Overseas Teaching is not a Vacation

I had some requests to write again.  It's hard to know what will interest people.  I've talked mostly about the good things...the adventures.  Maybe I should visit some of the difficult things.

To seek adventure is part of the reason I chose to do this overseas thing.  Some of it HAS been an adventure.  I am a bit surprised that I enjoy adventure given that I have lived a fairly sheltered life up until now, but I do love the challenge of newness.

View of Yaounde from Mt. Febe

That was my problem in Champaign-Urbana.  The town has everything you might want for a lovely, stable, Americana lifestyle.  It is fairly safe and very clean.  It is full of smart, educated, interesting, and caring people.  It is immensely cultured and forward-thinking, even if it is a smallish, Midwestern town in one of the most embarrassing states in the US. What a great town, that C-U!  No wonder it literally sucks everyone back to it.  I've seen so many people leave for new adventures and then somehow return.

But for me, depression had set in. Depression does run in my family.  And, like so many, I had begun to make questionable decisions, begun to move in unhealthy directions, and begun to become extremely hard on myself internally in order to stimulate life to move forward.  I envied my friends and family who could stay in one place, walk into the same house over and over, frequent the same eating establishments, see the same people, and keep to the same routines, day-in and day-out and stay happy.  I always wondered why I couldn't be like that, and as part of well-established pattern of beating myself up, thought that I was the flawed one, the one who couldn't make a perfectly comfortable and stable life in the glorious C-U work for me.

I don't think I'm alone in these feelings, however.  I think feelings like this are very common among women of my age, education level, and socio-economic status.   Transitioning into middle age and feeling the responsibility of the American middle class expectations and desires have taken their toll on many.   It's at this point that I think people have three choices.  1.)  Resign themselves to a life of depression and martyrdom or victimization.  2.) Make unhealthy and hurtful choices and force a change of life in perhaps the wrong direction.  3.) Try something outside the box in an effort to figure out how to make oneself happy.

Street scene in Roma

Almost immediately,  when on my magical trip to Italy with my best female friends last summer, I noticed that I felt none of the foggy, weighty stress and the wind-knocked-out-of-your-lungs pressure of my everyday life.  My senses were heightened to the nth degree.  The colors, the textures, the tastes and the smells were at their very highest definition, and at that time, I wondered if life could be like this always?  Or was it just the release of being on vacation?

I remember as a child going on our yearly family vacation.  My father was adamant about going on some kind of a vacation every summer, no matter how small, and he saved and saved to be able to do so.  He became a different person as we drove out of the city limits.  He immediately became lighter and more joyful, and mind you, light and joyful are not words anyone has ever used to describe my dad.  But, I witnessed it happening every summer.  I loved those family vacations.

Could my life have a light and joyful component?  Let me think outside the box. Why not try being a teacher in another country?  Africa, here I come.

2012 Holiday Celebration and Art Exhibition, American School of Yaounde

From This....Christmas 2011 in C-U

My reflections after five months are this:  It is hard giving up security.  It is hard giving up the myriad of talented artists and musicians with which I had painstakingly built 20-year professional and personal relationships.  It is hard giving up being with your family and friends for the first Christmas in a lifetime.

To This....Christmas in Cameroon 2012

It is also hard navigating new professional personalities in a small-school environment, and it is hard coming home and living in a building with those very people.  It is hard hearing, second hand, what some of those people think about you and your family.  It is hard teaching outsiders about the complexity of autism.

And surprisingly, the lack of water, the fluctuating electricity, the faulty washing machine that has ruined many of my clothes, the various bouts of illness, the moldy grout around the kitchen sink, the lack of putt-putt golf or a movie theater, and one hundred other similar things aren't really that hard.

From this...Julian 5 months ago

I do feel  lighter though.

