Yaounde

I am currently in Yaounde, the capital city. Which means lots of other Peace Corps volunteers, everything is more expensive and a lot of random white people. It is fun but then becomes old after awhile and I look forward to returning to the calm of post. I come into Yaounde about once a month for banking, using a computer, and a break from village. For this visit I tried to time it so I could be here at the time of the super bowl. The Peace Corps director was able to work it out so that we could go watch the game at the Marine’s house in the embassy. There is a six hour time difference so the game does not start till 12:30 in the morning and probably ending at about 4:30 am. So at about 10:30 the Peace Corps director shows up wearing a Jim Brown uniform and tells us all to pile in the Peace Corps mini bus. He then drives about twenty of us across the city to the US embassy. The embassy building is new and feels like a slice of America. Paved parking lots with marked lines, manicured lawns being watered, a speed limit sign in MPH. The house where we watched the game was what resembled an American apartment complex and housed the seven marines who work keeping the embassy secure. There were probably about 40 people there total between the marines, embassy personnel and random other Americans. There were two electricians that had been working on the US embassy in Chad but had been evacuated. The marines had prepared hot dogs and baked beans, but were charging money for them so I didn’t eat. They were also charging for drinks but they were pretty expensive. Of course it was a great game. We did not get any of the commercials because it was on the Armed forces network. Instead we got different public service announcements aimed at the military personnel. So we saw the dangers of drunk driving, credit card debt, shaken baby syndrome, and any other problem you can think of. We were all pretty much cheering for the Giants, so it was fun as the game remained close and the Giants pulled it out in the end. We did not get home till 5:30 am, but it was definitely worth it.

The biggest event right now is the Africa Cup soccer tournament. It is held every two years, and is a 16 team tournament. On Monday night was the quarter final against Tunisia. This is something all of Cameroon pays attention to. Small villages with no electricity pay to rent a generator and huddle in one room. In Yaounde everywhere you went you could see soccer jerseys and people blowing whistles and horns. We went to a bar to watch the game and it was a lot of fun as the crowd lived and died on what happened. Cameroon scored two early goals, and Tunisia fought back tying the game towards the end. It went to overtime with Cameroon scoring an early goal to win the game. They will now face Ghana which is a great team and the host country. We will see.

The other thing about Yaounde and having so many people around is that it is so hard to get things done. I cannot properly write a blog with people constantly walking by looking over my shoulder. Will write again soon.

80 in January

1/13/08-Actual day I wrote this

I think this is about the longest I’ve gone without using the internet.  Usually I would be very concerned about the Football playoffs, and reading the latest news on American politics, but as I’ve come to the realization that I will have no access to the internet, my need has slipped away. 

I am doing good.  Bored.  Sometimes bored out of my mind.  I have my ups and downs, but stay positive.  I am always looking for small successes to congratulate myself on.   Even if it is just forcing myself to go to the market, or hang out at the youth foundation.  I thought that with time things would get less weird.  That it would be less weird for me to ride my bike, or walk from one end of town to the other.  But it really doesn’t.  It is still weird you just get used to being stared at and saying hello to everyone.  My French is gradually improving.  I think I understand about 80 percent of what is being said.  But often that leaves a huge gap, and me thinking I know what is going on, when I really don’t.  I feel like I’ve gotten pretty good at pretending like I understand whats going on.  I usually listen for a word I recognize, and than ask a simple question with that one word.  Or I say “of course” “really?” and laugh at times I feel would be appropriate.  This works until someone says something they really want me to get and they ask questions, revealing that I don’t actually know whats going on.

My knowledge of Bassa phrases has improved also, and I know when to throw in the right phrases for the correct situations.  I have also learned which ones are the crowd pleasers and which ones people don’t understand when I say them.  “Koko a lam” which means “have a good night” always gets a large reaction.  I also like this one because I can say it as I walk away and people cannot try and speak back to me in Bassa.  So I just hear their cries of surprise and laughter as I walk away. 

One thing that has been difficult is the feeling that everyone just wants money from me.  EVERYONE.  It is from the small price inflations in the market, to the people that I spend a lot of time with who constantly talk about the poverty here and how they cannot afford this or that.  I’m pretty sick of hearing people talk about how difficult it is to find a job here and how easy they think everything is in the United States.  It is also annoying walking through the market or getting food, and later learning that when they were speaking Bassa they were trying to charge the white person more, because I obviously have so much more money than everyone.  I will begin to really listen for the word “Enkana” which means white person.  The thing is it is true.  I do have more money than everyone, no matter how much Peace Corps talks of living at the level of the community, or integration.  I don’t have to feed a family, I don’t have to save any money, I live in a small village, I have money to spend, which is something a lot of people here don’t have. 

I taught my first English class.  I was given the “terminals” which are like the seniors.  Originally I thought this would be bad because they would not care and act up, but it has turned out well.  There were only twenty students for the first class, and the class is an hour, nothing I cannot handle.  It was one of the highs of my time here as the kids were genuinely excited to have me and I was genuinely to have a class.  Hopefully the class will stay this good from here on out.

