Orality Class Response

I wanted to share with everyone my first reaction essay I wrote for my Orality, Landscape and Creative Writing Course. I didn't expect us to share them today in class, but after I got fairly good reactions from the group, I don't feel as shy about it anymore, so here it is! Feel free to send feedback my way if you wish!
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Andrew Verrier
Orality and Landscape
Professor Mutia
2 March 2010

Everyone Has a Life
Since I was young, whenever we were in an airport or a crowded restaurant, my mom would lean over to me and whisper, “You know, Andrew, everybody has a life.” Being young and uninterested in such complicated concepts, my usual response was “yeah, yeah, Mom, I know,” rolling my eyes, and that was that. Nothing out of the ordinary for a child, I’m sure. Being young, it was easy, and easily forgivable, to put it out of my mind. Yet as I grew up, it was increasingly impossible for me to ignore that fundamental, humbling truth. In fact, in many ways, it was this timeless insight that drove me to choose Cameroon in the first place.
Therefore, our trip last Wednesday was exactly what I had been looking for: a window into the lives of everyday Cameroonians; a glimpse of how their experiences define the person they are today, just as we all have been shaped by the lives we’ve been given, simply by the miracle of birth. Obviously, owning a restaurant in the heart of Yaoundé and attending a top liberal arts school in the United States are two very different things, yet our interactions with these two amazing women served to reaffirm our common humanity.
Ever since arriving in Cameroon, the people that I’ve met have intrigued me to no end. Everyone from the professors, to the street vendors, and even the “charming” men who try tirelessly to woo the women in our group, they all have a story. I grew up being taught that, no matter how different someone might seem, you can always find something in common with anyone you meet. So, being in a place that is admittedly a world away from where I grew up, I have wanted the opportunity to affirm that assertion. And that’s exactly what I got last Wednesday. The first woman we met, Hortanse, owned a modestly decorated eating-house near Polytechnique (ironically contrasted by the tricked-out Hummer sitting outside.) A single mother of one daughter in secondary school, she moved from a village outside Bamenda to Yaoundé in 2002, hoping to gain a visa to the United States. Sadly however, her dreams fell through, as so many such requests do, so she decided to use her skills to rent some land and set up a small eatery in Yaoundé. However, just as business was becoming stable, the city decided to pave a road literally through the middle of the restaurant, effectively halving her business. What’s more difficult for me to stomach, she was not even compensated by the owner of the land, let alone the city, but she has kept subsisting and kept strong nonetheless. When we talked to her, despite her hardships her voice was not one of pitiful struggle, but one of strength through circumstances and character, and the dignity of having to live day to day just to support yourself and your family. No matter the cards you are dealt, the only choice you have is to continue on as best you can.
The same goes for the next woman we met, Edith Timbong (my spelling is most likely way off). While she was more successful, relatively, than Hortanse, she is the only person in her business who knows how to make all the dishes, do all the finances, which means that she needs to be at the job every day by 9 a.m. with materials for the days work. By the look of her restaurant, with its rotating fans and laminated menus, it is obvious that she does fairly well for herself and her family. However, as she readily admits, business “only works when you’re there,” leaving her intimately tied to her work, with little wiggle room for a life outside her job.
We only met with each of our subjects for, at most, 30 minutes. However, the window we received into their lives was invaluable, shedding light on two women who would otherwise have just been faces on the street to me. If I had the time and the agency to get just a little window into the life of everyone I met, I readily would, but even with our lives being run by “Africa Time,” there still isn’t enough hours in the day for that. However, I will always keep in mind that ultimate truth which my mother instilled in me so long ago.