C'est pas normal

After being in this country for more than a year, most things have become all too normal.  My eyes are opened less wide and the hand sanitizer doesn't make as many appearances as it once did. I don’t notice the many little things that were once bizarre or new – like on the occasions where there is a toilet, not having a toilet seat, using a napkin only at fancy meals, chewing a bone completely clean, casually and acceptably correcting other people’s children, watching tiny little ones do work that grown Americans would complain about, or feeling like a celebrity any time I go anywhere because I’m constantly being noticed and audibly having indirect and direct comments and/or inquiries made about me (occasionally catching the random secret photographer trying to capture this amazing face and figure combo on their phones.  But really, can they be blamed?).  C’est normal.  Eventually, being home in the U.S. is going to hold some similarly parallel (re)integration period that my earlier days in Cameroon possessed.  However, the other day, I had one of my now less-frequent, “hey ass-bag! you live in Cameroon!” moments.

At the center in which I work, we have a small school which teaches skills and trades to young women.  School started two weeks ago, but in good Cameroonian fashion, we are still hiring teachers for the year.  One of my colleagues brings her daughter into work every day -- she’s about one and a half and most days she just wanders the hall aimlessly, running into un-moving towering obstacles, and pops in for a visit or ten with her un-proportionally large but adorable head (at the end of that open hallway is the outdoor scary, steep cement staircase that goes down three floors; it makes me incredibly nervous so I am constantly looking up to see where she is…I get a lot of work done).  Anyway, I was sitting in my shared office space, observing a teacher interview.  My two colleagues sat on the same side of the room with the interviewee opposite us.  Baby also wanted to be present for the interview.  Shortly thereafter though, without trying to hide any of her newly arisen feelings of boredom, or maybe it was her insatiable interest in the mechanics of a swinging door, she began door-slamming.  I was bored too but had to sit there quietly, in envy of her freedoms.  The loud banging was ignored but not as some sort of new-age American over-the-top teaching technique.  Noise just doesn’t seem to faze Cameroonians.  They have some super magical tuning-out power that I never received.  (Thanks parents.)  Questioning continued.  Then, it was running in circles until dizzy.  Questioning continued.  But then...we saw a look in her big brown doe eyes – that one that a parent knows instinctively and precisely of its meaning (for me, there were several options).  Her mother walked out of the room without saying anything and quickly returned with a small plastic blue bowl.  She placed it on the floor and helped with Baby’s pants’ removal (disposable diapers are not a thing here).  Baby backed into hover position and relieved herself.  All the while, the interview never ceased.  No apologies were needed or offered.  The entire thing was quite impressive actually – a very fluid process, if you will.

My pointless point being, to my still occurring American sensibilities, this was a little odd for me - definitely not a major weirdness in my life here but odd and amusing enough to burn a small, temporary spot in my overlooking, forgetful brain-space.  About twenty minutes later, I saw Baby stumbling, seemingly under an influence, down the hall chewing on that same still-damp bowl.  No, Baby, no!