Bonjour, World!!
It’s been a while, but hopefully I’ll be connected back to the real world for good this time, seeing that MY COMPUTER ARRIVED and I’m in Yaounde!!!!
Anyways, there’s lots to catch up on from last month’s post, but I’ll keep this a “reasonable” length by summarizing via my Highs/Lows and projects that I’m getting started with.
Highs:
Pumba-pants and me on my birthday!
- My birthday was awesome! Normally, I’m not big into my birthday festivities…but after picking up 2 wonderful packages (one from M&D, the other from Ms. Ponder) in Bangangte, my day was already made. Then that evening, some people came over and my postmate, Timothy, made HOMEMADE PIEROGIES that were absolutely delicious, and my Cameroonian friend, Romaline, brought over my favorite dish – braissed fish!
- I got a hammock at my house, thanks to an order put in by a fellow PCV. It is AWESOME. For 1.5 days, I may or may not have spent way too much time in there.
One of my posters that I made for my house. My friends/family are awesome 
- I got a bunch of other letters/mail surprises that totally made this month awesome! Thanks Ms. Rabb, Ms. Moore, Ms. Welshhans, and the whole CTY-CLI RA staff for the snailmail!!!! Every time I get an email or real mail, I feel super lucky to have wonderful friends!
AfriCat: The Cat from Africa
- My postmate is back! He came back from his visit to the States while I was in Yaounde last time. Though I had gotten used to being in village by myself already, it’s definitely a bonus to have a postmate around. And it’s even more awesome that he is a really good cook (ie the opposite of me) and he has a cat named Africat: That Cat from Africa.
- I’ve started up several projects. I’m not sure if this is a high or a low, though, because I’m already having a difficult time with work ethic and such. But I’ll touch on that later. The exciting part is that I found groups to work with!
Checking out the boxes of books that were donated!
- The library that Timothy and Kim helped start in Bazou is alive and well! In fact, thanks to the motivation of my community host, he contacted a wealthy man in Bazou who got a Cameroonian women’s group in France to donate about 400 books to the library! Additionally, we are gearing up to receive about 800 more books to our library in the upcoming month! We had about 200 to start with, so this will hopefully attract a lot more people to the library.
- This past week, Timothy and I spent every day painting a world map on the library wall. While, I’m going to be the first to admit that sustainability here was definitely not a target that we hit, the truth is that most kids can’t find Cameroon on the map, nor can they identify Africa. So my hope is that our colorful map will 1) attract kids into the library and 2) help children understand that “America” is not in Europe. It was a fun project, and there were plenty of kids during the week who hung out at the window, just staring at the map (and us white people…)
Kids Marching in the Youth Week Parade
- This past week was also Youth Week. Youth week is a big deal here, and in fact, there is essentially no class at school, and kids spend hours outside practicing marching for the parade. I’m not kidding about that. Timothy didn’t have class all week due to some events going on, but mostly a lot of practice marching. I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that everyone uses it as an excuse to not work, including teachers, but the parade was fun, and we got to be “honorary guests.” At the end, our library board accepted the books from the Deputy, and so I’d say that was a success!
Run, Pumba, Run!
- Pumba is still awesome. She now goes with me wherever I go in village. It’s just been accepted that I’m the strange white lady who tows around the dog. In fact, people often yell “PUMBA!” without greeting me. And if I’m not with her, everyone immediately asks me where Pumba is. Recently, she’s taken on chasing bugs around, and I’m happy to say that she took down a good-sized spider!
- As I mentioned last time, I’m a total podcast junkie now. It’s weird because when I’m at home by myself, in my little compound, I sometimes just get lost in my own little world of English-speaking people on my podcasts. It’s sometimes still bizarre when I walk out of my gate, and suddenly I realize I’m in a Francophone country. But I’ve learned a LOT from podcasts. THANK YOU, NPR!
- I got my first kabba made! What is a “kabba?” you ask? Hah. Way ahead of ya, sistah (or brother). It’s my neighborhood’s pagne (West African fabric) design…and I basically look like a sack of potatoes. Awesome. At least it’s a good excuse to basically walk around in village in a really comfy nightgown.
Hair cut!
- Lately, Timothy and I have been on a nice little running regimen. I have to say, though, that running in Bazou is a total blow to my self-esteem. I can barely make it 2 miles with being COMPLETELY pulverized by the hills. Apparently we’re in high elevation, too, so I’ll take that as an excuse. Either way, it does feel pretty nice to go out for runs.
- I got to Skype with my Peace Corps World Wise partner school, Hampshire Regional High School, tonight! I signed up for a Coverdell World Wise thing where they match PCVs up with a class in the US. So I talked to a group of 10th grade French students for the first time, and it was great! I look forward to future conversations with them
- In the past 1.5 days, I’ve eaten 4 things of ice cream, French version of cheetos, tuna sandwiches, and I bought teddy grahams. Yum.
