News: Both Good and Bad

To my friends, family and readers;

This post is hard to write. What does one say at the beginning of the end? At the beginning there’s “once upon a time” or “a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away”. At the end there’s always “and they lived happily ever after” or “Fin”. What about the beginning of the end? What does one say?

I’ll back up. The end of my last blog post mentioned that I was sick. I spent a few weeks in Yaoundé on Medical Hold waiting for first one test and then another. The general consensus was “a mono-like virus”. One that will affect me for a few months but should be fine. I might feel tired or get sick sometimes, but it would take care of itself.

So that’s what happened. I was tired, and sick, spiking a few fevers here and there, picking up strep throat; again, nothing big. I came down to Yaounde for some follow up tests that basically said things were going well. I was still sick, but that was fine. After spiking a fever at the Medical Office though, they sent me in for a few more tests and found that my spleen was enlarged. Now this is not a big deal. This happens pretty often in the states. Most mono cases are accompanied by splenomagaly, as well as some infections. Mine was probably caused by my virus. The only difference in circumstance is, well, that: circumstance. I live in a village, way out in the bush far away from emergency medical services. I take a two hour moto ride to get to my village. If something were to happen, for example me falling off a moto, or getting elbowed in the side, my spleen could rupture. In the states, while that’s a pretty big deal, you’re never really that far from a hospital. Here, I would bleed out before I even made it to a facility that would think it was anything but sorcery. The chances of my spleen rupturing are minimal, but they do exist.

For this reason, a team of doctors, me, and my family have decided that it’s best if I finish my service early and go back to the good old US of A.

This decision is surrounded by so many conflicting emotions. I am so deeply sad that I will be leaving Cameroon before I was even able to get running. I felt like I was just getting my bearings, just getting ready to take off when the rug was pulled out from beneath me. I’m heartbroken about leaving my friends, both American and Cameroonian, before I was expecting to. My training mates will continue in their service, travelling together, working together, sharing adventures, stories, and beers, and I won’t be there. My house, my dog, my puppies and the new kitten I was getting, those will all be abandoned by me. I am joining the ranks of the worst training class in Cameroonian history, with more volunteers leaving than any other training class, I think ever! I’m becoming a statistic

On the other hand, this is ok. I’m taking care of myself and allowing myself to be taken care of. I GET TO SEE MY FAMILY! I get to see my friends! I’ll have warm showers everyday, electricity, washing machines, real mattresses, good food. And my family! I can’t say that I’m not ecstatic about all that.

I’ve had a few days to mull this information over. My first instinct was to run into my room and cry, which I did. But I’ve had time now and am in a much better place.

Cameroon has given me so many gifts. One of them is flexibility. Expectations are never met here. People either always exceed them or always fall short. You learn not to rely on expectations at all. Because of this newfound… skill (can we call it a skill? That’s what it feels like) I’m able to pick myself up and move on. I’m excited about going home and anxious about my prospects. While I may not have achieved what I’d hoped to here in Cameroon, I wouldn’t trade this time in for anything. I’ve learned so much, grown so much, and had my mind and attitudes expanded. I met amazing people and learned so many new things that will change my life! And so, I’m grateful for Cameroon, my time here, and all the many lessons (good, bad, hard and easy) that I’ve had the opportunity to learn and teach here.

But leaving isn’t easy. Peace Corps was amazing enough to grant me time to go back to village and close up my post; get some closure. My sister had plans to come visit me, so we’re going through with that. She’ll be here to help me close up, meet my friends as I say goodbye and witness my life and work in Mogode and Cameroon.

I’ve had tearful conversations with friends here, telling them I’m leaving, saying goodbye. Those have been the hardest. I am leaving, abandoning my friends here. We all support one another so much. I have friends that I call when I’m feeling sick, sad, lonely, or just pissed to find another dead lizard in my house. And they call me. Our web of support is weakening as our friends leave. This is melodramatic. It’s hard to find the words to describe the tangled emotional blanket I’ve got inside me right now.

So now I have a few weeks. I’ll be leaving the country before Christmas, maybe with my sister. We’ll get to say goodbye to my village, friends, home, and animals together. We get to travel together. I’m really looking forward to this.

