So This is A Story All About How My Car Got Flipped Upside-down…

Okay, well not really upside down per say but it was on its side in a ditch. I know that I complain about the public transport in this country a lot, but so many things went wrong on this trip from Bankim to Bafoussam that I just have to share it with you. Here’s the sequence of events:

I went to the bus station a day early to reserve my spot. Bus driver tells me the car will pull out 8 am the next morning. Friday morning I get to the bus stop at 8. I am alone. I wait for 4 hours for the car to fill up, we finally leave at noon.

Come to find out it’s a push start van. Ever seen that scene from Little Miss Sunshine when the family has to park on a decline or get a running start to get the van moving… yup, exact same scenario.

We drive for about an hour and we get a flat tire when we hit a rock that’s submerged in one of the many ginormous mud/water filled potholes.

We drive for another hour and we have to stop for prayer.

We drive another hour and we slide off the road while trying to navigate a particularly muddy stretch. This was actually the highlight of the trip. Let me just preface by saying no one got hurt because a) we were moving super slow and b) we’re always packed in like sardines so it’s not like one could move even if they wanted to. Basically the wheels spun out and we went sideways right off the road and into the ditch. Icing on the cake was that it was the side with the door that was submerged in mud so everyone had to climb out through the windows (as I’m sure you can imagine, me wiggling out of a tiny sliding van window was anything but graceful). Once everybody was out it took about twenty guys and 45 mins. to get it unstuck and the whole time they were all arguing and yelling at each other. Once it was out it only stayed out for about 5 mins. before it was stuck again…and again…and again. The car was stuck in the mud a total of three times with in a 30 min. time frame after the initial slippage. Then all the men that helped push it out (those who weren’t passengers already) demanded the driver pay them and wouldn’t let us leave until he did. Finally he did but he had to use the money that he would normally use to pay off all the people looking for bribes at the checkpoints, which caused problems for us later on.

Everyone loads back in to the car and we drive for a while before we stop for prayer again.

We start to go over the mountains and the car overheats. The solution…pour water over the engine until it cools down. So basically we stand on the side of the road for an hour. The good news is I made some nice friends with the other passengers. One older lady told me her whole family’s life story.

We’ve been on the road about 6 hours when we finally get to Foumban and the road becomes paved- YESSSSSSSSS ☺

We hit Foumbat and run into some problems with a particularly cranky gendarme at customs. He’s looking for a little motivation (code word for bribe) and starts giving this one guy in the back of the car a really hard time about the goods he’s transporting.. We spend another 30 mins on the side of the road while the driver, the owner of the goods and the police officer have a screaming match. Finally the driver ends up leaving the guy there (I hope if I ever have an issue like that they won’t leave me… that’s why I always make a few friends right off the bat)

I can see the lights of Bafoussam in the distance.. quite literally the light at the end of the tunnel and then the car over heats..again. This time we only wait about 30 mins. for it to cool down and then we're off for the homestretch!

We finally make it after 8 ½ hours (that’s a personal record, normally it takes between 4 ½ and 5). As I’m sure you can imagine I was cranky and tired, one, because of the ride and, two the fact that now I was going to have to shell out money for a hotel room because I missed the last car leaving Baf for Baham (where the volunteer who I was trying to stay with lives). But then an amazing thing happened... I checked into my room discovered not only that I had running water but that it was hot and for the first time since landing in Yaoundé 9 months ago I took a nice long hot shower. Now I feel great! It’s truly amazing what heated water can do for your spirits ☺

