Jenny And Cameroon

Sustainable development - and YOU!

2009-07-30T10:53:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

Two years ago, I emailed asking for help about a soy and nutrition project in Mvangan. Thanks to your help, the funding came through, and I trained nurses, teachers, women's agricultural groups about soy, how to plant soy, how to cook with soy, how to sell and market soy, how to prevent, recognize, and treat malnutrition. I published a manual in French on malnutrition, nutrients, and prevention and care. We had a soy fair one week before I left village, publicizing it to the community, and selling over 25 different traditional dishes the women's agricultural groups had created with soy. When I left, I had heard nurses talking to mothers about nutrition and doing nutritional consultations (something I had started at the hospital), I saw people planting, promulgating, and cooking with soy, and people from farther away villages coming up to me to ask about the projects.
(see http://jenny-and-cameroon.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2007-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2008-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=4 and http://jenny-and-cameroon.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html for summary and photographs of what I did).

In the past two years, this small "soy project", thanks to the hard work, creativity, and determination of new volunteers in Mvangan and Ebolowa and their wonderful Cameroonian counterparts, has grown beyond anything I could have imagined.

The South of Cameroon is probably one of the most challenging places to work, and to work in real, person-to-person, capacity building development. And that's where all of this has taken place. Sustainable development isn't just a buzz word for multinational NGOs - it's real, it's been happening, and through the training of trainers and capacity building that the new volunteers have done, it's going to continue.

And now they need your help, again. Please donate, if you can - any amount is helpful. If you can't, please pass on to others who may be interested.

For the SOY PROJECT:
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=694-137

Another project (see links above) I worked on at post was getting library books donated from a French NGO, Les Enfants de Madame Ici. The books came to village and people have - and are waiting to - eagerly enjoy them, but there's still no structure to house them. Another ongoing project is the "Reading Rainforest" (see below), to create a library and multimedia center, in collaboration with the mayor and other officials in town. In a place where almost no one has books (including school books), and there are few 'distractions' in town, this would be an amazing addition and a very enriching resource to last for many years to come.
LIBRARY PROJECT:
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=694-144

Peace Corps Partnership is the major way Peace Corps Volunteers can get projects financed, especially in Cameroon where we have no USAID or almost any NGO support. Donations - in any amount - come from anyone, to make up to the project's total. The community contribution is at least 25% of the total, in material and work hours donated. Our grants undergo a rigorous review both in Cameroon and in DC at the national level.

I'm currently back in Cameroon, doing HIV/cancer research for the summer, and it's wonderful to be back. I'm on my way to Mvangan tomorrow for the first time in over a year and a half, but I've been very lucky to see many friends from Mvangan already, who have come to Yaounde to see me. 7 weeks - shorter than even our Peace Corps training time, before being posted for 2 years to village, is fleeting quickly, and I will be in France and back in San Francisco to start my second year of med school before I know it...

In the meantime, have a wonderful summer - and thank you for what you've helped us to continue accomplishing already.

Jenny

Dictator Pants.

2009-07-16T09:02:00.000-07:00

le 5/7/09
Sunday afternoon, meeting Roger, Ton-Ton’s best friend from village (Makak). He names a place to meet and I thrill that I know exactly where it is, and I walk there. I’m getting to know my neighborhood. It’s like a very crowded village…
I scan the tables for him, re-scan, don’t see him, then laugh at how easily I forget how not inconspicuous I am. I can sit down, wherever. He’ll find me.
Church times were my favorite times in Mvangan. I went a few times early on, socially – good integration thing. Different churches (there are at least 5 there). Later..I realized that 10 am to noon Sunday morning was the one time all week I was guaranteed to have to myself – and I cherished it. We blancs have set up our society so individualistically. Even in a room with others, we’re often alone (online, reading, cubicles, etc). We insulate walls, soundproof things, don’t want to disturb the neighbors.
I thought today I would get time to myself – 4 glorious hours before meeting R. Pascale was going to go to church was a 10 oclock service…she ended up leaving after one. Taking awhile to get ready, especially with a baby, isn’t remarkable. And I didn’t feel I had the right to be annoyed – didn’t, really – it’s herhouse. It really is the perfect situation for me now. It’s just funny – and Cameroonian – how Eric described it to me, and I – Americanly – misconstrued it. He said his sister would take a neighbor’s room. I’d pay that rent, she’d move out, and I’d stay in her place. Not saying his sister shared room room with her younger sister, Flora, and her (Pascale’s) baby, Megan. They’re the ones sleeping in the other room (Megan and Flora), but cooking and most things take place in Pascale’s room. (Just learned that the permanent occupant of the second room – which is called “Hollywood” – is also staying there, in-between her various trips. She was apparently one of my running partners on Sunday). Anyway. Full house. Last night, Sol came over for dinner. I’d met him, once before, in Mvangan, and he hugely annoyed me. He just finished a PhD in radiology and nuclear medicine here. He came to Mvangan, seemed kinda slimy, had a printed and bound 20 page HIV project he was going to drop in and implemenent – to the cool tune of 1 million ($2000) for a 2 day seminar. It was written in the normal Cameroonian flowerly, pompous government language that doesn’t mean much, with a ridiculous budget that he was expecting to get financed by some NGO somewhere. All under the name of some youth association in Mvangan he was the president of – a paper association, with probably a very nice stamp. Doc was all excited about the project that I was going to do with Sol. I was jaded – I’ll talk the talk while he’s there, whatever, knowing it was never going to happen – and not caring because I did the same sort of trainings, with no budget, at least once a month, with continuing activities in-between.
So, Sol came over for dinner last night. I helped prepare (which VP found funny. Ohwell. The other morning, when I was getting ready for work and she was still in bed – I swear she’s the only Cameroonian who sleeps later than I do – and said “don’t get up.” Her reply “What, you make breakfast? You’ll burn yourself. No, no, I’m getting up.” All protests feeble. (My qualifications in fancy French and improvisatory cooking really don’t count here, apparently). Even reminding her that I did everything for myself in Mvangan, she was still a little incredulous. (another subject for later). Gombo and couscous de mais (fufu corn). They’re friends, she and Sol. Ok, I’ll start again with him.
News is on. We talked politics (Cameroonians – including those with much lower education levels than these, can discuss politics from Cameroon to Africa to Europe to the US. The big political happenings lately have been: 1) Omar Bongo’s death in Gabon 2) A French NGO declaring in a newspaper that Paul Biya (president here for the past 26 years, and prime minister for 21 years before that) has “ill-gotten funds.” 3) Biya suddenly and without warning shuffling around a bunch of ministers, including the prime minister.
1) Bongo was younger than Biya but had been president longer (since Gabon’s independence – longest-running president in Africa, I believe). Those two hierarchies created a rivalry between them. I used to live about 60 km from Gabon – it’s the same tribe in the north of Gabon as in the South of Cameroon (Bulu-Fang). There are more jobs in Gabon than in Cameroon, supposedly (also much smaller population), and the Gabonese are “lazy” – they don’t “produce anything.” (supposedly. I don’t know). Rumor is Gabonese used to come to the Mvangan market, one reason it was from 5 -6:30 am (aka market with flashlights…). Anyway. People liked to cross over to Gabon to sell bush meat and other things because they could get much higher prices there. That’s CEMAC (Central African Economic Union) at its unofficial best.
So, Omar Bongo died. Apparently, a few months before his death, an NGO (see 2) “broke” a similar “shocking” story about him. With the stress of not wanting to be deposed and go to jail before dying in office…his heart gave out somewhere in Spain. And the country’s been peaceful, which is good and tenuous for a country that’s never held elections. (free ones anyway. Although “free” elections in Cameroon are another story. Yes Biya is the democratically elected president. By over 90% of the vote, somehow).
** I’M NOT A PCV ANYMORE SO I CAN SAY ANYTHING POLITICAL THAT I WANT!! Just saying. I could also take a moto without a helmet, legally, and cross national borders, legally… At any rate **
Rumors go between Bongo’s son and daughter, both ministers (sim. to Secretaries in the Cabinet in the USA) in the government taking power. Other people think it’ll be another family, another party. We shall see. So far it has perturbed Cameroon’s World Cup qualifier against Gabon, moved it back a few months.
2) So after what happened to Bongo, Biya is afraid of the same thing happening to him. Supposedly. It’s amazing, seeing him on TV, how exactly he looks like his state photo that hangs everywhere…it’s over 20 years old. That’s a lot of makeup and hair dye. But what’s hilarious to me – and what I expressed to my Cameroonian friends, who agree, is the absurdity of officially refuting what EVERYONE knows is true. Everyone knows he’s really a dictator, and that everyone in government steals money. A lot of money. This is a rich country where the people are poor. Though, the illegality of the taking money is questionable. Biya likes changing laws in his fashion. If he wants to run for another term, he changes the constitution. So the maximum number of terms, legally, is always one more than his current one. So maybe the amount of money he gets is also in the constitution. A few months ago, a man was arrested for complaining in a taxi about Biya blocking all the roads in Yaoundé whenever he moves through the capital. He had the misfortune of being next to a policeman (military police, gendarme) en civile. He’s been in prison since then.
So, to “prove” how unfounded the rumors were and how aghast and offended the “whole” country was by this NGO’s declaration, the secretary of the RDPC (BIya’s party, also CPDM) went on TV, and there was a youth rally/march in Yaoundé. The last is the most honteux. Shameful? Despicable? Disrespectful of the people. Basically the police/army paid a bunch of youths and gave them free t-shirts to march across the city “in support of Biya” and say so on TV. Whatever. Open secrets of corruption around here…gods, I just laugh at the news. Does the government think the people are stupid or blind? They’re sure as hell not.
3) Changing of government made huge news. It’s mostly shuffling old ministers around to different posts, that have nothing to do, of course, with their fields of study or qualifications. Biya is wily, though. He removes an anglophone prime minister and replaces him with an anglophone prime minister from a similar area. Removes an Ewondo from one post and replaces him with another Ewondo. Etc. Meanwhile, people get double posts – double salaries – wherein there is no way, according to me, that one can actually act as director of a hospital and minister of women and family. Or minister of defense and head of police (totally different branches here). Etc. There are so many reasons things in this country don’t function better….
I also found out from Sol that the constitution says the president is replaced, in case of death or incapacitation or whatever, by the Secretary of the Senate (like Senate pro-tem?) There isn’t a Senate here. Cases on the constitution, etc, are also supposed to be decided by the Supreme Court.
There isn’t one.

Going to Ebolowa this weekend, one of the first steps in going home...
to come, post-partum death, being called Dr. here, and research in Cameroon.

La Villageoise

2009-07-08T09:57:00.000-07:00

le 3 juillet 2009
Yaounde, CMR

They’re getting used to me au quartier. The day I carried my suitcase home on my head…I’m still villageoise. (Then again, I also did that in San Francisco a few weeks ago. I found the perfect bookshelf to fit under my desk on the street – the amount of my furniture that comes from the street is increasing – was 5 blocks away. Heavy and cumbersome to carry in front of me, with hands – besides, with a bum wrist, that never works out too well. So I hefted it onto my head and carried it home, comfortably, that way, crossing intersections and getting quite a few interesting looks. It really is the only sensible way to carry most heavy things. It’s amazing). Anyway.
This morning I was going to get café at the resto near work (café = anything hot in the morning. Powdered milk and sugar. Matinal (cocoa) and sugar and sweetened condensed milk. Nescafé + sweetened condensed milk + sugar. Etc…), but it wasn’t open. I went there for lunch yesterday.
“Il y a quoi?” (what do you have?)
“Poisson avec la sauce de mangues, avec le plantain pilé. » (Fish with (savage) mango sauce, with pounded plantain)
I said “serve me” and sat down. Thought a minute. With that meal, he’s got to be Bulu. So when he came out with the food, I named it – “nfia ndo’o a kos; a ekon.” He looked at me, grin spreading across his face.
“Wa kabo Bulu?” (Do you speak Bulu?)
“Ma kabo.” (I speak it).
Proud for recognizing the food. We continued in Bulu for awhile. I’m impressed by what I’ve retained…(not that I was ever so great at it). The woman at the other table, also Bulu, also from Ebolowa, was encouraging me too. He brought a fork and spoon over. For plantain pilé and fish?
That’s all finger food, of the best kind. I asked (in Bulu) for water to wash my hands, and proceeded to eat in what I considered the right way. The woman across used the fork and spoon. I spit out bones. I am villageoise.
I asked him for café – I saw the tell tale Chinese flowered thermos - and he said “a mane ya” (it’s finished). Meaning – there’s no more hot water. “Akiti,” he said, “Akiti.” (Tomorrow, and morning). But the door was closed. I know café is rare except in the morning. Chez Ibrahim in Bandjoun we could get it, B usually insisted – no condensed milk – good with a cakey beignet. Even Alino and Carine wouldn’t make me café in the afternoon. Morning and evening. Cécile and I, bread and milk and sugar…
I always existed on multiple levels here, but it’s a different kind of extreme now. I was comfortable everywhere – Akam, fin fond de la brousse, champs, one room houses, Mvangan village, high school kids, Doc, nurses, kids, provincial officials. Anyone. PCVs. Now…
Went to my first medical “seminar”, on cervical cancer prevention. Arriving, I found it was sponsored by Merck-Central Africa to promote Gardasil (the HPV vaccine – actually, one of 2 currently on the market). It took place at Djeuga Palace, a fancy hotel in Yaoundé I’d never been to – not quite the Hilton, but more Cameroonian. Two young white people were handing out surveys where we picked up seminar packets – I gave them the usual white people onceover/stare. Turns out they’re from med school in Geneva and doing a survey on cervical cancer knowledge here (among physicians? since that was the audience… a bit odd). The packets didn’t include any fancy clocks or bags like a US conference would, but it was a nice plastified folder (indispensable here) with an Atripla sticker on the front, a ‘prescription pad’ for Gardasil, a used-looking Gardasil pen, and peer-reviewed lit papers on Gardasil. Okay. Cameroonianly, it started late, many speakers went twice over their allotted time while repeating the previous presentation, people answered cell phones in the middle of it, and walked in and out of the room. The chairs were narrow and so close together you were sitting on the fabric of your neighbor’s clothes. I was with JC, one of the doctors here who just finished medical training in Russia (he’s Cameroonian. It’s actually common-ish for Cameroonians to go to medschool in Russia or Ukraine…met one from Ukraine at a gare, once, chatted for a long time. They usually go not knowing any Russian, then learn enough to do medicine…impressive. Anyway). I was annoyed with the repetitiveness of the presentations, which could have been accomplished in one hour rather than three. I learned more about HPV, cervical cancer risk factors, screening, the pertinence of cancer work in Africa, though – cervical cancer (due to many of its risk factors) is much more common in sub-Saharan Africa than in the US or Europe – and, because of little to no prevention or treatment availability, often kills. I knew a little about the low-tech ways to detect it (it’s really cool actually – using vinegar or iodine) from FACES projects in Kenya last year. Nothing was said about treatment. Nothing. Surgery and chemo, I guess, which are both available in Yaoundé and probably in Douala, but are unbelievably expensive. Then the Merck rep got up to talk about Gardasil (and very little about his “competitor” vaccine, which, in the realm of preventing HPV, is exactly the same…). After the Cameroonian MINSANTE (ministry of health) rep had spoken about the cost. 35,000 F CFA per dose. That’s $70 per dose, for 3 doses. In a country where monthly income, on average, is probably about $30 to $40. Yeah, right – who the HELL is that going to help?
Considering the prevalence of HPV AND, by consequence and other risk factors, cervical cancer, is very high here in causes of morbidity and mortality – sounds like a fantastic public health project (eh, Global Fund?) to vaccinate girls. If a) the effing patent expires on the vaccine (that there are PATENTS on HEALTH CARE PRODUCTS is another soapbox for another time) 2) the world decides it’s a worthwhile cause 3) figures out a way to get it here so it actually gets to the people who could use it. Supplies over money. The Merck rep was proud because they had brought the cost down from 62,000 F CFA per dose, initially. Great. And I know in the US it’s what - $200 per dose? Something inane like that. (Just looked it up, because money and health infuriates me so much…and because I’m online again at work, and it’s raining so I can’t go home yet… at the San Francisco Adult Immunization Clinic, probably one of the cheapest places in the US to get vaccinated, it’s $155 x 3 doses). So once again, everywhere in the world, the rich, bourgeois (less at risk, in a lot of ways) get to buy their health, and those who are already effed and starting out in a worse place…can’t. Awesome.
ANYWAY. Dr. N told me later he had first refused to participate because Gardasil is ridiculous to prescribe here; they need to come up with another solution and not pretend it’s really going to be the “new wave of cervical cancer protection in Cameroun.” But for political/professional reasons, etc, etc, he decided to speak.
Levels. In Cameroon. During the conference, I was so frustrated I walked out to find a bathroom. In the lobby at the bar were an older white man and young Cameroonian woman (gross. Jellyfish. Another topic for another day…) being serenaded by a Cameroonian guy playing a guitar and singing about malaria and falciparum (the species of plasmodium that Anopheles mosquitoes here are infected with, which gives the worst/most dangerous kind of malaria…) surreal. Then bathroom with a toilet seat. (That, in Cameroon, is a high level of fancy). I left immediately after the conference, in serious need of a Castel (beer), skipping the “aperitif” offered (and all the beers they had were petits, anyway). (At this point, I had been working/at conference for 12 hours…) A friend from PC was COSing, so I went to join him and friends at the bars near Texaco at Omnisport. The most popular PCV hangout close to the Case.
Took forever to find a taxi – I think it builds character, or something, to be rejected 10-20 times a day here. On the way to Omnisport…right about Selecte, the road I had walked from PC so many times, know so well, every taxi to PC going that way, every car… years and years of memories in that intersection. Along that road. Seeing ghosts. I was so dazed and lost in memories that I forgot to get out money until we were at the stop, and the taxi driver yelled at me. I can take it.
Saw PCVs I taught when they were in training…they remembered me, I vaguely remembered faces… after ordering a Tuborg glacé (fancy), went across the street to the street food mecca I dream about. Many evening, that corner is really what I want for dinner. A full ode to Cameroonian street food may appear elsewhere, but here, I’ll just laud the poisson braisé (grilled fish) and baton, grilled chicken, fried and grilled plantains, koki, boiled fish, grilled corn, soya (beef-on-a-stick)… so, so good. Evening with PCVs and Cameroonians, eating and drinking exactly what I did before, at a bar I used to go to and probably the same table. Surreal. Went home finally after Pascale called, worried about me. Got back to the quartier, walked down the dirt road to the quartier (dirt vs pavement has a physiologic calming effect on me), to the house by the “first mango tree”, as Eric directed me. Pascale had made a salad (avocado, tomato, onion) – a beautiful gesture – something people rarely eat here but “know” that “blancs” eat “all the time.” Ohwell. Nothing goes to waste, just goes to another neighbor.
Next post – on politics – half done, more to come on the clinical side as well. I’m here, I’m really here, and it feels right.

