By mid-April, the school year was coming to a close, and I was conveniently unemployed. So, I made my way back to Cameroon as soon as the last of my MA classes ended. Knowing I couldn't bank on the currencies of hope and faith for long, I allocated six weeks to love and lollygagging before I had to get real serious about finding work. The trip wasn't the soundest decision from a purely financial standpoint, but I took it on faith that it just might be of some kind of eternal significance. We needed the face time to allow our relationship to progress away from the technology that had enabled it up that point, and even more so as we tried to put the rough waters behind us.
Getting through the Douala airport was a breeze the second time around. I was ready for the thick, wet air to hit me when I walked off the plane; ready to flash my yellow fever card when I had to pass the "health customs" desk; ready for the onslaught of baggage handlers and taxi drivers yelling out to me, proffering their services. And I was so, so beyond ready to be face to face with the man I loved.
I nearly tripped over my cobalt maxi dress as I bounded down the last of the slope to meet him at the gate to the parking lot. There he stood, front and center, looking just as expectantly as anyone in the large crowd of people waiting to welcome their loved ones and guests. He couldn't quite wait until I got all the way, taking a couple steps beyond the gated area to meet me. This was no small relief, given that we hadn't been talking much in the weeks leading up to the trip. Steve had sent me a photo of his hand holding a conspicuous little box, but I still wasn't entirely sure where we stood.
It felt a little weird to throw my arms around him- for one thing, we had a fairly sizeable audience; for another, well, we had been near strangers the last time we'd been face-to-face a few months prior. But it also felt dang good. Like coming home after an extended and difficult trip.
Steve kissed me for the first time that evening, perched on the end of his sisters' bed, his ex-girlfriend in the adjacent room. She'd shown up to be taught by the missionaries some 15 minutes after my arrival (creating not a little bit of awkwardness for the three of us, even as we stood there with plastered on smiles and greeted each other politely) and Steve and I had absconded to the privacy of the girls' room to wait it out.
A few days later we had our first date. Returning from work early one day, Steve led me out to a taxi, paid for the hour and chattered with me in the backseat as the car wound its way through the crowded streets of the city. After a few false turns and some discussion between Steve and the taxi driver, Steve told me he'd intended to surprise me with a waterside walk, but it seems industrial interests had eliminated public access. I could tell he was disappointed and wondered (not for the last time over the next few weeks) if he had intended to propose.
Instead the taxi left us at a wonderfully air-conditioned ice cream shop, where we spent the next couple of hours talking about different goals and aspirations, laying out a dreamers' blueprint for our life together. A photo vendor managed to get Steve to buy a photo of the two of us- our first together as a couple- and it wasn't until we got back to the house that evening that we realized that we were both wearing the exact same outfits we'd been wearing in our very first photo together; the one we'd taken with his family the night I left Cameroon the first time. I smiled at the memory of him quickly snatching his hand away that night as if stung when he realized he'd grabbed my arm behind his mother's back while posing for the photo.
Our guide pandered to my white tourist sensibilities and gave me a banana to feed to one of the few monkeys that was wandering free of any enclosure. The cheeky little rascal sauntered over and plucked the banana from my hand, then scampered away as though he'd just gotten away with the world's greatest heist.
We didn't have a third date until the day-long double-decker bus tour in Johannesburg that constituted our "honeymoon"[spoiler alert!!], but we did enjoy a lot of the little moments that living under the same roof afford us. Cue the sweet and sappy movie montage (you know, the one I was lamenting in the last post that we didn't have yet):
Of course, it wasn't all sprinkles and unicorns. The first couple weeks I wondered if he even actually wanted me there.
Anyways, after our engagement party (wait, what? you're right I did skip over something... guess you'll have to come back next time to hear how he proposed), Steve became much more open about our relationship. We held hands at church, spent more time alone together, got more comfortable and just generally progressed by leaps and bounds. To this day, those six weeks remain the longest sustained stretch of time that we have spent in one another's company.
Getting through the Douala airport was a breeze the second time around. I was ready for the thick, wet air to hit me when I walked off the plane; ready to flash my yellow fever card when I had to pass the "health customs" desk; ready for the onslaught of baggage handlers and taxi drivers yelling out to me, proffering their services. And I was so, so beyond ready to be face to face with the man I loved.
