preparing for pope.

Do you think I would ever run out of excuses for why I don’t post on my blog?  This time I blame technology and my USB key.  My office now has a computer, a computer from 10 years ago that runs windows 2000, but a computer.  So I was very excited to actually sit in my office and type up a blog entry without all the rush and distractions that characterize my time in Yaounde.  But when I arrived here to post the blog I realized my blog post had disappeared, I don’t know how.  Oh well.

The big news across Cameroon is that the Pope (here he is Pap Benoit seize) is coming on the 17th of March.  At first I heard that he was coming because of a personalinvitation from the President.  Okay I could believe that.  But later I heard he is coming to try and put an end to the widespread corruption in that Catholic Church here.  Now THAT I can believe.  Of course it is a huge event, with tens of thousands of Cameroonians coming into the capital.  So to get the capital ready the government has gone on a rampage trying to clean up the city.  A misguided and dictatorial cleaning rampage.  So this means arriving on streets that the pope might pass by for a second, with 20 police officers, water cannons, guard dogs, and demolition equipment.  Then using these police, dogs and water cannons to back all spectators off to a reasonable distance before demolishing every little hut/store/food shack in site.  The stated purpose of this is to remove the illegal small buildings/shacks that are common all across the large cities of Africa, because they are technically illegal, but have been there for years and some of very well built and furnished.  The hair cutting shack close to the office, had a door, glass windows, a T.V., a stereo, and an air-conditioner.  All in a room that used to be 8×15 feet, but is now just a pile of rubble and broken glass.  For breakfast I always used to eat at the omelet shack or at the little beans & beignets stand, both now gone.  All these little places, while technically illegal, were peoples’ lively-hoods, and often their only chance for work.  Now they are all lost with no financial compensation.  This is not the “Christian duty” the pope will talk about.

Personally I’m doing well.  I’ve been busy the last few weeks just not with health work.  I’ve been helping out with a computer workshop for women, and teaching computers and english at my office.  This has been the demand of many people in my village, so I’m happy to offer this service even if it is not in my job description.  The computer workshop was put on by “African Computer Institute” based out of Yaounde and organized by local community member and the other Peace Corps volunteer in my village.  So they came out with about eight computers (not enough for everyone) and taught two half-day classes for two weeks.  It was nice to see the learning curve of those who had never even touched a computer before to being able to manipulate and type on the computer.  I basically just walked around the back of the class and answered people’s questions when they had some.  I don’t believe that the level of technology or computer literacy will ever catch up with the west, but things are improving little by little, so that now many of the important programs for a business or office will be known by a wide number of people. 

The last big health project I did was around the Youth day.  We had 80 AIDS test, which we used all of and had people still interested at the end.  Out of the 80 we had two who tested positive.  For the after care of these people they are basically sent to Yaounde, which I realize is hardly the best system.  I have had many frustrations with the coordinator of the youth center and this was another.  I inquired as to how we would deal with the post counseling and helping people after a positive test result, but she was not interested in any of this and choose to send these people to an NGO in the capital.  At the same time as the AIDS test, I held an essay contest to try and get more youth to come and participate in the center.  It was open to 7-9th graders and asked for the youth to think about the future of themselves, Makak, and Cameroon 20 years from now, and how to make that future better.  It went very well, but on the inside I was a little frustrated as the things I planned were taken away and changed by Cameroonians who were only involved the day of.  For instance I had formulated the question and begun the publicity about a month and a half before, with the question and details open to any.  But on the day of people who are just a little connected with the center came in the changed things about the question, or how the essay was to be formulated.  But its part of the work and letting others take ownership over the center, so I have to let it go.  We ended up with 32 students participating and had 6 winners two from every grade level.  Will this add some new blood to the youth center?  As long as the staff there stays the same it looks like not.

Also I have been choosen to present to the first year volunteers at there three-month conference.  This is big news because it means my work was considered impressive enough to present to others, and I get to travel all the way to the extreme north where there are a lot of tourist attractions.  So on the 20th i’m going to be celebrating my birthday in village, and then heading up north for maybe two weeks, to be around other volunteers, celebrate my bday again, and be a tourist.