I have cable.  It took about three weeks of pestering the cable guy but it finally got done.  I get about seven channels, which change every once in a while.  Two are Cameroonian the rest are French.  I have the French equivalent of CNN, French MTV, a French sports channel, and a French channel that is a combination of the history and discovery channel.  The French mtv is pretty sad because they show the same American shows dubbed into French, like dismissed, date my mom, and sweet 16.  This is the great American culture we export to the rest of the world.  Of course I watch them.  I have gained a better appreciation of the corniness and the sexual innuendo when it is translated into another language.  Also I get to enjoy classic American shows dubbed into French.  Everyday old episodes of 90210 are on, I’ve seen Night Rider and Baywatch.  Also 24 and Prison Break are very popular here.  There is a channel on sometimes that shows nothing but 24.  It is a guy with a DVD who plays constant episodes of 24.  I think Cameroon is started to understand the gravity of the war on terror through 24.  The other day I was watching a Cameroonian show with a friend.  It was a competition between different middle schools.  The first part was a trivia game.  Alright normal stuff, all the kids are really excited.  Than they had one girl from each school come up and do a model strut on the stage.  Than she would do a speech, in French and English, on the evils of music and film piracy.  These were very harshly worded speeches too.  The one girl said “all people involved in piracy should be hanged… piracy is a problem larger than AIDS.”  I wish I was making this up.  This was a 13 year old girl who said this.  The funny thing is that I know no place in Cameroon to buy an actual store made CD or DVD.  But in the markets of any village you can find bootlegged movies and albums.  Sorry little girl, I don’t think this problem of piracy will be solved anytime soon.  So the third part was a Karaoke contest.  With all the schools doing the same song.  Of course coming from middle school students each song was basically the same.

First Week

I have finished my first week.  It was a lot of ups and downs, and it really hit home how bad my French is.  But everyone, including myself, keeps saying it will get better soon.

So since the last time I wrote… We had our swearing in ceremony in Bangante.  It was a big thing for Bangante, Peace corps, and our host families, but none of the volunteers were very excited about it.  Well we were excited about leaving training, but not actually the ceremony.  All the important people (Cameroonian, American and even some Japanese and German) were there.  There were a lot of speachs, very repetitive, thanking everyone who ever had something to do with Peace Corps.  The most important part was our swearing in where we all stood, and said in unison our promise to defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.  I’m really looking forward to the whole defending the constitution thing.   Another big thing was that up till this point we were all refered to as “trainers”  but now we could officially be called volunteers.  In the weeks leading up to swearing in when we would complain about training a standard response was always: well soon you will be volunteers and everything will be different.  Not exactly a placating answer.

 Here are a picture of some of the cooler members of my training class.  We all grew mustaches to better defend the constitution.  Notice my American t-shirt.

So after swearing in we all packed up our stuff and prepared to leave the next morning.  It was an interesting experience packing, as every once in a while my brothers would come knock on my door and just watch me pack.  After packing up we all went to the center of town for a celebration of our finishing training.  It was very anti-climactic as many of the Cameroonians got dressed up to go our dancing with us and than many of the Americans just wandered around to different bars before going home.

The next morning we all headed off in our seperate directions.  I went to Yaounde and stayed there for two nights before taking off for Makak.  Usually I will take the train to get to Makak but with all my stuff I took a car.  I hope I will never have to take the car to Makak again.  The car was as old Toyota hatchback, which took about an hour and five different attempts to load the back with all our stuff.  It was so full I had to carry my bag and moto helmet on my lap.  Four people squeezed into the back, and than I squeezed into the front with a man about 6′4, 200 lbs.  So i was half on the seat half on the seat belt, with my side rubbing up against the gear shift and my should against the driver.  This went on for about 2 hours across bumpy dirt roads.  The whole time I was afraid I was going to lean to hard on the gear shifter and hit it our of place.

So I made it to post safe and got all my stuff settled in.  The person I replaced left about a month ago, and I don’t think he had cleaned for a while, making the house a large project to clean.  First of all a description of my house.  It is in a small housing complex.  So attached to my house there is another house, and than about two other units.  So there are about 4 other families that live in close proximity to me.  The house is all cement with a living/dining room, one kitchen, a small bedroom and an external latrine.  There is no running water in the house but there is in the latrine which is a room directly attached to my house.  There is electricity, but goes out every once in a while, more so in the rainy season.

Here is the view from the small porch of my house.  I am in the jungle.  It is hotter than when I was living in Bangante in the West. 

When cleaning my house I have seen so many cockroaches they no longer phase me.  I really did have to battle against them, and everyday I see one or two.  I also found a dead mouse in a foot locked making me think that the person I replaced did not touch certain things for the whole two years he was there.  I have started cooking myself eggs in the morning and eating something in the center of town at lunch.  For dinner the family who owns the house and lives right next to me prepares food for me.  They are both retired teachers, and had 12 kids and something over 30 grandkids.  The mother who I call Mbobo (which is Bassa for grandmother, or honey) is blind.  She lost her vision about ten years ago from cataracts, something that would be easily treated in the United States.  The father who I call grand-pere only has one eye, as he lost his other in an accident about two years ago.  Mbobo hugs me everytime she sees me, which is several times a day as I tell her everytime I leave the house or return.

