A Little to the East

As I sit down to write, my first thought is “Wow, it’s been a long time.” I’ve been slacking. Journaling my experience is so important to me, but sometimes I get so caught up in those experiences I forget to take the time to write them down. As I’ve so recently found out, so many more people read this blog than I thought. Thanks for busting my chops about being a more consistent writer. I’ll do my best.

The last time I wrote, I was just getting ready to head south before coming to America for my sister’s Graduation. A lot has happened since then. I’m going to break this up and write it chronologically, but this post is going to focus on what I did before I left Cameroon.

Up until May, I had visited 9 of Cameroon’s 10 regions (Central, South, Southwest, West, Northwest, Littoral, Adamoua, North, and Extreme North). And by “visited” I mean that I’ve passed through. To say I’ve stayed at least at night, that would have brought it down to 7. I’ve only passed through the North and the Littoral Regions. I was anxious to get to America and felt like I was twiddling my thumbs, jumping to get going, so I left post early and headed down to Yaounde (where the airport is) the long way.

“The long way” is a relative term. Normally, I go by train. That journey looks like this:

·      2 hour motobike ride to Mokolo

·      1.5 hour bus ride to Maroua (spend the night in Maroua)

·      8-12 hour bus ride to Ngoundere (leave at 3 am)

·      14-24 hour overnight train ride to Yaounde.

It’s a three day trek, but it’s not a bad ride. Since I had time to kill, I decided to visit some friends and the last region on my list: the East. The East is the largest but least densely populated of all the regions. Peace Corps has the least amount of volunteers in the East, although that is currently changing. It is known for its animal reserves (there’s a few reserves that are home to many different primates including gorillas), its amazingly luscious jungles, and the pygmies. It is one of the less-developed regions, if not the least, with very few villages host to electricity and/or running water. The people in the East are considered to be very poor.

Also in the East are some of my best Peace Corps friends. So I headed on down to visit them. I took my time going down there, visiting friends and posts along the way. I spent a few nights in Ngaoundere and explored the city for the first time. Ngaoundere is considered to be the gateway to the Grand North, probably because that’s where the train stops. There’s a lot of trade, a lot of trucking routes and therefore a lot of prostitution and a higher percentage of HIV/AIDS affected individuals than the rest of the country. There I explored their huge market, full of things I’ve never seen in the Grand North and met a PCV friend, a Lebanese working in Ngaoundere for his family’s oil company. It was very interesting to meet Whalid and see how some people from more developed countries choose to live in a country like Cameroon. Going into house was like being transported to another country. It was a nice little vacation. He had all the amenities that we as PCV’s sometimes like and also luxuries like crystal wine classes, his own water tower (he will probably never not have running water), air conditioning, ect. It made me realize the simplicity that many of us volunteers choose to live with.

From there, I went to Meiganga, also in Adamoua, where I met up with some other volunteers.

I realize as I’m writing this that my readers might not really be interested in trivial social events. I’m choosing to document them to try to extend the view of a PCV past me. Other people have different experiences and problems in-country. Different regions and posts end up with a completely different service experience.

Anyways, Meiganga. There I met with a few volunteers where we had a great evening, drinking and chatting. I learned from them that Unicef was a big part of their service. One girl was working in a small village that was host to 5 different aide organizations in addition to Peace Corps. She said in some ways, people were stepping on people’s toes, everyone trying to do the same thing, but at the same time, accomplishing very little. She went on to describe the problem with some of the aide organizations here in Africa, which can probably be applied to most third world countries. NGO’s come into her town. Maybe they’ll send one person to come and meet the mayor or the principal. He or she will stay a day or two. While they are there, they give out money and or goods, and then leave. Sometimes they’ll continue sending money or goods, and every once in a while come back to check things out, but other than that, they don’t spend their time on the ground. Sometimes the things that they give are useless without other equipment or training. For example, in the Southwest, a volunteer went to post and found a solar-oven that had been given to a community that no-one knew how to use and there it was just sitting there, wasting away. She made that one of her projects. But that isn’t always the case. A lot of time, communities are given what end up being useless, either because they can’t or don’t know how to use it, or because it wasn’t what they needed in the first place. The organization gave it to them without doing a community assessment first.

The organizations that give money, though, they are the ones that cause problems for us. In a corrupt country like Cameroon, there is very little accountability. Send a check that supposed to help build a new wing in a school to a principal, and more than likely, the principal will end up with a new smart phone or motobike before that school sees new benches to replace the ones that rotted away years ago.

This kind of attitude causes problems for people on the ground, like us. We aren’t there to give money, or candy, or goods. But these villagers see the color of our skin, think we’re all the same and expect that from Peace Corps Volunteers. We are there to give them information and help them to achieve sustainable projects. That does not include giving them money or goods. Then the community is disappointed with what we do have to offer, and oftentimes less receptive to working with us. It’s a vicious cycle.

“If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”

This is a good analogy between the differences in how our organizations view “aide”. This brings up the question of ethics of “aide” work and who’s best interest is really at heart, and whether or not it helps the people we’re “trying” to help. This opens up a whole new line of thought of what “help” is. Are we trying to “help” them become more like a western civilization? Is that help? What are our goals? Whose best interest is at heart? If we left these people alone, letting them operate as they have for thousands of years, would they be better off?

