Hello again Cameroon. But this time it is a bit different. I am still struggling to figure out what it is that I am supposed to be doing. I started a new job with UNICEF working on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH). It seems that my direct boss is out until February, so I am left hanging a bit until she comes back. In the mean time I am reading a lot of documents in French from UNICEF to try and figure out the current situation of my program in Cameroon. It has been informative, but it gives me a headache after a few hours.

On other fronts, I have moved into my new apartment. It is a bit big for me, but hopefully soon I will have some new wicker furniture to fill it. I bought a bed and a fridge and now I am broke. Living in a big city has a much higher cost of living than a village. I could walk everywhere, but I am under more time constraints so I am forced to take cabs. The taxis are not expensive, but it adds up. Also food is much more expensive because all of it is trucked or trained in from villages. To add, there are more opportunities to spend money, like going out to a Chinese restaurant for Chinese New Year. I am trying to get into a habit of buying food on the weekends for the whole week, but I am not there yet.

Recreation and relaxation options are much greater in the city. Peace Corps Volunteers are always in and out and ready to hang out. My fellow UNICEF workers are a very interesting and experienced group of people that I hope to get to know more. My officemate is a French volunteer working on a malaria initiative. There is also an expatriate community here that organizes activities like: ultimate Frisbee and yoga! So for now, until work picks up, I am enjoying discovering the city and all of its surprises.

The United States is an interesting place. What was the first thing I did when I arrived in the western world? Well I paid about $10 for a french vanilla soy latte in the Brussels airport. I really needed a good coffee and I only had dollars on me, the shop accepted dollars but used euros, so I gave them a $20 and got 8 euro back. Was it worth it? yes it was!

So on that note people ask what I have missed most and I respond by listing a few foods: mostly cheese, good coffee, and the ability to order things like pizza and have it delivered to your door. Bagels is another big one, although I have made my fair share of bagels in Cameroon because I just couldn’t wait any more. Besides food I have missed friends and family. I have missed some milestones in people’s lives while I have been away and there is no way to go through that experience with them again. I have also missed the idea of efficiency and society valuing multitasking.

Now that I have been back for a few weeks and I am preparing my return to Cameroon I have realized that there are a lot of things I miss about Cameroon too. I miss people selling food on their heads anytime you seem to want it, especially on the road. I miss the warmth and the ability to walk everywhere I could possibly need to go. I also miss the slower paced appreciation for life. Everyone seems to be in such a rush and I feel like I am getting lost in the aftermath.

All in all I have had an amazing time seeing my friends and family for the holidays and I am so grateful that people have made time to see me. I have overindulged in cheese, coffee, and bagels. It has been great while it has lasted, but I know that I could not continue the kind of life I have been living for the past three weeks. So for that reason I am happy to be going back to Cameroon for a third year. I think this will be a great transition year because I will be living in a city and life will be a bit faster than the village life than I am used to, yet I think it will be more reasonable than the east coast pace of life in the US.

Cameroon here I come...again!

I have been busy over the least month. I said bye to all of my friends in village, had a going away party, hosted 22 peace corps trainees (now volunteers) at my house, packed up all my things, and moved out of my house. And that all happened during my last day in village.

It was extremely bittersweet. I think I have been fooling myself that it wouldn’t be hard to say bye to village friends and village life. I told myself that I would still be living in Cameroon for another year so that I would have the opportunity to see everyone again. The truth is that I may see my friends again, but not in the same capacity and not for extended periods of time. So now that I have had more time to reflect, the sadness of the situation is sinking in.

Luckily during my last day, I was able to see almost everyone. I had people over to my house for a little food and dancing. Peace Corps trainees also came over, so my women’s groups showed off a little and gave presentations to the trainees about what they had learned while I was working with them. The first group presented about nutrition (using the ‘house of nutrition’ with shows the three main food groups we talk about in Cameroon: carbohydrates, proteins, and minerals/vitamins). This group has been one of in not my favorite group to work with over my time. They are always so motivated and thankful to work with me. They never omit their graciousness to my work with them. It may sound selfish, but sometimes it feels so great for people to remind you that they are greatful for what you are doing. After they talked about nutrition in general, they went more specifically into the nutrition of soy and shared tofu that they had made. It was a big hit and after a quick taste test, everyone bought more tofu. I am so proud of this group. They have perfected the art of making soy milk and tofu and they are able to share the reasons why people should be eating it. In a place where meat is not often given freely to children and there are not many other sources of protein available and/or used, the source of protein that comes from soy is crucial to the livelihood and growing years of children. This group has done a few expos about tofu so far and they are going to start selling it in market. I can not express how happy this makes me. Sometimes it is hard to see evidence of impact as a peace corps volunteer, but this is one group that continues to show me how they have changed!

Another group presented on basic hygiene practices, specifically why it is important to wash hands after going to the bathroom and before eating. This group is the one that my counterpart is in and they really have their act together. They catered my going-away party, wore matching outfits, and danced for the trainees. Everyone was really impressed by the event and it was a great way to say good-bye to my village.

So after moving out, I sent my things down to Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon. This is where I will be living for the next year. At the same time, I traveled down to Buea to climb Mt. Cameroon with Kevin. We left the day after a group of PC volunteers who were also climbing. Buea was a really nice college town. Our guide was name Vitalice and we had two porters named Flaubert and Bernard. Kevin (and me a little bit) was against the idea of having porters, but eventually we accepted that this was our first mountain to climb, so we should take the advice of the Cameroonians. We embarked early Thursday morning on our planned three-day adventure. The first day we climbed slowly uphill and made it to hut 2. I wish we would have gone farther, but Vitalice says that it would have been too cold to sleep at hut 3. The first day was pretty relaxed, but we went up the steepest parts. Then we stopped to camp for the night and make dinner. Apparently water boils faster in higher altitudes (either that or our fire was burning hotter). Either way, we made pasta that turned into mush because it cooked so fast. We watched the sun set really early and then got ready for bed so that we would be set for a good day of hiking tomorrow. On Friday then we set off a little after 6. It took us about 3 hours to summit. I felt like I was going very slowly and I had trouble keeping up with Kevin. I think that the thinner air really affected me. The summit was surprisingly anti-climactic, except for the bone-chilling wind. I thought at times that I was going to be blown off the mountain. Kevin and I only stayed up long enough to take a picture before heading back down. The descent was scary at first because we were going through a lot of loose gravel. But once I realized that I could ‘ski’ down, it was a lot of fun. At this point we were making good time and the guide decided that we should try to make it all the way back to Buea today. The route we were taking was up the guiness trail (which is steep and straight up the front of the mountain) and down the mann’s springs trail (which is longer and windier). So we kept a pace to try and make it all the way back to Buea. The descent is by far the prettier and more interesting part of the hike. We walked through lava flows from 1999 and 2002. Mt. Cameroon is still an active volcano and we could see multiple calderas near the top. After making it to mann’s springs at a good time we decided to do the last four hours through the forest. By the time we made it to the forest, both Kevin and I were regretting this decision. Our bodies were tired from 9 hours of hiking already and the though of 3 more was not appealing. We kept slowly along. The forest seemed the hardest part because we were tired and it was so steep and rocky. Finally, though, we made it by a little after 6. So we went from 6-6 that day with only short breaks along the way. I was so happy to be finished, eating good food, and then sleeping on a mattress.

The next day we went to Limbe to meet up with the other crew of volunteers that started the hike the day before us. Saturday was a nice day of relaxation on the beach and exchanging hiking stories. We all went to good restaurants in Limbe and swam in the ocean. The water was very relaxing to my sore muscles.

Sunday, Kevin and I said our goodbyes. He was heading back to village and I was heading to Yaounde for a week of medical/admin stuff before starting my month of vacation in the US. It was really difficult to say goodbye to Kevin and I am going to miss him over the next month. Actually we took so long saying goodbye we basically missed our buses out of town. Instead I had to go back to Buea to find another bus to Yaounde and Kevin had to do his trip in parts, first to the Carrefour outside of Douala and then find a ride to Dschang. We both made it to our destinations by nightfall, thankfully.

My week in Yaounde went quickly as I had a lot to do to get ready for my visit to the US. I went to the artisanat and packed my bags. I made sure everything was set PC Cameroon side for my extension. And then I had a meeting with my new supervisor, Dr. Bechir, with UNICEF. He was very friendly and seemed excited to have me joining the UNICEF team. He was helpful in explaining what my role with be with the water and sanitation project and how everyone works together. I am very much looking forward to my work here. It will be nice to have such a big change, while still being in Cameroon. I feel like I will have to opportunity to experience something so different while still being a PCV. I will be living in a city and working out of an office. I think these two experiences will contrast and hopefully provide me with how the two can fit together in the development world.

So then I had a long day and a half of traveling to get back to my family. I left Friday night for the airport outside of Yaounde. It was a lot of waiting at the airport because our flight did not leave until 12:45 in the morning. Finally it did, and actually I was able to layout and sleep for this flight because it was not too crowded. Then I had a short layover in Brussels where I bought a coffee for $9. It was worth it though. The next flight dragged on to Chicago and there were these francophone men who were enjoying playing practical jokes sitting right in front of me. At first it was cute, but by the end of the flight it was enough. Then I had a 7 hour lay over in Chicago, so close to the end of the trip, but so far. Finally the last leg of my trip was in a very small plane to Allentown. Seeing my mom and mary as I walked through the airport was so surreal. I am happy and overwhelmed to be back.

I look forward to trying to catch up with everyone of the next month so please make sure to get in touch with me.

I have spent the last two weeks in the Center region in a small town, Bokito, helping to train the next group of future community health PCVs. I will spend one more week here before going back to my post for 7 more weeks. This is all just a little too real in some ways. The trainees that I am now working with will be replacing myself and my stage-mates. As a group we are leaving in two months or less. This means that my home for the last two years will no longer be my place of residence. I am saying good bye to my friends all over again – the difference here is that keeping in touch will probably be a little more difficult. So I have 7 weeks to bring activities to a close, prepare my community for a new volunteer, and say good bye. I am getting a surreal feeling about it all.

But on a positive note, I will be in the Lehigh Valley in two months – December 10 to be exact! I will be there for a month. This will give me a chance to see everyone and stock up on supplies for my final year. Please get in touch with me so that we can meet up.

Back to training…It has been really nice to help out with the new trainees. Seeing the new excitement is really inspiring and reminds me of the energy everyone had when we first got here. Also I love being able to share my experiences with a new set of people who really want to hear everything I have to say. For the first week we did not have electricity and the town was very quiet. Once the electricity came, it feels like the town woke up and there is a buzz in the air.

The election was this weekend. It was disappointingly quiet. The town shut down for the election so there was no place to hang out and observe how everything was going. I am thankful that there is no political turmoil, but it would be nice to hear the people supporting the election process. Hopefully by the end of the month, we will hear the results because paper ballots are used. Paul Biya is expected to be the winner with little to no competition (as there are 21 other candidates).

Kevin has been back in our village while I have been helping out with stage. It will be nice to go back and see him this weekend. He has applied for and received a receipt for a carte de sejour (residence card). This means that he is free to stay for at least a year, maybe even two. Logistics of this were difficult and he was doing it all while I was in Bokito. Thankfully everything seems to have worked out and we will be able to be in Cameroon together until my extension is over.

A lot has been happening lately. Shortly after my summer camp, Kevin and I took a vacation to Kribi with a bunch of other people from my stage. It was a sort of last official hoorah with my stagemates, because we are no longer able to take vacation until our service is over. The week after was Close of Service (COS) conference. It was held in a nice hotel in Yaoundé. It was so great to see everyone again from my stage. But the experience was a bit jarring because it was a lot about re-entry into the US. In particular I enjoyed going to the US embassy. But the whole thing was a bit too hypothetical because I was thinking about extending my service for another year.

So on that note, I recently received word that my extension has been approved! This means that I will be spending a 3rd year in Cameroun. For this last year I will move to Yaoundé and work for UNICEF with the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) team. I am really excited because this will be a completely new experience for me. So far I have been living in a small village and working out of a community health center. At this point I feel that there is only so much I could do in this position and while the lack of structure has been freeing it has also been constraining. Once I start my new position I will be working out of an office with more of a defined role. I will hopefully still be going out into the field very often, but I will have the infrastructure of UNICEF backing me up.

