Why? CASE.

As of my last writing, I thought that the majority of my medical care related to my accident was behind me. That was two weeks ago, and I've been in Yaounde on medical hold since then. PC Cameroon is in the process of moving offices but has already opened its new transit house, which is where I've been staying. It's a beautiful house-big and spacious with six bathrooms, four bedrooms, and more beds than I've bothered to count. It also has the most dangerous staircase that I've had the pleasure to climb, made even more challenging by my sprained ankle. Luckily, the PC admin has been more than accommodating to me and opened the medical hold room on the first floor after a few days of struggling.
I hadn't spent any significant time in Yaounde prior to this visit, and my time here has been quite different than I would have expected. Sure, I spent quite a bit of time reading, Facebooking, and Skyping with friends and family back home (I've never been so well caught up on everyone's lives!). But there have also been many more PCVs here than I would have expected and I've spent most of my time with "old" friends and making new ones. Everyone comes in Yaounde for different reasons and the emotions that come with being here are as varied as the volunteers themselves. When I first arrived there were members of my stage here that had just finished their beach trip to Kribi (the one I was supposed to go on...) They quickly left, and I prepared myself for a few days of solitude (I was consistently told that my stay here would be shorter than it was). But it was not to be. People have come through on their way to/from the airports, transit through Cameroon, and for medical/security reasons. My friend Anna found herself with a staph infection (apparently they're easy to pick up in the ocean) and has been here for over a week now. And although I always want my friends to be healthy and safe, it was nice to have a buddy to travel over to the medical office with. At one point there were four of us heading over to PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Office) each morning. They started sending a car.

I can't say that I have much faith in the Cameroonian medical system, so I was relieved and grateful for the care that I received from PCMO. Our physicians assistant made me come in each day to have my wound checked and cleaned and even got a consultation from both a surgeon and an orthopedist. Luckily I escaped any possible infections and have been recovering nicely. It's looking like I'm going to end up with a pretty sizable scar, but there could definitely be worse ailments with which to leave this country.

The night before swearing-in the members of my stage and I all spent the night at the homes of US embassy staff/ PC administrators. Many of our hosts told us to give them a call if we're ever back in town and have been extremely generous with their hospitality. So this week my friend Anna and I took our hosts up on their offers and had a little taste of life as a Foreign Service Officer. It turns out that living in Cameroon as a FSO is much more like living in America than it is like living in Cameroon as a PCV. We were definitely exposed to the finer parts of life here and the whole experience left me surprised and impressed. We went to the US embassy pool, met some Marines, ate some lasagna, and visited all the high-class Yaounde supermarkets. A big thank-you goes out to our embassy families for taking such good care of us.

So I'm heading back to Bamenda tomorrow and am looking forward to finally getting back to life at post. It's been kind of funny-I've spent the past two weeks living an American lifestyle of sorts, full of "high-speed" Wifi, American friends and modern conveniences. But I caught myself missing my little neighborhood and the friends and neighbors that I have there. In-Service-Training left me enthusiastic about getting work projects started and these past two weeks have given me ample time to reflect and plan.

TL,DR: Life in Yaounde is filled with other PCVs and (at least for me), daily trips to the medical office, and better food than I thought existed in Cameroon. I've consumed more liters of smoothie than can possibly be good for me.

Ashia, Ashia, Ashia...

My stage-mates and I spent the past two weeks at our In-Service Training conference, where we all come back together after three months at post. It was great to be together again and check in with some of the people that we haven't really been in contact with since heading to post (Cameroon is big and phone credit is expensive!). We also learned about some aspects of Peace Corps that they choose to withhold for our first three months, including applying for funding for projects and how to join committees.

Our IST was held in Bamenda, so many of my friends had to travel for two or three days to get there. But my journey consisted of a 20-minute taxi ride across town (well, probably 30 with traffic). So after IST ended I was excited to finally get out of Bamenda and the Northwest Region and explore Cameroon a little bit. My friends and I decided that we wanted to head to Kribi, the beach town in the South Region. As the Lonely Planet guidebook describes it, "there are times when Africa just hugs you". I couldn't wait. But Kribi is pretty far from Bamenda, so we decided to make a stopover at my friend Anna's post of Tombel, in the Southwest Region, to celebrate Women's Day "in village". I was pretty excited for this layover, as Anna loves Tombel and was excited to show it off to us. So after a day of recovery at my post in Upstation, we headed out to the bus agence. As I mentioned in an earlier post, buses generally leave when they are full, and not at a particular time. So we ended up waiting quite a while for ours to leave, and in the meantime I realized that I had forgotten my cell phone at home. Oops.

