The Christmas Chicken

Ok before I begin this story let me just say that I will never EVER take the meat section at my local grocery store for granted ever again.

Right after thanksgiving my neighbor Rose started to prepare for the Christmas Fete. Now back home if I said this I’d be referring to the Christmas lights, holiday music, and (for all you day-after-thanksgiving-tree-putter-uppers) a decorated tree. However, here getting ready for the fete referred to the arrival of a new roster, who is currently being fattened up and is residing in the compound. I think I’ve mentioned some of my prior run-ins with these winged devils and but to recap, currently my record with them is 2 and 0. The first one claimed my front porch for his territory and didn’t much like me “all up in his space” (I’m referring to the charging, squawking, and puffed out chest that me trying to stand on my front porch incited) and the second one crowed all day right underneath my bedroom window (only my window mind you) starting at 4:30 am (on the dot… everyday… all day). Needless to say I don’t care much for them, but of course the silver lining is that they are mighty tasty ;)

So Rose got this chicken and I started thinking it over and I decided that I would get a chicken for my Christmas too (after all it’s Christmas…. I thought I deserved a little treat). It just so happened that the week I had be contemplating this I was also scheduled to go out and do some work en brousse, which as it turns out is the best place to find the big chickens. When we set out in the morning I told the nurse, Mbokas, that if we passed a place to buy a chicken he should stop. He quickly told me that he wanted to do the same thing, and agreed to help me pick out a good one and get a fair price for it.

We drove around visiting villages for vaccinations most of the morning and at the last place we stopped I met the chicken guy. Well, he wasn’t exactly a chicken guy, but he told us of this friend of his who has some chickens for sale and gave us directions on how to get to his place. I’ll sum up the directions for ya:
- leave the village heading that way (points in a direction the road doesn’t go)
- go until you pass the really big tree
- go past the bush fire (you may have to drive through it (and we did))
- and then you’ll see the guy’s place on the left
By what I can only call a miracle Mbokas managed to navigate the way and about an hour later I found myself haggling over the price of a chicken. The place we were at was a single-family compound (one father, four wives, and a bunch of kids) with a half dozen or so mud brick huts situated in this round clearing. I know this because after the money changed hands the father smiled at me, pointed at the chicken and said, “ok now lets catch him.” To which we spent the next 30 minutes chasing my bird around the place in circles.

In hindsight, I think what happened was that Mbokas bought his chicken first and caught it easily because he had the element of surprise. However, once my guy saw what was going on he went on the defensive and read me like a book when I started coming at him. In the end it took Mbokas, the Father, the 4 wives, and me to finally corner the chicken under what was the kitchen hut. There was one of us on each side and as we slowly started to close in the chicken got panicky and started darting every which way. He was getting desperate and I could tell he was gonna make a run for it soon and try and break through our line. It was at this point that I started praying “Oh dear God, please please, please don’t let it make a break towards me please, please, please, please, PLEASE! I don’t know what the hell I’m gonna do if it comes at me. Please let it go towards someone else.” But alas I was the weakest link and in a final attempt to free itself the chicken came at me full force. Now, I know were only talking about a chicken here but, not gonna lie, it was kind of terrifying. He flew off the ground with his wings flapping all over the place and his large talons aimed at my face, making some god-awful clucking/crowing/desperate screaming sound. Naturally my reaction was to close my eyes, cover my face, and then emit my own desperate screaming sound. Thankfully, the wife standing to my left foresaw my cowardice and leaped out to grab the bird while it was in mid-air. I think the combination of my hysterical screaming and the chicken’s hysterical screaming could have been the most amusing thing to happen in the family’s home in a long time cause after I’d calmed down enough to open my eyes I looked around and saw that everyone else was rolling with laughter at the scene we had made. After the adrenaline stopped pumping I joined them and began laughing myself… after all it was pretty funny (it was like slow-motion T.V. funny, or funniest home movies funny)

So that’s the story of the chicken. After we captured him I rode back to Bankim on the back of a moto with a chicken under each arm and the cooler of vaccines slung over my shoulder. Now the chicken is living behind the house in the outdoor kitchen, it still crows at the butt crack of dawn and it still flaps it’s wings and makes a fuss anytime I get near it but it’ll all be worth it in about a week! I’ll be sure to let you know how the killing/plucking/cooking phase goes ;)

Happy World AIDS Day! I'll be sure to write an update about today later in the week but for now I thought I'd post this short message I sent par request of my younger brother's school group. Enjoy!

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Hi, my name is Kate Millman and I am a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon, a small country on the west coast of central Africa. I live and work in a large village in the Adamaoua region called Bankim. Accurate and updated statistics are hard to come by, but we have a rough population of about 10,000 people who live in the center of town, and HIV/AIDS is a huge problem. It’s really hard to say exactly how many people have been infected because not only are we dealing with the virus but people are also up against stigmatization. Many people are positive, but afraid to be tested, others are tested and pay people off to say they’re negative, and still others lose their battle with AIDS and yet they go to their grave and their own families are still too afraid to say why. This coupled with large amount of transit workers and prostitutes that move through the area, has created a pretty serious situation in the village. So that’s my home in a nutshell… lots of truckers, lots of prostitutes, lots of stigma, too much fear.

However, even amongst all the fear, all the stigma, and all the despair, hope is not lost. Every time I see a child’s hand shoot into the air to ask a question after I teach a lesson on HIV, I know that child is the future and in the future we won’t be afraid to ask questions. Every time I hear someone from my men’s group passionately explain the need to show compassion to those living with HIV, I know that man is the future and in the future we won’t be afraid to love. And for every couple that comes into the health center to be tested before getting married I know that family is the future and in the future we won’t be afraid to know the truth. These are the things that keep me going.

In today’s world, we have a choice to make; we can choose to feel overwhelmed by the scale at which HIV/AIDS is affecting us. We can choose to turn a blind eye and simply ignore the problem hoping it will go away or someone else will fix it. Or we can empower people to take a stand, seek knowledge, show compassion, and find comfort in the small victories.

WORLD AIDS DAY 2010

Hello Everyone!

I’m working with a men’s group here in my village and we're doing a Red Ribbon Campaign for World AIDS Day on December 1st. The group wrote a pledge together and we’re planning to walk around the marketplace next Wednesday to try talk to people about HIV/AIDS, get signatures, and pass out ribbons to hang on storefronts. One of the things that I’m really trying to show them is that HIV/AIDS is a global problem and that on the 1st all the countries in the world will be united to talk openly about the disease and do HIV/AIDS activities.

Many people in my village think HIV/AIDS is just a problem for poor people in Africa, but the reality is that it affects us all. So I translated their pledge and put it online for people back in the states to sign, and hopefully I’ll be able to show them all the people who took their pledge at the end. If you could take 5 minuets to click on the link below, sign your name and encourage people to wear red on December 1st I would appreciate it a lot.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KNWDZ85

Thanks for all your support, and have a happy Thanksgiving!

