Space

"In Africa, you have space...there a profound sense of space here, space and sky." South African former president Thabo Mbeki

Your mother is ill and you take her to the hospital. They admit her, rolling her in a flat-tired wheelchair to her bed on the female ward. Like most, the ward is open, with each bed 2-3 feet apart, fabric curtains hanging between for privacy as needed. You as the "caregiver" are responsible for her meals, helping her to the bathroom, and at times helping her with her medication. You roll out your mat on the floor next to her bed, where you will be sleeping for the duration of her stay. Sometimes during the day you pull your mat out onto the lawn for a nap in the shade. Other times the doctors ask you to move so they can come alongside her neighbor's bed to do an exam. You cook in a communal "kitchen," where others sleep at night as well. The smoke from the fire tries to escape through the open doorway, but mostly ends up in your eyes, nose, throat, and lungs. You are used to all this, so do not think much of it. Once in a while a "white" [person] will visit the communal kitchen, snapping photographs with squinty eyes; they are not used to it, so can only stand a few seconds before they are overwhelmed by a coughing fit. You sat next to a white person once in a taxi. When normally four people would cram into space for two, they paid extra for more space, insisting on holding all their bags on their lap. You smile to yourself at this, as you are comfortable with the feeling of others bodies pressed against yours; in fact, there is something foreign in having your "own space"; even when given the option, you often choose to sit shoulder to shoulder with another." They shift in their seat. "Are you sitting comfortably?" you ask. After several requests for you to repeat, they have finally understood, and smiling, nod in affirmation.

Even in eating, these foreigners like to put space, using forks and spoons when we prefer our hands. It is almost as if they are afraid to touch - afraid to touch their food, their hands, each other. How sad, you think to yourself, that they insist on putting space everywhere. How lonely their countries must be, when people try not to touch on buses, when same-gendered-friends can't walk along the road holding hands, when kisses are not given in greeting. One visitor tried to explain it to you, this concept of "personal space," using words like "space bubble," privacy," and "boundaries." In fact, some wealthy people in Cameroon do seem to value these concepts as well: paying more to rent a private hospital room, driving around in a large vehicle with no passengers, building large houses with unused rooms. But those people are not the norm, and secretly, you suspect in their wealth the space can be as much a curse as it is a blessing. Our prevalent idiom "We are together" pertains both in the concrete and abstract, in the physical and psychological, in the financial and possessional.  "We are separate" is not our phrase.

From Mary: Please forgive the presumption of this entry, written by a white person from an imaginary Cameroonian's perspective. Certainly the issue of personal space is complex and on a continuum, and I do not seek to paint one or the other extreme as morally superior. There are times when I see Cameroonians seeking out room, space, and privacy; there are (rare) times when I note a longing in myself for the comfort of sitting cosily crammed between two people on a crowded bench. My desire is mostly to paint parts of a picture of the daily sense of the closeness that I find myself noticing, reflecting on, and at times taking part in.