June Already?

Well, best way to say it: it's been an interesting month, guys. I feel like May was clear across the board and difficult in a million different ways. Two separate Medical Holds in Yaounde, one set of Program Advisory Committee Meetings, a World Map started and finished in a week, final arrangements made for the Soy/Moringa plantation at Esperance Vie in honor of Warren Walikonis, a potential unexpected donation to said Soy/Moringa project (thanks, Immaculate Heart of Mary!,) two exceptionally awkward marriage proposals from friends, the end of the Handicapped Youth Group for the school year, the 40th Year Celebration of the Reunification of Cameroon, a visit from volunteer-friends from the Extreme North, and one very messy house waiting for me at the end of all that. There's been lots of little things in between that all--lunches with friends, evenings spent watching soccer games, days with absolutely nothing to do but watch another movie--but May has tested me on a lot of different levels. I'm still standing, and, most of the time, remembering to breath. Altogether, I call that a success, and it feels good.

The newest Stage has officially arrived in country, and they're actually getting ready to move in to Bafia to start training: I'm no longer part of the newest, most inexperienced group. Crazy. Somewhere out there in Yaounde is my new post-mate, and they had better be the best Stagaire this country has ever seen. Batouri deserves the best :) With that said, it's crazy to look back at how much has changed over the almost six months I've been at post. Electricity has been in and out, mango and avocado seasons have come and went, I've been living without paved roads,  I've made friends, found Cameroonian dishes I really like, figured out how to locate (some) of the Western foods I miss the most, and discovered lots and lots of things about Cameroon that continue to puzzle me. I've picked up a lot of French (there's still a long way to go,) and I've lost a lot of English. Every day is an adventure, an adventure that goes someplace unpredictable and always ends with some kind of unexpected lesson. Six months in Batouri, eight months in Cameroon; Peace Corps--the hardest job you'll ever love.

With all that said, know that I think of you all often, and miss you all! I don't post enough photos on this blog, so right now with the "fast" Bertoua internet, I'm going to take this opportunity to share and explain some photos of what I've been up to recently.

With Love,
Steph

This is the field where we're planting the Soy and Moringa at Esperance Vie! These plants help combat malnutrition and will help ease some of the instability of the food supply at certain parts of the year. The first harvest will be ready in late August or early September, just in time for workshops for the families at Esperance on how to grow these plants, why to grow these plants, and how to cook with them. Exciting stuff!

This is the photo of the students and Janelle working on the World Map at Lycee Bilingue. We put in about four hours of work a day, sometimes more, for a week. In the brown is a Geography teacher who stopped by and helped us correct all of the little details in Europe and the Middle East--turns out, all those little countries are WAY more difficult than either us or the students anticipated. We're hoping that teachers will be able to use this map as a resource for their classes for the upcoming school year.

After one long week of early mornings, coffee, and celebratory biftec, we finished the map! This is a photo of Janelle and I with a group of the staff and students that helped us out. Look at that beauty of a map! This is a very stereotypically Cameroonian photo, by the way, Cameroonians do NOT believe in smiling for cameras!

My two homes: Ohio and the East region of Cameroon. The kids couldn't believe just how far I traveled to come live out here with them, and when Janelle showed them where she lived (California,) and we told stories about what it's like where we come from, it blew their minds.

Janelle and I at the site of the "Sacred Rocks" in Batouri, an absolutely beautiful site, especially when you luck out with beautiful whether like this! It's the little moments like this one where it suddenly hits you that you do, in fact, live in Africa and it is a pretty fantastic life :)



Cameroonian Potpourri

9-5-2012

I’ve had the realization that all of my recent posts have been very topic-driven, I haven’t given an update as to the work I’ve been doing, the life I’ve been living, or the random endeavors I’ve been finding myself on. This post’ll be that, or, more likely, a random assortment of things that just pop into my head. That’s pretty true to form, right?

I’ve now been at post for just over five months, and I can tell you that I’m feeling a lot more comfortable here and a lot more in control than I did even two months ago. Not every day is like that, but more and more, they’re becoming common—it’s a pretty good feeling. Things in Batouri are altogether going pretty well. Still, there are days that I wake up and can’t bring myself to face the world outside my door until about 5pm. Those are days usually coincide with power and water being out for the third day straight, French just not escaping my mouth correctly, illness, or work just not going the way I believe it should. But, luckily, there are plenty of other days in which I can’t believe the incredible luck I have. I’m blessed to have the post I do: I’m challenged in ways I never believed I could be, but more than that, I’m rewarded by my community in ways that I definitely don’t deserve. Free meals, gifts of free fabric, free moto rides, tips of places to find work, neighborhood kids I’ve never seen calling me by name: Batouri continually reminds me that I was foolish to think that I didn’t belong in the East and that I’d be miserable here. I’m glad I was wrong about that. Maybe every volunteer just hits a point where they realize that they can’t imagine being placed anywhere else and maybe everyone thinks that their post is the best of the bunch, but maybe we just kind of learn to make do with what we have. Either way, I’m not complaining: Batouri is home and the generosity and honesty of the people I’ve met here has been refreshing. Where else would someone call me to tell me that they have tea waiting for me at their shop or call to ask about the health of my parents that they’ve never met? Life is a roller coaster here, and trying to keep it all in perspective is part of the fun. It’s all about taking the bad with the good and remembering that although today’s been a rough one, the likelihood is that tomorrow could very well be the best day of your life.