The food is pretty good.  It is nice not to have to cook and than also to have someone to eat with.  The one day we had a dish, which I didn’t know exactly what it was.  I put some on my plate and than realized that it was grubs.  Insect larvae.  I have eaten a lot of other non-traditional foods, but I don’t think this is one I could eat yet.  So I turned into the 9 year old at the dinner table who doesn’t want to eat his spinach.  Grand-pere sits directly across from me, while Mbobo sits in the corner about 15 feet away.  So I would just wait until he turned to say something to her and than through the grubs back in the pot.  I figure it was save seeing how they have one working eye between them.

In my town the primary ethnic group are the Bassa and predominatly Christian.  Everyone speaks Bassa and French, but with each other they speak Bassa.  So adding to my difficulty in French, conversations in Bassa often go on around me without me having a chance of understanding.  I have learned exactly three phrases in Bassa, but when I use these people go crazy.  It is like I am a trained dog who has learned an amazing trick.  The funny thing is French is just as difficult for me to learn, but people are disappointed by my French ability while they are amazed at the three phrases I know in Bassa. 

One painful experience with my French level, was the saturday fete the youth center had.  I think they have these about once a month and this one was a fete de noel.  I was put in charge of running the ping pong table, which meant I had to keep score and send the winners to go get prizes.  A lot of times kids would come up to me mumbling in french and I finally figured out they just wanted a prize.  The akward part was when they herded us all inside for a presentation.  I was put at the head table with three other people.  The presentation was about “sexualite precous” basically people beginning to have sex at an early age.  The conversation basically went on around me and I just kept hoping it would end soon.  But it went on for about an hour.  These kids looked so bored.  Afterwards the women who is the head of the youth foundation said to me in English “Ben you have nothing to say.”  No thanks for making me feel stupid. 

I have a lot of work to do to improve in French.  But besides that everything else is good.  Since I probably won’t be at a computer again soon, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Birthday Mom!  Bye

Pictures

My family.  Charlie, George, and their friend I don’t remember his name. 

My father and I in our house.  To the left is a picture of him recieving his diploma and a M.L.K. quote.

 

My brother Charlie with my motorcycle helmet on.  We are regulated by Peace Corps to wear this “casque” whenever we ride on a moto.  Making us look very weird when no Cameroonians were helmets.  But it is all for our safety, and the amusement of our host brothers.

The view of Bangante in the morning from my house.  This was pretty much a daily occurence watching the fog move across the hills while I brushed my teeth.

The soccer field in Bangante.  There are very few grass fields in Cameroon, most are this mud dirt type.  You can also see the rolling hills in the background.  You can see me in the foreground sans shirt.

An outfit my brothers gave me.  I came home one day asking if they knew of any tailors in Bangante.  They asked if I wanted Cameroonian clothes.  Than went to their room and got this for me.  It is not in the best shape, or the best made but it makes me feel like I’m integrated.  And I think damn cool.

My room when I first arrived.  It has now become common place but I thought it was pretty cool I got to sleep under a mosquito net when I first arrived.

This is me on World Aids Day.  Actually World Aids Day Eve becuase we were working with the Health Club at the Lycee (Like high school) and World Aids Day fell on a saturday.  Notice the hat which my Grandpa Wixson gave me, which would be very uncool in America but in Africa is appreciated for its ability to block the sun.  The banner I am signing says “Je promets de vivre positivement avec tout le monde sans discrimination” which means I promise to live positively with everyone without discrimination.  This poster was made by a group of people affected and infected by HIV/AIDS.  They try to educate people on how to prevent the spread of HIV but also on ending the stigma and discrimination that hurts people and the families that suffer from the disease.

Another example of a poster a group worked on for World Aids Day at Lycee Technique.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Not to worry we will be celebrating Thanksgiving today.  We bought 11 chickens yesterday and killed them this morning to make up for our lack of turkey.  To Cameroonians it is a “feast of getting fat.”

I have returned from my site visit.  All went well.  I will write about it more when I actually get there.  We are back to training, which with less than three weeks remaining has become a lot of work.  In addition to my usually language and technical classes I have to prepare a cultural presentation in French, and work with my community group on a project for world AIDS day.  I am really excited to get to my post and have training be over.  But at the same time realize how lonely post will be. 

So much happens here I don’t know what to write about so I will answer some questions my parents sent me:

What is the economy of Bangante/Cameroon?

There are several schools in Bangante and a University on the outskirts.  So Bangante is a very educated village as compared to others and there are a lot of jobs with the schools.  I do not think there is any other special industry related to Bangante.  It is surprising that certain enterprises people have can be profitable.  For instance there are numerous little stores in my neighborhood alone.  I see that they sell a lot of bread and drinks but beyond that I do not know what they sell on a regular basis.  There is not much of a profit margin on these things.  Or there are numerous people in the center of town who sell phone credit.  I don’t see how they sell enough to be profitable but I guess they are if they still exist.  In terms of unemployment, I‘m sure there are a lot of people who do not have a constant place to work, but that is not as much as a problem as in the U.S.  Many people just hang around all day long, not doing much and it is not considered a problem. 

