And sometimes, nothing works.

27-12-2012

There’s really only one word to describe how I’m feeling right now: exhausted—physically, emotionally, and socially. There’s a burn-out on the horizon, and right now it feels totally out of my control. We’ve got that old saying of “you win some, you lose some,” and if that’s true, then I’m ready to win a few battles and for things to calm down. Hear that, universe? I’m calling for a truce effective…err…three days ago. It’s not enough to have your personal life exploding, usually you’re having problems at work or with friends in town and with other volunteers, too. And, you’re far enough away from everyone and everything that it all just multiplies because you’re stuck brooding once things start going wrong. Everybody has their limit, and mine has been reached.

I haven’t done a very good job about talking honestly about the things I find difficult with life here or about different problems I’ve faced. It’s not that I don’t want to give the whole picture, it’s that I’m too overwhelmed by those moments and I’d rather not immortalize them. I’m a year into my service and I still don’t feel like I have done anything that matters some days. If I left tomorrow, would anyone feel like I’ve contributed anything or that their life is better because I was here? I don’t know. I may be a better person for having been here, but is that enough to justify it? Commence the Mid-Service Crisis. I have 12 months (or less) left to make this matter, and I don’t know that it’s enough. Most days I’m positive that it’s worth it and that I’ve made slow, steady progress both personally and for the community, but it’s those other days and weeks that can really be enough to make you question everything.

I’ll take a breather now and try to give an example.

Two of the children I’ve worked with passed away while I was in the US because of malnutrition and the sudden stop of AIDS anti-retrovirals to Batouri. Another couple of the kids I work with have chosen to return to living on the streets and to gold-mining instead of finishing out their education. The AIDS rate at my post has risen to close to 12%. I’ve also learned that less than 20% of the kids in my youth group have birth certificates, meaning that they can’t travel, can’t legally finish their education, and can’t ever hold jobs; in all of Batouri, the percentage of kids with birth certificates is still less than 50%. These aren’t exactly the kind of things that make you feel great about having hope for change in your community, so I already wasn’t feeling great about the way things are going here.

Right after returning from vacation, I was given a suitcase of random toys and art supplies for my youth group kids from a development group. Some of the things in the suitcase were useful, and some weren’t, but the bigger problem was that the group and the woman I work with were somehow under the impression that the suitcase was full of clothing and school supplies. The fault lies on both sides; the donors emphasized that the “suitcase is so large it’ll take two people to carry it” [it didn’t] and the Cameroonians made assumptions that the group was rich enough to send everything they could ever want in new, spotless condition. I broke the news, and it didn’t go over well—because I was the only non-Cameroonian around, I automatically became the scapegoat at fault.

We planned a Christmas party to give out the gifts we did have and to celebrate the success of the students this trimester. We made plans for numerous important officials to attend, made a menu of American and Cameroonian foods to prepare, and created a list of kids in the group who deserved the gifts. Problem #1: there weren’t enough gifts to give out to all 70 children. Problem #2: not all of the gifts were relevant or useful. Problem #3: we accidentally forgot to put about 15 kids on the list. Problem #4: none of the officials we invited bothered to show up after assuring us that they’d attend. My post-mates and I spent hours sorting out the gifts, buying more gifts to make up for the fact that we didn’t have enough, baking cookies, preparing tofu, budgeting, creating invitations, etc., and none of that was enough. Nothing went right.

You can prepare and prepare and prepare and give your everything, and still everything fails. Nothing makes you feel quite as great about yourself as seeing 10 kids crowded around a plate of food screaming, hitting each other, and refusing to share, except for seeing a group of children crying about how their notebooks aren’t of the right lineage or having a parent complain that the toy you gave their child is pointless and won’t help them to succeed. One of my boys is currently ranked as the student with the best grades of all the five secondary schools of Batouri, and all I could do for him was give him a pat of the back, two notebooks, two pencils, a sharpener, and a pen. There’s a certain sense of injustice inherent in all of this: if these kids were in your average American home, they’d be receiving at least twenty times what they received today. I’m embarrassed and irritated, but I also feel helpless: I physically can’t do more than I’ve done. When your best isn’t good enough, what do you do then?

