The Lion King

So when I was home, I had the awesome opportunity to see “The Lion King” on stage. It was a beautiful production, so well done; the costumes were out-landishly good. While I was watching it though, I had a eureka moment when I realized that for most Americans, their idea of Africa is probably Lion King-esque. Giraffes and monkeys everywhere, savannas and rainforests, people eating grubs and staring up at stars in colorful clothing. That and lots of super poor people.

Let me paint a different picture of what I’ve seen in Cameroon. Women in brightly colored garb, walking around, backs straight as boards, carrying buckets of water on their heads while their cute babies hang from their back, laughing and sleeping. Rainforests filled with flies, snakes, beautiful flowers, monkeys, and brightly colored birds flashing between sun beams streaming through leaves. Men, in long, bright bubus, sitting around underneath a huge tree, the afternoon sun high, glinting off the moutain peaks around them, as they share talk and kola nuts. Smells of frying dough and smoke from breakfast wafting around a dirt path in the early morning sun. The pounding of rain on tin roofs or leaking through the thatch. Giraffes and elephants grazing the day away, staying out of the heat by hiding in bushes. Monkeys running alongside the road, searching for watering holes. Cities: brown bustling trash holes. Rarely a building with more than one story. Women in front of shops selling fish, meat, and beignets. The smell of bodies smushed against each other, sweating, in a crowded bus, windows closed. Babies and children running down the street in tattered clothes, laughing delightedly as they push a tire in front of them with a stick. Grubby hands wanting to shake yours with a shy smile, and then they run away laughing and screaming giddily. Men drinking large bottles of beer at 8 am as they watch their women work away in the fields. Hitting, screaming, polygamy. Men walking down the street holding pinkies. Women walking, dresses streaming behind them, laughing and singing. Muddy, holey, disturbed roads. Dust. Illness. Mosquitos. Prayer, religion. Music blaring from every stereo in town. Crowded classrooms. Hundreds of cows crossing dry river beds, kicking up dust in the setting sun; driven by families on camels, carrying their possessions on their backs. Giant families eating together, outside, underneath a giant arching tree. Tv’s blaring in dark houses. Singing on Sundays heard throughout the entire town as churchgo-ers raise their voices. Prayer mats and chanting, streets closed as men stop to pray together. Guns, and lances, and knives. Pretty pots and clay canneries. Farmlands plowed and seeds sprouting in perfect rows.

Life here is different, but it’s not exactly the Lion King.