Heat Wave

Hey Guys!

Greetings from the hottest place on the planet. Or at least that’s how it feels. The north has welcomed me back with open arms, and a scalding heat. After another arduous (more tedious than actually arduous) journey, we arrived safely and soundly in Maroua a few days ago. Due to our late arrival time, and the fact that all of my grocery shopping happens in Maroua, we decided to stay a few days before going back to post.

It is great being back. I was surprised when I felt like I was back home. I realized that I have now started feeling like this place is my home. I still miss Boston and Florida, and I sorely miss my friends and family on a daily basis, but I was surprised to feel this welling of emotion that comes with planting new roots. I know Maroua. I missed Maroua. I missed the people and the culture.

But I did not miss the heat. Over the few weeks that we were gone, the hot season set in. Previously, I’ve described the climate up here. It’s almost desert like this time of year with no rainfall and very little greenery unless an area has been irrigated. River beds are dried up and it is so dry that my clothes dry in about an hour on a clothesline (compare this to some of the southern regions, where your clothes literally never dry, they just mold). Coming back up, none of that really changed, except that there is less green and more brown. But the temperature did.

Please keep in mind where this information is coming from. I grew up in the Florida Keys, where temperatures of 90’s are recorded on a pretty regular basis (put in the humidity and it sucks in the summer). In high school, you would never find me wearing anything but a pair of long, ratty jeans. The only time I showed my knees was when I was playing soccer, on a boat, or in the water. I can handle heat. Living in Boston, I started wearing a second layer of fleece-lined pants in October and they often stayed on until April or May. I love warm weather.

But this is not warm weather. The thermometer, in the shade, bright and early in the morning states 111 degrees. It’s sweltering. You’re lucky if you’re ever hydrated enough to sweat. I’m up to at least 3 or 4 liters a day and I still don’t sweat. And even if you do start sweating, it’s so dry, it’s gone in seconds. Keeps swamp-butt at bay, that’s for sure.

The nights were absolutely unbearable. Even under a fan, I couldn’t take it. I took the advice of an older volunteer and went and took a shower. With my clothes on. It worked. For about half an hour, I was deliciously cool. Hopefully you fall asleep in that little window. Regardless, I got up a few times to do it again. It really is the only way to sleep comfortably. Some people tried Benadryls. They figured if they could get to sleep, it could keep them there. It works, but you still wake up, your sheets and mattresses soaked through with sweat. I started keeping a liter by my bed because I wake up so dehydrated.

When you do shower without your clothes on, it barely offers relief. You go to put on your room temperature clothing, and it’s as if they’ve been in a dryer for hours. Room temperature is hotter than you. Imagine putting hot clothes on in that heat. Even walking around, the floor, the walls, they are all warmer than you. There is no respite from the heat. The water coming out of the tap, at least initially, is hotter than a hot tub. You have to wait a few minutes to get water that’s at least a bit cooler than your hand.

This is what the people down in Maroua have to deal with for the next month, until the rains start in May or June. Luckily for me, I don’t live in Maroua. Yesterday, I climbed aboard the convection oven of a bus and headed for the mountains. On the moto ride up here, you could just feel the air getting cooler, losing its tenacity. Granted it’s still hot, but its totally bearable. I went outside in my PJ’s yesterday and just wrote from my hammock; by the time I went in to sleep. I was chilly. Inside my little concrete house, it’s still pretty hot, but definitely doable. I take a shower (not with my clothes on) before I go to sleep and that keeps me going until I pass out. During the day, as long as you’re not standing in the sun, you’re fine. In fact, since I live on the side of a hill, its gorgeous sitting underneath a shady tree with the wind blowing up from the valley below. It’s still dry, and I have to make sure I’m drinking way more water than I’m used to, but I am so lucky. I honestly believe I have the greatest post in Cameroon. Right outside my porch, I see huge, volcanic finger-like peaks (literally, finger-like. For “Holes” fans- there’s even God’s thumb! I want to sit underneath it and eat onions) and the weather is fantastic (compared to Maroua anyway).

