Good Morning From Ethiopia!
So it's day two of our grand adventure and I've only got a few min. left of internet to update you all on the happenings of my life in the past 48 hours. I think most of you know this, but I am now an official RPCV (returned peace corps volunteer). It was a pretty emotional departure from village, but after a week of dealing with administrative paper work i felt pretty good about leaving ;)
Just to bring everyone up to speed: Myself and two other volunteers, L and J decided about a year ago to take a cross continental backpacking trip through southern Africa. What started out as simply a "you know what would be cool" dream, has turned into an reality and I could not be more excited. Now I don't know how often I'll be able to post, but I will do my very best to keep everyone in the loop as our adventure unrolls.
Day 1: L, J, and I all made it to Douala after one last weekend at the beach. It was such a nice way to say goodbye to friends and country that has become our home. After we packed up our bags and did one more purge to find the stuff we didn't need we were off. First stop, Douala airport. In a effort to save money we decided to sleep overnight in the airport which for us translated into sleeping in the "luxury" airport restaurant couches and paying a little "motivation" for the night guards to keep and eye on us and our stuff.
Day 2: We boarded our flight and waved goodbye to Cameroon. It wasn't until we touched off that it really hit... this is it, so long to Cameroon. We spent pretty much the entire day flying with a layover in the Central African Republic and Ethiopia. As I type this I have just been roused from my AMAZING hotel bed (thank you Ethiopian airlines!) and and getting ready to head back to catch the last leg of your flight.
More updates to come
-Kate
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Friday, August 5, 2011
There and Back Again
So it has kindly been brought to my attention (and by kindly I’m referring to the pestering that I’ve been getting on the mom front) that it has been 3 months since my last post… sorry about that. Subsequently this is probably going to be my longest entry to date, because I have literally traveled halfway across the world and back.
Where to begin, where to begin… I guess we should start with camp number one. Since about January myself and a couple other volunteers in my area have been planning summer camps. The easy parts of that were picking locations, rallying the troops, and creating lesson plans. The not so easy part was figuring out how to pay for all this fun stuff. Our goal was to get most of it locally funded and at the time it seemed like an easy enough thing to do. Our budget was pretty small and I figured all we had to do was sweet talk a few “big-men,” offer them a small reception with the appropriate amount of recognition and ego stroking at the closing ceremonies and that plus a hefty portion of guilt-trip would do the trick… HA I was so naïve. As it turns out people are more then willing to say they’ll contribute, but when it comes to collecting the doe… well that’s a different story. Now anybody who knows me at all will tell you I don’t mess around when it comes to people lying to me. I don’t care if you ARE a VIB (very important bigman), if you promise to fund three quarters of our budget and then try and back out because you don’t have a single ounce of dignity in your body… you better believe I’m gonna wage a small warpath against you and your cronies. Suffice to say I may have ruffled a few feathers and burned a few bridges, but I got the money and we were able to do the camps.
The first of the camps was at a primary school situated in between these two tiny villages about 20 minutes outside of Bankim. We ended up pulling kids from what are the equivalents of 6th, 5th, and 4th grade and had about 52 kids in total show up (not too shabby!). The themes for the week were HIV and Life skills with a football tournament built in to the end of the day. Some of you might be reading this and thinking to yourselves, my God, is it really appropriate to be talking about HIV with elementary school kids? I know this because before I moved here I would have said the same thing, but the harsh reality is that many girls drop out and get married right around this age and for the ones (boys and girls) who do go on to lycee (high school)… well lets just say they need to know how to stay safe. With all that being said I think the camp went off well and I know the kids came away having learned some new stuff!
So with one camp down and one to go I deep cleaned my house,* packed up my bag, (which, by the way, is one of those big hiking packs and it totally makes me look like a legit world traveler ☺ ) and headed off to Yaoundé to leave for vacation. With the exception of a minor detail mix-up involving my ride from the airport having the wrong day, my flight state side went off without a hitch. All I kept thinking as I was flying across the Atlantic was, “My goodness economy class never felt so luxurious!” Four meals, 14 hours of bad in-flight entertainment, and 2 days later I was back in the motherland. We touched down early afternoon, and would you believe the first 2 people I came across in America were Cameroonians? The first was my customs officer (not a group of people known for their friendliness factor). Now I wasn’t transporting anything illegal but I was still feeling a touch of the airport customs jitters, only made worst by the fact that officer who’s line I was standing in was giving the man in front of me a particularly difficult time. Not gonna lie, when he said next, and I walked up to his window I was a little bit worried he would give me trouble too.
“Passport. Customs card. Where are you coming from today ma’am?”
“Cameroon via Brussels.”
“CAMEROON?! Parlez vous français?”
“Ya I parlez the français!”
After that we chatted a few minuets in French and he waved me right on through. I grabbed my bags and then headed out to the main waiting area.
The first thing I saw when I turned the corner was a herd of overly zealous people waving American flags and holding welcome posters, and as I was clearly not who they were there to see they all had similar looks of disappointment on their faces when I came into sight. The second thing I saw was one of a scarce few open seats in the packed waiting area so I quickly hopped on that. No sooner had I sat down did I realize the gentleman sitting next to me was speaking French into his cell phone, and at just about 2 years into my service I could have picked that accent out anywhere. Sure enough, the guy finished up his call and I asked him if he was from West Africa. He said yes, so then I went a little further and asked if he was from Cameroon. He was. The guy asked me how I knew so I told him I recognized the accent (the speed talking at a ridiculously loud volume kind of gave it away too). In true Cameroonian fashion the guy ended up giving me his full life story while I waited for my ride to arrive. So there you have I spend 23 months in Cameroon, come home for vacation, and the first two people I meet are Cameroonians… small world!
I could probably write pages and pages detailing my month at home, but let’s not kid ourselves here… I don’t really want to do that and you probably don’t want to read it, so let me just hit you with the highlights:
1.Got picked up at the airport by two of my favorite ladies who then treated me to a Bacon and extra cheese pizza as my first meal state side.
2.Exactly one hour after that had to ask my two favorite ladies to stop because the bacon and extra cheese were reeking havoc on my intestinal track.
3.Graduationpalooza 2011 went down the first couple days I was home. My youngest brother and one of my cousins graduated this year so I got to participate in the whirlwind that was ceremonies, family dinners, and grad parties.
4.My 4th of July was spent on Smith Mountain Lake with the girls and Nanny & crew. As always the Palmers didn’t disappoint. There was water skiing and tubing (without the fear of contracting schisto, a fun little snail parasite that lives in fresh water, permeates your skin, and lays eggs inside of you), fireworks on the lake, corn hole matches, golf cart parades, good southern cookin’, and of course cases of cheep beer. The weekend was a blast, but the whole time I just kept thinking what in the world would Hawoua think if she could see me now. If the being pulled behind a fast moving boat in a blown up inter-tube, or blowing up colorful explosives for fun in the middle of the night didn’t get her, surely the site of everyone in bathing suits would have put her over the edge ;)
5.I was in the Roop/Seager wedding, which what can I say… was an exciting, beautiful, fun, wild time. I was so honored to be in the wedding, grateful I fit into the bridesmaids dress, and happy to see so many people from Tech that I hadn’t seen in years.
6.…and just in case I didn’t get enough wedding fun in one weekend, I got to go round two the next week at the Gibaldi/Knight wedding. I think it goes without saying that it was another beautiful ceremony, fantastic reception, great music, and good friends.
7.Last but most certainly not least, I went to the midnight showing of the final Harry Potter movie… yes I am huge nerd, yes I do LOVE the fictional magic world of Hogworts, yes my brothers and I drew dark mark tattoos on our forearms, and yes, yes I did have to go to a wedding the next day with faint outline of said tattoo still on my arm.
So that was my little holiday in a nutshell. It was kind of a whirlwind of visiting people, eating, answering the same two questions over and over again (Well, so tell us how’s Africa? And what are you going to do when you get home?), and frantically trying to fit it all into 4 and a 1/2 weeks, but I had an excellent time!
Just like I knew I was bound for the western world when I caught my connector in Brussels and all of a sudden everybody and their brother’s, uncle’s, sister’s cousin had a smart phone, I knew I was bound for Cameroon when I caught that same connector going in the opposite direction. This warrants a blog spot simply because everything about it was just so absolutely Cameroonian. I found the right terminal gate, took a seat, and no sooner had a sat down did the guy next to me bust out his cell phone and began playing Kiriku (a popular Cameroonian song) off of it. The family across from me kept yelling at their two little kids in perfect Special English that, “You people should stop disturbing or I will beat you.” Then, even though you’re supposed to be near your gate at least an hour before boarding 80% of the flight showed up right as we were supposed to be entering the plane (although I suppose right on time is a major improvement from 3 hours late) which in turn caused a major backup/bottle necking problem at the gate, which of course then lead to a spontaneous yelling/finger waggling match between two large women in cabas. Basically the throw down (which you could hear happening from the other side of the airport) went like this but all in French:
“What are you doing?”
“I’m waiting in line.”
“No, you just cut into the line.”
“No I didn’t YOU cut in line!”
“No you did!”
“No you did!”
“I’m gonna call the police.”
“No, I’m gonna call the police!”
classic.
Once I actually managed to get on the plane it just kept getting better. The large burly gentleman next to me puts down his tray table, unzips his briefcase, and pulls out this old school, 1998 era, over sized laptop that hangs over a good two inches on both sides of the tray. He then he reaches back into the bag and pulls out this DVD. It was at this point in the game that I realized no good could come from this situation, and sure enough as soon as he put in that disk and pushed play it was just as I expected… village home videos. I need to back track just a minute and explain that from my experience I have concluded that were there an Olympic event for filming home-videos, Cameroon would take gold every time. Anytime more then 50 or so people congregate in the same place, I can pretty much guarantee you someone will appear out of nowhere with a shaky hand and zoom happy fingers to capture the event on film. And the best part about is that for the hours and hours of footage they get nothing ever seems to happen. There’s never a father teaching his kid to play baseball who ends up taking one right to the baby maker, and I’ve never seen a kid fall asleep and face plant right into a plate of corn fou-fou, nothing… just people sitting around, or standing around, or if their feeling really crazy dancing around. And always no matter what the occasion the tape will be dubbed over in heavily synthesized Cameroonian jams (which aren’t bad the first time around but after the second hour of listening to it, it becomes like nails on a chalkboard). Now with that being said, my seat buddy put on one of these cinematic masterpieces and cranked it up to full volume. At one point I actually pushed my headphones into the palm of his hands cause I couldn’t take it anymore, but he in turned graciously declined them stating that he wanted everyone to be able to enjoy the bonne musique. After about an hour and a half the guy finally fell asleep, so I busted out my sweet stealthy ninja moves, reached over him, and cut the volume. VICTORY IS MINE!!!… was what I was thinking right before the lady on the other side of sleeping seat buddy elbowed him awake and tattled on me (yes, a grown women did in fact tattled on me to a complete stranger) . Needless to say the volume was readjusted and I had to endure song after song until the computer battery finally crapped out.
