8 months of catch up, 7 months to go

Well it seems like it has been about 8 months since I’ve written anything so to catch you up.

March

Foot still a problem (I am pretty sure I tore something), but I get down to one crutch.  On the way home from a month in the capital at some point we take a little pit stop at the Bangem Crater Lakes and the waterfall in Mkongsamba which are so beautiful!   Some pictures coming of me hiking on crutches.  Discovered that Kumba has a pool and spent Easter there for the first time.

April

A bunch of volunteers visited Kumba right around Jamexis’ and my birthdays so we went back to the pool. Picked up work again after that month stuck in the PC case (transit house).  Sometime later that month I moved houses so now I’m right by Ryan in more of a suburban area.  It’s about half the size of my old house but now I don’t need to buy furniture anymore.  After that thanks to James Beigle we had a week long training in Baffussam, which of course had to be followed by a vacation for a couple day in limbe.  The Kumba non PC volunteers met us there along with some other pcvs from the conference to make another great trip. Jessica and Max leave. L

May

Sam came to visit!!! <3
After that I was in the capital for two weeks working on TOT/TDW (Training of Trainers/ Training Design Workshop) getting ready for the new Education/Community Economic Development  group of PCV that were coming to Cameroon.

June/ July

I was in Kumba for a few weeks until I went to Bafia to train the new group for about a week.  Then right back to the capital for my medical mid service check up.  The Micro Finance that I’m working with opened its new location, the vocational school I work with held a fashion show for its tailoring students, than back to the capital for some big meeting with the Delegate of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises which was all in French, lucky for me, but I got to have a nice 4^th July with some PCVs in the capital.  Later we held Income Generating Activities (IGAs) for a neighboring village for teen moms.  We taught them how to make tofu, paper beads, moringa, a little bit about how to sell these items, and basic HIV/AIDS. Then back to Bafia for my last training.  At some point got a cat scan and MRI for my foot.  Walking on it now but with a limp.

August

Pack and fly out to Turkey where I met up with Dad and William for an amazing week and a half of everything you should get out of a vacation.  Oh and I should mention how amazing the food was!  Then we met up with mom and all headed to Cambam for two weeks.  So good to see them and have the fam see how I’m living here.  House felt empty and quiet when they left.

September

Seemed like I was pretty busy in Kumba.  Had a bunch of pcvs visit.

October

Still busy in Kumba but this month was more college style.  Work all week long and party just a little bit all weekend.  So I started my business classes again.  Weekend one went to Wil’s birthday party or the farewell to the South.  Next weekend we had our South West Regional meeting then Ryan’s going away party.  Weekend three we had Cameroon Football Development Program (CFDP) launch of the school year program and HIV testing.  Off to Buea for a little comedy show before going back to Limbe with a bunch of the volunteers that are about to head back to America.  Then the Divisional Handicraft Expo that I helped organize and was a judge at; 15 co-operative won monetary prizes and are moving on to the regional competition. Finally Halloween or really dinner and a movie.

November

Finished my business classes which went very well.  Then I went to the capital to say goodbye to the group that is done with their service including some awesome South West volunteer.  Sometime after that I hiked Mt. Cameroon for three days with Charlotte, Giorgia, and Alex who all work for GCI in Kumba. I recovered at the pool for a day then back out to Campo in the South with Wil to go on an ecotourism hike to see some wildlife.    Mt. Cameroon was beautiful and it cleared up enough that we could see all the way to Douala and to Limbe.  Campo was ok.  So we left early and went to the beach in Kribi for two days and had a great relaxing time.  Foot held up fine.  Got back just in time to welcome the new Kumba volunteer Adrian who is replacing Ryan and Layne who is posted in Ekombe.  Next day we had another IGA but this time in Kumba and had great turnout.  The girls seemed really engaged and motivated.

Summing up the last 2 months

In Kumba there are the Crater Lake, Lake Barombi, it’s a beautiful hike before reaching the lake, on this hike many Cameroonian have pointed out areas where wild Chimps and wild baboons used to live.  So naturally we assumed that they don’t live there anymore and none of the volunteers for the last three years have seen one (before that there weren’t any volunteers in Kumba).  So one day we went for our usual swim when all of a sudden we hear extremely loud screaming and it turns out it was two wild Chimps off in the tree line jumping around of course I didn’t have my camera so no pictures. The only other time that I’ve been back since I haven’t seen them so hard to say if it will happen again but at least now we know they are there. 

