Peace, Love, Cameroon

Everything you need to know about my 27 months in Cameroon with Peace Corps.

[taraincameroon-blog]

Aren’t we tired of all this needless bloodshed yet?

I’m still trying to process all that I’ve read the past few days about the shooting in Orlando. It’s times like these that I’m grateful I’m currently not living in America. And it’s times like these that I’m terrified of what world I’m going back to in a few short months.

First, I want to send my love and support to the LGBTQ community. My heart is aching for everyone we lost, their families and friends, and this entire community. Finally last year, and years later than necessary, in my opinion, every American citizen was granted the basic right to marry whomever they loved. It seemed like maybe our country was finally moving forward. And then we have something awful like this happen. How dare some ignorant, hateful person terrorize and massacre a group of people because of who they love. Because they have the pride and bravery to be who they really are. I so tired of all the meaningless bloodshed because of the fear and hatred of something different, whether it’s a different sex, sexual orientation, race, religion, etc. And the problem is, I don’t see any way to stop it. How do you teach people to stop hating and just accept people for who they are?

For those of you who know me, I am socially very liberal. Pro-choice, pro-marriage, anti-guns, all that good stuff. And I will stand up and defend my views on all of it. The guns is the ones that really gets me. Probably because in the US, that’s the one we’re still fighting for. Abortion rights have already been protected in multiple Supreme Court cases, and I have faith that that won’t change any time soon (thank you Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey). And finally we have won marriage equality. But guns. Since Obama has been President, he has given 18 speeches, offering condolences and pushing change, following mass shootings. And yet nothing happens. A few weeks go by, and the anger and sadness from these shootings fades for all those not directly involved. And then a few months go by, and there is another mass shooting that shakes the nation. And we begin again. Aren’t we tired of this? Aren’t we ready to make some changes?

Before I start talking about gun control, and (in my opinion) the insanity of what weapons are legally purchased in the US, let me say I don’t think we should throw the 2nd amendment out the window. My grandad is an avid hunter. He’s taken me shooting a couple times, and I love it. But when I talk about “gun control”, this is not what I am talking about. I’m not saying “take away all the guns!” And when government officials talk about gun control, that’s not what their saying their. It is preventing incredibly dangerous weapons from getting in the wrong hands.

Pro-gun people are always quoting the 2nd amendment: “the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” If there are any controls on guns then it is infringing my 2nd amendment rights! First of all, let’s remember the full amendment: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”. The constitution was written 229 years ago, after fighting for freedom from a repressive government. The idea of this amendment was so if the government were to become corrupt and repressive again, the people would have a means to rise up, revolt, and fight for freedom. Not to protect people’s rights to own assault weapons and high capacity magazines that can kill hundreds. I would also love for someone to explain to me why our 1st Amendment rights have limitations, and yet God forbit our 2nd Amendment rights have any limitations, even when it over and over again costs innocent people their lives. Why in the world is my right, or anyone’s right, to LIVE less important than your right to OWN A GUN?

I know that democrats are all talking about how this is an issue of guns, and republicans are all talking about how this is an issue of extremist Islamic terrorism, and everyone seems to be criticizing the way politicians on the other side of the aisle are handling this issue. I think it’s an issue of both. Of course we should be (and are) fighting ISIS in every way possible. But with ISIS calling for lone wolfs to terrorize the West, it doesn’t make for an easy fight (and actually, when has fighting terrorism ever been an easy fight?). This man was an American citizen who bought guns legally. So how can we say that this is not part of the problem as well? I have spent the past three days feeling sick and disgusted by what has happened. I am trying so hard not to be angry and hateful. Hate only breeds more hate, which is another reason I am hesitant to blame this completely on extremist Islamic terrorism. Because people hear that and simply hear a religion that they should hate. As MLK said “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that”. From half a world away, I have seen so many outpourings of love since that terrible night, just in people lining up to give blood and showing friends and family love and support. And I am doing my best to focus on the heroes in this story. But still, I am angry. Because I can’t help but wonder how many of these deaths could have been prevented. And how many more mass shootings we’ll need to finally make some change.

I know this blog is supposed to be about my time here in Cameroon, and so far this post hasn’t really been on topic. So let me bring in a little bit about Cameroon: I live in a relatively stable country, however most of the surrounding countries are incredibly unstable. I live in a country that, throughout my time here, has been semi-regularly bombed in the North by Boko Haram terrorists. I live in a country that has rebel and refugees flowing in from the border in the East. I live in a country plagued by diseases like malaria and typhoid that we don’t have to worry about in the West. And yet, I feel like my life is less at risk here than in America. Because in America, on any given day, when I am going through my normal activities, such as going to school, or the movies, or a nightclub, someone with a legally-bought assault rifle could show up where I am, and decided to shoot everyone in sight. That wouldn’t happen here, but it happens all the time in America.

[taraincameroon-blog]

“This cat situation is getting a little out of control”

This quote is from one of my stagemates, because recently every PCV seems to be getting a cat (or cats). At least half of the PCVs in the North West region have had cats during their service. I know this because most conversations between PCVs seem to revolve around one of three things: Peace Corps staff, other PCVs/RPCVs in or from Cameroon, and my favorite, PCV cats. For many of us it’s our first time living alone, and who doesn’t want a furry little friend to greet you when you come home? But it does seem to irritate the few without cats, because the rest of us who have cats want to spend all our time talking about our cats. So disclaimer: if you don’t want to hear about my Peace Corps cats, just stop reading now.

Last April, I adopted the kitten of my friend’s neighbor’s cat. The process of getting the kitten into a box for me to take him home in was incredibly chaotic, and left me and my friend’s Cameroonian neighbor covered in scratches. When I got the kitten home, he basically hid for an entire week. One of his favorite hiding spaces was behind my bed, and finally he would let me pet him a little without trying to scratch me. By the end of the week, all he wanted to do was snuggle with me. I decided to name him Nova (I’ll admit, at first I did think ‘he’ was actually a ‘she’), because he looked a lot like my cat at home, Starlight, so I decided to continue the star theme. We had a great relationship for nearly a year, until, while I was in the process of moving houses and he was moving between a number PCVs’ houses, he got outside and never came back.

Whenever I got bored, Nova and I would do photo shoots. 

Nova actually hated being held, so he wasn’t too happy at this point in time

I was pretty upset when Nova first ran away, but I like to think that since he was so terrified of basically all people except me, he hasn’t been captured and eaten, but instead is living a fabulous jungle life. A month or so after Nova got lost, I heard that one of my stagemate’s cat had a kitten. I called her up and asked if when the kitten was old enough, if I could adopt it. She said yes, and this week I picked up the little guy. We haven’t bonded too much yet, he doesn’t seem to really want to snuggle with me, but at least he isn’t terrified of me. He basically follows me into any room I go to and loves to play, so I’m guessing it’ll only take a few days for me and little Ernesto to become best friends.

Isn’t he just the cutest?

Already working on our best friendship

P.S. Major points to anyone who can guess who I named him after!

[taraincameroon-blog]

Introducing: The Chief of Helping

Since I swore in as an official PCV, I’ve discovered that one of my favorite things to do in Cameroon is to visit other PCVs at their posts. It’s so cool to see the work other people are doing, and see how they’ve become an integral member of their community. And as someone who lives in a city, it’s so cool to see the rich culture and traditions that I don’t get to experience as much in Bamenda. A few weekends ago, I got to do just that. I went to visit one of my stagemates, Peter, who was being crowned by a chief of his village.

I originally didn’t think I’d be able to make it, I was planning on helping on of my counterparts with a honey harvest, but the day before when I asked her about it, she said the people we were planning on helping weren’t going to be available. Naturally, the first thing I did was text my friend Becca, who had told me about the ceremony, and she said that everyone was meeting the next day in a town called Dschang (which is three hours away from me), at 10am. So spur of the moment, I packed my bag and set an alarm for 6am, so I could get up, grab some food, and go find a car to the West.

I managed to make it to Dschang just in time to leave to Peter’s village, and all 6 of us going piled into a taxi (and paid for an extra seat, because obviously a normal sized car should have 4 people in the back seat and 4 more in the front).  We spent 2 hours on a terrible dirt road, with only 2 or 3 terrifying moments where I had the realization that we could literally die in that car. But finally we made it to Menji, Peter’s post. It is probably one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen in Cameroon, surrounded completely by hills and jungles. We went on a walk to this little cultural museum, crossing a terrifying wood bridge that we went on one at a time, as we were concerned it might break otherwise.  Then we all went over to the chief’s house for dinner and went to bed early.

Isn’t it beautiful?!

