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Tarah Auguste ’01 will be the first
Holy Cross student to study in Cameroon, thanks to some help
from the College’s Eleanor Howard O’Leary Chair,
visiting Professor Ambroise Kom. By Clare Karis
 “I
want to go home.”
No, that’s not a lonely first-year student calling her parents after that
grueling initial week of life in the dorm. It is Holy Cross sophomore Tarah Auguste,
looking forward to her junior year of study at the Université Catholique
D’Afrique Centrale in the West African Republic of Cameroon.
Auguste visited Zimbabwe and Zambia for three weeks in June and July 1998 as
part of the Habitat International program. There she made an amazing discovery — an
epiphany of sorts.
“I saw people who looked just like my family,” she said. “I
am from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. It made me realize slavery had to be true. These
people had the same customs, the same traditions, as my own family. For me to
come from Port-au-Prince and see people like that, I just knew — they could
be related to me. It made me want to explore my roots. I have to find out the
truth; I want to see where my family came from. That experience gave me a sneak
preview of what it would be like.”
Auguste is the very first student from Holy Cross to study in Cameroon as part
of the study abroad program. The university is located in the capital of Cameroon,
Yaoundé, which has approximately one million inhabitants.
A French major, Auguste says, “I am very excited. I had seen other students
going to France and Ireland to study for their junior year. But I didn’t
feel connected to the European scene. The connections I was looking for wouldn’t
be found in Europe. And I realized that I can go to Europe when I’m 99
years old. But this is the time for me to go to Africa.”
Professor Ambroise Kom has helped smooth the way for Auguste’s rite of
passage. The Eleanor Howard O’Leary Chair at Holy Cross for the past two
years, Kom started teaching in the United States in 1972 at Brown University;
he later returned to Cameroon and taught at the university there for 13 years.
While teaching in Cameroon, he received several international students from Germany,
France and the United States, who were participating in the junior year study
abroad program through their colleges. Kom supervised some of them and oversaw
the writing of their term papers.
He met Auguste two years ago, when she was a first-year student at Holy Cross.
She lost no time telling him that she would like to spend her junior year in
Cameroon. There was one glitch, however: Holy Cross had no program in Africa. “But
we can make one up,” Kom assured his eager student. “The Université Catholique
D’Afrique Centrale is a Jesuit university.” He then talked to the
dean and vice chancellor at the university in Cameroon about the feasibility
of establishing a program and worked out practical details such as making provisions
for student housing.
“We got it all in writing,” he says. “Then the ball started
rolling.”
While abroad, Auguste will study French and, she also hopes to take some political
science courses as well during the year. “When I am there, academics will
be the priority, but I hope to travel during breaks. I’ll want to backpack
and visit other countries,” says Auguste. Kom adds, “To travel from
one country to another in Africa would require taking a plane, but traveling
from city-to-city is similar to visiting in Canada. In a three-hour bus trip
one can go from a French-speaking city like Montreal to an English-speaking city
like Toronto.” French and English are the official languages of Cameroon.
“Cameroon is Africa in miniature,” Kom points out, “in terms
of climate and terrain; there are tropical rain forests, mountains, and savannas.”
Auguste has bombarded Kom with questions about West Africa and her stay there. “I
was concerned about the technology and how I can stay connected with my professors
at Holy Cross,” she says. “And because I hope to create a research
project, I wondered how I would keep notes. In response to her questions about
the host family, Kom said that the father of the family Auguste will be staying
with is a professor of African literature at the state university and the mother
is an insurance broker. They have three children.
As for the night life, he says there is a lot of open-air dancing. For meals,
according to Kom, visitors have the choice of dining in the restaurants found
in big hotels or of eating in the restaurants found in the people’s homes
where the atmosphere is very informal. “Visitors learn about those home
restaurants very soon,” says Kom. “Dinner is served around 8 p.m.”
Auguste is interested in applying for fellowships, such as the Watson, when she
returns to Holy Cross. “As part of my research, I want to interview people
about their lives, about what it means to them to be African. People here don’t
know much about Africans who would die rather than leave their country. That’s
what I want to bring back, and the greenery, and the mountains, not BBC World
News Africa. All of Africa is not Rwanda. For the black people in America who
feel displaced, I want them to know there are people there just like themselves.”
Professor Kom agrees: “When you are black, you are classified as a minority
here. I have never felt like a minority. I was the majority in Cameroon. Some
people here look at you and feel you are different. Now my accent may be a little
different,” he says with a chuckle, “but I’m no different as
a person.”
Auguste feels that poet Jean-Francois Briere summed up the African experience
well in just a few words: “From the Caribbean to America, to Africa, we
sing the same story.”
“It’s got to ring in your head,” Auguste said. “Whether
you sing it with jazz or on the drums, we all sing the same story.”
“
I’m tired of learning from books,” she says. “I want to write
my own book. Africa’s not all about elephants and alligators, and I want
people to know that. Senior year, I hope to present my experience to other students
and alums, to hold conferences and so forth. ‘Go, Tarah!’ people
have been telling me.”
“You realize,” she says, “this whole plan was very shaky at
first. But last year a professor of economics from Cameroon came over and spent
a few days here with the college president, and after that the pieces just began
to come together.
“
I’m so happy that Holy Cross is allowing me to do this,” she said. “It
makes me feel nurtured to know that people here care that I am passionate about
this. I just felt I had to go home.”
Clare Karis is a free-lance journalist living in Fitchburg,
Mass.
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