For Christmas I got a cheese making kit which makes mozzarella and ricotta.  So we made our first batch of mozzarella which even though it took us a lot longer to make then the directions said it would it turned out pretty good.  So were in business. :)  Incase you don’t understand how huge this is, besides family and friends we probably miss cheese the most.  I still haven’t figured out why Cameroon doesn’t have Cheese.  They have goats, cows, yogurt, ice cream, which means they have all the resources to do it but for some reason they don’t and many people have the idea that cheese isn’t even good.   Well if your only option is laughing cow it would get old for me too.

About three weeks ago I got my hair braided and some fake hair put it so it hangs down my stomach. It took six hours to braid all the hair but it was nice to have long hair again. (You can see some pictures on face book).   Surprisingly I was getting more respect from local people and get more people shouting “madam” at me then “baby”.  I have also noticed that the braids make more people confused about where I come from.  I still get a lot of “ white man” more mixed with my tan I get a fair amount of “African American” or other races and not French which is good since there is still some ill feeling towards the French.  But yesterday I took the braids out so I’m back to my normal self.

Mt. Cameroon which is in Beau an hour from me has the annual Race for Hope.  It starts at the stadium, goes through part of the town, up, and then all the way down the mountain in total it’s about 24 miles.  Peace Corps especially the HIV committee takes this opportunity to sensitize the community on HIV/AIDS and safe sex.  Although some volunteer had a tough time preparing for it, the event was very successful and we were able to give out over 4,000 condoms, give condom demonstrations, hand out flyers, and reach a large population and answer questions. Also we had several volunteers run in the race who did a great job!

                It has been so long since I’ve written for you guys it’s hard to remember everything that happened and when exactly it happened.  So anyways Jessica a volunteer with the Human Rights NGO who lives about a minute walk from my house had her family and a friend visit. It was very nice to meet all of them.  After her parents already left Jessica, Max, Lea(both volunteers with the Human Rights NGO), Louis (Jessica’s friend), Ryan (my post mate), and I all went to Limbe which is village with beautiful black sand beaches about two hours from me.  We had a great time.  The first day I had a little bit of food poisoning, I think, but after that I was fine.  We got to enjoy great food, relax, and have a mini vacation.

                Work is really starting to pick up for me.  First for political reasons I can’t disclose in my blog my host organization a small local micro finance and I mutually decided we would no longer be working together.  So I am now paired with a different micro finance so slowly work has been staring with them.  I have also talked, meet with, have planned, and started other projects, one of which is the Delegate of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises.  I am now several weeks into the business classes I’m teaching.  The classes have been surprisingly more successful than I thought it would be especially since we had such little time to advertise.  It seems the community really came together to help us get the classes started.  The Women Empowerment Center was kind enough to let us use their room and the manager of the radio and a delegate helped advertise, which really allowed us to keep cost down.  So despite only advertising on air for a week we were able to get a good size group of students.  I was also nervous about teaching and people understanding me but it seems to be going really well and the classes form good discussion independently which is great since they are use to teachers lecturing and never doing critical thinking.

                As far as my other projects go I do have to be careful what I say about them online so when they are more developed ill share them with you.

                Sometime last Wednesday night while walking home I managed to sprain my foot.  I traveled to Yaoundé the capital to see Peace Corps medical officer about it.  Got x-rays and while it isn’t broken (YAY) I’ll have to be on crutches for at least three weeks (boo) which isn’t an easy task in Cameroon.  So far I’ve stayed in the case which is the Peace Corps transit house for about a week and won’t get to go back to Kumba until at least Monday.  It is by far not the nicest place to stay and can get very hectic if there are a lot of people here.  It can hold about 30 people and we all fight over internet, the laundry machine, and space in the fridge.  A lot of volunteers can’t get electricity at their post let alone any of these things which means if they know they are coming save work to do here.  It hasn’t been that bad though and I got to meet a lot of the new group that came in after me.

                Jamexis my newest post mate went to IST (In Service Training) which I went to back in December.  She was there for two weeks.  Ryan my other post mate went at the end of the second week to do some training for the group.  He was passing through the capital when I came for my foot.  This is also when he came down with malaria and then get severely dehydrated and had to be hospitalized and get some IV’s.  He’s doing a little better now and got out of the hospital today so the two of us are being supervised by medical staff until Monday when we should be able to go back to Kumba.   Speaking of being sick Max is also sick he was calcium deficient and then got typhoid.  So right now the Kumba region volunteers are not doing so well.  I’m hoping for quick recovery for all of us.

