Throughout my time in Cameroon (currently winding down at a ludicrous pace), I've been lucky enough to receive tons of support packages and notes from family and friends. This alone is not so extraordinary; pretty much all volunteers these days do. What makes me proud is how much stuff I received that wasn't for me, but for friends, colleagues and particularly kids here who have no other mode of access to common things like eyeglasses, office supplies and toys. Every bit of it has been accepted with joy, and I wanted to take this blog entry (a rarity as everyone knows) to say grand merci to everyone that's supported me here and donated. I'm not big on weepy, cheesy emails, but I know how much it costs to send this stuff, and making the effort for people one will never meet or here a 'thank you' from is positively courageous, and I am proud to be coming home to people with such spirit.

I recently received 3 packages around the same time with toys for children (including a huge one from employees at Disney), and decided it was simply too much to just give away. Handouts aren't really the Peace Corps's scene. Instead, I conducted a village-wide essay contest at the grade schools, in which the kids learned how to make action plans and work together to solve community problems. They were asked to write a plan to combat HIV/AIDS among youth (unfortunately, risk begins in grade school here), the problem of few girls in school, or the lack of village hygiene and sanitation. We received over 300 responses, varying from 'AIDS is sorcery, so we should kill all witches' to detailed plans of village clean-up and condom distribution. I had never really worked in the school system, so it was enlightening to attempt a session with 100 kids in one classroom, many who still struggle with basic French. We awarded prizes to the top five essays from each school, including t-shirts, bookbags and binoculars (strangely the biggest hit), and I sincerely wish I had more time to spend there.

The group who will replace my mine has already arrived and started training about 25 miles from me; it's really starting to feel like the end. I'm currently trying to resurrect my academic writing ability in order to apply to law schools, but making myself write papers and personal statements after 2 years of repeated daily napping is harder than you'd think.

My official arrival date on American soil is Dec. 20th, and I'll be busy with holidays and completely replenishing my wardrobe for a while, but I would appreciate current cell numbers or other contacts any time between now and then. Only, of course, if you'd like me to wish you a merry Christmas. Otherwise, I'll temporarily post my new number on facebook or somewhere once I get it, so if you want to take the initiative instead, fine by me. Just don't make me hunt you down. I mean seriously, I'll have enough to do.

That about wraps her all up; I hope everyone is enjoying fall and the leaves changing and Halloween and whatnot. I think I will once again go as a dirty development worker.

Slav

I recently attended a mind-bending event: my Close of Service Conference. Contrary to popular belief, I am actually leaving Cameroon, and rather soon. Of course I have mixed feelings about this, but overall I'm really happy to get back to a place where my clothes fit properly and people can't ridicule me to my face, while I stand there smiling like an idiot, eating my banana. 'White girl eats too much' my ass.

Before arriving at the conference, I tooled around Cameroon with a friend, getting an idea of exactly what kind of country I've been living the past few years. Turns out, a pretty cool one. In nearly everything you read about Cameroon (which is a whole lot for most of you I'm sure), the country's labeled "Africa in miniature." Now, during training I heard this a few dozen times and for some reason thought only of shoebox panoramas and how fun those were to create in grade school, effectively forgetting I was even in Cameroon, let alone the phrase and how it applied to my life in the near future. After touring the country, I get it. Cameroon is geographically a perfect shoebox panorama of the African continent. I live in the Sahel, very similar to the Sahara, but a touch less sparse. Further south, one finds legit jungle in the east, rolling mountains that look straight out of Lord of the Rings (granted, less so than the NZ mountains actually filmed for the movies) in the west, really dirty and unorganized urban sprawl in the center, and palm trees EVERYWHERE. Cameroon's the size of Texas, with the climatic variation of the whole United States. Ok, this is probably exaggeration; it still never goes below 50 degrees. Anywho.

We first went to visit Ryan, the volunteer who used to live in Bibemi with me, at his new post in Baffoussam in the West Province. The city is located up in the mountains, so I was fricking freezing the whole time. Like, I had to wear thick socks and a sweatshirt to bed, under 3 blankets. And I'm coming home for Christmas? Things are much greener there, and generally more developed, due to its proximity to the capitols. (I got WAY too excited about buying a whisk for my kitchen.) While in the north women generally wear the traditional garb all the time, regardless of age, it's relatively rare to see someone young wearing it down south. Western clothing is available in greater quantities there, and the dominant culture is Christian, much more accepting of hoochie attire (in this context, jeans and sleeveless tops). The general thinking is that Northern women are more attractive, but Southern women let you see it. Don't ask me why I know this.

After Baf, we swung down to Douala, which is the industrial and commercial capitol of Cameroon, due mainly to the fact that it's a port city, with all the cheap Chinese electronics and haircare products I've grown to love arriving daily by the boatful. Douala's also Cameroon's biggest and most well-developed city, but also its most obvious example of the economic stratification plaguing the country. I saw some pretty ridiculous mansions a few blocks up from the grossest red-light district I've ever seen, and American-style restaurants (this is the only place in Cameroon with a significant American population outside embassy walls) with more beggars hanging around them than the whole of Washington, D.C. But all this is to be expected I suppose. The city as a whole was rather beautiful, and showed me that there is in fact a lot more going on in Cameroon than growing peanuts and having babies.

We stayed with my friend's sister, who has a swank apartment there, and is building one of those ridiculous mansions I was talking about. She spends a third of her year in Cameroon, and the rest in Portugal with her husband who plays soccer there. She was interesting to meet, since she was born in my village, but ended up with a great job in the capitol, and eventually an extremely successful husband. She had quite a lot to say about the woman situation in Cameroon, and acknowledged that a good portion of her success was based on family connections, looks and luck. While she's clearly very intelligent, and this is a lot of modesty, it still wasn't very encouraging.

Beach plans were rained out (tis the season in Cameroon), so we stayed a few extra days in Douala, eating ice cream and watching the Olympics (and my story abruptly becomes dated), then headed back to Yaoundé for my conference.