Lows:
- It’s never fun to be constantly heckled and pestered for things. But almost every day, people come up to me asking me for things. Sometimes, yes, they are extremely poor, but other times, they live comfortably in Bazou but still have the idea that maybe the foreigner will hand over some money. It’s also been un-fun to always have drunk men yell things at you on a regular basis. Luckily, though, I have a big mouth and I usually make them feel not-so-smart for harassing me.
- While I’ve been able to start many projects, continuing with them has already been in challenge. I’ll write a longer post on this later on, but I’m trying to take teeny tiny baby steps already, so that people can take charge. However, often times, it seems like they’re only motivated to work if the foreigner is there “motivating” them with food, reimbursements, etc. Obviously, this is not EVERYONE in my community, but most of the motivated people are already doing 50,000 things already to improve their community, so I’m working with people who could seriously learn a thing or two about responsibility and not showing up to things 2 hours late (or not at all…)
- I have a nest of mice in my house. Awesome.
- The Youth Day parade was fun to watch, and pretty entertaining. However, it was not-so-pleasant to find out that a LOT of kids were not in the parade because their parents couldn’t afford to buy the fancy outfits that some schools had chosen. While some schools chose to stick to uniforms and selected students to march, other schools seemed to only accept students who had the right outfits to wear – which meant that some kids weren’t allowed to participate. That’s how much “looking good” means to people here sometimes. They’re willing to take out a week of education for Youth Week, and still many are left out. That’s not cool.
Oh, AfriCat.
- Timothy told me the other day that he ate some REALLY good bush meat, of which he wasn’t sure of the origin. He said, though, that he tried to feed some to AfriCat, but weirdly enough, he wouldn’t eat it. That’s when I thought…..”I think you ate cat.” Why else would his cat not eat delicious meat?!??! mwahahaha. The worst part? Timothy LIKED this cat meat.
- Timothy and I (stupidly) tried to go for a bike ride out of village the other day. But holy crap. We ended up walking for a long time with our bikes, and even THAT was hard. Last time that’s ever happening.
- I spent 2 hours at the bank today. Maybe I should have put that as a high, since the past 2 times it took me 3 hours…
PROJECTS:
So, I’m still in “assessment” phase, so I’m not starting any big projects any time soon. And, quite frankly, I’m very very weary of starting any projects that won’t be sustainable in the long run. But for now, this is what has been keeping me busy.
1. Club Sante at the Technical High School: They voted for an executive board and everything already. However, I’m running into a lot of problems already with total disorganization for general meetings and people not showing up to meetings with me to plan things out.
2. Club Sante at the “Classic” High School: Went to the principal 3 weeks ago, and there’s still been no progress. I can’t work around it either, because that would defy the rules of “protocol.” Eep.
3. Community Health Workers (Gov’t ones): In theory, a GREAT organization. However, there is a total lack of leadership right now and lack of motivation without external motivation factors.
4. Community Health Workers (started by another PCV from before): Also, in theory, a great program. However, nobody seems to want to take any initiative…
5. Neighborhood meetings: They have neighborhood meetings each week, and I haven’t tried to train anyone yet to help me out, but I did get the chance to do simple handwashing activities. Not the most sustainable, but more for educational purposes.
6. Biohazardous waste disposal: This one, I’m really excited about. My community host put me in contact with a lady, Leoni, who is extremely motivated. She basically came to me with a plan that she wants to make sure that hospitals are disposing of needles and other biohazardous wastes properly, so that children can’t dig it up and get hurt/sick. So we’re going to go to all the different hospitals in my area to see how we can do simple things to reduce the risk.
7. World Project Map: Not the most sustainable thing I’m ever going to do, but the library in Bazou just opened less than a year ago, and we’re trying to increase the number of people who come in. So Timothy and I chipped in some money to buy some paints and paint a world map! It struck me as crazy that so many Cameroonians (not just little kids either) can’t find Cameroon, or even Africa, on the map. I thought this would be a nice way to brighten up the library, it would bring attention to the library during Youth Week as we painted, and kids can learn something from it.
8. English classes: Not something I really ever saw myself doing. But we’re charging 4 dollars a month (2 dollars reimbursable if they come on-time to each class of the month, and $2/month + $1 reimbursable for students), which will go back to the library funds. I figured that instead of begging friends/family for money, I could teach people in my community a skill that many people have expressed to me as being important. We’ll be starting in March, and we’ll see how well that goes.
I think that’s all I have for now! If you have any ideas/suggestions/feedback, PLEASE let me know. I want some serious critical feedback on this.
Note about the pictures: So, for the parade, everybody literally gets up as fancy as they can – including spectators. It’s insane. So in a lot of the photos you’ll see people in really fancy clothes… That is not the norm in my village. Also, the two large yellow/brown buildings that you see in the background are the new mayor’s office and the new community hall. Aside from like 4 other REALLY nice mansions on the outskirts of my village (belonging to wealthy people who normally live in Yaounde or Doula), these are by far the two nicest buildings. I just wanted to clarify that that’s not exactly representative of the rest of the architecture in my village…
Okay, I think that’s all for now! Hopefully I’ll have decent-enough internet at post that I can get posts up on a more regular basis
Peace and lots of Love,
Wes and Pumba