Bugs from the Beginning of Time

2009-07-02T01:32:00.000-07:00

le 1er juillet 2009
Yaounde

Sometimes in Cameroon it’s better to be in the dark. Then the rustlings are only imagined roaches, what have you, less comfort here without a resident cat. Just walked into the latrine with my confident headlamp – I’m getting used to this, again, it’s like riding a bike… and the few inches-long cockroach on the door is more startled than I am. I didn’t have a headlamp, before; that would have fixed my months of no table situation, reading propped on aching wrists, elbows, hunched in front of the kerosene lamp while trying not to get in its shadow. I miss those, the lamps. The smell of them. The comforting swish and clink of petrol against cheap metal, the spreading splash on the cement floor as I didn’t realize it was empty until after 6 pm…
Petrol bottle – a 1 liter soy oil bottle – I had from first day in village. Filmy green now. Yellow cap.
So, the roach and I. He won’t move, I do my business, get ready to leave. A light comes on over the wall – startles me. So the other side of the house’s latrine has a lightbulb. (4 rooms in a row, narrow, cracked concrete verandah). I remember how 2 weeks ago in clinic (or was it just last Tuesday?) I heard a rustle, gathering the trash, and a roach arced onto the floor. Medium one, by my standards. Not by everyone else’s. They were impressed by my quick reflexes – splat. Y moved to pick it up with a paper towel and I, slightly taken aback, reached under the sink for a disinfectant wipe. Our clinic is by no means sterile, for America. But here, I don’t reach. There’s a small one when I pick up my washcloth. Reach into my bag for a pen and one zips neatly over the side.
Light doesn’t help much. There’s one bulb in here (I’m alone, second night in a row, VP is sleeping in the end room). Not really enough to read by. Last night, up at 3:30 and wired for no reason, I finished a novel by headlamp. Now, I can’t tell if this pen is blue or purple. That is to say, much more light than in my first home in Cameroon, host family in Bandjoun. I couldn’t see the color or texture of dinner most nights – helpful, in the beginning (and I’m the least picky of eaters. Except here). Roaches and I still haven’t bought a mosquito net…get home so tired. All this jumping into 9 hour work days and humidity (80%? More?) Adjusting. I’ve got a hell of a lot more support than last year, which is good. (Latest rustle from inside my rain jacket. Ohwell). But American boss and Cameroonian boss are saying different things – and I’m more inclined to work with the Cameroonian one, Dr. N (not Doc. A lot more formal – and older – than that. Then again, he’s also the only oncologist in the entire country, and one of three in Central Africa. Big man). Dr. R, the American boss (who isn’t here, yet) wants me to be in charge. I’m project manager, or something. Do I have the skills? Actually, as I’m discovering, yes. My research-in-Africa experience from last year in Kenya, writing surveys, piloting, training interviewers, interviewing – and all that I learned here, before. (And, I’m pleased to note, medical knowledge. This year was of use. Not doing clinical stuff – yet – Dr. N’s getting a meeting for me with the head of hospital, end of this week or beginning of next.). Tomorrow evening I’m going to a medical seminar, though. My first – and it’s here. Fitting.
Roaches. The first time I was offered snake I didn’t eat it – picture vividly Régine lifting the top from the frying pan and the meat crawling with roaches. I guess they would have left with reheating, don’t know. Didn’t find out. That was 2 weeks at post, give or take. There’s the night I woke to one crawling on me, trapped under the mosquito net. The several times I had to completely disinfect the kitchen, killing hundreds in a morning (with the babies, no exaggeration there). It’s not that my house was dirty – it’s the rainforest, there are cracks in walls and floors, windows and doors don’t’ close, and they lay pods everywhere… realizing what the dark oblong pods were, on walls and kitchen shelves. The satisfaction in crunching them. And the night Cécile and I were waiting up to travel to Ebolowa (anywhere between midnight and 4 am, whenever the Kouma driver woke up and felt like leaving), and I was hanging out at her place with the kerosene lamp while she checked on patients. A roach illuminated in the penumbra. I tried to focus on the patterns on his back, whorls, tortoiseshell (I’m convinced that, in addition to being twice as large, they’re more beautiful here), and we stayed like that, quiet, still, contemplating each other.

~j

** Addenudum** This morning, Pascale mentioned the roaches. She’s used insecticide to get rid of the large ones, but the smaller ones, a different species apparently, just won’t leave. Nothing to do.

Update ...Going back to Cameroon

2009-06-26T04:15:00.000-07:00

There will be more, but COS trip came and went, medical school interviews came and went, I moved to Chicago and wrote and volunteered for Obama, then I moved to Kenya for 2 months, and then I moved to San Francisco to start school at UCSF. First year of medical school ended, and this summer they're funding me to go to Cameroon and do HIV research. Last minutes before leaving for Cameroon, 5 houses later, a year and a half older, and an official Californian, I'm reminded of Peace Corps dreams about being in the US and packing again for Peace Corps, being in REI, getting everything I needed, doing it right. This isn't quite the same, but there's some of that. One bag full of presents (tu m'as garde quoi?) another one with pagne to wear, and lots of people who know I'm coming through various word of mouth - and others who don't and will find out soon.

Updates to come, as I'll be living in Yaounde this time, with internet and phone and paved roads. 7 weeks will fly, compared to almost 27 months - but I'm looking forward to making Cameroon part of my present again, and not just the past.

Leaving

2009-06-26T04:13:00.001-07:00

Dear all,

I've been remiss for the past 6, 7 months with updates. I've written many half emails, many sketched-out emails, but I haven't had time or computer access or enough electricity to finish them.

And now I'm coming home.

I was considering extending my service, either in Cameroon or in another PC country in Africa, but every day I spend at the hospital in my village – which is every day I'm there – I'm poignantly reminded of how much I want to be doing this work, but as a doctor. So I'm going to medical school in the fall. Not for MD/PhD, as I thought prior to Peace Corps, but for MD/MPH (Masters of Public Health). I want to work in international, rural, public health medicine. So far, I have five* interviews that begin immediately after my return to the States; I'm waiting to hear from other schools (during the writing of this email, got another – it's six now).

November 30, 31 days from today, I'm leaving Cameroon for a long time. It's not forever, but it's indefinite and is at least a few years long. I'm beginning to think that, in many ways, leaving Cameroon is harder than it was to leave the States back in September 2005. Then, I knew I'd be back in 27 months, that I'd have some form of communication with my close ones, whether by letter, phone, or email, and that I was setting off on an adventure I'd been anxiously awaiting and preparing for a very long time. I knew where I was going and what I was going there to do, though in reality I had no conception of what my life or work here would be like. I just knew it was the right thing to do.

Now, I'm leaving very close friends – Cameroonians and Peace Corps Volunteers alike, though I'm much more likely to see and communicate with PCVs on a regular basis. Friends in my village and other villages, other towns around the country – most don't have email, few have phones and fewer live in places with phone reception, and almost no one has a PO Box or address to send mail. And I don't know when I'll see them again. Many, most probably, I won't. I'm leaving Peace Corps, Cameroon, and Mvangan (my village), where I've had the deepest sense of purpose that I've ever felt at any job or school in my life. It's not a do-gooder thing. It's not a hardship thing, or a "primitive"/simple living thing, or a struggle. For two years, I've felt that I was exactly where I needed to be, and doing what I needed to and wanted to be doing. (This is why I'm going into public health medicine). I don't work or do something "useful" every day, not even nearly, but I love my life here and it's not something that could be replicated under any other circumstance. Walking around Ebolowa, my provincial and banking capital, yesterday, I ran into several friends and we ended up going out together. Simple, easy, afternoon spent talking and drinking and laughing. Good friends, with whom I've also worked for the past two years. This is not unusual or particularly special, but something about the relaxed spontaneity and the ease of talking to new people on the street without particular protocol or rules is unique to my experience here. Getting into a shared taxi, walking down the street, travel in the bush – and getting stuck together on the road – I greet everyone and lapse into conversation. You don't walk onto a subway or city bus in the United States (I think this is true – I really don't fully remember) and start greeting and talking to everyone around you. In the Western world, we're closed and anonymous. Here, nothing is anonymous or even private – but it makes for constantly shifting human connections during the day. No matter how frustrated I may be, no matter how many things have gone wrong in a day, I know something spectacular or wondrous is going to happen. It always do. And it's about the people. I can't go anywhere now – rarely even in Yaounde, the capital city – without running into someone I know and would like to stop and chat with.

Work-wise, things really took off last September and I haven't stopped running since. (Though there are still days when everyone I work with has traveled or is in a seminar somewhere and I sit and draw posters for the hospital, read, or watch TV. I take the lazy days when they come, because often I'm working all day on the weekends – 8 – 14 hour days, depending on what project Doc has in mind, so I take days off as I want/need. That's another thing I'm going to miss about Peace Corps.)

Last September: first nutrition conferences, working on various things at the hospital, traveling, preparing for training.

Last October, first, training with the new group of Health/Agro PC Trainees (and my one year in country). After that, preparation for my AIDS week at the Mvangan high school - in-services for the HIV counselors, preparing lesson plans, etc, and the week itself (see: http://www.worldviewmagazine.com/issues/dispatches.cfm?id=45 , article written by another PCV about my work). From AIDS week, the students at the high school came to me and decided to form a health club. We worked on HIV/AIDS education at school and a few other topics. We then planned activities for December 1 (World AIDS Day), with skits and teaching and a party.

November was more hospital work, health club, preparing for my water project, and Thanksgiving in dormant volcanic mountains in what looked like a Swiss chalet with about 30 other PCVs. This stretched into my water project (already described), which was also December. More hospital work. Two weeks in France/England for Christmas and New Year's.

January, week in Akam (Johns Hopkins village) on healthy hunter education, with a grad student from the States who also works in Madagascar with Rachel, my good friend and college roommate who is also a PCV there. Mid-service: week in Yaounde after a year in country for medical and dental check-ups. Back to post and immediately launched into a nation-wide vaccination campaign. This, I meant to write up and email – it was very interesting and I have a lot of fascinating stories and pictures – but it only got as far as the sketched out stage. Maybe someday. This was 9 days of intensive work, with one day when I was in the office, still working, at 2 am and realized I'd been working since 6 am the previous day. The campaign was for measles vaccinations, vitamin A supplementation, and free mosquito nets, for children 6 months (vit A) and 9 months – 5 years. As a district team, Sylvain, Doc, and I trained all the nurses. Then Sylvain had to go to a funeral. There are six health areas in our district, and we had three supervisors – me, Ebolefou (lab head – see water project) and Econome (hospital accountant/ a nurse/ my neighbor). Logically, that's two areas per person. But they decided to each take one, leaving me with four. I was also coordinating all supervisions efforts and doing all the paperwork/ epidemiological stats to send to the provincial level every night. So I was traveling up to 100 km/day, mostly on motos on bad roads, and working in the office all night. This was nothing, though, compared to what our teams of nurses were doing: vaccinating on foot, walking all day for 5 or 6 days. Really incredible, strong people, getting paid next to nothing for their efforts. The supervisors (minus me) and the provincial level guy who was "supervising" us (doing very little and making the health district spend lots of money on him and his whole family, whom he had brought down as "assistants" we were supposed to pay) made bank. Thank you, UN, WHO, Global Fund, and whoever else made all this possible.

In February, my nutrition/soy project started in earnest, with detailed description (up to September) here:

The primary goal of Peace Corps Health Volunteers is to act as catalysts for behavior change in disease prevention. Actually noticing a change, however, is incredibly difficult. In my two years as a Volunteer, the one area where I already see a lasting impact is my nutrition and soy project. As I had identified a high prevalence of malnutrition in children under 5, I began work with nurses on nutritional counseling and treatment of malnutrition over a year ago. In order to make a larger impact in the community, I decided to collaborate with the sub-divisional head of agriculture and work with women's groups. The project began with nutrition education for women's agricultural groups; we began with four different groups of about 35 women in all. We explained basic nutrition, signs of malnutrition, prevention of malnutrition, and the agricultural and nutritional advantages of soy. Women who were interested in participating in growing soy signed a contract: they were required to plant the soy, to reimburse twice the amount of soy seeds received at harvest time, to talk about the advantages of soy in the community, to participate in seminars on nutrition and basic business practices, and to participate in a community-wide soy exposition and fair. For the second phase of the project, I created a manual on nutrition and treatment of malnutrition, based on my own translations of multiple resources into French. Using my manual as a text, I led a three-day seminar for 23 district nurses and teachers of home economics, focusing on nutritional status of the community, ways to teach about nutrition, micronutrient nutrition and deficiencies, malnutrition treatment and prevention, and nutrition for special groups. We concluded the seminar with practical cooking demonstrations with soy, led by a local woman who had been cooking with soy for about ten years. Next, with the sub-divisional head of agriculture, I taught four seminars for the women's groups, encompassing nutrition, signs of malnutrition, soy incorporation in local cooking, and basic business practices for marketing soy. The final project phase will be a soy fair, at which the women will present soy recipes and information on nutrition. The women's groups have been very energetic about soy and are already creating new recipes for their families and educating others in the community. Now, people come ask me for soy, and the women I have already worked with are growing vast quantities of soy and creating new recipes for their families. Nurses at the hospital are using information I have taught them to do nutritional counseling with mothers. I am ecstatic to already note a significant change in diet and food availability and an increase in nutritional awareness.

(for the PC/Cameroon annual report, as my PC supervisor requested I write up my work on this project).

Other various things over the months: lots of work in the health district on coordination, in-services, and supervision; more HIV community education and testing (many different ones at various points), another training of HIV/AIDS peer educators and the formation of a support group for people living with HIV/AIDS (infected and affected), visit from Deirdre and associated brief vacation in Limbe, presentation at in-service training for first year Health PCVs in Kribi, work with BAD (see last September entry and emergency C-section) and write-up of major action plan and full health district analysis, interspersed nutrition work (writing manual, doing seminars, etc), my dad and uncle's visit and associated brief vacation in Kribi, three glorious weeks at post (longest, last, uninterrupted time alone – in July) with several community HIV testing campaigns and the accidental exposition of a colleague/friend (who is fine now), wonderful vacation in the north of the country with Ingrid and Justin, two good PCV friends. The trip up, on the train plus bus traveling, was 32 hours traveling straight the first…2 days. Trip included "safari" and lots of interesting, completely different places to village, visiting lots of PCVs there, brief jaunt into Arabic-speaking land…etc. Back down to Yaounde (16 hours overnight on a wooden bench on the train, in the bar car, surrounding by people talking loudly all night – but ended up having really fun conversation in the morning), and then to Douala to pick up Sylvie. Back to village with her, week of nutrition seminars for women's groups, medicinal plant training with Peace Corps, and off to Limbe for a few days prior to COS conference with Lindsey and Justin. Sylvie left, and we went to Yaounde where the US government put us up in a very nice but very isolated hotel for 3 days and talked to us about administrative procedures and "life after Peace Corps." Extremely stressful few days when all … 17 at that point, of 29 who came to country, we're 15 now… were worrying about whether to stay/go, what to do with the rest of our lives…etc. It's like we had a two year hiatus of calm and not worrying about those things. Purpose. Finding purpose. And perhaps more importantly, finding a source of income.

After this, I went back to post for a week, where I worked on finishing med school secondary applications (oddly and wonderfully enough, for my first three months at post – and last three, it looks like, I've had power. Not for the year and a half in-between, but it's a fun way to leave – and practical, too, in terms of applications – and having to stay up late to finish everything I need to do. And watching shows). We also had a district coordination meeting (in-service, where I taught) and worked on other hospital and district supervisions, etc. Week in Yaounde for Training of Trainers (TOT) for the new crop of Health/Agro trainees coming in – the ones who are going to replace us. Plans for post-COS (Close of Service) travel and finishing applications. Back to post for several weeks – more nutrition conferences, district supervisions, new personnel at the hospital to train, action plans to write, etc, etc. Then October 14 I left for the last long time, to go to training. I taught the trainees about reproductive health, HIV, etc, and nutrition. A very intense week working with the 20 health trainees and also the 22 agros. Oddly emotional, realizing that two of these – yes, I'm being replaced by two people, health and agroforestry, the first time agro volunteers have ever been in the south province, where they're desperately needed – one of Lindsey's and my pet projects over the past year and a a half was lobbying Peace Corps on this point – are going to take over and continue the work that's been mine in the place that's been my home.

15 november

Site visit came and went, a very, very busy, oddly stressful time, at the culmination of which I had six guests (that's seven in the house, including me, and 2 cats! New record for Mvangan. Imagine all that without water or electricity, people having to carry water, trying to have enough lamps, kerosene, candles, etc…and cooking, dishes, cleaning…) Everyone was here - 2 other PC Trainees (plus my two), Rachel, the new education volunteer in Ebolowa, and Lindsey – because my good friends Alino and Carine were getting married. I can't express how major of an event that is. In the two years I've lived here, that's the first wedding that's happened in my town. People here – and in the South province especially – very rarely get officially married. Women will have many different children with many different fathers, little security, and men will leave when they want to and… marriage here is a huge deal. Huge. And these are two good friends, a wonderful couple, who have two wonderful sons. He's Bamoun, from the West province, and she's from the East province but has grown up in the South. Two very very different cultures. His family made the very long trip down for the wedding, first time they'd been in the rainforest. There's no way to adequately express what I felt that day or in the weeks leading up to it. What it means that in Cameroon, you can choose whether your marriage is monogamous or polygamous. How many of the traditions here really touched me and I'd actually try to emulate them. Two in particular that I especially like: the couple chooses a fabric ("pagne") for the wedding and sells it in copious amounts…guests who want to, purchase it, and make clothes to wear to the wedding. So on the day, you see a sea people wearing your pattern, supporting you. And for months and years after, you see the clothes around town, as well. Two. At the reception, the emcee asked who had gifts for the couple and wrote us all down on a list. Then, in order, each person/group was called up – and a different song was played for each – and we had to dance the gifts up to the married couple. Then we danced with them to the rest of the song. Joyous, festive, and fun! That the couple gets to dance with all of their friends. There's really no way to begin to explain things. Like, the party started 3 hours late not really because they couldn't get the generator to work or it was pouring rain but because the bride's little brother had to go find an sacrifice a rooster for the groom's ancestors, who were unhappy (partly because of the monogamy thing). And so it goes.

My last weeks in Mvangan were a whirlwind, of work – amazing work, our "Journee du SOJA" – Day of Soy, where the women presented 15 different dishes they'd made and talked about nutrition and soy and all the authorities and lots of community members came and tasted/bought food – went better than I could have imagined. Of course there were mishaps and changes up to the last minute, like the adjoint sous-prefet needing a car sent for him because he didn't want to walk the 100 meters. Whirlwind of exasperations and frustrations and thigns that are typical Mvangan and don't surprise me anymore 9week of litigations over my agro replacement's house, as the second adjunt mayor broke in, said he'd rented it from another person than I'd rented it from, the real owner being in jail for having stolen money from the government (some of them, yes, do get punished) – basically he was trying to get money out of me. Anyway that got resolved the Friday before I left on Sunday. Whirlwind of goodbyes…unreal. I had a party on Sunday, which I'd initially planned to be a small affair, that I could afford, with the district personnel. To combine with Thanksgiving – we made stuffed chickens, I made the stuffing and mashed potatoes and pineapple pies and other cakes. But Doc decided to turn it into something much larger – and in very un-Cameroon fashion, where you pay for your own parties, on your birthday you buy everyone drinks, etc – he paid for everything else (besides what I had already). There were, I don't know, 20 different dishes? Including my favorite Cameroonian foods. There was monkey (not a favorite…), what every good party in Mvangan has to have. Beer and wine and palm wine and champagne…(how you measure a good party here). I couldn't express how touched I was. Everyone I'd worked with in Mvangan was there, my close friends…Essome, whom I'd worked with for all the agriculture/nutrition projects, who's been a wonderful collaborator and friend and is the counterpart/supervisor for the new agro volunteer and I'm so proud…he had meetings in Ebolowa Saturday and Monday, but he came down early Sunday – to go back that night, and pay for transport both ways – just to see me. Sylvain, my counterpart and one of my best friends. Cecile, one of my other best friends, who bought a pagne to make outfits for me and for my mother. My friend Eric and his youth group, who had a painting commissioned to symbolize my work in the community and my sadness at leaving. Mama Fran (Doc's wife) and all the other women who spent so much time and energy making everything, preparing everything, for me. And Doc…I can't even begin to describe his gift to me, later that night, the most symbolic, most powerful thing I've ever had.

