I am curled into a ball within the cocoon of my mesh mosquito sleeping net that nearly took my eye out the first time I assembled it. I sleep like a baby alongside vivid dreams fueled by my prophylactic malaria regimen. The sun isn't quite awake yet when I am rudely called to task by a rooster, cock-a-doodle-dooing so loudly that his voice comes in as a hoarse cry through my window. It's 5 a.m. in Cameroon, and it's time to wake up.

Walking out of my room, I greet the goat who is tethered to a pole in the backyard area. She looks at me without bleating. It's even too early for the goats to respond.

After drawing water from the well, I grab the washrag and walk into the living room. It's 5:10 a.m. in Cameroon, and it's time to wash the floor. I hear upbeat music and happy singing coming from the next room over, and I join in the singing.

By the time I finish washing the floor, my younger brothers and sisters are milling about, washing dishes, doing laundry and getting ready for school. A neighbor down the street has the radio blaring Rihanna, a welcome import from home. I listen as my four sisters sing along while scrubbing their laundry. I can only watch as all of this activity occurs, like watching a game of double Dutch when I can't seem to find the right time to jump in.

By about 7 a.m., we are ready for the 45-minute walk to our respective schools. The walk to get to the university is down a dirt road and up two steep hills, and it's the road I trek every day. I dodge motos—motorcycles that can carry anywhere from one to five people depending on size and baggage—and school-age children that crowd the roadway as I make my way.

I can scarcely believe the optimism that I see and hear here in Cameroon. After its massive economic downturn in the '80s, Cameroon went from being an African success story to joining other countries in a very slow development hampered by massive government corruption and the setbacks that multiculturalism can create. This is what I learn in class. Then I get to go home and learn something entirely new.

I am part of a family here. A family of one husband, three wives and 25 children, of which I am the 26th under one roof during my homestay here in Dschang, an agriculturally based city in the western region of the country.

My family is Bamileke, part of one of the major Cameroonian ethnic groups. They are polygamist and Catholic, mixing their Bamileke roots and Western religion together. They eat traditional dishes such as koki, a spongy starch made primarily of beans and reminiscent of cornbread in texture, and speak Yemba, the language patois (maternal language).

I have five brothers who show me the ropes around the house and the neighborhood. They quiz me on my French to make sure I'm learning and make sure I'm keeping a list of new words I pick up. They ask me to describe past events to them so I can work on my tenses. In return, I help with English homework and teach them American slang—how to "holler" at ladies when they're walking down the street or what a "jam session" is.

The family prides itself on being bilingual—and for some of my siblings, even trilingual—and extremely dedicated to academics in spite of not being very affluent. The kids study from 6 to 9 p.m. each night, and many of the older ones have gone to university—something the younger ones are also expected to do.

In the other host families, the story is much the same. Our brothers and sisters ask us what we think about Libya, what we think about President Barack Obama and whether or not the financial crisis will be over soon. They are questions many of my classmates, myself included, cannot give them answers to with our tenuous grasp of the French language.

My family points out that I am seeing a reality that doesn't often get covered by the international media: the reality of a normal day in a Cameroonian family. They ask me why the international news seems to only show pictures of Africans struggling to live, starving and helpless. I instead see my host mother go to her "reunions," where each woman donates a certain amount of money each month to a community fund that goes to benefit one of the members.

I see the neighborhood women, and even the eldest children in the neighborhood, working together to raise the children, asking how they're doing in school and disciplining them when they do something incorrect on the street or in town. I am amazed that, while living with so few creature comforts, the community thrives in such a strong way.

Everyone seems to be working here all of the time, whether it's fixing a bike, selling small items or studying. On the way to school, I observe the older lady on the corner making sandwiches, the women grilling plantains on the side of the road and others selling their fresh vegetables.

As I ascend the hill closest to the University of Dschang, where I am studying Social Pluralism and Development and French, I look to my left and see a huge farm area built into a valley, full of varying shades of green.

It's 7:40 a.m. in Cameroon, and my younger brother Marco, who hopes to be the next international soccer star out of this country, is accompanying me to school, making sure that I walk on the inside of the road so I don't get taken out by a moto while I'm checking out the scenery.

I have been more or less raised in cities. Trees in large quantities tend to scare me. I don't know how to deal with the overwhelming clarity of a rural night sky. I find the sound of crickets to be unnerving. I'd much rather hear beeping horns and neighborhood cats fighting than someone laughing from their porch a few houses away.

I was shocked the first time I saw cows walking through campus here in Dschang, which straddles the classification line between rural area and city center. Now, the cows get a hello as I head to my French class and a nod as I walk to the ladies' room.

What I'm learning here is to accept a different kind of normal. Hearing two roosters have a conversation in the morning is now normal.

Every day is a new project in learning a different culture's family dynamics, observing my own role in the communities that I've joined here and trying to understand what is going on before it passes me by.

This has become my most difficult assignment thus far. An assignment far more difficult than learning the names of my 25 siblings, going without Internet for a week or avoiding falling into puddles of mud along the dirt roads during the rainy season here, which has become a daily activity.

Creating context for Cameroon—describing a developing nation without discrediting its current development, underlining the beauty of the countryside and the kindness of the people here while recognizing its differences from the western world—has become one of my major goals as I live, study and observe life here.

For now, though, I am not quite ready to create that context. For now I will live and observe, looking forward to what the country will show to me next.

Editor's note: Fiona Lockyer '13 is a former Associate editor for the Justice.