No, man...I live here!

Despite being an introvert, I (Chris) enjoy a little bit of small talk with random people from time to time.  When we lived in Virginia, I got into the habit of talking a bit with grocery store checkers, bank tellers, whomever.  It's kind of fun.

While in France for language school, I really went out of my way to speak even more because I was always looking to improve my conversational skills.  The French are generally less outgoing than Americans, so sometimes I caught people off-guard with the attempts at conversation.  Sometimes I embarrassed myself with silly mistakes in the language.  But all in all, it was beneficial.

And now that I'm in Cameroon, I've discovered that people enjoy friendly chit-chat quite a bit more than in Europe or even the US.  It's still an opportunity to practice my French and now maybe I can also pick up some new cultural tidbits with each conversation.

Yesterday, I was in centre-ville Yaoundé with a friend going to look at a car.  It's the busiest part of town with tons of traffic and people going in every direction.  It can be sensory overload.

Rond Point de la Poste, or Score Circle...the center of Yaoundé.

While my friend was looking for his contact that was going to take us to see the car, I was approached by a man wanting to change money.  He asked me if I had Euros or Swiss Francs or US Dollars that I'd like to exchange for Central African Francs.  The best moment was when I responded (in French, but I'll loosely translate here), "No, man.  I live here.  I only have Central African Francs."

He smiled and wasn't sure he understood.  So he asked if I needed Euros before I went back home (I took this as a compliment of my French, that he thought I was European).  I said, "No.  This IS my home!  I live here!"  And then we shook hands and laughed a little.

As a man trying to conduct business (not sure if it's legal, doing currency exchange on the street like that...but whatever...), he certainly made a logical assumption that I was a good person to approach.  It was fun for me to be able to trump the typical and share a laugh - and then a bit of conversation.  And it was fun, even if in the context of a joke, to call Yaoundé home.  It doesn't quite feel like that yet, but it's getting there.  A few more days like yesterday and it will soon enough.

A thousand+ words about a lack of pictures

The old saying that, "a picture is worth a thousand words," is a gross underestimation, especially for the observant and/or loquacious.  There's so much to see and describe in the world around us, especially if an image includes people.  People are far more complex and I believe that just about everyone could have a pretty interesting book written about them.

After one month in Africa, I wish I could say that I have a ton of pictures to tell the story of what our life is like here.  But I don't.  Last year in France, I must have taken at least 1,000 pictures in the first month (digital photography is so different from the film era).  By contrast, I think I've taken less than 10 here except for a couple dozen inside our apartment at Kristin's birthday party Saturday.  Lori has taken a few dozen pictures, which for her is an incredibly low amount, and only a couple with Cameroonians in them.  Why so few?

Because I can't.  I cannot bring myself to photograph much of Cameroon for several reasons - not yet.

The first reason is very practical.  In Cameroon, and particularly in the capital city of Yaoundé, where we live, if one photographs any government buildings, police officers, military personnel or other official apparatus, your equipment will be confiscated if you're caught - even if it's just the camera on your phone.  Lori & I really wanted to take pictures during our first shopping trip into downtown on our fifth day in Cameroon.  But the president was going to be passing through our part of town and there were military and police everywhere - on roof tops, balconies, every little street that came off of the main road.  It would have been a dangerous situation.  So we ended up with only a couple of blurry shots that Lori took very discretely out of the taxi window in a different part of town with less police hanging around.  On the whole, we've been advised to be very careful about where/when we take photos around the city.

The other, much larger reason is about walls.  Cultural walls.  We're in a situation where walls (literally and figuratively) abound.  But at the same time, we're trying to eliminate or at least reduce the number of cultural walls because they prevent us from getting inside the culture.  We will always be cultural outsiders here, but it's necessary to get as close to "insider status" as possible to best do our work here.

So the first obvious wall is skin color.  An unfortunate part of being human and having an inherent sin nature is that we are automatically suspicious of those that appear differently than we do.  Yes, we can learn to overcome this, but it's been there since the beginning of history and it is very real.  In Cameroon, I've already got one hurdle to overcome because of my skin color.

And because of my skin color, I am automatically defined as rich because I am obviously European or American and most Cameroonians believe we're all rich.  The truth of the matter is, while we as missionaries are notoriously poor in our home culture, we are, by comparison, quite rich here.  Another wall.

But there's some relief for that one.  I've been taught, and experienced, that in Africa, titles and status are very important.  This is very anathema to Americans because we try to be a "flat" society, where we place extreme value on equality.  But in Africa, I am perceived to be rich, probably well-educated and by extension perceived to have status.  The good news is that I can make this wall less significant by carrying myself as the person that they think I am.  As such, we in our organization do our best to dress very professionally all of the time so that we appear to have the status and credibility that the people around us assume we should have (dress is a very powerful outward image of status to Africans).  If we were to dress in shorts or jeans with a ragged T-shirt, we wouldn't be taken very seriously and due to the societal construct here, people would be at a loss of what to think of us - "He's a rich, white American who claims to be here to help people, but he dresses like a common lackey.  Where's his self-respect?"  That thought process is very opposite of America in 2014, and we can debate right or wrong all day, but the bottom line is that it's the reality in this place and time.

I digress...OK...why almost no photos yet?

In an effort to aspire toward eliminating/averting/more easily traversing walls and becoming a cultural insider, I realized that I can't pull out my camera right now because I would effectively construct a nasty, slippery, thorn-covered wall.  If I went just 150 meters down my street and took pictures, not only would the "perceived as rich" wall become a bit higher because of the value of my camera or iPhone, but I would then objectify the people that live on my street.  They would be nothing more than an exhibit at the zoo.  They are well aware that a powerful person (me, in their eyes) wouldn't take a picture of them or their living condition out of envy.  They would immediately know that it was out of pity because they know that the house I live in has a wall around it to keep out bad people and wild dogs.  They know that my house has two toilets that flush.  They know that a woman comes to help my wife with household chores and goes to the market for us.  They know that my kids go to the school that costs a lot of money.  Why would I be interested in them?

Until I show them the true answer to that last question, "Why would I be interested in them," I can't just snap away at will.  I have to become genuine to them.  I have to show them that I am interested in them beyond just having pity - that I am their neighbor, that I am navigating life just like them, that this is my home right now, that I'm trying to parent my kids well - that I want to see a fruitful increase in their lives and purpose.  I have to demonstrate that I am a person of integrity that isn't out to take advantage of them, even though I may not get to know them on a truly personal level (I have a lot of neighbors).

We'll see how it all plays out, but my hunch is that a formula of consistency over time will be key in establishing credibility in my neighbors' eyes.  And when it finally comes, I hope that being able to take some photos of our neighborhood, our street, and inevitably our neighbors that live there, will actually help to remove some walls.  However, until then, I will only lock the images in my mind as best I can.

As a parting thought, I see a bit of the life of Christ in my conundrum.  Jesus came to save a people in need but He didn't do it as a conquering hero.  He did it as a humble servant.  He left the splendor of heaven to muck it up in our broken world.  By no means do I make this analogy as if I'm some kind of savior or even comparable to God, nor do I want to equate America to heaven and somehow superior to Africa.  But Jesus gives an example of ultimate humility that I need to re-study and model.  I need to follow through on humble servant before I pull out a camera, lest I be misperceived.