Hi! Sorry!
When I first
got my invitation for Cameroon and I poked around a little at some of the
current and past volunteers’ blogs, I was shocked at how many glazed over their
first few days without going into extreme detail about everything they were
seeing, doing, smelling, and eating. I
vowed to be better and to update every day with every detail… and yet, here I
am. A week and a half since my “arrival”
entry without having said much at all. I
guess I have to cut those other volunteers some slack – I know understand just
how busy the beginning period really is, and how hard it is to maintain a
consistent blog!
Last I
wrote, we hadn’t even left the hotel in Yaoundé… and now, I am living with a
host family in Bafia! So, much has
changed. We had several days of training
at the Peace Corps office in Yaoundé, which was one step better from leaving
the hotel, but we still at that point only had two places we could go. Trainings have been about things like how to
use our water filters (yeah, tap water isn’t really a thing here), how to deal
with street harassment, how to mitigate crime, what to expect when we head to
host families, and other sessions like that.
We also know who to call in case of what kind of emergency, and we’ve
been getting tons of vaccinations (including typhoid, 3 separate rabies shots, hepatitis
b, and others, in addition to the bundle we all got in the states before ever
coming to Philadelphia). We have met
many of the Peace Corps staff members (3 of whom are American, and something
like 50 of whom are Cameroonian), and they all seem really nice and cool. In Yaoundé we ate pretty much every single
one of our meals at the hotel, which was apparently not even serving real Cameroonian food, so we got pretty
babied.
One night,
we were all invited to a nice dinner at the house of the Peace Corps Country
Director, Jackie, where we met some special guests including the American
Ambassador to Cameroon and the head of UNICEF Cameroon, and many others. There we got to taste some more authentic
Cameroonian food, including a dark leafy dish that tasted smokey and surprisingly
contained fish, and a dish made from fermented cassava, which tasted kind of
like a tangy parmesean cheese- flavored gummy bear. On that first night, I did not much care for
it, but I set out on a mission to acquire the taste for it and I’m happy to say
that I succeeded! Tonight, in fact, I
ate an entire long strip of it myself.
It’s important to celebrate the little steps toward integration.
Towards the
end of our stay in Yaoundé, I got a cold, which was unfortunate, but comforting
in a certain way. It was nice to feel
like I could get sick in Africa and not have it be some bizarre, foreign,
deadly ailment. I was sick in the same
way I would be at home and it was no more complicated – and that was
comforting. Of course, it still sucked
when I woke up at 4:30 and couldn’t fall back asleep because my nose was running
and all I had to wipe it with was the soggy pulpy remnants of previous pieces
of toilet paper. But even that
misfortune brought an advantage – I was awake before anyone else and was able
to take a shower with WARM WATER – my only since arriving – and the water even
came out of the shower head!! This is
something I didn’t know to appreciate at the time, but which now seems
miraculous.
Last Wednesday
we all loaded up some buses with all of our luggage plus water filters, French
textbooks, training handbooks, notebooks, and medical kits which contain
everything from advil to rapid malaria tests to dental floss. Then we set out on the approximately two hour
drive from Yaoundé to Bafia. We all had
our eyes glued to the windows for the whole time, as the landscape changed from
city to rainforest to savannah. Bafia is
a medium-sized town with several markets, a couple of high schools, and people
on the streets at all times. This is
where the homestays and training for the Youth Development (me!) and
Environmental sectors are. The health
sector is staying in a town 22 km from here, called Bokito, but they come a
couple of days per week for trainings in Bafia.
Separating into those two towns felt tragic – how could they tear us
away after an entire week of bonding? – but of course, we will all be in our
own separate villages soon enough.
Before
arriving in Bafia, I got a little bit of information about my host family. I found out their last name, the fact that I
had two parents and four children, and I instantly fell in love with them. I think all the other trainees had the same
experience; each slip of paper said on it something along the lines of, “Congratulations! You have been adopted by the ____ family!” so
it was hard not to already feel loved and in love.
Once our bus
arrived at the training center we entered a middle school dance-style room
where Cameroonians were all awkwardly plastered to one wall and all the
Americans were uncomfortably crowded across the room. Eventually, we all got paired off and hugged,
sometimes warmly, sometimes awkwardly, by our new families. I was greeted by two of my host sisters,
Xavier (who is university-aged) and Ericka (who is 10). They were both very sweet and helped me lug
my incredibly heavy suitcases across muddy unpaved roads to their house. When I first saw their house, I was shocked
by how nice it was! There was a gate to
get in, and many rooms, including a bathroom with sink, toilet, and shower
head. Their salon/living room has a TV
and a china cabinet. I kept thinking to
myself, “wow, I guess I really hit the host family jackpot!” Who expected a western, sit down toilet?? And who
thought we would have a television and lights in every room?? And a well in our very own yard??
The family
is all awesome. We were all warned that
Cameroonians aren’t used to giving privacy, so we shouldn’t expect any, but my
family has been very considerate about that.
