Celebrity Status

Have you seen my new movie? I haven’t either, but apparently the people of Cameroon have, and I’m the leading role! Every missionary has had to cope with not exactly “fitting in” in their new culture, and we are no strangers. We have white skin, weird clothes, a funny language and “lots of money”. At times the pointing and staring and hollering and laughing gets on my nerves. But last week I started thinking of it a bit differently. I looked at the faces of the little kids chasing after our truck as we drove by, hands waving wildly, bright smiling faces, and thought, they don’t mean any harm. Somehow they are filled with extreme joy every time we cross their path. It doesn’t matter if we walk or drive by 50 times in one day. As soon as they see us, they call out to us, “Nassara, nassara” (white man, white man) and laugh and wave, and they won’t stop until you wave back or at least throw a smile their way. For a while, I couldn’t understand how we could possibly be so interesting every single time. Won’t we eventually get boring? So then everything changed.

Now I think of myself as a celebrity. I am your favorite movie star walking down Hollywood Boulevard. Rob is your heartthrob of the silver screen. Hey, what the heck, our team is the whole cast of Friends! And you just saw us walking past you on the street! Aren’t you going to say hi? Think about it, we are different, we are seen as having tons of money (at least in comparison to them), we are a novelty, they wonder what our lives are like behind those “mansion” doors. No one actually knows our real name, so instead they yell out, “Nassara!” just like we might yellow out “Rachel!” instead of “Jennifer Aniston”. It makes the walks and rides oh so much more pleasurable. Now, instead of being annoyed by the constant attention from the onlookers, being annoyed at looking different and not fitting in, having to wave to every person we pass on the street; now I think, I am a celebrity, and I owe it to my fans! I wave with pride (they love me!), give the biggest smiles to the shyest and littlest ones on the side of the road, just to see their big grin appear. I stop in front of my gate, before opening the door to greet each one of the fans who have been anxiously waiting outside the door just waiting for the “Nassara” to come home. I gladly wear my head covering and clothes that they can respect so that I don’t lose favor in the eyes of my loyal fans. You have to be a good influence for the youngsters, you know?
This comparison gets even funnier as the days go by and I find new ways to identify myself as a celebrity (so much nicer than being annoyed all the time by the “lack of privacy”. On Friday night, Rob took me on a date to “Porte Mayo”. Porte Mayo is a nice little hotel here in town that is made up of several little bungalows, with a giant courtyard, beautifully decorated in “African Jungle” style with grass huts, hanging lanterns, African print tablecloths and bamboo furniture. It would certainly fly as an upscale romantic restaurant in the states if they would throw in a little AC! Owned by a Frenchman, the food is delicious (and no doubt imported, since I had pork on my pizza!). We were amazed as we sat there at this great little find in the middle of a small African town, eating delicious food and enjoying the stars (and Norah Jones playing over the speakers), that almost every patron at the restaurant was white! Maybe not that amazing to you, but when you are the minority the whole day long every day, it is a bizarre sight to be sitting at a restaurant with all white people. Now, any one of you who saw this restaurant would call it “cute” “quaint” “authenticly African”, but let me tell you, sitting there that night, I felt my “celebrity status” more than ever. This must be what it is like to be a star: dining at the finest restaurants, owning the nicest cars, being adored by your fans. Lovely! Who said it’s so bad being a missionary! …Now if only we could speak their language…