Embarrassing Confessions

I can’t believe I came to Cameroon and have totally fallen for an American TV show. When we left training, I had thirty-six new movies on my external hard drive, courtesy of swaps with other trainees. However, I made a vow to myself of no movie-watching during my first three months at post. That’s because I have plenty of work-relevant materials I should be reading… not to mention that whole cultural-exchange/get-out-in-the-community objective of Peace Corps….

Yet, I was at Brooke’s house recently, and happened upon some other PCVs watching episodes of the NBC show, The Office. I’d heard of it, but didn’t know what the big deal was. Out of solidarity, I joined. I was painfully hooked in about three episodes. (I do a lot of things out of solidarity, don’t I?!)

I subsequently obtained from Brooke seasons 2 - 4 and watched a solid eight episodes, lasting til four in the morning on a recent Saturday night, just so I could get to the finale of season 3! I think about the characters’ love lives more than my own. Something is wrong with this picture. When Brooke and I go out for our jogs, I’m analyzing the play-by-play of the episodes I’ve most recently finished. Cameroon is a bilingual French/English country… maybe I can find some local English speakers/fellow viewers, and disguise my obsession as part of a cultural exchange...

I’ve never even owned a TV in the states! What am I doing here?! Embarrassing. That show is hilarious though, and it reminds me a little of the tedium of my first job out of school at the Census Bureau. Except I never worked with quite such… characters.

What a relief—I’m done with all the episodes now, and can get back to Cameroonian reality. My neighbors will no longer have to wonder why the nassara is laughing so loud, all by herself, at weird hours of the night.