Super Sunday

Perhaps it is a reflection on my life here that I still mark time by American events. Not that I’m not busy and doing work here, but there is no obvious, and widely known event or season I could title a blog with. Thus even though I’ve seen about 3 football games this season, and probably won’t watch the super bowl, I’ll title this blog after what I know is going on in the US. I could have titled it “corrupt politician thrown out of office” but that is again only in the US, not Cameroon.
I’m doing good. Was hoping to watch super bowl but it doesn’t look like that will happen. It has become incredibly hot here. Or I guess more accurately “I’ve forgotten how hot it is here.” The dry season can be pretty brutal. Just because of how strong the sun is in the middle of the day. It is pleasant in the morning as fog/haze usually covers my village, but when the sun burns through that it feels as if the sun is right on top of you. I’ve been stubborn in my routine, and still left the house in the middle of the day, but i’ve begun to change that. The best for me is to wake up, exercise (ride my bike), shower, eat and then get some visits done around the community before it gets too hot. Then at around 11-noon get back inside my house to hangout and not overheat. Then maybe around 3:30-4 go out into the community again to get whatever else I need done, or to give my English class which i have a few days a week.
My work lately has involved national youth day, which is a big holiday here February 11. It is a week long event for anyone high-school age and younger, with sports matches, parties, dances and topping it all off a parade where every little kid with-in 50 miles walks by the stage. Or atleast it seems its that many kids, after about two schools it all looks the same.   It is also a time when high school-age kids let loose and party, experimenting in alcohol, and having sex.  Thus where my job comes in.  We are organizing different presentations about safe sex, and avoiding unwanted pregnancies.  There will also be a free AIDS test and I’m running an essay contest to attract youth to come into the center.  This is a point in my service where i’m feeling optimistic about my work coming together but I won’t count my chickens before they hatch.

I have to go.  Sorry for the short post.

I’m still alive

Yes the reports of my disappearance have been greatly exaggerated.  I’m currently in America which has been great, but it has surprised me how many people actually read my blog.  So maybe i should post more.  This experience has been eye opening for my time in village but I have also learned a lot seeing the other amazing Peace Corps volunteers around me and how they deal with this difficult and stressful experience.   Namely their ability to keep blogs, pictures and mass emails up to date.  While I suffer from “an out of sight out of mind” mentality, and often enjoy my privacy and unanimity.  I might also kick myself in the future for not documenting this experience more closely.

The biggest news lately has been an on-going case of amoebic dysentery.  Stomach problems are nothing abnormal in Cameroon.  My biggest project so far involved education to prevent cases like this.  But about three weeks ago I started having diarrhea, which did not worry me until I started having blood in my stool a few days later.  Okay that’s not good but crazy stuff happens here and I thought “maybe it will just go away.”  After a couple of days of this and stomach pain i asked my post mate and some others around town, and the village diagnosis was ameobas.  I’ve become a bit “villageous” (which means literally villager but is used like “hick” or “simpleton”) in that I didn’t go to the hospital and just trusted those around me to know the problem and the treatment.  So I took some drugs from the local pharmacy, which is a guy with a little booth who sells Chinese and Nigerian drugs.  Well, my dysentary did not go away. 

A week later when I saw the medical officer in Yaounde he said if that medicine didn’t work it was probably bacterial dysentary.  So he sent me to the lab to give a stool sample, and as we waited to get the results he would treat me for bacterial dysentary.  Well the stomach cramps have largely stoped but the blood in my stool has not.  Which largely does not bother me but I realize it could be potentially damaging to my health.  One reason it does not bother me is I think about the people in my village and across Africa in which these serious stomach problems occur but go untreated.  I’m sure people have ameobas for much longer then me but just live their lives, and go untreated whether for lack of money or lack of trust in the hospital and medicines.  I’m suffering no more than the normal across much of the world.  So I have seen an American doctor, she has prescribed me medicine and I hope that these stomach problems go away before i do real damage to myself.

The biggest event for me the past few months and for the world was the American election.  Literally since Sept. ‘07 when I arrived I have been talking about American politics to Cameroonians.  Who like most people across the world are educated on American politics.  They follow American politics like they would follow their daily soap-opera.  They know the names, and the personalities, but the actual political positions aren’t really important.  So they see Bush as an evil character with a love of war, and know that his enemies are Osama bin-Laden and Sadam Hussien.  While I’ve always been critical of Bush it has always been a struggle to explain my critisms of Bush while defending the larger American structure and ideals.  Especially in French.  So a way for me to demonstrate my belief in the larger ideals and politics of America has been to point out the opportunities given to minorities (Obama) and women (Clinton).  This was also meant to encourage Cameroonians to think about the opportunities for political change and empowerment.

But to simply talk about Obama and Clinton does play into the soap opera story arc, woman vs. African-American, old white man vs. young son of Africa.  But I try and expand on this and explain the greater political issues.  At first people did not know about Obama but slowly they began to learn about him and his possiblity for success.  An initial response was “America will never elect a black man.”  Which is a difficult statement to argue against when before this election I saw a good amount a truth in the statement.  But as his momentum gathered people became more and more excited, too excited.  They see Obama as a son of Africa and thus a savior to Africa, an answer to all problems.  So at first I encouraged people to get excited about Obama and the amazing symbol it is for America and Africa, but then I found myself dampening expectations as they became over-exuberant and delusional.

