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 ;)