Oh, Cameroun

("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)

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.

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.