Saturday, April 20, 2013

Peace

Despite, or perhaps because of, the instability of Cameroon's neighboring countries, Cameroonians are quick to remind you that this is a country of peace. Considering all of the drama in Nigeria, Chad, the Congo, and the CAR, it's incredibly telling just how zealous people here safeguard the notion of peace. The Cameroonian president, Paul Biya, is known country-wide as a man of peace, and rhetoric pretty much dictates that at least once in every conversation you need to make the statement that "Le Cameroun est la paix," or some derivitive thereof. I've found myself in debates frequently about whether justice and righteousness are more important than peace; as it turns out, American's value peace in a whole different way than any Cameroonian I've ever met.

Cameroonians value peace as an essential quality for life, and become quickly embarrassed if the peace is compromised for any reason. Corruption is acceptable because it helps to keep the peace and stability of the country, the region, and the town. Although religion is an important part of the cultural values, religious values that promote justice are suppressed if they might be considered a justification to break the peace--whether either Islamic, Christian, or Animist. It's for this reason that a lot of times Cameroonians have a difficult time understanding American foreign policy and current events. Cameroonians are personally offended by the violence in America perpetrated by citizens; more than once, I've been told that they could never live in a country like America where people are free to create violence as they choose. All that said, though, despite our differences in beliefs, there's a feeling of mutuality and togetherness in the losses that America's suffered this year between the bombing at the Boston Marathon, school shootings, and the movie theater shooting. As Americans, we're at a critical decision-making time of how we want to respond and the kind of relationships we want to foster for the future.

It's easy for stereotypes and prejudice to fester after moments like this. The overarching goal of terrorism is to create fear to further the hatred, so it's important that rather than closing ourselves off from "the outside" and "the others," we keep reaching out and seeking to understand other people and places. In this country, most of my best friends are Muslim. We've watched the news together and worried about the future of the people and places affected by terrorism and discussed how religion is sometimes manipulated by people into a force for hatred. People have called me frequently to check and make sure all of my friends and family members are safe and to apologize for the fates that have befallen the American people. The Boston Marathon Terrorist Attack is a tragedy, but rather than shutting ourselves off from everone else, we need to try and open ourselves up to learning about others and creating understanding. There are bad Muslims. There are bad Christians. There are bad atheists. More importantly, though, there are incredible people belonging to each major faith group. We are all together in this fight, because whether we want to believe it or not, this is a fight that affects everyone worldwide.

That may all be seen as a soapbox, or as being out of line. Or, maybe not. Either way, though, let's move right along onto something a little less controversial.

Word's starting to hit us here that the new class of Peace Corps Cameroon Youth Development Volunteers has already started to receive their invitations. If you're one of them, congratulations!! I hope that as you read through the past (and future!) entries of this blog, you have a better understanding of the ups and downs of service; it won't always be easy, but it will always be worth it. Ideally, you should really, really, REALLY want to take over my post, as it's definitely one of the best places in the country. Or, something like that. The rest of y'all, well, thanks for staying with me this long and putting up with my relatively frequent soapboxes. I officially have dates for my Close of Service Conference: there is no denying that the end is coming.

Up until then, though, I'm staying busy both integration-wise and work-wise. I've been eating mounds and mounds and mounds and mounds of Couscous de Manioc and Koko (a green, peanut-based sauce with grass-like leaves in it.) Sound appetizing? Probably not, but, man, there's a good reason that people in Batouri tell you that once you've eaten Koko, you'll never want to leave again. I also finally made a seriously fabulous female friend one morning while buying eggs at the corner boutique. And, I finally made it out to visit the gold mines, which was a weird experience. I'll try and right a separate blog focusing just on that, but it was mind-blowing seeing the degree of environmental degradation and work conditions that people endure for such a small amount of gold. Work-wise, I'm staying busy with youth group, grant applications, and doing work on Women's Rights advocacy to prevent violence against women.

Right now, I'm in Yaounde. We just finished up our Youth Development Steering Committee meeting, and I'm headed up to Ngaoundere (the capital of the Adamaoua region) tomorrow night for our second Mid-Service training...which apparently is intended less to be informative than to be a giant publicity grabber. Tonight, I'm headed out to a concert being hosted by an NGO that works on Malaria awareness, prevention, and treatment.

Take care and stay safe!

Celerating Women's Day with some of my favorite little ladies!
Awareness seminar on Women's Rights and Violence Against Women in Ndelele, East Cameroon.
 
Rainforest in Kambele, a village just outside of where I live.
 
Scratch that: gold-mining in Kambele. Well, hello, there, Malaria, global warming, and environmental destruction. Everyday, these mines find more than 1.000 dollars worth of gold flakes per day, although there are also diamonds and sapphires in the area.
Michelle, one of the little girls I work with. She'd been in the hospital about 2 weeks ago following a fall in a latrine, but now she's back to being her ultra-sassy self.