We Love it Because it's Ours...

           Every Peace Corps service is full of milestones. They come fast and loose at the beginning, when each completed month feels like a success in its own right. But now that my stagemates and I have been here a while, life comes at its own pace and has long since felt like business at usual. However, this past week marked an important milestone that felt significant for many reasons. A year ago this week my stagemates and I finished training, swore in as official Peace Corps Volunteers, and moved to our respective posts to commence our services.

            Every year, two separate groups of trainees come to country, one group in May, and one group in September. These groups are split by sector, meaning that they receive different trainings and are expected to perform different kinds of work. My sector, Agribusiness, arrives in Cameroon each September and swears-in by late November. And somehow, late November has come around again and we’ve officially been PCVs for an entire year.

            As exciting as it is to know that we’ve lasted a full year, this milestone isn’t marked by any actual events. Our Mid-Service Training won’t be until January to accommodate the plethora of Volunteers that schedule trips to see family this time of year, so we’re left celebrating this victory of sorts at our respective posts. Luckily, there are two other groups experiencing dramatic changes at the moment-the groups one year ahead and behind us. Our “sister stages”, if you will.

            The group of Volunteers that arrived a year before my group has all finished their Close-of Service (COS) procedures, and has headed off to whatever adventure  next awaits them. Some are traveling, some back home with family and friends, and others already in graduate school or gainfully employed. A few particularly impressive ones decided to continue this crazy adventure and stay for a third year-something my dad has repeatedly asked me not to even consider.  But whatever their post-PC plans are, I wish them all the best of luck-they’ll certainly be missed over here. 

            But as one group heads out, another one arrives, full of excitement, optimism, and a growing distaste for the local public transit system. A few current Volunteers and I met the new Northwest Volunteers this past Thursday on the exact one-year mark of our own swearing-in. Peace Corps Cameroon is nothing if not systematic. There are 15 new Volunteers in this region split between the Agribusiness and Health sectors, and they seem like a pretty solid bunch. Some of them will be replacing recently COSed Volunteers, while others will be opening new posts. They’ll be spending the next few weeks buying furniture, meeting their work counterparts, and establishing themselves as fixtures in their respective communities. It’s a lot to take on.

My new favorite "market mama"

            Those of you who know me (or have just been reading this blog long enough) won’t be surprised that I wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to reflect on my own experience at this juncture. It was so easy to see myself and my stagemates reflected in the faces of this new group and think about both the experience of moving to post and amount of life that has passed since then. It’s truly been a year unlike I ever could have expected and (unsurprisingly) a year unlike any other thus far. Somewhere along the way I found myself familiar with and (relatively) comfortable in a country nearly as different from my own as I’m aware exists.  I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I’m thriving, but as the Cameroonian saying goes, “we are just managing”, and some days I do better than that. In the past year I’ve met some incredible Cameroonians, strengthened American friendships, travelled the country, received 11 stitches, and picked up a new hobby. I’ve seen both major beach towns, visited many of my friends’ posts, and gave my brother a limited tour of Cameroon. At some point in there I was able to establish some successful work partnerships and even manage a trip home. It’s been quite a year. 

My counterpart Max took me to visit the ranch that one
of his friends is currently building. It's quite an undertaking!

            But as proud of as I am of my individual accomplishments, I think my stage really shines when viewed for our collective efforts. In the past year we’ve lived all over the country and many members have been relocated due to the ongoing security situation here. Some say that Peace Corps is all about being flexible, and my friends have proved this again and again over the past year. Some projects work out, but many more flounder somewhere along the line. Counterparts skip meetings, the bureaucracy holds things up, and money mysteriously disappears. But despite the ongoing frustrations that accompany daily life here, many of my friends have accomplished some truly incredible things.

One built a mushroom training center in her village. Another organized and ran a local day camp and funded it entirely with local contributions. Yet another has effectively become a much-needed staff member at a small village health center. We’ve held dozens of training sessions, and probably logged hundreds of hours on the back of motorcycles. And I don’t even want to think about how many liters of palm oil or cubes of Maggi we’ve collectively consumed.   

A pushcart that only carry chocolate?
What's not to love?

            My friend Anna and I were talking today about some of our thoughts on Cameroon at this just-over halfway mark that we’re currently finding ourselves in. The conversation turned to some of the difficulties that come with living as a foreigner in a place such as Cameroon. She put it best: “we don’t always like it here, but we love it because it’s ours”. Our Peace Corps country, our home away from home.