Greetings!

It has been a long time since I last updated my blog. I have since finished my Peace Corps service and am now residing in Washington, D.C.

While I was home for Christmas this last year many generous people bought bracelets and donated money for a Scholarship Fund that I helped organize and execute in my 1st village--Kekem. The students who received the scholarships

The members of the Pleasanton 2nd Ward and various friends and family all generously donated to help 25 Excellent Students in the village of Kekem, Cameroon to go school for the 2009-2010 school year.

After receiving the donations I traveled to Kekem and, with the help of the Principal and Vice Principal, created a committee to handle and distribute the scholarship funds. The Committee met and we came up with an application process that would help us to select the most deserving students based on both merit and need.

(photo: Kekem -Main Road)

Kekem i s a village in the west province of Cameroon that experienced economic growth when the international cocoa and coffee prices were high--but has since see an economic downturn. The village has become increasingly poor over the years. The local high school was especially struggling as it was hard for them to have government teachers placed there and they were being forced to pay for teachers that worked primarily with private schools and institutions. This meant higher tuition costs for the students and a lack of funding for many different programs.

I worked and lived in Kekem for one year and saw how even families that seemed financially stable stuggled to put all their children through school. Many families do not have the means. A family with three children in secondary school is common and if that family were making one dollar a day (which is also common) that means almost three months of labor to pay JUST the tuition for those three children. Many families have more children, and many families make even less money.

Also I worked with youth in Kekem. I taught a Business Club to youth to teach them goal-making, budgeting, leadership and other various lifeskills. It was hard to see how so many looked bleakly to their futures and told me how they didn't see how there hard work in school would ever really come to much.Kekem Government High School

So I decided to start up a Scholarship Fund. I knew that the fund would help the school, the families and help give the students who were working hard the needed reassurance that hard work does pay off.

After the application process 25 deserving students were selected. Each student received an inivitation to a ceremony. During this ceremony the Principal, Vice Principal, and I, along with various teachers and parents, presented the students with a certificate. The certificate represented the equivalence of one year's tuition (about $20) and was to be kept and used in place of the tuition during registration that coming fall. Each student also received two notebooks and two pens. Because all of the reciepents were not able to be there that day (many live in the surrounding villages), we created a list of all the recipents and gave a list to everyone present--to ensure that those students would know from their classmates that they recieved the scholarship and woul d receive it the following school year. Me with the Vice Principal and the Principal

The scholarship money only represents the money to pay tuition and does not cover other things such as the books, uniforms or other fees. While teaching at High Schools in Cameroon I noticed that most students' families found the money for the tuition, but then could not afford the books. So the majority of the students are without textbooks.

Some of the students receiving their certificates/scholarships

I encouraged the parents to take into consideration that the tuition as paid for and to really do everything they could to buy the textbooks for the students.

Some of the parents

The principal and I talked to the students about the importance of working hard in school for not only professional, but personal reasons. I reassured them that whether or not it is seen--hard work does pay off and their hard work is not overlooked by their families, teachers or community.

I told them that I read the applications for the scholarships and knew that they all had great goals and aspirations and that they are capable of doing anything. I was impressed by the diversity and extent of their dreams.

The students were very excited about their scholarships, notebooks and pens. Many of them came up to me afterward and wanted to tell me more about their goals. They were excited and grateful.

Even more so were the parents. Parents enthusiastically shook my hands and extended their thanks to all of the donors. Everyone was very impressed with the transparency and efficiency of the scholarship fund project.

The Scholarship Fund of Kekem was very successful and on behalf of those who received the scholarship I want to say THANK YOU to all of the generous donors. It really did make a difference.

THANK YOU!

Surprise! I moved! No, I am still in Cameroon, but I changed posts! I now live about an hour south of Kekem in a town called Manjo, which in the local language, Mbo, means “Little Elephant”.

It all started a month ago when I was robbed for the second time. I got home and opened my door, oblivious to what had happened, and as I pulled back the curtain to go to the back end of my house I saw that someone had broken down the boards that make up my ceiling. I had locked my bedroom and my spare room before leaving the house, so they had crawled through the ceiling and broke down the ceiling in those rooms as well. My house was ripped apart because they had been looking for money. The two rooms were destroyed and disgusting as years of dirt from the “attic” area were in my room…including dead mice. I just started crying! I felt so betrayed and violated. Twice in one month. I know it is just the little thieves in the neighborhood. 14 year old boys who don’t have enough parental supervision and want to make some quick money.

After seeing my house like that I just left without saying goodbye to anyone. I went to a nearby volunteer’s house, I contacted the Peace Corps and they told me to come to Yaounde to talk about it. I filed some reports and the director told me he thought it was a good idea if I switched posts. So that and other work related problems had me in searching for a new place to live.

This was a depressing time. I had spent a year in Kekem and now, halfway through my service, was preparing to switch posts. I narrowed it down to two potential posts. Manjo and another post in the south-west province (Anglophone!) called Fontem. I traveled to Fontem, which is an one and a half hour motorcycle ride outside of the nearest town and stayed with another volunteer there for a few days. It is beautiful there and everyone was extremely nice. It was a really hard choice, but in the end I chose Manjo. Manjo is not too far from Kekem and I would like to continue some of the work that I started there. Especially my business club, as they will be doing a project together soon.

Last week I moved to Manjo. I am working with another MC2 (same microfinance chain) and so far it is going really well! My new counterpart is a real go-getter and understands my role as a Peace Corps volunteer. This last week we went out to all of these little villages around Manjo. The government just gave the MC2 money to give out specifically for loans to help agricultural projects. So we went out to these little villages to meet with a bunch of different groups and talk to them about how they could benefit from these loans.

When working with people who live out in the small villages oftentimes they don’t speak French. Also the local languages vary a lot because the area is very cosmopolitian, but the one language that can be used anywhere here is Pidgin! I love it! I am going to try and learn. My counterpart speaks it often when we met with groups he would go off into Pidgin. It is like a simplified English with the rhythum of a local language.

Examples (although I haven’t learned to write it so I am sure the spelling is all wrong):

Ay done go fo farm (I went to the farm)

Ay b tired, ay done walka plenty (I am tired, I walked a lot)

We also visited the farms of people who were currently taking out loans. Just to make sure that they were actually investing the money like they said they would. We spent about an hour hiking through one pineapple field. The farmer stopped and said “this looks ripe!” and cut off, peeled and cut in half a pineapple with his machete and gave me a half. It still had the stem so it was like a big lollipop. It was the best pineapple I ever had! The juice dripped down my elbows!

We went to one little village that was about an hour ride on my counterpart’s motorcycle on a small dirt road and just went to the market and asked people if they knew how a bank worked and why it is important to save money. Some people followed me around because they’d never seen a white person before.

We were on one small dirt road walking to a nearby farm and the farmer I was with explained that the road we were on was, fifty year ago, the national highway! It was so strange to think that only fifty years ago the national highway was a small dirt road!

In each village my counterpart explained to the groups that I was available to help them with managing their activities--like budgeting, feasibility studies, marketing and accounting. I think the message passed well and that I will be busy soon!

