Don't even need flowers, just bring on those showers!

Ashley and I debuted our matching dresses (made from material sent as a gift by a suitor!) at a farewell dinner for two wonderful nurses who have been working at the hospital in Buea since September. The restaurant was a little bit of ex-pat heaven in the country's biggest city Douala, including rolls with olive oil, PIZZA, and ice cream -- all enjoyed under a celing fan, giving me a much appreciated break from trying to keep my face from dripping right off in the relentless humidity.


You know you live in the jungle when after a week your bag of ginger is sprouting stalks right through the plastic. I hang my clothes on the line and bring them in at night for three days after a wash, but they still never get past damp - I am actually shaking fruit flies off my shirts before I put them on. The upside? Rain water is now more reliable than my local taps will ever be!



Out of every school in town, the only one to hold any kind of graduation ceremony was...the nursery school? And somehow, even though there is not a single book in the concrete school house and the headmistress's office is made of plywood, robes and mortar boards came out of nowhere for the four-years olds!
I led the class in the song we had been practicing, "This Little Light of Mine", and the other surprise of the day was that all of a sudden the teacher wanted them to sing it with tall lit candles, as they marched. Never having practiced with anything but our pointer fingers, and with synthetic robes and hairdos all around and no protection from the hot wax, the pre-schoolers were now expected to march in line, singing, and waving their candles. No one seemed very concerned about the glaring safety hazard aside from me - I blew them all out when the kids could not focus one bit, then they re-lit them once we were inside.


 My precious neighbor Rea - she was the class prefect (again, surprising amounts of formality in informal settings - the school does not have running water or a bathroom) and gave a speech!



Another example of how important appearance is here - every little girl had a new hair do for the big day, yet many of them had missed school throughout the year because their parents could not come up with the school fees. I find that outside appearance is generally a far higher priority than quality child development - shiny black shoes instead of a notebook and pencil, for example, even at the high school level.



My Health Club crew marching proudly once again during the May 20th holiday, which commemorates the British and French Cameroons joining as one (in 1972) - notably, not a word about the significance of the day was mentioned in my Anglophone town - bit of a sore topic, the whole matter. But hey, at least we got some light shed on another hush-hush issue - HIV.



After weeks of practicing and writing lyrics, the Health Club ladies' performance of HIV songs was a huge hit! The moves, the messages, it all came together and I got loads of positive feed back, which felt fantastic. In a tradition that felt bizarrely like an underage strip tease show, local leaders from the facing grand stand come down during the performance and smother the singers with money, dropping bills onto the heads, tucking them into their clothes...sometimes you want another American around just to share a "is this really happening?!" look. But hey, with $50 collected from around their feet for next year's projects, this girl's not judging.

Business as usual...almost. This is the official receipt I sent as a picture attachment to the Peace Corps so that they could reimburse my bank account, the account that has a crayon-drawn village map on file for my current address.
My lock has broken four times since moving in - sadly, cheap does not begin to describe the quality of products that are available here. Village labor is also not of the most refined quality. The lock-smith, after hurriedly welding the last lock into my iron door, realized it was ill-fit and jutted out so the door would not even close. So he brutally bashed the whole thing, lock, door, and door frame, with a sledgehammer until it was so dented and missahapen that it now slams shut...good enough? That's usually the name of the game. I realize that quality job training and notions of professionalism and customer service are luxeries not to be taken for granted.


School's out for the summer! (I keep referring to "summer", which means nothing here since our seasons don't exist, they call it "long holidays") which means lots of kids with not much to do. There are few, if any, organized extra curricular type activities for students even during the school year but especially now...which is why I can't wait to help lead a summer camp next week! Coming up - campfires, songs, and all the run-around games I loved in my own summer camp days. Still to be determined: can we recreate tie-dye and s'mores in Africa?


A much enjoyed weekend retreat to the ocean four hours away, where I found a cold current coming from this little river. When finding water is a daily stress, being immersed in unlimited amounts of H2O is a priceless form of therapy!

Tomorrow marks 9 months in country, and I have already hit 6 out of 24 at my post! Thanks for your love and please keep it up!  Remember to write strong evangelical religious messages on any packages to discourage tampering, to the tune of "THIS PACKAGE IS SOAKED IN THE BLOOD OF JESUS" - (first person brave enough to do this gets a blog post dedicated to them!)