Do people go to food markets on a daily basis? Is there refrigeration?

 Yes people go to market daily.  In most houses there is no refrigeration but in stores there is.  But this refrigeration is used to keep beer and drinks cold more than anything else.  The market is always busy, and on Wednesday and Saturday there is a second market as well.  There are stores that sell basic non-perishable items.  The source of protein here is much more limited due to the lack of refrigeration.  There is a lot of fish, smoked or fresh.  Also if you want chicken you buy a whole chicken and kill it yourself.  And I have beef every once in a while.  Beyond that eggs and beans are big sources of protein here. 

In my house I have about five different meals I eat on a regular basis. 

Rice and beans

Rice and fish

Potatoes with a sauce, sometimes a beef sauce

Rice with a peanut and fish sauce, better than it sounds.

Pasta, with potatoes and some type of sauce.

But on any given day rice could be substituted for a potatoes, yam or plantains.  Now that I think about it I do get a lot of rice, and I have never actually had chicken at my house.  Also here in the West of Cameroon cooking with a lot of oil is the norm.  They put a lot of oil in everything.  It can be disgusting at times.  I just had a sauce for the first time that was just oil, tomatoes and sardines.  This was served over rice.  Not the best.

But the food has been not bad.  I think the food in Makak will be better, especially since my landlady cooks dinner for me.

What is the structure of society, are there tribal loyalties?

There are tribal loyalties, and the strength of these depends on the region, the geography, and the history and tradition of the people.  Where I live now is the home to the Bamileke.  The head of the tribe is the “Chef” and he has power but he is not as important as the local government officials.  In the Anglophone provinces, which are also mountainess, the head person is the “Fon” and he is very powerful.  Sometimes more so than the government officials.  In the South and the East, which are rainforest, the “Chef” is not powerful at all because there was never really a tradition of a powerful figure in the past.  The people of Makak are Bassa.  In Bangante and Makak tribal loyalties do not affect things much because both places are almost completely a single ethnic group.  But in other places where it is more mixed it matters a lot more.  But this is true of anyplace in the world.

What is the basic method of transportation in Cameroonian cities?

Walking.  Some people have cars but not too many.  There is one main paved road in Bangante and than several gravel roads off of this.  So driving becomes very difficult once you get of the main road, especially after it rains when the road becomes nothing but mud.  The other mode of transport is moto-taxis.  These are just guys who own motorcycles and will drive you around for a few hundred francs.  There is a Peace Corps regulation that when we use a moto-taxi we have to wear a motorcycle helmet.  Makes sense but it makes us Americans look even weirder.  I have ridden on a moto-taxi and they can be pretty scary, especially going on mud roads with large puddles.

That’s all I can think of for now.  I promise I will write more and put pictures up soon.

 

Le homme de Makak

I will be posted in Makak in the center province.  I will be working with a Youth Development Foundation.  I learned immediately that Makak is not pronounced with a khak sound like in khaki, but with a “cock” sound.  So the name of my village is extremely entertaining for us Americans but pretty normal for the Cameroonians.  As this is a family blog I will not get into any jokes but you can use your imagination.

 

When imagining my post before hand, I usually imagined a more difficult situation.  Than making my imaginary success, in an imaginary situation all the more satisfying.  This post definitely has some features that make it more convenient than others.  But I’m not going to complain about anything that makes my job and life easier.

 

I have a post mate, a small enterprise development volunteer, which is good with very little bad.  She can make the transition easier by showing me around and introducing me to the nice people she knows.  Also I will have another American around for close to the next two years.  But if I happen to not like her I can just choose not to see her.  I will be the forth health volunteer in my post.  Meaning the organization I’m going to work with has six years of experience with Peace Corps and numerous projects already formed.  Also I’m two hours from Yaounde, the main city.  Meaning other volunteers, super marches, American restaurants, and movie nights at the American embassy.  Also when I want to travel I can easily get pretty much anywhere from Yaounde.  One factor everyone looked at as soon as they learned their post was how close they were to Kribe or Limbe.  These are the two nice beach towns in Cameroon, where everyone goes to vacation.  I happen to be less than a day from Kribe.  C’est la vie. 

Now for the things that might not be so great about my post.  I am not near anyone from my training group.  There are only two people in the Central province and the other is so far north of me I am amazed that it is still considered the same province.  When looking at the map, it seems that two people in the South province are close to me.  But when I ask Cameroonians about the distance they say it is not close.  I think it is because the roads that connect our villages are not good, and in the raining season probably thick with mud and slow as molasses.  But these people can easily reach Yaounde or Kribe so with planning we are no more than a day away from each other.  The other thing I thought of is that I am replacing someone that is very similar to me.  There are very few males in health education here, so I was sort of expecting to replace a woman who dealt a lot with female issues, and than I could take the post in a new direction and work with youth sports and camps.  This would avoid the constant comparisons to the previous volunteer, and allow me a project I’m really passionate about and would work hard to start.  But I’m going to be replacing a guy from Syracuse, who was really active with sports and youth teams.  Oh well.  Now I can just step in and already be doing something I enjoy.  What are the odds though, that I would replace someone from Syracuse.  Out of all the Peace corps volunteers from Cameroon, I have only met one from New York state; I have the same interests as him; and I’m replacing him.

