Sundays in Cameroon: An editorial on "leisure activites"

 So when I sit down to write these updates, I argue for hours in my head about what to write about. Hence, I’m opening the floor up for suggestions. If anyone has any particular questions, shoot me an email or reply to this post.

The topic of the week is Sundays in Bokito. Sunday here is a day of rest, in the sense of the word that no one goes to work, however, there is very little rest involved. This Saturday, I asked my host sister if people slept in on Saturdays and she laughed and replied yes. Naturally, I didn’t set my alarm clock and figured I would wake up around 10 or so. Boy was I wrong. After my family had been up for several hours, they decided I had slept enough and woke me up at 7:45. Considering my normal wake up time is before 6, it was still sleeping in, however disappointing.

As soon as you wake up here, you get to work. On Saturdays, I help take care of the floors. The first step is sweeping. Now the brooms here aren’t quite what we’re used to in the states. They are basically thrush tied together to make a short brush. To use it you need to bend down and basically walk backwards with your butt high in the air as you sweep. It’s awesome. After I sweep the whole house (which, mind you is quite large), we wash the floors. Mind you, this is a job that is done every day. Every morning at 6, one of the girls is up washing the floors. This means taking an extremely old and dirty shirt-rag and dipping it and a bucket of brown, muddy water. Then you have to get down on your hands and knees and whisk the shirt around the floor in such a way as to push all the things you’re “mopping up” to the door. Possibly a bit inefficient, but who am I to judge.

After we’ve swept and mopped the whole house, it time for a quick break for breakfast, a huge 4 egg omelet with cassava leaves, tomatoes, onions, and sometimes leftover fish.

Then its laundry time. Laundry here is an adventure. There are no maytag machines or any oxyclean to do the work for you. At the end of the day, if you don’t have blisters and scratches from scrubbing, you’re doing it wrong. Although, according to Cameroons, us american’s will never get it right anyways. As my host sister has been teaching me how to do my own laundry, after about 2 seconds she gives up, sighs in exasperation and takes the article of clothing from me, cleaning it in 5 seconds flat. You will never get it right the “Camermoonian way”.

So to do laundry here, you need two huge buckets, some individual bucket size packets of laundry detergent and the hideous soap that they use for everything over here (the same bar is used to wash dishes, themselves, clothes, and just about anything else they use saop for). All of your clothes are dumped into one sudsy bucket and then the scrubbing begins. The motion that they consider the only way to wash is basically taking the article of clothing in your two hands and rubbing them as hard and as quickly against each other as possible. Your fingers end up being the washing board, your clothes end up getting stretched and clean. After you’ve done this numberous time all of the shirt, then another type of scubbing occurs which includes the whole piece of clothing and I honestly have no idea what they do because I’ve never been able to replicate it. Bascially, they are able to scrub huge amounts of fabric against each other, “cleaning” it. In Cameroon, “clean” means visibly clean, not necessarily actually clean. After scrubbing, brushing and wringing, the clothes are beaten. They are pounded together against a concrete slab over and over again. I’m not sure what the purpose of this is or what it accomplishes, but laundry isn’t “clean” without it. Your clothes are then transferred to another bucket of cleaner water. They are briefly rinsed and hung out to dry. If you have more than one bucket-load, you repeat, conserving as much water as possibly by reusing the buckets.

When hanging clothes up here, you have to be careful. There are insects called Mango flies that leave their larvae on your wet clothes. If you wear the clothes while the larvae are living, they burrow into your skin and grow. There is a horror story other volunteers are telling us about a dude who wore wet boxers after leaving them out all night and ended up having to get 20 mango flies removed from his genitals. Sounds terrible. Anyways, if you take your clothes in before evening and make sure to hang all our clothes on clotheslines rather than bushes or grass, you should be fine. Just in case your not, you should also wait three days before wearing any clothes as that allows all the larvae to die. Or you can just article every piece of clothing you own with the electricity we don’t have. Catch 22.