Kate Millman
PCV Cameroon - Bankim


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Here's a copy of the pledge:

WORLD AIDS DAY
1er December 2010

I pledge to show love and support towards those people who are living with HIV and AIDS. I will NOT be afraid of them and make them to leave the community. Instead I will eat and drink with them, play with them, sit with them, pray with them, and help them how I can.

For those who have already left us because of AIDS I promise to honor their memories by praying for them and helping the families they have left behind.

In an attempt to protect my family, and myself I also promise to be faithful to my husband or wife, use protection, and educate my children so we can have a future without HIV/AIDS.

A Post For Hunter

OK all you west coasters this blog is just for you. Hunter (my new neighbor down the road) asked me to post some pictures of Nyamboya for him cause the internet is really bad at the training site, so without further ado here are some shots of Hunter's new digs.

Hunter's House...





JUST KIDDING ;) This is Hunter's real house





Main street / Downtown Nyamboya



The road leading in to town just in case you want to come visit ;)

Only In Africa

Greetings to All My Stateside Friends,

I apologize that it’s been a few weeks since my last update, but I’ve been pretty busy as of late, and it seems like every time I get myself motivated to write inevitably the power goes out, or I get a visitor knocking at the door, or some other thing happens that takes me away from my task. But alas, I’m forcing myself to sit down, stay focused for a few minutes, and pump out an update (mostly to make my mother stop pestering me :p )

The Work Front:
Work is going well, as I am typing this I have just walked in the door from visiting one of the schools I teach at. I did two assemblies for classes 6,5,4, and 3 (the equivalent of elementary schoolers), and in honor of the upcoming World AIDS Day we talked about HIV/AIDS. I really like the school I was at today. The teachers are so nice and comparatively the children are pretty well behaved, no one got hit on the head or rapped on the knuckles with a stick today so I consider that a pretty good session (don’t worry I’m not the one doling out the corporal punishment;) ). Random comment about the school children; since working in the schools when ever I walk through Bankim or one of the other villages instead of hearing a chorus of kids yelling “Nassara Nassara (Whiteman, Whiteman)” now I’m greeted with “Madame Kate, Madame Kate!!!” which I makes me smile ☺
The mushrooms are growing nicely, they still have a few more weeks before they’re supposed to start sprouting the part you can eat, but from my novice mushroom growing experience they look like they’re on the right track.
I’m still working with the same Mbororo groups and things are still going well with them. The men’s group is organizing a Red Ribbon Campaign in the market for World AIDS Day that I’m pretty excited about. We’re supposed to be drafting an agreement at our next meeting that will say something to the tune of “ I promise to support and help care for people living with HIV/AIDS, remember those who have died, and do my part to protect myself and family from the spread of HIV/AIDS.” The plan is to walk through the market and talk to boutique owners for a few minutes and ask them if they want to sign the agreement, then if they do they get a red ribbon to wear or hang in the store as an outward sign that they are doing their part. It seems like a small thing but my community’s biggest hurdle they need to jump over is just admitting that there’s a problem. If we can just get people to open up and talk about it, even just for one day in December I’ll feel good about what we’ve done. Little Abdulie has really jumped on board with this and with him at the helm I think/ I hope this will really work ☺

NEWBIES!!!
Switching topics for a second, I have to talk about the new trainees that are being sent up here to the West Adamaoua. They had their site visit last week and three of them came and spent a couple of days with me and Beamer in Bankim. Well, mostly they were hanging out with me, because Beamer was suffering from a pretty severe case of Whiteman Overload (he just gets so excited because all the white people he knows aren’t afraid of him and get close enough to actually pet and love on him. Unfortunately four of us were just a little too much for this puppy to handle, so he spent a lot of time outside). So my new neighbors: Hunter is a recent UCLA graduate who’s being posted about 45 minuets away in Nyamboya, Jackie is from Oklahoma and she’s in Songklong about 1 ½ hours away, and then finally Shannon is replacing the volunteer up in Banyo and she’s about 4 hours away. All of them are great! I’m so looking forward to getting to know them better, but so far I think Aislynn and I really lucked out by getting some awesome new neighbors (thanks Sylvie!)
Aislynn and I talked about it before hand and we came to the conclusion that if these guys were gonna survive their first time on the Banyo Road that we all live on and still agree to come back at the end of training we would have to sweeten the deal with some home cooked American meals and a well deserved break from the homestay situation. For my part I made pizzas with… brace yourselves… cheese (fake cheese, but cheese none the less), banana pancakes, and chocolate cake, and then we went up to Mayo Darlé and had a Mexican fiesta on Halloween (fresh salsa, guacamole, rice, taco beans, and tortillas). I’m sure it must seem strange to some of you, but getting together to eat good food is sometimes the only thing that gets me through a difficult week or a trip on our roads ☺
When they were all in Bankim I took them to see how I work with one of my women’s groups. The women were great. I had made visits to most of their homes the week before to ask them if it was ok to bring some visitors next week and some of them seemed a bit skeptical especially since one of the visitors was going to be a man. So needless to say I was a little bit nervous that I wouldn’t have a good turn out, but to my pleasant surprise I had more women then I’ve ever had at a meeting before, they were all dressed to the T, and they participated (enthusiastically even) throughout the entire lesson. In short they were wonderful! I don’t think any of them will ever read this, but I just want to put it out there… YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!!!
After Bankim we went up to Mayo Darlé to watch Aislynn teach a workshop on how to make soap. It just magically worked out that the night we were up there was also Halloween, and you know we couldn’t just let that pass us by, so we threw a small fete in Aisylnn’s house. We had pumpkins, candy apples, costumes, and dancing. Aislynn invited some of her friends from the village and they came for a little bit because the word fete was being thrown about, but I’m pretty sure they were thinking, “these are the crazy Americans I’ve ever seen!”, and I’m sure the fact that we were dressed up didn’t help their opinions ;)
After The Darlé we sent them off to their new villages. I met up with them a few days later, took them to Bafoussam, helped them open bank accounts, and then sent them back to the training site. I can’t speak for them, but I had a great time on Site Visit 2010 ☺

