This past Saturday (December 4th) marks the six month anniversary of my arrival in Cameroon. How did I celebrate this momentous occasion? Well, my day began as usual around 5:30 (it stops seeming so early when you're in bed by 8:30 every night). I drank a cup of coffee, read a book (see my “List of Books I've Read in Country” page), then hauled out my buckets and spent an hour scrubbing dirt, sweat, and miscellaneous filth out of my clothing. After hanging it out in the sun to dry (one nice thing about living in the desert – clothing dries faster in the sun here than it does in a dryer at home), I ate a bowl of spaghetti (come on, breakfast options are limited in the village...plus I live alone, so there's no one here to judge me), got dressed, and headed over to the lycee (high school). I spent a couple hours filling out report cards, writing grades over 20 (10/20 is passing; 15/20 and above is overachieving) in tiny boxes, then multiplying them by a coefficient (each subject is weighted differently in each grade) and writing a predetermined comment (18/20 is “Excellent”, 12/20 is “Assez bien” ('good enough'); my favorite is 9/20 – “Mediocre”) and scribbling my signature. I did this about a hundred times (halfway done!), then threw in the towel and headed back home. There I raked my yard and turned over my compost piles, discovering all kinds of horrifying gigantic insects in the process. Feeling pretty accomplished, I grabbed my Ipod, set a chair out in the shade of my tree, and passed a couple highly enjoyable hours watching a swarm of delighted lizards chase the bugs that I had just made homeless.
Sitting in the shade, listening to Lil Jon, and watching three particularly large lizards chase a smaller one who had managed to dig up some kind of huge (like seriously – bigger than my pinky finger), disgusting larva, I suddenly began to think about how I used to spend my Saturdays. Sleeping in til 10 or 11, maybe going out to breakfast (bacon and eggs instead of spaghetti), doing some shopping (buying things off a shelf instead of out of a bucket, not spending ten minutes arguing to get 10 cents knocked off the price of tomatoes...), hanging out with my boyfriend (instead of a pack of lizards)...
The funny thing about being away from home for six months now is that my “normal” life in the States no longer sounds that normal, and unless I stop to think about it, I don't necessarily realize anymore how weird it probably is to have to shake lizards out of my bucket (they fall in and can't climb the slippery sides) when I want to “shower”. Six months feels like a significant landmark – when I first got here, it felt like so much happened every single day but somehow no time was passing, and the date when I would come home never seemed to get any closer. Now I'm wondering how it got to be December so fast (although part of that might have to do with the fact that I spent a considerable part of November sleeping off malaria and amoebas) and eighteen months isn't seeming like that much time to do all of the work I want to do. My stage (training group) is no longer the newest – the stage that arrived in September swore in earlier this week and is on their way to post. The stage that took us on site visit and showed us the ropes is now back in America, and I find myself now in this funny position where I am expected to know how to do things (I've been here half a year!), and yet I am still often so absurdly clueless.
Fortunately, I've now been here long enough and done enough things that aren't completely ridiculous that people here (my colleagues, neighbors, etc.) have realized that I'm not totally helpless and do know how to do some things (like teach English...at least sometimes). I think this has helped me make the transition in people's minds from being a total crazy to being perhaps charmingly quirky (at least this is my hope). “Oh that Hose. She is still almost completely unable to form a logical sentence in Mandara, but she does have some cool pictures of America and she's definitely good for a few laughs...” At the very least I think I provide entertainment for the village children who love to shout hello to me as I walk to and from school. They don't speak French, but have learned “Bonjour Madame”...or more often, “Bonjour Monseiur” (lots of local languages around here don't distinguish between masculine and feminine; I've spent a lot of time in 6eme explaining that your mother is a girl and your father is a boy)...although often when they say this, I pretend they are saying “Bonjour ma soeur” – “Hello my sister” – much more pleasant. Anyways, after one of them gets up enough guts to shout hello to me and they find out that I am, in fact, capable of responding, each one (children usually travel in packs of about ten here) proceeds to greet me (the littlest ones usually shouting something that sounds more like “Banjo Adam!” than anything else) and then dissolve into giggles. This isn't to say that I've won over everyone – it's still a normal occurrence on my walk to school in the morning to pass a parent who has decided to play a hilarious prank on their toddler, and waves them right in my face as I walk by, cracking up as the child begins shrieking. This seems to have the same effect on small children as if their parents were dangling them over the edge of a lion's cage at the zoo. Hilarious.