The trip down was relatively easy-only one bus breakdown and a long-winded medicine salesman to contend with. We arrived in Tombel by dinnertime and were met with fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies straight out of the Dutch oven. It turns out that Tombel is beautiful, albeit the most humid place I have ever been. Mercifully, it began to pour and we had a chance to cool off before we ate.

The next day was Women's Day and Anna and her postmate Ben had been asked to speak at the town celebration. It began at 10 and we were asked to arrive at 9. Luckily, we've all been in Cameroon long enough to entirely disregard those instructions and, feeling proud of ourselves, showed up at 9:45. We were still the first ones there. So we watched the women of Tombel trickle in, all in their matching pagne (fabric). Every year there is an official "Women's Day" pagne, and Anna was wearing a giant dress (called a cava) and headscarf made out of it. But most of the other women wearing pagne specific to their individual women's groups, so the grandstand was quite the visually appealing place to watch and wait.

And watch and wait we did. By the time Anna and Ben got up to speak, the event had already been going on for about three hours. And as entertaining as their speech was (Women Dey? Women Dey!), we were all exhausted and ready to leave after it was over. By the time we left, they hadn't even gotten to the parade so it's anyone's guess how much more remained.

That evening we decided to split up for the night, as there wasn't enough bed space for all of us. So Rachel and I offered to take a moto across town to Ben's house, where there is a guest room and more than enough space for the two of us to sleep. An 100FCFA ($0.20) moto ride across town seemed a small price to pay for not having to sleep three people to a bed. But as we were rounding the corner to reach the junction where all the moto boys wait, my leg went out from under me and suddenly I was on the ground. Well actually, below the ground. I had fallen into one of the giant gutters on the side of the road, and my left leg was about two feet below street level. The rest of my body was somewhere in between. I slowly extracted myself from the gutter and assessed the damages; as far as I could tell the main problem was my right ankle and leg, both of which hurt pretty badly. But Rachel took one look at me and thought otherwise-my left leg had a deep gash and was already bleeding quite bit. We decided to head back to Anna's, which was luckily still quite close. As soon as we walked in the door, my friends that are here as Health volunteers took one look at me and determined that I needed to go to the hospital and would likely need stitches. They also decided that it was for the best that I forgo getting cleaned up at home (as the water was a little questionable) and instead leave that for the professionals. Little did we know what was in store.

One nice thing about living in a small town was that Anna called one of her friends that is a moto driver and he came right to the house to pick us up. He didn't say a word about my bleeding leg, nor put up a protest when I climbed on right behind him. And when we arrived at the hospital, he refused to take any payment and sat down to wait with us. We had no idea how long the entire procedure would take so we didn't let him stay, but the gesture was definitely appreciated.

Given that we arrived around 10:00 on a Saturday night, there was no doctor on site. The nurse grudgingly agreed to call him, and we waited for the better part of half an hour. And when he finally did arrive (on moto, of course), he demanded that we pay his transport fare of 200FCFA. At this point in the evening we wanted to stay on his good side, so we paid up. Of course, his arrival coincided with the power being cut (only for a minute or two, but long enough to raise my anxiety level). He took us into the operating theater and rested my leg in a shallow metal dish. After opening the sterile supplies (I hope they were sterile...), he began to clean off my leg. So painful. It was deep and fairly long (between four and five inches) and the doctor was not shy about rubbing antiseptic directly into it. As I tried to fight him off, he just repeated "ashia, ashia, ashia" as way of apology. Ashia is the local word for sorry, although it can also be used sarcastically. But this apology didn't even come close to making up for the force he applied to my leg. After a few seconds of this, he seemed to realize that perhaps local anesthesia was a smart next move. Unfortunately for me, this was an equally painful process that involved about six shots directly adjacent to the wound. I will be forever indebted to Anna for being by my side throughout the whole ordeal.

