World Map Project! Bringing a Peace Corps tradition to my corner of Cameroon

This was my last and one of my favorite Peace Corps projects, at the Social/ Reintegration Center/Orphanage where I also worked on summer camps, taught songs and tofu-making, and loved to come on the weekends just to play. Creating a world map was harder (where are the borders, exactly?! what country does this island belong to? ) more time consuming (so many tiny countries! can i find a model map that doesn't still list Czechoslovakia?), and way more of a huge deal for opening kids' eyes to geography concepts ("the US is not in Europe?!" "Cameroon is that SMALL?!" how many countries are there?) than I anticipated : ) Total feel good group effort and lasting symbol of international friendship and connectedness.

Proud of their new map mural, on the inside wall of the large room where these kids eat all their meals, hold daily prayers, do homework, have dance parties, and hang out when it's pouring rain. Making these kids feel special, and showing them how working on something with dedication and pride can pay off, was such a joy.

It was a process! Luckily we caught an afternoon of uninterrupted power and got to trace the map on the wall instead of having to do a graphing system. Still, the old projector was all out of focus and the lines were about a quarter inch thick...made for some very fuzzy borders, literally. 

Progress! We started by color coding the biggest countries to make sure there would be variety. Elizabeth, furthest back, turned out to be one of our most dedicated and stable-handed painters. She quickly got permission to fill in the trickier little countries, for which her peers were jealous and respectful. It's fun discovering kids' hidden talents!

A perfect context for a lesson in mixing colors! Also a good reminder for myself : ) Paints come out and kids start to get interested..everyone wanted to help my paint right away, and I was torn between wanting it to be participatory and wanting to be in control of it turning out well!

It felt bizarre to estimate borders and know that I was imperfectly representing areas and intersections of land that have been fought over for generations and/or been huge sources of political and tribal controversy...the exact lines have been shaped by history, but I was shaping them with a wide brush and dripping paint.

Awesome teamwork! As far as funding, I used money from my Peace Corps allowance to purchase the paints and other materials...I felt torn about doing so for the image it might send about giving handouts, but to me it did not feel like that at all - this Center gave me so much on many levels, and it felt like a perfect parting gift. Plus, it was only around $20 total, and even at 5X that it would have been so worth it for what it brought the Center in pride, educational possibilities, excitement for the kids and a brightening up of their main space. I hope it lasts for years.

Before they could paint a country, the kids had to find it on my printed out map...many of them held it upside down and had no idea where to start in reading it. Once I helped them find it, they would quiz their peers and mock their geography ignorance, having learned it themselves five minutes earlier ; )

The names (in French) were a whole other saga, especially trying to find updated maps, deciding if the maps needed the countries' gender articles ("la" France? nope, no space!), getting South Sudan's size figured out, and finding tools thin enough to write clearly with. I finally sacrificed my eyebrow powder brush to paint the white names, it was much stiffer, and the vanity that led to me having it ended up saving the day.

My favorite last touches were the Peace Corps symbol and Cameroonian flag. This is a project that Peace Corps volunteers have done all around the world, and I am glad to have continued the awesome tradition.

I hope they think of the fun we had together over two years when they look at this map...we kept tracing the distance between our two countries, so now they know where I am...and where they are! Glad I was there for the painting, but that's just the beginning! So many cool educational uses of a world map still untouched, and I'm excited for the other area volunteers to use this map in future projects and camps here. 

Wes Week! Big bro rocks Cameroon like a champ

Wes was my one brave visitor during my Peace Corps service, and it was a bro/sis week I won't soon forget : ) Amazing to be able to share what I'd been doing and how I'd been living for two years, and near the end of my service when I could properly own it! Volunteers who have family come 6 months in, I don't know how you do it! Special to share some things that would be beautiful and meaningful to anyone, and eye-opening to realize the many small things about my world in Cameroon that can never mean to anyone else what they mean to me...and that's the way it should be!

Wes's first day, first moto ride across town! Upside down US flag just a coincidence : ) We're just down the path from my house here. Glad the week started off with some gorgeous clear weather...ease Wes into it : )

Behind my friend Hortense's house - this shallow river floods when it rains and can trap people working in their fields on the hills, so they rush to cross and get home before it starts raging. On the other side tropical fields are dug into the hillsides- they grow things like peanuts, potatoes, yams, cocoa, coffee. We were led on a beautiful Sunday evening walk guided by my 9 year old rock star buddy Alex.

My colleague at the hospital and TOUGH cookie role model, Hortense

Wes was quickly a huge hit with the kiddos!

Market in Nkongsamba, where I bought veggies, clothes, kitchen utensils, broom, flip flops, spices...

