Well, it was pretty smooth sailing after we left the old principal. We kept continuing north and a little bit before Maroua, we turned off onto the road to Mokolo. At that intersection, though, we stopped for a bit to wait for Baudouin, a French NGO worker who lives in Ngong and another fellow veteran, who was doing some work in Yagoua, a city in the Extreme North, but finished the day before so he could meet up and come with us. Well, I walked a little bit and grabbed a coke with Amadou and by the time we got back, Baudouin had arrived and we were ready to roll.
We hopped back in the car and took off. The next stop was Mokolo, a little over an hour from the turn off. The further west we drove, the more the scenery started looking like New Mexico’s. The vegetation became more sparse, the hills and mountains became a bit more jagged, and I started seeing some plants that looked incredibly similar to Mesquite trees. Maybe I was a little homesick, but I almost felt a sense of déjà vu from the sights of everything around.
In Mokolo we stopped for about 15 minutes to grab some street meat to tide us over until we got to Mogode. I didn’t see a whole lot of Mokolo but for some odd reason it reminded me a bit of Santa Fe. There was nothing incredibly nice or Santa Fe-y about it but for some reason I felt reminded of the city I was born in. I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that the scenery around it was so similar and the cities are about the same size (Mokolo might be a little bit bigger, actually).
The road after Mokolo was rough. The pavement ended with the town and so after that we had about 35 kilometers of beat, uneven dirt road. Also, it was getting pretty hot so we had the windows open, but that also allowed the dust to come streaming in through the windows. I covered my nose and mouth with my shirt but I was really wishing I had brought a handkerchief with me. Amadou, always the fashionista, kept his head and torso covered with a jacket and kept brushing the dust off so he wouldn’t get, or rather stay, dirty. Finally the president of the club turned around and said “Leave it Amadou! You’re just going to keep getting dusty, wait until we arrive!” At one point we were driving along the road and there was a shallow valley off to our left and a small mountain on the other side of it. Somebody turned to me and said, “See that? It’s Nigeria.” I answered with something like, “you mean those mountains a ways off?” “No,” he replied, “The bottom of that valley there.” I was literally a stone’s throw away from Nigeria. Literally.
Well, we pulled up to the outskirts of Mogode, a fairly small town (maybe around 10,000-15,000 is my guess) and some members of the veterans club met us there. We got out and took some photos and boy was the scenery pretty. Volcanic plugs and jagged mountains shooting up out of the arid landscape. Eesh it was nice. We drove into town and made a big convoy/tour with all the motos accompanying us. We drove all over town and then got to the sous-prefet’s (government official’s) house where we said hello and introduced ourselves.
After that, we went to the house of the president of the Mogode Veterans Club. We had a pretty decent lunch there and the mood was very festive. One veteran, Alioum, even busted out dancing randomly for a few seconds. I had a sprite (from Nigeria as we were so close) and underneath the cap it said “Open again for more happiness!” Drink more, Coca Cola says, Drink more.
At this point we all got our assignments for the night of where we were going to sleep. I got assigned to this Elementary school teacher’s house and so we left, hopped on his moto (with my helmet of course), and zipped over to his house. His accent was a bit hard for me to understand as he slurred his speech quite a bit, and I actually don’t think he was too terribly strong with French. As we were going over to his house I kept having to tell him I didn’t understand what he was saying and so when we got there he stumbled a bit in broken English and said that somebody had come to his house on Monday (it was a Saturday, remember) while he was at school and burned it down. His concession was the type with a number of separate small one and two-room huts and the only thing left of his were some scorched mud brick walls. All of the guy’s clothes were in there, along with his identity papers, bank papers, moto documents, in short: just about everything of material value of his, save the clothes on his back and his moto. It was at this point that I noticed a faint scent of whiskey of him. Later, somebody explained to me that the fire wasn’t an accident, somebody came and specifically burned it down. The guy told me that he had two wives and somebody guessed to me that one of the wives, or maybe a girlfriend, got jealous and came and burned it down. He did talk about the burning of his house quite a bit but he always came back to saying, “I have my health and my family is safe, so I thank God.” I guess it’s good to always keep a positive attitude.
Well, I put my stuff in the room I was going to stay in, and then headed over to the soccer field. A few people were already hanging out and stretching. I started warming up a little bit and people slowly started trickling in. It was starting to get kinda late, and we weren’t sure we’d have enough time for the game so rather than do a full warm up, we did a couple sprints across the field and then a few stretches. And then the game started….
Friday, December 10, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Trip to Mogode, Part I
I recently took a trip to Mogode in the Extreme North with my soccer team. Here is the story…
I.
I woke up at 4am on this particular Saturday and, after hitting snooze a few times, I got up and finished arranging my bags and getting everything together for the quick, whirlwind trip to Mogode, a town in the Extreme North region of Cameroon. A few weeks back, one of the government officials from Mogode invited us, the Veterans Club of Ngong, to come play a friendly match. Naturally, we said okay and after raising the money for transportation (10,000 cfa/person) we were ready to go.
Several people told me the day before to get to the sous-prefet’s office at 5am, no later, as it was a long trip and we needed to make good time. Well, I got there a few minutes after 5 and, in typical Cameroonian time-management fashion, I was probably the fifth person there. I sat around and talked to a few other veterans for a bit as people slowly started trickling in. One person asked me what was wrong because I looked sad. No no, I said, I’m just sleepy, I want to be back in my bed. Well, he replied, Wake up! We don't sleep on this bus! Oh, and that bus that was supposed to be there by 4:30? Well, it showed up around 6. Around 5:45, a few people started opening their first beers of the day. I abstained, but it was at that point that I knew what kind of day this would turn out to be.
We loaded up the bus and I sat next to my friend Amadou, a flashy guy with dyed blonde/yellow hair, a pretty spiffy man purse, and a really good soccer player. He even told me once that when he was younger he played for a time in the Cote d’Ivoire leagues. Anyway, we sat together making jokes and screwing with each other. We were also doing little pranks like tapping somebody’s shoulder and then pretending to be asleep or tickling somebody’s neck with a piece of grass. Real mature stuff, I know.
We had to stop in Garoua to wait for the president of the club who had to take care of something at the Catholic Mission there before we left. Well, it turned out to be about an hour stop so, naturally, as the people who had been drinking beers were out, they went for a quick run to a beer store. I tried to get some people to kick the soccer ball around with me but nobody really wanted to. Interesting, seeing as the supposed purpose of the trip was to play a soccer game. Anyway, the president finally got there and we took off.
On the bus, everybody was laughing and joking around about how they were all going to have newborns the next day after the party tonight, and it seemed that half the people on the bus were playing music with their cell phones…at the same time. Well, somebody had the bright idea to put one of the memory cards into the stereo on the bus so that cut down on the number of songs playing at once, though there were still multiple going on. But as things seem to happen here, the memory card would quit working after a song or two so the vice president in the front seat would skip songs, people would yell at the “DJ” about missing a song, and eventually the card would be changed. (“C’est les cartes chinois!” It’s those Chinese cards!)
About an hour and a half out of Garoua, we stopped in a town called Figuil for breakfast. Figuil is a dusty city on the main road to Maroua and its main claim to fame is that there’s a gas station and a huge cement factory there. Well, breakfast consisted of bread and some beef in a bouillon sauce. Pretty tasty, but all-in-all a pretty standard Northern Cameroonian breakfast. I also had a glass of sweet tea (“Shai” in Fulfulde) and the wife of one of my friends gave me a can of orange juice because she said I looked tired and needed the energy. When another volunteer saw me drinking both at the same time, he told me “Harley! how can you mix the hot and the cold!” I replied, “I’m not! I take a drink of one and then a drink of the other later… it’s not difficult.” He shook his head in disbelief.
We had been making pretty good time before Figuil but, unfortunately, after Figuil the nice, new, pot hole-free road that the EU built ends. After that it’s still pavement but we were frequently swerrving around pot holes, driving on the other side of the road and, a couple times, almost coming to a complete stop to maneuver through some tricky dips and holes in the tar. As we kept driving north, the scenery kept getting drier and browner, with less trees and more yellow grass. In the dry season (which we just started about a month ago) the North region (where I live) is pretty hot, pretty dry, and pretty desert-y. I get the impression the Extreme North region is like that most of the time, and has a legit claim to being in the Sahel desert.
About an hour outside of Figuil we saw a little green sedan on the side of the road with a smashed up front end that continued to a caved in windshield. A couple people were standing by it, one person in a Red Cross-logoed vest, and I realized the wreck had happened shortly before we got there. Somebody shouted out “That’s the principal’s car!” I wondered what the principal from Ngong was doing in the Extreme North until I remembered he was affected up here over the summer. The president of the club talked with the guy in the vest and apparently the principal’s wife had been driving with one other person in the car, not the principal. He wasn’t sure how everyone was. We got a move on again and a few minutes later when we had some service the president called the principal and he said that nobody was too terribly hurt, but we decided to stop by his town (about 20 minutes later) to visit for a short time with them.
We met the principal at the hospital and I think he appreciated all of us visiting. Then we visited with his wife and a younger man who might have been his son (I wasn’t exactly sure) in a hospital room. The younger guy looked to be in some pain and had a taped up wrist and some blood on his shirt. The wife didn’t seem to be injured, though it was hard to tell for just a short amount of time because I didn’t linger.
Outside of the room, one of the veterans Noele was sitting on the steps with his head in his hands. A few months ago, Noele had been in a pretty bad car accident—the car had rolled several times though, luckily, he wasn’t seriously hurt. I’m sure seeing the car wreck and the boy who was hurt was just bringing back memories. A couple other veterans were sitting with him and then got him up to walk away, holding his hands and with their arms around him. Cameroonian camaraderie.
We loaded up the bus again and hit the road.
I.
I woke up at 4am on this particular Saturday and, after hitting snooze a few times, I got up and finished arranging my bags and getting everything together for the quick, whirlwind trip to Mogode, a town in the Extreme North region of Cameroon. A few weeks back, one of the government officials from Mogode invited us, the Veterans Club of Ngong, to come play a friendly match. Naturally, we said okay and after raising the money for transportation (10,000 cfa/person) we were ready to go.
Several people told me the day before to get to the sous-prefet’s office at 5am, no later, as it was a long trip and we needed to make good time. Well, I got there a few minutes after 5 and, in typical Cameroonian time-management fashion, I was probably the fifth person there. I sat around and talked to a few other veterans for a bit as people slowly started trickling in. One person asked me what was wrong because I looked sad. No no, I said, I’m just sleepy, I want to be back in my bed. Well, he replied, Wake up! We don't sleep on this bus! Oh, and that bus that was supposed to be there by 4:30? Well, it showed up around 6. Around 5:45, a few people started opening their first beers of the day. I abstained, but it was at that point that I knew what kind of day this would turn out to be.
We loaded up the bus and I sat next to my friend Amadou, a flashy guy with dyed blonde/yellow hair, a pretty spiffy man purse, and a really good soccer player. He even told me once that when he was younger he played for a time in the Cote d’Ivoire leagues. Anyway, we sat together making jokes and screwing with each other. We were also doing little pranks like tapping somebody’s shoulder and then pretending to be asleep or tickling somebody’s neck with a piece of grass. Real mature stuff, I know.
We had to stop in Garoua to wait for the president of the club who had to take care of something at the Catholic Mission there before we left. Well, it turned out to be about an hour stop so, naturally, as the people who had been drinking beers were out, they went for a quick run to a beer store. I tried to get some people to kick the soccer ball around with me but nobody really wanted to. Interesting, seeing as the supposed purpose of the trip was to play a soccer game. Anyway, the president finally got there and we took off.
On the bus, everybody was laughing and joking around about how they were all going to have newborns the next day after the party tonight, and it seemed that half the people on the bus were playing music with their cell phones…at the same time. Well, somebody had the bright idea to put one of the memory cards into the stereo on the bus so that cut down on the number of songs playing at once, though there were still multiple going on. But as things seem to happen here, the memory card would quit working after a song or two so the vice president in the front seat would skip songs, people would yell at the “DJ” about missing a song, and eventually the card would be changed. (“C’est les cartes chinois!” It’s those Chinese cards!)
About an hour and a half out of Garoua, we stopped in a town called Figuil for breakfast. Figuil is a dusty city on the main road to Maroua and its main claim to fame is that there’s a gas station and a huge cement factory there. Well, breakfast consisted of bread and some beef in a bouillon sauce. Pretty tasty, but all-in-all a pretty standard Northern Cameroonian breakfast. I also had a glass of sweet tea (“Shai” in Fulfulde) and the wife of one of my friends gave me a can of orange juice because she said I looked tired and needed the energy. When another volunteer saw me drinking both at the same time, he told me “Harley! how can you mix the hot and the cold!” I replied, “I’m not! I take a drink of one and then a drink of the other later… it’s not difficult.” He shook his head in disbelief.