The laptop saga was fun but it doesn’t even hold a candle to what happened next. We were just cruising along just getting ready to start making our final decent when apparently the plane’s windshield broke or cracked or something. Whatever it was the happened caused some pretty intense, unexpected turbulence in the cabin, and 99% of the people aboard immediately started screaming and panicking in a hysterical fit. I really thought “well this is it, this is how it’s gonna go down, me and a plane full of Cameroonians… ASHIA TO ME!” Just as I was think this and the hysterics were about to do me in, seat buddy wakes up from his nap, throws his big arms across me and starts in on a chorus of “JESUS SAVE US, DEAR GOD JESUS SAVE US, PLEASE GOD SAVE US!!!” immediately followed by a couple hail Maries for good measure. And then it was over. Seat buddy promptly switched over to “THANK YOU JESUS’, ” let up on his protective-arm-across-the-chest-action (that at the time of turbulence had kept me practically immobile in my seat)and moved his hand on to my forehead as if to suck the thankfulness right on out of me. The rest of the flight was spent with everyone recounting the time the plane was “jumping too much in the sky”.
After I landed in Yaoundé I spent a day there trying to get re-acclimated and running a few administrative errands, before I set off to Songkolong for camp number two. This camp was the real test. 32 5th and 6th graders under Jackie and my supervision alllllllll day long (and boy let me tell ya, they wore me out!) There were a couple hiccups along the way, but for the most part things went well and again the campers had a really fun time. I don’t know if I would call this a highlight from the week, but definitely the most “interesting” part of the week was giving the boy’s puberty lesson… if you’re trying to imagine this in your head right now… it’s ok to laugh… it was a pretty entertaining situation ☺ All I can say is now I know exactly how my old gym teacher, Coach A. must have felt having to give the girls family life class back in high school.
At the end of the week Jackie and I packed up in Songkolong and I finally began to make my way back to Bankim. When I got back Beamer was ecstatic to see me, all the neighbors came over to greet and ask what I brought back for them, and Sister Julie had prepared a nice welcome home dinner for us. Not a bad homecoming if I do say so myself.
So that brings us to this week. Basically now I’m just trying to get back into the swing of things and figure out what exactly I’m going to do for the last 4 months of service. Piece of cake… right???
* I never understood as a kid why my mom always insisted on cleaning the house before family road trips, and I’m not sure when this started happening, but now I do the same thing…hmmmm… OH GOD I’M BECOMING MY MOTHER! I suppose that’s not such a bad thing ;)
Where to begin, where to begin… I guess we should start with camp number one. Since about January myself and a couple other volunteers in my area have been planning summer camps. The easy parts of that were picking locations, rallying the troops, and creating lesson plans. The not so easy part was figuring out how to pay for all this fun stuff. Our goal was to get most of it locally funded and at the time it seemed like an easy enough thing to do. Our budget was pretty small and I figured all we had to do was sweet talk a few “big-men,” offer them a small reception with the appropriate amount of recognition and ego stroking at the closing ceremonies and that plus a hefty portion of guilt-trip would do the trick… HA I was so naïve. As it turns out people are more then willing to say they’ll contribute, but when it comes to collecting the doe… well that’s a different story. Now anybody who knows me at all will tell you I don’t mess around when it comes to people lying to me. I don’t care if you ARE a VIB (very important bigman), if you promise to fund three quarters of our budget and then try and back out because you don’t have a single ounce of dignity in your body… you better believe I’m gonna wage a small warpath against you and your cronies. Suffice to say I may have ruffled a few feathers and burned a few bridges, but I got the money and we were able to do the camps.
The first of the camps was at a primary school situated in between these two tiny villages about 20 minutes outside of Bankim. We ended up pulling kids from what are the equivalents of 6th, 5th, and 4th grade and had about 52 kids in total show up (not too shabby!). The themes for the week were HIV and Life skills with a football tournament built in to the end of the day. Some of you might be reading this and thinking to yourselves, my God, is it really appropriate to be talking about HIV with elementary school kids? I know this because before I moved here I would have said the same thing, but the harsh reality is that many girls drop out and get married right around this age and for the ones (boys and girls) who do go on to lycee (high school)… well lets just say they need to know how to stay safe. With all that being said I think the camp went off well and I know the kids came away having learned some new stuff!
So with one camp down and one to go I deep cleaned my house,* packed up my bag, (which, by the way, is one of those big hiking packs and it totally makes me look like a legit world traveler ☺ ) and headed off to Yaoundé to leave for vacation. With the exception of a minor detail mix-up involving my ride from the airport having the wrong day, my flight state side went off without a hitch. All I kept thinking as I was flying across the Atlantic was, “My goodness economy class never felt so luxurious!” Four meals, 14 hours of bad in-flight entertainment, and 2 days later I was back in the motherland. We touched down early afternoon, and would you believe the first 2 people I came across in America were Cameroonians? The first was my customs officer (not a group of people known for their friendliness factor). Now I wasn’t transporting anything illegal but I was still feeling a touch of the airport customs jitters, only made worst by the fact that officer who’s line I was standing in was giving the man in front of me a particularly difficult time. Not gonna lie, when he said next, and I walked up to his window I was a little bit worried he would give me trouble too.
“Passport. Customs card. Where are you coming from today ma’am?”
“Cameroon via Brussels.”
“CAMEROON?! Parlez vous français?”
“Ya I parlez the français!”
After that we chatted a few minuets in French and he waved me right on through. I grabbed my bags and then headed out to the main waiting area.
The first thing I saw when I turned the corner was a herd of overly zealous people waving American flags and holding welcome posters, and as I was clearly not who they were there to see they all had similar looks of disappointment on their faces when I came into sight. The second thing I saw was one of a scarce few open seats in the packed waiting area so I quickly hopped on that. No sooner had I sat down did I realize the gentleman sitting next to me was speaking French into his cell phone, and at just about 2 years into my service I could have picked that accent out anywhere. Sure enough, the guy finished up his call and I asked him if he was from West Africa. He said yes, so then I went a little further and asked if he was from Cameroon. He was. The guy asked me how I knew so I told him I recognized the accent (the speed talking at a ridiculously loud volume kind of gave it away too). In true Cameroonian fashion the guy ended up giving me his full life story while I waited for my ride to arrive. So there you have I spend 23 months in Cameroon, come home for vacation, and the first two people I meet are Cameroonians… small world!
I could probably write pages and pages detailing my month at home, but let’s not kid ourselves here… I don’t really want to do that and you probably don’t want to read it, so let me just hit you with the highlights:
1.Got picked up at the airport by two of my favorite ladies who then treated me to a Bacon and extra cheese pizza as my first meal state side.
2.Exactly one hour after that had to ask my two favorite ladies to stop because the bacon and extra cheese were reeking havoc on my intestinal track.
3.Graduationpalooza 2011 went down the first couple days I was home. My youngest brother and one of my cousins graduated this year so I got to participate in the whirlwind that was ceremonies, family dinners, and grad parties.
4.My 4th of July was spent on Smith Mountain Lake with the girls and Nanny & crew. As always the Palmers didn’t disappoint. There was water skiing and tubing (without the fear of contracting schisto, a fun little snail parasite that lives in fresh water, permeates your skin, and lays eggs inside of you), fireworks on the lake, corn hole matches, golf cart parades, good southern cookin’, and of course cases of cheep beer. The weekend was a blast, but the whole time I just kept thinking what in the world would Hawoua think if she could see me now. If the being pulled behind a fast moving boat in a blown up inter-tube, or blowing up colorful explosives for fun in the middle of the night didn’t get her, surely the site of everyone in bathing suits would have put her over the edge ;)
5.I was in the Roop/Seager wedding, which what can I say… was an exciting, beautiful, fun, wild time. I was so honored to be in the wedding, grateful I fit into the bridesmaids dress, and happy to see so many people from Tech that I hadn’t seen in years.
6.…and just in case I didn’t get enough wedding fun in one weekend, I got to go round two the next week at the Gibaldi/Knight wedding. I think it goes without saying that it was another beautiful ceremony, fantastic reception, great music, and good friends.
7.Last but most certainly not least, I went to the midnight showing of the final Harry Potter movie… yes I am huge nerd, yes I do LOVE the fictional magic world of Hogworts, yes my brothers and I drew dark mark tattoos on our forearms, and yes, yes I did have to go to a wedding the next day with faint outline of said tattoo still on my arm.
So that was my little holiday in a nutshell. It was kind of a whirlwind of visiting people, eating, answering the same two questions over and over again (Well, so tell us how’s Africa? And what are you going to do when you get home?), and frantically trying to fit it all into 4 and a 1/2 weeks, but I had an excellent time!
Just like I knew I was bound for the western world when I caught my connector in Brussels and all of a sudden everybody and their brother’s, uncle’s, sister’s cousin had a smart phone, I knew I was bound for Cameroon when I caught that same connector going in the opposite direction. This warrants a blog spot simply because everything about it was just so absolutely Cameroonian. I found the right terminal gate, took a seat, and no sooner had a sat down did the guy next to me bust out his cell phone and began playing Kiriku (a popular Cameroonian song) off of it. The family across from me kept yelling at their two little kids in perfect Special English that, “You people should stop disturbing or I will beat you.” Then, even though you’re supposed to be near your gate at least an hour before boarding 80% of the flight showed up right as we were supposed to be entering the plane (although I suppose right on time is a major improvement from 3 hours late) which in turn caused a major backup/bottle necking problem at the gate, which of course then lead to a spontaneous yelling/finger waggling match between two large women in cabas. Basically the throw down (which you could hear happening from the other side of the airport) went like this but all in French:
“What are you doing?”
“I’m waiting in line.”
“No, you just cut into the line.”
“No I didn’t YOU cut in line!”
“No you did!”
“No you did!”
“I’m gonna call the police.”
“No, I’m gonna call the police!”
classic.
Once I actually managed to get on the plane it just kept getting better. The large burly gentleman next to me puts down his tray table, unzips his briefcase, and pulls out this old school, 1998 era, over sized laptop that hangs over a good two inches on both sides of the tray. He then he reaches back into the bag and pulls out this DVD. It was at this point in the game that I realized no good could come from this situation, and sure enough as soon as he put in that disk and pushed play it was just as I expected… village home videos. I need to back track just a minute and explain that from my experience I have concluded that were there an Olympic event for filming home-videos, Cameroon would take gold every time. Anytime more then 50 or so people congregate in the same place, I can pretty much guarantee you someone will appear out of nowhere with a shaky hand and zoom happy fingers to capture the event on film. And the best part about is that for the hours and hours of footage they get nothing ever seems to happen. There’s never a father teaching his kid to play baseball who ends up taking one right to the baby maker, and I’ve never seen a kid fall asleep and face plant right into a plate of corn fou-fou, nothing… just people sitting around, or standing around, or if their feeling really crazy dancing around. And always no matter what the occasion the tape will be dubbed over in heavily synthesized Cameroonian jams (which aren’t bad the first time around but after the second hour of listening to it, it becomes like nails on a chalkboard). Now with that being said, my seat buddy put on one of these cinematic masterpieces and cranked it up to full volume. At one point I actually pushed my headphones into the palm of his hands cause I couldn’t take it anymore, but he in turned graciously declined them stating that he wanted everyone to be able to enjoy the bonne musique. After about an hour and a half the guy finally fell asleep, so I busted out my sweet stealthy ninja moves, reached over him, and cut the volume. VICTORY IS MINE!!!… was what I was thinking right before the lady on the other side of sleeping seat buddy elbowed him awake and tattled on me (yes, a grown women did in fact tattled on me to a complete stranger) . Needless to say the volume was readjusted and I had to endure song after song until the computer battery finally crapped out.