Random Little Antecdote
This was a story that as it was happening, I just kept thinking, “only in Africa, only in Africa”. Here’s the back-story first. So normally the rainy season ends at the end of September or the first few weeks of October (it might rain from time to time but for the most part the dry season has started to set in), but here we are into November and it’s still raining almost every day. As a result of this nonstop precipitation the roads are in TERRIBLE shape. It’s gotten so bad that if it rains during the night cars will refuse to even set out, and sometimes motorcycles won’t even give it a shot. Huge pot holes and ravines of water crisscross the route all the way up into the foot of the mountains and the trip to Mayo Darlé that normally takes 2 hours at max in the dry season took me 6 ½ hours a few weeks ago. People who live on this route including people in Bankim don’t seem to be capable of going 10 minutes without either commenting on the continued rain or the state of the roads (I’m totally guilty of this too). Now if you get in a car or hop onto the back of a moto it’s just commonplace to say something about the roads, and if you don’t people tend to think there is something wrong with you.
Ok now, back to my original story; after site visit I was coming back home in an agencé vehicle (a 16 passenger van with 25+ people in it) and found myself stopped on the road at a place Aislynn and I commonly refer to as “The Swimming Pools.” It’s right outside of Nyamboya (where Hunter is going) and it got the nick name because there are two holes in the road that are each roughly the equivalent in size to an in ground swimming pool. Just to help paint this picture, in the dry season I stood inside one of the “swimming pools” with my hands in the air and you still couldn’t see me from the road. Were talking massive massive potholes filled with water and mud that eat big 18 wheelers for breakfast. So, on this particular day everyone was stopped because one of these big trucks had jackknifed and tipped over on to its side completely blocking the road except for a small passable part that was playing host to a bush taxi that was sunk in the mud up to the drivers window (so on second thought not very passable). Predicting that we’d be there a while because there were at least a dozen trucks and a handful of agancé vehicles and bush taxis waiting to pass in each direction I got out to walk around and pass the time.
Whenever the road gets blocked like this people from Nyamboya trek out to sell oranges, bananas, peanuts, ect. to people stuck there and the place that a few hours before was nothing but a bend in the road is suddenly transformed into a busy market place with food stuffs from the tipped trucks strewn across the road and mommies and kids hawking their bowls full of this and that. Even though things are pretty lively after about 15 minutes you’ve seen it all and then the boring task of waiting for your car to be pushed/pulled out of the mud begins. Our car took about 2 hours to make it through, but I didn’t really have to much to complain about because I spent the time sitting on a prayer mat in the shade under one of the big trucks with two new friends. (side note: in my opinion the ability to make friends on the fly is one of the most useful skills a peace corps volunteer can have in their back pocket… thanks Dad for passing that one down to me ☺ ) One of them was a driver and the other was an Allahjihi (a Cameroonian VIP) from Banyo. They saw me walking around and when I greeted them in my very very very limited Fulfuldé, I guess they were impressed, because then they asked me to come sit in the shade with them to wait for the car. It was a so surreal and at the same time no big deal… there I was sitting on a mat, an Allahjihi to my left and a huge truck wheel to my right, drinking fresh milk out of a gourd and shooting the breeze with two people I’d just met 10 minutes before like we’d been friends for years. Only in Africa ☺

Super SuperPlus SuperGlue

This week was great, I’ve had legit work related stuff to do everyday and I’ve decided that working with kids is way way way easier then working with their parents. First off if you catch the kids when they’re in school they tend not to misbehave for fear that their teachers will whack them on the head with a stick. Another plus; as of this point no primary school child has asked me to “motivate” them to make them participate. And lastly I think I have a much stronger knack for talking to kids then talking to adults. All in all they’re a much easier crowd!

So to recap on the week, I spent Monday in Tchim, a village about an hour outside of mine, Tuesday in Dekie, about 45 minuets in the other direction, and Wednesday and Thursday in Bankim. In each place I met with class 5 and class 6 students in the primary schools (pretty much the equivalent to 5th and 6th graders) and gave assemblies on germs and diarrhea. The funny thing about the whole week was that in each of the 4 schools (Dekie has 2 schools) the entire day pretty much played out the exact same way. I’d walk in and go through all the protocol with the Principal, and then I would walk into each classroom to great the teachers until I made my way down to where I would be teaching. Upon entering each room all the children would very formally stand up, do a little bow/curtsy thing, and then in the most robot monotone voice you’ve ever heard they would say, “good-mor-ning-ma-dame.” I always responded with a cheerful “good morning!” back at them and then they would look at me like I was crazy.

Once I was actually in the classroom and everything was set up and introductions had been made I would start my lesson off by asking what is a germ, and every time without fail I would get nothing. It’s important to note that I wasn’t getting nothing because they didn’t know, it was more because I was asking them to participate in class. I mean I could have asked, what country do you live in and I still would have heard nothing but crickets chirping. After a bit of harassing finally one brave kid would raise his hand and spit out a textbook response. It’s the response that’s been drilled into their heads but upon further discovery I found that most of them don’t know what they’ve just said. So while yes, in fact, a germ is a tiny organism you can’t see with your naked eye, where germs come from, how they get in to our body, and what they do once they’re in, is something most of the students have never really thought about before, and that's kind of the crucial part of the equation.

So that was my goal for the lesson, and to answer those questions. We did some experiments, sang a song appropriately entitled “Comment es que le caca entre dans la bouche”, and played with puppets and green slime. I have to mention the puppet not only because he’s an homage to my creative genius ;) , but also because he was a big hit in the classroom. His name is Freddie the Fly, and Freddie has bit the dust not once, not twice, but three times this week and yet somehow he’s still managing to hang on. First Freddie was just made out of paper, which was fine until one kid decided Freddie needed to be washed with soap and water to get all the germs off him… I’m sure you can guess how that ended (but hey, at least he was paying attention). After I got back to Bankim I made a few alterations and Freddie got an upgrade to a tape laminated fly with a body of sewn together fabric scraps.
Day two he really held up well until I was on the way back to Bankim and Freddie the Fly literally flew out of my hand and off the motorcycle I was on.

Me: AHHHHHH STOP STOP STOP!
Driver: Hun? What? What happen, are you ok?
Me: Freddie!
Driver: Who? What?
Me: Wait you have to stop!
::moto stops, I jump off, run back down the road to retrieve the fly, and run back to the moto::
Driver: What is that?
Me: It’s my fly puppet
:: Driver looks at me like I am the craziest white man he’s ever met, and did I really just make him stop so I could go pick up a piece of paper?::

Thankfully apart from a bit of my personal dignity, the only thing lost was a few of Freddie’s legs ☺. When I got home I decided to use some pipe cleaner to replace all the legs to make them sturdier and bendy. When I was finished I steped back to take in my handy work and I was pretty satisfied. I figured this was gonna be the finished and final product… but no ☺
When I had finished it was getting late so I decided to hop in the bucket bath and then head to bed, but when I got out I saw that Freddy hat met his match as he was dangling from the jaws of my cute, cuddle, and destructive puppy. At that point I knew it was time to pull out the big guns, and by big guns I mean the Super, Super Plus Super glue (which is actually what was written on the container). It was one of those little bottles where you have to pierce the top with a pin to get it open. Now, I don’t have great lighting in my house so my face was up really close to the glue, and I was concentrating really hard to stick the safety pin in it. When I went to pull the pin out I wasn’t ready for the pressure release and I got superglued strait to the mouth. Unfortunately for me my mouth was open and the glue got all over my front teeth. After the initial panic that my lip was in fact stuck to the front of my teeth was painfully resolved, I got my toothbrush out and tried to get the glue off. I was brushing as hard has I possibly could but alas I couldn’t get the stuff off.
So there I was standing in my living room, toothbrush in hand, contemplating whether or not getting Super, Super Plus Super Glue stuck to my pearly whites was in fact a medical emergency. On the one hand how toxic could it really be if they were selling it on the street, on the other hand the man who sold it to me did pull it off the very top shelf of his boutique and the bottle did have a distinct, bootleg, blackmarketness look to it and what if it ate away at the tooth enamel! Ultimately I decided I needed a second opinion so I call Amanda (volunteer in the south) and she convinced me to just go ahead and call the medical duty phone. I’m gonna go ahead and say that calling up the medical officer (who happens to be bran new and whom I have never actually met) at 10:00 at night to tell him I got super glue stuck on my teeth has by far been one of my more embarrassing moments in this country to date. After I explained what happened he assured me it was probably not a big deal and that the glue would come off after a few days, but that I should try not to swallow any of it when it did start to come off because super glue tends to be toxic when ingested :0 It’s been two days now and it’s pretty much all off, so I think I’m in the clear.