As it's Mvangan, and I'm not surprised, we didn't leave Sunday evening – Alino hadn't come back with the car yet when we wanted to leave (5 pm); he returned at 7 pm, and in typical Mvangan fashion, decided we should leave at 3 am instead. I had to be in the medical office in Yaounde at 8 am to start COS (close of service) processes Monday morning. It's 5-6 hours, in a private car, on a good day (in public transport? Mvangan – Yaounde is 8 – 14 hours). So we left at 2 – early! – as I'd told them my meeting was at 7:30. Doc had me ride in front, for my last trip out of Mvangan, and with the brights on, even in the middle of the night, I was again stunned by the immense beauty and grandeur of the rainforest. We arrived at 7:50 am. The other PCVs thought maybe I'd decided not to leave after all…

And now suddenly I'm in Yaounde, with two days in country left – two nights at the Case, including this one – and I fly out on Thursday. Not forever, as I keep assuring everyone. Cameroon is my home. I want to work in Africa. And I will come back. But it's for a long time. None of it is real yet.

Thursday, with a good friend, I fly to Johannesburg. Spend a night there with another friend, the Baltimore Sun journalist who wrote the article on bushmeat in Akam (see previous post, June 2006). Dec 1, fly to Antananarivo (Madagascar) – then Dec 3 fly to Maroantsetra to see Rachel (! College friend/roommate, PCV in Madagascar) and travel to her village. Dec 9, fly back to Johannesburg, there until Dec 13 when we fly to Dakar (Senegal) and meet another PC/Cam friend as she leaves Cameroon. There until the 22 ^nd, when I regain WINTER in Paris. In France with family until January 6, when, after 27 months, I return to the United States. I am looking forward to visiting and seeing everyone again, but it's difficult to conceive of leaving this entire life I've had, for the past 2+ years, which has been so good to me.

There will be more to say, but none of it will come from Cameroon.

Soon.

~jenny

Agricultural and business training for rural women to combat malnutrition

2007-06-02T10:17:00.000-07:00

I'm working an a nutrition project, to help combat malnutrition in my health district by the introduction of soy cultivation and the trainer of nurses and community health workers in malnutrition. Again, former sources used by PCVs for funding (USAID small project assistance grants, british high commission) are no longer available.
So I'm asking for your help.
This project is being done through Peace Corps Partnership, a program through which Peace Corps Volunteers from around the world sollicit donations for work. Projects are approved by PC Cameroon and PC headquarters in Washington. Donations can be in any amount, and any money not used/if the project for some reason does not come to completion - will be returned. The project is fully planned and supervised by the PCV (me), and a detailed report of work and funds used is required at the completion of the project. (For more details - link to my site on PCP - https://www.peacecorps.gov/resources/donors/contribute/projdetail.cfm?projdesc=694-082&region=africa
Please help, if you can. A small amount in the States can go very, very far in Cameroon.

The basic idea is that we're using the introduction of soy cultivation into the region; through women's agricultural groups, to combat malnutrition, train local nurses in managed care of severe malnutrition, train women as nutrition outreach workers and in basic business practices, and culminate with a soy fair for the women's agricultural groups to showcase soy and soy products. Soy cultivation has already been shown to be successful from an agricultural perspective; now it's about teaching people how to incorporate it into local foods. In terms of funding, this project doesn't need much. Most of the funds will be used for the trainings, for the creation of a nutrition manual for nurses, and for promoting the soy fair. I've already started this project - soy is growing! Each woman who received a quantity of soy (along with basic nutrition/soy cultivation education) signed a contract to reimburse twice that quantity of seed from her harvest. (Soy produces quite prodigiously). That way, we will have a permanent soy seed bank in the district to keep the cultivation going.
Malnutrition is a major problem in my area - almost every child under 5 who comes into the hospital has some form of malnutrition or nutritional deficiency. Nurses are not trained in the care of malnutrition, nor in the nutritional prevention of it. I think that this project could be an important step in combatting this issue in the Mvangan (my) health district.
Thank you.
Jenny

2007-05-31T11:02:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

A note of context. I wrote this March 11 and 12, 2007, during and after a voluntary community HIV testing campaign we did in Amvom. (Amvom is about 40 km, or 2-3 hours, from Mvangan, going towards Gabon. It's another one of the health centers in the district). This was the first time I've practiced HIV counseling on a large scale (counseled about 25-30 people that day). Sylvain was the chief nurse in Amvom, and when he worked there, he and I did an HIV peer educator trainer for Amvom and surrounding villages. We taught many times together. Since February, he's been at the district level, as chief public health officer (replacing the previous one who hasn't come back in about a year and a half from Yaounde, where he's doing his MPH). For the first time, I have an actual counterpart - "supposed" to be part of PC work but I hadn't had a viable one close to me before. He and I planned the 11 March testing together. It was free, we used our peer educators to do pre-test counseling, and first gave out results of the initial testing he had done there, for them, in December. 11 March, we tested 65 people. All results were given that day (takes about 5-20 minutes to develop results in the laboratory, with the newest tests we have) The Amvom health committee (one of 2 in the district that really functions) prepared food for everyone who got tested, and after, all of us who had worked ate and drank together at "Homme d'Amvom"'s house (Man of Amvom. Usually called just "homme" (man). Context as I may write more on him later).
I haven't been able to send this since…March. Internet problems, same as I have not been able to upload pictures to send since December. Still working on this. Useful people to know:
Depistage - HIV testing
Sylvain - CBS - chef du bureau de sante, my counterpart. Also HIV counselor
Essola - nurse/ HIV counselor from district hospital; helped at depistage
Honoré - nurse/lab tech from Catholic hospital; helped at depistage
Pastor Elom - pastor/HIV counselor from Mvangan; helped at depistage
Ebolefou - head of lab in Mvangan; see "Zoebefam"
I think those are the relevant notes.
Will write more soon, as actual "updates". All next week, the African Development Bank (BAD - see entry from end of September) will be in Mvangan holding meetings and then having us run around the entire district to give them statistics, surveys, analyses of all health and otherwise problems. Hopefully this will lead to funding. But it should, in the least, be an interesting week. That and Sunday (tomorrow) is May 20, national independence/unification holiday.

12 mars 2007
Dépistage - Amvom
Put on my best Mary Sunshine face and lie. I've never been an optimist. Now I have no choice. I'm petrified. I tried to bow out. Essola do counseling, me work in the lab with Honoré. Sylvain refused. He said he'd work with Honoré, Essola would take his place - he's too close, knows the people here too well. It was his aire de sante for 4 years, after all (good lord, he's wasted en brousse). No being chicken now. Terrified to give people results? You make others do it. You want to be a doctor? Suck it up and be one, now.
My first positive. First counseling, in fact. LIAR. He's thin and sortof sickly. LIAR. "You don't have AIDS." Oh, but, you probably do. I saw him earlier. Councillor for the municipal council. Almost shouted "dude, you have the HIV!" Not really. But sometimes I'm afraid the pressure, the stress will bubble it out of me. Rage and frustration.
When we saw E this morning, thinking "today's the day you find out you have HIV. Better stop smiling, now…" I've thought it every time I've seen her, past few months, which has been a lot. Gods, what a secret. To know someone else has the virus when they don't know. And she's a nurse. Hoping, hoping she's using gloves to do births. That she hasn't been infecting patients, unknowingly.
Then again a nurse at the HDM has "it." That's at least 3 district nurses, now. And I don't even know how many of the others have been tested.
Did district stats today. 11.2%> About 20% when you remove the sixth graders. 17-30% for women. This is the "lesser affected" part of Cameroon. Of Africa, even. Yeah, right. Are stats only adult population? We're not counting babies, right? (Though they have it too. I can diagnose AIDS in babies. I've seen the OIs enough times, now. I shouldn't be able to do this). Everytime I hear someone's been sick for awhile - laid out - diarrhea or whatever - I assume AIDS. Gods, in the US it's the flu. But it's not just jumping to conclusions. Often enough, I've been right. Here.
Back to Sunday. My first counseling. I was shaking when he, MT, came in. One of my most useful gifts is concealing stress, apparently. Good. Of the 5 tan envelopes - Sylvain's December dépistage - 2 were positive. I knew which 2. And I knew them. Had trained them, taught them to be peer educators, back in August. So MT walks in and I was wishing it was an easier one first. But I knew.
So I spent time. First (as in all counseling) asked what he knew, thought about HIV/AIDS. Then made sure I covered the basics - HIV vs AIDS, role in the body, prise en charge, transmission, prevention, possible test results and actions to take after each. Are you ready? Opened the envelope. Kept my voice calm and neutral. Read results. 1st test - positive. 2nd confirmation test - positive. Conclusion: positive. And here's what we're going to do. Association of PVVS. In Mvangan. Financed. Training. April 8 (dumb dumb me chose Easter. And the Pastor didn't see fit to tell me until that evening, when we were all having dinner. So we'll do it the 9th - add. now 13th and 14th). And - it went well. He accepted it. He understood. But do I believe what I'm saying??? Screaming inside. There's no other way. I have to believe this is better than ignorance, I have to. And I do, most days. Most.
Sylvain comes in from the lab with new envelopes. White. I don't know what these say. I'm staring at the white envelopes. Carefully marked - by me, yesterday. Coded. AM00__-B. That's me, counselor B. I'm afraid. What's in here. How many time bombs are on my desk.
Sylvain. Gods, I'm not used to this. I remember science labs, first semester of college, when I suddenly had lab partners I could count on. Shouldering the burden - even pushing each other to each do more of the work. Not like before when I ended up doing everything because I knew that was the only way it would be done.
But this is like work, or life, or something. (Like Life- good book by Lorrie Moore).
I can count on him.
My real counterpart in every sense.
I'm not used to this. He's the first person here I can really depend on - I think, I'm afraid to say that - in terms of work. Or most things. Doc means well. He really does. And he's one of the smartest and best people I've ever known. As a doctor and a person (Sylvain, too, is always 3 steps ahead of me. I'm the dunce in this team. I tell myself that at least I work hard and try hard). But Doc - like today, promised to come then something else came up. Like during semaine du SIDA when every person I had counted on - besides PCVs, my saviors - lef. And in PS days (pre-Sylvain at the district level, CBS), that would mean I was left alone, floundering, without resources (transport, finance, material), and without the hierarchical - I'm your boss and I can sanction you-power to make other people help. I'm getting better. Because I learned with that. And now I have help so with 2 of us - we can conquer the world. Or, fix the health district.
… If Sylvain ever gets paid. Damn PPTE (HIPC - Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative), World Bank, and corrupt Cameroonian government.
All morning I kept reminding myself I didn't have to stress. Making Ebolefou give us the lab keys to get tests. Getting people together to leave, 3 hours late. Rain. Wondering if Caroline (nurse in Amvom) was there.
There were two of us worrying. And two of us prepared to fix things.
(This is, ideally, how PC works. PCV + Host Country National (HCN) counterpart. But I've had no counterpart for the first 12 months. Now. I win).
"Yes, I understand all that. Jenny, I love my husband. I'm faithful to him. But he's president of the COSA and goes to Mvangan all the time now and I don't know what he does there."
This was one of the easier ones. Fidelity! Condom! Get your husband to use a condom with you. Yeah, RIGHT. Refuse sex if he doesn't. Yeah, RIGHT in a machismo culture where women don't have that right.
I know her husband. And I promised to talk to him. (Did. Check. He didn't have time Sunday, was working with us. He said he will next time he's in Mvangan. I need to keep him to that).
Language barrier. I wish I knew more Bulu.
Woman who gave birth December 25 (Daughter named Noëlle). She's probably not positive. Got tested during pregnancy. And - she's not.
I've done 3 now. Each 10-15 minutes. 20 more to go. Scary with white envelopes. I don't know how to counsel, so it's neuter. Fine if they're negative, but positive?
Another woman. Faithful to her husband, etc. But he has 3 wives. One of the co-wives is with her. We discuss. I say that's good, but now go back and convince your husband and wife no.3 to get tested. She's negative. Goes out smiling.
…later, older woman. Doesn't speak French. (or rather, my Bulu sucks. Need to keep reminding myself that I'm the dumb one here). Get Pastor Elom to help me. Other woman, in polygamist marriage, from before comes back and says to me "Jenny, this is my co-wife!"
…And she's positive.
Watching Pastor Elom talk to her, I almost cry. It's harder, watching. Doing it - you're in it, you have to be strong. Now -I can only think of her co-wife. There are so many factors, intrinsic and extrinsic to the culture here, that increase transmission rates of HIV. Africa just gets the short end of the stick, time and time again. And polygamy is a major factor in this. It's great to talk about fidelity between two people (though reality/"feasibility" of that in this context - well. Marginal at best). But when you add in a lot of other people to that equation, the risks go up. Though, there is a cultural difference (in Cameroon) between Christian polygamy (oxymoron? No. Churches here - including the Catholic one - have adapted their doctrines to include this. It would have been difficult to find many willing converts, otherwise) and Muslim polygamy. Rates of HIV in the mostly Muslim north of Cameroon are far, far lower than in the Christian south. Alcohol is another factor in this, but alcohol(ism) and poverty is another den of mosquitoes.
Girl sitting before me. Breast-feeding a one-year-old, about. Tells me she's been tested twice. So I'm feeling confident…only question is she says her last test was the "good" result. (Positive? Seropositive/seronegative is highly confusing. This is why we try to clearly explain the results and what they mean in counseling, before actually giving the answers). I ask if she has questions. Yes, about how to live with someone with AIDS. Can you eat together. Can you share clothes. I give her my "4 fluids" speech, feeling a little awkward about "breast milk" as that's what she's doing right now…
I end with "so unless the clothes are soaked with blood, you can wear them. But I don't think you'd wear those anyway." We laugh. I open the envelope.
Positive.
Good lord, she's shocking. I try to calm her down. Try. Tell her about the association we're going to form. The meeting. Tests we're going to do. She's not okay. I keep trying. She leaves. (later, I talk to Sylvain about her. He says she's lying: she never got tested. He had to drag her to prenatal consults. And he's not surprised. Every man who passes through the village - loggers, builders, cocoa, whatever - goes to her. She's 17).
And her baby's sick, that was the first thing she said, she wanted me to consult her baby. Too bad I'm not a nurse. What if…oh gods.
Another woman. 30s, maybe. As we're talking about protection…she tells me she's faithful to her husband. But he has all these girls who "go out" a lot, too. She wants to protect her health. She wants to raise her children. She's trying to divorce him. Because what's she supposed to do, insist he use a condom? (If the anti-HIV spermicide is every developed, in a way that doesn't make women more susceptible to HIV because of abrasions, oh, I know the women I'd give it to. All the women here). We talk. We open the envelope. She's negative. But. He refuses to get tested, she says. Do I encourage her in the divorce proceedings?
I do. I don't know if I should have done that. Few more to go.
I go to see Sylvain in the lab. I'm tired. I think everyone's done. He hands me an envelope marked "A". I tell him, "This is Essola's." He says, "No, I want you to do this one." And I'm too dumb to figure it out.
So I go. Kerosene lamp now, it's 7:30 pm. JP. Late 20s. We talk. He knows nothing about HIV/AIDS, he says, just that "SIDA kills." I go into my chronic illness spiel - AIDS becoming treated like a chronic illness, diabetes, like sickle cell anemia, etc. We talk a lot. I know he's my last client, and I'm in no rush.
Positive. He's taken aback, but he takes it ok. I see he wants to talk. So we talk. Maybe 30, 45 minutes. No idea how long. He's not married but he has a "woman" and kids in Gabon. Oh, Gabon. I'm in a frontier zone - the border with Gabon is about 30 km from Amvom. And everything I hear about Gabon is kinda wild. So many people go there to get money and return with HIV…Lindsey's friend, S…anyway.
But I feel good about this one. Counseling. It feels so familiar…I'm trying to remember. I trained to do it in Boston, but I didn't really get to practice. And I was rejected the once - twice? I applied to the peer counseling group in college. Poets are trained to listen. That's one thing, I guess. I keep thinking of the 17-year-old. She said it was January that she was negative (Why do people lie so often?) I was shocked. Felt a little like (gods, so minor) my first failing test results. Sophomore year, organic chemistry (and continuing). Disbelief. No, this isn't happening. This can't be happening. And if I feel like that, how many times the person faced with the result? I had a dream, few months ago, that I had HIV. Probably the scariest dream I've had (here). Trying to make it not true. Trying to get someone, anyone, to take it back.
That morning, before leaving, Pastor Elom told me Etitan's baby (ooh, good place to hyperlink) was from a teacher. Gods. She'd told me it was a high school kid. Maybe I asked her leading questions. Maybe she was embarrassed. But I'd been afraid it was this. Angry. She told me…when, so long ago, that one of her teachers (was it the Spanish prof? German? Which is she taking?) gave her a failing grade on a test and she didn't know why and told her she had to come to his house to make it up. Back then I was afraid I knew what that meant, but unsure. How stupid was I.
I can't forget the conversation with Gaston (wonderful PC language trainer) during Stage. About students sleeping with teachers for grades. We read an article about it. So I asked him - a high school French teacher, we'd even visited one of his classes - what his experience was, with his colleagues. And he grew visibly uncomfortable and evaded answering. That was one of the first moments of reality, here.
Being in PC - a totally, totally different place - is like growing up again. Language. Culture. Reality. Life around us. I think I might be a young teenager now, maybe. I'm starting to realize so much of what really goes on around me. It's like veils have been torn, thrown aside, these past several months. I'm starting to get it, now. It's a funny juxtaposition to being in a position of power in a health district, planning and executing policy along with the district medical officer, supervising, teaching. A more "grown-up" job than I'd have in the States for awhile - in some senses, and in some senses not at all. Yet the neighbor kids still laugh at me for being white (and, therefore, doing everything weirdly and probably wrongly). Lately I work 8-5, if not longer, 7 days a week. I have my own house. I have more money than most of my colleagues (if they got paid, they'd get about my salary. But…they don't. PPTE. Can I hyperlink that? I make $320/month, by the way. On par with a highest level nurse's salary, and some high school teachers.
Then again, even if they got paid, I still have more, because I'm not supporting anyone. Me and the cat. Speaking of, I need to go look for her.
- more in the next.

Water Project - Completed.

2007-03-04T15:51:00.000-08:00

Lessons in development in the equatorial rainforest

“Like water for chocolate”

Zoebefam Diary

27 November – 9 December

2006

Cast of characters:

Jennifer – me. PCV in Mvangan.

Hans- water engineer from Ebolowa. Good friend of South province volunteers. Pink track suit in pictures.

Daniel- lead technician. Blue pants and yellow shirt.