I don’t have an answer to answer of these questions. I’ve contemplated them, argued them, and finally decided that my job here is to learn as much as possible and raise the general level of health in my community. But others grapple with these questions daily. It’s certainly something to think about.

Enough deep questions and back to my little trip. From Meiganga, I headed out to Bertoua (in the East, Yay ,I made it!) and finally Messamena. Messamena is a small village, close to the Dja Reserve and many pygmy encampments, and home to my close friend Eddie. Messamena has no power and no running water. It is more “en brusse” than my small town of Mogode, or even my post-mate Luke, who is 30 minutes away from me, en brusse. Messamena is an interesting post, though, because up until the 40’s or 50’s a hoard of German’s lived there. They built the roads and lined them all with palm trees. Now it’s like walking down the avenues of Miami or Los Angeles. They built a beautiful hospital that still stands. Buildings in various stages of disrepair dot the village as it sprang up around this German post. It’s a gorgeous little town, very reminiscent of our little training-town: Bokito.

I stayed with Eddie for a few days and explored his life. He and his friend have built a little American Mecca in the middle of the rainforest. With bamboo they harvested themselves. They built most of their own furniture, and decorated the place with bamboo planters, a bamboo porch, ect. It was absolutely gorgeous. At night, it was all lit up with candlelight, making it eerily seem like we were vacationing in Bali or something like that.

While in Messamena, we went out on adventures! I myself helped harvest bamboo. I wielded a machete like a mad woman! I chopped and pulled that bamboo down and then dragged it almost a mile back to Eddie’s house. As Cameroonian woman like to say: “Je suis forte!”. Another day, we bike rode down to the river. We took Eddie’s puppy, Jackie Chien, with us too. There, we grabbed some pirogues (similar to canoes) and headed out onto the black river, into the jungle. For oars, we used giant river reeds, or palm stems. While not quite as efficient as our paddles, they worked pretty well. It was a gorgeous day and very soon, we were surrounded by only the sounds of jungle as trees towered over us, sheltering us from the sun. Every once in a while, the tranquility was punctured by Jackie Chien freaking out and jumping overboard, hoping to make it back to shore. It was extremely entertaining; that poor dog. But she definitely learned how to swim that day.

Another day, we went out by motobike, way out “en brusse” to a little village where Eddie was hosting Unicef a few days later. We explored the school, the water source and the surrounding areas. Apparently, mostly pygmy children attend the school. Our interest piqued, we went out for a hike, into the jungle, in search of the pygmies themselves. After about an hour of hiking, we stumbled right into the middle of a pygmy encampment. Their huts were made out of sticks and palm fronds and spread throughout a cleared area of the jungle. In the middle of the clearing was an old woman in front of a fire. As we sat there, chatting, more women returned from their days’ work. As expected, the pygmy women were short, all less than five feet. They were all wearing ragged clothes and didn’t speak French. Our guide was also our interpreter. The women who had just returned were carrying bundles. We opened the bundles to find huge, wriggles masses of grubs! This was their dinner and breakfast. It was disgusting. Eddie says he’s tried fried ones before, and they taste just like bacon. I was glad we were arrived just as the live grubs did, because if they had been cooking when we arrived, politeness would have dictated that we try them if we were offered them, and I’m not sure that I could have stomached it. Although, as I write this, I’m shaking my head, because I would have tried it. Of course, I would have, but I don’t regret that I didn’t have the chance to try.

Anyways, it was interesting to visit this little culture within a culture. The pygmies live separate from town and have their own existence, mostly separate from the currency, language, and education of Cameroon. They trade mostly, often food such as gorilla meat. They live off the land and hunt what they can find, regardless of how endangered they are (I don’t think that concept really exists for them). As a rule, in the East, you always have to be careful when you eat “bush meat”. It could be a primate, a snake, a giant rodent, or some other animal I’ve never heard about. I did not eat any “meat” while I was there, thank you very much.

It was a great little vacation, Messamena. I left there with a new appreciation for Cameroon but also ready to head back to civilization. And so, I headed to Yaounde to catch my flight for the states. 

Rainy Season Has Arrived

It’s been a while since I last had an opportunity to write. Things here in Mogode have been pretty busy. I’ve been preparing to go to the states for a month while at the same time, working on enlarging some projects and beginning others.

Work wise:

·     Women’s Peer Education Group: They elected a board and started collecting money for a group project (yet unknown). They also came to me yesterday and asked if we could take the group to the next level and start learning an Income-Generating Activity to help the women in the group.

·      Water projects: I started asking around about getting a water committee started

·      Health Education: I started working with the primary school health club. Tomorrow we are meeting to talk about water borne diseases and how you can prevent them.

·      Hospital: I’m still taking part in the vaccinations “en brusse”. I’ve taken over weighing babies to track their nutrition and try to prevent malnutrition. We are also still doing small educational sessions before vaccinated women’s children.

·      Women’s Literacy Group: A group of women in a nearby town contacted me to ask me help them start a class to learn French and how to write. I’m helping them with their lessons plans and materials to get started.

