Back To Life July 15, 2008

I’m finally headed back to post today after way too long in Yaounde, armed with lots of new work ideas and a free knitting pattern I printed off the internet for a small stuffed hippo. If that’s not a recipe for success, I don’t know what is. Leaving Yaounde means saying good-bye to hot showers and readily available cheese, but also to soul sucking traffic and my need to spend money on any thing that will hold still long enough for me to negotiate a price. So, all and all, it’s good to be headed back to village.

I’m realizing that summer is a weird time in village–just because so many people are gone. Ngoulemakong is a medium-sized town (about 4000 people in the village proper) but it’s located on a paved road between to big cities, so it is a curious mix of urban and rural. This means that in the summer people apparently leave both to go au village and to look for work in the bigger cities, pretty much leaving me, my neighbors cat, and the 7 drunk men who call me ‘ma cherie’  as the total remaining population. And that means…lots of time for planning! Or it probably should. I’m hoping to begin being incredibly successful (both as a volunteer and as a human) sometime in the next 4 1/2 months, so I should probably start planning for that now.

I also have a birthday coming up–which I was excited about, because Cameroonians can drink beer like nobody’s business–but did you know that here, it’s the Birthday Girl’s job to buy beers for everyone else? Quoi? What the coconut kind of rule is that? So August 5th will probably find me holed up in my house, hugging beer bottles to my chest and mumbling incoherently–only not in a depressing sort of way.

Ok–apparently 16 college students from Ohio are coming to the office in 30 min to hear our wise words on the Peace Corps, and how it can change your life, or at least your bathing habits. And then, its au revoir, big city, and bon soir Kim’s porch. (It’s been nearly ten months, and I’m still both unsure of how to say ‘porch’ in French, and too lazy to look it up–operation Successful Human, look out!)

Summer Time And The Living Is Easy July 12, 2008

I thought I should do a follow up to that last post, since it was written in May, posted in June, and now it’s July. Really, the fact that it took me a day to conceive of that post, and then a month and a half to get the internet to work remains a fairly good metaphor for my life here, but for some reason I find that less stressful now than I did a couple weeks ago.

So, I’ll start with work: first, I’ve given up on girls. I’m sure they’ll figure everything out on their own, and really, I haven’t been a ‘girl’ since 1993, so what the hell do I know about it at this point anyway? What am I going to tell them—that if their body suits perfectly match their scrunchies they might have a chance with Joey McIntyre?  Hardly the type of advice they need. So, I’ll leave the young girls of Ngoulemakong to their own devices—at least until September, when I’ll probably try again, because I’m just that naive. Or maybe just that stupid. Or, maybe just that bored. It’s hard to know at this point.

Second, I’ve replaced the hole left in my heart by adolescent females with soy. (That’s a really strange sentence. And yet, I totally mean it.) I’ve been working with another volunteer who lives about 45 kilometers from me, near our provincial capital of Ebolowa. Have I talked about her before? Maybe only in letters…anyway, I call her Legs, because it’s similar to her last name and because I like the idea of calling someone ‘Legs’. It makes me feel like I’m one of the cast members of Mash, although admittedly it doesn’t have quite the same ring as Hot Lips Houlihan.

Legs and I have been giving formations (you Anglophones out there would call them ‘presentations’ but that is so much less pretentious than ‘formation’) on the magic of soy to various groups, and then planting it wherever the people are willing. Mostly they are willing, because the truth is that soy is pretty magical. Anyone who comes to visit me will get to hear why. Ohh!! Talk about incentives! After we harvest (towards the end of this month) we will give another formation on how to incorporate soy into some typical Cameroonian meals. Then, because we live in a tropical paradise chock full of not one but two growing seasons, we’ll repeat the whole process in September. Hopefully we will have gained all sorts of soy ‘fans’ after they witness what is sure to be our glowing success with the first crop.

I will also be attending a workshop in Yaounde with one of the nurses at my hospital next month. (This will be just one in a string a multi-day meetings I will have the pleasure of taking part in, because even if the Peace Corps is run by hippies, they are the kind of hippies who work for the United States government, and therefore live and die by committee.) Elisabet (the nurse) and I will be going to a workshop to discuss ways to improve Maternal and Child Healthcare. Most women in my village don’t come to the hospital to give birth, for a variety of reasons. (The hospital is under staffed, the moto-ride can be expensive—can we just collectively take a second to ponder the idea of taking a moto to the hospital to give birth to another human?—patients are required to provide all their own meals and linens during their stay, and the birth itself is expensive for most women.) I haven’t been to the workshop yet, but as far as I know, it’s based on a program that already exists in Guinea, and the idea is to give training to the traditional midwives who live and work in village, as well as a place at the hospital where they can practice. This way the mothers are assured that there will be someone at the hospital, and that it will be someone they can trust. The program also includes price incentives for the mothers—each pre-natal consultation they come to gives them a certain amount of money off of the price of the birth. I’m pretty interested in the whole thing and I think it could be very beneficial in my village. I go the pre-natal consultations every Tuesday (where I do more formations on nutrition and AIDS testing, etc) and even though there are usually at least 15 women there every week (which means something like 60 women coming in every month) less then 10 women actually give birth at the hospital every month. Hopefully we can improve those numbers.