Lessons Learned:
1. Don’t hold super glue up close to your face with your mouth open.
2. Three supers is two to many for any kind of glue ☺

WHAT DAY IS IT ???...

...(no it's not gameday) It's Global Hand-washing Day WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Here are few pictures of some of the men's group I work with making table cards in French, English, and Arabic reminding people to wash their hands with soap before they eat. Now every restaurant in Bankim has a card and a bar of soap for people to use in honor of Global Hand-washing Day!

The Good, The Bad, and The X-Men

written on Oct 6

::Deep sigh:: Man it feels like it’s been forever since I’ve had a chance to update this thing because I’ve been so occupied these past two weeks. However I’m not complaining because being “busy” is a luxury for Americans living in Cameroon. The pace of life is so much slower here than back home so when that rare moment comes when I can truly claim to be busy I like to relish in it a little. Since I last wrote I’ve been en brousse teaching about cholera (yes the thing that killed little Sarah on the Oregon Trail) as per the request of the district hospital because they’re pushing a big campaign on cholera education. Thankfully we haven’t had any cases in Bankim but that could change very quickly so they’re trying to get everyone prepared. I think it’s a good call because prevention of cholera is pretty standard for all waterborne diseases, and because the look on someone’s face when you tell them you get cholera from eating poop never gets old, I mean never. gets. old. ☺

Things are moving forward really nicely with the mushroom project. I’ve actually just returned today from the west where I met up with a volunteer who showed me how to make the medium they grow in. It was messy but not too hard and I think I’ll be able to handle it on my own now☺ I also met up with The Mushroom Man in Bafoussam. Side note: every time I started to talk to him I couldn’t help but start humming “Do you know the muffin man” except I changed the words in my head to “do you know the mushroom man, the mushroom man, the mushroom , oh do you know the mushroom who lives in Bafoussam” In case you’re wondering, which let's be honest I’m sure you are, the answer is yes. Yes, it is incredibly difficult to appear attentive, professional, and 23 years old with that minorly altered nursery rhyme playing on repeat in your head. In the end I was able to pull myself together, and ended up with a lot of great information and two mayonnaise jars full of mushroom spores. I decided to start a small test run this week with one or two women and if it works go full steam ahead. I know this is an odd request but if everyone could say a special prayer that I have a good mushroom harvest that would be greatly appreciated ;) ( I never in my life would have foreseen myself uttering those words!)

So that was the good part of my Bafoussam visit, but silly me I decided to end the afternoon by eating a street salad. Oh I should have known that was a bad idea from the start but it tastes so good and I never get to eat lettuce so I decided to take a chance. I’ll spare you the details but let's just say it was not my lucky day and I spent the night getting very well acquainted with the bathroom floor… BLAH.

The car ride back home today was pretty uneventful except that I was the last one to buy my ticket so I was stuck in the back row with a family of 6 (three on the seat three on the laps and me, aka 7 people in a seat made for 4). I had the window seat so it really wasn’t that bad 'cause I could stick half myself out the window but about three hours in one of the kids got sick. Now, have you ever seen that episode of the office where Pam’s preggers and Dwight makes her vomit by eating a hard boiled egg in front of her and then there’s a chain reaction throughout the entire office… ya well it was kind of like that. The one girl started it and then the other two chain barffed and no lie, it took every ounce of self control in my body not to keep the wave going…it was gross. I only got a direct hit from one of the three but it was a doozy. Needless to say not one of my favorite memories of Cameroon, but noteworthy nonetheless.

Ok I don’t want to finish this entry on a bad/gross note so I’ll end with this one. Last Saturday while waiting for a meeting to start I was sitting with a bunch of women in someone’s living room watching The X-Men with French voice over. (Keep in mind most of these women live en brousse without electricity, so needless to say they don’t watch a lot of television). We turned it on right around the end of the movie when there’s that epic good-guy bad-guy battle in the Statue of Liberty. I told them that I had actually just seen the Statue of Liberty a few weeks before I came to Cameroon and that seemed to interest them a bit. I answered a few questions about it and then we all kept watching the movie. About five minutes later there’s this other scene where Magneto uses his super powers to fly up to the very top of the statue, turn everyone into mutants, and then take over the world. It was at that moment that the women sitting next to me turned and in all seriousness asked, “Can people in America Fly? Madame Kate CAN YOU FLY?” After I finished laughing for a solid 2 minutes I told her that no I unfortunately can not fly even through some days I wish I could (especially the days I have to do banking in Bafoussam)… I’m telling you, I can’t even make this stuff up ☺

The Creepiest Crawly

This little guy crawled over my foot mid conversation sending me into a gerbil octave freak-out that involved lots of arm/foot flailing and 4 letter choice words. Come to find out afterward they don't bite and they're not poisonous, which means the scene I made was a little overkill.

Hodgepodge

I have a lot of random things floating around in my head right now, so instead of writing a well structured entry that would make my 3rd grade teacher happy, I’m just gonna throw it all out on the table. Here we go…

I love that thunder cracks here last an entire minute. It’s been raining in Bankim every night for the past week. It’s great because it brings the temperature down and because I then don’t have to pull water from the well in the morning.

Some days it feels like I live in a fish bowl with people constantly watching me. Normally it’s not a big deal, I can ignore it, or make a joke about it. Aislynn and I commonly refer to this social phenomenon as “nassara (white man) watching,” kind of like bird watching for Cameroonians. This past week I bit the dust going for a run. Tripped over my own two feet and face planted in the dirt (they should have named me Grace). I’m fine, minus the scraped knees and palms, but no one in village seems to want to let it lie. I’m pretty sure only a few people actually saw, but EVERYONE has felt the need to comment, some out of concern, some think it’s funny, and others just can fight the urge to let me walk past them without saying something. It’s annoying.

Not to say I don’t love my job but, is it sad that the highlight of my workweek was making a poster on how to prevent cholera and deciding I feel accomplished because I’ve somewhat mastered the art of drawing people pooping in the river or on the side of the road? The best part about is that right after I had this thought Rose came in the house to confirm my suspicions. She said, “Kate, you know how to draw so well. Really, that is a good man pooping right there” ☺ Good thing I have that political science/ history degree.

