Ginger Tales from Africa: March 2014

I am writing this, by hand, in a notebook, on a bus on my way to Yaoundé. We are currently passing through a cloud and all the surrounding hills are cloaked in an eerie and beautiful mist. I swear, every drive I go on is more captivating that the last. It even makes up for all the things wrong and awful about transportation here. For my family (and anyone else who wants to come to Cameroon!), I will have one rule for your visit: you cannot sleep through any bus ride – these are the best views you’re going to get.

That being said, our current cloud has thickened and we’re now driving with a visibility of approximately 6 inches. What began as a blog entry has transitioned to a goodbye letter, as these words I write may be my last…

But what better way to spend my final moments than recounting my last few weeks, for the enjoyment of my dear readers?

IST had its ups and its downs. As expected, it was GREAT to see everyone together again (probably for the last time until our 10 year reunion in 2025!) (which will have perfect attendance). Day 1 was indeed full of many hugs and exclamations of, “Oh my gosh, how are you?? DID YOU HEAR THIS HOTEL HAS HOT SHOWERS??”

When we first arrived in country, several more experienced volunteers made comments about how we’d never be that clean again. I kind of resisted this generalization – after all, I have running water at post so I take a hot bucket bath every morning. Sure, I get dirty – after traveling in dry season, several people have remarked on how tan I’ve gotten, until I wash off the layer of dirt covering my entire body. Still, my daily personal hygiene regimen is comparable to that when I was in the US. That’s why I was so surprised when, after Alizabeth and I each took long, luxurious, hot showers, we both managed to get dirt from god knows where on our bodies on the white bed sheets. Don’t even ask how, I’m still trying to figure it out myself.

I was alarmed to find that, in addition to our socializing, we were expected to go to boring educational sessions all day every day. Who saw that coming??

I also used IST and its abundance of friendly shoulders as a great opportunity to rinse out my tear ducts. Its abundant friendly ears also served as receptacles for my rants on why life here is really, really hard. But I’ll just leave it at that because the internet is no place for self-pity.

After a week and a half of sessions, friends, drinking, eating great food, buying pagne, dancing, and fripping*, it was time to head pack to post. Lara and I traveled to Bafoussam together. As we sat, squashed in the van that rattled and jostled us through clouds of dust, Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” came on the radio. We both started quietly singing along to ourselves, gradually increasing our volume until the two of us plus the woman next to me were all singing our hearts out, passionately, eyes closed. Lara and I looked at each other and smiled with the understanding that we would both keep this moment in our memories of our crazy lives in Cameroon.

Back to present day, momentarily: On my bus ride we are now going through the Cameroonian equivalent of a drive through. That is, our bus stops to pay a toll or pick up passengers and a swarm of merchants flock to the windows. People shout and thrust bags in your face. You can buy peanuts, croquettes, carrots, passion fruit, orange, bananas, plantain chips, baton de manioc, sometimes hard boiled eggs or soft bread. At this moment someone is offering me unidentified meat that looks like it might be heart. There are no McChickens or milkshakes, but it’s not bad!

Okay, back to the past: There is a kind of stereotype about Francophone (specifically Bamilike – the ethnicity of the West) that people are louder, sassier, more argumentative and more derangy than they are in Anglophone regions or in the Grand North. Well, after our sojourn in Anglophone Bamenda, Lara and I were instantly jerked back to Franco culture about 5 minutes after getting off the bus. We grabbed a taxi to a part of town with food and restaurants. Lara assured me that it’d be 100 francs, as always. When we got out, she handed the driver 100 and started to march away. I offered a 100 coin as well, which he refused. “This isn’t enough,” he said, “it should be 200.” Lara smiled charmingly and told him, respectfully, no, that’s not the price. I live here and I know it’s 100. I again tried to hand him my coin and he again refused, so we left on our merry way.

For about 15 seconds. Then the cab driver ran after us, screaming about how we wouldn’t pay. I continued to try to give him my money which he still would not accept (mixed signals, dude.). He grabbed my bag as if to take that (which contained some all-but priceless honey bunches of oats from Bamenda). And he kept shouting and he was scary and mean and horrible. Meanwhile, he’d been attracting some attention. Eventually, there were about 4 or 5 Cameroonian men who stepped in to help cool this guy down, plus several spectators. The men who came to our rescue were amazing – telling him not to overreact, offering to pay whatever we were disputing, and one helping us slip away unnoticed as everyone else sorted it out.

If Lara were writing this story, it would be much more satisfying to read. The ending would be heartwarming, as she explained that for every bad person we encounter, there are four or five great ones. She’d tell you how despite the initial nastiness, she left the experience feeling touched and bursting with a new love for Cameroon and Cameroonians. I, however, left feeling shaken up, grossed out, and not very positive about anything in this country. Our different responses definitely reflected what we were going through and how we were feeling at the time, but my point is just, I recommend you stop reading and check out Lara’s blog instead.