I’m finding little ways that I’ve unconsciously been making an impact, although it’s funny seeing exactly which of the things catch on. I have a habit of calling every kid I see my friend because there are just too many names to learn and it seems more personal/meaningful that just saying hello. My post-mate recently told me that the kids on her street recently followed her down the street yelling “Hello, my friend! Hello, my friend! Hello, my friend!”—no better feeling than knowing you’re breaking the Blanche/Bui/Nassara cycle with a more positive word: friend. I love the significance of it; it’s the little things that make a huge difference. That same post-mate brought the fist-bump to Batouri, and I’m improving that and turning it to the bump-and-explode. The first person to pick it was a girl in my youth group, Rita, pretty soon it’ll spread like wildfire—the finer points of cultural exchange, clearly. And, my personal favorite: bean, avocado, tomato, and onion salads. The first time I saw a Cameroonian order one after me I was stunned, Cameroonians aren’t believers in “chunky” vegetables—if it’s not liquidized in a sauce, it’s not meant to be eaten. Take that, nutrition!

On a less cheesy note, health-wise, things have been interesting these past couple of weeks. After two and a half weeks of an unbearably itchy, burning rash and two misdiagnoses, the Peace Corps Medical Office finally came up with the answer: an allergic reaction to Mango Sap spent from the many mornings I’ve spent picking mangos from the tree in my front yard. Turns out Mango Sap is like the Poison Ivy of Cameroon, and I’m luckily enough to be ultra-allergic, either that or just not intelligent to connect the mango-picking to the rash in time to prevent it from getting unbearable. Anyhow, Prednisone is a miracle drug, and I’m beginning to feel a million times better and no longer look like a leper—kaaaaaaaching! Feeling healthy means that I’m been able to return to early morning work-outs, cooking, visiting friends, and recommencing work, all of which have been HUGE mood brighteners for me. Cat-sitting probably also helps, as do the many, many movies that I picked up while I was stuck in Yaounde for medical.

Work-wise I’m finding myself fantastically busy. I’m working on a project for my host institution planting soy and moringa (thanks again to the volunteers who are donating and transporting the seeds down from the Grand North!) Eventually I’ll be organizing the kids in managing the plantation; I want them to be as responsible for it as possible because I believe it teaches invaluable lessons in leadership, teamwork, and causality. Once things grow, I’m going to lead the kids in an income-generating activity (read: opportunity to teach about financial planning) and teach families in the communities how to cook with soy and moringa. Ideally I’ll be extending this project throughout the Catholic Diocese (my host organization is Catholic and my counter-part is a priest) and teaching nuns how to lead similar projects in their communities. That in and of itself is pretty much a two year project that gives me the opportunity to touch on so many things that I’m passionate about, especially the battle against malnutrition. Outside of this, I’m helping out with the painting of a World Map at Lycee Bilingue, continuing with the handicapped youth group, helping lead French literacy sessions (in today’s I taught the Heimlech Manuever to the women—BAM!,) helping out at malnutrition clinics when I have the time, and trying to arrange a Life Skills Seminar for the girls at Lycee Bilingue to encourage confidence and positive decision-making. Read: biting off more than I can chew and thrilled about it.

I’ve found a favorite Cameroonian food (Folere with Rice Couscous) that I’m pretty sure I could eat every day for the rest of my life, which is impressive considering that the majority of food out here is definitely not up the American palate. Folere is a delicious green, tangy sauce made out of some kind of leaves, usually with chunks of beef. The obsession has grown so much that the one restaurant in town knows to always have it on Tuesdays and Wednesdays because I’m always there at least one of those days for lunch. My next step is to find a Cameroonian woman to teach me how to make it myself, which is a little more difficult than it sounds because although I’m female, I definitely have way more in common with the men in the community and therefore don’t really know any women to teach me—I’m way more educated than your average woman in Batouri, have neither a husband or children, and hold a job. These differences definitely limit conversation topics a lot. I invade the bro-sphere on a daily basis…what exactly DO women here talk about, anyways? What I can, say, however, is that I’ve spent more time over the past few months debating polygamy and polyandry with men than I ever thought was possible—turns out I have that French vocabulary memorized so well that I could probably debate this in my sleep now. Professional feminism: doing it right.