They put all the volunteers up in le Mont Fébé, probably the nicest hotel in Yaoundé (maybe tied with the Hilton) as a sort of a thank you for completing the two years (there are plenty that don't). We sat through talks on life after the Peace Corps, where to start job searches, how to not look like a freak in your first interview by mixing in French words or clicking randomly, etc. I found it all extremely useful, and it finally hit me that this stage of things is about over. I've spent so much time not thinking about the end, that it's come up fast and blindsided me.

After the conference, I had a week to kill before starting another seminar, so I traveled to the English-speaking Northwest Province. Bamenda, the provincial capitol, is located in the valley between a few mountains, and is even colder that Baffoussam. I assumed the English would be refreshing, but it ended up more stressful than I could have imagined, and I spent the whole time wishing I could just speak French. Why, you ask? Cameroonian English is heavily accented, vaguely British, and full of some of the weirdest vocabulary and phrasing outside of A Clockwork Orange. Instead of saying 'please,' little kids would 'beg me in the name of God' to do menial things like shake their hand or give them an empty water bottle. A common greeting is 'how is the day?' and sometimes (my favorite), just 'how?' Don't be confused; the answer is still 'fine.' Pidgin is thrown in everywhere. Someone saying 'me don go' actually means 'I'm going,' though the phrase is almost phonetically identical to 'me don't go,' implying the opposite. In short, English-speakers are wacky.

Now I'm back in my hood, and settling in for the last three months. It would figure that now I would have way too much to do, after I spent July basically sitting on my thumbs, watching the rain destroy my mud wall. That just means time will go even quicker, and I'll be back sipping eggnog and wearing several sweaters before I know it. Until then, I beg you people in the name of God…to have a good fall. SLAV

 

Following the presidential campaigns from a decidedly not-American context, I've never been so grateful for our democratic process, the choices it affords (however slightly the choices vary), and the civic activity it inspires. I mean, I'm living in a place where politicians literally show up in a village with wads of dollar bills to pay for votes (apparently they haven't yet discovered the efficiency of tax breaks and defense contracts) and where supporting the opposition party is a little like trying to keep a cougar as a domestic pet, nearly always a lost cause, and sometimes dangerous. I'm also a little embarrassed at how detailed the campaign trail is reported here in Cameroon (how does a piece on Obama's relationship with his pastor honestly trump an update on the continued unrest in Chad? It's like 50 miles east! And why should the dude that sells me fruit care about Obama anyway?). The plotline of the soap opera that interests me the most however, is the plight of Hilary Clinton, equal parts impressive and maddening, but never less than fascinating. For anyone afraid I've decided to go political, don't worry, this all ties into my thoughts on African development and my experiences thereof. I have nothing to say about the campaign; I probably won't even vote. And don't you think if I was going to go Jane Fonda (too dated a reference?), I would have done it in college as a political science major like all those other Young Republican assholes?

Anywho, what interests me about Hilary is the masculine/feminine tap dance she is forced to perform in order to appeal to American voters. She obviously can't be a weepy, impulsive girl who hesitates to bomb an Iraqi textile mill for fear of 'ruining all the pretty fabric,' but the days of Margaret Thatcher are over, and neither can she don her trusty strap-on (we all know she has one) and storm around the white house, ordering the bombing of daycares and halfway houses, in between picking fights with the bodyguards. She must be convincingly pragmatic and holistic, understanding and decisive, sensitive but not sentimental. She must be identifiably feminine, but masculine enough to lead in the traditional sense of the Presidency. (The way I see it, we're simply not yet ready for a feminine Chief of State without that last qualification.) For my money, she did and is doing an ok job, though she still comes off too butch for many people's taste, and for a while I just accepted that it had to be that way. But then I took a look at my locality in Cameroon.

The situation of women in Africa (and Cameroon as my choice microcosm) varies a lot, but nowhere is it close to the progress western women enjoy. I occasionally grumbled in the States about vague discriminations I read or heard about, though only for solidarity's sake, because the truth is, I'd never experienced real, overt sexism. This isn't to say I'm not aware of the entrenched, insidious sexual assumptions that hinder women in the workplace and social situations without them even realizing it; I'm saying that stuff looks so incredibly minor compared to what I witness here daily. It's like me whining that my soup is cold while the chick next to me is being eaten alive by a shark that just jumped out of her bowl. I still have the right to complain, but understanding her plight (and indeed how the crap a shark can survive or even fit in a bowl of soup) will render me all the more informed in my quest.

I'm not going to go into just how thoroughly women's rights are eroded, or how bleak many of their lives are, because quite frankly it's a downer, and nothing that hasn't been written about numerous times. If you really want the skinny, I'll be happy to oblige you in the form of a personal email, decorated with clip art flowers and balloons to make you feel better. What applies here is the fact that for women with the luck to be raised with money, resources and education, things are decidedly better. There are even some ministers who are female, as well as school directors, doctors, and other elected officials. Such was not the case 20 years ago, so no one can argue that things aren't moving right along. What these women have in common with Clinton is that theoretically, they should be doing the same tap dance. They're women in positions of unprecedented power, in a country that in general still views women as worthless when childless and across-the-board capricious to a fault. But these women aren't tapping. They're not even line-dancing. They're doing their jobs, unabashedly female and making no apologies for it. They still take care of the household (though normally with help), dress delicately (in Muslim garb if applicable), and tend to bring a decidedly female perspective to the proceedings, regardless of the milieu. They can somehow be all those seemingly contradictory adjectives I listed above, without being inconsistent. Long story short, female Cameroonian leaders have their shit together, despite all indications that this should be impossible. For a while, this didn't make a whole lot of sense, and I admit I'm still not sure exactly how the dynamics work, but a piece of the puzzle came to me when my cell phone reception was activated.

Cameroon has gone from a land of the occasional land line to almost completely cell-compatible in about 5 years. This means people used to sending written messages to family with strangers on motorcycles (or cows, as it were) or not communicating at all suddenly have immediate access across the country. This jolt in technology has led many new customers to use their phones less-than-efficiently, simply because they're not used to the idea of phones period, let alone portable, anywhere and everywhere phones equipped with cameras and mp3 players. Some are too habituated with communicating rarely that they hardly use the phone (racking up neglect charges they're not even aware of). Others call someone a neighborhood over and talk for half an hour, costing them 30 American dollars when they could have just walked the few blocks. Some people's knowledge of manipulation ends with turning on the phone and playing Snake. Globalization dictates that these people have a right to new technology (at that they're a new market for it), but no effort is made to adopt the technology to African society, or to inform the population on how to best utilize it.

