Acid peeing beetles

I woke up the day before yesterday with a strange itchy speckle on my arm. Didn’t surprise me considering bugs here seem to love me, but then I felt a slight burn on my left shoulder. I had a mark about the size of a hole punch that resembled a blister surrounded by little red bumps. I asked the volunteers who were at the house if they had seen anything like that and the general concensus was that an acid beetle peed on me, a little long but skinny beetle that pees acid. Not sure if it does it in defense or if its a strangely aggressive manner of marking territory. Don’t know which, but either way i don’t appreciate it easing itself on my shoulder.

Other than that, things have been going well lately, though I am very ready for the next step; to go back to the US, beg a job off of someone and figure out where I want to be going to school for my masters. I have my official departure date from Cameroon now, January 2nd, will travel for about 2 weeks around west Africa, then back to the states. Have quite a few things to take care of before then, but my trip is great motivation to get my work done so that I can get back to planning my trip.

Ramadan is over now. For the 2 days after the fete I've ended up visiting people, eating and drinking a lot of soda, and napping in between. oyi. I have never eaten so many croquettes in my life.

It's been excessively hot recently- small hot season i guess. Also lending to the fatigue.

Brain's shutting down. too hot in this small cyber, full of computers and no air circulation.

peace.

shaggy with my landlord's grandson on the outskirts of my old village market, Bare, Littoral

Monkey butt in heat... thankfully humans are a bit more discreet.

Rains are here and things are slowly turning green. Strange transformation from sahelian browns to a lush green covering almost everything. When I was initially coming up here I was convinced that I really did miss the green of the south, but now that the green has creeped its way up north, there’s a price to pay. With the green comes the humidity, bugs, flooded streets, and harsh hot sun before a down pour. Think I prefer the dry heat…

Part of my job as ‘Leader’ is making contacts with associations/ngo’s/development organizations, talk about their project base, and brainstorm ways for PC to collaborate and/or seek out small project funding through them. It’s been a strange task in that I find myself touring around countless dispersed offices, some in the most inconvenient cache’d areas, introducing myself over and over and trying to find the head of each office, which believe me, is not an easy task.

Strange thing is that the more offices I go to, the more cookie cutter all of the organizations seem to me. Of course there are differences between structure, actual output and transparency, but this province is flooded with development groups who all seem to have the same raison d’etre. And most of the program bases are mirrors of PC’s. Health/AIDS education, Agroforestry, Education, Microfinance, and usually a small sector for gender issues and women’s empowerment. Why would these small ngo’s spread themselves out so thin with their 4 person staff and limited, sometimes nonexistent budget? I’m sure it makes it easier to find exterior funding, casting a wide net. Would possibly be more effective if someone just shuffles around the whole system, designates focus programs for specific development groups or areas of exterior funding, and pump all efforts and funding in one direction. Seems like everyone is so spread out, especially their technical staff. If they are required to know a little bit about everything, how can any sort of further project development occur? There will inevitably be a ceiling where technical advancement, time, energy and funding will all limit the project’s growth. So really, what is the point of starting all of these small projects without a comprehensive idea as to how it is actually supposed to be sustainable and continually evolve.

A big shuffle. Scoop up all the cards, throw out the ones that have too many divets and stains, arrange the aces at top and arrange according to hearts diamonds spades clubs.

Or, is this really the best way to go about things, at a very microcosmic level, where you don’t have to face as many general infrastructural or political barricades. Touch down where you can and hope that it will spark a greater movement..?

There are definitely some great organizations here. Just saying that this whole development approach needs a little work. I am still wet behind the ears but I’m taking from 2 years of sitting back and watching the big cogs turn and almost one year of trying to get in the machine. Developpement durable. Hm.

Anyway, I’m getting ready to go back to the states for an indeterminant period of time and have been constantly ruminating over what I’m going to do with myself when I hit American soil. Probably just want to come back to the red African soil I’ve gotten so used to.

