Pardon my hiatus last week, but I was busy travelling
Cameroon. Last week, we were on Site Visit, meaning we visited our assigned
posts, where we will be living and working for the next two years. It is a
visit designed to help you figure out how to get to your post, meet any
volunteers you are replacing or volunteers in the area, and hopefully meet
people you might be working with. It’s a good chance to see the community and
your host institution before the second half of training. It ended up being our
first taste of freedom here in Cameroon and an amazing experience.
My post is Mogodé. It’s in the Extreme North region of
Cameroon (there are 10 regions). The Extreme North is known for being deserty,
Muslim, hard to get to, and for having meat (such as beef), which isn’t widely
available in the rest of the country (note: no refrigerated trucks). It also
takes a butt ton of time to get there. But we got to take a train!
So Saturday morning, 7 am, all of us meet up with our
Community Hosts (mine is Genevieve, a young, spunky business women who is going
to be amazing to work with). We got on a “Super Amigo” chartered bus
(Cameroonian style- so 5 to a seat) and headed toward Yaoundé. Yaounde, if you
remember, is the capital of Cameroon where we had our Orientation for our first
week here. This time, though, we weren’t confined to a hotel. As our train
didn’t leave till 6:30, and we had arrived around 11 (with some difficulties),
we were free to explore. We went and had an amazing lunch: salad!!!! which none
of us had had since we had been here. I really don’t understand the Cameroonian
mentality surrounding fruit and vegetables, but no one seems to eat raw things
here, and its been driving us nuts. From there, we headed out to Casino, the
import grocery store that has everything a white person living in Africa could
ever dream about. On the way, we stopped into a boulangerie for real ice cream
and pastries. It was amazing. I didn’t actually feel adapted to Cameroon until
I walked into this completely western shop and realized how out of place I
felt. Getting that ice cream, while amazing, felt so weird: I loved it. From
there, we walked across the street to Casino.
Funny thing about white people in an African nation, they
stick out. They are targets. Locals always think we are rich, white people just
there to hand out money. Apparently, people in Yaounde didn’t think
differently. As we were crossing the street to enter the store, someone ran up
to us and grabbed my friend’s necklace from her neck and ran away. It was only
seconds, but it was so scary. He left huge red welts on her neck. It was such a
reality check. We don’t blend in, we are targets. After that terrible event, we
were ready to leave Yaounde.
As we boarded the train, our excitement mounted. The train
was an overnight journey and each of us had a bed in little cabins of four
people. We were with our counterparts but mostly clustered together. The trip
was supposed to last anywhere form 12 to 15 hours, although it has been known
to last up to 23 due to multiple derailings: transportation in Cameroon: C’est
la vie. This rail system is different from anything I’ve encountered before.
There is one path and only one route. Yaounde to Ngaoundere leaves at 6:00 pm,
once a day, and Ngaoundere to Yaounde leaves at 6:20 p.m, everyday, once a day.
This easy system has an awesome effect though. As you travel north, and make
your different stops, everyone knows when the trains are stopping (or at least
when they should be stopping). So, tons of vendors come out to the train tracks
and are out there, selling local specialties on their heads, through the
windows at each stop. We bought baton (fermented cassava), tons of fruit, and a
few random things, like honey. Our counterparts were going crazy, staying up
all night to bargain through the window for fruits and vegetables they don’t
get up north. I woke up in the morning to bags of food literally covering our
compartment floor. It was hilarious.
The train ended in Ngaoundere, where we disembarked, met up
with some amazing people staff from PC, and tried to arrange the next part of
our journey, the bus ride north. Those of us in the extreme north were taking a
bus to Maroua, the capital city. So bus rides and purchasing tickets is super
strange here. You go up to the counter, and reserve your spot on a bus. Then,
as buses arrive, and enough people buy tickets that a bus is full, they call
out everyone’s name who made it on the bus. Then there’s a mad scramble to load
your luggage and get seats. Needless to say, even after all the spots are
assigned, it takes about an hour or so for a large bus to leave. Sometimes, if
you’re waiting for a bus to fill up, you can wait for an hour or longer before
they even do the roll call.
