Back with my stage!

A friend of mine from college is also off to join the Peace Corps in West Africa in the next week or so, and the announcement of her upcoming departure got me thinking about all of the things that I wish I had known before coming (about both what to bring and in general). Conveniently, this week marks the three month anniversary of heading to our posts, all of my friends from training and I are together for our In-Service-Training Conference. So far it’s been great-filled with emotional reunions and lots of sharing and learning about each other’s posts. But it also provided an opportunity to gather information from my friends about what they wish they had known, and I compiled a little list. People were much more forthcoming about the things that we wish we had brought (and many of the things on the list ended up being sent from home), but a few people shared some ideas that they have been thinking about over the past few months. I’m not sure if anyone reading this blog is planning to head to West Africa for two years anytime soon, but I thought that the list of our “essentials” might be interesting for anyone wondering what types of things are practical here. I also left the advice at the end. Sorry about the clichés represented there.

            Also, I just want to report that we’re staying at this incredible hotel and are living the good life for these two weeks. I took a bath today. So indulgent. Not even sorry.

Essentials

·      Ziploc bags

·      Travel/camping underwear(?)

·      Nice pens (blue is preferred)

·      Kindle

·      Granola bars/Cliff bars

·      Peanut butter

·      Hammock

·      Crystal light

·      Spices

·      Sleeping bag/sleeping sack

·      Pocketknife

·      Kindle/other e-reader

·      HEADLAMP (literally the best thing I brought)

·      Diva Cup (preferably that you know how to use)

·      Hard drive

·      USB drive (x2)

·      Loofah

·      Nail care set

·      Warmer clothes than you think you’ll need

·      Lots of deodorant

·      Lots of underwear (running out is not worth stressing over…)

·      French press

·      Water bottles

·      CHOCOLATE

·      Non-stick pan

·      Tupperware

·      Duct tape

·      Quick-dry clothing

·      Rubber spatula

·      Solar powered lantern (I would wait on this one-I’ve seen them sold here)

·      Measuring cups/spoons

·      Pepper grinder

·      Good chef’s knife/knife sharpener

·      Quick-dry towel

·      Things for hobbies (including those you think you might start-we have lots of spare time here…)

·      Contact solution (PC admin doesn’t recommend it but some volunteers wear contacts anyway)

·      Spandex shorts/leggings to wear under dresses

·      Rain jacket

·      One outfit that makes you happy, even if you think you won’t wear it (e.g. flannel…)

·      Camera

·      Decent belt

·      Sun hat

·      Dr. Bronner’s soap, good sunscreen for face

·      Favorite tea-comfort moment

I know this is kind of a lot of things, but everyone has their own preferences and I figured I’d err on the side of too much and let you decide what you think you might need/want. Also I live in a city (and thus my view is pretty biased) but I’m routinely surprised by the number of things I can find here.

And some words of “wisdom”:

“You are stronger than you think you are-there are high highs and low lows in the Peace Corps”.

“Write down your reasons for wanting to do this and revisit them often”

“You may realize (potentially quickly) that you’ve found yourself in West Africa with a pack of crazies. And then you realize that you love them and wouldn’t survive here without them in your life”.

TL,DR: Some pro tips for visitors to West Africa from my stage, and life is good at the moment!

On "First-Wold" Needs (and hoping that isn't an offensive way to describe them...)

I guess it’s time to share the truth. Among PC Volunteers in Cameroon, Bamenda (the city right down the hill from where I live) has earned the nickname of “Bamerica”. And while it will never be mistaken for New York (or even Newark), there are many small reminders of home to be found, if you know where to look. This morning for breakfast I enjoyed a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats (with Almonds!) that I bought in the Bamenda Main Market. There’s a restaurant here that my friends and I visit almost weekly where you can order mushroom pizzas and Greek salads.  It’s the best.

            And in the interest of full disclosure, my apartment Upstation is probably (read: definitely) nicer than anywhere I would be living if I were in America right now.  It’s a new building (read: no roaches yet) that almost always has consistent electricity and running water, which is a total anomaly in this country. For comparison, our training was held in a city that had no running water at all. In order to get my water I had to go outside and pump it from the underground well and sometimes wait for the privilege to do so. But here in Upstation, I just turn on the tap. And most of the time, water even comes out.

            So I’m very grateful for the apartment that my counterpart found for me and that Peace Corps is willing to pay for. But the interesting part is that I often find myself feeling guilty about my new digs for reasons that I’ve only just come to term with. I’ve realized that this guilt is two-pronged: I feel bad that my standard of living is higher than most of my neighbors, and I feel that in some way I’m not getting the true “Peace Corps experience”. Well, I’ve been trying to get over both of these hang-ups recently. It turns out that most Cameroonians live in urban centers, just like in America. And although the definition of urban definitely means something different here than it does back home, the idea that we’re working towards development means (to me at least) that there’s no reason that my neighbors or I should have to live without taking advantage of the resources available to us. It’s a step towards progress (and isn’t that the real goal of development organizations like the Peace Corps?) when the citizens of Cameroon have access to services like electricity, cell phone reception, and Internet access. And as for the comparison between my way of life and the PCV norm-well, that’s just not something I’m willing to feel badly about any more.