Charles- youngest technician. Tall guy with shorts and beer polo.

Ebolefou (Papa Paul) – my counterpart for this project – and colleague from the hospital. He’s head of the lab and works a lot with me on our HIV counseling center. He’s from Zoebefam and has been the impetus for this project.

Paulette- nurse in Zoefebam. She lives next to Papa Paul and we’ve spent a lot of time with her.

Source 1

J.C. – mason from Zoe, has taken 2 weeks off of his regular work to help us out at both sources.

Papa Dibo – old guy with 3 wives, lives near source 1 but has also helped at source 2. He claims to be so rich that he doesn’t need clean water; he can buy bottled water to wash clothes and cook with.

Olinga – young guy, peer educator for HIV. Helped all week.

Source 2

Papa Gaston- old guy, TB patient that I know from the hospital in Mvangan. He’s been the driving force behind the source 2 group, and comes every day, though he can’t work. He’ll often pick up a small stone on his way down to the source, to sit.

Levy – oldish guy. Worked a lot all week. The materials for source 2 are stocked at his house.

Ayele – “ayele” means “teacher” in Bulu. I don’t know his real name, but everyone calls him this. He’s the school director for a primary school about 30 km away. He’s been early and working all week.

Jenner – guy who looks very educated – and as i find out later – is. Has also worked all week. He was at the HIV peer educator training I did in late November.

Metango/Marie Blanche – palm wine

Odontol/Marie Claire – palm whiskey (distilled palm wine)

----------

Day -2

Monday 27 November

Got up early to buy materials with Hans. Walked into his office with over 2 million CFA, walked out with quite a bit less. We got everything at the same quincaillerie – everything on the list, plus quite a bit more. There’s a problem with the buses (still don’t know what that is). So we craft a new solution with contre-plaquets (plywood), more cement, and more iron bars. This afternoon, I realize we’re 32,000 over budget – already. Shit.

Hans goes to get the truck and gravel. They’ll leave early Tuesday morning, and I’ll leave by Kouma car, join them Wednesday morning in Zoebefam.

…And that’s 2,211,575 F CFA. Thanks!

****

Day -1

Tuesday 28 November

Met with Hans in the morning and explained the money problem – he said we could do with 10 less bags of cement. Also, the sous-préfet has closed the roads to vehicles of more than 4 wheels. I’m worried that the lorry will be stopped. I give Hans the letter typed (by me) from the sous-préfet. I don’t have official authorization – S/P said he’d give it to me then he voyaged. Okay. Hopefully they won’t have any problems. We’ll meet Wednesday morning.

*all Tuesday* I can’t find a car. Or, I do find one – my friend Sylvain’s- but then he’s at the garage all day, getting it fixed. To leave or not to leave – and how?

Blair shows up – no water or power at post (water out due to power out). We’re walking around town and “Jennifer!” It’s Hans, with the truck (4 pm). They haven’t even loaded yet…it was in the garage all day, getting repairs done. We hang around for a bit. I get 53000 back for the 10 bags of cement – then pay 12000 for I’m not sure what. Still ahead. Slightly. But we haven’t started yet…

****

Day 0

Wednesday 29 November

I go to find an early morning clando car (7 am). No cars. So I return to the house, leisurely get my stuff, and take it all to Kouma (leaving around noon). Sit and read the Atlantic. 11 am, Hans shows up…what?? Apparently the truck broke down last night, 30 km from Mvangan. They (technicians) slept on the road, and Hans came back up to Ebolowa to get a few things they had forgotten. He’s travelling with me. All we can hope is that we don’t find the truck on the road and that they will have already arrived in Zoe…

When we come to the village where the truck had broken down, we’re told that it’s just ahead of us (just?)

We arrive in Mvangan around 4:30. I drop my bags at my house and go to meet Hans in the center of town. After arguing with mototaximen trying to cheat us about a “price hike” to Zoe (it’s 1000; they’re claiming it’s now 1500). Finally we find a moto willing to take us both.

5 km in, flat tire. The moto goes back to find another…meanwhile, Hans and I walk for a few km. Finally, a car comes that takes us the rest of the way.

Arrival in Zoe (!) First man we encounter tells us the truck went on to Ekowong (15 km further). Hans and I almost fall over. Second man comes up “no, no, they’re down there…” (far end of the village where we’re starting the project). We find the technician and truck dumping gravel. Ebolefou (Paul) is directing operations, and Paulette’s back (nurse of the village).

Truck dumping gravel, Day 0 in Zoebefam

It’s really happening…

RELIEF. We make plans to meet back the next morning – I’m returning to Mvangan tonight to coordinate December 1 plans (World AIDS Day).

Hans and I go to find the chauffeur. He’s irate. Yelling “I worked so much today…I haven’t eaten anything today…” Hans says “I gave you money for food.” (The chauffeur got a large amount of money already. But he expects food and drink on top of that…unexpected costs. Can’t budget for that. Nevermind that it’s his fault the truck broke down and he hadn’t brought any tools…) He insists on going right back to Ebolowa to do the next trip (he was paid for two) tomorrow. Hans hasn’t slept in 2 days. But..he has to go. The rest of his team will begin operations. 6 am! Back to Mvangan.

****

Day 1

Thursday 30 November

No power in Mvangan, so I don’t leave until it’s light enough out to get dressed, and leave my house by 6:30. Takes some time to find a moto. I arrive in Zoe, at the site, by 7:15. No one else is there yet (Oh, l’heure africaine!) Daniel, Charles and I go to work.

View of source 1 from the top of the hill. Daniel and Charles start to work.

I watch, antsy, for a bit until I grab a shovel – against orders – and jump in. I’m bailing, bailing water – by 9:30, we have a crew of 8. Hard work. Men who went en brousse in the morning, early, to work before coming to work on the source. We work until 2 pm, no breaks. Digging…the earth keeps collapsing. Clearing water out…

Even a dog has joined us.

The men of Zoe get to work…bailing out water and clearing mud

The scaffolding wood is made – wrong size – and remade. This is for the wall, where we’re going to create the dam. First we had to clear all the water out of the source so Daniel could see where in the earth the sources were coming from. Once that’s clear, everything needs to be dug out, down to the impermeable rock layer. The source is shaped and decided where the dam will be placed. Tomorrow they’ll reinforce the wall and hopefully start mixing and pouring cement. No truck, no Hans – we’re hoping they’ll show up tonight.

Scaffolding is put in place. This is where the barrier wall will go, for the reservoir

****

Day 2

Friday 1 December

I’m in Mvangan, working on World AIDS Day activities (that’s another headache/triumph in itself). Doc’s not around, so I’m in charge – meaning meetings all day and activities at the lycée in the afternoon. After the health club (I’m so proud of my boys!) finishes their sensibilisation/show, the COSA (who did nothing) have dinner. Including me. Me and the “big men”..well these are medium men, really. The authorities aren’t around. Happily, electricity arrived late last night, so the evening’s activities are a bit easier. Around 7:30 pm, we’re sitting around, enjoying dinner and drinks…and Hans shows up. He’s been travelling since Tuesday! The truck broke down again in Ebolowa. Finally, they’re here…only 14 more km to go. We have a drink and I head off to the lycée party. We’ll meet up early tomorrow morning in Zoe.

Health club at the Lycée de Mvangan, getting set up for December 1 activities

****

Day 3

Saturday 2 December

I arrive from Mvangan around 8:30. And this time they’d really started at 6. A chain of men down the steep hill is passing buckets of concrete (cement, gravel, sand, Sikalite, water) that others are mixing. I look around, chat a bit. Papa Paul says to me “on travaille ici…” I’m a bit miffed. So I go up to the top of the hill and start hauling concrete, too.

Chain of concrete down the hill…Olinga in striped shirt

The men were duly impressed. Oh, I like manual labor. So we passed the buckets down and they filled in the dam, the principal structure of the spring box. The concrete finished, the wall was filled, and palm wine was passed down the line…we finished around 10:30. Time to let the wall dry until Monday and start in on the other source.

The team for mixing and carrying concrete

On the way, Hans and I stop for a drink. He had some singe (monkey), carried on passing children’s heads. I passed.

Down to the source. No one is there, and the gravel hasn’t even been moved from the road. Ebolefou goes to round up some workers.

Source 2, au naturel – people getting water

My dream team – Charles, Daniel, Paul Ebolefou, Hans next to source 2

They show up, eventually…a few. Some kids on their way to collect water help us carry gravel. Two women refused, saying the project has nothing to do with them and they don’t care. One says she’ll kill Ebolefou for this (what, exactly?) I’m tired…sit down. Digging is done, along with some bailing out of water. The principal water currents are found, and the beginning of the dam is put in place. I’m hoping more people show up Monday…

We leave around 5. Ebolefou takes me back; he’ll be in Ebolowa for the next few days.

Source 2, end of Day 3 – scaffolding in place for two of three walls

****

Sunday 3 December

Rest. (And turn 24).

****

Day 4

Monday 4 December

I show up at 8:30 again – took awhile to find a moto. This time, I’m here until we finish. First site – they’ve been working for some time. Apparently lots of women showed up to help – early – with bailing out water. Now they’re passing stones to make the back wall of the reservoir. The concrete wall is done! I join the assembly line.

Hans and Daniel. The source 1 wall is done. Notice iron reinforcement bars.

After all the stones have been moved, the men break mud/land to cover the area in front of the reservoir. The pipe has been extended and the water’s already running well – and clear. All that’s left to make is a reservoir cover and a puising area (water collection area). Around 11, we head to the second source.

No one’s there and nothing’s been done. I’m embarrassed – and frustrated. Hans, Daniel and I go to Papa Gaston’s house. He rants about the truck for the stones which are in another village (we’ve been discussing this same issue since July). His wife pipes up, says “that’s not the real problem – people are lazy and don’t want to work.” He yells at her. Hans is irate. “We have to finish both by December 10, max. Or we’re leaving.”

We leave, walk back up to the village.

A few men are walking toward the source…Fine. They start transporting gravel down. Kids getting water are implored to help – and they do. So does Papa Gaston’s wife. We bail water for awhile. The others finish the dam, with Daniel and Hans directing. Charles and J.C. (who is from source 1 but has come to help out) are cutting and bending iron bars.

Papa Dibo, Daniel, Hans, and Charles inspecting the scaffolding

This…might…work.

Hans has a meeting tomorrow in Ebolowa, so he leaves – he’ll be back tomorrow night or Wednesday. Ebolefou’s still gone.

****

Day 5

Tuesday 5 December

Up by 6, r eady, out – 6:15. Me, Daniel, and Charles. As we’re walking down toward source 2, we see the guys for source 1. Up, ready, and carrying the stones we still need. They’re autonomous! Even Ebolefou isn’t there. On that side, things are going well. Today, they just need to find stones and bring them to the site, and fill in more of the reservoir.

We arrive at source 2. No one. 7, 7:15…they start to show up with the wheelbarrows of materials. Everything was measured for concrete last night. Now – time to start mixing. With shovels – 4,5 men mix, Daniel and Charles work on the iron “armature” for the wall, and 2 of us carry water up the hill to the concrete. I don’t know how many trips…finally, there’s enough and others work on bailing out the source and clearing mud from inside the scaffolding. It’s ready.

Ayele (striped shirt) and mixing concrete

Time to start pouring. Three of us carry buckets back and forth. After a few trips, I come to refill my bucket and the men ask (they’ve been talking) “Madame, vous avez fait le service militaire, n’est-ce pas?” Ha! No. “Peace Corps, not War Corps.” Anyway. This goes on for over an hour until we run out of concrete. So now they have to go carry more cement – 8-10 bags – 8 wheelbarrows of sand – and 16 wheelbarrows of gravel. Some kids come help (why aren’t they in school? Eh, the school director’s here too). Papa Gaston sits, as do a few others. Daniel rails on community development and why it’s failing here. Why in such a large village we have so few people to help…I ask if he’s had worse projects- hoping- and he says yes. We’ll see, still, here.

Papa Emmanuel, Papa Gaston, and Levy

Community contribution was supposed to be – clearing brush on the path (done for source 1, not for source 2), bringing stones and wooden planks (done for source 1, though not enough, and not for source 2), nutrition (food every day for technicians and work groups –no), and lodging (everyone has been staying at Ebolefou’s house, though other people were supposed to take us in, as well).

No stones. Since JULY. They’re 3 km away. But no one has been willing to pay/rent a car. Since July. So that’s 2 extra walls and a lot of extra cement. Ohwell, we should still have enough.

Waiting. Charles goes to get Sikalite. And food! Pistache and legumes and plantain pile. And bananas. I’m well sated. And so, so dirty.

They finished mixing concrete and we finished all 3 walls. Worked till 4. Exhausted. We’ll come back Thursday to undo the scaffolding and finish, here…

Spent the evening with Paulette. (again)

****

Day 6

Wednesday 6 December

…Today should be 6.6.6, not 6.12.6. So frustrated I could scream. Took a “shut out the world” nap instead. Up at 6. Neighbors had been blasting music since 2…they sold cocoa, so bought gas for the generator and played music. Didn’t sleep. Ready to go before 6/30 – no Daniel and Charles. Paulette says they left early to check on source 2. So I hang out…8:30, they’re back. We descent. No workers? Eh. They carried stones and filled in a good part of the reservoir yesterday, without us, so I’m not worried. 9, 9:30…Daniel and Charles start building the scaffolding for the puising area. I’m bored. I fill the pile of stones into the reservoir – thwack! –unskilled labor for me to do. Time passes…Paulette comes by. “What, there are only 2 of you?” Daniel looks at me and smiles. “Three.” I bail water for a bit. They’re doing technical things, so I can’t really help. 1 pm. NO ONE. Next step is concrete – so we need people to carry bags of cement, sand, gravel. We’re stuck. Back up the hill (and time to shut out the world). When I get up, I go have my leftovers from breakfast chez Paulette, then wander out to get a drink. Find Daniel and Charles. Tired…and bored. And frustrated. All of us. I could be home. Hell, if the daily commute were worth it…so much to be done in Mvangan! And I’m here, chôming. Plus music and friends and food and my own house…and electricity…instead I’m here. And for what. With what.

We’re waiting for Hans and Paul. Both should be back already and neither is…

I’m down at source 2, writing. Kids coming to puise the clear, continuously running water. I should be happy.

I’m not.

Thank gods my first lessons in development are hard ones, in of the hardest regions to work. Yet I still want to do this? Ask me again next week.

Hans and Ebolefou arrive. Victory!!! I’m frying plantains, for lack of other activity. We eat. Papa Paul changes, gathers his brothers, and gets to work hauling stones – until it’s dark. Not a totally wasted day, after all.

Night – we sit around, drink palm wine and eat spaghetti. Charles is called out for awhile, “mysteriously”, by a woman. We talk about lions and Waza (national park in the Extreme North, where both Hans and Daniel have worked). I fall asleep, tired, and sleep through the night.

****

Day 7

Thursday 7 December

6:30, ready to go. Down to source 1…men have been hauling stones since 5 or 5:30. So that’s done. But then they go off to work. Damn cacao. Damn WESTERN WORLD. There we go, I’ll just blame all the chocaholics I know for the project’s problems. There are about 7 of us this morning, including 2 technicians and me. Daniel left early this morning for a meeting in Ebolowa.

We get to work – cover the wall with plastic, and it’s time to mix cement. Water up, up, up…a girl comes by to help. She came to get water, we conscripted her, and – she stayed. Water up…cement down. Hours. On the steep hill. Papa Paul is doing most of the work. I get dizzy walking too far down the hill. “Like water for chocolate.” Because the desire for cocoa(later chocolate) is superseding the desire for water….

Hans inspecting reservoir at source 1. Stones in place - now ready to be covered.

Now- rest. 10:45. Food! Not from the village, mind you – Daniel’s aunt. Pistache and pile. And papaya. Hans implores me to rest, so I’m sitting here, writing this.

Dry season hack.

Reservoir covered! Pipes are to pour bleach in, to disinfect reservoir.

Hans says we should all spend Saturday night in Mvangan. Akiba a zambe. That’s 2 more nights here for me. Good lord, I’m rired. If I get to spend Sunday home, doing nothing – I’ll be redeemed.

Hans, Paul, and Charles go down to visit source 2. I get washed and walk down….pass them…look at the source…and go on to Ngomedun to see Papa Gaston. I find him sitting outside with two younger guys. Metango on offer…Lindsey got free Top from her project, I get palm wine. Well there’s one of the big differences in our lives. We discuss development for awhile, how I’m not a government agent and how there are no kickbacks from this project (oh, if they only knew how much I’ve had to spend, this past year…Papa Paul, too). Two glasses of metango, discussion of tomorrow’s work schedule, and I go back up the hill.

Scaffolding on the puising (water collection) of Source 1. Design by Daniel.

Discussion with Hans…there’s no food. Apparently the spaghetti we had the night before he paid for, gave Paulette the ingredients…he asks how much money I have. 5000 on me, I was expecting to make a few back/forth trips to Mvangan. So…we decide I’ll go home briefly tomorrow to get money and buy food. We could be stuck here till Monday…at this rate. Meanwhile, we go to the boutique, buy spaghetti, sardines, rice, etc. and cookies (Hans insists, for me). Daniel arrives! One good thing. We go back. Paulette’s out. Turns out Papa Paul also realized the problem, bought food, and gave it to a woman to prepare. We wait…and talk…tired. Finally, spaghetti, baton, and pile. To bed. Hans is falling asleep. We talk of the difficulties of Mvangan. Did I mention 2 beds for the 3 of them, in the kitchen? I have the room inside. The chef promised to lodge (and feed…) people – he hasn’t been seen in the almost 2 weeks we’ve been here. He knows we’re here and was supposed to come back. But, cacao or water? Cacao.

To bed. To another day…

****

Day 8

Friday 8 December

I don’t want to get up. I’m sick of working like a dog and the community not being engaged. Nothing to eat (?) What is this shit?

…whatever. I’m up, 6. Have a bite of papaya. We trek to source 2…no one. Daniel and Hans get to work decoffring. Charles is cutting metal rods…I’m bored. And annoyed. The stones Papa Gas promised? NOT THERE. 7, 7:30. People show up. 2, 3…Ayele from Minkom. Papa Paul’s brother, who works for primary education in Mvangan, with paperwork for Ayele. “But there’s no one here!” Yeah, we noticed. Well, at least he’s (legitimately?) busy.

Source 2 - Ebolefou standing on the wall, Ayele removing scaffolding.

More people. Ebolefou with …beignets. Bless him. With one of the men, I get to work clearing water. Tired. The stones arrive! Wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow (with lots of complaining…) But they’re there. We form a chain to pass them down to protect the reservoir and around the pipe.

Hans and Daniel are cutting plywood for the reservoir cover. Metal cutting, men sawing.

Women show up (!) Papa Gaston’s wife, clearing water. Another woman I haven’t seen before. Kids help carry gravel. (We’ve sent orders for more gravel, cement, etc). The woman from last Saturday. She’s here…and she goes all the way to srouce 1 to carry gravel when she wouldn’t get it from 100 m before. Incredible. Things are starting to change…we’ve got men, women, and children here. Papa Gaston and the (other old guy) brought metango again and Levy brought food! Crazy. After a bit…seems everyone has a job. Not much for me to do, so I ask Hans if I should go back to Mvangan (yes, because even if it looks better now, things could always change again…)

Source 2 – Hans looks on as women bail water out

So I walk back up, change boots for babouches, and set out to find a moto. Find a pasteur by his boutique. He invites me in for a drink…no, I want to go to Mvangan. He says, I was going soon anyway, just let me get ready. (Will this be a free ride?) He also says, “Madame, you must have done military service, not so? That is what everyone is saying.”

