking." Amanda looked momentarily forlorn, but there wasn’t really much I could do for her, so I let it go.

I had hoped to bounce back to my post via a circuitous short-hop route instead of just taking the shuttle, but the short-hoppers were full and I ended up biting the bullet and just taking the shuttle with Jamie and Bennett. They were in a sleeper car, whereas I was in "first class". I found my seat across from a bunch of offworlder tourists speaking what I assumed was German, with the most attractive among them throwing up into a bag. Amateurs, I thought, as I threw my stuff onto a luggage rack a little ways away. I dropped my bag on my seat and left to hang out with Jamie and Bennett until the shuttle started moving and they started to check tickets.

"Do you want any sleeping pills, Sandiego?" Jamie asked me.

"No thanks — I guess I gotta draw the line somewhere." However, note to self: you can stay awake if you want to when on the effect of this particular medication, but you will have no memory whatsoever of what happened.

Not too much longer I stepped across a Zhenae with sen appendages in a posture of boredom, and seated myself across from the tourists. One of them started up a conversation with me. His name was Sebastian and his attractive vomiting friend was named Silki, and as I had guessed, they were German. They were visiting Zhen to see the marriage of one of their friends, who had fallen in love with a Zhenae. "He’s one of us," Sebastian said, "We’re Christfellows."

And they were. They were all so young — 19 and 20, barely out of school, and young, fresh, and optimistic. By contrast I was covered in Zhenae soil, weathered, and in a tailspin.

"I just can’t get over how young you are," I said, enunciating clearly — Sebastian’s English was pretty good but Silki’s was a little less fluid. "All I can think about is the mistakes I’ve been making lately."

"Such as?" Sebastian prompted.

This gave me pause. "Well, I licked my friend’s neck at the party the other night. While he was flirting with a woman." But then I didn’t really have anything else. Praise be, I’m not quite broken or jaded enough yet to think of falling in love as a mistake, and nothing that came afterwards has really been my fault. Well, obviously the alcohol abuse. But like I told Jamie and Buddy the next day, I don’t regret any of it.

We played cards for the rest of the night. Somehow I managed to sleep sitting up. The next morning, somehow I didn’t talk to the Germans at all until Sebastian bid me farewell with a "God bless you". Normally I find that sort of thing trying, but this time I surprised myself with an honest grin and a sincere thank you.

I’m finally back at post now most of a day later. You know how travel on Zhen is, at its finest, boring? Well, today it wasn’t. I’m really exhausted. There’s been some interesting news surrounding the upcoming election but it’ll have to wait. I’m too cynical to think that I’ll get my wish about real change on this planet, but you never know, right?

Sincerely, ever your friend,

Sandiego

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Pardon (Tuesday, 2010 May 31)

June 1, 2011

My last post provoked an email from Suzanne, which is what I was hoping for, but it was an offended email, which was decidedly not what I wanted. She called me on a couple of important things:

  1. Some of the stuff I made up is probably legitimately offensive to someone of the appropriate faith. She cites the example of the firehose full of holy water. Holy water is serious business.
  2. The fact that I made up a satirical Church visit but used things that actually happened obscures the cultural differences that led me to be so puzzled and shocked. This isn’t like with the other fiction where I’m just obscuring my own personal drama — as an Organization volunteer I should be working to facilitate the exchange of cultures, not sidestepping the issue with misdirection. (And Gus would probably say: not judging, but that’s another argument.)

I’m terribly sorry for any offense my writing may have caused. I’m not religious but I balk at causing offense to my friends who are, because they provide me a view on a side of humanhood that I fundamentally don’t understand. And perhaps joking through my ignorance is not the wisest thing.

The fundamental grain of truth in this piece is the sensation of being present at a variety show. This isn’t necessarily the fault of the service or the congregation; if I were more familiar with Christian and Catholic traditions, I’d probably feel a lot less "lost at sea". But between not understanding the ceremony and the tendency of random sections of the audience to burst into choral song, I found the experience not unlike a Saturday morning cartoon, turned sideways.

As for the rest:

  • There really were ushers of some kind helping people find seats and quieting down the occasional private conversation. I really did see one wearing a Bluetooth earpiece and a Ché wristband, though he didn’t seat us and I doubt the Bluetooth was connected to anything.
  • There really was a teenage boy named Donald selling Bibles and crucifixes analogously to a hot dog vendor at a baseball game.
  • The organist ended up abandoning his keyboard and using instead a traditional wooden instrument similar to a xylophone.
  • The vows during the baptism really did include one to abandon vampirism and sorcery. The priest had to explain what vampirism was, and explained that it wasn’t his personal vow that he had stuck in there, but part of a Church-mandated set of vows (he even showed us a little pamphlet). I’m guessing this isn’t done in the States?
  • There really was a strange march thing that may have been ceremonial. I have no idea.
  • There was also a dance number which I got pulled into. It involved horse’s tails, which are traditional ceremonial objects. I don’t know the significance.
  • There really was a sermon/lecture about the emptiness of the happiness of the children dancing, or something like that. I have a hard time following along at Church because of the language and cultural barriers, so I have no idea what was really happening here. I came away with the impression that maybe he was saying that without being baptized, their joy was hollow because the presence of God in their lives was insufficient, but again, no idea. The priest really did admonish us to not play "Petit Pays" ("Little Country") and another well-known popular musician that night (but I forget which one).
  • There really were two lines for communion, one of which being manned by a priest from a neighboring village. I added "For your convenience"; originally they just said that the newly baptized were to take communion up front, and that "les anciens chrêtiens" ("former Christians" — i.e. those who weren’t newly baptized) were to take theirs with the other priest in back.
  • I really was informed that the priest’s son was among those baptized. I didn’t ask for clarification. There was a small boy wearing a bright white suit but I have no idea if he was the child in question.
  • There definitely wasn’t an M.C.
  • There definitely wasn’t stand-up comedy.
  • There definitely wasn’t a firehose of holy water. Holy water was applied appropriately as far as I could tell.
  • There definitely wasn’t a game show.
  • There definitely isn’t a "Christ-Vault", although they do keep the communion supplies in a wall that shows a portrait of Jesus [pictured], and they actually lock the compartment with a key. Apart from that, the communion was treated with respect and not at all like the highlight of a variety hour.
  • The line "covered in the blood of Christ" is occasionally seen on Anglophone bumper stickers and the like — I think the original wording is "I am covered in the blood of Jesus". I thought it would be a good fit here. Apparently the reasoning is that if the blood of Jesus cleans you of your sins and is holy and good, more of it would be better. At least one Westerner said that it sounded to her like "I have the blood of Jesus on my hands" — like the speaker was guilty of something.
  • The hottest woman at that party really was Hervé’s girlfriend of three years and she really did look a little like Carmen Sandiego.

Once again, I’m sorry about any offense I gave or misunderstanding I caused.

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Église (Sunday, 2011 May 29)

May 30, 2011

[This should probably be tagged "fiction", but it doesn’t fit with the other fiction, and I’ve wanted to write this for a long time. Names were made up to protect the ludicrous. I don’t usually go to this kind of service in the States, so I don’t have a basis for comparison, so this might be a "religion is weird" piece or it might be an "Africa is weird" piece. Your call. N.B. the M.C. and the holy water thing are made up; see the following post for further details.]

I got up early on a Sunday to go to church, mostly to see a baptême, baptism, but also to pick up chicks. We got there a little late; service was supposed to start at 8, but we rolled in around 8:40. The ushers were readily identifiable because of their sashes, baby blue or pink depending. The one who showed us to our seats wore a Bluetooth earpiece and a Ché wristband.

"Ladies and gentleman!" the M.C. announced. "Your patience please! We’re suffering from some technical difficulties. Our organist is patching his keyboard." Sure enough, the poor sod was unscrewing the case of his electric keyboard, gripping a wire in his teeth like a seamstress with pins. I wouldn’t have wanted to be him. "We will begin shortly. In the meantime, how about some refreshing music from the Choral Group of Lower Hauts-Plateaux! And a one, and a two, and a one-two-three-four.."

A song started up, something in traditional African evangelical style, very call-and-response and with a tangibly familiar melody. People milled, chatting and taking pictures. A vendor worked the crowd, selling Bibles and chains. I looked around; the stage was silent, but there was a felt banner in blue and green that read "THE JESUS AND MARY SUNDAY MORNING VARIETY HOUR".

The choral group got through two or three numbers before the situation was fixed. The M.C. bounded back up onto the stage and, ever charming, continued again:

"Ladies and gentleman! We’re terribly sorry for the delay, but if you could just have a seat. I think we’re ready to begin." Assorted shuffling as people found their places. "Aaallll riiiight!! How’s everyone feeling today?"

Scattered applause and ululating.

"I can’t hear you!! How are you FEELING????"

Applause, whistling, cheering.

"All right!!! Are we ready to talk about GOD????"

More applause. Foot stamping, rhythmic hand-clapping. Faintly, a chant: "Je-sus! Je-sus!"

"Whoo! All right! I can hardly wait — we’ve got a great service lined up for you today! We’ve got a guest appearance from Father Fomo, a skit by the All-Star Hauts-Plateaux Players, and best of all — a baptism!!" Cheering, applause. "And now, to get us all started, our very own Father who art in Cameroon — a man who is just covered in the blood of Christ! It’s my honor to introduce — Faaaaatheeeer Kenmoe!!!!"

Polite applause as the priest takes to the stage. The organist plays him to the podium, and Lighting follows him with a spot. He hugs the M.C. — they touch temples, then again, and again. They shake hands, and finally the priest is ready to perform.

"All right!! Funny story, I took a trip last week to Bafoussam, but I’m so glad to be back. Travel’s really hard here in Cameroon, wouldn’t you say? Finding a car was tough! I had a real… Devil of a time!" Rim shot. Laughter, applause. "Seriously, folks! I had to hitch a ride with some… Holy Rollers!" Rim shot. "We’re just getting started, folks! Why don’t you give a big Hauts-Plateaux welcome to our All-Saints Marchers!"