Anyways, I am now approaching another Peace Corps landmark – In-Service Training (IST). I will spend most of December down south, reuniting with the rest of my stage and our counterparts at a hotel by the beach. The alleged purpose of this trip is for new volunteers to receive further eduction on health, safety, project planning, and funding opportunities...but the fact that they are putting all of us together at the beach makes me wonder if part of it isn't just Peace Corp saying congratulations on making it this far, and thanks for not panicking when you were on your own for the first time and deciding to quit and go home. The first three months at post are supposed to be the very hardest part of this whole experience, and I'm looking forward when I return to the village at the end of the month to really being able to sink in to life and work here, and figure out how to get the most out of the next eighteen months.
Thanks, as always, for all the letters/texts/packages/love/support, etc. You have no idea how much it is appreciated. Much love!
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
"Well, I feel less stupid and on fire."
This is what I said to my friend Claire Friday night, a couple hours after beginning my second round of Coartem (anti-malarials) in the last month. It's a pretty accurate summary of what malaria feels like. Yeah -- in case you haven't heard, I got malaria. Twice.
Before I begin this story, I would just like to say that malaria sucks. A lot. It is kind of like having every sickness you have ever had all at the same time, and then worse. Ridiculous fever, chills, headache, stomach ache, backache, headache, nausea, exhaustion. I have never been so tired in my life. Like I went three days without so much as washing my dishes because I was too tired. Yesterday I slept all morning, then walked five minutes to the store and back and had to take another nap. Yeah. Malaria sucks.
But to begin at the beginning...early in October, I started having these mysterious fevers and feeling really tired. They were never above 100 degrees, and seeing as I live in Africa, where it is always really hot and I am always really tired, I didn't take it too seriously...especially as they seemed to go away on their own after a day or two...then come back a day or two after that. About a week later I was informed by a friend (how did I not know this?) that a cyclical fever is classic sign of malaria... something to do with the reproductive cycle of the parasites living in my blood. Awesome. So, I decided that maybe I should go to the hospital, but seeing as my temperature was still not that high, I thought it could wait again, and my principal offered to drive me on Tuesday morning.
Naturally, Monday night, I woke up in the middle of the night with horrible chills and a 103 degree fever. First let me say, nothing is more confusing than having chills when you know it has to be at least 90 degrees outside. You can feel the air and it is hot, but your body is telling you it is cold. Something is wrong. Stuck in the village (only way to the hospital is a 45 minute moto ride; no motos to be found at night), I got up, took a bucket bath and some ibuprofen, made malaria slides, and started my three-day course of intensive, brutal anti-malarial meds.
The next morning my principal came to my house to drive me to the hospital. I work really hard here to look professional -- it's not easy to do this when you are 22, a woman, a non-native French speaker, and unfamiliar with the school system and the culture you're working in. It's particularly not easy to do this when you are in a malarial stupor, riding on the back of your boss' motorcycle. Anyways, the hospital is in the town where my principal lives, so instead of stumbling around on my own and waiting in line for hours, he literally took me by the hand, led me everywhere I needed to go, did all the talking for me ("This is my teacher. She has malaria. I need her to get better so she can work. We will see the doctor now."), barged straight into the doctor's office, and even translated what the doctor was saying for me when I didn't understand (malaria is like kryptonite to my ability to speak French). I got stabbed in the finger again, more malaria slides were made, and an hour later I was told I had 2% malaria. I don't know what this means, but I was informed by the Peace Corps Medical Officer (PCMO) that I don't need to worry until I have 6% malaria. Awesome. So I was told to finish with the Coartem, sleep for a week, and come back if it got worse. I slept for a week (like pretty much the entire time), then was pretty much better, and returned to work.
