PST: Week Two

I have been at my homestay for almost a week now and everything is going very well!  Myself

and the other health volunteers are living in the town of Bokito, which is very small!  It is definitely

very rural (a.k.a. no internet… hence the lack of blog posts).  I am living with a family of three

people (currently) here.  There is Maman Jeanne, Marie Rose, and Nanoo (not her real name,

but what everyone calls her).  The girls are not her daughters, but they live with her right now.

This is a pretty common situation is Cameroon.  Marie Rose is 14 and Nanoo is 11.  Maman

Jeanne is married, but her husband works in other regions with NGO’s and I haven’t met him yet.

She has had volunteers before and is so helpful by speaking French very slowly and repetitively

for me.  She has also been very sweet about easing me into Cameroonian food by cooking more

tame options for me the first couple of days.  When I ask to try different foods that the rest of the

family is eating she says, “Not yet, in a couple weeks”.  There are some traditional Cameroonian

foods that have been deemed appropriate for me though.  My favorite so far has been couscous

and gumbo, neither of which are what you are picturing.  Couscous is basically like a lump of

dough and gumbo is this goopy, soupy substance made from the vegetable, “gumbo”.  When

eating gumbo it is better to just taste it without looking at it because it has a snot-like

consistency. The flavor is good though, I promise!

This week I was also able to buy my first pagne (fabric), which I am going to have made into a

skirt/top ensemble soon!  I brought it to the tailor today and it should be ready in a week.  I am

ridiculously excited because the fabric is absolutely beautiful!  I will post photos when I have fast

enough internet and have the outfit made!

Most of the time, it doesn’t really register with me that I am training to be a Peace Corps

Volunteer and living in Cameroon.  I’ve just been going day by day and this seems like normal life

already.  That’s not to say that I am acclimated or self-sufficient here at all.  I think because every

small task takes so much more planning and time, it is more intuitive to live in the moment.  I’m

pretty sure this is going to catch up with me at some point in a huge wave of culture shock, but

for now I am happy with where I am.

Other things I have learned in the past week:

- In Cameroon, you should say “Bonjour” or “Bonsoir” to just about everyone you pass.

- I am incapable of doing anything the correct Cameroonian way (laundry, cutting vegetables,

washing dishes).  Pretty much everytime I try to help with cooking or chores, Maman Jeanne just

looks at what I’m doing, laughs, and says, “Oh, Elizabeth”.

- Because the way you see the moon in Cameroon is a different angle, the shadows on it look

different.  Another volunteer’s host sister explained that instead of “the man in the moon”, they

have a mother and a child.  I looked several nights ago and it is absolutely beautiful!

- How to “suck” an orange.  The oranges here have very thick rinds so they are not that enjoyable

to eat the way we do in the states.  Instead they open it part way and suck the juices out.  I finally

asked Nanoo how to do it the other day, which she found pretty funny, but I now know how!

- If you get a bug bite in Cameroon, there are about five different things it could be and the

treatment might include digging things out of your skin.

-Cameroonians can eat massive amounts of food in one sitting and don’t understand why

westerners can’t do the same.

- It is actually very tasty to add spaghetti to your omelet.  Yes, I literally mean dump some

spaghetti in there with the vegetables.  Cameroonians (and now all of us PCT’s) are all about it.

Now, time for me to crawl under my mosquito net and fall asleep to the increasingly more

familiar African/American soundtrack from the bar next door!

On to PST!

Yesterday we attended a dinner at the Country Director’s home with people from various government organizations and NGO’s.  The U.S. ambassador to Cameroon was also there!  I sat at a table with a representative from the Cameroonian Ministry of Health.  It was one of our experiences dealing with a language barrier in Cameroon.  As a table, all of our French was decent, but not amazing.  It was quite a struggle to get through dinner in all French, but it was definitely good practice.  Because of the language barrier, some of us even got to the point of asking ridiculous questions like, “When is your birthday?”  (en francais bien sur)!  At least it gave us something to laugh about later.  

Overall, we have been filling out a lot of paperwork, learning expectations, and learning how to avoid getting sick (even though it is pretty much inevitable).  I tested into Intermediate-Mid Level French which means that I am only one step away from meeting the minimum language requirement to serve in a French region.  This is big relief and also very exciting because it means that I might be able to learn Fulfulde (a language spoken in the north).  I have already learned a couple words from one of our PCV’s who has been orienting us.  Basically my understanding of Fulfulde right now is that the answer to a lot of questions is “Jaam”.