We had been making pretty good time before Figuil but, unfortunately, after Figuil the nice, new, pot hole-free road that the EU built ends. After that it’s still pavement but we were frequently swerrving around pot holes, driving on the other side of the road and, a couple times, almost coming to a complete stop to maneuver through some tricky dips and holes in the tar. As we kept driving north, the scenery kept getting drier and browner, with less trees and more yellow grass. In the dry season (which we just started about a month ago) the North region (where I live) is pretty hot, pretty dry, and pretty desert-y. I get the impression the Extreme North region is like that most of the time, and has a legit claim to being in the Sahel desert.
About an hour outside of Figuil we saw a little green sedan on the side of the road with a smashed up front end that continued to a caved in windshield. A couple people were standing by it, one person in a Red Cross-logoed vest, and I realized the wreck had happened shortly before we got there. Somebody shouted out “That’s the principal’s car!” I wondered what the principal from Ngong was doing in the Extreme North until I remembered he was affected up here over the summer. The president of the club talked with the guy in the vest and apparently the principal’s wife had been driving with one other person in the car, not the principal. He wasn’t sure how everyone was. We got a move on again and a few minutes later when we had some service the president called the principal and he said that nobody was too terribly hurt, but we decided to stop by his town (about 20 minutes later) to visit for a short time with them.
We met the principal at the hospital and I think he appreciated all of us visiting. Then we visited with his wife and a younger man who might have been his son (I wasn’t exactly sure) in a hospital room. The younger guy looked to be in some pain and had a taped up wrist and some blood on his shirt. The wife didn’t seem to be injured, though it was hard to tell for just a short amount of time because I didn’t linger.
Outside of the room, one of the veterans Noele was sitting on the steps with his head in his hands. A few months ago, Noele had been in a pretty bad car accident—the car had rolled several times though, luckily, he wasn’t seriously hurt. I’m sure seeing the car wreck and the boy who was hurt was just bringing back memories. A couple other veterans were sitting with him and then got him up to walk away, holding his hands and with their arms around him. Cameroonian camaraderie.
We loaded up the bus again and hit the road.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Some greetings in fulfulde
When greeting somebody in Fulfulde, it’s proper to ask a series of questions, essentially about how the other person is. This can range from 2 or 3 questions to 5 minutes of questions, depending on how much you know the other person or how much respect you have for them. The response to each of them is almost always one of three things: “Jam nii,” “Jam koodume,” or “Koy dum nii.” The first and last mean “fine” and the middle response means like “really fine.” The answer depends on how the questions are asked and also how you answered the last question. Usually Jam koodume isn’t used multiple times in a row, though Jam nii or Koy dum nii can be. Also, one other thing used from time to time is “al hamdu lillaahi” which is Arabic and means “Thank God,” or “Thanks be to God” or something like that. The questions can go back and forth, sometimes with each person asking and responding at the same time; sometimes one person asks for a while and then switches; and still other times a chief or lamido will just sit there and the other person will ask him the questions. It can get quite confusing. Here are a few of my favorites, in Fulfulde and then with a rough English translation…
(Note: most greetings in fulfulde don’t use verbs, so I’ll put the direct translation and, if necessary, what it actually means)
Sannu! Hello/good day!
Mi hofni ma. I say hello to you.
Jam. Fine/hello.
Jam na? Fine, yes? (Are you fine?)
Jam bandu na? Body fine, yes? (Is the body fine?)
Jam saare na? House fine, yes?
Jam saare ma na? Your house fine, yes?
A don habda, na? Are you managing? (Can also be translated as “Are you defending yourself?”)
Jam bikkon na? Children fine, yes?
Noy? How?
Noy guldum? How heat?
Noy peewol? How cold?
Noy nange? How sun?
Noy kuugal? How work?
A don saati na? Are you hard? (I kid you not, they use this.)
Noy saati? How hard?
Noy comri? How tired? (How is the tiredness/fatigue?)
Noy sukle? How work?
A hirti jam na? You passed a good night, yes?
Noy ndiyam kadi? So then, how rain?
Noy laawol? How road/path? (This one is usually used if you’ve just come from/to somewhere)
A wari na? You have come, yes?
A nyalli jam na? You passed a good day, yes?
(Note: most greetings in fulfulde don’t use verbs, so I’ll put the direct translation and, if necessary, what it actually means)
Sannu! Hello/good day!
Mi hofni ma. I say hello to you.
Jam. Fine/hello.
Jam na? Fine, yes? (Are you fine?)
Jam bandu na? Body fine, yes? (Is the body fine?)
Jam saare na? House fine, yes?
Jam saare ma na? Your house fine, yes?
A don habda, na? Are you managing? (Can also be translated as “Are you defending yourself?”)
Jam bikkon na? Children fine, yes?
Noy? How?
Noy guldum? How heat?
Noy peewol? How cold?
Noy nange? How sun?
Noy kuugal? How work?
A don saati na? Are you hard? (I kid you not, they use this.)
Noy saati? How hard?
Noy comri? How tired? (How is the tiredness/fatigue?)
Noy sukle? How work?
A hirti jam na? You passed a good night, yes?
Noy ndiyam kadi? So then, how rain?
Noy laawol? How road/path? (This one is usually used if you’ve just come from/to somewhere)
A wari na? You have come, yes?
A nyalli jam na? You passed a good day, yes?
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
the train ride...
Well, it's been a little while since I last posted anything and I think it's probably because of several reasons, one of which is that I've been busy travelling (back up to post after the training workshop) and then back down a few days ago to Bafia, a city about two hours from Yaounde where the new training group is. I'm here doing a few sessions on infectuous diseases and food security. anyway, I figure I'll write a little bit about my journey down, as it was definitely a different experience than anything else I've had in this country.
I had a reservation to take the train on saturday with another volunteer, Kim O. We got to the train station in Ngaoundere at a decent hour on that morning to pick up our tickets but unfortunately they were all out of the two-person sleeper car rooms so we had to get spots in a four-person one, and split it with a cameroonian couple. We kind of lounged around for most of the day, I grabbed lunch at a decent restaurant down the street, watched some Office episodes, and then at about 2:30, Kim and I went across the street from the peace corps house and hung out at this restaurant/bar to watch the cameroon-congo soccer match which is a qualifying match for the 2012 african cup of nations. I'm going to take a step back and first say that the match was in Garoua that day. Garoua, the city 35 minutes from my post. I was pretty pissed when I found out that the game was going to be in Garoua because I HAD to take the train on the 9th in order to be in Bafia on time to help with training. anyway, Kim and I had a beer or two and watched the game. While we were sitting there, I started chatting with this chain-smoking Lebanese guy who lives in Ngaoundere now and he was a pretty interesting guy. We talked a little about religion and language and then about the conflicts that have been going on there for a while. Around half-time he got up and left and paid for our beers which was pretty awesome. Kim and I ordered some food, I got a meat sandwich that I ate there and then a hamburger that I was planning on eating on the train. I called a volunteer at the game and expressed my extreme disappointment at his lack of getting a wave started. Less than five minutes later, the TV cameras were focussed on the wave circling the whole stadium. Kudos to you, Mike.
After the game (a disappointing 1-1, own-goal tie) Kim and I got our stuff together and made our way down to the train station and got there at about 5. The train is normally supposed to leave at 6 but when we pulled up, we didn't see it there. We heard an announcement which I thought said something along the lines of "the train will leave an hour and a half late" but kim thought said something about 1:30 in the morning. Anyway, I ordered a beer and said "well, if the train's leaving soon then I'll have to finish this quickly and we'll hop on." I asked our bartender if he had any news on the train and he shrugged and said "nothing. It hasn't come yet." Normally, the train gets in at around 10am, so I thought he meant it hadn't come back from being serviced yet, but he clarified and said "no, it hasn't arrived from Yaounde yet." Merde. About that time I got a call from Brian, the volunteer in Ngaoundere who said he'd just got a call from another volunteer, Anais, who was on the train and stuck about 3 or 4 hours south of Ngaoundere because the engine was broken and they were waiting for another one to come and pick them up. After this, I called Anais and I said, "so you think it'll be about 3 or 4 hours 'till it gets here?" to which she replied, "try 8 or 9 hours." Merde.
So I went into the train station and talked to a woman who gave me her phone number, said to go home and call her in two hours and she'd let me know the news. So Kim and I gathered up all our stuff, headed back to the peace corps house, ate the food we'd bought for the train, and then I went to grab a beer with Brian and one of the guards for a business next door. We sat around for a while and around 8 I called the woman again and she said "it's still not here, call back in two hours." I didn't mind too much, though, because I was having a decent time shooting the shit with Brian and his friend. Around 10, I tried to call her again and she didn't answer. Being overly optimistic, Kim and I thought maybe the train had arrived and she was too busy to answer her phone. So we went back to the station and, my god, it looked like a refugee camp. Hundreds of people crammed into a small waiting room, sleeping on the floor, fluorescent lights glaring down. We found the woman who said, "train's still not here, call back in two hours." So (for the third time that day) we went back to the peace corps house. We watched an episode of the office, though I started falling asleep during it. We started another episode when Jessie, one of the volunteers at the house came out and said "you guys came back?! I thought I just heard the train whistle." Then, we called the woman again and couldn't really make out if the train was leaving in an hour and a half or if it would arrive in an hour and a half. I called this guy Brian knew and he said "the train will arrive in 13 minutes." So, it being about midnight, Kim and I gathered our stuff again and made our way over to the train station.
The train had just pulled up when we arrived and so we put our stuff down out front of the station and sat there for about an hour, during which time the train pulled away to be serviced and cleaned. There were so many people inside that we couldn't really see the doors so around 1 we moved inside, pretty close to the front. Needless to say, I was getting a little grouchy. The German girl standing behind me who's backpack kept hitting me in the head wasn't helping. Kim and I sat on our moto helmets, backpacks between our legs and essentially took turns dozing off until the train finally came back from being serviced around three. Everybody stood up and the porters started coming through pushing people aside and carrying bags around. One guy in front of me pushed a porter who was trying to get through and yelled at him "there's no room here! Go back and around!" then the porter tried to go past me and I did essentially the same thing, which really pissed him off. He started yelling at me about how we're not at "Chez les blancs" and how he doesn't like "les blancs" in his country and how if he dropped that bag, I would have to pay for it. I then used some of the nifty French my French friend in Ngong taught me to tell the guy to piss off and find someone else to bother. When he persisted I increased my profanity and was actually quite proud at how in my tired state I was able to express myself how I would in the states when some jackass is judging you based on arbitrary reasons. When the guy kept muttering things about me as he was walking away I loudly said something about how if he wasn't drunk he could probably walk straight and stop bumping into everyone. Those who weren't too tired laughed at the idiot walking away.
The doors opened a few minutes later and Kim and I made it to our cabin, claimed the top bunks, and then discovered out window didn't open. Shiiiiit. I was too tired really to care, so I just went to sleep and then I think we left sometime after four. Around 8, I woke up because an annoying guard came in and demanded the two Cameroonians in the room pay him money for some onions they had in a box. Then, after 10 minutes of arguing and they paying him, he finally started to leave. As he was closing the door, though, he started bothering them again about something and I sat up in bed, looked at the guard and said "We are trying to sleep. Get out of here and stop bothering us." He started apologizing and explaining to which I said, "I don't care. You can't see I want to sleep? You talking is not helping." Well, I didn't really get back to sleep after that as it was too hot in the room so I went out to the front of the car where a couple guards were hanging out and had the doors of the train open. In the US this would be against quite a few safety regulations but here, well, one of the doors didn't even latch closed. So I sat there, on the floor, next to the bathroom, between two open doors and two guards and let the cool wind blow over me. I talked with one of the guards for a while and then found out he was Congolese. A little later I found out he was actually a UNHCR (UN human crisis relief) Refugee who'd been in Cameroon for a few years. Really nice guy and for the next three hours I spent sitting with them and talking. Kim and I split a plate of chicken and fries and then she came out to sit with us too. Around 3ish, (keep in mind the train normally arrives at 9 or 10am) it started raining, and the cool mist wafting in the doorway felt so soothing and relaxing after all the heat and grime. I stood a little behind the doorway at one point and let my head get wet. Then I went back to our room and tried to sleep, which I accomplished for about an hour and a half before the heat because too much again. When I woke up, I looked down at the lower bunks at the food the Cameroonians had purchased and seeing that it was baton de manioc (a very stinky cassava concoction) I decided it was time to go hang out with my guard buddies at the front again. Well, Kim and I ended hanging out there until we got to Yaounde, about another 1.5-2 hours. Finally, a little after seven we got in to the train station. By far the worst train ride of my life, and one of my worst experiences here, so far, but there are a few silver linings. And they are...
I wasn't alone so I had someone to commiserate with.
I didn't have to quickly finish my beer at the Ngaoundere train station.
At least there was a cool place at the front of my car, albeit next to the bathroom.
I wasn't stuck on it for 36 hours like the volunteers who had been on their way up.
Well, maybe bronze linings is a more accurate description. Hopefully the train has recovered and isn't so shitty on the way back up on thursday.
