Officially a Peace Corps Volunteer

As I sit in my house, on my almost comfy couch, my neighbor reads, well tries to read one of my magazines in English. People here do not understand why anyone would want to be alone. The villagers, especially children just show up at my door, especially if it is open. They sit with me and the children color or the adults read magazines. Just to keep me company because my French isn’t good enough where I can have more than a 15 minute conversation. They all have been very helpful. The children help me get water from a well that is down the hill a little ways. Kind of reminds me of when I have to bring water to the barn during the winter because the water froze out there. It is about the same distance, just hotter weather to walk in. My landlord has fixed my electricity and a few of the lights in my house. Mostly everything works now. My neighbor just helped me tack up my maps on the wall and fixed one of the outlets. He gave me a big stick of sugarcane as a welcome present. Hurts your teeth but if you can break the bark, the sugar water inside is awesome.

My neighbor's children dancing in my living room

I haven’t really figured out how to eat here yet. There is a bean mamma down the road where Carl, Jasmine and I go a lot for meals. She gives me cold beans with bread and some very sweet hot tea. Cheap, good food. There are Boutiques everywhere and bars (well in the Christian side of the village) Muslims are not supposed to drink and if they do, it’s in secret.

My first view of the Adamaowa from the train

Overall, I love Beka-Hossere. It is a five minute drive on a moto taxi (motocycle) from the capital city of Ngaoundéré. Just have to be careful taking a moto at night. I always try to go home before dark and usually Carl or Jasmine is with me. Ngaoundéré is like any other city. Lots of thieves, busy roads, and many stores. Only a few “white man” stores that sell things from the U.S. but not much and it is usually expensive. Peace Corps has a case (office) there where volunteers can hang out, use the internet, and there are beds to sleep if you are traveling. I spent my first few days visiting there to talk to volunteers about their posts. Most are about an hour to 3 hours away so they only visit during holidays. There are about 6 of us in or near Ngaoundéré.

It is so nice to have a city next door and then go home to a beautiful village. It is dry season right now so it won’t rain until March. Pretty dry and hot but not humid. I’m trying to get used to it. There are times during the day where you just sit inside because no one wants to be out in the heat.

View coming into Ngaoundere

By the way, Carl and Jasmine are my post mates. They live in the same village just in different houses. Jasmine was in my stage except she is a health volunteer. Carl teaches English at the school next door. We are going to try to do some projects together, such as a school garden possibly. They are awesome people and we are already good friends.

As far as projects go, I took on Daniel’s (volunteer I replaced) soy project. He started it by partnering with some NGOs in Ngaoundéré. Local women apply to the program and if they are accepted, they learn how to grow and sell soy beans. Right now, the women are cultivating the soy from the sample garden and their home gardens. I am helping them and then we are trying to form their group into a Cooperative so they can keep growing and selling soy beans together. The next step in my project is to take the applications and teach the next group of women how to grow soy beans. I am also helping Carl with a project that uses soccer to teach children about HIV/AIDS. Been really busy just getting know my village and trying to make my house livable,

The house has had three volunteers living in it before me so it’s well used but it is quaint and lets the light in pretty well. I have a kitchen, dining room, living room, bedroom, and a bathroom with a bucket flushing toilet. I take bucket baths and there is a hole in the floor where the water drains. It has taken a lot of cleaning but I think I will like living here to for two years.

My house

I am not sure how my life is going to be here but I just take it one day at a time. And if I get depressed, I just put on Indiana Jones music or watch Downtown Abbey on my computer. It’s the little things that help. Or I just leave my door open and I get free entertainment from the children. I have had dinner with a few neighbors and I really feel like I am in Africa when I have dinner with the Muslim families. The women eat separate from the men and we sit in a circle around a pan with cous cous on it and the legume sauce in the middle. We eat with right hands (can’t eat with your left because technically you wipe your butt with your left-it’s a Muslim rule). So you grab a piece of cous cous maize (kind of looks and feels like play do) and then dip it in the sauce and eat! Jasmine and I just talk when we understand some of the Fulfude they are speaking, otherwise we just listen.