There’s a drum beat and the organist is playing something peppy and the children of the congregation are walking down the aisle. It’s a strange kind of cadence, not a real march, but a procession with steps every few beats. It’s executed with military precision as the boys and girls, all in some kind of hooded robe, come up to the stage, then stop, then turn left, then take a step, then bow.

"Wasn’t that great? Thanks so much for marching, guys. Such discipline. You know what that puts me in the mood for? — how about a round of Father, Son, Holy Ghost!?"

The audience really loves this idea. Their wild applause is accentuated by a light show, the spots going crazy as red and blue flash. An audience member is selected somehow and she makes it up to the stage as the clapping turns into more chanting. She gets all the way up to the stage before everyone calms down.

I try to follow the rules of the game but my French isn’t up to the task. It seems like some kind of Biblical trivia mixed with a kind of shell game. The priest reads a Bible quote off of a note card, then puts it into a Bible, which is then mixed up with three identical Bibles. Then everyone quiets and the priest asks — "So, Madame Noubissi — which is it? Father, Son, or Holy Ghost?"

The audience is calling out suggestions and Madame Noubissi, the quintessential Cameroonian "mama", is struggling to follow some of them, even as she looks happy to be on stage and participating. She calls out in patois with someone, presumably a member of her family, but doesn’t seem happy with the answer. Finally she turns to the priest and says, "Son."

"Son?"

"Son."

"You’re sure now? You say it’s Son?"

"Yes! Son!"

The priest turns to the Bibles, and, as the tension builds, flings his arm. The Bible on stage right flies open. The organist plays a sad little tune.

"Oh, that’s too bad! It was Holy Ghost! That’s too bad — but as a consolation prize, take this beautiful handmade wooden cross, courtesy of Chez Mbougang! Let’s give her a hand!" The woman walks down the aisle to her seat to polite applause and the show’s theme song as the table with the Bibles rolls off onto the wings. Another choir gets up and starts singing as the organist plays another song.

"Wow, how exciting! I was nearly convinced for a second there. And did you see her face? She was happy and joyous. But it turns out that that happiness and joy was empty." Lighting is really working it — reds and yellows and a spot as everything dims. "And although you dance, and the organist plays some def jams, in my heart, I am beating a funeral drum. Because I know that your joy is empty, that there is no heart for your happiness. You! Marchers! You call that marching! Everyone wants to march but I’ve never even seen half of you at practice! And you! Organist! You didn’t think to even try out your keyboard before bringing it on stage? And you! Choir! Some of you just showed up in street clothes!" I’m not really following his train of logic here but I’m feeling a little offended all the same. I look around but the rest of the congregation is looking thoughtful and a few are chuckling. Is this a sermon? "And tonight you’ll all go home to celebrate your new baptism and you’ll put on loud music like Little Country and Tom Reynolds and you’ll dance! You’ll dance! Not one of you will go home and turn off the music and say ‘let’s just sing God’s music, that will be fine’! I just want you to know that if you go home and put on loud music, your new blessings are instantly cancelled! So forget about it!"

The M.C. bounds onto the stage and the priest tosses him the mic. "You heard the man! Let’s get baptised! Boys and girls, come on up!" Lots of milling around follows as many people, including some adults, come up to the stage and form if not a line, at least an ordered mass. Most of them are wearing all-white ensembles. Someone points out to me the priest’s son, a serious-looking boy wearing a white blazer. They all turn to face the audience and the priest leads them through a bunch of vows. The baptized swear that they believe in God, the Eternal; that they follow the doctrines of the Catholic Church; to do God’s work in their daily lives; and incidentally to give up vampirism and sorcery. They all look very solemn.

"That was great, guys!" shouts the M.C. "All right, Father Kenmoe! Let ‘er rip!" And suddenly the priest appears on the floor carrying a giant firehose. He’s spraying the assembled with what I presume is holy water and he’s got an ear-to-ear grin on his face as he works the hose back and forth. He’s staring right at me. Some of the baptized flinch in spite of themselves, but none of them run or laugh, and even after the water stops they’re standing there still looking solemn and as holy as you can be while sopping wet. The audience is cheering wildly and stamping their feet.

"How exciting! Let’s all congratulate the new Christians! Now remember what the Father said about that music, guys! Now, let’s all be good Christians and salute each other in the spirit of God!"

This is my favorite part of the service. You just reach out and squeeze the hands of people all around you. It’s the only decidedly human thing about these events. They seem like they’re saying something but even if I knew what to say in English, I certainly have no idea how to say it in French, so I just smile broadly, mime their hand positions, and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

"Wasn’t that nice?" the M.C. continues. "Why, times like these I just feel so in touch with the Word of God. It reminds me of the time that –" He’s interrupted by a clanging bell. "Oh boy! You know what that means –"

"COMMUNION TIME!" shouts the audience.

"That’s right! And for that, we need –"

"THE CHRIST-VAULT!" shouts the audience. And they wheel it out, a giant picture of Jesus with a dial where his heart would be, bathed in the finest lightshow my little village has to offer. They turn the dial this way and that, and at last they swing open the door and they pull out plates of wafers and bottles of wine. The audience is already getting into position. "For your convenience, there’s another communion line in the back for those extant Christians out there! New Christians, up here with Father Kenmoe please!"