Living in Yaoundé is an exciting and at the same time a scary opportunity. I have never been much of a city girl, but here is my chance to see if I can handle it. Honestly I will not enjoy the overcrowdedness and lack of personal space norms that exist in the capital. But I will really appreciate the coffee shops, weekly yoga classes, and the access to internet.

Anyway, back to what I have been up to. After COS conference I stayed in Yaoundé for 2 more weeks to plan the training for the next group of trainees for health. It was a lot of work, but we finished in and the schedule looks great. After that I went back to post for 2 weeks and now I am back again in the capital. I will be going to the training site in Bafia for 3 weeks to help with training. Our normal technical trainer is a Cameroonian who just received the opportunity to go to the US for 4 weeks. While this is great for him, it means that our new trainees will be without a wonderful trainer for their first 4 weeks. While he is gone I will be helping along with the health assistant project manager.

Also this whole time Kevin has been in Cameroun since July 7th. He is working with a local NGO called ACREST which works with sustainable and appropriate technologies. Mostly he has been working on this charcoal brickette making project. During his first week here he went down to Yaoundé to present the project to the World Bank. The project was picked among others to receive funding through Catholic Relief Services (CRS). Since then Kevin has been working to finalize the budget and time line of the project so that things can continue. He has also been experimenting with different types of kilns and methods of creating charcoal. I am not sure if he is completely satisfied with the process ACREST is currently using, but I think it is getting there. He has had a great introduction to Cameroonian culture and his French is really improving. Currently he is working to renew his visa so he can stay longer.

Since I am extending for a 3rd year I will getting 1 month of home leave which I will take from December 9, 2011 to January 8, 2012. So please make sure I get to see you during my month in the US of A!

Lately I have been very busy. My postmate, Lindsey, and I have been working on doing two short summer camps in our area. The first part was in Bamboué with girls aged 15-20. The main topics were future building, empowering girls, and sports. So we taught the girls Ultimate Frisbee with Yaya, the agro volunteer outside of Mbouda. They got the hang of it surprisingly quickly and now we have weekly Frisbee on Sundays. Overall the sessions went well. We tried to do a lot of art and creative things since most of the girls are not used to thinking out of the box. There was a minor setback for this camp; we set up a panel of professional women to come and speak to the girls to talk to them about how they became successful, but only one of the women showed up (and it was my counterpart). That was disappointing and it was supposed to be our last real session, so the camp did not end on the highest note. I had an enjoyable time with Lindsey, Yaya, Eric, and all of the girls in the camp. I really hope that the girls walked away with a better idea of opportunities available to them for their futures and the actual path they need to take to get there.

The second summer camp did not go as well. It was supposed to be with the Mbororos up in the mountains. We first encountered trouble trying to take motos up to them because we had too much stuff. The moto men were trying to rip us off and so we wasted a lot of time arguing and finally gave up. Then we decided to walk up. It took us a while and luckily on the way we found a moto to take our things for us. Then we got there and did a session on nutrition. It went really well and the mothers were all there and learning a lot. The ages were varied starting from a few years to the young mothers. It was Lindsey, myself, and Anaïs. Anaïs was the only one able to communicate in Fufuldé so we mostly spoke through her. (A side note is that my village all speaks the same patoi except for the Mbororo community which speaks Fufuldé, a Fulani, Muslim dialect. As a result this community does not communicate much with everyone else except in broken French or pidgin English.) So after the nutrition lesson we stopped for the day since we had gotten there late. We were then served two dinners of couscous and leafy sauce. I enjoyed it, but it was too much. We stayed up for the night to save time. They put us up in one of the houses near by all squished on one bed. Throughout the night my stomach was getting more and more upset. By morning I was not doing so well. Luckily I tried to push through so that I could milk a cow. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. We saw a baby calf just after it was born too. This day we did not get to do most of the work that we had planned, but we were able to do sports and some art with the kids. To end we took horses down back to my house. I am not sure the kids got much out of the short camp, but I can hope.

For the 4th of July the American Embassy had a party a little early. It was their ‘social event of the year’ and it featured the Peace Corps 50 year anniversary. 50 Peace Corps Volunteers were invitied along with over 1000 other guests. There were Embassy people, other international embassy staff, as well as important Cameroonians. I really enjoyed being able to get to meet several new people. Hearing about the lifestyles of foreign service officials was enlightening and bizarre. They are able to live in a virtual America even in Cameroon. We were just as bizarre to them.

On the actual 4th I went to Dschang and spent an afternoon at the pool with some other volunteers. We made pizza for dinner with potato salad and mango cobbler. What more can you ask for? Also I cut my hair! I now have bangs and about 8 fewer inches. It is much easier to wash now.

The school year is coming to a close and so does much of my work. This summer I look forward to working on making tofu with some groups. I have finally succeeded in making tofu myself and hope that my women's groups will enjoy it and be able to do an income generation project with it. I will also do a summer camp for girls empowerment focusing on looking into the future. Dreaming about the future is something that is definitely missing here.

I also look forward to the next few months, making decisions about extending, and figuring out what comes after my service. I can hardly believe that I have only one quarter of my service left.

It feels like just yesterday I was getting to this country and meeting some of the best friends I will probably have in my life. And now it comes time for a few of them to leave. It is hard to see people leave. In Cameroon we were neighbors and back in the states we live so far away. I guess this will give me more excuses for cross country road trips.

With one group leaving, another one is coming. So the cycle continues. PC Cameroon has recently expanded and now due to budget cuts, we are already ‘streamlining operations.’

It has been a satisfying past few days. My supervisor recently came to visit. Before I go on I must admit that in the past my relationship with my supervisor has been tense. He is an intelligent man, but he no longer lives in the village and he loves to lecture me. I have been trying to find the best way to interact with him, but I seem to either only zone him out or listen to him and give feedback. He would prefer if it I simply nodded in agreement to everything he says. Well for whatever reasons, probably that both of us have been trying harder, we were able to have an enjoyable weekend. He listened to me when I spoke, I listened when he spoke, and he did not proceed to lecture me. We just talked and it worked out. I think we have both found new found respect for each other!

On a different topic, I just attended my village's annual development committee meeting. It was held all in patoi, so I did not catch much of it, but my friends were translating as important things were happening. Then all of a sudden someone was whispering in my ear that 'Mme Christina is going to talk about the water project.' What?!? No one said anything about this. And this entire meeting has been in patoi, which I certainly can not talk about the water project in. Slowly I stand up, the only white person in the room full of people dressed in only two different pagne outfits; one for the villagers and one for the migrants who now live in Bafoussam – I am neither. As soon as I stand up and walk to the front I call up the president of the water committee to translate for me since I think it would be rude to simply speak in French. But amazingly somehow I just start speaking to the room full of hundreds of people. I know before coming to Cameroun I would have just about had a heart attack if I was faced with this situation. I would lose my train of thought, forget what to say, and I would be shaking uncontrollably. I was able to stay very calm and just speak. It went so well and people even clapped when I was finished.

This week was development week, so along with the committee meeting there have been other events, one of which was a cultural soiree. For whatever reason I was expecting a high school dance (because it is put on by the youth). But it was a lot closer to a talent show. Most of the performances were either dancing or theater. There were even some teenagers from Cote d'Ivoire who danced. One thing that struck me as I was watching was the tradition here of giving performers money (particularly dancers). It is done by approaching the stage, jumping up there, dancing with the performer, and then placing the money on their forehead so that everyone can see. I remember when I will still in stage back in Bamena and this happened to me. I was so confused and awkward and quickly ran away from the money, letting it fall on the ground. Later it was demonstrated to me that this was a way of telling me that I was doing a great job. I am not sure if I will ever completely agree with this method, but at least now I understand it better.

My favorite act of the soiree was a short skit. Two boys, who I know well, were in it along with another girl. Each of the boys was trying desperately to flirt and get the girls attention. They were calling to her sweetly and touching her leg or arm. She did not respond and proceeded to put on her make up. Each of the boys sat down on either side of the bench inching their back toward her. In the mean time she stood up and walked away. Eventually the boys were back to back and so excited that she was finally responding to their flirtations. They were so surprised to see that it was not in fact the girl, but their friend who they were flirting with. The skit ended with them running away from each other while the audience laughed. Even though the play was all in patoi, the words were circumstantial and the humor was clear.

Dust is everywhere. Every time the wind picks up, there is more dust, when a moto drives by, when a car or truck rumbles down the road; more dust.

Right now I am dutifully waiting for the rain to come. Locals here say that the Ides of March is the official turning point between seasons, but so far no rain. Everything gets dirty right after you clean it and somehow the dust creeps into your house. Sweeping happens daily and somehow the dust still manages to be there.

Ok that is enough complaining about the dust; I just look forward to when the trees are green again, the sky is blue again, and the air is fresh.

Dust is everywhere. Every time the wind picks up, there is more dust, when a moto drives by, when a car or truck rumbles down the road; more dust.

Right now I am dutifully waiting for the rain to come. Locals here say that the Ides of March is the official turning point between seasons, but so far no rain. Everything gets dirty right after you clean it and somehow the dust creeps into your house. Sweeping happens daily and somehow the dust still manages to be there.

Ok that is enough complaining about the dust; I just look forward to when the trees are green again, the sky is blue again, and the air is fresh.

I have been working on a painting a world map at the town high school with my post mate Lindsey. You can see a picture on facebook now (it is my profile picture). I am painting some of the countries with students at the school.

It has been a lot of work and I am definitely learning a lot about the countries of the world as we are going. We are hitting some difficulties because the maps we had been using were 15 years old, and guess what, the political boundaries and country names are changing.

Once we finish we are going to work with the high school students doing geography activities. There are differing levels of knowledge about the world, but it is great to see that some students do know that the world is out there.

I have also given extra maps I had lying around my house to the primary schools that I work at. We have been going through continents right now. It is frustrating work because the primary school students have not had access to this information before. But little by little, hopefully they are getting an idea of where Cameroon is and how vast the rest of the world is.

Sometimes this country breaks my heart. I just walked over to the health center. There is an infant who is malnourished and severely dehydrated. Just seeing her sunken eyes and sad face was too much.

Then as I crossed the street to my house I watched two children carrying bottles searching for water. One was bow legged due to a vitamin deficiency. They trudged along slowly going up the hill from concession to concession, as water is out everywhere around.

I wish I was superwoman and I could just fix everything instantly. I want to make it so that kids or mothers do not have to walk kilometers just to get water at their houses. I want to end malnutrition, dehydration, and hunger. If only I could snap my fingers and bam, world peace, education for all, food for all, and happiness for all.

Some days are hard. You see all of this around you and you realize that maybe what you are doing is not making any difference.

I have had almost two months of vacation. It was a nice and needed break. I already wrote about my trip to the North; my next trip was to the US!

I flew from Yaoundé to Paris and then from Paris to Miami. Ben met me in Miami and I visited ECHO with him. After that I met up with my parents and Mary in Fort Lauderdale and we went on a week-long cruise with ports of call in Curacao and Aruba. Mary found he perfect career: dancing entertainment on a cruise! It was nice to see Aruba again after so many years. Also on the cruise were a couple of my dad’s friends from college who had been living in Saudi Arabia for the past 20 years. It was interesting to hear their perspectives and how it was to raise a family abroad.

Once the cruise was over I flew to Philadelphia. I was able to see lots of family and friends here. It was so nice and comforting. I was also able to eat lots of good food. It is amazing how much I missed food sometimes, or maybe it’s the convenience of just being able to say I am hungry, what am I in the mood for?, ok let’s go get it! I then met up with Kevin and we went to the Art museum, saw the liberty bell, and did the tango!

The last part of my vacation was with my god parents. They took me to Atlantic city. We gamble a little (for me it was a very little) and had great food. We also walked to boardwalk and found some great dollar stores. I was able to find lots of good gifts for my friends in Cameroon.

It has been so long since I have really written. Here are some pictures of my mom's visit and my trip up to the Northern three regions of Cameroon: Adamawa, North, and Extreme North. (I know, aren't the names so creative).

I had an amazing time taking some vacation to tour the country. Culture is very different up north. In general, there is a lot less drinking going on because the Muslim population rules the culture. You hear call to prayer everywhere, the people are calmer and gentler. It is much hotter, but it is a dry heat since it is in the Sahel.

