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.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
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?
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