A few steps before that can happen again though. Some school, some work, and some major networking.

glorious limbe...was sitting at down beach from late afternoon late into the evening, eating grilled baraccuda and shrimp, drinking large beers, and watching the sun go down...

So, I tried to get up this itty bity mountain that gives you a great view of Maroua.

didn't work out so well. I was not feeling so well before going up, but really that's just a lame excuse. it was also in the late afternoon, so, hot. also a slightly lame excuse. basically... i started up this big hill with a bunch of volunteers and ended up hanging out about a third of the way up with some kids who bounced alongside us, waiting for the rest of the group to go to the summit and come back down and get me. i was okay with that because the kids were terribly cute and the view was pretty good from where i sat.

more about it some other time... when I have time to type. internet clock a ticking...

cute little lizards that are all over the place here. This particular one is outside of my house on that crazy tree i posted a picture of earlier. Next, the dining room in my house... made the curtains and table cloth myself... now my living room, carpet donated by good friend Kate, curtains again all me and my long nights by myself when i first got here, and furniture sent up by Peace Corps well after I already got up here... helmet storage system i devised-big nails in wall...and lastly, another pic of waza watering hole---big frickin birds...

a wuyki na? (are you drunk? cuz you're acting crazy)

fulfulde busting my brain...

just finished the IST today, which was fantastic, but now i really think my head is going to bust open.

don't have much time but i am going to list a few of my favorite phrases/nuances we've learned...

naa min dab'ba - we are not animals (as in 'don't pack 7 people into this row seats that is only supposed to seat 4)

njamdi gotel saalibee minti sappo e jowi - 1:15 (why it's so long, anyone's guess)

taa fiju bee texas - don't mess with texas

waalugo (wattugo, hawtugo) bee debbo wala kondom - unprotected sex (for those health volunteers)

k, that's its for now...

sey yeeso

more photos from waza...

watering hole and strange fruit on a totally barren tree.

just started fulfulde classes this week. man...

Hande mi summi. today i am tired.

one example as to how this language is crazy - to say 250 Fcfa you say 'dala teemere didi bee sappo' which literally means 210, but get this, 'teemere didi' means 200, but 'sappo' means 10. money goes in measurements of 5 so you multiply the ten by 5 to get the fifty... here's another, 95 fcfa - 'dala sappo e jowe nayi' 'sappo'=ten, 'jowe nayi'= 5+4 (9), hence 19 x 5....=95 francs...

WTF

think bargaining in the market is giong to be a bit difficult...

love it though. my brain hurts but it's good to jog those cells sometimes.

k, peace love

...Waza...

big park north of Maroua. lots of monkeys on the way up to the park, swinging, sitting on the tops of trees, crossing the road in packs... didn't see any elephants or lions like i hoped, but can't really force those things to happen. antelope, tons of lovely birds, and interesting terrain... giraffes, monkeys and ostriches too...

first photo is a watering hole with a ton of antelopes, second-cool bird nest, third-birds along a green strip by a watering hole (self-explanatory).

great sunset outside of Ngaoundere, the city where the train stops and i get on a bus for Maroua. that's really all Ngaoundere is to me ;). No, actually it's a really cool city with great restaurants and my fellow PCVL Stacy. been a long time since ive made it down there, but someday.....

here's a stunning girl selling anacardium fruit (the fruit that you get cashews from after an extremely long, complex, and hazardous process that hasn't been introduced here yet, or not that i know of at least. you see the little grey thingy on top of the yellow fruit? that's where the cashew is hiding. guess there's some kind of acid protecting that precious little nut.

third picture is of my leg and shadow while zipping along on a moto to Bogo. sometimes i try to get sneaky photos while on the back of a moto but most of the time they end up blurred or of the ground. i'll figure it out eventually.

this first picture is of a crazy tree inside my consession right next to the front gate and the 3 car port. it turns into an insane bird sanctuary around 2 or 3 in the afternoon - there's an unbelievable variety of birds that come around. then at dusk the very large bats come swooping out. second picture is my house, looking at it with that tree to my right. its from just inside the gate of the large barrier around the house.

crazy, huh? it's been a pain in the butt, but really, its a lovely place...

now to vent about the craziness that has hit my fan....