So basically, I’ve been keeping busy. Since being back, I’ve really made an effort to learn how to prepare Cameroonian food. I’ve spent many an evening at a friends’ house “turning” couscous. It’s a lot harder than it sounds, trust me. My biceps are rapidly developing to handle the new demands.

Also, the rainy season has arrived! The rainy season is partly to blame for why I haven’t been able to write. The rains wash out the electricity poles, leaving me without power about 50% of the time since I’ve been back. The first time it rained was just a few days after I got back to post at the beginning of April. The whole day looked gray and I thought it looked like rain. I asked locals:

            “Hey, do you think it’s going to rain?”

            “No, it couldn’t possibly rain. It’s hot. And it’s not June yet.”

Even after it rained that first time, and then the second time, and then the third time, I would ask:

            “Hey has rainy season started yet? It looks like it’s going to rain again today!”

and they would respond with

“No, it couldn’t possibly rain. It’s hot. And it’s not June yet.”

           

That’s what I love about Cameroonians. They can predict weather down to a day.  They know that every year on February 15^th, the cold weather breaks and it gets hot. The first rains of the rainy season always arrive the first of June. And the heat will break exactly 6 days after the first rain of rainy season.

Well, considering it has rained numerous times in the past few weeks (and before that, I had never seen it rain up here), I’m officially declaring it rainy season; I am disregarding the Cameroonian Farmer’s Almanac for actual weather patterns. Call me crazy, but it just makes sense to crazy ole’ me.

The first rain was crazy. I was sitting out in my hammock, after dinner, reading by flashlight. The power was out. I was enjoying Mansfield Park (I’ve been on a classics kick-electricity-less nights find me reading Jane Austin right now) when I took a break to check out the sky. It was incredible. I mean, I’m from Florida. Despite it’s name as the Sunshine State, Florida has the most lightning out of any state. I’ve seen my fair share of lightning: hurricane lightning, heat lightning, streaky lightning, behind-clouds lightning. But I have never seen anything like this. This was like someone had taken a strobe light and was waving it around the sky. Every second the sky light up. I probably didn’t even need a flashlight to read it was so bright. I’ve never seen anything like it. Soon after that, the rain started. It absolutely poured. The thunder was so loud it scared the dog. The rain came in under the door and started flooding my living room. The best part about the rain: washed the chicken poop from my porch!

The next day I woke, my room was at least 10 degrees cooler. I walked outside and immediately noticed a difference. Where the day before, everything was just brown, kitty-littery and dead, little shoots of grass started coming up out of the ground! The trees were looking less pathetic and the dust in the air had settled. Since then, it’s rained a couple of times and my yard, while looking a little untidy, finally has some color in it! My neighbors are appalled that I’m letting my grass grow (the typical yard here is swept everyday to keep the kitty litter looking nice and fresh and brown.

Things are starting to look up here in dry Mogode. Although water is still expensive and a bit hard to find, I’m sure the wells will start filling up soon and the hardships will ease.

In preparation for my departure to America, I eased another “hardship” of mine. A few months ago, Luke and I got two chickens, a hen and a rooster, to try and get some eggs out of them. When I got back to Mogode, I was so disappointed to not be finding eggs left and right. I figured maybe she just didn’t lay any. I searched my whole yard, even crawling behind my kitchen (which is a tight crawl space and a little dangerous because I threw a bottle back there that wouldn’t open that I’m just waiting for it to blow up. It could blow at any time! There’s fermented juice in there that’s just creating pressure.) One day, Luke came over with his friend and they found an egg in the middle of my yard! Turns out, my dog had been eating them before I found them! I was so excited. The next day, I had two fried eggs for breakfast. It was glorious. My free range, organic chicken laid the most delicious tasting egg.

So you can imagine my horror when, a few days later, I woke to find the chicken dead. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t get close enough to inspect the body (Luke was coming over, so I just asked him to take care of it). It could have been sick, or maybe the rooster had been hogging all the food, or maybe an animal mauled it, or maybe it overheated and cooked from the inside. Regardless, the chicken was dead. No more eggs!

All I was left with was the rooster from satan-ville (trying to keep this PG). This guy was evil! A couple of times I slept with my door open, sometimes in the living room, to try to escape the heat. At four in the morning, he would sneak in and cockle-doodle-doo in my face! I finally figured out how to block the door while keeping it open. So then, he would just stand there, cockling for hours, right in the door. During the day, he would sneak into the house, get into my kitchen and peck at everything. I would come into the room 20 times an hour and find him there, pooping on my floor and eating whatever he could. I would chase him out with a broom only to have him come back in two seconds later. On mornings when I did sleep in my room, he would sleep right beneath my bedroom window, cockling of course.

The rooster had to go. Now, fyi, rooster in French is cock. Le cock. In my frainglais (mix of French and English) state of mind, that is how I think of him. The evil cock, minion of the devil. I decided long ago that this cock would grace our table some fine evening, and with the chicken dead, it was only just a matter of time. So the date was set. Last Saturday, my cock crowed his last cockle. We had a cock-party. At noon, my neighbor came over and helped me catch the rascal.