They all deliberately avoid my room so that I have some space to myself,
and they haven’t been worrying about my whereabouts every minute like I
feared. I am actually the tenth
volunteer that they have hosted, so I think they know the drill pretty well by
now! My two parents, Marthe and Charles,
are both involved in education and they both speak some English. Marthe is an awesome cook – sometimes I feel
guilty when I hear my fellow trainees complaining about repetitive or bad
food. Charles also has a lot of adorable
“teaching” moments with his kids, where he turns dinnertime conversation into a
passionate plea for the importance of learning English and studying hard. When my host brother said he didn’t have any
homework, Charles said, “You must assign homework for yourself!” They have two kids already living outside of
the house and they just dropped Xavier off at university in Yaoundé the other
day, so there are four kids remaining in the house. Fitte (spelling? I don’t know how to spell any of their
names.) is a high school-aged boy - when
I asked Ericka and Xavier how old he was, they weren’t exactly sure, but they
think somewhere between 13 and 15. At
first he wasn’t all that friendly to me, but now I think he is a total clown
and a great brother, and he’s really good about miming things that I don’t
understand in French. Ericka is the next
oldest, at 10 – she is incredibly sweet and even made me a necklace the other
day! She is also definitely the most
helpful with cross cultural and language questions – she is patient with my
French and speaks slowly and answers all my questions like the sweetie pie that
she is! Djiebril is my 8 year old host
brother, and he’s awesome too. He is
studying English in school but is too shy to ever speak it with me, even when I
ask him to. Every night he eats so much
for dinner that he is in physical pain and claims that he is about to vomit,
but then he does it again the next night.
Finally, Michael is my 2 ½ year old brother. When I first arrived at the house, he almost
started crying because he was so scared of me.
I was terribly disappointed – I really wanted a family with some little
kids, not expecting them to be terrified by my presence. Anyway, within just a few days he underwent a
total transformation, and now he regularly greets me at the door with a hug, calls
my name with lots of giggles, and falls asleep in my arms.
After
talking to other volunteers, I realized that having lights and TV isn’t as rare
as I suspected – and, in fact, although we have a sink and toilet and shower
head, we don’t have running water, so we flush the toilet by pouring a bucket
of water in when we’re done, we shower out of a bucket, and wash dishes and
clothes and hands in buckets, too. I had
this weird realization that for my whole life I’ve never really USED a bucket
before, and now it seems like I use it for everything!
The second
night in the homestay, I came home to find that the electricity had been
cut. I guess this happens one or two
nights per week – the electricity all around town just gets shut off and so we
break out the petrol lanterns. It felt
much more like camping, and much less “posh corps”- the term people use for
people with easy and modern living conditions.
The food has honestly all been really good. Sometimes it doesn’t feel that different from
the US, but it is definitely much starchier, and so we sometimes have meals
consisting of rice and two types of plantains.
The first night we had chicken, which is apparently very expensive here. It had a sauce with veggies, ginger, tomato,
and garlic, and it was wonderful! After
enjoying the meal, I walked around back for water and saw a pool of blood and a
chicken’s head next to a machete.
Oh. So that’s how we prepare chicken
here.
Breakfast
has typically been a big piece of break with margarine (not kept refrigerated –
it’s amazing the things that don’t need to be kept refrigerated! I never knew!) and a “café” – which is not
coffee, but powdered milk, sugar cubes, and ovaltine. I’m not sure why they all add sugar cubes to
their hot chocolate, but I have been following suit and I’m not
complaining. I go the training center
for the morning and eat lunch there, which changes each day but is typically
some kind of meat, some leafy dish, and rice, potatoes, beignets, and
fruit. It’s pretty good but very hard to
predict the price, ranging from 500 CFA ($1) to 1200 CFA (today! An outrage!
$2.40!!!). They also recently started
serving sandwiches on baguettes with avocado, tomato, beans, and vinaigrette…
They’re great, like something I would get back home! Also avocados apparently grow ABUNDANTLY here
– one volunteer said she has an avocado tree in her yard!! And say goodbye to those Kroger prices of 99
cents each – here, it’s 7 avocados for 100 CFA (20 cents). So excited.
When all the trainees found this out, we couldn’t help but break into
applause.
Dinners have
been quite varied because my host mom is such a good and varied cook! I’ve had plantains boiled, fried, mashed with
beans, and roasted over a fire. We had pork
kebabs cooked campfire-style, which tasted AMAZING, and several different
varieties of leafy green veggie dishes.
We’ve had spaghetti a couple of times and some omelettes which are a
little different from American style, but basically the same and
delicious. They put these Maggie cubes
in everything, and although I’m not sure exactly what they are, I think they’re
similar to boullion cubes. And they make
everything taste better!