We go back, nice and slowly. safe. To my house…bypassing the hospital. I don’t feel like seeing friends. I don’t want to talk to anyonw about the problems we’re having. I, out…grab a few things in the house and head out…home…I’ll be back soon.

Walk to town. (again, bypassing hospital/most friends’ houses). I see Essono, my favorite chauffeur- yes! Ask him if he can take me back to Zoe in 15, 20 minutes.

I go next to Em’s for lunch. The woman is nice and generous with rice and beans. Food! And water that doesn’t taste like pool water (we’ve been bleaching drinking water all week, and I accidentally put too much bleach in mine…) Mvangan really feels like a metropolis some days. Guy comes in…oh, I want your helmet…I need it..give it to me…normally I josh back, but I’m annoyed. This is an old discourse. Try to get him to stop. No. Finally. “Would you please leave me alone, I’ve had a hard week!” Fuming. My friend brings over my food and the marmite of piment – oh, she knows me well.

I go out. Time to buy food chez Housman and head out. Essono’s loading up his moto…what…he says the man who broughts me wants to take me back; he’s waiting at the garage. Okay. So someone in Zoe is appreciative, maybe…

Go to Housman’s, buy food. Walk down to the garage. Moto not ready yet. Fine. So I sit with Papa Bouga…get bored and take a walk. Run into Ćecile and Julie (shit). Oh, but it is good to have friends. I brief them on the week’s situation – they’re sympathetic. Soon, it’s time to go back to Zoe.(I was gone about 2 hours)

Paulette walks down with me to the site (source 2).

Reservoir cover with hole (to be covered) in case of extreme dry season

…A lot’s been done! Concrete turning, reservoir half covered, metal all in place, stones…this is good. The woman from last Saturday (and this morning) is back…she made lunch for the technicians! Incredible. Some more work…hauling water up, concrete down. The reservoir is covered. We put glass chards in it so kids won’t play on it – or wash clothes – or whatever. People are serious about this. Other old guy goes to collect bottles. We write our names in the drying concrete. Just has to dry, now – there’s a trap for if water stops flowing in a severe dry season, they can open it to get water out. I watch kids playing in the stream- washing feet – women washing dishes. There’s something intoxicating about running water. Cold, clean running water. Not drinkable. 2 more days, maybe.

Kids gathering tree trunks for scaffolding

After, we all walk up, set to unscaffold source1 so people can start getting water there. We’re interpelled. Levy and Ayele invite us over. The whole work group, dinner and wine! And speeches about how they’re so proud, how this is so important…how their children and grandchildren will see this and be proud.

Finally. This is the “nutrition” contribution that has been supposed to be happening all week. Working together and hanging out together. As it should be. Tomorrow is another day…and I’m feeling a hell of a lot better.

It’s starting to work. “Community project” with community contribution.

We get to source 1 in the dark, so no unscaffolding, just looking. People have alrady started using it, convoluted as the scaffolding makes it…

Tomorrow we start at source 2, finish, come to source 1. Finish. We hope.

****

Day 9

Saturday 9 December

Today I’m up and in a good mood. Slept well. Hans, Daniel, and Charles go to unscaffold source 1- they tell me to go on to source 2 to rally the troops, so to speak. I walk down, pass several of the source 2 guys as I walk down, who seem to be on their way to work. I buy beignets on the way, for everyone – feel like being generous, today. I pass the chief of the village on the way…finally, he shows up, after almost 2 weeks…he says he’s heard about all the good work (he should have been there/had promised to be there to motivate people and organize them and get them to work…and lodge the technicians…). He sent gravel and rocks over, he says.

Finishing the water collection area at source 2, putting rocks down

I get there. Sit. And wait. Around 8, Ayele shows up. After that, Hans, Daniel, and Charles. We wait. NO ONE. They unscaffold the outside and stop up the leak. We need more concrete. Orders were put in yesterday for the materials. Where the hell are they…we clear water. Do some cleaning where the water collecting area will be, and Hans and Daniel build the scaffolding. Guys show up, very slowly. Papa Gaston with odontol. The anglophone boy “rapper” who was wanted all week for me to take his picture. He sits. (After a bit, I yell at him to work). By 11 we have the materials for concrete. Mix. We carry it down..wow, I’m tired of hauling concrete. At least it makes water seem ridiculously light. Kanga Felix – super drunk guy “quoting” from the Bible in his pocket (he’s making up passages) – is helping/spilling every other bucket. He’s funny, at least.

Drinking the water.

We finish around 1:20. Leak fixed, water collection area done. Daniel insists that I write my name on the concrete over the collection area, and won’t let anyone else go near it. They need to build a fence around the glass shard area and unscafoold next week. DONE. We take a picture. And I get them to take one with me in it – my second all week.

Group photo, perched on the edge of the wall as the cover isn’t strong enough…

We leave. Papa Gaston invites us to his house. His wife has prepared fish and manioc for us. She carefully lays out plates – even glasses for the wine they’ve bought. We’re the guests of honor. Even papaya for dessert. It’s a touching gesture.

Olinga posing on the reservoir, source 1

We’re tired. Up to source 1…Daniel is slow and chatty but Hans is impatient. He wants to get out. (as do I). We get to source 1. Paul and his brothers are there and have been working all day. They’re made a beautiful area with a canal for the water. Everything looks good. Daniel finds a slight problem and takes an hour to fix it. Small oversight.

Group photo at source 1

Hans is already changed and ready to go…Finally, finally after last instructions we trudge up- last time- to have a meal in Ebolefou’s kitchen (where Hans, Daniel, and Charles have been sleeping). I paid for this. It tastes bitter. The chief points out the wine he brought. “Look”..and he proceeds to drink it all. A few speeches are made – I decline to say anything at all. I just want to go and have nothing to say in this crowd. We finally are ready to leave. Motos found. (that we have to pay more than the normal price for…) Get back to Mvangan a little before dark. Power’s on! Daniel arrives a bit later. We drink. We’re DONE. To a project completed.

***

Afterthoughts

Friday 15 December 2006

I go back to inspect the sources. I meet up with Jenner (who somehow didn’t make it into any pictures) and Papa Gaston in Ngomedun. Everyone in the village uses the “new” sources, they say. And the ones who didn’t work…at first were too ashamed to use the sources, but most of them are getting water there anyway now. Jenner and I walk up to source 1 together, see that the scaffolding has been removed and everything seems to be working. We return to his house where we have a wonderful meal of fresh corn bouillie, which tastes a lot like corn chowder. As I get ready to go, his wife hands me avocadoes and bananas. It’s sweet. Then on the moto ride back, 3 of us on a rickety moto, we fall off into a patch of stinging nettles. There’s the bitter. Like everything in Cameroon – every day

That’s clean, cold, running water, folks

USA Peace Corps Partnership

09/12/2006 Jennifer Stella, PCV

November update

2007-01-14T07:44:00.000-08:00

5/11/06

I was going to start this another way.

On the way back to Mvangan, the car stopped, and we all got out – not to walk up a hill, change a tire, or wait for a forgotten car part, but because the house planks stored under our feet had to be (removed) for their owner.I sat in the grass with my New Yorker. A man came over. "Oh, la blanche!"I sighed. Ignored him.
"Il paraît que vous êtes très appréciée ici. Tout le monde vous connaît ! Ils disent, quand on passe, " Voilà notre ntangen ! C'est la blanche de Mvangan, qui travaille pour nous ! " " Vous avez déjà mis longtemps ici ? "
" Un an. "
" Oui, c'est qulequechose ! Je suis de Mengbwa, je travaille au poste agricole là-bas… "
Etc.
( " It seems that you're very appreciated here. Everyone knows you ! They say, as we pass, " Here's our ntangen ! (white) It's the white woman of Mvangan, who works for us ! " Have you been here long yet ? "
" One year. "
" Yes, that's something ! I'm from Mengbwa, I work at the agricultural post there.. ")

I was not expecting this.Not a blanche anymore, but their blanche. The rest of the ride was just a little bit easier.

Coming home…there's power!The road is familiar. My feet go automatically- as obviated by my treks in the pitch-black night.This is home. People to bring things to. People expecting me.
The other morning, when I went chez Alice ("mon amie!" She calls out, everytime she sees me.) for my beignets and bouillie of the early am, a man came up, with whiskey sachet in hand (mmm…Kitoko and beignets…) "Oh, Ntangen!"I ignored him. AGGRAVATED that here, in my safe space – my place – I could be violated like that. A teacher, sitting with his daughter, launched into an angry discourse in Bulu. The man apologized to me. This has never happened.

*****

…not going anywhere for awhile ?

(wish I had a Snickers)

At a meeting in Zoebefam. Here for water meetings, which were supposed to start half an hour ago, but the PTA meeting is going over. Bulu. I'm bored. Two water meetings today because we start construction at the end of the month (! Many thanks to all who contributed).

Zoe's hopping these days. Several boutiques, a restaurant, people selling clothes – this, my friends, signifies 2 things. The start of the school year. And cocoa . Cocoa = big money, a leftover equation from colonial days and mandated initiatives. A PCV friend thinks you can make more consistent money with less work on a plantain plantation (and basically, he's right). But creativity is neither prized nor fostered here. Cocoa = CFA. It sticks. All the work – money, months and years of hard labor – that goes into cocoa leaves Cameroon. The pickups trolling through Mvangan (all the South) these months? The first and second choice beans go to European buyers. The leftovers – dregs, if you will – is bought by Chococam. This is why a country that produces both has neither good coffee or chocolate. Cocoa goes for about 500,550 a kilo these days. (Roughly $1). And it takes a lot of beans to make chocolate.

Anyway. Cocoa season, time when the not-quite-cloying-and-surprisingly-pleasant scent of cocoa fermenting in the sun permeates the air. When people have money. And when the bars…well.
Update on Mvangan – still no power. Three months now.

***

**update** power came back to about 10% of the village. Basically the hospital and scattered houses. BUT all hospital personnel are "allowed" (by the Doc) to hook up to the hospital, so I have power. And the peasants rejoice.

Thanksgiving!

Idyllic. Freezing, on top of a dormant volcano, looking out onto lush, green, rolling hills, watching the sun rise over the trees, cows and sheep grazing, scattered houses…is this Africa? Is it not Vermont or Switzerland? …Then it's Muslim prayer time and the Fulani herdsman are singing. This is all that brings me back to Africa. Hiked up Friday, spent the night, back down Saturday to a gorgeous villa and time to…start cooking. 30ish PCVs plus some PCV counterparts and other Cameroonian invitees for dinner, but during the day, just ..relaxing, running in/out of the kitchen, around the beautiful gardens, waterfall, etcetera…
We had turkey. The best turkey I've ever had – can't get much more free range/organic than a turkey raised in Cameroon. Killed by PCVs, plucked, stuffed, and cooked in a giant marmite (like a Dutch oven). We'd been planning this for at least 6 months, so every time someone had visitors from the states/went to the states, they brought back stuff for us. So the menu was: cheese and bread and apples, appetizer
-raw vegetables
- salads (provided by villa staff)
-tabouli
-TURKEY
- gravy
-stuffing
- mashed potatoes
-ginger-garlic green beans
-cranberry sauce
-fried okra and fried potatoes
-fruit salad
-pumpkin pie
- pecan pie
- carrot cake
-oreos (from the states :)

I don't know who will appreciate who amazing it is to have these things – and have had the ingredients for them – in Cameroon. Anyway. Another Thanksgiving in Africa. And it was a good one.

Current projects, with brief updates:

Zoebefam

Project starting today (as in, November 28). Bought supplies yesterday, the truck's being loaded up and driven down. Many, many thanks to all contributors. More to come when the project is completed, with pictures

Soja

Meaning, soy. Fields planted in about 6 villages in and around Mvangan, with a demonstration field at the hospital. It's growing well. Soon, we'll harvest, and the Delegue d'Agriculture (henceforth DAADR, or Essome) and I will do animations on the benefits of soy and how to prepare it and incorporate into local dishes. Baby step one in my malnutrition campaign. What's step two? I have no idea. Yet.

Nutrition

Well, see above. That and the other week when I was alone at the hospital (our HIPC personnel – or all of the hospital/district staff- were in Ebolowa clamoring for their pay. All other provinces got paid in September, and they got paid for a year. The South JUST got paid…after much fighting…and they got paid for 6 months. Have I expounded on corruption yet and on how World Bank/IMF/Global Fund initiatives DON'T WORK on the ground? Another time.) I had fun drawing nutrition posters. This is work, too….in the life of a PCV, anyway.

Club santé

High school health club. I'm their "conseillère" (advisor). We're planning activities for Dec. 1, World AIDS Day. Their ideas, mostly. Last week they launched a contest for the best AIDS day related drawing/slogan. I was pretty excited about that. We're planning a party for Friday, after a round table discussion..this is the suite to my own "Semaine du SIDA" (AIDS week) that happened in mid-October.

Bibliotheque

Library! The building is finally under construction. As in they've knocked out all the walls in an old house to make one big room. Next is building bookshelves…This is the Mairie (town hall + mayor) 's contribution. I received books from an NGO in Paris, Les Enfants de Madame Ici. Library opening should be in the next few months.

Follow-up Semaine du SIDA

The AIDS week was a success. We taught about 400 students all week on HIV/AIDS basics, transmission, testing, counseling, prevention, living positively…and some had the opportunity to have a testimonial from an HIV-positive woman. 190 students got tested, from 6 th to 12th grade. Follow up has been the creation of the health club and work on Dec 1 activities. We'll see. This is a much longer story…for later.

…And that's all she wrote, folks. For this time. Happy almost-December.

District BAD

2006-11-21T13:12:00.000-08:00

28 Sept 2006

The only way to describe my life, I think, is in particular anecdotes.Take yesterday.
(at this writing, have not slept in about 40 some-odd hours. take note)
Got up around 6:30 with the neighbors chopping wood (ususally it's at 6, so this was a bonus). Had a leisurely breakfast with the cat for company. Got dressed in my 'brousse' clothes (there are a lot of clothes relegated to that status, now) and set off to "work" with my hoe in hand. (Not the machete, this jeudi propre). For the next 2 hours, along with tall the hospital personnel - nurses, lab techs, the doctor, etc - I helped to clear the field we're using as a soy demonstration plot. As the lowest skilled membre of the team (when it comes to farm work), I got to clear brush for most of the time, though I did end up tilling with my trusty hoe. After two hours, thoroughly covered in dirt (which actually shows on me), I went home to shower and really get ready for "work." Work consisted of a few hours of action planning with the doctor, on STIs/AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis, Water and Hygiene....etc. As he said to me about a week ago, "Mvangan has been declared a district BAD!" "But what did we DO?"
BAD = Banque Africaine du Developpement, and they're funding us, apparently, specifically to do formations/in-services on topics related to family planning.

So all week we've been working on very detailed action plans on every possible topic in the district. Most with objectives of "by December 2007..." funny, cause, that's when I leave. Sortof like i'm writing out my own legacy, or my plans for one. And if we even do half of what we've set out to do, it will be pretty wonderful.

So, the power's been out in Mvangan for the past month. The action plan needs to be typed for BAD. We wrote everything by hand, with the plan to take our computer to the Catholic Mission hospital, Bimengue, 7 km away - they have a generator and it's on every night.
Sunday. We did this. And forgot to take our power strip which adapts to all plugs. Well apparently (we hadn't realized) we have an American plug monitor. And Bimengue, funded by Italians, has Italian plugs.
So, no dice.
Every subsequent night it was raining too hard to drive over there - and - the road is quite a walk from the hospital, with a computer...
Doc knew I was leaving Friday morning and we had to finish. So he proposed we go over THursday around 4 pm, ask them to turn the generator on early (it's usally at 6 pm), and work until we finished. We did go then, and luckily, because it was the only time all day that it wasn't raining. (In case it's not yet clear, it's rainy season now).

At the hospital, we found Desiree, one of the volunteer nurses at the District Hospital - in labor with her 5th child. She'd been in labor since early that morning, and it wasn't progressing very fast. Her husband is a nurse at Bimengue. As the Doc examined her, I entertained their 3-year-old daughter, Brenda...until he power returned and I tried to distract her with the very Western game of "draw me a picture." No dice.

At any rate, power comes on at 6:30, Doc and I set up the computer and begin to work on our 35 page (now) plan, while he periodically checks on Desi. The action plan, in very complicated tables I've only learned how to format here, details reproductive health, maternal and infant health, maternity at lower risk, vaccination programs, STIs/AIDS, family planning, primary care, malaria, tuberculosis, nutrition, water and hygiene, and pharmacy management. If we actually do half of this, this year....anyway.

We worked until 10, me enertaining Brenda/writing, the Doc checking on Desi/writing and brainstorming with me (we'd already written a draft of the plan, longhand), the other nurses running around...and labor not progressing. The child, by estimates, looked to be over 10 lbs.
Around 10 pm, the head nurse of Bimengue brought dinner for he "night crew" assembled. I didn't know it at the time, but we got special provisions of extra generator time due to the impending delivery (it usually goes off at 9).

So, 11 pm, Doc decides it's time to do an emergency C-section. The nurses are assembled and scrub in. And I...leaving my typing duties to my medical curiosity...follow, put on scrubs, and stand, fascinated, as the procedure is readied. Desi's husband also scrubbed in...able to work? On hand, anyway.

I'd been warned before...real-life, movies...that this was a fast procedure.
And yes, it was fast.

But the baby had already descended pretty far down in the birth canal, so it was work to bring him back up. Fast. Handed over to two other nurses, ready for reanimation.
One minute. Two minutes. Shaking him, suctioning his nostrils, doing mouth-to-mouth, shaking him upside down...
In the third minute, he cried.
And I started breathing again.
As the long, complicated closing procedure began, I followed the nurses with the infant. They weighed him, washed him, clothed him, and then, completely unsterile, I walked the floor with him in my arms. I tried to introduce him to his big sister, but she wasn't impressed.

The operation was finished at 1:15 am, with the action plan duly (almost) finished. Doc and I demounted the compuer, packed it in the car, and drove back to Mvangan. 1:45. We woke up the pharmacist to write a command for HIV tests for me to take to Ebolowa the next day, in preparation of AIDS week (Oct 16-21). 2 am, I'm home, finished packing. 2:30, the car arrives, and I leave for Ebolowa. ...to then go to Yaounde, arrive after running errands all morning in Ebolowa, and get straight to work preparing for the arrival of 30 new trainees.
The next evening, back at the airport. 365 days later, waiting for a new group.
African time.

As this is almost a month old, now, more to come soon.

Not going anywhere for awhile?