But with the heat, comes some problems. Water is almost impossible to find now. My water boy came this morning. Normally it takes him maybe an hour to fill up 6 containers. Today it took 5 hours to fill up 3. Water is scarce and it’s starting to show. More people are walking around in dirty clothes, not being able to afford water to wash. Also, the heat brings on a general lack of appetite. I have found myself skipping meals entirely due to just not being hungry. People are starting to lose weight they can’t afford to lose. Although, whether this is lack of appetite or lack of fresh food, that’s anyone’s guess. Tomorrow is market day, so I’ll go see for myself, but from what I hear, there’s bound to be less than normal this time of year. Its easy to get dried greens and things like beans and flour to make “couscous” but other than that, fresh food is getting scarce. I’ll report more on that later when I know more.

After being away for a few weeks, I was surprised to find my house completely intact (some of my friends down south had problems with thievery) and my animals alive. My tomato plants didn’t make it, although whether that’s the heat and lack of watering, or the fact that the chickens decided to dig the roots up is up in the air. The entire town was so welcoming and happy to see me. I rode into town on my moto amidst cries of “Bienvenue!” and “Jabbamma!” (welcome in Fulfulde. I wonder if they said it in Kapsiki, but I don’t know that word yet, so it didn’t register). I made some quick rounds to some of my dearest friends where I was fed and watered (soda and a local drink mind you, not actual untreated water). I had brought people avocados and baton de manioc from the south and they just loved it. While the avocado’s were a little ripe, they just cried out in joy and started eating it right in front of me. It was kind of hilarious.  

Anyways, I’m back, settling in, and getting ready to delve into work with the new information and goals drilled into us at IST. But it’s overwhelming. There’s so much I want to do, so much I feel like I’m already committed to (some that I don’t necessarily want to focus on anymore) that I just feel like stopping everything. I wish I could just start from square one, with everyone already on board, so we could just start different projects. For example, I want to work more with kids in schools and less with the hospital. There have been some minor issues at the hospital mostly arising from them seeing me as an employee there to basically do whatever they think a white person should be doing. I’ve mostly been hanging out there to learn, assess what sort of problems the hospital sees and to work with Dieudonne on the vaccinations en brusse and the sensibilisations (frenglish??). Also, I feel like it might be more effective to teach kids early on about nutrition and basic hygiene. I’m currently in the process of sorting through my thoughts. I need to prioritize according to what I’d like to work on, what the community needs, and what the Peace Corps wants me to work on (mostly AIDS prevention). It’s a tough point in my service right now. Supposedly, the most successful volunteers, the ones who make the greatest difference, are the ones who focus on one or two big projects and make it happen. The way things stand right now, I’m already juggling 4 or 5 smaller projects and want to take on some more that interest me and seem necessary (such as creating or fixing a water source).

I was talking with my friend Laura yesterday, and she said something pretty interesting. Everyone says the first three months at post are the hardest. It’s when we are getting set up, still learning languages and getting integrated at post. We’re still strangers, trying to find a place in a strange community. But she thinks that this time, right after IST might be harder. We’re filled with so many ideas and hopes that we just want to snap our fingers to make happen, but we can’t. We have to prioritize and navigate our local waters to make a select few projects happen. Where do we start? Once we’ve decided what we want to do, whom do we turn to? What happens next? This next few weeks or months will shape the rest of our service. We’re all terrified of making a wrong decision or a mistake. It’s scary. And it’s all happening right after we’ve just been with our American friends for weeks. Now we’re back at post, all alone again, and going through the loneliness and friend-withdrawal period all over again. It’s a bit different this time because, hopefully (as I have), we’ve developed at least a bit of a circle of friends in village. But it’s still not quite enough. This is a hard job. My last post probably made this seem like ice cream and fried eggs (trust me, when you can’t buy eggs, they look pretty darn good). And don’t get me wrong, the last few weeks have been amazing. But just like summer vacation coming to an end, we all have to throw ourselves back into our work. What work that will be, is yet to be seen, but I’ll keep you updated. Love and well wishes from Mogode!