A little o' this, a little o' that

This is my village honorary grandmother! She speaks only her local dialect and some Pidgin, so we mostly just hold hands and she says "God bless you my child" over and over. Aren't her cateract sunglasses so hip? She had 9 children, but lost 3; the daughter she lives with had 7 and lost 2. This weekend I decided to give her some some much deserved but rarely received TLC - we did a manicure, complete with massage, nail filing, and a granddaughter grabbing the bottle and spilling red paint on my dress (I can't get near nail polish without accidents, just ask my mother). So worth it though, she seemed tickled pink (or maybe a little overwhelmed) by the whole thing. When I told her we had a date for Sunday morning, and came by at 10, she exclaimed that she had been waiting on this little bench since 6AM. <3

Kelly M.'s froggy bracelet is now her charm of health and protection. She just loves it, but corrected me when I tried to put it on her left wrist. The right hand is the proper hand here - I sometimes hear parents scold little ones for taking something or waving or the like with their left hand, and I have to work to remember it for myself.

These girls came over after "sport" to see if they could do any work in my house (God bless them).  After we cleaned out my little back courtyard, I made them hot cocoa from packets you have sent...American goodies really are like currency here.



Meet Ashley, my nearest volunteer neighbor (an hour away on a smooth day), at least for a couple more months! She is the one who ran a marathon up Mt Cameroon - she's also a fantastic cook and has been tutoring me in best recipes for village life...her tomato soup is to die for.
We have had many invaluable conversations on this balcony of hers - I have her to thank for my sanity, though one of our most recurring topics of conversation is how insane we often feel we are going! When I was just sick with a cold, she gave me a can of Campbell's tomato soup that had been snatched up after the American Embassy tossed it. It had expired in Feb 2009 (so canned in what, 2005?). Disturbing? Only slightly. Delicious and soothing? Entirely.



Kitchen Before #1

Kitchen Before #2

Kitchen After! I did this myself, both the painting and the celabratory mess - such a fun project, especially since I have never painted before and don't have to worry much about perfection. The floor, my face, everything was covered!

See that sheet above my stove? If you have any doubt that I mean it when I say your encouragement keeps me going and means so much, here's proof! My friend Kristy signed off with this bit on a recent email, and I turned it into a daily pick-me-up. I have quotes above my light switches, next to my mirror, and next to my front door too.

And when the power has been out for three days? You make pancakes and have a romantic candle-lit dinner for one. Normally I stay out of my kitchen after dark, not just because I hear it's a good diet plan, but because the cockroaches come out then, and when I flip on the switch they scuttle to find hiding places on my shelves...I'd rather pretend they don't exist. That was difficult yesterday when a huge one ran right up my bare arm after I picked up a dish towel where it was hiding to use it as a pot holder. I was holding the pot of boiling water when I felt it around my elbow - I'm lucky I did not burn my hand right off when I jumped. I swear I remain the biggest threat to my own health and safety sometimes...

Students in my high school Health Club coming up with lyrics for the HIV awareness song they will sing at the Independence Day celebration on May 20th.

Having gotten the words down, dance steps were next. Practicing at my house on Saturday afternoon.

The latest chapter in my water saga. Now that water is flowing outside my house some nights, I need something bigger than a bucket to collect it in while I sleep with the faucet left on. After weeks of searching, this blue bad boy was brought in from the nearest city -- yeehaw! Here's my trusty handy-man preparing to stick a hole in the bottom and put in a tap contraption, then I can fill from the top (also tracked down a piece of hose finally) and use from the bottom. I never dreamed I could appreciate the simplicity of running water so much!

A bit of my town, Tombel - it's a beautiful place

Journey through the "other" Cameroon

Well, my clean dishes are sprouting mold and my knives are rusting on the shelf, my spices have congealed into solid cylindrical bricks, and I’ve realized it’s more practical to step directly into my clothes after a bucket bath – welcome to “dry season” in the tropics!

Cameroon is nicknamed Africa in Miniature for its variedness, and my recent few weeks up in the north sure brought that reputation to life. There I didn’t need a towel either – the 120 dry heat zaps the moisture from your skin, eyes and nose in seconds and I could drink 4 liters of water on an eight hour bus ride and never need a pit stop. Several times on those rides I woke up in my seat nearly choking because the air had sucked my slightly opened mouth mercilessly dry and I felt like I'd had a tablespoon of sand poured straight down my throat.  Took some adjusting to!