2006-08-21T16:39:00.000-07:00

le 27 juillet

(grab a Snickers). American marketing is truly amazing. As are American pens (just went to my writing utensils bag to discover it...almost empty? Is this a quasi-veiled plug "please send me pens"? Yes).
I cannot count the number ot times that slogan has flashed across my eyes. Waiting for a bus, waiting on the side of the road for a bus to be fixed, waiting for a meeting to start...waiting. My IPOD has enlivened such times, as have the less-modern books and magazines, but I've gotten amazingly good at staring into space, thinking of nothing, and making the hours *fly* by.
And I've gained an appreciation for Snickers, rare as they are. Nothing like a cold Snickers and a cold COca Light from Deli in Ebolowa...oh, this letter will NOT be solely a product placement. But I do miss products.
Today...I grabbed a banana. This was during a water source/soy bean growing (longer story) meeting in Zoebefam. The meeting had erupted into a 30 minute long high-pitched brawl in Bulu, over the creation of subcommittees within the main committee. (which I mostly understood! victory!)
I wrote the silent scream in red pen on my banana peeel. (For those unfamiliar with my away messages of years past, the silent scream is a -silent- expression of utter frustration during which I channel Munch's painting of same title). I wish you could frama banana peels.
This is when I started yelling at the villagers. "The ONLY IMPORTANT THING is getting potable water for the entire village; the rest is just DETAILS!" Everyone agreed with me, but. Cameroon's culture (damn colonizers? maybe) is thoroughly entrenched in bureaucracy. You can't have a club, a meeting without officers and *titles* for everone else. People like title. THey collect them, like....like away messages on banana peels (I wish). And often, the title is just as empty as the banana's torn skin. In Mvangan, one person (I've been particularly angry with him lately) has been president of the local AIDS committee, community relay for malaria, community impregnator of mosquito nets, and now president of the COSA (health committee, made of community members, runs the hospital). What has he done? Absolutely nothing. NO need to rant now on how I *don't* understand the culture/mentality of continually appointing/electing people to positions when they have shown no evidence of work yet lots of stealing money. (Will PC shut me down for this? Hmm. Dev, please post a disclaimer "does not represent the views of the US Peace Corps." thanks ;) Oh, "not" being a government employee.
The meeting ended amicably with me responding to requests I stay for palm wine with "ma wo'en!" (I'm tired). Left the house at 1:30 pm, left Zoe at...6. The letter Paul had sent informing people of the meeting had only reached some, so we spent 2 hours visiting every house in the village, while he also gave me a deeper look at village social politics. (Have I mentioned he's my erstwhile counterpart- for this and other - and is the head of the lab at the District Hospital of Mvangan? Ok). (It's his village).
Still haven't written in the post book- dammit. Maybe I'll print these for the PCV in Mvangan 07-09. Oy.

Today was also jeudi propre (see previous), so by 7:30 I was at the hospital with me (dirty) hoe. An hour and a half. ANd only 3 of us working.
Today is also July 27, which marks one year since I got my letter of placement from Peace COrps. One year since I started thinking about Cameroon, talking about it, wearing it on T-shirts...and now, and now, it's truly home.

A word on "motivation." In French, it's an exact cognate with the English word. In fact, the word is Franch. In Cameroon...it means money. APparently staff didn't receive "motivation" the last jeudi propre, from the Doc's own pocket, as he's done other times (we're talking 300 F CFA here - 60 cents - to buy beignets). So, most people were en grève today. ANd I'm currently baking banan bread because there have already been complaints that my formation on nutrition/malnutrition (in-service - tomorrow, was going to be today) included no "motivation" or "pause café" (coffee and pastries...which I'll admit was a highlight of those early days of PC in Yaoundé. STILL).
Apple Foster's Clark is amazing, ps. The more "cosmopolitan" PCVs had treied this long ago, but I just found it in Mvangan. (product placement! I can't hide the country of my rearing)
The formation wasn't today because Laure, one of my favorite district nurses, from Nselang, showed up with a case of PFA - paralysie Flaxe aigue, or, in short, suspected polio. In national (and WHO) policy, one case equals an epidemic, in terms of response. (At the time of this writing...well I thought I'd know but I don't know yet. So). I'm not revealing anything the govts of Cameroon, France, Congo, and WHO don't already know - stool samples were rushed to the Centre Pasteur in Yaounde Friday for confirmation, then to Brazzaville, then Paris. THe Doc hurriedly explained all this to me this morning as he waited for the child (23 months) to arrive. Everyone was busy, and my medical curiosity got me - I wanted to see the exam (and I did). Nigeria doesn't vaccinate for polio, at least in some states, and thus endangers all of West and Central Africa. It's *almost* eradicated here. But there have been cases, often of transmission by way of Nigeria. ANd this - well. I've seen a lot of adult/teenage polio victims, but since they started every child campaigns...
Nutrition. Reading through myriad textbooks, I realize I've SEEN pellagra (vit B3/niacin deficiency), rickets (vit D/calcium deficiency), vit A deficiency, kwashiorkor...this in the rainforest where food grows to fulfill every need and children should not be suffering diseases cause by insufficient sunlight (rickets). There is a meeting of all the traditional chiefs of the arrondissementon Saturday. The Chef (mine, of Mvangan village) has asked me to attend, to take pictures (*3 things I'm not - English teacher, computer teafcher, photographer, oh wait...) I'm hoping to use the opportunity to talk about health - all the services at the hospital and especially those that are free.

...finally, I'm doing something that feels like *something*...maybe.

The cat is boycotting dinner. There's something to be said for turning into your mother (eep, father, in this instance). Yelling at a feline "I don'"t CARE if you'd rather have Friskies, tonight is sardines! That's what's for dinner and you're going to eat it!" Well, she can go hunt, unlike myself at a young age.
NO snakes or other reptiles of note, indoors. Though in the last bush taxi I took, there was apparently a live viper among someone's luggage...the chargeurs put a swift, machete end to that, mid-voyage.

...and for this installment, that's all she wrote.

Compendium

2006-07-18T16:43:00.000-07:00

e 1 juillet 2006

And for once I write this real-time. As you're reading, France may
have claimed victory over Brazil...or not...I don't care, I'm still
riding high on Tuesday's beautiful match against Spain. Nationalisic
pride.

(**edit, 16 July 2006 - so France lost to Italy in penalty kicks, and Zizou lost control of his head (literally). I'm still exuberantly proud of the matches vs. Spain, Brazil, and Portugal. Vive la France!)

Months march on without regard to days. Travel could be a part of
that. And...no more snakes.
Last week was a PC collaboration in Makak (yes). The PCV there
held a sports camp for 35 kids, ages 10-18ish, and the South, ever
eager for work, went to help. It's a curriculum, Sports for Life,
that uses soccer (*real* football) o teach about HIV/AIDS -
transmission, prevention, goal-setting, stigmatisation, etc, etc.
Then every afternoon there was a match. ..The week was good, hard, exhausting, frustrating, and rewarding. And I will write more but I've completely lost that train of thought.

Le 14 juillet 2006

Afternoon of indulgence and one froisséd piece of paper. Three errands – strike 2 – and enough deranging to make me want to start elbowing the men who touch me. Basta.

Off to the salon de thé (dit "la France") where I bought Skittles (but there are NO M&Ms in this country), Trix, cat food, and pears. Now for lemonade (1500) and a crèpe (vive la France!) On my own national holiday – in honor of which I decided to go register to vote – I forgot that the Embassy would, of course, be closed.

Middle American family one table over – mom, dad, 3 kids – missionaries?

Yaoundé needs to be more than grocery stores and DVDs. A lot of work accomplished ce matin, though – starting at 7:30 am. Yesterday, 6:30.

The waitresses here are dressed much like they would be at Sonic (took me 15 minutes to remember the name).
Waiters are wearing bow ties and black vests. Amazing fresh lemonade. Everything fresh here – we made hummus, tabouleh, salsa, and tortillas last night.
In the States, will I go back to buying tortillas, pita, salsa, guacamole, hummus…well, it's cheaper. Here I can get a few avocadoes for 100F (20 cents).
There – well. People tell me sodas are better here – real cane sugar, as opposed to high fructose corn syrup – but I don't remember.

Anecdote, appropriate. A PCV friend recently went to Paris (where she incidentally saw my aunt). In a nice restaurant, she ate fish with her hands (it makes so much more sense! Can't go back) and spit the bones on the floor.

PCVs aren't uncouth, we're just…integrated.

This family could be at Denny's. It's weird.

Saw the new PCTs yesterday. So young (ok most older than me, but young in Cameroon terms), fresh, enthusiastic. And
clean. They are also Ed/SED, or PCVs with "jobs."

This might be the best club I've ever joined (PC, then RPCVs).

A list of observations, as I'm not
pose enough to write linear narrative.

-

gas here is the equivalent price in USD. Now compare average Cameroonian salary to average US salary.
Now imagine gas costing $20, $25 /gallon. Taximen turn the engine off when doing downhill.

-
World Cup/Olympics should be in a developing country. This was discussed last night, and I think it's intriguing.
Outside sponsors would be needed. But it would force corrupt governments to improve (create?) infrastructure, roads, electricity, water, etc. It would help the economy and boost tourism.
And make the 3rd world more part of the world. And Cameroon has mountains, rivers, ocean..

South Africa is hosting the 2010 World Cup (to which I was invited by one of my neighbors) but we here in PC Cam mockingly refer to South Africa as "the Western world."
There is Peace – harder – Corps than this. But not by very much.

Need to buy a phone card sometime. It gets tiring to be contactable.

The 15-year-old daughter of a family I know well is pregnant. I found out a month ago from a list of absences/pregnancies posted outside the lycée—I was afraid to go see her to confirm it.
And it's true, it's true. I don't know how she managed to –not- show in her tight jeans and shirts (she's beautiful and she knows it. This is something I've feared happening for awhile.
In the States would I hate myself for assuming that someone's appearance could cast aspersions on their behavior? Maybe. But here, there seems to be more truth to that.
And the consequences are a hell of a lot more dire). She's huge now. Her mom – a colleague of mine at the hospital, said she's taught her to calculate her cycle.
She brings home condoms and has taught her how to use them. And yet.

She – the daughter – is smart, dynamic, and eloquent. She recited a poem about SIDA (AIDS) at the fête de la jeunesse, in February (was she pregnant even then? Maybe).

I just got undercharged by 1500 for the first time in my life here (undercharged). Happy Bastille Day, indeed. The manager/owner – Greek guy – just came over and asked me for suggestions, how I liked the place, what he could change, do better, etc. Did he come talk to me because I'm young, white, and female (and alone)? Yes. Did he reduce the price? Wondering. Ahh…Greeks in Cameroon. There are a lot, for some reason.

Jenny in the News

2006-07-17T20:34:00.000-07:00

Jenny sent a link to an article about Cameroon in the Baltimore Sun: Monkey meat and its hazards. She mentions some highlights:

(well, i'm in it, oh, and credited) [in the slideshow/gallery]
old man sitting in bed is the chief of akam
man holding goat, about to slaughter it, is my house guardian, joel
house pictured with boots in front - that's my friends marthe and joel's house
church, other shots of village - that's all akam (and literally, that's about *all* of akam)
truck overloaded with cocoa on the road? that was on the way back to mvangan; we got delayed about half an hour there
(turn the captions on for the slideshow; it helps)
pangolin on the tree? good stuff.
mat (lebreton) "trekking through the forest"? that's about 20 feet behind the project house

Check it out!

Mmmm....rats.

2006-07-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

Waaaaaay down South

(It’s true; there’s only one PCV in country who’s further south than I am)

*an article I just wrote for our environmental education newsletter. And keep in mind that these are the rantings of a *former* vegetarian...*

Mvangan is a village of 2000 people in the South province, about 50 km from the natural border with Gabon. It’s both the seat of the arrondissement and the seat of the health district (I’m based at the district hospital), but being in the South province, there are few people, little infrastructure, and few income-generating projects going on. The main economic activities are cocoa farming and bush meat hunting.
So….what’s in the South…besides the beautiful equatorial rainforest, the childhood home of Paul Biya, the Bulu, several land/animal reserves, KRIBI, and Ebolowa, provincial capital and “gem of the South”? Well, there’s a lot of bush meat. And I know bush meat used to be the buzzword (and only word…) of EE, but it’s true – bushmeat and manioc are the staple foods in the South province. And that in itself provides a lot of Health/EE opportunities, but for now…I’ll focus on bush meat…and its new, lovely, photogenic alternative – the cane rat.
And it tastes like chicken. (awww)(….dinner!)
Through a partnership with Heifer International, Peace Corps is funding cane rat training for farmers in several provinces. Two planters from my village are attending two weeks of cane rat training this month, with training and progenitors (one male and three females – rodent polygamy). As I recently completed two hours of cane rat training [with the (currently) sole raiser of cane rats in the South province], I consider myself an unqualified expert who can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about cane rats but never thought to ask.
First, why cane rats? (besides that they taste like chicken)
Cane rats are also called aulacodes or herissons in French. Similar to guinea pigs (calico-colored, overgrown hamsters? Yep, they’re good food too), they look like a cross between rats, rabbits, and hedgehogs. One cane rat can fetch as much as 15.000 F CFA at the current market rate – this meat is pretty special. Cane rats are easy to domesticate, are relatively cheap to feed (grass, anyone? Little bit o’ manioc and corn?) and being polygamous, reproduce at a fantastic (for the breeder) and alarming (for the mother) rate. One female cane rat, after a gestation of 5 months, can have a litter of 2 – 15 furry little drumsticks…
And that’s probably more than you ever wanted to know.
But. Introducing and promoting alternative sources of protein to bush meat (and this can also include plants like soy and moringa) can a) help reduce hunting pressure on wild species 2) add protein to the diet by having more consistent sources available (yay health!) and 3) provide an excellent income-generating activity for your community. And this will hopefully tie into future/in-the-planning nutrition animations in the community. The Bulu are traditionally hunters, and meat = pride. Introducing non-animal forms of protein is an uphill battle, but worth the challenge.

Nods knowingly Oh, la Sorcellerie.

2006-06-12T03:57:00.000-07:00

Le 10/06/06

(apologizes for using action brackets in the title. Couldn’t be helped).

Background note – Mus (or Musica, Musser, Mustifer, or Lazy Cat) is my cat. Clingy, neurotic African cat.

I had an argument with the chef. Too long of a story to explain…essentially, rather than seeing me and wanting money, he has seen me and wanted a Project. This is closer to a PCV’s job, yes, but the particular project has turned into a territorial/family dispute. And has lately made me Angry. (the project is not going to happen). After some harshly spoken loud words with him and with Mama Regine on the subject…I went home. End of story.

That night, lying in bed, I start to hear strange noises. I’ve gotten used to living alone in my house. Used to the noises chickens make beneath my windows, noises my neighbors in back make, noises of mangoes and birds falling on the roof. I’m even used to the (somewhat rare) noise of Mus devouring a mouse or a little gecko.

This was different than all those.

To convince myself that it was not, in fact, a human intruder in my house, I turned on my bedside lamp.

The fuse blew and the lamp exploded.

Ok, I know where my flashlight is at all times. It helps when electricity is uncertain.

I get out of bed, slightly shaken, and walk to the living room. It’s dark, but the light switch is on the other side of the room.

In the middle of the floor is Mus.

Wrestling with a long black snake.

I panic. Don’t scream. Somehow have the presence of mind to back away to the kitchen to get my butcher knife.

I stand there, shaking, knife in hand. Mus is fighting valiantly. I reason that – since she seems okay – the snake must not be poisonous. This doesn’t help so much. Standing there, shaking, with the knife. Had I my machete (on the other side of the room, next to the light switch, would entail stepping over the snake) I think I would have hacked at it. But the knife…handle too short, I have to get too close to the snake, if I don’t hit hard enough the first time and it reacts up at me…no.

The snake is tightly curled on the floor. There’s some snake blood on my cement…is it dead? Maybe. I wait. I go get my raclette (squeegee like broom for mopping the floor). I will just push it out the front door…it starts to uncurl. Slowly. As calmly as I possibly can, I push it toward the door. Forceful. Step around it to unlock the door, open, push it as far as I can out into the yard. Mus follows (but she can get back in through the window). Shut the door. Lock it again. Turn on all the lights in the house. Go back to my bedroom, shaking…as I realize there is enough room under my door for a snake to crawl, I push a suitcase against it. There. Fine.

Somehow, I manage to sleep.

In the morning, I get up, remove the obstruction at my door, go back into the living room.

There, lying stretched across my books, is a dead black snake.

The same one.

Mus didn’t eat it…it’s completely intact…but she killed it somehow. And she’s sitting on her usual chair, purring, now meowing at me for breakfast.

Shaking…again…I pick it up with the same raclette and fling it into the side yard. Truly, truly dead.

Then I look at my doors. Front door – no way in hell a snake could have gotten under. …same with the back door.

Window? How could a snake climb several feet up the cement wall? And why?

Mus is notorious for brining in the mice and geckos to eat inside. And leave the heads for me to find. But…the snake was bigger than her. And she didn’t want to eat it. She would have had to jump through the window, struggling with it…and why.

And it almost six months I have never seen a snake in Mvangan.

Snakes are traditionally connected with sorcery. They’re warnings, say, to make you pay attention or change your ways or whatever.

I don’t believe in sorcery.

But if I did….

I have no idea how the snake got inside.

Mus, my hero.

I think.

She got Friskies (dry, found now in Ebolowa, her new favorite) for her efforts, and the next day, an avocado.

Paging Dr. Jenny

2006-05-30T08:52:00.000-07:00

le 8 mai 2006

Uhhh…what-now ?

Saturday afternoon, leaving my house to walk to Mvangan centre to try
to retrieve a letter for the 4th time, I was intercepted by one of the
nurses. Essola walks toward me. "Jenny!" (keep in mind that the
following dialogue took place in Cameroonian French). "Yes?" "There's
a mother here with a malnourished child. I just sent her to your
house. I'll call her back so you can consult with her."
*deep breath* *I can pretend that I'm competent enough to counsel a
mother worried about her 20-month old daughter who has stopped eating
and is currently presenting with malnutrition, while the other child
(they're twins) is fine....*
Thus went my first patient consult. Trying to ask thoughtful,
meaningful questions, and to give decent answers and advice. Yes.
Looking at my resource books later, I did a decent job. Considering.
This all came about because at our last staff meeting, we were
discussing the month's cases and came upon a child with kwashiorkor
(severe malnutrition). The Doc decided that I (an expert on
nutrition? I've mentioned to him that I'm very interested in the
subject, but...) would plan an in-service on nutrition for all the
nurses and come up with a meal plan to give to mothers of malnourished
children. With preparation and planning and research, fine. But
spur-of-the-moment is what PC Cam is all about. So there you have it.
First patient consult, check. (how many years till I start med
school?)
In the middle of said staff meeting, a high school girl I know pretty
well came in. "Jennifer, on a besoin de toi." Curious, I go outside,
and run into the first arrival for the Jazz Fete de Mvangan 2006,
fresh off several hours on a moto, from Sangmelima. (**free weekend
for volunteers of same province. Still, names of the Innocent
withheld**). I was expecting him to arrive with the bread truck the
next day, so this was a surprise. Few hours later, the next three
arrive (from a bush taxi (van) filled with 22 people. They counted.
And chickens. All par for the course) ... and the greatest spectacle
Mvangan has seen in awhile was walking around town. Five Ntangens.
Pretty amazing. (Though more amazing is that in the course of the
weekend, I got my table! Almost four months later and much smaller
than I was envisioning. More of a desk. Now for work on table number
2...). PCVs can be pretty creative. Meaning, in this instance, that
we can try our best to make Western food with Cameroonian ingredients
and a marmite oven. Over the weekend, there was pizza, falafel,
hummus, and pita. All made from scratch (except the falafel). What
else. Saturday afternoon we walked down to the Nlobo (river), watched
kids jumping in and did resist the urge to jump in after them and
quickly contract Schisto. Umm, for now. (what, it's treatable...and
besides which is a great word to say....SCHISTO!) We ran into a cocoa
(and L'Oreal) importer/exporter, neighbor of [another PCV]. Having
lived in NYC at 46th St and 8th Ave for 10 years, working for Grayline
as a tour guide, R.C. regaled us with tales of how he is a "f*cking
smart guy, man" and how not to pick up transvestites in Brooklyn and
take them to XXX clubs. (If I had our entire conversation on tape, it
would be a perfect SNL skit. Except. It was real. I'm not going to
try, won't come close enough).