Looking into the next couple of months, I’ve FINALLY got a month which might potentially have no travel (June)—I haven’t had a single travel-free month since February. This possibility is looking fantastic! I’m feeling tired from this back-and-forth-and-back-and-forth thing that keeps happening. It’ll be nice to be fixed at post and not get harassed by everyone who thinks I’m leaving too much. Two of my post-mates are finishing their service as well as three other region-mates, and the new batch of Community Economic Development and Education Volunteers will be arriving in August, I’m excited to see what the new CED will bring to Batouri!  And, going along with the theme of Close of Service, my cousin will hopefully be coming to visit me in August. My friends in town have already started talking about organizing a big party to celebrate his arrival, the hospitality in this town is ridiculous.

That’s about it for right now. I’ve got a date with the fantastically non-Cameroonian salad and tea waiting for me in the kitchen, a movie, and a cuddle sess with Mike’s cat. Life is good. Take care!

With Love,

Steph

Travel

I’ve been doing a lot of travel and haven’t been consistently at post since February (not my fault as there was In-Service Training, Steering Committee, and now Regional Meeting,) so it seems logical that, with my “Travel” playlist playing in the background, I write a blog entry just on what travel here entails for me. I can’t claim that my travel experiences are typical of what any other Cameroon volunteer experiences, mostly just because there is no typical experience, and I definitely haven’t encountered it all yet. Travel is something that I didn’t think about before coming, because it’s nothing I’ve ever really needed to consider since getting a driver’s license and a car. Turns out, travel is a whole lot more difficult and interesting once you can’t just hop into your car and drive wherever you wanted/needed to be. I don’t know that I ever actually did public transportation in the States outside of taking metros and the occasional taxi in DC; learning to rely and adapt to public transportation is a huge part of life here, one that’s giving me a whole stockpile of ridiculous anecdotes that y’all are going to be hearing for a long, long time in the future. So, with all that said, I’ve done my best to give an accurate summary of just what kinds of travel are available in country and the very basic idea of what it looks like.

In Batouri/Bertoua:

Motorcycles. Yep. That’s right, yours truly rides many, many motorcycles a day. They’re a pretty common form of transportation throughout Africa from what I understand, and as a result, every PCV has a super-stylish helmet to wear (and I accentuate super-stylish, there’s nothing like sticking out with a shiny blue and silver helmet in a community where no one wears helmets.) Some volunteers in remote villages take hour or more long motorcycle rides to reach post—that’s not an option for where I live, but I’m looking forward to visiting friends at their posts and having my first long moto ride. I’ve seen as many as six people crammed onto one moto, and I’ve also seen Moms carrying their babies on motos so that they’re hanging off the moto—terrifying. Within Batouri, all of the moto-drivers are men and most of them are pretty young. Some drivers wear heavy down coats and woolen caps for protection, which is mostly just comical because it’s so hot here; I recently saw a motorman wearing a tee-shirt from Great Lakes Elementary which is not terrifically far from where I grew up, which was cool. 
There are a few private cars in town, most of which are owned by either officials within the government or international aid organizations—the aid cars are always giant white SUVs with huge decals on the side proclaiming Red Cross, UNFPA, WFP, UNDP, UNHCR, GIZ…we’ve got many, many development organizations in Batouri, clearly. I’ve ridden in a couple of cars in Batouri and it’s always a surreal experience—comfort, radio, windows, and a seatbelt. Most of the time I’m in the car with my host organization, Esperance, doing site visits with the families they work with in the community, but I’ve been in a couple of government-owned cars and a few privately-owned cars as well. It’s great and fantastic being in cars, even the crappiest amongst them. Still, I would never want to drive in Cameroon: the roads are terrible and Cameroonians are ridiculously aggressive drivers—even when street signs or traffic signs exist, they don’t mean anything, nor do Cameroonian drivers like to stay in the correct lane most of the time.

Leaving Post:

For me to get to either Bertoua or Kentzou (the two cities closest to me with other volunteers,) I take a bus called the Saviom…all the volunteers call them Prison Buses because that’s what they look like, as there’s a metal grate that separates the driver from the rest of the passengers. These exist in my little section of the East (“Extreme East,” as we’ve taken to describing ourselves,) as well as parts of the Adamaoua. They’re supposed to fit 28 people (Five people a row, five rows, plus three passengers in the cabin sitting next to the driver,) but oftentimes there are people standing up in the back, holding on to the ladder that leads to the top of the bus where luggage is stored, or sitting on top of the luggage. Each row is composed of two benches with a fold-down seat in the middle, the fold-down seat in front of the door being the most uncomfortable spot to ride in. The spots in the cabin are reserved for the Grands (the important people in the community)—male PCVs are almost always guaranteed a spot in the cabin, but it’s a lot more difficult to secure a seat there as a woman. The potential benefits of a cabin seat are huge, though: more leg room, more space on the bench, less dust, etc.

