Saturday, August 28, 2010

Ok, wanted to get up just a few pictures from swearing in:


All of the Extreme North group!

Me and Emily!! She lives in Mokolo, the closest biggest city to me.

Julia and Me and David, our training director.

I am officially a volunteer!! Yay! So actually, I have been a volunteer for about 10 days, but my internet access has been non-existent since before the end of training. My apologies… but I’m here now with some updates.

I swore with the rest of my training class on August 18th in Bafia. We all had outfits made from the same matching pagne (material)! We had a ceremony with a bunch of Cameroonian and Peace Corps “grands” (i.e. important people) and then we had an awesome lunch to thank our host families. I said goodbye to my host family that night :( it was sad, but I knew I’ll see them again soon. So we new volunteers had a bit of bash at a local hotel in Bafia, and set out to leave for post the next morning.

All of us volunteers heading up to the north of the country (12 of us) headed towards Yaoundé and then got the train up to Ngaoundere on Thursday night. We got into Ngaoundere early Friday morning where us Extreme North kids (8 of us) depot-ed a car just for us and all of our stuff (A TON of things, like a bike, a moto helmet, a bike helmet, a water filter, a giant trunk, a mammoth suitcase, a colossal hiker’s back-pack, and countless other odds and ends- and that was just MY stuff!!!) to Maroua. We got into Maroua, the regional capital of the Extreme North, and were able to relax for a little while. On Saturday, we attempted to do some shopping for groceries, furnishings for our houses, etc. It proved to be mildly fruitful. Maroua has an amazzzzzing market full of color and culture and almost anything your heart desires. Except for a gas tank. I was told it is impossible to find one of these treasures in all of Cameroon. I know for a fact this is a bold face lie. Why it is so necessary to my life to have a gas tank: I bought a stove, and by stove I mean one of those kind of collapsible things with two burners that you take camping and hook up a gas tank to it to cook. Obviously, the stove does not work without a gas tank. It is very difficult to cook without said gas, and right now, it is pretty necessary to be able to cook/boil water since there has been a Cholera outbreak in the Extreme North of Cameroon… No one panic! Cholera is easily avoidable if you wash your hands, bleach your vegetables, boil your water, etc. In fact, even if you do get it, it’s easily treatable with anti-biotics and re-hydration with NON-contaminated water. So I’ve been cooking over a wood fire until I can maybe, perhaps, hopefully, fingers crossed, find someone who will sell me a gas tank. Now, as some of you know, I looooove making fires. Fire building is one of my favorite pastimes, and I’ve been quite offended, in the past, by those who have suggested that I lacked the ability to produce this element. But I must admit, it is quite time and energy consuming to start and maintain a fire every time I want to boil some water. I have the time to do it now, but once school starts (September 6!!!), I’m not so sure I’ll have as much time to throw around. So here’s hoping (and praying and wishing and lobbying Paul Biya) that gas tank finds it’s way to me sooner rather than later.

Whew! That was a tangent! Ok, back to actually getting to Hina… So Sunday, Emily, Zach, two volunteers who are posted in Mokolo (a town about 50 kilometers north of me), and I depot-ed a car from Maroua to Mokolo. We dropped them off and then our driver, Alim, and I continued on to Hina. And we got there- alive, safe, and sound. But during the trip, there were definitely some instances were I doubted that would be the outcome! The problem is, there are no paved roads leading to Hina. This apparently is really not that big of a deal during the dry season, the roads are supposed to be pretty good and easily passable. But as soon as the rainy season rears its ugly head, the roads turn to mud, parts of them get completely washed out, and one begins to fear that their four-wheel-drive vehicle will get stuck in the mud/overturned in rushing water. But alas, I finally made it to Hina, unscathed, and moved all of my things in.

My house is pretty much cleaned, and I’m all the way unpacked! I’m trying to get my bearings and figure out how village life works. I’m pretty much waiting around for school to start, and I’m not quite sure what to do with myself, since all of the school administration is still on vacation and won’t be back until probably a day or two until school starts. But I think this is a good thing, it will give me some time to explore and discover Hina before jumping into the scholastic side of things.

Some tidbits:

-I have a dog! His name is Zeus. I really have no idea what kind of dog he is, I’m sure a mutt of many different combination. But he is short haired, smaller than a lab but bigger than a terrier, and black with white legs with black spots. He likes to whine a lot :) but he is good for the most part and doesn’t bite and let’s me know when there is someone at my door!

- I’ve been attempting to speak Fufuldé with Hina locals… mainly it’s them saying something wayyyyy too fast, me smiling and nodding, then rambling off the ten words I know in the language, and the receiver feigning to be impressed by my butchering of their mother tongue. It’s great! As the Cameroonians say, petit à petit (little by little) it will come. And once I’ve mastered Fufuldé, I can move on to the other, smaller, language of Hinarre, that is only spoken in Hina by about 30,000 people in total (I think…)

-I negotiated my rent agreement and lease contract in a Fufuldé-French combination. I was a little too pleased with myself. :)

-I have three fig trees in my yard. They are blooming and soooooo good!

