What happens when a volunteer leaves Cameroon for good? They get back at all the vendors in the market who have pinched hundreds of cfa from our pockets. How to do that? Moving Sale!! Our good friend Michelle, who helped us with the transition to the big city, finished her service a few weeks back. Being a smalls business volunteer, Michelle never wants to waste a dime. So we dragged everything she couldn't fit into her bags on to her front "lawn". The idea came when another volunteer abandonded her house and its contents, which Brian and Phil took to a bar and sold. 15.000cfa in one afternoon at the bar, not too bad ($30). Brian acted as head vendor. Michelle and I were support. Here'swhat ensued:

Brian attracted a crowd by yelling his trademark "Chose! Chose!" (Things! Things!)

People started to gather, looking quizzically and the white man shouting on the street.

White man was insulted when people proposed outrageous prices:

If you can believe it, the hair dryer was a tough sell (but it sold for just under $10.00):

Getting rid of these huge leather poofy things was hard. No one wanted them because they were 'African'. They wanted white man things: Towards the end of the day, almost finished: And here's a look at what you can buy from little boys all over the city:Candy, kola nuts, cigarettes, underwear: Hard boiled eggs: Need to weigh yourself?:

A shoe fix?:

Boiled peanuts:

and this is us 'renting' the meat man on the 4th of july.

Many of you may have seen this on Facebook already, but here it is again: This is a project that a fellow volunteer started here in Ngaoundere with some of the girls that she was working with. She was teaching a business class to young women (age 16-30) who were not able to finish high school for various reasons, including marriage, pregnancy, lack of family funds, etc.

Four of the girls came up with business plans that included 29% community contribution of funds. For example, 3 of them want to be seamstresses. Their community contribution was the space and some materials. What the rest of the money will fund is sewing machines and materials for three of the girls and will act as start up money for the fourth to make a maiden voyage to a small village to buy foods to sell here in the city at a higher price.

The objective is to give these girls a chance to be financially independent. Once the money is here, it will be given to me and I will take the girls shopping for the materials. (Actually I'll probably send a Cameroonian friend with them so the vendors don't increase the prices too much for the white girl. But thats neither here nor there.) I'll be checking in on them and helping them keep track of their business revenues and expenses. I think this is a great opportunity for the girls and I'm excited to be able to work with them in my last months here.

Thanks to all of you who have donated already.

Also, I know it's been a long time since my last post, but I've been very busy with work lately. I've got some material ready to go, so hopefully soon I'll have a post up about life in the city....

And here's to some of the best (Melba Toast, Snortin Norton (not pictured), Rondo, and Houdini), we'll miss yoiu:

and just for good luck....

I think i speak for most of the volunteers who live in the Grand North of Cameroon when I say that we really appreciate the Muslim culture. Compared to the South at least, where people can be very aggressive. The markets of the North are calm, bargaining is more of a game, a fun formality. We (women) can stroll through the market and not be grabbed or pulled into stalls. I've also noticed that volunteers in the South are more aggressive towards Cameroonians, they seem to have less patience with them. I know when I am returning from a trip to the South, I have to adjust my attitude as soon as I get of the train. For example, after my parents left, we had been down South for over a week (in protective parents-are-here mode) and when we got of the train here in Ngaoundere, a little boy asked if he could carry our bags. Coming from the station in Yaounde where people are always grabbing and pulling at our things to have a chance to earn $1 carrying our bags to our seats, I was in a defensive mode. If you say no in they insist that you give it to them and that you can't possibly carry a backpack 100 meters; you have to be very forceful. So, tired of all the aggressiveness, I snapped at the boy. NO! And he looked at me like I was crazy and said "OK, welcome to Ngaoundere". I felt like a witch.

So here in the North, the muslims are (in general) more calm and relaxed. The Muslim way of life is peaceful and respectful. There is no drinking or smoking. One should love and accept his neighbor. People actually give money to poor beggars. They pray five times a day. All of the things that make up a successful society are included in the Muslim faith. However, there are perversions of the laws that have infiltrated this way of life. The Koran preaches the equality of man and holds that women are indispensable. Mohammed's wife was one of his strongest spiritual advisors, he relied on her for many difficult decisions and was open to his followers about how important she was to him. He appreciated women and encouraged others to do the same - even if he did say it was acceptable for a man to have four wives.

Nearly 2,000 years later and 3,000 miles away, the combination of the Islam and traditional rural African culture has created a disaster for women and girls. I have to point out here that its not just the Muslims that I'm speaking about now. Its Islam mixed with the traditional culture - the Christians and other religions have adopted this way of life. Polygamy and bu-bus does not necessarily mean a Muslim household. I could tell 100 stories about how women are treated here in Cameroon and they would all be just as depressing as the next. Boys are given priority when it comes to going to school; girls are married off at 14, 15, or 16 years old; wives are beaten; legally, men have all of the power to divorce a woman and take the children, etc.

One aspect of the culture that is evident just walking down the road is that women and girls are no where to be seen. They are in the house doing chores all day, usually going out only to get water, go to the farm or sell things at the market. Never have I seen a group of girls playing soccer in the afternoon or climbing trees to find fruit. You can't go 10 meters without running into a gang of small boys in search of something to do. There are young men, young and old, sitting in the shade all afternoon, sleeping or watching people pass. Never are there women doing this. Never. At any given moment in the center of TIbati, with 100 people within view, I could look around and count on one hand the number of women or girls. They are invisible outside the family compound.

That being said, a fellow volunteer and I have started a girls soccer/healfh club in a neighboring village. Every Sunday afternoon we play soccer and every Thursday we talk about health topics and teach some english words that correspond to the lesson. For example, last week we talked about the importance of exercise and eating healthy. The first week we had about 25 girls show up, and then slowly the numbers started dropping. After a month, we were down to about 15 girls. When we went searching for the others, we found them carrying water or washing clothes at their houses. We were told that they were "of marrying age" and shouldn't be out playing. These are girls that are 13 and 14 years old.

In an effort to convince the parents that exercise and socialization is important, we went around to all of the houses in the village who's daughter's stopped showing up. We had to explain to them what we were doing and why its important for them. One father in particular stands out: He has two young daughters, 13 and 15 years old. They are both pertty popular with the other girls when they play, and seem to really want to participate. After the first two weeks, they stopped showing up because, their father said, they were ready to get married and have children, and no man wants a girl who plays soccer instead of doing house work.

First we tried to say that it was good for their health and that they aren't missing that much work around the house - just two hours a day, twice a week. Then we said that maybe a man would like a strong girl who can play soccer. Both parents laughed at us. Nothing seemed to be working. Then I told them that I work at the hospital and I see many girls die or get very sick when they have children too young (fact). I told them that if they insist on marrying their daughters so young, they can at least give them a chance to get strong and healthy before getting pregnant. This got their attention. So we went with this strategy for the rest of the afternoon, explaining to parents that to have healthy children its important for the girls to be strong. One mother called me fat (a compliment) and I said it was because I exercise a lot and I'll have an easy time with pregnancies because my hips are big and strong.

For the most part, we were successful, but one father still refused to let his daughters come the following week. We went to his house on the way to the field because the other girls told us the girls wouldn't be able to come if we didn't talk to him again. He told us that they had to wash dishes and then they would be there. Twenty minutes later they still hadn't showed up and when Sam went to see why, he said they had done something wrong and weren't allowed to come anymore. We'll try again this week with the father, and next week and the week after. Hopefully the girls will get to play and have fun before they are married and popping out babies one after the other.

So here we are, trying to institute our own Title IX policy in Cameroon, telling the parents of young teenage girls that we are preparing them for babies and marriage through our soccer club. Whatever gets the girls come works for me.

Thursdays at Sam's house.

The past two weeks have been interesting, but i have no desire to write much about my adventures. here's a quick recap and then photos.

The weekend before my birthday i went to visit a rural hospital because i was told that the Malnutrition center was really effective. so off i went to see what can be done when international funding from 3 sources meets a rural village hospital and 12,000 refugees. I was actually unimpressed with the center but maybe it was because there was only 2 sick children there and they didnt look as bad as most of the kids I am used to seeing in Ngaoubela. The center was nice, it had all the resources and painted walls and such. they even have community gardens where they teach the families what to grow for better nutrition.

Later we went on a hike in search of elephants, but alas, after the longest day of my life (no food or water or idea where we were most of the time) we made it back to the village safely without seeing dumbo. we saw lots of their tracks, broken trees and piles of shit, but no animals.

making a cookstove with a women's group

the finished product.

the wood goes in on the bottom and the pot covers the hole on the

top. it traps heat, saving on time and wood used. i havent been back to visit

the group yet, but hopefully its still standing.

heading off into the bush.

this is ellie, our guide who went waaay too fast and never seemed to need

rest or water. or to know that we were anywhere close behind.

the first leg of the hike. we still look pretty positive about

our situation. we came from the mountains in the distance.

unfortunately i have no photos from the death march home.

happy birthday to me

after celebrating my birthday with lots of food coloring and sugar, i headed to my old village to take care of some work and visit old friends. Mostly I relaxed for a few days, went to my meeting with the women's group (who are doing wonderful and are even taking out credit with the savings and loan program i started with them), swam and hiked. here is what last weekend looked like to me:

fresh coffee, village style

little girls love laughing

i'm his 4th wife now.

view of the Meng River and the valley. Our old village (Meng)

is off in the distance

boys fishing

heading out to the swimming spot before the rain

swimming in the Meng!

cows crossing the Meng.

traffic jam. different cows, same spot.

surfing

picking mangos

farming

a trash can. "throw here"

then the trip back to ngaoundere, always fun. but this time i had my camera and was able to take lots of photos and videos.

prison car.

seats: 25

maximum capicity: N/A

beautiful views

there is no talking to the driver

and no vomiting allowed, although its not strictly enforced.

roadside restaurant

yum?

roadside gas station

gossip time. after prayer (the second of the ride) and

before getting back on the bus.

Early november was the last time we saw rain here in the Adamaoua. The dry season drags on and on, the dust creeping in every possible space. the leaves of the trees get covered in coating of red dust, as do I - especially after a car ride (see the photo of my father a few posts back). By February we were all hoping for an early start to the rains. After a few months of complete dryness, you begin to feel dusty on the inside. I'm thirsty just thinking about it. Each week we came closer to the time when we could realistically expect to see some moisture. FINALLY, last week it arrived. The first rain was barely enough to wet the ground, but the next day there was a good, bone soaking shower.

So we waited all this time for the rain, and as soon as it came I realized how frustrating it can be. A friend and I had planned to climb the mountain in the morning, but couldn't because of the rain. i decided i should do something else productive since i was up early anyway. Of course, the rain thwarted my other ideas as well; you can't do laundry in the rain and you can't go to the market because no one will be there. When I eventually did get to the market after the rains quit for the day, it was a muddy mess, and I nearly fell a number of times.

That was about four days ago. This morning I woke up and there was a strange light coming from the window. I rubbed my eyes, thinking there was something wrong. The house was filled with an rusty orange glow, and as i stepped outside, i realized what was going on. Dust. Again. That was at 7:30 this morning. Its 3pm now and it seems to be getting worse. The air is filled with a choking red dust. Visibility is about 100 yards. Its almost like looking at the world through a sepia lens. All the moto taxi men look like they just left a bomb scene, their faces, eyelashes and clothes covered with dust. You look down the street and in the distant you can make out hazy figures through the apocalyptic glow. The world looks like its coming to an end. This morning the man who cleans our house was here and washed all the floors and surfaces. By 1pm, when I got home, it looked like its been a week since anyone washed the house. This dust is worse than anything i've ever seen.

View from the hospital. normally you can

see the whole city below.

In sum, when its dry, we want rain, and when it rains, we want it to stop. I have always said that this country is a place of extremes- there is rarely a happy medium. My grievances with the dry season are quickly eliminated with the first rains, and a new list of difficulties arises.

Either we're choking on dust like today or we're drowning in the mud like at the market the other day.

The world in sepia.

Will we ever see the sun again?

The women at the weekend seminar. The two other volunteers are

Michelle (left), who lives in Ngaoundere, and

Fleurange from the Extreme North.

Brian serving the women his home made banana bread

and cake. i think they were impressed and weirded out

by a man baking AND serving them.

Karate Babies!

Women's Day. I passed out female condoms and demonstrated on a

plastic vagina how to use them

Women on Women's Day. Les Femmes Jardinieres, a group

that Michelle and I work with.

Mosque at sunset.

Riding our bikes to Lake Tison. It took 2.5 hours

to get there and 1.5 to get home. Beautiful but exhausting.

A view from about half way. the tall mountain in the back is

Mt. Ngaoundere. Directly beyond that is the city.

Getting ready to jump in. Hopefully there's no

schisto there (schistosomiasis).

feeling generous? help phil. (he lives in the hottest place on earth. pity him.)

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=694-159

This weekend a fellow volunteer here in Ngaoundere organized a seminar to train women in the art of the VSLA (Village Savings and Loan Associations). I started one of these programs in Tibati, and I'm hoping to start more this year. We spent all day Saturday and Sunday at the Women's Center with 21 women from around the city. Here is how they thanked us for our work:

You’re very welcome for the vacation. I’m glad you had so much fun, but do you realize how stressful it was for us? I mean, think about it-bringing three people to a country where they don’t speak the language and stick out like sore thumbs. I was sure you’d be lost before we left Yaounde. But alas, you made it the whole two weeks. And I have to admit, Brian and I had a great time with you guys. So thank YOU for coming.