My house here in Manjo is way too nice for a Peace Corps volunteer. It has tiles on the floor! I feel a little guilty to be living in such a nice house, but before I left Kekem I found baby mice under my mattress, so I feel like I’d be OK in a nicer place.

I am in the middle of town on the second story so I can see a lot of the town. It is nice! The Mosque is not far away so at 5:30 every morning the call to prayer serves as my alarm clock. The people here in general are just really nice. Manjo is bigger than Kekem, ethnic group mix is a little different, and it is more developed in general, which might all explain why people seem nicer.

I had a good experience in Kekem and I am glad that I didn’t decide to move too far away so that I can continue to work there. Yet, I am also glad for the opportunity to live and work here in Manjo. To be able to start anew knowing all that I know now! It is a great opportunity and I think that my second year is going to be even better than my first!

Lately I have taken an interest in learning the local language. Although my French is still nothing to write home about I feel as though there is a huge part of the culture I will never understand if I don’t learn the local language. As I have described before, the village where I am living is a mix of several different tribes and therefore languages. The most prominent is Bafang (in Bafang: Féefé). I learned simple greetings during my first month at post, but now I am determined to leave here with the ability to carry on a simple conversation in Bafang. Already the local language has opened my eyes to new cultural insights. For example the other week I was teaching an English class and we were learning family vocabulary. After class I started talking to one of my students who explained to me that in Bafang there is no word for cousin, aunt, uncle or even sister! There is a word for mother, father and everyone else is your “brother” and the word for brother is the same for sister. People do not make the distinction between a brother and a cousin in the local language! It made me realize that the solidarity reached a level that I had never understood. It is clear to me now why everyone is referring to everyone else as “my brother” or “my sister” in French. I was visiting a volunteer in another village, where a different language is spoken, and started to talk to a friend about family vocabulary. He explained to me that it was the same in their local language. That a long time ago people from the same tribe all lived in the same area and “brother” in the local language refers to anyone who has a blood tie with you regardless of their parentage or actual relationship to you. I understand a little better now why everyone is my class thought it was so weird that we “white men” have words like “half brother, step brother, first cousin vs. second cousin, sister-in-law great aunt, etc.” because in the local language those distinctions are not made, they are just all your “brother” or your blood relations. It made me realize how much we, and I use “we” to refer generally to all occidental cultures, have categorized every relationship, perhaps in a way to distinguish varying levels of relational importance. When I tell people that I have cousins whose names I don’t even know, they are shocked. But if I thought of my cousins as my brothers, then would it be different? Also in American culture we travel so much and a large percentage of people end up “settling down” somewhere far from where they grew up. Perhaps to think of all extended family as your close relations is unfeasible. I have seven siblings and it takes a lot of energy to keep in touch with all of them, so to think of trying to sustain that kind of relationship with all my extended family is exhausting. Maybe if we all lived in the same village it would be possible. So here in Cameroon everyone is family, but what I learned is that you still should not tell people when you travel and keep your house firmly locked. Yes, I got robbed. I went away for a few days and came back to a practically empty house! They even took the mattresses off my beds! After this I learned what kind of precautions everyone else takes. 1) never tell anyone when you travel, 2) never leave your house empty. I know that it didn’t happen to me because I’m white. It happens to almost everyone. Also I feel safe because I know that they people who came to rob me came because I wasn’t there. My neighbor across the street has a house here although his family lives in a neighboring village. So he travels a lot. A little boy, of about 13, kept breaking into his house and was just taking whatever is lying around and eating his food. They found the boy and he explained that he came from a ways away to go to school and was just hungry. So he would break into the man’s house and eat something between his classes. Young people don’t have money of their own and as a result often have to fend for themselves. Unemployment among youth is pervasive. Young people between the ages of 12-21 work out in the farms with their parents in order to help their parents make a living and eat. They have no income for themselves and no occupation in general to keep them busy. With a complete lack of work opportunities crime is the way to get some income. The experience of getting my house broken into left me feeling discouraged, betrayed, violated and angry. At the same time it has reiterated to me the importance of trying to reach out to youth. The decisions that young people make now will resonate into the future, whether for good or not. Perhaps I can’t provide work opportunities but I can point young people to other options and help them learn some of the skills needed in order to pursue honest occupations.

Since arriving in Cameroon I have had one favorite food that even after a year doesn’t seem to get old—It's Koki. When I tell people I love Koki they laugh hysterically because it is kind of considered the “poor man’s food” of my area. I guess once I bought it au marche and told the woman selling it how much I love it and some kids heard me and now everytime I walk by they say, “J’adore le Koki!!” (I love Koki).

I have been meaning to learn how to make Koki for a long time now. I kept mentioning that I wanted to learn to a friend of mine who makes some wicked good Koki. So this last Saturday she came by my house early in the morning so that we could go to the market together and buy everything needed to make Koki.

You need the koki beans, l’huile rouge (a thick sludgy red palm oil—its what makes Koki so good for you…NOT!), and some salt. I have piment growing in my yard so we spiced it with that. You soak the beans, remove the skin, mush it into a paste with the piment and oil, add some water and salt, put it in a banana tree leaf (also found in my yard) tie it up and boil it in a big pot over a fire for a couple hours. YUM!

It may sound easy but it is about 5 hours of work all together! African women are so incredibly strong. The woman making it with me would open the pot with her bare hands (no hot pads here!) and while I was coughing and crying from the smoke from the fire she as rocking her baby to sleep and curing the leaves at the same time!

I was pretty exhausted afterwards and I didn’t even do most of the work. But for about $3.25 and five hours of work I made enough Koki to feed myself and two other families! And now when I buy Koki I have a new appreciation for all of the work it takes to make it!

Often I get frustrated with life here in Cameroon. Yet, there are so many good things and moments that make up for the frustrations. Here are some.

The Best Of….

The Bush Taxi Rides

As much as I whine about the cramped, bumpy and loud bush taxis some of my best stories come from these rides.

Luckily for me bush taxi rides are never as excruciating as for some volunteers who live en brouse. Kekem is situated conveniently on one of Cameroon’s biggest and busiest highways. After the main highways were built people moved to be close to them; for the economic opportunities but also security. Kekem as a town didn’t exist until the main highway was built.

Outside the window of the taxis there is always a lot of activity going on. You can see houses and people going about their daily lives. Children with the water on their heads and old women with the hoe across their shoulders as they come back from the fields. Wherever the car stops people run up to the windows and try to sell their goods. Some policeman will create a stop with a two-by-four with nails sticking out of it in order to stop cars and get money, but the entrepreneurs are benefiting from the situation too. That is what they sit and as car stops the sell them there products. Fruits, peanuts, and baton de manioc are always common. This trip I had someone come up to my window trying to sell two dead monkeys! I said “non, merci”.

If the bus isn’t full when leaving it will stop on the side of the road to pick up people who are coming out of the little villages to travel to the bigger towns to sell their goods. During my last trip to Yaounde the car stopped and picked up this old woman. She was wearing an old worn Kaba (a mumu type dress) and the conductor had to help her up into the bus because her knees didn’t seem to bend very well anymore. She didn’t speak a word of French so she would speak in her local language and someone else who understood would translate for the driver. Like much of the older generations this signifies that she lives way out au village and hasn’t had any formal education. She was traveling to a bigger city to sell her various crops. She sat diagonally from me and I noticed her hands. They were huge and callused, almost as if her skin was 2 inches thick all around.