I’ve had a cold that’s been kicking my butt for a week now. I broke my stove baking cookies. I burned both arms multiple times whenever a batch of cookies would finish. The ants have taken over my kitchen. Every time any liquid goes down the drain in my sink, it floods my kitchen floor creating a disgusting muddy mess. The roosters won’t stop crowing. I’m out of mint tea. I haven’t had time to do my laundry, and I’m running out of respectable looking clothes to wear since everything is covered in dust. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. I’m not feeling like I’m in a great place right now, but I’m telling myself that this is temporary. I keep trying to remind myself that you need to go through lows like this to appreciate when things actually do go right. But, at the same time, I can feel myself becoming more and more jaded and disenchanted. Something’s got to give.

With all those complaints said, I feel like I should balance them a little with a few positive things:

                --My post-mates and I are going to my Counter-Part’s New Year’s Eve party.

                --Cameroonians really liked the sugar cookies we baked, and a couple of people want to learn how to bake them so that they can start selling them in town.

--Marissa arrives to Cameroon on January 6^th!

--I had a great Christmas with all the other volunteers who came to visit us in Batouri. I may now own a Blue Power Ranger mask compliments of a white elephant exchange ;)

--I met a really interesting secondary school student who spoke surprisingly clear English and who asked a couple of very intelligent, forward-thinking questions.

--The cold mornings and evenings mean that I’ve been shamelessly indulging in coffee and tea, which has been great.

--The new Regina Spektor CD: I’m in love.

--Starting Saturday, I’ll finally have a few work-free days to decompress and catch up on life.

Here’s to the power of positivity?

Take care, all, and have a very happy (and safe) New Year!

 

Bringin' Dusty Back

14 December 2012

So, here I am: back in Cameroon and very quickly falling back into the same routine I was in before I left. My house is a little fuller of American goodies and photos, but it’s also a lot fuller of red dust, dead insects, cobwebs, and wood-dust left for me by my friends the termites. The seasons changed while I was gone, but otherwise, things are the same as I left them. The best way to put it is: it’s a relief to be back.

I know I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been trying to culture myself and read big pieces of literature I’d never read in the US. For the past month or so, I’ve been leisurely working through Steinbeck’s East of Eden, and the other day I found this gem of a dialogue between characters Adam and Samuel about Samuel’s upcoming travels to visit his children:

“You’ve earned it. You’ve worked hard enough on that dust heap of yours.”

“I love that dust heap,” Samuel said. “I love it the way a bitch loves her runty pup. I love every flint, the plow-breaking outcroppings, the thin and barren topsoil, the waterless heart of her. Somewhere in my dust heap there’s a richness.” (Chapter 24, section 1, p. 297)

It’s a begrudging love and one that you have to laugh at yourself for, but this dry season, Batouri is my version of Samuel’s dust heap. I can’t easily explain what it is that I love about Batouri—it’s loud, messy, unpredictable, and far from glamorous, but it’s mine and definitely full of possibility. A lot of the things that I love about it here are the things that make it difficult and frustrating to live in. I’ll be the first to criticize Batouri nine times out of ten, but it remains that I’m possessive, defensive, and loyal to my town to the core. I feel the same way about America. It’s a blessing to be in love with two places that are so different and that offer so many different things.

It was great to be back in America and to spend time with family, friends, bad television, an oven, and a non-foam mattress, but if you’re reading this, I probably saw you, talked to you, or you’ve chatted with my family, so I’d rather save some space in this entry to talk about things that aren’t my vacation. You’d think coming back would be difficult; no one in their right mind would be glad to be without electricity again, right? I feel cleansed and refreshed, though. I’m feeling like I can finish out this last year strong. One last year: that’s all I have left to do and learn everything that I’m missing. I’ve spent more time in Cameroon than I have left on my contract. Mind-blowing. Cue a few long minutes of self-reflection.

