Bonsoir! Greetings, not just from anywhere in Bazou, but from my HOUSE in Bazou where I have internet access now!! Last week, I picked up my lovely little laptop from Yaounde, and last Friday I finally got internet access!! So … Continue reading →

Compared to the village of Nguti, I’d like to consider myself more of a city-slicker. I’m from a city of several hundred thousands back in the States, and part of a metro area that combined numbers over a million. I’m not “village-oise”, as they say here. Or I wasn’t until this weekend. This weekend, when [...]

13-2-12

Bui! Nassara!Nassara! Nassara! LA BLAAAAAAAAAAAANCHE! Three different words, three differentlanguages, pronounced a million different ways with or without the ubiquitousCameroonian “tssssssssssst” and kissing sounds, all in the same city. I heareach of these words about thirty times a day minimum, and each of them meansthe same thing: white person. Sometimes it’s a hoard of small children tryingto catch my attention to say hello, words that depend on familiarity and timeof day, with full salutations being long strings of about 5 questions in bothFrench and Fulfulde. But, more often than not, it’s not small children—if itwas, I’d probably be more patient and more forgiving because children can betaught to behave differently. Nope, it’s the motodrivers, the market men, theboutique owners, the tailors… practically everyone everywhere. Living here is asocial experiment in finding out exactly what it’s like to live in a societywhere racial profiling is not only alive and well, but directed totally at you.

Example One:

By country law, everyoneis required to carry identity cards all the time whether you’re walking aroundtown or travelling clear across the country. The police officers (Gendarmes, asthey’re called here,) have the right to ask you whenever they want to see thecard, although the only random time I’ve been asked to see it is in governmentbuildings when visiting the Prefect and Commandant. Travelling, however, is atotally different story.

You are sitting in asmall, crowded bus (five people per row, not including babies, chickens,packages, or the unlucky people who either stand in the back out the door orsit on top of the bus with the luggage.) You weren’t lucky enough to secure aspot next to the driver in the cabin where it’s more spacious/less hot/lessdusty, you are missing thatall-important Y-chromosome, after all. You’ve hit the first checkpoint of twoon your three and a half hour voyage, the gendarme beelines straight towardsyou: “Carte d’identité, madame.” You pass it over, he gives it back afterinspecting it and glaring at how dirty it is, and then he waves off the bus andlets it go on its merry way. Nobody else’s card is checked: you are the onlyone, again. How convenient, becauseyou are also the only white person on the bus.

Example Two:

You’re marching in theYouth Day Parade with your host organization, and they asked you to come in toget sized up by the tailor for your super awesome, matching parade garb that,eventually, comes out looking a little like a bad prom dress. After the tailorfinishes measuring you up, you glance at the paper of measurements. Everybody’smeasurements have a name corresponding to them, but not yours. Yours only says“Blanche.” She’s never even bothered to ask you for your name.

Example Three:

You’re at a “meeting”with your counterpart at bar, because what better possible location could therebe? You’ve been stuck there about three and a half hours, and you need to runbecause you have another meeting to go to. You let your group know, and receivethe following response: “You white people, you always have meetings. You white people always have to run on some kind of a schedule. Why can’t you allact more like us?”

Turns out, Camerooniansthink white people all look the same. I’ve also been asked if I’m Italian. I’vehad children taunt me because they thought I was Asian—bowing and elongatingtheir R’s the same way you see kids doing it in the US. And, just like I am theworst at estimating Cameroonian ages, they struggle to guess our ages, too.

We don’t talk race orcolor or really even about physical differences in America, nobody wants tocome off as being on the wrong side of politically correct, and for goodreason: being “othered” sucks. But, I can imagine that being in a situationwhere everybody refuses to talk about the elephant in the room sucks even more.We’ve been raised to believe that these conversations are impolite, andtherefore anytime we get near talking about them, everyone gets uncomfortable.This situation isn’t working for us in the States whether we want to admit itor not: race remains a problem. Schools largely remain segregated. Poverty,unemployment, early pregnancy, and under-education continue to unduly hit theblack community hard.

We were told duringtraining that Cameroonians don’t do direct conversation, and in some aspectsthat’s true. Everyone talks aroundconflict and money here, which, as Americans, are two things we’re good at: getthat awkwardness over, and as soon as possible. At the same time, however,Cameroonians don’t hesitate to tell you how you’re looking that day (to usespecific terms I’ve received: fat, sexy, thick, like a child,) to talk abouthealth problems like HIV/AIDS, or to address race. The constant comments aboutmy skin color drive me nuts. Cameroonians are masters of something I hearvolunteers frequently call the present obvious form of language, used inquestions like “White girl, you’re walking?” “White girl, you’re there?” “Whitegirl, you eat piment?” These questions alwaysseem to state my skin color, thus accentuating the obvious nature of whatever Ihappen to be doing at that moment that they’re finding so fascinating. Anyway,despite the fact that I find this irritating, it’s given me the opportunity tohave the kind of conversations about race and color that are physicallyimpossible in the States.

Race doesn’t need to beso taboo, and until we start addressing it, we’re never going to be the best wecan be as a society. Cameroon, of course, doesn’t have an ideal system either.The ideal is bound to be somewhere between the two of us. I don’t claim to haveany amazing, innovative solution to racial profiling or teen pregnancy orsegregation or even to know the least uncomfortable way to talk about race.That’s all well beyond my knowledge. But, what I do know is that if there’s onething I’ve learned about being an outsider from all the harassment I receive,it’s that if we take the opportunity to talk about our differences and askquestions, the discomfort of the situation tends to dissipate.

So, this has been what’sbeen on my mind recently. It’s been interesting to think about Cameroonianversus American culture under this lens, and I’m sure it’s going to besomething that I continue to grapple with over the next two years of my serviceand beyond. It’s not been easy to be in the situation of being the one that soclearly stands out. My new, thick skin is coming in nicely, clearly.

With Love,

Steph

We live in Cameroon. And it sucks. But it’s good. I’m on an interminable bus ride, trying to meditate. Make productive use of the time, I figure. Turn a frustration, or at the very least a waste of time, into something useful, beneficial even. I try to take in the verdant landscape, the subtle grace and strength of the mama we zip passed with a huge sack on her back, the simple elegance of the mud brick homes. I will achieve zen by Yaoundé. I outline the entire article I will write about this, turning a bus ride, a necessary evil, into a meditation that will make all more peaceful and productive. We stop and are surrounded in seconds. It’s the third or fourth stop of the day. “Sheeps! Sheeps!” a woman screams through the windows, previously closed against dust, now shoved open, arms and sometimes half-bodies pressing in on us, dangling bags of plantain chips, peanuts, cut fruit, things I can’t name. I breathe, undisturbed. Shake my head, “Non, merci.” A sway-backed girl is watching through the window, her mouth undulating vigorously around a sucker, obviously one of many from the shape of her teeth and the pinky-orange scum clinging to their surface. She waves her wares and we shake our heads no. Still she stays. Then, like a hit and run, her hand is through the window, swiping down my husband’s arm, and gone again. She stands, staring at us, giggling. I am indignant at the rudeness. Deranging is my favorite frenglish word. It captures so exactly what it means: harassment stemming from a basic lack of regard and respect for another person. The shouting and lip smacking and hissing I generally can ignore, but breaching the barrier of physical touch still gets my Irish up, and I don’t mean potatoes. I give her a dirty look, grumble, “How rude,” and breathe. I will be unmoved. The bus sits. We’ll be going soon though, I’m certain. The sway-backed girl giggles and drags her friend over, pointing as though we are the first volunteers ever to appear on a bus through this town. As though our fair skin somehow makes us a spectacle. Landscape. Subtle grace. Elegance. Breathe. Giggling, she weaves her hand through the window and swipes her fingers down his arm again, quickly as though snatching away something precious, something she knows she shouldn’t take. “Notice: Our volunteers may be cute, but they will bite! Please do not put hands inside the enclosure.” I can feel my temper flood up in me like water in a glass. “Touche pas!” I shout. She and her friend giggle hysterically, and still the bus sits. “It’s not rudeness,” I can hear David saying in PST, “they just want to know you.” No, it is rudeness. We’re not zoo animals. Determined not to be bothered anymore, I glower at the back of the seat in front of me. A boy walks up to see what the commotion is, waves his wares at us, then looks me in the eye and addresses my husband. “I’ll trade you, this one for yours,” he gestures at the sway-backed girl. Deux, deux cents. I try to murder him with only my gaze and my mind. He doesn’t even shift his weight back from the window. The sway-backed girl somehow extends her bust and hips even further from her waist. Still, the bus sits. “It’s a bad trade,” my husband says. The girls giggle maniacally. “No, it’s good,” the boy says, “I like her.” “Bad for me,” my husband clarifies. “No, one for one,” the boy explains the math. “It’s good.” The sway-backed girl twirls her sucker, like there’s only the details to work out now, like there’s some possibility of me getting off the bus and she taking my place. Finally, the bus inches forward. “No, she’s too good for you,” my husband calls as we pull away. In what sounds to me like flawless French. The woman seated in front of us laughs and nods. He is relaxed, laughing, unperturbed, and throws an arm easily across my hunched shoulders. “That was fun,” he says, giving me a squeeze. There are so many reasons why I love him. “I hate this place,” I mutter, beginning to consider the possibility as the little town fades into the horizon and memory, that I might have over-reacted. At this rate, I will not reach enlightenment on a bus. He smiles and everything shifts a little toward its proper place. “Nah,” he assures me, “it’s good.” I breathe and somehow, it is.

When I wrote the post about fire being apart of the daily lives of Cameroonians, I certainly forgot about the other and far more powerful firey event that happens almost every night during the rainy season. Yes, if you haven't figured out the post title "Fire in the Sky" by now, well, it's about lightning.

I'm not talking about some cheap thrill either. Not the stuff you see on the horizon and can barely make out the thunder that follows half a minute later. No, this stuff is intense. When the first storm hit my village I decided to try and get a couple pictures like the pros. I had no idea what I was doing, so I just started fooling around with my camera settings. Meanwhile, lightning flared across the sky like I've never seen. I thought, for some reason, that most lightning flashes hit the ground. Most of these never did. In fact, I'm not sure I saw one strike hit the ground. These were just bolts of light stretching for miles in the sky. Thunder followed almost instantaneously. I was mesmerized. I felt it's power as the vibrations of sound rippled through me like the crack of rifle fire. I forgot my camera for a few minutes in the middle of what was the most active storm I've ever seen.

Eventually I returned to the camera and I figured out that if you just leave the exposure on for a long time, you let the lightning expose the shot, and you don't sit there like a fool trying to randomly get lucky by hitting the shutter at just the right moment.

These are the shots I got.

This was absolutely my first attempt with extended exposure. What luck.

The dragon. The talon. I'm not going to lie. Shots like these were on my photo bucket list. I never knew how to take them, and I never knew when I was going to get the opportunity. These made the entire week worth it, and made up for some pretty rough times.

It's offical. I lost my development virginity on my trip with UNICEF. While this seems to be a pretty obsene metaphor for what happened, it's pretty much how it felt. All this build up, grand expectations, and then when the event came and passed, reality was depressing.

Inside the UNHCR/UNICEF/WFP compound When I received the plan for this trip I was immediately struck by the total disorganization and total fallacy that was the "Plan" for the trip. They had a schedule with timeframes that in no shape, way, or form could fit reality. For example, on the first day of the trip, they expected to arrive in Bertoua at 11:00AM and then arrive in Garoua-Balai in two hours (1:00PM). It takes about 90 minutes to get to Tongo, and that's about half way to Garoua-Balai from Bertoua. The rest of the schedule followed this totally dreamt up plan.