To this...Joseph in the school Holiday Musical

It's Christmas Eve Eve and I have 4 presents to wrap.  I write, read and sleep frequently.   I sit on my balcony and listen to beautiful Cameroonian birdsong and watch the woman below, who lives in a roofless, abandoned building, cook over her wood fire.  For the first time ever, I watch my son play with preschoolers to high schoolers and be accepted and even admired.  Stress and pressure for me have lessened to a great degree.  Life, right now, is even.  It feels odd, and it is certainly an adjustment from the heaviness of what life used to be.   And because I still wonder and worry about the future, joy is moderate.  But... this isn't a vacation, is it?

Full moon from our balcony in Bastos

                                                                                                                   

Perspective

It has been a while since my last update.  Much has happened since, as you can imagine.  Taking care of an entire music program, Pre-K through grade 12, is quite a large load.  I have several hours of prep per week, but I can say that I use every single moment to plan, manage and organize.  In addition, the new ASOY concert band program started last week.  The administration, parents, and students  are excited about it, but of course, it adds another layer of preparation to the academic and performing demands of the job. 

Friday Night Live was last night.  We had a good turn-out, the show was organized, the students performed well and I got a taste of managing, producing and hosting my first rock/talent show.  As most of you know, it isn't my wheelhouse, but we (the collective "we") have to meet kids where they are.   Just think of all the young people you know with permanent ear buds.  I hope these newly acquired skills will come in handy in the international teaching world.

ASOY has a week break in October.  The Association of International Schools in Africa (AISA) educators conference was in Johannesburg, South Africa this year (Jo'burg for short). I wrote a proposal to participate and the ASOY PD committee agreed to pay 50% of the entire cost of the trip.  I felt like I needed to experience at least one international teaching conference, and even though my half of the trip was going to be quite expensive, Bruce and I decided it was a good investment.  The flight from Douala to Johannesburg is six hours and $1500. Africa is a big place.

 I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a seasoned traveler.  I have travelled alone in the US less than a dozen times.  And prior to last summer where I went on a magical trip to Italy with my best friends, I had left the shores of the US only once to go to the Bahamas (no passport needed) for a big whopping four day vacation to Sandals, which can only be described as an all-inclusive Disneyland for adults.  Thankfully and accurately, I was told that a layover in the Douala airport (Douala is the largest port city in Cameroon) is a fate worse than death...thus, my need to drive to Douala from Yaounde.  I was wary, but hiring an experienced driver seemed a better alternative than riding in a Cameroonian bus.  After much planning and painstaking, yet confusing consultation with other travelers, my well-thought out decision to be driven lead to the subsequent death of my clutch, my nerves and my savings account.  And, my later experience in Jo'burg  lead to the death of my camera, my digestive system, and my faith in humanity.  My attempt to describe this trip will pale in comparison to the actual experience but here goes anyway.

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In Yaounde, the weather is wonderfully mild, but the sun shines for only part of each day.  As  you drive down from the Cameroonian highlands toward the coast, the weather gets much hotter and more humid.  The pristine sunshine and clear blue skies on the way lulled me into thinking this could be a relaxing drive.  After all, I was going on a vacation!  

Before Bruce and I even arrived in Cameroon, we were warned about the road from Yaounde to Douala.  Many have died.  The road is two lane only and dreadfully curvy.  Southern Illinoisans can picture a 3 hour stretch of old highway 13's Jordan's and Deadman's curves, packed with trucks hauling newly raped...oh, I mean forested, Sequoia-like logs.   Passing on a road like this is a necessity.  Here, however, passing occurs at the same time...from both directions...head-on.  

  

 The driving can only be described as speed up, slow down, speed up, slow down over many surprise speed bumps, through many small villages and through three toll stops.  There are no toll booths on this road.  You stop in the middle of the road, give the man standing there 500 CFA (where the money goes, I have no idea) to which he reciprocates with a small receipt, and then,  swarms of vendors, selling a variety of food and wares, descend upon your car.  I learned that fresh Cassava looks like snakes.  Medusa comes to mind.   