Two Weeks Later…

Ok, so it turns out the Maternal and Child Health thing was nothing like I described, mostly because I’m dumb. I described some other program, that, while marvelous, I will not be attempting. But, I will be attempting something, don’t you worry. Alas, I think I’m allergic to Yaounde (the moment I got here I caught a cold, which I am not allowed to complain about in a country where thousands of children are dying of malaria—although, can I just ask, who gets a cold in the tropics?) so I’m not going to describe the other program to you. A great loss to the blogoshpere, I know. 

Someday I will go back to my village and reading on my porch, but for now it’s all Sex and City marathons and meals composed entirely of cheese here in the The Roon. Sniff Sniff.

 

So, Here It’s More Like The ‘Inter-NOT’ June 26, 2008

Well people world, I actually wrote this over a month ago, but various trips to the ‘cyber cafe’ all left me post-less and with a burning desire to stab something with a fork. So, even though there are updates I could share with you since I orginally wrote this, I have neither the will nor the patience to write them. But, here you go! This is what my life was like…in May!

Baby Steps <!– @page { size: 21cm 29.7cm; margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } –>

Baby Steps

WARNING: I would like to apologize in advance for my excessive use of CAPS LOCK, italics, underlining, and bold—AND OFTEN IN TANDEM—throughout the following narrative. It seems I am a little worked up—worked up enough that I feel its only fair to warn you that if I could make all your computers SHOUT THESE WORDS AT YOU I would. Thank you. Those of you who still want to may proceed…

* * *

It’s difficult to describe just how difficult I sometimes find the simplest things to be here. I’ve mentioned, for example, how excited I was to start a girls group. I pictured us sitting around together in my living room, chatting and sharing and generally being cozy, and also solving in an efficient but caring manner the gender crisis that is responsible for so much heartache on this vast continent. Alas, the group isn’t going as planned. It turns out my living room isn’t nearly cozy enough.

My plan was to set up meetings at the three ‘high schools’ in my village so I could explain my idea for the group and then hand out applications—that way I could be sure to have motivated members. Should be simple enough—I would just go to the schools and ask the principles to set up meetings for me. Anyone could handle that, right? Oh the naïveté of the volunteer who’s only been at post three and half months. Now that I’ve been here five whole months I know better. Turns out asking to have meetings arranged is, well, too much to ask. In spite of the fact that I went to each school and picked out dates with the principles to have the meetings, and then went and reminded all of them one week and then again two days before the ALREADY SCHEDULED meetings, they all pretty much managed to flake on me.

At the lycée the woman I was working with was just, you know, GIVING FINAL EXAMS when I showed up. Sweet. When she spotted me lurking casually outside the door of her classroom she came out and explained to me that she was busy. I can only assume that it was one of those surprise final exams the kids are so fond of today. She pointed to a large group of teenagers and said ‘They’re free right now. You can go talk to them’. Now, I have to ask you, dear reader—is there anything more terrifying than a large group of teenagers? The answer is no. Unless it is a large group of teenagers with machetes.

So I walked up to the large group of (machete wielding) teenagers and smiled my best smile and said ‘Hello! I’m here to discuss the idea of creating a girls group here in Ngoulemakong. We would work together to win the war against gender discrimination using a variety of entertaining games and activities designed to encourage critical thinking! Is anybody interested?’ Although in actuality I probably said something closer to ‘Hi! Me I call myself Kim! I work you! Girls strong! If one plays a game well poverty is bad and we will be together!’ I think I got my message across.

At the CETIC (still a high school, but more like a pre-vocational school, for the kid who wants to learn mechanics rather than German) they were apparently confused because I was silly enough to try to present a mind-boggling TWO projects during my initial conversation with the principle. Therefore when I showed up for the SCHEDULED meeting, there were about 11 kids in the room—three of whom were girls—all there to, apparently, hear me present my other project, the writing contest. The writing contest which I had just presented two days before, after which I reminded the principle I would be back in two days TO ANNOUNCE THE CREATION OF A GIRLS GROUP.

