It's high time I give a much-deserved shout-out and thank you to a woman who has been taking great care of me since high school, the mother of my dear friend Sam, Mrs. Corey! I have been blessed to get love and pick-me-ups throughout my 19 months in Cameroon, but no one has been more committed and generous in indulging my need for chocolate, my requests for brown rice, lentils and curry powder, and my love of stickers, face-wipes, nuts, tea, Crystal Light packets, and ZipLock bags!
I am blown away at Mrs. Corey's tireless efforts at boosting my mental health and spicing up my diet with treats and necessities from home, - she has my wish list in her purse and picks up items when she sees them - I am humbled at her dedication and want her to know how far her work goes to make me and others feel loved. It's hard to imagine how nice it is to get packages here - I can only compare it to Christmas when you are a kid - but she must know how much her care packages mean to me, the effect can not be exaggerated.
The culture of gift-giving is extremely important here, and its always nice to have little tokens of appreciation and support for those great people in your lives. Mrs. Corey's boxes of fun surprises are perfect to share with my Cameroonian friends, students and work partners - giving someone a chocolate or sticker that they can't get here makes their day, and are perfect for prizes during my sessions. I recently gave one of the fun pairs of earrings she sent to a neighbor hospitalized after having her appendix out - weak as she was, she had us all help her sit up so she could put them on then and there, suddenly beaming. Having little gifts for moments like these is so nice and is a whole other level of the gift I'm getting myself. Plus, having Reeses Pieces and coffee to share with fellow volunteers definitely wins me brownie points!
Huge, heartfelt thanks for your support Mrs. Corey - I am extremely lucky to have you looking out for me!
Our first meeting ice-breaker was learning to flip pancakes : )
I've started working with four awesome young women from my town who were selected to receive scholarships by an small US-based organization started by a former Peace Corps Cameroon volunteer and her friend - A2Empowerment. They work with volunteers like me who are in country - I ran a local campaign to seek out deserving young ladies who are ambitious and financially struggling to stay in school. I had more than 30 girls get in all the application materials on time - I picked the ten strongest, and Anne and Anne in the US selected four here, and sixty overall for Cameroon. Telling the families their daughters had been selected from such a big pool was a thrill - seeing parents so proud of their daughters, and girls so proud of their own accomplishment, was humbling and really special to be part of. Definitely made the hours of organizing application papers and the painfully slow and disrupted scanning/uploading/sending process worth it!
It's a $60 scholarship, which is making the difference for their families, and sending one of the girls back to school several years and twin babies later. There was definitely some hesitation in believing that the scholarship will actually come through - most things seem not to work out here for one reason or another. And since this was the first time I've done a financial aid type project it felt a little funny after all the expectation that that's what we SHOULD be doing here as "whites" - but since I get to work with the girls and their families and be involved in the process, it feels less like charity that's just promoting a stereotype and more like a cool way to build relationships.
The best part is I get to do a whole program with them to talk about being a strong student, goals for the future, the importance of giving back, staying on track, managing money, and fun stuff like cooking, learning English, and doing art. Three of the girls were willing to talk a bit about themselves...
"My name is Kolacke Ngole Christelle, I am a young Cameroonian, age 20, who wants to tell you about her life. Until I was 12 I lived as a happy girl with my aunt and uncle in Douala. My aunt worked at a metal sponge factory, and I knew her like my maternal mother because my real mother had me at the age of 14, and my father disappeared, I never saw him. My aunt loved me - she said I brought her luck because as soon as she adopted me, she managed to conceive her own child after seven years of trying! But her husband my uncle did not, he said his money was going all towards me and not toward his own children. I knew that a real father could never treat his child this way, and this is when he started being very severe to me. He hit me at each mistake, deprived me of meals for at least two months - it was his lastborn who loved me and would save me part of her meal, which I ate hidden by the toilet. I spent days and nights crying. He told me to leave the house, so I left for a week, and it was my aunt who found me and brought me to my mother. That's when I finally met me father at age 13, and when I went to live with my grandparents in Nkongsamba, where I live now, he sent me to school for 2 years before he died. After, it was my grandmother who helped pay my schooling, but right now I'm not in school. Now I am the mother of twin girls, Carole and Clarence."