Today we had a really cool experience at the Peace Corps headquarters.  A man who had served as a PCV in Cameroon in the 60’s and his sister who had visited him for 9 months while he served stopped by.  It was their first time back since the 60’s and they were hoping to meet up with old friends and go back to the town where they lived.  They were so excited to be back and still so enthusiastic about Peace Corps.  He mentioned how he was still in touch with the other PCV’s who he served with and how they had gone on to do really exciting things with their lives.  It was really inspiring to see how excited he was to be back and to see how much the country still meant to him after so many years.

Tomorrow we are moving on to Bafia and Bokito and into our homestays.  Because I am a health volunteer, I will be in Bokito.  It is more rural, which I’m actually really happy about.  I feel like it will be easy to adjust and integrate into a smaller community.  So far I have just been feeling really excited about everything.  Peace Corps has done a great job of taking care of us and preparing (and perhaps overpreparing) us so we are all dying to put some of this knowledge into use and make some stupid mistakes!  Right now I am feeling really optimistic that after PST (Pre-service Training) I will feel ready to move to post and start some work!

Hotel Felydac

Today is my third day in Yaounde, Cameroon and I finally have the time and internet to write a blog post.  I haven’t seen much of the city yet because Peace Corps has mostly kept us at the hotel (Hotel Felydac).  This is for safety reasons since we don’t know the culture well yet and because we are in a bigger city.  Everyone is getting pretty antsy to explore, though.  Yesterday we were finally able to walk around the city with a PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) and try some food on the street.  We tried one type of nut that has tons of caffeine, but is incredibly bitter.  We also tried some cassava prepared in a certain way which was actually pretty good!  So far we haven’t had much real Cameroonian food because we have been eating our meals at the hotel.  

Tonight we are going to a dinner at the country director’s house.  Apparently there will be representatives from many NGO’s, such as UNICEF there.  It’s a bit intimidating, but it will be very exciting!  Many of us will work with some of these organizations during our service.

Although I haven’t seen much of it yet, I am very excited to be here in Cameroon.  We have been reminded often that we represent the U.S. and the Peace Corps 24/7.  It is very strange to suddenly be a part of the organization I have been talking about for so long.  Although, right now we are PCT’s (Peace Corps Trainees).  At the end of our 10 weeks of training we will be sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers.  They are also making a change this year in their system of placing people.  We will be given much more say in which region and what type of work we will be doing.  Unfortunately, we won’t find out for sure until the 5 week mark.

I have been getting some internet at the hotel here, but it is pretty spotty with all of us trying to use it.  It sounds like it will likely be even less common in Bokito where the health volunteers are training.  I am very excited to move to Bokito, though, which is a smaller and more rural community.  I will also get to meet my host family at this point, which will be very exciting!  I’m really hoping they have kids.  We also got to indicate our preference for this so I think the chances are pretty good. Soon I should have more to report after exploring Bokito a bit!

T-minus One Week

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog!

I can't believe that the time of departure to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon is only one week away.  After four years of imagining Peace Corps as the next step after college, it feels surreal that the time has finally come.  I am excited, nervous, and pretty much every other emotion you can imagine, depending on which second of the day you catch me!

For those of you who don't know, I will give you a brief run down of the information that I have so far about my post.  I will be in a position called a community health educator, which means I will be in a rural community.  The major focus of my work will be HIV and malaria education as well as a number of other health issues including, maternal and child health, hygiene, sanitation, and any issues that my community expresses a need for.  I won't learn more details until I am in country and have received my specific post.  For the first 10 weeks, myself and the other volunteers (there seem to be about 50 of us) will go through training together.  I will be in Bokito with the other "health volunteers".

My plan is to keep everyone updated through this blog, but of course the frequency with which I update will depend upon my access to the internet!

Lastly, to my wonderful friends and family:
Thank you so much for all of your support throughout the application process.  You have put up with my babbling on with excitement, crying over stressful moments, and worrying over every detail.  I am so so lucky to have you all and as I say goodbye to everyone, I am reminded again and again what an amazing support system I have.  I am bringing lots of pictures to remind me of this during the tough times at post and I expect at least a couple letters once I have my address!  <3