The same is true, to a different end, with women's rights and the structure of the state. Cameroon began campaigning for more women in positions of power mainly because the international community advised it that it should. People began advocating for Western-inspired rights and regulations, even at a time when the percentage of girls completing grade school was below 50%. The ideological jump, much like a technological one, forced the concerned players to improvise and make sense of the developed world ideas and Cameroonian realities. Traditionally, men and women were (and still are in a lot of places) considered fundamentally different creatures. While America's long and gradual struggle for equality included a distinct element of sameness, that 'women can perform just like men,' no one would argue so in Cameroon because men and women can't be equal; they are simply different and incomparable. Therefore, when women were originally thrust into positions of responsibility, there was never the expectation that they would act like their male counterparts. I'm sure they were originally assumed to be too sentimental and maybe not as smart, but they proved themselves without losing their gender identity, because it was never expected of them to change. In this case, the Cameroonian adjustment actually aided the proceedings.

I'm not arguing that it's bad that Cameroon has cell phone service, or that promoting western democracy and values is wrong or misguided; I'm simply noting that often, very little attention is paid to the context of the new environment, so can we really be surprised that 'democratic' Cameroon has been ruled by the same man for nearly 30 years? I find it terribly interesting that a makeshift women's lib movement actually produced dynamic leaders, but I'm well aware that wasn't an intended outcome, nor is it true across-the-board. It's simply a happy accident that the female elite in Cameroon don't have to battle the expectations of masculinity Hilary Clinton faces, and I'm not sure how much that fact helps the pesky other 95% of the population still trying to get through high school healthy and unmarried.

Yay Cameroon! There are monkeys and giraffes and elephants too! Everyone is smiling and happy!

…Ok, I can't figure out how to load balloon images. Hopefully the exclamation points sufficed to mask all the, you know, social evils.

Until next time, SLAV

Ok, in all honesty, I started writing this blog over a month ago, and its original inspiration was the dark irony that the U.S., particularly my region, was experiencing devastating floods at the same time that Cameroon was in the middle of a pretty serious drought. You get what I was going for? Opposites. Anyway, I went on to talk about the nature of the drought, its implications for my village and so forth, in what I consider a delightful little commentary on rural populations' utter reliance on consistent climate patterns, and how scary this is in the face of current global trends. I was pretty happy with myself, until I forgot to upload it when I was internet-accessed, and realized by the time it would see the light of your computer screen, the floods would be extremely old news, and the drought talk completely obsolete. So, instead of providing further proof that I am quite severely behind the times, I scrapped all the weather talk and wrote an update of my projects. Out of sheer laziness (and the desire to thematically tie-in this introduction), the original title remains. Note: For insight into just how out of the American cultural loop I am, you need simply play me a hits station on the radio and watch my eyes dart around as I tentatively as who aldskf is.

Right now, our health team in the midst of two preventative campaigns, 'Polio Eradication' (government-mandated) and 'Breast Milk Promotion' (me-mandated). You can guess which has better funding. Polio is still crippling people here, despite its disappearance in the developed world circa 1940. I would estimate I know about ten people personally who've been wheelchair-bound since childhood (if they can afford the wheelchair-most can't) and though rates have slowed dramatically in the past ten years, (particularly) rural kids are still contracting polio through dirty water and ending up with malformed limbs and an almost complete inability to make a living. In urban areas, the majority of street beggars are polio victims, who literally crawl or slide around on their hands and knees with a plastic bowl for donations. Babies that come in for weighings and vaccinations receive the polio vaccine automatically via two drops of pink liquid in the mouth, paid for by the state (which means paid for by the WHO or other aid organizations). Normally I give it while a nurse gives the kid a tetanus shot; we've found its bitter taste to be a good distraction from the shock of the shot.

The campaign goes far above and beyond these measures. It's not called an 'eradication' for nothing. During the drives, generally 3-day weekends, nurses and community health workers and random volunteers literally go door to door ('saare be saare' in their language), giving any and every kid under 5 a few drops of the vaccine. Every neighborhood, outskirt village and rural site is accounted for, and every house mapped out. The goal is obviously to hit every kid, though the majority are already vaccinated. Incredibly, the main difficulty achieving this isn't a lack of organization or motivation from the volunteers (an issue common in most community health projects), but the refusal of parents to vaccinate their children. In central Bibemi, where I live and work, this isn't much of an issue, because the parents are educated enough, or the Good Word has spread enough that everyone understands the concept and utility of vaccinations. In the true country, however, villagers exhibit strong distrust of hospital staff and particularly their 'white medicine' ('lekki jey nassara'). Some believe the drops will harm the kids; others refuse to believe it's free; many just assume it's not necessary. The nature of these villages and their people make such reactions easier to understand, but I find describing such isolation and simplicity of lifestyle hard to articulate adequately for Americans. I'm gonna give it a college try.

There are places in Cameroon where a few extended families (a few hundred people) will live and farm miles from the next village. This is an issue because they have no method of transportation other than walking, and no hospital, school, or place to buy…well, anything at all. During the rainy season, they plant food to survive on the rest of the year, sometimes the same exact meal for weeks at a time. They sell their cash crops to buy clothes (like, one outfit per person per year) and other extremely basic amenities, which someone will walk maybe a day to purchase and bring back. If they're from the same tribe, they will speak mainly their tribal language, with some of the men learning Fulfulde to be able to communicate in outside markets. The women will never learn it, nor will they have use since most never leave the little village. Maybe someone knows a spot of French. These are places where tribal traditions from 100 years ago are alive and well, and with them the misinformation and ignorance progress has eradicated from 'civilized' Africa. Girls are married at 12, boys sent to the fields instead of school, and infant mortality is shameful.