Since coming back, things have been calm. School’s are out for break, and everything in town is pretty slow (minus a steady growth of toy vendors that keep popping up everywhere.) I’ve had a few meetings since coming back, but otherwise have mostly spent time trying to catch up on cleaning, catching up with friends, and trying to avoid getting hit by the motos. Oops. My friend tells me December is the month when secret societies who do evil and various spirits/sorcerors try to meet their quota of evil deeds by causing motorcycle and car accidents; I’m attributing the increased number of accidents to people drinking too much because of the holidays and not being able to see well because of the dust. Cultural lesson of the day: superstition holds a special place in the heart of Cameroonians. Whatever the reason for all these accidents, I’m doing a lot more walking than usual. I like the idea of keeping my head attached to the rest of my body. I also like the idea of someday being able to navigate through the nooks and crannies of my neighborhood without having to ask someone what road I need to take home; one year down, and I still get lost trying to get home. Ridiculous. But, back to the realm of work.

I attempted to teach my youth group “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” which was mostly hysterical and adorable, but one of my older kids who’s in the English section of the Bilingual High School mastered it. Little successes, right? The kids are going to sing it at our Christmas party December 27^th. We’re going to prepare Cameroonian and American food (American food being tofu and french fries…I’m sure the majority of you are cringing at that,) exchanging gifts of toys and school supplies that I’ve gotten as donations, and singing the song for the parents and government delegates who will hopefully show up. I’m also catching up to speed on the millions of changes that are happening at my host institution (the formation of a support group for people in town with Hypertension and Diabetes, the creation of a “governing council” with three separate arms to ensure that the group doesn’t get swallowed up into the Catholic Mission, the selection of new families to receive donations, change of days for donations, etc.)

On the horizon, I’ve got a big Christmas celebration to look forward to, a New Year’s Eve celebration with coworkers in village, the visit of my bestie from the US, Mid-Service with the other Youth Development Volunteers at the end of January, and serving as a trainer for the new Youth Development Volunteers at their In-Service Training at the end of February. It’s going to be a lot of back-and-forth from Yaounde and beyond, so here’s to hoping that things with transportation start calming down (which they should, since December’s already almost over!) It’s about to be a busy few months, so I’m relishing this last week of quiet and being alone at home!

For those of you who asked while I was home about easy, always appreciated things to send to me when I’m here: Crystal Light, packets of cereal and oatmeal, instant soup packets, instant coffee (bonus points for Starbucks Via!), tea, Ziploc bags, seasoning/sauce packets, photos, dried fruit, magazines, incense. I hope that helps, if not, I’m always happy to talk about what random American items I’m missing badly. Finally, for anyone who may want to know, I bought a second SIM Card for my phone—you can now reach me at either (237)74 05 79 85 or (237)98 82 41 29.

Take care, everyone!

 

America!

Birthday cake. Pink lady apples. Broccolli Cheddar Soup. Grapes. Spinach Salad. Stuffed Shells. Portobello Burgers. McFlurries. Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches. Diet Mountain Dew.

America, you are so good at making food. You're kind of incredible. Really. I've missed you. It's funny some of the things you miss that you never cared for when you were in still State-side. Who ever wants to eat meatloaf besides a Peace Corps Volunteer idealizing everything they can't have? If America had to have a taste, I'm pretty sure it'd be ketchup. And your amazing, meat-less meals: those are heaven. To that, all I have to say is: BRING IT ON.

I've been in Yaounde a couple of days now enjoying hot showers, salads, pizza, and English. The city has put up a good fight, but it can't compare: I am so ready to fly out of here and into America tomorrow night. I'll be there from November 12-December 1st, and talking to other PCVs, the general reaction is "Wow. You've lasted this long without leaving the country? Wow." It's time.