Halfway through the trip the car stops in a town so that the passengers can stretch their legs and get something to eat. I got out and just bought some water then got back into the bus. I was feeling tired and grumpy and didn’t want to deal with the vendors yelling at me to buy their goods. A little after me came the old woman. She hobbled back to the bus and then had a young guy help her get back into her seat. I was sitting and waiting when I felt the old woman’s hand on my shoulder. I turned around and she was offering me her roasted plantain. I accepted and smiled at her trying to say thank you. She said something that I didn’t understand. But the whole rest of the trip my heart just felt full and grateful that this old woman who, in the material sense, has nothing would share with my what she has. She was welcoming me and although we don’t have much in common, for a while we shared and car and a plantain. It was the best tasting plantain I have ever had.

…Runner up in Best of Bush Taxi

I traveled up to Bamenda to help out with an In-Service Training and on the way up I sat next to the cutest little girl. At first she was kind of scared of me, but her mom forced her to shake my hand and say hello so that she wouldn’t be scared anymore. Towards the end of the trip the little girl takes my hand and puts a 50 CFA piece in it. This is the equivalent of maybe 10 cents. I said thanks, but that she should keep it. She turned away shyly and said something to her mom. Her mom laughed then told me that the girl wants me to have the money. She said that the little girl noticed that in the car everyone had a brother or sister but me. That I was all alone and therefore needed it. We laughed and I tried to give the money back but the little girl wouldn’t have it. So I took it.

Pick up lines

There is a large central market in Yaounde that I went to with a fellow volunteer the other day. Kind of a long story (he tried to sell me to a guy for 150 goats) but I heard the BEST pick-up line yet:

"Our child could be the next Barak Obama"

How good is that? I laughed so hard! How clever! But I still didn’t give him my number (he wasn’t willing to pay the 150 goats)

Phrases

“Ouaiii!” Pronounced: Waaaayh. = Depending on how the sound is made—high or low—its an exclamation of disbelief like “oh my goodness!”or of frustration like “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Je dit que….”= I said that… the que at the end is pronouced like “kay” at the end you have to lower your voice a couple of octaves to get the whole effect. People say this when they are going to repeat something you may not have understood the first time or they something want to put extra emphasize on.

“Ooh…Aisha.” =Oh, I’m sorry! Hang in there!

“Tu es malade?!” =Are you sick? /Real Translation: Are you crazy? People say this to anyone who does something that they don’t really like or agree with. Mostly between young people.

“Petit! Viens!” (see #6 below)

“ Waikay!” I believe this is a Bassa phrase. It is when someone hears something they think is crazy or something startling happens. It is astonishment. Similar to “Ouaiiii” Example: “Waikay!! You don’t eat piment in the United States!?!”

“Tu m’as gardé quoi?” =What did you keep for me? When you travel you are supposed to “garde” or get something for the people who are close to you. So when you get back from traveling people will ask you this. Which can make the newcomer feel very awkward. I finally found the perfect response “Est-ce que je ne suffis pas?”=Am I not enough?

I’ve made it!

The other day was a milestone for me. Everytime I walk down the street I hear someone say “Look! La Blanche!” I get called “la blanche” or the white. But the other day I walked down the street searching for a pineapple, when I heard some say to their friends, “Regardez! Notre blanche!” or Look! Our white! I went from The White to Our White!! Hopefully by the time I will leave I will be “Autumn”, but it is really hard to pronouce so I’ll settle for Brown.

A couple of things I love about Cameroon(ians)

If there is music, you dance. Sometimes this means that you are sitting in a bar with some of your Cameroonian friends and some music that they like starts playing and they randomly get up and start dancing. It isn’t awkward though. Whenever you sit in a bar there is someone up dancing, even if it’s by themselves. Nobody stares because it’s just normal.

You never eat a meal alone. When I first got here people would come over to my house and ask “What did you cook?” I would tell them and then they would expect “their part”. It made me feel uncomfortable, because I would just make enough for me and eat it. Now I realize that if you cook, you cook a lot and you give some to whoever happens by. That no meal should be so small that it just feeds one.

Everyone has “ma part” (their part). If there is extra you give it to someone else. I learned this principle when seeing a man returning from the fields with a bunch of sugar cane on his back and as he walked someone would say “where is my part?” and he would stop and give some. He probably did that just until “his part” was left. Sharing is necessary. My neighbor will often come over with a plate of food and tell me that it is “my part”.

Children are, in a way, everyone’s children. Sometimes when riding in a bus the person next to you will just put their child on your lap. When this happens, there is no annoyance involved. People just play and talk with the child as if it was their own, even if its for the entire 2hr ride.

Everyone falls into one of the following the categories of “Mon frere, ma soeur, mon pere, or ma mere.” At first I thought that it was based upon age, and it is to some extent, but it is also a sign of respect. If you are called “my mother” or “my father” it is more respectful then “little sister” for example. Sometimes an old man will call a toddler “my father”. But I always like it when strangers say Hi to me by calling me “my sister” or “the mother”.

“Petit! Viens!” Little! Come here! All young children are at the mercy of adults. It is like some unwritten law that children have to do whatever an adult tells them. So you will often here that phrase “Petit! Viens!” Then the child will come and do what the adult tells them. Often then the adult will give 100 CFA or something. I have even gotten to the point where if I want something but don’t feel like going to get it I can just yell at some petit to do it. The other day I had some of my students come over to “mow” my grass. (they use a machete) and I just told them to do it and they did. But, I did let them take my sugar cane when they left so they were happy.

Koki, Mangoes, and the omelet shack. My favorite foods here. Koki is black-eyed pea type beans smashed up, mixed with a thick palm oil and piment then put into a leaf and boiled so that it has the consistency of tofu. Delicious with boiled green bananas! Mangoes here are AMAZING! If I am depressed, eating a mango makes me forget all of my worries for all of three minutes as the juice runs down my elbows. There are a lot of little boutiques that have a table and chair set out and then a mama will make omelets for people. There is one by my house and she makes a wicked good bean omelet.

Putting the “Fun” into “Funeral”. Death is something that is viewed differently. In many ways it is out in the open. And funerals are huge celebrations! Well at least the ones that happen years after the actual deaths. There is no party like a funeral though. They go for days and the eating and dancing doesn’t stop!

Pagne. This is the brightly colored and patterned cloth and everyone buys and makes their different outfits with. I’ve become addicted to the stuff! I love buying some, and then taking it to a tailor who will make whatever you want out of it.

Holding Hands. When you are walking down the street with a friend you often hold hands. When I first arrived I remember seeing grown men walking and holding hands and I found it extremely odd. Now as I hold hands with friends when talking with them or walking I realize how much we have made hand-holding solely romantic or boyfriend-girlfriend oriented in the U.S. Holding hands is friendly and should be practiced as such.

Many of you may have already heard about the recent riots and unrest happening in Cameroon, but if you haven't let me fill you in...