I had a reservation to take the train on saturday with another volunteer, Kim O. We got to the train station in Ngaoundere at a decent hour on that morning to pick up our tickets but unfortunately they were all out of the two-person sleeper car rooms so we had to get spots in a four-person one, and split it with a cameroonian couple. We kind of lounged around for most of the day, I grabbed lunch at a decent restaurant down the street, watched some Office episodes, and then at about 2:30, Kim and I went across the street from the peace corps house and hung out at this restaurant/bar to watch the cameroon-congo soccer match which is a qualifying match for the 2012 african cup of nations. I'm going to take a step back and first say that the match was in Garoua that day. Garoua, the city 35 minutes from my post. I was pretty pissed when I found out that the game was going to be in Garoua because I HAD to take the train on the 9th in order to be in Bafia on time to help with training. anyway, Kim and I had a beer or two and watched the game. While we were sitting there, I started chatting with this chain-smoking Lebanese guy who lives in Ngaoundere now and he was a pretty interesting guy. We talked a little about religion and language and then about the conflicts that have been going on there for a while. Around half-time he got up and left and paid for our beers which was pretty awesome. Kim and I ordered some food, I got a meat sandwich that I ate there and then a hamburger that I was planning on eating on the train. I called a volunteer at the game and expressed my extreme disappointment at his lack of getting a wave started. Less than five minutes later, the TV cameras were focussed on the wave circling the whole stadium. Kudos to you, Mike.
After the game (a disappointing 1-1, own-goal tie) Kim and I got our stuff together and made our way down to the train station and got there at about 5. The train is normally supposed to leave at 6 but when we pulled up, we didn't see it there. We heard an announcement which I thought said something along the lines of "the train will leave an hour and a half late" but kim thought said something about 1:30 in the morning. Anyway, I ordered a beer and said "well, if the train's leaving soon then I'll have to finish this quickly and we'll hop on." I asked our bartender if he had any news on the train and he shrugged and said "nothing. It hasn't come yet." Normally, the train gets in at around 10am, so I thought he meant it hadn't come back from being serviced yet, but he clarified and said "no, it hasn't arrived from Yaounde yet." Merde. About that time I got a call from Brian, the volunteer in Ngaoundere who said he'd just got a call from another volunteer, Anais, who was on the train and stuck about 3 or 4 hours south of Ngaoundere because the engine was broken and they were waiting for another one to come and pick them up. After this, I called Anais and I said, "so you think it'll be about 3 or 4 hours 'till it gets here?" to which she replied, "try 8 or 9 hours." Merde.
So I went into the train station and talked to a woman who gave me her phone number, said to go home and call her in two hours and she'd let me know the news. So Kim and I gathered up all our stuff, headed back to the peace corps house, ate the food we'd bought for the train, and then I went to grab a beer with Brian and one of the guards for a business next door. We sat around for a while and around 8 I called the woman again and she said "it's still not here, call back in two hours." I didn't mind too much, though, because I was having a decent time shooting the shit with Brian and his friend. Around 10, I tried to call her again and she didn't answer. Being overly optimistic, Kim and I thought maybe the train had arrived and she was too busy to answer her phone. So we went back to the station and, my god, it looked like a refugee camp. Hundreds of people crammed into a small waiting room, sleeping on the floor, fluorescent lights glaring down. We found the woman who said, "train's still not here, call back in two hours." So (for the third time that day) we went back to the peace corps house. We watched an episode of the office, though I started falling asleep during it. We started another episode when Jessie, one of the volunteers at the house came out and said "you guys came back?! I thought I just heard the train whistle." Then, we called the woman again and couldn't really make out if the train was leaving in an hour and a half or if it would arrive in an hour and a half. I called this guy Brian knew and he said "the train will arrive in 13 minutes." So, it being about midnight, Kim and I gathered our stuff again and made our way over to the train station.
The train had just pulled up when we arrived and so we put our stuff down out front of the station and sat there for about an hour, during which time the train pulled away to be serviced and cleaned. There were so many people inside that we couldn't really see the doors so around 1 we moved inside, pretty close to the front. Needless to say, I was getting a little grouchy. The German girl standing behind me who's backpack kept hitting me in the head wasn't helping. Kim and I sat on our moto helmets, backpacks between our legs and essentially took turns dozing off until the train finally came back from being serviced around three. Everybody stood up and the porters started coming through pushing people aside and carrying bags around. One guy in front of me pushed a porter who was trying to get through and yelled at him "there's no room here! Go back and around!" then the porter tried to go past me and I did essentially the same thing, which really pissed him off. He started yelling at me about how we're not at "Chez les blancs" and how he doesn't like "les blancs" in his country and how if he dropped that bag, I would have to pay for it. I then used some of the nifty French my French friend in Ngong taught me to tell the guy to piss off and find someone else to bother. When he persisted I increased my profanity and was actually quite proud at how in my tired state I was able to express myself how I would in the states when some jackass is judging you based on arbitrary reasons. When the guy kept muttering things about me as he was walking away I loudly said something about how if he wasn't drunk he could probably walk straight and stop bumping into everyone. Those who weren't too tired laughed at the idiot walking away.
The doors opened a few minutes later and Kim and I made it to our cabin, claimed the top bunks, and then discovered out window didn't open. Shiiiiit. I was too tired really to care, so I just went to sleep and then I think we left sometime after four. Around 8, I woke up because an annoying guard came in and demanded the two Cameroonians in the room pay him money for some onions they had in a box. Then, after 10 minutes of arguing and they paying him, he finally started to leave. As he was closing the door, though, he started bothering them again about something and I sat up in bed, looked at the guard and said "We are trying to sleep. Get out of here and stop bothering us." He started apologizing and explaining to which I said, "I don't care. You can't see I want to sleep? You talking is not helping." Well, I didn't really get back to sleep after that as it was too hot in the room so I went out to the front of the car where a couple guards were hanging out and had the doors of the train open. In the US this would be against quite a few safety regulations but here, well, one of the doors didn't even latch closed. So I sat there, on the floor, next to the bathroom, between two open doors and two guards and let the cool wind blow over me. I talked with one of the guards for a while and then found out he was Congolese. A little later I found out he was actually a UNHCR (UN human crisis relief) Refugee who'd been in Cameroon for a few years. Really nice guy and for the next three hours I spent sitting with them and talking. Kim and I split a plate of chicken and fries and then she came out to sit with us too. Around 3ish, (keep in mind the train normally arrives at 9 or 10am) it started raining, and the cool mist wafting in the doorway felt so soothing and relaxing after all the heat and grime. I stood a little behind the doorway at one point and let my head get wet. Then I went back to our room and tried to sleep, which I accomplished for about an hour and a half before the heat because too much again. When I woke up, I looked down at the lower bunks at the food the Cameroonians had purchased and seeing that it was baton de manioc (a very stinky cassava concoction) I decided it was time to go hang out with my guard buddies at the front again. Well, Kim and I ended hanging out there until we got to Yaounde, about another 1.5-2 hours. Finally, a little after seven we got in to the train station. By far the worst train ride of my life, and one of my worst experiences here, so far, but there are a few silver linings. And they are...
I wasn't alone so I had someone to commiserate with.
I didn't have to quickly finish my beer at the Ngaoundere train station.
At least there was a cool place at the front of my car, albeit next to the bathroom.
I wasn't stuck on it for 36 hours like the volunteers who had been on their way up.
Well, maybe bronze linings is a more accurate description. Hopefully the train has recovered and isn't so shitty on the way back up on thursday.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Work update
I'm in Yaounde (again), and I've been here for over a week now. Man, I am ready to get back to post. There's really not much to do in Yaounde except spend money on expensive western food and/or drink beer. But there's only so much money you can drop before you start to feel your soul drip out through your wallet and evaporate into the pockets of the wealthy Yaounde-ites who cater to the tastes of westerners who miss the culinary traditions of their homelands.
Well, it's been awhile since I updated anything about my work life so I'll go ahead and give a brief update. Before I left Ngong I was doing demonstrations about 4 times a week on various health topics from Malaria to nutrition for mothers and babies to the importance of vaccinations. The first day I did my nutrition presentation to pregnant mothers I mentioned the importance of eating meat and getting lots of iron because pregnant women are at a high risk of anemia in our part of the country. Well, when I went in the next day all the nurses told me that about half of the women bought anemia-prevention medicine which definitely shows that at least I had an impact and got through to the women--if not necessarily in regards to how they can naturally prevent anemia through diet.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm in Yaounde right now and I'm here because I've been selected to help out with training for the new group of agro and health volunteers arriving in a couple weeks. I'll be coming down and presenting the technical sessions on Diarrheal Diseases, Water & Sanitation, Malaria, and Food Security. The last one I'll be doing with my friend Patrick, an Agro who lives in the Northwest. I'm really excited, though, because I will also be in Bafia (the new training city) when the groups find out their posts. Not only will I be able to see who'll be the new kids around me but I'll be able to give information on a lot of the northern posts and calm some of the unavoidable fears of the trainees going to the grand north.
On the back burner right now is my trash collection project. I've been green-lighted for funding, the only snag right now is that I don't have all of the prices down for the plaques I'd like to have made for our sensitization campaign. Hopefully I'll be able to find those out before I head back up north on Wednesday night.
One other project I'm working on right now is getting a pump fixed with Chris, a SED (small enterprise development) volunteer about 22 k from me. The pump is in a small town called Rabingha, 4 k south of me. Chris is going to do some savings and general money-managing classes with the members of the water committee there, and I'll be doing some water sanitation sessions with whoever wants them.
I also did a short jam-making project a while back. It started out pretty well, but I definitely started the project too late into the mango season, so I wasn't able to teach as many people as I wanted to and I doubt the women I taught had much time to practice before the mangoes were all gone. Oh well, next year I'll have to start when the mangoes arrive.
There was an outbreak of cholera in my health district back in July but, as it stands, we've only had seven cases (none in Ngong proper) and no deaths. The last case was also over a month ago, so we're pretty sure that this specific outbreak in our district is done. Knock on wood. Who knows when another case will slither on down from the Extreme North and infect more people, though. I went out to the town where the first case was and, let me tell you, I have no idea how there weren't 100 cases. The latrines were uncovered, dirty dishes were laying around everywhere, and the well where people got their water was horrible. It was about 200 meters from the big river in the North (the Benoue) and the water table was only about a foot below the surface. The water was so cloudy and dirty that I couldn't see more than five or six inches below the surface. It looked like the water in my buckets after I get done washing my clothes. Anyway, the authorities treated the well (LOADS of chlorine in it, closing it off for a couple days), and made everyone who lived nearby start boiling their water and using chlorine when washing their dishes.
Well, guess that's about it for now. I'll probably be pretty busy in the next couple months, what with traveling back down here for training and working on the pump and trash projects.
Until next time....
Well, it's been awhile since I updated anything about my work life so I'll go ahead and give a brief update. Before I left Ngong I was doing demonstrations about 4 times a week on various health topics from Malaria to nutrition for mothers and babies to the importance of vaccinations. The first day I did my nutrition presentation to pregnant mothers I mentioned the importance of eating meat and getting lots of iron because pregnant women are at a high risk of anemia in our part of the country. Well, when I went in the next day all the nurses told me that about half of the women bought anemia-prevention medicine which definitely shows that at least I had an impact and got through to the women--if not necessarily in regards to how they can naturally prevent anemia through diet.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm in Yaounde right now and I'm here because I've been selected to help out with training for the new group of agro and health volunteers arriving in a couple weeks. I'll be coming down and presenting the technical sessions on Diarrheal Diseases, Water & Sanitation, Malaria, and Food Security. The last one I'll be doing with my friend Patrick, an Agro who lives in the Northwest. I'm really excited, though, because I will also be in Bafia (the new training city) when the groups find out their posts. Not only will I be able to see who'll be the new kids around me but I'll be able to give information on a lot of the northern posts and calm some of the unavoidable fears of the trainees going to the grand north.
On the back burner right now is my trash collection project. I've been green-lighted for funding, the only snag right now is that I don't have all of the prices down for the plaques I'd like to have made for our sensitization campaign. Hopefully I'll be able to find those out before I head back up north on Wednesday night.
One other project I'm working on right now is getting a pump fixed with Chris, a SED (small enterprise development) volunteer about 22 k from me. The pump is in a small town called Rabingha, 4 k south of me. Chris is going to do some savings and general money-managing classes with the members of the water committee there, and I'll be doing some water sanitation sessions with whoever wants them.
I also did a short jam-making project a while back. It started out pretty well, but I definitely started the project too late into the mango season, so I wasn't able to teach as many people as I wanted to and I doubt the women I taught had much time to practice before the mangoes were all gone. Oh well, next year I'll have to start when the mangoes arrive.
There was an outbreak of cholera in my health district back in July but, as it stands, we've only had seven cases (none in Ngong proper) and no deaths. The last case was also over a month ago, so we're pretty sure that this specific outbreak in our district is done. Knock on wood. Who knows when another case will slither on down from the Extreme North and infect more people, though. I went out to the town where the first case was and, let me tell you, I have no idea how there weren't 100 cases. The latrines were uncovered, dirty dishes were laying around everywhere, and the well where people got their water was horrible. It was about 200 meters from the big river in the North (the Benoue) and the water table was only about a foot below the surface. The water was so cloudy and dirty that I couldn't see more than five or six inches below the surface. It looked like the water in my buckets after I get done washing my clothes. Anyway, the authorities treated the well (LOADS of chlorine in it, closing it off for a couple days), and made everyone who lived nearby start boiling their water and using chlorine when washing their dishes.
