Strength

My ten year old sister, Patricia, has bigger muscles than I could ever hope for. 

Before leaving for Bafia, one of our host PVCs in Yaoundé gave us the following words of wisdom:   

“You are stronger than you think you are – physically, mentally, and emotionally.”

At the time, I understood the need for mental and emotional strength over the course of the next 27 months away from home, but I didn’t quite understand the physical aspect.  Welp, by my first weekend in Bafia, I began to recognize just how physically demanding living in rural Cameroon will be. 

Let me just say: African women are STRONG.  Mentally and emotionally, I’m sure, on levels that I’ll probably never fully understand, but right now I’m talkin’ physical.

Let me tell you about my first Sunday here in Bafia.   It was our first day off from training.  (Yep, we have “school” on Saturdays too!).  I woke up at 6:15AM to go to church with Patricia.  That was the easy part:  sit, stand, kneel, stand, sit, etc.  Classic Catholicism.

When I returned home, it was time for laundry.  Although we do have running water in the house, water for laundry must be feched from the well.  Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever fetched water from a well before, but I’ll tell ya – pulling up a bucket-full of water 20 or 30 feet is not an easy task for someone who has floppy spaghetti arms! Mama was kind enough to set up the wash basin and bench right next to the well so that I wouldn’t have to transport any water just yet.  Baby steps, right?

So anyways, I dumped a weeks worth of clothes into the water and ventured into the kitchen to help Epiphany (my other sister) grind peanuts for a delicious peanut sauce to be eaten with leafy green veggies later at dinner.  One arm to turn, one arm to hold the machine steady.

I was thankful to see the last peanut turn to mush, although that meant it was time to return to my laundry. 

Time to hand wash all of my clothes!  It was novel for a while, but once an hour flew by, I was pooped.  Had there not been so many people nearby, I probably would have just dunked my clothes once, performed the “smell test”, hung them up to dry, and called it a day.

After thoroughly wringing out all my clothes to dry (sidenote: in an exhibit at the Smithsonian…something about Pilgrims or something rather… there’s a “game” to test if you have enough strength to properly wring out clothes to dry.  I failed.), it was time to go back to the kitchen to help peel plantains.  Fifty of them.

Once finished, I sneakily retreated to my room to rest for a minute or sixty.  No such luck!  Within seconds, Patricia was knocking at my door.  It was time to go to the pump to get some drinking water. 

She led me between houses to someone’s yard, where half a dozen children were waiting by a pump.  I had brought two big jerry cans with me, but quickly realized that I was a bit over-ambitious when I saw the children with wheelbarrows to help transport their water.

Fortunately, the man who owned the pump was there to do the pumping and all I had to do was hold the jug steady.  Patricia carried the empty jug while I awkwardly carried the full one.  And I truly mean awkwardly.  Everyone we passed chuckled at my struggle (in a nice way, I guess.  Or maybe not so nice, but I totally deserved it).  Heck, people even came outside of their houses to watch my struggle.  I don’t know how these women and children do it everyday!  Wheelbarrows, I guess, but also so much physical strength!

Patricia assures me that after living in Bafia for two weeks, I will be strong enough to carry back both jerry cans full of water.  I can assure you this won’t be the case.

But I am sure of one thing: between fetching water, hand-washing my clothes, and making homemade peanut butter, I’m going to be a regular ol' muscle-man by the time I come home!