I got back to post in time to celebrate women’s day with my host organization before embarking on my post-IST beach vacation in Kribi. I had gone to several of the meetings to help plan women’s day in Bafang. Then I left post for the two weeks directly preceding it and planned exactly nothing. The least I could do was show up and reap the benefits of everyone else’s hard work, right? So I got my special women’s day outfit made from this year’s women’s day pagne (très Camerounaise, I specified) and showed up for the march. What no one told me was that, because we are the center for women and family, it’s basically our day, and we all prepared a couple of songs to perform for all the important government officials, plus all of the spectators from Bafang and its surrounding villages. Before I knew what was happening, I was placed in the front row and forced to stand there awkwardly as everyone around me performed songs I’d never heard (okay, I’d heard the national anthem. But not enough to learn the words and sing along.). So, that was embarrassing. Anyway, we marched, and then we went to the prefecture where I again was unprepared for our organization’s obligation of serving food to the VIPs. Next, I became a VIP myself and headed to the prefect’s house for some food and drink. I was going over with a coworker who asked if I wanted to walk or moto. “Is it far?” I asked. “No! It’s not far!” she assured me. Well, and hour and a half and perhaps 3 miles (plus two stops under shelter to escape the rain) later, we showed up at the prefect’s house in time for most people to be leaving and all of the food gone (except cabbage and rice). At least there was still some real red wine left** to wash down my frustrations.

The next activity on the agenda was the watch some Bafang women playing soccer at the local stadium. I left pretty quickly to get my next social obligation: the expat women’s day barbeque! Our Bafang expat community (Ricky, Lee, and me: The Americans; Luca, Gisella, and newly-arrived Michaela: The Italians; Aki: The Japanese girl; plus a French girl visiting from Yaoundé) gathered at Lee’s house to grill 4 kilos of beef and a freshly-slaughtered chicken. It was a lot of fun and a nice way to end women’s day.

Back to now for a second: (It’s like a movie, right? Of mostly flashbacks with intermittent cuts to present day?) Just drove past some people selling bush meat on the side of the road. As in, holding up dead animals by their tails. One looked like a big groundhog and the other like a giant weasel. If I even actually know what a weasel looks like.

The last time we stopped, a man got on the bus and is now doing a life, in-person infomercial for miracle cures for all your medical concerns. This also happened on the ride from Douala to Kribi – he just rides for 45 minutes or so, demonstrating how to apply this ointment and describing how to prepare these magical leaves to cure anything from impotence to boils to congestion and heartburn. And then people buy his cures, and then he gets off. Right now he’s showing a cream that does something or other but no one is interested in buying it.

The morning after women’s day I hopped on a bus to the beach: to Kribi! Well, to be more specific, I hopped on a bus to Douala, which broke down halfway, so I hopped on another bus to Douala (which was a whole adventure in itself), hopped a moto, hopped around for a couple of hours at the agence, and then hopped on a bus to Kribi! The journey took all day, into the night, and involved many good and bad people along the way, so I was relieved to finally arrive in the warm company of my friends at our lodging of choice: the summer mansion of the governor of the East. And yes, it was as nice as it sounds.

Flash forward to my bus: we keep driving past mango trees with almost-ripe mangoes. Did you know? Mangoes grow dangling from strings maybe 6 inches long that connect them to the branches. They look like Christmas ornaments decorating the tree. They feel like them too because, like Christmas, I am so excited for mango season! It’s approaching!

I was only in Kribi for about 4 days, but it was an absolute game changer. It’s paradise and every hour spent there was spent in euphoria. Every stress and negative emotion that had plagued me was washed away by the waves and replaced by joy and love. We wiled away the hours on the beach, swimming, sunning, laughing, reading, skinny dipping, walking to the water falls, making a bonfire, having good talks about love and spirituality and development, playing jenga, making French toast and crepes and a Mexican feast, going out for shrimp, fresh baracua, pizza (twice!), and generally being in love with everyone and everything. Our mansion was inhabited by me, John, Josh, Will, Travis, Alizabeth, Allison, Danielle, Lara, and Lauren, but we also hung out with some of our other stagemates populating various hotels, some super chill Cameroonians who supported gay marriage and turned out to be real Rastafarians, and some more expats including a group of Doctors Without Borders in CAR and a celebrity from an HBO TV series (what?). Basically everything was wonderful, it marked my turning point, and plans are already being put into motion for me to live there for the rest of my life. Our last night there we tried to hunt down a karaoke bar for John’s birthday. Where we ended up (yes, karaoke, they assured us) there was a live keyboardist and a very amateurish singer. It was absolutely not karaoke because apparently the closest you could get was requesting songs. And actually after requesting them there was still a pretty low likelihood that they would be played. Eventually, Travis commandeered the microphone and we took matters a little more into our own hands. Weird, impromptu karaoke to an unconsenting audience? Check it off the bucket list. That plus dancing the night away was a great way to say goodbye to Kribi.