As for me, I got my picture taken with the Virgin Mary, bought a package of waferettes, and followed Boris to the nearest party, celebrating the baptism of one Hervé-Michel. There was lots of food and more than a little alcohol, but that sort of thing seemed perfectly normal by now — also, a lot of dancing to the music we’d been encouraged not to play. There was a startlingly attractive lady there who looked a little like Carmen Sandiego, but it turned out to be Hervé’s girlfriend of three years, so, probably better to leave that sort of thing alone.

https://cameroon.betacantrips.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/DSCN8472-rot270-scale0.25.jpg

Communion stuff is stored in here.

https://cameroon.betacantrips.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/DSCN8443-rot270-scale0.25.jpg

It’s important to wear your finest wizard robes on the day of a baptism.

https://cameroon.betacantrips.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/DSCN8489-rot270-scale0.25.jpg

I have no idea who these people are but they sure look rich, don’t they?

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Genre (Tuesday, 2011 May 24)

May 24, 2011

You can’t write a Woman’s Studies paper on grammatical gender in nouns. You just can’t. Masculine and feminine nouns are an orthographic issue, not a social one, and nowhere is this clearer than the fact that in French, the word for vagina is masculine (le vagin). It’s just like spelling — there’s no objective, logical reason that "through" shouldn’t be spelled "throo" or "thru" — but the language has evolved in a certain way and you have to respect that. Get it wrong and you look unsophisticated. Accordingly, today’s word is genre, meaning gender, and it’s le genre.

I’ve been getting it wrong a fair amount lately with some surprising nouns — la forêt, but le verre. As a general rule of thumb you can guess from the ending — -tion or -sion is always feminine, for example, and so is -té, but -isme is always masculine — but then there are a bunch of exceptions and not-quite rules and models that you internalize — like the oft-suggested rule-of-thumb that -e is feminine. Some important ones to remember are une fois, one time, le lycée, and le marché. And then there are some minimal pairs that I tend to find baffling: une boisson, a drink, but un poisson, a fish. Le soir, the evening, but la nuit, night. La tasse, cup, but le verre, glass.

Flashback to stage, a conversation in my remedial French class with Hilarion and also Jenny and Ryan, who also hadn’t made their level — Hilarion asks what genre of spouse we would like. We exchange confused glances — is he trying to feel us out for homosexuality (still illegal as far as I know)? But no, Hilarion’s asking us what kind of person we’d like in the English sense of genre — drama, comedy, science fiction, horror, etc. I haven’t heard anyone else use this word in this sense since then — instead they use type or qualité, which could be translated as "kind".

Today we had conseil de classe, which means going over the report cards and deciding, for each student, whether they should progress to the next year, stick around in the same class for another year, or be excluded from the school. It’s about as menial as it sounds, but it’s a lot better than rempli‘ing the report cards in the first place or their accompanying livrets, which are like report cards but are submitted when a student takes a nationwide exam, I think with the idea that the graders can try to figure out whether the student knows what he’s talking about or not. It’s hard to fault Cameroon for its documents, since they encourage information flow and transparency in a way that is sorely lacking, but on the other hand I glanced at a page of student grades and noticed that a student could have a sexe of G, F, or M. I know it’s just a trivial inconsistency, but I’m kind of charmed by the idea that Cameroon has three different genres of sexes.

Conseil de classe is interesting by itself for the revealing look into the grades of the student body. 10 is nominally passing, but because we’re en brousse we passed students with 9 or above, as long as their number of unjustified absences was less than 50 (hours over the entire year). 12 or above is tableau d’honneur, and 14 or above is encouragements, and at either one you get nominated for (lycée) scholarship. Despite the massacre I delivered unto my students, the large majority of at least my 4e students advanced to 3e. I only saw one student in the three classes we conseiled that had above a 14 average — and that was Parfait, one of the boys who comes here all the time.

Conseil de classe marks the last of my official duties as a teacher in the school year 2010-2011, and I’m simultaneously thrilled about my newfound free time, nervous that I won’t be able to find something to do with it, and terrified that I’ll still have way too much to do before upcoming visits to Yaoundé and between all my vacation travel. I’ve been playing a lot of Advance Wars and if I had any Chuck left I’d probably be watching that too. The Boys keep feeding the cat things, which is fine except when he horks them right back up, which is not fine because the Boys are long gone at that point and I get to clean it up. We’ve already started doing some kind of club informatique on Thursdays from 12-15h, and my goal is that the students each produce something creative and original, even if it’s just a drawing using the GIMP. But by and large things are much more quiet, and I’m optimistic that come September, I’ll be somewhat un-burnt-out, ready to be a teacher again for another 10 months.

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Choir Concert (Wednesday, 2011 May 18)

May 19, 2011
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[Here’s another one from Timothy. N.B. laïque means more-or-less "secular"; also, the exchange rate is roughly 500 francs to the dollar.]