Don’t worry, we all made it across in one piece

The following morning was the big day: we woke up at 5am, because we were supposed to meet at 6am to take a car to the chief’s village. Naturally, we arrived at 6am because we’re Americans, and the car arrived at 7:30, because this is Cameroon. We all piled in and headed up hills, even more into the bush. At one point we all had to get out and walk up a giant, muddy hill, because the car couldn’t make it up with us inside. Then finally we reached the stopping point, or so we thought, but it turned out the car just couldn’t continue, so we started walking (or sliding) down a little muddy path, until we finally reached the chief’s palace. There was a sacred forest on one side, being guarded by a juju, and someone informed us that the ceremony was going to take place inside the forest. We were then informed that only women with titles can enter the forest, so the 5 females who all traveled hours for the ceremony would have to wait outside.  I guess the chief ended up talking to the rest of the notables, and in the end, we were allowed to enter and watch the ceremony. We felt pretty special, because that means we may be the only women without titles who have ever entered the forest. We unfortunately weren’t allowed to take pictures, but Peter and one of our other stagemates, Dan, received their titles and then we all ate and drank. Peter is now the “Chief of Helping” and Dan is now the “Chief of Love”. After a long photo shoot outside the forest, we trekked back up to the car, and headed back to town on another slightly life-threatening car ride.

No better time for a group photo than after walking up a big, muddy hill... Everyone’s already out of the car!

Not a bad view.. The sacred forest is off to the right.

The weekend of the crowing also happened to be the weekend of a huge Cry Die (a death celebration). When we got back into town, we went to the Cry Die for a while. There were jujus everywhere, and people drumming, drinking, and dance. At one point it started pouring rain, and normally rain means all Cameroonians run for cover, however today everyone just kept on dancing and celebrating (I stayed under cover taking pictures). We met a Cameroonian who won the lottery and moved to the US, and was back for the Cry Die because it was his step-mom who had passed. He was also crowned at the celebration, and then he started throwing 1,000 (roughly 2 USD) and even a couple 10,000 (20 USD) bills at everyone dancing. I’m pretty sure that’s what everyone expects from me when they first see me. And instead I stand there and argue over 50 cfa (20 cents), because I’m stubborn and poor and I will not pay more just because of my skin color! (But really, ask my mom, she can attest to how ridiculously stubborn I am).

Gotta love those Jujus!

The rain was definitely not stopping this mama from dancing

Sorry for that petit digression. We went to eat, and of course even though we’re in a room of people with titles, we all have to sit at the high table with the ministry delegate in attendance, the chief, and the guy who moved to the states. From there we went to a bar, and after an obligatory drink or two, we finally went back to Peter’s house to pass out. I’ve found that waking up at the crack of dawn doesn’t actually help me to be a function person for a long period of time. Who would have thought?

Traveling back to Bamenda the next day was pretty standard. We had to get out multiple times for the car to go up the muddy hill. The taxi driver put people in the trunk (despite our protests because there were already 7 passengers plus himself). Then he tried to charge us 500 extra. A chief heard and told him since we’re volunteers he should actually just drive us for free, so in the end we paid the normal price. I rejected 3 different cars for trying to charge too much. Finally, a nice, air conditioned car picked me up, drove me to Bamenda, and wouldn’t let me give money even for gas. It took over 6 hours for a journey that should take less than 5. But I usually expect nothing else traveling in this country. And it was definitely worth it for such a wonderful weekend!

[taraincameroon-blog]

You Done Come Back

One of my PCV friends went home for her sister’s wedding last May/June, and she said coming back to Cameroon was one of the hardest things she’s ever had to do. So when I went home for the holidays, I was mentally preparing myself for that struggle at the end of my trip. I was ready to force myself back on the airplane no matter how much I wanted to just stay at home. And then the time came to go to the airport and get on the plane, and I was shocked how easy it was. My two weeks at home were absolutely wonderful. I got to see friends and family, go to almost all my favorite places in California, and eat all the food I missed most. We jammed so many Christmas traditions into those short weeks home, like cutting down our Christmas tree and making cookies with our cousins. But when it was time to leave, I was pretty much ready to go. I’m sure a part of it was the fact that before returning to Cameroon, I spent a few days in Germany with three other PCVs, but also, for the time being, Cameroon is my home. Cameroon is where I’m supposed to be. I have work to do here in the next 9 months before I come home for good.

Once I got back to Cameroon, I headed straight for Yaounde for our Mid-service training. It’s basically a week where all the Agribusiness volunteers from our training group come together to share the work they’ve been doing and then have a few basic health checkups (yay for no cavities or major illnesses!). The last time we were all together was last February for our In-service training three months after arriving at post. It was so great to see everyone and hear about how everyone’s work had developed from small ideas 11 months ago into real projects. A lot of them, mine included, are only partway done (we still have some time left here after all), but it was great to hear the progress and share ideas with each other.

After our week in Yaounde, it was finally time to come back to Bamenda, after nearly a month of being away from post. Other than the fact that I came home to a house covered in dust (this is dry season after all, so I should have expected nothing less), it felt wonderful to be home. As I walked down Commercial Avenue, the main shopping street that happens to be right near my house, I was surprised by the number of people who greeted me excitedly, saying “You’ve been missing!” or “You done come back!” I knew my neighbors, friends, and coworkers would be excited for my return, and they were the people who knew I was planning on going on vacation in the first place, but even living in a big city, there were so many more people who noticed my absence than I expected.

The one problem I’ve run into, however, is the fact that I forgot to get presents while I was home. Any time you go anywhere, people expect you to bring gifts back, even if you’re only going to visit a PCV in a nearby village for the afternoon. So naturally, after being gone so long, everyone keeps asking me “you brought me what?” When I was leaving to go home, I had every intention of bring presents back for people, but somewhere in the craziness of being back home (and the fact that my backpack was already pretty much stuffed to capacity), I forgot to get anything for anyone. I told another PCV that I’m a bad Peace Corps Volunteer because I didn’t bring anything back, but she reassured me that I’m not a bad PCV, I’m just a bad Cameroonian. Which I guess in okay since I’m American, not Cameroonian.  

All in all, it’s good to be back.  There’s nothing quite like grabbing an export or two will a fellow PCV, having a swarm of children run up and hug me saying “Auntie! Auntie!”, or coming home to my cat’s incessant meowing. Sometimes it’s hard to believe I’ve already been here so long, but then again, how else would I feel so comfortable here? Hardest of all to believe is that in just 9 short months, it’ll all be over.    

[taraincameroon-blog]

9 Things that happen as a Disney Fan on a Safari

For those of you who don’t know me well, I’m an avid Disney fan.  I think July 17th and December 5th (Disneyland’s opening day and Walt Disney’s birthday) should be days of celebration dedicated to watching Disney movies and eating mickey mouse shaped pancakes.  So it’s not all too surprising that things often remind me of Disney movies or Disneyland.  Or that for my family’s entire safari, I found myself referencing Disney.  Here are 9 things that will happen to a Disney fan if they go on a safari:

1. ‘Circle of Life’ will play in your head CONSTANTLY 

Every time it momentarily stops playing, you’ll see the sun start to rise/set, or an animal will come in to view, or even just the African terrain all around you, and it’ll pop right back into your head.  

2. You keep waiting for the scary leaf-less trees to come to life like in Snow White

This is especially true for evening game drives, when you’re heading back to camp just as it’s getting dark. Obviously Snow White isn’t set in Africa, but the trees in Snow White are definitely very similar.

3. Every time you enter your vehicle for a game drive, you’ll feel like you’re going on the Indian Jones ride.

The vehicles look almost exactly the same, and when you’re rushing to see an animal or off-roading, they feel almost exactly the same as well.  Unfortunately we didn’t enter any ancient temples... Although, if you do, DO NOT LOOK INTO THE EYES OF THE IDOL.  

4. When you see a lone warthog, you immediately start looking for a meerkat

Obviously a lone warthog MUST be Pumba, which means somewhere nearby there’s got to be Timon, taking credit for all Pumba’s good ideas.  And maybe you’ll even spot a lion/lion cub because The Lion King taught us that warthogs and lions can be great friends!

5. You know when you see hippos in the water, nothing bad will happen unless they are blowing bubbles and wiggling their ears

I mean, that is what the Jungle Cruise taught us, right?  I know that’s what traumatized my older sister and left her irrationally terrified of hippos.  But don’t worry, no hippos blew bubbles at us, hence the reason we’re all still here.

6. Your knowledge of which animals are dangerous/vicious is based on Disney movies and rides

Remember on the Jungle Cruise when the Rhino had chased all the people up the totem pole? I was convinced until this trip that they were very vicious animals.  Turns out, that’s not actually true.  But I still wouldn’t want to make one angry.