(which one of these things is not like the other?)

Yaounde: its quite a horrible place to spend more than a few days at a time. When you arrived, we had already been there for a week getting shots, going to the dentist, and giving poop samples (yes, more than one). So brian and I were ready to get out of there as fast as possible. Luckily there was no problem with the train reservations like during the Hillery family vacation. Actually I think everything in Yaounde went smoothly- except when mom saw a man begging and pulled out a 2,000cfa bill to give him. Thats the equivalent of about $4. If in the US, you usually give someone $1, that wouldn’t be so bad. But here, if you want to give them something, its usually about 100cfa. So 2,000 would be like handing this guy $20! I can picture all of the beggers coming out of the crowd like cockroaches. Luckily I saw before she handed over the bill and I shoved a 100cfa piece in her hand. Crisis 1 averted.

The Train: nice sleeping accommodations, huh? And I’m not being sarcastic, those couchettes are wonderful. The “pets” are an added bonus. Just be thankful we didnt get someone who was transporting fish or some other maggot infested sack of goodies. And the problem with the porters was simply a miscommunication. As I handed on 1,000cfa they both started complaining that it was 2,000cfa. After a long discussion and a trip to the porters’ office, we realized that he was just too quick to complain. I was in the process of reaching for 1,000cfa to hand to the other, but I couldn’t get to it because the first guy wouldn’t take the bill. I guess he thought I was giving him the money for both. I don’t really know. But, like most operations here, it was 5x more difficult than it should have been. Crisis 2 averted.

As for the food on the train- I’ll just say that if you had eaten on your way OUT of the country instead of on the second day, you would have a different opinion. Ask any volunteer and they’ll say “its pretty good”. (the price is the problem for us).

The Ride to Tibati: Sorry that we had to wake you up at 4:30, but like you said, there is no wake up call, let alone a schedule to let people know when the train will get to each station. I usually just get up around 4am and ask at least 2 guards how far we are from Ngaoundal (that way you can average out the three answers for a rough estimate of time). And the driver- Adamou- is the best driver in all of Tibati, so of course he knew exactly where the couchettes would be AND he knew that the car wouldn’t start. So he chose the little loading dock incline thing to wait for us. No pushing necessary.

(the long, dusty road to Tibati)

Tibati is exactly 100km from Ngaoundal, and we made it in about 3 hours (not 5 dad-although maybe it felt like that to you. Brian and I thought the ride was nice and peaceful). Not a bad time at all, even with the flat (bologna skin) tire. Luckily a public bus was passing and they had the tools to help. By tools I mean there were 5 or 6 men who helped lift the side of the car so we could change the tire. Sometimes car problems can cause hours of delay, so be thankful for the brotherly love. Crisis 3 averted.

(the lake in Tibati)

Tibati: I think you summed up the visit here very nicely. I’m glad you liked the house-even if it did take you a little while to appreciate it. We went from living in one room with a 2ftx2ft window (and ALL of our belongings-2 bikes, 2 trunks, suitcases, water filters, buckets and all) that was 98* at midnight in Pitoa to the beautiful resort that was our house in Meng. Needless to say, it took us all of 3 seconds to fall in love with it. Of all the houses I’ve seen in peace corps, Meng was the best.

You all did well with the bucket bathing and bucket flushing, but I did have to explain the water system a few times before everyone understood.

(looking good)

As for the food, you actually tried everything we offered. Nice job. Actually dad, you went above and beyond. When I told you to give the dried fish to the dogs, the last thing I expected you to do was taste it yourself. I give you the award for the most courageous action during the trip. Gross, huh? Even though most people put that in their sauce and call it delicious. Yummm.

(thanks to the Bisons for free stuff!)

Ngaoubela: I’m glad you got to see the hospital where I spent most of my time. The first time seeing it is quite the shock, but since I’ve been there a year, nothing surprises me anymore. Goats, ducks, chickens, 10 people in a room, children peeing on my feet, women cooking in the dark kitchen over the fire. Its all normal now. But having you there made me reflect on how different it really is. And as I mentioned a few times to you- our hospital is the BEST one for hundreds of miles. Thats part of the reason its so crowded.

(mom in the state-of-the-art OR)

(the primary school at the hospital. my mother agreed to teach there. i'm not

sure if she realizes how serious they were)

After seeing the hospital, I think we all agreed that we didnt want to be treated for anything there. I’ve seen surgeries, and I’ll tell you you do NOT want to have anything serious happen. Which leads to our last night in Tibati when we thought it would be fun to play basketball. It was fun, until jim went down with a looooong string of f-bombs. Classic. Anyways, we had the doctor with us and he was able to see right away that the knee cap was broken. Actually, anyone who has ever looked at a knee before would know it was broken-it was clearly in two pieces.

With the doctors instructions, we made a crude splint and called a car to come take Jim to the hospital. Luckily I know most of the nurses there and I was able to get people moving to help. Getting the “radiologist” to come back to the hospital at 7pm took some work- as did getting the lights to go on. But 30 minutes after we showed up, we had the lights on and the X-rays taken. The doctor and I put the cast on and we were sent home. Crisis 4 averted...sort of.

The road to Ngaoundere: this one is a doozy even when you’re used to the ride and are healthy. Jim-i’m taking back my father’s award for the most courageous act of the trip. You taking the road with 12 hour old broken knee (and torn tendon as we found out later) takes the cake. That had to hurt. It has been one of my fears since getting to Cameroon. What if something happens to me in Tibati? How the hell will I get out of here? Luckily the day before we decided to splurge with the big private car.

(Brian and I thought the ride in private car was

nothing short of luxurious)

Ngaoundere: My new home. Great city. I’ll talk more about it in my next post, but everyone got to see the market and eat the gourmet food. Since I’ve been back, I’ve been exploring the city with another volunteer who lives here and I’ve found lots more cool places. Next time you come I’ll take you around.

Back down South: Having a broken leg in cameroon can be more than just an inconvenience, it can make things impossible. Take for example, the train. There is no way Jim could have taken first class. Of course the weekend we were traveling back to Yaounde, all the couchettes were sold out for four days straight. I ran around the station begging to get a bed for my father-in-law with a broken leg. Finally I was directed to the boss’ office where I nearly in tears. Finally I was promised a couchette-but the rest of us would be in first class. Crisis 5 averted.

Kribi: The second leg of the trip was the real vacation for Brian and I. The beach! It was very relaxing. Especially since I decided that you and mom had learned enough french to be on your own-at least for a little while. We took nice walks on the beach and swam in the ocean every day, no big crisis down there. Oh wait, the last night when we were going to eat at the local fish market, dad was scared of the ‘dirty’ water where they were washing the dishes and the fish. Because this was the only time anyone complained about the quality of the food, we agreed to go to the nice restaurant down the road so we wouldn’t get some fun disease. Crisis 6 averted. (until we saw 2 rats run across the floor of the nice restaurant!!)

(if you can see past his fat head, the beach

really was beautiful)

(my dad deciding he didn't want to eat here. Notice the lady

washing dishes in the 'dirty' water)

Well, there’s always more to say, but between the two of us, we’ve covered the important parts of the trip. I think the pictures really tell a better story, so head over to Voorhees to see the rest.

Mom, Dad and Jim- thank you so much for coming to see us. Now I feel like you can understand all of the things that I talk about in my letters and this blog. I had a great time showing you around and I know everyone here-volunteers and Cameroonians- was so happy to meet you. I hope you had as much fun as we did.

Love you lots, see you next year!!

-Jessie & Brian

Dear Brian and Jessie,

Thank you for the wonderful vacation. I hope you had as much fun as Mom and I did (Jim too). From the moment you met us in the airport in Yaounde until the time you and Brian dropped us off at the airport in Daoula we had an absolute blast. Imagine that, you were in charge of us the whole time, you guys did a great job shepherding us around the Third World. I knew on the ride from the airport that this trip was going to be different. Speaking of that ride.....

Yaounde from the Hilton

Yaounde

What a ride that is, right through time. You travel all of 40 minutes and you’ve experienced a hugh slice of Africa already. Somewhat rural, mostly big city but such a city as I’ve never seen and then finally to the five star Hilton Hotel where you correctly said, “This is as good as it’s going to get.” By which I think you meant the train ride we were taking next evening. Speaking of which......

Lucky for us you reserved a couchette for everyone, didn’t tell me that we got our own ‘pets” (read cockroaches) with the room. After the scrum of the station, and the Porters it was nice to be our own private room on the train. Which reminds me, what was the problem the Porters? There seemed to be a big ‘argument’ over what we should pay those boys. I couldn’t see arguing over 50 cents, but so be it. I guess it’s an African thing. I mean the guy carried one bag on this head and one in each arm, and I know because I weighed them, that each bag weighed at least 30 lbs. When you went back to the “porter office” to complain and settle the price I thought I might never see you again, but it was good to know that we saved 50 cents, it bought us about a dozen bananas on the trip. Thanks for telling me not to buy any of that Matiock (spelling, no idea) on the train. That was the worst tasting food I’ve ever had (and remember this from a kid who ate a mothball at age 3). That train ride was very interesting, who would have thought that if you put a live chicken in a plastic bag you could take it on a train!! Lucky we got off at the right station uh??? No front desk to call for a wake up, no schedule. Just rely on the internal clock uh? Which leads to the “private car” ride to your village. Now about that ride......

My first thoughts: How did the driver know exactly where we were going to exit the train? I'm thinking "This is great he’s parked right on this little incline next to the train." Oh, now I see why he’s parked there: Because the starter doesn’t work, he needs to let the van roll down the hill so he can start it!!! Great!!! I’m sitting next to a guy who owns 50 car dealerships and we’re in a van whose back door only closes if you say the magic words; whose tires look like they’re make out of bologna skins; and it’ll only start going down hill. No matter only about 80-90 miles to your village, Tabiti. What’s that you say? 5 hours to get there. Nice and who’d a thunk you could get 9 people and as many pieces of luggage in a van with three rows of seats!!! Of course you can if everybody has a rather large piece of luggage in their lap for 5 hours. Now I know what you meant when you said, “Pack light.” At this point, I know this is going to be a real “trip”. But you know what? that drive was great, fantastic scenery and villages that were just amazing. How the people live in these places is something that has to be admired. To see them walking down the road with big bucket of water on their head or a load of firewood, amazing. Many of the houses had bowls of Matiock all ready for cooking for sale out in front of the houses. The commercial centers of the villages; where you pointed out that everybody sells the same thing, orange Fanta, the ever present Coke, liter bottles of gasoline, maybe dried fish, bananas. No rest areas with Burger King in this country. Finally, after only one flat tire (the bologna skins gave out), we arrive at your village of Meng and your neat little house. Now, about that house......

My first thought, “How have you and Brian lived here for one year?” Gotta hand it to you two. Our welcoming committee consisted of two dogs, a couple cats and a whole bunch of neighbors. Now I see how you manage, you live in a great neighborhood and have wonderful neighbors. Sidouan does the dishes, Hiver tills the garden, Mandela gets water from the well and Bernard washes your clothes, and Vinnie...Vinnie Cheese provides the entertainment with about 15 of his closest friends, all under age 10 ( I guess) and most with a shirt and pants or a dress on. Although for some of them at least one piece of clothing was optional.

Jess and Brian's house

After you finish washing the floor and we all settle into our rooms, we send one of the ‘peities’ to the store(??) for........warm beer. $1.25 gets you 24 ozs. of 33. That’s the local beer and it’s great warm. Gotta bring that bottle back though. By the way, did you ever settle that problem with the store owner over the 10 cent bottle return? I was tempted to just pay him one day when Jim and I ventured out and bought beer by ourselves. (After a while Jess and Brian gave the adults permission to cross the street and go to the store.) But I thought you might get mad at me so we left it for you to settle. As you always said “They’ll just expect the White man to cave in to them.” Good thing Jim remembered where the store was because I was heading into someone’s house to buy the beer. I’m sure they would have sold me something, it seems like every thing has price in Africa.

Thanks for introducing us to the African version of The Waffle House or as you call it, “the omelet shack”. When I first see it I figure you’re kidding and we’re really not buying omelets in this place, it looks like something one would find under a bridge in east LA. However we go in and like much of Africa, there’s a surprise waiting. Your choice of bean or spaghetti omelets!!! The ambiance is early orange crate, but it’s great!!!! Plus a refrigerator with somewhat cold water or soda. It’s help yourself to a place setting and silver ware. Did you know that there are forks that don’t work? Jim seemed to pick one the first time we were there and in all fairness when it was my turn to pick, I saw his mistake and picked a fork that worked. How come you don’t dicker over the price of omelets, it seems like you do over everything else in the country but not those??

If you see the Lamido (Sultan) again, tell him it was nice of him to have us over for a chat. I hope he liked the Buffalo we gave him. Did you think he understood that that was the name of our “Village”-Buffalo? I don’t think so. Thanks to Brian for loaning me the traditional garb for that visit. I think all the villagers got a kick out of seeing me and Jim in those outfits. In fact, now that I think about it, I think we were pranked. What about it Brian? an ocean separates us, you can tell us now. Do all those people who visit the Lamido get their own shoes back? That’s a hassle, taking off you shoes to walk in his house, most of the area is dirt floor, so go figure) although now that I think about it, you made us take off our shoes before we went into your house. I must I admit I didn’t do it all the time, payback is a bitch, uh? Were you trying to be Lamido of Meng??