First I took the train up over night with my friend Andrea (who is posted in Mbouda). We left Yaounde and got to Ngaoundere the next morning and then proceeded straight to Garoua, the regional capital of the North. We stayed with Lea one night right outside of Garoua. Garoua is nice because there are fresh fruit smoothies! Something I really miss. Then the next three nights we stayed with Justin in Gaschiga, which is also very close to Garoua. There we did a computer camp at his school for two days. I brushed up on my computer vocabulary in French and had fun searching things on Encarta. After that Andrea and I split up for a bit. I went to Kaele on my own to meet up with Steven and Nick. Kaele is a non muslim town among very muslim towns, so they have many drinking caberets where billbill is served all throughout the day. I ate lots of salad and went to a beautiful Crocodile lake.

After that I headed to Maroua with Martin and Carmen. There I spent Christmas Even and Christmas with many people from the new stage. It was a very nice relaxed atmosphere. Maroua had a great art market, so I found lots of nice things there in leather and jewelery. Then I headed to Martin's post in Gouria, which is right outside of Roumsiki. Roumsiki is this very touristy area out in the middle of nowhere on the border of Nigeria. It is a very beautiful area and very peaceful. The rock formations around there are so interesting. I took a tour of the valley in Roumsiki with Carmen and then we ate at an amazing restaurant called the vegetarian carnivore or chez Kodji.

The last leg of my trip involved me coming back down to Ngaoundere, the regional capital of Adamawa. Here I met up with Anais and we had fun in the city and traveling to her post. We saw a beautiful lake and some nice waterfalls on the way there. Her post is very quiet and pretty. We ate dinner with her neighbors (they tried to feed us three times!) Then we toured her 'town'. We came back to Ngaoundere for New Year's. Andrea met me back in there and we took the train back down to Yaounde together.

Unfortunately I was only able to go back to post for 4 days before I had to come back to Yaounde for midservice. Now I am here and getting ready to have a short taste of America. I can not wait to see my friends and family, it will be so nice!

Wow this has been an interesting two weeks. My mom just left Cameroon after spending two weeks here. We spent almost a week in my village seeing the kinds of things that I do and some traditional ceremonies and then we spent a week seeing Bamenda and Limbe. Overall it was very different than I expected. I enjoyed getting to share my life with my mom and just getting to see her, but I think in some ways I was not prepared to take on the ‘mom’ role.

I know how to get around in Cameroon, how to speak French, and generally how to live here. All of this was very knew for her, though. So I had to go back to what it felt like when I first arrived. Ok so here is a short review of everything.

The first night she arrived around 9pm at the Douala International airport. I was not allowed to go to the baggage claim with her, but the driver I was with was able to go and help her through. Then we had crazy teenage boys carrying our bags and ripping the $2 tip out of our hands when we finally made it to the car. The first night neither of us slept very well because we were too excited to sleep.

The next morning we left bright and early from the hotel to get an early start on the day. We went to the bus station and then proceeded to wait for 7 hours before our bus finally left. I was so upset at this point because I knew there was nothing we could do but wait. Finally we left and made it to Bafoussam by nightfall. Right as we were about to go to Ben’s house, Mom realized that she had left her wallet on the bus. It was a crazy taxi chase to the next city. We met the bus there and the kind lady sitting next to us had found the wallet with everything in it! So exhausted after that.

The following day we saw the market in Bafoussam for a bit and then went t Mbouda. Alain and Rose met us there to pick us up with all our stuff. It was a long ride on unpaved roads and I think Mom was glad that I was in the car with her. We made it to my house at nightfall with no electricity, of course.

The next few days we went to the health center, went hiking, attended a few meetings, did market, etc. All of the normal things around village. Rose and Alain were very accommodating the whole week being great hosts. They were super grateful for the health supplies that my mom was able to bring over (a whole 50 pound crate of them!)

Finally we left for Bamenda and Mom got to ride a moto! I think she liked it. We stayed with Kelly in Bamenda and saw some art stuff. Mom bought some pagne is having a nice traditional dress made  I also found a few movies for myself and some pagna.

Then it took a whole day to travel to Limbe and we made it to our very nice hotel by nightfall. The black sand beaches were amazing and it was a much needed rest after our eventful trip. I am so happy that my Mom was able to see Cameroon and experience how I live first had. She took lots of pictures and video so I am sure that soon most of you will be seeing everything I just described.

You never do know exactly what you are going to get. One minute the sun is shining, the next a huge rainstorm has moved in and you are all soaked. But do not worry the sun will come back out to dry your clothes soon, or eventually as the case may be in the rainy season.

On that note, lots of things have been happening lately…

A few days ago I saw my first live birth ever. It all happened so quickly. One minute Rose, my counterpart, was telling me that we should go to the market and then the next she said that there was a birth going to happen first. I was so excited because I have told her before that I wanted to watch a birth. Right then I realized that I was scared, why? Because I had never seen a birth before and I was not sure what it was going to be like, more I was not sure what my reaction would be. What if I gasped at an inappropriate time, or cried?

With all of this going through my head, I took a deep breath and told myself now or never; now it was. I walked into the room very unsure of my role, but knowing that the best thing to do would stay out of the way and only do as I was told. The contractions were coming so fast. Then all of a sudden I could see a head with curly black hair starting to appear. Magically somehow a person was coming out of this lady laying there in pain (making little no noise may I add, and do not kid yourself into thinking there were any pain killers used). Magical, that is the only way I have been able to express what I saw. A new life was on this earth and I saw it happen.

While I was still floating on this incredible high from seeing a live birth, I was talking to Rose the next day. She was discussing the number of HIV positive people this month. Ever since I have come to help at the health center the numbers have slowly been going up. When I first got here almost every month it was 0 positive with maybe 1 every once in a while. Slowly now the number goes up. And we have about three each month or more. This month we have already had at least 3 positive and each of them is a young unmarried female, two of them pregnant and one a Bororo. The reason that it is women testing positive is because for every women who comes for a prenatal consultation we require that they get an HIV test, all the other ones done are people coming and soliciting the tests.

Well this information really put a damper on the magic of birth. If one of the Bororos is infected then a good number of them will be soon. It is a small community and each man has at least 4 wives… And as for the other women they are pregnant and would have to move to Bafoussam to get the ARVs and their boyfriends are moto drivers, aka they get around. It feels like the virus is taking over the village. Maybe that is just because before this it was hidden enough that I was able to convince myself that HIV is not a huge issue in Bamboué.

After this downer of a realization I went up into the mountains to go for a hike and to say hi to my friends, the Bororos. Luckily I got up there right before the rain came down. I then settled down into their one room house to talk and zone out the rain. Soon it was time to eat and we had one of the best meals I have yet had in Cameroon: couscous and jama jama. Let me explain the meal a little for those of you not familiar with Cameroonian cuisine. Couscous is flour from corn mixed with water and then steamed. Then the jama jama part is some of the best greens (like spinach leaves) in this country cooked with oil and salt. Soo good. So we sat there and ate with our hands watching the hail, yes hail, come down. Every once in a while some hail would bounce in. The view was crazy and somehow the scene was so beautiful, until I had to walk home in it.

Then just yesterday I went to a community meeting about Cholera. As you probably already know there is a large outbreak in the north of Cameroon. Right now the big cities of Yaounde and Douala are already seeing cases of cholera too. So everyone else is preparing to take precautions and figuring out the steps for when/if cholera comes here too. So it all comes round circle. My days are as up and down as ever with the ups being way up there in the sky I can almost touch the clouds, and the downs as depressing as can be.

But through all this I know my mother is coming to visit soon and I get a break on a cruise/America for my birthday. So no matter what happens I have that to look forward to.

A lot has happened since I have last posted. Lets see, I helped out with another summer camp in the West Region with some Agroforestry volunteers. It was in Baham, which is pretty close to Bafoussam. It was a girls camp, so we got to deal with reproductive health and girls empowerment. Our group of girls ranged widely in age so some topics were harder than others. Overall it was a great experience. I spent the whole week with other volunteers making great food and doing wonderful activities with the girls.

When that ended I got to visit my host family for the day. I have not seen them since the end of stage and it was a much needed overdue visit. I got to see most of my friends from Bamena, except for one of the other volunteer’s mother, who I was really close with. I saw Gambino – he has physically grown up a lot and seems to be doing well getting ready for the next year of school. My host uncle was sweet as always. He is now usually living in Douala working to unload boats for the World Food Program. He was back in Bamena to see his family. It was very nice to see him because we got really close running every morning. I know that if I ever need to go to Douala I will surely contact him to help me get around. My host mother was so welcoming and excited to see me. She made boiled peanuts as well as rice and peanut sauce for me. Then she gifted me more peanuts when I headed out. Most of the kids were visiting family in the South West Region for the vacation time, but I did get to see the youngest, Rickson. He was finally able to walk and even talking a bit now. Finally my host father drove down from Bafoussam to meet up with me and he is doing well. He has a new car and was very excited to take me around town to say hi to people.

Now I am in Yaounde in order to prepare for the next stage that is coming. It has almost been a year since I arrived in Cameroon and now we are getting ready for the next group; it is a semi-surreal experience.

On a completely different note I found out that my Mom is coming to visit me in November! She will be here for about two weeks. I am starting to think about the different things that we will do while she is here. It will be so nice to show her my home and how I live for these two years. We will also go around and see some other areas.

My parents have also booked me tickets to come and see them in January. We are going to meet in Miami and take a cruise to Aruba for a week. I was not expecting to come to America during my service, but I can not pass up the opportunity to see my family. It will be so amazing, relaxing, and luxurious.

It looks like another friend, Rich, may visit me in February as well. So much excitement in so little time. I know this next year will fly by and I am really looking forward to it.

There is a magical world of fruit here. You think you know about most of the fruits in the world and then you go to a city. I will try to describe the fruits that I have tasted recently.

The first one is called a sour sop. It looks green and spiky from the outside and comes from the hot humid regions (like the south). When you cut it open it begins to look more like a white pineapple with brown seeds in the pulp. I personally think it tastes like a milky pineapple.

The next fruit was called frommage in French. That word translates to cheese, but this is not cheese, it is a fruit. So I am not sure what the English word would be. It is small, like a tomato, with a top, as though it was once connected to a vine. You do not eat the thin layer of skin. Inside is a thick almost avocado-like consistency. It is much sweeter, though. Inside you will find a couple of brown seeds. I am going to try and plant some.

Plum cherries, that is the best way I can think to describe it. They are small like cherries, but have a hard skin. They might actually be a type of cherry. Once you take off the hard skin, it is a dark red, violet color and you can suck on the fruit until only the seed is left. The fruit pulp reminds me a lot of a plum.

The evué, is probably the most unique of them all. First you start off with this large lumpy type fruit. It looks like a big potato with four or so lumps in it. Then you peel off that brown skin and you see four whitish, transparent fruits. Each of them is covering a bright red seed. You eat the white part that is around the seed. The white part has been described as the texture of an onion and an apple combined and the taste is more like that of an apple and a litchi combined.

The last fruit is basically one type of bush mango. It is a round shape and I would liken it to a nectarine. It has a thin layer of skin that you can peel off and then eat the pulp. It tastes like a mix between a nectarine and a mango, but if you eat it too early it is very sour. The interesting part is that the seed is really spiky.

Sometimes I think I get set in my ways and end up eating the same things time and time again. But when you randomly buy the mysterious fruit instead, you never know what will happen. Bananas are my fruit of choice in village and papaya is my fall back fruit in the cities. I will be walking around and there are stands with cut up papaya, I love it. But thankfully I gave these other fruits a chance as well.

I almost feel like I am in Charlie and the Chocolate factory, except it is a fruit factory. I am licking the scratch and taste wallpaper and I never know what to expect.

My sitemate, Ben, just moved to Bafoussam; so that was a sad good bye. Other than that things have been going pretty well. I am working on a water project for my health district. It would include reforesting the area near the source of water up in the mountains and then finishing a water treatment plant. So that is exciting, it will be a lot of work, but it will be great if it actually gets done; woohoo for potable water!

Also my counterpart is looking at starting an internet cafe in village. Right now it is all only in the planning stages, but personally I would love to teach the people there some computer lessons. I think I would start with keyboarding, because it is such an important skill and then see what else they want ot learn.