Starting Monday all the taxi cab drivers around Cameroon went on strike to protest the rise in fuel prices, and the strike grew as people started to protest the general rise in prices across the country. The cost of general products such as palm oil and eggs has risen in recent months which has been hurting the standard of living of Cameroonians. So the Taxicab strike spread to civil unrest. Especially in the larger cities of Douala, Yaoundé, Bamenda and Kumba there were riots, lootings and burning of public and private buildings, and also some causalities.

Monday I was in the middle of teaching my english class when I was awakened to the reality that the riots and stikes were in no way limited to Douala and Yaoundé. As I was teaching I was startled by a loud banging noise coming from the gate of our school's compound. Next thing I knew my students were screaming and running to the back of the classroom. I looked over and the gate to the school was being burst open by a group of young men with big sticks and machetees. I have never been so scared in my life! My students by this point had broken down the wooden barrier seperating our classroom from the next one and were running away. Seeing that the men will at any moment break through, as the gate is being shaken violently back and forth, I grab my cell phone and run out following my students, thinking frantically about who I might be able to call for help. The first thought I had was that they were coming for me, kind of egotistical i know, but not knowing that they were going to all the schools I figured that they were coming to take the white girl as an example or something. Luckily there was another teacher who was pretty calm and I stayed next to her and hid myself. The P.E. teacher and another male teacher went tentatively to the gate to ask the guys what they wanted. They said they wanted school to be stopped immediately and for all the students to be sent home. The teacher said, Ok we will open the gate and let the students out if you promise not to hurt them. So the gate was opened and all the students rushed out and then the gang moved on to shut down the next school as well. The other teachers and I stay around for a while talking. We were all really frightened, but I think I was the only one who actually ran. One teacher explained to me that in Cameroon the government controls the prices of a lot of the staple products and so when the prices are risen without salaries being risen it obviously creates a lot of unhappy people.

After this incident I went home a bit shaken up, but feeling safe as I knew that the agressors weren't hurting anyone and just wanted to close everything down. All the boutiques and schools had been visited by the same group and everything had been closed. The next day schools tried to reopen but the agressors came back and frightened everyone into closing again.

For about 4 days the whole town was shut down. No cars passed on the main road so there was kind of an eery silence as everyone waited. At first I feared I might run out of food, but I soon found that you can still buy stuff at boutiques, you just have to go through the back door.

My boss told me to stay in my house and keep a low profile so I did. Thursday night the President of Cameroon, Paul Biya adressed the nation in a short speech that condemned violence and lectured the agressors. He also hinted that the youth doing the rioting were being manipulated by the opposition party. He highlighted that Cameroon, unlike many of its neighboring countries, is a country of peace. Which has been true and something that Cameroonians are very proud of. This was the most instability the country has seen in a very long time.

That night after the speech the sous-préfecture (which is like governments representative for the city) of Kékem was burnt to the ground by the rioters. Some neighbor kids came by my house and told me to look, and sure enough up there on the hill was the sous-préfecture building in flames. Rumors were they were going to light up the brigade next, but an increase in police presence around the town calmed things down. All around the country and especially in big cities there has been an increase in police and military presence which hads helped stop the violence. In cities around the country government buildings were burnt to the ground. So I assume that for many the speech wasn't taken very well.

As of yesterday boutiques started opening again and cars are passing. People tell me that the strike is over and that the gas prices have been lowered (which was the inital cause of the unrest). I hope it is over! Monday school will start up again. I only hope that the real problems that the people are experiencing here in Cameroon can be resolved without violence.

Here is an article I found on bbc:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7268861.stm

'Tis the season for funerals! No, that doesn't mean that a lot more people die during the dry season, but the months of December-March are when people celebrate funerals. So a couple of weeks ago I went "funeral hopping" which no doubt sounds extremely strange. Here in Cameroon funerals are held long after a person dies, sometimes years and years. Families wait until they have enough money to throw their deceased loved one the biggest party ever. One funeral I went to was for the ex-chief of Kekem who died in 1987!!! There is a lot of eating and dancing and the party usually goes on for a couple of days to as long as a week. I only went for the last day when the real party goes down. Everyone buys the same "pagne" or brightly colored and patterned cloth and makes something different out of it. And then you eat and eat and eat.

At another funeral I sat down to eat and there was chicken! Which is a treat in Kekem because it is expensive. Also I never eat it because it would mean killing and cleaning the chicken myself, which I am not prepared to do! So I sit down and I start eating this delicious fried chicken. I pick up a second piece, which is kind of round but I just assume it is some big meaty piece. I bit into it and to my surprise found that it was hard. I looked down and I saw the chicken HEAD! Closed eyes, beak, yuck!

I also ate what I am pretty sure was monkey. When you ask someone what kind of meat something is they always say “meat” and if you press everything is “beef”. But this definetly wasn't beef, and I have seen people selling dead monkeys on the side of the road.

The night before I went to a burial, which is different than the funeral. It was for a neighbor who had died. I had never met him, but I was assured that as a neighbor I should go. I felt kind of awkward at first, but I know his son and after a while it wasn’t awkward. Mostly because it wasn’t like anyother burial I have ever been to. There were 2 marching type bands (ie the trumpets, tuba, trombones, etc) and a church choir…all playing at ONCE, different songs! People danced and the widow cried a bit. The coffin sat in the middle of the living room on the inside of the house while we all sat outside the house. People would go in to view the body and they would sing and dance around it while the musicians played music literally right into the dead man’s ears. I should note though that this was a very old man and with younger people the funerals are much more solemn.

Life is going well in general. I am really coming to love it here in Kekem. I’ve learned how to navigate the culture and have made friends. Sometimes I just think what a huge mistake I would be making to be taking this experience for granted while it is here. Someday I am going to want to be back really bad and crave me some Koki and boiled green bananas! I also started a business club at the high school which I really love doing. There are 20 kids. I am starting off with a ten week class and then they are going to do a project together (although I plan to split them up for a project because I don’t know how much experience each kid would get in a group of 20). The vice-principal of the school is kind of auditing the class and he is great. He chases away the kids who gather around the windows to stare at me and helps me out with the French. The class is also super quiet and attentive with him there. If only he could come sit in my English class as well!

Last week was the “International Youth Day”. The kids all march down the street in their school uniforms and sing some song or hold their school plaque. It was cute to watch all of the kids, but I was annoyed because the students don’t just take the day off they take a week off before to PRACTICE the march and then another 3 days afterwards to get back into school. I kept going to find no one there or only about a fourth of the class.

I am still working at the bank, but that kind of hit a wall and I back pedaled. But I started working more with one of the administrators who is SUPER helpful so hopefully that will start moving again soon.

Life is good. It is just SUPER hot here now as we are in the height of the dry season. I got a sunburn waiting for a bush taxi in Nkongsamba and that was painful. Not only the sunburn but people asking me for days, “Why are you all red?”

How everything is going well aux Etats-Unis! I always like hearing news via email! So send me one once in a while!

Lots of Love!

Autumn.e.brown@gmail.com

Il fait longtemps. Sorry! Over Christmas I got to vacation in France with some of the family. It was AMAZING! It was so good to see them to to spend time with them. I don't have a lot of time now, but I just wanted to share some thoughts/experiences I had on my vacation. The first big difference I noticed on the plane was how people baby there children! On the plane I saw a four year old with a binky. Here in Cameroon I will often see two year olds walking to school by themselves, four year olds with a huge pail of water on their heads and six year olds with a huge pail of water on their heads and a baby on their back.