Ready to meet the Lamido

Dr. Flo,Ludia,Abdul,Jessie,Gabriel,Jim

Ten seconds ago they were all watching Jim read on his Kindle.

The ORDowntown Tabiti-the omlette shack is nearby. I think we rode with Angelina Jolie, some parts looked like Haiti.

Make sure you thank Flo, the Austrian doctor, (that’s Florian to folks who don’t know him as well as I do) for the tour of the hospital. I do have a couple of suggestions for that place though. Can we do something about the goats that seem to be everywhere and leave their calling cards all over the place? Maybe they could mix in a few garbage cans in the courtyards since the patients relatives have to live out in the open or on the porch while the patient is there. Maybe a few propane grills since the patients relatives have to cook for them while they're in the hospital. It was rather ironic that the whole while I’m looking at the hospital, I’m thinking, “I hope I never have to be treated here” (I’m sure we were all thinking that too) and then guess what??? Surprise African style, Jim needs to go to the hospital the next day and make use of the facilities. (I’ll save the details for Jim’s blog). Jess, one thing I’ve been meaning to ask: We’re in the middle of nowhere at this hospital and they’ve got everything they need for Jim’s cast and pain killers. We go to the Provincial capital city the next day and you’ve got to go out and buy the plaster of paris or what ever it is they use to make Jim his newer, smaller cast. How come??? You’d figure the little hospital wouldn’t have it but the bigger one would. Another African surprise.

Also thank Abdul, your very special Cameroonian friend, for showing us around a little bit and introducing us to his father and his father’s three wives and a few of his 22 siblings. Boy, is that house crowded!! Why did the third wife have the nicest kitchen?? A new gas range and big freezer. I loved how they all displayed their wedding presents; the cookware they were given ( and apparently never used).

If you ever run into any of the Moto drivers give them a shout out for me too. Except maybe the one who ran out of gas with me on the back in the middle of the night. When he turned the Moto over to release the gas in the reserve tank I thought we were done for. Do you think Brian would have come back to get me? I had no idea where I was or where I was going. I guess I can’t complain since the rides only cost about 40 cents, can’t get on a Merry-go-Round for that...

And also a big thanks to the driver we had who took us from Tabati to Ngaoundere(150 miles) in a record time of 6 1/2 hours. I’m pretty sure he went at least 20 mph. once or twice. Why are most of the roads on that route like a washboard??? I think Jim’s leg must have felt it for the whole time, but being the good trooper he is, not one complaint. Except maybe when the driver stopped for his breakfast, disappeared, and left us in the market where they were just finishing butchering that cow/goat/whatever they were chopping up. Do they need to do it right next to the road? Does the dust from the trucks improve the taste of the meat? Again, the scenery was beautiful and I just missed seeing that monkey’s ass jumping in the bush. Mom saw it (just the butt) and she still counts it as seeing a monkey. Me, I had to wait until the trip to the pigmy village to see my first and only monkey.

Me after the 6 1/2 hr. car ride. A little dusty and it's not a misprint, I felt like I was sideways after I got out of that van.

Market in Ngaoundere

Tell all your staj in Ngaoundere that it was wonderful to meet them. It looks like you’ve made some life long friends and that you’ll have lots of people and places to visit all over the country when you get back. They’re all so smart and dedicated, mom, Jim and I were very impressed. It was really nice to meet Allison since I’ve been following her blog the most, but now I’m going to look for the others too. I’ve been thinking about our lunch at the Coffee Shop, you should go back and see if they did the factur correct for our lunch. How can 10 people have steak or fish as an entree, beer or soda and the bill only come to $60? Another African surprise I guess.

I know you’ll run across my tailor so tell her I’m planning on taking my pange shirt to Florida. I’m sure the orders will be coming in fast and furious when the folks in Fla. see that baby.

And make sure you thank the train official who helped with our reservation from Ngoundre back south to Yaounde. I think turning on the water works did help on that one. Poor Jim would not have made it if he had to sleep on the floor in First Class. I don’t think he would have been able to step over the many bodies laying in the aisles after about 10PM. Although I should talk, I slept in the upper bunk with mom feet to face and face to feet. Tell me again, why were those two guys handcuffed to the table in the dining car, something about stealing money on the train??? I wonder if the guys in the other car ever stopped arguing, I know they were going at it at 6PM when I went through and at 10PM and 2AM. Not sure but I think they stopped around 5AM so the Muslims could pray in the aisle. Jessie doing a deal at the hardware store in Ngaundere

e The 'Staj' at the Coffee Shop

Heading for the train to yaounde and home for Jim African morning mist

A popular spot in Yaounde--good fish!!

When you get back to Yaounde, make sure you get in touch with our newest Cameroonian friend, Josephine. She sure made us a nice lunch. I’ll trade a few bottles of vitamins and aspirin for that lunch again. The ride from our hotel (not the 5 star this time, the 2 star) to her house was amazing. I could not believe the roads in the Capital city. Those weren’t potholes, they were carters!! Do you think the cab driver hit anyone when he drove on the sidewalk to avoid that massive crater in the middle of that intersection? My eyes were closed during that part. You’ve got to find out from Josephine how that wedding negotiation went. We left before they started dickering about the goats but the palm wine sure was plentiful and good. The food looked great too. Sorry we missed that feast. Interesting how the groom’s family brings the gifts when he asks for the bride’s hand. My kind of gifts too, palm wine (nice if you can get past the smell--palm wine has a very bad nose) soda, beer and Cash. I think the animals were being bartered later.

What was the deal with that bus we took from Yaounde to the beaches at Kribi? The driver pulls out of the depot with 6 passengers and immediately picks up 6 more just outside the gates and collects cash for their fare. (Can you say entreprenuer??) He then drives about 2 miles and picks up a few more cash paying customers and proceeds to have about a 15 minute argument with his ‘personal conductors’ who recruited the new passengers. Everybody gets ‘sliced off’ and we pick up the next “conductor’ and few more passengers, but this time the new ‘conductor’ gets to drive the bus, while the other bus driver catches 40 winks. Nobody seems to care and we get to where we’re going safe and sound. At the point we switch drivers, a native sticks his head in my window and starts speaking in French. I give him my best 'No parle Francois' and he talks to Jessie. Jessie tells me he lives in Kribe. Well surprise surprise!!! he’s waiting for us 40 miles down the road and wonder of wonders, he’s a taxi driver!!! Well he becomes our personal taxi driver for the times we need a taxi in Kribe. Good ‘ol Suilman, his car had more bailing wire duct tape holding it together than most of the houses in that fair city. Thanks for letting me sit in the front seat all the time Suilly old boy.

When you next see our friends Beniot and Eric in Kribi tell them we had a great time. Too bad Jim had to leave before we got the the beaches in Kribi. He was scheduled to leave after the second time in Younde, but he would have found it tough to walk that beautiful beach with his leg in that cast. I think that beach must look the same as when the Portuguese first saw it 500 years ago. Amazing. No need to go out of your way to thank the folks at Tera Plage “resort” they weren’t really that friendly, but the folks at Manipanni were great.

Good ‘ol Beniot can really handle those dugout canoes. It was great how you bargined him down to a canoe ride with a beer thrown in at the end. I think he really liked your creativity on that one. I know I did, even if the 33 was warm. He got us nice and close to The Chutes. One of the few places on earth where a waterfall empties into the Ocean.

The beach at our first resort

The Chutes

Then of course there was the matter of our trip up river to the Pigmy village. You should apologize to them, I think we got to the village on their cigarette and whiskey break or do they drink and smoke all day long? I’ll never forget the spear throwing contest we had with the drunk pigmy’s. Guess who missed the tree....not the drunk pigmy, but the sober nasara, Brian. How did he miss a tree that was about 6 feet away by about 10 feet? Not sure that it would be possible unless I saw it with my own eyes!! It was a knuckle-spear that Phil Nekro would have been proud of. I’m just glad they found the spear because those poor pigmy’s wouldn’t be able to hunt all those antelope that they told us they kill with that spear. (Yeah right, and I’ve got a Nigerian bank account with $5 million in it you can have for $4,000). Anyway the trip was more than worth it because when we got back to the beach, good ‘ol Eric had all those tasty shrimp and beer waiting for us. I didn’t even mind pulling the head and ‘legs’ off those tasty little fellas. And those might have been the best plantains we had the whole time we were there, and we had LOTS of plantains. Nice how they ‘wash’ the dishes right in the ocean. Do you think that was the first rinse or the last??? At least he did it ‘upstream’ of where those kids were swimming/pooping.

And yes I am sorry that I didn’t want to eat at that market in the Harbor in Kribi. It certainly was a lively place. You’d have thought we were celebrities the way they all wanted us to eat at their place. It was a beautiful scene, the many perogues (dug-out canoes) tied up waiting for the next tide, the nets at the ready, and the charcoal fires cooking the fresh caught fish. I just couldn’t handle it when I saw them wash the dishes in that brackish water in the harbor that looked like the bilge on a trans atlantic ship from the 1500’s. Even though the ‘nice’ outdoor restaurant we finally chose had a few rats run through the dining room, at least I didn’t have to see them wash the dishes. Ah Africa......

Men at work. The men take nets about 1/4 mile out into the seaand then pull them in. They do it about 2 times a day. It can take a while and there's not many fish in the nets once they get them in.

Jessie and the "pigmys" going over the ground rules for the spear throwing contest.

Dinner at night on the beach-fish again--Yeah!! The Pirogues in Kribe harbor aka the dishwater.

It was sad to go and Douala seemed to be a fitting place to say good-bye. That city is one big CF. What kind of hotel charges you $10 just so your parents can visit you in your room before their plane takes off. I guess the same country that chages you $20 just to leave the country. Can’t complain too much because we got to see the first half of the Super Bowl albeit 36 hours after the event. And of course you were right about those guys who want to be paid to ‘help’ you fill out the customs forms. I know you would have been mad at me for paying him for his help, but it was worth it to see the look on his face when I slipped him a US $1 bill. Let him try to convert that, I think I had the last laugh on Africa...

Love you both, Mom and Dad

PS If you don’t get the idea that Cameroon is a wonderful place from this letter, then I missed the mark. It was exotic, simple, beautiful,shocking, and beguiling, but never boring. It was frustrating, maddening and peaceful all at the same time. The people were wonderful and amazing. I ate fish every night and never got tired of it, although mom missed her salads, the food was just fine (except for the Mantioc). Would we go back? Only with you two guys as guides. In fact, now that you’ve moved to the Big City it would be a much much less daunting trip. I might just show up before you leave, beware.....

christmas dinner

the djaro preparing dinner

our tibati basketball team. unstoppable

basketball in Meng

the maternity ward on a quiet day.

Oussamaila's chest tube.

transportation

old man waiting to see the doctor

the OR

woman walking to the TB ward

my women's group that started the village savings and loan program

planting trees at the highschool.

brian and abdoul

the primary school at the hospital. they're supposed to be working on a real building now.

trees.

very cute little boy. one of the few who smiled all the time and wasn't afraid of the white skin.

Ousamaila had a pneumothorax after having a kidney removed. here we are removing the tube that drained the air from his chest. he also smiled a lot and never complained.

the eye doctor came from Ngaoundere for a week. lots of people walked around the hospital like this.

one of the children who i worked with in the nutrition ward.

twins! connected at the bellybutton

after surgery. they were both fine.

So this is my first entry in a vey long time, and my very first entry from our new home in Ngaoundere . Since we last spoke, Brian and I were given the opportunity to move to the city to take on the role of Peace Corps Regional Representative(s). With nothing against Tibati, we applied for the position with the attitude that if we were selected it would be a great chance to expand the scope of our work; Ngaoundere is the regional capital with lots of different NGOs, health centers, community groups, and youth groups. If we weren’t selected, we would be happy in Tibati where we already had well established work, friends and life.

Needless to say, we were selected to come to the city, and as of 3 days ago, this is our new home. Work won’t really get going until February because we have to go to Yaounde next week and then we’re getting a visit from two Warnings and a Hillery. I’ve been spending the past few days trying to organize the house, but considering I had malaria until Monday and some other intestinal bug right now, things are moving very slowly.