The prison bus into Batouri is an adventure that’s not for the weak-stomached, lovers of personal space, or impatient. There are usually various animals being transported either inside the bus or on top of the bus, which makes the ride really fun: nothing quite like combining the sound of crying babies, bleating goats, and hens in a small vehicle. The sides of the bus have a reminder not to vomit, spit, or talk to driver, which is clearly very confidence-inducing. Luckily, I’ve yet to see anyone vomit on a ride (knock on wood, inshallah, and on espère.) The bus has no radio, is overcrowded, feels like it’s a million degrees most of the time, dusty, and often makes a million stops either for prayer, to pick up more passengers even though the bus is already full, or to buy various food products (plantains, manioc, grilled beef, milk, etc.) The roads are unpaved and in need of serious reparation, I often get off the bus with some pretty impressive bruises. Breakdowns are not uncommon, and neither are accidents. I’ve had three flat tires and one broken belt in my four months at post, but another friend who visited had the treat of her bus needing to get towed in by a logging truck because it broke down so badly 10km from the bus stop. Normally Cameroonians have an amazing talent to MacGyver solutions to automotive problems out of the most ridiculous items they find on the side of the road—they could definitely teach a few tricks to American auto mechanics.

Basically, traveling to leave Batouri makes me feel like I’m an en brousse BAMF. As much as I complain about the prison buses (which is, admittedly, a lot) it’s a fantastic bragging point :) I’ve made the 90km trip in anywhere from 2.75 hours to 4.5 hours, but with rainy season picking up, I’m expecting the travel to get worse. I’ve also been informed to prepare myself to do have to get out and push in the mud or to trudge through the mud so that the bus can more easily navigate.

Other Forms of Transport:

In bigger cities, motorcycles are substituted for taxis. There isn’t anything terrifically exciting or fantastic about these, although drivers do sometimes decorate them with flashing lights, weird paint jobs, furry seats, fake flowers, and weird sayings. We don’t have any in Batouri, but they’re all that you can take in Yaounde (the country capital) because Moto-Taxis are illegal. Given a choice between taking a moto or a taxi, I usually prefer the moto-it’s faster, less crowded, and the likelihood is that it’ll smell less like BO since there’s the wind. Oh the things that inform our preferences….

To get up to the Grand North (Adamaoua, North, Extreme North,) volunteers take a night train that has beds in it. I haven’t taken it yet, although there is a stop in the East at 2am that I could technically use to get to Yaounde, but it’s more expensive. I do plan to take the train at some point, but there’s an alternate route through the East by bus that I want to try out someday, too.

There are US-style Mega-Buses for most trips from a big city to another big city. I took a great one from Yaounde to Bertoua recently that had padded seats, radio, and a tv that played music videos. Most of the time on these big buses there’s some guy (or guys if you’re really unlucky) that stand up and try to sell you some weird kind of medical products. The speech is almost exactly the same every time, and the products are always the same: toothbrushes, toothpaste, ginseng rub to get rid of headaches, some weird pill that’s supposed to clean any liquid and turn it into water, various products to increase male and female potency, something to erase STIs including HIV, etc. Someday I should write down the things they say—I’ve heard weird statements about the Chinese reproducing like rabbits because they’ve unlocked the magic of a special herb, for instance, as well as more anti-feminist comments than I care to remember. I’ve listened to these speeches for as long as two and a half hours, and then had some other idiot get up and give the exact same one; the speeches are basically the Cameroonian version of a bad, late-night infomercial. Plus side: mega-buses usually make some really excellent stops for food—bananas, pineapple, peanuts, mangoes, grilled meat, beignets, etc. These stops are way, way better than American fast-food, and one of those little things that I know I’ll miss when I return.

I think that’s about it transportation-wise. I’m sure there’ll be many, many stories to come in the future, although hopefully soon it’ll be coupled with stories about fantastic new places. In August, I’ll be heading to the beaches of Kribi to help run the National Girl’s Forum—a conference that my program is running for professionals involved in fields that promote women’s empowerment. Kribi is about three days worth of travel from where I live. But, before that, I have at least two more trips back to Yaounde for the Program Advisory Committee and Steering Committee. Needless to say, travel in specific and life in general is always an adventure out here. And, as for all of you, as school is about to let out for the summer and the weather’s getting warm and sunny again, have a happy vacation season, everyone! Miss you all and wishing you my best!