Donfack approached me in the teachers’ office: "Oh, Professeur, mon cher," which is how he always addresses me, making me doubt sometimes that he even knows my name. He teaches French part time, and though it’s a public school and as such officially laïque he on occasion wears his little white collar. But then again, he still in the process of training to become a priest, meaning that the collar is technically fashion and holds no power. Not yet.

Having not yet taken his vows might also explain all the young women I see in his company.

"There’s a choir concert tomorrow," Donfack told me. "At three in the afternoon. You should come." Tomorrow then being a Saturday, all I had planned was to sit on the toilet and wash my clothes in a bucket. I told him, "I’d love to," which may have been an overstatement.


As on most Fridays in the village, I left the school at four, stopping by Chez Hombre for a box of cheap Spanish wine on the way home. As though I were still going through the moments of the life I left behind to come here. Back then I’d scoot over to Cork, geek out with the clerk on the new shipment from Argentina or Catayluñia, settle on something reasonable from Southern France and call it a day. I’d whip-up a little seared Mahi-Mahi, watch a Netflix with the old lady, give her a good old, red-blooded American roll in the hay and pass out with a sticky crotch and the empty bottle rolling on the warped hardwood floor. It was routine, but in the best possible way.

The routine is still there, sad and atrophied, it is no less necessary to tell myself, "this is normal. You are living your life. Have a good weekend, you’re free." So on this Friday evening I ate my bean sandwich with relish and drank my two-dollar liter of wine and watched a movie that I’d seen ten times already until the power went out and I stirred in bed as dogs howled and my neighbor yelled at her kids.


The next day I waited until three to walk up the hill to the community center. A little after three-thirty, Donfack arrived on the back of a moto-taxi. I reach out my hand, but he pushed it aside, and pulled me to him. We touch temples, one, then the other, then back again. He was wearing his collar that afternoon. "Professeur, mon cher."

He complained that there had been some scheduling problems — the village elites were meeting at the Chief’s palace — and the concert was being pushed back an hour. I turned to look about, turned back to Donfack, but he was already walking off with two young women in remarkably tight pants.


Down at Hôtel Kuchi I took a seat on the terrace. The terrace behind the hotel was at street level, but the ground dropped suddenly from the top of the hill where the road was built so that, sitting there, you overlook a small courtyard with a papaya tree in the center and remnants from an unfinished expansion of the hotel. The hill then slopes down even further into Quartier Confort in the valley below. The mountains on the far side of the valley make up the horizon — hundreds of mud brick houses bowled in between — so that on cooler mornings in the rainy season, fog settles into the valley, sinking an entire neighborhood under a lake of mist. Despite the piles of gravel and exposed re-bar it was perhaps the most beautiful view in the village. I ordered a beer.

Donfack had been right about the meeting at the Chief’s palace. Just after four o’clock I saw my first victim, the Under Chief from Famtsuet. I recognized, chiefly, his leopard-print hat from the Chief’s Christmas party the year before. He floated out onto the terrace and looked in my direction. I put my hands to my chest and bowed my head, but he didn’t acknowledge me. Perhaps he hadn’t recognized me. He was most certainly drunk.

A second man arrived wearing a pink Oxford shirt and gold, aviator-style sunglasses and followed by his entourage: three well-dressed women (tailored pagne ensembles and natural hair extensions) and a man wearing the ill-fitting suit and stubby tie of a personal driver. The man was visibly drunk as well and argued with the hostess over the price of two rooms. I paid for my beer and left.


Back at the community center Donfack gabbed my hand and pulled me along to have my photo taken with the choirs. I learned that the night’s event was not just a choir concert, but a choir competition: a Battle of the Choirs. He asked if I would sit on the jury. I didn’t want to. I never wanted to do those sorts of things: judging competitions, speaking at teachers’ meetings and the like. But something about the would-be priest — that damned collar… I don’t even believe in a god, but there was still something about the little square of white staring at me like a buck-toothed smile beneath an Adam’s apple nose. "I’d love to," I said.

The first two hours were uneventful. I checked out the decorations: hundreds of handmade paper flags and taped to the wall behind the stage were the words Festival des Chorals in large block letters made of pink toilet tissue. The two MC’s, one short, one tall, both in suits-too-large hyped into wireless mics that chewed their words into an incomprehensible mash of phonemes, static and hum. It went into this phase-shift jag and threw so much distortion that, mixed with the hedonist beating of hand drums, I was reminded of the old jungle-industrial dance tracks JD used to subject me to in high school. At one point the mic picked up the radio. I sat in the front row beside the other two jurists. Each choir made a similar show of dancing up the center aisle and onto the stage. They sang, they lifted their hands, they marched in circles around the stage. The younger choirs incorporated some charming step-shuffle-turn-step-kick routines into their acts. The choirs were mostly women or young girls, and what few young men there were refused to sing, so that the singing on a whole leaned toward the shrill and joyful cries of altos agreeing on a pitch as indecently as pedestrians agree on direction when crossing a street together.