I arrived at the UNHCR compound just before 11:00AM on the day of departure. I didn't expect them to be on time, as they're schedule called for a four hour trip between Yaounde and Bertoua when it normally takes seven hours. Remarkably, they showed up only fifteen minutes late, and we'll get to why later. Anyways, the next hour was a total waste. It started by brief introductions, and then followed by complete SNAFU. No one had any idea what was actually happening for the rest of the trip. There weren't any established priorities and communication between UNICEF and their contractors was dismal at best. Eventually, we ate a catered lunch and headed out the time we were supposed to be arriving in Garoua-Balai on the border of Cameroon and the Central African Republic (CAR).

School kids hold up UNICEF gifts The drive to our first school in question made me realize how they took so little time on their crossing from Yaounde to Bertoua. The drivers are insane. They regularly push 140 (just shy of three times the speed limit), and I've never sat in a Toyota pickup that got speed wobbles until then. When we arrived at our first school in question, we found that the beautifully erected latrines (a gift from UNICEF) were locked and not being used, and that the forage wasn't built because the engineers picked a drill site that didn't actually have any water beneath it. The rest of the long first day was basically the same. We saw a number of schools with gifts from UNICEF, in the form of latrines, forages, libraries, school supplies, and sporting goods, that were all being under used or used inappropriately.

Workers opening up a new forage for the program

Locked new latrines

UNICEF program director, her kid, and a couple school authorities

trying to unlock the latrines The meeting that night in Meiganga went well, as I met two other volunteers participating in the UNICEF program, and we sat in on a meeting that allowed us to see the ground level interactions between other aid organizations like Premiere Urgence and UNHCR.

Sam in the foreground, and Carlos behind the group, along with

the director in the center

The next day was more of the same, but we got to see some interesting projects by another volunteer, and a surprisingly successful project started by a community. We sprinted back to Bertoua after visiting the large cluster around Meiganga.

This is the condition of many school buildings in the East region Finally, the third day we visited my home, Tongo-Gandima. We went immediately to the school and was greeted by the director of the school. The director of the UNICEF program asked to talk to two students of the school, one specifically a refugee, and to ask them how UNICEF and the school had been working for them. Of course the children responded perfectly as the director of the school stood standing next to the UNICEF director similing menacingly, but of course no thought was given to this. In fact, this incident brings to light how really little is known by these large organizations about the actual lives of the people that they are trying to help. They have little knowledge of the community dynamics and interactions that can significantly alter the course of their promising projects. However all is not lost, this is where Peace Corps volunteers come in.

The director of Tongo's school, with all of UNICEF's

donations locked away in the "library" or what amounts

to her new office Every single one of the problems to the UNICEF program could be addressed by Peace Corps volunteers who understand these community dynamics. We can also help communities correctly utilize these gifts from other aid organizations. Unfortunately, this partnership betwen UNICEF and the Peace Corps is, as far as I know, the first real effort to work together at an official level.

The director and her two kids talking to some of Tongo's youth

with the director of the school In Tongo, I will have to help develop maintenance and repair groups for the forage and latrines of about 8 schools around and including Tongo's. I also have to help come up with some sports education programs to utilize all the sporting equipment kits that were gifted. During my time at Tongo, I also will be responsible for the oversight of all the contractors work at the schools, and this is awfully good because up until now, they've been operating with zero oversight from Yaounde, and taking far too long to accomplish projects they promised to be completed a year ago.

Currently, I'm in Yaoundé awaiting a meeting at UNICEF's headquarters with the rest of the volunteers. We're actually going to be talking about some really concrete stuff and not just the ideals of the program. Hopefully this will motivate me again, but currently I'm feeling pretty apprehensive, especially with the attitude of my school's director.

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People often stop by my house to see what I’m up to. Mostly kids. If the door is open someone will inevitably poke their head inside. There’s also a dirt lot in front of my house, which makes for a … Continue reading →

I spent about a month traveling around the Western part of Cameroon starting the beginning of December. What an amazing trip. What an amazing country. And I haven’t even seen most of it. A big highlight was climbing Mt. Cameroon, … Continue reading →

Ok so this post is for all of my MBCC readers. I had QUITE the conversation with the director of my women’s center the other day about religion… It started out as an invitation to join in on a forum … Continue reading →

Transportation in Cameroon is definitely different than anything I have experienced. Also more dangerous. As of now, after being country for only 9 months, I have been in a total of 4 accidents. Nothing completely serious, but that just illustrates the dangers of travelling in this country. For short trips, most people can just grab a motorcycle. In Bertoua, the regional capital, most trips cost 100 CFA a person (about 20 cents). These moto drivers can take you about anywhere you wish. There are almost always moto drivers. Unfortunately of course when you really want one, they are never there and they hassle you when you don’t need one. In Bertoua and most other big towns there are also yellow taxi cars. They are small 4 door cars, smaller than a Camry, and their carrying capacity is 6 people plus the driver. In Yaoundé, there are only taxis, moto taxis are prohibited. In order to grab a taxi you stand on the side of road and wait for a taxi to drive by, you then yell where you want to go, how much you are going to pay, and how many places you need. If they accept all of the above they will honk their horn and then you get in. If they don’t like it then they will just drive off. Sometimes it can take 1 taxi or 20 taxis to finally get where you want to go. On the other hand you can just “depot” or taxi or pay for all the seats and then you can go directly to your destination without having to get other passengers if your taxi isn’t full. It is definitely an interesting system, but I doubt it will ever pick up in America. On the Brightside it makes the taxi rides relatively cheap about 200 – 300 CFA (10-15 cents) depending on how far you want to go. For longer trips, most people take agency bus. There are many different agencies all going to the same place. When a taxi drops you off, often the porters will rip your bags from you and take you to their agency, so they are ensured that you go with them. There is no big difference between any of the agencies, but people have their preferences. I personally like to take Melo Agence for my trips to and from Bertoua. The 5 hour trip costs 4000 CFA (or 8 dollars) one way. You make think that since it is an agency and not a bush taxi, there would be a time table. Unfortunately, not so. Basically the buses leave whenever they are full to maximize profits, which mean you can wait hours for the bus to leave. I like Melo because they normally only leave 60 – 90 minutes late. I once waited 5 hours for a bus that never came even though every hour I was told that the bus was only 20 minutes away, it just goes to show you how time is all relative. Another way the agencies maximize profits is that they pick up passengers on the side of the road. So people are in the basically standing up in the aisles or sitting in the stairways. The length of the trip can depend entirely on how many stops the bus driver makes to pick up more passengers, the gendarme stops, and of course the infamous breakdowns (So far I’ve had 2 breakdowns = ) )There are many different types of agency buses too. Ranging from a typical van you would see in America, that will magically fit 20 people, to prison bus, named so for the grate between the driver and the passengers, to a coaster which fits 35 people, and then a coach bus like those in America, except it is 3 seats, an aisle, and 2 seats (they magically fit an extra seat in each row).Even more fun on this bus rides are the people who hop on and sell things. Often talking for the whole entire bus rides hawking their wares, anything from toothbrushes to magical lotions and potions that will cure you of anything. What I find most amazing about this is that people are willing to buy this junk. Although transportation in Cameroon can be difficult, it also has its benefits. Such as after an accident on the way to Yaoundé our bus was broken, I was able to get on another bus with relatively little problems. It was funny that a bus from the same agency hit my bus. Even more ironic was that our bus was slowing down because there was another accident. On the side of the road with my friends Rachel and Sam, I tried flagging down every car and bus trying to get us on a bus to Yaoundé. One taxi wanted 30.000 CFA (60 dollars) to take us, even though the taxi looked like it was in worse shape than our bus. I refused on principle to pay that much because it should have only cost 2.000 CFA. Luckily another bus came by and I haggled with the driver to only pay 1500 CFA a person because we wouldn’t even have seats. Unfortunately someone on the bus did not like that only white people came on the bus and started complaining. Well I wasn’t in the mood for her attitude so I told her that the others did not want to stand and if she was unhappy that no Cameroonians came on the bus, she could give up her seat for one of them. Apparently she wasn’t too upset because she didn’t give up her seat.

I step outside after my Teaching of Teachers health group, willed to me by the previous volunteer, and see that the village is teetering on the edge of a downpour. If I want to make it home before the drops start falling, I’ll need to leave now. Called are over are matching red okadas, one [...]

The Youth Minister’s visit that I mentioned in my last post launched the madness that is the Fete de la Jeunesse, or Youth Week here in Cameroon. Classes were cancelled all week and we replaced by a bevy of song/dance … Continue reading →

Bonjour, World!! It’s been a while, but hopefully I’ll be connected back to the real world for good this time, seeing that MY COMPUTER ARRIVED and I’m in Yaounde!!!! Anyways, there’s lots to catch up on from last month’s post, … Continue reading →

13/02/2012 This post will be about the first two cultural events I got to witness. A celebration of bilingual week and Youth Day. Bilingual week is supposed to be a week signifying the importance of knowing both french and english in Cameroon because it was colonized by the French and the British. Each year has a theme and this year’s theme was “Bilingualism for responsible citizenship.” Jessica, the ED volunteer, had some of her kids perform a skit at the lycee bilang where she works. Schools all over Cameroon celebrate this week doing things like debates, soccer games/ other sports, skits, songs, poems, faux news reports, and dances. We only went to the celebration on Thursday at Jessica’s school, but there was also another celebration Friday at the place de fait. Usually clusters of schools will meet at one school to do whatever actives were planned. There were three schools that met at Jessica’s school that Thursday. It was scheduled to start at 8, but ended up commencing around 10. All the student’s desks were put out for the audience (students), there were chairs for the officials in the front rows, and a judges table for 3 individuals. I don’t know who they were. I don’t know where to begin. They commenced the celebration with the Cameroonian national anthem. On the program it said they would sing it in french and english, but it ended up only being in French. Students here have a deep lack of respect. Once the events started no one got quite, maybe a couple of people. People talked continually throughout the actives or yelled out things to derange the people performing. The skits were consisted of messages of why it is important to know english. The poems were usually about why education is important or had some kind of religious message. The dances and songs dominated the schedule. Most of the dances were pretty risqué too. A lot of hip and chest movement, both with men and women. It was bizzare to see teenage girls showing their backside to display how well they could move their hips after there was a poem about Jesus. All of which was encouraged. The kids were cheering for these excellent dance skills. Sometimes a girl would come down and get down right in front of the school officials. Its all normal here, but I found it very bizarre. I couldn’t follow the skits or most of the poems because all the students were just talking in their own world. It seemed like a waste of time to me. The faux news reports were all the same. Each school had to perform the same one which was about 15 minutes, too long for the attention span of most of the kids. We didn’t get to see Jessica’s skit because we had to leave at twelve for another meeting, but she didn’t mind. She said her kids didn’t do that well anyway. I’m missing quite a few details but this was a while ago and I really don’t have many positive things to say about bilingualism week. The PC teachers I talk gave the same consensus that the students don’t really care about performing well. Bilingualism week is kinda like “dead week” in college before finals. Theres no school except for practicing for the celebration. Now Youth Day. Youth Day is supposed to be a celebration of the next generation of Cameroon. This celebration was a lot bigger because schools from all surrounding villages of Batouri came out to march in a parade. This parade was in front of the place de fait. Another instance where things are supposed to start at one time, but usually run an hour late. I forgot to mention what the place de fait is. Thats an open structure that is just a place for officials to sit. The schools/orgranizations spend an hour or two lining up and getting ready to march while the spectators line up on one side of the road. The opposite side of the road from the place de fait so they don’t block the site of the officials. There are 4 white lines on the main road, kinda like a track at the Olympics, so the people can walk in a straight line. On the spectator side there are police and gendarmes with belts and batons to whip kids if they get too far into the road. Not everyone from each school gets to march in the parade. I don’t know the selection process. On the other side, place de fait side, there are officials in suits making sure people march in lines which seems to be one of the most difficult tasks. It was rare to see any school or organization match together in an organized fashion. There were schools, muslim schools, nurse schools, teacher schools, organizations against rape, organizations against corruption, groups of people who looked like cheerleaders, one band, a private high school, a women’s group that Stephanie marched with, and many more. The whole parade, once the marching started, was about an hour an a half. As the groups pass the officials they turn their signs representing their club and hold out their left hand horizontally, kinda like a salute. Each school or group was yelling out a song of some sort. Some schools had their students with ribbons tied on the wrists of their left hand. I couldn’t discover the significance of that. Maybe just some flair. The teachers who were marching with their students had on their flyest dresses with embroidery. Between the teachers and the officials in suits kids were constantly being yelled at to be a certain position so they were aligned vertically and horizontally. Does anyone remember dragon sticks? The things that were popular in the 90’s? They were popular with the older kids at my day care. I saw two guys with those in the parade. There were also kids on the side lines yelling at the students marching deranging them. Once the parade finishes the older groups or organizations go out and drink to celebrate Youth day. Stephanie was invited out to go drink with her women’s group after the parade. Drinking is a big part of Cameroonian culture, but these celebrations just give all the more reason to go out and drink. I’ll finish this with the main mode of transportation here, motos. Motos are just motorcycles. But the cheapest kind you can find from China. They cost between 400.000 - 800.000, the average ones. Theres no real “rules” for becoming a moto driver. It seems like anyone can buy a moto, just post up somewhere, and wait for someone to ask for a ride. I know in Beartoua, the regional capital, there is a certification that drivers must pass to get a green vest that shows they are “legit” Some wear helmets but most don't. Most moto trips cost 100 CFA, but sometimes 150 CFA at night. I know in Batouri its always 100 CFA night or day because the town is so small are there are moto drivers everywhere. Being white some moto drivers will try to ask for more money and give bogus reason why it cost more. All you have to do it walk away because they won’t do anything. I’m also impressed with what moto drivers can load up on their crappy bikes. I’ve seen goats, pigs, 6 50 kilo sacs of cements, motos on the backs of motos, furniture sets, motos with 4 people including the driver, motos taking 4 kids under the age of 8 to school. Motos with a guy dragging 4 meters of rebarb behind them. I’ve seen motos carrying 6 crates of beer. Africans make it work. There is also a good chance your moto driver is drunk. I’ve seen it multiple times where moto drivers are sipping on whiskey sachets. No laws against that. There is also no real age limit to drive motos. I’ve seen muslim kids in Beartoua on motos who looked like they were 13. Their feet could barley reach the ground when they were on the moto. There is a good reason why PC requires its volunteers to wear helmets while on motos. Moto drivers also pay to get like a custom leather covering for their gas tanks ans seats. They also somtimes keep the bubble wrap over the parts of their motos to keep it clean as long as they can. Decorating motos is also popular just to make theirs‘ stand out from others. Flowers or little sticker pictures. Not much more for now. I’m about to meet my community host and counter part. Toodles for now.