Onward... we encounter a speed trap.  The police in Cameroon, spiffily dressed in their olive green fatigues and red berets, merely step into the road and point.  You must  pull over or they chase you down on their motorcycles and punish you with a 4 hour wait and twice the bribe.  The police dutifully check my car registration, insurance, and stickers, which are all in order, but claim my driver was speeding.  No radar guns here.  45 minutes later and 25,000 CFA poorer, we resume our trip.

Speed up, slow down, pass....Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry!!!! Someone's coming!!!!!! Floor it!!!

We arrive in the market on the outskirts of Douala at sundown.  Street lights are non-existent and headlights and tail lights are optional.  Hoards of exhaust-laden traffic creep along, complete with hundreds and hundreds of motorcycles, 3 passengers each, weave in and out, honking and sputtering, inches from semi trucks and passenger cars alike.  Horrifying.  I've never seen such a thing.

Next.....My driver gets lost on the way to the airport. Really?  You don't realize how amazingly lit up American infrastructure is until you drive major highways and interchanges in pitch black.  More CFA is passed out the car window to a guy on a motorcycle who leads us to the airport.  About this time, I notice my driver is grinding the gearshift into gear.  The clutch is misbehaving.  I had tapped much of my resources with bribes, tolls, and 10,000 CFA for my driver's hotel room in Douala and I had no extra money to give him for repairs.  I leave him, broke, with my broken  car in the parking lot of the airport 3 hours from both our homes.  Poor Bruce gets to clean up that mess and he has his own story associated with that little adventure.

Continue...The Douala airport is the worst airport ever, even by third-world standards. No coastal salt air smell here...sewage is more like it.  Everything is broken down, leaking, and filthy, and almost no one speaks English.  It makes the Yaounde airport look palatial. Curiously, passengers are allowed to bypass security and sit inside the gate until airport employees decide it's time to secure the gate.  Then everyone is asked to step outside the already unsecured gate to re-pass through the very important and secure security. 

My flight leaves at 9:53pm to arrive in South Africa at 5:30am. 

We land.....Johannesburg's airport is lovely, even by first-world standards.  I was to be picked up by a transfer company called Club Travel whose arrangements I had painstakingly made over many confusing back and forth emails weeks before.  I come from baggage claim and I immediately see the sign "Antoine."  That's me, I thought.  They, like almost everyone my  life long, have misspelled my name.  My transfer and I start walking to her car when she suddenly realizes that I 'm alone.  Ooops...She was there to pick up a couple.  Really? A couple with the name "Antoine" is on my plane?   What are the odds?  Ok...not a good beginning. 

Confusing transfer situation figured out, I step outside the airport into America-lite.  There are white people.  There are nice, normal looking cars without scratches and dents that aren't only yellow.  They are lined up in a nice, organized concrete structures called parking lots.  Roads are made of smooth concrete and have spacious lanes with lines to which people actually pay attention.  People drive on the left but with a proper amount of space between each car.  There are sturdy looking buildings with established businesses and actual landscaping.  There's a KFC...no kidding.  I'm reeling!  But, wait!  Something's wrong... there is absolutely no one on the street.  There are no pedestrians of any kind.  

The hotel  Indaba, where the conference was held, is a 40 minute drive from the airport and is behind locked, guarded gates.  It is quaint fortress of thatch roofed huts laid out in a maze.  I arrive at the hotel at 6 am.  My room is very posh.  And the tap water in the city is actually drinkable.  I looked it up. 

BUT... The hotel has no water.  Really? Workers have cut a nearby  water main and are working on repairing it.  Oh...the irony.   I just came from the country with no water at least twice a week since I moved there.  It sort of felt like home in a sad way.

I sleep and then it was time to eat....

The hotel buffet is reasonably priced (at least I think it is) and plentiful with amazing looking food that I am anxious to try... chutneys and sauces covering various meats and vegetables, interesting looking salads and amazing puddings and custards.  I try a bit of everything, committing to memory what I liked so that, the next day, I can bypass the dud dishes for my favorites.