Fast forward to Thursday afternoon...I've been feeling really great lately (even started running again), but I come home from school and am exhausted. I think maybe it is because I have been having too much fun and not sleeping enough, so I decide to take a nap. Three hours later I wake up. That's weird. The next day I come to Maroua for a meeting. I arrive at the Peace Corps house in the afternoon just in time to eat a gigantic ridiculous lunch of cheeseburgers and onion rings that the volunteers who got here earlier have made. I am feeling great. Then I notice that I am really hot...take my temperature, it's 99.2 degrees. That's weird.
Three hours later it's 102 degrees, and I have chills and all the other ridiculous body pains that accompany malaria. Well, shit. I call the PCMO and the following dialogue transpires:
Me: Hi, sorry to bother you after hours, but I think I have malaria again.
PCMO: Well, you just had malaria a couple weeks ago right? The Coartem is supposed to last at least that long, so you probably don't actually have malaria. What are your symptoms?
I describe my symptoms.
PCMO: Hmm. It sounds like you have malaria. You are probably going to want to take Coartem again.
So I did. A couple hours later, I was feeling less stupid and on fire...and although I nursed a 100 degree fever all day yesterday and couldn't stay awake for more than a couple hours at a time, my temperature is finally down this morning and I am feeling a lot better. Thank you Coartem.
So malaria sucks a lot...but it has also been a good reminder (both times) that I do have an excellent support system here in Cameroon. Round one I had my principal literally pick me up at my house, drive me to the hospital, and cut through all the red tape to get me the help I needed. Round two I was with friends in Maroua who read the directions on my medication for me when I was too out of it and made sure I remembered to eat food, then stayed home to watch movies with me instead of going out. Pretty great.
Aside from the malaria, things are great here. When I'm not too sick to go to work, I'm loving my job and think I might even be getting good at it sometimes. I'm also settling in a bit more in the village and might have even found a Mandara tutor. I'll be out of touch the next few weeks -- probably not coming into the city again until Thanksgiving, but hope to connect with you all then. As always, your love and support (and care packages!) mean the world to me, so thanks.
Before I begin this story, I would just like to say that malaria sucks. A lot. It is kind of like having every sickness you have ever had all at the same time, and then worse. Ridiculous fever, chills, headache, stomach ache, backache, headache, nausea, exhaustion. I have never been so tired in my life. Like I went three days without so much as washing my dishes because I was too tired. Yesterday I slept all morning, then walked five minutes to the store and back and had to take another nap. Yeah. Malaria sucks.
But to begin at the beginning...early in October, I started having these mysterious fevers and feeling really tired. They were never above 100 degrees, and seeing as I live in Africa, where it is always really hot and I am always really tired, I didn't take it too seriously...especially as they seemed to go away on their own after a day or two...then come back a day or two after that. About a week later I was informed by a friend (how did I not know this?) that a cyclical fever is classic sign of malaria... something to do with the reproductive cycle of the parasites living in my blood. Awesome. So, I decided that maybe I should go to the hospital, but seeing as my temperature was still not that high, I thought it could wait again, and my principal offered to drive me on Tuesday morning.
Naturally, Monday night, I woke up in the middle of the night with horrible chills and a 103 degree fever. First let me say, nothing is more confusing than having chills when you know it has to be at least 90 degrees outside. You can feel the air and it is hot, but your body is telling you it is cold. Something is wrong. Stuck in the village (only way to the hospital is a 45 minute moto ride; no motos to be found at night), I got up, took a bucket bath and some ibuprofen, made malaria slides, and started my three-day course of intensive, brutal anti-malarial meds.
The next morning my principal came to my house to drive me to the hospital. I work really hard here to look professional -- it's not easy to do this when you are 22, a woman, a non-native French speaker, and unfamiliar with the school system and the culture you're working in. It's particularly not easy to do this when you are in a malarial stupor, riding on the back of your boss' motorcycle. Anyways, the hospital is in the town where my principal lives, so instead of stumbling around on my own and waiting in line for hours, he literally took me by the hand, led me everywhere I needed to go, did all the talking for me ("This is my teacher. She has malaria. I need her to get better so she can work. We will see the doctor now."), barged straight into the doctor's office, and even translated what the doctor was saying for me when I didn't understand (malaria is like kryptonite to my ability to speak French). I got stabbed in the finger again, more malaria slides were made, and an hour later I was told I had 2% malaria. I don't know what this means, but I was informed by the Peace Corps Medical Officer (PCMO) that I don't need to worry until I have 6% malaria. Awesome. So I was told to finish with the Coartem, sleep for a week, and come back if it got worse. I slept for a week (like pretty much the entire time), then was pretty much better, and returned to work.