07/02/2012 Its been a while and I have a lot to share, but I’ll start off with the random event that finished my day of work. I just came back from meeting a potential counterpart with Steph and her host country hommie and we stopped at a bar to get some juice. We were talking for a while and then a dispute broke out over something. I think this dude had a tab and wasn't going to pay it. He was very intoxicated and was a grown man. He was arguing with a girl who looked to be 18 or something. I heard a slap from outside the bar so I started to pay attention. Then he started to grab her shirt and she grabbed his. Thats how fights seem to go around here, from the ones I’ve seen. Each person will grab each others’ shirt and hold their arms stiff and just kind swing each other around. Then the dude grabbed her throat and I got up to separate them. Other people in the bar just watch. Thats another thing I’ve noticed. Cameroonians usually don’t get involved until its escalated into a fight. I got them separated and assumed the girl just left to get a way from him, but she ended up grabbing a bottle and trying to hit him in the face. At that point I just left because other Cameroonians came in. Then the guy started yelling at me and went crazy, throwing a tantrum like a child. He’s yelling loud at everyone while taking his shirt off. He threw his shirt on the ground picked up a glass and threw it at his head, but it bounced off and just broke on the ground. Then he started crying and smashing his head on the metal door that closes the bar. Thats when Ahmadou suggested we leave. So we all left and he just kept yelling. In Africa, at least in Batouri, no cops show up. They have “jungle justice” here. Jungle justice is if someone steals something from you and you yell out “vouluer! Vouler!” (Thief) There is a high probability that people will hear that and then attack the thief. Not just attack, but beat the life out of him. It may be more applicable for Cameroonians or white people in large cities, but thats how things are taken care of out here. Quite a bit has happened since I got over giardia and went to Beartoua for the regional meeting. I got back to post at the beginning of February. When I was walking through centre ville one day there was this old lady, probably drunk, who was just dancing in the middle of the street. I think thats a cool freedom because no body cares and there are no police or gendarmes to take her away to the “sidewalk”. People can just do that here. Cameroonians atleast. In centra ville any electronic shop blasts music on their speakers, all with different songs. She was just getting down in the middle of the road. Radom note: did y’all know Seth Rogan is in Donny Darko? He’s the friend of the bully with the mullet? I also saw 16 candles for the first time and noticed in the opening credits 2 high schoolers were holding pinkies. Was the cool in the 80s? It sure is cool here. I hold hands with dudes all the time in market now. Actually, 3 main dudes. I think they are showing off that they are close enough to the white person in town to hold their hand. Or maybe its just simply a sign of friendship. I’ve also been told by my female post mates that Cameroonians ask where Sampson is. “Ou est votre frere Sampson?” Culture experience. Lemme talk about bus rides. I might have touched on it in a previous entry, but I’ll go in depth here. I’ll use my last trip to Beartoua as an example. I wake up at 6 am and grab my bag that I packed the night before and head over to the agency. I get there and wait in line to buy my ticket. There are 3 separate counters, but each counter sells tickets for 2 or 3 cities/villages only. So I get in the line for Beartoua and Kenzou. Lines also don’t really exist here. People cut and its just part of the culture. Cut anywhere. At the bank, grocery store, buying credit for phones. I dunno if its people trying to show how “macho” they are (males and females both do it). So when I do get to the counter I say where I wanna go give my ID and money and she writes me a ticket with the bus license plate one it and a number. We ride in old prison buses out here. They use the prison buses Eastward from Beartoua, the regional capital. They have another type of bus, I forget the name, but its not used much because it goes slower on the crappy dirt roads. I also don’t remember the name of the company that makes the buses, its starts with an S, Sacam? They put 5 people to each row, sometimes 6, and there are 5 rows. No isle way. A seat folds down to be an isle seat. There is barley any leg room and the seats resemble the cushions of those cheap floding stadium seats you can bring to ball games. Babies in laps and always an odorous person. Odors don’t bother me. Makes me more comfortable when I break wind. There are usually 2 people from the agency who ride with each bus, the driver and then the “woker”. The “worker” for the agency either stand behind the back row, stand on the back bumper outside the bus, or the stand on the top of the bus holding on to the straps that hold down all the luggage or goods that are strapped. I’ll get to the top of the bus in a minute. By “worker” I mean the person who changes the tires, opens the back door for ID checks, load and unload luggage, or work on the engine. There are also 4 places in the cabin up front. One for the driver and 3 for more passengers. The engine is right under the middle seat of the cabin, so there is a lot of vibration and heat. Lately whenever I sit in the back with everyone else an employee will tell me to move to the front for a cabin seat which is more comfortable. It seems they only put white males and “grands” in the front. White males because they made Stephanie stay in the back. “Grands” are the important Muslims, the ones who have been in the game for a while and have the fliest boubou outfits. I don’t mind because I barley have leg room in the back, but I don’t like to perpetuate the stereotype that the “white man” always gets a better seat. Buses also don’t leave until they are completely full. A bus may be scheduled to leave at 7, but may not leave until 8 because its not full. Its more of a problem for afternoon departures. So the top of the roof. People are moving all sorts of products. People go to regional capitals to buy products that smaller towns don't have, or to just get them cheaper. They have any kind of animals, 50 kilo sacks of grains, rice, petrol, or gas bottles, ect. Motos, and all sorts of bags. The space that takes up the roof luggage rack is usually equivalent to what could be fit inside the bus. Once everything is loaded up and everyones on we roll out. Going out of and coming into cities we pass check points with gendarmes. Gendarmes are like the “military” here. Most all are corrupt. The white people always have to show their IDs. Sometimes its everyone. If a Cameroonian doesn't have an ID they fold up a piece of paper with money in it and give it to the guard. A small illustration of corruption. The ride itself is pretty bumpy and very dusty. Bumpy because of all the traffic from logging trucks. There are some stretches of road that are like ruffles potato chips, some with big dips. There is no left and right side. There is usually one path that both directions take, and when two buses/cars are traveling at the same time they just space out a bit but are about 2 feet within each other. Going up hills is like 5 mph, and going down hill is pretty fast. I don’t know exact speeds because I haven't been on a bus yet where the gauges work. The buses will stop for people who just wanted to get to their small village along the way to the larger cities, or they stop if someone wants to buy something on the side of the road. They just yell at the driver to stop, buy their food or whatever product, it gets thrown on top and then we continue. Once people start leaving the bus for their village there are also people waiting by the side of the road to hitch a ride to the big city if there is room. They usually get picked up, but sometimes the driver picks up too many people. That was the case on our return trip to Batouri. We were about 10 km out going up a hill and the bus just died. I waited with Steph for a bit, but then decided to walk the rest of the way. I have faith in Africans and their ability to jimmy rig anything, but I didn’t want to wait beyond the 30 minutes I already had. The bus did get fixed and they picked me up 2 km outside of Batouri. Another thing about the dust on bus drives is the African spray tan. Everyone gets sooooo dusty. Jersey shore tan. You could take your fingernail and scrap off the dust and draw pictures in your face. There are also signs in the bus that say “Throwing up, spitting, and talking to the driver are forbidden”. Most of the tires have different patterns because they just put on what works. Even the replacement tires on the roof of the bus are old and sometimes close to bald. Another things is we usually have to take 2 breaks so the driver’s “worker” can add new water to the radiator so it doesn't over heat. I believe most of the drivers are Muslim so they don’t drink, or shouldn’t. I’ve heard from people in the North and Extreme North that the Muslims drink, just in private. Its only 100 km from Beartoua, but our trip usually takes 3-4 hours. On the bus people like their music. There are usually 3 people who are playing their own music on their telephone for everyone to enjoy. A lot of Rhianaa. Buses honk when there are people on the road walking from village to village so they step off a bit as to not get hit. Its usually people who went out collecting wood or are bringing back clothes after washing in the river. I really am impressed with the durability of these buses. These are also jus the small buses. There are large charter buses that go from Yaounde to Beartoua or other regional capitals. PCV’s are told never to travel at night because of highway bandits. We have a really solid human here in Batouri who runs the Alliance agence in Batouri. He always makes sure we have a safe departure and return. At least with our buses we don’t have the problems that are in the west with very diverse topography that makes traveling hard during the rainy season. I’ll have to see what traveling it like during rainy season here. Another thing I really appreciate about Cameroon is how most things can be custom made. Security doors, furniture made out of solid wood, shoes/sandals, grills, shops. I got some nice leather sandals made for 7.000. I wanted some for my bou bou outfits. I also got another pair made just to wear around because I get made fun of for wearing my “babouches” (shower shoes) all the time. I do it to look poor, but they wear down pretty quickly. But this other pair of sandals is too small. Its cool with me, helps me bargain down the price. The same people who custom make shoes fix shoes. If anything detaches they resow it. Or you can get your shoes reenforced before they break. Thats like 500 CFA, just a dollar. There are people with established stands and there are also people who travel around with their tool box looking for work. I’ve also mentioned this before, most every product can be bargained. Which I love because I’m frugal. It really comes down to who has a better argument or puts in more time. I also bargain down the price for my fish or tools from the hardware shop. First of all, the original price given is much high just because I’m white. So when they give me a price too high I just low ball them and explain I’ll give them a price too low since they think they can give me a price too high because of the color of my skin. Sometimes the vendor just gives up and asks for the money I say I’ll pay. Or I’ll make deals, like I get these plastic trash cans to make wine in and tell the dude to give me a good deal on them and I’ll give him the wine I make in them. Two other good techniques is just walk away or say I’m going to another vendor. Or it could go the other way and the vender just says leave. Its all a game. I Love it. For more established stores, not boutiques, prices are set and cannot be bargained. But established stores are weird. You pick your products, go to a guy that write you a receipt, then take that receipt to another guy where you pay and get that receipt stamped. Then another guy records the money received in a log book. I’ve only seen computer systems in regional capitals. I’ll finish this entry with photos and how much Cameroonians‘ love photos. There are always group photos of GICs or when any group of people meet up (organizations, friends, celebrations). Developing photos is one thing, but there are also these photo studios. They have both 35mm and digital. Black and white or color. In the studio there are these weird backgrounds. Like waterfalls, jungles, egyptian pyramids, a fancy looking house with a Benz in the garage. They also have flowers, chairs, and other accessories to accent your photo. I decided I want to get head shots of PCVs that visit me or Cameroonian friends that I make here. Silly pictures. Good memories. Things I can laugh at and reminisce about when I need a cane. It only cost 500 CFA to get the photo taken and developed. If you give the digital files of photos is 300 CFA to develop. Cameroonian’s like photos of themselves. When I was in PST there were a couple of the language teachers with pictures of themselves as the background on their computer. I have also noticed in some houses of Cameroonians I’ve been invited to that they have pictures of themselves. I dunno why. Maybe they felt they looks super fly and want that to be a reminder to not loose it. This is already a long entry. I’ve got two cultural celebrations to write about that were both bizarre. Bilingual week and Youth Day. I’ve got pictures from both for fb, but I’ll write about that after I visit Mindourou. Oh yea, I’m finally gonna visit where my community host lives. I am blessed to have my post mate Janelle accompany me on this trip so nothing is lost in translation when I try to discover what work is actually possible in his village. I leave this Sunday, the 12th. Wow. In about a month is will be IST. Toodles for now. Du courage Americans. I’ve heard how crazy some things are in America. I’m glad to be in Africa except for the fact that my loved ones are across an ocean.