The fifth choir, a group from Balengou, was lead by an old man with a hunched back and a tattered pinstripe suit. His leather shoes were so old they’d no longer hold a shine. He was missing several of his more noticeable teeth, but he belted his simple pentatonic harmonies proudly and with force enough to soar above the voices of his significantly younger choir. The songs the choir had chosen struck me as what I would consider classic choir music — that is, European in style as opposed the the call-and-return style typical of African choir music. The audience, which had grown considerable, whooped and hollered. People stood up and danced up the aisle toward the stage and dropped bills into a cardboard box set at the foot of the stage for that very purpose. When they had finished, the choir exited by the side door, but the MC bounded onto the stage and grabbed the hunched old choir director by the arm and made him take a bow. The old man smiled his colander smile and absorbed the crowd’s affections.

By the time the choir from Saint Jean Bosco parish took the stage, I was checking the time on my cell phone, fearing my inevitable need to urinate. Their last song was a reprise of Ave Maria, during which they broke out their secret weapon: the Virgin herself.


There was a time when I imagined that African culture might in some way resemble African-American culture. Whether it was prejudice or hopeful naiveté that could make me overlook what effect massive diaspora might have on a people’s culture, I can’t be sure. But thinking that an African choir, for no other reason than their black skin, would hit the stage and belt out gospel music, or any other style I’d be familiar with for that matter, was a grave misconception and, frankly, a disappointment. There was no gospel. No clapping on the two and the four. Could it have been that colonization by the French had sucked the soul out of Africa, or had it been the four centuries of slavery and oppression in America that forged the black community into our country’s dominant cultural reactor? It was a question best left for another day. I sat there in my plastic chair with my legs crossed at the knee and a rapidly filling bladder, and stared at the Virgin of Saint Bosco parish. She looked around fourteen, draped in a white shroud, a rosary clutched tightly in her fist, a look of infinite purity and conviction impressed upon her face. The crowd went nuts, as though it were the Holy Mother herself had descended into the room — the heavenly hosts beside her doing cartwheels. Forget that Mary wasn’t a Catholic, or that — statistically speaking — there was a fifty-fifty chance this fourteen-year-old girl wasn’t even a virgin. None of that mattered. It was the symbol. Here it was all about the symbols. I was just beginning to realize that.


We are a symbol-driven people. All of us. They give us meaning. What’s shocking is how well they do. In Cameroon it’s an honorable title from a village chief, a fetish, or an Armani tag sewn to the outside cuff of a second hand suit. For us "modern" Americans, it’s "War on Terror!" the brand name on your cell phone or whether or not you spend an extra 50 bucks for a pair of hemp sandals so you can feel good that some kid in the Philippines makes an extra seventy-five cents a day than the kid who sews swooshes on Tiger Woods’ hats. Money that kid then spends on a knock-off Dulce & Gabbana t-shirt from China.

I’ve been thinking about writing and what it is that make a good story, if any such thing is likely to stagger forth from my trembling, eczema-ridden fingers. Is it realism? Is it a moral, or some kind of theme that pats these happenings into an edible whole? The two are often mutually exclusive. Either way, make of this what you will. These things happened and then something else followed. A whole mess of shit preceded it all, most of which we will never know. I can’t tie it all together without feeling like I’m dumbing it down.


There was an intermission after the sixth choir. Intermission was the debut, the dévoilement, of a CD of songs produced by the local parish. The choir featured on the disk (the home team in tonight’s event) took the stage and sang the title track, "L’Hymn de Saint Joseph." They sang it once through in a three-part choral round. They sang it a second time in a Macossa. Then, for good measure, the priest played both versions over the PA.

And after they’d set the hook good and tight, the bidding began. It became clear why we’d all actually been invited out for the evening, why these women and girls left their villages on foot to participate in this competition. The first three copies of the disk were sold for 10,000, 7,500 and 9,000 francs to the Mayor, the Sous-Prefet and the wife some ministerial delegate I did not recognize.


The priest’s money made, the competition was allowed to continue. The group from Fite Micheal de Saint Joseph was all old women in white, their hair hidden beneath white headwraps — spotless as lambs. The first two songs were more of the same. The lead woman sang stanzas into the awful microphone and the rest of the women joined her on the refrain. Three of the women broke rank somewhere into the second song and snuck out the side door. They returned during the third song to perform their theater. One woman in drag, the caricature of a hunched old man in traditional Bamileke robes, leaning on his walking stick. Following him was a traditional Bamileke woman. She had a rope tied around her neck that the old man pulled as he led her to center stage. The crowd laughed and howled, privy to some inside joke or classic children’s tale that I was too foreign to understand.

At center stage, the man forced the woman to her kneel before him and brandished a dagger from his robes and, miming palsy, held it trembling to her throat.

At this, the crowd again roared. More lost than before, I thought back to all those dusty Sunday School stories and tried to make the connection. Were they twisting the story of Abraham and Issac, replacing the son with a daughter or a wife? I failed to think of other biblical tales of human sacrifice. I was sure they’re had to be others, but I’d been raised Southern Baptist; we didn’t focus too much on those stories of Jews and their brutal god. How could our faiths — given the same source material — differ so greatly?