Approaching election day the first topic of conversation with everyone in village was the election.  As election day approached I saw more random Obama shirts and hats on Cameroonians which was a very cool experience.  For election day I purposely made my banking trip into the capital so that I could watch the election with other volunteers.  We excitedly talked about it, created a pool predicting the outcome of swing states, and bought a lot of beer.  We watched the feed from CNN and cheered the results as each state came in.  The final results came in at 5am and we watched right up till 7am when President elect Obama made his speech.  It was incredibly special celebrating with all my friends, basking in the victory of the first politician I’ve actually supported in my life, and going out to eat a Cameroonian breakfast after not sleeping all night.  Needless to say the city and the country was a buzz, and for the next month I had to hear people’s stories of where they were and how they heard the results come in.  A proud moment in my life to be remembered.

Death in the Family

So a lot of note has gone on recently in Makak.  I successfully completed my first big project, but the big news is that the father of the family I live with, “Grande-pere” died suddenly on Saturday.  For those that don’t know I live in a small house in a compound of houses, and the closest house (about thirty feet from my door) lives my land-lord and his family.  They had been married for 47 years, and are both retired school teachers.  The mother is the person I’m closest here to in Cameroon and I check in with her every time I leave and come back to the house.  She is called “mbombo” (said like em-bum-bo) which means “grandmother” or an affectionate “honey,” so all older woman are called mbombo but then she also calls all of us Americans or younger kids mbombo.  So a typical exchange between us involves us both calling each other mbombo.  Several years ago she went blind from cataracts, which she handles well, still managing and cleaning the house often alone.  For my first ten months living in Makak this is the couple I ate with every night.  The kids would prepare dinner, I would wait in my house, someone would call me over and then we would sit down to eat.  There is no official price I pay to eat there, just every few days I make a generous contribution to the food fund.  When eating Grande-pere would sit down with me at the table, and Mbombo would sit in her chair in the corner, and eat by herself.  Even though he would sit directly in front of me, I hold conversations with her more, just because she is more interested in speaking to me then Grande-Pere.  And at the end of the meal I thank them for the meal, hug her good night and go back to my place.

With that background in place.  I left my house Saturday around 3 in the afternoon for a meeting at the center.  That morning I had seen Grande-pere at the house and made the usual small talk with him.  I had even brought back bitter-kola nuts for the family and gave him one because I know he likes them.  Everything seemed normal with him, the one thing out of the normal was that he was not drinking palm-wine at the bar like he usually does in the morning, but I think that was because he was supervising some work going on in the compound.  After my meeting in the center of town, I went directly to my counterpart’s house to have dinner with his family, my post-mate, and a friend of hers who was visiting.  So I did not come back to my house till 10:30.  Which is an hour and a half after I usually settle into my house for the night.  I did not speak with anyone when I came home, but it was unusually that there was a car there and there was still a light on in the house.  Grande-pere died around 5:00.  I’ve been told that he was eating and then made a noise like he was going to throw up, and Mbombo asked him if he was alright and he responded he was.  Soon after he started breathing really heavy, which is when Mbombo wanted to get him to the hospital, but as she was basically alone at the house there were not enough people to get him there.  He laid down in his bed and died soon after.  I found out the next morning as I saw a friend walking past my house and asked him what he was doing in my neighborhood so early in the morning.  He responded that the Father Ntomb had died, to my shock and embarrassment.  I quickly got dressed and went over to talk to the family, who were also obviously in shock over the sudden death.

Grande-pere had not been sick, he didn’t really take care of himself, but he was not sick.  He was also well known and liked throughout the community so it was a blow to quite a lot of people.  For me it is obviously very sad, but I’m more sad and worried for Mbombo.  To lose the person she has been with for 47 years, but also the person who helped keep the house in order after she went blind.  She is often alone at the house, with many of her children working and moved on, but now she will be even more alone.  It also hits home because I lost my Grandfather about a year and a half ago, and soon after made the choice to leave for Peace Corps.  I see the pain that Mbombo and the family have here and know it is the same for my Grandmother and family back home, but I can not be there to support them right now.  So I guess all I can do is my best to comfort and support the family here, while I keep everyone back home in my thoughts and prayers until i can return to them.  Which demonstrates the difficulties of living in another culture.  At home I know how to deal with the death of some one close, but here I’m not sure what my place is, or what my actions should be.  Should I talk about it?  Should I hang out more?  Should I stick to my normal routine?  I want to be close to comfort them, but they always speak baasa, which leaves me in silence with little understanding.  One thing I do know that it is expected you give a contribution to help with the funeral and anything after, which serves as a type of informal insurance.  Right now there are a constant stream of people coming over to visit Mbombo and offer their condolences.

