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.