We woke up the next day and packed everything up. Then, Maleewon drove us up to the port in the northern end of town in her little pick up. As we were leaving, Don said something to us like, “Now make sure to not get into any trouble over there in Laos!” Sure thing, we said. Henry, Patrick, and I rode in the bed of the truck and Paul rode in front and Maleewon said with a devious smile, “it’s only him that gets in trouble!”

We went through Thai immigration and then hopped aboard a little speed boat that ferried us across the Mekong to the Lao side. Patrick ran into some passport problems there. See, with Peace Corps we are issued an official Peace Corps passport, similar to a diplotmat’s passport, except that it won’t really open any doors for us. Most of us also have our own personal passports and Patrick and I had been using those while Paul and Henry had been using their official PC passports. Patrick ran into a problem when we were getting our Laos visas in Bangkok because the pages of his personal passport (with his Thai visa/stamps) were full, so he got the Laos visa on his PC passport. We hoped that neither country would look for the other’s immigration information but sadly we were wrong. Long story short(er), Patrick had to go back to the Thai side where an official just stamped his personal passport “USED”, which sucks because we’re supposed to turn in our PC Passports once we get back to the states and this now means Patrick can’t just apply for more pages for his personal one but instead has to apply (and pay) for a new passport. Bummer.

After the immigration hoobulah we found a pickup taxi to take us to the bus station. An older man who worked with the taxi men helped us along and it was pretty interesting because he spoke a bit of French, which was better than his English. This was one of the first signs of the relics of French colonialism which we came across. At the bus station Patrick and I each got a bowl of noodle soup and it was quite different than Thai noodle soup. The noodles were not nearly as good and the broth was mostly just water with a bit of oil. When our bus pulled up we were immediately a little tickled as it was a coaster, very similar to what we used in Cameroon. Sure enough, they packed it up and the two Europeans who were also in our row (which consisted of Paul, Henry and I) were kind of pissed at me when I made everyone squish so I could sit down too. All I had to say to them (but unfortunately I couldn’t at the time because they didn’t speak English or French) was: get used to travelling in a third-world country.

Speaking of it being a third world country, this was instantly apparent after crossing the border from Thailand. The houses were mostly made of logs, on stilts, and sometimes even with thatched roofs. The road we were on was recently paved which made for a pretty smooth ride and the scenery was gorgeous. It was funny how crossing the border could bring such a different change in scenery and prosperity. I think I read somewhere (maybe Theroux?) that the best way to enter a country is by land, that way you can see the differences of a country directly as you enter and also see how the minute differences become more apparent the further you get from the border.

We got into the trekking center of Luang Namtha a little before sunset and we spent some time just playing cards and taking the town in. Across the street from our guesthouse was the Luang Namtha night market. We had some roasted/rotisserie duck that night for around 4 bucks. It was amazing, possibly the best duck I’ve ever had.

The next day we got up and walked around town, trying to get a better feel for it. I noticed what I thought was a fairly apparent Soviet influence as the streets were very wide and broad. I’d never been to another Communist country before but I remember reading somewhere that a key element of Soviet city planning was wide boulevards so that military parades and movements could happen with relative ease. Well, as we were walking around an Italian dude waved to us from across the street and then came up to us and asked if we were the Americans at the night market the night before. As you can imagine, there aren’t too many Americans in Laos, given the history with the Vietnam War and the concurrent, secret war in Laos. Well, we told him yes and he said somebody had found an American passport at the market the night before.

I had mine on me, and Patrick and Henry both were positive that they had theirs. Paul looked through his backpack and, sure enough, it wasn’t there. Our guess is that it fell out of his pocket and then luckily some person found it, made it known to the community around (there really weren’t THAT many foreigners in town so it was a bit easier to spot us) that he had it, and then he told the tourist police. Well, it was quite an ordeal getting it back and getting everything squared away. Luckily, though, Paul didn’t have to pay any bribes to get it back. I was guessing he was going to be set back quite a bit but fortunately he wasn’t and ended up buying the guy a case of beers for the New Years celebration that night.

After all this, I talked with my parents on skype for a bit and then the four of us booked a trek leaving on the 2nd. We also went to a restaurant called Minority Restaurant which was run by a family of Black Tais, an ethnic minority in the mountainous hill country of Northern Laos. The food was delicious and they had a wide variety of typical Lao food, traditional Hill Tribe foods (such as Black and Red Tai, Akha, Hmong, etc.) and even a couple burgers and sandwiches on the menu. We all tried some different hill dishes and we were all pleasantly surprised by how good it was. Many people talked about how boring Lao food is, but from this meal on I can only disagree and point to all the flavorful, unique dishes we had for our three weeks there. The food was surprisingly different than Thai food but it was almost always delicious.

Anyway, that night our guesthouse bar/restaurant was closed for the holiday so we went to the night market again and this time got roasted pork ribs with sticky rice and some bomb sweet and spicy dipping sauce. Later, I went and found another guesthouse that was open to watch the Manchester United game. When the game was over, around 10, the bar seemed to be closing so we decided to go see if we could find another place to post up for the countdown. Well, we walked out to the street and NOTHING was open. If we wanted a party, we sure chose the wrong place to spend New Years. Every bar and guesthouse was closed, except one. It was a bar run by two New Zealanders (though I’m sure fronted and quietly owned by some Lao people) and they were working hard to get the party atmosphere going. Well, it worked pretty well and they had a deal on jello-o shots which all the travellers (probably around 30 total—just about all of them in the town) seemed to have been hitting pretty hard before we got there. We were hanging out and having a fun time when we started talking to this threesome travelling: two French girls and an Irish girl. I tried to convince them I was French which the four of us and the Irish lass found funny but the Frenchies were certainly not amused. Note to self: French women don’t like it when an American pretends to be French. Eesh, it was only a joke. It’s not like I was putting on a thick accent or making fun of France or anything. Anyway, we made it to midnight and then the kiwis kicked us out around two at which point we didn’t really have any other option than to just go back to the guesthouse and crash. Unfortunately, Patrick had the key to his room and he’d wandered off somewhere beforehand so Paul shared Henry’s and my bed. Patrick later said he came back and was going to wake Paul up but found the sight too amusing to disturb: the three of us sharing a queen sized bed.

The next day we didn’t do much other than relax around town (our guesthouse still mostly being closed due to the holiday) and get some more meals at the Minority Restaurant and the night market. We played a couple games of Settlers and then turned in pretty early so we could be ready the next day for the start of the trek.

My favorite. Gorko am. (My husband) in Fulfulde

Getting hair braided and Sheefa. Vodee

With Adama- Who Braided my hair

Happy February! Let’s see. What’s been going on since my last post? 1. I led my first meeting at post, by myself! It was my post mate’s (Cyrus) girls club that he helps facilitate every week in his village, Beka Huséré (I’m not quite sure if that’s how you spell it). It’s about 10 minutes outside of Ngaoundéré. Cyrus inherited this group from the volunteer he replaced, and because of him the group has stayed intact for almost two years now. I decided that I would help with the group since it is a girl’s group and they could use some female leadership (and he had to go out of town for official PC business). Well, only 4 girls showed up, so I included some of the boys in the neighborhood too, making it 7 of us total. I had everyone go around and introduce themselves, say where they went to school, their grade, what they aspire to be when they grow up, and their favorite color (just for fun). After I thought it would be a good idea to introduce a team builder to them, so I chose “The Human Knot”. If you have never done this activity before I’ll explain: everyone has to link hands with two people you’re not standing next to so you form a big knot, and then you have to figure out a way to untangle ourselves without letting go of each other’s hands. Naturally the first 3-4 tries they let go, thinking I wasn’t going to see. We must have attempted it 3 more times before they completed the task without cheating. Either it was because of my bleak attempt at describing the rules in French combined with confusing hand motions or they couldn’t quite grasp the concept, since they have probably never done anything like that before. I took it as a success for both the group and myself. The activity took about 30 minutes tops, and that’s all I had planned for the meeting, so for the remainder of the hour we played neighborhood games (you can compare them to duck-duck goose, patty cake etc. except the Cameroonian versions). 2. I started French and Fulfulde tutoring every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday for about an hour and a half to two hours. My tutor’s name is Francois. He is a language trainer for the Peace Corps who just happens to be from/lives in Ngaoundéré, which is great for me because he knows what he’s doing and has experience working with Americans. Score. 3. I’ve been following Krystina (other post mate) around town to see some of the youth projects she’s been involved with. One project is a group of 10 girls between the ages of about 13-23 who are not attending school/university because they don’t have the money, so they have started an income generating activity by carving calabash (a hollowed out, dried fruit that can be used for bowls or decorations when carved and painted). The girls have received a loan to buy the materials and pay for training, and once they start selling the calabash, they will pay back the loan and save money so they can go back to school. This is the kind of work I hope to start when I do start to do my own projects!