The doctor stitched me up (three internal stitches and eight or nine external ones-he couldn't tell me how many) and it wasn't too painful, although I'm not convinced the anesthesia completely covered the area he stitched. I kept asking if he was finished and he would respond "yes, I am finished", before starting another stitch. And we were in an English-speaking region. When I questioned him about it, he told me that he meant he was finishing. That is not a cultural difference that I'm okay with. Especially not when each additional stitch took me by surprise. But finally, he was finished and cleaned up my leg and foot, both of which were pretty bloody. He even started to clean up my flip-flop until he realized that he had taken off his gloves. And they say there is no customer service in Cameroon. With one final (and refused) offer of an injectable painkiller, we were on our way. Getting a moto at an isolated hospital in the middle of the night in the rain wasn't easily accomplished, but finally we were home and I was surrounded by my friends, who had waited up to make sure that I was okay.

I should mention at this point that the Peace Corps Medical Officer was incredibly helpful throughout this process. Neither Anna nor I had a phone that had any phone credit on it (guess I should have gone back to get my phone in Bamenda) and Dr. Jorge called us back at regular intervals to make sure that everything was going okay. He encouraged me to skip the beach trip and after trying to convince myself that I could still go I reluctantly agreed. So the next morning my friends boarded a bus headed to Douala and Kribi and I found myself on one headed back to Bamenda. Unfortunately, the bus trip took about three hours longer than it did on the way down. My postmate Eric agreed to let me stay with him as I recuperated and has been a great host so far. We've been eating avocado sandwiches, watching Modern Family (season 5!) and are planning to make chocolate chip cookies this evening. He's never made them. I don't even know how that is possible. I just learned that I have to head back to Yaounde tomorrow to see the Peace Corps Medical Officer in person, which I'm not thrilled about. But at least I'll get to see my friends one more time as they come through on their way back to their respective posts.

TL,DR: Beach trip to Kribi was replaced by emergency room visit in Tombel. A first-hand glimpse into the Cameroonian medical system was something I could have done without. But 12 stitches and a sprained ankle I've learned to be careful where I step.

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??). 

Real Cameroonians Wear White.

       A few weeks ago I wrote about the ways that I've been spending my time other than working. And it's true, the month surrounding Christmas was a little bit of a dead zone when it came to any official productivity. But in the weeks since then I've finally started thinking about my time here and the ways that I want to spend it. Before the holidays, I had two main tentative work partners: Heifer International Cameroon and the local Government Bilingual High School. Heifer (here's it's pronounced high-fer) is the organization that I was officially assigned to by Peace Corps-I have a desk at their office and an established line of communication between Peace Corps and my supervisors there. But as I'm quickly learning, there's an incredible amount of flexibility in Peace Corps service (at least in Cameroon), and it's primarily up to me to figure out which work partners that I'm interested in working with.

         My assignment with Heifer is a little confusing-I've been assigned to work with a farmers' group that has already been "weaned" from Heifer's official program and is now (ideally) functioning independently. They have already received their gifts (in this case dairy cows) and related training. I've been quite impressed by the comprehensiveness of Heifer's program so far; they work to incorporate all potential factors of success for a small-scale farmer. The farmers that I work with all received a package that included (for each farm family-there are 20 in the group) their own heifer, materials to build a shelter to house it, seeds, and gender relations and HIV/AIDS awareness training. Heifer strongly encourages zero-grazing feeding systems that, for all of you organic and local food lovers out there, is the opposite of free-range practices. I was a little confused when I first heard this (having also come from a culture where free-range animals are prized so highly) but have now learned the advantages of such a system for dairy cattle that must be milked every day. In addition, zero-grazing systems allow farmers to have better control over an animal's diet and access to it's manure, which can be spread on farm fields or used for biogas production (more on that another time). Basically, animals being raised on such a small-scale don't have the same negative consequences as their counterparts in larger-scale operations.