This Week’s Entry Brought To You By the Number Quinze

21 May 2010

Now despite what you might be thinking I have not been catching up on my Sesame Street reruns, I actually just got back from a short visit to Mayo Darlé and up there I am commonly referred to as Quinze… as in the number 15 in French… as in sounds and looks nothing like Kate but is the closest we can get to the correct pronunciation. Now really I don’t care what they call me it’s just that sometimes I forget that I’m Quinze and then I don’t respond right away when someone is calling for me which is apparently a problem. When I was up there on Wednesday Haja, the first wife, decided the best solution would be to give me a village name. I told them to think about a good one and next time I visit they can tell me what it is. I’m kind of excited.
So the reason that I was in The Darlé was because this past Thursday was Cameroon’s independence day and Aislynn invited me to celebrate with her and Josh. Basically it’s the equivalent of our 4th of July except that there are no hot dogs and it lasts an entire week. This year is an especially big deal because it’s the 50th anniversary of reunification and independence of the country. I wasn’t here last year so I really have no basis for comparison, but I can say that Cameroonians know how to throw a party and they pulled out all the stops for this one.
The day started promptly at 6:30 when I was awoken to the sounds of someone pounding at the door, which wouldn’t have been that big a deal had I not been sleeping on the floor about two feet away from said door. Turns out it was Aislynn’s party dress being delivered (side note Cameroonians with a deadline are like me in college with a final paper… they work right to the wire but miraculously they always seem to get it done), so we took that as a sign to get dressed and went over to eat breakfast with the wives. After breakfast we made our way up to the parade grounds to watch the “march pass” and the traditional dances. It was pretty much your standard Cameroonian parade with the exception of the equestrian portion. Despite my personal beef with horseback riding (thank you mother…you know what you did ;) ) it was pretty fun to watch. They dress up the horses and then kids ride them bareback and try to get them to jump back on the hind legs. I’m gonna go ahead and say it’s probably not the safest thing one could be doing with their children, but the effect is pretty cool. Aislynn’s neighbor was riding the winner so that was exciting, and his parents were just beaming ☺. Once everyone had finished marching some of the groups came up front and performed some traditional songs and dances, which was a major crowd pleaser. People take a lot of pride in their traditions here and it really shows when they’re performing and they’re grinning from ear to ear. I love it!
So after everything at the Sous Prefecture finished up we went to a “cocktail hour” at the District officer’s house and did a little schmoozing with the big-wigs (thank you white man status… sometimes you actually are a good thing to have around). I don’t think whoever made the invitations actually knew what a cocktail hour was because there were no cocktails in sight and it lasted way more then an hour, but there was one hell of a spread so I think that more than made up for the false advertisement ;)
Lunch finished and we went to watch the championship football match, because lets be honest, what’s a Cameroonian party with out a little foot? It was the high school boy’s team versus the twenty somethings who called themselves The Hungry Lions (Now tell me that’s not an awesome team name!). The Lycee team (high school) ended up winning 2-1 and no sooner had they finished handing out the trophy, the sky opened up and it started pouring rain. This gave the three of us the perfect excuse to head back to the house to do a little power nappage because we still had the gala to attend that night.
The Gala got started around 9 pm with another round of feasting and then dancing until the wee hours of the morning. Highlight was hands down the opening of the dance floor. So what normally happens is that the DJ will choose random people to pair up and dance together awkward middle school style to some really cheesy slow song and then when the song finishes the floor is open and everyone gets up to dance. Now somehow Peace Corps volunteers always seemed to get picked to do this dance (imagine that) and this was no exception. We each got paired up with some old government officials but then they couldn’t get the slow song to come on the speakers. The only song they could get was this really upbeat song called Kiriku (happens to be one of my favorites…look it up, downloaded it, you’ll love it) which was not at all what they were going for. Everyone was just standing around not quite sure what to do, but then I looked down the line and saw Aislynn rock’n out so Josh and I followed her lead and the next thing you know all the Cameroonians were in on it too. I’d like to think we saved the dance☺

Peace,
Kate

P.S. on the way home from Mayo Darlé I saw an antelope walk across the road, and all the other passengers in the car thought it was really funny how excited I got.

P.P.S. I got in a standoff with a really big, really unfriendly goose the other day and had to be rescued by a Cameroonian. I think the geese here are even meaner then the ones at Mount Trashmore.

