Family Life

So I debated this weeks topic - religion or host family life. I figure since I will be moving out of my homestay house in less than 2 weeks that maybe I should cover that first... and besides I will touch a bit on religion in just talking about homestay life anyway.

So to begin- I will try to give a basic breakdown of the members of my homestay family (I will warn this is going to be confusing)

Grandma Rosalie Ngon - the matriarch of the house
Constance - granddaughter but like 30 some maybe
Poupette - Constance's daughter, 6 year old
Princesse - 11 year old 'sister'
Jeaunot - 13 year old 'brother'
Diane - 12 year old 'sister'
Brice - 17 years old (I think)
Olivier - 22 years old
Meme - an older sister
Dani - an aunt
Man who I don't know name - Dani's husband

So I put sister,brother, etc next to their names but actually they are all like cousins. Only a few are actually brother and sister. And the only one who actually has their mom living with us is Poupette (Constance is her mom). For example, so Princesse and Jeaunot are brother and sister but their mom lives in Yaounde. And then like Olivier is only visiting Grandma Rosalie for the summer (which a lot of them are also doing - so I don't know for sure who exactly lives in the house year-round). Then as another note, this is just the list of people that are regularly at the house and sleep there ...but there is a slew of other people who have come and gone and stayed for various periods of time.

Then another note about names. The majority of the names I have listed are their 'surnames' basically meaning their nicknames. They have another like 3 - 4 names that are their real names but their surnames are just used 'around the house' is the best way to put it. So for example here is Poupette's full name:

Last Name: Ngon First Name: Andreas Judith Merveille Surname: Poupette

If you are lost a little, it's okay - I still don't quite understand. I just know that I had Constance write out what you could call a family tree and that's the only was I was able to learn most of everyone's name (which I still don't know who exactly some people are and it's just too late to even try to ask or figure it out now). But this confusion of family members is the first aspect of family life to comment on - here it is not just the 'nuclear family' (like parents and children) is each house but extended family all lives together and people come and go - it's not just my host family. That's just how they do here - family members are constantly coming and going - one week there will be only 4 people in the house and the next there will be almost 20.

Now the grandmother is retired and to my knowledge, no one else really works (I think Dani's husband is a pastor but I could be totally wrong). And as far as daily family life goes, it is a bit uneventful but also a little hard to describe. No one is ususally awake when I leave for training at 7 but obviously they are all up when I get back around 5:00pm. The kids usually watch TV or play video games (yes they have a playstation - crazy - I think a relative who lives in France gave it to them- you won't be finding that here). We eat 'dinner' around 5- 5:30 which in the beginning we would all sit down together around the table and prayer first and everything but now it's a serve-yourself and eat in the living room while watching TV thing (which is perfectly fine with me). Then we just 'hang out' which means I read or write, they watch TV, play games. Every now and then I play card games with the younger girls.

Then comes 8:00pm.
8:00pm is a special time in my homestay house - it's prayer time. Yep. We all gather in the living room at 8:00pm every night. Then here is the basic schedule

• Opening prayer
• Hymn (sung in Bafia- local language)
• Someone reads a psaum
• Hymn (in Bafia again)
• Prayer
• Reading of a Bible passage by whoever happens to feel like reading (the Grandmother has a Bible reader that has a daily reading & lesson)
• Answering of questions about Bible passage
• Reading of commentary of Bible passage (done by Grandma)
• Hymn
• Closing Prayer (This changes on a nighly basis - one night is confession, another is wishes, and there are a few other types)

So altogether it's anywhere from 30 mins - 1 hour. And incase you didn't catch it - there are 3 prayers in that whole thing - yep. Again, this is done on a nightly basis and we have never not done it (actually except for these past 2 nights only because the grandmother left for a funeral). Also, so Sunday's are extra fun because not only do we do this in the evening but we also spend about 2.5 hours at church in the morning. Anywhere - enough about that (as I said, I will discuss religion another time).

After prayer, there is usually another meal around 9:30 - 10:00pm or whenever it is ready. Sometimes it is just dinner leftovers, sometimes it is something new. Depending on what they are eating or what time they eat, I choose to partake in this meal but usually I am dying to go to bed by this point. And I have tried to explain multiple times that eating right before bed is not really an American thing (if anything I feel like people try not to eat a good couple of hours before bed) but the Grandmother just doesn't always get that and gets made sometimes if I like don't eat.

Then the family usually stays up till some rediculous hour. I've woken up before at 1am and they are definitely still up. So that explains why they don't wake up till 8 - 9.

Ok now that is the basic daily routine but inbetween all of that there are lots of good times, memorable moments, many misunderstandings and culture clashes. And obviously every trainee here has a slightly different experience. But overall, living with a Cameroonian family has not been that bad. I mean I have never lived with a family other than my own so I was quite worried but I mean they really consider you family. Just the other night when the Grandmother was telling me that she would be gone, she was like 'If you need anything you let me know. You are my daughter' (obviously in French though - they don't speak English). And they have even asked me multiple times about Christmas already and told me I should come back to celebrate it with them.