The old man reached back with the dagger, his palsy exaggerated into a farce. His hand came down, trained to plunge the dagger into the forfeit throat. In mid-swipe, the old man’s hand stopped, frozen. No, not frozen, grabbed. A large hand gripping him at the wrist. I followed the hand up to an arm, a shoulder. Standing behind the old man, dressed in heavenly white, was black Jesus. The audience roared.

He was wrapped in bedsheets with a crocheted afghan around his head and a furry scarf tied around his waist that wasn’t exactly white but a heavily-bleached pink and covered with glitter. He was tall and stood with his back straight as a broomstick. An empty, powerful look on his face. His eyes neither closed nor open. In the uproar, another woman came from stage left and pulled the sacrifice from her make-believe altar and in her place put a bleating kid.

As I was beginning to see the allusion, that Jesus was intervening in the woman’s sacrifice, that her place on the sanguine altar was being taken by a pure lamb (a goat being the closest thing they have to a lamb), the crowd verging on hysterical joy, the pint-sized goat decided he was having none of it. He fought against cord around his neck and broke free.


I’d seen some strange things in my time here. I’d seen two men riding a motorcycle up a hill while carrying a second motorcycle on the seat between them. I’d seen topless woman called a fool in the town square by a man with no pants. I’d seen a mangy bitch lying in the middle of the road, sleepily licking its prolapsed vagina — like a child sucks its thumb — while motorcycle taxis tore by on both sides. But that night for the first time I saw two priests bowl over an old woman in their pursuit of a frightened goat.


When it was all said and done, the scores were tallied leaving a three-way tie. It was near ten o’clock, pitch black outside, and I hadn’t had dinner. When asked how to break the tie, I told them to give it to the guys from Balengou (their act took the least time.) I snuck out back to piss during the closing prayer. Grabbed a fistful of meat-sticks and went home. It wasn’t a routine evening, those are becoming rarer by the moment; it wasn’t even particularly pleasant (goat chasing aside — I laughed my ass off at that) but I was there.

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It came from a Third World Supermarket. (Tuesday, 2011 May 17)

May 17, 2011
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[You may recall Timothy from around Christmas. He’s a writer but doesn’t want to go through the trouble of having a blog, whereas I want to share the people I know with the world at large. So we reached a compromise: occasionally I’ll put shit he wrote on my blog. Here is the first. Sorry Timothy, I had to edit out the name of the Organization to avoid being Googled; plus we don’t indent paragraphs, this is 2011.]

https://cameroon.betacantrips.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/TonusGinger1.jpg

Tonus Natural Fruit Juice. Ginger flavor.

Today’s wondrous product come from the $ema¢o grocery store near the [Organization] office in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Even if you don’t understand a lick of French you can assume that this product is natural and has something to do with both fruit and ginger. Let’s ignore the facts that ginger is neither a fruit nor particularly juicy and instead focus on the packaging for a second.

You know, a lot of people spend shitloads of cash to go to school to learn how to seduce people into buying shit, but just this once let me give you this lesson. Call it a freebie: Words are indispensable. Don’t believe me? Well, just ask yourself, "if I loved ginger, just fuckin’ craved it, would I buy this?"

Okay. Now hold that thought while I make one… small… little…

https://cameroon.betacantrips.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/TonusGinger2.jpg

Words are indispensable.

Well, as you can see, the cap’s off the thing, so I not only bought it, but I’m drinking it at this very moment. And you know what?

Not bad. A little gritty. But not bad.

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Lécher (Thursday, 2011 May 12)

May 12, 2011
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["Santiago"? I wanted a name that sounded, well, unhinged. At least you’re not getting another Narrator named "Narrator".]

We burst onto the scene fashionably late, me, Buddy and Cherry Drop, late by about a day and a half, but that meant the party was in full swing already. The Mission house was more-than-full; people were already provisioning couches, sofas, floor space. It was Iago’s going away party, so he was in evidence, as were Wheaton, Jamie, Laras 1 and 2, Lily, Bauer, Sonja, etc.

My priorities were drink, food, and shower. Drink was well under the control of Jamie and Buddy — it was unanimously decided that it would have to be a sachet night. I sought food; I returned with a plastic bag full of omelette, salad, and meat. With the immediate needs taken care of, I needed to wash off the burnt-celery smell of being too long in a closed space with Zhenae. I needed to do it soon, because if experience was any indication, before too much longer I wouldn’t be safe standing in a shower.

A few sachets later, I found myself weaving through the kitchen, where Buddy and Lily were arguing over which Missionary cluster could outdrink the other. They were settling the argument with sachets. They locked eyes and tilted back as I wandered out to the porch.

I sat down next to Sonja and was starting to size her up when the door in the front wall opened and in walked Neena and her friend Cass. Neena looked delicious, and I had a vivid memory of the way she’d looked at me in Low-at-the-River, back when I had a reason to be polite, dignified, restrained. That was a lifetime ago, before the mess in Capital City, before the meltdown in Mountain Reflex. I guess it had been a week.

