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.
