I began my morning with a cup of coffee and a Pidgen lesson from my good buddy Milton while he fixed the damage we made on a big rock on the drive yesterday. "Aje Butter" (it sounds like "ah-jay BUHtuh"... basically translates to "spoiled" or someone who lives the good life or easy living. It's typically used in a teasing manner and can be upped to "aje mayonnaise" (ah-jay Mah-yo-nAse) if you're REALLY too soft. "Aje Qwako" (sounds just like it looks) is the opposite, meaning someone who lives in difficult conditions. Milton taught me these phrases because I was saying how nice the weather was this morning (much lower humidity for the morning! YAY!) and he said it was not like this last night. I am sleeping in air conditioning, so... I am clearly aje butter! Despite Milton's amazing grasp on the English language, it took us a solid 20 minutes to get the idea through. On the upside, I did teach him that "spoiled" has two meanings (he was only aware of the one relating to food) and we shared a lot of belly laughs in the process.
However, I think this aje butter girl has been doing pretty well, despite her "pansy" lifestyle. Pastor and Mick headed up north early yesterday morning, so the dynamics have changed. I get along very well with Karen, and while we have very different personalities, I think (as Anne of Green Gables would say) we are kindred spirits. She and I spend a LOT of time on the road together and we have no shortage of traveling stories to swap. She carries a lot of wisdom as a resident of different parts of Africa for nearly two decades. She is more Zambian than American at this point, I believe. I can't think of a better person to teach me the ways of this continent than Karen. She is truly a blessing.
The attendees of my English classes have been extremely varied and there has been plenty of on-the-fly adapting. The church in Konye that we drive to in the mornings is primarily pastors and their assistants. The pastors' English is generally good, but we have an excellent opportunity to practice pronunciation so they are easier to understand. However, since at this time there are no community members, the curriculum I developed is far too simple for the pastors and the first day was a real challenge. I feared I was insulting their intelligence (because we intended this to be primarily for the congregations to reach out into the communities and offer a service to them), That same class today was SIGNIFICANTLY smaller, consisting of several of the assistants, but in all honesty, they needed the most help. Having only four or five students at a time can be either horrible or great. Today was great. We worked right at their level and I felt they got a lot out of class and I walked away feeling like I had made an impact this time around.
The class in the evening here in Kumba Town has been much larger both nights, including many non-members of the church. I would estimate 2/3 of the class is children... which is totally fine with my curriculum, but makes it hard to benefit the more educated adults. Yesterday I felt good about the lesson, but tonight we came up with a strategy to allow everyone to maximize their learning (since we are teaching in a town of about 150,000 people and drew in several older students). I will spend the first half of the class focusing on the children, working on reviewing simple vocabulary, the Bible story that introduces the new vocabulary, and then discuss a section of liturgy or a hymn so they can apply more meaning as they worship in English. Then, the kids will be dismissed and we will focus on more technical English: phonics rules, grammatical points, spelling differences, etc. I plan to start with a base concept and let the class steer from there, based on what they need. Frankly, the plan feels much more solid to me, given whom has been attending. Every day will be a bit different, but I hope that we can find our groove and everyone will feel fulfilled and have learned something from this very short course on English.
I touched base with Mick last night and he (as always) was happy and go-with-the-flow about his student set. It wasn't exactly who we had in mind when I wrote the curriculum (again, mostly pastors and assistants), but their English level is much more limited, so it sounds like the lesson plans are a good fit and they have been good about asking their questions about English. I was worried about sending Mick off by himself having never taught English as a foreign language, but I shouldn't have been worried. I know he's a champ and would figure it out.
So, remember how I mentioned Africa being brutal? Well, Karen's advice that "Africa is not for cowards" is totally true. While I have spent many hours in the classroom trying to balance cultural differences, a new-to-me accent, and varying English skill levels, I have also spent nearly as many hours on Mamfe road (you can Google images). I have a solid battle scar to prove the challenge of the road; I got a very ugly bruise on my shoulder from the seatbelt (of all things) and I think I'm working my core by stablizing every two seconds between the washboard, the potholes and weaving back and forth across the road to find the most solid path. I have mentioned the mud, but I can now tell you with full authority, the liquid mud IS actually liquid and is very deep. Today, we got our vehicle stuck. Where we had no cell service. And our "gum boots" or what I would call galoshes, were too short for the depth of the mud. So they filled completely to the top with mud around our feet immediately. Karen and I got out of the truck in search of large rocks to put under the front wheels... except the passenger side wheel was literally 2/3 buried in this orange liquid the same consistency of a melting milkshake. An on-coming large delivery truck had to stop and wait for us and about seven men or so got out of the lorry and walked over to watch. They threw out some advice here and there, but... honestly, we were more of a spectacle to them. We were very cognizant of safety (theft being our primary concern), but I made serious in-roads with them when I said, "THIS is CAMEROON!!!!" It quickly became an icebreaker and gave me some street cred that the situation didn't really phase me and I was willing to roll with it. Mud was boiling up out of the exhaust pipe as Karen tried to run the truck up. It looked like a mud pit at Yellowstone National Park. She was a rockstar and eventually got the truck out, pretty much by herself. The men, on the other hand, were willing to push from the side a few times (no getting muddy... who's the aje butter NOW, huh???), but that tactic didn't really help. We finally got free and laughed about the ridiculous amount of mud inside and outside of the car. There were actually hand prints on the side of the car in mud. We had a good laugh on the rest of the way home.
Cameroon has also introduced me to a whole new level of creepy-crawlies. Yesterday, Karen and Milton found a millipede that was rolled up and nearly 3" in diameter. For REAL. Karen picked it up like it was nothing (Um???? What?!). I took a good look, but had very little desire to get very close. And tonight when I took a shower to get the mud, sweat (holy CATS was it humid from mid-morning on), and bug spray, I found a very hairy, large caterpillar in the bathroom. I left him, but I'll tell you what, that does NOT make for a relaxing shower. Normally I wouldn't hesitate to pick up a caterpillar, but I sure am glad I didn't - turns out that most hairy caterpillars here put out histamine that will break you out in horrible hives really, really fast. Good defense for him, not so lovely for those of us trying to play with him (or simply remove him from the house). Apparently there are tons of them where we are traveling this weekend, so rest assured that I will be taking my Benadryl along. I have a whole range of bug bites... I keep joking when I discover a new kind that I must have leprosy. Some you can just see (red circles flat on my skin as if it were dyed), some itch like the dickens, and the latest (although it MIGHT be a bruise, but I'm not 100% convinced) has left tiny blue and red speckles over a few inches of my arm. Doesn't feel like anything, but definitely does NOT wash off, after multiple tries. It is actually kind of impressive, if you can set aside the gross factor. I haven't felt a single bite happen, I just notice them later. On the positive end of the bug spectrum, I have seen the most beautiful butterflies. AMAZING. The detail and the colors. All shapes and sizes. It brings me such joy to know that we have a God that put THAT much detail and creativity into even the smallest creatures that live only a few days. Watching them out the car window makes me smile every time.
So the last few days have been full of journeying and learning, adapting and laughing, and I wouldn't trade a moment of it. There have been times of discouragement and tugs of homesickness, but I keep trekking forward and looking for the joy here, because there really is SO much to be found.
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