The laptop saga was fun but it doesn’t even hold a candle to what happened next. We were just cruising along just getting ready to start making our final decent when apparently the plane’s windshield broke or cracked or something. Whatever it was the happened caused some pretty intense, unexpected turbulence in the cabin, and 99% of the people aboard immediately started screaming and panicking in a hysterical fit. I really thought “well this is it, this is how it’s gonna go down, me and a plane full of Cameroonians… ASHIA TO ME!” Just as I was think this and the hysterics were about to do me in, seat buddy wakes up from his nap, throws his big arms across me and starts in on a chorus of “JESUS SAVE US, DEAR GOD JESUS SAVE US, PLEASE GOD SAVE US!!!” immediately followed by a couple hail Maries for good measure. And then it was over. Seat buddy promptly switched over to “THANK YOU JESUS’, ” let up on his protective-arm-across-the-chest-action (that at the time of turbulence had kept me practically immobile in my seat)and moved his hand on to my forehead as if to suck the thankfulness right on out of me. The rest of the flight was spent with everyone recounting the time the plane was “jumping too much in the sky”.
After I landed in Yaoundé I spent a day there trying to get re-acclimated and running a few administrative errands, before I set off to Songkolong for camp number two. This camp was the real test. 32 5th and 6th graders under Jackie and my supervision alllllllll day long (and boy let me tell ya, they wore me out!) There were a couple hiccups along the way, but for the most part things went well and again the campers had a really fun time. I don’t know if I would call this a highlight from the week, but definitely the most “interesting” part of the week was giving the boy’s puberty lesson… if you’re trying to imagine this in your head right now… it’s ok to laugh… it was a pretty entertaining situation ☺ All I can say is now I know exactly how my old gym teacher, Coach A. must have felt having to give the girls family life class back in high school.
At the end of the week Jackie and I packed up in Songkolong and I finally began to make my way back to Bankim. When I got back Beamer was ecstatic to see me, all the neighbors came over to greet and ask what I brought back for them, and Sister Julie had prepared a nice welcome home dinner for us. Not a bad homecoming if I do say so myself.
So that brings us to this week. Basically now I’m just trying to get back into the swing of things and figure out what exactly I’m going to do for the last 4 months of service. Piece of cake… right???
* I never understood as a kid why my mom always insisted on cleaning the house before family road trips, and I’m not sure when this started happening, but now I do the same thing…hmmmm… OH GOD I’M BECOMING MY MOTHER! I suppose that’s not such a bad thing ;)
Monday, May 16, 2011
The Funny Side Of Life
A RPCV who was back visiting Cameroon just recently told me, “You know Kate if you have the right sense of humor Cameroon is a pretty funny place to live”. I agree with this statement 100%. Some of the situations I’ve found myself in over the past 17 months can only be described in degrees of hilarity. Let me paint you a picture…
A few weeks ago I went into the “Big City” to do some banking and run a few errands. Everything was going great, I got in at a good hour, was able to get everything I needed done quickly, but it was the return home that proved to be the real challenge. I got to the car depot only to find out that I had missed my bus by, I kid you not, less then 10 min. I should back up a bit and explain something about public transport in Cameroon. No vehicle, be it car, bush taxi, bus, ect… leaves until it’s full, and by that I mean 8 people in a 5 person car and 20+ people in a 15 passenger mini bus. So what this actually means if you are the poor unfortunate soul who is the first to buy your ticket, is that you then have to wait for 19 other people going the same direction as you before the bus will leave… this can take hours… HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS, and on this particular occasion good old Cameroon, she didn’t let me down. In the end I wound up waiting about 5 hours, leaving me tired, cranky, but with a bag full of goodies I had bought from mobile street venders.
Now as boring as sitting in a bus station all day is the shopping is a major perk (possibly the only perk). The nice thing about Cameroon is that if you stand still long enough people will just come to you. If you’re hungry, give it a few moments and someone will be along asking you to buy their bread or beignets or cookies, or carrots, or pineapple, or oranges, or bananas and the list goes on and on. If someone can carry it on their head then chances are they’ll try to sell it to you in the streets. And it’s not just food either; you can by shoelaces, cell phone charges, scales, underwear, wallets, toothpaste and again the list goes on and on. It’s kind of like the checkout line in the grocery store. You think you’ve got everything you need until you see a piece of candy or a tube of chap stick that you just have to have and so you end up leaving the store with the stuff you went in for and a handful random stuff you didn’t even know you needed (and chances are you probably didn’t). Some of the volunteers (not ashamed to say myself included) have even gone so far as to make a bar game out of it. If everyone one is sitting around a table and someone approaches to try and sell something everyone will look to see what he’s got, and depending on how interesting it is determines the number swigs everyone will take
Food of any kind, tissues, chap stick, candy, and pens
1 swig
Winter jackets, high-healed shoes, cell phones, sunglasses, belts and underwear
2 swigs
Rats on a string, bathroom scales, 80’s inspired infomercial workout machines, and “the cure” for cancer, HIV/AIDS, and all other incurable diseases
3 swigs
A silly game I know but such is life in Cameroon ☺ On this particular day of waiting at the bus station my loot ended up including a new pair of sunglasses, a two egg spaghetti omelet on a baguette, a piece of pineapple, some fired plantain chips, a roll of toilet paper, phone credit, a page of Hanna Montana stickers for the neighbor kids and a few sticks of questionable looking street meat. Not to shabby if I do say so myself ☺
Alrighty back to the story, so the minibus finally fills up and everything has been tied down on the roof. The guy collects the tickets and everyone plies in only to find out that the driver as disappeared. So then search for the chauffer commenced and by the time someone managed to track him down the Al hajjis (Muslim big men) in the car had decided we couldn’t leave until after prayer time. Fast-forward and hour and were finally pulling out of the station.
Needless to say people were a little tense and a good old fashion game of passengers versus driver had officially commenced. Thankfully though, I find Cameroonians to have a pretty short-term memory and they don’t really hold grudges, so after about 10 min of smack talking the driver bygones were bygones and everyone was asleep. Side note: It never ceases to amaze me how Cameroonians can squeeze and contort themselves into truly uncomfortable positions and still fall asleep almost as soon as the car starts moving (and on bumpy dirt roads no less)… it’s pretty incredible!
We’d been going for about an hour when all of a sudden the driver got a phone call and the car stopped. And just as quickly as everyone had fallen asleep, they were all awake. However, there was still complete silence so that everyone could eves drop on the phone call (not that it was difficult because people yell through the phone… sadly I do this too now… sorry if you ever find yourself on the receiving end). It turns out it was the boss of the bus depot telling us his wife needed to go to Banyo so he wanted us to stop to wait for her to come from Bafoussaum on a moto and catch up with us (which ended up taking about an hour). The silence turned into shouts of anger almost instantaneously. The only thing missing from the angry mob were the torches and pitch forks. Everyone was yelling at the driver until the guy sitting next to me decided to take control of the situation by grabbing the drivers phone right out of his hand and started giving the boss on the other end a piece of his mind. The phone was then passed around the car until everyone who wanted to yell at the guy got a chance. On the phone’s way back up front somebody shoved it in my hand and I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to bust out my angry white girl Pigeon French so I gave him a small tongue lashing too ;) In the end the boss said stop, so we had to stop, but the whole thing was a hoot. Just imagine if you were in the states and everyone was taking turns to pass a cell phone around and holler at a complete stranger on the other end!
After the wife on the moto caught up to us everyone piled back in the bus, shot the women their very best stink eye, and we were on the road again. Just like before everyone was asleep in t-minus takeoff and I thought we’d have a pretty quite ride the rest of the way… oh how wrong I was!
We’d been going for a few more hours when all of a sudden I was awoken by the women sitting behind me who happened to be a very large, very sassy market mommy (actually a friend of mine but I would never want to be on her bad side cause I’m pretty sure she could take me down without breaking a sweat). She was yelling at the driver because he was tried and swerving (although in the drivers defense he could have just been avoiding potholes) Mommy was worried we’d go off the road so she was yelling. The driver was appalled that any women would dare talk to him that way and with that tone of voice no less. One thing led to another, and the driver called her a sorceress, she yelled something back in the local language and the car came to a screeching halt. Apparently whatever the mommy had said MIGHT have been a spell. So then everyone in the car spent the next 10 minuets yelling over each other trying to figure out whether or not our driver had in fact been cursed. Ultimately we switched drivers, but whether this was due to witchcraft or exhaustion… the world may never know ;)
So there you have it, my simple trip to the bank turned into a day of shopping off people’s heads without having to move an inch from my seat, 20 people taking turns to yell at a complete stranger over the phone, and what might or might not have been an act of sorcery. Really… REALLY… how could someone not think this was funny ☺
A few weeks ago I went into the “Big City” to do some banking and run a few errands. Everything was going great, I got in at a good hour, was able to get everything I needed done quickly, but it was the return home that proved to be the real challenge. I got to the car depot only to find out that I had missed my bus by, I kid you not, less then 10 min. I should back up a bit and explain something about public transport in Cameroon. No vehicle, be it car, bush taxi, bus, ect… leaves until it’s full, and by that I mean 8 people in a 5 person car and 20+ people in a 15 passenger mini bus. So what this actually means if you are the poor unfortunate soul who is the first to buy your ticket, is that you then have to wait for 19 other people going the same direction as you before the bus will leave… this can take hours… HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS, and on this particular occasion good old Cameroon, she didn’t let me down. In the end I wound up waiting about 5 hours, leaving me tired, cranky, but with a bag full of goodies I had bought from mobile street venders.
Now as boring as sitting in a bus station all day is the shopping is a major perk (possibly the only perk). The nice thing about Cameroon is that if you stand still long enough people will just come to you. If you’re hungry, give it a few moments and someone will be along asking you to buy their bread or beignets or cookies, or carrots, or pineapple, or oranges, or bananas and the list goes on and on. If someone can carry it on their head then chances are they’ll try to sell it to you in the streets. And it’s not just food either; you can by shoelaces, cell phone charges, scales, underwear, wallets, toothpaste and again the list goes on and on. It’s kind of like the checkout line in the grocery store. You think you’ve got everything you need until you see a piece of candy or a tube of chap stick that you just have to have and so you end up leaving the store with the stuff you went in for and a handful random stuff you didn’t even know you needed (and chances are you probably didn’t). Some of the volunteers (not ashamed to say myself included) have even gone so far as to make a bar game out of it. If everyone one is sitting around a table and someone approaches to try and sell something everyone will look to see what he’s got, and depending on how interesting it is determines the number swigs everyone will take
Food of any kind, tissues, chap stick, candy, and pens
1 swig
Winter jackets, high-healed shoes, cell phones, sunglasses, belts and underwear
2 swigs
Rats on a string, bathroom scales, 80’s inspired infomercial workout machines, and “the cure” for cancer, HIV/AIDS, and all other incurable diseases
3 swigs
A silly game I know but such is life in Cameroon ☺ On this particular day of waiting at the bus station my loot ended up including a new pair of sunglasses, a two egg spaghetti omelet on a baguette, a piece of pineapple, some fired plantain chips, a roll of toilet paper, phone credit, a page of Hanna Montana stickers for the neighbor kids and a few sticks of questionable looking street meat. Not to shabby if I do say so myself ☺
Alrighty back to the story, so the minibus finally fills up and everything has been tied down on the roof. The guy collects the tickets and everyone plies in only to find out that the driver as disappeared. So then search for the chauffer commenced and by the time someone managed to track him down the Al hajjis (Muslim big men) in the car had decided we couldn’t leave until after prayer time. Fast-forward and hour and were finally pulling out of the station.