Well, guess that's about it for now. I'll probably be pretty busy in the next couple months, what with traveling back down here for training and working on the pump and trash projects.
Until next time....
Friday, September 3, 2010
The revolving door of peace corps
Peace Corps is a unique and interesting organization for innumerable reasons, though the one I'd like to look at now is how it affects the relationships between people.
I thought of this pretty early on after I arrived in country but Peace Corps really is like a revolving door of people. When we first got here, most of the volunteers we met and got to know left before we even finished training because their two years of service were up. After that, a few people I got to be good friends with left again back in June-July, with a new group in to replace them. Throw in the people who have to randomly go home due to family illnesses or other reasons and you can see how there's constantly people filtering in and out of my life around here. Now, a good number of my friends and volunteers around me are going to be leaving in November and December and I think that's going to be pretty tough on me. Sure, I've still got some friends around me, as well as the rest of my training mates who I'll see when I come down to Yaounde, but I feel like I slipped in pretty well to the health/agro stage before mine and it's going to be a sad day for me when they're all leaving and off to bigger and better things. I know that might sound like an egotistical thing for me to say but I guess I'm just saying that I'm going to miss everyone when they leave.
Peace Corps also does an interesting number on personal relationships. During training, friendships and relationships are on a hyper-accelerated pace as we spend 8+ hours a day together. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as you get to know people pretty well in those short 11 weeks. Since training, though, I haven't really seen much of the others from my training group as I am pretty far away from them all, so many of these friendships have kind of fallen to the side. Somebody warned me that it would be hard to stay involved with their lives being, at the least, a 2 day journey from 90% of them. With a few exceptions, it's turned out to be pretty true. So I became good friends with the people around me in the North region, a good number of who are leaving in the next 3 months.
Another volunteer nearby me who has been here for close to 3.5 years now has said it's hard seeing people you trained with go, and while I didn't train with the people leaving soon, I definitely became good friends with them. I might take a couple days of vacation and go hang out with him in the Extreme North in December before the new volunteers arrive, to get away from all the empty posts.
Maybe this blog has been a bit of a downer. I hope not, but it's been something on my mind a lot lately.
I thought of this pretty early on after I arrived in country but Peace Corps really is like a revolving door of people. When we first got here, most of the volunteers we met and got to know left before we even finished training because their two years of service were up. After that, a few people I got to be good friends with left again back in June-July, with a new group in to replace them. Throw in the people who have to randomly go home due to family illnesses or other reasons and you can see how there's constantly people filtering in and out of my life around here. Now, a good number of my friends and volunteers around me are going to be leaving in November and December and I think that's going to be pretty tough on me. Sure, I've still got some friends around me, as well as the rest of my training mates who I'll see when I come down to Yaounde, but I feel like I slipped in pretty well to the health/agro stage before mine and it's going to be a sad day for me when they're all leaving and off to bigger and better things. I know that might sound like an egotistical thing for me to say but I guess I'm just saying that I'm going to miss everyone when they leave.
Peace Corps also does an interesting number on personal relationships. During training, friendships and relationships are on a hyper-accelerated pace as we spend 8+ hours a day together. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as you get to know people pretty well in those short 11 weeks. Since training, though, I haven't really seen much of the others from my training group as I am pretty far away from them all, so many of these friendships have kind of fallen to the side. Somebody warned me that it would be hard to stay involved with their lives being, at the least, a 2 day journey from 90% of them. With a few exceptions, it's turned out to be pretty true. So I became good friends with the people around me in the North region, a good number of who are leaving in the next 3 months.
Another volunteer nearby me who has been here for close to 3.5 years now has said it's hard seeing people you trained with go, and while I didn't train with the people leaving soon, I definitely became good friends with them. I might take a couple days of vacation and go hang out with him in the Extreme North in December before the new volunteers arrive, to get away from all the empty posts.
Maybe this blog has been a bit of a downer. I hope not, but it's been something on my mind a lot lately.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
First world, second time?
Alright, well, it's been a while since I've posted something and I've definitely not been standing still so I figure I'll write about a little travelling I've just done.
I just got back from a nine-day vacation in Denmark where I visited with my family that lives there as well as my parents and three of their friends who were taking a little vacation of their own in Scandinavia. Even though I love my post, my friends, and many things about this country, it was really nice to take a break from Cameroon and my Peace Corps duties. The first thing I did after my red eye flight to Brussels where I was changing planes was run to the Starbuck's in the main terminal (after passport control, that is). I got a tall latte, and boy was it amazing. I haven't had anything other than Nescafe or the occassional cup that I brew myself in 9 months so I was thrilled to be able to gulp down a shot of espresso mixed with delicious, frothy milk. I usually avoid Starbuck's in the states but, hey, beggars can't be choosers. They even let me pay with some US dollars I'd brought with me! I figured I didn't want to push my luck and see if they'd take some of the Central African Francs (cfa) I also had in my wallet.
After that, I was hungry so I started wandering around, wondering what to get. I saw a Pizza Hut express which wasn't open, a little food court with some traditional Belgian dishes, as well as a few cafes and bars that were quite full at 9 in the morning. I wandered around from place to place, wondering what to get to satisfy my desire for Western food. Do I wait around for that deep dish with pepperonis at the Pizza Hut? Should I just get a burger or some pasta at the food court? Is it too early for a Stella or Hoegarden? Then I started looking at the prices. Seven euros for a personal pan pizza, 5.50 for a small beer, 12 for a burger with fries and a coke. I started going through this in my head, changing these euros back to CFA, and realizing that a meal here would likely cost about as much (if not more) than what I normally spend in a week on food. I felt incredibly conflicted about what to do. Could I justify to myself spending this much money on a meal when I haggle over pennies in the market? As my hunger increased and my flight to Copenhagen approached, I frantically wandered the airport trying to figure out what to do. I ended up just getting a bag of chips and some gummies from a vending machine. I also searched for a Dr. Pepper or Mountain Dew but came up empty handed.
My other little cultural touble--I don't want to say shock as that's a little extreme--came the following morning when I woke up at my cousin Tess's house and it came time to brush my teeth. Normally I just brush my teeth without water as it's a bit of a hassle to bring a water bottle outside with me at home, and I definitely don't use the tap water when I'm in bigger cities. I stood in front of the sink for probably a minute telling myself I would be fine to use the sink water. I drank some of that water the day before, but for some reason there was almost a mental barrier for me with using this tap water that I knew was safe. I ended up using it but it took some mustering up of courage to do so. Throughout the rest of my trip I still had a bit of trepidation every time I filled up my glass or water bottle at a sink.
I'm not terribly sure the rest of my trip would be that interesting to anyone so I'll just throw in a few more highlights. Yes, I had some McDonald's. Twice. It wasn't Taco Bell, but it did the trick. I had so much amazing Danish food, mostly centered around their cheese and what I consider one of the least appreciated cheese-cultures in the world. I believe I put on about 9 pounds in the 9 days I was there which is pretty good considering I'd lost quite a bit of weight since arriving in Cameroon. There's also a microbrew on the island my uncle and aunt live on that makes some really delicious beers, including one of the best American Pale Ales I can remember drinking. I didn't have too many, but I cherished each one. My last night in Copenhagen, I went to the big town center with my cousin Ben to watch the Denmark-Japan match. Well, after Japan got off to a quick 2-0 lead, we decided to go meet up with Tess at an Irish pub where we watched the game and then danced to this Irish guy playing a guitar and singing mid-90's classics such as "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "Wonderwall." I convinced Tess to ask him how he felt about playing "Sunday Bloody Sunday" though he tactfully responded with "As an Irishman, I'm over it."
At the beginning of the trip when I was in the Yaounde airport, I initially feared not wanting to get back on the plane at the end of the trip. As the trip went on, though, I started to get more and more comfortable with the idea of coming home to Cameroon. Throughout my whole time there, I was not-too-secretly hoping the second volcano in Iceland would go off, thus "stranding" me there for a while longer. When I got on the plane at 6:15 am, though, I was glad to be starting my journey back. In the last couple months, Ngong has really become home for me and I really enjoy my time there, even with some of the problems I've been having. My step-mom said something to me at one point that was like "I can tell you're not 100% here." I hadn't really thought of it but once she said it, I had to agree. It was great to see my family and relax but quite often I was wondering how my friends were doing in town, what other volunteers were up to, if anyone had eaten my cat and, if not, how little Chavez was doing. And now that I'm here I am not sure that my mind's 100% back. It's a weird feeling to not know where your mind really is, caught between two worlds.
I just got back from a nine-day vacation in Denmark where I visited with my family that lives there as well as my parents and three of their friends who were taking a little vacation of their own in Scandinavia. Even though I love my post, my friends, and many things about this country, it was really nice to take a break from Cameroon and my Peace Corps duties. The first thing I did after my red eye flight to Brussels where I was changing planes was run to the Starbuck's in the main terminal (after passport control, that is). I got a tall latte, and boy was it amazing. I haven't had anything other than Nescafe or the occassional cup that I brew myself in 9 months so I was thrilled to be able to gulp down a shot of espresso mixed with delicious, frothy milk. I usually avoid Starbuck's in the states but, hey, beggars can't be choosers. They even let me pay with some US dollars I'd brought with me! I figured I didn't want to push my luck and see if they'd take some of the Central African Francs (cfa) I also had in my wallet.
After that, I was hungry so I started wandering around, wondering what to get. I saw a Pizza Hut express which wasn't open, a little food court with some traditional Belgian dishes, as well as a few cafes and bars that were quite full at 9 in the morning. I wandered around from place to place, wondering what to get to satisfy my desire for Western food. Do I wait around for that deep dish with pepperonis at the Pizza Hut? Should I just get a burger or some pasta at the food court? Is it too early for a Stella or Hoegarden? Then I started looking at the prices. Seven euros for a personal pan pizza, 5.50 for a small beer, 12 for a burger with fries and a coke. I started going through this in my head, changing these euros back to CFA, and realizing that a meal here would likely cost about as much (if not more) than what I normally spend in a week on food. I felt incredibly conflicted about what to do. Could I justify to myself spending this much money on a meal when I haggle over pennies in the market? As my hunger increased and my flight to Copenhagen approached, I frantically wandered the airport trying to figure out what to do. I ended up just getting a bag of chips and some gummies from a vending machine. I also searched for a Dr. Pepper or Mountain Dew but came up empty handed.
My other little cultural touble--I don't want to say shock as that's a little extreme--came the following morning when I woke up at my cousin Tess's house and it came time to brush my teeth. Normally I just brush my teeth without water as it's a bit of a hassle to bring a water bottle outside with me at home, and I definitely don't use the tap water when I'm in bigger cities. I stood in front of the sink for probably a minute telling myself I would be fine to use the sink water. I drank some of that water the day before, but for some reason there was almost a mental barrier for me with using this tap water that I knew was safe. I ended up using it but it took some mustering up of courage to do so. Throughout the rest of my trip I still had a bit of trepidation every time I filled up my glass or water bottle at a sink.
I'm not terribly sure the rest of my trip would be that interesting to anyone so I'll just throw in a few more highlights. Yes, I had some McDonald's. Twice. It wasn't Taco Bell, but it did the trick. I had so much amazing Danish food, mostly centered around their cheese and what I consider one of the least appreciated cheese-cultures in the world. I believe I put on about 9 pounds in the 9 days I was there which is pretty good considering I'd lost quite a bit of weight since arriving in Cameroon. There's also a microbrew on the island my uncle and aunt live on that makes some really delicious beers, including one of the best American Pale Ales I can remember drinking. I didn't have too many, but I cherished each one. My last night in Copenhagen, I went to the big town center with my cousin Ben to watch the Denmark-Japan match. Well, after Japan got off to a quick 2-0 lead, we decided to go meet up with Tess at an Irish pub where we watched the game and then danced to this Irish guy playing a guitar and singing mid-90's classics such as "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "Wonderwall." I convinced Tess to ask him how he felt about playing "Sunday Bloody Sunday" though he tactfully responded with "As an Irishman, I'm over it."
At the beginning of the trip when I was in the Yaounde airport, I initially feared not wanting to get back on the plane at the end of the trip. As the trip went on, though, I started to get more and more comfortable with the idea of coming home to Cameroon. Throughout my whole time there, I was not-too-secretly hoping the second volcano in Iceland would go off, thus "stranding" me there for a while longer. When I got on the plane at 6:15 am, though, I was glad to be starting my journey back. In the last couple months, Ngong has really become home for me and I really enjoy my time there, even with some of the problems I've been having. My step-mom said something to me at one point that was like "I can tell you're not 100% here." I hadn't really thought of it but once she said it, I had to agree. It was great to see my family and relax but quite often I was wondering how my friends were doing in town, what other volunteers were up to, if anyone had eaten my cat and, if not, how little Chavez was doing. And now that I'm here I am not sure that my mind's 100% back. It's a weird feeling to not know where your mind really is, caught between two worlds.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Le vingt mai (May 20th): une petite histoire
The 20th of May is Unification Day in Cameroon, the day that the Anglophone and Francophone regions were reunited under one government, the year after independence. It is a huge national holiday and I’d equate it to the 4th of July in the U.S. Here is my story.
