This week, I have been covering the classes of my friend Kaisa who is away on vacation. What this means, is I start classes at 8 in the morning and finish around 930 at night. While this is a long working day, Im happy to have my break in between classes and come check emails and read my dose of Canadian news. I had another pleasant weekend in Kribi with some friends of mine, but this trip was largely uneventful. Instead, enjoy another one of my observations Ive gleened from my exchange experience…
Perceptions and television- Over the last few months, I’ve had the chance to get to know and speak with a lot of Cameroonians. Although my career interests are related to the field of international development, I am here teaching English, and although these two fields arent directly connected, I have found my time with my students here to be very insightful. My students are all upper level students and can hold their own in a conversation, therefore to practice speaking, I try to introduce interesting discussion topics, and also my students come up with their own. In this classroom setting and because of the interaction with my students, I began to formulate an idea.
I’ve always been aware of how television and the media can shape our perceptions of people and places that we are unfamiliar with, but my time here has really shown me how prevelant this phenomenon is. I remember last year in my African studies class our professor wrote the word “Africa” on the board and told everyone that we had 2 minutes to write down as many words that we could think of that related to it. He then collected them all and presented the results to the class. The top ranked responses were terms like genocide, famine, poverty, jungles, tribes, ethnic conflict, lions, elephants, HIV/AIDS, and the dark list continued. This exercise reflected largely what we knew about the continent from watching the news. Sure, many of these terms had good reason to be there, but this list reflected the skewed perception many people hold that Africa is continent with nothing but suffering, jungles, and wildlife.
That class really helped to dispell some myths for me, but actually being here has showed me that the Africa you see on TV is not the Africa you can actually see, touch, feel, and experience in person. I mean afterall, many of you have been shocked that I havent even seen a lion yet! How does one go to Africa without running into a lion somewhere????
While I was aware of most of this before, Ive also realized that I was considering only one half of the equation. I was forgetting something, what is the perceptions that Africans have of you and I in Canada?
This is where many conversations Ive had here have taught me alot. It seems that many people here shape their opinions of the outside world much in the same way we do . Afterall, by this point, almost every person in the city of Douala has at least one cell phone, if not two or three (the reason for this is clear when you realise their is no infrastructure for landlines), internet access, and most importantly, television. Now, consider that much of the programming watched on television here comes from either Europe or the US (with a few local channels here and there). Next, take a moment to think about some of the things our eyes are bombarded with every day on television…Advertisements for luxury cars, fictional television shows like the OC, and better yet “reality television” like My Sweet 16. In many ways, television represents a flashy highlife that cannot possibly represent the lives of many people at home.
In the end, many people are left with an impression of our lifestyle that may be accurate in some cases, but certainly not all. Much of this can fuel the idea that as white guy from Canada, I have endless flows of money, while in reality, I rely on my paycheck here to be able to survive. At the same time, situations exist here where those few Cameroonians who are fortunate enough to have money and who are living a lifestyle as comfortable or more comfortable than my own in Canada, still lump themselves together in the “poor category” with their fellow country-man. Afterall, when someones best source of information about the lifestyles in Europe and North America come from Jersey Shore or The Hills, won’t they always consider themselves impoverished relative to the Guidos and Guidettes?
Now hear me out, in no way am I trying to say that Canada and Cameroon are the same or that people in either country have equal opportunities, that certainly is not the case. This opinion is also based primarily on indicators of material wealth, where in Canada I am fortunate to experience so many other types of wealth including rights and freedoms that may not exist here. What I have realised though, is that a large amount of misunderstanding and ignorance exists on both sides of the ocean, mountain, border, or other barrier that divides people socially, politically, or economically. In either case, don’t believe everything you see on TV because in simple terms, not everyone owns a mercedes in Canada and not everyone lives in a hut in Africa-contrary to what some may believe!
