Who is the blind one now?

Feeling what it means to be blind is not difficult for sighted people. Feeling what it means to be sighted is a much more creative act for a blind person...But can you really share the experience of being blind if you had your eyes open just a few seconds ago?

Eugene is in his thirties, and blind since he is thirteen. He says he remembers the places, he grew up here, he knows the mountains and the waterfalls and the little ups and downs on the path behind his house. As we were walking together on the little path that leads to his compound, through the dense vegetation of bananas and coffee plants on our sides right and left, it seemed to me that I was actually the one who was blind, stumbling over the little stones on the way and slipping on the wet parts of the ground... it happened more than once that I almost fell down on Eugene who was making his way with safe and grounded steps just in front of me. He left his stick at home, telling me: „this is my place“.

But lets start from the first encounter...or even before. When I woke up on this particular morning, I didn’t put my glasses or contact lenses on. I watched out of the window and beyond, just perceiving the almost unshaped colours out there... and wondered how it would be, if these colours would not even be there. If it was all grey, or even so dark that no light would get into my eyes and I started hearing the birds and their chirping in thirds with this idea of what it could be...

On that morning, I decided to watch a movie till the end that I had started the days before: „Dancer in the dark“ by Lars von Trier. An almost blind woman (Bjoerk) escaping from her sad and dark working reality, dancing through her daydreams, to the soundtrack of factory machines, passing trains and pencils writing on paper... 

On this very Sunday we were invited in the afternoon to our neighbours house, to a traditional meeting, a sort of reunion, taking place. So we went, and as I entered the room, I saw a man sitting there with a sort of Kalimba, which is a musical instrument I got to know a while ago in Germany and immediately fell in love with. I even brought one with me to Africa, but the one he was holding was made all out of wood, with parts of bamboo, and had many more latches to play with than mine. He was playing, and a couple of seconds later I found myself sitting next to him, fascinated by the warm wooden sound.

He soon started to speak to me, and I wondered how his gentle and respectful way of talking fitted together with him sometimes randomly bumping into me with his elbow or his hands. Just after some more hints I discovered his blindness, and it seemed the more surprising then that his head and his eyes were always directed in the exact direction where someone was speaking or acting in the room... 

He noticed my interest in his instrument and let me play it, surprised by the different sound patterns and rhythms I was creating, and then started to teach me some of his melodies. He explained to me how he discovered music when he got blind as he was young, and how he works now in a workshop with more blind people building those and other instruments, like traditional rattles and guitars. He invited me and the other volunteers to come over in the next days.

So we did. They showed us not only their instruments, but also chairs and necklaces, made out of natural beads. It was very dark inside the workshop, just a little light from the open door to help us discover the place. Elisabeth, a woman who is also a teacher of „braille“, the blind language, taught us the alphabet and proposed us to teach us more soon.

The day after I came back to learn how to play the traditional guitar with Eugene. Repeating the unfamiliar  rhythms he taught me over and over was an challenging task that required all my concentration. After a while he told me to try it with eyes closed, to make sure I really got it into my musical system. Later he took me to visit the man who taught him music, the so called Bonyako. As we were walking to the village together on that busy road that has no sideway, while holding my hand he said to me „I am using your eyes now.“ 
I answered „OK" - 

But I should have replied instead:¨

„You’d better not, cause my eyes cannot see what you can see inside.

My eyes are useless compared to what you perceive when you walk up this street.        

My eyes make me a blind person because I see too much.

That is why I am the blind one.“

new crowdfunding campaign...

for RUDEC, my organization here.
Please support- it will be very well used.

https://www.betterplace.org/de/projects/14642-building-a-guesthouse-for-rural-development-in-cam

For more information please visit
www.rudec.org
or
http://www.rudec-cameroon.blogspot.com/

School dilemmata

This time I want to write about what school does and doesn't.
It does teach children, yes.
But which way and with which result , this seems to be the more important question...
A question that I am asking again and again, for having seen children aged 12 and above who cannot spell their name correctly, for having heard lots of them speaking a not understandable mixture of Kom (their native language) and English, even when asked to speak clearly. For having heard very few words in French from them (the second official language of Cameroon) and for having seen them escaping from school.

I have observed in their class behaviour two very extremes: Some of them are so shy they even can't raise their head to say good morning - hiding their face behind their hands, and whispering when asked a gentle question. The others, jumping on the tables, running in and out the classroom when asked to sit down.

This said, I ask myself, what happened to them before I came and entered the classroom and got so many times desperate facing the given situation?

And I go to their schools, and I see how many of them are sitting in a classroom which is of the same size than our normal classrooms: at least 90 up to 150 of them are squeezed behind the wooden benches.

School starts at seven. Children are asked to clean their classrooms, later pray together and raise the flag. Then they enter their classrooms, and before the teacher comes the discipline master does his job. He has a wooden stick and you can well imagine what it is meant for.

School goes until 2 or 3pm and there is only one break around 11, which lasts about maximum half an hour. I didnt see any of them eating, but maybe they really dont need to.