Ok but now to the title of my blog: recently I have been walking down to the market and there is a man about half way down who keeps yelling at me. He tells me that a white person is inside threatening his mother. And then the next day it is that a white person is eating him. He is begging for my help. Maybe if he wasn't yelling at me I would consider talking to him. So now I am pretty sure that he is talking about sorcery. The beliefs are that at night the sorcerer turns into a vampire, or another animal, and then sneaks into your house and starts eating your soul. Once they have finished eating it you will die. They can do this in one night ( a sudden death) or it can last for years (then you would just be sick).

I am not really sue how to respond and I just hope that he does not try to do sorcery to me for not helping.

I am just getting back from a trip to the south in Lolodorf. I went there to help another volunteer, Amanda, with a camp she was hostin. It was a week long overnight camp for boys and girls ages 11-15. It was fun, interesting, and challenging. We had a lot of great community speakers come and talk to the children about: waterborn diseases, reproductive health, STDS and HIV/AIDS. We played soccer everyday. The best part was probably the nightly camp fires. The power was out in the town so at night we would sit around the fire waiting for dinner, singing; dancing, and storytelling.

One of my favorite songs is called "ya ya tinga" One girl picks out a girl and a guy from the audience while everyone is singing ya ya tinga. Then the girl directs the couple to shake hands, hug, kiss, and dance together. Everyone gets so into it. The energy is just amazing.

The people in the south are different from the Bamileke that I am used to. The two main ethnic groups where I was were the Bassa and the Bulu. In the south the people are known for being lazy and aggressive, an interesting combination. Overall I think the people are more attractive as well. But in the end I missed all my friends from post and am so happy to be back and speaking my patoi again.

So with the rainy season also comes the end of school. What does this mean? Something my postmate calls the Grand Kid Exchange. Every 'summer' most of the kids from village leave to see the city and the kids from city come to village. Specifically for me this means my house boy is going to Douala for the summer. I am taking this as a good time to work on doing things myself.

Lately I have been washing all my clothes and my floor all by myself. I never knew I could be so proud of a clean house/clean clothes. And the reason I originally got someone to help me out was because I would spend a whole day working on this stuff and barely finish by the end of the day (no time for the sun to dry my clothes before nightfall). But the last time I washed my clothes it only took about 3 hours and since I started really early, everything was almost dry by the afternoon.

Here is the problem, though. I left my clothes out while I went to market (yesterday was Nzemendzemé, the small market day). I almost made it home and then it started pouring. Then all of my clothes fell on the ground because of the wind. So at the end of the day my clothes were dirtier than when I started and all wet again. Oh well, I learned that I need to buy clothes hangers and not leave my clothes out if I go to market.

I stayed up almost all night to upload photos and now I have a shutterfly account. You can check out lots of photos

here

I am certainly not an engineer and sometimes I wish that I had my dad, the engineer, with me here. but I am learning a lot of innovative ways to make something with the few materials I have. Right noz I am working on making tippy-taps for the primary schools. For those of you that don't know, tippy-taps are bottles that are filled with water to serve as a make shift faucet for those places that do not have running water. There are many different models and I am trying to work out one where you have a hanging bottle and then you pull a string to invert the bottle and allow water to come out.

The reason that I am working on this is because last time I was at the primary schools we were talking about the fecal-oral route and how to prevent these diseases. ONe main way is washing your hands after using hte latrine. Se we walked over to investigate the latrine situation. Guess what? There was no place to wash your hands. So I told them to think about what we could do and I would think too. The next time I come we are goign to figure it out.

Back to the engineering thing, though. I think Cameroonians have engineering brians - and not necessariy hypothetical or theoretical brains. Obviously this is a huge over generalisation, but nonetheless here is my logic: Cameroonians can fix anything to make it work. The just need to see it and they will figure it out. I would say that they are learners by doing things hands on. NOw they do not necessarily fix it 'properly' but it works.

Maybe I have talked about this before, but as an example, the children make these amazing toy cars. They use old sandal shoes for the foamy wheels, sardine tins for the body, and rafia limbs for everything else. The amazing part is that they attach a long limb that splits off into a steering wheel that they use to drive the toy car. I know that I could not have made something that complex as a toy for myself at the ages that these kids start constructing them.

Now on to politics: local politics are a funny thing. Every month, we, my health center, do a mobile vaccination day in several small villages that are farther away from the health center. Yesterday I went to help out for the one at Batsepou. When I got there, guess what I found? A brand new health center! It was like it magically appeared. They had new beds and chairs and tables. I have no idea where the money came from for any of this or who came up with the idea. All that I do know is that no one informed our health center (which is the main health center for the area and in charge of all the others) or even the health committee (the president of which lives almost across the street from this brand new health center)!

Then since no one was informed my health center wanted to call it quits on the vaccination day, but the new health center is private and without a fridge - aka no money for the vaccines of a way to store them.

Finally, though, we decided to do the vaccination day anyway so that it would not look like we were against this new health center. After that we went to the local cheif and told him to appoint a health delegate for the health committee so that we would not have issues like this happen again. When we went to visit the chief we chatted for a while and drank palm wine. The first batch was very strong and all the men I was with liked it a lot. I only took one glass because when it is strong like that it smells like vinegar. Then They brought out some more that was sweet and fresh. I had another glass while the men sent it back for a stronger version.

Oh Cameroon!

So maybe the rainy season is finally starting. It came for one week in March and the rains have yet to return in full swing. But the other day we finally had a downpour. It was even hailing! That is the first time I saw hail in Cameroon, but I am sure it will not be the last.

As a side note to that, I used the water from the storm to shower with: very cold and I am guessing that the hail did not help that.

This morning I went for a run and I tried to make it a little bit longer by taking a slightly different path. I ended up about 2 hours from my house before I knew where I was. But now I know a few more roads near me (or rather not the near).

Now I am off to an all day meeting, my favorite kind - not.

Today is Labor day. What does that mean...instead of working we get to have parades! I am in Mbouda, where my prefecture is to see the parades today. My postmate is marching with his bank and I am just going to hang out and watch everyone else. Unlike for Women's day where I marched, I have no stress about today. It is nice to come to a city every once in a while, but I think it makes me appreciate my post more. It is so quiet at my post; I can go running without getting harassed; it is cool out and there are a lot less mosquitoes.

Lately I feel like my life has been all over and so it has been hard to post a lot. Work is coming together at the primary schools. We have been talking about clean water and the oral fecal route recently, so our next step is to try and make tippy taps at the school latrines so that everyone can wash their hands with soap after going to the bathroom. I am trying to figure out a good model for the tippy taps right now with the available resources.

I am also working with a few womens groups on making soap. it is surprisingly easier than I thought to make soap. Three ingredients: caustic soda, water, and oil. I think the problem is that the soap does not smell well, but the women do not seem to think it is a problem; generally soap here is unscented (or rather smells like palm oil).

My health committee delegates have decided that water is the big problem. So we are going to work on an action plan for how to address the problem from the perspective of decreasing the water-borne diseases. I am happy that everyone is showing up for the meetings and excited to do work. Hopefully we can come up with some inexpensive ways to fix things and then eventually work up to the spending money for a project. My biggest fear is that we could get money for a project and then they would think that money just comes out of nowhere.

Well I am going to watch the parades now, shout out to my sister...Happy Birthday Mary, I love you and I miss you.

Has it really been only 4 months in my new home ? I just got back from a conference for the Peace Corps and I can not tell you how glad I am to be back home to Bamboué. I can greet people in patoi again, people know who I am, it is great.

A lot of good things have been happening lately. I have been meeting with a few new groups who seem really motivated. One in particular is a group of health delegates. We just did a community survey and are about to analyze it together to figure out where to go next. Hopefully everyone will work well together and we will be able to work on a project. I will try to keep updates about that coming.

Just so that everyone knows and does not worry about me, my water is back for the most part. It comes and goes, but it is not a problem. I am also way better at carrying things on my head now. Even with no hands!

I have been really busy lately and hope to write more soon.

How many times a day do you use water without thinking about it? Recently the water in my house was turned off, and now due to the rainy season the pipes keep getting clogged and so there is no water. When I am able to get water it is visibly dirty.

All of this has made me think about all the times I use water and how difficult and dirty life is without water. The obvious times: bucket bathing, after using the bathroom, to brush my teeth, etc. But then also to wash my dishes, to flush my toilet, to wash my clothes, to wash my vegetables/fruit, and to wash my hands while I am preparing food when they get dirty. When you do not have running water, or any water for that matter, it really makes you think about all the times when you use water.

It also makes me understand why people do not wash their hands regularly, and how they use and reuse water regularly. When water is not something that just magically comes out of the faucet; you would think twice for using it just to clean your hands because they feel a little dirty too. (or at least I do now). So this is how and why fecal oral route diseases are so common here. I have been giving health presentations to primary school children talking specifically about this topic. But changing these behaviors will be much harder said than done.

I have not had water for three days now; you may ask how has that changed my life? And I would say, great question. Well I have not washed my dishes for three days for one thing. I flush the toilet once a day if that because it just feels like the biggest waste of water. This is why I wish I had a latrine. But I still shower everyday and wash my hands. The problem is that I need to walk about a half hour to get to the nearest source and back. Now, though since the water is out on most pipes, there is a long line at the source. So I usually can wait for 20 minutes or so. But I am certainly getting better at carrying it on my head!

This morning for breakfast I sucked on a juicy mango. You know what this means, mango season is coming soon. I found some mangos in the Mbouda market yesterday and I am not sure if I could be happier to know that supposedly I will be sick of mangos by the end of the season (I wonder if it is possible). Not to dwell on the subject too long, but mangos here taste different, just like the pineapples. They are sweeter, fresher, and truly amazing. I am not sure if I could eat a mango or a pineapple ever again in the states after tasting the fruit’s perfection here.

Recently I think I have been going through some difficult times, just with feeling like I am alone here and that no one can empathise. But things seemed to have taken an upward turn for now and my daily rhythms feel natural and exciting. In several ways my life has slowed down a lot and relaxed. I am no longer working two to three jobs while taking classes and simultaneously trying to plan the rest of my life. Now I am here in Cameroon living in the moment instead of for the future. I am assessing the needs of the community and figuring out projects to plan and other ways that I can be helpful. Some days it feels like a lot and other days it feels like too little (especially when I think back to how I lived in the states).

So after six months of living in Cameroon, I know that there is still a lot for me to learn, but it is finally my home.

I had a realisation the other day while watching a soccer game. The children at the primary school in Tsopeau (the small village farthest up in the mountains) were playing on the triangle shaped piece of grass that was there. On a side note, grass is an unusual soccer field here, it is typically just the mud/dirt ground. Goals were set up on either end, and somewhere during the game I got lost watching the ball go back and forth. And then I had a moment of clarity, no one was playing by any set of official rules, the children were playing within the realm of what they had. The out of bounds was identified by were the grass happened to end. This led me to think about life in general here. And I think this soccer game example can be projected onto other parts of life. No one here lives by rules that have been created that serve no purpose. People live by what is actually here; they do what they can to get by, and if they can get away with something they do that too.

When I play cards with the children that come over to my house, everyone always looks at the others cards, why, because they can. And they try to play cards that are incorrect according to the rules, why, because if no one noticed then they got away with it. Maybe that is just an example of kids who have yet to learn, but I think they have learned. They have learned that they need to do what it takes in order to win (a card game, or at a job, etc.).

I do not think this is necessarily a bad thing, on the contrary, it made me realize that I follow a lot of rules blindly. I know that I am supposed to do something, why, because there is a rule or a law that says so. But then most of the rules that I am used to following do not even apply here. Why should a soccer field be square if only a triangle is available?

Now I would argue that there are still lots of social norms that everyone follows regularly, but because they apply to the current situations, not because it is a rule that descends from the central government. One thing I am learning about life here, (advice from my postmate) is that ‘not only do you have to accept many things the way they are, but you need to get down with it!’ I have started taking this recommendation seriously and it makes life so much easier. There are of course things that I will never ‘get down with’ so to speak, but I can pick the parts of the culture and not only accept it but come to really appreciate it.

