Things got really busy this past week. Last Sunday (Oct 21) I went to an apostolic church in a village. It was a very interesting experience. Monday I woke up to a public holiday which meant the school was closed. It was the feast of Eid celebrating the end of Ramadan. Cameroon is predominantly a Christian country but there are a significant number of Muslims so the government tries to make sure that there holidays are recognized. And of course, it’s a holiday so the only people who may be unhappy are businesspeople whose traffic slows down. Wednesday I got my parlor (living room) furniture. Yea!!! Now I have soft seats when needed (after a long day) and somewhere for visitors to sit. Thursday I was introduced to my first class of undergraduate students. The young ladies wanted to know if my hair was real. I have long locs that they thought were extensions. The young men (I found out today) said they could not understand my way of speaking and commented that I was “white.” These comments were made to one of my graduate students who thought it was very funny.

Friday I started my Kenyang classes. Kenyang is the language of the Bayangi ethnic/language group from the Manyu division of the South West Province of Cameroon. The classes continued on Saturday. I learned the alphabet which is phonetic so I can now read Kenyang, but I have no idea what I’m reading. My classmates thought it was amusing to have me read proverbs and such since I didn’t know what I was saying. Now I’ll begin the hard work of building vocabulary and grammar. Kenyang is a tonal language and can therefore be very tricky. Two very different meanings can come from the same spelling but using different tones. That’s a problem for non-native speakers like meJ. But language is also a very important key to the culture of a people. So while I probably will not be able to master the language in the short time I will be here, I may gain some insight into the Bayangi people.