I think training prepared me pretty well although I miss my other stagemates. (I’m the only agro volunteer that went to the Adamaowa.) The Swearing-in Ceremony was amazing! The Governor of Southern Cameroon and the US Ambassador to Cameroon were there. Yannick and I sang both the American and Cameroon National Anthem. My host mom was there and brought me flowers. Made me cry happy tears. We swore in as Peace Corps Volunteers using the same oath that the US President says. So cool and gave me chills. Saying good bye to my host family was so difficult. My host mom made me sugar peanuts and hardboiled eggs for the trip. I started crying, my host sister cried, my host brother was avoiding me trying to be tough but I found him and gave him a hug. Then my host mom cried and I realized how much I meant to them and they to me. I’m sure the moto man was very confused at why the American girl was crying as we drove away.

My host mom and I

Selfie with the U.S. Ambassador to Cameroon!

 
 

Swearing in Group Photo

The trip to Ngaoundéré was long but wonderful. The train ride from Yaoundé to Ngaoundéré is comfortable and since it is through the night, we just sleep in the bunk beds on the train. I can’t believe that every other mode of transportation in Cameroon (mototaxis, cars, buses) are all awful and crowded and uncomfortable. Yet the train is so nice. Crazy.

Train ride!

We celebrated Thanksgiving at the case in Ngaoundéré and eat so much food! Carl and I baked two pies by putting rocks in a big pot to give it an oven effect for baking. It was a great day to spend with my new friends and I got to Skype with my parents. Some volunteers had received some cans of cranberry sauce and gravy packets from home. Even without the snow, it felt like Thanksgiving when we all sat down to eat. And we sure have a lot to be thankful for!

Thanksgiving with my new friends

Carl and I baked pies (without an oven!)

 

I’m sure there is more I could tell you but that is it for now. I love it here, but I miss home. It is not the difference in what we do every day, but the difference in how we think. The Cameroon culture is so old and many of the people are doing the same thing that their ancestors did. Not sure how much help I will be, but I will try my best. It is not a cup of tea here so to be honest, I really need the support from home to get through these two years. But when I look up at the sky at night and see Orion's Belt and the Little Dipper, I am sure that I am meant to be here and serve the world. Love and Peace.

I'm writing home to you all :)

Last Week of Training!

It is 6am on a Sunday morning and I am lying under my mosquito net in my host family’s home, listening to the pitter patter of birds on the tin roof. Outside I hear the soft peeps of chicks scuttling around with the mama hen as they search for food. The dogs are fighting as usual outside. I still have a difficult time getting used to hearing dogs tearing each other apart and not being able to do anything about it. Usually I would try to sleep in on a Sunday morning but with the electricity finally being on, there is music playing, drunken men singing next door at the bar, and crying children. It is amazing how light can wake up a village at all hours. My host mom is already awake and beckons my host sister and brother to wake up. I’m content to lie in bed since I’m still fighting off a persistent cough, sore throat, and the usual side effects of a cold. Just can’t seem to fight off sickness here!

Dancing to the traditional music of Cameroon during Diversity Fete!

 

Only a week left here in this village. I find myself torn between wanting to get to my post and getting to work & knowing that I will miss my host family and that I have grown to really love them. Also I will miss my stagemates (our training group is called a stage). I have heard a few people compare our experience to the military because I guess people in the military have the same feeling we have: we are experiencing something together that no one else will understand except us. From the shock of a new culture, living with host families, getting sick a lot, training classes, new language, traveling across Cameroon together, sharing in our successes, sharing in our grief from losing people at home, sharing in our happiness when we communicate with home, and sharing the experience of sitting on a rooftop of a host family’s home, having a beer, and watching the Cameroon sunset. Even after we go to our posts, I have a feeling that we will be stagemates forever and I have made some long lasting friendships.