Speaking of Electricity, we did have some for a short time! But it’s rainy season here, and when I say rainy I mean rainy. I have never heard thunder like I’ve heard ehre. It’s insane. Anyways, three days after we got electricity back and huge storm came in and knocked it out again. Most people in town do still have it right now, but my house doesn’t.

After laundry, your chores are done, you’re clothes are hanging out to dry, and all you have to do is cook dinner later. However, right now, it’s only about 1. So what would you do with your time? You guessed it! It’s hair time!

Every Sunday, my family gathers on the front lawn and does their hair. The first two times I didn’t have a clue what was going on and they got to me before I realized what was happening. Needless to say, after 2.5 hours of painful, tearful, hairpulling this past Sunday, I am currently sporting intricate braids over my whole head. They are very artfully done and sometime very useful. However, when braiding, my host sisters have some things to learn. They’ve never worked with Caucasian hair before. So basically, they take my hair out, tease it terribly so its knotted and terrible to work with and then try to braid it. If they don’t want to get a knot out, they simply pull it out. It’s horrifyingly painful. But I bore it, hopefully for the last time.

Next week, I’ll have to say no and give my poor head a break.

The rest of my Sundays are spent helping to cook dinner and learning French if I’m not going out and meeting other Trainees. It’s an awesome, extremely Camerooninan day, and I love it.

Miss you all, lots of love. Write me with suggestions for what you want to know about!

Update from Across the Seas #2

I can’t believe it’s been a little over a week since I’ve been here. It feels like months. I want to say we’ve just been going so fast that everything has flown by, but living as a Cameroon is slow: turtle pace slow. You amble anywhere you want to go. Everyone is always late, its expected here. Everything runs at a comfortable place. Even us Americans. So it can’t be that. Perhaps the whole early mornings thing. Cameroon has accomplished what my mother and uncle have been trying to do for years! I finally wake up early. 6 at the latest Monday through Saturday. I get to sleep in till almost 7:30 on Sundays! But that’s only if we’re not going to morning mass, which apparently I’ll be going to this week.

I’ll back up a bit.

Last I wrote, I was in the capital, Yaounde, at orientation. We received shots, survival French, and a few basic first aide and safety classes. We met our Country Program Director and had dinner with the American Ambassador, took care of long stay visas and paperwork. In our group are three different programs for Cameroon: Youth Development, a new program working toward empowering women and basically motivating youth, Agro/Forestry, a program trying to encourage sustainable farming and crops to promote capacity building in communities, and us: Health, a program dedicated to mostly Health awareness and education and basically doing whatever we can to make our communities healthier. When we get to post, we spend the first three months evaluating what our community needs and how we can facilitate a program where the community makes it happen and is able to sustain it. Often, we do more than one project; sometimes we fail, sometimes we don’t. We work with health professionals, youth groups, women community associations, municipal workers and governments, and basically scrounge around for whatever help we may get. But before this happens, before we even get assigned our post, we go through training, called PST (Everything in the Peace Corps has acronyms. A person who has completed training is a PCV, while we are currently PCT’s).

While we were in Yaounde, all 54 of our group were together, doing the same trainings, living and working together. For PST, they’ve separated us. Agro and YD peeps are in Bafia, a big town 2.5 hours north of Yaounde. The Sante’s (us) are in Bokito, a little tiny village about half an hour outside of Bafia. We go into Bafia every week for team meetings, internet, and, for right now, electricity (more on that later).

We are all staying with host families, going to PST from 8-5 everyday where we learn Technical Skills, French, PC Protocol and Procedure, Safety and First Aide, and we receive guidance on how complete our Post Assignments and Projects.

