Pâques / Easter

It’s Saturday afternoon. Renee and I are the only two people in the case (the regional Peace Corps office/house). Everyone else has either gone back to their respective villages or has already started drinking. We, productive volunteers that we are, are checking Facebook.

Renee gets up to leave—her village is only a 15-minute motorcycle ride away. “I’m going to church in the Norwegian quarter tomorrow morning,” she says. “Do you want to come?”

The word rings in my mind for a moment: Norwegian.

“Sure,” I say. “Come over at nine, I’ll have coffee ready by then.”

Renee walks out, and I realize how much I’ve changed since coming to Cameroon. Passing up the opportunity to sleep in until noon? Voluntarily going to church? It’s like I’m becoming a grown-up or something.

I should explain my enthusiasm for the Norwegian quarter. It got its name in the 1980s when a number of Norwegian missionaries and aid workers came to the area, and it’s now known to house the best hospital in the city and some beautiful churches. I’d never been to the neighborhood, but I was aware of its existence before I ever came to the Adamawa, thanks to a text from my half-Norwegian mother I received during training: “There’s a neighborhood in Ngaoundere called Norvege!”

And so, after eight months of living within two hours of the famed quarter, I was finally going to see it for myself… and go to a Lutheran Easter service.

I had expected places Norwegian quarter to be like, well, Norway, but upon arriving at church I am quickly cured of this disillusion. Rows of wooden benches sit in the open courtyard of a small health center, bunched together to allow the maximum number of service-goers a seat away from the sun. In front, two preachers alternate giving their message, one in French, the other in Fulfulde. Two choirs are to their right, one for each language. Everyone in attendance is in their Easter finery, even a baby girl whose hair was braided with glittery yarn.

Baptisms and confirmations are performed. I give Renee—who studied Spanish before coming to Cameroon—a play-by-play of the service. Bible verses are read in two languages, and both choirs raise their voices to the heavens in turn. Having only started learning Fulfulde last summer, I understand only the simplest lyrics, but I discover that they have kept the Arabic word for God, Allah.

By about 10:30, it’s no longer possible to take refuge from the sun, and Renee suggests that we visit another church nearby. Still scarred by the last bilingual church service I attended, which lasted four hours, I hastily agree. “While everyone else is bar-crawling,” she says gleefully, “we’re church-crawling!”

This is what I had expected: A large modern building with balconies and stained glass windows. Something you might see in America. The only real difference is the men in boubous (long traditional tunics). We take our places on a pew in the back. More confirmations, more songs, this time entirely in French. Once more, babies are brought forward, parents glowing with pride, and are baptized.

In the afternoon, it rains. Soon the rainy season will arrive. Crops will be sown, the landscape will turn from burnt orange to vibrant green, and the rebirth will begin.