4. I recently discovered that I have 3 mango trees, an avocado tree, lemon tree, and guava tree in my concession. I noticed the mangos have started growing, which means mango season is approaching. Let me break this down for you: Me+3 Mango Trees= all you can eat mangos 24/7, mango smoothies, dried mangos (which I fully plan on making and I already have the materials), mango salad, mango salsa, mango juice….I can keep going. Did I mention the guava, lemon and avocado trees? Yeah…it’s pretty much the ideal living situation. I’m drooling just thinking about it. 5. The kitchen furniture I had made is now sitting in my “kitchen”. I had to pay 3 burly men 500 CFA to help lift my ginormous countertop up my narrow staircase which was an epic fail because I completely forgot to factor in the stairs when I was measuring out how long I wanted it to be (2.5 meters long). I thought I would have to cut it in half, which would have completely defeated the purpose of having a countertop. A week later I paid 4 different men to attempt to get it up the stairs again without butchering it, this time successfully! So now I have a full functioning kitchen: countertop with shelves for storage, a table (island) and two stools, all painted and varnished for about $145 (not too bad!). My description doesn’t do it justice so here are some pictures! 6. Last but not least, I GOT MY PUPPY!!!! He’s a cute little guy I named “Pogey” (Poh-geeh) which means “handsome” in Tagalog (Filipino). I couldn’t find a French name that wasn’t cliché like Garcon, Jean Pierre, or Francois, nor could I find a good Fulfulde name that sounded cute or that I could roll of my tongue easily. I’ve always wanted to name a pet Pogey, so I thought since this is the first dog I will raise on my own, it was meant to be. Cameroonians can also pronounce his name, which works out perfectly. He pees and poops all over my house, wakes me up at 6:30am and chews on anything and everything he can reach, but I am in love with him!

I was thinking about this today and realized that I will probably end up training in him three different languages, four if you include his name. It’ll probably go something like this: Sit Pogey (that’s 2), Vien Pogey (Come here Pogey…2 again), Kai Pogey! (No Pogey…Fulfulde & English..2 more). Too confusing?! Or I could combine them: “Kai Pogey, stop eating that. Vien! (he comes over to me), good boy!” Four languages! Only in Africa…

My wonderful friends and family, Because you are amazing, we have succeeded in raising over $950 towards a shipment of computers for a community center in Garoua. While my counterpart and I had originally requested 20 computers for his center, upon further reflection of costs/space/other such logistical factors, we’ve decided to cut back to 13 [...]

Wait, that was our last job! But, here’s a bit of the work of Peace Corps in Cameroon. At least our part of it. Our literary class, kicked off earlier this month, has been great! We have about ten students who are very motivated and enthusiastic about the opportunity to improve their reading and writing skills. And we are very motivated and enthusiastic about this opportunity to really invest something of value in the lives of these women and men. We had at first thought to limit our class to women, since girls are usually the ones forced to leave school after basic education if parents can no longer afford fees for all of their children, or if extra help is needed at home. Women, we felt, had less opportunity to gain literacy, and as primary child care providers, also provided a point of entry to introduce the value of reading and writing to families. If kids see Mom leaving twice a week to learn to read and write, that makes it pretty important. And if Mom comes home and reads to her kids later, even better! But then we had two young men come into our classroom, and couldn’t think of turning them away from our “women’s literacy class.” So, then and there, we became an Adult Literacy Class. Having the chance twice a week to share something we love with people who just drink up everything we offer – and stay even after our time is officially over – keeps us really energized when our office jobs are not so busy. Currently that isn’t a problem. Jack is continuing to teach computer literary at the Delegation for Basic Education, training inspectors for the primary school, and acting in the role of inspector himself as well. He’s also been working on updating operating systems and looking into the One Laptop Per Child program, which has some pilot programs already here in the Northwest, but not currently in Bamenda. Jack is also on the ICT (information communication technology) Committee and is working to increase the use of ICT in other Peace Corps sectors here. Kiyomi’s sector has recently changed from Small Enterprise Development (SED – “sed”) to Community Economic Development (CED – “sed”), and she’ll be working on the CED Steering Committee to develop the new project plan for Cameroon. She finished an organizational assessment with her NGO in the fall and is working on a series of staff-led workshops to address the areas of weakness identified by the staff in the assessment. Today was National Youth Day. Youth Day is the modernization of Empire Day, from back when Anglophone Cameroon was part of the British Cameroons. Somewhere around 1962, Cameroon decided that the youth of the country represented the future of the country, and what better replacement for Empire Day than a celebration of the youth of the newly formed nation? Technically “youth” is defined here as people ages 14-25, but presidential “youth” initiatives have included people up to age 40 or 45, and Youth Day celebrates all individuals in school, from nursery school up to technical training college. We got to sit in the grandstand with the governor (who was on time today) and watched a parade of all the schools in the area. The nursery schools were by far our favorite – knee-high children in school uniforms marching with their full souls in it, as only toddlers can do, knees up to their bellybuttons and arms swinging over their heads. The theme for this year is, “Youth and participation in the major accomplishments policy for an emerging Cameroon.” We don’t know what it means either. A generation full of so much energy and joy and adorableness as those nursery kids though, we figure, has to have good things in the years ahead of them.

Following Mid-Service Conference, I had 3.5 weeks at post before I had to make my way South again. This past month went by surprisingly fast. I had a bunch of things to try to pick up from where I left them in December. For other projects, I had to get the ball rolling earlier than [...]

Getting back into blogging… On December 12, I arrived in Yaounde for the first time since swearing-in over a year ago. Purpose:  finally took my first vacation! Thanks to my very generous aunts, I got to spend the holidays in Belgium  I left for Belgium on the same flight with four other Volunteers, who were [...]

Is Africa romantic? The constant sweat, the dust in the air, feuds fueling negotiations, the odd body odor, there are real reasons that make me realize that romanticism doesn’t reveal itself to me. But then again… what inspires artists to make such magnificently different pieces than the rest of the world? What is it?

Well let’s take a look at the current scene right now. I’m sitting on my bed, jamming my fingers against the keys of my laptop. I’m in my boxers and feeling overheated. The room is too dark to describe but in the distance there are cobwebs, cockroaches and dust on every doorknob. This scene is not African but let me close my eyes. Let me remember some recent memories.

I’m on a beach, staring over the seemingly infinite reflections of the Atlantic Ocean. A relaxed fisherman waits while the wind awakens his senses. I turn around and see children dancing. The music is directly synced to their souls, they bounce and twist releasing all of their insecurities. Bliss is in their beats, their cheek bones stab the air as their smiling teeth beam back the sunlight onto the waves.

I’m in a crowded bus. Staring, possessed by the passing by papaya trees. A child conducts his stick controlling a precious tire he found somewhere. He rolls and rolls and rolls until he runs into a ram. A man sits outside of his compound expressing salutations to all of the souls he knows so soundly. A woman walks with complete balance; her composure is as perfect as her posture. Her steadiness exhales patience, the basin balanced on the base of her head never dribbles, not once.

I’m on top of a mountain. Gravity balances a beautiful boulder on its bigger brother. Rolling hills remain silent for millenniums simply waiting for the sun to rise and set. The air is hot but the shade is serene, the ruins radiate tranquility. The view is remarkable, I’m at the peak but I already cannot wait to return.

Romance cannot be released relentlessly. It should be a rare moment that reveals your life’s road. A revelation, a discovery, a moment of clarity it will be. Each divided land has its own fingerprint. Men have drawn the borders but the lands have colored the people. Does Cameroon hide its romance? Any soul lucky enough to experience the magic that this land exerts will find it. As a traveler I cannot say that Cameroon’s romance is more romantic than any other but I can conclude that its uniqueness has inspired me.

As a traveler it is my duty to claim each land equal, every country caches its romance, Cameroon does this like any other country. Every state can induce every state of mind. Every nation can strip your soul naked. Every realm releases a very real romance that will remind you of why you’re alive. Come to Cameroon and you will find your own memento.

Carlos Jesus Fernandez-TorresFebruary 9, 2012

Happy New Year family and friends… better late than never, am I right? It’s February already and the weather here seems to get drier and drier each day. It’s really feeling like Africa with the strong Sahel dust and hot gloomy afternoons. I really can’t wait till raining season approaches. I have a feeling I will be regretting that wish here in the next two months. All is well with me at the moment. Went through what I like to call the true African experience with worms, giardia and unknown illnesses. Of course everyone knew I would get sick, but me being stubborn… I tried to trick myself into thinking I was healthy and the life cycles I seemed to be experiencing were a figment of my imagination. However, my body decided otherwise and off to Yaoundé (the capital) I traveled to see the PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer). I received some medication and after one HORRIBLE week, my body decided to kick the illnesses and I treated myself to endless amounts of delicious pizza, popcorn, ice cream… and oh did I mention margaritas. Oh Yaoundé, you little minks, you. I hope I don’t have to see you for a very, very long time. One good thing that came from my trip to Yaoundé (besides the AMMAAZZZING food and drinks) was all the time I got to Skype my loved ones. It was so nice to see all my beautiful family and friend’s faces. It made me super excited for my visit home in May. That’s right ladies and gentlemen; I will be back in the sunny state of California for three whole weeks. I will be attending my beautiful sister’s wedding, visiting family and friends and hopefully seeing the birth of my first niece. She is due the day before I am to return back to my home here in Cameroon. I am secretly (well not so secret now) hoping she comes a week early. That way I get to see her!The time away from my post made me realize how attached I already was becoming. I felt extremely guilty being away for as long as I was and when I came back, was greeted so warmly by everyone. I truly missed my village and my counterpart.Speaking of my counterpart, I had the most interesting conversation with him the other day about gum. He tells me that by chewing gum you are making yourself smarter, it somehow builds your intellect because it stimulates the mind. I know that it can increase stimuli and concentration. He told me he read it in a magazine once. Note to self: Cameroonians seem to believe everything as long as they have read it somewhere printed or it has an official stamp. This is true, which is why I am having an official stamp made with my name on it!!After we finished our conversation about gum and beers, we made our schedule for the week. I decided to tackle the disastrous darkness Justin (my counterpart) likes to call his bureau (office). I had wanted to help him with his organizational skills but I didn’t really know what I was getting into until I was knee high in papers from the 1980’s. That’s right, my counterpart is a hoarder. I found papers and articles in his bureau from before I was born. Some papers where you couldn’t even read what it said because of aging and then a billion phone numbers, he insisted on writing each down. I think he is sick of me asking if and when he will ever look at this paper again, and then telling him to trash it. Successfully he has thrown away some stuff, with praise by me of course, which I believe is to his delight. Every time he finds something to throw away, he makes sure to rip it up in front of me so that he can get a celebratory smile or clap from me. After 6 hours of constant struggle, we were able to finish his desk and a book shelf. We still have the library to do. I think I will take that one slowly. It’s been really nice being back in village. I have had a chance to meet more important people, each eager to start projects with me and having me promise to involve them in my plans. I tell them as volunteers for the Peace Corps, the first three months are for analyzing and assessing the needs of the community. We are not to begin any projects. But that doesn’t stop them from telling me about their individual problems or dreams. You got to love the enthusiasm though. My time here in Cameroon has been so rewarding already. I can’t wait to see what the next two years will have in store for me. It’s going to be an exciting year for all of us. Wish I could be in two places at once. I miss you all dearly and wish you well.By the way, thank you all for you letters and packages.

Kate

Cracks on wall caused by tremor By Divine Ntaryike Jr CameroonPostline.com — Residents of various settlements straddling the foot of Mt Cameroon in the country’s southwest are increasingly panic-stricken. Over the past one week, they have been witnessing and reporting mild tremors and explosions on the highest geographical peak in West Africa. The most palpable [...]

This weekend I had my secondmeeting with “Mères Communautaires”.This group of women comes to meetings once a month where I’ll be starting aconversation on different health topics. Afterwards, these women have theresponsibility of starting these conversations in their own “quartiers” or neighborhoods with theirfriends. The idea is that peer education is better received and bettertranslated into the local languages.