           I'll be the first to admit that there is a lot about life in America that I miss and wish Cameroon had (there are no bagels here. literally unacceptable. and don't even get me started on taxi etiquette). But when it comes to the way that Cameroonians treat their livestock, Americans could learn a thing or two. Granted, the entire system is completely different. More than half of the population depend on agriculture as their primary source of income. But this means that Cameroonians have a dependency to each and every animal under their care. The health and productivity of each animal is extremely important and requires constant monitoring. In the farmers' group that I work with, the gift of a heifer (female cow) has been literally life changing-their average family salary before their gift was approximately $200 annually. Now, (with careful planning and care) they are able to produce between 6-10 liters of milk per day (earning between $2-4) for 10 months of the year. That's already $900. If they are able to get their heifer pregnant each year (which Heifer encourages all farmers to do), they are also able to sell the offspring for between $600-1200, depending on gender and size. Of course, there are expenses associated with livestock care, and not all of the above numbers are strictly profit. But the amount of benefit that each family receives is undeniable and continues year after year. The differences between a farm that works with Heifer and one that does not are visible (of course, farmers working with Heifer tend to be innovators and may have already been at an advantage). But all in all, I'm feeling fortunate to have the opportunity to work with an NGO that is doing such impressive work.

            I've been (at least in name) been working with Heifer for a little while now; I think my first day there was in early December. But more recently I've started an additional side project (turns out that working as a Heifer extension agent is far from full-time) at a local health clinic. The process by which I've continued to meet people and learn about new organizations is interesting and circuitous-I've passed this particular health center almost daily but didn't know it was there until one of my neighbors invited me to show me her workplace a few weeks ago. It turns out that she works (as a statistician?) in the HIV/AIDS department of the health center (which is much more comprehensive than I would have expected). The health center is religiously affiliated (which I was initially trying to avoid), but I've come to realize the importance of religion in everyday life to Cameroonians and have made my peace with it. Side note: I'm asked almost daily about my religious views and if I'm a church-goer. To their credit, my answer of being Jewish and that "they don't have a church for me here" seems to satisfy most people, and many continue to invite me to attend their church. In fact, my Francophone neighbors are so committed to their weekly worship that they attend services each Sunday…in English. 

            The most casual aspect of my work at the moment is the semi-regular tutoring sessions that I have with some of the children in my neighborhood.  They're relatively informal and take place one-on-one, but they've proved to be a good way to get to know my neighbors better and spend some time learning from each other. We primarily work on math (it's basic enough that I still remember enough to help them) and today I started working with my next-door neighbor on her English homework. Luckily, the subject of her exercise was elephants (why elephant vocabulary is deemed essential for a basic level English class is beyond me), as I gave a presentation on elephants in French during Pre-Service Training. So I even had the corresponding French vocabulary to use as necessary. I've noticed recently that it is quite common for students to be held back a grade or two, which creates a wide spread of ages in a given classroom (this seems especially true for girls). In my neighbor's family alone, the oldest boy is at least two grades ahead of two of his older sisters. 

            So there are finally some work projects showing up in my life, but it's important to have some playtime as well. This week brings the end of the month and other Volunteers in the region to town as they come to collect their monthly living allowance. The advantages of living in a major banking city are numerous, but this might be my favorite. Seeing friends from stage about once a month is a frequency that allows us to stay updated on each others' lives (without running up huge phone credit bills-the phones here are all pay-as-you-go) without interfering with our individual integration in our communities. And for me personally, I get to see my friends from the other parts of the region without having to travel at all. That might sound like a drawback (as I'd previously assumed that I would want to get out of my village each month), but the condition of the roads is generally pretty bad and even short trips can be quite time-consuming (and motion sickness-inducing…).

            Another recent highlight came last week, when Edith and I finally caved and each bought an ice cream bar. I know that it's the end of January and probably the middle of winter for most of you reading this, but here we live in a never-ending summer. This time of year is dry season (the dust is choking and inescapable) and it gets pretty hot during the day. I've probably lost all sense of temperature by now (although I used to be quite proud of my ability to survive/sometimes enjoy Minnesotan winters) but my first ice cream in months was borderline incredible. Some might call it a game-changer. Also counts as another benefit of living in a big city (many small towns have soft-serve ice cream machines, but we've been warned of the dangers of associated amoebas and I haven't wanted to test my luck). A last note on the topic of dry season: I've been starting to work with the farmers' group in my village, and attended a group meeting early this week (an hour in, not a single person had shown up). But I was surprised and pleased to learn about how common awareness of climate change is here, even among rural villagers. One of the group members expressed his worry about the timing of the rains and the recent unpredictability, which he attributed to the changing climate. This is my first experience with dry season, but I've been told that it is supposed to last from November to March or so. Which made the recent rainstorms that we've had all the more surprising. I wasn't expecting to see any rain for at least another month or so, but it's rained twice in the past 36 hours-quite strange. No snow yet though.