On to some better news.  I completed my first major project here in Makak and it went very well.  It was an educational seminar on hygiene and health with the outcome being the formation of a committee that will try and work further to improve the health of Makak.  Like many rural villages there is a high incidence of illness related to poor hygienic conditions.  These illnesses go from cases of diarrhea to dysentery, worms and amoebas, with many deaths especially amongst young children.  To put it bluntly: this illnesses are caused when we eat shit.  From not washing our hands, shaking hands with another person, contaminated water, flies that land in shit and then land on our food.  This is all made more difficult by a general lack of running water, no refrigeration, and the way food is prepared and then generally left to sit.  There are many ways that fecal matter arrives in our mouths and we were trying to teach how to prevent this.  The presenters for this seminar were myself, Sarah another health volunteer, my counterpart Roger, and Valdecethe coordinator of the center helped a little.  Was a lot better in my opinion when a Cameroonian gave the presentations, just because they know how to talk to people and their french is much more natural.  But I thought the presentations I did went well.  The hit of the presentation was a home made tool made to make hand washing easier and more convenient.  It is just a plastic bottle with a whole created in the bottom and a pen tube put in.  The pen tube creates a vacuum so when the bottle in tightly sealed at the top, water does not exist because the pressure air puts on it.  When the top is opened water comes out similar to the tap of a sink.  (There is a picture of it on facebook if i didn’t describe that well.)  But it is made with materials everyone can assess in village.

The last day was teaching about action planning, and meant to motivate them to start and carry through projects themselves.  The information wasn’t exactly presented as it should, because of the language, but they came out with the information and purpose we wanted.  So they created a committee, and in their action plan will do further educational presentations in the neighborhoods, make the “bottle hand washing things,” try and create garbage cans for the center to cut down on the litter, and finally go to the restaurant and food vendors to ensure they are using proper hygiene techniques.  We’ll see how much of this gets done.  In terms of sustainability it is good because it is them who created their own plan and committee that in theory exists if i was not there.  So it felt good to get that done and all the participants were very happy.

A finally funny story is that I had a Mango fly in my back side.  A mango fly is something that lands on your clothes when they are out drying and lays it eggs in your clothes.  If you immediately wear clothes after, the fly comes out and burrows into your skin, and lays its larvae.  So I ended up with this larvae underneath my skin on my buttocks.  To get it out you rub Vaseline on the spot which cuts off the air and it comes to the top of the skin to breathe and you can squeeze it out.  It hurts some, and is a weird feeling having it underneath your skin but it actually wasn’t that painfully.

Okay I’ve written enough.  Have a good day, i’ll write again soon.  Ben

A year in Cameroon

Hello everyone!  I’m close to my one year anniversary in Cameroon.  Which I guess is a time of celebration but for me I have a big educational event coming up so maybe the week after I’ll celebrate.

So since I last wrote I went to France to meet up with my parents.  Was a good time but if I had to do it over I would have come home in that time.  It would have been nice to see all my friends, eat some good american food, and avoid the huge price of Europe right now.  I met my parents in Paris and after we took the train down to Nice.  Before hand I was looking forward to using and practicing my French in France.  But when I arrived I quickly learned how many French people speak English and how they do not like to speak French with non-native speakers when they don’t have to.  I can understand most things that are said, and can express pretty much anything.  But with learning French in west Africa my accent is no where near what a Parisian accent sounds like.  So I would always start off conversations in French but when people heard my accent they probably thought I wasn’t very good and often switch to English.  Which very often was worse than my French.  But I did have many conversations with French people there when they let me speak more than a sentence and realized I could speak French.  This phenomenon of people speaking to me in English was very frustrating at times but to put it into perspective, I was in very touristy areas where everyone spoke English as the linga franca.  So Germans, Italians, Brazilians, Japanese etc. come in with no French but a good amount of English.  Thus they start off conversations with French people in English, assuming everyone knows some.  Often made life easier for me but difficult to practice.

Another area where I thought I might have been able to help my parents was with ordering food.  But when we sat down at a restaurant I realized the foods were as foreign to me even with my French knowledge.  Obviously everything will be different between a village in Cameroon and Paris but I didn’t really think about how different everything was.  The French food ended up being a lot of ham, pasta, and bagget sandwiches.  Which was fine but not really at the prices they were charging.

Everything went well in France.  It was great to see my parents, but after they left I really just wanted to get back to Cameroon and my house.  When flying back I almost didn’t even make it to Cameroon.  I arrived in the Nice airport to be told my flight to Casablanca was fine but that my flight to Douala in Cameroon had been changed and the site I bought my ticket with had not informed me.  Not the best thing when you’re travelling by yourself to a third-world country.  The original options they gave me where to spend another day in Nice, or to go to Casablanca and take another a later flight and get into Douala during the night.  Not a safe option.  But after a while they found a seat on the original plane for me, which was extremely lucky.  Lucky to be able to travel for 36 hours straight by myself.