- up north, I have a new name. remember, in the south, we were called “les blanches?” here, it’s “nassara”- literally white person in fufuldé!

-Hina is in a valley that is surrounded by jagged mountains that look like mounds of boulders that have been glued together. since we are in the three seasons that constitute the rainy season (july, august, september), everything is vibrantly green. It is breathtaking. I’ll try to get some pictures up asap.

I know there is much more I’m forgetting but it will have to come in my next post. I’m hoping to get back to Maroua this weekend to search for that darned gas tank, and with any luck I’ll post this if I can find some internet there. Love everybody, miss everybody, and thinking about everyone allllll the time!!!

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Some more Cameroon pictures

So, in Cameroon, most clothes are made for you by a tailor. Material, or pagne as the Cameroonians call it, is sold everywhere. You choose the material you want, take it to a tailor, tell them what style they want, et violà! you have a dress/pants/shirt/skirt/shorts/whatever your heart desires! So, in the above photo, this is me and my friend Claire. Yes, Claire. and we are wearing matching dresses (same style, same pagne). Oh, yeah, it's Claire pagne. and I have a feeling it's the first of many Claire pagne ensembles to come!

For Model School, we had clubs with the students every Wednesday. One of the clubs was called "Need for Speed," and it was a running club. Last Saturday, they organized a 5 k run. It was so fun! I had to take a picture of this kid, because he decided it was a great idea to take off his flip flops to run, and I guess he thought they would be most useful as forearm guards. maybe if he fell, they would mitigate scrapes??




A Cameroonian classroom! This is my Terminale class (high school seniors at home)

American Dinner!

I made an “American” dinner for my host family! They have asked me on multiple occasions what kind of food we eat in the United States. It’s a very frequent topic of conversation. And when I think about it, food directed many of the questions I’ve received from Americans about life in Cameroon. It makes sense- food is universal! We all need it to survive, and of course we’re curious about different cultures’ cuisines. Anyways, my host family has been quite inquisitive about what we Americans eat, and they asked me to cook American! I was trying to figure out what to make, given the availability of ingredients and the alien (to me!) cooking equipment here. So I ended up making macaroni and cheese, Grandma’s German potato salad, and cole slaw.

First of all, we must address the issue that, for some reason, cheese is nearly non-existent in this country. The only cheese one can find is “Vache qui rit.” Yes, that’s right- directly translated that is the “Cow who laughs,” or Laughing Cow cheese! So how you make macaroni and cheese Cameroonian style: cook pasta, add butter, powdered milk, water, Vache qui Rit (it kind of just dissolves into the pasta), and then as many spices as one deems necessary to make it edible (basil worked very nicely). You also need an experienced and skilled mixer, mine was in the form of Julia, my amazing friend and fellow TEFL volunteer who provided some much needed moral support during the cooking extravaganza.

Mom sent me Grandma’s German potato salad (because she’s awesome) and it turned out exactly like Grandma’s! (well, ok not exactly- I’m not sure that bacon exists here…) It was so surreal to see and smell the potato salad in Cameroon; it reminds me so much of home! It was cool to be able to recreate some little comforts of home even though I’m an ocean away. And then we made cole slaw- with carrots and cabbage!!!!!!!!! There are so many explanation points here because I (and I think most of the other volunteers) have not had any raw vegetables since being here. I’ve had cooked vegetables (I’m not that malnourished, yet!), put the Peace Corps medical officers did a pretty stellar job of terrifying us about the dangers of eating improperly cleaned/prepared fresh fruits and vegetables. But I soaked the veggies in a bleach/water combo and scrubbed them. And no one got sick! Yay!

So my family was pretty darn jazzed about this whole event. Some quotes:

Beatrice, my mom: “Oh my, it’s like we’re all in America tonight!”

Guy, my dad: “I know! Barack Obama and I are eating the same dinner tonight!”

Mimi, my five-year-old sister “Claire, the food is delicious! I’m practicing eating your food for when you take me back to the United States with you!” (she’s convinced I will take her home with me in two years…)

Vanessa, my oldest host sister: “So what are you making next week?? Le pizza?? Les hamburgers?”

Then their cousin who’s been visiting for the last two weeks (who is from the Anglophone part of the country, but for some reason only speaks Pidgin- a warped mélange of English and random Western African dialect) started impersonating “Americans.” This means he began talking in a very loud, somewhat haughty voice, saying things like, “Oh, I am American, I work all the time, all the time!” “I am busy, oh, very busy.” “I love McDonald’s! it is very nice!”

Evidently, it was quite hilarious, overall an entertaining (and cross-cultural! *read Peace Corps*) evening.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Some host family pictures!

Yup, they're gangsters.

Me, Fabiola, Batou, and Mimi- my youngest sister.

Parfait (yes that literally means Perfect) who is a cousin, Nora who is another cousin, Beatrice-my mom, Batou- my brother, Vanessa- my older sister, Fabiola- my younger sister (she's was thrilled to be alive at this particular moment..), and John- another cousin. I kept asking them to smile, put they weren't having it! apparently smiling in photos just isn't cool.

My Host brother, Ariel. He thinks he's a model. Look at that silk shirt (unbottoned, of course!) and that bling!!