Needless to say people were a little tense and a good old fashion game of passengers versus driver had officially commenced. Thankfully though, I find Cameroonians to have a pretty short-term memory and they don’t really hold grudges, so after about 10 min of smack talking the driver bygones were bygones and everyone was asleep. Side note: It never ceases to amaze me how Cameroonians can squeeze and contort themselves into truly uncomfortable positions and still fall asleep almost as soon as the car starts moving (and on bumpy dirt roads no less)… it’s pretty incredible!
We’d been going for about an hour when all of a sudden the driver got a phone call and the car stopped. And just as quickly as everyone had fallen asleep, they were all awake. However, there was still complete silence so that everyone could eves drop on the phone call (not that it was difficult because people yell through the phone… sadly I do this too now… sorry if you ever find yourself on the receiving end). It turns out it was the boss of the bus depot telling us his wife needed to go to Banyo so he wanted us to stop to wait for her to come from Bafoussaum on a moto and catch up with us (which ended up taking about an hour). The silence turned into shouts of anger almost instantaneously. The only thing missing from the angry mob were the torches and pitch forks. Everyone was yelling at the driver until the guy sitting next to me decided to take control of the situation by grabbing the drivers phone right out of his hand and started giving the boss on the other end a piece of his mind. The phone was then passed around the car until everyone who wanted to yell at the guy got a chance. On the phone’s way back up front somebody shoved it in my hand and I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to bust out my angry white girl Pigeon French so I gave him a small tongue lashing too ;) In the end the boss said stop, so we had to stop, but the whole thing was a hoot. Just imagine if you were in the states and everyone was taking turns to pass a cell phone around and holler at a complete stranger on the other end!
After the wife on the moto caught up to us everyone piled back in the bus, shot the women their very best stink eye, and we were on the road again. Just like before everyone was asleep in t-minus takeoff and I thought we’d have a pretty quite ride the rest of the way… oh how wrong I was!
We’d been going for a few more hours when all of a sudden I was awoken by the women sitting behind me who happened to be a very large, very sassy market mommy (actually a friend of mine but I would never want to be on her bad side cause I’m pretty sure she could take me down without breaking a sweat). She was yelling at the driver because he was tried and swerving (although in the drivers defense he could have just been avoiding potholes) Mommy was worried we’d go off the road so she was yelling. The driver was appalled that any women would dare talk to him that way and with that tone of voice no less. One thing led to another, and the driver called her a sorceress, she yelled something back in the local language and the car came to a screeching halt. Apparently whatever the mommy had said MIGHT have been a spell. So then everyone in the car spent the next 10 minuets yelling over each other trying to figure out whether or not our driver had in fact been cursed. Ultimately we switched drivers, but whether this was due to witchcraft or exhaustion… the world may never know ;)
So there you have it, my simple trip to the bank turned into a day of shopping off people’s heads without having to move an inch from my seat, 20 people taking turns to yell at a complete stranger over the phone, and what might or might not have been an act of sorcery. Really… REALLY… how could someone not think this was funny ☺
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Hokie Hi
My house doesn’t have running water, more often then not there’s no electricity, and the family of 50+ bats that live in the ceiling always keep life interesting, but fear not, I’ve got all the REAL necessities covered. I’ve got my Virginia Tech flag, my ode to the Hokies picture collage, and VT oven mitts and hot pads. I’ve got my orange effect t-shirt and several different African fabrics in my favorite colors (orange and maroon of course), a Hokie Christmas tree that I leave out all year round and as a bit of icing on the cake, a dog named after the one and only Frank Beamer. Now, some may call this overkill or even an unhealthy obsession, but for me it’s just being a Hokie. I like to think I’m bringing a part of the Hokie Nation to Cameroon. You know, just doing my part to make the world a better place ☺
When people come to visit me at my house I always welcome them in and sit them down in the living room. Occasionally someone will see the Cameroonian flag hanging on the wall and then they ask me if the VT flag hanging next to it is the flag of my country… I always say no but that it sure would be funny if it was (nobody ever gets the joke but I keep telling it because it always makes me laugh… can you even imagine the look on the faces of the Wahoos if the nation was flying maroon and orange!). Then their eyes wander to the chalk words above the two flags and they’ll ask me, “Who is Live for 32?” (There’s a bit of a language gap and they always end up asking like it’s the name of a person). I smile and I tell them all the same thing. I say “ those are the 32 people who helped me get to Cameroon and I put that on the wall to help me remember to say thank you.”
This weekend people will be flocking to Blacksburg for the anniversary, and here I am in Bankim. I’m smack-dab in the middle of a country that’s in the middle of Africa on the other side of the world, but… I still remember. I remember the sadness, the pain, and the realization that the world is a messy place, but I also remember hearing the names, hearing the stories, and being inspired to really live my life. For that I say thank you ☺
When people come to visit me at my house I always welcome them in and sit them down in the living room. Occasionally someone will see the Cameroonian flag hanging on the wall and then they ask me if the VT flag hanging next to it is the flag of my country… I always say no but that it sure would be funny if it was (nobody ever gets the joke but I keep telling it because it always makes me laugh… can you even imagine the look on the faces of the Wahoos if the nation was flying maroon and orange!). Then their eyes wander to the chalk words above the two flags and they’ll ask me, “Who is Live for 32?” (There’s a bit of a language gap and they always end up asking like it’s the name of a person). I smile and I tell them all the same thing. I say “ those are the 32 people who helped me get to Cameroon and I put that on the wall to help me remember to say thank you.”
This weekend people will be flocking to Blacksburg for the anniversary, and here I am in Bankim. I’m smack-dab in the middle of a country that’s in the middle of Africa on the other side of the world, but… I still remember. I remember the sadness, the pain, and the realization that the world is a messy place, but I also remember hearing the names, hearing the stories, and being inspired to really live my life. For that I say thank you ☺
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Little Mama Got My Back
When I first got to my village last year I was getting "harassed" non stop by the men in Bankim. Catcalls, pleas for visas, and marriage proposals made walking through the market less then a pleasurable experience. ***SIDENOTE: my top two marriage proposals are the guy who came to my back door with a pineapple and asked to take my hand(I mean come on I think I’m worth at least 2 pineapples) and the guy who asked me as he was peeing off the side of an 18 wheeler driving down the road.*** At a certain point about 3 or 4 weeks into my service I couldn’t handle it anymore. Anything that had made this new (to me at least) phenomenon endearing and cute was gone and in its place stress taking over in a big way. Finally I decided if I was going to retain my sanity over the next two years I had to devise a game plan. With the knowledge that this might give me bad ju-ju down the road I decided to tell people I had a boyfriend back in the states. After the initial little white lie left my lips I thought to myself “what the hell go big or go home” and so after about 5 minutes this imaginary guy had become big, strong, very jealous with anger issues and liable to come to Cameroon and take on anybody who bothered me.
This seemed to do the trick and people generally backed off, except for this one guy (the pineapple guy to be exact) who seemed to take this news of my made up significant other as a challenge. I can’t be sure, and I don’t know how he could tell but I think he must have known I was lying. He kept pushing me, trying to get me to crack until one day (the day he came to my back porch with the pineapple) he called my bluff outright and asked me if he could see a picture of said boyfriend. This was a pretty big pickle I was in, and I only had seconds to act before my whole cover (not to mention any shred of dignity I had left… it’s all gone now in case you were wondering) would be blown. So I pointed to this picture on the wall of me and some of my friends from college, and gestured towards one of my guy friends acknowledging him as the BF. Thankfully he bought it lock stock and barrel… although ironically enough, it didn’t stop him from telling his mother/entire village that we were going to marry, but that’s a whole other story. After the guy had left my house, I hoped on my computer and sent a email to my guy friend in the picture telling him what had happened and asking him (and his serious girlfriend who I am friends with) to be my fake boyfriend for the duration of my 27 months of service. He happily accepted the responsibility of being my phony sweetheart and that pretty much brings us to yesterday.
Yesterday Hawoua, the 17-year-old wife next-door, was in my house inspecting my packages that had just arrived from Yaoundé. After we had gone through a couple rounds of the game I like to call “let me pick up everything, ask what it is, and ask if I can have it” her attention fell on this small picture magnet. It just happened to be a “save the date” wedding magnet from… you guessed it Fake Boyfriend and his now fiancé. I would just like to add that I am so so so happy for the couple and I can’t wait to see them both this summer… ok back to the story. So as she had taken an interest and had inspected the tiny figures in the picture, Hawoua then asked who the two people in the picture were. Of course I explained that they were two of my good friends from college and that they’re getting married this summer. Then in all my infinite wisdom I was like, “Oh wait, I have a better picture of him over here”, and I pointed to this picture I have on the wall. What I didn't realize was that this was the same picture I had used last year to fend off the marriage proposals... whoops... and she remembered…cover officially blown.
But Wait! The story get’s better… Hawoua then, ready to defend my honor asked me how I could let this other women take "my man"... the claws were out, she was speaking in rapid French then switched to high pitched even more rapid Fulfulde (which I couldn’t understand but can only imagine was something to the effect of “why I ought a…!!!”). I got to tell you I've never seen her so worked up before (except for the time Beamer ate all her maggie cubes). If I didn't think it would have made her even more upset I would have started laughing right then and there. Ultimately I decided laughing at the seething Cameroonian women probably wasn’t a good call and eventually I got her to calm down. I did my best to explain the decoy and why I had lied about my relationship status but in the end I don't think she got it. We’ll just say the concept didn’t really translate well ;)
By the next day all the ladies in my neighborhood had heard the news of my falsified fella. But on the upside I have to say its nice to know all these African mommies got my back... even if it is over a fake significant other ;)
This seemed to do the trick and people generally backed off, except for this one guy (the pineapple guy to be exact) who seemed to take this news of my made up significant other as a challenge. I can’t be sure, and I don’t know how he could tell but I think he must have known I was lying. He kept pushing me, trying to get me to crack until one day (the day he came to my back porch with the pineapple) he called my bluff outright and asked me if he could see a picture of said boyfriend. This was a pretty big pickle I was in, and I only had seconds to act before my whole cover (not to mention any shred of dignity I had left… it’s all gone now in case you were wondering) would be blown. So I pointed to this picture on the wall of me and some of my friends from college, and gestured towards one of my guy friends acknowledging him as the BF. Thankfully he bought it lock stock and barrel… although ironically enough, it didn’t stop him from telling his mother/entire village that we were going to marry, but that’s a whole other story. After the guy had left my house, I hoped on my computer and sent a email to my guy friend in the picture telling him what had happened and asking him (and his serious girlfriend who I am friends with) to be my fake boyfriend for the duration of my 27 months of service. He happily accepted the responsibility of being my phony sweetheart and that pretty much brings us to yesterday.
