Photo Update: August

Sadjo and I during the Fete de Ramadan

Mayra and I in a pirogue (She handled it a bit better than I did.)

Habiba and I at Lake Mbella

Hawa in her new clothes for Ramadan

My Fulfulde teacher, David, and I 

One of the men I work with, Bamanga, and I

A new friend, Saidou, in the process of making a stool out of reeds

Hawa being adorable, as usual

My counterpart, Asta, and I during a formation for the community health agents

The Chief of the health center, Monsieur Bernard

Bamanga talking about maternal and child health

Abdul Aziz talking about family planning

Measles vaccination campaign at the village chief's house

Twins after getting vaccinated

Neighbor kids, Fadouli and Halmata

Ce n'est pas du chocolat

I realize I've been pretty MIA with the blog posts recently.  To be honest, it's because I've been in a weird place of adjustment and what my mother calls, "an emotional rollercoaster".  I really feel like I've got most things figured out in village at this point and am pretty used to everyday life in Danfili.  It feels great to feel more like I have a place in Danfili, but it also means the excitement is wearing off.  Things that used to be shocking and exciting are not even noticeable to me anymore.  With this change, the realization of living in a tiny rural village is finally hitting me.  For someone who has an incurable case of wanderlust, being stuck in a village with 5,000 people and limited recreational activities is taking a toll.  I try to stay busy with work, but there are inevitably days when there is just no work to be done.   All in all, I am happy here, but have been missing you all at home a lot lately!  Thus, the title of this blog post: It's not chocolate.  One of my friends, Bamanga, uses this saying to express that something is not easy.

On a lighter note, I've had some really great days over the past few months as well!

• Learned more about traditional medicine:  The lake near my village, Mbella, is known for its healing powers.  All of the traditional healers go to a certain spot in the lake to get the water that they use to make their "remede".  There is another lake not far from Mbella that I was told not to go to.  Apparently, spirits live at the second lake and anyone who goes there doesn't come back!

• Saw a chameleon:  When we asked where the kids were taking it, they replied, "To Grandma's house so she can use it to make the 'remede' (traditional medicine)"!

• Practiced a lot of Fulfulde:  I am finally understanding and speaking Fulfulde a lot better.  Sometimes, I've even been able to joke with people at the market.  Grandma told me the other day that I've become a Fulbe of Danfili!  (Although I've also been told I'm a Gbaya of Danfili because of the amount of cous cous de manioche that I eat.  The Gbaya are known for mostly eating manioche, rather than corn.)

• Celebrated the end of Ramadan:  a.k.a. spent several days eating only a mixture of rice and spaghetti with meat.  At the end of Ramadan, everyone makes this "special" meal and anytime you visit someone's house they will serve you this.  Sometimes, friends will even send food to your house, just in case you didn't get your fill.  The best way to explain it, is the equivalent of Thanksgiving.  Except, imagine that you visited all of your friends on Thanksgiving and ate at each of their houses.

• Learned more about the Mbororo:  The Mbororo are the group of people who live "en brousse" and raise cattle.  We visit several of their camps during vaccination campaigns.  I learned that they make the floors of their homes out of termite mounds.  They crush up the mounds, add water (I think), spread the mixture out, and pound it into the ground until it becomes almost cement-like.  

• Learned how stools are made:  One night while going on a little walk through town, I saw one of the tailors in town.  He was in the process of making a stool out of reeds.  It was pretty cool to watch and he was happy to explain the process.  

• Did some goal 2 activities:  Thanks to my parents, I have pictures of snow in Wisconsin and postcards from up north.  When my friends insist that I put socks on because of the cold, I pull out my photos of snow to explain that to me, this weather does not qualify as cold.  People's reactions are pretty fun and they usually exclaim that they would die if they visited Wisconsin in the winter.  I also showed my counterpart a postcard of a bald eagle and explained that it was our national bird.  In typical Cameroonian fashion, his next question was, "And do you eat it?"