Then I got off the plane and everything was so new and clean and organized! I went into a supermarket and my jaw almost hit the floor with the selection and overall cleanliness of each box.

I had 10 days of hot showers, and all the delicious foods I could get my hands on! I think my parents thought I was a little crazy, because things like carpet were exciting me.

It was great though and I am glad I had the chance. Coming back was a little difficult. It is the dry season and dust from the sahara blows down and makes the air gritty, which isn't fun, but as I came back there were a lot of people who were really excited to see me back and that made me feel better. I was especially excited to go to my english class. My mom brought a bunch of kids books that women from church donated and I read some to my class, which they really liked. Next week I am starting a Business Club at the high school. EEKS! I am nervous! I will be teaching budgeting, feasibility studies, etc. IN FRENCH! Well, here we go!

I will try to blog more often for those of you who still check it out de temps en temps.

Lots of Love!

Last week, or more like two weeks ago, there was a huge landslide just about a kilometer outside oe Kékem. It completely swept away the highway that serves as the main route between Douala and Bafoussam, but it took down 7 houses and one elderly lady was killed. It is towards the end of the rainy season and landslides, although not of this magnitude, are common. In order for me to get to Bafang to check email I have to get out of the bush taxi and hike through mud for a good 100 meters and then get another taxi on the other side. Yet the entreprenuerial spirit here is alive and well. Within a day there were young guys renting out big rubber boots so people could cross without getting their shoes dirty and others who you can hire to carry your stuff so that you can cross easier. It is slowly clearing up to where they can make a path for motos to gt through, but the process will be slow.

After this incident I was at the bank a couple of days later and a man who is a "grand mutualiste" came into the bank and started talking to me about it as everyone did. Then I was surprised and a little confused as he started to tell me that it happened due to some connection with a four-headed snake that someone spotted on the same hill the next day! This man is a highly educated school administrator so I was shocked that he'd actually believe this, but beliefs in sorecrey and magic are all still very prevalent. Even watching T.V. I will see things about people killed by scorcery and the like.

Well, as for me all is well. I started teaching english, as I think I mentioned, and it is challenging but I enjoy it. The kids' (47 of them!) ages range from 11-16 and their levels all vary dramatically which makes it difficult, but I enjoy going and trying to teach them something. I do not have very much time today, but I wanted to drop a quick note to let you all know that I am alive and well.

Best!

autumn

So that last posting was a bit depressed. These ups and downs are normal though. I am feeling much better now that I have officially reached my second month of service. I thought I would just write a follow-up to that last post to let ya'll know that things are going well.

I thought maybe I would talk a little bit about the work I am doing. Things have started off slow as I am learning how exactly the bank functions and getting to know people, but I have identified what some of the major problems are and am starting the planification to help out. Firstly the bank doesn't have enough members to create a large enough base of savings money that the bank can then use to give out as credit. So, we are going to start doing sensibilisation to encourage savings and membership with the MFI. Also there are too many people who don't pay their loans back so we are helping out with the management of credit portfolios and I want to start making everyone turn in a budget with their request and I plan to help people who are taking out larger loans for big projects do feasibility studies. This all sounds well and good but the execution is always a lot harder than coming up with the idea.

Another big problem is that there are fees that one has to pay in order to become a member of the bank and therefore take out a loan. Kekem and the surrounding villages are quite poor and the thought of dishing out a large sum of money, even though it is more like buying shares and remains that persons money, is not possible or too daunting. So, I want to implement a program that another volunteer did a while back in their town where people can pay the fees and start-up costs little by little. Also hiring a motodriver to go out to these remote places and collect the money so that people don't have to take the extra time or pay the extra money to travel to the bank.

What I really want to do and am starting to set up for is do an after school program at the high school for teaching basic life skills and business, such as budgeting, setting goals, making action plans, etc. A kind of Junior Achievement Program. I really want to work with young people and am starting to teach english at one of the other schools (but only for a couple hours a week) which should help me make some more contacts in that area.

I figure the best way to feel better is to get as busy as possible so that I don't have time to throw myself pity parties. Hope this post finds everyone well and I miss you all!

If anyone has any ideas or has read something that they think is interesting and/or applicable please let me know and send it my way!

bye

autumn

The first month has come to an end. I'll tell you what, it hasn't exactly been a picnic. Actually this has probably been the second hardest time of my life that I have ever had to weather through. The honeymoon period has come to an end and all of those things that I at first found so charming and wonderful have turned annoying and inhibiting. The culture, the language, and most of all the feeling of isolation has been difficult. It is not easy, I have found, being different. I feel like I can't leave my house without being constantly harassed or just stared at. People constantly want something from me, or think that because I am white I can some how magically fix their problems, which is a lot of pressure!! Over the last month I have wondered why in the world I would have ever willing decided to leave the United States, or the developed world in general to come to a place where I don't speak the language, people behave towards eachother so strangely and I live alone with lizards, cockroaches and spiders.

After one whine session to my mom, I got ready for bed and realized how slow time seemed to be going. How my two years here seemed to stretch out into an eternity. I then realized how it was the end of september but the weather wasn't changing and I was again saddened as I realized that I would miss the changing of the seasons as I was used to. I also realized that perhaps that is a reason while time seems to crawl, because the way I gauge the passage of time is through season change. That night I looked out my window and the moon was really full and it painted all of the sugar cane, corn and trees in my backyard silver. My first thought is that it looked like a frost of the first dusting of snow and for a second I felt chilly winter air come through the window. I smile and this made me feel a lot better.

Living here has made me realize just how much our culture effects everything about the way we think, behave, and interpret the world around us.Especially as I try to work, I see how Cameroonians view time very differently than me. I think in the U.S. we see time as some kind of enemy that we have to constantly be on our guard against. We try to trick time, manipulate it so that it is lengthened or shortened to fit our needs. Here in Cameroon time is like an old companion that has been around so long you almost forget that they are there. But that you just hang out with and let it do its thing. There really isn't a concept of something not going fast enough, everthing just goes the pace that it goes. I think that in the zworkplace this has been part of my frustration as I try to make timelines, action plans and schedules. I just don't think they translate in the same way.

Another interesting observation. I have noticed that when talking about Cameroonians about their culture they always refer to it as "African" and not specifically Cameroonian. My counterpart says "this is how it is done in Africa" or "this is the African hospitality" but very rarely have I heard people talk about themselves or their culture in the context of just Cameroonian. Although I often do hear people saying mean things about the Nigerians, most people refer to all of the rest of Africa as their brother or sisters and there is definetly this sense of connection or pan-africanism in the way that they identify themselves, as Africans before Cameroonians.

So I have learned that trying to get immersed in another culture is very difficult. I am not sure that I will ever fully integrate or feel like a part of the people in my village. I feel like there is this constant wall between me and them. Like I will always be this outsider who is to be treated differently. But, when I walk to work in the mornings and I pass an older woman on the street I can say "Bonjour Maman" or "Bonjour la mere" (Good morning mother) and she will reply "Bonjour ma fille" (Good Morning my daughter, or my girl) as is custom, and then I feel a little bit apart of the larger family that seems to connect everyone else but leave me out.