I nearly tripped over my cobalt maxi dress as I bounded down the last of the slope to meet him at the gate to the parking lot. There he stood, front and center, looking just as expectantly as anyone in the large crowd of people waiting to welcome their loved ones and guests. He couldn't quite wait until I got all the way, taking a couple steps beyond the gated area to meet me. This was no small relief, given that we hadn't been talking much in the weeks leading up to the trip. Steve had sent me a photo of his hand holding a conspicuous little box, but I still wasn't entirely sure where we stood.
It felt a little weird to throw my arms around him- for one thing, we had a fairly sizeable audience; for another, well, we had been near strangers the last time we'd been face-to-face a few months prior. But it also felt dang good. Like coming home after an extended and difficult trip.
Steve kissed me for the first time that evening, perched on the end of his sisters' bed, his ex-girlfriend in the adjacent room. She'd shown up to be taught by the missionaries some 15 minutes after my arrival (creating not a little bit of awkwardness for the three of us, even as we stood there with plastered on smiles and greeted each other politely) and Steve and I had absconded to the privacy of the girls' room to wait it out.
A few days later we had our first date. Returning from work early one day, Steve led me out to a taxi, paid for the hour and chattered with me in the backseat as the car wound its way through the crowded streets of the city. After a few false turns and some discussion between Steve and the taxi driver, Steve told me he'd intended to surprise me with a waterside walk, but it seems industrial interests had eliminated public access. I could tell he was disappointed and wondered (not for the last time over the next few weeks) if he had intended to propose.
Instead the taxi left us at a wonderfully air-conditioned ice cream shop, where we spent the next couple of hours talking about different goals and aspirations, laying out a dreamers' blueprint for our life together. A photo vendor managed to get Steve to buy a photo of the two of us- our first together as a couple- and it wasn't until we got back to the house that evening that we realized that we were both wearing the exact same outfits we'd been wearing in our very first photo together; the one we'd taken with his family the night I left Cameroon the first time. I smiled at the memory of him quickly snatching his hand away that night as if stung when he realized he'd grabbed my arm behind his mother's back while posing for the photo.
Our second "date" was a weekend away at his aunt's place outside the city (where I again thought he might propose, this time on a walk through the woods) that mostly consisted of long naps and African soap operas on TV. We made a day trip out to Limbe, I so I could introduce Steve to the home I'd stayed in and some of the people I'd known while I was doing my research and go to the wildlife park. Small, but well kept, the park is home to a number of primates that can no longer live in the wild for one reason or another. While I'm told monkeys and snakes used to be abundant in that area of Cameroon, I had never seen any during my time there. Urban sprawl and the animals' value as bushmeat made them scarce, even though I spotted warnings in many locations noting that consuming monkeys puts you at risk of contracting Ebola.
Our guide pandered to my white tourist sensibilities and gave me a banana to feed to one of the few monkeys that was wandering free of any enclosure. The cheeky little rascal sauntered over and plucked the banana from my hand, then scampered away as though he'd just gotten away with the world's greatest heist.
We didn't have a third date until the day-long double-decker bus tour in Johannesburg that constituted our "honeymoon"[spoiler alert!!], but we did enjoy a lot of the little moments that living under the same roof afford us. Cue the sweet and sappy movie montage (you know, the one I was lamenting in the last post that we didn't have yet):
- A series of mornings of Steve shuffling into the small, square kitchen and giving me a good morning kiss or squeeze on his way to the bathroom as I did the previous day's dishes in the early morning quiet, before everyone else woke up.
- The one morning Steve dissolved into laughter when I just about jumped out of my skin because I'd seen something move out of the corner of my eye (just the rag falling, it turns out) and was still not used to sharing the kitchen space with the rather large rat I saw come through the window most mornings while I was working in the kitchen.
- That time the hours flew by and night crept in, unnoticed, as we talked about subjects big and small, like all the places we'll travel someday and the tender mercies we've received from our Heavenly Father.