While eating lunch with the wives next door the three year old, Adela, announced to everyone that I was his wife. I couldn’t help but laugh.

I miss football… well actually I miss Blacksburg and tail gating and lane stadium and Tech Triumph and all my friends. I said this to one of my friends once and I stand by it today. I think it’s harder to miss college football season then Christmas and Thanksgiving. At least for those I can commiserate with other volunteers, but there’s no one near me who really appreciates what I mean when I say I miss football. Slightly unhealthy obsession?… perhaps ;)

I told my mom I want to grow mushrooms with my women’s group to generate income and her immediate response was, “They’re not hallucinogenic mushrooms right?” Oh mother…

I found a CD in the market with over 100 of the “best” songs to hit the states last year. I think Ke$ha might be my new guilty pleasure… I’m so ashamed of myself . On a similar note I recently heard Justin Bieber blaring from a set of speakers in town. What is the world coming to?



My hubby Adela :)

Greetings to all my Stateside Friends,

Well summer vacation is officially over and with that the masses have returned to Bankim and school is almost in full swing. I’ve been told that even though there is an official first day of school (which was last Monday) no one really shows up until the second or third week, and then kids continue to trickle in for the rest of the month. I don’t know about that, all I can say is that if I had 5 or 10 or 18 children running around my house all summer I’d be counting down the days till I could ship them off to school ☺

Life on the home front is going well. Rose and her kids came back last week and she actually brought an additional son with her from village. His name is Louis and he looks about 13 or 14 years old. Apparently the school in Bankim is better then the one in their home village so right now Rose is in the process of transferring him here. I sort of feel bad for him because while all his paper work is being processed (the right people have be “motivated”) he’s stuck at home by himself, and he’s new so he doesn’t have any friends yet. Needless to say he’s been hanging out with Beamer and me a lot this week. The other apartment has been pretty quiet all month. Hawaou left for Banyo to be with her family for the end of her pregnancy right around the same time I left for Germany. Her “lovely” husband has been away the last couple weeks as well for what I understand to be work/play. The neighborhood rumor mill is all abuzz saying that he’s “looking” for a second wife, but I haven’t seen anything… I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Oh I almost forgot the most exciting news to the compound is that Hawaou had her Baby this past Wednesday! Now my phone French isn’t great so all I really got was that it’s a baby boy and that I’m in charge of spreading the word (which really wasn’t hard, I told one person and within a half an hour everyone knew). I can’t wait for her to come back so I can see the little guy.

Work is starting to pick up a bit, which makes me very happy. For the first time since I’ve been here someone, actually two different someones, approached me with their own ideas and asked for help (normally getting anything going is all on my end). The first person was a guy from the district hospital who asked me to organize some health animations on cholera with the nurses at my health center. Right now there’s a cholera epidemic in the “Grand North” and apparently (I haven’t been able to verify this so it could just be talk) it has recently spread to the capital of our region. There haven’t been any reported cases of it in Bankim but I think they just figure with all the travelers from Ramadan and the start of school it’s better to play it safe. Personally I think it’s a great idea, because the things you should do to prevent cholera also prevent typhoid and dysentery, which are huge problems here. The other person to approach me was my friend Mirabelle. She’s a schoolteacher at the bilingual primary school and she asked me if I could come in and teach some health education to her students this year. Of course I said yes! The other thing I worked on this week was putting out feelers on mushroom cultivation as an income-generating project for my women’s group. I had a fairly productive meeting with our government delegate of agriculture and he seems pretty on board with the idea. Over all work just seems to be picking up and I’m hoping that I can get a lot done this fall.

Let’s see what’s next OH! Ramadan ended on Friday, and there was fêting all weekend for it. The festivities started Friday morning around 4:30. I know this because I was awakened to the sounds of all the kids and wives next door clanking pots, cooking food and generally just yelling at each other as they were getting things ready. I tried to go back to sleep, but it was no use so I got up to go check out what was going on. When I got there all the boys were dressed in the best cloths and were assembling outside the house to walk down to the special prayer grounds on the outskirts of the village. I had to go to work at the health center but when the first big morning prayer was over I walked down to the road with B and some of the other nurses to watch everyone parade back through town… it was pretty cool to watch everyone singing and dancing, decked out in their brightly colored robes.
Later on that day I went over to my friend Dzoulaika’s house to celebrate. She’s the second wife to a man I work with and their whole family is super nice. I did have to laugh though because I got there and was quickly informed that before we could start to make the rounds to visit everyone we had to “get ready”. I was happy to find that “getting ready” to go out is just as much a ritual among women here as it is in the states. I felt like I was back in college with all my girlfriends on a Saturday night…there was music playing makeup being put on and jewelry being swapped back and forth. It was nice to see all the women and girls with their guards down smiling and giggling.
Day two of the party was spent at Little Abdulie’s house. I had a great time, but it was a totally different atmosphere because I was in the “big house” with all the men. We did a lot of eating and it kind of reminded me of Thanksgiving in the Millman/Richards house. Meaning all the men gorged themselves and they laid around the rest of the afternoon, picking at leftovers…the only thing missing was football on TV ☺

My two final thoughts on weekend:
One was an awkward conversation with the man I was sitting next to at one point at Abdulie’s. He told me he had been listening to the radio and wanted to know why Americans hated Muslims. My jaw dropped, there I was in the middle of nowhere in Cameroon, no newspapers, no internet, and yet some how these people knew what was going on back home. I basically tried to tell him that it wasn’t true, that not all American dislike Muslims, and that in fact there are a lot of Muslim Americans. I also tried to explain that in our country our law says that people are free to think and say whatever they want even if it’s not nice, and even if most people don’t agree with them. I don’t know if he got it but I did my best.
Two, on Sunday afternoon I was visiting with my neighbors to conclude the festivities and a bunch of big-wigs from the mosque came in while I was there. One of them asked me if I was Muslim, I said no that I was Christian, to which he looked at me with a big smile and said, “Ca va, c’est le même Allah, n’est pas?” (Well that’s fine, its all the same Allah, isn’t it?” Couldn’t have asked for a better ending to a great weekend ☺

I’m Back!

So I know that it’s been a long, long, long time since I updated this thing, but a combination of work, vacation, and a week long power outage have all be contributing factors in my absence from the interwebs. But the good news is that I’m back and ready to spill what I’ve been up to this last month.

The last week in July I was spending my days with about 20 little kids for a summer camp from a village en brousse called Ribao. Aislynn’s big projects this summer were weeklong kids camps and so I volunteered to help her out with the last one. It was great! The community was so excited to have us, and the kids, though initially painfully shy, eventually opened up and got to have a few days where their biggest worry was who won the football game and when’s lunch.