"I am Dolgeline, I'm in Premiere D (second to last year of secondary school). I come from a family of seven kids, I'm the third. My dad has been sick for many years, today he suffers very seriously, and it's my mother who takes care of us and pays our school fees. She does small commerce - selling baton de manioc (sticks of boiled cassava tied in leaves and sold as a snack or compliment). When I get back from school I have to help her to make the batons, and then I go and sell them to have a bit of money to buy food. I really like school, I like science and math, and also English, but I have lots of trouble with this last one! I would love to be a very great nurse tomorrow, that is my most dear dream."
"My name is Iongi Kammogne Kevine, I was born in 1995. I'm in 2nd (third to final year of secondary school), and my parents are from the Bayangome tribe. My father is a motorcycle taxi driver, and my mother is a cleaner. I have an older sister who is in her final year of school - she takes Spanish - and two younger sisters. During vacations my mother sells beignets or bread, and we often help her selling peanuts too. I still have my two grandmothers, who are very sick, and my big sister has a lot of skin and heart problems that always have her at the hospital. So my parents usually don't have money to pay for school when the beginning of the year comes. At school I like Earth and Life Science, but math is a menace!"
One of the activities we did, called the Bridge Model, where you start on the left with all the influences of your current life , look toward the right side where all of the things you want in your future life are waiting, and then build a bridge of everything you need to get from one side to the other without falling into the sea of risks and problems that derail your progress like prostitution, tribalism, AIDS, and ignorance. One of the girls suggested honesty as a link on the bridge, and another girl argued passionately that honesty was the LAST value you should prioritize if you want to advance in life. Sounds crazy, but it was such a good insight into the society they live in - since there is usually no functional system of getting things done in an official, honorable way, lying, manipulating and cheating your way forward are widely accepted as the way it must be done. As Cameroon is one of the top most corrupt countries in the world, a phenomenon that is intimately woven into their daily lives, the girls said that if you are honest, you will be the only one, and will get nowhere.
It's true what everyone says...teaching English is way harder than you imagine! Once we got past "head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes", it's been a good challenge trying to keep the group (they are the ones who requested the class) motivated as they ( and I!) see how complex and tedious language is.
Cameroon is a bi-lingual country with French and English, but few citizens speak both, which makes for an administrative nightmare with issues like work transfers, police check-points on the road, and trying to do things like get a passport in the French speaking main cities. Even Francophone and Anglophone school systems (among other systems) are totally different, so the country feels pretty crippled for its being divvied up that way by a post WWI treaty. Being here you can see why the Anglophone regions feel marginalized and exploited and why many of them want to secede and join Nigeria, their idolized, beloved, much more developed Anglophone neighbor.
Reading a list of encouraging words to practice pronunciation: "If at first you don't succeed, tree, tree, tree again!"
All the art in the back was put together as a small art show by the Peace Corps volunteer I replace - made by both volunteers and Cameroonians.
Some girls at the social center where we will be hosting the camp - they got into the egg-decorating spirit after I made some cut-out examples.What a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
Nice work ladies! These eggs were all hard-boiled and would be eaten that night.
Easter morning sunrise service was a tradition growing up - I did my own version this year with a lovely morning walk up a trail overlooking the German-build Catholic church/school complex in my town where I went for services later that morning.
"Rise and shine and give God your glory, glory"
Big day for these girls! First communion. My area of Cameroon is heavily Christian, and also takes formality and ceremony and dressing up very seriously!
Another white-dress occasion - Cala, the daugher of one of my closest Cameroonian colleagues, was baptized on Easter along with her 3-month old brother. I spent most of the after-party at his house playing with her and all her cousins...I love kids! They all wanted to know if I knew Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, and Rihanna personally...and when I could not whip out a Miley Cyrus song, they did, not knowing what he words were saying but with incredible conviction on the tune.
Two great guys (Marcelle on the left and Sime on the right) who will be part of our camp, walking me back from the social center after a day-long camp-planning session with a few other volunteers and staff.
Peak into my town - walking around is no breezy affair! This is why when I got to Manhatten in February and could just stroll down huge, uncongested sidewalks, it felt so invigorating.
When we want a delicious splurge, we head to Marie Poulet for the freshest chicken I've ever tasted. A large chicken killed, cleaned, roasted to perfection, and served with plantains and rice - a big dinner for four - for $14. See the little foot on the platter, waving to you? Katie, on the left, is my closest volunteer (we get mistaken in town a LOT), and Emily was visiting for the weekend.