Fast forward to Thursday afternoon...I've been feeling really great lately (even started running again), but I come home from school and am exhausted. I think maybe it is because I have been having too much fun and not sleeping enough, so I decide to take a nap. Three hours later I wake up. That's weird. The next day I come to Maroua for a meeting. I arrive at the Peace Corps house in the afternoon just in time to eat a gigantic ridiculous lunch of cheeseburgers and onion rings that the volunteers who got here earlier have made. I am feeling great. Then I notice that I am really hot...take my temperature, it's 99.2 degrees. That's weird.
Three hours later it's 102 degrees, and I have chills and all the other ridiculous body pains that accompany malaria. Well, shit. I call the PCMO and the following dialogue transpires:
Me: Hi, sorry to bother you after hours, but I think I have malaria again.
PCMO: Well, you just had malaria a couple weeks ago right? The Coartem is supposed to last at least that long, so you probably don't actually have malaria. What are your symptoms?
I describe my symptoms.
PCMO: Hmm. It sounds like you have malaria. You are probably going to want to take Coartem again.
So I did. A couple hours later, I was feeling less stupid and on fire...and although I nursed a 100 degree fever all day yesterday and couldn't stay awake for more than a couple hours at a time, my temperature is finally down this morning and I am feeling a lot better. Thank you Coartem.
So malaria sucks a lot...but it has also been a good reminder (both times) that I do have an excellent support system here in Cameroon. Round one I had my principal literally pick me up at my house, drive me to the hospital, and cut through all the red tape to get me the help I needed. Round two I was with friends in Maroua who read the directions on my medication for me when I was too out of it and made sure I remembered to eat food, then stayed home to watch movies with me instead of going out. Pretty great.
Aside from the malaria, things are great here. When I'm not too sick to go to work, I'm loving my job and think I might even be getting good at it sometimes. I'm also settling in a bit more in the village and might have even found a Mandara tutor. I'll be out of touch the next few weeks -- probably not coming into the city again until Thanksgiving, but hope to connect with you all then. As always, your love and support (and care packages!) mean the world to me, so thanks.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Ode to 6eme
It's more than likely that you have heard me complain (possibly at length) about my 6emes. They are both my largest class (about 90) and my youngest (6th graders...so 10-16 years old). I see them for five hours a week -- one hour on Mondays, and two on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Yeah. Imagine trying to get 90 6th graders to do anything for two straight hours. Now imagine them four to a desk in 100 degree heat paying attention to someone (me) speaking to them in a foreign language for two straight hours. Yeah.
BUT I have been feeling rather fond of them this week, as they almost all did extremely well on their exams, and I am beginning to feel like at least some of them might be learning a handful of words of English, which totally validates the U.S. government spending thousands of dollars to bring me here. So, with all that said, I thought I would take some time to dwell on some of the wonderful things about teaching 6eme. They may be my largest and most overwhelming class, but they are also probably my most enthusiastic...and certainly my most adorable class (picture 90 6th graders standing up and shouting "GOOD MORNING" at the top of their lungs at you every time you walk into the room. Yeah. Adorable.).
So, as I mentioned, my 6eme class (there are two sections -- I only teach one) consists of about 90 6th graders ages 10-16...Most are in the 10-12 range, with a handful of kids that are clearly quite a bit older. I have about 10 or 15 girls, too, who I try not to play favorites with, but just adore. Several of them are among my best students, too. At my high school there are probably close to 200 students in 6eme altogether, and when you think about how there are only 13 in my Terminale (Seniors in high school) this year, it can be pretty discouraging...but it is hard to dwell on that in class when you ask a question and see 50 hands fly into the air, students literally climbing out of their seats they are so excited to answer your question. Here are some of the wonderful and hilarious things they say to (okay usually shout at) me:
1) "Exercise! Exercise!"