So, although Peace Corps is not chocolate, that makes the good days that much sweeter!

Photo Update: May & June

Diversity Forum in Limbe

My counterpart, Astadicko, and I at Diversity Forum in Limbe. 

Relaxing at the beach after the forum

Awesome monster fish that we split between 6 of us

Sanaga River

Cool bird (that I forgot the name of), but don't worry, Dad, I found it in my bird book

 If I understand correctly, one of the smaller peaks of Mount Cameroon

May 20th Celebration

Brian and I on May 20 (Independence Day) decked out in pagne, of course.  For the record, I did not request the shiny hearts.  My tailor thought they were a nice touch...

Doudou and I on May 20

May Polio Vaccination Campaign

Outside of the small village, Tirboing

Also outside of Tirboing

One of the vaccinators, Youssoupha, in the village of Kandje.  The day I spent in Kandje helping Youssoupha with vaccinations was one of my best days in country.  He was incredibly welcoming, but when it came to trekking out to small encampments he didn't baby me as so often happens here.  Youssoupha led me out to a remote Mbororo camp to finish the small amount of vaccines that we had left.  The route included several very questionable slippery log bridges (Mom, it's better that you don't see) and what can hardly be called a path.  Luckily, he thought to buy mangoes before we left so we had a snack for the road.

Mbororo camp on the edge of Kandje.  

Mysterious purple plant in Kandje

Life in Danfili

The view on the way into Danfili from Tibati

Rushing back into town after buying green peppers as the storm rolls in

Outskirts of Danfili 

Cattle egrets outside of Danfili

Nalé by Doudou (similar to Henna, but takes much longer to dry)

My art gallery 

Hawa and I (because, can you ever have enough pictures of a kid this cute??)

A Word on Manioche (Cassava)

In Peace Corps Cameroon, we do a lot of hating on cassava.  It is one of the staples of Cameroonian cuisine, we end up eating a lot of it, and admittedly it doesn’t have much flavor.  However, as the months have passed, I have come to peace with cassava.  Lately, I even find myself looking forward to my dinner of couscous de manioche with sauce.  (Peace Corps has confirmed the theory that I’ve heard: If you try something enough times, you will start to like it.  Some things just take longer than others.)

Given the central role couscous de manioche plays in diets here and the amount of time I’ve spent talking about it on my blog and phone calls home, I thought I ought to explain just what it is.  Luckily for me, my Cameroonian grandma and landlady (we call her “Da”) grows and prepares all of our manioche herself so the whole process takes place outside my house weekly.

Da and I:

The actual plant looks like this:

But the part that you eat that gets dug out of the ground looks like this:

The first step is soaking it to soften it up:

Next, cut off the skin (demonstrated by Da):

Chop them up:

And lay all of it out in the sun to dry:

Lastly, take it to the grinder to be made into flour.  The flour is then mixed with water over fire, turned with a huge stick, and made into clumps. 

The final product:

Bon Appetit!

Noy Iyeende? / How's the rain?

Several weeks back in Cameroon after my magical all-you-can-eat trip to France and somehow I’m settling back into bucket showers and couscous just fine.  The week before I left, I was having a hard time being back at post and was worried that coming back from the “developed” world would be even tougher.  Luckily, my trip seems to be just what I needed.  However, two other factors have also made me significantly happier here lately: starting work and rainy season.

I was actually dreading rainy season- mud everywhere, stuck wherever you found yourself when it began to pour, mosquitoes.  What I didn’t realize was the variety of food that comes with rainy season.  Although I love Danfili, I had really been struggling with the fact that many weeks, the only fresh foods I could find were onions and bananas.  Turns out once the rain comes, so do avocados, mangos, and tomatoes!  And I’m not talking about just on market day.  I mean everyday of the week.  It is quite literally raining avocados and mangos (when the rain comes, the wind blows so hard that you hear them hitting the ground all around you).  To give an idea of the magic of rainy season and also prices in Cameroon, here is everything that I bought the other day for a total of two dollars (US):

1 papaya             100 CFA           

2 onions              50 CFA

3 eggs                 300 CFA

4 bananas           100 CFA

6 mangos            50 CFA

6 avocados         300 CFA

6 tomatoes          100 CFA

Total:                         1000 CFA or 2 USD

Not living solely off of couscous… priceless.

