Month 4: Learning As I Go

Learning to make tofu from scratch on a Saturday afternoon.

     In the U.S. I double checked everything. I had the gym hours memorized well enough to recite to someone who asked, yet I still pulled up the website to check them at least once a week. If I was driving to a place for the tenth time, I'd still take a look at Google maps before leaving the house. I asked questions I already knew the answer to, like “When is that meeting?” just to make sure what I had written down in my planner was correct. I was busy and didn't want to make mistakes that would waste time. Moreover, I didn't want to make mistakes that could be avoided. The information was available so I saw no reason to be wrong. Only laziness, not taking the time to look something up ahead of time, would cause frequent mistakes.

      There are merits to these habits, but too often I took them too far. I couldn't start writing a paper in college until I had researched and outlined it to death, to the point of knowing the order of the supporting details and their citations in each paragraph. I insisted on being fully ready before writing any complete sentences so that I could do it once and do it right. I pulled many all-nighters. I also wouldn't speak up much in Spanish class unless I had time to craft a response with decent grammar and vocabulary. Although the consequences of showing up to the gym after hours and writing a bad paper are different, the fear motivating me to avoid both was the same: I was afraid of being wrong or of not doing a good job. It's one of my big character flaws, I suppose.

      So why am I boring you with my personal failings instead of sharing cool cultural stories or the tale of my latest adventure? Because this is what I've been learning here – to learn as I go, to make mistakes, and to make a fool of myself without being too embarrassed. I realized this a few weeks ago as I was walking back from the secondary school that's on the other side of my neighborhood. I had just finished teaching my first class there, a lesson introducing the ideas of renewable and nonrenewable resources and how they can be over-exploited. This work is the continuation of a school reforestation and environmental education project that the volunteer before me created. I was terrified to begin because I'd heard how difficult the students can be and I wasn't sure how well I knew the topics. More importantly, I didn't think my French was good enough. All of that was, and still is, true, but it doesn't matter that much. With the help of a staff member, I've successfully taught three classes. I'm excited for how much better I'll be at it in several months or a year, but it's still happening in the meantime.

      By jumping into it instead of being afraid I wasn't ready, I've opened up new opportunities for my own learning. I can explain the basics of the greenhouse effect in French. I see firsthand how students have to cram onto wooden benches to fit everyone inside the concrete block classroom, which has no doors or windows to close on distractions. During the thirty minute walk back to the main road, I get to listen to the teachers talk about how school ends at noon because the government provided less than half of the teachers they needed. They can hire temporary teachers but the parents have to pay for it with the parent-teacher association fees. Public schools are never truly free here.

      So the benefits of “learning as you go” are becoming more apparent to me. None of the little shops in my neighborhood have predictable hours or supplies, which means I often venture out to get something and come back empty-handed. However, it gives me a reason to interact with people in the community. Earlier this week I went out to buy phone credit (it's a pay-as-you-go system here) and found none but did notice all of the middle school-aged students practicing a dance and learned about the upcoming youth day celebration. Similarly, I tried to go to my favorite little shop in Bangangte, the small city nearby, a few times last week and it was closed. I saw the owner, who is always kind and patient as I stammer through my list of what I need, and asked him about it. He told me his seventeen-year-old son had just been killed in an accident at the nearest intersection. I expressed the best condolences I could in French and stood in silence with him for a few minutes. I walked away with a heavy heart but was also thinking about how relationships form. You have more of those encounters when you can't always look up the hours ahead of time.

      My progress with learning as I go occurred to me again the other day when I wanted to make lemonade but didn't have a recipe. I laughed at myself for even looking in my cookbooks – I think almost every American kid knows the ingredients and you figure out the proportions by taste. If I had internet, however, I probably would have Googled it, just to see if my proportions were on target or if there were any yummy additions I hadn't thought of. And because there's no excuse for disproportionate lemonade if the information is readily available. That's how ridiculous I can be. Being in Cameroon has made me let that go sometimes, and I've learned more as a result. I've made delicious dishes despite missing ingredients and I've met more people because I've been lost or looking for something they're out of. So as I enjoy living here but worry about what kind of work I'll end up doing, I have to remind myself to learn as I go. “Trust the process,” one of my friends here tells me, but not in a lazy way. I'm not throwing up my hands and letting work find me but I'm emphasizing a proactive way to learn as I go. This is how I've been learning French, by giving it my best shot during conversations and studying grammar at home. This is also how I'll help with compost experiments, rabbit-raising projects, and other potential work activities that I feel under-qualified for in some ways. With some basic background knowledge, an open mind, and the flexibility required to learn alongside the people I work with, I'll jump in and good things will happen.