More good eatin' (with my friend Liz from Louisiana) - corn chop, one of my favorite dishes in Cameroon. The corn kernals have all been taken out of their skin - tedious work, so naturally we pay kids to do it. "Bon appetit", as everyone says here even when you are just eating handful of peanuts on the street- one of the many incidences of formality in an informal setting.
Easter night, after chocolate-banana pancakes and mango-papaya smoothies, plates of Cameroonian food at the baptism party, and a Mexican dinner feast, this about sums it up. Definitely don't worry about me starving over here, southern Cameroon is blessed with fertile land and robust and plentiful food staples, and I'm in the right zone for enjoying the best of it.
Can't beat summer camp for giving kids that joie de vivre : ) This was some of our awesome crew last year, with my volunteer co-leader Ashley.
Last year I gushed to you all about the summer camp my fellow volunteer Ashley (above) and I put on at a local orphanage. It remains the favorite and most satisfying week of my service so far, and several of the kids quietly told us afterward that it had been the best week of their life. Living together for a week and doing games and activities totally focused on them made a huge impact - they so rarely get that much positive attention and planned extracurricular excitement. The memories still make me giddy at how special it was for all involved. Here's the blog post (with lots of photos) I wrote about it – http://tessincameroon.blogspot.com/2011_06_01_archive.html.
So naturally I can't wait to make the camp happen again. Since I'm surrounded by newer PC volunteers and am the only one who took part last year, I'll be leading the effort, in collaboration with an awesome Cameroonian woman and good friend of mine who works at the center, Natalie. We want to increase the number of kids (imagining up to 50), make the camp ten days long, and add some fun new activities like a field trip and painting a huge world map mural. The camp will be full of classic activities like group games, art, creating skits, music, and a talent show. But we will also focus on what we call "Life Skills" activities - learning to create and work toward goals, managing money, boosting self-confidence, building healthy gender relations, public speaking, debates, staying away from drugs and peer pressure... I'll sneak health topics in there like how to brush your teeth properly and some basic sex-ed, and we might do tree planting and environmental education, American cooking (do s'mores count?), learning to tell time, trivia contests...
More than for just about anything else I'm doing, I wish you could be here to see the magic of these kids playing Red Rover and laughing hysterically, singing the songs I learned at summer camp like Rise and Shine, or us roasting corn picked from out back as the rain pounds down on the tin roof of the firepit hut. You are all invited, but I'd also appreciate your help from afar. There is LOTS we can and will at nearly no cost, and luckily the space already provides us with essentials such as beds and cookware as well as an amazing retreat-like setting. But there is much that outside support will make possible and which will give the kids a really awesome and memorable vacation.
We are working on getting most of the food donated, already have use of a bus donated for a field trip, and are going to have some stellar Cameroonians volunteer with us as inspiring speakers/demonstrators. But we are trying to raise funds/gather material donations to create the map mural (a worldwide Peace Corps initiative), for field trip activities (I'm hoping to take them to the ocean for the day, which many of them will never see otherwise, or to a primate wildlife center with rescued Cameroonian chimps), and for t-shirts, arts and crafts supplies, transportation for guests, some payment for the orphanage staff, and sports equipment like new soccer balls and pinnies. It's also extremely helpful to have some extra funds to cover things that come up like a kid's one pair of flip flops breaking on day one, someone getting sick, running out of soap, or needing to buy firewood because the woods are too wet from rain.
If you are interested in being involved, you can contribute by sending a box of supplies to
Tess Marstaller
Peace Corps Volunteer
BP 15
Nkongsamba, Cameroon
(100% of my packages have made it here so far, and they usually take 3-4 weeks). The camp will be at the beginning of June, so anything sent by the beginning of May should make it fine.
We would be grateful to receive any of the following:
balls of any kind (including little plastic or bouncy balls, deflated beach balls, soccer/volleyball/tennis balls - we can pump them up here), construction paper, coloring books, name tags, markers, pens/pencils, erasers, scissors, small school notebooks, stickers, paintbrushes, crayons and the like, makings for s'mores, tie-dye kits, balloons, large beads for necklace-making, regular playing cards and card games like Uno or other small games, simple puzzles, prizes like toothbrushes and toothpaste, soap or shower scrubbies, picture-based children's books, and any other makings for simple, healthy fun. Also, elementary-level educational posters for topics like English, science, geography (MAPS! world or African) or the natural world would be fantastic! Nothing with too much writing should be included as the kids speak French and very little English.