Why things are so difficult, I don’t know, but I think it has something to do with…

Lack of a solid education system

Level of corruption at every level of everything here

Communication barriers (not just between me and some here, but Cameroonians between themselves even-either cultural, tribal, experience/education levels…etc.)

Sometimes completely unreliable cell phone service

All communication based on cell phones to begin with

Unreliable transport systems

Shit roads

What else can I bitch about…

I do still love being here, it’s just that for some damn reason every thing that should be simple to take care of becomes a complete and utter debacle. I’m finally getting things together at my house, but jesus… I’ve been here since the 23rd January (in Maroua) and it has been nothing but a struggle to get things going at my house and now I’m stuck in my house waiting for a ‘technician’ to fix the air conditioning unit he supposedly fixed the day before yesterday. I am sitting here with a long list of things I need to take care of around town in front of me trying not to be mad. The AC unit worked for a total of 8 hours after he ‘fixed’ it and then after all of the Freon leaked out of a hole that he failed to weld closed, he’s back, welding away on my front patio and had the gall to ask me to pay to refill the gas. I spent more than $182 replacing the compressor and refilling the gas Monday and he asked me to refill the gas that leaked out because of his negligence. Fuck. I laid into him and though he didn’t fully understand the points I was giving him about why it is absolutely ridiculous that he asked me to do that, he accepted to go out and look for a way to fix it… sucks to think that I have to just assume that someone is going to rip me off or do a shitty job until they prove me wrong. Fuck.

Don’t mess with me today. I’m throwing around ‘je suis un vrai Bamileke’ left and right.

Didn’t think I would have to pull that card up here, but extreme frustration calls for heavy words.

Okay, now that I got that out of my system, all is well… I had a lovely day yesterday and will again tomorrow. Just need to get through today.

Breathe…..

air conditioning hopping

funny, because in the states i wasn't the biggest fan of air conditioning. but now seems to be a big pull for any thing im trying to do throughout the day. bank, check. internet, check. protocol with big men int he city, check, check, check...

hopefully ill be able to get the old fixtures in my house fixed, though im pretty sure if the technician can do anything with these things, they'll probably sound like there's a lawnmower rolling over our tin roof... here's to hoping...

getting back to it...

ciao

y

okay, so for those of you who have been complaining about my lack of photos, im working on it.... petit a petit.

these are from my old village, a bit outdated, but i have photos coming from up here in hot hot hot land soon.

still hot and getting hotter. getting into a rhythm, slowly but surely. can't keep waiting for my water to be turned on to get acclimated to my surroundings.

don't have much time to write. be back to you soon....

ciao

hot hot hot

107 degrees today

not abnormal and i guess this isnt even really hot. ive never had sweat collect behind my knees. but there it is. at least im not molding like i was in the littoral.

women's day was quite different from my last 2 years. i didnt get anything made with the hideous pagne they had this year, so i didn't feel really all that much solidarity with the women marching in the blaring sun, but that's alright. im still new in this city and don't have a group that i would have felt good about marching with.

was introduced to a lovely pool at a hotel with ostriches and cold drinks. its heavenly when there arent too many crazy kids peeing and splshing around in it ;) think the month of april im just going to put on my bathing suit first things in the morning, go do whatever work i have lined up, then run straight to the pool. thank goodness for chlorine and coolers.

k, agin, need to get out of this cyber. hot hot hot

A week of craziness.

If you look at the past week’s news reports of what’s been going on in Cameroon you’d read about raised gas prices, riots, looting, and things being set on fire… Fortunately for us in the grand north, these things were merely reports seen on the news and heard through messages sent to us by Peace Corps administration. Many volunteers down south were consolidated in provential capitals or in more serious cases, Yaounde.