Quick and lovely ride back up to Ebolowa in a hired car (as none of
the agence cars went, Sunday, because it had rained that morning).
The five of us and two drivers in the same size car in which I once
traveled to Ebolowa with 13 others. Pas mal. Lovely evening
culminating in drinks with a bunch of French volunteers who had
congregated for a similar Fete. DCC....D Catholic C something.
Anyway. Two differences between them and PCVs: they are professionals
(nurses, businesspeople, teachers, and the like) and they live in more
urban areas. Translated, they got mad skillz (that we don't got) but
they're not roughing it en brousse. (Though neither are all PCVs.
And some do have skillz, even mad onez.)
Their French was...difficile à suivre. Fast. French French. And I
realized exactly *how* Cameroonian I sound now, though compared to
Cameroonians I sound very French. Odd to have trouble understanding
your first language.
And dancing! West African drumming and dancing! (at the bar in
Ebolowa). Different than Cameroonian dance, which is more like placid
walking around in a circle. Cameroonian dance is a lot more about the
song. And West African dance...is about flying. African dancing, in
Africa. A good, rare moment to remember "Oh yeah, I live in Africa."
It's month 8 now.

As I said to Kim at IST, Mvangan is a curious mix of "there's nothing
to do" and "AHH!!! I'm overwhelmed!!!" This morning I was working on
3 rather large-scale projects, thinking of a 4th, and planning time to
go work with an infirmier en brousse (Amvom, about halfway between
here and Akam. He, Sylvain, was going to get a PCV (like a TV
gameshow gift!) if there were enough, but alas). He wants to do a
major program on malnutrition, regrouping villages and talking to
women's groups, etc, developing a treatment plan. He also wants to do
youth sensibilisations in the summer, when the kids of the area are
regrouped together for soccer tournaments and weeks of cultural
events. This is Brilliant. And something a PCV is *made* to do (if
that can be said about anything). And the practice we had doing
animations at soccer games in Bandjoun every week could actually come
in handy. And he's the counterpart of my dreams....as in, has ideas,
has time and energy to put toward them, and really wants to work with
me. And is 30 km away, at least 2 hours on a moto, and 3000. To plan
for a trip to Akam, or on the way back from Akam. The days pass very,
very slowly here...but the months are flying. *soudain* I'll be 23
and a half in a few weeks. That's halfway through a year spent
entirely in Cameroon. What is time like, state-side? I don't
remember.

Two years is short. To try to accomplish something? Anything?
Minuscule. When you add in banking trips, free weekends, having 3
posts, vacations, meetings....

Third post, Zoebefam. I don't live at that one, contrary to Mvangan
and Akam. ...yet. When we actually start work on the sources (*it's
going to happen! It's going to happen!* says Tinkerbell), I'll live
there for the two weeks, at least, the work takes. (And there's
another month gone, basically. Likely, August. IFF PC gets British
High Commission funding and the village gets materials together and I
get the grant done and it's accepted. ) I was there last Sunday and
I'll be there again in a week, to establish a work calendar and get
people moving to gather sand, rocks, wood, planks, etc, etc. And get
work groups established to actually défriche the sources and work on
them when the time comes. It feels homey, now...I know my way around
and I'm getting to know people there. The nurse, Paulette, is
wonderful. "We're going to go house to house to get contributions.
If people won't give money, they'll give materials. And if they won't
give materials, they'll work. And if they won't work I'll come into
their kitchen and take a marmite and sell it to get the money!"
And that's how you get sh*t done.
There might not be anything big. But if at the end of two years,
there are enough little-to-medium things that feel like they existed,
it'll be okay. Two years. So, so, short.

Off to try to get mosquito nets put on my windows. I haven't been so
motivated to do this (neither are the carpenters...) because there are
no mosquitoes around my house. As in, the only mosquito bites I get
are while traveling and in other villages. Worst? Yaoundé, PC
compound, the Case, computer room.

Over and out.

Oh, Cameroun

2006-04-09T21:11:00.000-07:00

("Oh, Cameroun" is the greeting message on my cell phone, programmed around 6 am on a bush taxi. And what we say. A Lot.)

I took a machete to work the other day. Not only was that not strange or incarceration-worthy, I was expected to do it. The last Thursday of the month is "jeudi propre" at the hospital, and we défriche the surroundings – cut grass, weeds, trees, etc (trees can be weeds, here), rake, hoe, machete. Burn leaves. All the personnel do it, and that means me, no? And me wielding a machete – my own, mind you – is about the funniest thing any Cameroonian has ever seen. Repeatedly. I'm glad to provide the entertainment. And my technique is improving. (anyone who has ever felt that cutting grass with a lawnmower, in the sun, was hard work – try doing it with a machete).

Life in a small village in Africa also means my colleague (a nurse at the hospital) came over at 7 – and woke me up – to borrow my hoe. I've tried to explain that I am not a morning person, that people shouldn't come over that early for their own good. It hasn't worked, so far. But at least I'm comfortable enough here, now, to groan and yell at people that early (though they won't go away and stand there, talking, singing, until I come to the door). It helps. Work hours for the government (and hospital) here are 7:30 to 3:30 – but being a PCV 24/7, and not *actually* having a job, I feel justified in coming in by 8.

Kids take machetes to school, too, including primary school kids. Défrichage (translation? It's hard because it's not really something you can do, besides in the tropics. Rainforest) of school grounds – they have "manual labor" as part of PE (don't worry, they get to play soccer and handball, too). No fears of school violence, here.

I had a discussion about gun-carrying – especially in Texas – here, today. (Here = Akam, village of 100 people in the Mengame Gorilla reserve, 7 km from Gabon. See previous). They think such an adamant stance over – what? The right to bear arms? - is insane. I agree. Interesting what news permeates, and where.

Today – April first, incidentally, but the following is real – I started off the morning by tracking down the guy who's supposedly been making me a table and chairs for 2 months (he's hiding from me. I gave him an ultimatum last week), arguing with my moto chauffeur over money (to take me to Akam from Mvangan), and finding confirmation that he was way overcharging me from my erstwhile counterpart, Pascal, who is awesome (and Anglophone) but now lives in Yaoundé. Finally, we left.
14 km later, we stopped in Zoebefam, a village where I'm doing a water project. (We stop a lot so my chauffeur, Essono, can chat with people. Everybody knows everybody). But here – I felt Cameroonian – because I also had to stop and greet friends/acquaintances. Essono got annoyed. Ohwell. He just wanted to get back fast so he could make up what he'd thought I would pay.

We arrived in 3 hours, and I had the whole, huge project house to myself. For about 10 minutes. Then people started coming by (everyone knew within seconds that I was here). First the school director's wife, who I think is going to be a good friends but I still don't know her first name – that's embarrassing. Then Seraphim, who often translates in meetings for the Hopkins folks (and me) and serves as a guide. Then off to the corps de garde – sort of town square, open air building with bamboo beds, chairs, an elephant skull, songo (mancala) etc, where everyone (the men) generally hangs out. There I greeted the chef, who doesn't speak French (nkou'kouma a ndji kabo fulassi) but I managed to get a few things across in Bulu. He sent someone back to his house to get us lunch – a luscious avocado, plantain pilé (mashed plantain, sortof), and nfia ndo'o – mangue sauvage sauce. After a few more visits, a few hours of chatting in kitchens, I went home and picked a perfectly ripe papaya from my tree.

Idyllic? Could be.

Africa is poor. Yes.

But here, a poor man – any man – (and I specifically say man, not person) can get a bit of land (ask and ye shall receive, from the chef), build his own house at very little monetary cost, make his own fields – grow food, and sell the extra for money – or even just find food en brousse (in the bush/rainforest). He probably doesn't have potable water (depends on the village). His children are probably malnourished and probably have worms, and he probably can't afford to send them to school. Or to send them past primary school, if they're even so inclined. (This isn't even just a question of money/motivation. To take the exam at the end of primary school - which is necessary to enter 6eme, or the beginning of secondary school, the children of Akam have to walk about 30 km to the testing site).

But, what is poor?

(As to the women, Cameroonian women have few-to-no rights, in practice, at least. There are, of course, exceptions. Mayors (the mayor of Mvangan is a woman). Congressional reps (again, Mvangan). But at a dinner in her home, Honorable – the Rep – served men below her in political rank. Had to. But I digress. The farther out en brousse you go, the more true this is. In Akam, many women don't speak French (because they had little or no schooling). Last time I was here, a 14-yr-old gave birth. That's pretty average. Etc).

There is drumming from nearby, in the corps de garde. But for now I'm content to sit here – with my other half papaya – and write.

If there is anything I could most convey for goal 3 (this, and you, dear readers are goal 3 – see peacecorps.gov) it is the utter normalcy of my life here –and of people, everywhere. I make it sound exotic – by giving facts, yes, but it's all very matter-of-fact to me now. Today marks 6 months in Africa. Six months since I set foot on the continent I'd dreamed of for 16 years. Six months in Cameroon. (And 6 months ago today I was wondering – WTF is my luggage? I'M HUNGRY – and who are these people???).

Six months ago tonight I was worrying over forgetting to use bottled water to brush my teeth – I didn't, but almost, and my roommate did, panicked, and threw out her toothbrush.

Today I drank village water (from a clean source, good well. And only a little bit...) My new friend (the school director's wife... Marthe! Ha!) just came by with the porcupine she prepared ( I watched her scrape the quills off. I kept one). And I'm perfectly comfortable living au village, en super-brousse, with no electricity and water I carried in earlier today.

Six months. That's two trimesters of a baby. Neural development? Heart? I should know. (and on that note, just bit into some porcupine organ. Oh well.) To say everything has changed in both an understatement and an overstatement. I've gotten my head clearer about a lot of things, being here. Growing up? Not quite. It's like having a growth spurt – over the last 2 and a half years, say – and finally buying clothes to fit. And stopping hitting your head on things – knowing exactly when and where to duck.

I needed that.

And here's to another 20 months, or 21.

Dear gods, it's hard some days. But at the same time breathless and spellbinding and achingly beautiful and heart-to-overflowing. The truest thing about Peace Corps - pour moi - is that it's an emotional rollercoaster, from waiting to go to going to being here. And it doesn't stop. Not yet, anyway.

Six months. I've learned to not stress about things (it's true !), be boundlessly flexible, and never anticipate anything – because there are always, always surprises. (Meeting happening? Surprise! Meeting not happening? Surprise...)

I'm no longer afraid of lighting gas stoves. Or of motos. Or malaria or parasites or dysentery. Everything to do on a daily basis that seemed so overwhelming when the PCMOs first told us – even setting up a water filter ! – has become easy. Routine. I'm good at killing lots of time by staring into space (or sitting on a moto). Good at waiting patiently, let's say.

It's good to be home. I have so many. Anyplace I have attachment to people, things. Any place I have things that are mine to come back to. Any place familiar. I leave pieces of myself everywhere – were I Bulu, I'd leave babies. This is home is 2° 20' N, 11° E, thanks to my sat phone GPS. I just spoke to my parents, sitting on a log under my papaya tree. They worry. I forget there are reasons to. This is my very normal life. And it's Daylight Savings Time, again, in America. That's twice now, since leaving. We don't change. 2° above the equator, there's no reason to.

6 months ago – this morning –I began to realize what it would look like to be white in Africa. At the airport in Paris. A long line of Cameroonians, and all of us (then) PCTs. Now, in village, at least, it feels odd when (very rarely) I see another blanc. (There's an Italian priest and an Italian doctor at the Catholic mission 6 km from Mvangan. I go there on occasion – good food, company, and to remind myself that there are other white people in the world, I don't just look weird or have some sort of skin disease). I've been sunburned once in 6 months, and that was sitting for hours at a state funeral (in Mvangan). One minor jellyfish sting. Cumulative bug bites in the thousand range (no hyperbole).

I wish I could record the drumming right now. I'm leaving now, to join the village kids in dancing. It's Saturday night.

There are times when I'm perfectly zen.

This is one of them.

Stung by a Jellyfish in the night-equatorial-Atlantic (but it wasn't so bad)

2006-03-23T20:45:00.000-08:00

I was going to write about youth day, but time has passed and other things feel more iminent now. Maybe later.

I just spent a week (and a bit) at the beach, courtesy of US govt tax dollars - Peace Corps In-Service Training. This is a conference that occurs three months into service. It's supposed to be a milestone; we're not allowed to travel out of province or take vacation in the first three months, we're not supposed to start major projects, etc. When we separated in Bandjoun, after living together for 11 weeks, 3 months stretched long. And after living 3 months without any form of communication with the outside world (while at post), for the longest stretch, almost a month - it wasn't actually hard. Not that part. Now work will really commence. Maybe.

I've had questions about what life is like. Life, to me, is no longer exotic. During IST we watched Globetrekker in Cameroon and I realized, again, that my life here is very colorful and interesting and very different than anything I could have imagined from the States.

So, the topography of my life. Since arriving at post: absolute low - seeing my friend's sister dying of AIDS (feb 14). The only thing I could do - and what I did do - was take pictures. It's customary here to take pictures of dead loved ones, lain out on a bed in funeral attire. Being the funeral photographer felt like being the worst kind of paparazzi, but it was appreciated, and in another sense - being there - and being a part of the funeral - showed me how much i have become integrated into my community, how much it mattered to them to have me there, and how important it was for me to be there.

Highs - many. No matter how frustrating, shitty, aggravating a day might be, something wonderful happens every day. Without exception. And if it hasn't happened yet, I know where to go... to my friends in Mvangan village, like the chef, Mama Regine. (Incidentally, it was her sister who died).

* learning traditional cooking and wowing the villagers with my *prowess* (i'm slowly getting better...) at making batons de manioc (ebubolo in Bulu). This is manioc (cassava) that's been peeled, soaked in water for three days, mortar and pestled into a consistent mush (and that is HARD work. Mortar and pestling - is there a better word? The action is 'piler' here - is now my upper arm workout. Women here are incredibly, incredibly strong. And i'm not talking about a little mortar and pestle you put on a countertop. I'm talking about a huge wooden container you hold between your knees and a pestle longer and much thicker than a walking cane), then rolled into banana leaves, tied with cords (that come from the trunk of a banana tree), and cooked in a marmite. This is a major staple in the south - the basic
meal is batons and bush meat.

* going to the fields and doing slash and burn farming. (Yes, I'm slash and burning in the equatorial rainforest). Clearing brush is fun - and hard! I'm a big fan of manual labor and getting dirty. Also planting corn, manioc, etc.

* holding a water source meeting in Zoebefam (village 14 km past Mvangan, where I'm working on 2 or 3 springboxes. Whatever we can get funding for. The water in the natural springs is black. Literally, black. Animals drink there, so feces, mud, all kinds of bacteria...and this is what people drink. Because it's all there is). I co-ran the meeting with M. Paul, the head lab tech from the hospital in Mvangan. It's his village, and his idea. He translated everything I was saying into Bulu, which was wonderful. We also did water sanitation sensibilisation - talked about different ways to purify water. Had the community fill out a baseline survey about their water sources and associated problems (health issues). Made a community map. Walked around with them to visit all the water sources and wells. And then, leaving, they gave me a regime of plantains as a token of appreciation. It was really wonderful. Apparently they had also wanted to get me a bird (from the bush, to eat), but the hunters hadnt found anything for me when they went hunting.

Tapeworm - nope, it's not mine.