The drastic differences between the Cameroon I've gotten to know down south and what I saw on my visit to the north were mind-boggling and stunning. The way this country transforms again and again as you cross it makes me grateful that I get to experience such diversity on every level all thanks to just one visa. Here's a bit of what I saw.

The landscape felt like a whole different planet or age - the combination of being in such a desolate landscape that's also drastically undeveloped was quite surreal and felt nothing like cruising through Nevada or southern Utah, even if that's also the desert.
 The birds in Cameroon are probably my favorite wild life - I wish I was more of a connoisseur, but they are beautiful to watch and listen to. I have lots of little bright yellow birds by my house that play in the palm trees, but we also see large hawk like birds - like everything else, the birds up north were completely different.

The underlying purpose of the trip was for our group of 50 volunteers (those of us who arrived together in September) to attend a conference on work-related issues that can only properly be explored once you've settled into your post. Everyone from the south of the country met in the capital to take the overnight train to Ngoundere for the seminar, and the ride was unforgettable. We were all together in the same car, and had a great time watching the city fall away behind us out the window and then cramming into our little cabins and catching up on four months of solo adventures.

 Throughout the night the train would stop and children all along the tracks from 5 to 15 years old with plates of fruit and prepared food on their head would call out. In a half-asleep trance on my bunk, hearing their voices softly calling "Mangos....bananas...honey...batons de maniok...arachides" was both soothing and eerie, especially knowing that such small children were working in the middle of the night selling to strangers. A few times we went to see them and buy fruit - the whole thing was very informal, you could just step off the train, barefoot like them, and interact. When girls started wearing scarves I knew we had reached the Muslim part of the country, and when it became light out, I could not believe my eyes at where our ride had taken us - out of one world and into another.

Leaving the capital on the train we saw the urban version of the same problems we face in our villages, including a lack of methods for trash disposal. In my town there is actually NOWHERE to put garbage and trash cans do not exist anywhere, so people end up leaving their garbage anywhere, throwing wrappers and containers out the windows of cars and busses, and piling trash behind their houses and along roads. They know no option but littering,  it's strange and pretty upsetting.

 
One of our fellow volunteers lives outside the city where we had our conference, and we had a barbeque at his house on the last night - we all took a beautiful motorcycle ride out to his village (things turn rural incredibly fast here), played soccer with the neighbors, ate well, met the chief, and lamented that we will not all be together again until we are going home.

After the conference I got to travel to the posts of several other volunteers - each mini trip was a fun (sometimes harrowing) and beautiful travel adventure, and wonderful for my mental health to get to relax and recharge together.

 It was fascinating to see how different our circumstances and living situations are even though we're in the same country and all started out in the same spot. There is absolutely no common base experience for volunteers here or anywhere, which is why generalizing about what life is like is impossible. We do share many of the same emotions, frustrations and joys as voluteers working in a foreign culture, but some have other volunteers nearbye, some are replacing a long line of volunteers in the town, some have running water, electricity, phone service, a stable organization to work with, a language they already know...and some have none of those things, or any combination. Being flexible and going with the flow is absolutely crucial and if you don't already know how to do that (I didn't, as it turns out) then baby, you'll learn : )

This was an awesome ride back to the North’s regional capital from an early morning visit to Bibemi, one of the prettiest places I’ve seen in Cameroon – gorgeous groves of Eucalyptus trees and mango forests, noticeably cooler and lusher than the surrounding desert, thanks apparently to some Catholic missionaries from several decades ago who did the planting. Ironically, Eucalyptus trees are apparently horribly damaging to the soil.

I can’t get over how resilient, capable and inspiring my fellow volunteers are (they have taught me a lot about the power of a good attitude). Take Sam here (in the orange t-shirt from above) - one of the most upbeat, friendly and motivated people I know. She ran cross country at Virginia Tech and has completed marathons and triathlons - when we were in the hospital together on Thanksgiving Eve we snuck our IV polls into the same room and watched Love Actually as our transfusions ran, and when the nurse had to do some extremely painful needle jabbing Sam kept me distracted telling me passionate stories of her most thrilling races and wins. Sam is the sunshine of our group, which is why I loved her “Solar method of water purification” Halloween costume.