From what I gathered of what was going on down south, seems as though the gas price hike initiated a general taxi/public transport strike that was originally thought was going to be contained in Douala. This strike did not stay in the sweaty port of Douala, but spread like wildfire throughout the grand south. I only have second hand accounts of what was happening down there: Buildings and tire fires in Bafoussam. Western villages flipping cars, looting, and people parading around bearing machetes and sticks. Tear gas dropped by helicopters in Yaounde. Shootings at the Texaco station outside of the Peace Corps office.

There were warnings of unrest creeping its way up north, but on the streets of Maroua I could sense nothing but the heat of the dry season hitting. But still, all volunteers were on standfast, which means that everyone was required to stay put, except those without cell phone service in their area. They had to go somewhere where they could be in constant contact with Peace Corps administration. What that meant for me, in the land of no riots or looting, that I had quite a few volunteers staying at my house while waiting for admin to give us word as to what was going on down south and whether or not we were going to be evacuated like many other Americans and other foreign groups here in Cameroon. I have to say that it was a nice week of cooking amazing big meals, taking care of a few things here and there, and constantly checking my text messages to hear about things happening 2 days travel from where I was. We were all still tense at moments, usually when we would get updates from Yaounde, but never anywhere close to the stress put on everyone down south.

Thankfully the unrest bated, we are no longer on standfast, and ‘all is well’. I honestly don’t know what things feel like down there, but inevitably the volunteers are shaken up with the tension still palpable around them. nous verrons ce qu'arrivera.

Otherwise, things have been moving along au domicile. I have been fighting to get the water turned on at my house, which still hasn’t happened, but will hopefully in the next few days. My landlord is a very wealthy Tchadian woman who owns, what I’ve been told, around 100 houses/properties around Maroua. Amadou, my administrative contact up here in the grand north has been fighting to get her to sign all of the necessary contracts signed by her, fighting because she kept changing the rent. We went to her house the day before yesterday and I got to see first hand all that Amadou has had to deal with the past few months with her. She called him sheesh (cheap) numerous times and couldn’t understand why he was fighting so hard to get the price that they had originally agreed upon months ago. Mind you, I have been living in this house for more than a month now, have already invested over $300 on cleaning, repairs, and the installation of new light fixtures and whatnot, all the time dealing without having running water. She was basically just pushing her weight, laughing, joking and insulting along the way as I sat there thinking of how terrible it would be if we had to pack up and move out of this gigantic house I’ve already put so much work into. Now all documents are signed, thank god, and I can start feeling as if I can get settled here.

The heat is already insane. It’s creeping up to the 100’s and I find myself waking up sweating profusely. Need to prep myself for April, the month when things get realllly hot I guess. If I have water by then, I’ll be a happy lady.

Things are not easy, but I guess that’s how it is. Found a lovely pool at a hotel close by where I can escape the dry heat momentarily, I have a small, very old, but somewhat functioning refrigerator and lots of ceiling fans to keep my proteins from deconstructing. Hopefully I won’t become a pile of mush before January 2009.

Oh Cameroon.

must get out of this internet cafe. im getting eaten alive by mosquitos.

peace

long time passes.....

and.....

im back.

havent been very good with keeping up my blog, but now that i am within walking distance to one, it's quite nice. maybe ill post once a week or something crazy like that.

i am now in Maroua, settling into my house slowly but surely, and trying my best to not get discouraged as things always take unbelievably longer to do than they should or that i ever thought they would. this city is amazing, with gorgeous gigantic neem trees lining almost every road, people breaking and praying on the side of the road and in community mosques around every corner, wonderful food and ambiance. just setting up a gigantic house is not easy stuff.

fresh milk, cheese, fish and beef that's ready to be eaten almost every day...

frustrated because i want to start fulfulde, i want to break through the timid nature of many women here (i kinda miss my bouge'in mamas down south), and get running water at my house.

but the +'s are still outweighing the negatives.

this is short for now, but i will keep on it.

next time.