My family is…. Well… Cameroonian. There’s no better way to describe it. I live in a small (by American standards) 5 bedroom home built of concrete bricks with a aluminum ceiling. We have an outdoor kitchen where we cook over an open fire and a “bathroom” where we take our bucket baths. Our toilet is a latrine, and a fancy one at that. About 100 yards from the house, they built a small aluminum shack with a concrete floor. In the middle of the floor is a hole, for, shall we say waste. On top of this hole is an elaborate, beautiful mosaic throne on which to sit. It’s hilarious. A work of art really, dotting with pieces of broken blue tile and perfectly resembling an artistic toilet bowl. It’s exhilarating just to sit on it. Although, I will admit, the African food is not exactly promoting bowel movement….

We don’t have electricity. We should; apparently; however, since we’ve gotten here “a transformer has been blown” and we haven’t seen hide nor hair of electricity. Many of my PST mates’ families have gotten generators and those living outside the city sometimes have electricity, but for now, those of us in the village charge up once or twice a week when we go to Bafia.

Back to my family. Family here in Cameroon is a loose term. Basically the term applies to anyone with whom you share something in common with at the moment. For example, my family calls my classmates my brothers and sisters. They refer to me as their sister. Their friends are often their brothers and sisters. Therefore, it’s a bit tough to discern who is actually related to who in our house, but I think I’ve figured it out. At the top of the tree is Mama Blangine, mother of at least two, and maybe three of the girls who live in the house: Fifi, Francine, and maybe Nellie. Also here are Francine’s three kids, two boys (3 and 6) and a 3 month old baby girl. Then there are also Sandrine and Esther who are, I believe, cousins. It’s a very interesting dynamic and hierarchy. Those closer to Mama have higher priority, while the boys and Sandrine and Esther often eat last, left to pick on whatever’s left. Interestingly, when I asked Esther her birthday the other day, she said she had no idea. I’m not sure she knows how old she is either. I’m not sure how common this is, but some of my PST-mates have similar experiences in their house. In addition to the people who live in the house with us, there are 5+ people who drop by on a regular basis who I’m pretty sure are related in some way, 2 of which I know are other daughters.

While my family is really quite wonderful, there have been some major challenges. Sickness is rampant in my house. Mama Blangine is really sick. The day I got here, she went to the hospital. I don’t really understand what is wrong, but today she left for the district hospital in Yaounde. On the way, she was robbed. My sisters say she’ll still get treatment, but it just is so freaking sad.

On another, slightly funnier note, possession in Cameroon isn’t heard of. People don’t understand owning something or having private things. If someone has something you need, you take it and if you have something they need, they take it. There is much sharing of money and space and things. Needless to say, this doesn’t go over well with our American possessive culture. The families that we stay with did go through orientation and PC has gone through many hoops to make sure our possessions are as safe as possible; nonetheless, there have been a few minor instances of things not being returned until I go and ask for them. My host sister asked to borrow my phone and I found out today that she has used about 2000 credit points on my phone…. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do about it, but let’s just say I’m going to be more careful.

My room is marvelous. I have a large bed (the only bed size in Cameroon) covered by a beautiful mosquito net that makes it look very princessy, while at the same time keeps the bed 10 degrees warmer in an already squelching heat.

My family has already taught me many things, Cameroonian style. I do the dishes and wash the floor on a regular basis, Cameroonian style (involving old rags, gross soap and not nearly enough water). I am learning to cook Cameroonian style. I did my laundry Cameroonian style (involving detergent, two buckets, a bar of soap, tons of muscle, and pounding my clothes against a concrete slab for a few hours).

The food here is pretty good, but very starchy. There’s a lot of cassava, plaintains, rice, and, surprisingly, spaghetti. Almost every night, there is a fish “stew” which we put over our starch. One night my family tricked my into eating fish head and eye, it was all cut up. Very interesting taste, I certainly won’t be doing it again. They do eat some strange things, one is called macabo, which is a sweet potato that looks like cassava but isn’t. They also eat the leaves of the cassava plant, in a spinach kind of way, but often with fish in it. They also eat “wheats” called Fufu and CousCous (more like grits than cous cous) which are eaten with your hands and often mixed with cassava leaf or beans (there are tons of beans here). My host sister is a great cook and I’m learning a lot from here.

