(Note: The author wrote this reflection on Friday, March 27, from her host family’s home in Yaoundé, Cameroon. She has since returned to her family in Concord after receiving a seat on special charter flight arranged by the U.S. Embassy on March 31.)
Most mornings, I wake up to the sound of crickets, roosters and taxi drivers. Around 5 a.m., like clockwork, the crickets commence their morning song; the neighborly roosters begin conversing from house to house; and the city’s taxi drivers start their daily rounds.
So when I woke up to the soft pitter-patter of raindrops on my tin roof a few mornings ago, I knew that change was a comin’. The transition from the dry season to the rainy season in Cameroon had finally begun.
For nearly three months, I have been grateful to call Cameroon my home away from home. In early January, I traded my sixth-floor college dorm room in Boston and my small brick Tudor in Concord’s West End for a semester abroad in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Here, I live in a much larger home complete with a sprawling veranda overlooking the city, a mosquito net draped over my bed, and an endless galore of fruits, vegetables and freshly ground spices. Here, I have been blessed with the generosity and love of a second family – two wonderful parents and three hilarious siblings. And here, I patiently wait for the opportunity to return to my home and my family in the States.
Typically, I’m not one for surprises. But lately, surprises have been the only sure thing on this side of the Atlantic. We have a saying here that I have come to embrace in this time of rapid, rapid change: “il faut profiter.” This is French for one must take advantage. Sounds a bit cliché, I know. But while I wait for international borders to open, airplanes to resume their courses and the virus to stop its rampage, I take advantage of and give thanks for all that I can. The sun. My family in Concord and in Cameroon. My health. The guava tree in the garden. The morning breeze. My journal.
For the time being, I am free to explore our home and all that rests on the inside of the cinder block and iron barrier that defines my host family’s personal, little slice of the world. I write and I read. I laugh with my siblings. I run the small tiled path that surrounds our home. I eat every meal with my family. I dance on the veranda. I smile when the electricity goes out. I sigh when the water stops running. I continue to hopelessly swat the mosquitoes when they come out to feast in the evening. And I have plans to work in the garden this weekend.
I don’t know when I’ll be back home in Concord in my small brick Tudor nestled between the pines. I don’t know when I’ll be able to give my parents the type of two-armed hug that you feel long after the embrace has ended. And I don’t know what the world will look like on the other side this pandemic. But I have faith that at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning, the roosters and the crickets and the taxi drivers will begin their morning routine. And I have faith that the rain will fall and the lush greenery of Cameroon will return.
(Brinkley Brown lives in Concord.)