I don't want to give the impression that the majority of Cameroonians live like this, or that such societies are completely devoid of societal value. This is the rural extreme, and most people live at least a little more in contact, with a few more amenities. I describe the bare minimum because I've seen communities like it, however few. The people are generally content, and their rewards are many within the family, but they must constantly give their absolute all merely to survive another month healthily.

Ok, so that was a bit of a sidetrack from the polio thing, but let's move on to talk about…BOOBS! I spend a lot of time researching maternal and child health topics for my health center, and the day I came upon 'exclusive breastfeeding,' it was rather like a key fitting nicely into a lock, or in this context, a baby's mouth fitting snugly onto a nipple. Illness among babies in their first 6 months are extremely dangerous and damaging, and the main reason for the high mortality rate. The kids get sick so much because they often lack basic natural immunizations, are poorly fed, and drink dirty water. Exclusive breastfeeding, which means giving only breast milk (and a lot of it) for the first 6 months, guards against all these risk factors, and it's free! The first days' milk ('colostrum' for those of you not in medical school) provides natural immunities tailor-made for the baby. Many babies go without because the mother believes the milk is bad, since it's generally yellow and stringy. All of the kid's essential vitamins, as well as complete hydration, are provided by breastmilk, so the baby doesn't need other food, like porridge, formula or even water until around 6 months. If the mother doesn't give water, it drastically lessens the chance of contamination, and if she gives it often, the baby ends up fat and extremely well-nourished.

Sounds simple, right? Just milk. But misconceptions about breastfeeding abound here, and it turns out almost 0 women actually practice exclusive breastfeeding. Since it's been found so tremendously effective in preventing infant death, our health center decided to launch a promotional campaign. This means we present and explain it at every consultation, talk it up in the neighborhoods, and visit women's group meetings to reinforce the drive. Pregnant women are particularly targeted. So far, women have been open to listen, and ask a lot of questions. It's clear many don't believe it really will keep their child healthy, because it's so deceptively simple. But more than any topic I've spoke on or promoted, I feel this one has the potential to save lives and leave results my coworkers will be able to see. It requires nothing but information and the confidence to try.

On a much more frivolous note, I finally have cell phone reception, a dream that's been eluding me for months. This means anyone feeling like hearing my voice is completely free to call; I make no promises on what it will cost you, but I will certainly answer, day or night. This luxury would of course kick in when I only have 5 months to go…

Anyway, nice chatting with you (I guess 'at you' is more accurate); hope everyone 'supportent bien' (is doing well). I'll write soon, when my lapse again becomes embarrassing. SLAV

 

Many people have asked me why I appear so pasty in pictures, living as I do inches from the equator and spending 75% of my waking hours out of doors. Even I assumed when leaving for Cameroon that I'd come back Baywatched out, finally not looking pathetic and mole-like next to my lifeguard sister. The X factor here is traditional Muslim culture, and my obligation to cover the majority of my body, the majority of the time. Yeah, it's hot and itchy, and I sometimes feel like I'm hiding spousal abuse what with all the turtlenecks in the summer, but the options are go with it and sweat, or allow everyone to assume I spend my nights earning a few extra dollars in the local brothel. As if they're not already assuming that.

With my recent trip to the beach, however, I reaffirmed that ultraviolet rays do, in fact, exist and are alive and well here in Cameroon. After frolicking beachside feeling nearly naked (but actually sporting a fairly conservative bathing ensemble) and a minimal quantity of sunscreen for 4 days, I was awarded with bar-none the worst full-body sunburn I have ever experienced. Now, I've had my fair share of beach days in sweat pants and polos due to burns (raise your hand if you have NOT been embarrassed by my choices in beach gear), but this one made me question if I would ever be capable of a hot shower again (no problem in Cameroon, as it were). I lost feeling pretty much everywhere for about 48 hours, and continue to find new patches of skin pealing to this day. Like, seriously. I just pulled something scaly off my leg. And I've been back in my village for a month. Distressing.

Beyond this minor setback, the seminar went well and the weather was lovely. The South of Cameroon isn't nearly as blistering hot (though still blistering-ha…sorry), but much more rainy and humid. I hope to have convinced some of the newer volunteers to try soy initiation and water projects in their villages, that being the reasoning behind my paid vacation, but you know, whatever. It turns out, one of the 2008 Health volunteers is not only a 2006 graduate of ND, but one I knew fairly well, so the chaos theory of reality is basically disproven as of now, because that is a ridiculous coincidence. I'll be submitting my paper to Science and perhaps the National Inquirer later this month.

Since I've been back in the North (I differentiate the poles so much because culturally and climate-wise, they really are different countries), things have gotten, well, hotter. I'm still drilling away at officials trying to get financing and organizational details squared away for my Hygiene Training, and researching a whole host of new project topics. It's slow-going to be sure, but do I expect anything else from a country in which one is praised for arriving 'early' 45 minutes late to a meeting and my fricking cell phone tower still isn't turned on after 3 months? Not that I'm anxious or anything; I just like the idea of being able to contact emergency services in the event of an emergency and, you know, receive calls.

With Cameroon's National Holiday coming up May 20th, I have also recently been assigned another curious task. The evening of the holiday, the sous-prefet (highest-ranking official in the village) sponsors a huge party for all the functionaries and higher-ups at his residence, complete with all manner of food and drink, dancing and, inevitably, ethnic conflict and bottle-throwing. All the food is prepared the day before and day of by a committee of their wives, who despite this, do not eat until all the men have been served, and therefore don't get nearly as much. If I wasn't so desensitized to gender injustice, this might disturb me. Or if I wasn't thinking 'at least those women GET some of the food.' Anywho, somehow, the sous-prefet and his cronies are under the impression that I have the slightest interest or culinary ability to function on this committee, and have announced me as a member without my knowledge or consent. This means that for my last real holiday in Cameroon, I'm going to be prancing around someone's backyard, observing women cooking for hours and hours, as if I don't do this on a pretty daily basis already. It's not that I don't WANT to help them prepare, but things are done just so for parties here, meaning if I start peeling potatoes, inevitably someone will come over to inform me I'm peeling completely wrong, and why don't I go help the ladies making the goat, or better yet, here's some food, go sit in the corner and watch for a while. Here's a slinky if you get bored, and let me know if your diaper needs changing.