Yesterday Hawoua, the 17-year-old wife next-door, was in my house inspecting my packages that had just arrived from Yaoundé. After we had gone through a couple rounds of the game I like to call “let me pick up everything, ask what it is, and ask if I can have it” her attention fell on this small picture magnet. It just happened to be a “save the date” wedding magnet from… you guessed it Fake Boyfriend and his now fiancé. I would just like to add that I am so so so happy for the couple and I can’t wait to see them both this summer… ok back to the story. So as she had taken an interest and had inspected the tiny figures in the picture, Hawoua then asked who the two people in the picture were. Of course I explained that they were two of my good friends from college and that they’re getting married this summer. Then in all my infinite wisdom I was like, “Oh wait, I have a better picture of him over here”, and I pointed to this picture I have on the wall. What I didn't realize was that this was the same picture I had used last year to fend off the marriage proposals... whoops... and she remembered…cover officially blown.
But Wait! The story get’s better… Hawoua then, ready to defend my honor asked me how I could let this other women take "my man"... the claws were out, she was speaking in rapid French then switched to high pitched even more rapid Fulfulde (which I couldn’t understand but can only imagine was something to the effect of “why I ought a…!!!”). I got to tell you I've never seen her so worked up before (except for the time Beamer ate all her maggie cubes). If I didn't think it would have made her even more upset I would have started laughing right then and there. Ultimately I decided laughing at the seething Cameroonian women probably wasn’t a good call and eventually I got her to calm down. I did my best to explain the decoy and why I had lied about my relationship status but in the end I don't think she got it. We’ll just say the concept didn’t really translate well ;)
By the next day all the ladies in my neighborhood had heard the news of my falsified fella. But on the upside I have to say its nice to know all these African mommies got my back... even if it is over a fake significant other ;)
Friday, March 25, 2011
Under Attack!
It was two o’clock in the morning when I was suddenly roused from my sleep by Beamer’s “there’s-a-stranger-in-the-compound” barking. After the initial “you’ve just woke up from a deep sleep and now your heart is beating a million miles a minute” phase wore off I laid in my bed straining to hear whatever it was that had startled him. Nothing. And then all of a sudden right outside of my window I heard sticks and buckets being knocked over, then some pots and pans crashing off the back porch.
Now not to scare anybody but every once in a while our local neighborhood foo (crazy person) jumps the fence and makes off with cloths left on the line or buckets, or whatever he can get his hands on. For the most part he’s pretty harmless and luckily for me deathly afraid of Beamer. Normally all it takes is some one in the compound yelling out the window for him to go away or threatening to let the dog lose on him, and he’ll high-tail it out of there.
I waited a few minutes, and even yelled out the window myself but the banging around just kept on, and the more that I listened, the more it began to sound like there was more then one person out there. In fact I sounded like there was a whole gang of them out there. This started to make me nervous so I slid out from under my mosquito net, grabbed my Mag-light and crept into the kitchen with Beamer at my heals.
I wasn’t exactly sure what I was gonna do, but I figured when I turned on my back light and whoever was out there saw me, the dog, and the back end of my Mag-light raised over my head ready to bludgeon someone it would scare them away. I assumed the position, flipped on the light, and much to my surprise instead of a gang of burglars in the backyard stood 4 fat pigs all staring at me like I was the crazy foo. Nothing like a few four legged friends to keep life exciting!
Now not to scare anybody but every once in a while our local neighborhood foo (crazy person) jumps the fence and makes off with cloths left on the line or buckets, or whatever he can get his hands on. For the most part he’s pretty harmless and luckily for me deathly afraid of Beamer. Normally all it takes is some one in the compound yelling out the window for him to go away or threatening to let the dog lose on him, and he’ll high-tail it out of there.
I waited a few minutes, and even yelled out the window myself but the banging around just kept on, and the more that I listened, the more it began to sound like there was more then one person out there. In fact I sounded like there was a whole gang of them out there. This started to make me nervous so I slid out from under my mosquito net, grabbed my Mag-light and crept into the kitchen with Beamer at my heals.
I wasn’t exactly sure what I was gonna do, but I figured when I turned on my back light and whoever was out there saw me, the dog, and the back end of my Mag-light raised over my head ready to bludgeon someone it would scare them away. I assumed the position, flipped on the light, and much to my surprise instead of a gang of burglars in the backyard stood 4 fat pigs all staring at me like I was the crazy foo. Nothing like a few four legged friends to keep life exciting!
Girls Just Want To Have Fun
Here are some of the highlights from International Women’s Day 2011:
I was on the panel for the round table discussion where we talked about equality for women. It wasn’t as much a round table as it was a “I like to hear myself talk into a microphone hour (more like 4 hours) but I was in charge of publicity and we had a great turnout so I was pleased ☺
At the food expose one group made "real" American pizza... and it was actually good! Not so good was this traditional dish from the west called “quie” that I politely tried and failed to eat. It wasn’t so much the taste that was hard to get past it was more the fact that it was the same consistency as slime... and I like a good snot-sauce (a.k.a anything with okra in it a.k.a. everything you eat in the Adamaoua) as much as the next person but this was on a whole new level ;) I felt like was trying to eat Flubber… every time I thought I had a hold on it, it would split into five different pieces and slip though my fingers. My friend who was trying to coach with a few tips made it look so easy. She was swinging it around and bouncing it in her palm like a yoyo, but my attempt was just a big, sticky, mess. As much fun as it was for everyone to watch me attempt to take on the quie, I don’t think I’ll be trying that again anytime soon ;)
This years sports day included not only your standard football, handball, and cross country race, but also tug of war, a speed walking competition, and an arm wrestling tournament, which my very conservative Muslim neighbor won... GO Hadjira! You should have seen her, cover from head to toe she sauntered up to the table, rolled up her sleeve, and assumed the position. All I can say is that I’m glad it wasn’t me going up against her and her right bicep… she was doing some serious damage on the other contenders ;)
Lastly and by my terms most importantly, yours truly came in 4th in the cross-country race through town (and in the young women's bracket for that matter). Now this might not seem like a big deal but last year I came in second to last and for approximately one year on a pretty much weekly basis I had to endure listening to people recount the time "Kate came in second to last at women's day." BUT NO LONGER MY FRIENDS... NO LONGER!!! Nothing has made me happier this past month then moving through town and hearing people recount the time "Kate almost came in 3rd place". I'm movin' up in the world people :)
Me and Mama Josephine, who came in first place in the cross country race in which she ran barefoot!
I was on the panel for the round table discussion where we talked about equality for women. It wasn’t as much a round table as it was a “I like to hear myself talk into a microphone hour (more like 4 hours) but I was in charge of publicity and we had a great turnout so I was pleased ☺
At the food expose one group made "real" American pizza... and it was actually good! Not so good was this traditional dish from the west called “quie” that I politely tried and failed to eat. It wasn’t so much the taste that was hard to get past it was more the fact that it was the same consistency as slime... and I like a good snot-sauce (a.k.a anything with okra in it a.k.a. everything you eat in the Adamaoua) as much as the next person but this was on a whole new level ;) I felt like was trying to eat Flubber… every time I thought I had a hold on it, it would split into five different pieces and slip though my fingers. My friend who was trying to coach with a few tips made it look so easy. She was swinging it around and bouncing it in her palm like a yoyo, but my attempt was just a big, sticky, mess. As much fun as it was for everyone to watch me attempt to take on the quie, I don’t think I’ll be trying that again anytime soon ;)
This years sports day included not only your standard football, handball, and cross country race, but also tug of war, a speed walking competition, and an arm wrestling tournament, which my very conservative Muslim neighbor won... GO Hadjira! You should have seen her, cover from head to toe she sauntered up to the table, rolled up her sleeve, and assumed the position. All I can say is that I’m glad it wasn’t me going up against her and her right bicep… she was doing some serious damage on the other contenders ;)
Lastly and by my terms most importantly, yours truly came in 4th in the cross-country race through town (and in the young women's bracket for that matter). Now this might not seem like a big deal but last year I came in second to last and for approximately one year on a pretty much weekly basis I had to endure listening to people recount the time "Kate came in second to last at women's day." BUT NO LONGER MY FRIENDS... NO LONGER!!! Nothing has made me happier this past month then moving through town and hearing people recount the time "Kate almost came in 3rd place". I'm movin' up in the world people :)
Me and Mama Josephine, who came in first place in the cross country race in which she ran barefoot!
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Good Grief
Written March 3, 2011
Death tends to hit us like a ton of bricks, or at least it hits me that way. Since I’ve been here it’s been a constant part of my routine (which I suspect is because for the people in my village death plays such an important role in life) but until yesterday I’ve always been able to push it to the back of my mind. I mean almost everyday someone comes to tell me that someone in their family died or that so and so lost a child or that they would be gone for the weekend to travel back to their village for a funeral… and I’m not exaggerating pretty much everyday this comes up in conversations at the hospital or with friends in the market or neighbors in the quarter (any peace corps volunteer in Cameroon should be able to vouch for me on this account). But in spite of all this I’ve always felt a bit removed from it all. Even when people die at the health center and I’m there it’s sad and I feel for the nurses who were involved and the family, but I’ve never let myself dwell on it for too long. Maybe it’s a coping strategy, or maybe I just don’t want to think about it because that’s too sad, but whatever the reason for the past 18 months I haven’t let myself dive too deep into on the issue.
All of that changed yesterday. I should back track a bit… last week I was making the rounds in the market, and when I went to visit Little Abdoulie at his shop I found it all closed up. I thought this was a bit odd considering he keeps pretty strict hours everyday of the week so I hopped on the back of a moto and went to visit him at his house. When I got there I learned that he was in bed sick with malaria. I ended up saying a quick hello, tried to encourage him to go to the hospital for treatment, and wished him a bon garrison. On my way back home I decided to stop and say hello to Abdoulie’s neighbors Alahji Yaya and his first wife Dija, both of whom are good friends of my and regular members a community group I meet with weekly. The meetings form the last weekend had been cancelled and so it had been a while since I had been able to see either of them. When I got to the house no one was home except for a few kids who told me everyone was at the hospital. For reasons mostly revolving around the fact that the little kids don’t speak French and I don’t really speak Fulfulde I wasn’t able to figure out exactly what was going on, but I wasn’t really worried yet because like I said before, people are always visiting one another in the hospital. I just figured if it was someone they knew, it was probably someone I knew, and I didn’t have anything else on my plate so why not just pop down there to see what was going on.
Upon my arrival I immediately ran into to B and after a few moments of greetings she told me what room “my friend” was in. It turned out it was a friend (a friend named Dzoulika whose 3 year old son was admitted with Tyfoid) but it wasn’t the friend I was looking for. So I kept walking down the general patients ward and then made my way to the maternity ward (forgot to mention Dija was pregnant but still had about a month and a half or so to go). Sure enough I found her there in the second room. She had been admitted that morning with malaria and then diagnosed with a Burili ulcer (flesh eating skin disease that’s pretty prevalent in my part of Cameroon), and was hooked up to an IV drip.
