Welcome to the world of suffering

I’m a little drained of Cameroon—not to say that I don’t want to be here, but I’m sick of being stared at, tired of repetitive lame questions, but most of all tired of feeling like an asshole. When living with a population of people who have never received the same kind of education (the formal science based school attended education), conversations arise when quite simply I know I’m right. The basic years of biology, history, and math imprudently reveal themselves.

For example the other day a friend said to me “ do you know that when you add citrus to beer, it owers the alcohol content?” Speaking through laughter “Actually it changes the taste, the alcohol content comes from the process when the beer is made.” I imagined all of Mexico grinning at their lime slices. I try to correct statements like this without being a total know-it-all jerk, but it really makes me feel like one. The other day I saw Mariamou giving her one-week-old baby water. In alarm I said “doctors recommend only breast milk until the baby is six months old!” She nonchalantly responds, “ yeah, they told me that too, but doesn’t he look thirsty?” In desperation I speak up “It can make him sick.” “I know he gets diarrhea, but I don’t want him to suffer from thirst” In exasperation, I plead through what I consider reason “diarrhea is the most common cause of death in the world, it leads to dehydration and has many other repercussions, it’s dangerous! Go breast milk!” “But he’s thirsty Sarah”. I look at my feet and stew in asshole land.


And it’s those times where I totter between withdrawal and confrontation that are the most disturbing. To step up and say, hey actually the practices like this that you have been doing forever are the reasons that your other kids that we don’t talk about died. It’s not god’s fault, it’s not sorcery, and it’s your neglect to listen. How can you look someone in the face and say this? How many times in a day can you say this? Or, I back off and try to change my thoughts and convince myself that being a know-it-all asshole isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I’m not responsible for everyone’s livelihood even if I believe that I know better. Who am I anyway, and really what do I know? Maybe the Ngaoundéré parasitic water that often generously gives typhoid has something in it that builds one week old babies immune systems against x, y, and z. I do the same thing with my friends back home who still smoke cigarettes. I feel like I am annoying when I remind them how horrible smoking is, constantly badgering them, but in return feel guilty if I don’t do anything. In the end either way I’m the asshole and I’m tired of being one here in Cameroon. Talking to an adult like a child is humiliating for both parties.

“What is that guy doing?” I asked puzzled. “I think he’s just laying there, ” said Sammy, a Breaking Ground Football volunteer. “In the middle of the soccer field, after a match? That’s so strange!?” I jittered with confusion.


Every time I leave a meeting or a soccer game after working with Etienne I sit on the back of his moto and think, god, where did he come from? It just doesn’t make sense. After the success of Breaking Ground Football, he has implemented girls soccer into all government sporting competitions. Today there was a trophy ceremony for Cameroon’s Independence day games. I can even quote him saying “when I first met you I didn’t understand what a volunteer was, now I am a proud volunteer who runs a girls soccer program!” It’s not everyday you hear a Cameroonian male say those words, let me be the first to tell you. During the first meeting when I told everyone that there was no money, he stood up and said he would work with me- he has never let me down.

As Sammy and I walked out of the stadium, the kid of unknown origin started seizing uncontrollably on the ground. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew we couldn’t leave him there. Everyone stared and said in harmony “wait in a few minutes he will get up on his own.” I knew from elementary school experiences that he could choke on his tongue. I wanted to run up, but about 30 people kept telling me I couldn’t because it could be contagious! And, what if it is sorcery! I was astounded and awkwardly hovered.

As the outsider I was scared if I tried to help and something went wrong I would find myself in a really bad spot. I was stuck. Sammy said, “Sarah let’s just walk up and look.” Disgusted at myself I responded, “We can’t just walk up and look!” (it had been minutes by now and I was cursing myself and my weakness). “Where is Etienne?” Within seconds he was there and ignoring all the murmurs and threats lifting the boy who had by then bitten his tongue and had blood all over his face. He helped him into recovery. I felt awful, guilty, and confused by the situation. But all in all, that explains Etienne. Strong, honest, and there when you need him.

That day we gave away jerseys to player’s children and siblings. We noticed that many children would run into the stadium take a jersey and show back up five minutes later begging for another. Once wind of the situation blew through the neighborhood, moms were using their kids as bait for jerseys. We ran out of stock before kids could double up, but Etienne astutely commented, “The bed of the poor is rich…poor people don’t work, so what else do they have to do?”

There is a stark realism of life and death in Cameroon. Most people never meet their grandparents, most women have lost at least one child, and the majority of the population is under 25. I find people are more at ease with the life cycle, as you experience life, sickness and death more often.

Mariamaou gave birth a couple weeks ago to a boy weighing 2.7 kilo’s later to be named Chamsoudini (light over religion). A friend of mine visited a couple days later and when holding Chamsoudini said “welcome to the world of suffering.”