Needless to say, I'm going to do everything I mischievously can to get off this committee.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes; it was a sufficiently uneventful 24th, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. I amazed my health center staff with American-style brownies (they now know 'brownie' in English as opposed to any other word of this, their other national language) and caught up with some old friends over beers. I can't say I'm ecstatic to be nearing a quarter century so soon, especially here where women my age have about five kids, jaded world views and boobs to their waists. I guess two out of three ain't bad.

That about wraps me up; sorry it's been so long, but hope everyone's rocking out the spring. See ya when I see ya…SLAV

When I unpacked my bags upon arrival in Cameroon back in 2006, I found many laughably ill-conceived items, notably a raincoat (as if I do anything when it rains but stand under it with open arms clad as scantily as possible), red pepper (available at the local market for about half a cent a pound) and, most ridiculously, a fleece blanket. When I can barely handle a sheet over my feet at night, in what case would I ever have need for an insulating blanket? I contemplated making it into curtains and a tablecloth, but the hot pink doesn't really go with my Asian jungle/dirty cement motif. But friends, Armageddon has arrived; I've been using the fleece blanket. Like, religiously. I've never been so happy.

January was brutal in the Grand North of Cameroon, and by 'brutal,' I mean sometimes I need a long-sleeved shirt at night and, because I'm a wussy, I need to heat up my bath water in a pot. People ask me daily how I'm dealing with the cold (noy jangol?), and for once I can't flippantly answer "What cold? Where is it? You guys are crazy" because I'm wearing a parka and stocking cap just like they are. The question now is how much of my discomfort is actual chill and how much is my 16-month integration. I'll think about that as I gobble a fish head and sharpen my spear for my tribal dance date later tonight.

Bibemi is developing faster than the American dollar is devaluing; a dozen water pumps have been fixed or replaced AND a new cell phone tower is so close to working I can hear the inordinately expensive drunk dials already. Basically, when I got here, the village was a rusted-out Pinto and it's quickly morphing into a 2008 Lexus. Well, maybe a '98 Lexus. Let's not be silly. I've started water hygiene presentations in neighborhoods in tandem with the repairs, where we discuss carrying and storing water without contaminating it and how to make it safe for drinking (bleach is the key word). These take place AT the pump, with one meeting for heads of households and another for their wives (the ones actually fetching water). Without the pumps, the only water option is digging for it in the dry river and apparently things get precarious in March, so getting the pumps working is both tremendously gratifying and startlingly necessary.

In other news, I was selected to present on my projects at the next batch of Health volunteers' in-service training (at the beach!), so I'm getting ready for a vaca in the middle of March. With Women's Day right before on March 8th and an as-yet-unscheduled Hygiene Animator Training sometime before that, it'll be about time for one. I'll try to get on here with an update on the pumps before I go. Until then, hope everyone had a great start to 2008 and I resent the winter you're probably getting sick of by now.

Happy Holidays all! I hope your Christmases were merry and as white as applicable; I'll go ahead and say mine was very merry, but more earth-toned and sandy. After hanging my fake snowflakes on the windows with an ironic smile and endlessly explaining that they weren't stars, doilies or hair ties, I commenced my holiday activities Christmas Eve by having a quasi-American-style Christmas meal with my postmate, comprised of grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans and subpar American boxed cake. It was actually pretty delicious, and I ate enough to effectively put me out of commission for the rest of the night, though many of my neighbors sent pots of popcorn, sweet beignets and random meat (pictured above), which is the traditional party food. I accepted it with a tense smile and achingly false sense of gratitude, then proceeded to feed everything to my cat.

Christmas day, I left early to play Santa and give out all the American presents I brought back, like nice bar soap, watches, eyeglasses, etc. They were all terribly practical, but went over very well. The concept of the Christmas gift is pretty nonexistent here, but the concept of the 'back from a long voyage' present is quite real, so my gifts weren't surprises, but attributed to my trip to America, not Christmas. I was sent some gifts and candy for kids, so my favorite part of the holiday was finding a way to distribute everything without being ground into a fine paste by a children-stampede. I didn't always succeed, and the day I tried to walk around the Muslim neighborhood handing out smarties was the day I realized just how uncomfortable and distressingly intimate a mosh pit is. Bad decision Lamb Feast.

I found that my neighbors celebrate Christmas much like they do the other Christian/Muslim/national holidays, with lots of food, new clothes for the whole family and big parties. Since Bibemi is predominantly Christian, and the Muslim Lamb Feast also happened this week, this is probably the biggest holiday I've seen, and the one guaranteed to last the longest (generally until February-no joke). We're in the middle of the harvest here, so everyone is busy in the fields, but also collecting lots of money, so spirits are high. It makes work a little hard, as the temptation to make merry all day is omnipresent, but we're slated to start fixing water pumps the 5th, so I have tons of logistical nonsense to take care of. I suppose my next blog will update everyone on how that went, so until next time, keep your friends close and your enemies incarcerated, SLAV

Hey everyone, as promised, I’m actually using the page I set up to update you about my life to update you about my life! No one is as surprised as me.

Well, after a month of shameless gluttony, high heels and cross cultural sharing (aka “this is how we take a shot in Cameroon,”) I arrived successfully in Yaoundé, our capitol. Thanks are in order again for everyone who fed me, housed me, entertained me, or tolerated me falling asleep at like 4pm for the night on Thanksgiving. Jet lag plus turkey plus multiple microbrews equals what you saw there. In all seriousness, I appreciate the hospitality, so much so that I am tempted to play the “I live in rural poverty in Africa” card long after I’m back and working for Exxon/Mobil.

I had a bag left off my plane from Brussels, meaning I hung out in Yaoundé for a week to claim it, since they’re not exactly going to deliver it to my current address (‘the house to the left of the garbage pile with the kids trying to break in the window to get the American candy, Bibemi, Cameroon’). I was bored out of my mind down there, but took the opportunity to complete most of my obligatory mid-service medical exams…which I passed with flying colors you’ll all be happy to know. It’s actually something of an aberration to have completely clear blood and stool samples, so of course I attempted to pat myself on the back, realized I’m not nearly as flexible as I used to be, tried to disprove this by doing a spontaneous backbend, and ended up more in pain than if I had actually had one of the diseases I was cleared for. You win some; you lose some.