Now, despite the fact that I’m a community health worker partnered with a health center, I still don’t particularly enjoy visiting sick people who are in the hospital. That’s not to say I don’t visit them, I do, but I just always feel a bit awkward, and out of place, and like people are looking at me to do something when there’s honestly not much I can do (I have no doubt that by the end of my service I will have spent an entire two years trying to convince people that I’m not a doctor or a nurse). This was no exception, and after about 10 minutes of sitting on a chair watching this poor women with her huge belly sitting on the bed looking absolutely miserable, and again feeling like everyone in the room was waiting for me to do something, I was ready to head out. So I told her and her husband to please call me if there was anything I could do to help and quickly left.
This was on Thursday afternoon, and by Friday morning I had received a phone call telling me Dija had gone into early labor during the night and was stable now but her baby had not made it. This was sad, but it wasn’t the first time a friend had lost a child and I knew that I was expected to go to the hospital and pay my respects to the family. So I got dressed and went down. When I got there what I saw just broke my heart. I found Dija lying on the bed looking like she had lost the will to live surrounded by half a dozen other women all looking somber. I stayed in the room for about a half an hour, reiterated my offer to help with anything and then headed home thinking about how it must feel to lose a child.
The next day Little Abdoulie told me that Dija had been sent to a bigger hospital about 4 hours up the road, and that things weren’t looking good. The day after that I got the phone call that she had started bleeding again, and they couldn’t stop it so she bled out. I got this phone call while I was eating lunch in my friend’s restaurant in town and I was shocked… i just couldn’t help but start crying. Now, anybody who knows me knows that crying is my go to emotion… infuriation, sadness, happiness… it all comes with me and a side of weeping blubbering mess. However, that is NOT how Cameroonians do things and I’ve found in my experience here that when I do have one of my cries it’s best to do it from the comfort of my home and not in public.
When I got the news about Dija I had no warning and nowhere to go and more importantly no sunglasses to hide the tears that were welling up, so in other words I was a little S.O.L. I can remember sitting at the table staring at my plate of fou-fou and njama-njama in shock. My friend Ibrahim came over to ask me what had happened and as soon as the words left my mouth I started to cry and when I looked up at him all he could say was, “I’m so sorry, but now you have to stop crying. Stop crying before you go outside. You can’t let anyone see you crying. Don’t cry.” Not exactly the soothing words I was hoping for but I don’t think he knew what else to say or do.
That evening I ended up going to visit Aislynn and after some American comfort food and a nice hot bucket bath I was feeling much better. The next day I went back home to Bankim and trekked out to visit Dija’s family. I was expecting to visit with the other co-wives and maybe a sister or neighbor, but when I got there I was shocked to see well over 50 women (which might not seem like a lot, but considering women don’t really ever leave their homes, it was quite a site to behold). There were some that I knew, some that had clearly traveled in from the bush, young girls, and old mamas, and everyone was there to mourn the loss of our friend. I sat down next to a friend and looked around taking in the gathering of women and began to cry again, but this time there was no one telling me to stop, no one looking at me as if I was acting strange, I just felt a simple hand reach out and touch me on the back. We were grieving together. Some days we’re worlds apart, but in that moment we were together… and even amongst all the sadness of the events that had pasted, it felt good.
Dija
?- March 2011
Death tends to hit us like a ton of bricks, or at least it hits me that way. Since I’ve been here it’s been a constant part of my routine (which I suspect is because for the people in my village death plays such an important role in life) but until yesterday I’ve always been able to push it to the back of my mind. I mean almost everyday someone comes to tell me that someone in their family died or that so and so lost a child or that they would be gone for the weekend to travel back to their village for a funeral… and I’m not exaggerating pretty much everyday this comes up in conversations at the hospital or with friends in the market or neighbors in the quarter (any peace corps volunteer in Cameroon should be able to vouch for me on this account). But in spite of all this I’ve always felt a bit removed from it all. Even when people die at the health center and I’m there it’s sad and I feel for the nurses who were involved and the family, but I’ve never let myself dwell on it for too long. Maybe it’s a coping strategy, or maybe I just don’t want to think about it because that’s too sad, but whatever the reason for the past 18 months I haven’t let myself dive too deep into on the issue.
All of that changed yesterday. I should back track a bit… last week I was making the rounds in the market, and when I went to visit Little Abdoulie at his shop I found it all closed up. I thought this was a bit odd considering he keeps pretty strict hours everyday of the week so I hopped on the back of a moto and went to visit him at his house. When I got there I learned that he was in bed sick with malaria. I ended up saying a quick hello, tried to encourage him to go to the hospital for treatment, and wished him a bon garrison. On my way back home I decided to stop and say hello to Abdoulie’s neighbors Alahji Yaya and his first wife Dija, both of whom are good friends of my and regular members a community group I meet with weekly. The meetings form the last weekend had been cancelled and so it had been a while since I had been able to see either of them. When I got to the house no one was home except for a few kids who told me everyone was at the hospital. For reasons mostly revolving around the fact that the little kids don’t speak French and I don’t really speak Fulfulde I wasn’t able to figure out exactly what was going on, but I wasn’t really worried yet because like I said before, people are always visiting one another in the hospital. I just figured if it was someone they knew, it was probably someone I knew, and I didn’t have anything else on my plate so why not just pop down there to see what was going on.
Upon my arrival I immediately ran into to B and after a few moments of greetings she told me what room “my friend” was in. It turned out it was a friend (a friend named Dzoulika whose 3 year old son was admitted with Tyfoid) but it wasn’t the friend I was looking for. So I kept walking down the general patients ward and then made my way to the maternity ward (forgot to mention Dija was pregnant but still had about a month and a half or so to go). Sure enough I found her there in the second room. She had been admitted that morning with malaria and then diagnosed with a Burili ulcer (flesh eating skin disease that’s pretty prevalent in my part of Cameroon), and was hooked up to an IV drip.
Now, despite the fact that I’m a community health worker partnered with a health center, I still don’t particularly enjoy visiting sick people who are in the hospital. That’s not to say I don’t visit them, I do, but I just always feel a bit awkward, and out of place, and like people are looking at me to do something when there’s honestly not much I can do (I have no doubt that by the end of my service I will have spent an entire two years trying to convince people that I’m not a doctor or a nurse). This was no exception, and after about 10 minutes of sitting on a chair watching this poor women with her huge belly sitting on the bed looking absolutely miserable, and again feeling like everyone in the room was waiting for me to do something, I was ready to head out. So I told her and her husband to please call me if there was anything I could do to help and quickly left.
This was on Thursday afternoon, and by Friday morning I had received a phone call telling me Dija had gone into early labor during the night and was stable now but her baby had not made it. This was sad, but it wasn’t the first time a friend had lost a child and I knew that I was expected to go to the hospital and pay my respects to the family. So I got dressed and went down. When I got there what I saw just broke my heart. I found Dija lying on the bed looking like she had lost the will to live surrounded by half a dozen other women all looking somber. I stayed in the room for about a half an hour, reiterated my offer to help with anything and then headed home thinking about how it must feel to lose a child.
The next day Little Abdoulie told me that Dija had been sent to a bigger hospital about 4 hours up the road, and that things weren’t looking good. The day after that I got the phone call that she had started bleeding again, and they couldn’t stop it so she bled out. I got this phone call while I was eating lunch in my friend’s restaurant in town and I was shocked… i just couldn’t help but start crying. Now, anybody who knows me knows that crying is my go to emotion… infuriation, sadness, happiness… it all comes with me and a side of weeping blubbering mess. However, that is NOT how Cameroonians do things and I’ve found in my experience here that when I do have one of my cries it’s best to do it from the comfort of my home and not in public.
When I got the news about Dija I had no warning and nowhere to go and more importantly no sunglasses to hide the tears that were welling up, so in other words I was a little S.O.L. I can remember sitting at the table staring at my plate of fou-fou and njama-njama in shock. My friend Ibrahim came over to ask me what had happened and as soon as the words left my mouth I started to cry and when I looked up at him all he could say was, “I’m so sorry, but now you have to stop crying. Stop crying before you go outside. You can’t let anyone see you crying. Don’t cry.” Not exactly the soothing words I was hoping for but I don’t think he knew what else to say or do.
That evening I ended up going to visit Aislynn and after some American comfort food and a nice hot bucket bath I was feeling much better. The next day I went back home to Bankim and trekked out to visit Dija’s family. I was expecting to visit with the other co-wives and maybe a sister or neighbor, but when I got there I was shocked to see well over 50 women (which might not seem like a lot, but considering women don’t really ever leave their homes, it was quite a site to behold). There were some that I knew, some that had clearly traveled in from the bush, young girls, and old mamas, and everyone was there to mourn the loss of our friend. I sat down next to a friend and looked around taking in the gathering of women and began to cry again, but this time there was no one telling me to stop, no one looking at me as if I was acting strange, I just felt a simple hand reach out and touch me on the back. We were grieving together. Some days we’re worlds apart, but in that moment we were together… and even amongst all the sadness of the events that had pasted, it felt good.
Dija
?- March 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
9 out of 10 Dentists Agree
February 6th
I know it’s been a few weeks, but I’m officially back from my blogging hiatus. I do apologize for the lack of updates, but fear not, I have endured punishment enough in the form of a nagging mother via phone, text, and Facebook (love you mom, pestering from the other side of the world?… a whole wheel of cheese?... I’m not even mad… I’m impressed ;)
All jokes aside I guess the real reason I haven’t posted is because I’ve been in a bit of a funk for the past couple of weeks. After New Year’s I went to Yaoundé for my mid-service medical checkup (I’m good to go, in case you were wondering), and then made a quick trip to Ngoundare with a group of friends. Minus the fact that in order to get medically cleared I had to trek across the capital city in a taxi cab with 6 other people in rush hour traffic in the heat of the day with….. wait for it… wait for it… a fresh stool sample (not a particularly high point in my Peace Corps career), I did have a lot of fun getting to spend time with a bunch of my American friends. The only drawback to so much “quality whiteman time” is that at the end of it all, when your back in village and you’re by yourself again it’s like you’ve got to push yourself through the mental readjustments all over again. It’s kind of hard to explain and I don’t know how this is coming across. I’m not lonely or depressed or anything, I’m just struggling to get back into my groove. Here’s to hoping me and the groove get together real soon ☺
However, in spite of my case of the Bankim blues I have been able to get a little bit of work done and I have a great story to tell you, so get pumped! I have this women’s group that I meet with on Saturday afternoons, and for awhile now they’ve been expressing interest in doing some kind of small income generating project. Thanks to the awesome work of some volunteers in the west I got a copy of this book full of great income generating ideas (woot woot Christina shout-out). After perusing the pages I made the executive call that we should probably start small and work our way up to some of the bigger things. With that being said we decided to go with toothpaste. This worked out great, the plan was to make the toothpaste, divide it up, and then end with a quick health lesson highlighting the importance of brushing your teeth and getting your kids to do the same. Here’s how it went down…
Step one: follow the instructions and mix a little baking powder, a little salt, a little water, and a little of this and that together in a big bowl.
Step two: Not getting the right consistency, opt to let the ladies incorporate what I though might be some local knowledge on toothpaste making and so we add more baking powder.
Step three: still not quite right , before I can stop it even more Baking powder is added.