There are a lot of predictable things to miss about the US: food, a well-formed justice system, transparent government with only very limited incidents of corruption, women's rights, family, English. There are a lot of other, more strange things that I miss, though--the things that touch your life on the most basic level, things I never really reflected on before leaving to come here.

• Trash Disposal: Garbage menhouse on predictable intervals to get rid of your refuse? HEAVEN! We burn all our garbage here, but since I don't have an area of ground that wouldn't catch on fire, I have to throw things in other peoples' trash piles. Nothing makes you feel so rich as having to reflect on the last pile you threw your Vache Qui Rit wrappers in in hopes that the community won't notice.
• Punctuality: African time runs notoriously a minimum of a half hour behind, almost always more. I've waited up to five hours to have meetings.
• Reliable phone reception: Nothing is more fun than having an important conversation that ends up getting dropped or every second word missing. Truly.
• Restaurants that actually have every item on their menu
• Shop-keepers that don't sleep on the job and get irritated about you waking them off
• Coffee Shops
• Fixed prices
• Not having to worry about termites eating your furniture
• Being able to wear shorts when it's hot outside
• Anonymity

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot I love about this country. There's a lot I get frustrated with about America. It's easy to have an idealized version of what life was like in America and to slam Cameroon for all its negatives. But right now, that doesn't matter: I'm heading home.

My youth group kids singing a song to me that they wrote. They're kind of the best.

Challenges

22 October 2012

When you join Peace Corps, you expect the most difficult thing to be physical discomfort. And, quite frankly, a lot of the times it is. Being far from family and friends from home is never going to be easy, but at least we’ve got a strong community of support amongst the other volunteers since we’re all the same distance away, have the same worries about our families, and have all missed important life events of people we care about. Volunteers get placed in places where there’s no water, electricity, or cell phone service. Others of us get placed in places where all of those things go out frequently and unpredictably. Travel runs late or never takes off, and you’re never quite sure how many times you’re going to break down once you get going. You’re a slave to the weather, and most likely you stand out. Badly. Corruption abounds. The language isn’t your own, and sometimes you make ridiculous mistakes. These are the things that you get good at laughing off fast, because otherwise you’d go insane. If you get a big group of Peace Corps Volunteers together in a room, it’s likely we’re going to be in a competition of who’s got it worse and throwing around the term “Posh Corps” to prove just how much harder we’ve got it. If one-upping was an Olympic sport, you can bet that the US team would be Peace Corps Volunteers. It's one of our more lovable qualities.

What you don’t expect, though, is getting used to the discomfort. I can’t buck the system and magically bring reliable phone service to a whole country, so it’s better to find the positive in it and be thankful that you’ll get a few hours of quiet. Water’s out again? Cool, kids, guess we’re rocking a scarf to cover up the greasy hair. Bus still hasn’t arrived? Great, time to eat breakfast! Go with the flow is the name of the game in Peace Corps Land.

There are some things, though, that you can’t and shouldn’t get used to. There’s a whole host of these things, but everybody’s got their big hot button issue ranging anywhere from animal abuse to malnutrition to the culture’s failure to accept homosexuality. For me, it’s the lack of respect for women. It took moving here to understand just how important the Women’s Rights movement was in the US, but I can tell you right now that I’ll never under-value that again. I have a new appreciation for feminism after living in a place where chauvinism and male-dominance affects every aspect of daily life.

Communities often prefer to get male volunteers over female volunteers. Women can’t easily be friends with men and should expect to lose most over marriage proposals. Females can’t sit in certain seats in buses or cars, and are almost always expected to have some kind of a chaperone. Likewise, women can’t go to places like the mosque, and need to be cautious about being seen in other locations like the bar. Male volunteers can go travelling with their best friends from town, but as a female, this will always be off-limits no matter how close of friends you are. Certain foods like pistache (or bananas in some regions) or cuts of meat are automatically off-limits unless you’re male. Stereotypes about women will affect work and personal relationships. It’s a lot to remember and balance when you’re used to being told that you’re worth at least as much as a man and that if you work hard enough, you can have everything in reason that you want. These things are chump change compared to the realities Cameroonian girls are dealing with, and that’s what makes it the hardest—it’s easier to deal with hardships when you know it’s just you and that those hardships were your choice.