Then we took him next door and she handed me the knife. I killed that cock. I slit its throat and watched it die. Then we plucked it, cut it up and then I cooked it. We ate that rooster that night. Let me tell you, it was delicious. Whether that can be attributed to the fact it’s the first chicken I’ve eaten in months, or the psychological taste of happiness is an unsolvable mystery.  But he was delicious! And big and fat. I had fed him well. Since then, I have slept like a baby in my quiet little house.

So that’s what’s been going on here in Mogode. Saturday, I leave town for a month. I’m headed to the states to celebrate my little sister graduating from Tufts University (Go KATIE!!!!!! I’m so proud of you). So this might be the last post for a while. But I’ll see you all soon!

6 Month Update

Dear Friends and Family,

Last week marked the 6 month anniversary of my time in Cameroon, so I figured I’d take the time to reach out give a brief update of what I’ve been up to.

For those of you who don’t know, I do try to keep a regular blog of my activities and observations at sgreenman.blogspot.com. If you feel so inclined, more details of my going-ons can be found there.

6 months ago, I and 52 other strangers arrived in Cameroon. Our first impression was a green fertile land that smelled like burning trash. The city, Yaounde, was dirty but exciting. However, we didn’t get to see much of it as our Pre-Service Training started right away. For the next three months, we spent most of our days learning about Cameroon, its people, its languages (French and English, officially) and how we could live here. Lessons included learning how to wash our clothes by hand, how to cook over a fire, how to argue over prices at market. We lived with host families, which was sometimes a blessing and other times extremely hard. Peace Corps Cameroon welcomed our group with open arms and then split us up into our programs. My program, Community Health had training in a small town called Bokito, about 30 minutes outside of Bafia, where the other 30 trainees and 2 other programs (Agroforesty and Youth Development) were held.

We had some great times. For Thanksgiving, we killed and prepared our own chickens for our feast. We helped host an AIDS celebration that taught hundreds of kids about HIV/AIDS and transmission. We had a community group project with which we learned how to teach Cameroonians. Our weekends were spent with our host families or hanging out with the other trainees.

We had some bad times. We witnessed and helped in a serious car accident. Our first trainee left only a week into the program (he was a health trainee). We went weeks without electricity. I got malaria, typhoid, and bacterial dysentery.

At the end of those three months, I could speak French (relatively well- keep in mind, that’s Cameroonian French. Any person from France would laugh me off a bridge if they ever heard me speak). I made amazing friends who are now my support network. I grew as a volunteer and person. And I started developing some pretty awesome immunities to the outrageous number of germs we’re exposed to on a pretty regular basis.

 Then, the newly sworn in volunteers all parted ways and headed to post. I live in the Extreme North of Cameroon, in a small town on the Nigerian border called Mogode. Its up in the deserty Mandara Mountains. The peaks here are volcanic finger-like projections reaching for the sky. It’s hot, and dry. Water is hard to find and water-borne diseases are rampant. There is work to be done here.

The first three months at post, I spent most of my time at the local Health Center, evaluating what my post community’s needs are. I picked up some projects that my predecessor left me and have been pretty busy. Most days find me “en brusse” (in the bush) with my Counterpart, weighing babies while he vaccinates them. I’ve been helping him create sensibilisations for the mothers who come (just a short presentation on a health topic while they’re waiting). I inherited a woman’s peer education group and have worked with them on understanding and preventing malnutrition and malaria in children. They are developing into a sustainable group that will hopefully benefit many local villages. I’ve started getting involved in a group of villagers who want to learn French. They’re putting together their own classes. I’m going to help work with the teachers and put together their lesson plans with them.

At home, I raised three puppies that were born to my inherited dog the day before I arrived. I’ve slowly started to make my house my own, sewing my own curtains and sheets, collecting pictures and things for my walls. I’ve explored in the kitchen a lot. It’s a different experience, cooking here. It’s not like I can just walk to the grocery store and buy all my ingredients. Fresh vegetables I get from the regional capital about once every 3 weeks. The rest of the time, I get creative and cook some pretty crazy things with whatever I can find locally. I have two chickens. The hen has started laying eggs while the rooster has done nothing but managed to drive me insane. He will be eaten shortly. I had a couple tomato plants, but the puppies and the chickens together dug them up and killed them. I’ve started a pretty unsuccessful compost pile (instead of breaking down, the organic material just dries up). I’ve also started learning the local languages: Fulfulde and Kapsiki. So far I’ve got introductions, numbers, and hellos down. That’s about it. But I’m learning-“petite a petite”. My French is also slowly improving-slowly being the key word there, as very few people actually speak French in my village.

At the 6-month mark of our service, all of the volunteers were called down to Bamenda for In-Service Training (IST) to check in and learn about how to plan and execute projects at our post. Of the 53 who arrived in country, only 43 made it to IST.  It was sad to be there without so many of the friends who had started out with us, but those of us who were still in the game are pretty committed to making this work. I took the opportunity while down south to take a little vacation time and travel around. I saw the two great beaches of Cameroon and have now visited 9 of the 10 regions (I have yet to visit the East). I saw gorillas and chimps. I ate crabs and Foo Foo Jamma Jamma Khati Khati (huckleberry leaves with chicken-not my favorite) and crickets. I met a good number of the two hundred volunteers who are here in country.