This is the type of village we were passing all along that moto ride...it was honestly hard to digest that these are the lives of actual people, living their whole lives out here in the desert in these thatched roof huts with very little exposure to anything else. It's easy to gawk quickly and detachedly as you zoom by, but remembering that they were here just like this yesterday and last year, and will be here tomorrow and next year long after you are gone, is really powerful and a bit overwhelming.




The dozens of dry river beds we crossed will probably be my most vivid and lasting impression of the north. Not a drop of rain had fallen since the beginning of December. Just seeing bare river beds - a couple of them had full soccer matches taking place in the bottom of them - was quite disorienting and other worldly.

In Bibemi we wandered down into one of the dry river beds, where people had dug a well hole. These women had lugged their clothes and dishes to the source  and were lowering down buckets to get a bit of water to wash them. They spoke no French or English so I asked with gestures if I could photograph them, which sent them into nervous giggles - a request they surely were not accustomed to. The best part was how excited they were to see themselves on the screen afterward - the phenomenon of digital images did seem pretty wild in that moment, and I think it may have been the first time they saw themselves top to bottom at once. Most people only have small broken mirrors from an old car's rearview mirror or the like.

It wasn't all remote bush-exploring : )  In the cities of the three northern regional capitals the Peace Corps has awesome (though certainly not luxurious)  transit houses that are like hostels for local and traveling volunteers. Volunteers in my region are too spread out to have one so these were an exciting novelty to me. As most of my group took vacation after our conference to explore the north and visit each other, the transit houses were packed and highly entertaining. We slept outside on mats on the porch where it was a few degrees cooler, made American food and had dance parties to American music, I even found a bunch of books to borrow and take back to post. It was a little slice of heaven.

Here we are having a send-off ceremony for a volunteer who had to head back to the states - recounting absurd stories like when he tried to farm bees as a project and ended up breeding some kind of "killer" bee that mencaed his village and wrecked serious havoc! Or when his dog was hit on the road, then cooked by his neighbors and served to him on a plate...oh the priceless memories we will all go home with! Even with almost no resources volunteers are awesome at organizing absurd parties, holiday celebrations, funny competitions, morale-boosting newsletters etc (I am truly in awe of the group here)  - we make our time together count!

 

Somehow, miraculously, mangos were ripe and delicious even up in the northern desert! What luck that the most amazing fruit is the one that grows everywhere here - you better believe I took full advantage. Three days into my trip I talked to my sister who asked if the food was different up north. I could not even answer as my whole diet had been revolving around mangos - case in point.

While in this picture I am all relaxed smiles, the second time I visited this juice joint a week later I was sucking down my smoothie much more anxiously trying to pass the hours. I was waiting with limited optimism for my backpack to find its way back to me. It had never gotten put on the top of my morning bus, and when I called the bus station frantically and they found it in the dust and promised to put it on the next bus, it instead got put on a bus headed five hours in the wrong direction. Ahh!!!!
I ended up having to spend the night alone in an un-airconditioned, fanless and rather funky hostel room in the hottest city in the country at the hottest time of year - I did not sleep, largely out of fear that I would shrivel up and perish in the night. Miraculously I got my bag back (how it managed to come back to me I'll never understand consideing how chaotic and informal the bus systems are here) and got back on track traveling the next day, helped by some very generous souls. Thank you guardian angel! Now when I hand my luggage to a guy who says "No problem, quick get in, get in the bus!" I wait and WATCH the luggage go up on top. Wondering if it will be smooshed against the peeing goat, the leaking bag of freshly slaughtered cow, or the branch of smooshed bananas is as much of a gamble as I want.


The best decision I made the whole trip was taking off from the Extreme North's capital Maroua for a solo adventure to Rhumsicki, a bit like the Grand Canyon of Cameroon. Having been to Utah's southern national parks I can't claim this was actually the most stunning geography I've ever seen, but seeing these formations in the background as you ride a motorcycle up a thin, winding rocky pass while men in traditional long Muslim bubus move herds of cattle alongside the road, women in vibrant long dresses and headscarves carry buckets of water on their heads to their huts and you have to stop frequenty to let a mother donkey and her new babies cross the road, my awe was bouncing around in my helmet like set-off ping pong balls. It felt like we were at the end of the earth our here, like it would not have been strange for dinosaurs to saunter our from behind the hills...






