Out here, the majority of our phrases can be used in a million ways. “Ashia” can be either something sympathetic when something is difficult like carrying a heavy bedan of water, or snarky and more like a schaudenfraude. You can “du courage” someone as a good luck, or something more like an “ouch that sucks.” In the East, though, the one I hear the most often is “ca va aller,” roughly translated as anything from “yeah, it happens like that sometimes,” “eh, it’ll come together,” to “you can’t do anything about it anyways.” Whether one phrase having so many divergent meanings is being efficient, confusing, or just plain ridiculous, I have yet to figure out. The fact that this phrase is the most popular one in the region tells you a lot about our culture and how it’s so often misunderstood. We aren’t really known as being the core of ultra-motivated, development minded individuals—we’re a lot more like the deep South of the US: hesitant to change and ridiculously slow moving…an area stereotyped as one where only those who would never turn down a challenge choose to trek.
I used to hate the phrase when I moved in,
but it appears I’ve given in to it. Ca va aller, non? In an average day, I
probably say it about 10 times, but those last two weeks when I was preparing
for and completing a major project? Minimum of 20 times a day. Someone doesn’t
show up for a major finance meeting? You don’t know if you have food arranged
for lunch? You haven’t finished posters yet or remembered to bring presentation
materials or found people to present important lectures? You can’t shower
before your presentation because waters been out a few days? You need to change
the schedule of the day half an hour before starting because two random people
showed up and demanded the right to present? Eh, ca va aller, mes amis. It’s
only natural that the conference would have followed this pattern, right? This
is Peace Corps Cameroon, after all. We’ve all had it happen, we all get
frustrated by it, and yet, on some sick level related to procrastination and
adrenaline, we all love it. You can fight it, or you can deal with it. It’s
either the best part or the worst part of my job, and I’m pretty sure I
fluctuate between the two extremes each of the ten times I say it per day. Ca
va aller.
Despite all of those major frustrations
(and about 30896745 others that I didn’t mention,) we managed to host a pretty
darn good conference to train 12 teachers, 40 women, and a French Nun on the
benefits of using Soy/Moringa and how to use them, including information on
income-generating activities and women’s empowerment. I say “we” purposely; there
were PCVs who donated Moringa seeds and sent them down East, PCVs who came
through on vacation and helped stuff sacks with dirt for the Moringa seedlings,
family members and friends who donated money to finance food and other
necessities, volunteers who at the last second decided to come and lend a
helping hand, three Cameroonians who stepped up to be presenters at last
second, and other volunteers who’d been involved with the project from the
get-go. Together, we managed to put together something that I’m pretty proud
of. Flawless? Absolutely not. Apparently Moringa roots cure HIV/AIDS (thanks
Monsieur Eba,) our soy seeds weren’t quite ready for distribution, and we
definitely started behind schedule (or would have if we hadn’t created a
schedule morning of,) but that’s not what matters. Actually, that bit about the
Moringa roots and HIV could be a problem…I’ll deal with that for next time, but
in the mean-time, it made for a great joke for our post-conference mental
health vacation.
All things considered, what actually did go
right? Remembering that we’re literally starting from a base level of
explaining what a soy bean looks like and why it’s important to eat more than
just manioc every day, it’s pretty incredible how excited people were and how
closely they were taking notes about what we were talking about. People
actually seemed to get the hang of the tofu making process, and they were amped
about the price difference between soy and regular meat. The grins of people’s
faces when they received their moringa trees were priceless. Nothing exactly
went the way I’d planned on, but it’s a big confidence boost that it got
presented to the national Minister of Public Health this past week. Yep, I
think I’m okay with calling this project a success.
We’ve got a whole host of spiders, snakes,
and weird tropical illnesses, sure, but these moments of legitimate
accomplishment make everything else pale in comparison. It’s just too damn
impressive watching a project you’ve worked on for months coming to fruition,
even if it hasn’t gone the way you’ve foreseen it to. Those moments make all of
those “ca va aller” moments about a million times more worth it. Maybe these
Easties are on to something, or maybe they’ve just adapted the idea of Hakuna
Matata. Either way, it doesn’t matter: you get only one life, so live it. Why
micromanage the things that aren’t micromanageable?
I’ve left this entry short on purpose so
that I could upload a few photos to go with it (or would if the internet was fast enough to support it,) but I do want to give a big bit
of credit where credit is due. Many thanks to the friends and family of Warren
Walikonis, the family of Roger Morris, the Women of Faith Bible Study from
Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Cuyahoga Falls OH, Sarah Jennings, Jon
Gelleta, Laura Pearson, Justine Little, Mike Burbidge, Janelle Walikonis, Geoff
Miles, Jessica Worful, Melissa Lafayette, Patrick Dennis, and Molly Starke.
Pretty amazing group for such a small, obscure community, right? Y’all
contributed MASSIVELY and I
appreciate it!
Thank You!
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