7. You find yourself looking for your own Raja

I know that tigers don’t live in Africa, but if Jasmine can have a pet tiger, couldn’t I take a lion cub home as a pet?  I’m sure Peace Corps would be totally fine with me raising a lion cub in my apartment... And then Nova could have a friend!

8. Seeing a pack of wildebeests will bring a sudden surge of hate and anger because THEY KILLED MUFASA

Okay, of course we all know it was really Scar’s fault that Mufasa died, but when you see a pack of wildebeests, you can’t help but be mad at them. If they hadn’t killed Mufasa, Simba would have been able to grow up with two loving parents and not be chased from his home.  Although then we would never have met Timon and Pumba and there would basically be no plot to the movie.

9. When you see lots of different animals in the same area it reminds you of the Lion King

Every time you see lots of animals together, you imagine the scenes with “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” or “Circle of Life” (and cue the song again).  And then you wonder if it’s like Toy Story, where as soon as Andy walks in, all the toys pretend they’re inanimate objects?  Maybe every time a jeep comes around the corner, they all stop singing and dancing and act they way we think animals should act.

[taraincameroon-blog]

The Other Side of Africa

I realize that Africa, being a giant continent with 54 nations, has more than two sides.  I’ve talked about how frustrating it is when people bundle this entire continent into one entity, because Cameroon in of itself is so diverse.  But after living in Cameroon for almost a year, the only African country I’d ever visited, I got pretty comfortable with my view of Africa through the lens of Cameroon.

A few weeks back, however, I got to see a different side of Africa.  My mom, dad, and little sister flew half way around the world and met me in South Africa, where I had my first real vacation in over 11 months.  I remember right after I moved to Africa, my mom asked me “Have you seen any animals yet?” I responded, “Well, cockroaches are always in our latrine at night…” assuming she was asking about fear of creepy crawlies.  Of course she was actually asking about elephants, hippos, gorillas, big animals that you can see at the zoo or in Africa.  Up until I went on this trip, the closest I got to seeing typical “African animals” was when I held a chimpanzee at a Tea plantation a few hours from where I live.  

Not to call anyone out (Mark), but I know some people who read this blog are skeptical (or gravely concerned) about me living in Cameroon.  I also know a lot of people may be skeptical about traveling to Africa, but if you happen to fall in that category, just know this was seriously one of the most amazing and luxurious trips I’ve ever taken.  If you love to travel and haven’t been to Africa yet, it’s the trip of a lifetime.  And while I may personally think the best way to get to know a place is by moving there for two years, I still think going on a safari and just talking to people can help to better understand a different place (in addition to just being an amazing vacation).

Anyway, now that I’ve done my “Come to Africa” pitch (by the way, if anyone wants to take a detour to Cameroon, I’m here for another year!), I can get on to telling you about our fabulous trip!! Obviously the most amazing thing was the fact that I got to see (almost all of) my family!  Even throughout college and graduate school, I saw my parents pretty much every three months, and my sisters almost as often. So 11 months without seeing them felt like forever.  I landed way before them, so I had to spend the day at the spa waiting for them (I know, poor me).  I went to the airport when my family arrived, and naturally, my mom started crying when we hugged, which made me start crying, which made Marea cringe and wish she was somewhere else.  For those of you who don’t know my baby sister, she doesn’t cry and she doesn’t like it when other people cry.  Think Chandler from Friends.

After one night at the airport hotel, we flew to our first stop: Kirkman’s Kamp, a private game reserve on Sabi Sands that borders Krueger National Park.  We landed at a tiny little airport that has two flights in and out a day, only to Johannesburg, and were welcomed by Jerry, who helped us get our luggage and drove us to the camp.  You know how normally you arrive at a hotel and have to wait in line to check in?  When we arrived, all our luggage was taken to our rooms for us and we were given wonderful, warm, scented towels to wash off the plane feeling, and a glass of lemonade to drink as we took a tour of the property.  Then our personal butler, Friday, showed us to our rooms, and told us to come up for lunch as soon as we were ready.  Our rooms were ridiculously beautiful, and since the safari is all inclusive, everything in the mini bar was actually for us to take!  Each day, there were two game drives scheduled, although the day we flew in we only did the afternoon one, and the day we flew out we only did the morning one, but our wakeup call for morning drives was 5:30am, to meet for coffee at 6:00am, and be out searching for animals by 6:30 at the latest.  We had a ranger and a tracker with us on the game drives.  Jerry, who picked us up at the airport, was our tracker, and he sat on a little pop up seat on the front of the jeep, spotting animals for us. Our ranger, Jason, would both drive the jeep and give us information about different animals and birds.  Marea and I called them the dream team because they were so amazing.

Ready for our first game drive

Of course, one of my favorite parts of the trip was the food.  We literally ate 7 times a day.  First, we would have coffee and little biscuits before our morning game drive.  Then during the drive we’d stop for a “Jerry Special” (coffee, chocolate powder, and amarula) and cookies.  Then after the game drive was brunch.  A few hours later we’d have lunch, which of course included dessert of homemade ice cream. By the time we finished lunch, it was usually only about an hour or hour and a half until tea time, which for me meant iced coffee and MORE dessert.  During our afternoon game drive we’d stop for gin & tonics and some snacks. After the drive and a little time to “freshen up” (these freshen up periods really confused Marea and I, we pretty much hung out in our room and then went to dinner exactly the same as we were after the drive), we would have dinner, which, don’t worry, had dessert. Our first morning was slightly different, instead of going back to Kirkman’s, we had our brunch set up outside for us and one other jeep, complete with Jerry Specials, mimosas, and cheese.  

Surprise brunch

Morning snack break

Before our last game drive with Jason and Jerry

Obviously one of the other most amazing parts was seeing all the animals.  The dream team made sure we got to see pretty much every animal we wanted to see, including the Big Five (Rhinos, Elephants, Buffalo, Lions, and Leopards), as well as Hippos, which made us think of Holly, Giraffes, Zebras, tons of different types of Antelope, Monkeys, Baboons, and even a Cheetah!  It was pretty impressive how Jerry and Jason would follow the animal tracks on the ground and alarm calls from other animals to find big predators like leopards and the cheetah.  The cheetah we actually stumbled upon as we went to see elephants, and all the sudden, Jerry pointed and said “Cheetah”, and there she was, resting the brush. One of the main rules was whenever we see an animal, don’t scream/yell or stand up.  As soon as Jerry spotted the cheetah, dad stood up and said (very loudly) “WHERE?”  Luckily we all made it back alive anyway.  The one thing we didn’t see was a Pangolin.  If you’re thinking “I have no idea what that is.” Or “Does she mean penguin?”, I was right there with you.  The couple in our jeep for the majority of our time had a joke with our ranger about how they really wanted to see a pangolin, which is actually incredibly rare and surprisingly a very poached animal.  Anyway, now we all just really want to see a Pangolin.

The cheetah!

Momma and baby elephants*

After Kirkman’s Kamp, we took a short flight to Zambia, where we drove to the beautiful Royal Livingstone Hotel, which is right on the Zambezi River, and you can see the steam off Victoria Falls from the hotel.  Our first day we wandered along the Zambia side of the falls, had some cocktails while watching the sun set, then had dinner and headed to bed. We woke up early the next morning to hop on a boat to Livingstone Island, which is right above the falls. Then, we literally went swimming at the edge of the biggest water fall in the world.  It was freezing, but such a cool experience.  After breakfast on the island, we stopped back at our hotel and then walked to Zimbabwe.  Especially when the water flow is lower, the Zimbabwe side has much better views of the main parts of the falls.  It was incredible, and I irritated my family by incessantly taking pictures.

At the falls

Sunset at our hotel

Devil’s pool

After Vic Falls we headed to Botswana for two nights at Chobe National Park.  In case you don’t know this, my family doesn’t camp.  It’s just never really been our thing.  I think the closest I’ve ever been to camping is when some of my best friends and I spend three and a half days “camping out” for the midnight premiere of the last Harry Potter movie.  And we rotated, so I only spend two nights sleeping outside (not even back to back), and both times I got up in the morning and got to go to my home, take a warm shower, and a nap in my own bed.  At Chobe, we were staying in tents, but it was definitely “glamping” to the max. We had flush toilets, and during the evening game drives, staff filled up tanks with hot water, so we essentially still got to take hot showers.  It was the same company as Kirkman’s Kamp (it’s called And Beyond, and from these two experiences, I would HIGHLY recommend them), so our eating schedule was pretty similar.  No homemade ice cream, but we were still eating a good 5 meals a day, and as soon as we weren’t quite full anymore, it was time to eat again.  Unlike at Kirkman’s, since this was a national park, we couldn’t off road at all to follow animals, so some things, like the first two times we saw lions, we saw them from a ways off.  But we still had crazy amazing sightings.  We saw a lion guarding a dead elephant, and after watching it for a while, we saw a giant herd of elephants come through and chased the lion off. Our second evening, instead of doing another game drive, we took a boat cruise along the Chobe River.  We saw so many hippos and crocodiles, but one of the highlights of the boat cruise was when a monitor lizard tried to attack an eagle. Every time the lizard got close, the eagle would fly away a little, and after this happened a couple times, the eagle just flew away.  The Chobe River also happens to be the border between Botswana and Namibia, so if we were closer to the Namibia side than the Botswana side, that means we were in Namibian water and therefore I can say I was in Namibia, right?  Our last morning, we did a short game drive on the way to the airport, and we made it out early enough to see a pride of lions, including a bunch of lion cubs, playing.  It was adorable.  We couldn’t find a pangolin though.

