The Creepiest Crawly

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

Hodgepodge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



My hubby Adela :)

Greetings to all my Stateside Friends,

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

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

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

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

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

I’m Back!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

A Cloud in the Sky

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

On the home front:

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

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

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

On the Work front:

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

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

Happy Birthday America!

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

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

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

Blogger’s Block...

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

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

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