One day after camp was over Aislynn, Amanda, Emmanuel (camp counselor that we brought with us from Mayo Darlé) and I got invited to play in a football match. Apparently the team that was scheduled to play never showed up (word on the street was it was because they were scared) and so the Ribao team held a community match. Let me just say that my football skills probably rival my ability to run a marathon or gracefully dive into a swimming pool, which is to say they leave much to be desired. Even so, we all threw on or cloths to “fair le sport” and hit the field. As kickoff, or tip off, or what ever it’s called in soccer was about to commence all that could be heard was a chorus of locals calling out “Nassara” (white man) and one Kate Millman who could be heard quietly saying a prayer that the ball didn’t come her way. Now maybe your thinking oh Kate, you’re being dramatic… it’s just a game, but no these men play rough and if you get in their way they will run you over. I managed to almost make it through the whole game without having to do too much until it happened. It was a clear shot, the ball was coming right to me, but unfortunately there was also a very large African man running right after it. My team mates were yelling something at me in Fulfulde that I can only assume was something to the tune of “kick the ball white man, kick it!” So I braced for impact, stuck out my foot, and by the grace of god kicked the ball in the general direction I was supposed to. You would have thought I’d scored a goal from the hubbub that erupted from the sideline, but then again I guess it’s not everyday that they see a white women wearing shorts and playing football with a bunch of men.

The last thing I want to say about Ribao is that it is hands down one of the most beautiful place I have ever spent time in. With no electricity, no phone signal, no stores to buy food at, and more cows then people it’s like something out of a different time. The village backs right up to the Nigerian boarder and a towering mountain range that becomes the backdrop to some of the most breathtaking sunsets I’ve ever seen. AMAZING! Blacksburg in the Fall, you’re still number one in my heart for most beautiful places around, but Ribao is officially coming in at a close second.

After the camps I quickly changed directions and flew out to Germany to spend a week with my family. The whole gang was there, Sean, Andy, Mom, Dad, and even Grandma crossed the pond to get their “Katie fix”. It was a pretty typical Millman family vacation, meaning we did some sightseeing, ate some good food (side note I ate an obscene amount of bacon and cheese… no regrets ☺), had some heated discussion about the way the world works, and got lost more times then I can count. It was weird to have things like ice and flushing toilets and water that didn’t need to be filtered and wouldn’t give you dysentery, but somehow I pushed through it ;) I took a hot shower everyday (sometimes twice a day). All in all, I had a wonderful time and my only complaint was that it went by too fast.

Now I’m back in Bankim and trying to get back in the grove, all be it with a few obstacles. First thing is that we are currently in the middle of Ramadan. Everybody fasts from 4:30 am till 6:30 pm and so no one really has much energy to do anything else. With that being said my community groups aren’t meeting, and basically there are no patients at the health center. After quickly realizing that things kind of shut down for this I decided, well if you can’t beat ’em join ‘em, so that’s what I did (or at least attempted to do) I fasted last week but it was more of a 6 to 6 fast because that’s about as much of a “morning person” as I can pull off and still be able to function. It was a lot harder then I thought it was going to be. At 5:00 everyday I would just stand in the kitchen with my stomach growling counting down the minuets till I would hear the little boys next-door at the mosque calling the end of the fast. I don’t know how they do it for a whole month.

The other roadblock is that when I got back people were supposed to have turn in a commitment form for participating in the nutrition project, but unfortunately no one did. When I asked B about it she informed me that the people who came to the meeting were demanding travel per diem and re-imbursement for coming (even though its walking distance and the meeting was only an hour). Where things stand now I highly suspect that the village reps never relayed the information I gave them to their communities, and B wants to give up and try a new project (but with the same people). I haven’t made up my mind yet as to what I’m going to do. On the one hand the root problem of people wanting to work with me because they think I have money and then getting pissed when they find out I don’t isn’t going to go away just by changing projects, but on the other hand I don’t want to can all the prep work B and I did and have to start from scratch. Also I can’t help but think that it’s not fair to the mothers and kids who really need this for me to throw in the towel just because their higher-ups can get over themselves. What to do, what to do?

But alas it’s not all bad news. I did get a chance to talk with Little Abdulie (president of MBOSCUDA) and when Ramadan is over the men’s group I’ve been working with for the past 8 months are going to do some HIV/AIDS peer education with near by Mbororo communities. They seem really excited about getting the opportunity to share what they’ve learned and that makes me feel like I’m actually doing something (which I sometimes forget in light of all the other crap that happens) ☺


P.S. my neighbor Hawaou (8 months pregnant) had malaria (for the second time) when I was gone and was in the hospital for a week. She’s on the mend now, but her baby is way under weight so please if you’re the praying type, say a prayer for her.

A Cloud in the Sky

Lots to do this week so this is going to be a short and sweet post.

On the home front:

Things are slowly getting better with the neighbors. The husband is still not speaking to me (I'm cutting my losses with him) but Hawou has been much friendlier lately, so that's good news.

Beamer is fine but he escaped off his leash in the market last week. It happened outside my friend's bar and at first I panicked but for the most part everyone thought it was really funny so I calmed down a little bit. One guy even started chanting, "He's Free! He's Free!" In their defense I'm certain that if I saw myself chasing a dog around the market I would be on the ground rolling too. Beamer on the other hand was totally oblivious to all public humiliation and he literally ran circles around me for about 5 min while about 15 cameroonian onlookers all called his name at the same time. Most of them were on their 2nd or 3rd hour of Palm wine and they sounded like the seagulls from Finding Nemo.... Mine, mine, mine, Beamer, Beamer, Beamer. It was pretty funny. The dog was supper confused. Finally, he got tired and came back to me, but the icing on the cake was that he didn't just return, he ran back splashing in all the puddles along the way and fished up by and rolling onto his back into a giant puddle of mud. We did the walk of shame back to the house, me slighly embaressed and him covered head to toe in mud. Oh the joys of having a puppy!

Lastly, I'm in the process of doing a major deep clean of my house because I'm expecting visitors on friday. Number one on the cleaning list is to evict all non rent paying residents a.k.a. bats, roches, and mice. I bought some magic chalk and insectiside... i'll let you know how it goes.

On the Work front:

I finished my HIV/AIDS training with my mens group last Sunday. We wrapped up with roleplays and discussions and at the end of the meeting I felt great. Sometime I feel like everything goes in one ear and out the other, but this time I think everything pretty much stuck. The men seemed to get it and they were really engaged. Four months of work... 100% worth it :)

B and I are having a big meeting with represenitives from all the small villages en brousse on Thursday about a project were trying to start. I'm pretty much working on getting things ready for that all week. The meeting is kind of like the kickoff so cross your fingers that people show up and everything goes alright.

Happy Birthday America!

Well my first out of country Fourth of July has come and gone and while things didn’t go exactly as planned I did have a great time celebrating the good old U.S. of A. Aislynn came down to celebrate with me and I decided to invite a few friends over for dinner. The friends are a couple who own my favorite restaurant in town and they have a little 2-year-old girl that is adorable and has a huge personality for such a small person. I invited them a few days ago and they were all about coming over. They even gave me a couple of pineapples to serve and helped me out at the meat market.