sooooo...

new trainees coming in today... i'm one of three PCV hosts, which means i get to greet the new kids at the airport, run around town getting cellphones and exchanging money, and kicking it at the hotel with them until they get sent off to their homestay families in Bangangte... good stuff. i'm excited and hope to find my perfect replacement among the group of 22 agroforestry volunteers coming (don't think i'll actually be able to have a say in who my replacement will be, but, on va voire).

i'm leaving Bare/Cameroon in december, but only for a short stint. i've chosen to extend for a third year, and this extra 12 months i will spend in an area totally different from the one i've been living in for the past 2 years. i'm going to be int he extreme north in a city called Maroua working as a PCV Leader, meaning i'll be momma bear to many volunteers. think i got the position because i make a mean banana bread and pineapple pie. ;)

the people are chill (predominantly muslim, therefore no excessive drinking and harassment from drunk men - major plus), there are lots of sand streets lined with gigantic neem trees, i'll work more on my french and learn some fulfude, and live on the best meat and biggest mangos i have ever seen (lots of cows...and mangos you can take full bites into without hitting pit).

i will still be doing a lot of environment based agroforestry projects, thankfully. i have a lot to learn but am feeling really good about the change.

another year in cameroon... funny to think about where i was and what i was doing just 2 years ago... and how my interests have shifted and become more focused. for some reason i thought being a peace corps volunteer would be a distraction, a diversion from what i should be doing, but really, its just getting me closer to where i want to be... funny how that works.

Life en brousse has swallowed me whole…

It has been a very long time since I’ve updated my blog.

Things have been progressing well, though it seems as though time has been slipping away from me as I try to get all of my projects running smoothly. I constantly find myself wishing that there were at least 3 of me to run around and meet with farmers/eleveurs and another clone to just hang out with some of my favorite people in their outdoor kitchens or at the nearest raffia wine shack. There’s never enough time and after 6 days in row in the field I’m way too wiped out to do anything more than shuffle around my house trying to pound some laundry or attack the never ending pile of dishes I seem to always manage to have. Forcing myself to take a breather is the hardest thing, but most of the time my body forces me to slow down. I get sick and am consequently stuck in my house for 2 days recouperating, all the while feeling like a caged animal with the things I would prefer to be doing rolling around in my head.

Sounds like I’m going crazy, eh?

But not really. I am already having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that I’m going to be leaving this place in December. I want to see my projects through, not necessarily to the end, but to a point where I can pass them along with a sane and steady hand… Time’s short and I am going to have to ween myself away from this place at some point. Just don’t know if the end of the year is the time for me.

Sounds all dandy, but of course there are times when I want to run away screaming… those are usually the times I feel a bout of malaria hitting me, or the 5 moot moot bites that day, or it’s the day I have to take my weekly nauseating dose of notezine. I can stand some of the random derangement now and am numb to some things that used to bother me, it’s just when my physical well being is being attacked from the inside that my defenses go down and I just want to go home and eat some Sapporo ichiban ramen with egg on my parents’ couch.

Small scale in field development is a difficult thing. Most of the people I work with understand why I’m here and what I have to offer, but there’s always someone, every time I go into town, every time I step out of my work orb, I encounter who thinks I’m just here to give out things, be it money, seeds, money, pigs, money, chemical feritilizers, or of course money. Or, really I’m here to find a husband to take back to my mansion in the concrete jungle. I’m exhausted by the neverending explanations/arguments I’m obliged to throw out, now from rote memory. At least I’ve given out a few helpful tutorials on how to approach an asian person… greeting politely in French or English instead of the loud goat like “HEE HAW!” we usually get. If I could only find that fricking singer who decaler’s and decouper’s his way unto my ever increasing hit list.