Step 4: “Just a smidge more Baking powder should do the trick… ooops, that was way more than a smidge.”
Step 5: “Well ladies, I think this is as good as it’s gonna get. Let’s divide it up.”
Step 6: Disregard that part where it specifically says store paste in a plastic container and divide it up in small plastic bags.
After everything was doled out and the baggies tied shut we closed in on the final phase. My lesson was going great, I had just finished demonstrating the proper tooth brushing technique, which was basically me trying to convince them that in fact simply chewing on your toothbrush for a hour while walking around the house doing other chores will not actually do anything at all. Then like a little kid with a roll of bubble wrap: POP POP POP POPPOPOPOPOP… all of the plastic bags suddenly exploded splattering everything in their vicinity with a nice layer of toothpaste. Ooops. ☺
Moral of the story; 9 out of 10 dentists agree following the directions is kind of clutch.
P.S. In the time between writing this and posting it online I’ve been pretty busy and I can say that for the time being the groove and I are like this (I’m crossing my pointer and middle finger fyi). All it took was a good old fashioned Cameroonian fete, a nice solid week of work, and a West Adamaoua cluster meeting to get me back in the swing of things ☺
I know it’s been a few weeks, but I’m officially back from my blogging hiatus. I do apologize for the lack of updates, but fear not, I have endured punishment enough in the form of a nagging mother via phone, text, and Facebook (love you mom, pestering from the other side of the world?… a whole wheel of cheese?... I’m not even mad… I’m impressed ;)
All jokes aside I guess the real reason I haven’t posted is because I’ve been in a bit of a funk for the past couple of weeks. After New Year’s I went to Yaoundé for my mid-service medical checkup (I’m good to go, in case you were wondering), and then made a quick trip to Ngoundare with a group of friends. Minus the fact that in order to get medically cleared I had to trek across the capital city in a taxi cab with 6 other people in rush hour traffic in the heat of the day with….. wait for it… wait for it… a fresh stool sample (not a particularly high point in my Peace Corps career), I did have a lot of fun getting to spend time with a bunch of my American friends. The only drawback to so much “quality whiteman time” is that at the end of it all, when your back in village and you’re by yourself again it’s like you’ve got to push yourself through the mental readjustments all over again. It’s kind of hard to explain and I don’t know how this is coming across. I’m not lonely or depressed or anything, I’m just struggling to get back into my groove. Here’s to hoping me and the groove get together real soon ☺
However, in spite of my case of the Bankim blues I have been able to get a little bit of work done and I have a great story to tell you, so get pumped! I have this women’s group that I meet with on Saturday afternoons, and for awhile now they’ve been expressing interest in doing some kind of small income generating project. Thanks to the awesome work of some volunteers in the west I got a copy of this book full of great income generating ideas (woot woot Christina shout-out). After perusing the pages I made the executive call that we should probably start small and work our way up to some of the bigger things. With that being said we decided to go with toothpaste. This worked out great, the plan was to make the toothpaste, divide it up, and then end with a quick health lesson highlighting the importance of brushing your teeth and getting your kids to do the same. Here’s how it went down…
Step one: follow the instructions and mix a little baking powder, a little salt, a little water, and a little of this and that together in a big bowl.
Step two: Not getting the right consistency, opt to let the ladies incorporate what I though might be some local knowledge on toothpaste making and so we add more baking powder.
Step three: still not quite right , before I can stop it even more Baking powder is added.
Step 4: “Just a smidge more Baking powder should do the trick… ooops, that was way more than a smidge.”
Step 5: “Well ladies, I think this is as good as it’s gonna get. Let’s divide it up.”
Step 6: Disregard that part where it specifically says store paste in a plastic container and divide it up in small plastic bags.
After everything was doled out and the baggies tied shut we closed in on the final phase. My lesson was going great, I had just finished demonstrating the proper tooth brushing technique, which was basically me trying to convince them that in fact simply chewing on your toothbrush for a hour while walking around the house doing other chores will not actually do anything at all. Then like a little kid with a roll of bubble wrap: POP POP POP POPPOPOPOPOP… all of the plastic bags suddenly exploded splattering everything in their vicinity with a nice layer of toothpaste. Ooops. ☺
Moral of the story; 9 out of 10 dentists agree following the directions is kind of clutch.
P.S. In the time between writing this and posting it online I’ve been pretty busy and I can say that for the time being the groove and I are like this (I’m crossing my pointer and middle finger fyi). All it took was a good old fashioned Cameroonian fete, a nice solid week of work, and a West Adamaoua cluster meeting to get me back in the swing of things ☺
Monday, January 10, 2011
The Never Ending Update
First things first, I want to wish all of you that read this a happy new year and I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I always get a little bit homesick right around this time of year but luckily I live near some wonderful people and I think I speak for us all when I say we had a very nice holiday… but more on that later.
Before I get into Christmas and New Years stuff I want to take care of this list of things I’ve been meaning to mention on here and just keep forgetting about. I always have this little notebook stashed in my purse and I keep a list of all the blog worthy moments that happen to me so I don’t forget about them later on. However, getting them from the little notebook, into a post, and then on to the Internet is harder then is sounds. So here it goes…the never ending update:
1. Beginning of December was Fête de Mutton (The Feast of the Ram). I had a new party dress made at my tailor’s and made the tour of all my Muslim friends. I even got the watch my neighbors sacrifice their ram. Contrary to how that looks in writing it was actually really cool. The only not cool part was that after the ram was dead and they started cleaning it, in an attempt to be nice and neighborly they started chucking all the unwanted parts over the fence for Beamer to eat. There I was standing in my kitchen when all of a sudden I hear what sounded like a loud belly flop and when I went outside to investigate I found my dog chowing down on a set of bloody, raw sheep lungs and an assortment of other bits and pieces… YUCK. To top it all off the dog ended up burying everything he couldn’t eat before sunset and my back yard smelled like something terrible for a week or two
2. I was invited by some of my Bamoun friends in village to participate in their big cultural festival. Apparently it’s a bit of a big deal because they only hold it once every two years and people come from all over the country and all over the world to watch the celebration. I felt particularly cool because I not only got to watch, I got to be in it. I put on my most “traditional” looking cloths, they handed me a spear, and we all began the march to war. If you want to get the real feel just try and imagine thousands of people dressed to the T, covered in war paint, and yelling and chanting Braveheart style in the streets, and that would be kind of what it was like. It was a once and a life time experience and I’m so glad I got to see it ☺
3. World AIDS Day 2010 was a huge success. Over 3 and ½ days the Mbororo men’s group I work with and myself got a chance to talk to and do HIV education with over 162 people in the market AND combined with everyone who signed the online petition we had almost 300 signatures. Now this might not sound like a lot but I finally feel like the idea I’ve been pushing on the men all year, that if you take the time to talk to people they’ll listen, finally got through ☺ (which is a enormous accomplishment for a group of people who in general feel unheard by the larger population). Thank you for taking the time to singing the online version!
4. Aislynn and I had the chance to meet a very interesting German couple traveling through Cameroon last month. When we met up with them they had just traveled two days non stop from Ngoundere (Regional capital of the Adamaoua) to Bankim and were on their way to Foumban (another 4 hours down the road) Oh and I forgot to mention they were probably in their mid-sixties. I was astonished, I know 20 somethings that moan and groan about taking that road (myself included) and here were these two people, grandparent age, backpacking and using public transport around Cameroon. It blew my mind! After talking to them for a bit we learned that that every year they take a holiday to a new country and from the sounds of it they’ve been all over the world and back again (and not just the cushy parts ::cough cough:: the United States, :: cough cough:: Western Europe). They also told us that the secret to their happy marriage was that they never stopped going on adventures together ☺
5. I had to go into the local jail to talk to a gendarme about something the other day (breath mother I’m not in trouble with the law or anything) and what was blasting from an old boom box? None other then Handel’s Messiah Hallelujah Chorus. I’m not exactly sure what this means, but I found it to be quite comical. On one side of the room was a guy standing in a jail cell and on the other side of the room a very intimidating solider, in uniform, happily humming along to one of the world’s most famous pieces of classical music… only in Cameroon.
6. I am now Hawoua’s official frog catcher. She’s not afraid of bats, rats, spiders, or roaches, (all of which I’ve had to call her over to kill for me and she’s never let me live it down) but something about things that go rib-it scare the living bejeezes out of her. Let me elaborate… a few weeks ago I was in the house and I heard her let out a blood curdling scream (like “there’s and axe-murder in the house” type scream) so I ran to see what was happening and I find her on her tippy toes, bouncing around, and pointing at a tiny little tree frog on her kitchen window. Then yesterday there was a pretty big toad under her last step. It was croaking and she was afraid it was going to come out and bite Rashid (her two year old son). Grant it, it was a pretty big frog, but in any case I tried to convince her that frogs don’t have teeth, that these ones didn’t look in the least bit poisonous and that they’re actually good to have around because they eat mosquitoes. I might as well have been talking to a wall cause she didn’t want to hear it and finally I wound up reaching under the step, pulling out the frog, and flinging it over the fence.
7. Beamer is quite possibly the worst guard dog in the world! The other day pigs were added to the ever-growing list of things he is afraid of (incase you were wondering that list also includes cows, goats, sheep, cats, jingle bells, and rubber rain boots). We were taking our usual afternoon walk through one of the quarters and I saw a pig crossing the road a head of us. Just to clarify this was no cute adorable Charlotte’s Web Wilbur type pig, this was a mean mother sow standing about the same height as my belly button and easily around 200 lbs. In my attempt to steer clear of Miss Piggy I unfortunately neglected to notice that Beamer and I were heading straight for her 3 little piglets. No sooner had Beamer lunged at the piglets, mama pig was coming strait for us. There was lots of angry squealing, and snorting involved, so suffice to say my heart was racing a million miles a minute. I was hoping/expecting the dog to scare it away or at the very least start barking, but no he immediately ran behind me creating a human shield thus leaving me to fend off the angry livestock. Luckily there was a big stick on the ground next to me so I picked it up and with a combination of yelling, stick waving, and very fast backtracking Beamer and I managed to escape unharmed.
8. On the mushroom front I have good news and bad news. The good news is that they started to bloom. The bad news is that only 1 out of 4 bags produced anything and they took a month longer then we were expecting them too (I think the climate is too hot in Bankim). I don’t think this is the best income generating project option for the money it would cost to start up versus the amount we can get to produce here in village, but it was a fun little experiment. Back to square one :/
9. Ok, so Peace Corps has three main goals for all it’s programs in all the countries it works in. Goal 1: sustainable development of the host country. Goal 2: share host country culture with Americans. Goal 3: share American culture with the host country. The following is by far the best goal three quote of all time: (while watching Toy Story with another volunteer and a bunch of kids from the neighborhood)
7 year old Cameroonian child “What’s a cowboy?”