Our glamping tents

Namibia behind us!

Just for Holly*

After Chobe, we said goodbye to Marea, because apparently she thinks actually showing up to class is important in college (do you really learn anything in the first week anyway?), and my parents and I continued on to Cape Town. We spend our first day in Cape Town on a wine tour, where we visited 5 different wineries.  After drinking boxed wine for the past year, it was pretty heavenly. Especially when you add in the fact that there was cheese and chocolate pairings.  At the end of the day, our wine lord gave us a quiz on what we learned.  Not that I’m competitive or anything, but I decided when I found out about this quiz that I would win.  And I did.  But I opened my prize (a bottle of wine) on the bus and shared with everyone.

At the first winery

SO MUCH CHEESE

At the end of our tour

Our second day it was pretty rainy and windy outside, so our concierge told us that tours to Robben Island were all canceled, and the lift to table mountain wasn’t going.  We went to the waterfront and had a delicious brunch, then bought tickets for the “hop on hop off” bus.  We stopped at the botanical gardens, which were probably even more beautiful because of the city on one side, and the misty mountains on the other.  Then as we were taking the bus back to the water front, we realized it looked like the cable cars were running again, so we headed over there and went to the top.  Mom came, even though she’s not a big fan of heights, but it was worth it to see one of the New Seven Wonders of the Natural World.  I wanted to repel down part of it, but because it opened late, they weren’t doing that for the day.  Oh well, that just gives me a reason to go back!  For dinner, I had a cheese burger, onion rings, and a milkshake with whipped cream and sprinkles!  Have I mentioned how much I miss American food?

I tried to be artsy

Table mountain was a little cold

Our last day in Cape Town we went on a tour of Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope. Even though it was a little rainy our last day too, we managed to hit the stopping points when the weather was clear. Our driver/tour guide was great and so knowledgeable.  He told us it wasn’t a safari, but sometimes he got lucky and would see some animals. So we told him to find us a pangolin. No luck there, but we did come across some ostriches and baboons.  We also got to see penguins!!  When I was younger, I was talking to my voice teacher (who loves penguins) about something that would never happen, and I said “yeah, it’s like finding a penguin in Africa!”  She told me that there actually are penguins in South Africa, so I was thinking of her the whole time we were watching them.  I ended my last day with dinner of sushi and shrimp curry, then I had a Belgium waffle with maple syrup, chocolate sauce, and gelato on top.  Eating that may have been one of the happiest moments of my life.

Cape of Good Hope

View of the Cape of Good Hope from Cape Point

Penguin!

So many penguins!!

I honestly expected that coming back to Cameroon after such a wonderful vacation would be difficult, and I’m sure it’s much easier because my mom is here with me for a visit (expect a blog on that in the not too distant future!), but it’s been really nice to be back home, seeing my neighbors and friends, and cuddling with my kitten.

To finish the pangolin saga, I was traveling in Cameroon and saw a man on the side of the road holding something that looked incredibly similar to pictures of pangolins.  I asked other PCVs, and apparently, yes, there are pangolins in Cameroon, and yes, people eat them.  So I think I saw a pangolin!  But it only half counts, I still need to see one in the wild...

*Photo credit to my mom for pictures with stars

[taraincameroon-blog]

A Week of Gratitude

I can’t speak for all PCVs, or even other PCVs in Cameroon, but I’ve found that sometimes it can be very easy to focus on the negatives.  “My electricity is out and my computer is about to die”, “I found ANOTHER cockroach in my house”, “My kitchen seems to be permanently infested with fruit flies no matter what I do to try to get rid of them”, “My cat peed on my floor again”, “I can’t walk down the street without being called baby or being proposed to by a random stranger”.  Life here definitely isn’t always easy, but I’ve realized that if I focus on all the negatives, I don’t appreciate all the wonderful parts of this experience. Recently, to try to be more positive, I’ve spend a few minutes each night writing down three things that I’m grateful for from the day.  I now find myself thinking of things throughout the day that I want to write down instead of reflecting on my day in the evening and trying to remember good things that have happened.  I decided to share one things I wrote down for each day in the past week as they reflect some of my favorite parts of living in Cameroon:

Monday, July 20th: I am grateful for Victory (my almost 2 year old neighbor), who makes me smile every time I see him.

Tuesday, July 21st: I am grateful for girls’ nights, cooking delicious food, and watching cheesy movies with friends.

Wednesday, July 22nd: I am grateful for the children I know yelling at other children for calling me “white man”, and telling them to call me “Auntie Tara” instead.

Thursday, July 23rd: I am grateful that I got to talk to my childhood best friend, Ashley, for over an hour today.

Friday, July 24th: I am grateful that I now constantly run into people I know, making it feel like I live in a community even though I live in a big city.

Saturday, July 25th:  I am grateful that I work with an NGO that makes a legitimate difference in peoples’ lives.

Sunday, July 26th: I am grateful that in Cameroon people always greet each other, regardless if they know each other.

[taraincameroon-blog]

Happy Birthday America!

My favorite holiday back home is definitely Christmas.  Followed probably by Thanksgiving, because the family is together and the next day official marks the beginning of the Christmas season, so we go cut down our Christmas tree and listen to Christmas music (and also because I’ve been informed that my birthday doesn’t actually count as a holiday).  As a child, I’m pretty sure April Fool’s Day would have been next, just because there’s nothing quite as fun as dying the milk green and making your sister cry (although I wasn’t expecting that… Who would expect someone to cry because the milk in their cereal was green?!  Love you sister!).  But now my third favorite holiday is definitely 4th of July.

It’s always a little weird celebrating 4th of July abroad.  I still manage to have a good time, but nothing quite compares to Independence Day at Lake Tahoe.  Our family friends have a big, beautiful cabin at the lake, and they always invite a bunch of families up to celebrate.  We would spend the day hanging out by the lake, kayaking, paddle boarding, jet skiing, and tubing.  The parents would set up lunch of make your own sandwiches, chips, and various potatoes and pasta salads.  There was also a “snack table” full of delicious treats for snacking at any point during the day.  Then back out to the lake, where, if my older sister was there, we’d be forced against our will to swim laps in the freezing cold water from the dock to the pontoon boat and back.  If the water was deep enough, we’d jump off the top of the pontoon boat into the lake. Once we were all nearly freezing to death, we’d jump out and sprint to the hot tub.  Dinner would usually be hamburgers, and then we would not set off our own mini fireworks, because that would be dangerous.  Sparklers, on the other hand, are totally fun and safe, and we would light them and pretend to be wizards and duel each other (because yes, we are just that cool).  Back in the day, we would take the Maggie (it’s a boat) out onto the lake to watch fireworks up close.  Since the Maggie’s retirement, we usually bundle up in blankets and watch from the dock. One year we took the pontoon boat (also called the Party Boat) out to watch the fireworks up close, but that was a little terrifying because the boat was rocking so much on the waves from all the other boats, and we all started singing the Titanic theme song.  Luckily the boat didn’t sink and we didn’t all freeze to death.

I mean really, who wouldn’t want to spend 4th of July here?

Anyway, this year I obviously didn’t get to celebrate my 4th of July at Lake Tahoe.  In fact, I have now celebrated 4th of July on 5 different continents (only Australia to go! Because I’m not crazy enough to try to go to Antarctica in the middle of winter).  In true form, Peace Corps volunteers hosted parties all around Cameroon to celebrate our country’s independence.  There was one in my city, where everyone was spending the day at the nicest pool in town. There was one in the West, about three hours away, where everyone was spending the day by a lake.  I, however, had a meeting in Yaounde Sunday morning at 11am, and it is impossible to leave either place in the morning and make it to Yaounde in time.  So instead I traveled to Yaounde the 3rd of July, because I may not get to spend the 4th next to a lake, but I refuse to spend it on a bus for 8 hours on terrible, pothole filled roads.