Here are some things that may surprise you…

Common misconceptions about the United States of America I’ve gathered in my area of Bare-Bakem

-every square meter of land is covered in cement

-it’s connected to or the same thing as Europe

-EVERYONE is rich with a nice house en dure

-everyone is WHITE (generally noone here sees anything other than black and white-which makes me by default white)

-the US was totally uninhabited when Christopher Columbus discovered it

-Americans brought AIDS to Africa (because of the first well documented case in 1981)

-education is generally easier (grade school, high school)

-that if someone here could just get over there, it would be easy to find someone to marry within a few weeks-which may be true, but not within the circles I run with…

These are the subjects of many of my conversations with various people in my village. I do feel relatively good if I do actually get somewhere with it, but after the 100th time discussing the things people have learned either in school or through word of mouth, well, c’est fatiguent. And of course there are those who will not listen to a word I say and will die holding on to their prefered faulty view of the US. So be it. I tried.

Other than combating random stigmas and misinformation, my days consist of zipping around with my favorite mototaxi Carlos (and deftly avoiding his subtle advances), seeking people out in their community fields, transplanting trees, making sure my ladies are weeding their garden, and promoting the sale of seeds to others who are constantly asking me to work with them. Not a bad gig, I must say, though with the frequency I wear myself thin and get sick, I’m not sure if I can continue like this indefinitely. Maybe in a bureau job with field visits (god, am I saying this)… my body and spirit are constantly at war living where I’m living. I am in the field I am basically living where I work (though my living situation is significantly better than most around me). I am surrounded by possibilities for work, but am already stretched too thin. Too much to do and only me to do it for the moment.

So that’s it for now. I'll try to be better about updating this thing...

Yune Lee, PCV Littoral signing out…

Got to shake the hand of the Japanese ambassador last Wednesday.

Wun da ful. He was here with the representative of the first lady of Cameroon to inaugerate the new women’s center that is about to open here in my little ville of Bare. This center has many Singer foot powered sewing machines, 10 computers (and hopefully internet sometime before I leave), a classroom for lectures, a cooking classroom, and a coiffure classroom. So funny that it was being built all this time without my knowing. Bizarre. Now it seems as though I may be teaching some classes there.

Hundreds of ladies showed up for the inauguration, dancing and chanting, sweating in the hot afternoon sun, all waving their GIC plaques. I was sitting up above with many elites from Yaounde, Douala, and Nkongsamba, wishing I was down below with my ladies dancing. You can call me villegoise if you’d like, but I guess that is really the Cameroon I know…in the fields with my farmers, in the traditional kitchen with my ladies, hiking up the terrible road to Mpaka and beyond.

It was a wonderful day though, full of fanfare and singing. Then I was ushered off to the reception at the sousprefet’s house to feast with the elites. An amazing table setting…Cameroonian buffets are a sight to behold especially at the sousprefet’s house. There was much confusion as to who I was. Many thought I was with the ambassador, which is understandable. When I threw out some Mbo salutations to friends, people around me jumped backed, confused and curious. It was more obvious that I was not with the ambassador when he did a double take walking out of the sousprefet’s house and shook my hand. No more than a smile and a shake and he was on his way back to Yaounde, most likely a little baffled by my quiet and sudden presence on his way out the door.

Now that I’ve resurfaced from en brousse and beyond back into the Bare spotlight, the radio interviewers are hot on my tail. I really have no interest in being interviewed again but it seems that I’m doing some sort of injustice to the arrondissement du Bare-Bakem if I don’t…maybe I can get a collection of music together and just do a music show. I know many Cameroonians will love some of the music I got from Ryan Lewis, appropriate named fo’ cheesy by him and Rick. Though I must admit I haven’t listened to much of it, I will subject the ears of many in Bare to the vocal stylings of bands like Ace of Base and Arrested Development if I get suckered into actually speaking on the air. Tee hee.

okay, enough for now

…My first bout with malaria…

It’s been an eventful few weeks. Yaounde, always a flurry of activity, was lovely-filled with work, pool (yes there is a bar with a cheap pool table-I like to pretend I am shark there), bars, coffee breaks, meetings, dancing, and a night with all of the new health and agro stagieres going to the north. I hung out at the Hotel Jouvence for an evening, the same place I had been ushered into as a stagiere exactly one year before. Chatted with many soon to be hard-core north and extreme north agro volunteers trying to give the best responses as possible to their multitude of questions. Hope I didn’t scare any of them.