So it is definetly difficult. But when I wonder how effective I can ever be or what the crap I am doing here living in conditions that are just plain hard I think of what my sister Ariel says to me. Whenever I would whine that "this paper I am writing is HARD" or something is hard she always says back "Well its a good thing you can do hard things."

So, training is finally over and I have arrived in Kekem. Luckily I found my house in working order, unlike some other volunteers who have to wait for theirs to be finished. The first couple of days have been strange as I try to adjust to the idea that this will be my home for the next two years! I am glad to have a place of my own where I can go home to and to be able to cook my own food, but I am not sure that I am going to like living alone. I guess I will learn to like it! I have a great three bedroom house with a large sideyard which includes; A guava tree, sugar cane, corn, lemon grass, aleo vera plants, and an asortement of herbs like Basil. Until yesterday it also included chickens, pigs and a dog, but the landlord took those away.

Yesterday also marked the day where I saw the largest spider in my life! It was as big as my outstreched hand. Good thing the landlords sons where around to kill it for me! They thought it was pretty funny when I screamed...but dang that thing was huge!!!!

Life in Kekem is going to be good. Nieghbor kids have been coming over, knocking on my gate and when I open the door they just stare at me. I think that I am quite the novelty. I gave them some candy and told them to stop deranging me and that I was going to be here for a while and that they would be seeing me on a regular basis and after that they seemed to lose some of their interest.

I am in Nkongsamba right now (Kekem doesnt have internet) and I just went through the long and painful process of opening up a bank account.It takes forever, and the guy helping us out ened up buying us a coke and just started chillin with us in his office, that was a first! When your banker buys you a coke you know you're a valued customer. lol.

Well, I dont have much time, so I am going to sign off. Wishing everyone the best!

Bisous

Autumn

This happened a while back, but I forgot to tell you all about my visit to the Chefferie! It was a very interesting experience. Firstly, our training director told us that we were going to go visit the chefferie of Bangangte to thank him for his hospitality during our stay here. So we all pitched money in and bought him several large bags of rice and headed over to the chefferie. We crammed into a small concrete room with a brightly painted ceiling and waiting while the Chefs secretary gave us a little breifing. Finally, the cheif arrived and we all stood up and at the same time we clapped our hands twice, bowed and said "Bello", I have no idea what Bello means it was just what we had to say. Then after that we all stood up one by one and clapped our hands, said Bello and introduced ourselves. I know that it is immature and culturally insensitive, but I couldn't help but giggle to myself at all of us Americans bowing to this cheif and saying Bello. The chief then proceeded to give us his family history. He told us he had 21 wives and "60-something" children (like he wasn't even sure) then he proceeded to tell us that he wants more wives and how he is open to a wife of any race or nationality and proceeded to give the invite. I thought, "Shoot if I didn't have this Peace Corps thing going I would be on that offer like a fat man on a twinky"....not!! Who the crap wants to be some guys 22nd wife!!!?? Then after he left the secretary started lobbying for him and telling us how great it would be to marry the chef. After the chief left we went into another room which was like a mini-museum with all of the chefferie's history. There was a chair in one corner that he said that if anyone but the chef sat in it that they would experience a horrible death. it was tempting, but I refrained from going over and sitting in it.

The chief is a community leader that doesn't techinically have any real administrative power, but he has a lot of power in the community and because of that he works with the official officals. He has kind of a spiritual leadership and I believe that he is so wealthy from a kind of community endownment. He studied in Europe and the US and decided to become cheif after he had had a different job and recieved a vast education. He told us that the community needed him so he came back. People come to him as a kind of parallel justice system as well, although I am not sure how it works exactly.

Well, it was interesting if very foriegn to me. All is well, one week of training left!! Ekks! I am very excited though. Hope all is well aux Etats-Unis!!

Autumn

So, I spent a week visiting the little village where I will be spending the next two years of my life!

The communication was hard, although my French has improved, because their accents are different and some would switch into the local language (Bafang) and I couldn’t understand anything or even know where their French ended and the Bafang began. I will also be the first volunteer in this town so I worry about what kind of expectations they have for me. A couple of people asked me, “Qu’est-ce que vous allez apporter?” Or “What is it that you will bring?” (Or, more accurately, in Cameroonian French it is “Vous apportez quoi?”) I think many assume that with me comes money and that is just not true. So, by the end of my visit I ended up just smiling and saying “Juste Moi” or “Le Connaissance” (knowledge) even though I don’t know how true that is.

The town is small. It consists of one main paved road where all of the bush taxis and trucks come through on their way to or from Bafoussam and Douala. Also, it is definetly more tropical then Bangangte, which is up in the mountains, and therefore hotter. I was able to look at my house that I will be living in, which was nice! Although, I do have pigs. I told the guy I didn’t know anything about raising pigs and he told me he would try to get rid of them before I arrived, but I guess I will see. I may have to learn how to take care of pigs. Swweeeet!

After my stay in Kekem I went down to Nkongsamba which a big city about an hour south of Kekem where I met up with some other volunteers and got to eat cheese (Yipee!) and I got my first bad bout of food poisoning (Not so yippee).

By the time I arrived back in Bangangte after a three hour trip in a “bush-taxi” or a van for 12 with 18 people squeezed in it, and a moto ride I was excited to be “home” in Bangangte where my homestay family came out all excited and gave me big hugs. I have come to really like Bangangte. There are only 2 more weeks of training left and Bangangte has become a little haven (no relation to my sister, who should call me!!:) for me. I know the names of the people who work at the boutiques next to the training center and I have made friends with the employees of my assigned company and the thought of starting all over again sans my American support system that I have now makes me a little nervous. I just need to remind myself that after some time in Kekem I will feel the same way about it. There is a lot of work to do in Kekem and I am really excited to get started, but at the same time I am scared out of my mind!

I also have a bit of an interesting side note. A couple of days ago I saw a different side of cameroon. Firstly, it all began as I was watching T.V. over breakfast and these people on the news were wailing and accusing this woman of using witchcraft to kill some other women’s baby and make another man sick. The newsman went to several sick people around the town and they all vehemently swore that the lady was using witchcraft to make the people in the town sick. The poor woman, who did indeed look strange as the gendarmes were pulling her away, was being blamed for misc. maladies around the town and probably just because she was weird! I asked my host mom if she actually believed in witchcraft. She assured me that she didn’t, but then five minutes later said, “You don’t have this kind of thing in the U.S. but there is a lot of it here and it scares me.”

Additionally, later in the week I was visiting my assigned company, just chatting with them and one of the guys who works at a store across the way came over and we started chatting. He was young, probably mid-20s, and was at university in Douala. About an hour later this man came hobbling up to our store with about 4 pieces of bark in his hand and started to tell us how it could cure malaria and all sorts of other diverse maladies. To my surprise the guy I was talking with started acting really interested and asking all of these questions. The man selling it explained how to administer it and to my surprise the young guy paid him a pretty good chunk of money for it! And then he started EATING IT! I asked him how he knew it was going to help him, and how he was sure that he wasn’t eating the tree next door and he started to vehemently defend this “natural remedy” even though there was no way that he could know where the man who sold it got it from. Also, the man who sold it to him had a limp! It is amazing to me how so much of the superstitions and beliefs in witchcraft are still so prevalent here in Cameroon and even among the young and educated.