Once I actually got to my village (after a 20 hour train ride and combine 10 hour bush car rides, ish), it was like I was Robin Williams circa Hook, returning to the lost boys in Neverland after 20 years and them freaking out and dancing around about my return. Ok, it wasn’t really so much like that, but I’m having trouble thinking of a good homecoming pop culture analogy today, and Hook’s always a safe bet. Basically, everyone was really happy and dare I say relieved, as it’s hard for them to understand why, after being pampered and reintroduced to modern conveniences, I would CHOOSE to come back and wash my clothes in the river…Ok, pay children to wash my clothes in the river. Handing out pictures I developed was a huge deal; I plan to take way more this year now that I see the furor they cause.

It will be hard to get much work done before the new year; like the States, Christmastime is pretty much an all-bets-off few weeks. I’ll be sure to write again in January detailing how we celebrate Baby J’s birthday east of the Atlantic; I hope frankincense and myrrh are involved.

I’ve once again restructured my method for picture sharing. Pictures of other volunteers or anyone that’s on facebook will be posted there in the Tag Photos folder. Everything else (as in the interesting pictures) is to be found in my Google albums. I’ve attached a link. Almost my entire first year should be there (it’s pitifully few; I think I took more in two weeks in Australia). If there are problems getting to the page, let me know so I can inform you personally that there’s really nothing I can do about it. I’m trying to maintain a certain level of quick-response customer service here.

I wish everyone the happiest of holidays; I look forward to next year when we can go wassailing together, but until then, merry Christmas and watch the expiration dates on your eggnog, SLAV

Part Un: Traditional Pagne

The most common fashion, particularly for the older generations and pretty much everyone in rural areas, is the sometimes absurd/sometimes beautiful/occasionally incomprehensible and ALWAYS loud variety of African fabric, called 'pagne' here in the francophone Grand North. One buys it in a 6 meter sheet at the market or in stores in larger towns. In provincial capitols, there are usually young dudes walking around on the streets and in bars with 5-20 sheets displayed on their arms, apparently keen to take advantage of the drunken impulse buy...of a crapload of neon orange fabric with ducks fighting roosters on it. In my defense, the blue accents on the roosters' talons really bring out my eyes.

Pagne is something a bit hard to explain well, because it varies SO much. The fabric itself might be made of a million different materials, and the designs vary from a monochrome black silk with sporadic gold stars to a rainbow-colored affair covered in multilingual slogans and cartoons urging the populace to 'support their local post office,' 'honor their mothers and fathers,' or ' wipe from front to back...EVERY time.' Basically, your institution, national holiday, ethnic group or social initiative doesn't exist unless you've created a pagne pattern to announce it.

For the buyers, once you've chosen the pattern that defines your innermost soul (or you wake up wrapped in one you apparently couldn't live without the night before), the next step is to turn it from a sheet into a sundress or cute flowy skirt...or pajama pants in my case. Most villages are teeming with tailers, and once you've found your dude and he's taken your measurements, all you need to do is walk in, give him the newest fabric purchase and a rudimentary sketch of what you'd like made, and haggle down the price for the job. Since most women in my village prefer 80s-style huge sleeves and extra room in the stomach (for the inevitable next pregnancy), I've had a few disasters attempting to recreate American fashions, but Lucien (my man behind the sewing machine) is finally coming to understand that 'basic' and 'understated' never mean adding plastic beads and ruffles.

Part Deux: When Your Pagne is Dirty

Though pagne is infinitely more comfortable than jeans and a T-shirt (it's really more like wrapping yourself in a sheet than anything else), the impracticality of wearing it to work in the field and the ever-present and ever-growing influence of Western habits has led many in the country, particularly youth and those living in urban areas, to abandon the rainbow patterns in favor of tube tops, thrift store t-shirts and tight jeans...with rainbow patterned patches of course.

Where does one find these leopard-print vests and Thompson Family Reunion 1983 commemorative sweatshirts, you ask? At the Frippe, that glorious section of the market that's really just a huge, open air Salvation Army, specializing in everything from old-school Adidas track suits to boutique-quality hand-made beaded tops and accessories. The best frippes are in big cities or close to the border of Nigeria (aka Land of Wonders and Quality Electronics), but items as diverse as tapered jeans, knock-off LaCoste polos and Nascar jerseys occasionally wind up at local rural markets, for at most $2 a piece. Jackpot.

So I'm going to attempt a new concept with this blog, as my devotion to the 'pick a random picture and describe it' motif is clearly weaning. Since uploading the pictures is the difficulty, I'm going to forgo them unless I have one really pertinent to my topic (I mean, if I'm talking about fashion, NOT including the pic of the functionary sporting the 3-piece dinosaur print suit with straw cowboy hat and neon orange Puma slides would just be negligent). I came to realize the other day that my tightest emails and snippets involve me elaborating on a theme, so I'm going to describe village life in segments, covering each subject area as completely as possible before general malaise and desire to forget my surroundings at imdb.com take over the proceedings. If pictures are more your jib, there's a few assorted shots on facebook, and more to come after my strongly worded letter to the nation's government, unmasking the REAL development crisis (slow jpeg upload speeds), is received and acted upon. Until then, I guess just imagine me hanging out in whatever you conceive Africa to be; in other words, yes, I'm touring a war-torn village with Angelina and Oprah until my date to a female circumcision ceremony, after which I will sponsor 1 child with $20 a month ($4 of which she will see), raise a lion cub on grubs and good-natured apathy, run from a dude with a machete, encourage my boobs to sag to my mid-thigh by tying a baby to one and an anti-apartheid sign to the other, and devise a way to extract billions in oil revenue without paying my host government a cent in taxes. Oh yeah, and I'm doing all of this using ONLY clicks and tribal dancing to communicate. Hope you enjoy the new format, and dear god quit sending me emails telling me to update my blog...