My days I spend at school, trying to learn French as quickly as possible, which isn’t quick enough for me. We have school Mon-Sat with an average of 3 hours of language a day. The teachers are great, and no one at home speaks English, so I’m pretty immersed in French. However, at my level, that is mostly just realizing how much I don’t know. I’m getting there though. In one week, I’ve progressed to sentences and even a little past tense. Hopefully I’ll be moving up to an intermediate level soon, although we’ll see.

So this will be my life for the next three months, until December 3^rd, when we get sworn in as volunteers. I’ll be living with this family, going to school, learning French and skills, and preparing for my time as a volunteer. Around week 5, we’ll get our post assignments, based on our language level, our preferences, and what we hope to get out of our service. A lot of people are requesting to be put in different areas of Cameroon: in the north, where its warm and deserty with a large muslim population, in the west, which is pretty developed and you’re almost guaranteed to have water and electricity, in the east, where you’ll be in the rainforest and might get to work with pygmies, or in the south, where you could be close to the beaches or the lakes or some gorgeous landscape. There are 10 provinces in Cameroon, each very different, with different languages, cultures, needs, and people. There are over 200 tribes and languages spoken in Cameroon and each is very different. Basically, someone placed in the north of Cameroon, is having a completely different experience from someone in the South. I didn’t ask for a location preference, but requested my counterpart to be a midwife, one whom I can learn from and work with. So we’ll see what happens. I’m hoping to be in a francophone region (Cameroon has 2 Anglophone regions) but again, it’s up to our awesome boss, Sylvie, to place us where she’ll feel we’ll do the best work.

After we get our assignments, we spend a week at post, exploring and meeting people. After that, we’ll come back to Bokito to finish up training before beginning our awesome journey.

So that’s a huge update, I hope I did everything justice. J Basically, I’m working hard, having fun, glad to be here and missing home all at once. The people I’m working with and getting to know are amazing and I am so blessed to have this time with them. The things I miss most from home (not people, things) are cheese, particularly mac and cheese (Cameroonians don’t make cheese!!! I’m going to try to make some when I start at post), chocolate, tomato juice and American music.

Bokito is gorgeous and I will send photos as soon as I can, although this internet speed can’t support it right now. Just hang in there. There are pictures to come. J Miss you all tons, more than you can imagine. XOXO

Journey to Yaounde

9/23/11

I don’t even know where to start. I’m sitting on this scratchy coverlet in a small dingy hotel room in Cameroon, pleasantly surprised by the AC unit, running water (both warm and cold), a toilet (granted, there’s no toilet seat) and a TV. I’m surprised that I’m surprised. The last few days have been a complete whirlwind. As I sit here and try to write, I realize how fuzzy my head is and how few words I have to explain my emotions or mental state.

On Wednesday morning, I left my aunts house with her and my sister, headed to the Union Station to catch a train to Philly. My sister brought me into the train station, and escorted me onto the train. As I said my last physical goodbye, I became a freaking tearwork factory, again. I don’t think I’ve ever cried as much as I have in these past weeks. Saying goodbye over and over again to so many people whom I love… I don’t even have the words to describe how disheartened I was. Ugg, I’m not even going to dwell on this. There are so many positives to get to, I just don’t have the heart to dredge this up right now.

So, on the train I am, reading the manual I was supposed to have read months ago, learning about policies and benefits when I realized how right this feels. Granted I have no idea what I’m getting into, but I feel like this is what I should be doing and I love that feeling. (disclaimer: if you don't believe in a higher power, skip to the next paragraph). All summer, I've been feeling like God has been trying to communicate with me about this post. For example, the whole Turkmenistan debacle and cancellation. Also, I read a lot this summer, randomly picking up books without looking at the synopsis and with no order whatsoever. 3/10 books were biographies about people growing up in Africa and the horrors they witnessed. WTF. Anyways, there were tons of little (and big) nuances that led me to believe God wants my attention on Africa right now, and then this feeling of right overwhelmed me on the train. I am so grateful to have him so close to me, hopefully blessing my adventures. 

