COS; Or, Are There This Many Americans In America? September 13, 2009

I suppose COS (our Close of Service conference) is sort of like prom for Peace Corps Volunteers. You’re not allowed to go until ‘graduation’ is imminent, it’s held at a fancy hotel, and most of the people who attend are hoping to get laid. The fact that we actually held an 80’s Themed Prom on the first night of the conference only corroborates my point. Although to be fair, unlike our COS conference, my actual prom didn’t include seminars on “Life After Peace Corps” and “Resume Writing”. Maybe I would have gotten more out of it if it had. Anyway, the point of my convoluted and completely inarticulate analogy is this: COS, after all the hype and anticipation, was over-rated. Likely explanations for this include:

• My general crankiness
• The inescapable presence of 35 Americans who are used to spitting fish bones on the ground trapped in one fancy hotel
• My UTI (TMI?)
• The distinct lack of cheese at the nightly buffets

I suppose what it really all comes down to is my tendency to be easily overwhelmed. This experience is almost over. The fact that I am mostly ready for it to be over doesn’t make that fact any less surprising, or any easier to handle. In a little over three months I’ll leave Cameroon. I will spend a month grazing my way across three European countries. And then I will go back to the America that I have missed/defended/criticized/failed completely to explain multiple times in any sort of realistic terms throughout the last 2 years. And I will have to get a job. But let’s not talk about that. COS wasn’t a total bust. The following made it mostly worthwhile:

• Pool!
• Buffets!
• Real mattress!
• Co-ed 80’s prom dress swim relay (Not officially sanctioned by the hotel folks, but perhaps one of the funniest things I have ever witnessed. The booze had nothing to do with the level of hilarity, I can assure you.)
• 80’s Prom Night (You would not believe the fashion gems you can find in the markets here. Of course the prom took place before the co-ed swim relay.)
• Final Cameroonian performance of ‘Bobby Glitter’, formerly ‘Bobby Trivia’, formerly ‘The Cane Rats’—stay tuned for news of the stateside reunion tour, 2013
• Perhaps the most exciting of all—finally getting my exit date. I have loved and hated and grown from and cherished this experience more than I can ever describe. But holy fucking hell. On December 18^th, 2009 it will be officially over! Ciao Cameroon. I’ll be that girl in Rome with the very wide eyes and the goat cheese on her face. That is, if you can see around the wine bottle.

But before that…

I want to finish a few things up around Fundong, and try to accomplish one last project. Recently the ABADU Children’s Library was able to move to a new building. I’ve been doing some work there over the last few months and it’s a lovely place. Kids are actually coming! But I want more of them to come. So I’m hoping to do the ‘World Map Project’. Have you heard of this? People all over the world organize community members to paint huge world maps, generally on the walls of schools. I want to do it here, both as a way of increasing public awareness of the library, and as a useful resource for students—and anyone else who wants to think about the world and their place in it. The project is relatively inexpensive—we can do it for about $250. That will buy the paint and brushes and the few other random supplies necessary. All the work will be done by local elementary and high school students, me, and one or two other Peace Corps Volunteers. We want to paint the week of Oct 26^th—30^th. Can you help?

If you’re willing, you can mail a check to fellow volunteer Jess’s mom in North Carolina by Oct 10^th. She’ll get the money to us. I’ll send out her address to the folks that I know read this blog. Anyone else who is willing to give a few bucks for the love of geography, please email me for the address! The folks at the library are really excited about this idea. And so am I. Thanks, y’all.

See you in four months!

A Wum With A View June 13, 2009

I was expecting the weekend to be terrible. All the ingredients of a minor disaster where in there—a 72 hour long double date involving travel, a lake that ‘officially’ killed 1700 people in 1986, crashing a dinner party at the mayors house, a seemingly never ending quest for ‘bush mangos’, and the violent death of one unsuspecting snake. Maybe being in Cameroon for nearly two years has altered my definition of ‘a good time’. Or maybe the Irish have it right, and copious drinking really does make everything better. Whatever the reasons, Wum was great.

Andy and I were lucky enough to be invited on a weekend holiday with my counterpart, the ever-energetic Simon, and his slightly calmer wife Rose, by a man named Denis. He and I have been working on a water project, but didn’t really know each other that well, so it was pretty kind of him to invite us to his house.

Now, I’ve done a fair amount of traveling in this country, but always on a Peace Corps volunteer’s budget—which means public transportation, accommodations ranging from what could politely be called jungle chic to…what you can’t really politely call anything, and whatever food is to be found being grilled on the street. All of which is fine, and usually even fun, once you get beyond the sheer physical pain involved. But this weekend was different from the start. We were to be driven to Wum in a private car that did not appear to be held together by wire and sheer will, put up in some rich man’s temporarily empty mansion house, and fed to within an inch of our lives every 4 hours like clockwork. And if we weren’t eating, we were drinking. All for free. Peace Corps. It really is the toughest job you’ll ever love.

