June 26th, 2012
Wheww, I am relieved that this day is over, and am
congratulating myself on getting through it. It’s now 7:21 PM, dark, power is
out, and I have just said goodbye to one of my bosses for the health program (I
have two, both Cameroonian women whom I like a lot). Today Maureen was here
doing a field visit and “site prospection” to see if they will replace me in
Nkongsamba, since I opened this post as a health volunteer through odd
circumstances and was never formally invited by any host organization.
Basically, I opened two posts, without any functional partners to work with
until I carved my own partnerships, and am therefore HARDCORE! : )
Which I need to remind myself when I see how much more
tangible work I might have accomplished had I had two years in a more stable
situation, where you know who you are working with, have an actual work
counterpart, and get to hit the ground crawling (Cameroonian equivalent of
running), bolstered by some stability and precedent. Things that I never had,
which I can’t regret as it’s been a formative and toughening part of the
experience. But it’s that groundwork that I have tried to lay here for a possible replacement, and which I
am a bit jealous that the next volunteer will built on. But there is a
gritty satisfaction in knowing that you were the pioneering volunteer (in
Nkongsamba I at least benefited from
other volunteers having lived here and made some good connections, but they
were in different work sectors, so that was all new), and I feel proud of what I have been able to do.
Plus my independent personal style has enjoyed that no one organization can
claim me – I do what I want, when I want, yo.
The hard part of the visit was not talking about the
projects I’ve been doing, but navigating the dynamics of our meetings,
especially with the staff of one organization I’ll leave unnamed. I was horrified
with the reception they gave her – so seemingly cold, nonchalant, uninviting,
unenthusiastic…we walked in, I introduced her to the small staff, and they all
just stood there looking unimpressed. I had NO idea what was going on and
was sure I done something wrong in the way I made the introductions, or had not
set up the meeting right, or stepped out of place with the protocol, or
offended someone by standing or sitting at the wrong time – they are incredibly
strict about formal protocol here in certain settings, in ways that as an
outsider you can’t know how to anticipate or find reason in.
But no, she assured me afterward, that’s just the culture. She
said that because she was the boss of an American, she held the power in the
situation, and because they have such a linear power structure, it was not
their place to be warm and friendly and receptive, it was their place to
basically not react (which I read as removed and off-putting) until my boss
showed her true colors and established the power relation and tone of the
meeting. I felt like the way they
received us was confusingly rude. I am
now very informal and friendly with these women, who turned to stiff icicles
when she entered, but instead of faces of nervousness, they put on faces of nonchalance,
boredom, almost dislike. All to be subservient
and get her vibe? Disorienting.
We pushed on, me feeling so clueless about when I could
talk, who was leading the meeting, how to make Maureen see why I want Peace
Corps to send another volunteer here! But Maureen said she is really used to
the culture of these power plays – there is no casual, friendly banter between
people in that kind of a meeting, and someone is firmly on top and someone decidedly
on bottom. If she had been on bottom, she would have entered a room and the
person behind the desk would not even have looked at her, raised his head,
or acknowledged her presence, all to safeguard his power and keep her in her
place. I cannot even describe how strange a vibe it is, how UTTERLY different
than had we been in the American context. I have rarely spoken about the extreme inferiority/power complex that is widely acknowledged by Cameroonians to be rampant here and which this was an example of, but it is brutally evident throughout the society and runs deep.
This made me realize how relatively casual I act whenever I enter an official office, where it’s almost always a man
behind the desk. I ask how they are, smile, sometimes make small talk – acknowledging
and respecting their position, but acting neither like I am helplessly subservient or desperately dependent on their favor, nor like they are an all-powerful titan to be feared and appeased, which is no
exaggeration of the vibe many "big men" here work hard to upkeep. As an empowered American woman it just never
even enters into my conscious that that’s how I should be seeing myself or
them, which is probably off-putting
and shocking to multiple people. Well, I kinda like thinking I am challenging, gently, for the most part,
that system.
I remember making a novice mistake of asking a
high-ranking local government official how the Peace Corps volunteer in his area was
doing as we sat down to a dinner my village chief was giving him, then realizing that the rest of the dinner
proceeded in SILENCE and NO ONE addressed him without being spoken to. OOPS!
This really blew my mind: I was also telling Maureen that I
get very little feedback of any kind from Cameroonians. Even when I do a solid
job or go the extra mile or a project or course goes well, rarely
does anyone say anything. I find this a downer and discouraging – why
can’t they give me any kind of pat on the back from time to time, OR tell me what they would like improved?
Well, explained
my boss, as part of their rigid power structure they believe that praising
anyone is shifting the power to them, taking away your own power, selling out,
and giving that person “wings”. Consequently, parents don’t praise or thank their children even when they are
working like servants for them – I always notice they don’t get so much as a
thank-you or a good job when they’ve made a wonderful dinner or scrubbed the
whole house.
Maureen explained that this is because parents feel that by
giving encouragement or positive feedback, you are risking your daughter or son
feeling too good about themselves and becoming hot-headed, disobedient, and
undisciplined. This is unsafe, as it threatens the family structure of overall
dominance by the parents and especially the father. Likewise, Maureen said that
husbands 90% of the time NEVER praise their wives to their faces, that it’s
only culturally acceptable to compliment them to others like your friends, away
from their face. She explained that thanking or recognizing or even
acknowledging something done by your wife, such as her working tirelessly to make a
Christmas meal she won't even get to eat, would be “selling out” your power as the man of the household,
and would be giving power to your wife, which does not go along with the
traditional African culture.
She noted that only people who have spent time abroad or
seen how it’s done elsewhere are likely to even speak kindly to their wives directly.
In addition, in public especially it is extremely important that men keep up the
image of themselves being on top and their wives being on bottom. I have long
noticed that relationships here are extremely vertical, almost never
horizontal, between spouses, colleagues of different levels, teachers and students, even older and younger siblings
– much more formal and fear-based than in our culture.
I am often off put by
how I see men I respect and work with treating their wives and children, or
bosses treating their employees – shouting, condescension, harsh displeasure
and the seeming indication that the lower person is an imbecile. The decided opposite
of the positive reinforcement approach always touted in our child/employee
development theories. To me it feels dehumanizing, and the inverse of what
would create a positive atmosphere and motivate someone to improve or have
pride in their hard work. But these are the moments I can’t get enough of –
cultural exchanges that deepen my sociological/anthropological understanding of
exactly HOW different cultures can be, something I could have had no hope of
understanding before I came.
No comments:
Post a Comment