Cameroonian girls are often denied the right to an education, married off at the age of 12 to 40 year old men, can’t demand the right to fidelity or monogamy or condoms, and are underfed in favor of their male siblings. Women are subjected to rape and violence and taught that it’s a normal form of punishment for not serving dinner on time or speaking out of turn. In many Cameroonian ethnic groups, if a women’s husband passes away, then she’s forced to go through humiliating widowhood rituals and sometimes forced to marry the sibling or father of her husband. In some ethnic groups women’s families have to pay a dowry to marry off their daughters making her permanent property of a man, and in the majority of the rest, a man has to pay the dowry to the woman’s family. Women are considered baby-making machines, and it’s not abnormal for a woman to have five babies in five years or less. Men complain and yell at their wives for their failure to give them male children. A woman has no legal right to land or property. In short: both socially and legally, women are viewed as being less than men.

As a woman, it’s offensive, and I hate it. Ever since returning from a week-long trip to small villages in the bush to help distribute materials to the Family Agricultural Schools in my department, I’ve found myself a lot more aware of the super-human strength and willpower women in this country must have to keep on living under these conditions. In one of the communities I visited, women weren’t allowed to speak in front of their chief as a sign of respect for his power, and in another women weren’t allowed to leave their homes after nightfall. I can’t imagine that living under all those prohibitions, especially ones inapplicable to men, gives you a strong sense of self-worth.

I love Cameroon and I love my community, so I’m not willing to give up on it and let it be what it’s always been. These situations and the knowledge of what women here are dealing with give me a sense of purpose, direction, passion, and fight; rather than giving up, I’m starting to work in all 7 of these schools in the department to teach Men’s Engagement, Women’s Empowerment, and Gender Equity for the remainder of my service. In less technical terms, that’s everything from HIV/AIDS education, conflict resolution, teaching about the difference between sex and gender, working with parents to help them speak with their children about puberty, and teaching that violence and rape isn’t what makes a male a man. I’m still working out the details but I’m bound and determined: it’s happening. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, after all. My host organization is arranging for all of my transportation, and each community will be responsible for my lodging, food, and security. Right now, I’m working at doing basic assessments of every community to determine the specific problems I need to target in each and to determine if there’s any correlation between gender dynamics and the success rates of the schools. I start my assessments in Pkanadji and Garoua-Sanbe on Friday.

I’m lucky to have a partner in my new post-mate, but I’m still fairly certain that we’re in over our heads. I might also be utterly screwed language-wise since only a small handful of people in each village (in one village: one person total) speak French and my Kako is limited right now to saying good day, donkey, thanks, duck, mat, and good-bye. That said, I know that I’ve got communities that have been welcoming me with open arms, honesty, and a willingness to work with me to help make changes and improve the social situation of the people in their village, which is a lot easier than fighting people to get them to pay attention. I’ve got next to no idea what I’m doing, but I’ve got a big sense of fight, a motivated national organization to partner with, and a bunch of little villages that believe the future to prosperity is through emancipating their women, and for right now, that’s enough to go off of. Hopefully.

Reality, or something like it.

2 October 2012

Now that I’ve passed my year mark, it’s time to admit it: blogging is getting harder and harder. Every time I sit down to write, there’s about five deleted drafts before I finally find something that I feel like is worth writing about. I’ve been here long enough that I’m struggling to figure out what’s interesting to other people that haven’t been to Cameroon, much less to explain it all in intelligible English. But it’s not just that, it’s so much easier to sit and watch movies on my laptop than to try and analyze my experiences in the context of America.