Bottom line: The last 6 months of my life have been filled with new and exciting experiences and people. I learned, seen, and eaten things I never imagined that I would. I’ve had ups and downs, wanting to go home one day and the next, never imagining being happy anywhere else. I’ve been sicker than I’ve ever been in my life and have taken more antibiotics in the last 6 months than my entire life before September. I’ve met locals and made some friendships that will last my lifetime. I’ve been proposed to at least 300 times. I’ve been iced 6. I’ve carried water on my head and treated blisters on my hands from washing my clothes. Overall, I think I’m doing a great job. I’m having fun. I’m living life.

Thank you for all your support and love. Not a day goes by that I don’t receive an email from a loved one (although, I don’t always get them everyday). People call or write me and tell me how they’ve been reading my blog and offer a comment or suggestion about this or that. Packages and letters come my way from so many different people. Thank you guys. This is not easy for any volunteer. It’s not easy to leave everything you know and throw yourself into a bubble of strangeness for the sake of helping people that you’ve never met. But the support and love that I feel from my friends and family back home helps me get up in the morning when I need it and keeps a smile on my face when I go to bed. This work that’s being done over here, it can be partially credited to you. There’s no way I could stick this out without help from over there. So pat yourselves on the back. Good job. And thank you.

I hope these six months have found you and your family well. Thank you for everything and I hope to talk to you soon!

Sincerely, with hugs from Cameroon,

Suzie (or, as they call me in village, Massi)

April Market Day

Market Day

So, following up on last update, I went to the market today. I spent more time there today than I usually do and was extremely surprised by what I saw. With the hot weather, the lack of farming, and people’s tendencies to spend the hot days lounging underneath trees, I fully expected to go to the market today and find almost no fresh food. I was pleasantly surprised. I found the usual overripe/underripe tomatoes, onions, and various root vegetables, as I typically see. Instead of the oranges that were prevalent before I left, mangoes have now taken their place as the current fruit in season (surprising, I would have expected mangos to be a wetter season fruit). I also, for one of the first times, saw tons of green, not dried foleré. Foleré is a leafy green here that is a staple for many sauces. It was surprisingly expensive, indicating it was either brought in from another area (maybe with irrigation) or someone grew it on a small field and there wasn’t a lot of it available. Regardless, I was surprised to see it. So far, the only foleré I’ve been able to track down has been dried and pretty tasteless, even in Maroua.

Other new items in the market: squash seeds! The locals don’t eat pumpkin and other squash seeds like we do in the states. Roasting them up and salting them is completely unheard of here. Instead, they take the seeds, dry them in the sun and use them in sauces. They “pilé” or crush them by pounding them repeatedly with a large stick in a large oval standing bowl. I am getting quite good at this, by the way. I often help my friends cook by “pilé”-ing things for them. That’s how they make the northern piment, my substitute for Cholula (a hot sauce) up here. For those of you who don’t know. I love hot sauce. In college, I kept a bottle in my purse at all times, as well as one in my kitchen and bedroom. I love hot sauce, particularly Cholula. Here, I have substituted that for piment. Piment is the name for the local hot peppers. In the south, they make an oily crushed spread out of it, which is still good. But our piment up here is better. They dry the peppers first, then pilé them with ginger, a maggi cube, salt, and sometimes other dried seasonings. It’s delicious. But you have to be careful; you never know how hot it will be. The one I have in my house right now is almost toxic. I put a small spoonful in an entire pot of chili once, almost rendering the entire pot inedible. As it was, everyone was sweating and crying while we ate it. I couldn’t finish my bowl.

But back to the seeds “pistach”. So they pilé the seeds and then make an amazing sauce out of it using onions, garlic, maggi cubes (of course) and whatever other fresh vegetable is available. I’m trying to learn how to make it. First they make a paste out of the crushed seeds, then they form it into a dumpling-like shape and slowly drop it into the rest of the sauce, where it’s supposed to take that form. The only time I witnessed someone cooking it, the balls fell apart to make a weird congealed sauce that still tasted amazing. But I have yet to try it again. That was during site visit. I assume, since I haven’t seen the seeds around, that this is the first time they’ve made an appearance since then. I’m excited about the possibility of learning to cook with it.

Other than that, the market was pretty much the same as every day. There were some more plastic wares than normal. The border to Nigeria is open again and wares coming in are common. In fact, most of the soda that one buys in Mogode is from Nigeria.

I also had another run in with one of the nomadic Fulbes today. I actually saw a couple of them, but while I was at the market, I was stopped, talking to a friend, when one greeted me in Fulfulde. When I ran through my entire knowledge of the languages (lasting no more than 30 seconds, I assure you), my friend helped me translate. I asked the woman for a picture. She had a beautifully tattooed face, similar to the woman I met out on brusse, but not quite as tattooed. The woman laughed, a little uncomfortably and said yes if I paid her. So I did. And I got a photo! Wasn’t a terribly great photo, but a crowd was starting to conglomerate, so I didn’t want to stick around much longer.