At the conference, my first job-a-like session is interesting and the subsequent evening cocktail party is quite extravagant.  There is an open bar with hors oeuvres'  fit for a meal, a talented African drumming group to provide entertainment and even tribal face painting.  Awesome.  I'm finally starting to relax knowing that I am safe in lovely hotel room for the next 5 days.   I'm looking forward to learning something and experiencing South Africa at the same time.

The next day is my first session.  It's about the strategies of practicing a musical instrument.  Hmmmm.... I know all the material, I answer all the questions and I am clearly the teacher's pet.   Everyone in the room hates me. 

Soon....I start to feel  a bit funny.  I roll my neck, twist my ankles, flex my knees and  after a few hours, it finally dawns on me that all my joints are in severe pain.  Have I  been hit by a truck?  No...not yet anyway.   I barely make it back to my room before  liquid pours out of my digestive system.   I lie down on my bed just for 3 minutes....and a full 20 minutes later, I draaaag myself up and make it back to the second session.   At the end of the day, I barely make it back to my room again.  Ok..something is seriously wrong.  Malaria? Nope, no fever.   Typhoid? Oh, the irony again. We were supposed to get a typhoid vaccination last week at school but in typical African fashion, the shipment didn't come in.  The phrase "typhoid Marina" vaguely runs through my mind before I fall off into a 10 hour coma-like sleep.  Ooops...more liquid bowels.  Seriously?   I have made it through 3 months in microbial-tap-water Cameroon with no digestive problems and one day in a first-world country and I come down with some gawd awful, joint- destroying dysentery of some kind.  

Even though I feel like I've been hit by a truck, I HAVE to go shopping.   There are real stores in Johannesburg...malls...a place called Checkers which is like a super Walmart!  I have to drag my liquid-bowel self out of bed and take advantage of the only legitimate shopping with decent quality products I'll be able to do in the next  8 months.  I need crackers and bottled water...no more delicious hotel food and water for me.  I need Imodium for the 6 hour plane ride back home.  We need towels that aren't $20 each and thread bare brand new.  I'd like a travel coffee cup that isn't $25 and doesn't leak.  Bruce wants A-1 sauce.  Julian needs jeans that aren't two sizes too big anymore.

The hotel has a 25-person shuttle bus that takes patrons back and forth to the mall.  It's a short drive thank fully. I scope out the bathroom and then  I shop.  I have no idea how much money I'm spending.     

The next day, the conference sessions are located at the American International School of Johannesburg.  I unsuccessfully applied for a beginning band job there early on in this process, and I was curious to see the campus.  Amazing.  Beautiful.  A fortress.  The session was informative.  After class, South African artisans set up outside the school rooms selling beautiful artifacts.  I'm perusing and my fellow teachers are haggling, screaming, pushing, shoving.  I get bumped a lot and ten minutes later,  I realize my camera is gone.   

No more camera in Africa...no way...unacceptable.  I realize that I can actually go to the mall and replace my stolen camera with a decent quality one, not one that has been soldered together, with metal parts found in the garbage, in an outdoor  Cameroonian umbrella shop on the corner.  But the only high quality camera store in the entire mall is closed for inventory ("taking stock", they call it.) Seriously?

 Have I mentioned that I'm on my last travelling nerve at this point?  I bang on the door to the shop, yelling and pantomiming BIG SALE!  "I'm American, I have money and I need a camera!"

I get my camera....but with a safety neck strap this time! 

I'm walking down the mall to the shuttle pick up, very proud of myself for solving what I consider to be a major problem,  when a fellow conference delegate stops me.  She's American.  She tells me to take off my conference badge so that no one knows I'm not South African.  I ask, "Why?  Will someone actually try to hurt me?"  She says that she hopes not but a native stopped her a few minutes before and told her the same thing and she thought she should pay it forward.