 

I got my desire for a Francophone province, which means I just have to work that much harder to get to the language level I need.  I will also learn some of the local tribal language which is Bassa.  Here is what I’ve learned so far.  “Me yega”= hello.              “Oh ye mbo’o”= How are you?  And in response: “my y he”=doing good.  Don’t quote me on this yet.  The last two phrases I learned today from a guy who was drinking beer with my host father and said he was from Makak.

Now that we know our post we are on the downward curve of training.  We meet our counterparts, and go on site visit.  Our counterparts are Cameroonians who work for the organization we will be working with and will be our first resource for integration into the community.   Everyone was overly excited to for post announcement and we spent a good hour and a half after the announcement just standing around looking at the map, figuring out where everyone is in the country.  Some people are much more isolated than others, so while there are no bad posts, there are some posts that hurt your social life with other Americans.  I think everyone that wanted to go to an Anglophone province got his or her wish, so I do not think there was any big issue over that.  Some people were definitely a little upset that they were placed away from all the people they bonded with during training.  But I think we all understood the possibility of that when we entered peace corps. 

 

Post announcement also occurred at 7:30 the morning after Halloween so we were all a little tired from our American holiday festivities.  It was fun.  But it was like any party back home.  Except we had to make our costumes out of the clothes we had, and butcher paper.  The best costume were two people that came as a mosquito and a mosquito net.  Only Americans in Africa.  I went as a nerd.  It is sad that I needed no additional clothing, just the right combination of my own clothes and some tape on my glasses.  It was interesting trying to explain my costume to Cameroonians.  A translation of my broken French: “A person who is very serious about studying, and is very weird, and is un-cool.  A character very popular in American films.  A person who loves computers.”  The caricature of a nerd must be a very American concept, because no Cameroonians really got it.  They just let me stop talking and than changed the subject. 

I can see why people from other cultures don’t exactly understand Halloween.  It was a bunch of Americans, with silly costumes on, dancing, drinking and eating popcorn.  With our limited resources our costumes weren’t even good.  Why would this be so big?  It seemed like a holiday for people with too much time and too much money.  But I told all the Cameroonians that for people my age and younger it is a very big holiday.  People go to great lengths to be creative, and really go all out to become a character for a night.  It is one of the biggest party nights of the year.  But it has no relation to its original reason for being, and is just a big opportunity for companies to sell stuff.  Maybe I don’t get it myself.

The morning of Halloween I came out and exchanged the usually “Bonjour, bien dormi?” with my brothers.  And than Georges said “Bon fete”.  And for a second I was taken a back.  What is he talking about?  What festival could I be celebrating?  Oh yeah he means Halloween.  That American holiday to imagination and debauchery.  It was pretty cute.  I usually think of “Bon fete” for Ramadan and Christmas but I can now add another to the list.

Some fun things with my brothers lately:

They get really excited to help with my homework.  They can sit there all night correcting my pronunciation and verb conjugations.  The other day Georges brought out some scrap paper and we discussed the answers to my homework.  He than had me write the answers out on the scrap paper, he corrected them, before he allowed me to write on the actual sheet.  This for homework that receives no grade.  They are nice to me.

I taught Charlie how to play computer solitaire.  I assumed solitaire was easy and self explanatory, but I have also been playing it when I’m bored for 12 years now.  I don’t think he has played much, and the directions probably aren’t in French.  So everything was new to him.  After directing him to make a few moves I tried to sit back and let him play.  But I couldn’t let that red eight go by with a black nine open, or just sit back while he doesn’t move the king to the open space.  We won once and I decided I had done enough.  He probably knows the basics enough now to get all the rules with enough practice.  If I do nothing else for my two years in Cameroon, Charlie can now play computer solitaire.

Last Friday I came home and Charlie asked if I had homework.  I wasn’t sure where he was going with the question, so I said a little.  He than was very excited to tell me he would teach me how to cook fish!  This actually is a big thing, no sarcasm.  Most other Americans aren’t really allowed in the kitchen so it is nice of him.  I got to take fish halves and throw the whole thing in a pan of hot oil.  And than a few minutes later flip them, and than put them in a tomato sauce for a few minutes.  I would have to say the fish was delicious.  Maybe next blog I’ll talk about the food I get at home.  I have a pretty good rotation and once I have something I get it for the next few days.