Ok we need to detour for a second to talk about the meat market. I can now say with a 100% certainty that I will NEVER EVER EVER take the meat section at the local Farm Fresh for granted again. I think the buying and butchering of meat in my village is almost (key word almost) enough to turn anyone into a vegetarian. After asking around I learned that the trick to getting the good cuts is to get there right after they slaughter the cow (it’s also good because at this point the swarms of flies haven’t descended at full force.) Anyways, I got one of my friends whose boutique is right near the butchers to call me when they brought in the meat and then I came down. When I got there she showed me a good butcher and while yes he had the cut I needed he was also selling the head… were talking the whole head fully intact sitting on the chopping block and staring me down… I felt bad for a quick second but then I remembered how good cheeseburgers taste and sadly all feelings of remorse quickly vanished and it was off to step two…. meat grinding. They didn’t have a grinder at the main market so I had to go into one of the quarters to search for this old mama who said she would do it for me. So ya that was the meat market experience… not a pretty site but totally worth it to be able to cookout on the 4^th of July!

So, like I was saying before the meat market detour, I had invited two of my friends and there daughter over to celebrate the 4^th of July so Aislynn and I spent the majority of the day in the kitchen cooking to get ready. Unfortunately, something came up, and I’m not quite clear on the details, but they never ended up showing. I was pretty bummed because we had a lot of food and I had spent a lot of money, but the silver lining was that I invited Hawou over and she and Rashid actually came in to eat burgers and fries with us. Her hubby was gone so I’m sure that had something to do with it, but none the less it was a huge first step to get us out of this awkward funk! One of my trainers always used to say “Nothing in Cameroon works right, but everything always works out all right.” I couldn’t agree more J

Blogger’s Block...

Sorry I haven’t updated this thing in awhile but I just haven’t had anything too interesting to blog about. Literally the only thing I can think to mention is that I met the new volunteer who’s being posted in the area and I had a fabulous frip find today.

So Wednesday I got to meet the newest volunteer to join the forgotten corner (a.k.a. the western Adamoua ) Her name is Caitlyn and she’s in the education sector. She was very nice and seemed excited to be going to visit her post. We only got to chat for about 5 minuets because she was in route to Banyo, but we did get through the basics… how’s Cameroon? How’s Training? How’s DT? Where you from? Where did you go to school? Well it turns out she’s from Virginia! Talk about a small world. I’m pretty sure the Virginians are taking over this part of the country. We’re 75% V.A. right now… the fact that it’s 75% of four people is only a minor detail if you ask me ;)

Second story is about my adventures at the frip. Ok, so you’re probably thinking to yourself what the hell is a “frip”. Basically, it a mobile thrift store that sets itself up at the back of the market every Friday (Friday being our big market day). You know all that stuff that we get rid of during spring-cleaning? Well I guess after the Salvation Army and the Goodwill somehow it ends up here. The guys selling the stuff layout these giant plastic tarps and just dump out everything and it’s pretty much a free for all. Every time they throw some new stuff on the pile or lower the prices (prices drop throughout the day) there’s this spontaneous sorting frenzy that erupts. I’m not gonna lie it can get a little intense. Personally I think most of the stuff isn’t really worth sorting through to begin with, but most everyone else who’s there means business, and they don’t mess around (were talking mamas throwing ‘bows and steeling things out of each other’s hands). Normally I watch from a safe vantage point but today something caught my eye. Well actually it was two somethings. First I saw this pile of women’s winter fur hats and I thought it was really funny (because it’s like 100* here everyday) and then I saw next to it a pile of random suspenders. There’s a guy that was in my stage named Richard who always wore suspenders so I decided to go see if there were any good ones I could score for him. I didn’t really see anything that caught my eye until, Bingo!... the perfect 4^th of July accessory… red, white, and blue, stars and stripes suspenders. I bought them on the spot and didn’t even bother to haggle for the price. I already know I’m going to look like a big dork but I don’t care I’m gonna rock those on the 4th like its my job. I can’t wait for Sunday when I can sport the red, white and blue and hold up my trousers all at the same time J

A Lot of Ups and One Big Down

Since the moment I landed in country I’ve been hearing trainers, directors, and other volunteers saying things to me like “brace yourself for the ups and downs”, “get ready for the highs and lows”, “hold on tight it’s a roller coaster ride.” Now, I know what those words mean, and I THOUGHT I had experienced them plenty of times in the past, but it seems I was mistaken. I can hands down say nothing has even come close to topping this week in both good and bad ways.

Ok, I think I’ll start with the “Big Down” so we can end on a happy note. If you don’t want to read my ranting skip down to the bottom ;) Without going into too much detail, I’ll just say I had a very loud, very public, and very unpleasant argument with the man who lives in the apt. next to mine. I guess I should explain first that this is a man whose views on gender relations are eerily similar to what most people would identify as indentured servitude and he has probably never in his life had a women talk back to him (needless to say I’m not his type). I should also say for the record that he is an individual and doesn’t by any means. represent all Cameroonian men, just the ones I share a compound with.

Ok so the argument itself started over something small (unattended one-year old meets puppy meets face plant into the grass) but quickly snowballed into a full-scale confrontation when he began to address me like he does his wife (aka like an inferior being). With this the flood gates flew open and I let out six months worth of all the things I wanted to tell him but had held my tongue about (it was major case of verbal diarrhea and once I started I couldn’t stop). His first reaction (and mine too for that matter) was shock, then embarrassment, and finally he ended with a good old round of “I have to win this so I’m just going to yell even louder at you even if I’m not being coherent.”

Now were in an awkward stalemate. He’s not talking to me, and I haven’t said anything to him (which is hard because we live in the same house), but he’s been telling anyone that will listen to him that I’ve insulted him. Part of me wants him to see that he’s not the only one feeling insulted here, another part wants to take a stand to prove a point, and another part of me wants to go back to our peaceful (all be it just barely) coexistence. I know what I should do, and I probably will do it in the next day or two, but I just don’t want to.

So that was that, definitely the lowest low thus far. It’s kind of put a damper on things and it’s been on my mind a lot lately, but it has also made me see that they’re right; highs and lows really do come in pairs. For all the things that made this past week headache inducing I think it was also one of the most fun weeks I’ve had in a while.

It started with an unexpected visitor to Bankim. I was in the market last Monday and imagine my surprise when I turned around and found myself face to face with another twenty something year old white girl. Her name is Julia and she’s in Cameroon for two months to work with the Catholic mission. She spent most of her time in the East but somehow ended up in Bankim for a week to finish out her trip. The Mission is right across the street from me so we ended up hanging out a lot, and she was really nice company. I got to show her around town and show off my friends and some of the work I’ve been doing to her.