Back to Tibati: For the last few months there I was really focusing on work at the hospital. around September I realized that I could do whatever I wanted as long as I ask someone to show me around. I would do rounds with different nurses and look after different patients, making sure they were taking their medication and getting the tests they needed. One of the doctors, after hearing that I was interested in medicine, allowed me to shadow him all the time. I got to see some really interesting cases; surgeries, snake bites, ectopic pregnancies, botched home abortions, hernias, moto accidents, cancer, leprosy, and quite a few unexplained illnesses. (pictures to come)

About six months back I told the story about how I reacted to the infected wound I “volunteered” to help with. I’m happy to report that today I have seen and touched things FAR worse than that and it doesn’t bother me at all. For example, one man had a strange infection under the skin on his leg. The doctor cut him open and found that a good portion of his tissue was dead. They cut out muscle and fat from his upper thigh to mid calf-the skin too, of course. Every two days he has to have the dressing changed and I was lucky enough to help a few times. There are big holes in his muscles where the dead tissue was, the bone is exposed under the thigh, and you can see all the blood vessels and other internal things. To clean the wound you have to wash the exposed tissue and dig into the crevasses. Anesthesia? Too expensive every day. This guy just grits his teeth and bears it. Unfortunately I have no photo of this one. Maybe mommy and daddy will get to meet him when they visit in a few weeks…

I could go on describing patients, but I’ll spare anymore blood and guts stories. I have to get back to fixing up the new house (that has wireless internet!). I’ll end on a good note: today has been the greatest day in Cameroon. I found soymilk at the corner store. Real soymilk. For those of you who know me well, you’ll know that cereal and soymilk are the things that I have been missing most since I came here. So picture me eating my cornflakes and bananas with tears in my eyes. This truly is the greatest city in the world….

We just attended a Halloween party in the North region. It had been a little less than one year since we’ve been back to the North, and we had almost forgotten just how incredibly hot it gets up there. Not quite the surface of the sun, but pretty close. A volunteer informed us that in 2008 Garoua was ranked the sixth-hottest city in the world, which may or may not be true. We’ve noticed that Peace Corps volunteers fight for bragging rights about virtually everything, from the heat to the amount of rainfall to the quality (or crumminess) of the roads. The computer program I’m using to type this letter is trying to convince me that “crumminess” isn’t a word, but I think we all know that it is. So take that, uppity computer program!

We had the chance to spend a few hours with our homestay mothers, who we haven’t seen since last December. I pluralize “mothers” because polygamy is a rather common practice among Cameroonian Muslims, and the majority of Cameroonians living in the Grand North are, indeed, sons and daughters of Islam. Not that strangely, our homestay family is actually christian. Multiple wives often leads to (if you can believe it) an influx of children; the number of kids in our homestay family added up to a baseball team (decent pitching, but no real power-hitters in the line up.)

At first we had some misgivings about living and working in an Islam-dominant culture, concerns that were undoubtedly the result of the way the American media depicts Muslims as fanatics, which certainly some are, but only a very small percentage. Peace Corps has many organizational weaknesses, however the cross-cultural exchange and education is certainly not one of them.

A few weeks ago, during a trip from Ngaoundere back home, we found ourselves stuck again in a crummy bus on a crummy road, squeezed in like sardines. Jessie was sitting next to the pane-less window, and I was on her immediate left. Suddenly, water started trickling down from the roof of the bus, onto Jessie’s right arm and sholder while also hitting several people in the row behind us. To make a long story somewhat shorter, it turned out not to be water at all, but in actuality, pee! Goat pee, to be precise. Because the flying goat pee had missed me entirely, I had a good laugh at my wife’s expense. She did not find the situation as immediately amusing as I did, but funny is funny.

(so lets all be thankful for brian’s very first entry. I’ll pressure him into more in the future. Also-you know you’re well integrated when getting pissed on by a goat is not a highlight or a lowlight of your day.)

Yes its been a while since my last post, but we’ve been busy in our village and haven’t had much time here in the city for internet. We just went up north for the annual Halloween party with the other volunteers and now we’re headed back to Tibati. So I’ve got to get all my internet and shopping in for the next 6 weeks. unfortunately I wrote a post back on our computer but I forgot to bring it with me. so here are some quick updates:

The village savings and loan program (that I described a few posts back (“237”) has finally gotten underway. I introduced the program to a few groups back in April, and while they all were really excited and said they wanted to do it, only one has adopted it so far. I think the others will wait until the start of the new year.

I’ve been going to the meetings for a Houssa women’s group all summer. It seemed like every week all they were doing was complaining about their president who may or may not have stolen money from them. I never actually met her because she was always out of town. I could never quite understand exactly what was going on. Then finally one day at the meeting they told me they had chosen a new president and were ready to start the VSLA. They handed me notebooks that I said I would make for them when they were ready. Over the next week I spent hours putting together notebooks for them to keep track of how many shares they buy.

I went to the meeting the following week assuming that I’d explain how to do the record keeping again- it had been a few months since I had originally explained it. much to my surprise everyone from the group was there and they were ready to start. they had all brought their money to start saving. so after 5 months of waiting, the start of the program is sprung on me. In the first week we collected about 50.000cfa, about $100, which is no small amount here. now, after 3 weeks we’ve got over 130,000cfa. in the next few weeks I’m going to have them create the rules for the credit part of the program. most likely it will be something like 10% interest over a 6 week period with no more than 3x the amount they have saved.

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The hospital: same work there, weighing babies, making bouillie and talking about nutrition with mothers. I’ve started doing regular rounds with the 2 Anglophone nurses just to get a chance to talk to more patients and keep busy.

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Girls club: I stared a girls group at the local school. its only been a few weeks, but they seem really interested. I had them do self portraits the first week and then had them draw themselves in 10 years. I think they really liked it because they don’t get to do art at all in school or even at home. some things they talked about doing were dance and theatre. if you’ve seen my dancing or theatrical skills, you’d say I’m in way over my head. but so far so good. we’re going to talk about HIV for the next few weeks, and then see if I can find a way for them to do dance. Maybe I can find an expert in town. it can be like a guest speaker series….

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brian is doing well, working at the prison and trying to get the pump project going. but its been really difficult to organize the community and get people moving. its also really hard to do a project when the authorities tell you that its “never going to happen” unless we have outside funding. the minister of water told brian that without international funding the people here would never be able to raise the money for themselves. its very frustrating.

Brian’s other project now is to make murals at the high schools with HIV messages on one side and a public forum on the other. a place where people can put up announcements or advertisements. get some sort of community bulletin going. now that school is in session, they should be able to get the kids together to paint.

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our garden is growing again for the second time. more cucumbers, tomatoes, basil and carrots. the first round of cucumbers was amazing, but the tomatoes didn’t quite make it. we had about 25 huge plants with tons of big green tomatoes on each. then, literally over night the plants died. I was able to salvage some of the tomatoes, but most were lost. hopefully this time they’ll make it.

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I’ve been sewing for myself, but its so tedious to do by hand. my friend just bought a machine, so I should be able to use it soon.

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the cat is pregnant again. we kept one of her last kittens as requested by Thom, and she is starting to be really mean to it. must be the hormones.

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we’ve been getting lots of letters and packages lately, so we feel very loved. I’ve been a bit negligent on my letters and blogs, but I promise to pick back up now.

I'm stuck in Yaounde. I want to go home. If you remember Judie's blog, you'll recall that we have to take a train to the north to get home. it leaves once a day at 6pm and gets there anywhere between 9am and 5pm the next day.

but like every form of public transit here, it is always an ordeal. right now is the end of the summer vacation, so its even crazier. on the way down we spent an entire day trying to get tickets for the train, and in the end had to bribe someone to sell them to us. which means that they were selling us a ticket that was already sold to someone else. so allison and i spent the night on the floor in between cars by the bathroom. we shared it with 12 other people. for the first few hours i was sitting on someone else's bag with mine on my lap and a little girl between my feet. also there were random people's feet under and on top of mine. the little girl fell asleep with a a chocolate her hand.

her pregnant mother and her left at the 1:00am stop. which was also the stop that we had to switch around because they wanted to open the door on our side. after gathering up all the bags, moving 4 feet across the train to the other side, cleaning the chocolate off my feet, i decided to head to second class (which pretty much just means there are more people, same amount of seats) to see one of our friends who didnt pay the bribe.

i fought my way through the first class cars - stepping over (and on some) feet and bags. when i got to the second class car, i realized allison and i were in heaven up in our bathroom stinking 10x10 purgatory. i couldnt even step into the 2nd class because of the bodies. i say bodies because it was inhumane the way they were loaded in. it reminded me of the cattle i watched them load up earlier in the day during the 3 hours i spent at the station trying to buy a ticket.

Since its pretty much indescribable the amount of people, here are 2 photos that phil took. This is while the train is moving, they are not stopped waiting to get off. those people are sitting on arm rests, chair backs, standing in the aisle. In the background of the second one you can see a crowd of people standing. I’d guess there are 25 people standing there (that’s the same area where I was stationed up in first class). they were like that for 15 hours. I nearly threw up when I got there. I pushed and squeezed, but couldn’t get more than one of my feet in the car. I never saw phil that night. He said he wasn’t able to stand up at all.

By 2 or 3 am, I gave up trying to sleep or read on the floor. My feet and ass were numb. I decided to see if it was possible to sleep standing up on a Cameroonian train. Answer: no. but I did man the bathroom for a few hours, letting people know if someone else was in it or not. Around 5 or 6, I decided to try to share the top luggage rack with a sleeping man. I climbed up- about 5 feet- and squeezed next to his head, with my feet dangling over another person. The metal bars were no better than the floor, but the change in scenery was nice….

this was one of the worst travel experiences of my life. (notice how i say 'one of the worst'. not 'absolutely' or 'without a doubt'. travel in Cameroon makes me want to rip my eyes out.)

So now I’m ready to leave Yaounde, and have to take the dreaded train again. This time it’s a bed or nothing. I wanted the reservation for tonight (Saturday) but there were no places available until Monday night. Vacation ends in a week so it should prove to be just as exciting as the way down here. Maybe they sold my ticket 2 or 3 times already.

The good news is that there is a Michael Jackson tribute tonight by Lady Ponce (google her).

other than the train, our visit to Limbe was great, but rainy. we discovered 2 new loves: palm wine and pidgin english. ___________________________________________

the photos at the top of this entry are from the deserted hotel. we visited a primate and wildlife reserve. all the animals here have been rescued from poachers or captivity. the goal of the reserve is to release them back to the wild if possible.

this one is picking his nose and eating the boogers.

the beach at Limbe:

real wine and palm wine at our beach front 'resort' our last day at the beach.

Hello family and friends!

We have the opportunity to participate in a two-week health training seminar, which will be held in Maroua, capital of the Extreme North region, in mid-October. The project, called Men As Partners, will involve and empower Cameroonian men to improve the overall health of their community, and will be co-facilitated with five of our fellow Peace Corps volunteers.

This project challenges men to more fully integrate into HIV prevention efforts in their communities. We are specifically targeting men for several reasons: on average, men have more sexual partners than women, HIV is more easily transmitted from men to women and an HIV-infected man will likely infect more persons than an HIV-infected woman. Engaging men more extensively in HIV prevention has a tremendous potential to reduce women’s risk for HIV.

During our two-week intensive training, we will work with 20 HIV positive men, focusing on gender, power, violence, living with HIV, healthy relationships and creating positive community change. After this training, these men will return to their communities and educate others on ways to improve health conditions nationwide.

We are asking that you support our project with a financial contribution. You can make a fully tax-deductible donation at www.efainternational.org We ask that you mark the designation as Men As Partners.

Please visit the website to learn more about EFA International, (Education Fights AIDS) a Cameroonian non-profit organization who will host the seminar. If you have any questions, comments or concerns, don’t hesitate to email us! Thank you all very much for your support.

All our love from Cameroon,

Jessie & Brian

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Some statistics:

One-in-five women experience sexual abuse at the hands of their male partner in Cameroon.

For every 10 HIV+ men in Cameroon, 17 women are infected.

75% of African youth living with HIV are girls and young women.

6000 youth are infected EVERY DAY with HIV

Only about 3% of young men in Cameroon actually get tested for HIV.

So its been a while. Like I said last time, Brian and I wanted to stay in our village and try to get a routine going. And we did just that. We were wary of coming back after france, but as soon as we got to Tibati, we remembered how much we like it here. Our neighbors were all very excited to see us, and the dogs nearly killed us when we walked up the path to the house.

I went back to work at the hospital, and picked back up with the groups that I’ve been working with. I also started working with two new groups, although I’m not sure what I’ll be doing with them yet. Since I already have a well established relationship with the other two groups, I’ve introduced a Village Savings and Loan Program to them. Because we didn’t have a bank in Tibati until a few months ago, most people either don’t know much about how banks work or they just don’t trust them. Savings is something that is difficult for people here, but definitely necessary. The VSL association is essentially a program in which they become their own bank. The members can buy up to a certain number of shares each week. If they are having a tough time they can opt to buy none, or even sell a few back if they are low on cash. Then, after a few months, they can take out short term loans, with interest. A member has to present an income generating idea to the group and be approved for the loan.

Most groups here collect money already and either pick one person to take it all home each week, or just split it up at the end of the year and give it back. Since the two groups already do this successfully, I thought they might be interested in the VSLA. Indeed they were, so I explained it to them for a few weeks and now we’re waiting to get started. But everything here is slow. The president of the group is out of town, it’s a holiday, Ramadan is starting soon, etc. now I’m out of town for a few weeks, and when I get back Ramadan will still be in full swing, which makes everything difficult.

Work at the hospital is slow as well. It’s the rainy season so people are all out working in the fields. They simply don’t come in. Also, the Austrian doctor goes away every year for two months, and the hospital pretty much stops running. Patients are waiting for her to return before they come in, especially pregnant women. Most women give birth at home anyway, so they definitely aren’t going to come while she is away. I did meet two very motivated nurses in the past few weeks, so I have been doing rounds with them.