With Love,

Steph

Culture Shock

I'm sitting in the Bertoua transit house ("Case" in Peace Corps lingo) by myself and trying to will my computer to download virus protection faster, so I suppose this is an opportune time to sit down and write a blog post since it's been awhile. I've spent the past couple of weeks traveling for my In-Service Training in Bamenda--the capital of one of Cameroon's Anglophone Northwest. There are a ton of different ways that I could potentially describe that whole experience, but there's really only one that covers it all: culture shock.

My city, Batouri, is in the least developed, least populated region of the country. We're well known throughout the country as having "difficult" mentalities out here. I'd heard this over and over and over, and that was part of the reason that I had originally been so dead-set on not being posted out here. But, hearing all of this is totally different than actually having something to compare it to. It's easy to get used to not having paved roads and having only the same couple of options of things to buy at the markets, one because you know there are other volunteers with less, but also because you don't really realize that other people have more. And, you know what? People don't just have more, some people have a lot more. That doesn't make Peace Corps easy, it just makes the entire experience different--my experience in the East might as well be that of a volunteer in a completely different country when you compare it to some of the other regions. That's the beauty of Peace Corps Cameroon: no region, no city can be exactly like yours. This country is too diverse for anything to really be comparable. We have two official languages, but there's at least 250 other languages spoken in country. Our predominant religions are Christianity and Islam, but not only can you break those into a million sub-sets, but they all have a local flavor. My Cameroon is not the Cameroon that a volunteer in a village in the Littoral knows or a city volunteer in the Adamaoua: we all have a separate reality that just doesn't translate over, making every trip seem like an exotic vacation.

On my way to In-Service Training, I not only rode in a comfortable, luxurious bus on paved roads, but I saw street signs and construction. What about those parking spaces and parking meters in Bamenda? Downright trippy. Coming back East after Bamenda, I stopped at one of Yaounde's largest grocery stores, Casino. I didn't have to argue to get a better price, they automatically had change for a 10.000 bill, and I was able to buy pudding. PUDDING. It's amazing the little things that become so fantastically stunning here: buying ice cream, riding in a taxi with automatic windows, speaking English and being understood. At some point, having access to all these things and seeing all these things I hadn't seen in months kind of made my head start to spin. Going back to Batouri is going to be a detox, I suppose. I've been in country now for just over six months. While it doesn't necessarily feel like it's been that long, situations definitely arise that prove to me just how much control I've been gaining over everything. After all, you can only get culture shock in comparison to another culture, right? And if I'm being shocked at pudding and parking spaces, God knows we're not comparing on an American standard.

In Yaounde, I ran into some volunteers whom I know from training that finish their service within the next couple of months. They were returning from a trip through the East. Their complaints about our uncomfortable "Prison Buses" and the accompanying bruises was validating: I'm gaining control over the life I'm living. Things that used to suck are becoming normal. the fact that sitting in a comfortable bus actually made me uncomfortable, is testament to just how acclimated I'm becoming to everything. Go me. But, more than that, way to go training group--we're tougher than we were three months ago. We've done something we've all doubted that we'd be able to do: we've made it through three months alone and thrived!

All in all, Bamenda was fantastic. The hotel had an American-style mattress with soft pillows instead of the awful, stiff foam sold everywhere else in country. We had hot water and consistent electricity. Our food was provided for us, and all of the workers spoke to us in English. There was a coffee shop downtown with chocolate cake, pasta salad, macchiatos, and espressos. Books are valued there. And, perhaps most of all, a million other Americans because of training.

Crazy.

Coloring Outside the Lines

13-2-12

Bui! Nassara! Nassara! Nassara! LA BLAAAAAAAAAAAANCHE! Three different words, three different languages, pronounced a million different ways with or without the ubiquitous Cameroonian “tssssssssssst” and kissing sounds, all in the same city. I hear each of these words about thirty times a day minimum, and each of them means the same thing: white person. Sometimes it’s a hoard of small children trying to catch my attention to say hello, words that depend on familiarity and time of day, with full salutations being long strings of about 5 questions in both French and Fulfulde. But, more often than not, it’s not small children—if it was, I’d probably be more patient and more forgiving because children can be taught to behave differently. Nope, it’s the motodrivers, the market men, the boutique owners, the tailors… practically everyone everywhere. Living here is a social experiment in finding out exactly what it’s like to live in a society where racial profiling is not only alive and well, but directed totally at you.

 

Example One:

By country law, everyone is required to carry identity cards all the time whether you’re walking around town or travelling clear across the country. The police officers (Gendarmes, as they’re called here,) have the right to ask you whenever they want to see the card, although the only random time I’ve been asked to see it is in government buildings when visiting the Prefect and Commandant. Travelling, however, is a totally different story.