Here are some examples:

Carrying things on my head. I have not quite been able to do it with out hands yet, but I realize that this is actually a better way of carrying heavy things. It takes less energy over all and you can keep your hands free. I just need to build up my neck muscles some more and work on my balancing skills!

Importance of food and drink. When people offer you food and/or drink it is important to accept. In particular kola nuts and palm wine are traditionally important. Also I have realized that it is also important to have these things available when people come over to my house.

Local language. Most people speak limited French and really only speak ngiemboon (local patoi). If people are going to take me as a community member I need to be able to communicate and show them that I am trying. I can finally confidently greet people and say several other random things!

Making sport on Sundays. While I run almost everyday, Sunday is the unofficial official day of sports for everyone here. I am very happy that I have been able to ‘join’ the kung fu club and do sports with them Sunday mornings really early, often just before heading to church with one of my women’s group.

Tu m’as gardé quoi? Roughly translated, you were thinking of me, so what did you get me. At first I think I found this really offensive. Why was I supposed to bring you something? But now I joke with them and ask them what they have for me instead. And I have realised that sometimes gift giving can go a long way, I am just sure not to do it all the time or it would become expected.

On a slightly different note, the rains have started to come just as quickly as they disappeared. What does this mean, I will have to learn to get down with it raining every single day and the mud that comes along with it.

Oh life in Cameroon, I love it!

It has been a little while since I have posted so I have two very different blogs that I want to post with completely different vibes. I am posting them separately for that reason. This first one I wrote a little while ago and the next one deals with how I am feeling currently.

Baby Stegura died a few weeks ago. I never got to meet her and I am not sure if my host family will have a doy for her soon or not, but I am sad to face the reality of life (or death) here. Death is a natural part of life here and people are habituated to it. Everyone who works in carpentry makes their special crafts, but they also make coffins. Apparently it is a needed business. I often have read about infant mortality rates in classes, on the internet, etc., but I guess until now I did not feel connected to those facts. Shortly after I heard about the death of Stegura, Rose told me that she was going to a doy for a child that was born at the center the other week. The child died before it was even given a name.

And then I was helping with the prenatal consultations. One lady came in for the first time during her ninth month because she was very sick. During the consultation no one was able to find the heart beat of the child. Later she found out that they baby was dead and she needed to have an operation (which she could not afford) to remove the fetus. During the consultations we identify what number pregnancy this is for the mother. At first I was asking them how many children that they had to figure out the answer, but soon I realized that most people have several miscarriages or children who have died. Now I ask the question differently.

Death is all around, sometimes facing that reality is daunting.

Something that i have noticed from spending a few months at post is that time here is ‘flexible.’ What exactly does that mean…I think it means that no one here lives by a clock. There is a structure to how things work, but it certainly does not depend on the exact time; I would argue that it has more to do with where the sun is (and of course that is closely related to the time). Most of the daily life activities in village revolve around cultivating and working in the fields. Other than that the electricity is far from dependable (that is if the people have it at all) and so making the most of sunlight hours is important.

Surprisingly people wake up very early around 5am before the sun is up to get started on their days, especially on farm days. Here there are basically two different types of weeks occurring simultaneously. There is the Monday through Sunday week, but then there is also an 8 day week that directs most activities. For example every 4 days is a market day and with the big market days happening every 8 days and 4 days later is the small market day. Market days are just as much social events; if not more, than they are about getting food and things for the house. It is a day when everyone comes together in the market place to talk and see one another. The day after a market day is always a farm day. People leave very early to go to their farms and return very late. I am sure that the other days have their designations as well, but for now I am not sure exactly what they are.

I think that in the United States, my life was controlled so much by the time. I never really saw it as controlling me while I was there; I thought it was great to have a lot of structure. But now that I am in such a contrasting situation I see it a bit differently. Instead of things being controlled by time, activities are controlled by other activities. I meet with two women’s groups on Sundays and the one group meets “after church.” Some days that is 9 in the morning, but other days it is 10 or 11 or even noon. It all depends on what time the pastor comes and how into the service everyone is. I would say that almost all of the meetings that I have run on flexible time. They are scheduled to start at 9 or 11, but people start arriving over the next few hours. Thus it takes a while to actually get started. Then once things finally do, the meetings tend to drag on for 3 – 5 hours. I find this very unnecessary and at times annoying. But what I have come to understand is that these meetings are once again a social setting. Everyone enjoys getting to take basically a whole day to see other people and accomplish things at a slow pace.

Priorities are different. It is not about maximizing the efficiency of time used. It is maybe more about slow and steady. People work very hard on their farms and when they have time to be social they relish it. Greetings here can take several minutes, especially in the North I have heard. It is important to say hi to your neighbors and give yourself a break to stay involved in the community. Community membership and relations, I would argue are more important here.

I am often reminded of the cultural differences, which may seem obvious to everyone in the United States. But honestly Cameroon is starting to feel like home which allows me to feel comfortable. Recently, though I have had a few cases where I am reminded that I am in another country.

For Valentine’s Day I was constantly reminding Alain (Rose-my counterpart-‘s husband) that this is the day where he should do nice things for her. For example he could cook, give her flowers or chocolates, etc. So then on V-day he told me that this fete lasts for a few days so he would not be doing anything on Sunday, but the next day instead. So then last night he decided that he was going to cook dinner – for her, I thought. Then night time comes and I get an invitation to their house. When I get there Alain is almost finished cooking and Rose, as it turns out, is working at the center after hours because someone was giving birth. He got the memo about making dinner, but I guess I did not emphasize the fact that it was for his wife enough. On va faire comment?

But he was so happy with himself for cooking (husbands here do not prepare food generally), so I guess it was a good experience. And the food was good too: spaghetti with tomato sauce and french fries!

I was visiting my friends the Bororos up in the mountains the other day, they are the muslim herder tribe. The one women, Djanabo, told me that should would gladly braid my hair. So of course I accepted and let her braid my hair. But then when she was about half way through I realized that she was randomly cutting ends off of some of the braids. I am non-confrontational so I did not even say that I knew she was doing it. I have gone through a few emotions from this experience. At first it was sadness, why was she deceiving me? I think I even hit on a little bit of anger after that: what right did she have to cut my hair without asking me? But now I am simply at curiousity: what would bring her to do something like that? All in all I think it is a cultural difference, in the states people do not cut others hair unless they are specifically asked to do so ( or maybe they are a devious little child who thinks it would be fun). My counterpart is asking around to try and figure out why they would do that. I know that they are intrigued by my hair because they often touch it and comment on it. Maybe they are just interested.

The last little story I have is about making a cake. So apparently here there is a belief that when a woman is menstruating she should not prepare things that you have to mix: cake, koki, soap. The other day we made two cakes the women’s group in Bamboué. The first cake we made was a carrot cake. Rose mixed that one up, but left shortly after because I think she remember that she had her period. Next we made banana bread. Another women mixed that up and we put them in the marmite oven together. What would you know, the carrot cake did not turn out, but the banana bread was excellent! I have not been able to understand why this phenomenon happens, but who understands everything they believe?

I think that maybe finally I am beginning to find my place here in

Bamboué (actually now technically since I have moved across the street

I live in Bassessa). Everyday I seem to have too many things to do

already.

I have been doing house visits with two of the health delegates to see

pregnant women. The purpose of these visits is technically to prevent

the transmission of HIV/AIDS from mother to child, but none of these

women have HIV. Thus we end up giving them information on AIDS and

they get a chance to have their questions answered. After that we

spend the majority of the visit letting them ask questions about their

pregnancy or health in general. I think that they really appreciate

being able to ask questions and get answers. While the health center

has really good customer service (especially comparatively from what I

have heard), many times the women do not want to go and pay for a

consultation just to ask a question. This is a great opportunity for

the women to understand a little bit more about what is happening in

their body and that a lot of their discomfort should be expected

during pregnancy.

A side not on one of the visits – One of the ladies that we stopped by

was talking about how she did not want to eat a lot and did not want

to continue gaining weight. I was only hearing this second hand

because she was speaking in the local language-ngeimboon

(unfortunately I can not spell it correctly here just pretend that the

‘o’s are backwards c’s that make a sound like an o). But from the

translation I got it sounded like she was having a body image issue.

I was really surprised by this because the culture here does not

generally promote a thin ideal body. I could totally be

misinterpreting the situation, but that is what I took from the

encounter.

I have also been helping out with the monthly vaccination days that

take place at the health center and also out in the community. I

think I am even getting a hang of how they fill out all of the

paperwork for the things, thus I can be of use. People keep asking me

if I want to give the injections, I am not at that point yet, but who

knows maybe I will learn. Two out of the five nurses at the hospital

are village nurses; which means that they never went to school or got

a degree to be a nurse, they have only picked up the knowledge from

hands on experience here at the center.

There are two local women’s groups meetings which I have been

attending as well. I am not sure if I am contributing too much yet,

but now I have started giving small formations about certain health

topics. I am also helping the two groups go through the legalization

process. March 8th is International Women’s Day so I think the women

want to plan a fete for that.

Another group that I am participating in is the local high school

Kung-fu group. Did you know that they did Kung-fu in Africa? I guess

they generally don’t, but David had brought this book about Kung-fu

with pictures in it. It is written in English so they have translated

parts of it and I will help to translate more. Basically, though,

they have come up with their own version from what they understand.

One of the boys, my neighbour Paulin, acts as the instructor and leads

the practices. They meet Sunday mornings really early and Wednesdays

after school (since school gets out early that day). I am slowly

learning a little bit of Kung-fu Cameroonian style and it is actually

a lot of fun. Soon all of the students want to get Kung-fu uniforms

made and organize a trip to the pool in Dschang. I am sure that I

will help in little ways, but this club is more simply for my

amusement. I fit right in with the high school students due to my

height!

*Paulin actually helps out quite a lot at my house, he is really

friendly. I have recently ‘hired’ him as my house boy to clean the

floors and wash my clothes once a week. I struggled with the morality

of this for a while. It is not that I can not do these things myself,

because I am certainly capable, but I end up taking a whole day to do

what he can do in an hour or two. Also I decided that maybe in

someway I am helping the local economy by spreading some money around.

Many times people just ask me for money; I have decided that if they

can do something to help me then I can justify paying them or giving

them something, but I have trouble just giving money. Because then

people will expect that I continue to do that in the future and I do

not want to set that kind of unsustainable example.

I have recently acquired a blackboard for my house. Now I finally

have something for the kids to do when they come over. And now if

they ask me for something, I get to ask them to do a math problem

first to earn what they ask for! I actually really like the

blackboard too because I can doodle on it.

Currently I am in the process of visiting three of the local primary

schools to get permission to work with the kids once or twice a month.

I just received my letter of approval from the arrondissement

inspector in Batcham. Now all I need is permission from the school

directors. There are always a lot of hoops to jump through in order

to get things official, but this has not been too hard. I am really

looking forward to doing activities with the kids.

So that is what has been going on with me, now I just have a few observations:

Kids

Here kids have a fair amount of responsibility. Around the age of 4

they are entrusted to care for infants. They need to work on the

farms from a young age, get water for themselves (which is a task

here), help prepare food, and do the housework. In many senses they

have to grow up a lot faster than I was allowed to grow up. But in

case you were wondering, the children here still do have temper

tantrums and things like that; the responsibility has not completely

shielded them from childhood. And also hitting kids is totally

allowed here and not looked down upon in anyway. It is hard for me to

accept that. It is actually common in schools for the teachers to

punish the children this way, although recently there has been a

campaign to stop this behaviour in schools at least.

So on the one hand children are forced to take on responsibility at a

young age. Yet at the same time until ‘children’ have children of

their own and/or get married they are still considered children. This

means that they really can not get a job and have no way of making

money. While they are in high school for example, they go to school

and help out at the family farm and this is all that time allows for.

And from what I can tell if they have a child then they are adults and

stop going to school.

Trash

I still have not figured out what to do with my trash. My neighbors

burn it, but I have not yet decided how to go about doing that.

Burning plastic is certainly not the best thing for the environment,

and that is the majority of my trash. On top of that I hate the smell

and do not want to contribute to that. With my food scraps I tried to

start a compost, but there is a health delegate who works at the

center that wanted my scraps. So now I just give them all to him.

