Thursday, March 7, 2013

The Suns and the Rains

5 March 2013

Suddenly, I’m finding myself asking the all-important question: where did all my time go? Looking at what’s left, I’m feeling pressed for time and like I have a lot to cram in before this coming December. There’s a lot to do, a lot to learn, a lot to experience, and not much time left to go. A number of “lasts” and mile markers of PC Cameroon service have happened recently: Mid-Service Training, my last Christmas/New Year’s/Valentine’s Day in country, my last Youth Day celebration, and my last In-Service Training. I’m about to celebrate my last Women’s Day in Cameroon and to celebrate my last Easter as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I can count the months until my Close of Service Conference on one hand, and I can count the months of service left on less than 10 fingers. If there was ever a time that basic math was fun, it’s this time right here: 27 months-17.5 months complete=9.5 months. My mind is officially blown by how little time remains—I remember being amazed when I first lasted in Cameroon nine months!
Looking back, there are a lot of bizarre things that strike me about Peace Corps; from learning tips on how to prevent having snakes in my house to being taught how to best butcher a chicken, there’s never been a day when there hasn’t been some kind of survival skill to learn. These skills are useful, yes, and (sometimes) have the ability of being useful in the States, but the most striking thing I’ve come to learn is that less technology you have and the less developed your community is, the more vulnerable you are to “the elements” and the less control you have over your daily life. This seemed kind of exciting the first go-around, but now that this actually feels like my life and not some crazy-long tourist adventure, the excitement has given out to frustration and feelings of restriction.
Weather here works in extremes and theoretically in cycles: long dry season, short wet season, short dry season, long wet season. Every season has its own weird reality and particularities, and they're getting more extreme as climate change takes hold--it's predicted that the average temperature in my community will rise another 5-10 degrees farhenheit; no one here debates the existence of climate change, and it's so engrained that even the most uneducated people can point to specific examples of how the climate/weather has changed in the community (dates of the rains, rise of temperature, decrease of the rains, etc.)
The precipitation amounts change each season, and so do the temperatures, but so do food availability, workload, attendance at school/work/meetings, road conditions, and health risks. There aren’t any weather reports here, so you need to be intuitive about what’s likely to happen, and also about what else might still happen. Ultimately, you should prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and be willing to go with whatever ends up happening. No person can control weather, but there are things that make it easier to manage: consistent access to transportation, infrastructure, weather reports, consistent phone reception, safe housing structures, insurance. Clearly, those things don’t tend to exist in a lot of the places where Peace Corps tends to work. From where I stand in Cameroon, the lack of shelter from weather has created and reinforced a belief that God makes all decisions for humankind and that NOTHING can be changed or can deviate from that path. If there’s any mentality that impedes and stunts development: it’s that one.
Earlier this week, I was returning from training the new Youth Development Volunteers at their In-Service Training. We all thought we were still in long dry season, turns out we’re not: a freak storm hit while we were traveling, and NONE of us were dressed for the weather or prepared for the consequences. I did everything I could to prepare, mainly meaning that I called someone in Batouri to figure out how the rain was there to decide whether I should travel. It turns out I made the wrong choice: our car pin-balled across the road for hours because of the weather. A little girl’s carsickness made her vomit everywhere, we lost control of the car and ran over a piglet, got stuck in mud for 45-minutes while a group of bribed villagers helped our driver get our car un-stuck, and everyone struggled to make it back into the car because everybody was dressed in the requisite dry-season-travel sandals. Welcome to rainy season travel in Eastern Cameroon, world.
What’s a girl to do, though, when you’re out with friends and a freak storm hits? There aren’t any motorcycles to give you a ride home, and even if you are, the road is dirt and the driving conditions get bad quickly. I don’t live in the center of town, so when these freak storms, I have to retreat to one of my post-mate’s houses; this week, it ended in an entirely unexpected sleepover at my post-mate’s house since there was no way to get back to my own. It's not uncommon for people to miss work, doctor's appointments, meetings, etc. because of these freak storms. Nobody has much control over their daily lives in rainy season.
There’s a whole code of rainy season survival tips, and you learn them fast once you start living it. Once a storm hits, it’s important to immediately put out your buckets and bowls because you don’t know if water will go out and for how long. Today, I collected about 30L of rain water to prepare…just in case. I still have running water at the moment, but I also still remember the time that water was out in town for two weeks and I had a visitor. You get really good at ready the signs of whether a storm is going to hit: stillness followed by a strong wind wind, a dark sky, leaves on the trees turning upwards. You learn to avoid walking underneath mango trees because mangoes frequently drop to the ground, and they aren’t exactly a light fruit.
You don’t just feel the effects of weather in big ways. You grow to learn that if it starts raining and you have a meeting starting in 30 minutes, don’t bother showing up, because they’re not going to either since transportation is null. After a few days, you perfect your technique of waking up that shopkeeper who’s taking the requisite “it’s painfully hot in dry season” nap. Certain clothes can’t be worn in certain seasons, and because hand-washing is really the only system here, you learn which techniques work best on the mud versus the dirt. You learn that cement holds heat, and that during dry season, it’s much better to cook outdoors over a fire if you have the possibility. You also learn which seasons have the most cockroaches, which for me is...right now. Eff. You move around less from 10-4p, and you grow to plan your daily activities based on the availability of shade and water.
This is my last short wet season. Am I going to get nostalgic for these freak storms and get paranoid about putting out buckets? Most likely. Still, it’s going to be magical not to have to put life on hold for days while everyone waits for the ground to dry out.

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