Arrival at the hotel in Philly was easy, although at this point I was beginning to regret how much I had packed, regardless of the fact that I was pretty sure I could not have gotten rid of anything else. I got to the taxi stand carrying a huge duffle in my hand, a small but extremely heavy duffle in my other hand with a purse full of food (including spilled chinese food which I still smell when I take out that purse), a cavas bag full of books for gifts, and my backpack hanging off my person. No, I didn't walk with this for long, I had help (Thanks, Andrea!).

 I walked up to training feeling extremely apprehensive. I hadn’t slept well the night before. What if I didn’t have enough energy to meet new friends? What if I pulled some stupid weird stunt, or said something so strange that people wrote me off right away? I was so afraid that in the first few minutes I would lose all hope of having friends to be with and turn to during the next two years. I was so off base. Everyone was so friendly. Many people have asked me before what the best of MIT was, and every time I could answer: the people.

Again, I find myself surrounded by marvelous, talented, intelligent people with drive and empathy. Many of the people are working on their masters degrees through a joint program. Many of them just graduated college. Some of them have awesome experiences, like a nurse, or a Zumba instructor, or a camp counselor. Bottom line: great freaking people. If anything could have made me feel like this was more right, it was the people. So we trained, and we ate, and we learned about each other and had fun. We were officially inducted as Peace Corps Trainees. 

Thursday morning came and found the Marriot lobby overtaken by dozens of Peace Corps Trainees and their hordes of luggage. We piled onto buses and headed to the airports.

I’m taking a break from this narrative. This entire week, my inner monologue has been of “lasts”. This is my last cheeseburger, my last string cheese, my last bagel, my last warm shower, my last time using a western toilet. There are an infinite number of lasts. Lets just say, I probably gained 5 pounds this last week just stuffing my face with foods that I love using a “last” excuse. Anyways, waiting around in the airport, we got a lot of “lasts”, my particular favorite being my last McFlurry.

After waiting around the airport for hours, the final hour came. It was time for lasts goodbyes. Our party dispersed and 45 of us tried to find privacy around the terminal to call our families and friends. I got a few good “last” calls in. But every time I hung up, tears were streaming down my face. Looking around, I couldn’t see anyone with similar reactions. I felt alone and isolated, scared and frustrated, and sad. As I walked down the gangplank to the plane, I stopped focusing on what I was leaving behind and tried focusing on what was to come. It left me a poor conversationalist, but I was feeling better. I left my sadness behind in America, as our wheels left American soil, for the time being anyways.

So JFK to Brussels, for a nice long layover. During this time, a giant starbucks poster hung over our heads, beckoning with good coffee while a giant gate kept us from feeding our caffeine addictions. Finally we boarded for our second 6.5 hour flight. As soon as the doors closed, I was hit by a powerful smell. I can’t really explain it, but lets just say it was similar to a sweaty gym locker smell. I guess, this was my first introduction to the smells of Africa. Needless to say I got over it as well as I could, slept a few winks and in no time at all, we were landing in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon.

Interesting sidenote: Also in my group is Sophie (Katie she is one of the girls from Tufts), who was also supposed to go to Turkmenistan. Not surprisingly, we sat together on the plane from Brussels to Yaounde, 20+ rows from the rest of the PCT's (Peace Corps Trainees). Interestingly, again, I could see God's hand playing in my life and I heard her horror stories of not being added to mailing lists (that I had been added to) or hearing about immunizations (that I had heard about and taken care of) and obviously botched travel papers that were done quickly and with her name completely misspelled (again, I had no such problem). We were both switched from the exact same program at the exact same time.... Just something else for me to ponder. 