Since I got back I’ve been spending pretty much all my time in village.  I have a big hygiene project planned for next week.  In Cameroon there is a big problems of food and water borne illnesses.  Anything from diherea and worms to tuberculosis.  Which takes away from quality of life, loses work and money, and often leads to death in infants.   So the presentation will focus on the proper preparation and storage of food and water, and hand washing and general cleanliness.  The third day will be a program design and management program to try and motivate people to workand start projects in the community.  I’ve gotten the Mayor of the town to commit some money to the project, but I don’t think I have enough yet.  But if other people don’t come through with money it just means i’ll cut the project down a little.  I’ve tried to look only to local resources for money just to prove to the community that it is not necessary to look to big, outside, NGOs.  And maybe it will stop people from asking for money for huge projects from me.

So I’m at my one year anniversery, what does that mean? I’ve met great friends, been able to travel through an interesting corner of Africa, and learned a new culture and french.  But there is still a lot missing from my experience here.  I still don’t feel productive or sometimes needed in my work.  And there is a lot more of the country I would like to see and experience.  But so far this first year has been amazing.

I lost part of my blog again which is very frustrating.  Have a good September.  Ben

Murders in Makak

Usually it is quite difficult for me to write a blog.  I am used to my everyday life here and village and often don’t realize what is important or interesting to the outside.  Also by the time I get to a computer I forget what I was going to write.  That is not the case this week as an event so large, bizarre, and interesting occurred that I can easily write from memory.  This story is all from talking with other people so I will just tell my impression and skip the he said, she said.
There were two murders in Makak (my small village) on Monday the 21st.  There is a father who is sick with some mystical disease, has been sick for four years and traditional approaches have not worked.  The people I live with, the Baasa, believe very strongly in sorcery and its various powers.  After someone has died I often hear explanations of sorcery, or random explanations of curses, or bad actions for why they died.  The family believing that this was some type of sorcery called in a “Marabu” which is some sort of traditional healer, who fights against sorcery.  He was called in from another city, also Baasa populated, about four hours away.  He saw the father but said he couldn’t do the cure himself, because it was too difficult and dangerous.  It would take someone else who was strong of body, and willing to take his powers and perform the healing themselves.  This all happened late at night at the town Auberge, which is our equivalent of a motel, with all the kids of the father present.  The daughter said she would take the powers to heal her father. 

The powers were past with some sort of potion or medicine that were placed on her eyes.  No one knows how she died.  The obvious assumption is that this was a poison and killed her quickly.  I’ve also heard that the Marabu’s powers were too much for her and that’s why she died.  She died alone in the room with the Marabu, but the family outside could hear her scream and eventually die.  This all happened at about four in the morning.  When the Marabu leaves the room the other children start fighting with the Marabu, accusing him of being a fake.  The children call the other members of the family including the mother and the uncle of the deceased woman.  The fighting quickly becomes more intense.  Marabu doesn’t know the town well so he wanders down the hill, away from the center, towards a water source.  The uncle with a machete cuts the two tendons on the back of the marabu’s legs, so he cannot run away.  The mother then comes with the machete and cuts him numerous times until he bleeds to death.

The incident was over at about five in the morning.  When I left my house at eight, my blind neighbor was the first to tell me the whole story, and she had probably heard by seven.  When I walked by the scene at 2:30 nothing had changed.  There were mourners at the Auberge crying over the daughter and further down the road the Marabu was still lying face up in the road.  The man killed was young, lying in the dirt road, with a pool of blood around him and only a loin cloth covering himself.  People were freely walking by and some were getting water from the source as usual.

After this we walked further up into town where the cars leave from, to find a group of people crowded around with a policeman there.  There was another dead body lying just on the cement on the side of the road.  She had died in another town, or on route, and was being transported to another city.  They were waiting for a car to transport here and the dead body was just on the side of the road without a cover.

A very bizarre day indeed.  Many people I talk to will laugh at sorcery and don’t seem to put much stock in it.  But I think with the people here the tradition of sorcery is so strong that people leave room for anything, and will never totally dismiss the powers of sorcery or the ways to fight it.  At the same time people believe strongly in the Christian church, and most people attend church, and say a prayer before meals.

In other news I’m going to France next week to meet my parents.  Very exciting.  I can see how good my French actually is.