P.P.P.S Snake-be-gone = fail… found another snake in the yard

It’s kind of like Jet Noise

Most of you probably know this, but for those of you who don’t, I grew up in Virginia Beach about 15 minutes away from, and directly in the flight path of one of the East Coast's largest naval air bases, Oceana. As I’m sure you can imagine the rumblings of F-14s, F-18s and an assortment of other fighter jets provided the soundtrack to my childhood. However, like all natives of the area eventually you don’t hear them anymore, you don’t look up when one goes whizzing by, you don’t stop the conversation you’re having, and you don’t even think twice about the fact that a these powerful weapons are flying over your house at the speed of sound.
I feel like things here in Bankim are sort of becoming like jet noise. In some ways this is a good thing, for example my nose has conceded defeat and I can no longer smell B.O. (granted I can’t smell it on myself either so that might not be such a good thing when I come home). I can sleep through and African thunderstorm under a tin roof without any problem, and sitting around in peoples houses while they talk to each other in local dialect (that I don’t understand) for hours is no longer rude, it’s just a friendly afternoon visit with the neighbors.
In other ways I’m not sure that I like becoming complacent or jaded or so used to things just because “that’s the way they are here”. Now when I see two mamas with babies on there backs and large basins of food on their heads walking down the street I don’t think wow they’re only 18 years old and they’re coming back from the farm with their kids instead of back from school with their classmates. Now when people get really sick I find myself more often then not, not looking up, not stopping the conversation, and not thinking twice. It’s like the jets, they’re gonna fly over the house everyday and there’s no stopping them so you just tune them out so you can get work done and go on with your day. Coping strategy or excuse? I don’t know yet. I don’t want to stop seeing the little things or minimize the important things, but I find it’s exhausting to deal with it all, all the time.
Ok enough of that, I’m off the soapbox now ;) Here’s your random little story for the week. I think I mentioned this before, but we’re having a bit of a snake problem in the compound at the moment. I’m sure that it’s because of the rain, and because I haven’t found anyone to cut my grass yet, but between the three apartments we’ve seen and killed 3 snakes in the past week. They’re not huge but still they could probably do some damage if they bit you, so the solution… homemade snake-be-gone. Last weekend I spent about a half an hour with Rose and her kids mixing up this traditional remedy that was one part crushed snake heads, one part palm oil, one part elephant root, and a lot of other parts that I had never heard of before. We mixed it into a paste, rubbed it on sticks, and placed them strategically around the compound. We rubbed the leftover paste around the bottom of the kitchen doors. I don’t put a ton of faith into traditional remedies, and I don’t know if it’s going to work, but hey I figure it can’t hurt to try. I’ll let you all know how it goes!

Labor Day in May

Well, it’s official, after years of being in the marching band my acquired skill set has finally proved itself useful in a career setting. By this I’m referring to the Labor Day parade I marched in with my co-workers from the health center this past Saturday. I’m not sure why, but people really like to march in parades in this country, any chance to get up in front of a group of people and walk in step, and they’re on it like white on rice; youth day, women’s day, worker’s day you name the people’s day and I can almost guarantee there’s going to be a procession.
Saturday morning I got up early and headed down to eat breakfast with Bernadette’s family and get ready for the Labor Day festivities. I guess I never really thought of Labor day as a big party day, probably because for me it always represented the last day of freedom, the coming of a new school year, and so long to white shoes, but here it’s much more a celebration for “the working man.” All the workers associations make t-shirts or buy matching fabric and then throw these big parties.

Part one of the Fête de travailler (The workers’ party) was supposed to get kicked off at the sous prefecture (kind of like the fair grounds) at nine o’clock, but this is Cameroon and NOTHING ever starts on time so I putzed around for a couple of hours and then right around noon things started moving along. It was the usual opening ceremonies with the singing of the national anthem, big wigs giving speeches, and then the tunes came on. One thing you should know about Bankim is that in the whole village there is apparently only one song that people can march to and so that song is played on repeat for the duration of the procession, over and over and over again (were talking hours of the same song on the same crappy speakers). By the end it’s so stuck in your head that you find yourself humming it all week long, or at least I do ;)
So round one all the groups march around the route on foot, then round two everyone loads up onto cars and trucks and does it again. Highlight of the foot parade was hands down the Bankim Boucher’s association. Somewhere in the brainstorming process they decided that it would be a good idea to march with a cow leading their group. Funny thing about cows is that they like being walked on a leash just about as much as they like being ridden… not one bit! Much to my amusement both were attempted and the entire crowd was rolling on the ground laughing (probably wouldn’t have been so funny if the guy had been gored, but he wasn’t so I felt laughter was the appropriate response). Second highlight of the parade and my favorite part was the moto taxi men’s tour. Aislynn once said that the moto taxis are kind of like bike messengers in the states. They’re all the young 20 something guys who pride themselves in being “trendy” (side note trendy in Cameroon equals R Kelly and knock off sunglasses) and hang out next to their bikes all day trying to look cool and impress the ladies. Anyways this group was the last one in the parade and apparently once around wasn’t enough because they opted to go round two and by the time they were at round three the police were chasing them. While I was watching this all I could think about was that scene at the end of Animal House when the renegade “eat me” cake float breaks into the death mobile and all hell lets loose. Classic.