How do you capture a place that’s so different and difficult to define and make that make sense? …I’m not so sure that you do…. But, if we’re going to be honest, I can’t really understand what volunteers in other regions talk about with some of their experiences, either. The Northwest volunteers combat the evil JuuJuu spirits, the Far Northerners bond over their mutual hatred of hot season, and the volunteers in the West Adamauaua can discuss their extreme isolation from the rest of the country. I can’t understand what that’s like; that’s part of the difficulty of living in a country that possesses all of Africa’s major terrains, all of Africa’s different varieties of climates, and where the people speak about 260 languages and often can’t communicate with one another. This is a country with two official languages, so if we can’t all have one common language, how can we expect the culture to be the same? And if the culture isn’t the same, how can we expect to be able to make anyone else actually understand? And how can you make someone who’s never seen it appreciate it?

There are a lot of things that clearly distinguish Peace Corps as being a difficult experience: not speaking the language fluently, living in a culture you don’t always understand, trying to find worthwhile work that the community is passionate about making happen, dealing with loneliness and being far from home. I’ve gotten better at dealing with those. Harassment isn’t a big deal anymore, I laugh off the “white skin” comments and usually respond to marriage proposals by telling people that I live in a place that’s colder than the freezer they buy fish out of. The fat comments sting, but the cultural context and the positive connotations associated with weight make it such that I know the comments rarely have anything to do with body figure but rather their hope of your happiness and feelings of welcome in their country. Loneliness isn’t a problem because I’ve created such a strong network of friends in town and with other volunteers in the region. Corruption doesn’t enrage me to the level it used to because I’ve been confronted with it so many times during my service. Quite frankly, I’ve come to love living here. It’s not easy, but it’s definitely always been worth it. What’s the hardest is trying to assimilate the reality of my life here in Cameroon with the reality of my life in America and remember that somehow they’re both real. It’s not survival that’s hard, it’s talking about the hows and whys and trying to find a way for my current reality to fit into somebody else’s reality. It’s like fitting a large square peg into a circular hole; you can only get so much of that peg in at one time before having to pull it out and try from a different angle. That’s me with blogging nowadays.

It took me a long time to make things make sense, and the more I talk with buddies in other PC countries, the more I realize that we all struggle with it and none of us really knows how to address that to anyone who hasn’t had to deal with that in a long-term situation like Peace Corps. That alone makes it difficult to explain what I do and what Peace Corps is to anyone who’s emailed me to tell me they’re thinking about applying. Add on the fact that you don’t know anything about where they could potentially go or the project they’d be assigned to, and it starts to near on impossible. It’s frustrating when you’re applying that nobody can give you these answers, and it’s even more frustrating during training that the answer you receive most often is “it depends.” Turns out, it does depend. It also turns out that it’s frustrating not to be able to give those answers. You want to be able to make things accessible and easily understandable, but that’s not reality. Ever. And not just about Cameroon or Ukraine or the Dominican Republic or Senegal or Zambia, it’s hard to explain the reality of the US to people who’ve never experienced it, too. See: http://whatshouldpcvscallme.tumblr.com/

That’s what makes blogging so hard, and this job so difficult. But, that’s also 66% of the job: goals two and three of Peace Corps are both cultural exchange and an attempt to make “the other half” make sense. I get paid to make friends, tell you about how I wash clothes by hand, make Mexican dinners from Cameroonian friends, and post photos for you on facebook. Coolest job ever? I think so. I can’t really describe what it is that I love so much about my job or my community, so I might as well make fun of how ridiculous my life tends to be here. And, for that, what’s a better, more embarrassing American reference than Disney?

Based on my real life at my real post and real conversations I’ve had or heard about me, I present to you, “La Blanche” re-written to the tune of “Belle” from “Beauty and the Beast.” Do yourself a favor and look it up on YouTube to appreciate the glory of how well the lyrics fit, will ya?

