caMEROON and ORANGE

South Africa

2012-01-03T23:12:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone!

I'm on a crunch for internet time so here's all the highlights from our stay in South Africa thus far:

-Landed in Jo'burg on the 22 of Dec and went out to a tiny little town in the Free State to spend Christmas with two Cameroonian priests, Father Emmanuel and Father Silvester. They were wonderful hosts and we all (me, Liz, and Julie) spent a fabulous Christmas together. Ended up doing a little volunteer work in one of the Townships in their parish and had a quiet Christmas dinner with a French couple that attended mass in the Town.

-Next stop, we spent the night with a couch surfer in a small suburb outside of Jo'burg. We had a Mongolian BBQ and spent the evening cuddling with a pair of humongous Canadian Timber Wolves (our host was involved with volunteering a a wolf shealer).

- After our night with the wolves we spent the day in Jo'burg center at the Apartheid museum. Got to spend the day getting a better understanding the history of South Africa.

-Off to Cape Town! Took an overnight bus to the Cape and have been staying with couch surfers who live at the base of Table Mountain. Thus far we have... gone to a movie, ate a ton of good food, tried sushi for the first time, went to the beach, went a vineyard, went to the botanical gardens, climbed Lion's head Mountain, went to Boulder's Beach to see African Penguins, hung out with other backpackers, new year's eve on long street and meeting the most incrdible people from all of\vewr the world

Day 2

2011-12-21T18:13:00.000-08:00

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

There and Back Again

2011-08-05T07:30:00.000-07:00

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 ;)

The Funny Side Of Life

2011-05-16T14:59:00.000-07:00

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 ☺

Hokie Hi

2011-04-14T15:33:00.000-07:00

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 ☺

Little Mama Got My Back

2011-04-06T14:46:00.000-07:00

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 ;)

Under Attack!

2011-03-25T01:48:00.000-07:00

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!

Girls Just Want To Have Fun

2011-03-25T00:53:00.000-07:00

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!

Good Grief

2011-03-16T12:47:00.000-07:00

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

Things That Makes Me Laugh

2011-02-28T03:07:00.000-08:00

adolescent cows tied up outside my house who's voices crack mid moo :)

9 out of 10 Dentists Agree

2011-02-21T14:07:00.000-08:00

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 ☺

The Never Ending Update

2011-01-10T14:36:00.000-08:00

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

The Christmas Chicken

2010-12-17T21:53:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

2010-11-30T22:42:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

WORLD AIDS DAY 2010

2010-11-21T23:26:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone!

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

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

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

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

Kate Millman
PCV Cameroon - Bankim

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Here's a copy of the pledge:

WORLD AIDS DAY
1er December 2010

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

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

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

A Post For Hunter

2010-11-14T08:12:00.000-08:00

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

Hunter's House...

JUST KIDDING ;) This is Hunter's real house

Main street / Downtown Nyamboya

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

Only In Africa

2010-11-14T07:47:00.000-08:00

Greetings to All My Stateside Friends,

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

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

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

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

Super SuperPlus SuperGlue

2010-10-16T09:11:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHAT DAY IS IT ???...

2010-10-14T23:42:00.001-07:00

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

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

The Good, The Bad, and The X-Men

2010-10-12T11:59:00.000-07:00

written on Oct 6

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

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

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

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

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

The Creepiest Crawly

2010-09-24T12:53:00.000-07:00

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

Hodgepodge

2010-09-20T15:07:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My hubby Adela :)

2010-09-13T12:25:00.002-07:00

Greetings to all my Stateside Friends,

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

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

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

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

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

I’m Back!

2010-08-26T11:52:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Cloud in the Sky

2010-07-20T01:18:00.003-07:00

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

On the home front:

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

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

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

On the Work front:

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

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