- The night Steve performed for me, singing with gusto and flair, all the African love songs I've come to know and love; happy and uninhibited as he interspersed the verses with kisses to my forehead and cheeks and nose and I stared up at him with bemusement and adoration, both of us heedless of the watching eyes of his sisters and friends.
- The day we were readying the new church building, cleaning and decorating it for a wedding, when Steve came over and pulled me into a dance, no music but the song on his lips.
- The way he held me to him as we stood in the back of the crowded room on the day his friends got married; the way he squeezed my hand as they exchanged vows and the way he smiled broadly that night, despite his fatigue, between dances with me and his friends.
- The nervous, excited energy coursing between us the night we called the temple in Calgary and went through all the questions to book our sealing ceremony.
- His hands folded around mine as we kneeled together in prayer.
He would work all day, then come home and sequester himself in his room, the threshold of which I did not cross until near unto the last week of the trip (a "chastity line" I regarded with much less ridicule than the imaginary boundary we were warned about in my student apartment at BYU). The fact that I saw little of Steve made me long for home and question the logic in spending so much money to come and see him.
Fiercely protective of our privacy, Steve wasn't sharing our relationship status with friends or at church, so at first we didn't sit together or hold hands. We barely ever left the house, which meant we barely got any time alone together. With so many eyes and ears in the shared spaces of the family home, affection was limited. (Big problem for a girl whose primary love language is 100% physical touch, but don't worry! By the end of the trip, his mother and several others had remarked to me that they had never seen Steve so lit up and affectionate). It took a few tearful conversations to land on some mutual understanding of needs, expectations and cultural limitations.
Compounding the difficulty of the situation for me was what felt like an utter loss of independence. Steve and his father, especially, were very protective of me (at one point my father in law sweetly banished me from washing my own clothes because he hated to see my fingers cracked and bleeding from hand scrubbing). Despite my previous experiences in the country, they were concerned for my safety in the city so I didn't ever go out without an escort of some kind. As a result, I spent most of my days inside, but for the trips to the market with Steve's mom or going to church with the family.
Having little autonomy over myself, my schedule, my movements or even my own tasks made me feel like the walls were closing in on me. Going from the frantic pace of grad school to the peaceful pace of life a life where mid afternoon naps are basically the highlight of the day was not as relaxing as you might think. It was stifling and monotonous. I felt bored and isolated. (I know, I know... this is almost the very definition of a First World problem. I hate my ungrateful self right now, too).
I truly enjoyed spending time with my mother in law and the girls, but I would often get overwhelmed by the all-French atmosphere, and the many ways in which I was seemingly unfit to take care of myself or anyone else in this environment. I couldn't always keep up with the speed of their chatter or understand their jokes that brightened their days with laughter. I envied the carefree, unashamed way the girls sang and danced, regardless of who was watching. When a close family friend teased me about the way I hand washed clothes, or the girls chuckled about the odd way I diced vegetables, I could feel the sting of frustrated tears come on. For someone who has always derived her greatest sense of personal worth from her competence, it is a shockingly self-shattering experience to feel as though your competence is being called into question at every turn.
While I continued to struggle with some of those same insecurities and feelings of incompetency and wall-crawling boredom-- and honestly, still do, each time I go back to Cameroon (I'm not good at being cooped up and dependent, it turns out), things between us improved substantially over the course of that trip (obviously!) and I am truly thankful I got to spend such treasured time with my in-laws. I'm grateful for their example of family scripture study in the mornings, family prayer in the evening and "the more the merrier" approach to Family Home Evenings on Monday nights. I'm grateful for the way they accepted me, looked out for me and tried to teach me, even when I was not at my most teachable. I hit the in-law jackpot, and my kiddos will be so lucky to have amazing, loving grandparents and aunts and uncles on both sides.
Anyways, after our engagement party (wait, what? you're right I did skip over something... guess you'll have to come back next time to hear how he proposed), Steve became much more open about our relationship. We held hands at church, spent more time alone together, got more comfortable and just generally progressed by leaps and bounds. To this day, those six weeks remain the longest sustained stretch of time that we have spent in one another's company.
And thank goodness we did, because man did they teach us a lot about how to be a couple IRL.
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