I tried to play it cool, stared at my glass (sachet and juice). Neena’s no fool though, and I’m sure she noticed, but then she and her friend were gliding past to the kitchen. I tried to flirt with Sonja but my heart wasn’t in it and when she turned her head to talk to someone else I decided to go to the kitchen too. Buddy and Lily were still there conversing. "Don’t one or both of you have a boyfriend?" I slurred. For once I was reading the situation completely correctly. Then I put my arms around Buddy and licked his neck.

"He just licked my neck, didn’t he?"

"Yep, he just licked your neck."

I giggled, then I licked it again for good measure and then I guess I must have left because I staggered into Lara 1, who wanted to Talk. Specifically:

"We need to Talk," she said. "Listen: she doesn’t know what she wants." Followed by fifteen minutes of sloppy conversation that really doesn’t further our story. Highlights: I told her what happened in Mountain Reflex, she told me that appearances notwithstanding, Morgan still cared very deeply about me, I swore her (Lara 1) my undying allegiance, she told me I was a good guy, I asked her not to repeat what happened in Mountain Reflex, she swore she wouldn’t, I complained that the whole thing had just come out of nowhere and then suddenly I caught a look at her profile and she looked so old, aged, sallow, sunken where she used to look lean. Maybe it’s all the travelling, maybe she’d just gotten off the bus too. Then she lay her head back (we were seated at this point) and closed her eyes.

"Hard-dream-sleep," I said, using the Sumi salutation. I got up and turned to leave, and suddenly there was Neena.

Thinking back now I wonder how much of the conversation she’d heard. She’s sharp, though, and I’m sure she worked it all out one way or the other. At the time, though, it didn’t occur to me to wonder. I could only say: "Hi".

The next few minutes are a little foggy. I have no idea what I said, if I managed to accomplish anything with the tatters of charm or wit I had left. I’m sure both her and her friend, standing behind and off to the side, could read just how entranced I was with her. So maybe it was just my sincerity. Like: I was sincerely astonished by how fresh she looked. I was sincerely interested in the dress she was wearing. I was sincerely attracted to her lips, her eyes, her skin.

I don’t really understand how she did it. In principle she’d just gotten off a bus too, but she wasn’t rumpled, or sticky, anything. It’s a woman thing, I guess. You know how some women, they make beauty completely natural? Like "disheveled" is just a river in Egypt. Case in point: Neena didn’t smell like burnt celery.

Instead she smelled like cinnamon.

The next morning Jamie, Buddy, Wheaton and I were up bright and early again on another adventure. Wheaton was going to take us over the border into a neighboring state. Strictly speaking this would be legal in certain circumstances, which didn’t apply, so it might have been illegal, but according to other regulations it was probably legal but anyhow definitely against policy. Well, Jamie’s a big fan of adventure and the last week had taught me the hard way that Jamie’s vacations are generally better than mine, so just stick with her and everything’ll work out.

Half a bus-ride later I got a message from Neena, a scathingly funny indictment of how I was "chain-smoking" rebounds, "lighting one from the ashes of the last". Yep, she’s sharp as tacks. "Ouch," I said to myself, then snickered, then I grimaced, and finally I deleted it and napped until we got to the next town, where we were to descend and switch to motos. We rode across hot sand and dry riverbeds, past scrub and occasional herds of animals. Eventually we got to the border, stopped at a government building with a flag out front, basically the same Zhenae color scheme but subtly different. We paid a "crossing fee" bribe that was actually probably a legitimate fee, although it might have been a legitimate bribe. Either way a few minutes later we were under a sincerely woven thatch hut drinking a local fermented grain product, plus some standard Zhenae beer just to be on the safe side.

"This is really cool," I said, marvelling at how lucky I was to be here, on this planet, steeping in the local color (and flavor). "Thanks for this, Wheaton."

"It’s my pleasure," he said, though of course his face was as neutral as always. "I really enjoy when I can show off the bounty of my post."

"It’s just so surprising, man," said Buddy, his eyes tracking a skitter, "How peaceful Zhen is. Like, the Mission just withdrew from Nairv. The D-Range just declared martial law. All the Sumi colonies, really, none of them are really stable."

"I wonder why Zhen’s different," Jamie said.

"Too many racial groups," said Wheaton. "There’s no unity. Without unity, there can be no war."

There was silence for a minute. "That’s totally Newspeak," commented Buddy, turning it over. "But I like it."

"It’s gonna be interesting when the next brood-group shows up in a few months. I wonder if they’re gonna be professional like ours, or party people like the others."

"Is our brood-group really more professional than others? I mean, you’ve seen a few," asked Jamie of Wheaton.

"No, but yours is more mentally unhinged," he responded with a significant glance in my direction.

"No, that’s just Santiago," Jamie replied. Then suddenly they were all three looking at me. "It just came out of nowhere," said Wheaton.

"If you please," I replied loftily. "I maintain that my behavior in Mountain Reflex was rational and carefully plotted."

"I think you mean erratic and carefully rationalized."

"Come on," I continued. "Ever drink too much at a party? Felt like crap? Made yourself throw up? That’s what I did, just with emotions. Puke and rally. Completely reasonable. Hinged, I’m super mentally hinged. Oh, shit," I said. "I just remembered I licked your neck last night."

"Dude," Buddy said. "You totally did."

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