Photo Update: September begins

Snacking on sugar cane

Hawa with her new baby doll from Mom and Dad Speech.

Proof that yes, sometimes I do work.  This is at a community health worker meeting in Betara-Gongo.  If I remember right, everyone is laughing because I was introducing myself in Fulfulde.  It's kind of like a party trick when the "white lady" speaks Fulfulde.

Chief of the village of Betara-Gongo, a village within the area that Danfili's health center serves.  In small villages such as Danfili and Betara-Gongo, chiefs have quite a bit of power because there is not a strong government presence.  Our mayor is based in Ngaoundal and although he is mayor of the whole area, he rarely comes to the small villages.  To start projects, it is important to go to the chiefs to get their support before starting.

The COSA (community health workers), health center chiefs, men from Betara-Gongo, and I .  The president of the COSA is an Alhadji.  This technically means that he has been to Mecca, but also means that he has a lot of money.  At our meeting, he donated some cleaning materials to the Betara-Gongo health center.  It is expected that Alhadjis will share their wealth with their extended family and community.

My friend Fadi and I.  She is one of the most "forward thinking" women in village.  Although she was not able to finish school herself, she is very serious about all of her children's schooling.  She hopes that her oldest daughter goes to university and is hoping to go back to school herself.  Also, she's just a great friend!

Doudou and I!  I was able to visit Doudou and her family when I came down to Yaounde to plan training.  Wish her luck as she starts school in Yaounde this week!  

Doudou's brother, Abdoul, and I.  He is in university right now and is hoping to work for the embassy.  He also speaks English really well.

Sharifa and I.  She is also a member of Doudou's family and visited Danfili for a couple weeks.  It was a surprise to see her in Yaounde.  Although she's 8 years old, she has many responsibilities and already acts like an old lady!

After training prep in Yaounde, I went to visit Lara's post in the west.  It was great to meet all of her friends and her village, Baleng.  The west is very different from my region, the Adamawa.  The climate is much colder.  Almost everyone is a farmer and spends all day every day in their field.  It is also much more developed.  The group of people who dominates in the west are the Bamileke, who are known for their drive to make money.

The Museum of Civilizations in Dschang, also in the west region.  It displayed traditional art from all of the regions of Cameroon.  It was very interesting to have more explanation for things that we had seen in our villages.  The city of Dschang is fairly developed because it is a university town.

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.