This weekend, the meeting, whichwas supposed to start at 8, started around 9:30 and went until 1 pm. The topicwas Nutrition for Children. We talked about food groups, proportions, commonsigns of malnutrition and prevention. While the information could easily havebeen conveyed in one hour, the prolonged meeting time, in my opinion, is a signthat the women were really getting into it. My friend, Asta, into Kapsikitranslated every slide for the women who don’t speak French. Then, the womenwould ask questions; the questions they would ask were amazing and showed thatthey were really understanding the topic. In fact, many of the questions wereregarding how to deliver the information as opposed to the information itself,indicating they were already one step ahead of me. Also in the room, I had anurse from the hospital. He was there to help answer any medical questions thatI couldn’t, provide any additional information and help make my Frenchunderstandable. At this point in my service, while my day-to-day French ispretty good, my topic-specific French is lacking. It helps that after I writeevery presentation I have to translate it into French, but still, my vocabularyis severely lacking for many technical areas. Needless to say, I was more thangrateful to both my interpreter and the nurse.

The greatest part of the meetingthough, was when we took a break for a snack. We were having beans, beignetsand tea. The women, on their own accord starting breaking down the food intotheir respective food groups and trying to determine if it was a balanced mealor not and what could be added to make it more balanced. Some women mislabeledsome of the foods, but immediately other women stepped in to correct them. Theentire break was dominated by the same conversation in three differentlanguages. It was so exhilarating. They had learned what I had taught them andwere not only internalizing the information but also using critical thinkingskills to dissect the information and apply it.

You guys sitting at home may notunderstand the significance behind this. Here in Cameroon, there is no criticalthinking or problem solving. School is about repetition and memorizing lines.In America, we are taught thought processes, such as problem solving andcritical thinking from a very early age. College reinforces learning newthought processes as we are introduced to new methods of study. But here, noone even thinks about it (no pun intended). School is not to enrich the mind,it’s not to teach someone how to think or apply learning in new ways. Thesekids go to school and memorize lines. Their English consists of “Good Morning,Madame. How are you? We are sitting down.” Rarely have I heard any FrancophoneCameroonian speak above that level without some sort of private study on theirown. So the fact that these women were taking what I was putting down, thinkingabout it, and applying the information to new data was astounding, especiallyconsidering they had just learned it five minutes before. Some of these womenhave never even been to school, although, in this case, I might be tempted tosay that is an advantage.

I am so ridiculously proud of them,and, also, proud of myself. With help, I was able to teach an entire lesson inFrench and keep them engaged for hours. This week, my words are reachingcorners of this and neighboring communities that I’ve never even seen. I like to think that maybe a pregnantwoman is getting enough protein today, or that someone’s kids are getting anextra orange, all because of the conversations these women are having.Yesterday, walking through town, three women stopped me and told me that theyhadn’t been at the meeting (one of them wasn’t even in the group) but they hadheard it was great and were wondering if I had any extra handouts. Whoo hoo!

So that’s what making a differencefeels like. This is why I’m here, to teach and empower and inspire people tomake easy changes in their lives to improve their quality of life. And let metell you, it feels good!

As for the rest of my life, thingsare going well. Friendships are being strengthened. My neighbor had a baby yesterday,and apparently, her Christian name is going to be Suzie. I’m flattered andflabbergasted.

The puppies are all gone. Sent tohomes of their own. One of them, however, now belongs to my neighbor, the sameone who just had a baby, so I still get to see him everyday. He gets so excitedevery time he sees me, he sometimes pees all over me. Perhaps to replace thelost puppies, or maybe just because Luke and I were craving some eggs, we gotsome chickens: a rooster and a hen. All Cameroonians believe that hens don’tlay eggs unless roosters are around (not true, according to some awesomegoogling by Kelley). The hendoesn’t lay eggs yet though; my neighbor says she might be too young. And therooster is driving me nuts. He crows 50 times an hour, at least. Every night at2:30, he starts crowing for about half an hour, without fail. Then, he’s up at5:30, crowing. They’ve taking a spot right underneath my bedroom window tosleep in at night, so there is no way his crowing could be any louder. I’m sureI’ll be able to sleep through it eventually, but for now, I’ve been tempted tothrow things at him every morning. Yesterday, they both got out. I’m not sureexactly how. But my neighbor and I woke up early and started scouring theneighborhood for the rooster (the hen we found right away and chased back intomy yard). Have you ever tried to catch a chicken? It’s really hard. They goslowly, letting you get nearer and nearer, teasing you into thinking this willbe easy and then they simply go ballistic, running, jumping, kinda flying andscreaming away from you. They only way to catch them is to corner them. By thetime we found my rooster, we’d accidentally already caught a neighbors roosterthat turned out not to be mine. We chased my rooster for a least an hour beforegetting him into an abandoned house and cornering him. What a freakingadventure. If I ever wanted to live on a farm, this rooster is dispelling thatfantasy for me. But at least I know that sometime in the near future, I’m goingto be eating this free range, pain in my butt rooster and he will be delicious.And I will enjoy him even more because his crowing will be forever silenced!!! Mwahahahaha(evil laugh). And maybe I’ll get to eat some eggs on the side.

Culinarily, things are still anadventure here. I got a package from my family with spices and herbs and I’vebeen going crazy. Last week I made a full Mexican meal; I made everything fromtortillas, to refried beans to fajita style green peppers and onions fromscratch. Took a couple hours, but hmmm it was so good. Guess what I used toroll out my tortillas: an old giant beer bottle left by my predecessor.Resourceful, eh? I tried my hand at some Indian food with dal, but that didn’twork out so well. Italian food has been much more successful with someminestrone soup and spaghetti making me pretty happy. I’m also getting muchbetter at making break. This morning, I cut into my most recent loaf, crunchyand crispy on the outside and fluffy and fully cooked on the inside. Bottomline is, meal times are so much fun right now, exploring what’s possible andpushing the boundaries of what I know.

So that’s life right now! There aregood days and bad, better days and worse, but I’m making a dent and settlingdown and having fun. A lot of people have been asking about what I’m working onover here, so I might add a section of my blog to current projects, both forPCV’s to use and for you guys who have interest to read. So keep a lookout forthe new section. Love to you all back home. Thanks for the support and lovecoming my way!

18/11/11  Wow. Outsourcing Christmas shopping is THE way to go – I LOVE al-Adji and Djanabo.  Al-Adji was just over …Continue reading »

My friend bought this pagne expressly for my father... so we got a matching ensemble made and wore it to a wedding that night.

Mom and dad drinking bilbil (millet beer) out of traditional kalabashes.

How its really done.

Hiking out to Mariam's village, the damn and the sorcerer.

Group visit to Waza National Park in our matching outfits. We saw lots of giraffes, warthogs, antelopes, ostriches, monkeys etc.

Lost in translation is a common phenomenon here between PCVs and our Cameroonian counterparts. Here is the beginnings of a reference for words/phrases/expressions that just don’t translate into French or English. CF is the Cameroonian saying, in parentheses is the … Continue reading →

Some of the women who will benefit from the health clinic. 12 JANUARY 2012 Washington — A U.S. Peace Corps volunteer is helping to build a new health center in northern Cameroon that will eventually serve more than 14,000 people. Volunteer Cheryl Finell is working with her local community to build the center, which will [...]

So the long and short of my trip to Yaounde was that the test results showed nothing… A good and a bad thing, I suppose, because although it does make me feel a little better that I do not have … Continue reading →

I spent the last week in Kumbo, a city in the North West Region of Cameroon, providing a seminar for teachers. Computer Science teachers from all over the division were present. The course took place at the Government Bilingual High School Kumbo (GBHS Kumbo), which had better than average facilities for the seminar. Over the week we covered many [...]

Here I am, having completed almost two months of living in my village, Fonfuka. Since I last wrote, I've been trying to integrate a bit more into the community, which basically involves hanging out with kids and getting fat. Is it weird that none of my friends here are over the age of 16? Whatever. The men are usually creepy and the women are usually busy, so that leaves the kids. And they're pretty entertaining and helpful. They help me do dishes, clean my floors, and look for decomposing rats that are hiding somewhere in my house and making me unable to breath through my nose at certain times of the day.

Sometimes I come home and find this on my porch

Playing seven stones

Me and my peeps

One of my favorite kids here is an 11 year old boy named Prosper, whose father is one of the nurses at the health center. He actually reminds me a bit of my cousin Noah. They both have so much energy, and I'm sure they would have a great time running around Fonfuka together and exploring all the birds and bugs this place has to offer. After school, Prosper sets up traps for birds that he then sells to medicine men. He made a guitar out of bamboo. He brought a baby monkey back to his house after its mother was killed by dogs. But best of all, he climbs into the ceiling of the health center, kills bats, cooks them, and brings them to my house for a late night snack. Not even joking.

Prosper

Prosper's sister Christabelle

So what is an average day for me here in Cameroon? I usually wake up around 6:30 because some child is knocking on my door. I normally ignore it and stay in bed until about 7:30, unless they're particularly persistent (if they knock for more than 30 minutes, I will consider getting up and opening the door). I then proceed to do nothing/eat/read/play sudoku until about 9 or 10, when I go to the health center. Mondays are pre-natal consultation days, and Fridays are for infant vaccination, so I try to go hang out there, observe, help out, and maybe give a little talk in Pidgin about breast-feeding (“ya bobby get all kine fine chop for ya pikkin. Yi go chop flop if yi chop only bobby”). Since the area that my health center covers is so big, we are also required to go to surrounding villages for infant vaccination. I've gone to a few of these so far, but the most exciting was surely the village of Kichowi – 30km away and only accessible by foot. Oh, did I mentioned you need to cross a hanging bridge? Yeah. It's pretty remote.

Crossing the hanging bridge on the way to Kichowi

Can you believe I live here?

I've also started working with the Health Club at one of the local high schools, so I'll be doing that once a week. Working there has been a bit eye-opening with regards to some Cameroonian cultural concepts. After a student asked why girls shouldn't wear tight clothing, the Cameroonian teacher explained that if you wear tight clothes it will stop the blood from flowing freely in your veins and you'll develop high blood pressure... I felt a little silly in my tight t-shirt.

Time here is strange – the days are long but the weeks are short. Everything moves at such a slow pace, that sometimes I look at my calendar and think to myself “Really? It's STILL Monday?”. But at the same time, I can't believe it's already February! No cell phone coverage means that if you want to see someone or tell someone something, you have to find them, wherever they may be in the village. If you want to go to the bank or get something special (like curtains or a radio), you need to plan to spend about $40 and 2 days round-trip going to and from Bamenda. I've become used to procrastinating in a way I never have before – instead of saying “oh, I'll do it tomorrow”, now I can just say “oh, I'll do it next month.”

My living room

My kitchen

My bed

My president

Care packages!

So here I am. 5 months into this Peace Corps adventure and 2 months into village life. So far so good. I'm enjoying the slow pace of life and am constantly surprised by people who continuously open their homes and hearts to me. I've only been here two months, but I feel at home when I'm in Fonfuka. Just the other day, when I was preparing njamma-njamma with my neighbor, she looked up and said to me “Sister Alissa, we are really going to miss you when you leave.” I told her not to worry, that we've got two more years. “Two years is nothing, it will go by very quickly.” I know she's right. I just need to remind myself everyday of how lucky I am to be here, to be surrounded by my loving neighbors and 10 year old friends, and to enjoy every moment of this life in Cameroon.