Loved getting to share this spot with family! One hour from my house (but not a cinch to get to!)...my sanctuary.

Nothing that wasn't worth going through for this. We are getting totally soaked by the spray! 

New day, new outing. Hiking the crater lakes in Bangem, which has one of the highest rainfall totals in Africa...and we're soon to get a taste. 

Wes is shocked, I'm not : ) One of the reasons it's not too crowded with tourists (ie not a SOUL)

Red Rover, send Uncle WES right over! These kids are TOUGH and totally loved the physical chaos and rough housing! The "centre social" (reintegration center/orphanage) where I did some of my favorite programs - my oasis/second home in the tiny village of Ntolo.

Walk through the bush to see the kids' school. They loved having him there as much as I did!

Great news to share

This just in: I’m getting replaced as a health volunteer in Nkongsamba! This may seem like it would be a given, but in fact was not at ALL. Since I transferred to Nkongsamba mid-service after convincing Peace Corps that I could find my own work and without any formal invitation from the community/a host organization, it was never made an official health post...I just got to sneak in the back door and then do my own puttering with projects and groups, which I've loved. But to get replaced Peace Corps has to set up an actual agreement with an organization, which in this case is the regional hospital where I've set up shop – a great niche but chock o block full of protocol, top down bureaucracy and red tape at the administrative level (thanks, 1950’s French system). They were happy to have me help out informally, but partnering with Peace Corps formally is more complicated for both ends, so I’ve been doing lots as the middle woman to facilitate the process. Quite the exercise in intercultural communication: who is leading this meeting, whose hand do I shake first, am I even allowed to speak right now?!

This will be quite an exception too, as the region I’m in is not one of the six regions Peace Corps is sending health volunteers to this round, my replacement will be the only volunteer who will be working with a health structure at this level of the system, and otherwise they are not sending volunteers to any semi-urban areas like Nkongsamba (in fact they are shutting down other posts in towns of this size).  Once again, I like the personal challenge of pushing the envelope when I believe in something  …just ask the Academic Dean at George Washington University : )

But Nkongsamba is a great post on the Cameroonian spectrum – comfortable climate, central location in this part of the country, safe solid house already set-up, amenities, diverse food, other volunteers nearbye, and lots of work possibilities, enthusiastic progressive people to work with, plenty of need in the focus areas of maternal/child health and HIV/AIDS. Posts with this many checks in the + column are few and far between, and Peace Corps ought not throw them away once they’ve got them, though they were about to here for on-paper reasons. So I’ve been advocating over the last few months to have them modify their criteria and make this an official post, and after various back and forths and two visits from staff, they finally accepted enthusiastically on Tuesday.

Especially since it took so much nudging to get Peace Corps to recognize how much potential this post has, I am proud and relieved to know my work here will continue and that someone will get to water the seeds I’ve planted. Likely now that it’s a health post, at least 5 volunteers will follow in my footsteps before they take a break and go elsewhere. Knowing how rough work and living-wise some posts can be, and how many do not work out (Tombel!) I am really happy to be able to directly impact that at least one volunteer will arrive to solid footing. Never mind my jealousy that I don’t get to be my own replacement, I think professionally, setting this up and having started from scratch finding work in a new African town (twice) will send the message to future employers that I can get it done!

PLUS, now I don’t have to get rid of everything in my house! Even better, I'll have just over a week with my replacement  before I head down to Yaounde for my close-of-service week (four weeks from today!) to introduce them around and show them the ropes. No amount of info left in a post book could replace that, but many in my group won't have time with their replacements due to our staggered departures. Now that my brother's visit is behind me, it’s impossible not to be aware of the countdown and the fact that I’m rushing toward the end.  I officially get home next month!!

The weird wacky world of Cameroon's colonial legacy as felt today

I’ve been helping out with a case this week that has pushed me to reflect on an uncomfortable reality:  sometimes Cameroon feels like a train-wreck between outside approaches, practices and institutions and their own underlying style, traditions, and values. I never anticipated how deeply the impact of Cameroon’s German, French and English colonial history would shape its current system. Or how much the Western world’s way of doing things would be seen as THE right path to take, even if retracing that path doesn’t seem feasible or helpful for this African country, which has a fundamentally different past and set of circumstances and is on a totally different development track than the one we took (most of my Cameroonian friends have Facebook accounts and cell phones but no running water or toilet in their house! …WHAT?!) And yet, I feel like the methods and conventions that were imposed here during colonialism and which are still widely applied (such as using the antiquated 1950’s French legal system, or using Christian standards around marriage) are an awkwardly fitting mold that Cameroonian society is trying to work within but which just doesn’t mesh with the underlying mentality and cultural structure.  