At the final school, a private Catholic school, there was just no one there. Let me be clear—there was not one person present on the entire campus at 9:30 on a Thursday morning. Which makes sense because I had just confirmed the date with the principle two days before—had in fact readjusted the time of the meeting because ‘more girls will be available if you come at 9:30’. Apparently by ‘more girls’ I was supposed to infer that the entire school would actually be shut down in preparation for the next weeks Independence Day fete and I should just not bother coming at all.

Perhaps you can sense my frustration. No…wait. CAN YOU SENSE IT NOW? I AM FRUSTRATED. A little. I think I’ve actually handed out 25 applications. I printed 125. We’ll see how many I actually get back.

But worry not, dear friends. It’s not all CAPS LOCK and italics here in The Kong. Because weeks ago, at the beginning of this whole mess process, I happened to be talking to my neighbors about my idea for starting a girls club. I was explaining, in my eloquent and—lets be honest—spectacularly sophisticated French, that I was going to go to the high schools to recruit interested girls and that I would have an application process and blah blah blah when suddenly my neighbor said ‘Great! What time should the girls come on Saturday?’ Excusez-moi? Ok then.

So the next Saturday afternoon eight eight year olds came to my house. I figured I could use them as sort of a practice group, until I could find some real girls.

I’m kidding.

Sort of.

We’ve had three meetings so far. I’m using a book (a fantastic, fantastic book) called Choose Your Future that is full of exercises designed to get girls thinking about themselves and each other and their lives in general. At the first meeting—which was total chaos, by the way—we each made nametags, which in addition to our names were supposed to have drawings symbolizing our good qualities. I made an example, where I drew books because I am smart, two people talking because I’m a good listener, and a pack of cigarettes because I can blow excellent smoke rings. I thought I had explained fairly well what I was after, but sadly my communication bubble was burst when the first girl got up and presented her tag. She had drawn a skirt. Because she likes skirts. Ok. Only the first meeting—surely things will get better.

At the second meeting I wimped out and had them draw maps of Ngoulemakong. Aside from the fact that I learned there are probably no budding cartographers in the group, it was a fairly uneventful afternoon.

Alas, at the 3^rd meeting I decided it was time to get back on the gender empowerment horse. What’s ironic is that, throughout the entire session, until the very end, I thought things were going pretty well—a remarkable improvement over the skirt incident anyway. I had them all imagine it was 15 years in the future (making them all about 23 years old), and then tell me what kinds of things they want to have accomplished in that time, and what they want their good memories to be. We made lists and talked about which of the things on the list were more likely to happen than the others, and what they could be doing now to help prepare for their futures. Like I said, I thought things were going well. Until the end of the session when, like any good facilitator, I asked them to tell me what they had learned.

Girl #1: “Science.”

Me: “Science?”

Girl #1: “Yes, like plants and animals and stuff.”

Me: “OK.” Pause. “Anyone else? ”

Girl #2: “I learned that no matter what you do you can’t change the world.”

So as you can see, difficult or not, I am single-handedly changing the world, one eight year old at a time. Stay tuned for meeting number four, where I will be letting them in on the amazing fact that if you jump up and down really fast after sex you can’t get pregnant.

Out of Context May 12, 2008

This place is weird. Or maybe it’s not. Maybe I’m the weirdo. Who knows? Regardless, the following are some scenes from my life here. In the context of America they are ridiculous. Here, it’s called Tuesday.

* * *

Dining Out.
The other morning I went to an omelet shack with Kate, another volunteer who lives just outside of Ebolowa, our provincial capital. She’s from Wisconsin, by the way. This becomes obvious immediately after talking to her, even when she’s not wearing her giant cheese-head hat. Anyway, omelet shacks. Kate and I went to Jackson’s (full name: Chez Jackson’s International Club—ha! Jealous?) because he makes the best spaghetti omelets in town. We each placed our order—une oeuf spaghetti, si vous plait—but Jackson’s new omelet intern told us he was out of spaghetti. Now in America, this would have been crushing news. Or actually, in America this probably wouldn’t have happened, because in America they worry about pesky little things like ‘customer service’ and generally order enough supplies to see themselves through the day. But whatever. I am not bitter, because I may not be in America, but Cameroon is not without its culinary advantages. Certainly in America you are not allowed to say ‘Mais la femme là-bas a le spaghetti. Il faut lui demander’. And certainly in America the omelet intern would not then go over to the lady next door and, USING HIS HANDS, take some of her spaghetti for us. Mmm, spaghetti omelets. You people don’t even know the value. (Grandmaster Flash, that was for you. Hi!)

