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 14th, so I’ll keep you all
updated.
So, my travels. On March 8th, 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 14th, 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!
