Handful of Gestures

As life settles down into a routine of PC training again, I’m branching out for topics. Thanks for the awesome suggestions readers. This week, the topic of choice is gestures. Every country and culture have different gestures and signs, different nuances. Living in Germany, I loved how instead of “crossing your fingers” they had “press your thumbs”. In America, we have some great ones, like the middle finger, or a thumb for hitchhiking, vulgar ones such as putting the tips of your index fingers together, or completely innocent ones, like putting your palms together to indicate “prayer”.

            As I start to understand more and more of the language (side note: guess who tested “intermediate high” on their language placement test this week!!!!! I start learning Fulfulde by the end of the week in addition to my French classes.) I start to get a glimpse of these gestures and accommodate my behavior accordingly. I’ve collected a list of some good ones I’ve found:

Crossing your legs: In America, crossing your legs and leaning forward is a sign that you are paying attention. Crossing your legs is a natural part of sitting and everyone does it. Look around the room you’re in right now; how many people are sitting with their legs crossed? Probably a majority. It’s not something we think about in the states, its just comfortable. However, here in Cameroon, crossing your legs is a no-no. Crossing your legs is a sign of disrespect to everyone else in the room. Basically you are saying to them “I am the boss and way more important than anyone else in this room”. When our main goal right now is to try to make friends and integrate this isn’t exactly the best message to be sending across. But let me tell you, this is a hard habit to break! As we’re meeting with community groups in training, I constantly find myself crossing/uncrossing my legs, fiddling with my chair and trying to find some way to tie down my knees to my chair without being to obvious about. I considered just using rope, but I figured that would just be awkward.

5, or palm toward another person with fingers extended: if you start this gesture from a closed hand and open your hand, allowing your fingers to go from bent to straight, you have just completely insulted someone. It’s equivalent to a middle finger here. It means that your mom has “loose” nether regions. Needless to say, this is one I’ve used a lot, especially in the market. “I’ll pay 500 for that, not 1000.” I now understand why the vendors were so upset and never bargained down with me.

Fingertips pulled together in front of the palm:  This is how they signal “5”. Took me forever to figure that out. I was constantly thinking market vendors were aiming their fingers nails for my eyes or something.

Open palm hitting one side of a fist of the other hand repeatedly: while it may have negative or sexual connotations in the states, here it means “beaucoup” or “a lot”. The more there is of something, the more you bang your hand on your fist. This one is used surprisingly often. And by that I mean at least 20 times in every conversation. I don’t understand why people don’t develop calluses on one side of their fist.

Waving: Palm out towards someone while bringing your fingers into your palm, reopening your hand, and repeating: In America, this is a friendly wave across the room, often reserved for cute little kids: “hey cute kid hanging on the monkey bars staring at me why snot runs down your nose and into your mouth!” Here this means “come here”. This led to sooo much confusion on my part. Being white in this country means everyone is always watching us. I often have a following of little children following me around town. Wherever I go, people yell “La Blanche” (the white girl) or my name (PC does not exist in this country). So of course, many a time, kids yelling at me from across the street would get this gesture from me. I was always alarmed and confused when they would drop whatever they were doing to crowd around me. They, in turn, appeared very confused when I didn’t have a good reason for calling them over. An endless cycle of confusion. This is a habit I’m still in the process of breaking. Kids will look through the fence into our center during their lunch breaks yelling our names and so many times we’ll respond with this gesture, only to find handfuls of kids running through the gates to see what we want.

Some of the gestures that I’ve discovered haven’t been visual or physical, but oral. In America, we use things like harrumphing or snorting, tsking, or pssssting. Not exactly words, but each with definite meaning in certain contexts.

Hissing or kissing noises: This is an attempt to get your attention, particularly as your walking by. I most commonly hear this in the market as I’m walking amonst stalls “Hisss, Blanche!”, but everyday on my walk to school numerous guys hiss or make kissing noises at me, trying to get my attention. For the most part, at least in the contexts I’ve experienced, it appears to be used by guys trying to get women’s attention. All of us Americans find this completely and totally annoying. We try not to respond, although occasionally, in a bad mood, I’ll send such an evil look their way, there unlikely to try again for at least 30 seconds.

Clicking in the back of your mouth: This appears to be a sign of sympathy or agreement, very similar to our snapping our fingers when someone says something we agree with. For a while, I thought Cameroonians just constantly had something stuck in their throat.

So that’s our week’s Cameroonian Culture 101.

Tiny update on my life: doing a lot of projects for training. Today we went to the elementary school and did a quick presentation on the fecal-oral route and the importance of washing our hands (extremely necessary, especially considering the cholera outbreak in our town). Learning French and other marvelous things that I’ll hopefully be able to use at post. Did hear a great quote today, perfectly describing my PC experience so far: “The days are really long, but the weeks go by so quickly”. Every day is a struggle, but at the end of the week, I couldn’t tell you what happened with that time! I can tell you that I am happy though. I’m really looking forward to going to post, but enjoying my time here in Bokito with the other trainees and staff members.

Cravings of the week: shepherds pie, beef jerky, good dark chocolate, salami, and of course, cheese.