I woke up on this bright, sunny, hot Thursday morning to yet another day without electricity. The power had been out since Sunday, (it ended staying out for more than another week) and many people were pretty pissed because they expected this to effect the festivities. Well, you be the judge as I continue the story. Anyway, I got up and put on one of my boubous and then started wandering through town, grabbing some beans and beignets along the way, until I arrived at the stadium where the parade was supposed to start at 9. Naturally, I’d forgotten my camera at my house so I snagged a moto back and forth, getting back to the stadium around 10ish, before anything had even started. Our lamido cruised up in his nice Land Rover, surrounded by his guard of men in colorful outfits, equipped with swords, and giant umbrellas, all seated on Arabian horses. If it wasn’t for the Land Rover I would have said it seemed like something out of Aladdin. I walked around a little bit until I heard a familiar voice call out “Nassara! Nasarra! Alhadji!” I turned around and saw Baudouin, the French NGO worker in town, with a friend of his from France who was (and still is) visiting named Marie. We wandered around for a while and made our way over to where the school children were lined up and talked to some of the teachers Baudouin used to work with. The parade finally started sometime after 11 and was, for the most part, exactly the same as every other parade I’ve seen here. The schools march in order, each group carrying a Cameroonian flag, occasionally singing and praising Paul Biya, occasionally clapping or doing a little choreographed stutter-step. We saw Linda, the Anglophone owner of the bar which is the general hangout for us and our friends, and she said she had cold beers at her place. I didn’t catch some of what they said then because they were rattling off in some pretty rapid French but I did here her say something like “Oh, I know my clients. They’ll drink the beer even when it’s hot.”
After a few hours under the hot sun, the three of us were quite thirsty so naturally we decided to leave the parade and go to Chez Linda, where Linda’s husband Ekambi was keeping an eye over everything. We had a couple beers and we knew that this was going to be the place to be as Ekambi had gone to Garoua that morning and bought a bunch of ice. Anyway, we hung out for a while, and watched as the parade ended and everyone streamed back into town and then realized this place had cold drinks. The mayor even showed up, fully decked out in his boubou made of Paul Biya panye(fabric), and had a Fanta. Somewhere around mid afternoon I went home to change out of my boubou and then got back only to see that several of our friends we’d been hanging out with were back at the stadium for the over-50 soccer match that was going to happen. My friends Kais and Limbo pulled up on their motos and said “Harley! Baudouin! Go get your soccer shoes, we need more players, now!” Now, Baudouin is 25 and I am 24 so between the two of us we almost have 50 years. Naturally, I caught another moto home, grabbed my shoes and got back to the stadium. Somebody tossed me a yellow jersey. I figured it’d just be a bunch of old guys kicking a ball around with a few casual onlookers. There may have been 10 guys there who were over 50, and that’s probably a generous estimate. Also, the lamido, the marabou (my neighbor who is like a cross between a witch doctor, a fortune teller, and a wizard), and most of the grands in town were sitting in the stands along with countless people looking on. We had a pretty fun game, I played a little over half of it and we ended in a 2-2 tie.
Baudouin and I wandered back to Chez Linda, joking around about how while we might not have 50 years between us, we sure played like we were 50. When we got back there, the music was going full blast (generators!) and people were up and dancing at their tables, in their seats, and basically any place open. That’s one thing I love about this country, you can start dancing whenever and wherever you please, so long as there is a little music. And the best part is that nobody is self-conscious at all, you just groove how you want to and nobody really pays attention or judges unless they are also dancing. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen somebody dancing by themselves at a table while everyone else was still seated and talking. Anyway, the ice from the morning had all melted and the beers were only mildly cooler than the air (maybe only about 90 as the sun had gone down a little while before), though that was still a plus. Linda was definitely right when she said she knew her clientele. Marie had been at the bar during the whole match and when Baudouin and I got back he had to finish her beer and then take her home so she could go to sleep. I hung out for a little bit more with some of my friends and then walked home, grabbing what might have been the best spaghetti omelet of my life, the guy put some avocado-salad-mix on top which was simply awesome.
Best fête day yet.
I woke up on this bright, sunny, hot Thursday morning to yet another day without electricity. The power had been out since Sunday, (it ended staying out for more than another week) and many people were pretty pissed because they expected this to effect the festivities. Well, you be the judge as I continue the story. Anyway, I got up and put on one of my boubous and then started wandering through town, grabbing some beans and beignets along the way, until I arrived at the stadium where the parade was supposed to start at 9. Naturally, I’d forgotten my camera at my house so I snagged a moto back and forth, getting back to the stadium around 10ish, before anything had even started. Our lamido cruised up in his nice Land Rover, surrounded by his guard of men in colorful outfits, equipped with swords, and giant umbrellas, all seated on Arabian horses. If it wasn’t for the Land Rover I would have said it seemed like something out of Aladdin. I walked around a little bit until I heard a familiar voice call out “Nassara! Nasarra! Alhadji!” I turned around and saw Baudouin, the French NGO worker in town, with a friend of his from France who was (and still is) visiting named Marie. We wandered around for a while and made our way over to where the school children were lined up and talked to some of the teachers Baudouin used to work with. The parade finally started sometime after 11 and was, for the most part, exactly the same as every other parade I’ve seen here. The schools march in order, each group carrying a Cameroonian flag, occasionally singing and praising Paul Biya, occasionally clapping or doing a little choreographed stutter-step. We saw Linda, the Anglophone owner of the bar which is the general hangout for us and our friends, and she said she had cold beers at her place. I didn’t catch some of what they said then because they were rattling off in some pretty rapid French but I did here her say something like “Oh, I know my clients. They’ll drink the beer even when it’s hot.”
After a few hours under the hot sun, the three of us were quite thirsty so naturally we decided to leave the parade and go to Chez Linda, where Linda’s husband Ekambi was keeping an eye over everything. We had a couple beers and we knew that this was going to be the place to be as Ekambi had gone to Garoua that morning and bought a bunch of ice. Anyway, we hung out for a while, and watched as the parade ended and everyone streamed back into town and then realized this place had cold drinks. The mayor even showed up, fully decked out in his boubou made of Paul Biya panye(fabric), and had a Fanta. Somewhere around mid afternoon I went home to change out of my boubou and then got back only to see that several of our friends we’d been hanging out with were back at the stadium for the over-50 soccer match that was going to happen. My friends Kais and Limbo pulled up on their motos and said “Harley! Baudouin! Go get your soccer shoes, we need more players, now!” Now, Baudouin is 25 and I am 24 so between the two of us we almost have 50 years. Naturally, I caught another moto home, grabbed my shoes and got back to the stadium. Somebody tossed me a yellow jersey. I figured it’d just be a bunch of old guys kicking a ball around with a few casual onlookers. There may have been 10 guys there who were over 50, and that’s probably a generous estimate. Also, the lamido, the marabou (my neighbor who is like a cross between a witch doctor, a fortune teller, and a wizard), and most of the grands in town were sitting in the stands along with countless people looking on. We had a pretty fun game, I played a little over half of it and we ended in a 2-2 tie.
Baudouin and I wandered back to Chez Linda, joking around about how while we might not have 50 years between us, we sure played like we were 50. When we got back there, the music was going full blast (generators!) and people were up and dancing at their tables, in their seats, and basically any place open. That’s one thing I love about this country, you can start dancing whenever and wherever you please, so long as there is a little music. And the best part is that nobody is self-conscious at all, you just groove how you want to and nobody really pays attention or judges unless they are also dancing. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen somebody dancing by themselves at a table while everyone else was still seated and talking. Anyway, the ice from the morning had all melted and the beers were only mildly cooler than the air (maybe only about 90 as the sun had gone down a little while before), though that was still a plus. Linda was definitely right when she said she knew her clientele. Marie had been at the bar during the whole match and when Baudouin and I got back he had to finish her beer and then take her home so she could go to sleep. I hung out for a little bit more with some of my friends and then walked home, grabbing what might have been the best spaghetti omelet of my life, the guy put some avocado-salad-mix on top which was simply awesome.
Best fête day yet.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Who’s talking trash?
2 May 2010
I’m coming up on my first full week back at home after being gone for a while. It sure is nice to be back in Ngong, sleep in my own bed, and play with my kitty Chavez again. I was in the southern part of the country for a good chunk of April, and apparently that was when the heat was the worst so I’m not too sad to have returned right when the rains started. Also, my French friend in town told me my French is much better now than when I left. Schwing! Anyway, I spent one week at IST (In-service training) in Foumban, a cultural-touristy city in the West (read: good food, not as hot) and then a week in Yaounde for a committee meeting—I joined the Environmental Education and Food Security Committee. I had a great time in both places, it was really fun to see all my friends from training again. I figured the Environmental Education committee be a good committee to join, particularly considering the poor treatment of the environment in my town. Plastic bags and sachets are everywhere, people relieve themselves whenever and wherever they feel like it, and whenever you finish with something, say a candy wrapper, you just drop it in the dirt. As some of you who have been to Africa know, this isn’t incredibly uncommon. Establishing some form of trash disposal isn’t generally high on the to-do list for most governments, though the population generally hates looking at all the trash around. The really sad part is that, like most problems, people blame all the trash around on poverty. There isn’t any money to clean things up, and there isn’t any money to change their ways. Which brings me to the first major project I’m undertaking…
Starting a trash collection system! The main thing people told me when I first got here was that our town is too dirty, we need to do something about it. (Often the person telling me this was flinging a bottle cap into the street or letting a plastic bag flutter off into the wind.) I tried to get something going with the chief of hygiene in town, a Monsieur Toloba, (actually a salaried position at the city hall) but due to a combination of an acute lack of French skills on my part, a mutual uncertainty of what the other’s job actually was, and a lack of funds, nothing really got started. Now, though, equipped with my apparently improved French, at least a feeling for how to get something done, some knowledge of where I might be able to find some funding, and a new sense of ambition to get some projects going, I approached M. Toloba earlier this week. Not only did he immediately jump on board, he’d already had something like this planned for a while, including a disposal system practically already in place. The only road block has been the mayor who hasn’t supplied any funds. We came up with a preliminary budget and hopefully this week we’ll get a map of Ngong and jump around to the different quartiers and see where we can install some trash cans.
The big problem in development work is how to make something sustainable. If you just come in and build something, eventually it’s going to break and then if there aren’t the proper resources—be it knowledge, money, etc.—it’ll just sit there broken and unused. What makes me excited about this project is that the city already has a means to dispose of the trash (depending on the month, Toloba has anywhere from 3-6 “agents” who work for him), a person who can be in charge of the project once my part is done, and the means to continue the project at a relatively low cost after we get the initial capital to get it running. I’m hoping to be able to get some funds through a Peace Corps program called SPA, and I believe the clams are provided by USAID. On a side note, if I’m not mistaken this is the only funding that comes to Cameroon from USAID—they pulled out of here a number of years ago. If that falls through, though, I might try something called a Peace Corps Partnership which is a program where I’ll make a description of my program and then Peace Corps will put that description online and people from around the world can donate to it from there. If that’s the case, I’ll make sure to post a link to it on this blog.
I think the toughest part about this project is going to be getting people to actually use the trash cans. Toloba and I are going to have to go around and sensitize many, many people in town as to the importance of the trash collection system and why they should use it. Also, we’ll have to pick the places in town where the trash cans can make the biggest difference. I’m going to make a bunch of flyers in French and Fulfulde and post them around town in the bars, restaurants, boutiques, and basically anywhere public.
Here’s hoping everything works out!
I’m coming up on my first full week back at home after being gone for a while. It sure is nice to be back in Ngong, sleep in my own bed, and play with my kitty Chavez again. I was in the southern part of the country for a good chunk of April, and apparently that was when the heat was the worst so I’m not too sad to have returned right when the rains started. Also, my French friend in town told me my French is much better now than when I left. Schwing! Anyway, I spent one week at IST (In-service training) in Foumban, a cultural-touristy city in the West (read: good food, not as hot) and then a week in Yaounde for a committee meeting—I joined the Environmental Education and Food Security Committee. I had a great time in both places, it was really fun to see all my friends from training again. I figured the Environmental Education committee be a good committee to join, particularly considering the poor treatment of the environment in my town. Plastic bags and sachets are everywhere, people relieve themselves whenever and wherever they feel like it, and whenever you finish with something, say a candy wrapper, you just drop it in the dirt. As some of you who have been to Africa know, this isn’t incredibly uncommon. Establishing some form of trash disposal isn’t generally high on the to-do list for most governments, though the population generally hates looking at all the trash around. The really sad part is that, like most problems, people blame all the trash around on poverty. There isn’t any money to clean things up, and there isn’t any money to change their ways. Which brings me to the first major project I’m undertaking…
Starting a trash collection system! The main thing people told me when I first got here was that our town is too dirty, we need to do something about it. (Often the person telling me this was flinging a bottle cap into the street or letting a plastic bag flutter off into the wind.) I tried to get something going with the chief of hygiene in town, a Monsieur Toloba, (actually a salaried position at the city hall) but due to a combination of an acute lack of French skills on my part, a mutual uncertainty of what the other’s job actually was, and a lack of funds, nothing really got started. Now, though, equipped with my apparently improved French, at least a feeling for how to get something done, some knowledge of where I might be able to find some funding, and a new sense of ambition to get some projects going, I approached M. Toloba earlier this week. Not only did he immediately jump on board, he’d already had something like this planned for a while, including a disposal system practically already in place. The only road block has been the mayor who hasn’t supplied any funds. We came up with a preliminary budget and hopefully this week we’ll get a map of Ngong and jump around to the different quartiers and see where we can install some trash cans.