I got gracisouly received when my moto pulled into the little mountain town of Rhumsicki, and was immediately shown to an adorable little inn where I could have my own room and pay half if I they didn't turn on the AC - done, it was actually nice and cool up there.

 I remember the time in France when I left for a solo weekend in Rennes, got my own hotel room and just explored freely and calmly - it was so liberating and empowering to be traveling alone for a couple days. I fell right back into that happy independent calm traveing out here, stopping in a city called Mokolo along the way and wondering around the streets. Though I made two separate small children burst into tears at the very sight of me, I loved the Arab/Muslim influence on the architecture, dress, and quiet respectful manners. The people up north are much more tranquil and serene - the feel is more "hot and passive" compared to the "hot and bothered" tone of the south, which is widely known for being the much more animated, loud, and aggressive side of the country (ie with verbal harrassment toward women). One theory is that alcohol consumption in the south, and the lack thereof in the north, has a good bit to do with this, but the tribes and history are also quite different and must have an influence.






I took a beautiful hike through these desert mountains with a Cameroonian guide (both pictures above are from that hike), right to the border of Nigeria. I hear that once you mount the hill that separates the countries, the difference in levels of development is striking - the houses are immediately of higher durability and the roads drastically more passable. Down in my Anglophone region, people are constantly talking about how much better things are in Nigeria, since both Nigeria and Anglophone Cameroon were colonized by Britain. It's like the African promised land in their eyes - better universities, more jobs, stronger business, a booming film industry (all the African TV shows and movies they watch near me come out of Nigeria, and even I gawk at the organized streets and nicer houses on the screen).



No denying it - every once in a while it's really nice to get to be a tourist : )




I met up with a few other volunteers in the area and had a blissful afternoon of hanging by the pool enjoying the view and then having dinner at a gem of a place discovered by volunteers past - table under the stars with  fresh bread, beef kabobs and fruit - divine. Cameroon has very little tourism, and missed business opportunities are abundent , but this place had it's act together. I'm almost painfully aware of how lucky I am to be able to experience the beauty of the world and be stable and comfortable enough in life to actually enjoy it. What I would consider a "million dollar view" doesn't mean much to villagers who can't afford to send their kids to school and struggle to find water on a daily basis.





Cameroon can't boast the wildlife of East Africa or the tourism industry to have high-level game parks, but in our own little park the giraffes were as stunning and graceful as I could have hoped for, and we got to see hippos, antelope, a warthog running at top speed across the savanna and loads of cool birds at watering holes. I can't lie though, I am jealous of what people see in Kenya...lions and elephants and rhinos, oh my. Maybe someday.


Actual hair cutting scissors! This is as glam as it gets, and trust me this felt luxxxurious. I've stopped showing my pictures with family and friends to Cameroonians, as I'm tired of hearing "But Auntie Tess, you were looking so beautiful and nice in the US...what happened?" The most sensitive comment I've gotten is "In Tombel you are looking...you are not looking like that", whereas generally bluntness is extremely common (I guess that's to be expected from a culture that addresses me openly as "white man").
People don't hesitate to tell me I've gained weight (thanks, platefuls of doughy cassava fufu fed to me at each house, drenched in palm oil, I appreciate it!), how my skin is a mess (thanks, dust, dirty water, and absurd humidity, so kind of you) and how I should have brought my pretty dresses to Cameroon (trying to dress humbly in a culture that highly values dress and appearance is harder than I thought). I told my mom that when I come home before my brother's wedding I will need to be "dunked in something" transformative right off the plane... 
 

It's traffic as usual in the beautiful city of Maroua in the Extreme North. I LOVE how absurdity is a completely routine part of life here - you gotta do what you gotta do!
It's great to travel, and great to come home again. Tombel finally feels like home  - no small development - and I am loving being back to my life here. Off to paint my kitchen (I've painted my hallway and bathroom so far, and I think at least 50% of the spider species found in Cameroon are now fossilized inside) and help my Health Club make a skit for the end of the year - then I'm going to teach my French tutor to make pancakes like we made on Easter.
 The sweetest sound to my ears these days is water dripping into a bucket from my outside tap at night - I close my eyes and smile every time it starts: )





Pancakes to remember, even sans syrup



As a health volunteer, should I be concerned that the main ingredient in the suspicious knock-off baking powder I found was listed as "edible alumnimum"? Despite using powdered milk, an extremely tempermental stove top, and an absurd amount of palm oil in place of butter to prevent sticking, the pancakes were a success!

