Life Uncaged: Have a Holly Jolly Christmas

I have gotten many questions about the holiday season here in Cameroon, so I'm going to try to give you, my wonderful wonderful readers, a picture of what it is like here.

Cameroon is very religiously diverse, being primarily Christian (including Presbyterian, Catholic, and other some other denominations) and Muslim. Religion here isn't quite the same as in the US, because those beliefs are held simultaneously with traditional "animist" beliefs about sorcery, vampires, ancestors, etc. But nevertheless, people are pretty religious and, at least in my experience, the religious diversity makes people pretty tolerant of other religions and beliefs (although they are NOT tolerant of a lack of belief). I knew ahead of time that my post and more generally my region is primarily Catholic, so I knew they would celebrate Christmas. I just didn't know how.

There is some overlap in American and Cameroonian Christmas traditions: in both cultures, people go to church, get together with family, eat and drink and give gifts. Even children caroling exists here (or so I'm told - I didn't hear any carols). A lot of the overlap stems from colonialism, and I have certainly encountered some bitterness over imported Christmas traditions - traditions that might not even make sense in this culture, like Santa Claus and singing the French equivalent of jingle bells in a country that doesn't even have the concept of a sleigh… But honestly, I'm still not sure what the "traditional" traditions are, so I can't help there.

Two of my big Christmas events felt just like things I would have attended in the USA. First, I went to an elementary school Christmas party at Kinder's House (same place I taught sex ed). The kids recited poems, performed dances and skits, sang songs, and generally celebrated in a room decorated with Christmas trees and speakers and a stage. Their families (mostly moms) came and clapped and celebrated with them. And at the end, everyone got sardine sandwiches. (Okay, it wasn't Subway or Wawa but cut 'em some slack, same idea. People were fed and happy.) It was a lot of fun, despite starting 3 hours late and lasting 4 hours, and was a great way to celebrate the kids who had worked so hard in school. Also, I wish I had taken videos because those kids put all American kids dancing to shaaaame.

The second familiar event was a Christmas Eve "fête en famille" (basically a staff party) with Kinders House teachers and staff. Papa André suggested that everyone bring food, which met with some reluctance -- potlucks might be normal in America, but they definitely aren't here -- but worked out great in the end. I brought chocolate chip cookies, which takes way more effort here than at home since it requires hand mixing and figuring out how to make a dutch oven and finding real chocolate and butter, but the effort was definitely rewarded by everyone's enthusiasm. There was much drinking, as there should be at any good staff party (or so Hollywood tells me, since I have never really been staff anywhere…) including champagne! And the school director handed out gifts to everyone.

Those gifts indicate one of the biggest differences between our two conceptions of Christmas, however. My gift was a kilo of rice, a half kilo of salt, a bag of pasta, and a bar of soap. A very useful gift, in other words, meant to prepare me for the future. Not at all a materialist or fanciful gift. And I know I would have been incredibly disappointed in the US if I found rice in my stocking at home. But I think people here would be perfectly happy to get coal, because they cook over fires and it would be useful.

The second biggest difference is… PARTY. Christmas is a HUGE party here. As in, I didn't sleep for two days because the music and celebration noise from the nearby bars was simply too loud and all night. And I mean ALL night. There is much beer, dancing, and eating of Christmas-y rice with red sauce. And so it was festive in its own way, although without all the lights and holly and mistletoe and christmas trees and snow and other things I normally associate with Christmas festivity. Although I did wake up to the Little Drummer Boy being blasted at an absurd, pre-sun morning hour…

So Cameroon Christmas was fun, but we still wanted to have our American Christmas. So another PCV, Josh, invited a big group of us to his post in Foumban (somewhere else in the West region). We ate pizza (American) with folléré wine and pineapple wine (not American, but homemade so that's pretty cool). We exchanged white elephant gifts and fought over the best ones. And then we did very touristy things like 1) hiking around a crater lake of Mount Batpit outside nearby town Foumbot; visiting an awesome cultural museum and sultan's palace; and shopping at the artisan's market where everything is a "very good price!" Poor Josh, it was like a 5:1 girl to guy ratio and I think he was sick of us by the time he managed to kick us out, but it was a great time.

We followed that little party up with a trip to Bamenda in the Northwest. The Northwest is comparable to Switzerland in its mountainous, waterfall-full glory (according to Dan Green). It is also an anglophone region, although I would cite that line about being divided by a common language if asked how much I understood. New Year's celebrations here are very similar to the US, expect they celebrate on January 1st and there might be juju dancers and fireworks dangers involved… Unfortunately I don't have pictures of those for you. But a big group of PCVs made burgers and played corn hole and were generally as American as possible for one day, and it felt like 4th of July.

Now I'm back at post for my birthday. I am surprised to hear myself say this but, after a week away, I'm glad to be home.

(Written 29 December 2013)