The big problem in development work is how to make something sustainable. If you just come in and build something, eventually it’s going to break and then if there aren’t the proper resources—be it knowledge, money, etc.—it’ll just sit there broken and unused. What makes me excited about this project is that the city already has a means to dispose of the trash (depending on the month, Toloba has anywhere from 3-6 “agents” who work for him), a person who can be in charge of the project once my part is done, and the means to continue the project at a relatively low cost after we get the initial capital to get it running. I’m hoping to be able to get some funds through a Peace Corps program called SPA, and I believe the clams are provided by USAID. On a side note, if I’m not mistaken this is the only funding that comes to Cameroon from USAID—they pulled out of here a number of years ago. If that falls through, though, I might try something called a Peace Corps Partnership which is a program where I’ll make a description of my program and then Peace Corps will put that description online and people from around the world can donate to it from there. If that’s the case, I’ll make sure to post a link to it on this blog.
I think the toughest part about this project is going to be getting people to actually use the trash cans. Toloba and I are going to have to go around and sensitize many, many people in town as to the importance of the trash collection system and why they should use it. Also, we’ll have to pick the places in town where the trash cans can make the biggest difference. I’m going to make a bunch of flyers in French and Fulfulde and post them around town in the bars, restaurants, boutiques, and basically anywhere public.
Here’s hoping everything works out!
Monday, April 19, 2010
Yaounde, then and now.
I'm in Yaoundé right now, sitting in the Peace Corps office. IST (In-Service Training) went well up in Foumban in the West Region but I'm stuck back here in the capital until probably Friday because I joined the Environmental Education Committee. I think the main goal of the committee is to meet twice a year and learn about how we can promote environmental education and tackle some environmental concerns in our communities. Anyway, I said I’m stuck in Yaoundé. Like that’s a bad thing.
We flew into Yaoundé back in September and while I’ve traveled through it to get to and from post, I haven’t spent much time of substance here. Mostly just hanging out at the Peace Corps office/transit house or taking advantage of some delicious burgers across the street. When we arrived back in September, I was pretty intimidated by this place. Loads of traffic, pollution, people, poverty. This big third-world city with all the aggression wasn’t exactly where I wanted to spend my time. While I wasn’t determined to stay away, I was pretty set on not spending too much time here.
It’s amazing what a few months can do. Especially a few months in a place, such as the north, which is so drastically different from the south. Many people live in mud huts with thatched roofs and live on far less than a dollar a day up in my neck of the woods. Coming back to Yaoundé, I’m actually stunned. The level of development here boggles my mind. There are multi-story buildings, Mercedes, Chinese restaurants, and even a Hilton. In fact, last night I went to happy hour in the bar on the top floor of the Hilton. I felt like I was in America: I was sipping a Mai Tai, eating olives, and watching a soccer game on a flat screen. It’s amazing how spending four months eating little more than couscous (fufu) and sauce and speaking villageois French mixed with a little Fulfulde can sensitize me to be so stunned when I came back to this capital city, a place I initially thought to be little more than a big, dirty metropolis. I’m planning on meeting my parents in Denmark this summer and that will definitely be interesting seeing how I react when I get off the plane in Copenhagen. If I’m feeling this much culture shock in the same country, I can only imagine what it’ll be like in Europe.
We flew into Yaoundé back in September and while I’ve traveled through it to get to and from post, I haven’t spent much time of substance here. Mostly just hanging out at the Peace Corps office/transit house or taking advantage of some delicious burgers across the street. When we arrived back in September, I was pretty intimidated by this place. Loads of traffic, pollution, people, poverty. This big third-world city with all the aggression wasn’t exactly where I wanted to spend my time. While I wasn’t determined to stay away, I was pretty set on not spending too much time here.
It’s amazing what a few months can do. Especially a few months in a place, such as the north, which is so drastically different from the south. Many people live in mud huts with thatched roofs and live on far less than a dollar a day up in my neck of the woods. Coming back to Yaoundé, I’m actually stunned. The level of development here boggles my mind. There are multi-story buildings, Mercedes, Chinese restaurants, and even a Hilton. In fact, last night I went to happy hour in the bar on the top floor of the Hilton. I felt like I was in America: I was sipping a Mai Tai, eating olives, and watching a soccer game on a flat screen. It’s amazing how spending four months eating little more than couscous (fufu) and sauce and speaking villageois French mixed with a little Fulfulde can sensitize me to be so stunned when I came back to this capital city, a place I initially thought to be little more than a big, dirty metropolis. I’m planning on meeting my parents in Denmark this summer and that will definitely be interesting seeing how I react when I get off the plane in Copenhagen. If I’m feeling this much culture shock in the same country, I can only imagine what it’ll be like in Europe.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
"Too much change is a bad thing... just ask the climate."
-Michael Scott
21 March 2010
As many of you have probably already gathered from various things I’ve said and written, the hot season in the Sahelian desert is a doozey. A couple weeks ago we were hitting temperatures that I believe were over 130 degrees Fahrenheit. I don’t know for certain because my digital thermometer stops counting at 122 and just says “HI”. The hottest it’s been inside my house is 105, and I recorded that a couple weeks ago. Staying hydrated isn’t easy, but I do what I can. Also, some volunteers are getting over some cases of heat rash right now. The rains generally stop in October or November and don’t start again in earnest until May or June, though occasionally a few rains trickle down in April. I’m told (and hoping) that once the rains come, things start cooling down a bit.
Last weekend (the 19/20/21) may have been the worst. I was in Bibemi which is a town en brousse (or on bruce as me and my friend text each other because we’re too lazy to go out of our English T9 and type it) about 2 hours away from me. I was there because the two volunteers in that town were putting on an HIV/AIDS training for people in the community and I wanted to come see how it went so I could see if something like that would be valuable in Ngong and if so, how it’s run and set up. Anyway, I arrived in Bibemi in the afternoon and it was hot but actually not too bad because there was a thin layer of clouds keeping the sun off me for the moto rides there. The bad thing, though, was that the humidity was rising, which was bizarre because the humidity doesn’t usually pick up until the rains start. That night I hardly slept because I was just drenched in sweat and every time I rolled over my back or side had soaked the sheet under me. The next night (Saturday) was even worse and when I got back to post the humidity was still there. On Monday night I probably only got about an hour or two of sleep before the mosque’s call to prayer woke me up at around 5:15. I went in to Garoua on Tuesday for my Fulfulde lesson and—let me make a quick aside here. Garoua is by far the hottest city in Cameroon. It’s full of pavement, people, motos spitting black smoke out the back, and very few trees. Some volunteers refer to it as the surface of the sun or, less kindly, the surface of hell. I had to stop wearing sandals there a month or so ago because when I take a moto around town there, the hot air felt like a blow torch on my feet. Back to the story. I was in Garoua for my Fulfulde lesson but I spent a little time in the Peace Corps office beforehand, checking my email and making the most of the air conditioning unit. Expectedly, the heat felt worse when I went outside after the nice controlled climate of the office. I got to the place where I usually have my lesson and the wind was picking up. After about five minutes, my tutor suggested we move inside because he thought it was going to rain. Sure enough, ten minutes after we went inside it started pouring outside. Not necessarily like one of the torrential downpours like we had in the West during the rainy season but definitely a nice, hard rain. It continued for about an hour and a half and was still raining a little bit when I found a bush taxi back to Ngong. The best part was, though, that it had cooled off. Back home, though, it hadn’t rained at all, though it was still pretty windy.
On Wednesday morning when I woke up, I had a little sore throat and it looked foggy outside, though I didn’t feel the humidity that usually comes with that. The best way I think I can describe it is by saying that the air looked like the top of a mountain that’s in a cloud when you’re skiing. Things are hazy but you can still make it out and as you move along things materialize, flash past, and disappear. Similar to fog but the two things always seemed different to me. Anyway, the haze was so strong that a tree a few hundred feet from my house had a distinct whitish hue. Thankfully, though, it was noticeably cooler. When I left for the hospital at around 8:30 it was only about 85 degrees out, so naturally I wore a long sleeve shirt. As I walked over I noticed that I was coughing every so often. At the hospital, the doctor told me that the haze in the air was dust, not fog. Crazy. We’d had a few harmattan days back in January but this was much worse than they had been. For those who don’t know, harmattan is the name for a weather pattern that happens in West Africa in late-December or early-January. After the rains have stopped for a while, some big, gusty wind patterns carry dust from the Sahara south and it makes everything dusty, dry, and white. Some people have been telling me that this is the harmattan but I ask them what were those days in January, then? Why is it here now, in the middle of the hot season? “C’est comme ça” everyone says: “It’s like that.” Great response, guys. I ventured that maybe it was climate change and then the response was “Oui, oui, c’est comme ça, aussi”: “Yes, yes, it’s like that, also.”
The break from the heat has been nice but the dust and dryness is tearing apart my throat. I’ve taken to drinking more tea, keeping my windows and door closed, and not going out when I don’t have to. Even so, everything in my house has a noticeable layer of dust on it and my throat still hurts. Oh well, it’s only a few weeks until IST (In Service Training) down in the West region and then I’ll get a break from either the dust or the heat--which I know will return, and soon.
Like Michael said, “Too much change is a bad thing… just ask the climate.”
21 March 2010
As many of you have probably already gathered from various things I’ve said and written, the hot season in the Sahelian desert is a doozey. A couple weeks ago we were hitting temperatures that I believe were over 130 degrees Fahrenheit. I don’t know for certain because my digital thermometer stops counting at 122 and just says “HI”. The hottest it’s been inside my house is 105, and I recorded that a couple weeks ago. Staying hydrated isn’t easy, but I do what I can. Also, some volunteers are getting over some cases of heat rash right now. The rains generally stop in October or November and don’t start again in earnest until May or June, though occasionally a few rains trickle down in April. I’m told (and hoping) that once the rains come, things start cooling down a bit.
Last weekend (the 19/20/21) may have been the worst. I was in Bibemi which is a town en brousse (or on bruce as me and my friend text each other because we’re too lazy to go out of our English T9 and type it) about 2 hours away from me. I was there because the two volunteers in that town were putting on an HIV/AIDS training for people in the community and I wanted to come see how it went so I could see if something like that would be valuable in Ngong and if so, how it’s run and set up. Anyway, I arrived in Bibemi in the afternoon and it was hot but actually not too bad because there was a thin layer of clouds keeping the sun off me for the moto rides there. The bad thing, though, was that the humidity was rising, which was bizarre because the humidity doesn’t usually pick up until the rains start. That night I hardly slept because I was just drenched in sweat and every time I rolled over my back or side had soaked the sheet under me. The next night (Saturday) was even worse and when I got back to post the humidity was still there. On Monday night I probably only got about an hour or two of sleep before the mosque’s call to prayer woke me up at around 5:15. I went in to Garoua on Tuesday for my Fulfulde lesson and—let me make a quick aside here. Garoua is by far the hottest city in Cameroon. It’s full of pavement, people, motos spitting black smoke out the back, and very few trees. Some volunteers refer to it as the surface of the sun or, less kindly, the surface of hell. I had to stop wearing sandals there a month or so ago because when I take a moto around town there, the hot air felt like a blow torch on my feet. Back to the story. I was in Garoua for my Fulfulde lesson but I spent a little time in the Peace Corps office beforehand, checking my email and making the most of the air conditioning unit. Expectedly, the heat felt worse when I went outside after the nice controlled climate of the office. I got to the place where I usually have my lesson and the wind was picking up. After about five minutes, my tutor suggested we move inside because he thought it was going to rain. Sure enough, ten minutes after we went inside it started pouring outside. Not necessarily like one of the torrential downpours like we had in the West during the rainy season but definitely a nice, hard rain. It continued for about an hour and a half and was still raining a little bit when I found a bush taxi back to Ngong. The best part was, though, that it had cooled off. Back home, though, it hadn’t rained at all, though it was still pretty windy.