The whole reason we wanted to go to Wum in the first place was to see Lake Nyos. In 1986 there was a fluke natural disaster, where toxic gases were released from underneath the lake that killed pretty much everything living in the valley below. Sort of a macabre place to visit, but your tourism options are limited here. Twenty years later, however, the lake is peaceful and beautiful, and equipped with a handy phone to be used in case of emergencies to warn the nearby populations. Said phone is conveniently located just a short canoe ride away in the middle of the lake.

The phone is located right by that little spurt of water in the middle.

On the way back we randomly pulled over to the side of the road. Andy and I assumed we were going on a short jaunt to look at viewpoint of another lake. We assumed this because this is what we were told. ‘It’s about 1 km that way’, they said. Alright, fair enough. Looks like rain to me, but then lately it always looks like rain. And a kilometer, that’s nothing! Sometimes my naiveté borders on willful stupidity. So off we set to explore the bush/peoples farms/this stinking hole that turned out to be our actual goal:

Stinky Hole. WOW.

We hiked for an hour in the rain, destroying people’s corn crops and stopping repeatedly to wait for our driver Justin to climb just one more tree and pick just a few more mangoes, all to look at this smelly puddle for about 4 minutes. The best part is that the Cameroonians all LOVED IT. Andy and I felt slightly differently. And all of this was before we got lost on the way back to the car.

1 Kilometer

I'm having exactly as much fun as it looks.

Harvesting Mangoes

Stinky Hole. Again. WOW.

The aftermath of 1 kilometer + our glorious ride

After the lake we headed back to Wum, ate a huge lunch, saw a rich man’s lovely German-built home, drank his beer, drank more beer at a bar, crashed a dinner party at the mayors house where we drank more beer and ate another huge meal, headed back to Denis’s house, drank wine, ate dinner AGAIN, and finally headed back to the compound we were staying. At this point Andy saw a snake on the ground in front of us. ‘Look’ he said, ‘a snake’. I took this as a pretty normal reaction. ‘Wow’ I said, ‘cool’. Simon said ‘Aieeeie!!’ Then he picked up a rock, threw it at the snake, and shouted ‘I shot that snake! I have proven my manhood!’ Then we all went to bed.

Dead Snake

The next morning we all ate more food, went to church, went and looked at a waterfall, ate more food, and then headed back to Fundong. The road on the way back seemed much worse than it did on the way there—most likely because I was sober. This has taught me a valuable lesson, which I will be sure to apply at every available opportunity.

Simon, Rose, Waterfall, Kim

Thus ended our trip to Wum. To think it could have all gone so terribly wrong.

Simon, Rose, Denis, Rose, Andy, Small Child

Oh! And Jess and I killed this chicken:

Sir Chicken

Ashyia, Sir

I think we left him in the hot water a little too long...

...cause his wee little head came off.

Singeing the feathers

Jessica--avert your eyes

And believe it or not, it tasted amazing. Thank you, Sir.

Who’s The Worst Little Blogger Ever? February 25, 2009

Me!

Y’all, it’s been forever. I apologize to all 7 of my loyal readers. Life has been a bit frenzied for the last couple months, but the truth is I’ve just been procrastinating. I don’t think a Peace Corps volunteer exists who doesn’t actually ‘have time’ to write a blog post. And if there is, I don’t want to meet them. I have enough to feel in adequate about already. But, before we get into the (oh so attractive and enticing) world of my insecurities, lets talk about vacations!
T-Bone was here! For a glorious three weeks in December we saw the sights, drank the booze, and went to bed really early. On her last night here we drew up a very comprehensive list of highlights, but she took it with her and all I can remember are pirates and yoga in our underwear—and while both are entertaining, there was so much more! We had a wonderful time. Sometimes when you look forward to something for too long, the reality of the situation can’t quite live up to the anticipation you built up. I looked forward to this visit for over a year. And somehow it was better than I thought it would be. Thanks for coming lady. It means so much to me. And we had a hell of a good time.

Moving right along…I moved! Work wasn’t happening in Ngoulemakong. I was getting depressed. I was napping. A LOT. And after talking to my boss it was decided that I should try someplace else. Enter Simon Mbeng—Cameroonian counterpart extraordinaire. He is the director of the NGO I now work for—the Better Family Foundation. I’ve been here a few weeks now, and I’ve had somewhere to go nearly everyday. I’ve been to the office for the Delegate for Women’s Empowerment, read through all the files in the BFF office, sat in on a marriage counseling session conducted entirely in Pidgin, and shaken hands with approximately 8476 people. I’ll be working with women’s groups (there are groups here! Of people! Who work together!) and schools and with an orphanage. There is also a library where I’m hoping to start a story hour for kids. In short, things are going on here, and I get to join in. So as hard as it was to leave Ngoulemakong, I know I’ve made the right choice.