Technically, I actually did spend 4th of July on American soil, because one of our friends from the Embassy put us on the list for their party.  They had a big formal party earlier in the week, and then just a casual barbeque for Embassy workers, marines, and a few other Americans (like us!) for the actual holiday.  I’ve been to the Embassy pool once before, but it’s seriously like walking into another country.  They were grilling hot dogs and hamburgers (with cheese! I’m not sure if I’ve communicated how much I miss cheese…) and there were so many desserts that people brought to share (we felt kind of bad because we weren’t really sure what it was going to be like, so we didn’t bring anything).  The Peace Corps country director and training director showed up too, so we got to hang out with them in a more casual setting, which was pretty cool.  The US Ambassador even made an appearance, walking around and greeting everyone.

Brownies with red, white, and blue sprinkles. Does it get any better?

So delicious!!!

After eating, a bunch of the PCVs I was with decided to go swimming, unfortunately I was not thinking when I packed for this trip and didn’t pack a swim suit. Instead, I played ping pong with some other PCVs.  I’m really, really bad at ping pong, but luckily we were playing doubles, and the 5 and a half year old we were playing with was about my level, so the teams were pretty even.  Finally, the two guys we were playing with decided they wanted to play a game where the ping pong ball stayed on the table for more than three hits, so I took Leila (the five and a half year old) to play on the play structure.  As we started to swing, I was informed by a little boy that my feet stink, and then he tried to hit me with his helmet every time I swung forward (and I resisted the urge to “accidentally” kick him, because that would be wrong).  For the rest of the afternoon, the PCV who was originally playing ping pong with Leila, Roman, and I took turns entertaining her by playing Frisbee, ping pong, or on the play structure.  

Yes, she was singing “Wrecking Ball” as she swung

When I wasn’t playing with Leila, I was chatting with the other PCVs and the marines. Their experience in Cameroon is so different from ours; they actually live on the Embassy property and have a chef and a driver to take them around because they aren’t allowed to take public transportation. They also gave us some alcohol (we bought our food, but I guess they weren’t allowed to sell alcohol so they had to just dash it to us).  When the party was winding down, we headed out to the Hilton for happy hour with a few of the marines after making a pit stop at their house for some of them to change and also to leave a giant bag of tootsie rolls they said we could take and come pick up later.  After the Hilton, we went to this great restaurant called Zads that has hummus and falafel and hung out watching soccer.  I’ve taken to calling soccer “football” most of the time, but in honor of America, we all called it soccer (I got mad at people when they called it footbal).  Over all, it was a pretty wonderful Independence Day, even without boats and sparklers.  

First time I’ve seen tequila in 10 months

Decked out in America swag

Best America outfit ever!

What’s more American than a blurry selfie?!

[taraincameroon-blog]

The Beginning of the End of the World

I went back and forth on if I should post a blog about the Supreme Court decision last week.  I ended up deciding not to, because this blog is supposed to be about my time here in Cameroon, and not about American politics.  But today I had a conversation that made me change my mind.  I am so proud of my country and the Supreme Court decision last week.  I’m proud that I am from a country where every person now has the freedom to marry whomever they love.  I want to say thank you to Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kennedy for making history and changing thousands of lives forever.

As soon as I read about the decision on Saturday (I didn’t have internet all day Friday), I was bursting to tell people.  At a meeting on Sunday at my host organization, we were sitting around chatting, and the director asked if anyone had any good news to share.  I wanted to tell everyone that my country had made amazing strides in equality the previous week, but obviously that was not possible.  Because the country I live in hasn’t just banned same sex marriage, it has banned homosexuality all together.  If people know someone is interested in someone of the same sex, they could end up being imprisoned or killed.  Peace Corps volunteers never even use the word “gay” in public; we have a code word because it could be dangerous if people understood our conversation.  

So here I am, living in a country where my personal believes are the complete opposite of the majority of the population.  However, I’ve never had a conversation about homosexuality or same sex marriage, because it isn’t really discussed.  But today it came up.  Today I had a conversation that began “Your President Obama has just gone crazy”.  I, of course, have no idea how to react to this, so I just ask why.  She responds by saying that he legalized gay marriage, and he was imposing something “unnatural” on my country.  She basically compared homosexuality to incest, and then she told me I needed to pray for my country.  This conversation took place with a very well-educated and well-traveled person. And yet, as she was going on and on about the subject, it clearly did not occur to her that there was a possibility that my opinion on the subject might be different.  At the time, I was focused on trying to keep my mouth shut (something I have never been good at) and not look too angry, shocked, or irritated. But once we finished talking and the anger cooled a little, I was legitimately sad.  Sad that this country is clearly so far from anything remotely similar to what just occurred in the United States.  Sad for all the Cameroonians forced to live in hiding and fear of showing their true selves.  Sad that some of my fellow PCVs that have to hide a part of their identity for two years. To be honest, I don’t know how they do it; that must take so much strength.  And finally, sad that there are over 75 other countries around the world that have anti-homosexuality laws just like Cameroon.

Someone once told me that if America ever legalized gay marriage, it would be the beginning of the end of the world.  After the US legalized it, other countries would start to follow too.  And then everyone would start marrying people of the same sex, and then people would stop reproducing, and then humanity would die out.  Obviously I told this person that he was crazy, but I hope he is in part correct. I hope that the actions of our country will reverberate around the world, and more countries will bring marriage equality.  I hope that Friday marked the beginning of the end of the world as we know it.  I hope our future world will be more loving, tolerant, and equal.

[taraincameroon-blog]

One thing I want Americans to know about Cameroon

Although I have been living in Cameroon for almost ten months now, and I feel that I have a pretty good grasp of important aspects of the culture here, I know I will never fully understand Cameroonian culture like a native Cameroonian.  Since part of the reason I keep this blog is to help friends and family back home learn about Cameroon (in addition to assuring everyone that I’m not dead), I decided to ask my Cameroonian what is one thing they would want Americans to know about Cameroon.  Here are the responses I received*:

“In Cameroon, if you invite some out, you pay his/her bills” –Peter, Peace Corps Staff

“Everything you have in America you can find in Cameroon, you just need to find the people  who can get it to you” –James, friend who has also lived in the US

“There is linguistic diversity and many cultures; there is not a single Cameroonian culture” –David, Peace Corps Training Director

“When a Fon dies, people will say the Fon is missing. In some places (for example, the Northwest region), people do not shake hands with the Fon. Each village has its traditional meal.” –Blessing, Haven of Hope teenage mother

“Tribalism is one of the negative aspects of culture with corruption encouraged by the government through the failure of politics implemented by the “state party”.  Tribalism is implemented by the government through regional equity and state nominations, and this reflects to people’s habits” – Clement, friend and founder of an NGO in the West region

“Religion is mixed. People believe in witchcraft, ancestral worship, and God.  Marriage is both mono and poly, but polygamy is practice by mostly big families that are wealthy.  Cameroon, being an African country, loves its traditional dance.” – Sylvia, Haven of Hope teenage mother

 “In the rural settings here we have eight days a week.  Even though most people make a living from agriculture, in every tribe one day of the traditional week is regarded as the “country Sunday” in which nobody is to go to the farm.  On days like this there is a special palace juju that moves through the farms to bless the land so as to ensure a good harvest for the next year. Country Sundays are not the same for all tribes and for each tribe they are rotatory, the day is not fixed like the case of a modern week.  For example if it falls on Friday in the modern week, then next traditional week it will fall on Saturday.  So there is a continuous one day shift to get when next country Sunday falls.” – Blaise, friend and a very talented artist

“Cameroon has many tribes and each tribe has its own culture” –Carine, my counterpart’s sister and my hairdresser

“Some people in Cameroon are always timeless and careless to their lives. Doctors here in Cameroon are not serious and are depending only on money.  There are many jobs in Cameroon, but young people still go on scamming and stealing because of laziness and the amount that many of the jobs pay them may be small and Cameroonians never pay workers on time.  I like America because the doctors attend to a patient fast and serious and save people’s lives before they ask for money.  Cameroonians ask for money first before they attend to a patient. “ –Jean Claude, friend and local salesman

“Each of the ten regions in Cameroon has its own traditional outfit. In some places (for example, Boyo division of the Northwest), if a man dies, his children will not inherit his property, his brothers will inherit it instead.  A court or church wedding cannot take place until a bride price has been paid.  Country Sunday is considered more important that Sunday.  When the Fon dies, he is not taken to the mortuary, rather he is buried overnight before the public knows of his death, and once his death is announced, nobody in the village does anything for one to two weeks.  When a person dies, family members typically shave their heads out of respect.” –Maurice, my counterpart

“Cameroonians are very welcoming because here they believe that strangers are sent from God” –Mister Isaac, PCV Leana’s counterpart

*These are not all direct quotations, many of the responses I received were in texts and I have altered them slightly to clarify meaning and correct grammar

[taraincameroon-blog]

Shake Body

I love when I get into a taxi or enter a bar, and one of my favorite Cameroonian songs is playing, so I automatically start singing along a little bit.  I feel like it gives me some street cred, as if all the Cameroonians are thinking “Oh, she knows Cameroonian music, she’s not just another White Man, she’s legit”.  In reality, I doubt many people notice, but it always puts me in a great mood.  I thought it would be nice for all of my friends and family to hear my favorite songs to shake body to (shake body is dance in pidgin).  Disclaimer: by Cameroonian music, I mean music commonly listened to in Cameroon.  All the songs are technically Nigerian and Ghanaian music.