TL,DR: I'm finally back to (or starting…) work and as expected, things are slow to get off the ground. But I'm continuing to learn about my community and get to know my neighbors and other people around town. It's kind of like being a celebrity without doing anything to deserve it. So I guess it's just kind of like being a regular celebrity these days.

P.S. Got a care package from home last night-guess who has more maple syrup than she knows what to do with!? Turns out there are advantages to having parents that buy it in five-gallon increments. 

            

Beans and Beignets

When I was a kid there was this farm a few towns over that used to sell fresh doughnuts on the weekends. Honestly, I can't say that I remember them all that well, but I do remember that it was exciting when we used to go get some-we could watch them come off the machine hot and fresh and then get dipped in cinnamon sugar. And then one day they sold the property and had to close the farmstead and doughnut operation. My family stood on line for over an hour the last weekend to get some of the last doughnuts that they would ever make. So I was excited to learn that the beignet culture in Cameroon was still strong and there are beignet mamas to be found in all of the villages that I've ever been to.

One of the first people that I befriended in my neighborhood was the woman who sells beans and beignets (and fried fish, but I have no plans to ever buy it) up the road from my house. And although I don't patronize her shack as often as she might like, I pass her on my way home each evening and she's always friendly and quick to greet me. And as I mentioned in an earlier post, Mama Marguerite is always generous with her dashes, giving most customers an additional beignet (or puff-puff for the Anglophones out there). So a few weeks ago I asked her if she would be willing to teach me how to fry beignets, and she readily agreed. I reminded her of this yesterday, and she told me that I could come and learn from her this evening. But she took our lesson a step further, and invited me to come help her make the beignet batter in the afternoon at the church where she lives. I showed up not knowing what to expect-I've seen quite the spectrum of kitchens and food preparation in this country so far. But the kitchen was reasonably clean and she seemed to have a pretty set process for her preparations. As she was setting up I learned that she's been selling beignets for the past seven years, so it makes sense that she has the whole process down by now. Most of the preparation had already been done by the time I arrived, but she quickly put me to work mixing the dough. And we put the phrase "made by hand" to a whole new level-I mixed the dough using most of my arm as the mixing spoon. She makes a lot of beignets and the batter took up almost half of the (smallish) garbage-sized barrel that I was mixing it in.

But the real fun began after we brought the supplies halfway down the hill to her little shop. She had a herd of small boys that helped us carry everything down and get set up. One of them made a dirt/water mortar to rub on the bottom of the frying bowl-I think it protects the bowl from the flames, but I'm not sure on that one. Mama Marguerite started the first batch of oil, and demonstrated how to quickly throw a spoonful of pancake batter (she has quite the array of products) into the oil so it sits right. My first few attempts were a little too cautious and resulted in small circular pancakes (silver dollars, if you will). At this point, a few people had wandered past and remarked on the oddity of seeing me in the hut trying my hand at frying. I've been living in my neighborhood for just about two months now and it seems like most of the people that live in the area are aware of my presence here, as I don't exactly look Cameroonian. So my new role as beignet assistant was quite entertaining, especially as I struggled to deliver the perfectly circular beignets they've come to expect. I watched Mama Marguerite a few times and wanted to try it myself, but it was a serious strugglefest. Dropping beignets into hot oil is a tricky business, and involves "cutting" little drops of dough out of a goopy fistful by squeezing batter through the hole between your thumb and forefinger. And of course, it's not as easy as it looks. None of my beignets were the same size, nor were they round or smooth. Most of my creations were lumpy, oversized, and the customers looked at them with surprise. Mama Marguerite was quick assure everyone that I had made them and was obviously still learning. But as the evening went on I slowly improved. My beignets began to resemble their more ordered counterparts, and although they weren't exactly right, they were at least passable. I ended my stint as a beignet-maker with a healthy respect for the craft and the knowledge that my talents lie elsewhere. But it was a chance to interact with my neighbors in a different setting and give them the opportunity for them to see me try something new. And even though my time selling beignets was even shorter than my time selling bagels, it wasn't a bad way to spend a Sunday evening. Now I just have to get the batter out of my clothes.

TL, DR: I spent the afternoon making and selling beignets with my local beignet maman. My beignets were kind of a mess, but it was fun to spend the afternoon trying something new and getting to know more of my neighbors. And they all had a good laugh at my expense.