2006-02-04T03:02:00.000-08:00

le 31 Jan. 06

I’ve forgotten the use of weekends. Not for sleeping in - Saturday, marché at 6:30 am - if I’m actually motivated enough to go - and Sunday, up early for laundry and then making the rounds of the churches to meet the community. Slowly. I don’t go to the hospital as early on the weekend. But Friday night, Saturday night are the same as any other night - in by 6:30, BBC for the news and World Have your Say, dishes, making dinner, reading, writing a few letters. Maybe some home improvement work - I’m a big fan of my hammer. Fighting with the light fixture in my bedroom - the light stays on for 5 to 30 minutes, max. Then turns off. I’ve tried everything - changed the fixture, changed the bulb, cut, reworked, and reattached and tightened the wires; reshaped the metal attachment with pliers. And lots and lots of duct tape. Only once have I electrocuted myself in the weeks of working on it - I consider this a stroke of genius. Nothing seems to be a permanent fix. This is where having electricity is more of a hassle than a blessing. The living room light, at least, was permanently (so far) fixed by my duct tape concoction.
My clingy, neurotic cat, whose favorite food is avocado (and brownies seem to be a close second), has tape worms. Luckily, according to Where there is no doctor, this is not transmissible, person to person or cat to person. Good. But since I don’t have (and perhaps there isn’t yet one) Where there is no vet, I’ll wait till I get to the city to get her medicine in a proper dose. Also a new rabies vaccine. Might as well de-worm myself while I’m at it - it’s never a bad idea, living in the tropics. (as in, the Equatorial Rainforest).
Funny how the thing I absolutely did NOT want to come to Africa to do…teach English…well. The lycée (high school) vice principal approached me a few weeks ago about teaching English (as in, in a classroom). Actually he first asked the chef of Mvangan village -he is wonderful and is basically my grandfather here -whom I visit often. The chef was part of the founding committee for the lycée, about 10 years ago. (Before, students had to go - and walk, sometimes - hundreds of kilometres to go to the lycée in Ebolowa. Now there is one in Mvangan, which serves the students who are REALLY "en brousse" (in the bush), all the way to the Gabon border). The chef thought it was a fantastic idea and perfect solution for me to teach English. (There hasn’t been an English teacher for 5 years. English is one of the subjects on the national exams taken in 9th, 11th, and 12th grades, where a passing grade in every subject is required to move on to the next year of schooling. You do the math). Considering my innate aversion to teaching English in formerly colonized countries, my work at the hospital, in the community, in the health district of mvangan (13 healh centers), and in Akam with Hopkins (and in 9 other villages there), and the fact that Peace Corps highly discourages us becoming English teachers who are depended upon in the community - well. I refused. Teach how many classes of 30 - 60 kids, mostly unmotivated, write lesson plans and tests and…NO. But. Several students approached me, on their own, about their worries and desires to work more in English. Solution? English club. That way the lycée’s happy, the chef’s happy, the kids are happy, and I’m happy because it’s only the motivated ones, I figure, who will come. And it’s my own, my very own to do what I want with, whereas my girls’ group…is a little different than that. So yesterday I went to the lycée to meet with the current English dept - a German prof, French prof, Spanish prof - who are teaching the English classes but have no training in English (They do speak it. Partly. But apparently it’s very new that there are foreign language teachers, at all. Subjects also compulsory for the national exams). We went into all the classrooms to announce a planning meeting, then I sat in on a class. So I’m expecting 10s to 100s at the first meeting, which will dwindle sharply when we actually start having the club. Good. The class was … interesting. First, the times were mixed up so the prof and I waited an hour. Then the students were 15 mins to half an hour late. The vocabulary lesson was on the computer. This seems highly incongruous. Now, there is electricity in Mvangan, has been for about 4 years. There are 3 computers in town - at the hospital, where I’m currently typing, at the Sous-Prefet’s office, and in the Mayor’s office. There are computers and internet in Ebolowa, of course, but internet even there is fairly new - and it’s expensive - and how often do these kids go there? The high school does not have electricity - and honestly, it’s not very necessary, when you have windows and it’s sunny during the day and there aren’t night activities. Yet, yet, the knew "modem." Mouse. Etc. There are computer science classes, too, but as there are no computers, everything is theoretical. This is the same with the science classes, as there is no lab equipment. Teaching English - even peripherally, like I’m going to be doing - feels much better in Cameroun than it might elsewhere in the developing world. I think. Cameroun is, as a nation, bilingual. Of the 10 provinces, 2 are Anglophone - colonized by the British - and incorporated into the rest of Francophone Cameroun shortly after independence. The lingua franca in the Anglophone provinces, though, is not English but pidgin. All government activities are conducted in French. There’s a lot of animosity and political rivalry between Anglophone and Francophone provinces. At the universities, though, there are both Anglophone and Francophone professors - so some classes are taught in English, some in French. And if you don’t know both languages - well - you’re kinda screwed. Friday is National Bilingualism day. Bilingual has a very strict definition here - it means French/English. I am bilingual. Every Cameroonian (except those in the far out villages, far far in the bush, where many only speak their patois - local language) is bilingual. Everyone speaks a local language, then most speak French or English (or pidgin) on top of that. There is no recognition that pushing people to be fluent in both English and French makes them trilingual. Local languages are not valorised, not at the national level. There are about 250 of them in Cameroun, which means that for Cameroun to be a country, even, they have to keep and use colonialist languages. It’s the only common ground. In the South - where I am - everyone speaks Bulu, and that, all the time. Much more than they speak French. Hence my motivation and necessity to learn it, and quickly. Ma zu aye’e kabo bulu- I will learn to speak Bulu.
And I am, learning. I can usually pick up at least a little bit of what people are saying, now, grasping at the words I know (and blessed, blessed context clues and gestures). My main "teacher" is my friend Régine, a planter and truly amazing woman in Mvangan village. She does everything. Our "lessons" are when I go over to visit, sitting around her kitchen and helping/watching her cook. Kitchens, here - very, very important. And I’m talking about traditional kitchens. In Akam (more on that later), people live in their kitchens - or the cooking fire is in the one-room house. Here -a separate building from the house, bigger kitchen seems to indicate more traditional/villageois lifestyle. Wood, mud bricks. A fire in the middle, with stones on which to put the marmite (cooking pot. And these are pots as such I’ve never SEEN the size of , anywhere else. Many could be used to wash a medium-sized child. And they are, they are). Cane/bamboo beds placed around the fire, to sit on and also where people often sleep. Hanging baskets to dry meat, hold piment (hot peppers), dry peanuts, wild mango pits (used for cooking)…anything else that happens to be in season. The kitchen is where people are often congregated and is often the best place to hang out. The chef’s kitchen, just across from Régine’s, is always a flurry of activity. It’s close to the size of my house (and my house is pretty big. For me, anyway). His wife, daughters, daughters-in-law, grandchildren, always busy, always making something. I’ve helped several times there. They always give me food as a leave, especially when they’re making something that I haven’t tried yet. I brought banana bread the other day - which I knew was a favorite of the chef’s, and it’s pretty easy to make here. Now his daughters want me to teach them. Banana bread - is it really that American? has now been popularised in France and in Cameroun. Most Western food doesn’t go over well here, so I’m a bit hesitant about other things. I have a PC cookbook, though, and I’m working through as much of it as I can (it’s also a good evening activity. BBC, cook. And you really *don’t* need an oven to bake - Dutch oven (marmite, on the gas stove) works just as well. So many things I’m learning and re-learning. And all of that’s "work" too - it’s PC goal 2. (and this is goal 3! So many things accomplished!) Goal 1 - transfer of capacities, sustainable development, etc, etc is also going. Slowly.
Akam. Ahh. Village of about 100 people, 7 km from the border with Gabon. And that’s REALLY "en brousse." Right behind the houses begins the Mengame Gorilla Reserve, presided over by the Jane Goodall society. I was there for a week with the Hopkins team, doing meetings on bush meat and virus transmission (and ways to guard against it). Monkey meat is quite the delicacy in the South (nope, haven’t eaten any, and don’t plan to. Porcupine, yes. Antelope, yes. Pangolin, yes). When we got to Akam, everyone was eating elephant meat - a small one had been killed a few weeks earlier and it was still feeding the whole village! People in the rainforest hate elephants because they destroy their fields (plantations) and move the traps that hunters set. I haven’t yet seen any of these animals live. Saw lots of elephant meat, skin, an elephant skull in the village hangout/resting place/plaza (they use it as a seat). Saw a dead monkey just taken from the forest, a few antelopes, and other smaller animals. Next time (I go about once a month, or every two months) one of the hunters is going to take me for a walk in the rainforest. Akam is about 60 km from Mvangan, but it took 4 hours on a moto to get there. The road is too bad for all but the best of 4x4, off-roading, safari-type vehicles (aka, the Hopkins car. And even with that we got stuck in the mud on the way back for a few hours).
Next week is la fete de la jeunesse - national youth day. February 11. There are events every day - the students doing manual labor around town, clearing field, soccer tournaments, and soirées culturelles every night - the lycée, the technical school, the primary school, and my girls' group. Dancing - traditional and less so, singing, skits, etc. I'm excited - night life in Mvangan! EVERY night! Wednesday afternoon were the tryouts/preselection at the lycée. Since I live next to the lycée (quite literally), they were doing tryouts on the lawn, and I'm getting to be friends with several of the lycée kids, I went to watch. These kids can DANCE. Everything from Cameroonian dancing (bikutsi, makossa, plus the very popular ivoirien "coupé/décalé) to currently popular music, more traditional dances, and guys doing Michael Jackson-like moonwalking (incredible) to Usher. (I would love to see them do Thriller!) Even the teachers got in on the act. Sitting on the grass, talking, laughing (French and Bulu), kids coming over to sit with me, say hi, making fun of/cheering on their classmates... I have arrived.

"vin blanc"

2006-01-16T22:24:00.000-08:00

About a year and a half ago, I wrote a description of the "trip from hell" - 12 hours travel time between Boston and Dallas (1800 miles, usually a 3-4 hour flight). This trip included many hours of waiting in various airports, crammed uncomfortably in small planes, etc. And the only thing I could find to eat in the airport, one of them, was an apple and maybe some bread. And I had to fight to be allowed to fly that night at all, rather than being bumped to the next day (victory of calling on your cell phone to the 1800 number while standing in a shoving, angry line with your fellow passengers!) But to stay an extra week in Boston with my dear ones – all worth it.

My perspective has changed.

Allow me to describe a not atypical (but nothing is "typical" here – I've become very "laissez-faire") Cameroonian voyage, 2 weeks ago, en
route from Mvangan to Ebolowa for New Year's. Usually, there is an "agence de voyage" with vans that travel between Mvangan and the provincial capital (Ebolowa). That day, the vans were broken, so the passengers were transferred to a "klando" (non-registered, or personal) car. Toyota, early 90s, station wagon – but the back part was used for bags, so the interior is about the size of a Toyota Corolla. Twelve people inside (to be fair, including a few children). Two on top. Dirt road, 60 miles. How long did the trip take? Six and a half hours. We had two flat tires, the second one about 20 miles from Ebolowa and close to dark. The driver hopped on a passing moto to go get a new tire "in the nearest town" – where, a friendly neighbor woman told us, there were no tires. He would have to travel to Ebolowa and back.

Meanwhile, in a not atypical show of Cameroonian hospital, the neighbor took me and another woman from the car (by the by, a member of the President's personal guard) where we chatted for awhile and then were served dinner. Bringing out the plates: bush meat, plantain pilé, and "vin blanc". The woman asked me if I knew what "vin blanc" was here. Since this is often the name for palm wine, I acquiesced. She said "I prepared it with spinach." Not knowing what the bush meat was (I'll eat pretty much anything BUT monkey, the most common type in the South) and not wanting to be rude and ask, I helped myself to the plantain and the spinach and "vin blanc."

It so happens, however, that "vin blanc" here meant grubs. Not exactly sure what genus, but something grub-like with a definite exoskeleton and a soft inside. And the only thing I've eaten here that has brought me to the brink of being quite violently ill. I tried, I really did, after all – what is this but the royal road to acculturation? And after 7 pm, waiting for the driver for over an hour, in a village with no electricity and running quickly out of the water in my Nalgene (damn me for not bringing iodine tabs!), I expected to have to stay the night. My gracious hostess noticed my discomfort, laughed, and called one of the children to bring me fish. She and my fellow traveller finished my "vin blanc" with relish. While I crunched slowly on the fish bones, and we sat and talked awhile longer, the driver came back. With the help of some other passengers, he instated the new tire. We piled back into the car. We go a few hundred meters. The headlight (which was working, somewhat to my surprise) falls off. The driver gets out, puts it back on, and we continue. The headlight and (and the tires) stay on! Victory!

This is as a good a time as any to mention that it's dry season. You may not be aware of this, but the full meaning is that it hasn't really rained (except a few times, briefly) in two months. It's hot here. It's a (red) dirt road. The air – our clothes – the car – the bags – everything, everyone is coated in layers upon layers of dirt and dust. The windows have also been open for the entire trip. My lungs have begun to close, and every time we get out of the car I lapse into a hacking cough (and two weeks later, my allergies have improved to the point that I can – almost- sleep through the night without waking up in coughing fits. But not quite. As the PC/Cam medical manual says, if you haven't had allergies or asthma before, you'll develop them here. Dry season. And if you've had asthma before – well – it's back. Welcome back. I write this as I'm preparing to travel to Ebolowa, again, armed with a bandanna I'm determined to wear as a gas mask).

When we approach the first gendarme checkpoint, near the paved road (which feels like salvation, every time we get there – no matter how broken down the car is, from the paved road, you can get another car or a taxi into Ebolowa), the driver suddenly pulls over. The 2 (3 by now) on top jump off, and a few passengers in back get out. We drive through. The gendarme tries to extort (is it a bribe? Is it our driver not wanting to pay?) money, the driver refuses, and we wait awhile as his papers are taken away. Finally, the papers are restored and we drive through, picking up our renegade (it's against the law to have that many people in a car, but it's done as a matter of course) passengers. We continue. It's almost 9 pm by this time; Lindsey (whom I'm visiting in Ebolowa) often goes to bed early, and she doesn't know for sure that I'm coming. There is no cell phone reception until right when we get into the city limits, very near her house. I had my phone in hand, staring, staring at the bars until – Victory! I had service. And I texted her, and she was home, waiting. When I finally stumbled into her door, shrugged off my bags and collapsed on the couch, home, in the company of my two closest PCVs, to celebrate a wonderful, wonderful New Year's weekend, it was all, all worth it.

Happy New Year!!!

I'M A PCV!!!

2005-12-14T03:40:00.000-08:00

see title.
and for those acronymically challenged, that's "Peace Corps Volunteer."full-fledged.and after being sworn in by the ambassador in my beautiful pagne (pictures to be posted later)... I have arrived.and now I'm leaving Bandjoun.

Franglais

2005-12-10T04:38:00.000-08:00

Petit disclaimer.
I'm bilingual.
I'm living in a country that is officially bilingual.
Some of you are bilingual.
Therefore, this blog will be too. Sorry for the slight inconveniences that may arise.

The following is an article I wrote for the PST journal, a few weeks ago.

"Une française au Cameroun"

À Philadelphie, quand on nous a demandé de choisir trois adjectifs pour nous décrire, mon premier mot c’était " française. " Moitié-française, moitié-amicaine, je me suis toujours fiée de plus au bleu, blanc, et rouge. Après avoir passe énumerables étés et un semestre en France, j’étais convaincue que mon bonheur m’attendait en Gaulle. Mon projet de vie, tant que je tiens à cela, consiste du moins de temps que possible aux Etats-Unis avant que je ne puisse rentrée à mon Paris chéri, diplôme en main.
J’ai ressenti ma culpabilité de " blanche " surtout il y a un an et demi. Dans un cours de danse africaine dont le prof était Malien, nous avons découvert que tout le monde parlaient français – mais les autres venaient du Mali, de la Somalie, de l’Ethiopie, du Ghana, et de l’Haïti. Les colonisés – et moi, la colonialiste, la française, celle qui parlait la langue " pure et non-diluée. " (Pour ceux qui m’écoutent en français, pourtant, cette française fait même beaucoup d’erreurs de grammaire, de vocabulaire, et d’accent). Comment, alors, réagirai-je au sein d’un pays francophone, une ancienne colonie de la France?
Après un mois ici – et même dès le début – j’aime beaucoup le Cameroun. Je suis contente de ma vie ici. Mais tous les jours, avec mon petit-déjeuner de baguette et de Nescafé, je ressens la honte pour mon pays natale. L’accent parisien duquel j’étais tellement fière en France – que finalement, finalement on me voyait comme une vraie française – me grince aux oreilles. Et tant que j’essaie de m’adapter aux rhythmes et aux sons du français camerounais, cela sera toujours un dialecte étrange pour moi.
Ma grand-mère française a toujours voulu gâter mes désirs. Elle était toujours trop contente de m’envoyer mes biscuits Belin, mes Mikado, mes Coquelines. À Yaoundé, à Score, j’ai retrouvé toute l’alimentation française de mon bonheur. Mais j’avais envie de les rejetter. La France n’a peu en commun avec l’Afrique, et le fait que je pourrais me faire une France en miniature me détourne. Je n’ai pas envie de ma France maintenant – j’ai envie de l’Afrique.
En modifiant mon français pour être compris, je parle plus lentement, avec des phrases moins lyriques, plus directes, et avec des mots plus saccadés. Mais ce n’est pas, ce n’est pas le français à version simple. C’est – et j’insiste sur ce point pour m’en souvenir autant que pour le bénéfice des autres – un autre français. Je serai toujours française et j’aimerais toujours mon pays. Pour une patriote avec tant d’amour du pays, il n’ya rien de meilleur que cela – que de voir le côté néfaste, colonialiste, violent, déstructif ; bref, le côté qui a tant exploité ce pays. Je ne renie pas les pêchés de la France envers l’Afrique. Je les fais face, tous les jours. Mais je ne cherche pas à redresser les mauvais faits d’un pays. Je suis au Cameroun pour apprendre et pour donner de moi-même, le plus des deux que possible. Et je suis vraiment ravie d’être là.

[Dev] Useful Maps!

2005-12-03T21:17:00.000-08:00

Check out this map of Cameroon. Yaounde is near the top; Mvangan, where Jenny will be working soon, is just below the center of the map.

Mvangan

2005-11-12T21:13:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I leave for a week's visit at my post! And my post is… where I will be living for the next two years… (drumroll, please)

Mvangan, South province!

Which I know you've never heard of. Not yet having been there, I am convinced that it's the absolutely perfect post for me. (This is much how I decided that Boston was my favorite US city many years before I ever visited. But I wasn't wrong then, so why now?)

And next week I'm going house-hunting for the house where I will live for two years in a village in the rainforest.

I'm very lucky because the PCV whom I'm replacing, Heidi, has been there in Bandjoun this week helping out with training (so I've already been able to learn a lot from her). I'll describe the village before I get to what my actual (AMAZING) job is going to be, there. Mvangan is a village of about 2000 people, located 100 km from Gabon in the middle of the equatorial rainforest. It's 2-3 hours from Ebolowa, the provincial capital of the South, where I'll go for banking and whatnot. I'm lucky that one of my PCT friends has been posted to Ebolowa, so not so far from me. Another good friend is a few hours further, at the end of a dirt road near Equatorial Guinea, in a village of about 200 people. We're pretty sparse, PCV-wise, in the South.

There is no cell phone reception in the area and there is one fixed phone line in the village that works sometimes. I should be getting a satellite phone (Heidi's is currently broken) but we'll see how that goes. One way to get messages to me is to send them by taxi from Ebolowa. I will have electricity in my house, but no running water – though I haven't had running water for a very long time and it really isn't an issue. There is a hospital in town and a high school – I don't know much else yet. The two main economic activities in the area are bushmeat hunting and cocoa farming. (Yes, I'm going to figure out how to make my own chocolate. At least that's the plan.)

So why Mvangan? Heidi just set up a volunteer counseling and testing center (VCT) at the hospital (for HIV). She's been training HIV counselors from community members, doctors, and nurses, and I will be taking over that project, as well as expanding the center and starting (I hope) some support groups for people living with HIV/AIDS (PVVS in French). Another part of my job will be doing community outreach in surrounding villages, on health topics including HIV but also water sanitation, malaria, etc. There is a apparently a chief who's really excited to work with me. I really want to work on water projects, too, improved water sources and the like for potable water in the communities.

Also: I will be working on the Johns Hopkins Cameroon project, which is a research study examining the crossover of viruses from non-human primates to humans. This is the current theory of how HIV came into the human population. Many new viruses have emerged and are emerging in this way. Why Cameroon and why where I am? There is a high level of contact between humans and non-human primates (chimps, gorillas, etc.) with bushmeat hunting, butchering, eating, and keeping monkeys as pets. There are many research sites, all over Cameroon, and I am ecstatic to be a part of this project. Three of us PCTs (well, later PCVs) will be working on this. I don't know exactly in what capacity, yet, but I can't wait to find out more. The Hopkins site near me is 60km away on a moto. (Ah, there she comes in the PC-prescribed moto helmet! It makes me look like a Power Ranger.)

Essentially, my job has many components, all of which I can choose to emphasize as much as I want, has me traveling throughout the community, doing education, building things, doing research, and… whatever else happens over the next two years. Yes, it's exactly perfect. And I can't wait to get there.

After this week, which I will spend with Heidi, meeting all the important people, getting to know the community and the area a little bit, and getting some idea of my job, I come back to Bandjoun for another 3 weeks of training. Swearing-in is December 15th, after which I can officially call myself a PCV, and it'll be off to Mvangan for two, I foresee, glorious years. More (with pictures, I hope) after I've actually been there. It's all starting to be real now.

And I don't want to be anyplace else on Earth.

Jenny And Cameroon

Sustainable development - and YOU!

Dictator Pants.

La Villageoise

Bugs from the Beginning of Time

Update ...Going back to Cameroon

Leaving

Agricultural and business training for rural women to combat malnutrition

Water Project - Completed.

Paulette- nurse in Zoefebam. She lives next to Papa Paul and we’ve spent a lot of time with her.

Levy – oldish guy. Worked a lot all week. The materials for source 2 are stocked at his house.

November update

District BAD

Not going anywhere for awhile?

Compendium

Jenny in the News

Mmmm....rats.

*Nods knowingly* Oh, la Sorcellerie.

Paging Dr. Jenny

Oh, Cameroun

Stung by a Jellyfish in the night-equatorial-Atlantic (but it wasn't so bad)

Tapeworm - nope, it's not mine.

"vin blanc"

I'M A PCV!!!

Franglais

[Dev] Useful Maps!

Mvangan

Nods knowingly Oh, la Sorcellerie.