I’d like to tell you that after all that exciting travel, I really buckled down and didn’t leave my post for, oh, a month, at least. However… a few days later was a St. Patrick’s day party in Dschang (present were Peace Corps volunteers from all sectors and stages, plus students and volunteers from Germany, Serbia, France, Belgium, Senegal, England, Korea, and Cameroon. It was pretty neat and we talked, cultural-exchanged, made hamburgers, and danced, danced, danced.) and a few days after that I went to Batie to help Allison celebrate her birthday (we made bagels, which were BOMB, and ate them with smoked salmon and almost cream cheese. It was divine. We also spent hours stuffing our faces to the point of discomfort (and beyond) with her care package candy. Hugely successful.) and now I’m on my way to Yaoundé for a meeting for the Diversity Committee. Alas. I’ve still spent some time at post – here are some developments:

I started a club at my host organization. It’s called Femmes Fortes [strong women]: Club de la santé et du leadership. Session one was pretty successful – I had it planned game -> art -> information. The only problem was that the game and art were a little too successful, so that everyone wanted to continue their projects and no one paid any attention to the information section. Might need to re-think the organization for the future.

I have also started computer lessons for the girls! It might be tough given no internet at the center (and often no power at all). Plus, turns out, I’ve never learned any computer vocabulary in French and some concepts like “software” or “website” are complicated to explain even when you do possess an adequate vocabulary. So that will be a challenge. Still, they seem excited to learn about computers, even though they all laughed at me when I described online shopping.

My final work-related development is that I will be taking part in the A2Empowerment scholarship program. This is an organization that promotes girls’ education in Cameroon. For girls who make good grades and can’t afford school, they will pay school fees and supplies up to a certain amount. Once receiving the scholarship, the girls must all meet monthly with the PCV (me) to talk about school and learn life skills, plus they have to take part in some community engagement, like tutoring, and continue to make good grades. I have been working with one local high school. The Vice Principal has been amazing – he took it upon himself to find me girls who not only get good grades and have financial need, but are also orphans. Above and beyond, my friend. He is a really cool, friendly, responsible guy and has been really helpful and accommodating. The principal, meanwhile, is a pretty serious asshole. I probably shouldn’t be saying this on a blog. Maybe I’ll take it down. But I have interacted with him once in the past, where he made comments implying that scantily-clad girls are all but asking to be raped. Now I ran into him while I was visiting the school and he told me that he thinks what I’m doing is sexist because it only focuses on the girls. He then proceeded to go on a tirade about how much easier it is to be a woman here because you can just get married and you don’t even have to work. And how everyone thinks women are all fragile and helpless but really they’ve got it so easy. Part of me (the idealistic, optimistic side) hopes he was joking. But when the conversation turned to him asking me how much money the Peace Corps gives me and how will I survive two years without a boyfriend, I knew for sure he was being a jerk. Anyway, it is almost motivation to continue working with the school – I know that the students who go there deserve better than this guy. So I will try to be that force, and, in the meantime, interact with him as little as possible.

The other night we had an expat dinner at the home of a new French woman in town, living with her Cameroonian husband and their absolutely adorable toddler. We ate and drank very well – cured meat, curried tuna, guacamole, crêpes, quiche! All this under the humble title “aparatif”! Plus, we had some stimulating conversations, including what turned into a debate on gay marriage. Ironically, the Cameroonian who was voicing the opposition argument was definitely one of the most forward-thinking Cameroonians on the topic – he said that he doesn’t believe people choose to be homosexual, and that he doesn’t care and they should be free to it. It was only the institution of marriage that he took issue with. The night was full of lively discussions like that one! Anyway, maybe you’re already picking up on this, but one of the nicest things about doing the Peace Corps is not just the Peace Corps community and my Bafang community, but becoming a part of the expat community. Maybe before coming here, people from Italy, France, and Japan would seem just as foreign as people from Cameroon, but when we are all so far from home and going through so many of the same things, we feel like one big family. And it’s really cool to be part of that.

Update on the Colby front: he has lately taken to suckling my giant stuffed alligator. It makes me worried that he has some kind of nutrient deficiency and is craving something in the cotton fibers. When I hid the alligator in another room, he started suckling my comforter, even the fleece I was wearing. And he does it ALL NIGHT. He’s a wacky kitten but freaking adorable and amazing and I’m in love with him.

Well after a smooth 5-hour trip (which actually left, miraculously, within 15 minutes of the reported departure time), where I had an entire seat all to myself and full control over the window, we have arrived in Yaoundé. Thanks for riding with me. Until next time!

* Fripping: clothes shopping at “the fripperie” (donated clothes from the US). The Cameroon equivalent of thrift store shopping – you sift through lots of crap and hideous items to find a few incredibly cheap gems (and I mean $0.20 and $0.40 gems). Shopping in Cameroon: Are the clothes in a store? Forget it. Are they hanging in a booth outside? Too expensive. Are they in a big heap directly on the dirty-ass ground? Bingo. Now you’re talking! Welcome to the frip.

** I specify real red wine because the majority of what people drink here (and call red wine) is actually ethyl alcohol added to something like grape juice. It is not wine. And it's not good.

Ginger Tales from Africa

Saturday, March 29, 2014

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Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Bus Ride Confessions

Monday, March 24, 2014

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