The hospital experience was gritty, raw, and reconfirmed my thoughts on motherhood. We arrived around 3pm to sit on a urine-smelling bench packed with women outside of the doctor’s room. After 30 minutes, Mariamou was emitted to the birthing room. There 5 metal beds were aligned around the room. Blood was on the floor. I don’t know if sanitation wasn’t a concern, or if there wasn’t the manpower or supplies to make it a priority. Either way, I wasn’t impressed. I sat there with the three year old and drew pictures for her to color. Attached to this room is a smaller room with two beds for birthing. No one is allowed in this room except the pregnant woman and the nurses (after 8pm there was no doctor). As Mariamou lay there legs wide open, I ran in and out, holding her hand when the nurses were outside.

Hours passed and pregnant women entered one by one. Some came with friends and some were alone. Not one husband entered the room. As there are no options of painkillers, women began asking questions about birthing in the USA. I explained the epidural shot, caesarian sections and how women will rest for days in the hospital before returning home. One lady asked me how I could be so selfish to not have children when it is so easy in the USA. The new thing is to tell me that I have not followed god’s wishes by not reproducing at the ripe old age of 24.

Mariamou’s husband came at her telephoned request to bring food and when she expressed her pain and need for medication, he told her he would be back in a couple of hours. Her eyes narrowed in on me and I received the message loud and clear! Lucky for Mariamou, since I am like a man-girl here, against her husbands’ wishes I was able to moto to the one after-hours drug store to find her needed medication. I also picked up some grilled meat and beignets along the route to give to the nurses so I could hold Mariamou’s hand as they went out of the room to eat (is that bribery or what?).

The serious screaming began around 8 hours later. The lady next to Mariamou was having her first child and couldn’t push anything past the head out. I colored as hard as I could sitting on the metal bed and swatting away mosquito’s. Women nervously paced the room, asking me questions to get their mind off of the dangerous birthing reality. Mariamou was 9 hours into labor when her baby decided to become alive. He wasn’t breathing, so they gave him a shot. Within a couple minutes he cried, but not willingly. The nurses were worried. They said if a baby doesn’t cry within 10 to 15 minutes, they leave him on a table to die. Most likely in that situation, he will be mentally impaired, so they have been taught to put them aside.

Once Mariamou gave birth, the nurses yelled for her to be cleaned up. In the ultimate state of confusion I didn’t know what was going on. I knew that we had to provide everything for the birth to take place. She packed extra syringes, gloves, towels, cotton, but what was this clean up crew about? Her mom, Ina, ran into the birthing room and came out with a dustpan of blood and substance wrapped in white plastic. Oh! I get it, we are to go in after the birth and clean Mariamou and the baby up! Then they asked for water! No running water in the birthing room! I threw my Nalgene bottle across the room for Mariamou to take a swig.

Once Mariamou and the baby were cleaned up we resumed position on our metal sheet-less cot. Grandma sat on a matt just below the bed, and great grandma sat on a matt adjacent to us all. Mariamou, the newborn, and myself shared the cot. Mariamou dosed as I held the baby, staying awake to reassure myself that mosquito’s were not landing on him. The widow behind me had no screen and I think I walked out with over 20 bites myself. If the infant were to fall ill with malaria, his chances of survival would dramatically decrease.

Hours passed slowly. No sign of husbands. No congratulations, no hooraah! Women quietly trickled in hour after hour. Around 3am a woman showed up alone with nothing. No cotton, no gloves, no change of clothes, no friends—nothing. She went into labor and the nurse screamed “gloves, gloves, anyone!” I assume someone found some, later she came out with a bloody baby and was bleeding all over the floor and the bed next to us. Blood was all over our pots and pans (you bring your own food) and she was ashamed. Women were disgusted. Someone gave her a towel to wrap her child up into. Someone else gave her some fabric to wrap around her waist. Nothing was stopping the blood. Around 6am her husband showed up. He was probably in his 60’s. He didn’t look at his wife or the baby, but looked around the room at everyone and said while congratulating himself “this is my 39th child.”

I was antipathetic, not only at this man, but at every man. This painful and lonely event that these women went through was regarded as a ‘rite of passage’ that has nothing to do with men. Even in the car that next day (side note- I paid for Mariamou’s birth, $20, that I was later paid back for) Ismaila called the newborn “Mariamou’s new child” as if he had nothing to do with him. And many women don’t even have the option to go to hospitals at all, so what I saw was probably a plush and comfortable birth by Cameroonian standards. The entire experience left me exhausted and disgusted, certain that I did not want to give birth anytime soon.


So welcome Chamsoudini! Welcome to the world of suffering. Make it what you will; your destiny is yours and yours alone. In a time period where religion seems to be unnervingly uniting and dividing our world in extremes, maybe it us you who can shed some light on us all, even the know-it-all western assholes.