            The reason that all of these feelings are coming out now is because my lifestyle got even better this week when I got a hot water heater installed. That’s right, hot showers are now a reality in my apartment. What a game changer. (side note: the process of actually getting the heater installed  was worthy of a blog post of its own. Let’s just say that the process took 4x longer and cost about 2x more than was promised…) But at the point when I decided to commit to this project, I definitely felt guilty, most likely for the original reasons listed above. And then I thought about it a little more and realized that this was just one more way that I was trying to instill some familiarize my new life here. And then I realized that a lot of the volunteers do the same thing, just in their own ways. My postmates have gone on record as saying that if they couldn’t have had Wi-Fi installed in their home they wouldn’t have stayed in Cameroon. Another volunteer nearby went out and bought both a TV and a refrigerator. (he then sat out in his porch drinking Coke with ice in it and the neighborhood kids thought he had added sugar cubes, as they had never seen ice cubes before). I showed up to a PCV party the other day to see that one of my friends had used a hair straightener to prepare for the big event.

            Without a doubt coming to Cameroon has meant giving up some of our “first-world” luxuries. There are some Volunteers that live a much more traditional lifestyle without electricity, running water, or even cell phone service (ironically, the biggest deal to many Cameroonians). But it’s been interesting to see how my peers and I have adapted to life here and/or adapted their lives here to fit their needs. Definitely something to think about the next time I’m taking a steaming hot shower.

            The other recent news is that I travelled from post for the first time this week since I arrived here in November! Some friends and I met up in the West Region to celebrate the time-honored tradition of Galentine’s Day (I’ve been told it’s a Parks and Rec reference, but have personally never seen it…). The public transport system in this country is a little amazing. Not necessarily in a good way, but I did safely get there and back. A big difference is that (with very few exceptions) there isn’t any schedule for when buses leave. They leave when they are full and you just kind of have to show up and hope for the best. The other main difference is how helpful everyone seems to be (at least to obvious foreigners) and surprisingly honest they are. I had pretty much no idea where I was going and all I had to do was walk around and say the name of the place that I was trying to go. In no time at all I was shown to the correct bus/taxi/private car that would take me there.  And although the rides were far from comfortable or pleasant, they were consistent and I got to all of my destinations without any real problems. My last note on transport in Cameroon is that the lack of schedule gives them an impressive degree of flexibility. It is totally acceptable to ask the bus driver to stop and let you off at any point in the voyage, something my fellow travellers took advantage of far more often than I would have liked. For an American used to following a set travel schedule, it was often an exercise in patience. 

            But as frustrating as the travel was, Galentine’s Day was a huge success. There was brunch food, far too much boxed wine (something I thought I had left behind in the States), and a healthy amount of cuddling withmy White/Wild Rice (our training class’ nickname) friends. It was great to see them and be able to check in on how everyone is doing. We finished training almost three months ago and it’s kind of amazing how much our lives have all changed since then. But seeing them was a great reminder of the support system I have here and gave me a chance to get away from post and step out of the spotlight. We may have different first-world indulgences, but a lot of our major struggles are similar. And I think that we were all able to agree that the hardest part of being here isn’t the physical aspect. It’s the daily attention we get, the persistent phone calls, and the constant feeling of still being an outsider. And of course, we were able to enjoy some Velveeta-dipped homemade pretzels (“it’s just like Auntie Anne’s!) and play some questionable Jenga together. There’s a reason they send us here in teams of 55 people. Some of them turn into family.

TL,DR: I’m realizing that a successful Peace Corps service doesn’t require depriving myself of all the comforts of home. And so have many of my friends here. But it’s still not like being in America.

Forever Summer

A few days before I left for Cameroon I was leaving a drugstore when the clerk tried to convince me to get a flu shot. I declined and chuckled to myself, knowing that I was headed to a land lacking winter, snow, and (presumably) the need for flu shots. Little did I know that the annual flu shot would be among the long list of shots that we received our first few weeks here. And although I was wrong about my lack of need for a flu shot, I was spot-on in my weather expectations. Training in Bafia was in the tail end of the rainy season, but was still consistently hotter than it had any right to be. And since coming to Bamenda I've been quite spoiled when it comes to weather-I don't think it has gone below 65 degrees my entire time here. I don't ever see any thermometers or weather reports but I would estimate that an average day gets to the high 80s during the day and dips to the low 70s in the evenings. It's borderline perfect. My friends up in the Northern Region are dealing with some more extreme heat, but here in the Northwest we live in an eternal summer. I came out of a meeting the other day to a slight breeze and caught myself shivering. Literally unacceptable. 