Looking out the airplane window, all I saw was green. Green trees and fields speckled here and there with larger cities. I could just imagine monkeys swinging from the green vines that I saw. It was gorgeous.

We were met in the aiport by our Country Director, Lahoma, waving a Peace Corps sign and wearing a shawl of Peace Corps material. Here in Cameroon, fabrics are a big deal. Whole outfits are made of one fabric, often a very busy and colorful one. Everyone who came to pick us up had this material as some article of clothing, a dress, shirt, ect. Everything was extremely efficient as we were helped without bags and headed toward the exit. Here we saw a little of Cameroon. We were told to put our bags in front of us, wearing our backpacks on our stomach as we were hearded into buses. Outside, people were lined up, watching us as we loaded our stuff into Peace Corps vans that would go ahead of us. Nothing happened, but it was an interesting first taste of the vigilance we'll have to exercise every day.

This is wear it got fun. Buses in Cameroon aren’t like buses at home. They are often in a much poorer condition and always extremely packed. We fit 27 people in a bus that probably at home would have been an 18-20 person van, and that was nothing compared to how Cameroonians do it. 

From there we embarked on the 45 minute drive to our hotel. We passed goats, huts, grand houses, naked children, mice, porcupines, palm trees, banana trees, a grocery market and stalls of cooking goat meat. I wish I could explain to you the amazingness, the beauty, and the absolute poverty that we witnessed. But as I write this, I’ve been up for days, I’m exhausted and simply out of words. There will be more time for updates later, but for now, sleep. Training starts at 7:30 am!

Arrived safe and sound in Yaounde. Updates to come, but for now, sleep......

Goodbye Boston

Up until today, the idea that I was leaving my friends, my home, and most of my possessions seemed abstract and a long ways off. Today, it started to click. Today I'm starting to feel the sadness putting distance between people and places that I love. Last night, my sister and her (my old) roomates threw me a goodbye party. So many freaking people showed up. I was floored, completely surprised. Some people came 20 or 30 minutes out of their way just to say goodbye before leaving. Just writing about this, I'm starting to tear up a little bit. :) I went through the whole night just hugging one person and then another, I felt like a monkey swinging from tree to tree. But there were so many faces and at the end of the night, I said goodbye to every one. Granted, most of them (hopefully all of them) are see-you-laters as opposed to goodbyes, that just not how it felt.
At one point during the night, my sister stands in the middle of the room, gathered attention and started a rap song. Apparently she got most of my friends in on it as groups of people from around the room yelled out a line here and there. Simply for entertainment purposes, I include it here for you all to read:

Fresh Princess of Cameroon

Rapped to the beat of "Fresh Prince of Belair"

Written by the Lovely Katie Greenman

Now this is a story set to a tune

About my sister Suzie

Who got sent to Cameroon

So we're gonna take your time, chill out don't be shady

So we can tell you all about this incredible young lady

In the southeast of Fl, born and raised

On the beach in bikini where she spent most of her days

Chillin out, studying, setting the standard for cool

Hitting Alaska and Germany instead of high school

Then the years went by and she headed to Mass

To study premed where MIT kicked her ass

She made a few friends and studied hardcore

And decided that one day she wanted to be called doctor

This summer before she left, she got a new family tree

When she came to live what us a 2 Ossipee

It was this summer that we all came to see

Just how great, fun, and genuine this person can be

She can bake, she can study, she's kinda the best

And if you don't believe it- yo check out her breast!

So she's off to Africa, cause she thought "What the hell?!"

I'm joining the fucking peace corps, it'll be swell

And maybe over there she'll try some new chocolate

Scream Oy Vay as she pop locks and drops it

She's bound to make a difference

We all know we know it

She's got the love seed and is about to grow it

So thanks for your time, attention and joy

And lets love her up before she deploys!