The other big thing to happen this week was the start of the World Cup. Football is a way of life here. Everyone plays, everyone watches the games, and everyone is a fierce fan of the Indomitable Lions (side note: Cameroonians kind of remind me of WVU football fans… they go crazy when they win and they go crazy when they lose). Cameroon played their first match on Monday, and the village literally shut down to watch it. People closed up shop, came back from the farms early and glued themselves to their TVs (another side note: TVs and satellites mysteriously popped up all over the place last week… people literally had satellites and cable installed in their mud brick houses so they can watch the World Cup). The Lions ended up losing to the Japanese 0-1 but I still had a blast watching it. Julia and I went to the “Big Man” bar with some of my friends and spent the game enjoying cold drinks and yelling at the TV. Excluding the fact that I’m on a different continent it was just like downtown Blacksburg on a Game Day J.

Now as much as I enjoy rooting for Cameroon and as much as I know Team USA is far from the best, I had to support the Motherland for their opening match against England. It turned out Julia is British and we both decided that it was just to perfect of a situation not to do something fun. Julia procured the use of the nun’s television and we made up a spread of munchies that included tortilla chips, bean dip, guacamole, and bear battered onion rings. The sisters weren’t crazy about the dips, but they really loved the chips. And so there we were; 2 Cameroonian nuns, one American volunteer, one British traveler all enjoying some Mexican food and watching football…talk about a cross-cultural experience ;)

I took Julia to see the lake and these little guys wanted to get in on the picture action

My phone after Beamer decided it was a chew toy

Kind of an awkward picture of me but the only one i got of Julia

Gameday num-nums :)

A Little of This and a Little of That

So I haven't really been in the mood to write in a while, mostly because i've been having a bout of upset stomach, no scratch that it's more like an irate stomach, for the past couple days, and last week there's was no power so ya that's my excuse for the delay. Nothing all that new and exciting has been happening in bankim so i'm just gonna throw a little of this and that at you for this weeks entry.

#1

Mat surfing. This has become Beamer's favorite past time as of late and I'm fairly certain it will be sweeping the world by storm in no time at all. Basically all you do is get a running start and then leap onto a prayer mat and enjoy as you slide across the living-room floor. Now, in my house seeing as how there are no rugs or carpets i have chosen an interior design centered around a few of these mats and the dog loves nothing more then spend an evening surfing between them.

#2

Cameroon has some of the most Beautiful rainbows i have ever seen in my entire life! Here they call them "roug-vert-jaunes" (red-green-yellows). I thought it was funny.

#3

Who would have guessed christmas bingo would have been such a smashing hit in June with a bunch of kids who've never heard of candy canes of Santa Clause?

#4

Bernadette is officially a grandma! Her oldest daughter Daisy gave birth to a healthy baby girl two days ago. I went to deliver the customary gift of soap and well wishes today and am happy to report mom and baby look great!

#5

I love the Men's group i work with. There just awesome! this a picture of them playing a sharks and mino/freeze tag "ish" game a couple of weeks ago. The best part about it was that they were decked out in their Alhaji boo-boos and still went for it.

The rest are just random pictures i've been trying without luck to upload on to facebook. Enjoy!

Madina, Samira, and I hanging out eating some cous-cous.

This was from last week. At this point we were out of the ditch but still stuck in the mud

Under a tree en brousse, getting ready to do a health lesson.

Independence day celebration in The Darle

this is the closet thing cameroon has to a clarinet, unfortunately for my ears it sounds a lot like a middle schooler learning to play the oboe

This is a Ju-Ju. you know when people tell you they're sending you good ju-ju or they say don't do that it's bad ju-ju? This is what they're talking about. The guy told me this was a good one.

Horse portion of the parade i was telling you about.

Gold robe and a cane... Baller.

Distributing the snake-be-gone sticks around the compound.

Me and Raschid hanging out.

So This is A Story All About How My Car Got Flipped Upside-down…

Okay, well not really upside down per say but it was on its side in a ditch. I know that I complain about the public transport in this country a lot, but so many things went wrong on this trip from Bankim to Bafoussam that I just have to share it with you. Here’s the sequence of events:

I went to the bus station a day early to reserve my spot. Bus driver tells me the car will pull out 8 am the next morning. Friday morning I get to the bus stop at 8. I am alone. I wait for 4 hours for the car to fill up, we finally leave at noon.

Come to find out it’s a push start van. Ever seen that scene from Little Miss Sunshine when the family has to park on a decline or get a running start to get the van moving… yup, exact same scenario.

We drive for about an hour and we get a flat tire when we hit a rock that’s submerged in one of the many ginormous mud/water filled potholes.

We drive for another hour and we have to stop for prayer.

We drive another hour and we slide off the road while trying to navigate a particularly muddy stretch. This was actually the highlight of the trip. Let me just preface by saying no one got hurt because a) we were moving super slow and b) we’re always packed in like sardines so it’s not like one could move even if they wanted to. Basically the wheels spun out and we went sideways right off the road and into the ditch. Icing on the cake was that it was the side with the door that was submerged in mud so everyone had to climb out through the windows (as I’m sure you can imagine, me wiggling out of a tiny sliding van window was anything but graceful). Once everybody was out it took about twenty guys and 45 mins. to get it unstuck and the whole time they were all arguing and yelling at each other. Once it was out it only stayed out for about 5 mins. before it was stuck again…and again…and again. The car was stuck in the mud a total of three times with in a 30 min. time frame after the initial slippage. Then all the men that helped push it out (those who weren’t passengers already) demanded the driver pay them and wouldn’t let us leave until he did. Finally he did but he had to use the money that he would normally use to pay off all the people looking for bribes at the checkpoints, which caused problems for us later on.

Everyone loads back in to the car and we drive for a while before we stop for prayer again.

We start to go over the mountains and the car overheats. The solution…pour water over the engine until it cools down. So basically we stand on the side of the road for an hour. The good news is I made some nice friends with the other passengers. One older lady told me her whole family’s life story.

We’ve been on the road about 6 hours when we finally get to Foumban and the road becomes paved- YESSSSSSSSS ☺

We hit Foumbat and run into some problems with a particularly cranky gendarme at customs. He’s looking for a little motivation (code word for bribe) and starts giving this one guy in the back of the car a really hard time about the goods he’s transporting.. We spend another 30 mins on the side of the road while the driver, the owner of the goods and the police officer have a screaming match. Finally the driver ends up leaving the guy there (I hope if I ever have an issue like that they won’t leave me… that’s why I always make a few friends right off the bat)

I can see the lights of Bafoussam in the distance.. quite literally the light at the end of the tunnel and then the car over heats..again. This time we only wait about 30 mins. for it to cool down and then we're off for the homestretch!

We finally make it after 8 ½ hours (that’s a personal record, normally it takes between 4 ½ and 5). As I’m sure you can imagine I was cranky and tired, one, because of the ride and, two the fact that now I was going to have to shell out money for a hotel room because I missed the last car leaving Baf for Baham (where the volunteer who I was trying to stay with lives). But then an amazing thing happened... I checked into my room discovered not only that I had running water but that it was hot and for the first time since landing in Yaoundé 9 months ago I took a nice long hot shower. Now I feel great! It’s truly amazing what heated water can do for your spirits ☺