Taste the Money

Bring it on

Dance dance dance

Collabo

Shake Body

[taraincameroon-blog]

When Two Americans have a Traditional Cameroonian Wedding

This week I went to my first traditional Cameroonian wedding.  A Peace Corps Volunteer in a village about 40 minutes from where I live got married to his girlfriend, who flew in from America to experience Cameroon and get married.  There were around 50 PCVs, Peace Corps staff, and an entire Cameroonian village that all came together to celebrate Mario and Jenny’s union, and it was probably one of the best things I have experienced since coming to Cameroon.

Outside the wedding hall

The entire wedding is like a big skit of the prince (Mario) searching for “something” (his wife).  After presenting the Fon with palm wine, two people went in search of the “something” Mario was looking for.  Then a group of people entered the hall under a blanket (Jenny was one of the people under the blanket).  The MC announced that there were obstacles along the way to prevent getting the “something” to Mario.  The first obstacle was that there was not enough fuel, and the Fon provided money to get more fuel.  Once this problem was solved, the group of people moved forward down the aisle, but then there was a second obstacle: a tree blocking the road.  More money was needed to arrange for the tree to be moved, and the group continued down the aisle again.  The final problem was after the long journey, everyone was too tired to continue.  After a final payment, the group finally made it to the front of the room, and one person was selected from under the blanket to be Mario’s wife.  The brother of the Fon selected the person, and when the pulled the blanket off, it was Jenny!  The person playing the role of Jenny’s mother said she could not possibly part with her daughter and let her get married.  The Fon again had a solution to this, and offered to pay 4 million FCFA to the family so that the chosen woman (Jenny) could marry his son (Mario).  The offer was accepted, and Jenny is given a country cup and told to give it to her future husband to drink.  Jenny walked around the room, almost offering the cup to different men, before going to Mario and offering the cup to him, at which point the entire room erupted in cheers.  After some singing, Jenny was handed a Cameroonian baby and they were wished that their marriage would be blessed with many,  many children (they did take the baby back, I was slightly concerned that they were trying to give them a head start on the whole baby thing by just giving them one).  

The group coming in under the blanket

After Jenny has been selected as Mario’s wife

The happy couple with a Cameroonian baby

After this part of the wedding, the presentation of the gifts began.  The Fon presented his gift first: a basket for Jenny to take to the farm.  Then other groups in the community began to present gifts to the couple.  A few PCVs also presented gifts, one PCV even presented her gift to “Mr. and Mrs. Jenny”, since for the rest of the wedding they had been referred to as “Mr. and Mrs. Mario” (or Prince and Princess).  All the Cameroonian mamas found this very entertaining and were cracking up.  To end the ceremony, the big men in attendance (the City Council Mayor and the Fon) gave final speeches, and the Fon announced that Mario and Jenny’s first child would be a great diplomat, and would one day come to Cameroon as the American Ambassador.  After the Fon exited the hall, we all headed outside to get some fresh air (who knew that cramming a bunch of people into a small hall in Africa would be incredibly hot) and take pictures.  While everyone took pictures, the hall was rearranged so we could have dinner. After dinner, the Peace Corps staff was heading back to Bamenda, so I headed back with them to avoid traveling late at night, but not before seeing Mario and Jenny bring a little American tradition to the reception with the bouquet toss!

Jenny with her present from the Fon

Stage picture with Bouba, head of the Bamenda Peace Corps Office

Mario is one of the happiest and most optimistic people I’ve met in country, and Jenny is obviously pretty amazing to be willing to come to a country she’d never been to and participate in a traditional wedding. It was so moving to see the entire community come together to celebrate this wonderful couple, and a true testament to cultural exchange and the bonds created between a PCV and his community.

Here’s to the happy couple!!

[taraincameroon-blog]

A Day in the Life

I was having a conversation with another PCV about how after being here for a while, life starts to feel so normal and sometimes even a little boring.  She reminded me that most people back home would find my life anything but normal, so I’ve decided to write about everything I do for one day.  This isn’t a typical day, because for me there’s really no such thing as a typical day. Some days I spend the whole day at my host organization’s office, other days I spend cleaning my house, going to the market, and running errands.  The day I’m writing about is May 21st, 2015.

I wake up a little before 7am to the sounds of chickens, neighbors chopping wood to cook, and Nova meowing incessantly and clawing at the door (I kick him out of my room some nights when he’s being extra neurotic and running around so I can’t sleep).  After I let him in, he jumps into my bed and proceeds to lick my face as I try to go back to sleep. Finally, Nova wins and I pet him a little before getting out of bed. I go through the clothes that I’ve worn recently, and pick out the things that are actually dirty and need to be washed (I can wear most things 3-4 times before they need to be washed). Then I wash a few articles of clothing and when I’m done, miraculously, my water is still running, so I get to refill my water supply (seriously, you don’t even know how exciting that is!). After getting ready, I leave to run some errands and get some breakfast (usually I make eggs, oatmeal, or pancakes, but today I feel a little lazy and I’m out of eggs anyway).  As I walk through my neighborhood, I greet all of my neighbors and stop to play with my favorite child, and adorable 20 month old boy who used to cry every time I got near him (he now cries with pretty much every white person except me).  I call one of my organization’s teenage mother as walk to a nearby bakery, trying to plan a meeting for that afternoon to see her new workplace, as she recently switched from selling oranges at the main market to making and selling food. After eating breakfast of whole wheat bread, real butter, jam, and coffee, and buying trash bags and dish soap, I walk back home and do some basic cleaning (folding clothes, sweeping, taking out the trash), because if I don’t keep the house clean, bugs come.  And I don’t like bugs.  After that, I take a few hours to study for the FSOT, which I’m taking in June (being here makes it difficult to stay updated on current events, but I figure there is no harm trying anyway).  I try not to eat out too much because it’s too expensive, so I make a quick lunch of pasta and tomato sauce.  I have a meeting scheduled for 2pm with my host organization and another local NGO, and my counterpart tells me he’ll call me as he’s leaving the office, and pick me up at the junction on the way.  When I haven’t heard from him by 2:25, I call to see if he will be arriving soon, and he says they’re about to leave.  We pick up one other extension staff member on the way and head to the meeting place.  We get drinks and wait for nearly an hour for the director of the other NGO to arrive. Finally, at around 3:45, our 2:00 meeting begins (eventually I might stop expecting things to actually start on time here).  We spend the next hour discussing plans for a seminar the two organizations are collaborating on in June.  The seminar will focus on educating and empowering girls to help prevent more young girls from becoming teenage mothers.  During the meeting we decide the main topics to be discussed (reproductive health, self-esteem building, root consequences of youth delinquency, and good decision making skills), and the date of the seminar (June 22nd, 23rd, and 24th).  The meeting ends a little after 5:00, and I buy an avocado on the way home to feed to Nova for dinner.  I call the teenage mother to see if she has arrived at her workplace.  Although she said she was going to be selling her food by 3pm, she has still not arrived, and says she will be there in a half hour or so.  Since it’s already 5:30, I tell her it’s better for us to meet the following week, because I have dinner plans and I know in Cameroon a half hour probably means at least an hour.  Then I head across town to a restaurant called “Le Biberon”, for the going away dinner of a PCV who is finishing her two years of service.  Around 10-15 PCV’s come to see her off, and we all have drinks and dinner.  A little before 10pm (because that’s when taxis get more expensive, I would have to pay 250 CFA instead of 200 CFA, which is about 10 cents more), I head home with one of my friends who is staying at my house for the night (because I live in a city where most of the region comes to bank, I essentially run a hostel and have people stay about my house 1-2 times a week).  I’m traveling to the West region the next morning to visit the host family of a friend from grad school who interned in Cameroon last summer, so I set an alarm for 6am and head straight to bed.