Side story: The first day I met Dorothy, an Anglophone nurse, she took me on her rounds and wanted to show me something she referred to as really interesting. A man had had an operation and the incision was infected. His dressing needed to be changed twice a day, and she had volunteered to do it for him. Dorothy didn’t know-or care- that I was in no way qualified for something like this. But I thought I’d give it a shot anyway. So we started looking for masks to wear because the smell was really bad. You would think this would make me back out, but I had already committed, and she was excited about showing me. Weird, I know. We find the masks after some searching, and she even puts extra gauze between my mouth/nose and the mask. in the recovery room we find the patient, a 30-something male whose had some sort of surgery-my expert medical opinion would be a double hernia operation, but who knows.

As Dorothy pulled back the old, puss soaked bandage, I told myself I was not going to faint. I was not going to be that person. Of course its got to be 150degrees in the room, at least in my face mask, and I started psyching myself out. I thought it would be tough to look at the blood and puss and intestines-yes I saw them-but it wasn’t so bad. I think I could have handled that. What pushed me over the edge was when, after 10 minutes of careful but clearly painful cleaning, Dorothy struck something (no more details…) that really made the man wince and cry out. It was the pain, combined with the heat and my fear of being that person that made feel like I was suffocating underneath the mask. She turned to me and asked me to hand her something, and I mumbled something about how I couldn’t and had to step out for a minute.

I ripped the mask from my face with some difficulty - she had tied it pretty good - and went out into the fresh air. Compared to the room, the hot sun felt cool and refreshing. I was pretty embarrassed, but mostly just concentrating on not fainting. I’ve never fainted, so I really didn’t know what to expect. After a few minutes I was feeling better- I had stopped sweating and my hands had stopped shaking. The only thing I could do was put the mask back on and head inside. This time I left out the extra gauze so I could breathe better.

Back inside, Dorothy and the other nurse didn’t say a word about me leaving, they just continued working as if I had been there the whole time. I was able to help a bit – handing them things and pouring disinfectant over the cloth – and I was even able to ask a few questions. The whole thing was definitely more than I had expected, and even though I did have to leave for a few minutes, I’m glad I made myself go back in. the next week, Dorothy wanted to show me the man again and I tried to think of an excuse before we got to his room, but he was doing really well, sitting up and eating when we saw him.

________________________________________________

Ok, so that’s about what’s going on with my work. Brian is doing well, he’s trying to get a pump project started in one of the neighborhoods. We want the money to come entirely from the community, so he’s been helping them come up with a plan for how to collect the money. But, like the community groups that I’m working with, everything is slow going.

I’m in Yaounde for about 10 days, so hopefully more to come.

Also, thanks to all of you who have sent me letters. I just read three of them and even though they are from July, its all news to us!!!

buning the old kitchen...

the mayor of our town gave us a fish that we had no idea what to do with. clearly brian and abdul thought it was a good idea to hack it to pieces while it was still frozen. fish scales in brian's hair.

the pig that haunts our house. i caught him in the act one night.

kids doing their ninja poses.

vincent with his hand in a package of carrot seeds? kids will play with anything.

brian in his new booboo and some of the neighbor boys.

I have to admit, i wasn't crazy about coming back to Cameroon after two weeks in France.  Life was so comfortable there.  Food was so available.  Wine was so real.  Water was so clean.  Now i'm in the PC house in Yaounde as the rain pours down outside.  I'm thinking about how fun its going to be getting to the train station in a few hours with all of our bags.  Catching a taxi here means standing by the side of the road and shouting at cabs as they slow down.  If they have room and are headed in the direction of your destination, they stop, if not, they simply continue driving.  I know its not personal, but you do feel a bit dejected when they leave you on the side of the road.  Anyways,   we'll get to the station wet and muddy, ready for a 14 hour train ride.  As you can see from Judie's entry, the train can be fun.  However, we weren't able to get sleeper cars, so we'll be sitting upright all night.  If everything goes smoothly we'll be off the train by 6 am and into another car for a few more hours.  This is exactly what i did not miss.  the hassle of getting around this country.  Enjoy Amtrak while you can.  Stop to think about the paved roads next time you get in a car.  if you see a pothole, think of us.  How about those sidewalks, convenient, aren't they?

What I also realized upon our return is that people here can be so damn friendly.  Its perfectly normal to strike up a conversation about soccer or America as you're sitting on someone's lap in a cab or standing in line for tickets for over an hour.  

So other than the actual trip back to our village, I am happy to be back.  France was refreshing, and seems to have given me a renewed motivation.  WIth no formal obligations until August,  I plan on staying put for as long as I can and getting some real work done.  

We'll be back to the internet in a few months.  Enjoy the summer.  Miss you.  

the beaches of Normandie

Omaha Beach:

Gold Beach:

Churches around every corner.  here, in Rouen:

Thats another church on the right. i simply turned around 180 degrees to get these two photos.

Monet's garden at Giverny:

Not sure about this one:

the sun sets at 10:30 in france....

Mont St. Michelle (another Church and an island at high tide):

Thanks for the trip moms and dads!

Greetings from Paris from the intrepid Hillery/Warning travel party! This is today's guest blogger, Judie, Brian's mom. It's a rainy day in Paris, perfect for our trip to the Louvre. Paris is the second leg of the journey for some of us whose adventure began on May 26, when we arrived in Cameroon.

Bridget, Eileen, Thom and I landed in Yaounde and were met with a real sight for sore eyes... our Brian and Jessie. I can't explain how good it was to actually get my hands on them after nine long months. I threatened not to let go this time! Their good friend Abdul made the trip from Tibati with them and we could see right away why they've become so close; he's a real friendly, upbeat guy who's always happy to help out.

We spent three nights in Yaounde, Cameroon's capitol city. I wanted to acclimate to the changes slowly! While inside the hotel life seemed not that much different to us, venturing out the first morning was like being shot out of a cannon. The heat, the noise and the general clamor were a bit overwhelming. Jessie took the girls and I to an open-air market to look for a soccer ball. It seemed that word got around instantly and every guy in Yaounde with a soccer ball descended on us! For some reason (maybe it was the addled look on our faces) they ignored Bridget, Eileen and I but they surrounded Jessie.

(Time out for a word about Jessie in markets: her French is excellent and it seems she's fluent enough to tell the vendors how absolutely ridiculous they and their prices are! She's tough! It is truly a sight to behold to watch her haggling.) That day, however, we left without a soccer ball. Maybe she gave up when she saw that her mother-in-law was becoming one big sweat stain and needed a fix of air conditioning. Although we didn't see a thermometer, the kids estimated that it was in the high 80s. They are very poor judges of heat. I think it was at least 120. Those of you who know me know that my only worry about visiting Africa was my general heat intolerance. Bugs? Bring 'em on! Wild animals? Please, I've raised four kids. Disease? I know a good doctor. But temperatures above my preferred mid-70s are really a challenge for me.

(Yaounde train station)

After our adjustment time in Yaounde, we were in for a real treat when we boarded the legendary Yaounde-Tibati train at 7 o'clock on a Sunday evening. The only train line in Cameroon, the system was started by the Germans in the late 19th Century when they "settled" Cameroon. I think the only thing they settled was the fact that Cameroon indeed had the natural resources Germany wanted. Anyway, the train itself seems to be from about the 1950's and reminded me a lot of the Darjeeling Limited, minus the sweet lime. We had two sleeping compartments, side-by-side, each with two sets of bunks. and they were really pretty comfy. As the train started its slow progress out of town, we all stood at the windows and watched: the amazing greenery, the little shanty villages settled right up to the tracks and their inhabitants, very young to very old, all come out to watch the train go by. Lots of the kids waved as we went by and called out "Nassara!" to us white folks. It was fun waving back and especially waving first to the shy ones whose faces would light up and they'd wave back. We even had "Obama!" called out to us once and we waved back extra hard then. (We decided it's nice to feel proud again!)

(everybody loves him)

(hunter s. thompson takes the train)

At one point I looked at all my kids watching out the window and it reminded me of why I had them in the first place: no matter how old they are its so wonderful to see them discovering new things, and its even more wonderful to share those things with them.

After a few hours, a few visits from the dining car lady bringing us food (mmm... pili-pili, something spicy wrapped in pie crust that had to be made from lard, it was so good!) and a lot of laughing, it was time for lights out. The train makes several stops along the way and at each one, people are waiting to sell things to you. They walk alongside the train with their wares on top of their heads, calling up to the passengers. If you're interested you go to the window, make your selection and pay, all through the window. You can buy fruits and vegetables, sacks to put them in, water, honey and hard-boiled eggs, among other items like shoes! These vendors are at every stop throughout the night, and you hear their calls in your sleep.

(sleeper cars on the train)

The train lived up to its reputation, however, when it stopped at about 4 am and stayed stopped for about two hours. I woke up a few times during those two hours, hearing the same odd bird burbling outside each time. (At least I think it was a bird.) And then it started to rain. Can trains get stuck in the mud? What just buzzed past my ear? Did I remember to take my malaria medicine? You wonder these things in the middle of the night. In the middle of the jungle. The bad thing was the train being delayed for two hours; the good thing was at least it actually stayed on the track.

As fun as that all was, it was great to arrive in Tibati, Brian and Jessie's home. We were greeted by Barbe and Zuma, their dogs, who raced alongside the car as we pulled up the road. We soon realized we were being watched as curious neighborhood boys started showing up to see the new nassara. We rarely saw any little girls, though, as they are always at home helping their mothers, and don't get time to play. The boys, like the men, seem to have plenty of time to kill. Our final welcome to Tibati came from Mambo the cat, expectant mother. Mambo is really more like a dog; she comes when she's called, loves to sit on your lap and demands attention. She really took to Thom, who now wants one of her kittens. I'm not sure how Pepper will feel about this though.

(zuma does porch patrol)

Living with Brian and Jessie presents a series of challenges, none of which have to do with them personally. (I've reconciled myself to those challenges by now.) The first challenge is dealing without running water. There's a large barrel outside that catches rain water and is topped off with well water by Mandela, one of their young helpers. When you need to use the toilet (at least there is one, as opposed to a hole in the floor like their home stay during training.) you grab the bucket and fill it from the rain barrel, bring it into the house, through the living room and into the bathroom. Shower time is similar: grab the bucket and head to the bathroom, where there is a drain in the floor. Jessie offered to heat a couple of pans of water to add to the bucket, but here's the deal: being outside in that heat, the water is plenty warm. And, you're so hot that hot water is the last thing you want to be pouring over yourself. The next challenge is the heat. No kidding. The farther north you go, the closer you get to the Sahara desert.

(jessie doing laundry)

(eileen on her way to bathroom)

One of the highlights of visiting Tibati was the audience we were granted with the Lamido. Each district has its own Lamido, local royalty of sorts. Each Lamido is descended from the first Lamido, from the 17th century or thereabouts. In the old days, the Lamido was boss. He made the rules and governed his village, and settled disputes. Now local governments are appointed by the central government, but the Lamido is still supported by the people. They pay him now to settle their disputes and use his influence. But he is still treated as royalty. We were ushered into the Lamidat, the Lamido's compound, after having to remove our shoes (and socks... this is the first time we've seen Thom's feet since he was three.) Abdul accompanied us and wore his traditional Muslim bubu as a sign of respect. (He looked very handsome.) Visitors sit on couches to await the Lamido in his reception "hut," but villagers sit on the floor, and that included Brian and Jessie, because they are considered part of the village now and are well known to the Lamido. We could tell when he was approaching, as the drummers who accompany him got louder and louder. The guy was really pretty regal and very gracious. We gave him a book of pictures of NY State as a gift, which he seemed to appreciate. Jim thought we should have given him a cowboy hat. Maybe next time! After a few minutes of polite chitchat (he spoke a little English) he escorted us out and as soon as he left the hut the drummers started. I felt like we were in a parade, lots of people watching us leave.

(vincent driving and his brother hassan supervising)

The sports jerseys we brought with us for the neighborhood kids were a big hit (see photos in previous post). Thanks to the aunts who sent a bunch with us! Their littlest friend, Vincent, got a Syracuse jersey (I think it was Rob Hillery's!) and he looks adorable. Hiver (who helps with the gardening) picked the LeBron jersey, and I told him, (in bad French and sign language) that LeBron was VERY tall and he said "Michael Jordan?" Close enough. Brian gave Abdul a J.P. Losman jersey which he wore every day after that. Please, if you ever meet Abdul, don't tell him what you know about J.P. Losman.

(pagne mamas)

Our time in Tibati was way too short. I had met a few of the neighbor Moms, who were all very sweet. One gave me a length of special Mothers Day pagne as a gift. Another baked doughnuts for us. It would have been nice to have spent more time with them. We also met Dr. Elizabeth, the Austrian physician who runs the hospital Jessie works at. Dr. Elizabeth has been in Tibati for twenty years and she is really inspirational. Until recently, when two new Cameroonian doctors joined the staff, she was the only doc, working seven days a week. She goes home to Austria for two months a year, and I'm sure she spends most of that time fund-raising. It was hard to tour the hospital and not be moved to tears. Jessie does good work there and Dr. Elizabeth already relies on her.