A few
notable things that have happened to me lately:
I got stung by a giant African bee which can probably kill people. And I didn’t even provoke it at all! I was sure that I was inches from death but
as it turns out… I wasn’t. I guess you
could call that my first encounter with African wildlife. Also, last night Djiebril and Ericka
presented me with a gorgeous pair of earrings that they bought for me! These kids are so awesome! What kind of 8 and 10 year olds do that?? Also, I have some new roommates chez moi. We were introduced under pretty sad
circumstances. I opened up my suitcase,
in which there was a bunch of comfort food from home to ease potential future
homesickness. I grabbed a fruit roll up
and started eating it when I realized that there was a hole in the packaging! Upon closer inspection it became clear that
every single fruit roll up, fruit by the foot, and pack of fruit snacks had
been raided by my new rodent roommate.
Every single packet of easy mac had a hole in the cheese pouch L I sadly threw away all the food I carefully
selected for the next two years. Later I
saw the offender – the mouse that is now living under my bed. It was almost impossible to fall asleep with
all of the scurrying and munching and scratching. For the next few nights I slept with earplugs
that I got for free at a hostel in Ireland, taking the “ignorance is bliss”
approach to dealing with the mouse. Last
night was the first time I slept without earplugs and I woke up at 2:30 and
couldn’t fall asleep until after 5 because of the noise and being on edge. I think this weekend is my time to deal with
that little problem once and for all. I
thought maybe we could live in peace, but it looks like that’s not going to
happen!
Another recent
exciting development: I bought my first African cloth to get a custom made
dress! I’m so excited – it feels like a
huge rite of passage to get that first item of tailored clothing in Cameroonian
textiles. The cloth cost 1,900 CFA –
that’s $3.80 – and to get a dress made for exactly my measurements will cost 4,500
CFA – just $9! I will definitely post
photos as soon as it’s done!
I know this
has been far from comprehensive, but our training schedule is full, curfew is 7
o’clock, which sounded outrageously early until we all realized that we
typically are asleep by 8:30. I speak
French at home every day and am learning little Cameroonian quirks, like the
fact that no one ever cuts with a cutting board, but instead in their hands. When I walk down the streets, kids call, “la
blanche!” after me. I shower from a
bucket every morning and sleep under a mosquito net every night. I have younger siblings for the first time
ever and chores like doing laundry, dishes, and cooking take way longer than
ever in America. At all times, every
trainee’s face glows equally with a combination of sweat, grease, and humidity,
but we don’t care because it’s the same for all of us and because there are very
few mirrors in this country (which is kind of a blessing when you never feel quite
clean). There are papayas growing in our
training center, pineapples growing at a neighbor’s house, and coconuts in our
front yard. We also have two goats,
which are adorable, but only pets until they become dinner.
I have had a
few days, especially towards the beginning of the homestay, where things felt
pretty tough. I have forgotten most of the
French I ever learned, but somehow got placed in an advanced class as a fluke,
where I flounder next to essentially fluent former French majors. Then I go home and it’s more French in a
situation which would be awkward even if it were in English. And sometimes it feels like every single task
is hard. For example, my host mom showed
me how to flush the toilet with a bucket of water, but how do I wash my
hands? Do I stick them in the bucket and
swish them around? Or do I pour the
water from the bucket over each of them one at a time? Even when I am assigned the simplest task to
help cook, like chopping a leek, I don’t know whether it should be sliced, or
diced, or if they use the very end of the plant that looks a little brown but
probably tastes fine, and I don’t know how to ask all of these questions in
French and I get sick of needing to ask for help with every single menial thing. But these overwhelmed, anxious days are becoming
more seldom. It feels like slow
progress, but my French is getting better and I’m bonding with the family. I might overpay in the market, but it’s
usually by a margin of less than one US dollar.
I still don’t know how to wash my own clothes and have been waiting for
a time when my mom can help, but in the meantime, I have been re-wearing all of
my outfits and I don’t think I smell noticeably worse than any of the other
trainees. And all the trainees and
volunteers I have met have become an amazing support network already.
In the next
few days, we get to rank which posts we want to be placed in, and although the
thought of going to post was always the most terrifying to me, I’m starting to
get really excited. I’m excited for the
Youth Development resources we’ve been given and projects we will do! I’m excited to have some independence and
(hopefully) competence at living in this crazy place! And every single post and every single region
sounds like it has something amazing to offer, whether it’s in the cool
highlands and mountains, or the dense jungle with gorillas and miniature
elephants, or in the dry heat of the north where there is peanut sauce on
everything and I would get to speak Fulfulde.
Wherever I end up, I think there are some pretty cool times ahead. <
/cheesy>
Allons-y!
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| View from the hotel in Yaoundé |
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| Kiddos coming back from the watering hole |
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| Cody and me! #ATX |
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| Taken from the bus on our way out of Yaoundé |
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| Things for sale |
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| The first time I met Ericka and Xavier |
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| Me, outside the training center in Bafia |
Look! I'm in Africa!
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| Michael being cute as always |
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| Michael! |
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| Our front yard, we use clothes lines |
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| Djiebril lookin cute! |
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| Fitte and Ericka hanging out in the salon |
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| Michael, Djiebril, Fitte lurking in the background, and Ericka |
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| Michael hanging out with me in my bed! |
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