We have had our first person decide to ET-early terminate.  We all knew it was going to happen eventually but it was still sad to see when it did. 

notes from cameroon

I’ve been in Cameroon for over a month.  Everything is going well.  This experience of training with 41 other Americans has been intense.  I have to remind myself that this will be totally different than what my two years of service will be like.  I’m about half way done with training and I will find out my post next week.  Cameroon is a very diverse country so each post is very unique.  I do not have much in terms of preference but there are other people here that are very vocal about theirs needs and preferences that I feel I have to come up with something.  I want to be in a place that is not two hot.  This means the west or the northwest provinces.  (There are ten provinces in Cameroon.)    I also want to be in a Francophone province.  I feel like I have worked really hard on French and if I was to than be place in an Anglophone and lose my French would be pretty frustrating.  (The Anglophone provinces are the Northwest and the Southwest.)  But I’ve heard some really cool things about the Anglophone provinces.  Especially the fact that you get to learn Pidgen, which is a bastardized English, and seems like a really fun language.  Other than that I have no real pressing needs.  So we will see where that takes me.

Some interesting or amusing things I have found in Cameroon:

Because of colonialism, Cameroonian history is not very well known or studied in Cameroon.  We received a short class on the history and politics of Cameroon and it barely went over any pre-colonial history.  Also the most definitive accounts of Cameroonian history are in Germany, France and Britain.  Cameroonian historians pretty much have to go to libraries in Europe to study.  We asked for books or resources about Cameroon and the history and they said they looked for books but could not find anything English language.  Pretty sad.  Especially for me as a history major.

 

Television here is pretty interesting.  In the United States the majority of the people who watch sports are white and the majority of athletes are black.  Cameroonians all watch European soccer leagues, which are mostly white.  If only they saw the irony.  They also watch some French shows but the most popular shows are over the top soap operas in Spanish dubbed into French.  One of them in Argentinean and the other is Spanish.  At 7:30 everynight a surprisingly large number of people settle in front of the TV for the latest twist in “The Femme de Lorenzo.”  Even the men watch it.  We will be at the boutique (sort of like a bar) and the soap opera will be blasting and everyone there will have there chair turned towards the tv.

 

The other night we all got together to watch the Rugby World cup, of England versus South Africa.  Again a mostly white sport.  I think there were about five people on the teams who weren’t white and more were on England than South Africa.  Cameroonians didn’t follow this as closely as soccer but when ever I told someone that South Africa won they cheered.  Never mind that 95% of the team is white, a team from Africa won.  Rugby is a pretty funny sport to watch.  Especially when you don’t know all the rules and the commentary is in French.  From our American perspective we reduced it to being if football was just onside kickoffs and punts.  A man kicks the ball high in the air and chases it.  The person on the other team lines up to catch the ball and than braces himself to get hammered by two people.  Than they all just scramble to advance the ball a few yards and than kick it again.  When watching it we just ohhed at the collisions, laughed at the funny looking rugby players and debated what the call could have been on that play.  A good time had by all.

 

After watching the rugby world cup I returned to my house at about 10:30.  (Or should I say 22:30 since everything is military time.)  Anyway I talked to my father who had just returned from a trip out of town.  He asked me if I went to church today and I said no.  He said we could go tomarrow, I said “d’accord” in agreement, and than he said 6am.  Okay, I can do that.  Than he told me to knock on his door at 5:30 to wake him up for church.  I could not believe this.  My opinion of him took a free fall with that request.  I don’t know if he even has an alarm clock.  I think he has his nephews, Georges and Charlie wake him up for work everyday. 

Anyway, church lasted more than two hours.  It is about the same as a Catholic service in America so I can’t figure out why it takes so much longer.

 

But this just illustrates the paternalistic culture of Cameroon.  You do everything for the people above you until you are big enough to get people to do stuff for you.  So in the street if you come across a kid you just yell to him “petit” call him over and than have him run an errand for you.  The kids all just accept this as part of life.  So my father doesn’t have to wake himself up because he has other people to do it for him.  Georges and Charlie get up at 5:00 anyways to clean the house so they might as well wake him up.

Another example of this is that there is no such thing as a pick up game in Cameroon.  If you have more than about 8 people playing a game, an older person will just wander over and become the referee.  People are used to being told what to do and older people need something to do so it is nothing strange for them.  The other day we were playing soccer with some kids.  A girl’s team that was practicing near-by started subbing in for the kids.  So soon enough it was Americans versus some Cameroonian women.  Than their coach wandered on the field, with his whistle, and started calling fouls.  When not calling fouls he was yelling to tell the women what to do.  This from what we thought would just be a friendly pick-up game.  When some Americans were playing basketball in another city they said there ended up being two refs for their game.  One covered the sidelines and the other the baselines.  He ran baseline to baseline.  Mind you, no one asked them to do this, they just wandered on, became the refs and everyone accepted this. 

 

Okay.  I send my love to everyone back home.  Thanks for reading this.  If you want me to cover anything in my blog just email me and I will get on it. 

A month in

I have decided I have the best view in all of Bangante from my house. My house might not be the nicest but it is up on a hill and has a clear view. In the morning I see green rolling hills, covered by clouds floating across. It is beautiful seeing the change in light as rain clouds move in and you sense a downpour coming soon. The past few mornings I’ve been woken up by the sound of a downpour against my tin roof at 4am. When I get out of bed at 6am it is often still raining off and on. I stand on the porch with my brothers as they brush their teeth or clean their shoes. It is difficult to describe the beauty of what I see. Long vistas of green hills with tall broad leaf trees, intersected by dark red mud roads. Clouds slowly moving across in the morning, only to burn off around mid day to a bright sun. The temperature has been very pleasant. Hot enough for shorts in the shade, but too hot to stay in the sun for too long.