[taraincameroon-blog]

May Celebrations

One of the best ways to learn about another culture is to experience their big holidays. It’s not really possible to experience American culture without eating turkey on Thanksgiving (or stuffing, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce for vegetarians), or watching fireworks on Fourth of July.  Well here in Cameroon, May is a month full of celebrating.  May 1st, 14th, and 20th are all holidays. May 1st is International Labour Day (who knew there was an International Labour Day?  And it’s not a Monday in September that marks the beginning of the school year…).  May 14th is Ascension Day, which is basically just another day where people go to church (Church here stresses me out, so I might have skipped church and made chocolate chip banana bread instead). Finally, May 20th is National Day. Not Independence Day, as I’ve heard other people call it on accident.  Fun fact about Cameroonian history, since Cameroon was colonized by France and Great Britain, the Francophone and Anglophone regions gained independence on different days (January 1st, 1960 and October 1st, 1961 respectively).  National Day celebrates May 20th, 1972, when the federal system was abolished and a unitary state was created.  Anyway, now that you’ve had your Cameroonian history lesson of the day, I’ll tell you about the actual celebrations:

Labour Day

On certain holidays in Cameroon (Labour Day, National Day, Youth Day, Women’s Day), people celebrate with what they call “march pass”.  Different NGOs, associations, schools, etc, march together (usually in matching uniforms) in front of the grand stand.  My host organization, Haven of Hope, decided to march together for Labour Day.  We were told that March Pass would start at 10am, so we decided to plan on meeting at 10:30, since nothing ever starts on time, but also nobody shows up on time, so we figured everyone would arrive 11:30 and we’d still have about an hour until it was time to march.  It turns out that before the marching even started, a bunch of people had to give speeches, so we didn’t end up marching until around 2:30 (but on the plus side, everyone made it there in time).  Although it’s rainy season, it happened to be a ridiculously hot day, and we were all standing around waiting in the sun.  At one point, when I standing in the shade with some of the teenage mothers, I started feeling really light headed, but luckily there was a total about a block away, so I went there, bought water, and rested for about 15 minutes. By the way, total is a magical, wonderful gas station that always has ice cream and olives and cold water and soda and the most amazing air conditioning.  Finally we got to march, and everyone was really serious about their marching; everyone should be marching on the same foot, and your arms should be swinging (but not too much), and you have to stay in line with the people next to you (I definitely was not doing all those things correctly).  After marching, we took a bunch of pictures, and then we went to eat my favorite Cameroonian food: fufu corn (kind of the consistency of polenta, made from corn flour), njama njama (huckleberry), and kati kati (chicken).  Even though I nearly passed out, it was great to spend time with all the teenage mothers outside of our monthly meeting and relax.

Teenage mothers and support staff after marching

With one of the teen moms

National Day

For National Day, my counterpart and I went up to Santa, a town about an hour away from Bamenda, to march with a group of Fulani teenage mothers that Haven of Hope sponsors in adult literacy classes.  We were told that march pass would start at 8am, so my counterpart planned to pick me up at 7:15.  He ended up arriving at the junction near my house at 8am, telling me that there was no possible way the marching would start at 8am in Cameroon.  Of course he was correct, when we arrived at 9am, the grandstand was still empty.  Since we were one of the first groups to march, we marched at around 10:30 or 11 (somehow I still managed to get sunburned, sorry mom!).  After marching, we went to the Ministry of Basic Education to have a snack of soda and puff puff (deep fried balls of dough).  Then we headed back towards Bamenda, but we stopped to visit one of the teenage mothers on the way, because naturally it would be rude of us to pass by without saying hello.  And then they fed us, because naturally it would be rude of them to not feed us.  Arriving back in Bamenda, the bars and restaurants were crowded with large groups of people in matching uniforms, and not wanting to be too deranged, I went to hide in my house and hang out a little with my neighbors.  Cameroon does fireworks too, I didn’t actually see any but I heard them going off (luckily, since I’ve already celebrated Christmas and New Year’s here, I didn’t think they were gun shots this time).  Overall, a pretty good holiday! Today also marks 6 months at post, and 3 months until my parents and little sister in South Africa (not that I’m counting down or anything…)

Fulani teenage mothers waiting to march

[taraincameroon-blog]

5 ways my mom helped me get here

I’ve always known that my mom is pretty awesome, but since I arrived in Cameroon, I’ve realized how lucky I am to have a mom who is so supportive of my serving in Peace Corps.  I know of other volunteers whose parents don’t support their decision to come here, think it’s a mistake, and would never consider visiting them.  I, on the other hand, have a mother who pretty much started planning her trip to visit the day I found out my placement, and is a huge reason as to why I joined the Peace Corps in the first place.  So in honor of Mother’s Day and my mom’s birthday, here are five of the ways my mom helped me get to where I am today:

1. My mom raised me to love traveling

When I was two years old, my mom took my older sister and me abroad for the first time.  We went to Italy to visit our relatives, and our whole family has been traveling ever since.  When I was little, I don’t think I really realized how fortunate I was to have so many opportunities to travel.  It was just a part of life. And before I even really realized how rare all my traveling experiences were, I was already in love with traveling and learning new cultures.  A huge part of what drove me to do Peace Corps was that love of travel, and I inherited that from my mom.

 My mom and me in Italy (a few years after that first trip)

2. My mom taught me life isn’t fair

I don’t remember exactly when I learned this lesson.  Maybe it was the summer before I turned six, when I was begging my mom to let me get my ears pierced, instead my older sister got her ears pierced, and all I got was a pair of earrings that I could eventually use when I was allowed to get mine pierced.  But I had wanted mine pierced for so much longer.  It was so unfair. (Hindsight, maybe it was fair for my sister and me to all be allowed to get our ears pierced at the same age).  Whether it was then or another time I was complaining about something trivial being unfair, my mom basically told me to get over it because life isn’t fair.  As I grew up, I realized that when it came to life being unfair, I’m on the lucky side.  I wasn’t dying of a preventable disease because of lack of healthcare. I’ve never been taken out of school to work and help support my family.  But there are people all over the world who suffer from these problems, and I have the potential to make an impact in some of those peoples’ lives.

 Mom and me in Korea (so unfair we weren’t allowed to take that train)

3. My mom showed me how to care about other people and volunteer

I don’t know if it’s still there, but for years there was a magnet on our refrigerator that said “Stop me before I volunteer again”.  My mom was always volunteering to help with all the activities that my sisters and I participated in – sewing costumes for theater performances, planning trips for our choirs and ballet, chairing parent organizations.  I spent the first 18 years of my life watching her constantly volunteering and inevitably I started volunteering for different organizations, and eventually Peace Corps.  

Doing a 5k for a friend’s charity

4.       My mom taught me to follow my dreams

Along with always supporting me in my dreams, my mom showed me how important it is to follow them by following her own.  When I was in high school, my mom decided that she wanted to be a nurse and decided that she would go back to school.  For a few years, she took community college courses, and once she had completed all the pre-requisites, she applied (and got into) an accelerated nursing program.  A year later she was a nurse and was working nights in labor and delivery.  My mom taught me that any dream I have – in this case Peace Corps – can be accomplished if I work hard enough for it.

 Getting ready to go Para sailing 

5.       My mom let me travel by myself and go on my own adventures

When I was little, I decided I was going to go to Canada by myself to visit my friend from first grade, Elisabeth.  A lot of parents would probably not let their 13 year old daughter fly to another country on her own (yes, I know it’s just Canada, but it was Montreal, so it’s pretty far away from California).  Instead, every time we were in an airport on a family trip, my mom made me read the monitors and lead everyone to our gate so I was prepared to travel on my own.  It turns out that when you travel alone at 13, the airports pretty much take care of everything for you and you get to sit in a special room during the layovers. but that’s besides the point.  A few years later, when I came home from school and said “Mom, summer after next I’m going to go somewhere in Latin America” because I had just heard about a program called ‘Amigos de las Americas’ (but I was too young to go that upcoming summer), she supported that decision. Every time since that I’ve found some program to travel with, she did nothing but support me (and maybe use me as an excuse to travel).

 Saying goodbye before coming here

So Mom, I just wanted to say thanks for everything you’ve done for me and helping me get where I am today.  Happy Birthday and Mother’s Day!  Love you!

[taraincameroon-blog]

7 Awkward Questions People Ask You

When I first got to Cameroon I remember getting really stressed out while talking to random Cameroonians because I didn’t know how to answer awkward and uncomfortable questions.  After nearly seven months, I still occasionally get questions that throw me off, but there are quite a few questions that I get so often that my responses are pretty much second nature.  Sometimes I even find it fun and entertaining to mess with Cameroonians who are deranging me (deranger is the French verb “to disturb” and at this point it’s pretty much a part of my normal vocabulary while talking to other PCVs)

1. Can I have your contact?

Random people that I don’t know are constantly asking me for my contact number (and by random people I mostly mean Cameroonian men). At first, I tried to be polite to everyone and explain that my phone was only for work, but then people would ask me why I didn’t have any friends, and they would tell me that I needed to get a second phone that I could use to call friends.  Now when some random guy asks me for my number, I just say no (lessons from DARE still coming in handy).  The rest of the conversation goes something like this: “Then how can I contact you?” “I do not know” “I will give you my own contact and you can call me” “no, it’s okay”, and at that point they usually just kind of give up.

