A Taste of Freedom



In my brief time as a Peace Corps Trainee, I've learned that the group of people that tend to be drawn to the Peace Corps tend to be adventurous, independent, and idealistic (although I'm not claiming to be all three…). Because of this, the last 4 weeks that we've spent captive in the small town of Bafia haven't always been the easiest. Many of us feel that our freedom has pretty much disappeared, and one trainee went as far as to claim today that he no longer knows how to crack an egg by himself. Lucky for us, the Peace Corps is aware of many of these feelings, and allowed us a brief reprieve from Bafia last week for our much-awaited site visits! In the past trainees have had the opportunity to visit their future sites and establish themselves as a presence in the community, but due to the shortened length of Pre-Service Training and the length of travel to some posts, we were instead given the opportunity to visit sites that had been randomly selected and were within a day's travel (at least on paper). I was assigned to visit Kumbo, a small city of 60,000 in the Northwest Province with two friends of mine. We set out early Wednesday morning for Bamenda, the regional capital of the Northwest. From there, we caught a taxi to Kumbo and filled the car with 6 passengers (taxis usually take 7 passengers plus the driver-we had to buy the last seat in the name of "comfort"). It's a minor miracle that we fit into the car with all of our things, but our driver was a determined one. The drive was a beautiful one, complete with mountain landscapes, rice cultivation, and even some waterfalls. A shout out to the Peace Corps spirit-at one point during the drive I received a call from a volunteer that I had never met. He had heard that we would be passing through his town and wanted to come out and wave to us as we drove past. And he did! The one hiccup in our journey came when we learned that we had a flat tire (as the sun was setting and the town quickly was getting dark). It was a little worrisome when the driver left us on the side of the road in search of someone that could fix it, but Danielle picked up the tire iron that he left next to the car and we were completely fine. But the slight delay meant that the journey took us more than 12 hours from door to door. It was a pretty wonderful thing when we finally arrived and our host Bridget had an American meal of spaghetti and salad already prepared for us. The next few days were pretty incredible and a wonderful break from training. We went to a yogurt/cheese factory as a way of preparing for my research project on cheesemaking. And to get there we took motorcycles, which was a first for me. So much fun, and at one point we found ourselves weaving through a herd of cows. Not a bad way to do some research. Other trip highlights included visiting the market (which comes every 8 days as per the traditional calendar), making guacamole, hiking to a waterfall, eating my first spaghetti omelet, (such a strange concept but unsurprisingly delicious) and generally getting a feel for life as a PCV. Life seems pretty good in Kumbo, and it was a wonderful break from the regularity of training. But all trips must end, and we found ourselves back in Bafia on Sunday after a 28 hours trip back that included a stay in Bamenda. Turns out that the trip is much more pleasant that way. And a big shout-out and thank-you to Bridget, Shannon, and the rest of the PCVs that made the trip so much fun. Before we left for our site visits, we all completed forms and had interviews to share our preferences for our future site placement. Of course, none of us had ever visited any of the sites (or even the regions, as none of us have ever left the Central region and none of the placements were here). But nonetheless, we all became quite attached to the idea of different regions and sites from the small descriptions we were given and began to get excited about certain posts. Post announcements weren't until the Wednesday following our return from site visit, and they were potentially the least useful two days of training. No one could focus on anything other than our future posts, and tensions were a little high. Many people had listed the same posts as their top choice, but the final decision was completely out of our hands. I can't really speak for my fellow trainees, but for me this was the first time in a while that such an important decision would be made without my final input. Two years is a long time to be living in a place and working at a job that you didn't choose yourself. Although to be fair, accepting the decision of others has been a theme so far in my PC service. But they haven't led me astray yet, and this time was no exception. In the end, I was assigned my first choice post, working with Heifer International in a small village on the edge of Bamenda, which is the third largest city in Cameroon. We got to spend a little bit of time in Bamenda on our way back from site visit, and I've heard that it's a great city, and contains many of the things that Americans living abroad occasionally crave. During our one night there I was even able to find pizza (although I'm not sure if I would have considered it pizza stateside…)! And I'll be living just outside the city limits in a small village, which is exactly what I wanted. Hopefully it'll be the best of both worlds in a way. I will be working with farmers as an extension agent in increase milk production and potentially on a biogas project as well. It sounds like my work is slightly more structured than that of my fellow trainees, which I hope will make the beginning of my service a little easier. Anyway, this post has gotten a little long, so props if you made it all the way through. Life's good here, and we're full steam ahead with training. And now we've got a frame of reference in terms of how to prepare for where we're headed. TL, DR: Site visits showed a glimpse of life beyond training, and life's good in the Northwest region. Lucky for me, I'll be heading there to work with Heifer International in Bamenda (and speaking English)!