* * *

Working Relationships.
After a pleasant brunch, Kate and I headed out to Mefoup, one of the villages outside of Ebolowa. (I like to think of them as suburbs because it’s hilarious but probably only to me because I live here but trust me—comic GOLD) We were supposed to give a presentation to a group of farmers on the magical properties of soy. Kate talks about the advantages for the soil and I talk about the nutritional benefits. For example, did you know that one kilo of soy has the same amount of protein as three kilo’s of beef? C’est incroyable, n’est pas? And let me tell you, harvesting soy is a lot less messy than butchering a cow. Although I’m sorry, I personally can’t get behind soymilk. Drinking beans freaks me out. I try not to judge others though. Where I come from that will get you kicked right out of the coffee house. Oh dear, it’s seems I have digressed. I’ll be honest—I can be a bit of a digresser as a rule. I apologize. Soy! Farmers! So we went, at 14:00, because that’s when Kate had set up the meeting for. Only when we got there, there was just one old woman on the porch. Because for some reason all the farmers thought we were going to be there in the morning, not in the afternoon. So they had all left hours ago. A disappointment, but truthfully—not an entirely unexpected one here in the Dirty South. Meetings rarely go as planned. But that is not the point of this rambling, practically incoherent story. The point of the story is this—we left that house with a live chicken in a bag! The woman had planned on preparing the chicken for the meeting, but since we so rudely showed up four hours late, she just kept it and gave it to us. Fan-fricking-tastic. I never received live poultry after meetings at my old job. One time I got this cute little notebook and pen set, but that was a total fluke.

* * *

Getting Rides. (Side note to all parents, and other people who are generally inclined towards worry—none of what follows is considered weird here, or dangerous. It is not hitchhiking, which I would never do because I’ve seen those movies and I know what happens to girls to hitchhike, the hussies. It is simply a system of transportation that involves flagging down random vehicles in order to convey oneself from one location to another. OK?)
We took a cab out to Mefoup (and by cab I mean one of the seemingly endless supply of Toyotas held together with wire and hope) so we needed to flag down another cab to get us back. Only there didn’t seem to be a lot of cabs going by, so we started walking in the direction of Ebolowa. Only it was the middle of the afternoon so it was REALLY FREAKING HOT. No worries. We’ll just walk up to a complete strangers house and ask to sit on their (mercifully shaded) porch for a bit. AND THIS WILL BE CONSIDERED PERFECTLY NORMAL. It will also be considered perfectly normal for two old women to come out of the house and stare at us. And I mean STARE. Hello! We are just a couple of zany American girls trying to stay out of the sun! Thank you for letting us sit on your porch, and no, we don’t mind at all if you stare at us in a what might be considered a maniacal manner without blinking for five minutes straight! Would you like to look at the live chicken we’ve got in this bag? At first, whenever we would hear a car approaching Hans (Kate’s co-worker—he often comes with us to translate our presentations into Bulu) would run out to the road and try to flag it down. Four cars passed him without stopping. So I tried. Four more cars passed! Of all the nerve! I mean honestly, sometimes when I’m just walking down the road cars will pull up alongside me randomly and try to convince me to get in. (Because in addition to being white, I also apparently appear both easy and stupid.) But now, in our moment of need, I can’t get a car to save my life. Clearly, this was a job for a blond. Sure enough, Kate was able to get a car to stop—although I was gratified that two passed her before one finally pulled over. The chicken in the bag went into the trunk (and by ‘trunk’ I mean the space under the hatchback door that didn’t latch) and we climbed into the car. Which at this point already held four other people. We drove about 50 feet, and then pulled over to pick up an old man and his 3 large bags of plantains. So now there were eight people, three bags of plantains, and one bag of (live) chicken in the car. Perhaps I’ve misled you into thinking we were in a station wagon with my mention of the hatchback. No, we were in something that resembled a Geo. Four people in the back, four people in the front. In Cameroon, not even the driver gets his own seat. And all the cars at stick-shifts. Ha-zing! I probably don’t need to mention that perceptions of personal space are a little different here. Mostly because the concept of personal space doesn’t exist. Bon voyage!