This was confusing to me in my first weeks of teaching, because at the same time as I would start my class, the other section of 6eme would be going out to play sports. "Exercise? Like you want to go run around?" It turns out that "exercise" is the word they have learned (or adopted from French?) for an activity that we do in class. For some reason, they LOVE to do fill in the blanks. One time to practice numbers in English I had them do math (one + one = ____) and the expressions on their faces were incredible. They were just delighted.
2) "Boxer Madame! He is boxer!"
Like "exercise", I am not sure where they learned this word, but it is what they say to me when someone hits someone else during class. Which happens pretty much every day. I have tried to teach them the verbs "to hit" or "to fight" but they will not catch on. When I hear a ruckus and ask "What is the problem?", every time it is "He is boxer!"
3) "Please Madame, I am very very quiet!"
This is what my kids like to tell me when they see me getting mad at them for making too much noise, or tell them I will only choose someone to write on the board who is quiet. I have tried to explain to them (in English and French) that if they are shouting at me that they are quiet, they are not in fact being quiet. It has not been understood. However, I have to give them points for trying, right?
So this is my 6eme class -- exhausting, overwhelming, enthusiastic and hilarious. Almost as often as they frustrate me, they make me laugh...and on top of that, I get to work with students who are so excited to learn. I can definitely remember being in a foreign language class when I was young and all of a sudden being able to fit a new piece of the language puzzle into my brain -- connecting it to my first language and seeing how it was delightfully both similar and different. I see those lights go off in my 6emes -- see kids so excited by the fact that they can express themselves in a new way -- and it becomes pretty easy to forget about the talkers and the boxers.
BUT I have been feeling rather fond of them this week, as they almost all did extremely well on their exams, and I am beginning to feel like at least some of them might be learning a handful of words of English, which totally validates the U.S. government spending thousands of dollars to bring me here. So, with all that said, I thought I would take some time to dwell on some of the wonderful things about teaching 6eme. They may be my largest and most overwhelming class, but they are also probably my most enthusiastic...and certainly my most adorable class (picture 90 6th graders standing up and shouting "GOOD MORNING" at the top of their lungs at you every time you walk into the room. Yeah. Adorable.).
So, as I mentioned, my 6eme class (there are two sections -- I only teach one) consists of about 90 6th graders ages 10-16...Most are in the 10-12 range, with a handful of kids that are clearly quite a bit older. I have about 10 or 15 girls, too, who I try not to play favorites with, but just adore. Several of them are among my best students, too. At my high school there are probably close to 200 students in 6eme altogether, and when you think about how there are only 13 in my Terminale (Seniors in high school) this year, it can be pretty discouraging...but it is hard to dwell on that in class when you ask a question and see 50 hands fly into the air, students literally climbing out of their seats they are so excited to answer your question. Here are some of the wonderful and hilarious things they say to (okay usually shout at) me:
1) "Exercise! Exercise!"
This was confusing to me in my first weeks of teaching, because at the same time as I would start my class, the other section of 6eme would be going out to play sports. "Exercise? Like you want to go run around?" It turns out that "exercise" is the word they have learned (or adopted from French?) for an activity that we do in class. For some reason, they LOVE to do fill in the blanks. One time to practice numbers in English I had them do math (one + one = ____) and the expressions on their faces were incredible. They were just delighted.
2) "Boxer Madame! He is boxer!"
Like "exercise", I am not sure where they learned this word, but it is what they say to me when someone hits someone else during class. Which happens pretty much every day. I have tried to teach them the verbs "to hit" or "to fight" but they will not catch on. When I hear a ruckus and ask "What is the problem?", every time it is "He is boxer!"
3) "Please Madame, I am very very quiet!"
This is what my kids like to tell me when they see me getting mad at them for making too much noise, or tell them I will only choose someone to write on the board who is quiet. I have tried to explain to them (in English and French) that if they are shouting at me that they are quiet, they are not in fact being quiet. It has not been understood. However, I have to give them points for trying, right?