Two notes on sending:
1) Take items out of bulky packaging, and don't feel the need to add lots of extra padding. The boxes actually don't get too beat up, so no need to pay for a bigger box than the bare contents require.
2) Get flat rate boxes - USPS has a small, medium and large size, around $10, $45 and $58 I believe. Ask for these and avoid paying too much.
And if you would rather make a financial contribution and skip shipping costs, you can email me at tmarstaller@gmail.com and I'll tell you where to write a check: we've worked out a transfer system that will let us receive 100% of the donation. You can choose where you'd like your part to go, and anyone who donates in any way will receive a thank you letter from the kids and lots of photos of what your gift made possible. Even $25 goes a LONG way here - at 5 pineapples for $1 that would cover a lot of snacks.
Some of the kids who live year-round at the orphanage. As my aunt who had her middle school students write them cards noticed, boys far outnumber girls. That's due to more boys getting into "delinquant" behavior like skipping school and getting in fights, and because extended families trust social centers to care for boys, whereas girls are seen as more vulnerable when they are sent away. The camp will reach out to both.
Summer camp memories are some of the best of my childhood, and knowing it can and will be the same for these kids is thrilling and humbling. I'm doing what I love and I feel so lucky.
Thanks for your help, and feel free to forward this to anyone else who may like to join the project.
Meet Njiptcha Ngoko Romaric, a young man who it’s no exaggeration to say has already changed my life - this is our first picture attempt, and he's giddy and embarrassed at being told to smile! 18, without ID, homeless, jobless and an orphan, he’s been a street boy much of his life and spent “catastrophic, rude” years in the ghetto of Douala, the biggest city in Cameroon and an utterly rough and gritty place even if you are doing well. He doesn’t know of a single member of his family as he lost multiple siblings in addition to being “abandoned by my father without a care”. As he says, “I’m living like an isolated star in the sky”. I’ve been encouraging him to write his story and he’s bringing it to me page by page.
I’m working with the public administration of my town to get him under the wing of social services, a process that is moving forward mostly because of my status as an American. Romaric tells me “I’ve never had a soft moment in my life”, so I think the sudden support and affirmation that he's worth helping is a bit disorienting, though definitely making an impression. Despite his loneliness, confusion about God's plan for him, and shame at being marginalized and stigmatized all his life, Romaric’s spirit is incredible – he loves talking in English with me on my veranda, adores music and everything American, and is really excited to turn his life around and have a positive future. When he tells me stories about violence, prostitution, crime and “jungle justice” (how criminals are dealt with by a crowd since law enforcement is rare/undependable) he shakes his head and says “Cameroon a les DENTS, eh” (Cameroon has TEETH).
I'm proceeding with caution as I get involved in his life, but I feel compelled not to stand on the sidelines with this guy. If all goes well I'll be going with him to a social center this week that I really like, where they can feed and house him while we look for job training and a longer-term place to live. Fingers crossed he adjusts well - plenty of other tough, cool boys for him to befriend, anyway : )
After several somber pictures I was exclaiming that everyone needed to SMILE - success for all but me! This is a group of women I love teaching - we've done reproductive health/HIV/AIDS together and I'm now teaching an English class for them at their professional training center. This was International Women's Day (the class does have a bunch of guys too), and they invited me to celebrate with them and prepared my favorite, grilled fish. The day was fun as a party, but a joke as a promotion of women's equality or empowerment: "big men" gave speeches as women's groups marched through town in high heels and matching dresses, looking tired and anything but in charge. A neighbor described the day as "women's one day to think they are equal" and the celebration disgruntles many men who say that women get too flippant and saucy, think of themselves as more than they are, and go out with friends instead of sitting in the house shelling seeds and crushing leaves for the evening meal. Clearly, progress to be made in how we can get everyone behind a positive image of male/female power sharing.
I took advantage of the holiday to snap a photo of my town- usually I feel self conscious and inappropriate about snapping photos especially of poverty or grittier scenes, and I've been advised not to photograph people I don't know, as beliefs about what you can do with someone's photo (sorcery spells toward them) are widespread and would cause fear and suspicion of me.