Paper scraps I keep or shopkeepers take to hand out bread. Then there

are jars and /or containers which I keep or the children use to make

toys. Thus the vast majority of my trash ends up being plastic

packaging. I keep the plastic bags that someone gives you anytime you

buy anything in a collection for some hopeful future purpose. I am

sure that sometime soon I will break down and give my trash to my

neighbour so that it can be burned together, but my trash pile builds

up surprisingly slow.

Cameroonian Companies

There are a lot of Cameroonian companies. Most of the aid money that

Cameroon used to receive went to the government. So in many ways it

is good to know that the money went, I assume, to the creation of

these companies. You can get chocolate made by ChocoCam; tea made by

CTE (Cameroon Tea Enterprise); telephones made by CamTel; maps or

boats made by CamShip; milk, yogurt, or soy products made by CamLait;

ciment made by CimenCam; and BelgoCam raises chickens; and I know

there are many others but right now the names are escaping me. I have

been living in village for a bit now and do not see many of these

products, but almost anything you can get made by a Cameroonian

company. Think about it like this, when you go into a grocery store

and they have the Wegmans brand or something, here it’s the

Cameroonian brand.

Before I get to my observations/comments I have two quick updates about me. First I moved across the street from the center with my cat Loopy. It is nice there and we are both adapting quite nicely to the apartment. (I will try to post pics soon). Second, my host mother had her baby (although I was never definitely sure she was pregnant) and she has been named Stegura!

In no way am I an expert on Cameroonian culture and maybe I will never get to that point, but at the same time I am trying to understand the culture and particularly differences that I see. There are many times, I am now realizing, when I have taken so many aspects of my own culture as just simply the way things are. In fact, though, there are other ways to do things. So now I just want to look at a few things that I have observed and discuss the observations to the best of my ability. Also please if you have any other comments or thoughts about some of my observations and/or conclusions please leave comments. As an aside, I am only speaking to the culture in the West which I have witnessed. The West region (at least where I am) is primarily Bamileke culture.

Death

Here death has several recognized steps and/or rituals involved. First comes the enterrement or the burial. I have not actually witnessed a ceremony for that and I am unclear if there is a formal ceremony. I have learned that people are buried, not in cemeteries, but behind their houses. From reading a little bit of Geishiere I would also say that the people are buried behind their village houses, not their houses in the cities or necessarily where they were actually living. ** I just talked to someone yesterday who told me that the enterrement is part of the initial Doy ceremony**

After that there is the first ceremony, which can be anywhere from a few days to a few months after the death. This is the part in which everyone is very sad and mourns the life of the deceased. I have only been to one of these so far and it was a very confusing experience. Men and women each have their respective roles in the ceremony. Someone holds a photo of the deceased above their head while dancing in circles with others. Some people are playing bongo type drums and other instruments as others watch, dance, and chant. Then people cry. Finally everyone eats and drinks, as all the women have come with already prepared food. It is at least an all day event.

I feel like this ceremony, called a Doy, is more or less the equivalent of a funeral in the States. We generally cry in remembrance of the person. Of course the two are not quite comparable, but none the less we cry and all join together to honor the deceased. One of the hardest parts for me during this ceremony was my role. I am female, but as an American, I am seen maybe as in between that of man and women. So I would be invited to stand where all the men were standing, only later to be told by a women that it was not appropriate for me to be with the men.

After the Doy is another ceremony several years later called a Funeraille. This is purely a celebration of the person’s life and is not a sad event in anyway. People wait to save up money to throw a big part with lots of food, music, dancing, drinking, and all around celebration for the life of the person. The more important the person was (as I am told) the longer you wait to save up money to have a bigger Funeraille. Sometimes people wait up to 10 years before having the celebration. And all of the Funerailles seem to be held in the dry season (November to February).

I have been to several funerailles and have enjoyed them very much. Everyone comes back from the city to the villages to hold the celebrations. I guess my biggest piece of commentary on the death rituals is that the whole process, while in some ways may be a bit much, seems to be more complete than the one funeral that we hold for our deceased. Cameroonians have another ceremony where it is only a joyous remembrance of the lost loved one and in that way I think they have kept up more of a full circle outlook on death. The life of someone is not quite finished until you have all-out celebrated it!

**The other day I attended a Doy of a young man who apparently just fell over dead for no obvious reason. I am adding this because it made me really sad to realize that no one will ever know exactly why he died. There will never be an autopsy; people just accept that he died even though he was in his 20s.

Technology

I do not have a lot to say about technology except that there is not real infrastructure for it yet. One thing that has frustrated me to no end here is my inability to check things off my to-do list. I am used to multitasking and being able to start and stop things in the middle by just clicking save and then coming back to it later.

For example, preparing class lectures or presentations, one can simply begin writing, edit, and re-edit the powerpoint or project. But without being able to actually use powerpoint, or print out the things you type up, that is all fairly useless. I find myself unmotivated to start making presentations because I know that I do not know what I want to say yet and I do not want to have to type it and then rewrite it or redo it later on paper. This is more of a comment on my issues.

I am working through my frustration and staying motivated somehow, but after getting used to the ease with which things are accomplished in the states it is difficult sometimes.

So really my comment on technology is that it exists here without the infrastructure to sustain itself. A few people have computers, but no one has printers. And then the electricity cuts out regularly. Why should the health center move its records onto the computer if there will be plenty of times when they are inaccessible, and they have no way of printing out the info when they need a hard copy? Right now I am trying to figure that out before I push the staff in that direction.

**I finally made a poster just the other day about clean water and I will start giving presentations on it this week. Excited and nervous!!

I have been going through an emotional roller coaster lately, doubting my abilities and if I am doing anything productive. But thankfully right now I am on the upside of the roller coaster.

Above is a picture of myself with another volunteer and two Cameroonians along with Flat Stanley. This is a project in which I decorated the cut out with Cameroonian clothes - specifically a pagna dress - and I am sending it to the girl in North Carolina who originally sent me her Flat Stanley. I hope that Flat Stanley makes it back to the states safe and sound.

In other news, Christmas and New Years have been good here in Cameroon. I definitely miss everyone.

I am figuring out what my place is at the health center and how I can help out my community the most. I am hoping to give a presentation on clean water for the next set of vaccination days and prenatal consultations. And I have started taking lessons in the local language. I must say that it is very difficult and I am not sure if I will ever really get much more than the greetings. But I am going to work on it and keep practicing. I have two years to figure it out.

Soon I am going to try and put up more pictures of my post and the health center.

Friday my supervisor had at celebration to honor David, the outgoing volunteer, for all of his work and to welcome me to the health center. Little did I know, but I had to give a speech. That was nerve racking. Standing in front of so many people and speaking in French, when I am not even comfortable giving speeches in English. But I made it! And I even got them to clap and laugh a few times in my speech – success!

I really enjoyed it and I am excited to get settled into my village. For now I am going to stick with the house that I have in the health system. While there is a lack of privacy and a lack of silence, I have a great support system there with my counter part. But first thing I need to do is to get glass windows put in because I need the sunlight in the morning. Right now I have wooden doors that I need to close at night so that the bugs don’t come in, but that means that I do not get to wake up to the sunlight.

David said all of his goodbyes and I know that was a tough time for everyone. He will definitely be missed here. And I will have a lot of work, just to live up to what he has accomplished. I think the first step will be establishing that we are different people and will do things differently.

So right now I am in Yaounde and I need to figure out how to get home tomorrow. Traveling is probably one of the hardest things to do here. You have all your stuff with you and there are so many steps to every trip. This will be the first time I am really traveling on my own and it is about a 6 hour trip if you could go straight there, but with all of the steps it will probably take me much longer. Wish me luck!

** The picture on my blog is from my post. It is the tea plantation that covers much of the area.

[December 4]

So far life has not changed too much. But this is only my first full day at post. We definitely have a lot more freedom, now that we do not have training everyday. Most volunteers say that in the beginning it feels like freedom, then quickly it turns to feeling like abandonment, but after that we will get used to it as we figure out what we are going to be doing at post.

For about 10 days, David, the volunteer that I am replacing, is going to be at post with me. He is not COSing (close of service) until the 13th of December. In the mean time I can tag along on things he is doing while I am trying to feel out life here as a volunteer.

Traveling with all of my stuff here was stressful. You have your life for the next two years packed in 6 bags and the car drops you off in the middle of the marketplace. People crowd around you because they want you to choose their car to take you to your next destination. But all I can think about is, please do not grab my bags because if I lose this stuff moving into post is just going to be so much harder. But then the other volunteers tell me I am worrying too much and I just need to calm down. They are right. My supervisor found me somehow in the middle of this mess. We carted all of my bags over to his van which was just a little ways away. Then he drove me all the way to the health center. To-my-door service, can you ask for anything better?

In many ways I feel very lost and confused, because I really have no idea what I am supposed to be doing yet. I went for an exploratory run this morning to try and orient myself a little bit more. But my run turned more into a walk/run because the hills here are plentiful, long, and steep. On top of that I am more than a mile up and I do not think my body is just yet used to the altitude. I love running to explore. I said bonjour to everyone I passed, and generally people are really friendly. I need to learn at least the greetings in the local language so that I can say that when I am running in the mornings…petit a petit, le oiseau fait un nid – the French phrase for little by little I will learn.

So then this morning I thought I would treat myself and I decided to heat my bucket bath/shower. The warm water felt so good, but in the end I think that was a mistake. Since it is not a shower you do not have water constantly running and I just got really cold anytime I was not pouring water on myself. So lesson is that when you are using cold water, the water feels cold but the air does not. Which one is better? I have not decided yet.

Today is a petit marche day in Bangang. I am going to head down there because I need to get myself some food and maybe some other basic supplies for now. Wish me luck on exploring the market…hopefully I will not make too much of a fool of myself just yet, but let’s be realistic here.

One more random note: it is really hard to find housing here! The Peace Corps has certain standards as far as security for housing [as it should]. But consequently the house has to be cement and lock firmly including the windows. Well Bamboue is a very small town and unfortunately there are not many houses available that fit the PC requirements. Right now I am living in the health center and I thought that I wanted to move because I am in the middle of so much here. But today after looking at a few other available housing options I am not convinced that I will be moving. There is a place right across the dirt street, but it has no sunlight. I could never make it there. Then there is another place up the hill a bit, but right now it does not have any privacy for the latrine. I imagine that could be fixed, but literally right now it is a hole in the ground out in the open. Then I looked at one other place on the top of the hill, but it is really dark also and the floor is mud. If I move anywhere it will take a lot of work, more than I expected.

There is one more known option right now about 45 minute walk uphill. There is a quartier of my health district that has a really rich guy who lives in Douala. Well he has an impressive house back in his home village, as all those who live in the cities do – shout out to my globalization and development in Africa class right now…the importance of autochthony is loud and clear here in Cameroon. Anyway he has an apartment in his complex that I would be able to rent out. I am seriously considering this as an option because I want to work more with the people that are farther away from any of the existing infrastructure. This would probably be a good place to be located in that situation. The president of the COSA [committee de santé/ health committee] lives there too, so he would be really helpful. But then it would be a long commute to my health center every day. Maybe after I get to look at the place I will try to figure it out.

Typical me…thinking too much about this.

Since I was not able to post this yesterday, I have a few more thoughts to add from today [December 5]:

I helped the health center with a vaccination campaign today. So what seems to happen is that the Cameroonian government announces vaccine campaigns usually about 2 or 3 days before they start. It is not clear why they wait until last minute to announce, but anyway then the public health centers are in charge of going door to door and finding all of the children. [If that sounds kind of absurd, it’s because it is. The door to door campaigns are done on the assumption that no one has anything to do all day and just sits at home waiting for people like us.]

David and I walked up to the farthest quartier to the Bororos today. The COSA delegate of that quartier rounded up the children for us and they all came to one central location. I was in charge of marking the children – so that we know they have already received the vaccines/vitamins/medication from this campaign. It is a three day long affair so I used permanent marker on their pinky. I also got to feed the children the polio vaccine, which is two drops per child.

**Shout out to my mom and other rotary members** Thank you for everything, in particular for the campaign to eradicate polio from Africa. The coolers that we were using today to keep the vaccine cold had the rotary logo on them!

I really enjoyed helping out today, and I am also learning to appreciate flexible time! One more random comment; it is the dry season now, otherwise known as the season of dust. The rainy season is the season of mud. It’s a toss up, I am not sure which one I like better yet. They both have their up sides and down sides.