So this is my 6eme class -- exhausting, overwhelming, enthusiastic and hilarious. Almost as often as they frustrate me, they make me laugh...and on top of that, I get to work with students who are so excited to learn. I can definitely remember being in a foreign language class when I was young and all of a sudden being able to fit a new piece of the language puzzle into my brain -- connecting it to my first language and seeing how it was delightfully both similar and different. I see those lights go off in my 6emes -- see kids so excited by the fact that they can express themselves in a new way -- and it becomes pretty easy to forget about the talkers and the boxers.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Teacher's Day
Last Tuesday (October 5th) was International Teacher's Day, and my first opportunity to celebrate a real Cameroonian fete. Not only was it my first fete in Cameroon, it was also a fete specifically for me. The day was every bit as hilarious and unpredictable as I had expected.
It began with a thunderstorm early in the morning, making it questionable if I would even be able to find someone to take me to Mora where the big party was, about 15km (half an hour on a moto) away. Motos tend to disappear almost magically when storm clouds roll in (especially when you are stranded somewhere you don't want to be), reappearing gradually and cautiously only several hours later. Around five in the morning when I got up it was still raining, but I decided not to worry until it got closer to the time I needed to leave. Which brought me to my next problem – when to leave. The Cameroonian concept of time is very different from the American concept, which is rigid and precise, based on clocks and watches and money (Cameroonians love to watch Americans get annoyed at tardiness, then say “Time ees money” and laugh hysterically), and so ingrained in us that we don't even realize how much we rely on it until we arrive somewhere that thinks about it differently...which I'm coming to believe is most places outside of America. In Cameroon things just happen...usually whenever people feel like showing up for them. When I asked my principal the day before what time things would start, he laughed at me and said “On ne sait pas” – literally “one does not know”. What a ridiculous question. When I asked him where it would be, he said, “I don't know...probably somewhere along the road.”
So, with no idea of where to go, when to be there, or how I would be getting there, I relaxed, had a cup of coffee, and then confronted my next problem. What to wear? As with most great fetes in Cameroon, there is a specific pagne (fabric) that everyone is required to buy and have made into an elaborate outfit, so we all match. On teacher's day, the school buys the pagne for all the teachers and distributes it. Naturally, I never received mine (apparently the discipline master tried to deliver it to my house over the weekend, but I was in Maroua...not that I can imagine having been able to get an outfit made with no tailor and about 48 hours notice anyway...). I kind of figured that this was a pretty normal thing to happen and there would probably be lots of people who didn't have the pagne, so I settled for one of my few shirts that isn't ridiculously stretched out from washing and a cleaner skirt.
Around ten o'clock, after many text messages sent back and forth between myself and the other two volunteers in the area (Claire in another village nearby and Liz in Mora), I had determined that now would be an appropriate time to leave and that the party would be taking place at the Place des Fetes (“Place of the Parties”...a logical venue). It had even stopped raining, although it was overcast and breezy and I was nervous to travel the 3km dirt road out of the village after a storm, as it tends to turn into a series of rivers, leaving your moto driver three options: 1) accelerate to plow through the water as quickly as possible, lifting feet high into the air to keep them out of the water and inevitably soaking the passenger; 2) crawl up to it, then crawl through it, fishtailing the entire way and teetering back and forth, giving the passenger enough time to think carefully about the chances that they will get schistosomiasis from falling into the river; and 3) the choice of most drivers – accelerate as fast as possible up to it, then jam on the breaks at the last second to fishtail slowly and terrifyingly through.