*     *     *

So now it’s been closer to two months. Projects are starting to take shape, and I’ve started taking lessons in Kom (the local language) and Pidgin. Kom is INCREDIBLY hard for me, as it includes so many sounds and tones I’m not used to hearing, let alone forming myself. A typical lesson involves about 2 hours of Leo (my ever so patient teacher) saying a word, and then me trying to approximate it, but really just sort of gurgling something like ‘ghueauuew?’  It always ends in a question mark because I know halfway through my pronunciation that my sounds have completely lost any resemblance to the word Leo had spoken 7 seconds before. He just shakes his head and repeats the word, and the process starts over again. Pidgin is going slightly better, and is, I have to say, much more fun for me. I go talk that Pidgin FINE, small time.

I’ve also been getting to know my neighbor kids. I found a DVD in Bamenda with lots of Disney movies on it, so one of their favorite things to do is come watch a cartoon in the afternoon. What they really wanted was a DVD full of Jackie Chan movies, but I just couldn’t bring myself to buy it. Maybe next time. They also enjoy drawing and coloring, and the walls in my spare room are now covered with art.

This month I’ll be working at the orphanage in town. The kids and I are going to plant a garden together, and then while it’s growing we can talk about good nutrition–why its important and how to achieve it. I wanted to find a way to let the kids take a bit of responsibility for their own health, any anyway playing in the dirt seems like more fun to me than going to a lecture every week. That said, I’m going to do my best to make my ‘health talks’ more entertaining than not (involving lots of games and moving around), and these kids do so much work throughout the course of their day that they may just end up hating me for adding to their lists of chores. Hopefully the whole plan doesn’t backfire and end up with me being run out of town by a bunch of angry adolescents wielding half grown carrots and ears of corn. Live and learn right? And anyway, I’ve been jogging of late, and doing yoga (thanks T-Bone!) so I’m pretty sure I could outrun them if I had too.

*1st They Slaughtered A Goat, And Then The White People Danced November 25, 2008

* This one goes out to my number 1 fan…Miss Jessica “Haricot Vert” Tharrington.

(Also, what follows will be schizophrenic. I apologize. But its this or nothing.)

Many, many things have happened in the last couple of weeks. I dressed up like a California Raisin.

I spent a week looking at things like this:

I had my fortune told by a man and his crab:

I watched Obama win:

I saw my new house, and it has a hot water heater. Hot water! Water that has been heated! Whenever I want it! People, I was just hoping for a toilet.

I went for a site visit to my new post. (It’s official! I’m moving from The Kong to The Dong in January!) I met my new co-workers, saw my new house, ate jama jama 87.4 times, and generally reveled in the fact that I was speaking English. (Jama jama is this leafy green veggie business you eat with fufu corn…I’m not sure that makes in any clearer…I’ll make T-Bone photograph it and tell you about it. It’s delicious.) I’ll be working with an NGO (rather than a government run health center) who’s mission is to improve the lives of families in the area. They do everything from marriage counseling to HIV trainings au village, but really the point is that they DO WORK. They are all incredibly motivated and made me feel very very welcome.

After site visit I said good-bye to Fundong until January and headed down to PCV Seth’s village (Mr. Sech to his villagers) for his Cultural Festival. I wish I could convey to you how hard this kid worked, and what an amazing event he pulled off. Actually, I can’t really. So here’s a bunch of photos…

Me with the Fon (a very high-up traditional leader in the NW province):

I drank palm wine at a death celebration with Andy and Megan:

I danced with my homies, right after a goat was slaughtered:

The whole idea of the festival was to exchange our cultures. The Americans generally made asses of themselves, while the Cameroonians looked on in…awe?

I have to run out and teach a group of American Boy Scouts about nutrition at my country directors house. I’m not sure why, exactly, but we’ve been promised rewards, so I’m all in.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Protected: I’m Movin’ On Up! November 4, 2008

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28—A Number That Seems Dangerously Close to 30 (And Yet, Refreshingly, Isn’t. Sorry, Grandmaster Flash) August 20, 2008

My first Cameroonian birthday has come and gone. I celebrated by giving a startlingly detailed presentation on the wonders of breastfeeding. Hello 28! Colostrum is very good for babies! Then I probably went home and napped. I say probably because I don’t actually remember, but a brief statistical analysis of the last 15 days leads me to assume—with some degree of certainty—that that is what happened. Not a bad day, all in all.

And now, September is approaching—FINALLY. Since May I feel like I’ve just been puttering around here (except ‘puttering’ sounds sort of fun, like there was a small, themed golf course involved, and let me assure you, that has not been the case), what with my plans for a Girls Group crashing to the ground in a staggering display of me not doing anything right, and then everyone I know leaving town for the summer. So I’ve been doing lots of planning, and since most of the work I tend to be interested in involves kids, most of my planning has revolved around September, and children actually being here.