As far as the other source of my contentment, I wouldn’t say work is moving along, but it is finally getting started.  I am in the planning phases of several projects.  The first, a fairly simple one, is a sexual health/general health course that I will be giving at the high school next school year.  I have found students from each class who have volunteered to spend some time with me this summer to plan the course and then to do a large portion of the teaching to their peers next school year.  The previous volunteer gave a similar course, but was not able to finish so the students suggested that we do the same thing this coming school year.  My second project is much larger scale and much more intimidating.  I am planning to use a model of community health called CARE Groups.  The model trains mothers of young children in the community on certain health topics.  Each mother is then assigned 10 households in her neighborhood who also have young children and is expected to visit each household and teach them what she has learned.  It has worked well in other places because it is a low burden on each volunteer, covers the entire community, and increases community capacity.  The start up work is expected to take around 6 months and involves surveying the entire town to find households with the target population: pregnant women and children under 5.  Right now I am in the phase of introducing the idea to the key players and the community as a whole.

Outside of work, sometimes little things can easily make my day.  Some examples from the past few weeks:

·      The little four-year-old girl who lives in my compound, Hawa, only spoke Baya when she started living with us.  She now speaks some Fulfulde after spending time with our Fulbe neighbors.  I have been informed that Hawa and I speak about the same level of Fulfulde.  This makes me pretty happy because if I can absorb language at the rate of a four year old, I should have this down in no time!

·      The other day, returning from work, I passed a group of four little boys (seven or eight years old, I would guess).  As usual, each of them separately greeted me with a “Bonjour” or “Sanoo”.  As I was walking away, one little stinker added, “Bonjour, debbo am!”… Translation: “Hello, my wife!”

·      I’ve started regularly running again trying to run again.  One evening a bunch of kids were over while I was getting ready to go.  They all thought it would be hilarious to see me run and decided to watch.  About a minute after I started running, I saw a kid running behind me.  I thought, aww how cute he will run with me for a minute.  Little did I know, he intended to stick it out for the whole thing.  Soon after, I had picked up several others and had a small pack of seven year olds following me all around the edge of the village.  I won’t embarrass myself with the amount of time this run lasted, but let’s just say all of them were able to keep up through the whole thing.

·      One day heading back into town towards the end of my run, I passed some women heading out to their field.  One of the women (who I do not know) saw me running, started running towards me, and gave me a hug!  After I caught my breathe from laughing, it gave me the energy I needed to finish my run.

After about a month back at post, I am now lucky enough to be attending a Peace Corps conference on diversity, which happens to take place in Limbe, a beach town.  Life’s not so bad in Cameroon.

Perspective

So, I'm in France.

I have had the wonderful fortune to be able to come back to Montpellier (my favorite city on earth and where I studied abroad) to visit my sister for almost TWO WEEKS!  Over the three days that I have been here already, I have devoured all of the cheese, bread, wine, and vegetables I can get my hands on.  Being back in a place that I have spent an obscene number of hours day dreaming about has been wonderful, but it has also given me a new appreciation for my current country of residence, Cameroon.

To be honest, I expected to step off the airplane and spend the next two weeks dreading going back to Cameroon.  Don't get me wrong, I've had a wonderful experience there so far and I love my village, but COME ON it's the south of France!  Happily, I've found myself appreciating both countries in equal parts.  Yes, the food and beautiful architecture of France is a dream come true, but I also miss the crazy chaos of Cameroonian life.