You are sitting in a small, crowded bus (five people per row, not including babies, chickens, packages, or the unlucky people who either stand in the back out the door or sit on top of the bus with the luggage.) You weren’t lucky enough to secure a spot next to the driver in the cabin where it’s more spacious/less hot/less dusty, you are missing that all-important Y-chromosome, after all. You’ve hit the first checkpoint of two on your three and a half hour voyage, the gendarme beelines straight towards you: “Carte d’identité, madame.” You pass it over, he gives it back after inspecting it and glaring at how dirty it is, and then he waves off the bus and lets it go on its merry way. Nobody else’s card is checked: you are the only one, again. How convenient, because you are also the only white person on the bus.

Example Two:

You’re marching in the Youth Day Parade with your host organization, and they asked you to come in to get sized up by the tailor for your super awesome, matching parade garb that, eventually, comes out looking a little like a bad prom dress. After the tailor finishes measuring you up, you glance at the paper of measurements. Everybody’s measurements have a name corresponding to them, but not yours. Yours only says “Blanche.” She’s never even bothered to ask you for your name.

Example Three:

You’re at a “meeting” with your counterpart at bar, because what better possible location could there be? You’ve been stuck there about three and a half hours, and you need to run because you have another meeting to go to. You let your group know, and receive the following response: “You white people, you always have meetings. You white people always have to run on some kind of a schedule. Why can’t you all act more like us?”

Turns out, Cameroonians think white people all look the same. I’ve also been asked if I’m Italian. I’ve had children taunt me because they thought I was Asian—bowing and elongating their R’s the same way you see kids doing it in the US. And, just like I am the worst at estimating Cameroonian ages, they struggle to guess our ages, too.

We don’t talk race or color or really even about physical differences in America, nobody wants to come off as being on the wrong side of politically correct, and for good reason: being “othered” sucks. But, I can imagine that being in a situation where everybody refuses to talk about the elephant in the room sucks even more. We’ve been raised to believe that these conversations are impolite, and therefore anytime we get near talking about them, everyone gets uncomfortable. This situation isn’t working for us in the States whether we want to admit it or not: race remains a problem. Schools largely remain segregated. Poverty, unemployment, early pregnancy, and under-education continue to unduly hit the black community hard.

 

We were told during training that Cameroonians don’t do direct conversation, and in some aspects that’s true. Everyone talks around conflict and money here, which, as Americans, are two things we’re good at: get that awkwardness over, and as soon as possible. At the same time, however, Cameroonians don’t hesitate to tell you how you’re looking that day (to use specific terms I’ve received: fat, sexy, thick, like a child,) to talk about health problems like HIV/AIDS, or to address race. The constant comments about my skin color drive me nuts. Cameroonians are masters of something I hear volunteers frequently call the present obvious form of language, used in questions like “White girl, you’re walking?” “White girl, you’re there?” “White girl, you eat piment?” These questions always seem to state my skin color, thus accentuating the obvious nature of whatever I happen to be doing at that moment that they’re finding so fascinating. Anyway, despite the fact that I find this irritating, it’s given me the opportunity to have the kind of conversations about race and color that are physically impossible in the States.

Race doesn’t need to be so taboo, and until we start addressing it, we’re never going to be the best we can be as a society. Cameroon, of course, doesn’t have an ideal system either. The ideal is bound to be somewhere between the two of us. I don’t claim to have any amazing, innovative solution to racial profiling or teen pregnancy or segregation or even to know the least uncomfortable way to talk about race. That’s all well beyond my knowledge. But, what I do know is that if there’s one thing I’ve learned about being an outsider from all the harassment I receive, it’s that if we take the opportunity to talk about our differences and ask questions, the discomfort of the situation tends to dissipate.

So, this has been what’s been on my mind recently. It’s been interesting to think about Cameroonian versus American culture under this lens, and I’m sure it’s going to be something that I continue to grapple with over the next two years of my service and beyond. It’s not been easy to be in the situation of being the one that so clearly stands out. My new, thick skin is coming in nicely, clearly.

With Love,

Steph

Four Months In!

23/1/12

As of today, I’ve spent four full months in Cameroon, which is really exciting. So much has changed over the past four months, but I don’t really want to spend this entry being nostalgic about all of that—I think I’ve covered all that pretty well over the past couple of blog posts. Instead, I wanted to give you a better update as to what I’m up to work-wise here in Batouri now that I’ve actually started some semblance of work.