Interesting stuff and tons of good times. The rainy season is starting to really get under way, so by november I should have webbed feet.

Anyways, I will eventually get pictures up here before I leave the land of the internet. I miss you all and hope that you are doing well!

If you want to see some pictures of our training group and the town I am staying in right now you can go to www.39strangers.com

Bisous!

Autumn Brown

Howdy All!

I apologize for the long silence. Life has been very busy over the last couple of weeks! I write because today I recieved my placement, aka the place I will be living for the next two years! It is in Kekem in the West province, it is a pretty small town and I am going to be working with a small local microfinance institution there. Next week I leave to go and visit the town, which makes me pretty nervous but I am sure that it will be fine.

The west province is the most developed part of cameroon and there are a lot of volunteers in the neighboring towns, which will be great for me not only to have a support network when I really need an American to talk to, but also for networking purposes as we start with our various projects.

Last weekend me and a friend made a trip to Bafossam (which a trainer called the Chicago of Cameroon) but it was like no other city I have ever been to. It was bustling and busy, I almost got run over about twenty times. But we found a supermarche where they had what seemed to me all the heavenly products in the world, like corn flakes and shampoo!!

Also in Bafossam we noticed a naked man just walking down the center of the street, now this wasn,t as strange to me as the fact that no one else seemed to even notice him! Ooh, but we also saw a cinema which was exciting!

Anyways I am out of time....stay tuned there is more to come later!

I miss you all and am wishing you the best,

Autumn

Today it really started. Each of the Small Enterprise Development (SED) Volunteers was assigned a small local business to pretty much consult. I met with them today and looked at their store. I am pretty scared to tell the truth. My french is not good! So they will start telling me about their accounts and the like and I won't really understand what they are talking about. I know that they don't expect me to turn them into Bill Gates or anything, but still I am really feeling the pressure of it all. Which is a good thing I guess.

Anyways, thus far my days are broken into segements of classes. I have language classes, technical classes , and cross-cultural communication classes. I find the X-Cultural classes especially interesting. The other day we had a conversation about Gender roles in Cameroon. Before we came and during our orientation in Yaounde we were told over and over again about the male-dominated culture that exists here in Cameroon. In my host family and while observing the social attitudes I have seen this. The men and women are definetly constrained to their perspective roles (for the most part, I can't say that for ALL Cameroonians). We were also told that as a women we may have hard time being taken seriously and respected in our workplaces. We did a little exercise taht taught me a lot about how women are viewed in Cameroon and/compared to how women are viewed in the U.S.

Our teacher broke us up into four groups all the American men in one group, the American women in another group, the Cameroonian men and the Cameroonian women. We all went to our respective flip charts. We were told to write the words th at come to our mind when we think of the word 'Woman'

This is what we all wrote (punctuation the same as well)

American Men:

legs!!!

feminism

smells good

manipulation

harder life

little feet

bra....lol

Victoria Secret

smile

strong

athletics

emotional

American Women:

the song "American Woman"

strong

organized

independent

undervalued

self-sufficent

liberated

mother

multi-tasking

tough

caretaker

friend

sexual object

vulnerable

Cameroonian Men:

Maternity/child bearing

beauty (physical)

sensitive

weak

tender

domestic chores

kitchen

sex(#1)

patient

respect

submissive

crying

faithfulness

artifical

demanding

materialistic

Cameroonian Female:

mother

beauty/elegance

education

protector

sensitive

fragile

maternelle

manager of the house

attentive

lots of babies

ambitious

feminist

shapes the childrens future

Okay, they wrote the last one in french so something might be lost in translation. But, you get the general idea. This is very interesting to me and disappointing at the same time. Look what the American men wrote! These are all educated and fairly mature men and they wrote about almost entirely sexual things and they said that they were tring to be politically correct! The only sexual thing that the Cameroonian men put on theirs was the word SEX. Alos intersting is the firs thing that they put was child bearing as where the american men put legs!

American women obviously think of themselves as very liberated but obviously the men don't seen to really think so. I think that it is interesting how the Cameroonian men and women have almost the same woman in mind. All around I thought that the Cameroonian men's depiction of a women was more kindly then the American men's. Why are the American men and women's view of women so different? Why do men in America think of Vicotira Secret when they think of women? What is wrong with that picture!? Of course this is not a conclusive study, but it is interesting to me.

This is becoming a very long post. I will try to keep you updated as I keep trekking on!

Yesterday I saw papa johns pizza in a commerical and almost tried to eat the TV screen! haha! The cravings are starting to kick in...

Anyways, au revoir!

Autumn

Bonsoir!

I don't have much time so I have to make this post short. I just wanted to highlight a couple of moments I have had were it has really hit me that I am indeed living in Africa right now and just the amazingness of that fact.

Yesterday I played soccer on a red dirt field with both Cameroonians and other Peace Corps people. As we were playing I looked around myself and saw the scenery and all of the kids watching (and laughing at us, rightfully) and thought to myself, this is amazing, Here I am laughing with these people who in the normal course of things I would never had gotten to know. People from across the world. I just feel overwhelming grateful for the opprotunity to get to know them (especially my host family) and get the chance to try and see things from their perspective.

My next experience is more like an everyday experience. It is my french course. I sit in a field with my teacher, under a mango tree with chickens walking around my feet.

It is those moments that I know will be with me forever.

I dont have much time now, but stay tuned...next time I will write about a very interesting cross cultural session we had.

Bisous!

Autumn

I read over that last post and I want to apologize for the horrible spelling/grammer. I have to go really fast because it cost money.

So, I have arrived in Bangangte! I am now living with my host family and have started my training. Living with this family has really plunged me into the actual reality of what my life is going to be like for the next two years. My family came and picked me up and the city hall and one of the first things that they said to me was "was thought that you were going to be a boy" because I guess that Brown is the name of a boy here...anyways...so that was a bit awkward, coupled with the fact that my french is STILL atrocious it has been a bit difficult.

My family is really nice though. It is a mom, dad, 18 year old girl, 16 year old boy, and then a 4 year old girl and a 1 year old girl. My first night with the family was expecially interesting. Firstly, they put like an entire fish on my plate to eat, and I had to eat it becuase it was just for me. Only the dad and I ate it. It is kind of awkward because I have been eating different stuff then the rest of the family, which is nice of them, but it kind of makes me feel guilty.

When I went to bed the 18 year old came with me and killed the cricked for me that was making noise in my room and then a lizard ran across the wall and I left out a little yelp and agian the girl got up and killed it for me. She's a sweetheart. The 16 year old asks me a lot of questions about what it is like in America and is good about helping me with my French. The 4 year old is scared of me. She just sits and stares at me. My first night she even came over and hesitantly touched my arm. That was pretty funny.

Bangangte is beautiful. It is higher in the mountains so it is not has hot as Yaounde. The roads are all really red so the green plants look amazing in contrast. Also, it is a weird mix of palm trees and pine trees. I will try to post some pictures later.