                I am also sorry to report that one more person from my group has left the country.  Unfortunately he has to leave for medical reasons. He was an education volunteer in Mamfe which is in the South West region.   He is missed.

traveling for the holidays

Okay it has been a while since I’ve posted anything.

So there have been some changes in Kumba first we got a new volunteer Jamexis that will be replacing Julius, so they are both Agro forestry volunteers.  We found Jamexis a house pretty close to mine, about a minute walk, in downtown Kumba.  About a week or two later Julius left after completing his two years in Cameroon. 

                Christian is posted in Tombel which is about an hour moto ride from Kumba and was also a CED in the same stage as me, meaning he was in the same program, came to country at the same time, and we got trained together.  He was traveling back from a neighboring village where he was doing business classes when PC admin caught him not wearing his moto helmet.  This means that that he was immediately administratively separated and not allowed to finish his service.  So I traveled to Tombel with Erica who is posted in Buea an hour from me in the other direction to see Christian and his post before he left.  Then we all traveled to Yaounde the capital together.  Erica and I were on our way to our three month in service training (IST) in Kribi but since Christian was leaving we spent an extra day in the capital to see him off.  The South West and Peace Corps will miss him. 

                Kribi is in the southern region of Cameroon and is the biggest tourist destination even among Cameroonians.  It’s right on the water and has beautiful white sand beaches and amazing seafood.  IST was very productive, our counter parts came with us and we created action plans for the coming year, defined our roles in each plan, attended behavioral change workshops, sustainability, monitoring and evaluation, grant writing, etc.  the counterparts left a day early and the final day was medical sessions one of which included getting the flu shot since I am an American government employee, even though in Africa the flu isn’t a problem.  After IST I returned to Kumba where I had every intention to be extremely productive and work on things before the holidays but then I came back with a cold and was only about half as productive as I wanted, but it was okay since many of the Cameroonians that I wanted to meet with already had left for their Christmas break.

                For Christmas I went to the North West region with Veronica and Sean. After some delayed travel in the capital we made it to Mbengwi on Christmas Eve.  On Christmas day we hiked down to a waterfall then we went to some people that Isidro (Chilo) who is posted in that village knew for food.  On Christmas it is tradition to go to church all morning and then either at the same time or after drink.  Drinking is done by going from one persons house to the next and then to the next and visiting lots of people.  Often they will also give food.  But many times drinking also can be done at the bar or nightclub.  Since we weren’t too interested in drinking that heavily and after eating and drinking at two houses we decided to return relax and make our own smaller dinner later.  The day after Christmas we all traveled to Kumbo where we stayed with Bridget.  On the night that we arrived we went to a little party with other volunteers in that village and several Cameroonians that they know and work with.  The next day we went around town did a little shopping, I bought two paintings, and then we went to the cultural festival.  The cultural festival has the chief sitting at one end and different groups in the community come up to him do their dance and then the next group comes on and on.  At the same time there are Juju’s which are men dressed up in costumes with their face covered that usually don’t talk.  They go around and when they pass you, you have to crouch down or run away and if you don’t they will hit you with sticks and they will keep hitting you until you pay them.  These are supposed to be men that no one knows their identity and I think that they were created for entertainment.  There was also some baby Juju’s that if you looked at them they would start to dance for you then throw themselves at you feet and kiss them until you paid them.  The Kumbo festivals are the only festivals in all of Cameroon that are strictly Cameroonian and cannot be found in other countries.

                From Kumbo I traveled back to the capital where I spent New Year Eve.  Jessica another volunteer from Kumba was also heading back to America.  She was in Mamfe for two years then extended to Kumba.  For New Years we tried to go out to eat but the restaurant that we wanted to go to was closed so we made a nice little meal, had a few drinks, and played some games.  We spent a few days with Jessica after that and got to go to her closing and exiting services.  Before Ryan who met us in Yaounde and I went back to Kumba we met with ACMS a health organization in Cameroon who I might potentially get to work with.  Then back home.

                In other good news, I applied for HIV committee at IST and got accepted.  So even though I just got back to Kumba Friday I had to travel on Thursday back to Yaounde but will return Saturday.

When I left Kumba before Christmas the weather was still hot but not as bad as before IST.  When I reached Bamenda I thought I was in New England again.  I was so cold!  I had to go to the market the next day and buy a few long sleeve shirts, scarves, and sweaters.  It was so bad I would wear my t-shirt, a long sleeve shirt, a sweater, my jacket and a scarf just to feel okay.  Coming back to Kumba I was not prepared for the heat again.  I don’t even think it is any hotter than it was before but now I’m less use to it.

pre/post party

I hope that everyone is doing well at home, staying healthy and happy. 