As a Youth Development Volunteer, I have a lot of freedom to decide what I want to do, with who, and when. Part of that is because the program is totally new (being in the founding class has its privileges for sure,) but a lot of that is that the program was designed to combine the successful aspects of each of the four pre-existing programs and tailor it to a specific demographic: youth and families. So, over the course of my service, I could choose to work with young mothers on childhood nutrition, secondary students on financial management and goal-setting, teachers on how to approach sexual health in classes, etc. The possibilities are endless, and that’s what I really enjoy about my program: I’m not constricted to any one subject. I also have an awesome opportunity to collaborate with the other sectors, which is great because in Batouri there are volunteers from the Education, Small Enterprise Development, and Agroforestry sectors. The only sector not represented here is Health, and that was a good chunk of my training, and there’s a Health volunteer posted only about three hours away.

Now that I’ve gotten more settled into my house (key word here being “more,” as I’ve still got a long way to go before being established,) I’ve been checking out a lot of the institutions and schools that are active here in the community. Historically, Peace Corps has been really active here in Batouri, but there are a number of other local, regional, and international organizations active here as well. My host institution, Centre Pour la Promotion de la Femme et la Famille, works with women and young mothers giving technical training and general education. It’s a small organization that lacks funding, so while they have a lot of big ideas of what they would like to do in the future, all ideas constantly need to be scaled down because there’s just no money for them to work with. I’ve had two meetings there so far to get to know the staff and become more familiar with their work there, I’m headed back tomorrow with my post-mate to talk more concretely about some possibilities regarding running a soy and nutrition formation there within the next few months.

I’ve also started running some needs assessment-type work at one of the local, public secondary schools. I’ve found a really dynamic Vice-Principal to work with there, and that’s been a huge gift because he’s passionate about many of the same issues I am and he’s not afraid to address these issues head-on. This past week, I had a meeting with about 40 girls to talk about their lives at home, in the community, and at the school. In a lot of ways, their complaints were the same as the ones I would have said at their age: cliques, superiority complexes, and gossip, but there were plenty of other things that they said that were really jarring for me (being scared to walk around campus because of the harassment of boys, teachers blackmailing girls for money and sex, being forced into prostitution to pay for school fees, and being scared of being married off before finishing education.) I hope to be able to talk to the boys within the next week, and with teachers if that’s possible. The next time that the PTA meets, I plan to attend so that I can get a better sense of parental involvement and what parents’ reactions to my plans are.

Last week, I went to visit an organization that’s associated with the Catholic Mission here, Esperance Sare Jeunes. Esperance is one of the most inspirational, well-organized places I’ve found in town. They work with youth whose families can’t afford to keep them at home or send them to school giving them a place to stay, technical training in agriculture, and paying for their school fees. Be on the look-out for photos on facebook from Esperance—they tell the story of that place much better than I do. I’m headed back tomorrow afternoon with my post-mate to meet with the kids there and hear their stories and get a better idea of what the kids think that the two of us can do to improve their situations.

I have a friend who teaches the local language, Kako, to students at a private primary school in town, and he took me to his class last week, which was a blast. Benjamen also teaches illiterate parents to read and write in a village about 10 kilometers from here, so I’m hoping to go to one of those sessions soon, mostly just because I think he’s such a powerful teacher and I want to see what a village out here looks like.

So, work-wise, as you can see, things are going really well! I’m definitely finding a lot of interesting potential projects out here but, more importantly, I’m finding people who genuinely care about the work I want to do and who are realistic about the things we can accomplish together. If this first month and a half of post is indicative of what I’m in for during the rest of my time here, I’m going to be busy but there’s a definite possibility of making a lasting difference in the community, which is encouraging and exciting. As for the being busy part, let’s be honest, you and I both know that I’m thrilled to finally have things to do here (besides just cook delicious things and fiddle around with house set-up, anyways.)

We're Not in Kansas Anymore, Toto

6-1-12

Okay, so we were never actually in Kansas and I’ve never set so much as a foot on Kansan ground, the title’s a stretch… I just wanted to sound witty and have a clever title. I also just finished reading Wicked, so the whole Wizard of Oz reference is just on the mind. Anyways, the point is that I’m out of Bafia, out of training, and definitely more on my own than I’ve ever been and with a language that isn’t my first. The end of training was long and dull, so I’m not going to bore you with any of those details (you can thank me later!) This post is exclusively about my new digs and the beginning of my life here in Batouri, which there’s definitely more than enough to talk about.

I’ve been in Batouri now since the 13^th, and been out of Bafia since the 9^th—it’s amazing how quickly this place is beginning to feel like home and how much I’ve already begun to adjust to life here. All things considered, I think Mike and I are doing an awesome job for ourselves—we’ve been braving the markets and stores together a lot of the time, and we have made of number of Cameroonian mutual friends. Jessica just returned from her wedding, so she and her husband have been introducing us to their friends and helping us out with random house repair stuff. It’s definitely nice not to be totally alone here—it’s definitely an overwhelming experience and having someone to rant to in American English is a glorious thing. I’m really excited for the next two years—all of my post-mates are fantastic people, and we’re definitely going to be able to serve as a strong support system for each other. The other two volunteers in my cluster (Geoff and Julia, their post is Kentzou, which is about 15km from the Central African Republic) are equally as wonderful—the “Extreme East” is where the party’s at!!