I have some awesome news to share! After two months of training in French, I have reached the level that I have to have to go to my post; Intermediate High! Learning French was my most difficult obstacle in coming here to Cameroon since I came here knowing very little French and I don’t learn languages easily. I still have a lot more to learn, but now I know that I will be swearing in as a Peace Corps volunteer on November 19, 2014. Plus I get to learn some more Fulfude this week since it is the local language for my village. Jamna!

I also did my final French presentation on the Folklore of Cameroon and I found out some interesting stories! Pregnant women are not supposed to walk outside at night because they will give birth to a snake. Bats hang upside down in caves because the birds and bugs will not be their friend since bats look so odd compared to the other flying animals. If a small green frog comes into your house, someone is going to get pregnant. Luckily I had a green frog in our house the other night and he hung out on my shoulder as I eat my very spicy chicken and batone de manioc. According to my host mom, I will be having a child soon! I also had a run in with a mouse in my bed. He had lived in my room for a while, but one night I must have kicked my mosquito net so that there was a hole at the bottom of my bed. I wake up to a mouse screaming (yes they scream for sure) and turn on my flashlight to see a small mouse hanging from my mosquito net about three inches from my face. I roll over on my side as he falls on my sheets. I throw half of the bed sheet over him and try very unsuccessfully to get out of bed (mosquito nets keep bugs out but they keep people in) I eventually compose myself and try to catch him with a water bottle but he scurries off my bed and back into the hole he came from. My host mom said he is single and just wanted a wife. Oh jeez. We put some mouse poison out after that experience. Sorry Mr. Mouse.

Me & Prince Charming

 

My host mother taught me how to make poisson brassiere (grilled fish). As we gutted and cleaned the fish, all I could think of was the time my grandfather showed me how gut a fish when I was very young. What he would say now while I am cooking fish in Cameroon! I also had to kill a chicken, pluck the feathers, and cook it for dinner. I think we killed some chickens in New York when I was little, but it is not something I do all the time. Turned out to be a lot less messy than I imagined it would be in Cameroon. Have to make this adventure exciting! I made French toast for my family with real Maple Syrup I brought from home in New York. They loved it! Although it was difficult to explain in French how my Dad and I make maple syrup from trees. The look on my host mom’s face was priceless when she walked into the house and saw me cooking on the fire with Celine Dion blasting and a beer in my hand. It is just how I cook! She couldn’t stop laughing!

Preparing fish for dinner



Chicken for dinner

My host sister and I making French Toast

Sam and I making French Toast for the family!

 

We had our workshop where I met my counterpart, the Cameroonian that I will be working with at my post. He is wicked nice and very involved in helping small businesses in the Adamoawa. He is married and his wife is about to have a baby. Also he is Muslim so I am excited to learn about his religion and how it is practiced in my new community. Women play a very different role in my village compared to the United States. I will be myself, but tread a fine line for a while until I understand this new culture.

The rest of my training should go by quick and I am going to try to enjoy every minute that I have with my friends here. I’m so excited to get to my post in the Adamoawa! I am so ecstatic to start my work for Peace Corps and begin a new adventure in another region of Cameroon. I have learned that I can be the Indiana Jones that I need to be to do this job and that I am not alone. My family and friends from back home have been so supportive and are a reminder that I have a home to go back to. I received an awesome package from one of my best friends and I have gotten a few letters in the mail. It means so much to me especially when the package contains food and supplies that I can’t buy in Cameroon!

Package from Alexia!

 

Now onto my last week of training, doing an agribusiness workshop for local entrepreneurs, picking some lettuce from my garden for a nice salad, making some soy milk for our presentation, enjoying some Cameroon sunsets with my stagemates on rooftops, and making it to the swearing in ceremony where I will be singing the Cameroon National Anthem and American National Anthem with an awesome Cameroonian and hopefully officially become a Peace Corps volunteer. My next post will be from my little village in the Adamaowa! Let the countdown begin!