So, the case: Last week a woman died during childbirth from complications of her fifth risky C-section delivery.  Two of her children have already died, and the five came from three different fathers, at least one unknown. The other kids are floating with family, and the mother’s younger brother is trying to take care of the newborn, but has nothing to provide for her with, doesn’t work, and is seriously struggling with clothes, food, and attending to the newborn’s health needs.

And now procedure says the baby needs to have a birth certificate made, and for that the birth certificate of the deceased mother is required. No one can find it. The grandmother is alive, but had so many kids that she no longer remembers where this daughter was born way back when, maybe out of the country. At the time, filling out birth certificates in rural villages was surely even much rarer. So the granddaughter may never get a birth certificate, which I have seen from other cases creates huge complications later on for getting registered for school, getting a government job, etc.  

It is painful to watch how in enforcing the western system of needing these documents (the infamously inefficient French bureaucracy of an earlier age is still the operating system du jour here in Cameroon) is holding back so many people’s lives. The foundation is not set up to make that system work.  It was never an organic process or reflection of their natural timing or thinking to come up with these measures or regulations, and even fifty years after independence it feels like their lifestyle and level of development is being jammed uncomfortably into this foreign template.

A single visit to an administrative office for a task such as getting a driver’s license, changing the name on an electricity account, or starting an association of the handicapped will reveal in infuriating splendor how this approach is just barely limping along in terms of turning out functional results.  One simple reason is because so few offices have computerized systems, and write out each form, receipt, or ticket by hand, but still include lots of detailed superfluous information. This results in disastrously long delays for getting things done such as paying school fees for your children, especially when only one person is ever working, and there are many hours when no one is at a given window or office. It seems like it would make sense to simplify the tickets or forms given the lack of technology, or photocopy a template that already has some recurring info in place like prices or dates, but it’s very much a follow-the-model-and-don’t-ask-questions scene here, which is hard for us to watch without our blood pressure sky-rocketing.

And since the requirements are tedious and endless and the system is inherently unfamiliar to even those who are running it, corruption comes galloping in to bridge the gaps. You need A to get B, but you can’t get A without C, which requires six signatures and four official stamps (though no one is quite sure why) from an office in the capital city, so instead give me X amount to put in my pocket, and I’ll slip you A under the table.  As one of my favorite nursing students exclaimed with exasperation when talking about getting a job here, “Rien n’avance normalement!”, essentially, nothing moves in a straight line here. He hit the nail on the head.

That newborn baby’s family will probably be bribing a local official to furnish her a birth certificate once they can scrape together the money. She will thus kick off a life of going around in circles trying to get things done in a system that was built by someone else and then dropped on them like a ton of chipped bricks that still hangs around their neck, tangling up and holding back progress more than facilitating it...at least with how its being applied currently.

Behind the scenes: Recent fumblings with Cameroonian culture, Part 2

June 26th, 2012

Wheww, I am relieved that this day is over, and am congratulating myself on getting through it. It’s now 7:21 PM, dark, power is out, and I have just said goodbye to one of my bosses for the health program (I have two, both Cameroonian women whom I like a lot). Today Maureen was here doing a field visit and “site prospection” to see if they will replace me in Nkongsamba, since I opened this post as a health volunteer through odd circumstances and was never formally invited by any host organization. Basically, I opened two posts, without any functional partners to work with until I carved my own partnerships, and am therefore HARDCORE!  : )  

Which I need to remind myself when I see how much more tangible work I might have accomplished had I had two years in a more stable situation, where you know who you are working with, have an actual work counterpart, and get to hit the ground crawling (Cameroonian equivalent of running), bolstered by some stability and precedent. Things that I never had, which I can’t regret as it’s been a formative and toughening part of the experience. But it’s that groundwork that I have tried to lay here for a possible replacement, and which I am a bit jealous that the next volunteer will built on. But there is a gritty satisfaction in knowing that you were the pioneering volunteer (in Nkongsamba  I at least benefited from other volunteers having lived here and made some good connections, but they were in different work sectors, so that was all new), and I feel proud of what I have been able to do. Plus my independent personal style has enjoyed that no one organization can claim me – I do what I want, when I want, yo.

The hard part of the visit was not talking about the projects I’ve been doing, but navigating the dynamics of our meetings, especially with the staff of one organization I’ll leave unnamed. I was horrified with the reception they gave her – so seemingly cold, nonchalant, uninviting, unenthusiastic…we walked in, I introduced her to the small staff, and they all just stood there looking unimpressed. I had NO idea what was going on and was sure I done something wrong in the way I made the introductions, or had not set up the meeting right, or stepped out of place with the protocol, or offended someone by standing or sitting at the wrong time – they are incredibly strict about formal protocol here in certain settings, in ways that as an outsider you can’t know how to anticipate or find reason in.

