Because life’s not all bad here in the ‘roon! I figured I could either tell a long rambling
chronological tale covering the past two months, or I could categorize every
event as either “bragging” or “self-pitying”, because I know that’s what people
love to read! Enjoy!
·
I have now had
two occasions to spend time in Yaounde (that’s the capital of Cameroon. You guys know that right?) at the brand new
case/transit house. And let me tell
you. It’s pretty cool. Being in Yaounde makes Cameroon feel a lot
more livable – just knowing that there are places to go to get pizza,
cocktails, hamburgers, hummus, spring rolls, buffalo wings, Turkish food,
milkshakes, real cappuccinos… Bars and cafes with actual ambiance. Supermarkets that sell cheese, salami, bacon,
cereal, fig and berry preserves, and orange oranges. This stuff might be OUTRAGEOUSLY EXPENSIVE*
but makes for a hell of a “treat yo’self” sojourn. Plus, I get to spend all day surrounded by
Americans who speak my English and laugh at my jokes and get my cultural
references. And there’s free wifi all
the time and nothing to do except go to bars and watch movies and eat
delicious, special, indulgent food.
Yaounde is cool. (For an accurate portrayal of life at the case, search
youtube for “real world yaounde”. I’d
link it but I don’t have good enough internet to get there right now.)
·
At the beginning
of April, I stopped by Bafia to visit my host family. Although I was only able to spend a couple of
hours with them, it was SO, so nice. It
actually felt like coming home. When I
knocked on the gate and said, “C’est Antonia,” I heard a squeal and pounding
footsteps as Djibriel raced over to wrap his arms around my waist. Ericka, meanwhile, tried to follow suit but
was too excited and tripped and banged her knee (aisha). Everyone was so welcoming and Michael, the
three year old, didn’t forget me (which was my biggest fear). We listened to High School Musical songs on
youtube just like old times. My host dad
assured me that I’m always welcome, and that they are my family as long as I’m
here in Cameroon. And my mom cooked a
special meal, reminding me what a great cook she is and how, back when I lived
with them, I used to think I liked Cameroonian food. They are all wonderful and it made me really
happy to see them all again.
·
One time,
Allison came to my post and we ate hot dogs and mangoes and camembert and wine
and American chocolate and whiskey. Also,
Alizabeth came to my post way from the grand north, so it was great to see her
and give the full town tour, complete with hiking, waterfalls, meeting friends,
helping dig a gutter as part of neighborhood work day, and enjoying Kadji, the
best beer in Cameroon, among other things.
Frenz are fun.
·
I travelled en
brousse and went to a traditional wedding in the northwest! See accompanying entry.
·
I successfully
completed a project, making me feel just a little productive and useful. April was World Malaria Month, culminating in
World Malaria Day on the 25th.
I organized an anti-malaria campaign in Bafang. First, I did a door-to-door sensitization/net
hanging campaign. A handful of
exceptional volunteers and friends came down on Thursday and Friday to help
cover as much ground as possible (shout out to Lee, Liz, Allison, Anna, Ben,
Justin, Nate, and Debbie!). We basically
went door-to-door promoting the use of mosquito nets, emphasizing how bad
malaria is (because it really is** – it’s the #1 killer of children in
Africa!), sharing alternative prevention methods, and whatnot. There are also people who received free
mosquito nets in a country-wide distribution in 2011 but who never got around
to hanging them, so we brought hammers and nails and hung up a few dormant
nets. It was also kind of fun and I got
to meet a ton of new people and see a whole new side of Bafang. I guess the folks I typically interact with
are a self-selecting population, and so I didn’t even realize that there are
people living right in the city who don’t understand any French, only the local
language. It was like a different
world! And it was cool! We hit up around 150 houses total and
essentially eradicated malaria in Bafang.
Then,
on Saturday (April 26), I teamed up with a couple of guys from the district
health office and a nurse from a local hospital and we set up a booth in the
market to talk to people about malaria.
This ended up feeling hugely rewarding, not so much because the
passers-by were so wowed and enlightened (although they surely were) but
because the collaboration with my team felt just perfect. I thought I might have to kind of “train”
these guys on what to say, but they just showed up (on time!) and immediately
jumped in, and they were all awesome.