On Wednesday morning when I woke up, I had a little sore throat and it looked foggy outside, though I didn’t feel the humidity that usually comes with that. The best way I think I can describe it is by saying that the air looked like the top of a mountain that’s in a cloud when you’re skiing. Things are hazy but you can still make it out and as you move along things materialize, flash past, and disappear. Similar to fog but the two things always seemed different to me. Anyway, the haze was so strong that a tree a few hundred feet from my house had a distinct whitish hue. Thankfully, though, it was noticeably cooler. When I left for the hospital at around 8:30 it was only about 85 degrees out, so naturally I wore a long sleeve shirt. As I walked over I noticed that I was coughing every so often. At the hospital, the doctor told me that the haze in the air was dust, not fog. Crazy. We’d had a few harmattan days back in January but this was much worse than they had been. For those who don’t know, harmattan is the name for a weather pattern that happens in West Africa in late-December or early-January. After the rains have stopped for a while, some big, gusty wind patterns carry dust from the Sahara south and it makes everything dusty, dry, and white. Some people have been telling me that this is the harmattan but I ask them what were those days in January, then? Why is it here now, in the middle of the hot season? “C’est comme ça” everyone says: “It’s like that.” Great response, guys. I ventured that maybe it was climate change and then the response was “Oui, oui, c’est comme ça, aussi”: “Yes, yes, it’s like that, also.”
The break from the heat has been nice but the dust and dryness is tearing apart my throat. I’ve taken to drinking more tea, keeping my windows and door closed, and not going out when I don’t have to. Even so, everything in my house has a noticeable layer of dust on it and my throat still hurts. Oh well, it’s only a few weeks until IST (In Service Training) down in the West region and then I’ll get a break from either the dust or the heat--which I know will return, and soon.
Like Michael said, “Too much change is a bad thing… just ask the climate.”
Saturday, February 27, 2010
"What’s in a name?" or "They call me alhadji, ‘cause that’s what I be."
21.2.2010
Since arriving in Cameroon, people have given me many names and called me many different things. At first, it was mostly just “ ‘Arley” with a rolled R, Spanish style. In French, they generally don’t pronounce H’s. Then my homestay mother started calling me “Tangi” which she told me was the name of the chief of Bamena’s nephew and I later came to find out was also an honorary title given to a father of twins.
Upon arriving in the North of Cameroon, people started referring to me a little bit as “Ali”, though that name never stuck too well. For some reason when I say “Harley,” people here like to hear “Alim,” which is also fine. To add another element of confusion to the equation, they do use the letter H in Fulfulde, so some of the Fulbe people can pronounce my name. For some odd reason, however, many people are unable to hear the R when I say my name so to a lot of people I am “Haly”—even my Fulfulde teacher in Garoua knows me as this. I’m pretty sure I’m in his phone that way. To top it all off, some people (mostly in the market) still call me “Hassan,” which was the name Harvard, the volunteer before me, went by. Yesterday, I also got called “Baudouin,” the French NGO worker in town. Furthermore, when somebody says “aller” or “allez” (to go) I always look up to see if somebody is calling for me. As far as I’m concerned, all of them are fine.
The only thing people call me here that tends to get on my nerves is when I’m called “Nasarra” which means white man. Now don’t get me wrong, I am fully aware that I stick out like a sore thumb and I don’t mind when people call me Nasarra when they are asking me something or want to get my attention for some tangible reason. What I don’t like is when I’m walking down the street and somebody from out of nowhere just shouts “Nasarra!!” from across the street with no other reason than to just point out that I’m there. Usually I ignore it but sometimes I give them a dirty look or shout back “Sannu balaajo” (Hello, black man!). Sometimes I imagine that some people think if they don’t say Nasarra when I walk by, I might disappear with a *POOF*, like my existence is contingent upon responding to a semi-racist request for attention.
Recently, however, people have been calling me something different. I have two boubous which are some traditional Arab/Muslim garb and it’s like a ankle-length shirt with matching pants that are basically like pajama pants. Needless to say, the boubou is incredibly comfortable and with the long sleeves on the top part it keeps the sun off you and thus keeps you a little cooler. Anyway, add to this my recently purchased tan, black, and white head scarf, also like what many Muslims wear and very effective in keeping the sun off my head and keeping me cooler, and I’m starting to look like a real Fulbe! (“Tres bien integre” as my counterpart says: very well integrated.) When I’m walking down the street now, some people have started calling me “alhadji” which I find simply hilarious. For those who don’t know, the term alhadji is like an honorific title given to Muslims who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca. For example, my landlord here is an alhadji (I also have another theory that all landlords here are alhadji’s but that’s for another time) and many people simply call him “alhadji,” or “Monsieur alhadji.” Anyway, I’m quite pleased with my new nickname in town. Maybe if people keep insisting on calling me “Nasarra” I can get them to start calling me “Nasar-hadji” instead. I wonder if they’d get the pun.
Alhadji-out.
Since arriving in Cameroon, people have given me many names and called me many different things. At first, it was mostly just “ ‘Arley” with a rolled R, Spanish style. In French, they generally don’t pronounce H’s. Then my homestay mother started calling me “Tangi” which she told me was the name of the chief of Bamena’s nephew and I later came to find out was also an honorary title given to a father of twins.
Upon arriving in the North of Cameroon, people started referring to me a little bit as “Ali”, though that name never stuck too well. For some reason when I say “Harley,” people here like to hear “Alim,” which is also fine. To add another element of confusion to the equation, they do use the letter H in Fulfulde, so some of the Fulbe people can pronounce my name. For some odd reason, however, many people are unable to hear the R when I say my name so to a lot of people I am “Haly”—even my Fulfulde teacher in Garoua knows me as this. I’m pretty sure I’m in his phone that way. To top it all off, some people (mostly in the market) still call me “Hassan,” which was the name Harvard, the volunteer before me, went by. Yesterday, I also got called “Baudouin,” the French NGO worker in town. Furthermore, when somebody says “aller” or “allez” (to go) I always look up to see if somebody is calling for me. As far as I’m concerned, all of them are fine.
The only thing people call me here that tends to get on my nerves is when I’m called “Nasarra” which means white man. Now don’t get me wrong, I am fully aware that I stick out like a sore thumb and I don’t mind when people call me Nasarra when they are asking me something or want to get my attention for some tangible reason. What I don’t like is when I’m walking down the street and somebody from out of nowhere just shouts “Nasarra!!” from across the street with no other reason than to just point out that I’m there. Usually I ignore it but sometimes I give them a dirty look or shout back “Sannu balaajo” (Hello, black man!). Sometimes I imagine that some people think if they don’t say Nasarra when I walk by, I might disappear with a *POOF*, like my existence is contingent upon responding to a semi-racist request for attention.
Recently, however, people have been calling me something different. I have two boubous which are some traditional Arab/Muslim garb and it’s like a ankle-length shirt with matching pants that are basically like pajama pants. Needless to say, the boubou is incredibly comfortable and with the long sleeves on the top part it keeps the sun off you and thus keeps you a little cooler. Anyway, add to this my recently purchased tan, black, and white head scarf, also like what many Muslims wear and very effective in keeping the sun off my head and keeping me cooler, and I’m starting to look like a real Fulbe! (“Tres bien integre” as my counterpart says: very well integrated.) When I’m walking down the street now, some people have started calling me “alhadji” which I find simply hilarious. For those who don’t know, the term alhadji is like an honorific title given to Muslims who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca. For example, my landlord here is an alhadji (I also have another theory that all landlords here are alhadji’s but that’s for another time) and many people simply call him “alhadji,” or “Monsieur alhadji.” Anyway, I’m quite pleased with my new nickname in town. Maybe if people keep insisting on calling me “Nasarra” I can get them to start calling me “Nasar-hadji” instead. I wonder if they’d get the pun.
Alhadji-out.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Egypt v. Cameroon: The Match
I arrived at the bar (Chez Linda) at 5:20, thinking the match started at 5:30. When I arrived, however, I saw tons of people glued to the TVs and realized the game was already twenty minutes deep. Woops, better start betting on the safe side when somebody tells me when a game starts. Anyway, I grabbed a beer from the fridge and snagged a causiere (a plastic beer container) and tipped it over near the back of the back room next to my friend Amadou, a pretty mild mannered guy who was sipping on a fanta, and started watching the match.
Cameroon scored first and everybody in the whole bar that I could see (indeed, probably most people in the town and even the parts of the country with electricity) erupted in applause. We all jumped up, shouting, toasting to the team and some people even started singing and dancing. A couple people went into renditions of the Kirikou song which goes something like this: “Kirikou, il est petite comme ca, mais il est forte! Il est forte!” (Kirikou, he is small like this, but he is strong! He is strong!) They replaced Kirikou with “Samuel Eto’o,” the captain and best player on the national squad, and it worked out pretty nicely. I’m not sure there’s anything like watching soccer with Africans, especially when one of the teams playing is the national team. It’s makes the sport… interesting.
Anyway, the game went on and the Egyptian team equalized before the half ended. About ten minutes into the second half the Cameroonian team had a good shot on the goal but wasn’t able to capitalize. A few people in the room applauded the effort but one guy actually started cheering, “C’est bonne! C’est bonne!” (It’s good! It’s good!) Immediately, several people started yelling at him asking him who he was supporting. The second he said Egypt Amadou got to his feet (along with most of the room) and started advancing towards the guy. Like I said earlier, Amadou is generally a very calm guy and the only time I’ve ever seen him upset before was when Cameroon nearly blew it against Zambia the previous week. He was one of the first to grab the guy by the shirt and call him a Chadian, though several people quickly separated them—though whether to prevent the ensuing fight or to try to grab a piece themselves, I’m not sure.
Anyway, I thought this was a minor scuffle so I kept an eye on what was happening basically in front of me and also kept trying to watch the game. I can’t really go into details because I couldn’t understand everything that was going on but what I did catch was essentially people getting violently angry at this guy for not supporting his country. Somebody turned off the TV, one or two people tried to keep 30 people away from the Egyptian supporter, and I went into the next room to watch the match and keep an eye on the fight. Patriotism certainly runs high here. After about twenty minutes of scuffles, the guy was dragged out of the bar, on one arm by his friend who was defending him and then on the other by the owner of the bar who I’m pretty sure I saw taking a swing at him at one point—though I don’t think he connected and he may have been trying to “break it up”.
A couple minutes after the fight broke up, I went back into the room (there was still about 10 minutes left in the second half) and sat down back on my upturned causiere. Tempers were still high and people were still arguing, yelling and pissed, not only at the Egyptian supporter but also at how the match was now tied. After I’d sat down for a couple minutes, another guy stood up at a comment from somebody else and took a lunge at some guy who I guess was a friend of the guy who’d been kicked out. I left the room and went to talk to the guy who worked at the bar and he asked me what happened. I was starting to get carried away and I said, “There was a guy who was supporting Egypt!” He shook his head and replied, “It’s only football….” I snapped out of it and realized that was the most rational thing I’d heard all night. Talk about being grounded.
Yes, soccer is a big part of life here. The vast majority of people loves the national team and watches them play with a fiery passion. But is it really worth getting into a fight over? I understand the implications of nationalism and the need to support one’s country, especially when the national team has historically been pretty good and is a point of national pride… but is it really worth coming to blows over? I certainly can’t answer that question.
I guess the longer I spend here the more I realize I don’t have any answers to my questions, only more and more questions. Nothing to do but keep asking them, right?
Cameroon scored first and everybody in the whole bar that I could see (indeed, probably most people in the town and even the parts of the country with electricity) erupted in applause. We all jumped up, shouting, toasting to the team and some people even started singing and dancing. A couple people went into renditions of the Kirikou song which goes something like this: “Kirikou, il est petite comme ca, mais il est forte! Il est forte!” (Kirikou, he is small like this, but he is strong! He is strong!) They replaced Kirikou with “Samuel Eto’o,” the captain and best player on the national squad, and it worked out pretty nicely. I’m not sure there’s anything like watching soccer with Africans, especially when one of the teams playing is the national team. It’s makes the sport… interesting.
Anyway, the game went on and the Egyptian team equalized before the half ended. About ten minutes into the second half the Cameroonian team had a good shot on the goal but wasn’t able to capitalize. A few people in the room applauded the effort but one guy actually started cheering, “C’est bonne! C’est bonne!” (It’s good! It’s good!) Immediately, several people started yelling at him asking him who he was supporting. The second he said Egypt Amadou got to his feet (along with most of the room) and started advancing towards the guy. Like I said earlier, Amadou is generally a very calm guy and the only time I’ve ever seen him upset before was when Cameroon nearly blew it against Zambia the previous week. He was one of the first to grab the guy by the shirt and call him a Chadian, though several people quickly separated them—though whether to prevent the ensuing fight or to try to grab a piece themselves, I’m not sure.
Anyway, I thought this was a minor scuffle so I kept an eye on what was happening basically in front of me and also kept trying to watch the game. I can’t really go into details because I couldn’t understand everything that was going on but what I did catch was essentially people getting violently angry at this guy for not supporting his country. Somebody turned off the TV, one or two people tried to keep 30 people away from the Egyptian supporter, and I went into the next room to watch the match and keep an eye on the fight. Patriotism certainly runs high here. After about twenty minutes of scuffles, the guy was dragged out of the bar, on one arm by his friend who was defending him and then on the other by the owner of the bar who I’m pretty sure I saw taking a swing at him at one point—though I don’t think he connected and he may have been trying to “break it up”.
