Even better than a white Christmas


Nothing like a little African Christmas adventure to keep you from feeling nostalgic for Marstaller family sing-a-longs around the piano and Toblerone bars in your stocking. Especially when you are visiting the coldest region of the country where we actually did need to huddle around the fire in wool socks at night to stay warm! I was in the NW for the weekend visiting my friend and fellow New Englander, Laura (red bandana), and we hooked up with two other Peace Corps volunteers, five European volunteers and one awesome Cameroonian friend for a Christmas to remember in the hills. What a group!  You know you are lucky when even spending Christmas abroad there is nowhere you would rather be. 

We got a couple neighbor kids who had never held cameras to take these shots of us before we took off on our hike. The "1-2-3 go" was lost in translation, but they captured our enthusiasm. We've got tents and sleeping bags and loads of blankets, hammocks, a stove, pots, food and drinks and utensils, a Christmas tree, a camera tripod, firewood, hats and scarves, even marshmallows and real Cameroonian cocoa...everything but a chimney for Santa to come down.  

"Last one to the top digs the latrine!"
We look better than we feel! I thought the boys were joking when they pointed to the peak we were heading to the top of, then thought I was going to die when the trail basically blazed straight up! The elevation in this region is already much higher, and my bag quickly felt like I could have built us a chimney myself. We came up with games to keep us distracted, and one of the volunteers even got his iPod and speakers going and tied it to his pack to keep us motivated and prevent us from jumping ship on the whole thing. Much more slowly and steadily than most of the others, we made it!

Hardcore Laura on the other hand blazed up the trail without so much as a heavy breath, casually on the phone to her mother much of the way, and spent the last half hour cheering me on from the top! She's from Vermont and does intense winter camping trips, one of her many admirable adventurous hobbies. I stayed at her house before we left, and we had real maple syrup on our cinnomon oatmeal pancakes - definitely got me in the spirit : )

The trail that had brought us up is used by farmers, who charge up it just to reach and tend to their crops - I can't even imagine. So no actual camping, we just made our own site on an abandoned plot. We spent the last hour of daylight scouring for firewood, hanging up hammocks and the tent, making a firepit and setting out dinner. It got chilly up there really quickly and the layers and blankets were piled on.

Ahh, that'll do. The Cameroonian man who trecked up with us hung a hammock too, by nailing a sheet into two trees, at least 15 feet up...and slept there soundly all night!

We didn't let anything keep us from enjoying what's important: Christmas spirit...

...complete with music...

and good food!

Staying cozy by the fire, but as soon as you turned your face away, the air was nippy - climates in Cameroon are surprising! One of our 25 tries to spell the town name, Belo - that E was not easy to capture!! We had a talented and patient amateur photographer amongst us, several of these pictures are his work.

Christmas morning - hiked a nearbye hill to watch the sunrise after prying ourselves out of the pigpile of limbs and blankets we had formed in the one, one-person tent to keep warm!

With some creastivity and an able photographer, we turned this setting...

...into shots like this! No phtoshop, just settings and a great angle (and great leap!)

"I can see into the future, and 2012 is gonna be a big one!"  

"Last one to the top digs the latrine!"

Merry Christmas!

 

World AIDS Day & new volunteer training

This year for World AIDS Day (Dec 1) I was in the village of Bokito helping train the new batch of health volunteers who are about to swear in and go to their posts. Before and day-of we were out in full force getting the community involved and aware - it was a blast and erased all disappointment I'd had about having to miss this day at my own post. A stellar example for the newbies of what successful community action can look like - I hope this inspires them as they head into their own work.

The heroine of the week was Frieda, this dynamic force of a young woman who led her high school health club in their awesome efforts to put on a World AIDS Day event with our help. She impressed us all, and the whole team of students was dedicated and on top of things which made working with them on this project so fun and rewarding. Doesn't this lady look like she means busness and is going places??