A trip up north

I have been away from my post for a good week and a half now.  I’ve been doing work, just not where i’m assigned to do work.  I was invited to help with a camp that a fellow health volunteer (Ali) put on for the youth of her community.  But this volunteer is in the Adamoua Province.  Which is a two hour train ride to Yaounde a 14 hour train ride (with a seat slightly bigger then a plane seat) up north and then another two hour bus ride to her small village.  You may think this seems like a long trip but remember there are two provinces further north then the Adamoua.  The camp was held over five days for about 28 13-17 years olds in the community.  The camp was mostly health focused with classes on malaria, HIV AIDS, diarrea, future planning, gender equality; but also included sports, art and some environmental topics.  The camp went over really well, considering none of the kids realy had a conception of what a camp is. 

I should say that the Adamoua province and this small village of Tournigal are extremely different then where I live.  This is a Muslim area and being a small village, Muslim traditions are even stronger.  Polygamy, gender roles, lack of education, lack of development all much more pronounced then where I’m posted.  Also this is a savanna plateau, which is very beautiful with its green rolling hills, occasional mountains and thousands of cows.  As opposed to my jungle of trees, bushes and more trees, chez moi.  Ever since we found out our posts, a joke among us has been the huge difference in posts between Ali and the other health volunteers.  When together she would always stress the differences in post and ask us if we thought our posts where like hers.  Until we got sick of her and just laughed when she asked.  But I can say it is very different.  Beginning with the complete lack of alcohol in her village.  But we got around that by sneaking in our own little bags of whiskey to drink amongst us Americans at night.  Also her village is very small, maybe a thousand people, so everyone knows her, constantly calls her name and kids followed us around all week. 

The camp went really well and gave me a lot of good ideas for when i run my own camp and gave me good practice doing presentations.  I’m now pretty excited to get back to post and work for a solid month on some projects of my own. 

I miss everyone back home and am glad to hear any updates I can through my family or with facebook.  Take care Ben

Gotta Eat

May 27, 2008

 

I have come to really enjoy Cameroonian food, even though when I first arrived it all would have disgusted me.  I now look forward to certain dishes and can eat everything as fast as other Cameroonians.  But eating with a family does give me my share of surprises.  When I’m called to dinner I come in and Grand Pere is usually already sitting there with the food in front of him, in covered pots.  We then say a ten second prayer, before he unveils what we are eating for the night.  I always have a moment of anxiety over what we will eat.  My favorite dishes are “bungo chobi” which is fish cooked in a black sauce, that is shiny and black like crude oil, but surprisingly very tasty.  I also like “coq” which is some sort of green leaf vegetable cut up really small and then cooked with a whole bunch of oil and spices.  Even in the dishes that don’t seem to be fish based there are always random fish bits in them.  To add protein to meals Cameroonians will buy dried/smoked fish and then cook that in the sauce.  So when eating a dish that seems to be vegetable based I always get surprised by bits of fish bones and eyes.  Here the head is considered the best part of the fish and people tear it apart eating every piece of meat and chewing on all the bones till what’s left is a pile of white mush they’ve chewed up and spit out.  The eyes of the fish are considered very tasty and another reason why people prefer the head, but when I find a random fish eye in my mouth I politely spit it out and put it down on the table.  Another favorite dish is grilled fish, which is prepared on the street basically everywhere here in my part of the country.  For less than a dollar you get a good sized portion of fish with some sort of manioc on the side, a small amount of green sauce for dipping and a small amount of hot pepper on the side.  The women (and a few men) are everywhere around the village sitting in front of their little grill, fanning the coals with a plate and waiting for someone to come around and order.  They give you a price based on the size of the fish and then you walk off to some bar and they bring it to you.  You can walk into any bar and just sit there without ordering a drink.  The fish women bring you your food, and in most places you eat the fish with your hands.  When you eat in a restaurant or bar it is completely acceptable to just spit the fish bones out on the table or on the floor.  All the floors are either concrete or dirt and just get swept out at the end of the day anyways. 

For my not so favorite food.  The family I eat with will sometimes have beef skin.  Because meat is so expensive they will buy just the skin or a fatty part.  So it is basically pure fat that takes about five minutes to chew with a tomatoe sauce.  I usually try and cut the fat into small pieces and then eat it with some manioc to hide the texture and taste.  Also I’m not a big fan of certain bush meats that you find often in the restaurants.  Bush meats are just random animals that hunters go looking for in the jungle and bring back to sell in the market.  The Pygmies are famous for being good hunters of bush meat.  The most common bush meats are antilope, which is a small deer, porcupine, snake, monkey, and turtles.  One bush meat that I found once was verron, which is a big lizard, which is very tasty.  All the restaurants here in village prepare one big pot of food and then sell it plate by plate.  So you have to go in and ask them what food they have.  Most restaurants have some sort of fish daily and often times chicken.  When it is bush meat they will just say bush meat, and you have to press them, “which bush meat?”  and then they will tell you.  With the Basaa people there is a tradition that women don’t eat snake.  Part of the story is that if they eat snake and then become pregnant they will give birth to a snake-baby. 

