I’m practically at my year mark in Cameroon, which is the strangest realization I’ve had in a long time. The new Environment, Health, and Youth Development volunteers are arriving to country on Friday. There are no excuses anymore: we’re all expected to be older, wiser, and have life in Cameroon “all figured out.” It seemed reasonable in training to expect a volunteer a year into their service to have all the answers and be able to make everything make sense in an American perspective. Now that I’m on the other side, I’m well-aware that I don’t have all the answers and I can’t make everything make sense using America as a benchmark because it’s usually not the first thing to pop in my head. What I also can't do is make surviving in this heat look effortless, although I DID finally get cold enough one morning to bust out the wool legwarmers that I impulse packed at last second. With that said, though, what I have had is a lot of time to for new experiences, personal growth, and self-reflection. Sometimes it’s been easy and overly positive, and sometimes it’s the exact opposite, but this whole process isn’t done yet: I still have a little over a year to go, and by this time next year, I’ll have even more new experiences, personal growth, and self-reflection under my belt.
Cameroon, too, has been through a lot and grown over this past
year. On a national level, Cameroon competed in the Olympics, and left with no
medals and seven fewer athletes than they’d come with. Our First Lady, Chantal
Biya, has supposedly disappeared and the Cameroonian rumor mill says everything
from her husband having her killed off to her having an affair and running away
because she’s pregnant. The two most Northern regions (creatively called the
Far North and the North) are currently experiencing flooding that has killed
crops and livestock, destroyed homes and infrastructure, and injured and killed
a few dozen people. As time passes, we can expect the rates of Cholera and
Malaria in those two regions to skyrocket because of standing water.
My region, the East, has dedicated the area for a hydroelectric
dam (name: Lom Pangar) being built by the Chinese with plans to be completed in
15 years. This’ll allow the whole region to have electricity and phone access,
as right now, the majority of our towns and villages have neither. The
President recently announced that by 2015, the road from Bertoua to Batouri to
Kentzou to Yokadouma will be paved, and we’ve actually already started to see
the company’s cars in Batouri on a regular basis—my fingers are crossed that
they’ll have started the paving process by the time I leave country in a year. Within
Batouri itself, we had a visit from the National Minister of Public Health
which ended in a donation of medical equipment, medications, and beds for our
new Catholic hospital. We’ve tarred and graveled the two roads in our
Administrative Quarter, repaired the walkway/bridge in Centre to be motorcycle
accessible, and are currently building our second two-story building in town: a
gas station. We’ve opened a new bakery and new bars, we received money from the
national government to host a two-month agriculture-and-civic-engagement
vocational training for 100 youth, and we’ve had a few major incidences of
corruption.
None of that is exhaustive; there’ve been more changes on both
the macro and micro levels. It’s reassuring to remember that Cameroon’s
changing, too, and it’s not just me who’s been adapting and learning to
function in this culture. A year older, a year wiser, right Cameroon?
So, this weekend is the big year marker: how am I going to
celebrate? Friday, I’m hosting a big birthday party for a friend of mine in
town; he’s never had a birthday party before, so I’m going all out—homemade
dinner and dessert, guests, etc. I’ve never seen someone so excited before!
Saturday, someone is coming over to help me hoe out my weeds. As I was
attempting to machete my overgrown flowerbeds and weeds this week, two
neighborhood university students showed up to volunteered to help for the day
since they had nothing else to do; they promised to find me a friend to help
out whenever I need it. Saturday is always laundry and housecleaning day—this
one in particular needs to include washing my floors since they haven’t been
conquered since my cleaning woman quit on me. Sunday, my post-mates are coming
over for a brunch with homemade bread, and then I’m going to try and get in
touch with a friend of another volunteer who just moved to Batouri to start
teaching. I’ve been trying to make a female Cameroonian friend my age who’s not
married with babies, so I’m pretty excited about this. And, that’s about it.
That’s life here. It may not be figured out exactly, but it’s definitely into a
more comfortable routine. That’s good enough for me :)
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