Freaking awesome right?! So that's how my four years in Boston ended, getting "loved up" by my closest friends, toasting, hugging, and crying. Then they were gone and the last goodbyes went out. I had to say goodbye to my little sister, whom I had lived with this summer and spent exorbitant amounts of time with the last three years as we explored Boston and college together. If that is the hardest goodbye I have to say, I will be relieved. 

I'm leaving Boston, looking at the skyline and crying some more (really I'm not normally such a tear works factory) but as I'm writing this, it's all just feeling a whole lot more complete and satisfying. It's fear of losing touch with these people or coming back and finding that our friendships have wasted away that makes this such a terrifying prospect. But if last night was any indication, I don't think that will happen. 

So with my mind reeling, and bags under my eyes from a well-lived lack of sleep, I close this chapter in my live and start the next one. And now my computer is dying, so I'm gonna bounce for now. Thank you all for loving me up!

MCATs down, 3 weeks to go before Cameroooooon!

Hey all,
Again, my marvelous lack of writing has I'm sure left you all salivating for more. Since I last wrote, tons has happened. The most recent, I've taken the MCATs again. Hopefully for the last time. Surprisingly, the earth trembled while I wrote my literary masterpieces of my essays. I could chalk it up to my wit and talent shaking the earth, or I could choose to listen to weathermen who claim it was a freaking earthquake. I mean come on, an earthquake? on the East Coast? That's as unheard of as a hurricane hitting Boston... oh wait.... the rain outside my window is in fact Hurricane Irene.
Anyways, so yeah, as mentioned on facebook, I'm no longer going to Turkmenistan. I'm headed to Camerooooooon! Honestly, I can hardly say the name without thinking of one of those coyote cartoons jumping up and squeaking the name with eyeballs bulging out. But I digress, again. Basically, the program was cancelled for Turkmenistan and I was one of a lucky few who don't have to wait six months for an assignment. I'll be in Cameroon doing Preventative Health Education; teaching them about STDs and diseases they can contract from dirty water and such. I will admit, I'm relieved. I was excited about going to Turkmenistan and working with women in particular, especially post partum. I even harbored some hopes that I would learn about midwifery (Russian's claim to have preserved the only long lost form of "real" midwifery, according to some sources). In this new position, I won't necessarily be working with women on women's issues or health. Although that's not to say that I can't. The great part about this new placement, from what I understand, is that it's more flexible. I'll be able to check out my village (or city) and help decide what they might need. It might take more initiative and creativity on my part, but it feels like it could be extremely exciting.
I've been reading blogs from people in country now and just returning, and I got to say, it sounds like I'm in for a ride. Showers out of buckets, electricity on Tuesday and Saturday mornings before 2 am, mountain biking and dog eating. Everything I read makes me crave more information, more photos, more testimonies. To break down some facts, for those of you who don't know:

Cameroon:
Where? The armpit of Africa
Language: French, and English are the main ones with over 200 native languages (since there are pygmies in the rainforest, its possible click is one of them, although probably not).
Money: CFA about 475:1 USD
Religions: Melting Pot
I will be sleeping with mosquito nets.
I hope to learn to play drums.
There don't appear to be many lions in backyards.

That's all I really know so far, but I'm looking into more info. I do know that when I get there I will get a cell phone and this will be my first address:

Suzie Greenman
Peace Corps Trainee
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 215
Yaoundé, Cameroon

I'll spend the first 11 weeks in training, both rural and semi-urban, probably living with a host family or two before heading out to my post which is where I'll live for the next two years. I won't get that info till I'm already there. I won't know if I'll be there alone or if another PCV will be in my town or a neighboring one.

The bottom line is, there's tons I don't know. I'm spending the next few days packing and getting out of my summer apartment before being homeless for the next couple weeks. I'll float and start ripping up my roots before heading to another continent to let them settle again.
So that's all for now, bon sior (I remembered that from high school french! whoot!!!!), sleep well and many dreams of flying elephants and great adventures.