A couple minutes after the fight broke up, I went back into the room (there was still about 10 minutes left in the second half) and sat down back on my upturned causiere. Tempers were still high and people were still arguing, yelling and pissed, not only at the Egyptian supporter but also at how the match was now tied. After I’d sat down for a couple minutes, another guy stood up at a comment from somebody else and took a lunge at some guy who I guess was a friend of the guy who’d been kicked out. I left the room and went to talk to the guy who worked at the bar and he asked me what happened. I was starting to get carried away and I said, “There was a guy who was supporting Egypt!” He shook his head and replied, “It’s only football….” I snapped out of it and realized that was the most rational thing I’d heard all night. Talk about being grounded.
Yes, soccer is a big part of life here. The vast majority of people loves the national team and watches them play with a fiery passion. But is it really worth getting into a fight over? I understand the implications of nationalism and the need to support one’s country, especially when the national team has historically been pretty good and is a point of national pride… but is it really worth coming to blows over? I certainly can’t answer that question.
I guess the longer I spend here the more I realize I don’t have any answers to my questions, only more and more questions. Nothing to do but keep asking them, right?
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Photos on the Wall
9 January 2010
In Cameroon, whenever a new person, such as myself, enters a village or town, he needs to go around to all the notables in the community, such as the chief, mayor, sous-prefet, etc., and introduce himself and why he is there. I did this in Ngong and then also had to go to Garoua to do the same with the people a step up. I had to go the Gendarmerie (sorta like the army barracks) twice because the first time, the Commandant was in Yaounde. When I returned a couple weeks later, he still wasn’t in the office but I decided to wait for a little while and took a seat.
A TV blared in the background, playing something like afro-reggae-pop which I found surprisingly catchy. The guard there didn’t really ask me anything but worked on his paperwork and occasionally shot a glance at the TV. I looked to my right and on the wall was a tagboard with some photos and captions on it. In one photo, four people lay on the ground and when I looked a little closer, I realized there were others standing around them.
The people on the ground were dead, shot by Chadian rebels who had made a raid across the border a few years ago.
Another photo was a close up of a man missing half his head. He was also shot by Chadian rebels. The photo was odd because his face was still almost completely intact and he looked eerily like he could have simply been sleeping—save for his mouth which was open and, though not disfigured, seemed to express pain, or surprise. I’m not sure which.
Yet another photo showed a person missing most of his intestines.
You get the idea.
I’m not trying to alarm anyone; these photos were taken several years ago when Chad was much more unstable and were a decent distance away from where I am currently living so don’t fear for my safety at all. Cameroon is the most stable country in the region and one of the most stable in Africa.
I guess the point I’m getting at is that while I sat in a chair, waiting for the Commandant of the Northern Legion and listening to a blaring television, I saw these photos of people senselessly murdered. I felt an odd sense of disconnect. Disturbing: yes. Graphic: yes. I didn’t know what to make of it. I still don’t. I’m not going to lie and say I was rattled to my core to see a real life photograph of what we so often read about in the paper (or skim over) and see in movies (and subsequently ignore), but even through the detachment I felt, it was puzzling to try to make sense of.
Maybe I’m still trying to figure out what it means to me to see a picture of a man missing the back part of his head. Maybe it means nothing to me, or maybe it just means I’ll have a faint reminder in the back of my head when I see the name of his town on a sign as I drive by.
There isn’t anything I can do about it, that’s for sure. I do, however, hope to remain mindful of it, and of death, which I feel people acknowledge so much more here than in the US, because it happens so much more often and is so much more a part of life.
In Cameroon, whenever a new person, such as myself, enters a village or town, he needs to go around to all the notables in the community, such as the chief, mayor, sous-prefet, etc., and introduce himself and why he is there. I did this in Ngong and then also had to go to Garoua to do the same with the people a step up. I had to go the Gendarmerie (sorta like the army barracks) twice because the first time, the Commandant was in Yaounde. When I returned a couple weeks later, he still wasn’t in the office but I decided to wait for a little while and took a seat.
A TV blared in the background, playing something like afro-reggae-pop which I found surprisingly catchy. The guard there didn’t really ask me anything but worked on his paperwork and occasionally shot a glance at the TV. I looked to my right and on the wall was a tagboard with some photos and captions on it. In one photo, four people lay on the ground and when I looked a little closer, I realized there were others standing around them.
The people on the ground were dead, shot by Chadian rebels who had made a raid across the border a few years ago.
Another photo was a close up of a man missing half his head. He was also shot by Chadian rebels. The photo was odd because his face was still almost completely intact and he looked eerily like he could have simply been sleeping—save for his mouth which was open and, though not disfigured, seemed to express pain, or surprise. I’m not sure which.
Yet another photo showed a person missing most of his intestines.
You get the idea.
I’m not trying to alarm anyone; these photos were taken several years ago when Chad was much more unstable and were a decent distance away from where I am currently living so don’t fear for my safety at all. Cameroon is the most stable country in the region and one of the most stable in Africa.
I guess the point I’m getting at is that while I sat in a chair, waiting for the Commandant of the Northern Legion and listening to a blaring television, I saw these photos of people senselessly murdered. I felt an odd sense of disconnect. Disturbing: yes. Graphic: yes. I didn’t know what to make of it. I still don’t. I’m not going to lie and say I was rattled to my core to see a real life photograph of what we so often read about in the paper (or skim over) and see in movies (and subsequently ignore), but even through the detachment I felt, it was puzzling to try to make sense of.
Maybe I’m still trying to figure out what it means to me to see a picture of a man missing the back part of his head. Maybe it means nothing to me, or maybe it just means I’ll have a faint reminder in the back of my head when I see the name of his town on a sign as I drive by.
There isn’t anything I can do about it, that’s for sure. I do, however, hope to remain mindful of it, and of death, which I feel people acknowledge so much more here than in the US, because it happens so much more often and is so much more a part of life.
Observations:
7-11 January 2010
“Welcome” in Fulfulde is “Jabbama,” which rhymes with “Obama.” So, whenever anybody welcomes me here, I want to say “Yes, We, Can!”
Cameroonians are amazed when Americans play soccer. I’m not any good, I don’t really have the right shoes, and in all honesty I’d prefer basketball or football, but everyone loves seeing me out on the dirt fields at 6:30am on Saturday mornings: “Eet’s Mister ’Arleeeeeey!”
It’s the cold season and so far the hottest temperature I’ve recorded is 97.8 Fahrenheit. I drink roughly 3 or 4 liters of water a day. I probably sweat 80% of that out, yet because of the dryness and heat, it evaporates almost instantly so the only time I really see or feel it is when I’m exercising… or sweating profusely in a room with little ventilation. I also leave a bucket of water in my room at night and splash some water on the floor in the hopes that when it evaporates, it might keep my room from being so bone dry. The verdict’s still out on whether or not this works… I still wake up with chapped lips every morning.
People give Nescafe a bad rap. Sure it’s crappy, tastes like dog breath, and is ready in 30 seconds—but when you add condensed milk (which is really more like condensed sugar with milk flavoring) you can hardly tell the difference between that and a Vanilla Latte. And, hey, it’s ready in 30 seconds.
A bout of constipation following a bout with amoebic dysentery isn’t nearly as welcome as one might think. And vice versa.
They don’t say “what can you do?” in Cameroon. Instead, they say “On va faire comment?” which literally translates to “One will do how?” I can’t think of anything else that seems so inherently Cameroonian to me.
I just finished my seventh book since I’ve been here. One of those books (Home by Marilynne Robinson) I read twice, partially because it was so damn good and partially because it painted such a good portrait of Middle America and I guess I didn’t fully appreciate it until I’d lived here for a little while.
I feel kinda spoiled at my post. I have electricity, which a good number of the volunteers around me don’t have, and I can get just about anything I need at the market. Garoua is only 40 minutes away and while there’s not a terribly large number of things to do there, there is free internet at the Peace Corps office, and mini-pizzas at a boulangerie (bakery) downtown. Consequently, I’ve seen a good number of the office episodes from this season and am not craving cheese as much as I probably would be otherwise.
In Cameroon, we eat huge portions of food. Partly it’s because so much of each meal is just simple carbs, and partly it’s because your burn a lot more calories here walking everywhere and also just hanging out in the heat. If/when I ever come back to the states, prepare to see me put on some massive weight.
Even with the visor down on my moto helmet and both vents closed I still always return from Garoua coughing and with a sore throat. Never underestimate the power of dust and pollution on the old respiratory system.
P-Square just might be God’s gift to man. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, look up the song “No One Be Like You.” It’s Nigerian R&B/Rap and in pidgin. I can’t get enough.
I don’t like watching Anthony Bourdain here for the same reason I had reservations (heh heh) about watching it in the U.S.: it makes me hungry. Except here, I don’t really keep snacks in the house aside from fruit, and a sliced orange doesn’t really cut it when Tony’s chowing into a big bowl of spicy Pho in Vietnam.
One of my friend’s daughters died a couple days ago. I think it was malaria. She was only a few months and old woke up sick one day. They tried to take her to the local hospital that afternoon but since it was a Saturday, it was closed. She died en route to the regional hospital in Garoua. Sometimes, things just get incredibly real here. It will definitely give me some more sense of personal purpose when I start doing malaria programs.
I can feel my English declining by the day. Maybe after two years I really will earn that superlative I got at Thanksgiving: Least likely to be able to speak English at COS.
“Welcome” in Fulfulde is “Jabbama,” which rhymes with “Obama.” So, whenever anybody welcomes me here, I want to say “Yes, We, Can!”
Cameroonians are amazed when Americans play soccer. I’m not any good, I don’t really have the right shoes, and in all honesty I’d prefer basketball or football, but everyone loves seeing me out on the dirt fields at 6:30am on Saturday mornings: “Eet’s Mister ’Arleeeeeey!”
It’s the cold season and so far the hottest temperature I’ve recorded is 97.8 Fahrenheit. I drink roughly 3 or 4 liters of water a day. I probably sweat 80% of that out, yet because of the dryness and heat, it evaporates almost instantly so the only time I really see or feel it is when I’m exercising… or sweating profusely in a room with little ventilation. I also leave a bucket of water in my room at night and splash some water on the floor in the hopes that when it evaporates, it might keep my room from being so bone dry. The verdict’s still out on whether or not this works… I still wake up with chapped lips every morning.
People give Nescafe a bad rap. Sure it’s crappy, tastes like dog breath, and is ready in 30 seconds—but when you add condensed milk (which is really more like condensed sugar with milk flavoring) you can hardly tell the difference between that and a Vanilla Latte. And, hey, it’s ready in 30 seconds.
A bout of constipation following a bout with amoebic dysentery isn’t nearly as welcome as one might think. And vice versa.
They don’t say “what can you do?” in Cameroon. Instead, they say “On va faire comment?” which literally translates to “One will do how?” I can’t think of anything else that seems so inherently Cameroonian to me.
I just finished my seventh book since I’ve been here. One of those books (Home by Marilynne Robinson) I read twice, partially because it was so damn good and partially because it painted such a good portrait of Middle America and I guess I didn’t fully appreciate it until I’d lived here for a little while.
I feel kinda spoiled at my post. I have electricity, which a good number of the volunteers around me don’t have, and I can get just about anything I need at the market. Garoua is only 40 minutes away and while there’s not a terribly large number of things to do there, there is free internet at the Peace Corps office, and mini-pizzas at a boulangerie (bakery) downtown. Consequently, I’ve seen a good number of the office episodes from this season and am not craving cheese as much as I probably would be otherwise.
In Cameroon, we eat huge portions of food. Partly it’s because so much of each meal is just simple carbs, and partly it’s because your burn a lot more calories here walking everywhere and also just hanging out in the heat. If/when I ever come back to the states, prepare to see me put on some massive weight.
Even with the visor down on my moto helmet and both vents closed I still always return from Garoua coughing and with a sore throat. Never underestimate the power of dust and pollution on the old respiratory system.
P-Square just might be God’s gift to man. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, look up the song “No One Be Like You.” It’s Nigerian R&B/Rap and in pidgin. I can’t get enough.
I don’t like watching Anthony Bourdain here for the same reason I had reservations (heh heh) about watching it in the U.S.: it makes me hungry. Except here, I don’t really keep snacks in the house aside from fruit, and a sliced orange doesn’t really cut it when Tony’s chowing into a big bowl of spicy Pho in Vietnam.
One of my friend’s daughters died a couple days ago. I think it was malaria. She was only a few months and old woke up sick one day. They tried to take her to the local hospital that afternoon but since it was a Saturday, it was closed. She died en route to the regional hospital in Garoua. Sometimes, things just get incredibly real here. It will definitely give me some more sense of personal purpose when I start doing malaria programs.
I can feel my English declining by the day. Maybe after two years I really will earn that superlative I got at Thanksgiving: Least likely to be able to speak English at COS.
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