* * *

Oh!! Sorry, I interrupt myself to bring you this completely ridiculous bulletin, which is neither all that timely, or—in all likelihood—that interesting to you, but get this!!! They destroyed my town! That’s right—destroyed! I woke up one Saturday morning a couple weeks ago to the sound of hammering, which is not all that strange, but then when I headed out on to the road to go the market, I realized they were using those hammers to destroy every single building on the main road in town! Which, quite frankly, is strange. I asked what was going on, and here is the answer…wait, are you ready for this mind-boggling feat of mental prowess? I don’t think you are…I was told that the people who paid for the road decided that there have been too many accidents lately (Ngoulemakong is situated right on the main highway between two big cities) so the only thing to do is to tear down every building and then re-construct them all about 1km down the road, near where the weekend market is held. So now all the buildings are off the road a little bit—and of course everyone has to walk an extra kilometer in order to buy ANYTHING. The best part is that now that there is no pesky town in the way, cars are flying by even faster. And the best part of that is that of course there are still tons of people walking along this road with the cars driving mush faster, because they all have to use it to go to their now annoyingly far away market. Now here is my question: why not just put in some speed bumps?

Meh. I suppose it’s a sign of how Cameroonian I’ve become that after about 2.7 minutes of being really upset at the injustice/stupidity/ridiculousness of it all, I heaved a sigh, mumbled “On va faire comment?” and kept walking. But crazy, no? My town is gone! Or, more accurately, my town is now annoyingly far away from my house.

* * *

Ok, back to September. I plan on teaching basic health lessons at the Ecole Maternel (which is basically a pre-school—3 yr olds! In smocks! Oh the nauseating cuteness of it all!), as well as possibly doing some sort of environmental education classes at the Elementary School. And, heaven help me, I’m going to try again with the Girls Group, and at the same time attempt to create a Peer Educators Group. (Ha! Even now, before I start all of this I’m laughing at my own bravado! Ha! Ha.) Legs and I are still working on various soy projects—and a couple new ones should be starting up with the next rainy season. We harvested our last crop! And then had a meeting where we made a meal using the very soy we grew to prepare a traditional Cameroonian meal! And it was good! So many exclamation points, but really—when success happens here, I am very excited about it.

I’m also finally starting on the project that I went to that workshop in Yaoundé for last month—it’s called FARN/G, which is some terribly complicated acronym in French (or really, it’s not so complicated, but I am terribly lazy, and really, does anyone out there care what the letters stand for? If so, let me know and I’ll look them up—I know the ‘F’ is for the word ‘Foyer’) but the basic idea is that once a month we take our pre-natal consultations to the village. Remember that project I described last time I wrote involving the training of mid-wives? Well, I’m sure that is a spectacular project as well. However—I will not be attempting it. Instead…FARN/G! We (we meaning me, and a couple of nurses from the hospital, as well as some community members from the village) will form a group of pregnant and nursing mothers, including one mother who has used ‘good’ health practices in the past (i.e. went to pre-natal consultations, spaced her births, breastfed, vaccinated her children, etc) to be a positive example. The ‘community health agent’ (fancy bureaucratic word for someone who actually lives in the village that we will train briefly in Maternal and Child Health) will give some sort of health message, and then we will all cook and eat a nutritionally balanced meal using food available in village. (When I say in village, in this case I actually mean village—about 6km off the road from Ngoulemakong in any direction pretty much leads you into the bush, and we’ve chosen to start the project in 2 villages each about 10km away.) The idea is that each woman pays only about 300 CFA (about 75 cents) for ingredients and to cover our transportation out there, rather than over 1000 CFA to pay for her own transport to and from the hospital. We can also involve the rest of the community, and the women get about 2 hours just to sit down, which here is quite a treat.

Whew, that was a very long story, but I’m really excited about the concept of doing work—especially work that might actually be sustainable. Everyone says that 1^st time volunteers (meaning people who don’t replace anyone, but open up their posts, like me) often don’t feel like their really doing anything until about a year in. Which, when you say that to a former administrative assistant from America, sounds freaking ludicrous. A year! What the hell are those people doing for a year before they get to work! Now that I have gone through that year, I can honestly say I have no idea what it is that I did, beyond the fact that I really was trying, and that I read a lot of books. But, here’s to being busy—which I vaguely remember to be a satisfying feeling.

Also, once it’s September, guess what will be only 3 months away? December!! Which means that I will see T-Bone in just over 3 months, and then Grandmaster Flash 2 months after that, and then The Lovely Miss Q and Beezzz 2 months after that! I don’t know if I can handle type of sustained bliss. But I’m damn well ready to try.