some correspondence with one of Greer Elementary's ESL classes

I have some questions for you from two students. Leyla wants to know what
kind of animals do you see? Is it hot? Do they have winter? What kind of
food do the people eat? Do you have any pets in Africa? What language do
they speak?

Khadzhi would like to know: Do you see lions? What kinds of houses do they
have? Are the animals close to you? What are you doing there?

Hello Class!
Thank you so much for your wonderful questions! I'm going to take a few minutes to answer them while I'm in the city before I head back to my village this afternoon.
Right now the weather is very hot and very humid! Some days during the hot season it is 110 degrees in the shade. We had 5 months without any rain at all, which is called the Dry Season, but this month the rains started again and will continue raining from time to time until October again. Next month, with more rain we will enter the Rainy Season. The weather and seasons here are based more on Rain and Drought rather than hot and cold, like for us. The coldest it gets here is about the same as springtime for us in Virginia, or maybe the months of June and September. The coldest months here are also December, January, and February, but no snow!!! I guess you could say there is no real winter, like we have in Virginia.
Because I live in a village, there are a lot of animals around, just like on a farm; most every house has goats, chickens and maybe some sheep and cows. However, often the animals live in the family area too instead of in barns! The houses here are not like houses in Charlottesville. They are made of mud bricks that dry in the sun, and many of them have thatched grass roofs. There are also more modern houses made of cement with tin roofs. However instead of one big house like we have in America, their houses are little rooms all separate, surrounded by a wall. This means you walk in a walled in area and there is a little hut that is the kitchen, a little hut that is the bedroom for the mother, a little hut that is the bedroom for the father. In the hot season, it is so hot everyone sleeps outside on mats because it's too hot inside. The animals all stay inside this wall too, with the family and then during the day they are shooed outside to find their own food!
There are also wild animals that I see around, but not as many as the farm animals. There are many beautiful bright colored birds. A lot of them have very long tails that trail after them when they are flying. Also some birds that remind me of home, such as herons and white egrets. There are mountains behind my house, and one time, when I was climbing them, I saw about 30 monkeys or baboons running on the other side of the mountains! One was a mother baboon with a baby hanging onto her back, which is also how mothers and big sisters here carry their babies, safe and secure. There is a river a few miles from my village, and a family of about 15 hippos lives there. The only way you can see them is in the dry season when the water level drops. They like to stay cool in the water so all you can see is dark brown lumps in the river, which is the backs of the hippos. One of them is trained and a Cameroonian man gets it to come out of the river so people can see it, and he feeds it by hand! This is something amazing because hippos are very dangerous animals and very very big! There are also a few elephants that roam and migrate through the area, although I have never seen them. Elephants migrate just like other animals such as whales and birds. This means they live in one place for part of the year and then travel to another, returning after some time. A village just south of my village is on the elephant path, which means the same time every year the elephants pass through the village. One time one took off the thatched roof of a house in the middle of the night without the sleeping man even waking up! I think they travel through there during June, so I might try to go see them! Kadhzi, there are no lions here anymore, although in history there used to be. The landscape here is exactly what you would expect if you were looking for lions---savannah grass plains with some trees and shrubs. However there are many people who have settled here to farm and the lions have been scared off, moving to less populated areas.
I do have pets! In February I got a little puppy and named her Leila, which means "night" in Arabic. Some people speak Arabic here, but most people speak French or Fulfulde. My village also speaks another language called Mafa. I speak mostly French and some Fulfulde with the people who don't know French. I am also learning a bit of Mafa. Learning a new language is hard work, isn't it?! My puppy is very sweet and has a lot of energy. You can see some photos of her on my blog: elizabethincameroon.blogspot.com. She is growing quickly! A week ago I also got a kitten. I haven't named him yet, and he is all white. The kitten and puppy like to play together and they are both good company for me. Soon, I am hoping to get some chickens for eggs! In my next letter I will try to answer Layla's other question about the food, and also Khadzhi's other question about what I'm doing here! Thank you for your questions class! I will try to keep putting photos on my blog too, that your teacher Ms. Madigan can show you.
Elizabeth

We have a few more questions for you. Here are Khadzhi’s: Do they have pet stores? Do they have money? Do you have friends? What kinds of pets do they have? Do they have cars? Can you show more pictures of animals and other interesting things? (We will check the blog!) Do they have cameras? Do you have a car? Do they have a shopping or food store? Do they have schools and jobs? Leyla wants to know: Why do they wear hats or coverings on their heads? Aren’t they scared when they sleep outside?