On the actual daily level of life here, I’ve been terrifically productive, probably more so than I’ve been since arriving in Cameroon. I don’t want to give you a dull laundry list of things I’ve accomplished, so you should probably just take that at face value. There’s definitely a lot more to explore and to do, though—Mike and I are have been doing the Peace Corps required “Protocol” (aka: introductions) with government officials and random other important people. The process has been a little slowed down between the holidays and travel to Bertoua for the New Year, which was excellent and much needed. My current project includes trying to legalize my water and gas, because apparently the people that lived in my house before me had an illegal connection. I’m terrified to see just how expensive all of this is about to be. Anyhow, Bertoua was great, and I came home with a propane tank in hand, so it’s nice to have cooking as stress relief again (plus, way cheaper than restaurant food.) I’ve discovered a love of peanut butter, banana, and honey sandwiches, as well, so basically, food and I are at a great place with one another again. Back on the point, it’s been a rough adjustment in general going from having all of my days planned to having no plans at all for the next three months, but I’m making do. Doing little things for myself like making drapes by hand and pasta sauce from scratch helps; yes, Stephanie Gasior is, in fact, your very own little Suzy Homemaker.

For the most part, I’ve been avoiding motos (except at night or when I’m returning from a shopping trip and am carrying a million things) and instead been walking everywhere. I think that’s been making a HUGE difference in making myself visible to my community—I’ve definitely been making an effort to greet every person I see on my walk, and I know that they’re starting to recognize me and, as a result, are willing to start conversations. Considering how short of a time period I’ve been here, I think that’s doing pretty well. I should mention that I make the walk from my house to Centre-Ville probably twice a day or more and it’s about a 20 minute walk and by the end of it, I’m covered in red dust. I think my feet may permanently look like I’ve gotten an exceptionally bad spray-on tan. Jersey Shore Cameroon has a future here in Batouri during dry season. Anyhow, since getting here, I’ve made a couple of Cameroonian friends (eg: my neighbor who’s a teacher at the Ecole Maternelle and another girl who’s my age and a student at the lycée) and that’s definitely helping me feel more welcomed here in town. Christmas Day was really sweet because they all called/texted to check in and send their best wishes, so clearly I’m doing something right so far J

I had a really productive meeting at the local high school this week, which I am amped about. It looks like there’s a lot that I can potentially do there in the future, and the administration is really supportive of PC involvement. I’m meeting with the students for a needs assessment this coming week.

All that said, it’s weird not having such a large, tight-knit community of Americans surrounding me anymore. It’s also weird not knowing automatically where to find meals, how much an item should cost, or where to find things. It’s all a very tiring experience, and that’s a super generalization. Tiring as it is, it’s fulfilling to know that I’m basically doing this all on my own. Looking back through this experience, I’m really proud of how well I’ve handled everything and how much I’ve been able to accomplish. I don’t know that I’d have anticipated that I’d be doing all this on my own if you would have asked me back in the States. Monthly banking is going to feel like a saving grace, I think, because all of the Easties from my Stage are in Bertoua at the same time for that.

Other difficult things about Batouri: SO MANY LANGUAGES. Why use just French in a sentence when you can throw in Kako, Fulfulde, and Cameroonian English, too? Also, it’s generally favorable to confuse the white girl by speaking a million words a minute. My French, though, has increased and improved a thousand-fold since being here—I can’t believe how much easier French has become just in moving here. I’ve picked up a phrase or two of Kako and Fulfulde, as well—not enough to actually communicate, but enough to elicit a smile or two. My Community Host is giving me some materials to study Fulfulde from, and I’ve been trying to get my landlords to teach me a little bit of Kako whenever I sit down with them. Harassment is also fun times here in Batouri, so little Miss Suzy Homemaker has been upping the sass level as necessary (turns out, in general, pretty high.)

Well, friends, that’s basically it—my life in a nutshell: simultaneously busy and chill, exciting and repetitive, tiring and energizing. Amazing how much of life is a contradiction, right?

I miss you all, love you all, and hope you’re having a safe holiday season with family and friends.

Love,
Steph

“You and I, we will live differently. With our hearts in our hands like loaded guns, we’re taking our chance, we’re the lucky ones. This moment is yours, this moment is mine, and we’re going to be fine.” Brendan James—The Lucky Ones