River Kimbi that I cross everyday to go to town

Me voilà à Fonfuka depuis deux mois. Depuis ma dernière mise à jour, j'essaie de m'intégrer de plus en plus dans ma communauté, ce qui veux dire que je passe mon temps à jouer avec des gosses et à grossir. Est-ce que c'est bizarre que tous mes potes ici ont moins de 16 ans? Les mecs sont pour la plupart louches, et les femmes bosses constamment, alors il ne reste que les enfants. Ils sont cools et serviables, alors ça va. Ils m'aident à faire la vaisselle, à laver mon sol en ciment, et à chercher les rat en décomposition qui se cachent quelque part dans ma maison et qui dégagent une odeur insupportable à certaines heures de la journée. Un de mes gosses preferés ici est un garçon de 11 ans qui s'apelle Prosper, et qui est le fils d'un des infirmiers du centre de santé dans lequel je travail. Il me rapelle un peu mon cousin Noah. Ils ont les deux tellement d'énergie, et je suis sûre qu'ils s'amuseraient comme des fous à découvrir tous les oiseaux et insectes que cette région peut leur offrir. Après l'école, Prosper chasse des oiseaux qu'il peut ensuite revendre aux médecins traditionels. Il a fabriqué une guitar en bamboo. Il a ramené un bébé singe à la maison après que la mère-singe s'était fait tuée par des chiens. Mais ce qu'il y a de mieux c'est quand il rentre dans le plafond du centre de santé, tue des chauves-souris, les fait cuire, et me les amène comme goûter. Non, je ne blague pas.

Sinon, c'est quoi une journée typique pour moi ici au Cameroun? Je me réveille d'habitude vers 6h30 parce qu'un enfant tape à la porte. D'habitude j'ignore et je reste au lit jusqu'à environ 7h30, sauf si l'enfant est particulièrement persistant (s'il toc pendant plus de 30 minutes, je fais quand même l'effort de me lever et de lui ouvrir). Après je ne fais rien/je mange/je lis/je fais des sudoku jusqu'à 9 ou 10 heures. C'est là que je me bouge au centre de santé. Je suis surtout là les lundi et vendredi, quand il y a les consultations pré-natales et les vaccination des bébés. J'essaie d'aider comme je peux, d'observer, et parfois j'essaie de donner un petit speech éducationel sur l'importance de l'allaitement maternel. En Pidgin bien sûr (“ya bobby get all kine fine chop for ya pikkin. Yi go chop flop if yi chop only bobby”). Puisque mon aire de santé est tellement grande, il faut qu'on aille dans les villages éloigner pour vacciner les enfant une fois par mois. Je suis allée à ces vaccination mobiles plusieurs fois, mais le meilleur c'était le village de Kichowi – à 30km de Fonfuka, seulement accessible à pied. Et il faut traverser un pont pendant. Ouais, c'est assez éloigné.

J'ai récemment commencé à travailler avec le Club de Santé d'un des lycées, alors je vais faire ça une fois par semaine. C'est assez fou d'entendre certains conceptes culturels Camerounais concernant la santé. Après qu'une élève aie demandé pourquoi les fille ne peuvent pas porter des habits serrés, le professeur camerounais a expliqué que c'était parce que si elles portent des habits serrés, le sang ne passera pas bien dans le veines et cela causera de l'hypertension... Je me sentais tout de suite un peu conne dans mon t-shirt serré.

Le temps ici passe bizarrement – les journées sont longues mais les semaines sont courtes. Tout avance tellement lentement, que parfois je regarde mon calendrier et je me dis “Quoi? C'est ENCORE Lundi?!” Mais en même temps, je n'arrive pas à croire que c'est déjà Février. Pas de réseau signifie que si tu veux parler à quelqu'un, tu dois aller le trouver dans le village. Si tu veux aller à la banque ou acheter quelque chose comme une radio ou des rideaux, il faut planifier au moin $40 et 2 jours pour faire l'allez-retour à Bamenda, la capitale régionale du Nord-Ouest. La procrastination est alors un truc de fou ici – plutôt que de dire “oh, je vais le faire demain,” je peux maintenant dire “oh, je vais le faire le mois prochain.”

Alors me voilà. Ca fait 5 mois que j'ai commencé cette aventure avec le Corps de la Paix, et 2 mois que je vis au village. Pour l'instant, tout baigne. Je profite de la lenteur de la vie, et je suis constamment surprise par la façon dont les gens dans mon village m'ouvrent leur maisons et leurs coeurs. Ca fait seulement deux mois que je suis à Fonfuka, mais je me sens vraiment comme chez moi. L'autre jour j'étais chez ma voisine entrain de préprarer le njamma-njamma, un plat traditionnel du Nord-Ouest, lorsqu'elle lève la tête et me dit “Soeur Alissa, tu vas vraiment nous manquer quand tu pars.” Je lui ai dit qu'elle n'avais pas de souçi à se faire parce que j'avais encore 2 ans à passer ici. “Deux ans c'est rien. Ca va passer très vite.” Je sais qu'elle a raison. Il faut juste que je me rapelle tous les jours de la chance que j'ai d'être entourrée de mes voisins aimables et de mes amis de 10 ans, et de profiter à fond de ma vie au Cameroun.

Hello Everyone! It’s been a long time since I’ve posted and tons of stuff has happened. Let me ‘splain…no let me sum up.  In December I spent one fun week in Bamenda with the Grossman Sisters, Sadie and Liza.  They … Continue reading →

Learning to make tofu from scratch on a Saturday afternoon.

In the U.S. I double checked everything. I had the gym hours memorized well enough to recite to someone who asked, yet I still pulled up the website to check them at least once a week. If I was driving to a place for the tenth time, I'd still take a look at Google maps before leaving the house. I asked questions I already knew the answer to, like “When is that meeting?” just to make sure what I had written down in my planner was correct. I was busy and didn't want to make mistakes that would waste time. Moreover, I didn't want to make mistakes that could be avoided. The information was available so I saw no reason to be wrong. Only laziness, not taking the time to look something up ahead of time, would cause frequent mistakes. There are merits to these habits, but too often I took them too far. I couldn't start writing a paper in college until I had researched and outlined it to death, to the point of knowing the order of the supporting details and their citations in each paragraph. I insisted on being fully ready before writing any complete sentences so that I could do it once and do it right. I pulled many all-nighters. I also wouldn't speak up much in Spanish class unless I had time to craft a response with decent grammar and vocabulary. Although the consequences of showing up to the gym after hours and writing a bad paper are different, the fear motivating me to avoid both was the same: I was afraid of being wrong or of not doing a good job. It's one of my big character flaws, I suppose. So why am I boring you with my personal failings instead of sharing cool cultural stories or the tale of my latest adventure? Because this is what I've been learning here – to learn as I go, to make mistakes, and to make a fool of myself without being too embarrassed. I realized this a few weeks ago as I was walking back from the secondary school that's on the other side of my neighborhood. I had just finished teaching my first class there, a lesson introducing the ideas of renewable and nonrenewable resources and how they can be over-exploited. This work is the continuation of a school reforestation and environmental education project that the volunteer before me created. I was terrified to begin because I'd heard how difficult the students can be and I wasn't sure how well I knew the topics. More importantly, I didn't think my French was good enough. All of that was, and still is, true, but it doesn't matter that much. With the help of a staff member, I've successfully taught three classes. I'm excited for how much better I'll be at it in several months or a year, but it's still happening in the meantime. By jumping into it instead of being afraid I wasn't ready, I've opened up new opportunities for my own learning. I can explain the basics of the greenhouse effect in French. I see firsthand how students have to cram onto wooden benches to fit everyone inside the concrete block classroom, which has no doors or windows to close on distractions. During the thirty minute walk back to the main road, I get to listen to the teachers talk about how school ends at noon because the government provided less than half of the teachers they needed. They can hire temporary teachers but the parents have to pay for it with the parent-teacher association fees. Public schools are never truly free here. So the benefits of “learning as you go” are becoming more apparent to me. None of the little shops in my neighborhood have predictable hours or supplies, which means I often venture out to get something and come back empty-handed. However, it gives me a reason to interact with people in the community. Earlier this week I went out to buy phone credit (it's a pay-as-you-go system here) and found none but did notice all of the middle school-aged students practicing a dance and learned about the upcoming youth day celebration. Similarly, I tried to go to my favorite little shop in Bangangte, the small city nearby, a few times last week and it was closed. I saw the owner, who is always kind and patient as I stammer through my list of what I need, and asked him about it. He told me his seventeen-year-old son had just been killed in an accident at the nearest intersection. I expressed the best condolences I could in French and stood in silence with him for a few minutes. I walked away with a heavy heart but was also thinking about how relationships form. You have more of those encounters when you can't always look up the hours ahead of time. My progress with learning as I go occurred to me again the other day when I wanted to make lemonade but didn't have a recipe. I laughed at myself for even looking in my cookbooks – I think almost every American kid knows the ingredients and you figure out the proportions by taste. If I had internet, however, I probably would have Googled it, just to see if my proportions were on target or if there were any yummy additions I hadn't thought of. And because there's no excuse for disproportionate lemonade if the information is readily available. That's how ridiculous I can be. Being in Cameroon has made me let that go sometimes, and I've learned more as a result. I've made delicious dishes despite missing ingredients and I've met more people because I've been lost or looking for something they're out of. So as I enjoy living here but worry about what kind of work I'll end up doing, I have to remind myself to learn as I go. “Trust the process,” one of my friends here tells me, but not in a lazy way. I'm not throwing up my hands and letting work find me but I'm emphasizing a proactive way to learn as I go. This is how I've been learning French, by giving it my best shot during conversations and studying grammar at home. This is also how I'll help with compost experiments, rabbit-raising projects, and other potential work activities that I feel under-qualified for in some ways. With some basic background knowledge, an open mind, and the flexibility required to learn alongside the people I work with, I'll jump in and good things will happen.

Well...life. Sometimes its never what we think its going to or should be. No news in this case is not good news. For purposes of this blog, the news I can share is that the grad school search is over. The grad school search is over, but the international world tour continues(your 0% shocked i'm sure). Batouri, Cameroon to Oxford, England! In a few months I will be a resident there pursuing a masters degree in disaster relief.

So there might not be much to write about, but here are some other photos from my second year and most recently.

Mama Wali breaking it down!

Showing off my Michael Jackson moves.

The luxurious hotel accommodations of Batouri, Cameroon.

Parental picture with my Cameroonian host family :)

Outside my bank.

Thanksgiving with the parents, peace corps volunteers, and Ed was able to join for a bit as well. Here we are dining on the veranda of his house in Batouri. Also, this is where I usually sit when I go for internet.

Eastern Cameroon is definitely the adventure of a lifetime.

Termites are included on the list of good protein sources here. They eat everything. Jessica, the more adventurous eater between us, had a go at venturing into the insect group. She bought some caterpillars at the market and fried some up to try. Who knew they were kind of hollow inside?

Ah, you know me and meat. It's only a tease.

Muslim holidays = eating, eating, eating. Probably our sixth meal that day. Jessica and I by the end of the day were so full that if any of our hosts left the room we started stuffing food into plastic bags we had hidden in our purses to make it look like we had been eating!

Peace Corps Volunteers: one for all and all for one. Living as a volunteer can be a crazy experience, but proud to be one nonetheless.

The hazards of having to travel on an unpaved road. Here I arriving home and sporting my after-travel look.

Celebrating my birthday with Julia!

The Canadian within me.

My sweet Grandma, who came down from Canada to be with us.

Fun night at Karaoke.

I am blessed with great friends :D

When seeing this photo, can't help thinking of all the fond memories of summers spent growing up on grandpa's farm in Northeastern Montana. Always believing there is a song for everything in life, found the perfect ones to describe this in the songs of John Denver - "Take Me Home Country Roads" and "Wild Montana Skies." Very fitting indeed. Part of my ♥ will always be here.

January was a great month for me personally, which unfortunately meant that the work-side of the Peace Corps experience took a bit of a hit.