December 8, 2009

Now that I have my computer out I will be writing a lot more. The problem is that I do not have access to internet a lot, though, thus the blogs I post are going to be very long. Once I figure out housing for sure I will probably try to set up some kind of internet, but we will see.

I finally unpacked all of my bags in an attempt to make my apartment in the health center feel like home. It is nice to finally not be living out of bags because even during my homestay I left most of my stuff in suitcases. I am so excited; here I have a bathroom with plumbing and everything. Most of the time if you have a real bathroom the water does not work so you have to pour water into the toilet to flush it and take bucket baths.

Yesterday I went exploring. I have been trying to orient myself to the different communities in the area. I decided to just start walking and see where it led me. I found the local high school and the village of Batsepou – this is the other village that I am considering to live. The women in Batsepou are so nice. We had met before on my site visit and they recognized me right away as David’s replacement, welcoming me to their village. I also found a nice shady spot near a stream to sit and ponder for a while to escape the heat of the day. For some reason I am very attracted to water in nature, in particular running water. Maybe I get it a little bit from Dad and Mom, but I just love the sound of running water; sitting there relaxes me.

Today who knows what I will find when I go to explore!

***One last note – I found out that there is a habitat for humanity trip coming to Cameroon in June. If you are interested, I think you can find information about it online by searching the habitat for humanity website. If you find the info, please add the link here. I would love to see anyone who is able to visit! This is the link I have found so far.

Bonjour tout le monde!

Happy Thanksgiving one day later. We had our own little holiday here at our training center with a melange of Cameroonian and American food. It was a great night to spend with the whole stage community. I also just want to say that I am really thankful for my family, friends, and everyone else who is supporting me. I miss the tradition of saying what everyone is thankful for one by one around the table. But anyway...THANK YOU for everything!

I have a new address for the next two years of my life. So please send me letters because I love having paper and words on it from all the people I care about. Here is my new address:

Christina Stegura

Peace Corps Volunteer

Corps de la Paix

B.P. 39

Mbouda, Cameroon

Par Avion

A few updates

I placed into the needed french level finally. Officially I am at an advanced low level in french! Who knew? But actually my french is getting much better and over the past week things have just seemed to click finally. I feel like I can talk to my family and my community in french. I am quite enjoying franglish - basically adding lots of french words into my normal english vocabulary (ex. Oh they are just kids, they derange. Which essentially means that they annoy.) Side note, children here are all considered to derange, it is a fundamental part of being a kid.

Stage is basically almost over! Hooray for that. We have a technical test on monday to review all of the health information that we have learned. Then we swear in on wednesday. That is when I will officially start my service as a volunteer. Thursday I will leave for my post and move into my new place. For now I will be staying at the health center, but looking for a new more permanent house.

It has been a while since I have been able to post. So much has been happening so quickly in the mean time. Some key highlights from the past few weeks:

Cooking dinner

I made dinner for my family. Imagine being in a dark smoky room with no lights - because of course the power cut that night – and three big rocks with a fire in between them. It is harder than you would think to cook with smoke filling your eyes and then inhaling it all as you are coughing and taking in more smoke…needless to say, not that much fun. But actually the dinner was a success and I had so much fun doing it. On the menu:

• Guacamole sandwiches (to keep everyone munching while I cooked everything else)

• Pasta primavera (an alfredo sauce with green beans, tomatoes, and onion over pasta)

That was exactly what I needed that night. My family loved it too. The only complaint they had was that the green beans were too crunchy. One thing you need to know is that here they overcook most of their veggies and like it very mushy. I am hopeful that the dinner might inspire them to try more fresh veggies, but that is having high hopes.

Site Visit

The next thing really exciting thing has been our site announcements and site visits. I now know where I will be living for the next two years in Cameroon! I will be in Bamboué, it is a small village about 2-3 hours from where I am in training now. So I will still be in the Western province. It is a lot like where I am now, except more mountains right by me. If you want to try and find me on a map:

• Find the provincial capitals of the West (Baffoussam) and the North West (Bamenda). About half way between them is a town called Mbouda (pernounced buda). Then about halfway between Mbouda and Dschang is a small town called Bangong. This is my main market that I will be walking to regularly. It is about 5 k away from Bamboué. I do not think that you will find my post on any map, though.

I absolutely love my post. It is with a private health center – called CAPCEPV – that has been integrated into the public system. We have twelve health areas that we are responsible for providing care to. As a result there are outreach vaccination days each month to visit the health areas.

I feel like I have so many things that I want to say so I will try to list them and elaborate a bit on each thing that I did on site visit:

Peanut Butter with piment – a father makes spicy peanut butter only a few houses down from my future house

No reception in my compound – unfortunately I have to walk up the hill in order to get reception on my cell phone

ACREST – a local appropriate technology NGO near my site. I am really excited to work with them because they have interesting projects like ameliorated cookstoves, solar power dryers, etc.

Bororos – there is one small village that I will be working with that is an all muslim herder village

Pool in Dschang – I was able to go swimming in a refreshing pool in the city of Dschang (pernounced chang)

CDC/CTE - The Cameroonian Tea Company very close to my post. Its acres upon acres of tea plants. It is very beautiful, but controversial. Is it a good thing or not? For a long time it was owned by the British, they employed Cameroonians on a salary and had a great hospital around to care for the workers. New it is owned by a Cameroonian, but there are no salaried workers and the hospital has been closed.

I have finally been able to upload some photos on Facebook of Cameroon. Sorry that I do not have more right now, but you can see the photos by going

here

Time is really going by quickly now that we have training 6 days a week. The end of week 5 marks the half way point of training. So what have we done so far you may ask...

Well last weekend we had mountain bike training so now I have my very own mountain bike that I can ride around on. The only problem is that there are either 'highways' (paved roads) or really muddy and rocky roads. It is definitely an adventure getting around on this terrain. Actually on our first group ride two girls went to the hospital after falling. Don't worry they are ok and doing fine. I really love having my bike, though, because it is one more degree of freedom. I am able to bike over to the other training town and visit the other trainees. It is a really good work out too because there are hills everywhere.

We visited a Chefferie, which is basically a chiefdom. That was a very interesting cultural experience. He has over 30 wives and over 120 children. When we went to visit him we were wearing our very best and most traditional Cameroonian dress. In return he was wearing symbolically American things - a shirt with the US presidential seal, adidas pants, and a puma jacket. How is that for a cultural exchange. He was very knowledgeable and accepting of other cultures, even making a comment about how polygamous relationships are not acceptable in our culture.

We were also able to see another volunteer in action at his post. We were able to attend some community group meetings in Bandrefam, a small village near by. When we arrived, we were welcomed to a women's group meeting and they starting singing a song for us. One realization that I came to during this visit was how much communication is going to be a barrier in any post. Thus far I have been worried about getting my french down. But now I realize french is just the base, in order to communicate with everyone in the community I will need the local language. In most cases this means having a person who can translate french to the local language and be your point person. So I need to first get french down and then start on my new language...wish me luck.

This upcoming week we find out our post assignments. And then the following week we have site visit with our counterpart!! I will be in touch soon with my site assignment.

(Sent by Chritina by mail September 27 - Earlier than the previous post)

After my first night in Bamena with my homestay family I now respect each and every PCV/RPCV infinitely more. I am not sure if I was just not prepared for the transition mentally or what. My French completely failed me and my family has taken it upon themselves to teach me basic French because that is how bad my communication skills were the first night.

Thankfully the first night is a hump that I have gotten over. The initial culture shock has worn off and my excitement and enthusiasm has returned. My family is really nice. My mother, Meredithe, is a housewife and my father, Romeo, is a driver in Bangante (a nearby bigger town). I have three brother and two sisters. Lots more people are constantly in and out of the house and eating dinner here. Most of the children are younger and my oldest sister, Terrance, does almost all of the chores. I would say that she is 13 if I had to guess.

My house is the blue house in town and that is how I and others identify it. I am really excited to have a light in my room because it starts getting dark around 6pm everyday and all year round. But the electricity is not guaranteed and we have lots of power outages. My house does not have running water, although some other volunteers do have a spigot at their houses. This means that we have a latrine and the shower area outside. In order to shower I must take a bucket bath. I think that this is an experience everyone should try. It is especially exhilarating if you use cold water!

I have definitely become very conscious of how much water I use each day, whether it is for drinking, bathing, washing my hands, etc. Water is not a given or especially easy to come by, so it makes you think about it whenever you do use it. Today I carried water on my head for the first time. It could not have been more than a five minute walk, but it was very difficult to do. I like to think of myself as a fairly strong individual, but my 13 (or so) year old sister upstaged me completely. As I came struggling back to my house my mother took the water from my head and told me that it was too heavy for me to carry.

We have finally begun training sessions so now I have lots of classes - technical training, language immersion, and cross cultural classes. These will keep my days very busy full of training that will help me to be an effective volunteer.

I think that I got sunburnt today, but I do not have a mirror to check and see. It is interesting to realize a lot of the things that we take for granted. Another interesting thing that I have noticed - they do not have trash cans here. You would think that might be a huge problem, but everyone reuses anything you can think of and I am told the very little trash that is produced people burn periodically (not the best strategy). But no food gets wasted - either animals or humans eat all of it.

(Sent by Christina by mail on October 2, 2009)

Now that training has started time is beginning to fly by. We have class Monday through Friday 7:30 – 4:30 with 4 sessions everday and 2 sessions in the morning on Saturday. Thus Sunday is our only true day off. Thankfully I go running every morning with my host uncle (about 6k). I think without that I would have way less energy.

What kinds of things am I learning? Well, lots of French for one and then also lots of technical health related and community development related things. On top of those two main types of sessions we have cross-cultural and medical sessions. This translates into lots of learning and very long days. I get around 8 hours of sleep each night, but somehow it does not feel like enough.

It is hard to believe that I have only been gone for a little over 2 weeks. So much has happened in this short amount of time in my life. I can already tell that these 2 years are going to have a monumental effect on the way I see the world and how I live in it.

Honestly, it is so difficult to put everything into words. There is so much to describe, but yet no easy way to do it. You could try calling me…(after 4:30 my time).

(Note from Kevin: It really is pretty easy to call Christina. I use justvoip.com the rates are about 15 cents a minute [its in Euros so it depends on when you buy really] and so far we've had pretty good luck connecting. Calling at 11:30am Eastern time seems to be the best time to catch Christina because that is just when she's getting finished her training for the day.)

I wish that I could post pictures, but unfortunately I lost my camera charger. My mom is sending me a package with a new one so hopefully soon I can upload some pictures for everyone!

Today I had to take a bush taxi to Bangante with a few other trainees. This was the first time that we had to do it ourselves without the Peace Corps vans. It took me almost two hours just to catch a ride and then the car almost broke down on the way. Good thing I was not in a rush. C'est la vie here in Africa! That is one thing I realized that I took for granted in the states: each year cars have to pass emissions tests and inspections, not so in Cameroon. Thus any car that can move is on the road. This means lots of black smoke coming from all the cars and they all look like they are falling apart. But it is good to know that I can get around on a taxi if I need to. I still have not taken a moto taxi, here yet but I am looking forward to it.

We just finished our third or ten weeks of training. It feels like things are moving fast. Next week we have language interviews again to get replaced. And we get mountain bikes! One more degree of freedom here I come.

That is all the time I have for now, but it is so nice to hear from everyone with comments on my blog and such.

So much has happened since I was last able to post. As a heads up it looks like I will not be able to use the internet regularly. Consequently I am sending Kevin letters to post online when he gets the chance. But it takes several weeks for letters to arrive so the information will be dated.

Here is a quick update of what my weekdays look like during training. We are very busy:

5:30 - wake up

5:45 - go running with my host uncle (about 6k) I am not sure if he actually likes to go running but they will not let me go alone

6:30 - shower, and by that I mean take a bucket bath; try it sometime and if you want to be adventurous use cold water!

7:00 - eat breakfast, by that I mean a piece of bread and some warm vanilla flavored milk

7:15 - leave for class

7:30-9:30 - first session of the day

9:30-10:00 - break, hopefully on monday we will get coffee on our break for the first time!