But as nice as the weather is, I don't take advantage of it as much as I should. Living just outside a city means that the heat is sometimes more of a burden than anything else, as I often find myself crammed in a cab with six other people or sweating through my clothes as a trek over to my office. But last week was Edith's birthday and she had the idea of spending the afternoon at a local hotel with a pool. It was the best. Swimming outside in late January-not something I get to do much back home. And although the water was a mysterious shade of green (some things are better not to ask), it was a great way to spend a Friday afternoon. And although I was under the impression that most Cameroonians don't like to swim (many people that I've talked to never learned how), we were treated to quite a display of Cameroonian athletic prowess and swimwear choice. 

Waterproof camera fun!

On Saturday I planned to spend the day chilling at home and finally working on my report for the first three months (we do have some sort of accountability in the Peace Corps…) and went over to my neighbor's house to greet her (Cameroonians are very big on the idea of "greeting" someone. It's not uncommon for me to get phone calls from someone that I knew at one point (e.g. my carpenter) just calling to ask how I am. Once they are assured that I am doing fine, they hang up…). I somehow found myself agreeing to accompany her to Food Market to buy her groceries for the upcoming week. I had been to Food Market once or twice, but never with a Cameroonian. And it turns out that it's an entirely different experience to go with a local (I guess that should have been obvious). I'm not going to be able to do it justice, but Food Market is HUGE. I had been to what I thought was the entirety of it, but it turns out that what I had known as Food Market is only a small part of it. One benefit of living such a large city is that my access to resources (especially food) is borderline unlimited. You just have to know where to look. I'll never shop like a Cameroonian (I'm just not willing to haul back so much food at one time, nor am I ever cooking in such large quantities), but it's a fascinating experience. We had a list of three or four things, including ripe plantains, groundnuts, spices, (all for Bridget), and green peppers (for me). We started in the groundnut "section", which is really just one of the many places where you can buy dried goods. They had endless bags of rice, beans (red, white, and speckled), groundnuts (peanuts), and many other items that I couldn't identify. We gave the chosen market mama a list of things that we wanted and she either sold them to us or found someone else who could and farmed out our purchase. She also lent Bridget money before the transaction so Bridget could go find a snack which she was shopping (baton de manioc and spicy peanut butter-not my jam). After she had located all of our requested items, Bridget paid her and added the money for the snack loan. Fascinating. Next on the list was a bunch of plantains. We found a bunch that looked good (probably 40 plantains or so, most of which looked like they were about to fall off the stem). I wondered how we would carry all our plantains through the market as we continued shopping, but I needn't have worried-we paid and then left them for collection later. Perfect. At this point I began to fully appreciate how large Food Market truly is, as we had been wandering around for quite a while and hadn't even come across the part that I had previously thought the be the entire market. There was a market just for fowls (live chickens), an aisle for traditional Northwest clothing (all in black velvet, my least favorite…), a square just containing tomatoes and onions, and a truck unloading more plantains than I have ever seen in one place. To say that it was overwhelming would be an enormous understatement. In the midst of Food Market it seemed impossible that anyone in Cameroon could be hungry, much less in Bamenda. But as we learned in training, food security is multi-faceted. More on that another day. Just as I was about to hit my breaking point, it was finally time to go. We had all the things on our list plus a last minute addition of dried crayfish. Yuck. Food Market was a fascinating place to visit, but I don't think I can handle the idea of shopping there on a regular basis. 

I've gotten into the routine of trying to spend at least one full day each weekend in my immediate neighborhood hanging out with my neighbors and generally taking it easy. There isn't much to do sometimes, but it's nice to take some time to get caught up on some of my chores and prepare for the week ahead (not that my weeks are always that exhausting. But still.). The kids in my neighborhood are great and always seem to be out and about either washing or playing. Some of the houses in the neighborhood (including mine) have running water, but others don't and the kids in those houses can often be seen hauling water home. So there is never a shortage of children hanging out looking for things to do. A few days ago I had made a promise to my next-door neighbor that we could play with my Frisbee together (have to put that Carleton degree to use somehow…) and I made good on it this evening. We headed out to the small side path that's across from our building and started to throw. She started off afraid to catch the disc, but picked it up in no time and was soon asking me to teach her how to throw a forehand. A big shout out to Marlena and Scoots for all their Frisbee instruction these past few years-looks like it's finally paying off. Just as she was getting the hang of it, we found ourselves gaining a small crowd of neighborhood kids that also wanted to play. Soon there were five or six of us playing in a narrow street, and the disc was going everywhere. As of last week it was dry season, but this past week has brought a surprising amount of rain and the disc was quickly covered in mud. But the kids weren't fazed at all (somehow I ended up in the muddiest section of the street and the reddest hands) and they all learned really quickly. It wasn't quite the same as lazy afternoons on the Bald Spot, but lazy evenings (at least for me) on our dirt/mud street aren't a bad substitute. 

TL,DR: Weekend playtime is some of the best playtime. Pool parties, market explorations, and Frisbee in the evening make for quite a pleasant way to spend time here (or anywhere??).