Hope everyone had a good week! Lots to report on my end and I’m feeling a bit lazy so please excuse the randomness of this entry. Ok here we go…

I.

I finished up with the en brusse vacs on Thursday and it was by far my favorite day. I think the main reason it was fun was because it was the first time I’d been to these particular places and they were way way way off the beaten path. We took a moto and I think it goes without saying it was a bumpy ride (almost fell once and we had to get off and walk the bike a couple of times because the path was impassable). The first place we stopped at was a sort of seasonal village called Ngah. Basically people who have homes in Bankim Central (where I live) who have farms in the bush move their families out to Ngah and set up camp for the harvest. Some people do stay there all year around so as a result they live fairly secluded lives, in fact some of the kids have never seen white people before and when they saw me that day they burst out crying. Sometimes this makes me feel a little bad, but the good news is the adults tend to think it’s hilarious and so it ends up being a good way to break the ice. Ngah probably has a total population of 20-25 people according to Mbokas (including kids) and everything is mudbrick and thatched roofed. However, the real draw for me is the landscape. I’m sure it helped that we had a beautiful day for traveling but it was gorgeous. It’s right at the bottom of this huge mountain range and the backdrop is absolutely breathtaking. It was one of those moments when I was reminded just how beautiful a country Cameroon really is. But anyways back to the story… we got to Ngah and it was a ghost town because everyone was out in the farms so we went out and rounded up as many people as we could find and had them all gather together so I could give me schpeel. By day three of this Mbokas and I were like a well oiled machine and my talk on Peace Corps approach to development with Mbokas’ translation went great, so that was a nice confidence booster.

Next stop was in Klong and we did the same thing again, but under a tree this time. I felt very Peace Corps cliché giving an animation under a tree in the center of town but it was really fun and apparently well received because afterwards I got to meet the traditional chief of the village and he really liked what I had to say and was pumped about me coming out every month to work with his village. I have to say it’s very encouraging when I go somewhere or when I’m in Bankim and the people in charge are really invested in the well being of their community. It’s not always the case, but when it is it makes my job a whole hell of a lot easier. Side note about the chief of Klong; he was sporting a billabong taxi cab hat. I had no idea that surf brands were so dignified, but when I told him that my friends back in America wore Billabong stuff too it seemed to make him happy.

The final two stops were tiny Mbororo homesteads with one or two families each, complete with an army of kids. When we got to the first one I heard someone calling my name “Madame Kate, Madame Kate!” and I turned around to see one of the men I work with from MBOSCUDA coming out to greet me. Even though he doesn’t speak any French and I don’t’ speak any Fulfulde he was still really excited to see me and He showed me around his compound and introduced me to his family. It was encouraging to see how far we’ve come with this particular group. When I first got there I was really nervous and I suspect they were too because Ralph told me I would be the first women to work with them on a regular basis and they practice very rigid gender roles as part of their culture. I know we still have a long way to go (especially after our last meeting, I’ll get there in a little bit), but I think we’ve started to build a little trust which is a very good thing.

Random comment about this trip; I saw my first seriously malnourished kids. There are a lot of kids near where I live who are thin and you can see their ribs and there are also a lot of chubby kids with big bellies, but not any that I’ve seen have been textbook malnutrition (Merasmus and Kwashiorkor sp???). This trip though I came across twin boys who had definite cases of Merasmus (shout out to Stephanie for teaching me to be able to identify it J ). So this is what happened, Mbokas was giving vaccinations and I was weighing kids when I saw this woman holding twins sort of towards the back of the crowd. She had one on her hip and one on her back and they were really tiny so I just assumed that they were under 1 years old (we only weigh kids under a year old) and went to ask the mother if I could weigh them for her. She said no because they were too old which I thought was odd so explained we can weigh up to 12 months and she said no that they were 2 and a half. I was shocked… they couldn’t even walk and if I had to guess by looking I would have said they were 5 or 6 months at the most. I told Mbokas about it and he talked to her about it and encouraged her to feed them more and bring them into the Health Center to get checked out but I’m afraid she won’t do it. Looking at those kids and looking at the mother who was stick thin as well made me so sad. I don’t think that she’s a bad mother and I think if she had food to give she would or if she had money to go to the hospital I’m sure she would do that too, but the reality is that she probably doesn’t. I can’t even imagine what it must feel like to watch your kids starving to death. Now I should say that this scenario is certainly not true of everyone in the area and I do in fact know people with big families where the kids are healthy, it’s just that this situation is a reminder of exactly why family planning is so important to talk about.