So, we arrived in Ngaoundere and tried to get on a bus. However,
lucky for us, due to a school holiday, tons of people were waiting around
trying to get on buses to get back to school up north. We were told we might be
on the 3rd bus. We had arrived at 7:30 in the morning. By the time
we left, on the 4th bus, it was 1 pm. It was also the last bus of
the day, leaving tons of people stranded in Ngaoundere for the night. We got
lucky. Our little bus pulled away, filled to the brim (again Cameroonian style)
and we started out 10 hour bus ride to Maroua. On the way, whenever we stopped,
people would come up to the windows, selling food and wares through the
windows. Such a bizarre custom but I loved it! We started seeing meat being
sold on the side of the rode. As one break, we got out and tried it, and oh my
god, best meat I’ve ever had in my life. It had powdered piment (a spicy pepper
similar to jalapeno) on it, and I could tell I was going to eat well during my
visit. Don’t ask me what kind of meat it was, but it was good.
We arrived in Maroua late at night and headed to the Case:
the Peace Corps hostel for PCV’s passing through. We were welcomed by PCV’s,
two of them being PCV’s we were replacing, and headed out to town. As soon as
we left the Case, I could feel a difference in this city compared to Yaounde. I
felt so much safer. There was no one “deranging” (franglais, I know) me,
meaning, no one yelling “la blanche”, or making tsking noises to get my
attention, or trying to get me to buy anything. Sure, some people watched us go
by, but no one bothered us at all. It was completely different from the south.
And amazing. The city automatically felt more welcoming and like home than
Bafia has ever felt.
Anyways, our night passed with awesomeness as we got to know
other PCV’s and heard about people in the area and our posts. The next day, we
explored the city a bit as we opened up bank accounts and got smoothies (yay!).
I rode my first moto in Cameroon. I’ve been on a motorcycle once before, but I
was freaking scared. I climbed onto the back of this puny little bike, with my
huge flashy helmet and away we revved through the streets of Maroua. It was
already dry season up there, so dust flew up in our faces. As we crossed over a
river, I saw that it was almost completely dried up, with people doing laundry
in the river bed with the little puddles that remained of what probably is a
pretty imposing river during the rainy season. The city was so quaint and much
prettier than Yaoundé. I loved it. The PCV’s showed us where we can buy cheese
and kitchen supplies, and salads! We ate some grasshopper a woman was selling
on her head and basically just enjoyed freedom without a strict schedule in a
new city.
Since it had taken so long to open bank accounts, Alice (the
PCV I’m replacing) and I decided to wait till morning to leave for Mogode. The
journey out there is a bit long. You go an catch a bus (similar procedure where
you could be waiting for an hour or so) to Mokolo, which takes about an hour.
From there, you grab a moto and head out to Mogode. It’s about a 1.5 hour drive
on the back of a moto, through dusty desert on an unpaved, pretty bad road.
It’s a butt bruiser. But its freaking gorgeous. You start up, just going up
into the mountains, passing cute little compounds with round houses, horses,
and the occasional tree. Then all of the sudden, you go over a turn, and
there’s a gorgeous valley right in front of you, opening up to volcanic spires
and beautiful rock formations everywhere. If I hadn’t been clinging to moto for
dear life, I would have taken some amazing photos.
Mogode is also gorgeous. It’s nestled in an almost-valley in
between a bunch of volcanic spires out in the middle of the desert, in the
mountains. The stars at night are amazing! It’s a small little village with a
post office, a police station, a few boutiques, a hospital, some schools and
not much else. There’s a large catholic mission just down the street from my
house. I didn’t get a chance to meet the Italians who run the place, but I’m
looking forward to getting to know them.