One of my meetings throughout the week was with Lisette Nkoue, a former Swiss ambassador who funds all many projects in my village. She is incidentally about to open a women’s and computer training center right by the radio station that once upon a time my voice bellowed from when I first got to post (also built, organized and funded by her and the Japanese embassy). An amazing woman who wants desperately to do her best to help the people in my zone any way she can. Her husband, Max, is an architect and just as sweet as Lisette. I spent a lovely afternoon with the two of them in their gorgeous house in Bastos with two large Labradors pouncing around outside, a houseboy cooking us lunch, an unbelievable collection of art surrounding me and a white Mercedes outside waiting to take me back to Peace Corp headquarters. It was a surreal moment when I found myself staring at a picture of Mme Biya and Lisette shaking hands, the same woman who picked me up wearing spandex running pants telling me that her home is now my home.

Anyway, in addition to the centre d’informatique that they have been working on, Max wants to open an arts center, which of course makes me giddy though I won’t be here for much of the actual functioning of the center. I only have about 14 months left of service considering there isn’t a building, funding, supplies or teachers yet, well, I think it’s safe to assume that I will only be helping with initial ideas and designs. At least I can help them get it moving. Lisette and I went to the Institut de Formation Artistique in Mbalmayo to talk to the director and to see how their institute was organized (and of course if they could help in any way). Such an amazing place with a great ceramics studio, three electric kilns, one traditional, a full woodshop, a sculpture studio, and many painting and life drawing studios. I guess they also offer interior design and textiles studios. Such an amazing place.

A few days after my country director Robert Strauss, his family, and a family of friends from the US came to my post to pay a little visit…wow did my ladies put together a reception. Kodi o Christo came out to greet us as we pulled up in a Peace Corp landcruiser. I’m surprised the little one’s didn’t start crying because there was suddenly an insane amount of commotion as 25 Cameroonian women came at us running, hugging and singing and yelling and dancing. We did a tour of the medicinal garden and a few of the porcheries. We moved on to the general meeting room where we chatted and listened to Blandine, a younger member of K o C read an essay greeting my director… after they fed us we rushed our way to Singa where another GIC was waiting for us, all the while eyeing the clouds coming in. Another warm welcome though we only stayed there long enough to eat some pineapple. We had to get out of there tout suite because of the rain and as Robert maneuvered the Landcruiser up ridiculous roads in pouring rain I chatted with his wife and friends, all of us just trying to stay as calm as possible. Funny how I don’t even realize how treacherous my roads are until I’m on them with strangers, especially my country director, his family, and close friends. He did a wonderful job getting us out of there, considering we were literally at a 45 degree angle at certain points. Thank god for reliable seat belts. I don’t ever want to take the road in a car again. Motos are the way to go.

Later that night I realized, as my pulse tried to slow down, that I was really sick…I knew something was brewing but I kept pushing it back thinking that I was just tired or fighting off a bug…after a few days of sweating and delirium, I finally got my finger pricked at the hospital in Nkongsamba, and lo and behold, my blood was teeming with malaria. Fun… I always tried to pull it together when I opened my door to the multitudes of visitors who all seemed to pick the same few days to come around. But when I closed my door, I was hallucinating left and right, changing my clothes 8 times a day because I was sweating through everything or freezing, and tossing and turning in my bed. Although hallucinating in Cameroon is interesting and brought many different insights and insane dreams into my African experience, I don’t want it to happen again.