On my way out of country, I had to go through Douala, the economic capital of Cameroon.  Because it is a huge city and tends to be an ideal place to get robbed, volunteers are not supposed to spend time there.  I had permission to fly out of Douala, but the idea was that I would go straight to the airport.  Well, at the bus stop where I was supposed to catch a cab, I got off the bus and before I realized what was happening it pulled away with my luggage.  I talked to the other woman who got off at that stop who rushed me onto a moto to follow the bus to the bus station.  Before we pulled away, she gave the driver a serious look and said, "Be honest," which I couldn't decide was comforting or unsettling.  Of course, taking a moto straight into Douala was not exactly in my travel plans.  Well, long story short, after a good thirty minutes or so of riding a moto through the crazy traffic of Douala I got my luggage back at the bus station.  The same driver then took me out to the airport with hours and hours to spare before my flight.  Upon dropping me off, of course I got taken for a ride regarding price, but it involved a lot of joking and no hard feelings.  At the airport I spent some time looking at the gift shops and made friends with one of the owners who was from the north by showing off my excellent Fulfulde HAHA.  (A greeting was enough to convince him that I was his "sister" and he should give me a good price.)

My last afternoon in Cameroon was spent in a typically chaotic manner, but it also showed me how far I've come.  I realized how much I've learned about negotiating my way through the less formal, but equally efficient systems here.  The craziness of the market used to be really scary to me, but now it is just exciting.  I will definitely be enjoying my time here in France and all of the perks that go along with the "developed" world, but I also can't wait to get back to Cameroon to see what the next two years will bring.

March: In Service Training, Medical appointments, & France

Well, this month has been pretty strange.  Started out the month with everyone from my stage at IST (In Service Training) in Bamenda.  It was wonderful to see everyone and hear about everyone else's posts.  Then, back to post for me.  I was supposed to be there for 10 days, but this past Friday had a weird allergic reaction to something (hives ALL OVER).  Many guesses about what caused it (palm wine, mangoes, or peanuts are the current top guesses), but still unknown.  Long story short, it wasn't dangerous but I had to come down to Yaounde early to get it taken care of.  Fingers crossed that it doesn't come back!  Tomorrow, I'm unbelievably lucky and excited to be headed out to my favorite city on earth, Montpellier, to see my whole family.  Being pulled down to Yaounde early also gave me the chance to change my flight and leave two days early!!  This gives me almost a full two weeks in France with my family!  So, this month I have only spent 7 days in Danfili, but a couple pretty awesome things happened while I was there:

-Ate a snake egg!  To be more specific, a boa constrictor egg.  Apparently boas are pretty rare, but they are HUGE (I saw a cross section of the snake who laid the eggs, which they also killed).  The eggs were similar to chicken eggs, but softer and with a different flavor.

-Found out that the reason I have not been charged for water is because I am there to serve the community.  The men who run the water pump explained to me that anytime there are people who are working to make the community better, they give them free water to try to help out a bit with their costs.  Generally, this means teachers and health care workers in the community.  Although I have always felt welcome in Danfili, it was really great to hear the affirmation that they value the work I am there to do as well.

-Although there were many ups and downs during IST over our long days of session, it was a really cool experience with my counter part.  She is motivated on her own to improve the health and education in Danfili.  Although she is passionate, she is not connected to any community or government organizations.  Most of her time in village is spent working on her farm and taking care of her family.  It was really cool to see how being involved in a Peace Corps conference was really empowering for her.  It seemed like she felt very validated in the work she had been doing in Danfili.  

My counterpart, Astadico, and I at IST

Living the high life at Hilton happy hour

Living the high life at Hilton happy hour

Two of my kid friends, Hawa and Halmata, who hang out at my house and color. I can't really communicate with either one as Hawa speaks Baya and Halmata speaks Fulfulde, but we make it work!

View of Yaounde from the top of the Hilton

The beautiful Adamawa region from the train