After bidding a fond farewell to our new friends in Tibati, we boarded our two rented cars. (80's vintage toyota Tercels, neither of which would have passed inspection at home.) We were headed 250 kms farther north to Ngaoundere. This was, really, the only time in Africa that I considered killing myself, or the person who suggested this trip. Dante could have used this trip as a ring in hell. It was six hours of the worst road (I use "road" metaphorically here) ever. Potholes? No, craters. Pavement? Not exactly. To top it off, the driver wouldn't open the windows because of the dust. Why didn't he turn on the AC? Yeah, right. I considered opening the window anyway, hoping I would choke myself. At one point I looked at Eileen and I couldn't tell if she was asleep or passed out. It could have been worse, though. This is the trip that Brian and Jessie usually make on the prison bus loaded with people, parcels and livestock. There's always a bright side!

(the car we used in Tibati-'thanks to god')

(luxury van with rules such as no vomiting and no talking to the driver)

Ngaoundere is Brian and Jessie's favorite town and they know it well. This is the Peace Corps "headquarters" of their district and where they come to get their mail and do their banking. In Ngaoundere we availed ourselves of the local means of public transportation, the small motorcycle taxis called motos. You hail one, hop on with a friend or loved one, and tell the driver where you want to go. And the ride cools you off, too! All this for the equivalent of twenty cents. In Ngaoundere we got a taste of the local version of our chicken wing: Street Meat! Street meat is some kind of seasoned meat threaded on skewers and grilled over a wood fire. They do this on almost every street corner. You go to the patisserie and buy some bread, then get your street meat and put it on the bread. Voila! A pretty tasty snack.

I'm happy to report that our trip to Maroa, our final destination and the most northerly point of our trip, was much more comfortable. We were driven in a 12-passenger touring van that, blessedly, had air conditioning. There were warnings painted inside, however, which counseled us against spitting or vomiting in the vehicle. We were also forbidden to touch the driver. Thankfully, we all behaved and arrived at our hotel in about eight hours. There was a large fenced in wildlife area on the grounds, which housed ostrich and peacocks and monkeys. A short time after we arrived we heard a loud crash and saw the ostrich running full tilt, away from an extremely large tree which had fallen and landed on the monkey cage. Fortunately they weren't hurt, but they did escape, and we saw them wandering around the grounds, not wanting to get too far away. They were apprehended and taken back into custody when they made a visit to the restaurant's kitchen.

One of the places we visited was the was the local artisinal market (craft market) where we watched Jessie ply her haggling skills, at which she was quite successful. There was a small museum there which we toured. It housed a collection of artifacts from the area. Some of them were from the 12th century, and all just laying around on dusty tables. There were weapons, pottery, even some beaded textiles which we were encouraged to handle. The climate control consisted of a fan in the corner of the room. Needless to say it was quite different from what we experience in museums at home.

(shopping in the Maroua craft market)

A memorable moment in Maroa: walking down a street and turning a corner, coming face to face with a street-full of Muslim men, on their knees praying to Mecca. For a second there it seemed like they were really glad we were there. We also drove outside of town to see one of the many huge rock formations dotting this part of Cameroon. While there we picked up an entourage of boys, about ten of them, maybe ages 8-12. They just wanted to hang out with us I guess, and climbed part way up the rock mountain along with Brian and Jess. When the mother of one of them began hollering for him, it was followed by what must be universal among little boys: the rest of them started hooting and laughing at him! We asked them if they knew any of the women in the area who are known for their weaving. They did, and took us to their village where we got to meet the very nice weaver. She took us to the lean-to which houses her loom and demonstrated her craft for us. We bought a few of her beautiful creations and no, Jessie did not haggle!

Our trip back down south for our departure for Paris from Yaounde was accomplished in a much more efficient manner: we flew! But it definitely wasn't as much fun!

I have to mention something which happened at every town on our Cameroon trip: we met wonderful Peace Corps friends of Brian and Jessie. They all came to see us and spend time. Most of them had gone through training with Brian and Jess and I think they all enjoy visits from anybody's family. Interestingly, most of their families had already visited or had definite plans for doing so in the near future. One good thing is the bond that they all have, and the support they give one another. A really nice group of kids.

(peace corps friends)

If you've actually read this far, thank you for your attention. And if you have a couple weeks vacation coming up with nothing much to do, I know a nice couple in Tibati who would love some company!

here are some photos from the hillery family vacation. since i'm in paris at the moment deciding what to eat for dinner, i have not the time nor the inclination to describe the following. A guest blogger is coming soon to add some perspective on the whole adventure.....

This is my favorite story of the week. Maybe you had to be there, but I was, so it makes me laugh every time…

I went into town to buy something for the garden but since it was exactly 1:30 when I got there, the store was closed because the man was praying. Figuring he would be back within 15 or 20 minutes, I decided to stick around and wait. I had worked at the hospital all morning and had nothing to do the rest of the day. It was hot, very hot, so a man selling gas across the street flagged me over to sit in the shade. I sat and spoke to him for a while, watching the action on bustling main road. There was the usual motos, women selling things on their heads, children rolling sticks with tires (the equivalent of dribbling a basketball around?), and of course, endless streams of goats and chickens.

After about 30 minutes and still no sign of the shop owner, a moto came screaming down the road. There was a chicken in the road just in front of me, and when he heard the oncoming moto, he tried to run, but went the wrong way-right into the path of the speeding moto. It happened so fast, but if I had to be called as a witness, I’d say he was struck by the front tire and some part of him, maybe his head, was run over by the rear tire. I thought for sure the thing would be dead, but true to the cliché, he jumped up and ran in a wide circle in the middle of the street-like a chicken with his head cut off.

He made it back to the spot of the accident and continued on to the porch of a building across the street. In a dramatic puff of feathers, he let out one last squawk, flipped onto his back and died with his feet straight up in the air. Before I had time to laugh, a little boy ran over and grabbed him by the claws and ran into the house with the evening’s freshly dead main course. (What little I know about killing and eating animals leads me to believe that you can’t let an animal be dead long before readying it for the pot.)

That part of the story is funny enough to think about, but the best is yet to come. As I was trying to formulate something witty to say in french, I heard a commotion from the place where the boy and the chicken disappeared. Out came the same little boy, running and crying, and behind him, came his mother wielding a shoe, ready to strike (again?).

I have no idea what the kid did wrong. Maybe he was in charge of watching the chicken, maybe it was something completely different. But this whole episode which lasted no more than 4 minutes, made my hour wait worth it. Even if the store owner never did show up and I went home empty handed…

as i failed to mention in the last post, brian is doing well. besides hating my newly acquired accent, he's enjoying himself and keeping busy with his projects and his burned hair is growing in. He is teaching business classes at the prison (thanks to the lambido for the funding) and is trying to start a project at the local high schools. with the addition of an art club, the students will be able to use their creative skills to start an anti HIV/AIDS mural on the wall, all while getting health related education. he also just started a peer education group with young men who want to learn about HIV. after the sessions, the men can go out into the community and teach others.

we were told that our first three months here would be slow and difficult. they were in fact slow, and it was sometimes challenging to find ways to be useful. but since we've been back from our in service training, things have really picked up for the both of us. french improves a little each day and fulfulde, while not difficult, continues to elude us for the moment. i can tell someone that i am leaving, but not where i am going, i can say that i'm tired, hungry, or scared, but not why. i can tell them i want to buy peanuts or beans, but not tomatoes, bread, peppers or pasta. i can tell a woman that her baby is gaining weight or losing weight, and ask if it has been eating well, but i can't explain the importance of this. Clearly, i need to expand my vocabulary.

____________

many thanks to everyone who sent packages or letters-everything is much appreciated, especially the parmesan cheese and the audio messages. I've sent out lots of letters and i know people are finally starting to get them. If i havent sent you one, its probably because i don't have your addres. So, if you get that to me, I can write. Better yet, if you write to me, I promise to write you back. There is nothing like getting to the city and finding a letter in your mail box.

In other news, the Hillery clan is coming to visit. Yes, all of them. Even little Thommy. Then we're off to France where the Warnings will be waiting to spoil us with gifts. Very excited. (tip: the phrase 'je suis excite'- I am excited - means sexually excited. I've made that mistake more than once).

Because we live somewhat near the west of the country, there are more than a handful of people that come from English speaking areas. However, English here is either pidgin, which might as well be chineese with a few English words thrown in at random times in conversation, or it is the English of a non native English speaker-African English. Yes, there are people here in Cameroon who speak perfect (according to American standards) English, but many times their english is difficult for les blancs to understand. Most of us have started to adopt a Cameroonian English that we use when people ask us “Are you speaking English?”. When speaking to a Anglophone, we annunciate all of our words and speak very clearly (not slowly and loudly like we tend to do to non-english speakers in the US). Also a good tactic to use is to not conjugate all of your verbs. “I buy this” “I go to market now”. (Some Anglophones understand almost none of what I am saying so I revert to French, which doesn’t really help the situation. Our fish lady in town-Mommy Fish- is Anglophone, but most of the time I can’t understand her English so we speak French with each other.)

I’m getting pretty good at Cameroonian English, and combined with the fact that I spend a lot of time now with an Austrian girl who speaks Austrian English, I’ve developed quite an interesting form of speech. I do a wonderful Austro-Afro-English that involves improper conjugations and sentences that end in high pitch, eyebrow raising affirmatives. And after speaking like this for 6 hours a day at the hospital, I come home and can’t speak good old yankee English. I’m even thinking in a broken combination of French, English, and Fulfulde. Needless to say, brian has nearly thrown a book at me a few times when I come in and say “what you do today?” or “I say this to you, this is big problem”…

So as I just mentioned, I’m spending some time at the hospital now. I decided that not having an actual job and a weekly schedule that involved three meetings and some “talking to community members”, I needed more of a purpose here. The volunteer before us worked almost exclusively at the hospital, and told us that we shouldn’t work there because they don’t really have a job for us as volunteers. So I stayed away for the first three months. After coming back from our In Service Training, I was motivated to start doing some health work and to keep busy.

I started working at the hospital three days a week. It’s a busy hospital because the doctor is a very hard working Austrian woman and people come from all over the area to see her. She has been here for something like 20 years and usually has two or three young Austrians who come for 9 months at a time to fulfill their service requirements.

Because I have no health experience, I have started in the nutrition ward. Or better, the malnutrition ward. There is a young Austrian there now who will be leaving in a few weeks, so she has been showing me around and learning me the trade. We start the day by weighing all the newborn babies and talking to the mothers about breast feeding. The obvious goal is to have the babies gain weight each day and have the mothers eat well so they can breast feed well. Then we go to the children’s ward where we visit the sick children. There are kids there with tuberculosis, parasites, malaria, severe malnutrition and other equally debilitating illnesses. Again, we weigh them and talk to their mothers (its always the women who bring them in) about what they are eating.

When a child is particularly bad, we make them buille, the traditional porridge like food that everyone here eats. Usually it consists of flower, water and sugar, but we show the mothers how to make it more nutritious by adding soy and peanut butter. The hope is that they’ll starting giving this to all of their children when they go back home.

The problem so far is that because 90% of the women who are having babies or that bring in their sick children are from very rural areas and have not been formally educated, meaning they speak no French. I speak a small small amount of Fulfulde, but its imperative that I learn it in order to communicate with these women. Another problem is that food costs money, and these women have no money. To make them the buille, we ask that they go buy an egg and powder milk and soy. We can usually provide the oil and peanut butter and flour for them, but we can’t just give them everything for free (can we?). the ingredients that we ask them to get cost the equivalent of $1.50 (the soy is $1 but can last them for a whole week of buille) and they don’t have the money for it. Its frustrating because many times the father has money, or more often cattle, but does not give the woman the money, and since he’s not at the hospital with the family, there’s no way to explain to him that he needs to buy them this food.

A third problem is that many times when a mother dies, her extended family takes in the children, but with a family of their own and already thin resources, those children often get sick. One girl that is there now-in fact, she came the day I started and was the first child I saw- is one year old and weighs 6 pounds. Her mother passed away and her grandmother brought her to us. She has no money and I assume a whole family at home. She was gaining a little bit of weight the first week because we were giving her buille, but when Monday cam around, she had lost all the weight again. The grandmother said that because she had no money, they had nothing to eat on the weekend. (Being at the hospital here is not at all like home- I’ll take photos some day- everyone relies on family members to come bring them food and cook for them in the communal kitchen area. You have to bring everything from pots and pans to sheets and firewood. So, needless to say, its not easy to stay at the hospital for long periods of time). The little girl still hasn’t put on any weight, and now we know she also has TB.

On the other hand, there are success stories: a six year old girl came in weighing 20 pounds looking miserable and very weak, also having malaria. Within a week she was up walking around and smiling. So its not all bad, and I’m getting more used to holding 2 pound babies and seeing very sick people.

I’m hoping to do more work at the hospital in the future, maybe work in different areas, but first I have to learn Fulfulde. I’d like to be able to talk with the women about family planning, HIV, and other things, but for now I just smile and stumble through basic conversation which involves a few Fulfulde words, some French and lots of gesturing, followed by laughing women and shoulder shrugging.

Wednesday

3pm : leave Tibati in bus for Ngaoundal

5 30pm : arrive in Ngaoundal, plan on spending the night with gracious Cameroonian family.

8pm : find out that the train for Ngaoundere has derailed and therefore will not be coming in the morning.

830pm : realize that your only options are to go back the way you came in the morning for an 8 hour bus ride (the whole reason we decided on the train in the first place) or head east to meiganga immediately .