So my mantra right now is “one day at a time”. I could be freaking out about where I’m going to live; what I’m going to do since I’ll be jobless, broke, and kinda homeless (shout out to everyone who has offered a bed or a couch to me). I could be freaking out about how many time I need to poop in a cup before they’ll let me leave country (it’s at least three times, by the way). I could be worrying about who’s going to be thinking what? Or where I’m going to be for Christmas? Or any number of things, but instead, I’m going to do this in African time and take it slow. Things will come together. I’m sure of it.

So thank you readership, for your support and kind words these last 16 months. I would never have made it this far without you. You’ve been an outlet and a constant source of upbeat energy in my life.

This is not my last post. Not by far… stay tuned for my last adventures with my trusty sidekick, Kelley. 

Work and other things

So I haven’t really talk about work recently. I’ve been focusing more on life here in Cameroon as opposed to what I’ve been doing. But I’ve been working hard on a project in Mogode that takes up most of my time in village.

A few months ago, I started designing my “big project”: my legacy, the project that will take up most of my time. The proposals are in the work section of my blog but I’ll sum it up here for you. My idea is that all the groups that I work with start working together for the common cause of preventing malnutrition. The program I designed is being implemented in two small villages close to Mogode and Mogode itself, with hopes that if it proves effective, the next volunteer will expand it to the entire County. Basically though, Diedonne comes in once a month and does vaccination while introducing the “Health Topic of the Month” to the mother’s who get their kids vaccinated. Then, trained women in the community take over and hold two information sessions after Church on Sundays on the same topic. They will be giving more information and practical uses for that information such as how to make tofu or filter and treat your water. These women are also being trained to identify signs of malnutrition and encourage mothers to go to the hospital, where they can then be treated for free.

So basically, these Sundays will be a little information fest, with posters and activities in all these villages. Every month, the topic will change and new women will be in charge of the information fest in each village. To make sure it will stay alive and that it’s a sustainable project, these women are going to be working closely with the hospital. Once a month, the “experts” of the month will meet with Diedonne, and some staff from the hospital. There, everyone will go over the topic of the month, refresh their memories, catch up on new information, ect. So, hopefully, after everyone is trained, it will become a self-sustaining system with women teaching women and the hospital making sure that all the information is up to date and correct.

Some cool by products of this project is that some women will also be presenting at the hospital during Prenatal visit days to pregnant women. The women will have a small but steady cash flow with the soap and lotion sales that they are doing. Also, we will be working with Traditional Birth Attendants to try to encourage women who need to go to the hospital, to go and to hopefully make home birthing a safer endeavour.

In order to make this happen though, I have a lot of people to train. All the women need to be trained in their selective topics to become the “experts” of the month. In addition, Dieudonne will need to be trained as well. 

So that’s the plan! PC is going to help us fund the project, paying for transportation, food, materials, ect. We’re waiting for the funding cycle to kick in and to get approved, but I have high hopes that it will be fine.

The only other little hiccup that we’ve encountered is my lack of presence. Last month, I came back to post from the capital with so many plans. I made meeting after meeting for the next month. We scheduled our first training module and had plans for the women to start doing presentations in Nov. I was so excited. And two days later I got sick.

This is the reason for my long silence. Turns out I had malaria. But underneath the malaria, I have also contracted a virus of some sort. On the plus side though, I’ve seen how PC handles stuff like this and I’m super impressed. On the third day of my fever, PC sent a car to come and get me and bring me to a hospital. The guys had to travel over 11 hours to come get me. After a few days of non-successful visits to the Maroua hospital, our medical officer had me come to Yaounde to check it out. They were extremely thorough, kind, and attentive. So, you guys can rest easy. Bottom line, while we don’t know the exact kind of virus, we know in general the type of virus. So I’ll be sick for a bit, but they’re on top of it. Unfortunately, that means that I have to go to Yaounde regularly and get checked out. Meaning that I won’t be at post for long periods of time for an unknown amount of time. Which sucks. This puts my project a little behind schedule.  And this leads for an uneventful month full of travel and hospital visits. But all is well, work is progressing, and I’ll keep you all updated.