Friendship and Mango Flies

            I’ve heard rumors of the creation of a Peace Corps medical bingo. You know, every kind of typical malady gets its own box and Volunteers mark them down as they go through their respective services. The winner is the one that successfully finishes her service while racking up a series of impressive tales to be told upon return.

            In reality, getting sick or hurt while serving in Cameroon can be a fairly terrifying endeavor. The medical facilities are quite unlike those back home, we’re far from our natural support systems, and the ailments somehow just feel more intense here. There’s a whole world of sicknesses that just don’t exist back home, and the unfamiliar is often much scarier than it has any right to be.

            Luckily, I’ve been quite healthy for my time here thus far. My only medical concern was limited to a couple of stitches back in March of last year, and I’m quite grateful for my medical luck since then. Here’s to a healthy 2015!

            Some of my stagemates haven’t been as lucky. All of them have recovered nicely, but we’ve had multiple cases of malaria, a case of typhoid, and numerous intestinal worms and other parasites. Du courage, my friends.

            I’m not here to make light of most medical issues, but there are a few that are fairly amusing, at least after all involved parties are fully recovered. One of my good friends had one of these cases a few weeks ago, and it feels worth sharing.

 A bunch of us got together for a small holiday gathering, and my friend pulled me aside at one point to tell me about these intense mosquito bites she had gotten that morning. She had been helping a farmer in her community in his cocoa field, prime real estate for the mosquitoes of Cameroon. As we were going to leave, she asked me to look at the bites, which she claimed were beginning to get painful. This being Peace Corps Cameroon (“never a dull moment!”) the bites were, of course, on her butt cheek and upper thigh. The things I’ll do for a friend in this country.

            As it turned out, these were no ordinary mosquito bites. They looked like little white dots raised from her skin, so we consulted our trusty Peace Corps medical manual (which I believe is based off of the appropriately titled Where There is No Doctor). Could it be? Was it possible? I thought that was just a myth…

            It was no myth. “Mango flies” had attacked my friend, which are mysterious insects present throughout all of Cameroon. This little bug likes to lay its eggs in damp soft material left outside, and drying laundry is a perfect target. We were all warned of this ridiculous critter during Pre-Service Training, and I had seen this as just another sign of Cameroon’s inhospitable climate. Not only could we not drink the water, eat non-boiled anything, or sleep without a trusty mosquito net, we couldn’t even wear our own clothing after it was washed?! Luckily, there are two easy ways to avoid the mango flies. Ironing after the clothes would dry will kill the eggs, as will waiting three days before wearing. That gives the eggs enough time to hatch and leave the clothing safe to wear. Otherwise, the eggs can implant themselves into our bodies and leave white painful marks that contained, wait for it-larvae.

I had never seen these telltale white painful marks until a few weeks ago, on that fateful night with my friend. But as soon as we realized what they were, a combination of relief and terror set in. We wouldn’t have to seek outside medical attention, or even call the Peace Corps Medical Office (it was after business hours). But we would have to pop these little worms out ourselves.

I wish I could say that I was a good enough friend that I helped my friend pop these worms out of her butt cheek. And if it came down to it, I would have stepped up. Luckily, there was another willing candidate to take the reins, so my services were not required. We put antibiotic cream over each white mark, waited 15 minutes for the suffocating worms to come to the surface, and then our friend (apologies for the graphic nature here), popped each little larvae out one by one. And out they came, each one looking more like a miniature worm than the one before it. Both of the friends directly involved in this process were troopers-one for handling the pain involved in having something forcibly removed from her body, and the other for being able to derive such satisfaction from doing so. I was just happy to cheer them both on and offer as much moral support as possible.

And rest assured, any potential visitor to Cameroon (or anywhere where these little flies happen to live) mango flies quite easily avoidable. Just keep track of when you brought your laundry in and pack enough underwear that it’s never a stretch to make it those three additional days!

A Year Unlike Any Other

            January may not bring snow or tundra-appropriate temperatures to Cameroon, but it does allow for the same kinds of self-reflection and hopes for change that it does back home. It’s quite hard to believe that the holiday (and in Cameroon, I just mean Christmas) season is already behind us and that we’ve flipped the page to a new calendar year.

            Crossing into 2015 led to a different set of emotions than I (and likely many of my stagemates) felt last year. 2014 was the only full calendar year that we’ll all spend in Cameroon, as well as a year of many firsts. I spent this New Year’s with some of my American friends, and one of the highlights of the evening (other than the low quality fireworks that seemed to go off all night long) was sitting around sharing our favorite moments of the past year. Maybe it was just the mood of the moment, but no one shared any major accomplishments or major vacations (at least not in the first round…). The overriding trend were those smaller moments, the ones that solidified our feeling of belonging in our respective communities.

            I had to think for a bit about my best moment of 2014. It was certainly a year unlike any other, and was filled with a wide range of both experiences and emotions. I thought about the beach trip I took when my brother visited, and when I learned that my next-door neighbor and good friend had finally “put to birth”. It was tempting to offer up one of the moments from my trip home and the time spent with much-missed friends and family. But in the end I decided on a short walk I took with my neighbor, Mohammed.

            When I moved to Bamenda, Mohammed was not shy about expressing his dislike for me. At the age of one and half, this was still socially acceptable. But given that I moved in next-door to his family, our paths crossed more often than he might have liked. His sisters were quick to welcome me to the neighborhood and I quickly began stopping by on a daily basis. If I timed it right, I was welcomed in for a bowl of whatever was for dinner. Aisha, his mom, became the one I came to when I had any questions about life in Cameroon or logistical issues regarding Bamenda. We even shared an electricity bill and landlady, which could have been a divisive issue but somehow(!) drew us closer.

            I knew that I had to take things slowly with Mohammed. He had no obvious reason to like me, and every reason to distrust me. After all, I was a complete stranger who had entered his life all of the sudden and looked unlike everyone else he knew. After a few weeks (or was it months?) I started to gain some ground. No longer would he begin running from the room upon my entry, and sometimes not even after I greeted him. The day that he called out good-bye to me as I left their apartment was one I should have marked on the calendar.

            As the months passed, I slowly made some headway with Mohammed and he became my friend in the way that only a three year-old can. He stole my keys, ate my cake, and willingly participated in a game of hide-and-seek with me. But the moment that sticks out and the moment that I shared with my friends on NYE came only a few weeks ago, when I ran into him and his brother at the little store around the corner from my house.

Getting a Cameroonian to smile can be a tough endeavor.
Some habits start young.

            I’m still not entirely sure what happened, but one day Mohammed’s brother asked me to walk him back to the house while he took care of some things at the store. The minutes that followed were anything but exemplary-Mohammed took my hand in his much smaller one and the two of us walked the three minutes back to his house. I don’t even remember if we talked about anything, and if we did it certainly wasn’t of any significance. All I remember is feeling that I had finally earned his trust and was seen as a regular figure in his life.

            I guess what I’m driving at here is that this moment more than maybe any other made me aware of the extent to which this place felt like home, and these neighbors felt like my neighbors. In the past year I’ve often received more attention or welcome than I probably deserved, most likely because of my visible status as an outsider. But Mohammed is too young to register any kinds of societal expectations with respect to race. He just walked home with me because I was someone that he knew and felt comfortable with. And more than any of the other acceptances, that one made me feel at home.