2. Can I be your friend?

This question really threw me off when I first got to post.  It seems mean to say “no” when someone asks to be your friend, but if you say “yes”, it is almost always followed with another question on this list (usually 1, 4, or 5).  My general rule is that I always say yes to women or people in my neighborhood, but when it’s random men on the street, I usually say “no, it’s okay” and keep walking before they can derange me anymore.

3. Will you marry me?

I usually go one of two ways with this question. I either tell people that I’m too young to get married, and I don’t want to get married until I’m at least 30.  A common response to this is something along the lines of “but you’ll be so old” or “but you won’t be beautiful then” (and yes, comments like those will definitely make me want to marry you…). If this strategy doesn’t work and they say it’s fine, I casually mention that I can’t cook or wash clothes and I hate children (none of which are true… except the washing clothes thing, still working on that one), but that’s enough to send them running in the other direction. My other most common response is “okay, I already have two husbands, but you can be the third.  You will have to do all the cooking”.  Polygamy is legal in Cameroon, but it’s always men who have multiple wives, never the other way around, so this response always throws them off.  One of the only things more uncomfortable that someone you don’t know asking you to marry him is a mama that you do know asking you to marry her son.  That one will never stop being uncomfortable.

4. Will you take me back to America?

This question is hard because it’s normally people I actually care about asking me.  It’s almost never random people on the street, but neighbors or chop mamas that I usually eat with, or women that I regularly buy veggies from.  I usually just says something along the lines of “But everyone is always asking to come back with me!  I cannot bring all of Bamenda back to America!” and just leave it at that.

5. What did you bring me?

Cameroon has a very strong culture of sharing, so people are always asking what I have brought them or what I will dash (give) them. The problem with this is people that I barely know are always asking what I have brought them, and I’m not going to go around dashing away all my things to people I don’t know.  I usually just ask them back “what will you dash me?” and they laugh and it’s all good.  People that I know well (especially people like my neighbor who sometimes feeds me), I try to occasionally bring them random things, like a soda or some mangos, and if they ask what I’ve brought them and I don’t have anything, I say I’ll bring them something next time.

6. You are cooking at what time? I will come eat.

A lot of times when I’m on my way home from the market, or even going to the market with a bag, I’ll run into people I don’t know very well and they’ll say they want to come over and eat, because that’s pretty normal in Cameroonian culture.  There are a few problems with this: 1) I’m pretty selective about who I let inside my house, especially in the evening, 2) I usually buy just enough food for one, maybe two meals, because I’m only feeding myself and I don’t want food to go bad, and 3) Most Cameroonians would not like the food I cook for myself.  Similarly to above, if it’s someone I know well, then I’ll either say yes or if I don’t have enough food, invite them over another night.  Even if they don’t really like the food, they get to experience something a little different.  If it’s someone I don’t know very well, I just tell them that I have only bought enough for one, which is usually good enough.

7. If I move to America will I have hair like yours?

I get lots of questions about my hair and skin and why it’s different, and if everyone in America looks like me, and if they move to America will they look like me too.  I actually love this question, because then I get to explain that America is actually incredibly diverse and there are people of all different races and from all over the world.  I love answering questions about the US in general, because I feel like a lot of Cameroonians, even well-educated ones, have lots of misconceptions about American (kind of like how many well-educated Americans have misconceptions about Africa.  I would say they have misconceptions about Cameroon, but I bet a lot of well-educated Americans don’t even know where Cameroon is located.)  Over the weekend, I was at another PCVs house talking to some Cameroonians, and we were discussing how Cameroonians just yell “white man” at us when they see us walking by, and one of the Cameroonians said, “but isn’t that the same in America?  When you see a black man you call him black man?”  Umm, no, that’s actually not quite how it works…  

[taraincameroon-blog]

Nearly everything you do will be of no importance

A few weeks ago, my older sister asked me to write a blog explaining more about what I’m doing in Cameroon.  I haven’t written one because I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed trying to figure out what exactly I’ll be doing with the next two years.  Feeling so unsure about my role in my host organization and in my city’s development process has made it really difficult to write on the subject, or to even blog in general.  But before my family freaks out and thinks something terrible has happened (actually, we all know the one who would freak out first is Mark), I decided I should suck it up and write another one.  For the past week and a half, the other 45 PCVs from training and I have been in Bamenda at IST (in-service training).  It has been amazing to be back together after three months at post and to hear stories about different posts and project ideas.  We spent pretty much all day every day in sessions, and one of the activities we did was to map out “our emotional journey“.  This is what mine looks like:

Month One

As I’ve mentioned before, the first few days at post were really hard.  I felt lost; I had nothing in my apartment and I didn’t know anyone. One day when I was trying to buy a few things for my kitchen so I could cook food for myself, I was followed down then entire main shopping street by some random man until I finally yelled and him and got in a cab instead of walking home.  But after about a week, everything started getting a little better.  I realized all the benefits of being in city and started to get to know my neighbors.  My mood fluctuated a lot day to day based on the small interactions with neighbors and other Cameroonians, but overall I was feeling better than that first week.

Month Two

At the beginning of the second month, I starting feeling a lot better.  The holidays weren’t nearly as difficult as I thought they’d be; I got to talk to many family members Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and my neighbors and other PCVs were all really supportive.  I was excited to start work and felt like I knew what I was doing.  But then about halfway through the month, after the excitement of the holidays wore off, I started to realize how much work I had to do on my CNA (community needs assessment), and how difficult it would be to truly grasp the needs of a city with a population of almost 400,000 people, or even figure out the needs of my quarter, as people are so disconnected from each other in a big city.  My host organization, while doing great work, didn’t have the time to help me with my CNA as there are only two people in the organization and they are responsible for counseling and sponsoring 30 teenage mothers.  I also started thinking a lot about good development work and what a PCV can do to truly make a positive and sustainable impact.  I started making a list of development books that I wanted to read, but so far I’ve only been able to find copies of The White Man’s Burden and The End of Poverty.

Month Three

For about half of the third month, I was still feeling pretty overwhelmed.  I felt like I was behind everyone else, and that I was never going to be able to learn about the role of agriculture in Bamenda, its largest challenges and possible solutions. My friend Leana asked a group of us one day about the project we were most excited to start working on after IST.  Everyone had all these great ideas, and I said that I didn’t even know one project that I was really excited for.  Not long after that day, I started talking to a bee keeping organization located on the other part of town.  It focuses on training young women in IGAs (income generating activities), so that they can gain financial independence and not be reliant on their husbands or parents.  They had the idea of starting a bee keeping cooperative so that after women were trained, they could sell their honey in larger quantities and have a more stable source of income.  Finally I was excited about projects, and I was excited about seeing everyone for IST.

IST

IST marked an immediate downturn in my “emotional journey”.  They first day we all presented about our posts and our potential projects.  All the little things I’ve felt like I was missing out on by being in a large city instead of a small village seemed so much more real when hearing about other PCV’s experiences.  I had my one big bee keeping project that I was excited about, but other people seemed to have all these project that they wanted to work on. Throughout the first week, we kept hearing that we are working with the host organization, but we are the community’s volunteer.  That’s a difficult concept when I feel like I don’t really have a community.  I just kept getting more and more discouraged, and I was nervous for after IST (and my 3 day trip to the beach), when I actually had to start work.

Today

Today was the absolute best day of training. We had seven volunteers in their second year come visit and talk about projects they’ve been working on.  Some people did a lot of smaller projects, while others did one big project that they had been working on for a whole year. They showed that every PCV has a different experience, and there isn’t just one way to be a successful volunteer. I found a lot of similarities between the project I have identified with the bee keeping org and some of the project discussed, so I can learn from their experiences and use them as a resource.  Not only were their projects really cool, but they emphasized the fact that we wouldn’t have it all together now.  Most said they spent their first 6-9 months at post just doing random things to try to meet people and build community trust.  Just sitting with random people will build a positive relationship.  Doing anything to help your community, even if it’s not in your sector, is a good way to build trust and show you’re a hard worker.  I’m going to be tutoring Math and English at a local secondary school twice a week with a few other PCVs when I get back from vacation.  Listening to the older PCVs talk made me think of a Gandhi quote: “Nearly everything you do is of no importance, but it’s important that you do it.”  It may take us a while longer to figure out what we’re all doing here, and we may feel like the work we’re doing right now isn’t making an impact or changing our communities, but it is still important that we do it.  

Happy Peace Corps week!