Nourishment in a village is a curious thing. On the one hand, you're eating exclusively fresh, unpackaged and preservative-free food. If you're chomping ona steak kabob, you can rest assured the cow was killed that day, and it's head is probably still resting next to the skin and entrails on your butcher's roadside table, staring at you. If your friend gives you a banana, she probably carted herself out to the grove outside of town to pick it. Not bad.

On the other hand, since cultural traditions and the realities of the desert dictate an emphasis on quantity, availability and food that makes you feel fullest, the meals prepared from these fresh ingredients is extremely hit-or-miss. Take the basic staple, couscous. First, a few words about terminology. The French is couscous, but this isn't your mother's couscous (or your friend Susanne's). It's comprised of whatever carb or starch you have a surplus of (normally corn or millet) ground into a powder and mixed with boiling water, forming a thick, chunky paste that tastes like gritty, well, grit. Revolutionary concepts like 'adding salt' or 'striving for a less gag-inducing texture' haven't played out because this food is about sustinence, not a pleasant dining experience.

The other word in need of clarification is staple. In the States, I would consider a chicken breast a staple food for me, as I tended to eat about one per week on a fairly regular basis. Maybe same with sliced bread and (at a certain period of my development) vodka sodas. In the villages here, however, couscous isn't a favorite meal or the stereotypical food; it IS food. Like, the native language word for food is THE SAME as for couscous, with no distinction needed. Midday and nighttime meals nearly always involve huge piles of couscous (unless one is upper class and can afford piles of rice or potatoes sometimes) with an accompanying sauce.

Thankfully for some, variety is possible in the sauce (though unfortunately for others, it's not universally affordable). Most involve a particular leaf from a tree or bush plant, salt, maybe some dried fish (reliably 70% bones and heads), MSG cubes, and 'gumbo' (also misleading), which creates a sauce with the precise consistency and temperature of snot, down to the stringy, globby details. To eat, you pick up a glob of couscous, depress it a little and then dip it in the communal trough of sauce, virtually slinging it onto the mush and into your mouth in a gesture most people here have done daily their whole lives.

I'm writing this pretty frankly and perhaps a little unfairly not because this is the way I currently view dinner at my neighbors' houses, or because I'm looking to score some cheap sympathy, but because this is how I imagine a Western 'outsider' would describe them. If you were visiting me and eating with me at someone's house, this account is undoubtably what you would come away with.

That said, don't worry; it isn't really all that bad. I'm pretty used to the couscous and gumbo 1-2 punch, and sometimes enjoy it when it's well done and I'm hungry. Also, this is just the most common meal, there are also leaf sauces made with peanut paste, beef bits and tomato paste that occasionally transcend the mediocre...and at MY house, I can make them with rice.

Now, don't everyone rush out to buy there plane tickets to Bibemi at once; I'm pretty sure there's only 1 plane coming here this month, and the soccer team's already booked most of it.

So here's a shot of us fighting the waves in Kribbi. We were here for a week long seminar about our work objectives and information sharing and whatnot, but after the meetings we got to spend our lives on the beach and eating some of the most authentic seafood I've ever had. (As I live in the middle of the U.S. where fish direct from Lake Michigan is considered a delicacy, this should not surprise anyone.) The waves were strong enough to pull my suit off a number of times, and the fields of jagged rocks didn't help things, but it's an African tourist locale, so imminent death and random nudity (representing all age groups) are par for the course.

These are the two youngest kids of my neighbors, Aoula and Anna and their dog and puppy. This puppy is the reason I don't have the desire to get a dog, since I can go and play with it whenever I want. Puppy's like children, aren't too hard to find in my village. On any given day, about 2/3rds of the female dogs are pregnant or nursing pups, and people are dying to get rid of them.

Ok, so this is my little neighbor Anna (pronounced with really long A's) right before she went to take a bath. She's on the porch of her parent's house, which is slightly bigger than mine, but holds 8 kids. I like the shot because the surroundings are very typical of upscale Cameroonian families in my village. Basically the rule is, if you have money, you have a cement house, and if you don't, you live in a mud hut with a straw roof. Anna comes over to my house to play with the cat or search for fruit seeds pretty much every day, and at first I couldn't communicate with her by anything but exaggerated hand signals, but now we can chat in Fulfulde...sort of.

This is me in my sweet Women's Day outfit, waiting to march in the parade with the Wives of People in the Medical Profession women's group. (That's the literal translation from the French; I'm sure I could think of something a little jazzier if I had the motivation.) International Women's Day is every March 8th, and in villages as out there as mine, it's really just an excuse for the women to get dressed up, parade around, then get drunk without having to worry about doing chores or cooking or watching the kids. The sad part is that in reality, they just work twice as hard the day before in order to have the freedom to leave their duties for a few hours. Women's Day ends promptly at 6pm, 'when the women return to their kitchens,' as the posters read, but luckily for me, I qualify as some sort of androganous anomaly that needn't follow the rules, so I partied with the women all day, then just continued with their husbands at night. One of my goals for next year is to attempt to turn Women's Day into a time for actual awareness of gender issues, instead of a rote festival with vague motivations that have been lost in the translation from the highminded government officials who created the holiday.

So sometime near the end of January, the hospital staff through an end of the year party at the doctor's house, and I was invited, seeing as how I kind of work at the hospital. One of the inevitable features of Cameroonian fetes is a big, awkard group shot of everyone in attendance, usually after they're too drunk to feel self conscious or impatient about it. So here we have everyone that works at the Bibemi District Hospital and the surrounding health centers, including the doctor, nurses, guards, cooks and what-have-yous. Since it's not painfully obvious, I'm the white chick in the very front of the shot that looks about as out of place as Dick Cheney at a pro-choice rally.

This is Bouba Toumba, my Peace Corps-assigned counterpart in village. This means it's his responsibility to look after me and make sure I meet everyone and make friends and such. He's also the nurse at the health center where I work, so he pretty much runs my entire world in Bibemi. When we first met at the counterpart workshop in November, I couldn't speak French to save a dying bald eagle, and he couldn't stay awake through any of the sessions. Needless to say, our relationship going into post was tenuous at best, and he at first showed no indication that he even knew I was in town. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is that he's actually one of the most sarcastic and hilarious people I know, and we've since become fabulous friends. This picture is quintessentially Bouba. Side note: he drives a motorcycle with spiderman-themed seat covers, if that surprises anyone.

