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