But no, she assured me afterward, that’s just the culture. She said that because she was the boss of an American, she held the power in the situation, and because they have such a linear power structure, it was not their place to be warm and friendly and receptive, it was their place to basically not react (which I read as removed and off-putting) until my boss showed her true colors and established the power relation and tone of the meeting.  I felt like the way they received us was confusingly rude.  I am now very informal and friendly with these women, who turned to stiff icicles when she entered, but instead of faces of nervousness, they put on faces of nonchalance, boredom, almost dislike.  All to be subservient and get her vibe? Disorienting.

We pushed on, me feeling so clueless about when I could talk, who was leading the meeting, how to make Maureen see why I want Peace Corps to send another volunteer here! But Maureen said she is really used to the culture of these power plays – there is no casual, friendly banter between people in that kind of a meeting, and someone is firmly on top and someone decidedly on bottom. If she had been on bottom, she would have entered a room and the person behind the desk would not even have looked at her, raised his head, or acknowledged her presence, all to safeguard his power and keep her in her place. I cannot even describe how strange a vibe it is, how UTTERLY different than had we been in the American context. I have rarely spoken about the extreme inferiority/power complex that is widely acknowledged by Cameroonians to be rampant here and which this was an example of, but it is brutally evident throughout the society and runs deep.

This made me realize how relatively casual I act whenever I enter an official office, where it’s almost always a man behind the desk. I ask how they are, smile, sometimes make small talk – acknowledging and respecting their position, but acting neither like I am helplessly subservient or desperately dependent on their favor, nor like they are an all-powerful titan to be feared and appeased, which is no exaggeration of the vibe many "big men" here work hard to upkeep.  As an empowered American woman it just never even enters into my conscious that that’s how I should be seeing myself or them, which is probably off-putting and shocking to multiple people. Well, I kinda like thinking I am challenging, gently, for the most part, that system.

I remember making a novice mistake of asking a high-ranking local government official how the Peace Corps volunteer in his area was doing as we sat down to a dinner my village chief was giving him, then realizing that the rest of the dinner proceeded in SILENCE and NO ONE addressed him without being spoken to. OOPS!

This really blew my mind: I was also telling Maureen that I get very little feedback of any kind from Cameroonians. Even when I do a solid job or go the extra mile or a project or course goes well, rarely does anyone say anything. I find this a downer and discouraging – why can’t they give me any kind of pat on the back from time to time, OR tell me what they would like improved?

Well, explained my boss, as part of their rigid power structure they believe that praising anyone is shifting the power to them, taking away your own power, selling out, and giving that person “wings”. Consequently, parents don’t praise or thank their children even when they are working like servants for them – I always notice they don’t get so much as a thank-you or a good job when they’ve made a wonderful dinner or scrubbed the whole house.

Maureen explained that this is because parents feel that by giving encouragement or positive feedback, you are risking your daughter or son feeling too good about themselves and becoming hot-headed, disobedient, and undisciplined. This is unsafe, as it threatens the family structure of overall dominance by the parents and especially the father. Likewise, Maureen said that husbands 90% of the time NEVER praise their wives to their faces, that it’s only culturally acceptable to compliment them to others like your friends, away from their face. She explained that thanking or recognizing or even acknowledging something done by your wife, such as her working tirelessly to make a Christmas meal she won't even get to eat, would be “selling out” your power as the man of the household, and would be giving power to your wife, which does not go along with the traditional African culture.

She noted that only people who have spent time abroad or seen how it’s done elsewhere are likely to even speak kindly to their wives directly. In addition, in public especially it is extremely important that men keep up the image of themselves being on top and their wives being on bottom. I have long noticed that relationships here are extremely vertical, almost never horizontal, between spouses, colleagues of different levels, teachers and students, even older and younger siblings – much more formal and fear-based than in our culture.

I am often off put by how I see men I respect and work with treating their wives and children, or bosses treating their employees – shouting, condescension, harsh displeasure and the seeming indication that the lower person is an imbecile. The decided opposite of the positive reinforcement approach always touted in our child/employee development theories. To me it feels dehumanizing, and the inverse of what would create a positive atmosphere and motivate someone to improve or have pride in their hard work. But these are the moments I can’t get enough of – cultural exchanges that deepen my sociological/anthropological understanding of exactly HOW different cultures can be, something I could have had no hope of understanding before I came.