All in all, a surprisingly successful, good market. The meat was all gone by the time I got there; probably in preparation for the Easter Holidays. By the way, Happy Easter and Good Friday! And Happy Passover! Unfortunately, since I really had to get back to post, me and the other volunteers are putting off our sedar for a little bit (I know, Jews of convenience). But we don’t have the means or time right now to pull together a real sedar and everyone needed to be back at post. So we decided to do a summer sedar, hopefully with some Cameroonians present, where we can go crazy and do it right. If we’re going to teach these people about our religion, its more important to us that they get the right idea about what it means rather than when it should take place. So for me, I might make some matzah ball soup this weekend (thanks to an amazing care package!) and I’m definitely going to try to keep Passover Kosher as much as possible- no yeast products, soda, or flour.

So happy holidays to you guys across the ocean. And much love from Mogode. 

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!

Where I've been the last few weeks

Hello to all!

First of all, again I apologize for my lapse in writing. As happens in a country so disconnected from internet, I went for a weeks without plugging in. In some ways, this caused me great anxiety; I wasn’t getting news, emails, facebook, ect. Nor was I able to communicate with you guys either via this blog or email. But it was also liberating. You don’t realize what a tether technology is until you cut it. Having said that, I had my computer, kindle, ipod and cell phone with me most of the time…. Yeah….. I’ll get the whole unplugging thing right next time.

So what have I been up to? In 3 words: a butt ton. This is going to be a long update, so buckle up ladies and gentlemen.

Before I headed south, I had two more weeks at post since the last time I blogged. Nothing terribly exciting happened. We had another polio vaccine campaign, which I again helped supervise. This time, though, I was trained to give the oral vaccine and administered a couple doses. A new nurse (well, new to me) returned to Mogode and we went out en brusse (into the bush) together, farther than I’ve ever been before to speak with vaccinatees. While out there, we encountered a family of nomadic Fulbe. These are a tribe of people who live off the backs of camels. They carry a lean to and small furniture with them and set up shop near villages for a few days at a time (from what I can discern). They only speak Fulfulde. I met the mother of this family and I was astounded. This woman had various tattoos and scarification marks over her entire face. It was absolutely gorgeous. Here in the Kapsiki region, a lot of people scar their faces. The most common is a whisker-like scar or something that looks like 4 scratches, eye to corner of the lip. Almost everyone in the older generation has these marks and many of the younger generation do too. But this woman, not yet thirty, had marks and blue-ish tattoos everywhere. It was gorgeous. I told her so and she very adamantly decided I should have them too. She sat me down and started designed my new face before my fellow supervisor (who does speak Fulfulde) stepped in on my behalf. We both walked away tattoo free.

The other great thing that happened before I left revolved around my women’s group. I came back from Maroua and presented on Malaria. There was a very small number of people there and I was discouraged by their lack of energy and participation. A lot of it was my fault; I need to make my presentations more exciting and interactive. This is such a learning process. You know, coming right out of college lecture halls, it’s a bit hard to switch gears, but I need to remember these women have less education than a 6-grader. Regardless, after my presentation, the women stayed behind and we started a discussion. The way the group exists right now, its completely unsustainable. The entire project depends on a volunteer such as myself preparing, planning, and running the meetings. This is completely useless from a development point of view. I’ve long been contemplating how to make this project more sustainable, starting with handing them the reins. And they want it! This conversation turned into the beginning of living, working women’s group. At the next meeting, the want to elect a board: a president, treasurer and secretary. They want to start a “cotisation”, which is a way to save money. You put money in at every meeting and can only take it out for certain things. They decided they wanted to use the money as insurance for the woman in the group. If someone needs help paying for the hospital, they can dip into this account. All of these were their ideas. I just facilitated the conversation. They are taking control of this group and making it their own. Best of all, now they are creating incentive for themselves to come to meetings. They also decided to create a fine system for those who are late, and that they want to buy fabric together to create a uniform pagne (traditional clothes) for the group (something very common for groups here). While it’s still a huge step away from being a sustainable project, this is a huge step in the right direction. Meetings will no longer be led or organized by me. I will step out of that role and more into a role of participant or guest lecturer (or at least that’s what I’m hoping). Our next meeting is the 14^th, so I’ll keep you all updated.

So, my travels. On March 8^th, I left post. It was Women’s Day and women were celebrating their femininity by dancing, marching, putting on plays and shows. It was an amazing spectacle (check out the photos). Women from all different villages came and displayed their own traditional dances. I got to sit on the grand stand with all the important people in town. It was pretty exciting. After the last show, I left town and headed to Mokolo. There, I celebrated Women’s Day with some other volunteers before heading out early the next morning. We ended up at a club that had been rented out by the – let’s say mayor- of Mokolo and a whole bunch of important people. We danced with them and had a grand old time. It was so cool feeling like someone that important. We didn’t have to pay entrance fees into the club, sat up on the stage with the mayor, had our drinks bought for us. It’s kind of disconcerting that all of this is solely because of the color of our skin.

