Contradictions and Assumptions

In Cameroon, boys hate cooking, (exhibit A, 7 boys in my kitchen cooking).

It was the typical deal. As my fellow volunteer Caitlin and I waited under the mango tree for a motorcycle to pick us up, there they were, a couple of 16 year old male students from my school in uniform, strutting their way down the street on a school day at 10:00 AM. Definitely not where they were supposed to be. Hooligans I thought to myself, frustrated by the major absenteeism that had been going on at school since Easter break. “Good morning madame,” they smiled, as if to egg me on. “Where are you going?” I demanded, walking up to them, looking up at them straight in the eye as they towered over me, their muscles way more prominent than mine could ever be. “You should be in class,” I scolded, with the biggest scowl I could muster. “Madame, we were in class,” one of them pleaded, “but the teacher did not come.” “We are going to the library,” argued the other one. “What library?” I demanded, knowing a lie when I saw one. They pointed off in a vague direction and with a short nod, I let them go, unconvinced, but also sure that I didn’t want to report them. That would result in each buying a bag of cement, building bricks, and stacking them on the new wall our school was building to avoid escape artists like them, which was fine. What wasn’t fine was the 20 or so lashings they’d get to go with it.

Now determined, I turned to Caitlin and asked if we could go on a little adventure to this unknown library. She was her usual good sport, and off we went, an hour later after running errands. When we followed a few female students who also were supposed to be at their school, we came to a building I must have passed hundreds of times, without ever going inside. Finally entering, I was shocked at how packed it was, students pouring over notebooks and textbooks, quietly working in pairs helping each other study. There, in one corner was one pair I recognized, pouring over their physics notes. For once, I felt embarrassed, sheepishly waving at the two boys from earlier who politely smiled back and waved. As I said goodbye, they looked up only briefly, before going back to their notes, sketching new diagrams that I could never dream to understand. Cameroon, like my own country, appears to be full of so many contradictions. All of my assumptions seemed wrong.

I’ve spent so many years in grad school learning about assumptions. “Beware of assumptions,” every professor would whisper, yell, or plead, getting blank stares from us students. We knew better, we thought, we would do better than other people in the field, and wouldn’t be stupid enough to assume things about people. I especially was prone to this. I knew development and the developing world. I’d been to seven African countries already, and spent over 8 months living, traveling, and breathing there. But as usual, the moment I arrived as a volunteer in Cameroon, and spent my first night in village, the only thing I could think of was, I was wrong. (see post from June 2015 to get the idea).

People can constantly surprise you. Two “tough boys” ditching school can be studying physics in the library. A well off couple living in some of the nicest apartments in Bafia can have the worst domestic issues (August 2015). A woman can earn more money than her policeman husband by farming. My principal who is one of the “big men” in the region (usually the lead cause of corruption) can be awarded for his hard work in ensuring financial responsibility at school. A 32 year old single, unwed mother of two (now three children) from three different fathers, with an 8^th grade education ends up being one of the most generous, intelligent and hardworking people I have ever met. Exceptions to the rule are everywhere.

The list goes on. Assumptions are dangerous, but so darn stubborn that it’s really hard to make them go away. This is where racism, and sexism, tribalism can get mixed into everything. We can’t get rid of these feelings, my African American volunteer friend explained to me, until we remove the structure in our society that is letting them live. We have to learn to let those who suffer from these prejudices to have a voice. To truly listen to them, and let them rage. “If a woman wants to complain about sexism,” he explained to me once, “I can’t tell her, ‘hey I know how you feel,’ or ‘you should feel this way,’ because I’ve never been there. I’m not a woman, and therefore I will never know that that feels like. I can only listen, and empathize.” His words truly moved me, because it reflected what one of my professors had been trying to say all along: JUST LISTEN to those around you. You will never perfectly understand, and you will never be in their shoes, but if you listen, then at least you can show them the respect they deserve, and show that you value them and their opinion.

Nobody knows this better than my program manager, a Cameroonian who will always “get it” better than me, who has become one of my closest mentors since I’ve joined Peace Corps. We sat in his office one afternoon, taking a tea break from one of my projects which we’d been working on for several hours, to stare at the mess of flip charts we’d sprawled around the room with ideas exploding everywhere. “You know,” he said, “if there’s one thing I wish American volunteers could understand better, it’s the importance of truly taking the time to get to know your community before launching into projects.” He explained how sad it was to see overzealous and excited Americans come to a community, ready to change the world, only to fail, when they realize that they had charged ahead, leaving the community behind. Frustrated, many would quickly give up completely, assuming that the people in their community are lazy, unmotivated, or just plain uneducated.

I thought of my conversation with some other volunteers where their final words were “I don’t want to say it Laura, but honestly I think they’re just plain uneducated. It will never work.” Although it is true of some Cameroonians, I couldn’t say that all of them are that way. I have met many lazy, unmotivated people, but I have met the few who despite the odds have tried again and again to make a difference in their community. Besides, for every lazy Cameroonian I know who has given up on life I can think of an American who has too, and we have way more opportunities than they do.

“This,” my PM pointed to my flip charts of notes from my school administration, teachers, and students “is what all volunteers should be doing. Taking the time to hear what their community has to say.” I was shocked. But then I thought of all the challenges we face: struggling with our own work, balancing work relationships, learning languages. And yet still, I think I finally understood something. We fall short because we assume that what makes sense to us as foreigners as good and right, may not translate to our local communities as something valuable or important. We may overlook other things too, that the community values a lot, but haven’t had an opportunity to tell us, or that we may not have heard right. If I hadn’t spent all of those hours with each group of people at my school talking about education, I never would have realized just how important the sciences are to them, and how girls are facing so many barriers to becoming part of those valued few who continue on to new opportunities in STEM. I may never have noticed that so many teachers do care at my school, but are faced with so many different tasks and frustrations, that by adding one more task it’s as if we are breaking the camel’s back.

Assumptions are dangerous. So many people at my school assume that life in America is so great, that they would never have to work a day in their life if they managed to arrive there. They assume that we are all rich, and in return I think the majority of Americans assume Africans are universally poor. It makes it hard to have a good dialogue about what really matters, when people assume they know what is needed. As the “developed world” sends out money and handouts to the “developing south,” it is done with so many assumptions, which often result in disappointment and resentment on both sides. I just wish that for once there was a better of way of erasing these assumptions. That everyone could have their voice. And that for one moment, we could all stop and listen.