III.

My MBOSCUDA meetings were interesting this week. The women decided to cancel the meeting an hour before because too many of them were sick including Rahinatou , my translator, but they didn’t tell me and I was all ready to go when I found out the meeting was a no go. It was kind of annoying, but it was very Cameroonian. C’est la vie!

I had a lot of time to kill now and I was in the neighborhood so I decided to drop in and say hello to Abdulie (the President of MBOSCUDA) to see how he was feeling (he had a double hernia operation about three weeks ago). Turns out he’s doing really well and was excited to tell me that he was going to try and make it out to the meeting the next day. (side note Abdulie speaks English and normally translates for me, needless to say I was excited for him to be there too… communication has been a major challenge without him) He asked me to catch him up with what he’d missed so I went over the needs assessment stuff we had done in the men’s group and then what the women’s group was up to too. He seemed pretty happy with everything and I was happy he was happy, but just as I was packing up and about to walk out the door he dropped the bomb on me. Sometimes I find that Cameroonians have a hard time coming right out with it. They’ll beat around the bush for a long time before they get to saying what’s really on their mind, and this was definitely the case here. I have no doubt he knew what he wanted to say from the beginning, but instead of saying we made polite small talk and recaps for an hour before he said anything.

Apparently the problem is that some of the men are refusing to allow the women to go to the meetings because we’ve changed the meeting place from someone’s house to the youth center. Before I got to post apparently the guy I replaced suggested that they could meet there and got permission and a room from the catholic mission, and left me all the contacts to go ahead with the move, so I just assumed that he had talked to everyone and it was ok. Apparently though that wasn’t really the case and now some of the men have concerns.

So I sat back down in my chair and Abdulie and I talked about it end came to the conclusion that we needed to bring it up at the next men’s meeting and see what the majority of people were thinking and then go from there. As far as he was concerned the is no reason why the women can't meet at the youth center, but sadly I found out the next day, he is one of very few people who feel that way, and it looks like we’re going to have to nix the plan. Which makes me sad because the facility could have been really helpful (you know, blackboards desks and tables tend to be helpful when you’re trying to learn a new language)

It was surreal to be sitting in this meeting listening to men talk about whether or not their wives should be allowed to leave the house for one hour once a week. Finally after about 45 minutes I said as delicately as I could that almost everyone in this room told me the first week during introductions that their goals were to educate their wives and children and that this was one way to get there. I was trying to remind them that you can’t really move forward if there’s no room for even a little change. I don’t know if I got through to them and at some points it got pretty heated. I was worried that maybe this was gonna cause the dynamics between the group and me to backslide a little, but now that a couple of days have passed and people are still being friendly to me and greeting me at the market I think we’ll be ok. It’s kind of like how moms have that magic ability to be yelling at you one min and then pick up the phone and be absolutely delightful with whoever is on the other end.

V.

Beamer is adjusting well to Bankim. My neighbors are starting to come around to him and everyone comments on our daily afternoon walks. I’ve been taking him for a walk every afternoon when the temperature cools off to give him a chance to get out of the compound and release some energy and people thinks really funny. Normally people only keep dogs to guard their house so it’s a bit strange to see one walking through town on a leash. I had to laugh the other day because just as we were coming back from our walk the kids next door came running out with their goats all leashed up. They were laughing and carrying on say look the goats are like Beamer. It was too cute!

The only problem I’m having is that he’s chewing on everything, myself included. I’ve made him a couple of chew toys and given him some bones, but for some reason gnawing on my tennis shoes and table legs seems to be more fun for him.

In other news, he has fleas again and I myself have found a bunch of suspicious bites on me which I suspect are fleas as well. It seems inevitable that the dogs going to have fleas, but I need to figure out what to do with myself on this front.

VII.

We had the first rain of the season yesterday. It was a torrential downpour that came out of nowhere and lasted about 20 min. Afterwards I went outside and the ground had soaked up everything in a matter of minutes. If I hadn’t see it raining with my own eyes I wouldn’t have even believed it. Even so the rain was exciting and its been the talk of the town for the past 24 hours. I have to confess that I’m ready for the heat to die down a little. The mud and noisy tin roof I could live without but it’ll be nice to be able to catch rain water instead of pulling it from the well outside for a change.