Anyways…. From there I headed down south. 3 am bus to Ngaoundere, over night train to Yaounde. There I met up with my friends from stage. I didn’t realize how much I missed them until I saw them again. These are people that I spent every single day with for three months: three of the hardest months of our lives. Three months where we were sick together, frustrated about learning French together, sick of our host families together. And then, cold turkey, we all leave to different corners of the country. It’s expensive and hard to keep in touch. I’m lucky that I have such a great support network in my own region, but I was elated to see my friends down south. The next morning, we packed up and headed to Limbe- the black beach. There were 10 of us. We stayed in this little way-out-of-the-way place where they provided us with tents and mattresses. We literally camped on the beach. We’d go to sleep in our bathing suits, wake up and walk straight into the blue ocean. The black sand was lined the greenest foliage I’d seen in months. Behind the beach, in the distance, were the foothills of Mount Cameroon. We swam and watched locals fish from home-made canoes. We played ultimate Frisbee on the beach. We got tans. We ate fresh fish (YAY!) and enjoyed the beautiful area.

Having grown up with the beach and water all around me, I rarely realize how important it is to me. There are very few times in my life where I haven’t lived close to an ocean. Living here, in the desert, without even a river or a lake this time of year is hard. It was so relieving to swim in salt water and smell salty air again. It was like a giant part of me was missing something until I saw the ocean for the first time in 6 months. We were absolutely giddy getting to the beach, jumping up and down in our seats like 2 year olds.

It was so hot and humid. Having just come from the dry north, I had a hard time. In order to leave the campsite, you had to walk up a huge hill. Towards the bottom of it, it wasn’t bad because you had the ocean breeze, but once you turned the first corner, the breeze disappeared and you were just swimming in sweat. I’m not kidding. One morning, at breakfast, we were waiting for our spaghetti omelets and avocado salads and I was just dripping. I walked outside to pour water from a spigot over my head and walked back in. My friends couldn’t even tell. Yeah, gross. But Limbe was awesome. We went to a Wildlife Reserve and saw gorillas and other small monkeys. We had amazing seafood dinners and beer towers on the beach. It was marvelous.

After 4 short days getting our beach fix, we headed inland to the NW region. We still had a couple more days before the training began so we headed into the mountains to go visit some fellow volunteers. Both the SW (where Limbe is) and the NW are Anglophone regions. We were able to speak English, although, most people didn’t understand unless you slow it down and add a cadence similar to theirs. Most people in the SW/NW speak Pigeon English: a marvelous bastardization of the English language. It is hilarious to listen to, but completely incomprehensible. The people in those regions end up learning French (for travel to other regions) and Pidgeon in addition to their local language (sometimes). If you have the time, you tube someone speaking it. Hours of entertainment right there.

Anyways, in Njdinikom, we visited another volunteer from our stage Kristin. She’s also health and works mostly in the hospital there. We stayed there overnight and decided to hike the next morning. We were thinking it would be nice to move around for an hour or after a long day of travel. So we left for a 2 hour hike. Most of us brought maybe half a liter of water, some of us were in flip flops. We were not prepared. We were determined to get to the top of that mountain no matter what. We lost the trail for a while and ended up climbing vertically through people’s fields (they terrace the sides of mountains there). There was falling and tumbling, stones falling on people below us, scary skinny trails and even bouldering/rock climbing. But finally we made it to the top. It was gorgeous. We could see for miles. Definitely worth it. And our 2 hour hike turned into a 5 hour hike. By the time we got down to civilization we were dying of dehydration. Notes to the wise:

1.     Always know how long your hike will be

2.     If you go hiking, even if it’s a “short hike”, wear hiking shoes

3.     Bring enough water for at 2.5 times the expected duration of your hike

4.     Don’t get lost and climb up mountains by cutting through people’s fields

Wisdom, from me to you.

Anyways, it was a great time. From there we headed to Fundong, a nearby village to visit another volunteer for St. Patty’s Day. He had a whole bar rented out and we danced and drank the night away. We ended up going to a super sketchy little night club that on the outside looked like an old fishing shack. Inside though, it was awesome, strobe lights, mirrors for mirror dancing, loud American music. It was an amazing time.

But the next day, it was time to get down to business. All of us headed to Bamenda, the NW regional capital for the beginning of In-Service Training. This training is scheduled for three months into your service and is supposed to be for you to break down your PACA (Community Assessment), learn about how to start and plan projects, how to fund projects, and then how to report them. We spent the first 4 days there with our Counterparts from our respective villages. Mine was Dieudonne, the nurse with whom I typically go out and do vaccinations. His lack of education was apparent during the training as he had a very hard time keeping up with the sessions. I feel kind of responsible, like I brought him there, where things were just way over his head. But I think he did walk away with something useful. Or at least I like to hope so.

For the rest of the week, our counterparts returned home while we learned about different funding options and reporting tools. All of our reports are sent over to Congress quarterly, where, I believe, they become public record. So if you’re ever really bored one day….