9pm : get on a bus heading towards Meiganga

11pm : arrive in Moudougal, 15km outside of Meiganga, close enough

1130pm : get on a moto for the 20 minute ride. 4 people, 3 bags, unpaved dusty road. Late at night : one of our less than brilliant ideas thus far.

1145pm : moto gets a flat tire. Start walking.

12am : arrive at Allisons house, eat lots of popcorn.

Thursday

6am : get up and head to the bus station for another long, dusty trip

9am : bus leaves for Ngaoundere

130pm : dusty, hot and cramped, arrive in Ngaoundere

Friday

Rest, eat street meat

Saturday

5am : pack bags and head back to the station

630am : leave for Maroua

3pm : arrive in Maroua where the heat makes you feel like you are being blasted with a hair dryer.

These photos took forever to load. quick description before i go crazy or pass out from the heat in the computer lab. the first four are from a hike this morning. i thought it would be an easy stroll, and i was wearing sandals, not a good idea. i made it half way up when i realized that coming down would end in disaster if i went any farther. next time i'll go prepared for an actual hike. maybe bring some water as well. i left before 7 am and was dripping sweat by 8. there was also an angry dog involved, but simply picking up a rock and pretending to throw it seemed to keep him at bay.

the photo of the monkey was taken a while ago on the way from Garoua to Ngaoundere in the North province. there's a spot on the road where you're almost garunteed to see these guys. when i look at the photo now, i'm more impressed with the paved road than the wild animal.

the kittens in the photo are 2 days old. you could hold them all in one hand. the one on top is Monkey.

the other photos are from our house.

enjoy.

as much as i love our village, and the people there, i love the time we spend here in the big city. the PC house is in the center of town, within walking distance from pretty much everything. across the street is a restaurant with great burgers and fries and a bar with the best street meat in the country. next door is an internet cafe (in which i am currently sitting), and down the street are more bars, supermarkets, a bakery, tailor, and the petit marche where you can find anything from shoes to lettuce.

One reason i love being in the city is because i know that i can get anything at any time. instant gratification, so uniquely american. in village, when i see an avocato or a pineapple, i stomp on goats and push little children over to get my hands on the goodies. if i feel like an avocado or some carrots for an evening snack while i'm here, i just walk out the door and look for a woman or a child walking around with a plate of food on their head. instant.

this evening, brian and i had a cameroonian dish prepared by a woman who runs a restaurant. its more like a room with two benches and two half tables next to an area where she cooks all day. she speaks very little french and only serves a few dishes a night-all cameroonian. we had couscous and fulary sauce for 60 cents each.

when i first came to cameroonian i heard that a staple food here is couscous. great, i love couscous at home. unfortunately, no one told me that its absolutely nothing like what we think of when we think of those little balls of goodness that cook in just 5 minutes. no, the couscous here is either corn or manioc based and has the consistancy of mashed up rice. its served on a plate in a football shaped loaf about the size of two of my fists. it tastes like.....i'm not sure. maybe like mashed up rice. i'll have to think about that. its not horrible, if its prepared right and if there is no dirt in it. its served with one of a variety of sauces. one eats the couscous and sauce with their fingers (with the RIGHT hand, of course) and makes quite a mess of your hand. lots of slurping and licking from the more disgusting eaters.

gumbo was the most popular sauce for our family when we were up in Pitoa for training. again, NOT like the gumbo you're thinking of. its dried okra boiled with oil (and other stuff?) and is slimey. it drips from your fingers and mouth in long stringy lines as you eat and looks like it tastes horrible. i have not had the nerve to try it. other sauces include ndole and fulary. ndole is some sort of green vegetable and can be a very bitter sauce if it is not cleaned and cooked properly. fulary is also green, but not bitter or slimey. its the preferred sauce for brian and i when we eat couscous. (there is also a fulary drink, but i'm still very confused as to if its the same plant that you use to make each, the same part of the plant, or something different completely. i think the drink comes from hibiscus flowers. or leaves)

as you can see, i really don't describe these foods well, and i apologize to the people of cameroon for my account. but i do know that couscous and these sauces are very labor intensive. you have to pound the corn or manioc into a powder and boil it and stir vigerously. some of the sauces have to be boiled, rinsed, and boiled again. all of this is over a cook stove on the ground made of three large rocks with burning wood placed between them. usually the room (if its not outside) is unlit with no windows or ventilation. i remember trying to cook in the kitchen in Pitoa and was immediatly running from the room with my eyes burning and my nose on fire.

so, for all the work this woman did today, we gave her 300cfa each. some things just dont make sense.

first of all, contrary to popular belief, brian and i are still alive. we've learned that its not only perfectly normal to live without the internet, its actually quite easy. the only pressing thing i've needed to know in the past month has been the gestation period for a dog. when should i expect the newest members of our African safari? (early april).

live au village is just liek it sounds. village like. the most exciting thing that has happened was a bizarre hair burning incident involving brian, his birthday and a candle-lit bathroom.

we're meeting more peoplein the community who are trying to start farms or businesses, sell pagne, build things and other activities that living people do. we've each adopted a few different community groups and are working with them to write proposals and plan the future of their group. for example, one group who i am working with is trying to get a micro credit loan to build a storage house for their harvest and to buy a tractor to workt heir farms easier. i'm helping them write up their plans and proposals. i have tried to explain to them that i dont actually have any money for them, but that i will help them with all the logistics, and maybe i can write a letter to the lending institution saying that i will help see the project through. i'm not sure they completely understand this, because when they gave me the 'draft' of the proposal, it was titled "X Group and Our American Partners..."

Our adopted counterpart, and indeed good friend now, has helped us meet people all over the village, ant like a proper Cameroonian, he is related to most of them some how. with 22 brothers (even sisters are brothers here) he knows just about everyone in town. when we go to our monday meetings in a neighboring village, we always stop at his sisters house where we stock up on avocados and check on his pineapple farm. president of the handicapped GIC (community group)-his uncle; local handyman-of course, his older brother. you can't spit without hitting a brother or cousin in town.

sad news this week. we lost two members of our household. first, monkey, the runt of the litter died. he was not eating and after ten days he had not grwon, in fact, he grew smaller, while the others got bigger every day. second, a few days later, our computer died. seeing as i know very little about raising kittys and computer innards, i can't fathom the cause of either death. both are greatly missed.

i'm in the city all week, hopefully i can get my flash drive to work on these computers, pictures and more await.....

I'm in the provincial capital after being at post for a month straight. I'm surprised at how shocked i was to walk on a sidewalk and have to wait to cross a street. The stores and restaurants make my head spin. I can only imagine what the US will be like after being here for two years.

We received 5 of 7 boxes that were waiting in Yaounde for us. Our friend allison played santa as she lugged up piles and piles of treats, books, newspapers, a frisbee and a snow globe (thanks mom). I've already eaten a whole (jumbo) bag of peanut m&ms. We also got our first non-parental letter, thanks Colleen.

We ate hamburgers last night.

I felt the babies moving in the cat's stomach. It was really weird, but beautiful at the same time. Perhaps there will be babies when we get back home.

I've been sitting at this computer for an hour trying to upload photos with no luck.

We've been given so many papayas that they're actually starting to rot before we're able to eat them. They cost the equivalent of 25 cents, and papaya season is in full swing, so it seems that people have to give them away to get rid of them. I don't even want our papaya tree to produce its fruit because i wont know what to do with them. They're hanging there half ripe just teasing me. What am i going to do with 8 papayas, in addition to the ones currently in the kitchen. One (of the three) that we have right now has gone bad, but I cant put it in the compost pile because our gardener boy's mother gave it to us. He'll see it and think we aren't grateful. Its just that people can only eat so much papaya. even this many pineapples, which are my favorite, would be hard to eat. I did mention how much i love avocados and that our trees haven't produced yet. Hopefully the avocado cadeaus will come soon.

We had a meeting with a bunch of community groups in Tibati this past weekend with the help of Abdul. My predictions ere that no one would show up and those that did would ask a lot of questions about money. In reality, there were about 30 people from 18 different groups who came and talked to us about what it is they do here. There were quite a variety of groups: women who work on a collective farm; a group who works with orphans; an environmental protection group; women who teach other women about HIV/AIDS; a group for the advancement of girls education (even after they have been married and have kids before they are finished with high school). There is definitely some interesting groups out there. I hope to go to at least one meeting for all of them and figure out who I can work with. I'm particularly interested in the groups who works with orphans and the one who work with young girls and young mothers.

The health office has seemingly been abandoned by all staff. I heard from Brian that my counterpart was back in town after being away since december. I also heard that he is leaving again tomorrow to go back to Yaounde. I guess i can't blame him, considering he hasn't been paid in 4 years and is just trying to get the government to give him his money. So I went to work today to see him before I forget what he looks like ( I already can't remember what exactly his name is). I found two nurses from the neighboring clinic sitting on a bench outside with the old man who's official job seems to be to wave at people in the street and sweep the porch. No sign of any work being done (all the doors are closed and no one was there). Maybe next month....

New address:

B.P. 567

Ngaoundere, Cameroon

Things should get here faster than going through Yaounde.

I'm currently reading Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder. Its the story of Paul Farmer and his work in Haiti with TB, among other things. Its excellent. Because I'm here attempting to work in the health field, I find it really inspirational and appropriate. I reccomend it to everyone.

Books by Paul Farmer that I'd like to read:

AIDS and Accusations

The Uses of Haiti

Infections and Inequalities

Apparantly, you can only upload one image per day on these computers. So here it is:

This is us on the corn in our house. Its been there for a few weeks and i'm not sure exactly what is going on with it. We ate some the first few days, but since then, I havent seen anyone eat any. Mostly its just in the way. Today is Sunday, market day in Pitoa. Usually on Sundays we sleep in (until 7) and read books for a few hours in the morning. Then we go to the market or into Garoua for lunch. This morning we were up before 7, read until about 8.30, and then I decided to go to the market with my sister to get some pagne and some food for breakfast. Shopping for pagne is not as easy as you would think. Because we are white, people will inevitably charge us a rediculously high amount. You're supposed to bargin with them and get eventually get a pagne for somewhere around 3-5,000 cfa. Apparantly all the ones that i liked started at 16,000 cfa. I could never get them to go below 7,000. After a half hour of arguing with people and being told to pay more, I decided to give up. I also wasnt sure how much the pange was supposed to cost. My sister kept saying that it was a bit expensive, but that i should buy it if I liked it. After giving up and buying avacados and bread instead, we ran into my mother (a dressmaker and pagne expert). When she heard how I wouldnt buy any pagne because it was too expensive, she immediately took my by the hand and we went straight to a vendor who she knew (i assume). I showed her some fabric that I liked and we got a fair deal on them. I paid 5,000cfa for a beautiful blue piece of pagne. The other vendors were telling me similar fabric was 12.000 and wouldn't go below 7,000 for me. Now we just have to have Mama make it into a beautiful outfit. I think this time Brian is getting a shirt AND matching pants. If there's enough fabric left over, i'll get a dress or a skirt. Update on the Goat: when I posted the photo of the goat a few weeks back, i mentioned how i wished that he would maybe not come home one night. Well, a few nights later, he stopped coming back. Now we have no goat. I have no idea what happened to him, but I can't say i'm too dissapointed. No more goat screams through the night and no more (much less at least) goat poop in our house. My parents have been asking what they can send for us. I'll just say that if you are thinking of sending anything, please consider news stories, current events, magazines, etc. I know when they get here, they'll no longer be current, but its better than nothing. We're pretty starved for news. Gatorade packets or iced tea/lemonade packets for water would be nice. Also, photos of home would be great. I brought a bunch with me, but I still have room for more in my album. Pretty much anything we recieved would make our day. Some volunteers have started recieving mail and it gets all of us pretty giddy. Or, a good old fashioned email will do.......

Only one picture would load, and of course, its the best one. This is us in our new pagne.

The end of the rainy season is upon us. It stopped raining about 10 days ago and already we can see the changes in the landscape. Where there was lots of standing water last week, this week there is dry brown dirt. The air is drier as well, which means far less sweat. Or maybe it means the sweat just evaporates much faster.

The end of the rainy season also means that Palu (malaria) is everywhere. Although it is a major problem all year here in Cameroon, now is the time that palu hits hardest. In the past week, nearly every member of my family has had it, and we have a big family. It seems like each day, someone new is sick and someone else is better. Currently, 4 members of our family have palu. One, our sister Bridget, is in the hospital. In my last post I wrote how the family is usually very loud, espicially in the early mornings, but with so many people sick, the hosue is much quieter. Mostly everyone just lays around all day on mats while the healthy people do the cooking.

We're getting to know Pitoa pretty well. We've found our favorite 'shops' and favorite bar and have really fallen into our routine. Some days go by fast, others drag on and on. The hardest part is still not having the freedom we have been used to in the past. The other night, Brian said that the reason it is so fun here is because everything is difficult. That statement is strangely accurate. I'm not sure 'fun' is the best word all the time, but for the most part, he's right. Take for example going to bed. At home (USA) you wash up, grab a book, maybe set an alarm and say good night. Here, the routine is as follows: check water supply (enough for two showers?); check drinking water (enough for tomorrow?); fill up bucket for the shower; find towel, wrap, shower shoes and soap box; if the bathroom is free use bucket and tin cup to shower...avoid cockroaches; fill up storage containers with enough water for tomorrow-if SNEC is on and its after 7:30pm; get filtered water and brush teeth out front; find book, flash light, reading light; tuck in mosquito net. with all the walking back and forth with buckets and water containers, this process can be long and frustrating. Or, i suppose, fun.