And they could speak to people in the local language or in actually
correct French, and they weren’t as scary and white as I am. They even dug up a megaphone from somewhere
and started making loud announcements to the marketplace in French, Fefe, and
English. I did all the planning and
organizing, so I still felt useful, but they were definitely way better at the
presenting and interacting part. And the
best part was that it was completely mutually beneficial, because these guys
were doing their job. One of my great sources of stress with
finding work here is that if I want to work with locals (which you need to, of
course, for sustainability and community engagement and integration and
whatnot), I’m generally asking them to volunteer their time and energy for no
compensation. Which makes me feel guilty
and them less eager. But these guys showed
up, helped me with my project, and then got to submit a report to their boss
about what they did for World Malaria Day.
So it was really win-win-win-lose (me – them – citizens of Bafang – malaria).
·
I’m part of the
Diversity Committee for Peace Corps Cameroon.
We just finished putting on the first annual national diversity
forum! We had around 60 participants,
both PCVs and Cameroonians. It was two
days of sessions and it was held in Limbe, right on a black sand beach. Going into it, I really wasn’t sure what to
expect – sure, we had planned some sessions, but I had no idea how it would be
all put together. Anyway, I may be
biased, but I think it went really, really well. Tears flowed (I think my total cry count was
at 5, all from feeling touched and none from frustration!). Minds were opened. We had a panel of Cameroonians representing
different diversity issues (HIV+, marginalized tribes, women’s rights, physical
disability, vitiligo), and they all did an amazing job and touched us. During the question and answer session
afterward, instead of asking questions, all anyone wanted to say was Wow, and
Thank You, and You are an inspiration.
And they all are! (A funny moment:
When John was discussing his vitiligo (that thing Michael Jackson had, that
causes you to lose pigment in your skin), he spoke of his struggle because he
has to use a special cream that you can’t find in Cameroon, so it has to come
all the way from the United States. He
passed the bottle around for the audience to see. Sure enough, it was sunscreen.)
The next day, we
had a panel that talked a lot about homosexuality, a highly taboo and highly
illegal subject. One of the guys on the
panel started by standing up. “How many
of you in this room have never met a homosexual?” He asked.
A good proportion of the Cameroonians in the room raised their
hands. “Well, take a good look, because
now you have.” A couple of the other
panelists came out too, making them all my personal heroes as some of the most
brave and inspirational people I’ve ever met.
We were all afraid that people would react very negatively to that
panel, and say hateful things during the Q&A, but we were wrong. One Cameroonian attendee stood up and said
that being there changed his views on homosexuality. Another said she would leave the forum a
different person. That session touched
me in particular, because I think it introduced a conversation that many
Cameroonians have never had. And it got
people talking, and it got them thinking, and it felt a lot like watching the
seeds of change take root.
Oh and also I
got to relax and spend wonderful time on the beach! Limbe is beautiful!
·
I had a
birthday! And it was great! I felt a little anxious about it beforehand
because my schedule was all up in the air and changing and I wasn’t sure where
I would be, or if I’d be alone or with friends, or spending all day on a bus,
or what. Well, I ended up spending it in
Yaounde, with a pretty big group of really good people. Everyone made me feel happy and special the
whole day. We went to Hilton Happy Hour,
where you can get REAL cocktails at the price of two for one, all in a scenic
top-floor bar of perhaps the swankiest hotel in the country. Next we got dinner at this amazing Lebenese
restaurant which also has cocktails and shisha.
Anyway, good people are good and it was a practically perfect
birthday. Plus, my wonderful and
considerate family sent me birthday care packages, which made me feel the
warmth of familial love from thousands of miles away, and made me feel full
with delicious American snackz.