This is my house in village. Is anyone surprised it's the only picture I've taken since I finished training? Anywho, they'll be much more to say about this later, but the important thing is it miraculously has AC (only 2 houses in the entire program have it) and its in the middle of a forest, a point I have made before, but find so randomly sweet that it warrants repetition. Sidenote- yes, I will be adding red trim so I can say I'm the Peace Corps volunteer who lives in the red, white and blue house. Unlike in most foreign lands, unabashed American patriotism is COOL in Africa!

So the Swearing In ceremony is where we actually become Peace Corps volunteers, and it's a rather legit event with all kinds of officials and protocol and whatnot, and I co-presented the French speech traditionally given by a volunteer or two who came in with little or no French. This is me rocking that, and I clearly made quite an impression, considering the

Cameroonian ambassador later congratulated another volunteer who looks vaguely like me on the fine speech. Whatever, at least I got to wear a painfully loud skirt on national television...

Ok, when I talk about going to ‘the bar,’ this is what I mean. This establishment, cleverly titled "Club des Amies" (Friend’s Club), is actually a little more cosmopolitan than most of the places I frequent. I mean, it has chairs and murals on the walls. Sometimes ‘the bar’ is really just ‘the patch of cement with a dude selling whiskey sachets out of a duffel bag’…

Ok, this is what I mean when I talk about being in the middle of a Baby Gap ad. I’m not sure who the girl in the middle is, probably a cousin of some sort, but the little one is my youngest sister, Awahou (sounds like the Hawaiian island) and the really happy one is the next youngest, Aissatou. She’s the one that really likes to play clapping games with me, and speaks just enough French to ask me for candy. You really can’t see it well enough, but the building to the right in the background is my latrine. Oh, the sometimes painful, sometimes alarming, always degrading memories…

Ok, here’s the story with this shot. I’m hanging out with my family, eating some rice and trying to learn the Fulfulde phrase for "I’m tired of learning Fulfulde," and I hear a ruckus outside. We run out to find my host father and his posse of middle-aged Muslim men beating the hell out of something on the ground. I freak, thinking it’s a kitten or something, then they move away, and my brother starts screaming and runs back into the house. It’s this huge lizard. Apparently they saw it just strolling down the lane, and didn’t want it to eat the livestock. So here’s my dad holding the thing. I couldn’t get a straight answer on how common it is to see something like this here, but I’ve been told I’m going to see a lot of snakes of varying sizes once March hits…sweet.

Ok this is what passes for tabloid news in Cameroon. It’s written in both English and one of the patois languages, so I don’t feel I need to explain the storyline, but I will note that the seemingly gratuitous graphics of the goat giving birth is indicative of the culture here...as in gratuitous imagery, not goats having human babies (unless you believe this TRUE LIVE STORY). Pictures are really important for communicating information since there are so many languages, so a lot of my health pamphlets and posters sport some pretty frank cartoons of folk with diarrhea and worms and other nasty diseases. As it happens, this poster is hanging in my host family’s living right now, next to their picture of me with the American Ambassador and a picture of Superman Arafat (my bro) colored my first week with them (the store didn’t have any Batman coloring books, so you win this round Zenker).

Happy Birthday Baby J!!

Happy holidays everyone; I hope the greeting cards in matching cheesy sweaters and drunken make outs under the mistletoe at the office Christmas party are putting everyone into the spirit of the season. I’ve been listening to Charlie Brown Christmas music all morning, but it isn’t making it anymore real when I glance outside and see palm trees and kids running around all naked due to the heat.

Things are going great here; I’m making slow but steady progress pimping out my house and meeting neighbors. I have a few friends at the bar down the street that sell grilled fish and drink all night every night, so I’ve been hanging out and drinking 40s with them when I’m not exploring other watering holes around the village. My first night, one of them informed me that the bar was out of, well, booze in general (a problem much more common than you’d think), so she took me to this 60 year old woman’s house in the middle of nowhere, where the broad had constructed a bar in the middle of her yard that served warm beer and whiskey. As it turns out, this place is pretty popular among the elites, as I met the chief of police and the owner of the huge Sodocotton compound there. Score, I guess…

I suppose I should point out that I’m not telling stories about drinking and bars here because I think that’s all you guys want to here or because I’m trying to be like yeah, college in Africa; it’s more because it’s such a huge part of life here. Like, yeah we have people in the states that drink away their children’s college funds, but some of the parents here actually watch their kids grow distended stomachs and die from common colds just so they can black out in a field with their buddies every week day. It gives a good many of my bad decision Thursdays a whole new perspective…and one I currently choose to ignore.

Christmas was absolutely bizarre. I met up with the other whiteys in our provincial capitol for Christmas Eve and we went to drink and hang out at the hotel bar where we were staying, and it turns out the hotel was hosting a high school dance at the same time and place. Long story short, a lot of my friends ended up grinding on Cameroonians ranging in age from 14 to like 23 while I belted out Let it Snow and pretended I was drinking really strong egg nog and not boxed wine the costed 2 american dollars. For Christmas morning, we ate omelets and fried plantains and listened to Bing Crosby, then we randomly watched Beauty and the Beast, with an extended break to discuss Tim Curry’s role as the Evil Pipe Organ in the sequel and why this organ is never alluded to in the original, though he apparently posed a pretty formidable threat to their love during Belle’s Christmas season in captivity…You know, my typical ponderings during lazy/hungover weekends when I can’t find Flight of the Navigator or a random E True Hollywood Story to keep my mind limber.

So this is me during our peer educator training, teaching some Cameroonians about how you get, prevent and treat AIDS. Keep in mind that I'm doing the whole thing in French. You'll notice that the dudes are taking notes; let's talk about how weird it is to have people taking notes from ME, instead of me pretend to take notes from them, but really just budgeting how much I can spend at the bar that night or playing MASH with myself to see who I'm going to marry and what type of house I will live in. As of right now, it's Maury Povich in a Mansion.