Unfortunately, I’m not able to upload pictures today, but I do have some good ones. Our mothers bought us some pagne and made Brian and I outfits. Pagne is the colorful fabric that everyone here wears. Even lots of the men wear it if they are not wearing the traditional Muslim dress. We didn’t get to pick out our fabric, but it turns out it’s the best ever. I wont explain it here, I’ll just try to post the pictures soon. We’re known throughout Pitoa as ‘Le Couple’, and after wearing our matching outfits, we’ve really solidified our place in town.

I also have pictures of our market in Pitoa. Its one of the best around. You can get anything you could ever need there (almost). It’s about the size of two football fields, half of which has semi-permanent stands, and half of which is just open space with some trees. There are lots of cows, chickens, soaps, dishes, electronics, clothes, pagne, food, and more. Current volunteers say that it wasn’t until after they left Pitoa for their site that they realized what a great market they had. Sunday is market day, so I’ll be stocking up on fruits for the week.

Peanuts have become my best friend. You can buy a little sack of them for 25cfa, roughly 5 cents. There is a lady that sits outside our training house and sells them all day. I eat about 4 sacs a day. Our family also goes to the fields every weekend to get either peanuts, corn or millet. Today is millet, I was hoping for more peanuts.

This week we find out our site placements. We know only that we’ll be some where in the Grand North- either the Adamawa, North or Extreme North Province. We’ve met volunteers from all three, and they each seem to have something different to offer. Next weekend we’re leaving for a week to visit our site, so I’m not sure if we’ll be able to get online before we go.

I’ve sent some text messages to people, but I have no idea if you got them. If so, can you send me an email and let me know. Also, if you want our number, email me. Its cheap to talk on Skype.

Love you, miss you!

Wednesday, October 15

5:00am: hear the family start their daily activities. what exactly they do at this hour is still a mystery. It sounds like they have lots of banging to do with loud objects. They also like to yell about things in the morning, perhaps to let others know that they are up and working. Some mornings, like Sundays, our brother likes to have mini dance parties with loud rap music. Basically, they are loud.

6:00 am: wake up. We no longer wake up wet with sweat because we bought a fan on Sunday, so the nights are much easier now (even thought the fan just blows hot are on us). Shower and gather our things for the day. we are usually gone for 10 or 12 hours at a time, so we need lots of random things. today i had crayons, french books, notebook, drawing paper, a book for leisure, camera, water, Cliff bar, phone, and more....

6:50am: leave for school with our bikes (and helmets!). Stop on the way to buy a loaf of bread for breakfast and snacking on during the morning. Our family doesn’t give us breakfast because we told them that we usually don’t eat it. also because the first few days they gave us hot water and powdered milk, so i think no breakfast is better than that. there’s always something to buy on the way to school in the market or at little shops. usually we get bread or beignets (fried dough/donuts).

7:30, but brian and i get tutored most mornings. some of us have requested/been asked to come in the morning or during lunch for extra french work. so far its pretty helpful.

7:30am: school starts. today we had french first. the session are different every day. two before lunch and two after. usually a language before and after with technical and medical sessions as well.

9:30am: second class of the day today was a medical session with the Nassarao people (Agro) and the PC medical officer. when we have joint sessions one of the groups are shuttled to the other village, approximately 7km away. today we went to Nassarao for a session on mental health.

11:45am: back to Pitoa for lunch at our ‘restaurant’. On the menu: Rice, Pasta, Beans, Peanut sauce, Spinach sauce, Fried potatoes, tomato and onion sauce. Thats lunch every day. the sauces are oily and the pasta is salty, but we eat lots and lots of it every day. because wednesdays are a bit different than other days, Brian and two other volunteers go to the local high school to meet with the Health Club. They dont get to eat much for lunch, but they do get more free time in the afternoon.

2:00pm: back to Nassarao for another joint session. usually we only have one a day or two in a row, but the scheduling was different (horrible) today. this session was on safety and security. Threats facing PCVs include: “theft, robbery, assault, snakes, crazy people, derailment, etc” those are just some of the things we'll face while we're here...

3:30pm: back once again to Pitoa for the rest of the community group meetings. there are four different groups we are working with. Brian is with the health club, I’m with the Girls Group. We’re supposed to talk about health issues with them and teach them things, but our girls don’t seem to want that. and we dont particularly want to force it on them. this was only our second meeting (every wednesday), and at the first one, they didnt really say much because they are young and shy. basically what they seem to want is to learn how to ‘lead good lives’. Today we tried to get them to be more engaged, so we started with the game where everyone puts their hands in the middle and grabs someone else’s hand. then we work together to get untangled. after some twisting and turning, we had everyone in a big circle. they seemed to open up a bit.

Then we had them talk a bit about themselves and draw self portraits. even the really shy ones shared their drawings. I think we all really enjoy ourselves. In the weeks to come, we’ll try to do some confidence building activities and some other things to get the girls thinking about their futures. its supposed to be health related, and in a way it is. Girls Empowerment=Community Health, or maybe Confidence=HIV/AIDS prevention. Meanwhile, Brian had free time (very valuable here) and went to Garoua to use the internet and eat ice cream.

5:15 pm: met everyone at the bar for some drinks and to talk about our community groups.

6:15 pm: home. seems to be hotter tonight than usual, and there are LOTS more bugs tonight. Our brother Achile says its because they are having babies (?).

6:45pm: dinner. potatos and a tomato sauce. not bad.

7:15 pm: showers-really bucket baths-and fetch water for tomorrow.

8:00pm: in bed writing this. very tired. brian is killing insects. really, there are tons tonight,

This is what most of our days look like. usually there is more language and less shuttling between Pitoa and Nassarao, and less bugs.

our house. on the right is where two of our brothers sleep, straight ahead is the kitchen building and on the left behind brian and the kids is the main house with a living room and two bedrooms. we spend most of our time sitting there or right where i am standing taking the picture. our bedroom is behind us.

Brian and our sister Josephine.

Raul, the most adorable little boy in Pitoa. He was either hit by a moto or in a moto accident. he doesnt speak french, but after a day or two he really wamred up to us. high fives and all. he lived with us the first week and then went back to live with his dad. we sing songs about how much we miss him.

Charlotte braiding her friend;s hair. Raul following me around.

Brian, Raul, Bernadette

Playing soccer near the highschool (brian in the red). the mountains that surround us are in the background. notice the black sky, it started raining a few minutes after i took the picture.

After soccer, beautiful, cooling rain. this is taken from our front door. the green patch on the left is where our family grows onions and where we brush our teeth everyday.

The goat sleeping on the bench at night. i took this from our bedroom. the past few nights the goat has been VERY loud at night. goats just wander all over the roads here and at night they make their way back to their homes. lately i've been wishing ours doesn't come home.

our bedroom on the left. front door on the right. this is the only picture i was able to upload. sorry......

Three weeks down and seven more to go. thats how we;ve been looking at training. its hard because we have to be at school from 7am to 4:30 pm and we're not allowed to speak english anymore. its immersion time. hen we have to be at our homestay house by 7pm. we're usually home by 6 after a beer or walking around with other trainees. then we talk with our little brothers and sisters or do homework. then eat, wash up and go to bed. its rare if 8:00 comes around an we're not in bed.

our family is really great and seem to understand us well. i think we get more freedom than the other volunteers because we're married. some of the other PCTs have complained about their families being conc erned with where they are all the time. if they dont come home right after school, their families are concerned. i think it also has to do ith the fact that our mothers are out later than us every night either working or attending a communiot meeting. when we get home our siblings are doing their homework or cooking dinner. speaking of dinner, we're finally eating in th esame room at the same time as our family. or at least with our sisters and mothers. the boys still eat outside. the first few weeks, they would make us eat inside before they ate outside. we kept asking to eat together, and i think we've gotten as close as we can to eating 'together'. they sit on the floor and eat fufu while we eat our 'american food' that they make for us.

the food is also better now. when we arrived, we told our famly that we were vegetarians at home but that we will eat fish and chicken here because we didnt want to inconvienence them. what we dindt know was that they rarely eat any chicken or fish (that we would recognize as such). they pretty much eat the exact same thing every night; fufu an green gooey sauce. at first they made us things with whole (dried) fish. bones and skin and all, yumm. finally we were able to commnicate that we dont actually want to eat chicken or fish anymore. now we eat lots of beans, spinach, tomatoes and starches. rice, potatoes and yams at every meal. but no more fish bones.

we've lost two of our fellow trainees already; one becasue of a technicality( no helmet on a moto) and the other by choice. ther eare 28 of us left, 13 health and 15 agros. they say that training is the hardest part and it seems to be that way. not having our own schedule and sitting through up to four hours of language a day along with technical training can be difficult. especially when we go hom to someone else's house where we have just a small room to ourselves. add to that the fact that our room is consistantly 10 degrees hotter than outside ( where its usually hot). so we spend most of our time at home outside of our room where there;'s no couch or comfy chair to sit on. we are either on the wooden bench or a wooden stool. but like i said, our family is great and knows how to have a good time, so its really not so bad.....

it rained again last night, whihc is good because it means that it is cool (relatively) for anothe day. last year the rains stopped on October 15. i'm hoping for a few extra this year. by thanksgiving it should cool down. people have been asking me what it looks like here...i guess it depends on the weather because its still raining every few days, its still green. during the dry season it turns brown. there are mountains all around us....maybe 5 or 10 miles away. i have pictures but i was only able to upload one....i'm emailing my family now too, so hopefully i can send some that way for them to post.

thanks for all the comments and emails. sorry i can not respond individually, but i think i covered most of the questions here. its great to hear from home. ashley--glad to hear everything is OK. miss you all!

-j

Its sunday and us trainees can finally feel like adults. We've been shuttled around in PC cars and vans for the past few weeks with virtually no freedom. Yesterday we were given our moto helmets and our bikes, so its time to get out and see the sights. That is of course, between the hours of 4:30 and 7:00pm. They keep us pretty buys with training, but sundays are our own. We're in the provincial capital of Garoua, where they have such luxuries as the internet and cell phone service. We got to talk to our parents, who informed us that its getting cold in Buffalo.

Food has been a big concern from your emails (mom), so what are we eating? mostly starches and carbs. We have rice and beans for lunch everyday, and for dinner, our family makes us either potatos or rice with some sort of tomato or spinach sauce. The food is alright, but Cameroonians LOVE to use oil. Our family goes through a litre of oil a day, no joke. Whenever i'm in the kitchen i try to tell them that in America Brian and I dont like to eat that much oil and they think we're crazy. Today we went to the market and bought some eggs and tomatos to cook for ourselves and when they saw that i only put one tablespoon of oil in the pan, they were all amazed. Other than that, the food is good. I do miss veggie burgers and cereal. Cold cereal. Anything cold would do actually.

Next time, i'll write up a post back in Pitoa and bring it with me so i can remember everything i wanted to say. Basically, all is well and we're slowly adjusting to the heat. We hear rumors that in december and january it is 68 degrees at night! Also that in March and april it gets up to 140 in the sun. Mom--France in march?? Think about it.

Love you all and miss you.

-j

While we were in Yaounde, most comments about the weather went something like this: "its so nice out, I could live with this for 2 years" or "wow, I really thought it would be hotter". We've been up North for almost a week now, our attitudes have shifted considerably. Its hot here. At noon on our first day, it was 101, and the sweat on our clothes (we were drenched) was proof enough that our Buffalo born bodies were no match for the African sun. The first few nights were close to unbearable. Then, on the third night when we thought we couldn't take anymore, it rained. I nearly cried. In fact, inside I did a little. With the saturday night rain came a good sleep and a beautiful sunday. A perfect day for the weekly market, minus some mud.

Our town, Pitoa, is about 10 miles outside the provincial capital of the Garoua, but it might as well be 100. It has between 1000 and 5000 people, its hard to tell. We live with a family near the market area. We have 2 moms, Claire and Marte, an uncle, and 8 kids living in the house. There are 2 or 3 other children who are living in Garoua and going to school. The youngest is 5 and the rest are between 11 and 18. Of course, being 11 here means that you do almost all of the cooking and cleaning and are good at physics. Everyone is very welcoming and have really helped Brian and I adjust to the new environment. They have a great sense of humor and are always up for goofing around. The people of Pitoa are also really great. We have about a 15 minute walk to school (pretty much from one side of town to the other), and along the way we are greeted with lots of waving and 'bonjour!' or 'nassara' (the word for foreigner). They say this in the nicest of ways, kind of like you would say 'hi neighbor'.

Today is the last day of Ramadan and we only had a half day of training so that we can enjoy the fete. Our family is Catholic but everybody celebrates today. All the little boys are dressed in long tunics with lillte caps on. We're going out to meet our Nassara friends for a drink at the local bar to celebrate. I think in the long run, the lack of phone service, street lights, ceiling fans, refridgeration, and the internet can be made up for by the bar with cold beer. (But only one large or two small, according to PC policy, of course.)