Another crazy thing, my APCD George Yebit, the man who was in charge of my Agroforestry program, just died in Maroua 2 weeks ago. I went to his enterrement last weekend in Bali, a beautiful village outside of Bamenda, where we sat under the pulpit of a Presbyterian preacher in a packed church and listened to his family and colleagues sing the praises of my now deceased boss. The preacher was an amazing character, glowing white teeth in a large gaping mouth, animated in a way I have never seen. As the bats above woke up to his booming voice I couldn’t help feeling as though I was sitting in some sort of universal hiccup… I forget often that things are totally out of my control sometimes. Being in this country has brought that reality back to me in an undeniable true form. Do what you can but accept what you can’t change.

So there’s my last couple of weeks. I hope things calm down for a little while. I’m used to monumental things happening with at least a week of down time, field time in between. Once I get my energy level is normal again, it’ll back to the original program… small small time.

Ciao

Moment of insanity.

This was brought on by the realization that the unbelievably loud electronic songs that shatter my ‘en brousee’ tranquility are now to be a permanent part of my next 17 months. The doi that passed a few months ago brought in many visitors and family of my landlord, and hence, many gifts. Bundles of plantains, koki, children to do everyone’s bidding (by far the highest commodity), and a clock… a clock that has quickly become the bane of my existence. I do not have a concrete image of this clock since I have not stepped foot in my landlord’s house for quite some time, but I imagine this thing to be made of molded white plastic of a misleadingly simple in design, with cartoon characters and musical notes haphazardly painted on its 2 dimensional face. Times New Roman text, restricted to a primary color palette, and deceivingly quaint, most likely bearing a ‘made in china’ gold seal on top of the battery slide. The only real identifying characteristic would be the gigantic megaphone attached to the bottom of it that bleats a random song every hour, on the hour, followed by a (not even trying to sound like a) bell...an electronic clang that signals the hour. I believe the last song at 19.00 was twinkle twinkle little star, which sounds like it may be pleasant in the twilight hours of the day. Perhaps it would be if it wasn’t blaring through my bedroom window as if through a blowhorn. Oh the Chinese will do me in beyond everyone exerting that I am one.

Otherwise things are going well. i've been exhausting myself and walking through the rain far too often. its funny because everyone thinks im going to die of malaria because i dare to walk through light sprinkles, and perhaps i shouldnt since i do find myself more often than not sick and fatigued. lesson learned.

just built a live fence with my ladies today for their medicinal garden. its going to be lovely if they actually keep up with it. we will see. my ladies fight without pause and for someone with a runny nose and pounding headache, it was absolutely unbearable. someday ill actually get some more photos on this site.

okay, more updates to come.

ciao

so, the moon is tempering the rains, or so im told...

ive been getting around a bit since the rains have been holding off for the past week... its nice, though i had a fever of 103 about a week and a half ago and terrible shivers. nothing more frustrating than having a gorgeous day with much potential for hiking or schmoozing and being stuck in the house, especially when i dont know i will be able to again.

but the fever has passed, im running around trying to get my schedule under control. i seem to be constantly fighting the rains, trying to plan things but always adding the disclaimer, 'if its raining trot, im not going to be able to make it'.

i recently participated in a cane rat raising formation...and let me tell you, those are some very large rats. i had classes for three days in a large warehouse, surrounded by cane rat cages, taking frantic notes (note:i will take a picture of some of my notes and get them on here. they are hilarious-a melange of french, really bad phen. french, english, and hastily drawn pictures) on how to keep these guys alive, breeding and happy, with every break being hands on practice... by practice, i mean cleaning rat poo, cutting and drying fourrage, mixing grains, corn, and son cube, and swatting at bugs i never saw that bit every exposed piece of skin on me. these biting bugs in this country are wearing slowly away at my sanity. its going to be an intensive project and i still need to seek out funding for my farmers to buy their materials to build their cages... if anyone wants to make a small (by american standards) but large ( by cameroonian bush farmer standards), please contact me. im working on an official request, but a kind soul, or multiple kind souls working together, who have 300 us dollars to spare could help about 45 farmers build 18 concrete rat cages en brousse, chez moi. how wonderful would that be?

okay, running out of time... more updates coming bientot.