I’ve adjusted to most things in Cameroon. I’m starting to enjoy the food and speaking French though I still cannot understand most normal people. I have gotten used to the regular absence of water and power, the different bathrooms, the cold showers and the lack of recognizable fruits. But without fail what always frustrates me most is trying to use the cyber café. If I do not update my blog I can always blame it on a lack of power or the rain preventing me from walking into town. But the other day I made it to the cyber café and could not update my blog. I tried to use the internet and left after fifteen minutes in frustration. It is slow, I will stop complaining and leave it at that.

My general impression right now is of being busy. I have something from the time I get up till the time I go to sleep. I enjoy the French class but worry my French will not improve enough. The technical sessions about health are pretty boring. Most topics are very common sense, and seem like something that can only be fully grasped when experienced. You can not learn how better to interact with people in a classroom, you have to go out learn by doing. I just get annoyed. My work with be educating people about health topics. Which include HIV/STDs, Malaria, clean drinking water, family planning and anything else I can think to do. The most important part of my job will be building relationships and trust till I can bridge these topics.

  I have begun to bond with my brothers Georges and Charlie. They are both about 18 years old and go to different high schools. (I still don’t quite know the family dynamic. I know they are the nephews of my father, and I think they live with him during the school year and than return home when not in school.) I can understand them more than anyone else. They speak slower and with a simpler vocabulary for me. And like anywhere in the world, the easiest topics to talk about with them are sports, music, girls and alcohol. In our case we talk about soccer, hip-hop, Cameroonian versus American women, and different types of beer. I am anxious to get to my post. I have heard about some really nice houses that volunteers have. Though I enjoy Bangante, I want the freedom to explore and set up my house the way I want.

I miss American sports. To compensate I have watched soccer and rugby. On the weekend different European soccer is shown. I think I can get into that. Also the rugby world cup is going on. It is no replacement for the World Series, the NFL, and the NHL but it will do. Until next time. Ben

computer

So the last blog experienced so much delay and frustration. I typed the blog on a computer I borrowed from someone else on Tuesday. Not all of it saved so I had to later go back and add some more. I tried to go and post my blog on Wednesday. The connection at the cyber café was unbelievably slow. I tried to load my blog for at least 15 minutes and finally just gave up. It just kept trying to load, never changing on the screen. So I go back into town on Thursday and this time pick a different internet café. We arrive and find out the power is out and that it is closed. I forgot about that whole electricity thing. Very frustrating.

Other than that everything is going very well. My French is improving and I’m settling in. Even though I’m already excited for my post and living by myself again. I am experiences minor victories every day. Sorry I haven’t responded to people, I will hopefully do that soon.

typical day

I left Buffalo approximately two weeks ago.  There have been so many daily changes, and ups and downs it is difficult to describe my experience with Peace Corps.  I’m realizing what is ahead of me is daunting, but very possible.  My French and communication is improving, (from single words to halting grammatically incorrect sentences) but I still do not understand my host father or anyone else that speaks to me at their normal speed.  I definitely feel ups and downs several times a day.  It is the nature of learning a new language and living in a new place.  I feel like I’m adjusting but right now it just sort of feels like an extended camping trip.  I have been in Bagante, where I live with a host family and have training, for five full days.  Here is the basic schedule of my day and some of my experiences so far.

6:00 I wake up to the sun creeping into my room, the noise people walking around my house, the roosters outside, and the neighbors who’s house is about 10 feet from my window.  I also do not want to see lazy right now and make an effort to get up at first light.  I once slept into 6:30.  I wash up and get dressed for training.  Cameroon is a very formal country, so I wear slacks, shoes and a shirt with a collar.  Right now I enjoy dressing nice, but I’m sure it will become more difficult and repetitive.  When walking around the village you would not think it is any more formal than anyother country as you see people in all types of dress.  But we have been told we are professionals here and professionals are to always be dressed respectfully.  Which I can see with the people who work for the Peace corps and my host family.

6:45 I now make breakfast for myself and my host father Beniot.  I do this by setting the table, and cutting up the bread.  The water is already boiled for us by the cousins who get up earlier than me for chores and have school at 7:00.  Breakfast is bread with margarine, or a nuettella like chocolate spread, and hot coco.  The hot coco has sugar, powdered milk and coco mix.  You dip the bread in the hot coco and eat.  It is tastey.  Though I sometimes feel like it isn’t enough in the morning.  Also in the morning we do not eat off plates.  We have a place mat and a mug with a saucer.  The place mats are reused so they are not clean.  I’m comfortable enough that I’m just going to grab a plate for myself to eat off of tomarrow.