Yesterday the family I eat with had caterpillars for dinner.  Not just caterpillars, but with other Cameroonian food.  When they served it they told me I didn’t have to eat it because they know Americans don’t like that type of stuff.  Thank god.  When I told them that Americans think its weird to eat caterpillars they laughed for about two minutes.  But other that that food is really pretty good here.

With the meals here there is really little sense of nutrition.  People eat to become full, often huge portions of rice or manioc with just a sauce on the top.  Vegetables are rarely seen in meals and when they are they are over cooked and with oil, losing all the nutritional content that is there.  When I want vegetables I buy and prepare them myself.  In village I can find tomatoes, peppers, celery, carrots, eggplant and other random African vegetable.  For fruits everything is seasonal, right now there are mangoes, and some papayas.  With bananas being all year long.  It is the orange season soon which I’m really looking forward to.

Thats all for today.  I’ll try and write again soon.

Another post (I never have good titles)

First I would like to thank everyone for their messages and birthday wishes.  They were very nice and I will respond eventually.

I realize how terrible I have been about posting blogs and I could blame it on many reasons but its really that I’m just lazy, and when I do write I constantly rewrite myself.  But this blog was written about a week ago and then my post mate accidentally deleted it.  C’est la vie.  So now I’ll have to rewrite myself from memory.  While this experience has been very challenging for all the adjusting and work that has taken, it is often times just as challenging for the amount of boredom one experiences.  I never work an eight hour day and I’m lucky if there is enough work for three or four hours during the day.  I hoping to make more friends to combat this problem but for right now I spend a lot of time in my house or wandering around the town.  And there is only so much I can read and listen to the BBC.  I’ve read eleven books so far since coming to post, and these are not small books either.  I have a tv but it has not had anything on it for a least a month now.  We went about a month straight in February and March without electricity, and then the cable guy has just not come to fix my cable yet.  Even though i bug him daily.  But even if I had tv I would just watch the French news and French sports.  But I also get to go the beach every once in a while and see friends so that is not too bad. 

In March I got to make a trip to the beach resort town here in Cameroon called Kribi.  This was for IST or for those of you who do not speak government acronyms In Service Training.  This is the time all us PCV (Peace Corps volunteers, i could go forever with the acronyms) get together to talk about the first three months of service and are given resources for the rest of our service.  A good idea in its own right but an even better idea having it at the beach.  Kribi is pretty much what you think of when you think of a tropical beach location, golden sand, palm trees, random rock outcroppings and even a waterfall.  But with anything picturesque in Cameroon there is always one thing there to spoil it.  In this case it is the giant oil tanker/ refinery just offshore that processes the oil that comes from the Chad pipeline.  We got to spend a week there and it happened to overlap St. Patricks day and my Birthday so the whole week became a continuous party.

Another thing that happened that I haven’t written about yet was the civil unrest here in Cameroon.  It started in the main industrial city as a strike by the taxi drivers over the price of gas.  It soon spread to other large cities and became political as well as economic.  The President Paul Biyahas been in power for over twenty five years now.  According to the Constitution he is not supposed to be able to run again in the next election of 2011.  But he announced that so many people want him to run again, that he is looking at changing the constitution.  So the strikes and civil unrest went on for a few days, with roads blocked, some government building burned, and a bunch of people arrested.  But then the weekend hit and people stopped because they just couldn’t afford it anymore.  People have to eat. 

Out of this the President lowered the price of gas from 600 CFA/litre to 594 CFA/ litre.  The exchange rate right now is about 430 CFA to 1$ for those that want to figure it out.  But for a village like mine where the gas is imported from the big cities, the price stayed the same at 650 per litre.  Also the President promised to lower the price of other basic goods like rice, soap, beer, and fish.  But that was supposed to kick in April 1st, hasn’t happened yet and no one seems to think it will.  He also promised to raise the salaries of the state employees which will really not go down well if he doesn’t.  As far as the politics it seems that Biya was trying to calm the situation down and placate some people before pushing through the constitution later.  He wants two more seven year terms in office because people say if he leaves office he is afraid he will be killed or he will be tried for crimes against the country. 

In turns out just a few days ago in a very quiet and anti-climactic fassion the constitution was changed.  In a vote of something like 156-5 his cronies ruled the day.  Nothing happened, I didn’t even hear about it till a day later.  Paul Biya when back to his chateau in France and life continued here.  We will see if there are any protests here soon.