Oh.  It suddenly dawns on me that I am not safe.  Let's get back to the hotel, quick.  I'm number 23 in line for the first shuttle and I get pushed off the bus three different times by screaming and shoving women teachers.  I wait an hour and a half.  I'm by myself, no phone, no appropriate money, and no ride.  I feel unsafe and I start to get aggressive.   I yell to anyone who will listen.  "THESE PEOPLE ARE TEACHERS?  THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE FAIR-MINDED, DIGNIFIED AND GRACIOUS."  The polite Nigerian men teachers block the women the next time and let me on the shuttle first. 

   

The conference is over thank goodness.  I'm sick of crackers and bottled water.  And I'm only slightly looking forward to my tour of Soweto.  I looked up reviews of tour companies on the internet before coming and Trip Advisor said Felleng was the best.  I can say that after the major disappointments of the trip so far, my expectations weren't very high.

 I was so pleasantly surprised and grateful!  Agnes, the owner, of the company, picked me up in the 8 person van at my hotel.  She arranged for me to share my tour with another girl, a structural engineer MIT graduate on a Fulbright to go around the world researching environmentally sustainable buildings.  I felt safe and well-cared-for for the first time in 5 days.  Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh.  

  

Soweto is the suburb of Johannesburg that was used as the concentration camp for black people during Apartheid.  It stands for South West Township.  We toured Soweto, the Mandela house, the Hector Peterson Apartheid Museum and a South African cultural village, just the three of us women.  We WERE fair-minded, dignified and gracious. 

I learned that Johannesburg is incredibly unsafe.  Criminals will kill you for a rand...about 12 cents. No white person walks anywhere....ever.  The government is incredibly corrupt.  The President has four wives and extorts votes from uneducated and superstitious people by telling them that he will put a curse on their families if they don't vote for him.  There are 300 funerals each Saturday and Sunday. 50% of people are dying from HIV though causes of death are listed as cancer or lung failure or heart failure and that is why the world doesn't know.  Cows and chickens are still sacrificed on a regular basis.  During Apartheid, the government lied to everyone and demanded that every white boy enlist in the army at age 18 to "fight communism. " Apartheid was awful. The country is still reeling from it because it was only 50 years ago.  A million white people have fled the country over the last 5 years.  Agnes felt safe enough to take us to the poverty-stricken section of Soweto called Kliptown but only circled around downtown Johannesburg, pointing out landmarks from afar.  I'm so glad I didn't get that job!

Time to fly to Douala....My baggage is overweight because of the all the stuff I bought.  Airport run-around ensues.  $$$$ Cha ching.

No driving to Yaounde this time.  Smart girl! I'm flying but flights don't leave until 7 am so I'm forced to stay in a Douala hotel.  It's the Meridian which I've heard is the nicest hotel in Douala. Seriously?  It's a rundown Comfort Inn basking in sewage smell  with crusty sheets and a broken toilet flusher.   I remind myself to be afraid of the water again.  Get me home.  

The next morning, it's back to the disgusting Douala airport...yuck.  My luggage is overweight.  The security guard asks me what's in there and because I'm  BEYOND my last travelling nerve now, I have become snide...so I say "stuff" and stare challengingly at him.   I get bad information in African-accented French about how to pay for my overweight luggage and because I'm BEYOND aggressive at this point, I just growl.  Here's what I know.  Growling is understood in every language. 

The flight is 45 minutes from Douala to Yaounde.  Fabian, an ASOY driver, picks me up at the airport and I'm never so glad to see a familiar face.  I almost hug him which is very unCameroonian!   Of course, we get stopped by the police on the way home from the airport.  But, the policeman knows Fabian.  Everyone knows Fabian.  I tell the policeman he has outstanding English and he lets us go.  No bribe.

   

Yaounde is wonderful.  The streets are chock full of
physically beautiful, vibrantly dressed, fiercely hardworking, proud  people trying to scrape by, take care of their families, and live a life. The water, when it works,  smells like dirt...earthy...not sewage.   It is beautifully simple here, and it has a certain honesty about it.   Yaounde is  "what you see is what you get"...even the corruption is up front.

   

Perspective is a beautiful thing.