7:15 I leave for training.  The houses where we receive our training is just down the street from my house.  It is downhill on a dirt road.  After any type of rain it is mud with little streams forming.  It causes a layer of mud on the bottom of your shoes, and makes keeping nice clothes clean difficult.  Before I leave I clean my shoes which is very important in Cameroon.  The P.C. told me that often people will look at your shoes first before they look at your eyes.  This is all for not though as my shoes are muddy after a few steps.  On my way to school I pass random roosters and chickens roaming about, (I don’t know who owns them) Cameroonians walking to work/school, random piles of garbage, and a tied up goat or two.  When passing people all of us Americans greet with a Bonjour or Salut, which is responded to in turn.  I like saying hi to people in French as it is just left at that as in American it often begins a conversation with any random person.

7:30 Language class.  There were four people in my class, now there are three.  Which makes for a good learning environment but there is no place to hide.  I am in the middle of the three in terms of proficiency but we are all at about the same level.  I am improving after only a few days but my teacher speaks so quickly to us in French that I usually do not understand her.  I usually just say Oui and than follow along by what she writes on the paper.  But I’ve started to stop her and tell her to talk slower.  My teachers name is Andrea and she is 29 and from Yaounde, the commercial capital of Cameroon.  She is unmarried and lives with her parents.  Nice person. 

9:30-9:45 Coffee break.  We were told that there would be a man that would bring coffee to sell to us caffine addicted Americans but one day he was not there and another he came late so we were already back in class.  It is 250 CFA (Cameroonian francs, about 75 cents) for a cup.  You can put sugar cubes in it or condensed milk.  The condensed milk is not all that good, very sweet.  Strong coffee.

9:45  Back to class.  Certain days two more hours of French others health info.  We pretty much always get 4 hours of French, atleast 2 health and certain days cross cultural info.  4 hours of French has not been bad but this was only the 4^th day.

12-1:30 Lunch.  A few options for lunch.  Peace corps arranged for a woman to bring food for us for 700 CFA, about 1.75$.  Today it was rice, beans and French fries.  Always a lot of rice.  Another option is the little store across the street which sells bagget sandwichs for 600 CFA.  The sandwich could have cheese, egg, avocodo, banana.  I think that is about it.  I have not had one but they look pretty good.  I have not wanted to stand in the line of Americans.  Or you can walk into town which is about a ten minute walk.

 

Saturday some Peace corps volunteers went to a restaurant in town for lunch.  It was a buffet specially made for us and cost 700 CFA.  It had fish, rice, vegtables, plantanes and sauce.  In Cameroon nothing is really done to change the appearance of the fish from when it was caught till put on your plate.  It still has scales, fins and everything on the head.  The best part is the head which you suck any meat you can off and eat even the eyes.  Not for me yet.  The interesting part of the story is that we were talking with the lady who runs the place and she said they had monkey meat.  I was sitting with Ralph who was excited at the chance to eat something different.  So I decided now was as good a time as ever and went for “le singe”.  Monkey meat is called bush meat and is banned in Cameroon.  But from descriptions is pretty common and if you ask for it you can get it.  It was a very black meat and had a pretty rough texture.  Others said it looked like deer meat.  I don’t think I will order it again, though it was not terrible.  Ralph, who is an older gentleman who has led a very interesting life including serving in Vietnam, was loving the idea of monkey meat and picked his and my bone clean.  We later found out the monkey was 1000 CFA each.  Monkey is damn expensive.

 

Even with the monkey meat my stomach had been going along fine.  I felt perfectly fine with the food and had no digestive problems.  A fact I like to remind the 75% of volunteers who had various stomach problems the first week in Cameroon.  (We talk about this stuff a lot.)  That was until today when I had painful cramps in my stomach and had to run to the bathroom a few times.  I guess I spoke too soon of my iron stomach.  But I am feeling better now, not completely normal.

 

1:30-4:30  More class.  Difficult to stay focused all the time. 

 

4:30-6  Our free time between classes and curfew.  Yes that is a very short time.  The past few days I have been rushing home to change into athletic clothes and going to the stadium to exercise.  So far its been soccer or a game of ultimate Frisbee with the fellow volunteers.  When I say stadium I mean an open, pretty level, dirt field, with bleachers on both sides for about 200 people.  Not the type of stadium we would think of.  It has been great to get out and exercise, and to interact with some Cameroonians without having to talk in French.

 

6:30 I take a shower.  The bathroom consists of a small sink, a toilet and a shower that falls pretty much directly on top of the toilet.  The water just falls down the drain in the floor.  There is only cold water.  Which pretty much means I shower as quickly as possible.  The other day I returned from playing soccer and the power and water were out.  So I took a bucket bath by lamp light.  An experience.

 

7:30 Around this time we usually eat diner.  A quiet affair.  I eat with my father and the two teenage cousins who live in the house, George and Charlie.  They prepare the meal and serve the table.  Before the meal a prayer is said.  I always serve myself first and than everyone else.  The father does not say much to the cousins and because of my language ability I don’t say much to anyone besides simple questions. 

 

After diner I usually bring my homework or a book out to the living room.  My cousins sit at the table and study, while my father listens to the radio or watches tv.  Often I have simple conversations with my cousins but other times we all just sit there quietly. 

I go to my room around 9.  And am usually in bed and asleep by 10.

 

There is a typical version of my day.