The house I’ll be moving into is amazing. The two huge, blue
steel doors are the entrance to my compound. Inside is a huge yard. I plan on
doing some major gardening/minor farming projects. Since I was arriving at the
end of rainy season, everything was turning from green to brown, but it was
still gorgeous. Alice had soybeans, corn, tomatoes, and cucumbers. There is an
outdoor kitchen that Alice has been using as a doghouse and a pit latrine
(real, without a built in throne). My first night there using the latrine
resulted in an embarrassing episode involved pee in places in shouldn’t be. I
was out of practice, and let me tell you, it’s hard as a woman to squat an pee
into a little hole! But practice makes perfect, I’ll get better as I perfect my
technique.
My house is beautiful and simple. The small porch opens up
into a big kitchen/living/dining room. I have a portable gas stove! Then there
is a beautiful bedroom, a washroom, and a spare room that I’ll turn into
another bedroom.
There is no running water in my house, so the washroom is
just that, a room to bathe and let your bucket bath water go down a drain. My
water comes from anearby forage. I’ll have to hire a guy to go and get me giant
containers of water on his moto.
Also, I might be inheriting a dog: Kelly (renamed Nous-nous
by the neighborhood). She is a gorgeous Cameroonian mutt: a one year old puppy.
She is so sweet. Unfortunately, while I was visiting, she came home with a
machete wound to the shoulder. Cameroonians don’t really get pets and see dogs
as either guard dogs or food. Nous-nous, being American raised, was probably
being overly friendly and annoyed someone with a dull machete. Anyways, we
patched her up as best we could and she’ll be fine.
I spent my two days in Mogode, exploring, hiking, eating,
and meeting tons of people. We hiked one of the beautiful volcanic formations
and looked down into Nigeria. We ate local food and made amazing food like
lentil stir fry and cucumber salads. I had these awesome local beignets (fried
dough things) made from local white beans that tasted similar to chicken
nuggets and almost made me melt inside. They were awesome.
I also went and visited the hospital with whom I’ll be
working. It’s a small district hospital with a birthing room, laboratory, some
over night wards and a non-operational operating room. After 2 years of not
having a doctor, three months ago they acquired a generalist who refuses to do
even any basic surgery. There were some major problems that the nurses pointed
out right away: Cholera, an extremely low number of mothers giving birth in the
hospital, diarrhea, ect. My mind was racing with potential projects.
The next day, we went out “into the bush” for a vaccination
day with a local village. Under a giant tree, we watched one of the nurses give
vaccinations and a small presentation on the importance of breastfeeding to
these women carrying infants and small children on their backs on their way to
the fields. Let me tell you, this is the difference between first world and
third world problems. These women, so strong and overworked, still had a sense
of humor while waiting for their turn for vaccinations. Unfortunately, I
couldn’t understand it. In the region where I will be working, very few people
actually speak French. I’ll have to learn Fulfulde (a language most of the
north speaks) and Kapsiki (the tribal language). Many women don’t ever go to
school and even more don’t make it past primary school, so very few speak
anything other than their tribal language. I have my work cut out for me.
But I’m excited.
Ooo, another benefit to living up north in the desert: funny
thing about deserts: there’s very little water. Funny thing about mosquitos:
they need water to breed. Yeah, you guessed it; there is very little malaria in
the north! I’ll only have to worry about it for a few months out of the year as
opposed to every day!
This long update is coming to a close, I promise. We
traveled back without incident, making it back to Bokito in one piece, although
missing our posts the moment we left. Most other people had a similarly great
and welcoming experience in our stage. I will also have a “post-mate”: an
agroforestry volunteer in a nearby village (about 15 km away).
This week has been tough readjusting to school and stage.
But at least we know what’s coming now and there’s a light at the end of the
tunnel. We’re spending these next few weeks just enjoying our fellow stagieres
and learning as much as possible before heading off to our remote locations to
start changing the world.
That’s a lot for now, there’s still more I’d love to say,
but I’ll spare your sore eyes. Miss you all, thanks for supporting me with
emails of encouragement, and thanks for reading my long, drawn out editorials
on my life. Life is good. Keep on dancing. Ciao!