Part two of Fête de Travailler was a dinner party and dancing. Everyone at the hospital pitched in a little money and some of the ladies whipped up a spread of food for our little throw down. We had the party at one of the local bars and all the invitees (a.k.a. all the important people) showed up to meet us there. Someone busted out a microphone and we had to listen to the same speeches from the morning again (like no kidding the exact same speeches, word for word), but once all the formalities were over and the table was cleared the real fun began. Loud music, lots of booze, and dancing hands in the air like you just don’t care… what more could you ask for? Everyone was eager to show how to dance Cameroonian, which I must say is so much easier then American dancing, and I was on the floor all night. All in all I had a great time and I can’t wait till next year ☺

Home Sweet Home

I’m Back! I know it’s been awhile since I had a chance to update you on all things Cameroon, but you’ll just have to blame that on a combination of power failures and official In Service Training. Also I have to apologize because I don’t have anything super exciting to update you on this week.
I guess I’ll start with in-service training. Commonly referred to as I.S.T. this is where I have been for the past 8 days. Basically it’s a week long seminar were volunteers get a chance to talk about what they’re doing at post, hear from 2nd year volunteers, learn how to plan and carry out big projects, and learn how to get funding for said projects. All interesting and important things to know, but that’s not really why most people start counting down the days till I.S.T. two months ahead a time. The real reason people get pumped is because the whole stage gets back together, kind of like a reunion of sorts. I know it seems silly, and you might be thinking, but Kate it’s only been 4 months since you saw these people, which is very true, but when you go from spending all day everyday with a group of people and then go cold turkey with your American interaction at post, 4 months can start to seem like a long time. Not that I’m complaining about post, but it’s nice to speak English and not feel limited by a five year old's vocabulary, drink a cold beer without being bothered to by the guy sitting at the next table, and just let your guard down, laugh with your friends, which is exactly what I did from 5:30 (when classes ended) till the wee hours every night. It was great to see everyone and I definitely had a good time, but by the end of day 8 I was ready to be heading home, and actually a pretty cool thing happened as I was rolling back into town… I felt like I was home ☺ I passed my house and waved out the window and a chorus of “Kate, Kate Kate” erupted from the kids. It was a warm and fuzzy moment for the books.
With that being said I’m back in town and back to the grindstone, feeling energized and ready to start some bigger projects. I still have a lot to think about before I jump into anything, but I have some ideas mulling around in the back of my head so I’m going to spend the next couple of weeks flushing them out with Bernadette and picking one to focus on this summer.

One final random note that I don’t know how to cleverly work into this post, but that I definitely want to mention…hopscotch. Yesterday afternoon I played the most competitive game of hopscotch the world has ever seen. Seriously if it were an Olympic sport Haua (age 17), Awa (age 16), and Ladee (age 15) would all be gold medalists. I had no idea there were so many rules and that such an innocent game could be so intense. But after an hour of throwing stones and jumping around like a one legged chicken, I had been “schooled” and my mind had been changed for good!

Another Year Bites the Dust - April 1, 2010

Sorry for the lack of updates, but we are currently experiencing technical difficulties here in Bankim. By that I mean that for the past week and a half we’ve only had power between the hours of 1:00 am and 5:00 am. Not exactly the most convenient time frame for your average resident. On the bright side (although not very bright) I know exactly when the power comes back because my neighbor starts up his big coffee grinder and has his guys work through the night, thus waking me up and giving me a chance to plug in all my electronics for the next day.

So let’s see, what have I been up to? On the work front last week I started a community health and sanitation survey. I have an in-service training (IST) coming up so the goal is to use some of our findings in our report we have to give. Bernadette and I decided to divide the village up into sections and the plan is that over the next couple of days we’ll hopefully visit fifty families from a variety of different backgrounds and then compile the results into a report that can help us to plan effective activities in the future. It’s hard work, but already the results are proving to be helpful, so I’m feeling pretty pumped about that.