Notice all the motos - those are what I ride every day, the billboard for the MSG flavoring cube that is used in every dish, the sparkly jewelry and hair extensions of the woman on the moto (this is where money goes, appearance), and the toddler squished between her and her driver. This is extremely typical transport -- babies a few hours old go home from the hospital like this. The guy with the tray on his head is selling baggies of precut
papaya, but I go to the stand behind the woman's head to get my papayas, mangoes, and pineapples.
Michelle comes by my house every day -- kids have very little to do and almost no structure or supervision in their free time, so there's a lot of wondering around. Sadly their environment and education system does not foster much creativity in imagining games and stories, and since books and other education tools are rare at best, they don't get much encouragement at letting their mind create. So when my vine started producing fruit (still not sure what), we started making up stories about who was who - mama, papa, teacher, students...and Michelle has totally run with it, coming over every day to tell me "who" she found and what they are doing - "Tata Alicia (I go by my middle name here), this is the big sister who is showing all the baby students how to walk to school along this branch." Music to my ears! I always think kids and most people look well-dressed here, but the difference is that Michelle has been wearing this outfit all week.
My gift from the field next to my favorite orphanage, where the youth were cutting weeds with machetes. I've found my new favorite kind of baby, replacing baby donkeys: egg-sized baby pineapples.
And continuing with my fruit obsession, I made smoothies for some visiting volunteers this week, which were too good to believe. Cold fresh mango, pineapple, papaya, banana, yogurt...yum! Jess and Megan were coming from the Extreme North region, which is severe desert and sparse for fruit and veggies (but no pity, they get awesome tofu and yogurt, less oily traditional food and great beef!), so it was fun showing off the bounty of my region's fruit production and green scenery.
Hosting volunteers has become a regular part of many weeks, which since there aren't lots of social distractions to be found (movie theaters, parks, cafes, bookstores, museums, we miss you!), is a nice way to spice things up. And the two things volunteers find to do together, and do quite well, are eat and drink. Without pre-made meals or take-out, and with lots of time on our hands, we make elaborate meals (many volunteers, thank goodness, are awesome cooks), chopping endless garlic, onions and tomatoes and experimenting with sauces for pizza and lasagna, or here, french toast with fruit, locally made honey and sweetened toasted shaved coconut - pretty great replacements for maple syrup. My standard "welcome" snack is a bowl of fresh guacamole and homemade tortillas, and banana pancakes are another classic, thanks to my dad, the head chef of Easter Pancake Breakfast must be 20 years running.
Regional meeting was held at my house a few weekends ago - 6 of the seven of us from the Littoral - what a good crew : ) We discuss lots of security issues like how to contact each other in case of emergency and if the phone network goes down - namely sending notes to each other through motorcycle drivers in lieu of carrier pigeons. This time we talked about the summer camp we want to do as a regional project - more news about that coming soon.
Typical scene in my house - cockroach gets stuck by its own inability to right itself when it falls on its back, ants swarm in from all the cracks in the walls and consume it alive or cart it away with incredible synchonized tugging. This is the lip up to my front door, they were trying to get it out a little hole in the corner; within a few hours its completely devoured. The heat has driven cockroaches into my house in unfortunate hoards -- I've become MUCH less squeamish about quickly whacking them with shoes, better than letting them flail and spasm for three days when I spray insecticide. The alternative is letting them crawl around me as I sleep, and YES, they do crawl into bed with me sometimes! But the hands-off method of letting the ants deal with them is by far the most natural and diverting.
Ants are my tiniest daily reminder of how incredible nature is, these falls are my favorite grander reminder. This is back at my favorite falls, 45 minutes from my house, though not very easy to get to. The last time I was here, exactly where this photo is looking, I saw an absolutely shocking sight: a "Goliath frog" which at the time I had no idea even existed but are apparently extremely rare and valued; some varieties exist only in Cameroon. The frog was MASSIVE - bigger than my motorcycle helmet, the size of a big bucket really. I was thigh deep in the water for the first time ever here, when my friend Phil started shouting, which got me screaming from fear as I didn't know what had provoked him and felt extremely vulnerable. I had disturbed the sitting spot of the frog, who was now hopping with massive leaps and splashes through the very same pool. I was gasping from surprise and adrenaline even once I figured out what animal it was. We were lucky to have spotted one of these frogs, other volunteers are quite jealous... Every Cameroonian I told I'd seen one asked with dismay "But, why didn't you catch it?!" "With what?!" "With your hands, of course, so we could eat it!"
Next time.