10:00-12:00 - second session of the day

12:00-1:30 - lunch break, we walk about 25 minutes to a restaurant

1:30-3:00 - third session

3:15-4:30 - fourth and last session

[we usually have about two french classes and two technical classes, but also we have cross cultural sessions and medical sessions sometimes (where we get vaccines :(]

4:30-5:30 - hang out with other trainees to unwind, play cards, etc.

5:30-8:30 - go home and do homework with my family, help with chores, etc.

9:00 - dinner [very very late for me I want to be in bed by around 7:30 because the sun goes down at 6:30 and the electricity goes out almost every night for some amount of time]

9:30 - read for as long as I can manage before I fall asleep

Then repeat they cycle for each day of the week! By the end of the week I am very tired and in need of a break.

I feel like there is so much to say, but it is really hard to organize all of my thoughts. Where I am living right now is in the mountains of the West Province. The view is breathtaking and reminds me of Colorado. If you have ever heard me talk about Colorado or seen Colorado, maybe you can understand how I feel about it.

That is all I have time for right now!

Where to begin, I have no idea… There is so much that has happened! I guess I will try to go in chronological order and go off on tangents as they happen.

Friday afternoon we landed and took our first trip in a bush taxi to our hotel. Bush taxis, hmm, how do I describe them. They are like skinny mini vans, some people may know them as jitney buses. They have about 12 seats in them, but we squish around 18 people in them. It is a very snug fit so there is no need for seat belts, we have each other.

Meals are very starchy and fatty. I was told this prior to coming but did not actually expect it. Breakfasts are very small so we have a piece of baguette and then café au lait. I am told that the coffee that we are getting at the hotel is unusual and next week when we are at our homestays it will be Nescafe. Maybe I will start trying some tea. We use sugar cubes here, which is taking some getting used to as well since I love splenda.

Lunch and dinner seem to be identical thus far, though when we start training it will be different. We have rice and potatoes and some veggies for me (others get meat or fish). And we get a coleslaw-like salad or other cut up raw veggies (no lettuce). Apparently this is also not normal, but the hotel trying to be fancy. Then we get a piece of fruit for dessert.

Saturday we started by having language and site placement interviews. This is so that we can start language classes with people on the same level of as us. And we get to talk to the placement officer about our preferences and our skills so that we can be placed appropriately for our two year service. We also took a survey bout homestay preferences. I am so excited to move into our families. We will be moving to Bamena on Thursday where we will move in with our new families for the next 10 weeks.

Sunday nothing too exciting, though we did go for a walk. While we are in the hotel we are not allowed outside because we do not have national ID cards yet. We also had dinner at the country director’s house.

Other random thoughts.

There is a night club below my hotel room and so it is hard to fall asleep before 3am (when the club closes). I am hoping to check it out sometime this week since we will soon be moving to smaller villages where we are going to spend nights with our host families.

It is a very nice temperature outside and not as rainy as I expected. But the rest of the month and October are supposed to be the rainiest times. The whole atmosphere sort of reminds me of Aruba, even the smell (although I have not seen the ocean yet). So in that respect I like it a lot. Lots of palm trees, really green everywhere even though we are in a city and rich/dark reddish muddy ground except for the main paved roads.

The Peace Corps seems to be protecting us a lot right now so as to transition well. I am trying not to question the rules too much and to understand them through their intended purpose. I want to be the most successful volunteer I can be and the training process seems to be well thought out for that purpose.

I had my first Cameroonian beer (I think its local) last night – Castel Beer. Nothing to special to speak of, but not bad. Hopefully soon I will get to try several different kinds.

I think that is it for now, if you have questions you could make a comment and then I will try to post a blog about it. I would love to hear from lots of people!

But who is counting, right. Below I talk about the marathon I did the other day, the list of my schedule for the next few days, and how packing is going.

Marathon Why would anyone purposefully run 26.2 miles. I am not sure bodies are actually built to handle it. That being said, two days later I feel great. I finished the marathon and I ran 9 minute miles finishing just under 4 hours. That was the goal that I set for myself so I am ecstatic that I was able to do it.

Running for that long is largely a mental task. Physically I knew I would be able to do because I had done two 20 mile training runs. I started out feeling great and running under 8 minute miles, then around mile 10 I broke down mentally because I decided not to get water at the last station. Regretting that decision, I had to make it to the 12 mile marker. But then I got my mind back on track around mile 13 and felt pretty good for the rest of the race.

So even though the race was mostly mental, I could definitely feel its effects physically. I waddled for the rest of the day and all day yesterday because my hips did not want to do their job. But now I do feel much better and looking back this marathon went much better than my first. And training for this did a wonderful job of keeping me sidetracked while waiting to leave for Cameroon.

Schedule

Now I only have a little bit of time left in the states and no more time left to waste.

Tomorrow, Wednesday 16, 2009: 10:30am – leave with Mom and Mary for Philly 12:00pm – lunch with Katie, Mom, and Mary in Philly 1:30pm – registration with the Peace Corps 3:00pm-7:00pm – introductory staging

Thursday 17, 2009: 6:30am – check out of hotel 7:00am – leave for clinic 9:30am – leave for JFK 5:50pm – plane departs for Brussels

Friday 18, 2009: 7:35am – land in Brussels 10:20am – plane leaves for Cameroon 4:05pm – land in Yaoundé

Friday afternoon I will be in a completely different continent, where I will be spending the next two years of my life!

Packing Fitting all of my stuff in two checked bags and two carry-ons is proving very difficult. My checked bags cannot weigh more than 80 pounds together and either one by itself cannot be more than 50 pounds. Then it must fit the requirements set for linear measurements. The length plus width plus height of both of my checked bags cannot exceed 107 inches. While this may sound like it is plenty of weight and space; I can assure you it is not. I have to fit my things that I need to live for the next two years.

So I think that I have fit everything within the framework set by the Peace Corps, but it depends on whether I measure conservatively or liberally. I hope that at the airport everything goes well!

Only 9 days left before I leave for the Peace Corps. Oddly enough, I remember this feeling like it was 3 months ago, oh right…I was nine days away from leaving for Mauritania then. But I guess now is the time to start believing that it is really going to happen. I am really leaving. I think I have most things set in order. I still have one more week of pretend school before everything changes. I have gotten most things together, but after this weekend is when I will re-pack and finish all of that stuff. This week is when I will say most of my good-byes…again! In the mean time, I am running a marathon on Sunday: The Lehigh Valley Marathon. If you get the chance, you can come by and cheer for me because I know I will need all the encouragement I can get. The race starts at 7am at the Lehigh Valley Hospital on Cedar Crest. I will be near Sand Island in Bethlehem probably around 9am (12 miles into the race). And it will end in Easton, hopefully around 11am if all goes well. For more details and actual maps: http://www.vianet.org/events/marathon/course_description.shtml

I just realized that I have not really posted anything about Cameroon specifically yet. With only 9 days left in the states I figure now is as good a time as any. History – Cameroon derives its name from the Portuguese (1472), who named it Rio dos Camarões after the abundance of shrimp in the water. After the Portuguese came the Dutch and then the Germans. In the beginning of WWI, the French and British forced out the Germans. The French took the eastern section (80%) and used a policy of assimilation, while the British took the western part (20%) and adopted indirect rule. Then in 1960 the French colony proclaimed independence and in 1961 the two colonies were reunified. The current President is Paul Biya, who has served since 1982. The country is divided into 10 provinces (8 francophone, 2 anglophone) and has over 100 active political parties. Population – approximately 19 million Language – over 239 spoken, but only French and English are official languages Religion – 50% animist/native, 30% Christian, 20% Muslim Communication – Letters will take at least two or three weeks and up to six weeks. Sometimes the mail has been weeded through, so do not send anything that is very valuable. Make sure to write ‘Par Avion’ (airmail) on any envelopes or letters that you send. While I am in training you can send packages and letters to me at the following address: Christina Stegura Peace Corps Trainee Corps de la Paix B.P. 215 Yaoundé, Cameroon I will probably get a cell phone in country to communicate with Peace Corps staff and locals. The rates to make outgoing international calls are fairly high, but I will be able to receive international calls for free. Internet cafes are popping up in all of the cities, so that will probably be the easiest way to keep up communication. Food – It has a diverse array of fruits, vegetables, meats, and grains. Local foods include: millet, plantains, beans, cassava, coco yams, sweet potatoes, okra, fish, and poultry. Luckily it sounds like being a vegetarian will not be difficult for me in this country, although up north the variety of vegetables decreases depending on the time of year. Climate – The country is sometimes called ‘Africa in miniature’ because it contains so many different landscapes. The south and east areas have rainforests and lots of rainfall; the western provinces have mountains and steep slopes; the north has grassland plateaus that transform into desert. PC in Cameroon – In 1962 (shortly after Cameroonian independence) the Peace Corps set up projects focused on education. Since then four main sectors have developed: small enterprise development, agroforestry, education, and community health. I will be working on community health. This includes mainly health promotion, education, and prevention. Health issues in Cameroon include: malaria, HIV/AIDS, diarrhea, Tuberculosis, and Filariasis [Filariae are tiny worms that develop in humans, months after they are bitten by the filaria-carrying black fly, mosquito, or deer fly. The disease usually causes problems only after many years of chronic inflammation and scarring of involved organs and tissue. Filarial flies exist primarily in the South, Center, and East provinces of Cameroon. My specific position and duities will depend on where I am eventually placed. So monre information will come on that during training.

I am now home for the rest of the summer working at the Lehigh Bookstore again. It is sort of weird to be back; I was really getting used to constant change of scenery and exploring new places. I definitely miss it.

Here are some updates from the rest of the road trip: After the farm in Oregon, we headed to Portland and stayed with Clark for a few days. Our car almost decided to give up on us there. But in the end it was only a loose vacuum and we were on our way again soon. The farm in washington did not work out though, as the farmer was leaving for a week while we were supposed to be going there. So instead we headed to the Pacific Ocean to touch its frigid waters and then meander our way back home. We were able to find another farm to stop at in Minnesota last minute.

Kara Kahl Farms in Houston, Minnesota (pernounced as the town in Texas, not 'house-ton') was a goat farm. It was a wonderful last stop to our trip because it was so different from any of the other farms. The owners raised and breeded goats. They had a small garden and were trying to start planting grapes as a side hobby. So Kevin and I helped to set up trellises for the grapes as our main project. We also got to help out with chores for the goats everyday. We even got to make goat cheese!

After a little less than a week there we were on the last leg of our trip. We had a quick stop in Chicago and then finally came back home. Overall the road trip was awesome. I learned so much more about the work it really takes to food from the ground to your plate. I also decided that it is something I want to be more aware of. I think my favorite part of the trip was the food. Having fresh eggs, milk, and vegetables at each stop along the way was amazing. Eventually when I do settle down I know that I want to find a local farmer that I can get all of these things from.

Now I am looking forward to my trip. In about one month I will leave for staging in Philadelphia and then to Cameroon! I feel like I have not really started to prepare myself at all yet. My stuff is all still packed from when I thought I was leaving for Mauritania. So I need to re-evaluate the things I have packed and repack.

In the mean time, I have finished Rosetta Stone french; but I need to make sure that I keep practicing so that I can pick up on french quickly while in Cameroon. So I am going to start trying to watch french movies and reading the news in french.

I am also keeping myself busy by training for a the Lehigh Valley Marathon that is on September 13 (about 3 days before I leave)!

And finally I am going to sit in on a few classes at Lehigh for the first 3 weeks. So I have lots to do on top of trying to make second rounds of goodbyes to everyone. Hopefully I will make it up to Ithaca for a weekend or too as well to Kevin a few times. I have come to realize that I am slightly jealous that he is going to grad school. I already miss school and it has only been a summer. I guess that means I will be going back to school when I get back from Cameroon. That is another thing to put on my list of things to do: research grad programs that I want to apply for in 2012.

It is quite weird to be planning for things so far away. But I almost feel like my life here will be put on hold for the 2 years that I am gone. Kevin and I have a list of things to do for when I get back in a little over 2 years.

Everything with Cameroon is finally starting to feel like it will really happen. So I need to starting getting everything together and get mentally prepared for this long journey. It is hard to believe that I will be finally leaving Lehigh; this place has been my home for the past four years and the valley has been my home as long as I have been alive. And now I am moving, not just to another state, or even just another country, rather I am moving to a new continent!