The primary reason was Mid-Service Conference, a mandatory trip to the country capital to commemorate our half-way point at post. Normally, I prefer village life to the hustle and bustle of Yaounde, but this was one of the first times that I actually explored – and thus enjoyed - the city. And yes, I say this despite getting harassed on the street, pick-pocketed (no worries, they only got my phone), and spending more CFA than I intended! Yaounde has cold beverages [Milkshakes? Yes please!], a washing machine, reliable transportation options, pizza… And don’t even get me started on the Black Forest ice cream and strawberry tart I ate. Bapa has – well, let’s just say I’ve struggled on more than one occasion to find someone selling bread or eggs.Mid-Service isn’t like the other training conferences. Sure, there is a day of Best Practices (ahem, they’re now calling it “Promising Practices”….perhaps to put less pressure on us?!) where everyone shares what they’re doing in their respective villages and towns. It makes for a long day, but it’s interesting hearing new ideas for projects and beginning to think about ways to implement them chez-nous. Basically though, Mid-Service amounts to a lot of running around for administrative and medical appointments (a physical from a Nigerian nurse, blood work, pooping in a few cups …you know, the usual). The cleaning we received at our dental appointment was a bit rough, but I’m proud to report I’m still cavity-free. I met with the Program Manager for the Health sector who called me a model volunteer because of my resiliency in the face of a challenging post. I think she is overstepping the truth a bit… It was nice to see many of the other Health volunteers I trained with, to catch up and just let my hair down (metaphorically as well referring to the 3-day process of taking out all those braids)! A lot of us Santés got dressed up to enjoy Hilton Happy Hour and I got to wear a beautiful blue wrap dress made from a tailor who is a GENIUS with fabric. (Currently estimating just how many things I can afford to have made in the coming months.) Of course, it wouldn’t be a Peace Corps gathering if we weren’t a little villageois, demonstrated by pulling up to the swanky Hilton with 7 of us crammed in a taxi while a funny driver kept us entertained. Stumbling out of the car with the spider-webbed windshield and into the palatial foyer was like entering another world. It’s a nice hotel by American standards, let alone the mind trip of comparing it to my day-to-day life. The gorgeous views and plush furniture were great, but I still felt out of place. It was nice to go back to another little bar/shack afterwards and enjoy the casual dining that is street food.

Back in the West, I think I found my new favorite holiday to celebrate, courtesy of a party in the neighboring village. Kim is the closest volunteer to me and she wasn’t about to let being in Cameroon stop her from throwing her fourth annual MLK Jr Day party. Although it’s technically within walking distance (I’ve done it several times in a little less than an hour), I was grateful for a kind moto driver who passed by on the normally barren path. The bash was a perfect blend of good food and low-key relaxing. We listened to Motown music while enjoying a Southern food FEAST: garlic green beans, mashed potatoes, tofu, fried okra and eggplant, raw veggies, watermelon, cheesy biscuits, etc. I contributed two chocolate cakes (courtesy of a mix mom had sent for my birthday) with chocolate frosting - and one sprinkled with toasted flaked coconut. For the meat-eaters, chickens were killed and fried.

In keeping with the theme, we talked about “dreams” (les rêves) - not only those for the future but also crazy dreams we’ve had. And given that many of us take Mefloquin as our malaria prophylaxis (which is known to have hallucinatory side effects), it made for an interesting conversation. The next morning, instead of leaving early like most of us do after Peace Corps gatherings in order to return to our respective homes, many of us just hung out on her front porch, talking and playing Scrabble while making cinnamon rolls.

Perhaps you can see, then, why returning to village was a bit of a challenge. After such nice breaks, I became frustrated by minor setbacks. It was just easier to stay at home and feel somewhat productive than deal with people. Or I went to Bafoussam – the regional capital –to hang out with friends. Finding any reason to get out of village, I chose to escape rather than risk being disappointed. Sadly, I’ll admit that I was disengaged. Fortunately, what has helped pull me out of it was booking tickets to Kenya and Ethiopia for March. Perhaps it was all mental, but I feel more motivated to put in a solid effort in the next few weeks before I indulge in vacation time. I made a real push this past week and a half and I have been rewarded with community members who also seem rejuvenated and excited to work together. I’m looking forward to seeing what February brings…

PS: Kitchen creations continue with a creamy soup made from a pumpkin-like gourd/squash they call melon, hash-browns, and roasted potats (basically a white sweet potato) and onions with chili-lime vinaigrette. So good!

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Youth day approaches. The students will prepare skits and poems and (really good) dances, and then march through the town. Nomi is also a youth, and I feel his tremendous fame within Mayo Darle could be put to good use. This week or next week, I will offer to loan him completely over to my students for youth day. LeCoq, one of my Terminale students and Nomi’s babysitter, could be in charge of him. If they choose to parade with him, I’ll have a handsome pagne boubou tailored up. I’m sure he’d be the first dressed dog ever to walk the streets of Mayo Darle. He’d make the students feel cool, and therefore, proud, it might encourage some village children to think about school, and it would be a true symbol of better human-dog relations for the next generation.

I am an English teacher, so this is serious:

In the sentence, “I find it amusing, but I also find I don’t like thinking about diarrhea while having it,” is “having” a gerund?

Most strips of roads (maybe 90%) traveling through the Adamawa are dirt. In dry season, dust flies up from the road with passing vehicles. (Or, as I saw today, even with extremely fast dogs.) if a truck drives by, most people cover their mouths and noses. if I find myself without a cloth for covering, I usually try to breathe only through my nose to filter it. before coming to Cameroon I had never really appreciated our little nose hairs.

Travelling in dry season, you often hear conversations like this : someone from the back says, “role down the window.” the person in the front replies, “no there is dust.” person in back says, “yes, but there is also heat.” person in the front, “we’ve got to just deal.” and this response*, so common it’s almost a mantra, settles the argument. sometimes I want to ask them, deal with which, the heat or the dust? personally, I prefer the dust. we white people come out of the car looking like we just got spray-tanned, but it’s better than being sealed in with over-heated bodies. usually, they end up rolling the windows down on paved or calm sections, and crank them back just in time to lock out the approaching dust clouds when other vehicles pass.

This weekend, on the way back from Nyamboya, Hunter’s post, I had a new personal record : 12 people in a car. it was a two-door, five-seat manual Toyota. Two of these people were children, sitting on lap. Two men shared the front passenger seat (with a little girl), Six men and women shared the back (with one little boy). Luckily there were no big mamas, only Fulbe women who are still very traditional. They usually marry cousins, so they all look similar. They often have sort of triangular shaped noses, are always wrapped in colorful pagne, and sometimes their front teeth jut forward. Fortunately for us in the car that day, the Fulbe also tend to be slim.

I was riding petit-chauffeur, which means sharing the driver’s seat. car-loading is both a packing and a balancing act, so seats are often dictated. Because of my size, the drivers often put me petit-chauffeur. most people complain about petit-chauffeur, especially other volunteers. But most people aren’t quite as small as me and I secretly love it. As petit-chauffeur, if one is relatively petit, you can get pretty much all of your butt on the seat. Sometimes, the drivers put down funny cushions or towels to pad the buckles in the middle. As petit chauffeur you are only crushed by someone on one side, and you can lean back because the driver will always keep his right side in front of your left, so he can reach over you to shift. you can watch the road and see how he decides to handle the onslaught of bumps and pits. it’s easy to ask him to stop if you need to get out. and once in a while you get to help with the emergency brake, etc. Most importantly, you can see. your view is as un-obscured as the driver’s.

Traveling in Cameroon is slow, squished and jostling, but the music is always good, (almost every driver has a usb key hook up for the radio) and the view of the forests, passing through the small villages, making faces at the pant-less children who always pause to watch the car go by, and driving up the mountain of the Nigerian plateau to get into Mayo-Darle, feels like meditation, especially sitting petit-chauffeur.

*in French, “il faut supporter.”

I’m going to depart from my usual lovely prose, because frankly, I’m still kind of in shock. Today, I was determined as heck to have a productive day. This meant visiting the tailor, health center, and vet. Luckily for me, I literally ran into the local vet today, giving me a chance to be like, [...]

I was on the bus, driving into Maroua (the capital city) theother day, when I looked out the window and saw an “Africa moment”. You knowwhat I mean; a moment when you are most certainly in Africa and couldn’tpossibly be anywhere else in the world. A moment when you’re witnessing thingsthat people at home can barely imagine. So I’m going to paint you this picture.Give you a chance to share in this “Africa moment” with me.

I’m in a bus manufactured to fit 25 people at most. We’recrammed in, at least 35 of us. In front of me is a little girl, perhaps a yearold. She’s been staring at me the whole hour and half long bus ride. For thefirst leg, she was crying out of fear; but about halfway through the ride, shelooked at me calmly, put out her little hand with her pointer finger pointedup, as if to say “wait”. Then she starts wagging it at me. “One of these thingsis not like the others.” My white skin sticks out more than if I was ridingnaked. Which, by the way, would have made the ride more enjoyable. Camerooniansthink that the dust kicked up by the road gives people Malaria. Needless tosay, every window was closed and locked while the sun beat down, causing agreen house effect inside the bus. Next to me is a young man, looking me up anddown (granted, as far as Cameroonians go, he was really nice about it. Hedidn’t propose at all, just asked for my number before I left the bus station).

As we reach Maroua, we drive over a bridge. During the rainyseason, there’s a river underneath the bridge. But now, below us is just a hugesandy trench. The sun is setting, a giant red orb obscured by the dust. Noclouds anywhere. In the riverbed, there’s so much activity. Little children aredigging holes in the center of the bed, trying to find water. Mothers and wivesare all on one side of the river, with the holes they’ve already dug visiblenext to the sheets and laundry laid out on the sand to dry in the sun. Thewomen are busy beating the last of their laundry against the rocks that markthe bank of the river. On the other side of the river, a huge group of boys inripped clothes, no shoes, and shaved heads are dustily playing a game ofsoccer. They’ve grabbed huge branches and set up goals that stick up where in afew months time they’ll be swimming. A small cloud of dust surrounds themakeshift field as the boys run furiously after a ball. Weaving in and out of everyoneare young shepherds, steering their huge herds of goats in between women andchildren. A few stray goats run onto the soccer field, where the littlest boys wavetheir hands and yell to scare them out of the way.

I wish I had had my camera ready for that. This little sliceof life felt very declarative to me. “This is what we are. This is what welive.” Just wanted to share this moment with you. Hope you feel like you werethere with me.

Since the beginning of this blog, I wanted to focus on travel and the adventures that came with it. Thus, I've always written about that one-in-a-million exciting event and the once-in-a-lifetime trip. Let this post; however, be just a glimpse into the everyday, no biggie part of my life here in Cameroon.

Hail for the first time in Ngaoundere in years! Everyone ran so fast and it sounded like my tin roof was caving in.

Little Seurah, my next door neigbor! This is the coloring book you sent over Mom! She loved it though we had to talk to her about sharing habits (or lack thereof).

My neighbor making cous-cous Cameroonian style. She is sifting the corn before mashing it and turning it in a cauldron-like pot.

"I love my country, I love peace!" Let's hope this holds true for the

national elections in a few days.

Buying oranges right outside the market. You can't see the baby attached to her back, but the little guy is there!

I always buy garlic and onions from this neighbor who is always preparing some type of food regardless of the time. Here she is cracking open the Cameroonian version of sunflower seeds.

C'est la vie.

From Day 1 of service, a Peace Corps Volunteer will be told that "cultural integration" is a large part of your job as it increases one's safety and understanding. Thus, as I am organizing calabash design classes for women as an income-generating activity (see 'My Peace Corps Projects'), I decided to take classes myself!

Note: The calabash is a fruit that is not eaten, but rather utilized in many traditional ways, such as a drinking bowl. In this case, the calabashes are carved, painted, and sold/given as traditional wedding presents!

Calabash design artist, Haowao, teaching me how to cut my calabash

The finished products! Don't ask me why this blog/internet published this photo side-ways

So by day, I take calabash design classes and by night? Well, I go dancing with the members of my micro-credit cooperatives of course!

Breaking it down with 4o-year-old Cameroonian moms!

Yes, this is a baby in a bar. C'est la vie!