* * *

Lying.
I lie to people constantly, and for a variety of reasons. Sometimes its because a strange man is hitting on me and I think it prudent to mention that I already have two husbands, and that my father requires at least 15 goats for my dowry. Sometimes its because I don’t know how to say whatever it is that I actually want to say, so I just say something else. Something completely different and also maybe completely untrue but also more easily expressed in French. For instance, I might say that in America men do all the laundry and cooking. Technically, perhaps, this is not true. But it’s easier than explaining that in the States gender roles are quite blurred due to the dramatic social changes that took place in the 70s and 80s and as a result domestic chores are distributed based on a complex and continuous process of discussion and experimentation throughout the lifetime of any relationship. Also it blows their minds when I say it, and that is kind of fun. And finally, sometimes I end up lying completely by accident, because of my habit of just saying ‘oui’ whenever I don’t understand what is being said to me. I’m pretty sure I’ve told a number of people that they could come to my house for dinner, and not once did I actually mean it. It’s possible I’ve also accepted a number of marriage proposals, but even with the abundance of rock-hard abs in this country, I don’t actually plan on walking down the aisle with anyone. At least not at this point in time.

6 Months Down, 21 To Go March 25, 2008

I’m heading back to post tomorrow after a spending a week with 20 other Americans. These people are all near and dear to me, but I think I’ve grown used to a different pace of life. Somewhat surprisingly, I find myself looking forward to sitting on my porch. 

Our in-service training was simultaneously overwhelming and reassuring. Everyone claims to have ‘done nothing’ for the last three months, and everyone secretly thinks that they have done the most nothing. For instance, I know for a fact that I actually have done the most nothing, but after various discussions with other people posted in the south and in the east, and the ‘time-line of development’ in other areas of the country, I feel a little better about that. I got to post in December ready to search out community groups to work with. What it took me three months to realize is that it will be my role just to introduce the idea of community groups in my area.

I don’t mean to imply that there are no Cameroonians in the South doing good work on their own—obviously there are many. It’s just on a totally different scale than in provinces like the Northwest and West. Peace Corps has been in the northwestern corner of this country for 40 years, so the current volunteers there are having  a very different experience than those of us in other areas. Where they have people approaching them and asking them to collaborate, I’m having a really tough time just explaining what in the hell I’m doing here.  If you’re not a doctor, then who ARE you? (This is not to say that volunteers in the northwest are in some sort of cakewalk—they are just at a different place on the ‘timeline of development’. (I refuse to say ‘timeline of development’ without quotes. It’s just too pretentious. Unfortunately, I don’t know how else to say it.))

So anyway, I’m going to head back and start the process of creating some clubs. What’s that you say? Didn’t I already dothat? Yes, my astute little readers, I did. But turns out I sort of did it wrong. Or at least in a way that wasn’t really working for me. Standing in front of 102 bored high schooler’s who have no idea why we’re all in a room together was sort of…not enjoyable. So new clubs, check.  

I’m also (hopefully) going to be working on a soy project with the agroforestery volunteer that lives to the south of me. She’ll talk about growing it, and I’ll present poorly drawn representations of eggs and cows to show how much higher the protein content is in a kilo of soy than various other, more expensive options. Good times will be had by all.

I really am feeling excited to get back though. If nothing else because I finally found a good tailor and I just printed off a bunch of cute pictures of dresses from the Anthropologie website that she will make me for $6.

Beachy Keen Jelly Bean March 24, 2008

Last Week, In Summary:

• Swam in Atlantic Ocean for the 1st time. (Actually, SAW Atlantic Ocean for the 1st time. I give it an 8.5)
• Ate sting ray
• Hiked up a beach to waterfalls (which fall INTO THE OCEAN)
• Skinny Dipped (Twice)
• Got stung by…something…jellyfish?…while naked. Twice.
• Slept in air conditioned room for 7 nights
• Got nominated for the ‘Peer Support Network’. (This means other volunteers can call me with various problems—like if they think they have gonorrhea or if they are suddenly feeling sympathetic to the Republican Party—and I will support them.) (Side Note: After being nominated, Dave and I made an announcement that we would only counsel people who texted us their problems in haiku format. We are expecting to make a difference in many peoples lives.)
• Danced at a ‘boite de nuit’ (literally ‘box of night’, which sounds much cooler than ‘night club’) called L’Excellence. It was, in fact, excellent.
• Discovered that Cameroonians generally don’t like to swim in the ocean—not even the Camerooninas that LIVE ON A TROPICAL BEACH.
• Ate something resembling carbonara. (Don’t know if I can adequately explain how excited I was to see carbonara on the menu—and my enthusiasm was only dampened slightly upon discovering they made it with spam.)
• Celebrated 6 months in country! 
• Realized I have ringworm.