Life: Keeping Afloat

I know it's been a while since I wrote, but I really just have been so busy. I know everyone says that as an excuse, but I honestly feel more busy now than I think I ever felt at school. I'm sure that's not true, but it sure feels like it. I spend three days a week leaving my house sometime between 5:30 am and 9 am and not getting back till 2 am. Between work and school, I feel like I'm losing a bit of myself. Ugg, enough griping.

I had a great day today. I met up with a Peace Corps returner from Turkmenistan. We sat over lunch for 2 hours and I still feel like I have more questions than answers. The bottom line I took away though: this is going to be one crazy adventure.

My favorite part of the conversation was the KGB. She had been there in 2003, when the last dictator had created a country that was named "worse country to live in". She told me stories of the KGB reading her mail, opening her packages (which she only got a 1/3 of the time) and living with a constant KGB agent tail on her. Not openly of course, although she said that some of them were pretty obvious. She told me hilarious stories of being on the phone with family back home and as soon as she said something about the government, her phone line cut off. Her friend, who would call home and speak Chinese, would get cut off immediately because the guy tapping and monitoring her phone couldn't understand what she was saying.

Honestly, I feel like this is something out of "The Lives of Others", an amazing German movie about the restricted rights in West Berlin before the wall fell.

She told me horror stories of her host family stealing from her and hilarious stories of being stopped by customs because what was the equivalent of 5$ in manat looked like more than 10,000$ because it was so many bills. She painted this amazing picture for me of like and what it will be like there. But the first thing she said to me when I sat down was "Get rid of all expectations. You'll be lucky if you manage to even start a project, let alone finish one." Between the country being a bit behind the times and the government, I should expect to make no visible difference while I'm there.

This news was kind of shocking, my first question was about well, why would I go if I can't make a difference, but as we continued talking I understood. I shouldn't expect to leave Turkmenistan having made life better for people or having changed the way the health care system works or women's rights. What I think I can count on is making a dent in people's lives with presence, attention, and education.

It's always been my belief that it is possible to save the world with a smile. If someone had smiled at Hitler at just the right time and made him feel just a little bit more loved, maybe he wouldn't have that hate so deeply ingrained to start the movement that he did. If I can make one person's day a little bit better with a smile, why not? It doesn't cost me anything, except maybe a few calories which is all the more reason to. Katie's been walking around the house all evening practicing her Public Speaking speech for her final tonight and what kept jumping out at me was this story:

A man walked down to the Golden Gate Bridge and walked around for a few hours before jumping off and killing himself. When people went to his house later that day, they found a note that said "If one person smiles at me, I won't do it." He must have walked around that bridge and seen hundreds of people, and apparently not a single person smiled at him.

The point I'm getting at is that while I might not be changing the world one giant step at a time, I hope that I can impact a few people's lives, by befriending them, or showing them a new game, or teaching them something new that can improve their lives. I don't have these glorified ideas of what I can accomplish there. But maybe I can just make one person smile, who in turn makes another, who in turn makes another, and so on and so forth. Maybe I can help make one village one inkling happier.

As I'm writing this, I'm thinking, how cliche and naive I must sound. But, you know, I really do believe in a little going a long way. Maybe I am naive. Maybe this will be a good opportunity to learn about the world and how it "really" works. Who knows.

However, this is still months away. Right now, I'm sitting at my computer, MCAT books on either side of me, with an AMCAS book in front of me. I need to keep my perspective, Peace Corps is just a stepping stone. I have med school to prepare for, and the MCATs to study for.

And on that note, I look at the time and realize how late it is. MCAT class in the morning. I'm leaving this post feeling not entirely satisfied that I've finished it, thought it all the way through. Maybe I'll have more complete thoughts by the next time I post (much sooner hopefully). To all a good night and a smile.