Peace Corps volunteer: “Well it’s sort of like if you could mix a berger (cattle herder) and gendarme (solider)”
I realize this might not actually be funny to everyone but it gave me a good laugh so I thought I’d share ☺
10. Christmas was a bit of a whirlwind between Bankim and traveling to Banyo to celebrate with the other volunteers in the area( but a fun whirlwind none the less!). Some of the highlights included a very successful Christmas party for the neighbors hosted by yours truly, the most awesome frip find gift exchange ever (ask Hunter about his t-shirt and tie), a visit to the Banyo missionaries for what felt like a big family Christmas dinner back at home (not my home mind you… no one was teasing me incessantly and calling me a tree hugging hippie), a Christmas movie marathon (Elf, Charlie Brown Christmas, Love Actually and the Holiday) and a visit from the Raymond family to wrap up the weekend. Now all this was fun but the real highlight, and what I’m sure you’re all wondering about if you read my last post was the Christmas chicken. I’m happy to report that Chicken Little survived the journey from Bankim to Banyo first strapped to the back of a motorcycle and then to the back of a small hatchback Toyota and tasted all the better for it. When it came time to do the deed one of the boys slit the neck, but I pulled feathers out and it’s safe to say I’m a feather plucking pro now ;)
11. Last but not least New Year’s 2011… the start of which marks my 15th month living in Cameroon!!! New years eve was pretty low key. I had a movie night at my house for some of the kids and made them all pizza and popcorn. At midnight my doorbell started ringing nonstop so I got dressed and went outside to see what was up. I knew it was gonna be good when I started smelling burning rubber and sure enough my neighbors were all gathered in the street dancing and singing around a burning tire. Hawoua came out at the same time I did (they were ringing her doorbell over and over again too) but she was being a major party pooper… she wasn’t really feelin’ all the hub-bub. Finally I grabbed her hand and said, “Hawoua! It’s the New Year you can’t start off 2011 by yelling at people, come out and watch all the kids dancing!” She reluctantly can with me and I think (even though she’ll never admit it) that she had a good time ☺
New Years Day was a lot more eventful with visits to friends’ houses and lots of people visiting me at my house. At one point I had in my living room; 2 Mbororo girls, 3 Tikar wives, 2 Bamoum women, Hawoua, and Roses’ 23 year old Anglophone daughter Vera. All of them were pretty young (none were over 25) and being so, acted like a group of catty women (two of the women I think are pretty much mortal enemies and everyone has had to pick sides… I don’t even know what the epic fight was about but I ended up on Hawoua’s side by default… I live with her). I could have cut through the judging vibes with a knife, but thankfully every one enjoyed their cake, popcorn, and juice without starting any catfights. It was a little uncomfortable when it was happening, but after the fact it made me feel not so far away from home ;)
So that’s pretty much everything of interest that I did in December
Before I get into Christmas and New Years stuff I want to take care of this list of things I’ve been meaning to mention on here and just keep forgetting about. I always have this little notebook stashed in my purse and I keep a list of all the blog worthy moments that happen to me so I don’t forget about them later on. However, getting them from the little notebook, into a post, and then on to the Internet is harder then is sounds. So here it goes…the never ending update:
1. Beginning of December was Fête de Mutton (The Feast of the Ram). I had a new party dress made at my tailor’s and made the tour of all my Muslim friends. I even got the watch my neighbors sacrifice their ram. Contrary to how that looks in writing it was actually really cool. The only not cool part was that after the ram was dead and they started cleaning it, in an attempt to be nice and neighborly they started chucking all the unwanted parts over the fence for Beamer to eat. There I was standing in my kitchen when all of a sudden I hear what sounded like a loud belly flop and when I went outside to investigate I found my dog chowing down on a set of bloody, raw sheep lungs and an assortment of other bits and pieces… YUCK. To top it all off the dog ended up burying everything he couldn’t eat before sunset and my back yard smelled like something terrible for a week or two
2. I was invited by some of my Bamoun friends in village to participate in their big cultural festival. Apparently it’s a bit of a big deal because they only hold it once every two years and people come from all over the country and all over the world to watch the celebration. I felt particularly cool because I not only got to watch, I got to be in it. I put on my most “traditional” looking cloths, they handed me a spear, and we all began the march to war. If you want to get the real feel just try and imagine thousands of people dressed to the T, covered in war paint, and yelling and chanting Braveheart style in the streets, and that would be kind of what it was like. It was a once and a life time experience and I’m so glad I got to see it ☺
3. World AIDS Day 2010 was a huge success. Over 3 and ½ days the Mbororo men’s group I work with and myself got a chance to talk to and do HIV education with over 162 people in the market AND combined with everyone who signed the online petition we had almost 300 signatures. Now this might not sound like a lot but I finally feel like the idea I’ve been pushing on the men all year, that if you take the time to talk to people they’ll listen, finally got through ☺ (which is a enormous accomplishment for a group of people who in general feel unheard by the larger population). Thank you for taking the time to singing the online version!
4. Aislynn and I had the chance to meet a very interesting German couple traveling through Cameroon last month. When we met up with them they had just traveled two days non stop from Ngoundere (Regional capital of the Adamaoua) to Bankim and were on their way to Foumban (another 4 hours down the road) Oh and I forgot to mention they were probably in their mid-sixties. I was astonished, I know 20 somethings that moan and groan about taking that road (myself included) and here were these two people, grandparent age, backpacking and using public transport around Cameroon. It blew my mind! After talking to them for a bit we learned that that every year they take a holiday to a new country and from the sounds of it they’ve been all over the world and back again (and not just the cushy parts ::cough cough:: the United States, :: cough cough:: Western Europe). They also told us that the secret to their happy marriage was that they never stopped going on adventures together ☺
5. I had to go into the local jail to talk to a gendarme about something the other day (breath mother I’m not in trouble with the law or anything) and what was blasting from an old boom box? None other then Handel’s Messiah Hallelujah Chorus. I’m not exactly sure what this means, but I found it to be quite comical. On one side of the room was a guy standing in a jail cell and on the other side of the room a very intimidating solider, in uniform, happily humming along to one of the world’s most famous pieces of classical music… only in Cameroon.
6. I am now Hawoua’s official frog catcher. She’s not afraid of bats, rats, spiders, or roaches, (all of which I’ve had to call her over to kill for me and she’s never let me live it down) but something about things that go rib-it scare the living bejeezes out of her. Let me elaborate… a few weeks ago I was in the house and I heard her let out a blood curdling scream (like “there’s and axe-murder in the house” type scream) so I ran to see what was happening and I find her on her tippy toes, bouncing around, and pointing at a tiny little tree frog on her kitchen window. Then yesterday there was a pretty big toad under her last step. It was croaking and she was afraid it was going to come out and bite Rashid (her two year old son). Grant it, it was a pretty big frog, but in any case I tried to convince her that frogs don’t have teeth, that these ones didn’t look in the least bit poisonous and that they’re actually good to have around because they eat mosquitoes. I might as well have been talking to a wall cause she didn’t want to hear it and finally I wound up reaching under the step, pulling out the frog, and flinging it over the fence.
7. Beamer is quite possibly the worst guard dog in the world! The other day pigs were added to the ever-growing list of things he is afraid of (incase you were wondering that list also includes cows, goats, sheep, cats, jingle bells, and rubber rain boots). We were taking our usual afternoon walk through one of the quarters and I saw a pig crossing the road a head of us. Just to clarify this was no cute adorable Charlotte’s Web Wilbur type pig, this was a mean mother sow standing about the same height as my belly button and easily around 200 lbs. In my attempt to steer clear of Miss Piggy I unfortunately neglected to notice that Beamer and I were heading straight for her 3 little piglets. No sooner had Beamer lunged at the piglets, mama pig was coming strait for us. There was lots of angry squealing, and snorting involved, so suffice to say my heart was racing a million miles a minute. I was hoping/expecting the dog to scare it away or at the very least start barking, but no he immediately ran behind me creating a human shield thus leaving me to fend off the angry livestock. Luckily there was a big stick on the ground next to me so I picked it up and with a combination of yelling, stick waving, and very fast backtracking Beamer and I managed to escape unharmed.
8. On the mushroom front I have good news and bad news. The good news is that they started to bloom. The bad news is that only 1 out of 4 bags produced anything and they took a month longer then we were expecting them too (I think the climate is too hot in Bankim). I don’t think this is the best income generating project option for the money it would cost to start up versus the amount we can get to produce here in village, but it was a fun little experiment. Back to square one :/
9. Ok, so Peace Corps has three main goals for all it’s programs in all the countries it works in. Goal 1: sustainable development of the host country. Goal 2: share host country culture with Americans. Goal 3: share American culture with the host country. The following is by far the best goal three quote of all time: (while watching Toy Story with another volunteer and a bunch of kids from the neighborhood)
7 year old Cameroonian child “What’s a cowboy?”
Peace Corps volunteer: “Well it’s sort of like if you could mix a berger (cattle herder) and gendarme (solider)”
I realize this might not actually be funny to everyone but it gave me a good laugh so I thought I’d share ☺
10. Christmas was a bit of a whirlwind between Bankim and traveling to Banyo to celebrate with the other volunteers in the area( but a fun whirlwind none the less!). Some of the highlights included a very successful Christmas party for the neighbors hosted by yours truly, the most awesome frip find gift exchange ever (ask Hunter about his t-shirt and tie), a visit to the Banyo missionaries for what felt like a big family Christmas dinner back at home (not my home mind you… no one was teasing me incessantly and calling me a tree hugging hippie), a Christmas movie marathon (Elf, Charlie Brown Christmas, Love Actually and the Holiday) and a visit from the Raymond family to wrap up the weekend. Now all this was fun but the real highlight, and what I’m sure you’re all wondering about if you read my last post was the Christmas chicken. I’m happy to report that Chicken Little survived the journey from Bankim to Banyo first strapped to the back of a motorcycle and then to the back of a small hatchback Toyota and tasted all the better for it. When it came time to do the deed one of the boys slit the neck, but I pulled feathers out and it’s safe to say I’m a feather plucking pro now ;)
11. Last but not least New Year’s 2011… the start of which marks my 15th month living in Cameroon!!! New years eve was pretty low key. I had a movie night at my house for some of the kids and made them all pizza and popcorn. At midnight my doorbell started ringing nonstop so I got dressed and went outside to see what was up. I knew it was gonna be good when I started smelling burning rubber and sure enough my neighbors were all gathered in the street dancing and singing around a burning tire. Hawoua came out at the same time I did (they were ringing her doorbell over and over again too) but she was being a major party pooper… she wasn’t really feelin’ all the hub-bub. Finally I grabbed her hand and said, “Hawoua! It’s the New Year you can’t start off 2011 by yelling at people, come out and watch all the kids dancing!” She reluctantly can with me and I think (even though she’ll never admit it) that she had a good time ☺
New Years Day was a lot more eventful with visits to friends’ houses and lots of people visiting me at my house. At one point I had in my living room; 2 Mbororo girls, 3 Tikar wives, 2 Bamoum women, Hawoua, and Roses’ 23 year old Anglophone daughter Vera. All of them were pretty young (none were over 25) and being so, acted like a group of catty women (two of the women I think are pretty much mortal enemies and everyone has had to pick sides… I don’t even know what the epic fight was about but I ended up on Hawoua’s side by default… I live with her). I could have cut through the judging vibes with a knife, but thankfully every one enjoyed their cake, popcorn, and juice without starting any catfights. It was a little uncomfortable when it was happening, but after the fact it made me feel not so far away from home ;)
So that’s pretty much everything of interest that I did in December
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