La Blanche

“Little town, it’s a sleepy city. Every day, different from the one before. Little town, full of really loud people, waking up to say: bonjour, la blanche, bonjour bonjour bonjour!

There goes a moto with some harassment like always, the same old comments as before. No morning’s been the same, since the moment that I came to this poor undeveloped town… Good Morning, Souer!

Good morning, mon frere!
Where are you off to?
The market. I’ve just finished the most wonderful fruit and I…
That’s nice. Sister, my US Visa, hurry up!

Look there she goes again that Blanche, she’s walking, all the way from Trypano*! Always on her way into town, on her feet, she walks into town. No denying she’s a strange one, that Nassara.

Bonjour!
Good Day!
How is your family?
Bonjour!
Good Day!
How is your health?
You need this fabric!
That’s too expensive!

There’s nothing better than this village-oise life!

Ah, my Blanche!
Good Morning! I’ve come to buy more bananas.
Finished Already?
Oh, I couldn’t put them down! You have any for 100 francs?
*Laughter* Not since yesterday.
Oh, that’s fine. I’ll go over… there!
THERE? But why not buy these oranges?
But sir, bananas, they’re my favorite! And the price, I know it! I’m a Cameroonian in disguise!
Well, if you like them that much, they’re yours.
But Sir?
I insist!
Why sir, thank you! Thank you very much!

Look there she goes again, she’s doing the market!
I wonder if she’ll marry me?
With her shining, sweaty face, and her feet covered in mud,
What a puzzle to the rest of us, that Blanche!

Oh! Isn’t this amazing? This is my favorite town because, you’ll see! Here’s where I met that student, and we had that one really great conversation about HIV!

Now it’s a wonder that she’s always busy; it’s 10am, she should be at the bar! Well, behind that white, shiny face, I’m afraid she’s always in a race. Very different from the rest of us, she’s rich unlike the rest of us, she’s different from the rest of us, our Blanche!

Wow, you didn’t miss a shot, Gaston! You’re the greatest footballer in the whole world!
I know!
No football alive stands a chance against you! Hahahaha! And no woman, for that matter!
It’s true, Amadou, and I’ve got my life planned around that one.
Who? The white woman from Trypano?
She’s the one! She’s the lucky one I’m going to marry!
But she’s…
The most beautiful woman in all of Batouri!
I know, but…
That makes her the best. And don’t I deserve the best?
Well of course, I mean you do, but….

Right from the moment that I saw her walking, I said she’s gorgeous, and I vowed: here in town there’s only she, who speaks English good enough for me, so I’ve made my plan to woo and marry the Blanche.**

Look there, he goes, oh he’s so sketchy! Monsier Gaston, he smells so bad! Run fast, dear women, I’m hardly breathing, he’s such a tall, dark, sketch, and smelly moto-man!

[Insert Mixed Chorus of “Show Me the Meaning (Of Being Lonely)”, unidentified angry gangster rap, “I Done Seen My Wifey”, and weird Fulfulde music mixed with screaming people and beeping moto horns]

There’s nothing better than this village-oise life!
Just watch I’m going to make that Blanche my wife!
Look there she goes again, that Blanche she’s yelling. A most peculiar mademoiselle. With pagne down to her shin, look how much she’s fitting in! She really is a sassy girl, a sweaty but a sassy girl. She can’t really be an American giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirl, our Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanche!”

Yep. I think I lost a few cool points in the making of this blog entry, but hey, gives you a pretty decent idea of what Centre-Ville is like, right? It’s loud, crazy, and sometimes pretty frustrating, but it’s mine, it’s home, and I love it.

*Trypano: My surrounding neighborhood, a 20 minute walk from Centre, of which Cameroonians are petpetually amazed that someone would voluntarily choose to do. Number of times I've walked into a public place and been recognized as "the white girl whose always walking": Countless.
**True story.

One Year of Cameroon?

19-9-2012

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 :)

 

 

A Completed Project!

5-9-2012

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!