Hello everyone! I will try to answer your questions quickly because i don't want to miss the end of the school year! I know its around the corner.
There are no pet stores here. People would probably think that was a very funny idea! If you want a puppy or a kitten, you just ask around the village and someone might know of someone who has a dog or cat who had babies. There are often babies around because people do not spay or neuter their animals like we often do in the States. People don't treat their pets the same as we do here. If people have pets, it is just dogs and cats, although they do have their livestock as well: the goats, cows, sheep, chickens, and ducks.
People do have cars here, but only people who are very rich. Noone in my village owns a car, and nor do I! I get places I need to go by hitching rides in other cars that drive along the road near my village. If I want to go into town I sit on the side of the road and wait for a car to come by. Sometimes one comes in a few minutes. Sometimes I've sat on the side of the road for an hour and a half before one comes by with one space in it. In vans that would carry 8 people in the States, here in Cameroon, drivers fit 16 people in them! They can become pretty cramped (you learn to not need so much personal space!) and sometimes include animals. I have gotten in cars where people have a couple of chickens on their laps, and once I got in and looked behind me and the back seat of the van was removed. In its place was a full grown cow! Traveling from one market to another. I wish I had a photo of that. I just laughed. Few people have cameras, although most peoplee have cell phones. Some people even have cell phones with cameras on them, including some people in my village. For special occassions such as marriages and ceremonies, people with cameras come and take photos of whoever wants them and then sell them afterwards.
I have not gotten any chickens yet and am told to wait a bit because currently they are dying. In addition, I want to wait until my garden is a little farther along so the chickens won't eat all my little sprouting plants! I will be traveling to my friends wedding in India in a few weeks, so maybe upon returning I will get a couple chickens. (my grandfather grew up on a farm on the Eastern Shore! How beautiful) There are no real stores in my town, but three "boutiques." A "boutique" here is is a little shack that stores some of the necessary items for people to buy in village. Some of these are: soap, toothbrushes (but no toothpaste), flour, laundry detergent, little hard candies, milk powder, sugar and salt, onions, tomato paste in cans, flip flops, notebooks, pens. My boutiques do not even carry toilet paper! You don't enter the boutiques, you just tell the person inside what you need and they give it to you. I get that when I'm in the city. The cities have bigger stores where you can buy food or other things. However most fresh food, like vegetables, is bought in the markets, which are outdoor stands of people selling food, tomatoes, onions, fruit, greens, garlic, spices, dried fish, meat. They are very colorful! I will try to take some pictures of them to put on my blog. There are certainly schools. My village has an elementary school. Most villages have elementary schools, bigger villages have middles schools and only big villages and cities have high schools. That means that if a student gets to pass their exams to go onto middle school or high school they usually have to travel to another village, either by bike, or walking, to go there. Some actually move to the other village to go to high school, living with relatives, living together with other students in rented rooms, or even chicken sheds. Most students in my village do not go on past elementary school, and some stop before finishing that because you have to pay for school and many families cannot afford it, especially with 5 or 6 children. People do have jobs as well, many different jobs in the city. In my village, everyone is a farmer. People make money by farming peanuts and corn and sorghum and selling it at the market. They also eat the the food they produce at home.
I don't think they are scared when they sleep outside because most everyone is together in groups of big families. People do not live alone, and find it surprising that I do. They always ask me "Aren't you scared to live alone?" There are also walls around most peoples houses so they sleep outside their house, but inside the wall. Some people have dogs who help guard their house.
I think they were coverings on their heads because of tradition. It is part of the culture, and all the women wear headscarves (although not to sleep!) Most Muslim women wear beautiful veils when they leave their houses. Sometimes I do as well, one green and one blue. Many of the Muslim men wear hats too, which are very intricately embroidered and very pretty.
Thank you again for your questions! Have a wonderful summer!
Elizabeth