Last weekend we had the regional meeting.  It was nice to meet some other volunteers from my region and to reunite with others that I had went to training with.  We had the meeting at classy burger then changed and had a little Halloween party at Jessica’s house.  The Kumba cluster dressed up as the cast form Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia specifically the episode where they play flip cup.  So we all got t-shirts printed like the ones on the show, I got a blonde wig, and Brian (who was Frank) shaved his head in a horse shoes).

In more horrifying news; I had an incident with a latrine that I’m positive will scar me for life.   We went to this bar for dinner; the bar doesn’t have any toilets (typical) it just has latrines.  On the regular men just pee any where they want and most of the time at this bar particularly, men are too lazy to enter into the latrine to pee so they just stand in the open doorway to relieve themselves.  Well for all the females that makes the latrines 1. Disgusting since we have to walk thru your pee 2. Slippery …. Enough said.  From now on I’m walking down the road to the gas station even if the girls who work there are rude and hate it when we use their bathrooms (even though they are public toilets).  Funny how different things are here, the cleanest toilet I think I’ve been to is at the gas station.

On to a more dinner appropriate topic, the weather.  I’m sure that you have noticed from my pictures that it has been hot.  It has pretty consistently been hot.  If you walk anywhere when the sun is up you will sweat.  Other times it’s muggy and you still sweat.  The only time that you get a break is when it rains, then the temperature drops and it usually down pours.  Since rainy season is coming to an end down pours don’t happen every day anymore but they happen every other day or every three days and it rains, thunders, and lightening hard enough to take  down telephone poles, cut power, internet, and phone network.  Yet, since rainy season is ending that also means that when it doesn’t rain it’s even hotter to the point even in the shade just sitting can make you sweat.  Other pcv’s have warned me it will only going to get worse.  Time to invest in a fan.

Great news; Ryan is officially transferring to Kumba!! YAY

Elections are tonight so the Kumba cluster is going to Jessica’s house since she is the only one with a TV.  We’re going to make a nice little dinner and a lot of coffee.  The pre coverage on CNN should start about 10pm our time and we should find out who wins somewhere between 3-5am.  So it’s going to be a long night. 

Kumba Cluster

Things have been fairly busy in Kumba.  I have been visiting my host organization and learning about their processes, their organizational set up, and how they attract new clients.  I have also been meeting with several other groups and individuals to potentially work with.  Other than that Julius the Agro volunteer also in Kumba has been planning a HIV clinic that all the volunteers from Kumba and Buea helped with.  So we had three days of classes from 3pm-6pm on HIV, sexual health, sanitation, and other related topics.  We focused on youth to educate them correctly and have a safe space to actually talk about sex since it isn’t talked about in schools.  Adults were welcome to come but we had far more school age children.  Then on Saturday the fourth day we had free HIV testing open to the public and pre and post test counseling while at the same time we held soccer games for the children.  We had a pretty good turnout of about 200 people who got tested.   

                Still taking French but its slow and I need to step it up and do more outside of class.

                In other news some very exciting news, we have a new European restaurant in Kumba.  The chief is from Sweden who now lives in Kumba.  He has partnered with a Cameroonian nurse that lives and works in London.  Together they opened a little restaurant that does European/American food breakfast, lunch, dinner, as well as their own bread.  They also are opening a wedding shop next door to rent out wedding dresses and bridesmaids gowns.  This is actually a very clever idea since American weddings (also called white weddings) are fairly common yet the dresses are very expensive and hard to afford.  Kumba has also just gotten its first schwarma stand. YAY! On top of that the vender is a woman.  She says that she was the only vender in Duala and that she now has come to Kumba and is teaching other woman how to do it.

                So far I’ve been in good health knock on wood.  I hope everyone at home can say the same.

                Next weekend we will have a regional meeting with all of the volunteers in the south west region.  So there will be about 15 people coming to Kumba.  After the meeting we will have a Halloween party Legendary theme.  Costume is a work in progress pictures are sure to come.

Likes – I really like the way that people shake hands here.  They have a couple different ways to do it but they all pretty much involve a snap.  This is only done with friends not with professional business relations but it can be done with children or adults.

Dislikes- I have seen a few times some woman with a zip on hair piece which can be removed and replaced with another different top piece usually the zipper is very visible and sometimes even different colors and is on the top sides of the head and can be changed to have different top pieces and when removed completely is basically a horse shoe.