·
May 20 was la fête de unité nationale ! I
think in Anglophone they just call it National Day. It’s basically Cameroon’s 4th of
July. We marched in the morning
(obviously), and then proceeded to drink and dance. I received an invitation to the Prefect’s
gala to celebrate in the evening. Afraid
it would be formal and boring and I wouldn’t know anyone there (since Lee and
Ricky were out of town), I begrudgingly dragged my butt off the bamboo couch to
go. Well, it ended up being a lot of
fun, with familiar faces from around town in addition to my French, Japanese,
and Italian expat friends. The food was
good, and then it was followed by dancing, but not just your typical “you can dance
if you want to” kind – it was the forced, awkward, bar mitzvah-style kind. The DJ called out 42 men’s names (for the 42
years of national unity), and they were all asked to find a dance partner. I was chosen by a delegate (#VIP) and we had
a horrendously awkward slow dance. But
overall, it was a lot of fun and made me feel important and integrated.
·
Bafang is
developing!!! We just recently got a
SECOND bank, which is weird and unnecessary for a town of this size, and the
supermarket is undergoing a huge expansion!
You might not realize that it’s already remarkable to have any
supermarket, even if it was the size of a small convenience store. But now they’re practically doubling the
size, expanding the inventory (they have shampoo and conditioner and deodorant
now!), replacing all the janky wooden shelves with modern metal ones, and
repaneling the walls to give it a cozy ambiance. I got ridiculously excited when I saw this
happening because it really does feel like a huge sign of development. Business investment and expansion, fixing
things before they urgently need to be replaced, deodorant… Now that’s development.
·
I’m getting a
roommate! A human one! Luca, one of the Italians, was looking for a
new place to live. I made a half-joke
about having so many extra rooms, that he was welcome to move in with me. What started as a half-joke became a
full-reality and I couldn’t be more excited.
Although I have lived with roommates and generally… not liked it, the
grass is looking pretty green from this lonely side of the fence. I’m picturing him becoming basically my
personal chef, maid, workout buddy, chauffeur, Italian teacher, guitar tutor,
confidant, social-outing-motivator, masseuse, and generally bettering me in
every other way possible. Oh yeah and
he’s bringing: a refrigerator, a car, wifi, and a washing machine. I might be the only Peace Corps volunteer in
history to have a washing machine as I officially enter my new standing as the
queen of posh corps. Just install a hot
water heater and A/C and deliver me a pizza and I’ll think I woke up in
America. Oh, and he’s really cool and
stuff and has a good personality [that’s my “not just using him for material
goods” disclaimer]. Surely by my next
entry I will have remembered all the things I hate about living with people and
why I was so lucky to have the place to myself.
But not yet!
·
Oh and I’ve been
practicing guitar and I’m getting super good. #toomuchtimeonmyhands
·
Let me redirect
your attention to the part where I said I’m getting wifi in my house. This is huge.
INTERNET ALL THE TIME!!!!!
We’re 8 months in with only a year and a half left
in service. Suddenly this “long term
commitment” is starting to feel like a short term commitment! And I’ve been feeling pretty good about having
some friends and having a place in my town.
A group of kids in the neighborhood only just learned my name, but now
when I drive past them on my moto ride home, they cry excitedly,
“Antonia!! Antonia!!” which fills my
heart with joy. I also have had some
conversations with Cameroonians where they fondly recall interactions – even
minor, informal ones – with Peace Corps volunteers over the past 51 years since
we came to Cameroon. They always
remember the volunteer’s name, and sometimes their state, and they wonder how
they’re doing, even if they haven’t seen or heard from them in over 20
years. And that makes me feel good. Like maybe that guy who sells me beef will be
wondering how I’m doing in another 20 years.
And if the only actual “good” I do this town is giving some people a
memorable example of a young independent woman who didn’t need no husband and
left her country to help their community, then that might be enough. I mean, that, and eradicating malaria, might
be enough.
*Pizza: $5.
Burger: $4-7. Three spring rolls: $2.
Six buffalo wings: $4. Milkshake:
$4. Cocktails: $5-8. Okay, so actually
all the prices are totally decent but still many times more than a typical
dinner at post.
** The top 5
causes of illness in Bafang in 2013, with number of cases:
5. Skin diseases: 552
4. Ulcers: 699
3. Typhoid: 715
2. Respiratory Infection: 803
1. Malaria: 4532
Right??????????