While a lot of IST was necessary and useful, I was a little disappointed in the information transfer. I would have liked to have had round table discussions with other volunteers about what they were doing at post and what was or wasn’t working. I also requested sessions on water projects. This would have been useful to anything in the entire Grand North (Adamoua, North or Extreme North regions) where water problems are abundant. But not only did they do very little surrounding water security, but then they decided to offer a whole separate training on it. It sounds like that should be a good thing, especially because only first year volunteers could do it, so it was obviously targeting us. But they chose to have the training 3 weeks after the end of IST, also in Bamenda. That would mean that I would have a week after IST with volunteers, a week to get back to post, a few days there, and then I would have to leave again for at least two weeks for this training. Luckily, someone from the North volunteered to go and bring us all back the information, but most of us Northies were livid about their lack of foresight. It’s really hard to travel hear in Cameroon and even harder to explain to communities why we are gone for weeks at a time with only a few days in between when we’re supposed to be there to help them.

Ok, enough ranting. IST was a lot of fun. All of us (those of us who haven’t Early Terminated (ETed) I’ll get to that in another post) were together for the first time in three months. We danced and played games and had a great time hearing about everyone’s experiences. Of course, when you put so many volunteers together in one place, germs are bound to flow. So about Day 4 or 5, people started getting sick. I got strep throat, along with one other volunteer. Other people had malaria (fever of 103!), while others just a flu. Kind of an interesting phenomenon.

At the end of IST, we all went our separate ways again, kinda. The end of IST is notorious for vacation time. I went to Limbe before IST because I thought I would have to be back at post to do the women’s meeting first thing in April. But when we changed our meeting to the 14^th, I was suddenly free! So I took my unofficial vacation before IST and then my official one after. Me and about 13 other people went to the other beach in Cameroon: Kribi. This one is a white sand beach and known for being more touristy. It was amazing though. We stayed in a little hotel, off the beaten path with a private, gorgeous beach. Huge black boulders lined the beach and locals were fishing all the time. During the day, we sat on the beach and swam. At night, we’d go in for fresh grilled fish. One night, a friend we had met on the beach invited us up to his “restaurant”. It was a little tiki pavilion on a load of rocks. There, he served us delicious shrimp and fish, salad and rice. After dinner, was a show. They lit a bonfire and started drumming and dancing. Our host, a long haired, dredded Rastafarian danced for us. Locals started turning up, having heard the drumming and joined in with the singing. It was such an amazing Africa moment. Sitting on boulders with waves crashing below us, watching a native African dance and song happen, just for us. We joined in the dancing and just relished the ambiance.

Another day, we went for a beach hike. Kribi has an amazing collection of waterfalls. So we packed some small bags (yes we brought water) and started our 1 long hike on the beach to get there. It was glorious. A lot of us just walked in our bathing suits, walking in the wake. The waterfalls themselves were so worth it. A gorgeous little cove of waterfalls. The boys jumped off some of the taller ones while I went for a dip in a pond beneath one. Right off the waterfalls was a restaurant where we ordered local shrimp. It was probably some of the best shrimp I’ve had in my life. We sat there and ate away, sometimes eating the entire body, right in front of the waterfalls.

How can you beat that? However, the next day was my favorite. Those of you who know me, know I am a seafood fanatic but also a bit of a seafood snob. I guess it comes with growing up in the Keys. But the next day we went to the seafood market. On one side, they have the fisherman bringing in their catches. We saw red snapper (yeah I totally ate tons of that), mahi mahi, lots of what they call “carp” and even what might have been a grouper. There were huge shrimp off the wazoo. And, a bad jew’s favorite, lobster and crab! The lobster (more like spiny Florida than new England) were more expensive than I wanted to pay, so I made myself comfortable with a whole plate of crabs to myself and sharing some shrimp. We ate all this with baton de manioc, what has become one of my favorite staple foods in Cameroon. It’s a fermented paste of manioc (cassava maybe?) wrapped in banana leaves for three days. It smells like cheese, has a texture of hardened paste, and takes some getting used to, but now I love it. Bottom line, an amazing meal. They brought us the live animals before they cooked it, to make sure we wanted it I guess. Then they grilled it all up right in front of us. It took hours, but it was so worth it. I ate for almost as long as it took to prepare. And I was so happy. That was our last day in Kribi, and it couldn’t have been more perfect. The rest of the afternoon was spent on the beach, catching those last rays and just enjoying life.

So basically, I took a 3 week vacation, 3 months into my service, 6 months after arriving in Cameroon. It may have been a bit excessive, but I don’t regret it. I’m now back at post feeling refreshed and ready to start work, although overwhelmed and not quite sure where to start. I got to see so much of this gorgeous country that I live and work in and experience so many different cultures. Cameroon is so diverse. Travelling through this country feels like travelling through many different countries. I have now seen 9 out of the 10 regions (I haven’t been to the East yet, but that’s on my list) and eaten some local cuisine just about everywhere. Basically this last month was all about goal 2 and 3 of Peace Corps. Learn as much as you can about Cameroonian culture to take back to the states, all the while sharing American culture with the people you meet along the way.  I met a lot of people, shared a lot of culture, and have now written a lot, sharing those experiences with you.

So, until next time, which will be very soon. Thank you for putting up with my silence and then my ridiculously long updates. Love from Cameroon!

Lack of Posts

To my loyal readers:
I apologize from the bottom of my heart for neglecting my blog this long. I have been travelling for a few weeks in the southern part of Cameroon and had no access to my blog during that time. Updates of my adventures are soon to come!