I invited teachers from the schools I work at, the doctor and nurses from the health center, my French tutor, motorcycle driver, favorite bean and begnet seller, and neighbors and new friends. My first time entertaining for Cameroonians, and it was hectic and tons of fun! Apparently it's a compliment to bring all your friends, and children, with you when you are invited somewhere. We put in bananas and chocolate bits and used jam and Cameroonian coffee-flower honey in place of syrup. The big joke was how much more my neighbors liked it than the jello I made them, which made many of them "want to vomit". The ones who weren't too scared off to come back have regained some trust in my promise that we have great food in America, despite the fact that I'm not it's most talented ambassador.



 Eating local is easy when the farmer's market is the only market. I gave my friend going to the main fruit market in the next town $4 to get fruit for the Easter brunch, and he brought back 7 massive pineapples, 15 papayas and at least 30 mangos, all picked that morning. The humidity might be killing me, but living in the tropics sure has some perks. Made my first smoothie this morning with the leftovers and...I don't want to make you jealous or anything...



I introduced Easter eggs to the kids in my compound, struggling to explain why eggs are a symbol of Easter for us to kids who have never experienced Spring. But they had no problem adopting it - access to clean paper and crayons was very exciting. They don't have art classes in school or supplies at home, so I try and give them the opportunity to be creative whenever I can.

One big project I'm hoping to do is paint a giant world map on the wall of a school here - it'll be a cool art project and a great excuse to sneak in some geography education. Most kids here have never seen a labeled map of Cameroon (I have one on my wall, and no one has known where we are on it or where the capital is, some thought it was a map of Africa) and have little concept of the rest of the world's layout. To kids and adults alike, "European" applies to all white people and "whiteman" things such as Western medicine, and I routinely hear statements like "I know your roads in Europe are not like this" right after I say I am from the US. But hey, many Americans talk about Africa like it's one country and I can hardly place ten African countries even though I've had maps around me my whole life, so we can all benefit from the geography quiz game. Quick, do you know where Cameroon is?



My kitchen helpers had a field day using whisks,spatulas, and measuring cups and spoons - and I became the photographer when each one wanted photo evidence of her cooking like an American woman. A couple girls even went home to change outfits for the shoot. Don't let the cute pink halter top fool you - they cook ingredients they have grown themselves and mashed or cut up by hand over a fire in a huge pot. But they were running the show by the end!



And very pleased with the results : )

See that tap? With a bucket and water underneath?? After several months of having no reliable water source, someone was finally able to unblock the old pipes to my house and now water runs most nights for a couple hours. The difference this makes to my quality of life and my mood I could NEVER have fathomed before experiencing first-hand the stress of water shortages and dysfunctional local infrastructure. As the village chief likes to remind me, that makes it a valable grassroots experience, and I can't disagree.

 The liberating feeling of knowing that you can bathe, wash dishes,  flush your toilet, wash your hands, cook what you want and get on with the rest of your life - of actually being in control of your health and how you spend your time - has made me want to work harder to get water to other people here and everywhere. Teaching the importance of hand washing, cleaning vebetables and hygenic toilets seems beneficial, but it can feel like putting the cart before the horse when people don't have a dependable water supply. Improving water infrastructure is intimidating to me, but my own water saga has made me appreciate how critical it is.
Nothing to be taken for granted - water is life!  



Happy Easter!

To combat nostalgia bordering on homesickness for a favorite tradition-filled holiday, I am bringing the Easter of my childhood to Cameroon! My kitchen table has been turned into a paper egg decorating factory for the neighborhood kids, I am climbing the hill for my own sunrise service tomorrow morning, and after going to church (I did my research on who would have the best Easter music) I am going to host a pancake brunch for my neighbors and new friends in village. To try and cover up for the glaring lack of real maple syrup, we'll have jam, honey, yogurt, and one hell of a fruit salad. To top it all off, the whole town looks like a massive Easter basket with new crops and grass sprouting up fresh and green everywhere - and the new baby goat next door is even more adorable than a bunny.