This is the situation, and I barely can't believe that some of them come to our Afterschool classes with a lot of curiosity and willingness to learn new things from us. Today, we ware 4 teachers with 4 students (the ones that came despite of the heavy rain). We sat down with them one to one, asked them what they wanted to learn or do, and soon questions over questions were asked to ask. We gave them some mathematic puzzles and they asked for more and more.

in the botanical gardens of Bafut (SABOWA)

An American wedding and an African night...

After some hours in Yaounde and a meeting with the GIZ (Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit) about Safety Issues (what an irony, having travelled through half of Cameroon for a one hour meeting) I went to visit friends in the South, at Ngoulegmakong.
I found myself in another space. Huge butterflies, thick and dense forest, the purple colour of the sky in the dawn, and the stars seemed to be closer and brighter to my eyes.

Just some words about the inhabitants of this place: While I couldn't make a difference from their physiognomy, their way of dressing and behaving seemed to be the same than in any "developed" country: Their ears listening to American Pop Music, their hands touching each other's, their hips shaking to African as well as Latino, RnB or House beats and rhythms...

In my observations appeared a lot of contradiction - one of them concerning the so often heared sentence "On est ensemble", the pendant to the English sentence "We're together"... I heared this sentence mostly when going away from someone,and  as I was told, it is said to emphasize that people don't quit each other in fight or anger. But most of the time it is hard to feel that togetherness: The threshold between harmony and fighting is very easily passed - just a minute after joking and laughing together the speech tone may have completely changed to the opposite.

I am not used to these quick shifts in talking and being together, them mostly speaking in their native language, and just laughing when I asked to explain to me what was happening didn't make things easier. Something else I had to get used to was the obligation to always move in a group. When going out together, noone was allowed to go home if not everyone was willing to join. Everything had to be decided as a group and as soon as I went a few steps away from them  (being a group of friends and neighbours) I was called back to the group, and everyone wondered what I had been doing for the last five minutes.

Anyways, I wanted to tell about the American wedding taking place in the middle of African rainforest between Yaounde and Ebolowa. I didnt know anything about the event and just found myself in a big compound full of elegantly dressed people in Smoking and long dresses. Every group of friends or family sitting at a table with diverse alcoholic drinks including whisky and other strong stuff. Around ten, after unbearable amounts of cheesy french 70's music THE song started: tatatataaa...you know what I mean, bride in white dress with meterlong (how does she manage to keep it that shiny white?) the buffet was opened, but people had to pass according to the order of importance, I guess. Anyway, we didnt get anything of it.
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After hours of sitting around the fun (African) part starts. When overtuned bikussi beats come out of the speakers the young folks enter the improvised dance floor and more and more come and join. So do we, and the hours pass and the dances follow one another - I have to get used to the physical contact that is not always of my choice and hard to get rid of, but hearing this rhythms I can't but dance.

The night gets long and a bad surprise waits for us ... around four we realize our driver has already left the party. Everyone tries to convince us to stay until the morning, but feet are hurting and the air is cold when the sweat has dried on our skins. We ask for a way get home, and after a while we succeed to get a ride from a tipsy woman. 3 minutes later, 11 people are sitting in the car, which of course doesnt get started... oh well... then, break down on the way, just some minutes later. Waiting for petrol at the edge of the street, listening to the lively discussions between the members of the adventure, struggling with heavy fatigue...and getting home around six, with the sun rising and the first people carrying home the water they got at the well.

Yaounde and the South

10 days in the South of Cameroon have passed quickly. As there was mostly no Internet (neither tab water) in the places I visited, I can only write now about my experience between the business of a crazy city, deep rainforest, traditional healers and American style celebrations.

Taking a bus in Cameroon is one adventure. Taking a taxi in Yaounde can be a nightmare for some, an exciting trip to a fun fair for others. But you have to play according to the rules: First, place yourself at a the side oft the street. Not just at any point, try to find out where the crowd is standing. This ist the first restriction to the game: You have to be louder, quicker, better then the others. As soon as a taxi goes by (almost all the cars are taxis, you recognize them by their yellow colour) you say the name oft the place you want to go to, followed by the price you are proposing. Say it quickly! Try to get eye contact with the driver, even if he doesnt look at you! Stand out from the crowd! You can start with the minimum price, which is 200 Francs (30 Cents) for a city ride, if you are not successful fort the next 10 minutes you may raise the stakes by 50 Francs. Keep playing, dont loose patience and you will succeed at some point! When you are finally sitting in a vehicle, you might find yourself on the seat of the driver, or squeezed behind with some other 3 or 4 people, babys not counted yet. This is better than a seat belt, so be happy that you are getting a ride through the street jungle of Yaounde. If you look out of the window, you will see much of what an African city has to offer: Hills and dusty roads, markets full of fruits and fabrics, beds and chairs being build just at the side of the road. Now just hope that no other person will hop in proposing a higher price for the same destination than you did – this means you might be dropped of in the middle of somewhere. But if you're lucky and stay inside the car til your destination: Be patient with the trafic (be sure that you will be stuck in a trafic jam at some point) and enjoy the ride!