In other news I turned the big two three this past Monday. It was fun but low-key. I got to Skype chat with my family at home and received a surprise call from Miss Altice back in the states, so that was very exciting. Birthdays are most definitely not celebrated to the same extent here in Cameroon that they are in the states. For instance you shouldn’t tell a Cameroonian it’s your birthday unless you are ready to give THEM a gift or buy them a drink, kind of backwards from what we do but thankfully my neighbor warned me about this ahead of time so I was armed and ready. Party favors this year came in the form of fried plantains… lots and lots of fried plantains. I enlisted the help of Fadimatou, my 9 year neighbor, and the two of us spent the morning in the kitchen deep frying massive amounts of food, and then in the afternoon I made the rounds to pass them out. I hit up all the immediate neighbors and then my colleagues at the health center and finished up with my friends in the market. I don’t know how good the food actually was but everyone seemed excited that I made them myself.
The real birthday fun came later in the week in the form of a visit from the Mayo Darlé crew. Aislynn and her boyfriend Josh (who’s visiting Cameroon at the moment) came to spend a few days with me, and everyone knows the only thing better then one white person in Bankim is three ;) . I have to say I always love when Aislynn comes; one because I enjoy the company, two because I like speaking American English and not feeling restricted by a five year old’s vocabulary (which is about what I have in French right now), and three because she’s a great cook. In fact, that was her birthday present to me, she and josh made me a steak dinner with potatoes and greens (a real treat since I don’t frequently visit the meat market, which is a whole other story). We asked Haua if we could use her fire pit and did a bar-b-que in the backyard.
It was really funny to watch Haua watch us cook. First we used a big fire where as Cameroonians normally grill on coals, so she kept reaching in and literally pulling the wood out of the fire. Then josh cut the meat into small steaks instead of hacking it into little pieces, and she kept saying, “no no no you’re doing it wrong,” and finally pulled the meat off the grill, went at it with her knife, and chopped it into pieces. So that put an end to the nicely cut steak, but I had to laugh because I know she was trying to help and thought we were going to ruin the meal by cooking in this bizarre manner.
Other highlights from their visit included a hike to the top of our cell phone antenna tower, a visit to the big man bar for drinks, and oven baked pizza. All in all it was a wonderful visit and it was just what I needed give me a push to get through the next week and a half before I get to see all my friends from stage at IST. Speaking of IST I’m not bringing my computer, so this thing will more then likely be dormant for a while. Fear not though, I’ll give you the complete update when I get back into town ;)

Until Next Time,
Kate

IT'S A BOY

It’s official! The count has gone from 17 to 18 next door with the arrival of baby Ibrahim. My neighbor Ieassatou had her baby yesterday evening and both baby and mom are doing great. As I’m writing this I’ve actually just come from visiting and congratulating the family and there is a contagious sense of excitement in the air. Now seeing as how babies have never really been my forte and in the past I’ve lived by the general rule of thumb, "If you can’t hold your head up, I can’t hold you,” I had intended to make it a short and sweet visit, but I should have know better, because nothing in Cameroon is short and sweet.

I entered the compound, greeted the husband, and gave him some soap (the traditional baby gift in these parts). Then someone grabbed my hand, led me past an assortment of distant relatives, and next thing I know I’m sitting on the bed with the baby in my arms. Now I’m definitely not the baby whisperer, but I did manage not to drop him or make him start crying (and he didn’t suck out my soul) so I would say overall it was a good visit.

In other news I now have my garden up and running (by that I mean there’s dirt and there are seeds in the dirt). It’s just the beginning of rainy season so everyone is scrambling to get their farms ready and I thought, well it couldn’t hurt to try. Normally my thumb is more brown than green, but from what I hear things grow really well in this part of the country, so what the heck I went for it! I enlisted the help of Kerry and Hadison (my 6 and 9 year old neighbors) and in about an hour the three of us had dugout a little garden in the back yard. I planted tomatoes, carrots, and green bell peppers, so now all I have to do is water and wait. Keep your fingers crossed that something pops up.

Nothing else all that exciting has been going on. I’ve been working en brousse (in the bush) this week talking about why vaccinations are important, but the normal nurse I work with is out so I’m working with someone else and I’m not exactly his biggest fan. Needless to say it hasn’t been the high point of my week. Hope all is well back in the states.

Until next time.

Kate

P.S. Thanks Adele and Dave for the Christmas card and ornament. They just arrived and absolutely made my day J