We all got to watch the line-up of skits, songs, poems, dances, quiz competitions, speeches and prize-awarding that took place outside school the afternoon of World AIDS Day. The group even made t-shirts - I gave mine away, but I've still got the spirit. It was one of the best organized youth initiatives I have ever seen, anywhere!

We started out out the day walking around and talking to villagers about the basics of HIV/AIDS and encouraging them to get tested. A couple of the trainees also made these awesome posters that we hung them in public places. This one encouraging pregnant women to get HIV-tested was hung outside the hair salon.

Amanda, all smiles as she jokes with teenage male passers-by who are already noticing the poster, did the artwork, one of her many extraordinary talents that will make her an incredible volunteer. Here, a couple happy and protected inside of a condom : )  I wish I could be a fly on this wall to see what reactions these posters get.

On the right is Kim, one of the (best) volunteers (ever) who helped with my training last year, and has now finished her service but is staying another year to work for a social marketing organization that tries to promote behaviors like the use of condoms, water filtration methods, and mosquito bednets. They came and presented what they do in communities - here the trainees are getting a demo of a female condom, from a Cameroonian man - pretty progressive!

What's great about Peace Corps training is that it gets you out into the community to practice what you learn. Now, the trainees are showing school kids how to use female condoms - this is a topic of great curiosity over here, though its a tough sell since it looks funny and seems like it will be more work to use since its different.

It's always hard to know what people already know, as when I ask nearly everyone tells me they don't know anything about AIDS, even though I know they hear things and have ideas about it already. But it feels good to get some correct information out there about how the virus is spread, that it can be passed to babies but can also be treated, and that sorcerers can neither cure it nor send it maliciously to people they have grudges against. I don't think they take my word for it right off - but in combination with other things they learn over time, I hope beliefs and practices will shift. HIV is quite prevelent and misunderstood in these communities, so its a huge area of need for health educators to address.

We got the biggest classroom packed with students for an after-school viewing of HIV/AIDS video clips from a series called "Africa Scenarios", where the script ideas are proposed by African youth. Getting hooked up took some work, but with a lot of adaptors and extension cords we were in business! Getting all the info and messages from their African peers was really effective, and the kids totally responded to all the scenarios, making it clear that all the same stuff happens here. The most heated one was about teachers who trade grades for sex - our students were holllllering with familiarity of this phenomenon and its complicated implications. And the principal was there too - I was nervous, but luckily there was no fall-out, at least not then and there.  

We asked the students what messages they found in all the film clips, and though it took some coaxing to get to the critical points, I was really proud of how they expressed themselves.

What an awesome tree for a school to have in the middle of its campus! Watching skits the kids wrote with trainees' help about the consequences of unprotected sex and random relationships - youth here are great actors as they never have stage fright and already have a major flair for drama, so the skits were wildly entertaining.

They shared their traditional dancing...

And we shared ours!

I was totally clueless before arriving to how into fashion both women and men are over here. Just because there is not a lot of money doesn't mean they won't spend what little they have on looking good. It's true the goods are cheap, but the demand for style has completely influenced the market, so cute and trendy Chinese imports are everywhere. And for schoolgirls, if you have to wear a drab blue uniform everyday, shoes are what's left to make your style statement.

Another poster, this one made by a brilliantly talented student -- check out that evil army of HIV virus germs trying to plot their attack against the condom! The title is "AIDS: You will NOT get passed me". They hear so many bogus myths and stories about HIV that getting good info out to them warms my heart, especially when it is coming from their own peers and is more likely to be taken seriously.

Anytime, anywhere, shoes, socks, or barefeet, no matter how completely deflated the ball

Trying, unsuccessfully, to bind some Thanksgiving dinner chickens for the ride back to village...they will ride with at least ten more volunteers piled onto these seats, then await their fate!

Here's one of the village tailors working on a dress for me. Aren't their fabrics awesome? I hear one of the biggest immediate shocks for volunteers coming back to the states from Africa is arriving at the airport and seeing everyone dressed in black and grey when they are used to loud vibrant dresses.  