Fete of the Young

I have now been at my post for over two months.  I feel good and bad about my situation in post.  My French keeps improving, though I’m still not where I need to be.  I am building relationships in the community and feeling more comfortable working and speaking with the community by myself.  I’m starting to see where my work could be and some long term projects I can work on.  But I’m still bored a lot and often feel useless.  The days when I do go into the office I might discuss projects, and plan with the other staff for 45 minutes to an hour but after that I really don’t do anything at the office.  But I will make that change soon. 

Last week was one of the large Cameroonian holidays: The day of the young.  Which is February 11 and is followed a month later by the day of the women.  The day of the young is a week long celebration which includes sporting events between schools, parades, a lot of food, and dances similar to our prom.  As a health worker I learned early on that the day of the young is the most common time for young girls to become pregnant.  Perhaps not unlike our prom?  As part of the week for the young my office, “youth development foundation,” planned different health related presentations events.  Mind you this is things I will be working on but I did nothing for this week.  For the different presentation to youth on sexual health and the importance of being safe I was always seated at the head table.  And as the other people next to me speak I sit there, try to look confident and write something down occasionally.  Sometimes they bring me water, even though i didn’t ask for it, and don’t really need it because i don’t speak.  Every-time during questions some of the kids will start yelling for the white man to speak, but I only thank them for coming and than say “the other people said everything necessary.”  Needless to say this is pretty frustrating.  I have started speaking during the peer educators meeting, because it is a smaller group and the kids know me a little bit better.  I will just have to force myself out there soon, make some mistakes, and i’ll be alright.

Other things for the week.  The head office of my NGO provided a nurse and all the equipment for a free AIDS test.  The days before the test we did a lot of outreach.  Which means sitting on the porch of the office and yelling at young people to come over and than telling them to come back for the test in a few days.  Next exactly McDonalds marketing.  Also before the test every told me that people don’t like going to the hospital to take the test because they don’t respect confidentiality.  Maybe its because I haven’t seen tests at the hospital yet but it didn’t seem like there was a huge emphasis on confidentiality.  There was really no pre-counseling, a person just go to the one nurse and get their blood taken.  Than ten minutes later they go into a big room to sit at a desk opposite the other nurse and shes gives them an envelope with their results.  This is all while about ten other young people are milling about.  As far as I could see there was not much in terms of post counseling.  Also the nurse had a book where she wrote down everyone’s number and next to it their name, wasn’t that the point of using the number, to protect the name?  And than next to that their test result.  139 people took the test and there were three positives.  For the 136 this system probably wasn’t a problem, but the 3 people who resulted positive?  But this was definitely a positive day as many people came in, learned their status, thought about their behaviors for the party and received two condoms.  It is something to work on for the next test. 

The big thing for this holiday was the parade.  Pretty different from the American parades I’ve experienced, but than again I haven’t seen many American parades.  There was a grand stand where all the important people were seated, which looks out on the center of town.  Of course that is where they sat me, right behind the three nuns from Quebec who run the Catholic high school.  The dirt road between the grand stand and the center was even sprayed water down to cut down on the dust, and than lines were painted in to better facilitate tight marching patterns.  First the important people march up and take their special seats.  Than they play a tape of the speech by the dictator…uh I mean President…for life Paul Biya.  You could just see everyone lose interest as the ten minute speech about the future of the country wore on.  Than the parade started.  Each school wore the same thing and they literally marched past in formation, some chanting things.  This wasn’t a leisurely stroll while waving to the crowd, they marched they like were training for the army.  It was very cute for the first little ones, but than the parade went on for about two hours and become very old. 

This happened to coincide with the visit of an important American woman.  My NGO the “youth development foundation” is funded by planned parenthood of western Washington.  And a women from the organization visits about every year or so to make sure the money is being spent well.  Well this was a huge thing at the office.  The peer educators came and cleaned the office, which is only three pretty empty rooms, a nice greeting was chalked onto the board, and a song was prepared.  This is going on at the same time as the two staff members of my office have not been paid for a few months by the main office.  So she comes, we sing a song, bring out some food.  Than she sits down with the peer educators and asks them about the successes of the program, and what they want to do for the future.  Well they pretty much only asked for things, notebooks, a computer, bikes, money for parties.  It was frustrating especially after she was asking for the successes of the program and it immediately went to money, but at the same time it was affirming things that i experience daily.  The pair educators, and many people I encounter here in Cameroon think that because you are the foreigner you just arrive with lots of money to give out to people.  Maybe that will die a way as I’ve been here longer. 

Mustache update:  It is still there and large.  I can curl it up at the ends.  It has been a good 3 months without shaving.  I’m actually getting a little sick of it but i’m going to keep it until after my conference in March.