I am really liking Bangangte and my host family. It is also interesting to watch the family dynamics, which I will try to talk about later. (I dont have a ton of time right now).

IT is a bit of a culture shock, but I am adjusting. I am getting used to the cold showers or the cold bucket baths, the strange smell of my mosquito net and the food.

Bisous et au revoir,

Autumn

Tomorrow is the big day where we leave Yaounde and go to live with our host families. I am really excited, but some of the things the instructors were telling us have me a bit apprehensive. Firstly they gave us a huge lesson on boiling water, not eating unwashed/peeled vegatables and rabid pets (including monkeys!) that we may incounter in our homestay. Secondly, my thoughts of losing weight in Africa have gone out the window as they assured us that they will feed us really well because gaining weight is a good sign and they won't want anyone to think that we haven't been happy/well-fed. So, I will write more about my homestay experience later, but I am writing now because I don't know when the next time I will have access to internet will be.

Most of our instructors are Cameroonian and today we have a Cross-Cultural section that was VERY interesting. Some of my observations, and some of the things I have learned so far (that were a little more than a little strange to me at first) include:

Men holding hands: Ok, it is illegal to be homosexual in Cameroon so when I saw my first pair of men holding hands in the street while they walked I thought....ummm...aren't they scared of being arrested? But, as I talked to some people I learned that guy friends hold hands. Not for really long durations, but when walking a short distance together or while talking.

No visible traffic laws: Little cabs toyota camery cabs are crammed with like 7 people. The driver stops and picks up more people regardless of who is already in the car. And traffic laws are more like suggestions.

"The 11th province": In Cameroon where you are born is where you are from not matter what. One of my teachers was saying that he lived in Yaounde for as long as he remembers, but nobody considers him from Yaounde because he was born somewhere else. There are 10 provinces in Cameroon so someone who was born in one province then moved to another is said to be from the 11th province. There are two anglophone provinces and my teacher was telling me that in Cameroon there is a strong Anglophone seperatism movement (maybe that is too strong, at least autonomy movement) is going on and when Paul Biya (current leader of Cameroon) came to power he wanted to squelch this movement so he started moving francophones to anglophone provinces and visa-versa. My teacher was a francophone who ended up in anglophone. This is kind of where that 11th province idea came into being.

Cameroon has about 230 languages.

I was talking to one Cameroonian here that said that in African languages there are not words for colors...like Green, Yellow, Blue, etc. They only have Black (the absence of light), White (light), and Red (I don't know why Red). I looked at him skeptically so he brought over one by one each of the Cameroonian staff (who each speak several languages and each a different mother African language) and he asked them how you would say a certain color in their African langauge. He pointed at some plants and said "How would you say that color in ----?" She thought and she said "Red." All colors are red and each of the other staff said the exact same thing...they called the Bananas red too. They don't use colors to describe things. They use size or they said "The color of the leaves, etc." I thought this was fascinating and hard to comprehend at the same time.

There is no saying really for "That is not fair" or that idea is not articulated. "This isn't fair" is a very American, or Western mind set. In Cameroon saying "This is not Fair" would not really make sense. I think this might have to do with the Rule of Law not being as developed and a cultural appreciation and respect for authority. If someone is in authoriy then "this is not fair" is irrelevant.

Overall Cameroonians are very open and friendly. Peace Corps have been in Cameroon since 1962 so it has a well (and well established) reputation here and is generally respected. I am really excited to move on to training although it is extremely rigorous. For example, in a couple of weeks I will be going to local businesses and MFIs (Microfinance Institutions) and trying to help them formulate business strategies and learn from them...IN FRENCH!

The best things in life are oftentimes the most difficult, so I will keep that in mind as I get through the next couple of months of language, culture and technical training!

Lots of love and Bisous,

Autumn

I have arrived in Cameroon safely after a very, very long flight!

(and for the Francophones, I am sorry if I spelled that title wrong...eeks!)

Before coming I had a three day orientation in Philadelphia where I met all the other volunteers coming over with me, and got my first set of shots. The other volunteers are really cool, as a group. Then came the two 8 hour flights (To Paris then Yaounde) and then I arrived. Yippee! It is AMAZING! We had a quick stop in Douala, which is the biggest city in Cameroon but not the Capital, so my first impressions were made there. It is beautiful. The Guns and Roses song "Welcome to the Jungle" was stuck in my head when we landed because it looked like a Jungle. Right off the runway you couldn't really see any houses, just the vast amounts of greenery. From the runway I could see the kids playing and even a funeral going on close by. We then arrived in Yaounde. Every country has its own distinct smell and I think, although others have their own interpretations, that Cameroon smells like a mixture between woodsmoke and cornmeal (not unpleasant at all). While collecting our baggage the power went off in the airport, but I guess during the rainy season (now) that is a common occurance, so we had to wait awhile to pick up our bags. Afterwards we went a boarded a huge old bus and made the hour trip from the airport to Yaounde where we came to our hotel and immediately went to sleep. Sunday was a free day and most of us spent the day just catching up on sleep. In the evening a couple of us decided to take a walk to a stadium we saw in the distance (Cameroonians LOVE soccer). It was being reconstructed (via a gift donation from Japan....interesting) and there we met a nice worker named Andre who gave us a tour. My french needs A LOT of work, but I was ok enough to ask some simple questions about the place. People seem friendly but we do stick out like sore thumbs.

The hotel is nice, but the bathrooms are....different. But in the eating area we can see a Banana tree with bananas on it and it overlooks Yaounde. Which is pretty cool.

The food is DELICIOUS! We went to the Peace Corps Country Directors House for dinner and it was all delicious. I am very glad that I like the food. The fruit...oh my goodness. The watermelon, pineapple, everything. It is all very exciting right now.

We are going to be in training for the next couple of months and at the end of the week we move into a Host Family house in a different city a couple of hours outside of Yaounde. During all of our training we will be living with this host family, and although I am excited to finally move out of my suitcase, I am nervous too.Today we got some more shots and had our language test.

I really can't wait to be able to speak well enough to really communicate with people on the streets. I want to ask them so many questions, just about life and politics in Cameroon, what they think of the U.S., ect. That may take a while, but I am determined to get there.

There is a lot of poverty everywhere you go, but I don't really look at it and think "these people are so poor." They live how they live. It is very different then what I am used to, but all the same I don't think it is fair for me to critize their housing, ect. Most seem happy and curious. And notwithstanding the negative side, I think that there is something to living a kind of simple life that brings a different kind of fulfillment.

Anyways, I didn't cover all of my thoughts/feelings ect. but I am on a shared computer now so I must make it short.

In brief, so far so good. I really like it here actually. It may sound odd but when I woke up for that first morning and looked out my window it just felt so great. Coming to Africa kind of feels like coming home somehow. As cheesy as that sounds. A lot of people seem to say that though, so I think that there is just something about Africa that captures people, which right now includes me. In two weeks I may be writing about how frustrated I am or how I miss such-and-such food. But, for right now I am loving all of it.

I hope that everyone is doing well and I do want to hear from each of you and I will reply. It is just that for the purpose of mass dissemination a blog seems to work.

Bisous,

Autumn