One of my favorite things we did while I was there was make soy milk and tofu with community women - promoting soy is a popular volunteer project, so learning and sharing how to make fresh tofu is a great skill to take to post. It's cheap, widely available, and bursting with nutrition their starchy, oily traditional diet lacks.  

I got giddy when I ordered a bean sandwich and the vendor went and washed her hands first-- with soap! It's fairly simple to set up wash and rinse buckets and have soap nearby, but it still takes a little effort and focus, so it often gets neglected, especially when water is limited. This scene right here is a rare gem, exactly what we try and promote.

Back at the training site, volunteers find lots of ways to unwind - cutting each other's hair, massages, setting up a hammock, slack lines, card games, and my favorite from the past two weeks, group yoga classes.

New house, new paint, new start

Here are a few first pics of my new place in Nkongsamaba!! It's beautifully newly painted, weeded, scrubbed and redocorated. I am devestated (sheerly out of vanity) that my camera card got a computer virus and we had to wipe everything on it, which at that point included all the before pictures -- booooo. Just imagine something between a prison cell, an attic you would dread to enter, and a long-abandoned car garage, and you'll have half the picture of what I walked into here. Junk, dirt, cockroaches and grime EVERYWHERE, and a deep thick musty feel and smell you could have cut with a knife. I sure hope I will never have to face another "before" situation like this one, but I'm pretty proud that little by little I've turned it around into something homey, inviting, and CLEAN. The plumber, electrician and landlord go off every time they enter about their disbelief in the transformation. It's a perfect hobby for a home decor lover like me, and your home is your retreat here from stress and frustration and gawking, so its highly worth it to me to invest the time.

I am told that vine is a passion fruit plant, I can't wait to find out and enjoy. Rain water goes gushing down that gutter with incredible force. Oh, and yes, the pricacy is incredible... I do miss my compound neighbor kids, but not at 5AM.

This area gets great morning sun and is perfect for tea. The kids living above love to throw all their trash, clothes, cups and toothbrushes off the balcony, but I cleaned all that up, just for you.

The wicker sofa frame I found outside, and then made cushions from an abandoned foam mattress so permanently curled I had to bind it to the frame with ripped up fabric strips. Everything you see is redone! The wine bottle on the little table is a candle holder, they are perfect, and often needed for unexpected power outages.

Cards from you! And a canvas-esque painting I found so covered in grime the image was not recognizable. I bought the fridge in the kitchen after the one there was a moldy, leaky, ice filled nice and chilly hang-out for cockroaches and slaughtered chicken parts.

So, I'm kinda tickled with myself for making those cafe curtains out of an ill-fitting dress. I use a gas stove, heat water for tea in that little pot (there is a hole one third of the way up, so you have to fill it just right) listen to BBC from that radio in the morning, and look at my brother's Save the Date on the window to remind me I will be home visiting family in just three months!


It's coming along, but there is allllways something that needs fixing around here, nice as it looks. This morning my sticky-note of issues to bring up to the landlord (hey, at least now I have one!) included: Mice are getting in under the door, the electricity in the bedroom is blown, the toilet continues to run constantly even after a plumber came three times, the sink and the bathroom faucet are leaking heavily, and can we fill up the hole in the wall that has a cockroach nest inside? As a visiting volunteer pointed out slightly mockingly, problems are relative. Before I had no water, now I'm complaining that my flush toilet won't stop running. Rough life...but in a place where parts are cheaply made, things are poorly built and rarely maintained, and qualified labor is hard to find,  more ammenities bring more complications when trying to keep them up! It is a constant effort to hold back the tide of malfunctions, bugs, and mold, but pretty snazzy when you think you might be living in a mud hut.

Visitors welcome!

Lately

My new post is much more accessible to other volunteers, and is the central point for all PCV's in this region. As such I am getting to do much more hosting, and since this house (formerly nothing short of a filthy disaster) is thoroughly cleaned, newly repainted and now decorated (interior pictures of that are next up) it's been fun to show off my hard work, enjoy good company, and have an appreciative audience to cook, clean and fuss for. I've had nearbye volunteers staying with me this week for a goodbye party, a soy workshop, and to visit their posts (the new group of health and agriculture volunteers just arrived - now we're the big kids!). Here are three friends heading down my street off on a hike last Saturday.

The place has been getting major work done! This is my fantastic painter (sitting on a flower pot), who every day takes the ripe papayas from my tree without asking, and who sterly told me he was going to cut down those rose bushes because he said they did not belong there. It seems men, and elders, have the habit of making the decisions even when it's not their house...we have had to create some house rules, including that he will take care of the painting, and I will take care of other things, like what wall my bed should be against : )

Making delicious fresh soymilk and tofu with local women at my house...including this cook for one of the orpahanges I visit. In fact all the cooks for the two orpahanages pictured below were there and want to try this for their kids. Soybeans are cheap, available, and full of nurtrients the tradiational diet of white starches and oil does not provide. But using soy in cooking is not widespread, so promoting it is a favorite and fun volunteer project. If you fry tofu and add enough MSG cube, they love it!

Finished product...YUM!

HIV education with a farmer's group - classifying activities that do and do not transmit HIV. If you can read French you can see that "Common use of needles" is on the "Cannot transmit" side and "Shaking hands with someone with HIV" is on the "Can transmit" side. It's really satisying to get the correct information across...Knowledge is power!

One brave volunteer doing, yep, a condom demonstration on an ear of corn. We work with what we have!

Kids from a local orphange showing off the t-shirts that were recently donated to them as well as their puzzle assembling skills. They did this puzzle five times in a row and really figured out how it works after a while. At first, when pieces did not slide together they thought they could not fit (its not intuitive to lift them up and overlay them) and the fact that an edge side cannot go next to a  side with a stub sticking out was hard to visualize. Fun to see them THINK and learn something new.

Studies from the sixties up to now have shown that non white-skinned girls will often choose white dolls and pictures over dark ones as "good", "nice", "pretty" and preferable...sad and eye-opening about the racial cues even little kids pick up on.  So I was really encouraged when this girl chose to give the three cute girls in this coloring book picture brown skin : ) , and not because she has not been exposed to different races - they get a decent amount of European volunteers here. Doesn't she look like she should be one of those girls herself, and that she thinks so too? Love that.  

Evening sudy hour at another orphange that is very near and dear to my heart...this is where we did the summer camp, and I love going back to visit.

Enjoying the sunset outside while the kids finish their homework...

...and then we got to play!

After an hour they were pretty proud to have finished the puzzle!

Some of the new trainees getting their Zumba groove on during their Saturday afternoon off! 55 newbies arrived in September, just like I did a year ago, and are doing their 11 weeks of language, culture and technical study before setting out for two years at post. Aside from Community Health and Agriculture volunteers, this year Cameroon opened a Youth Development sector, that I was honored to get to help design this summer. I spent a week in October helping out with their training too, doing sessions on reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, Life Skills, water/sanitation and other health/youth development topics that hugely affect the groups they will be working with.
I had a blast meeting them and sharing what life is like as a volunteer - I remember so vividly how much I valued having older volunteers visit us during training, and I really wanted to pass that on. I'll be back for two more weeks soon - its really wild to be the older generation of health volunteers now, but when I see how fresh and wide-eyed they are, I realize we've put in our time, and somewhere when I wasn't looking, we got a handle on Cameroon.

The three agro volunteers coming to my cluster, L-R: Brian, Katie and Shane  - they spent a lot of time at my house this past week and it was awesome getting to know them, cooking together, swapping stories, and trying to impart some second-year volunteer wisdom and survival tips -  ex. remember that when everyone tells you in an accusatory tone, "You've ABANDONED me!" when you have not gone by their house or workplace for a few days, its just their way of saying they miss you and are happy to see you - don't feel guilty!

Driving out of my town, Nkonsamba, at 6:30AM

It's...beautiful here.