Nevertheless, I put my moto helmet under my arm, locked up my house, and set off across the market to find a moto. I have cultivated a very precise strategy for catching a moto – I stand in the middle of a public space, holding my moto helmet, until someone over the age of 15 pulls up on a moto and offers to take me where I want to go. Often it takes several tries, and I have to explain to many disappointed 12 year olds, “No, I will not go with you. You are too young.” The response is usually, “But you have a helmet! It will be fine!” Very comforting. Once you find a driver who looks as though he has at least hit puberty, the haggling begins. The real price to Mora is 1000 CFA (about two US dollars). Living in the village and often traveling back and forth to Mora, I refuse to pay more than this, as a matter of principle more than anything else. Like time, another thing Americans believe in is prices. Things should be one price, the price should be fair, it shouldn't change if you have more money or white skin. This particular principle is so ingrained in me that I will go so far as to waste precious American time rather than pay the extra 200 CFA (approximately 40 cents) that the driver is asking. I am an excellent haggler and can wait out even the most persistent local teenager trying to overcharge me, much to their surprise. I am getting better at remembering after these encounters that I am not actually angry...whereas when Americans get mad, they tend to stay mad (I am also an excellent grudge holder), Cameroonians will shout in each others' faces one minute and the next laugh and shake hands. I am trying to learn how to do this.
After getting a fair price I climbed on the back of a moto and spent the next half hour cruising through the Mandara mountain region of Cameroon. I used to be terrified of motos...but up here I love it. The scenery is outrageously beautiful – completely flat and then all of a sudden a series of mountains that look like giant rocks just happened to fall out of the sky in neat piles. You see all kinds of people – kids swimming in ponds, people working in fields, women carrying huge buckets on their heads...and then there's the breeze. The breeze is amazing.
I arrived at Place des Fetes around 10:30 and set about looking for my colleagues and the two other white people I expected to be there. Literally everyone was dressed in green or beige Teacher's Day pagne...except for some grands (important people) who were wearing elaborate robes and caps, a few women in elaborate ensembles and high heeled shoes...and me. I ran into some people from my school, then Liz, then finally Claire showed up. A lot of mingling ensued – the Place des Fetes was basically a giant crowd of several hundred teachers milling around in matching outfits in front of a podium where people took turns making muffled speeches. After many introductions were made (“Ah! These are your white sisters!”), many awkward pictures were taken, and many questions were asked about why I wasn't wearing Teacher's Day pagne, we asked permission of our principals to leave for a few minutes under the guise of dropping my bag off at Liz's house. “But the parade starts in 15 minutes! You will miss the parade!” Absolutely sure that we would not miss the parade (15 minutes in Cameroon can often last three hours), I set off with my white sisters, grateful for an excuse – however brief – to escape the endless confusion and awkward social encounters. I always struggle with events like this in the U.S. – I hate mingling and crowds and pomp. Somehow none of these things become more bearable 6500 miles away where everyone except me knows each other, is speaking the same language, and is dressed in the same outfit.
It was nice to have a chance to relax for a few minutes, speak some American English, and reflect on the hilariousness of our mornings up to this point. We dropped our stuff off and walked back to find much to our surprise that the parade actually was starting. It was news to me that not only was there to be a parade, but I was going to be in it. The staff of each school present was to walk two by two across the Place des Fetes, carrying signs and Cameroonian flags. The schools had begun lining up, and the three of us were swept in separate directions as we searched for our respective schools. Before parting, Claire handed me an extra piece of Teacher's Day pagne taken from her ensemble, and I hastily created a traditional Cameroonian wrap skirt. My colleagues applauded, and I prayed that it wouldn't fall right off as I paraded in front of the grands of Mora.
In addition to our rigid sense of time, another idea built forcefully into every American is the concept of the line. As children we line up to go into school, to go out for recess, to get on the bus or buy lunch. As adults we wait in line at stores and in cars on our way to work. As impatient as we might be while waiting, we believe firmly that what is fair and logical is for everyone to wait their turn. Cameroonians do not have this same idea...this was one of the most shocking things to a lot of us upon our arrival in country. Going up to buy lunch at the Peace Corps house, the American trainees waited patiently in line, shocked to see a mob of our Cameroonian trainers at the front, pushing their way through. The same thing occurred at bars, stores, bus stations...even the post office. In Cameroon you have to learn to push your way through, to jam your arm in just the right open space to call attention to yourself, then to angle your body precisely to block anyone else from ducking in front of you. Once you get over the American voice in your head shouting “how rude!”, it can be fun. It is certainly always a fascinating social spectacle, and the anthropologist in me tries to sort out the unspoken rules for who goes where and who gets service when.
Learning what I have about Cameroonian lines, I should have been more prepared for the complete pandemonium of several hundred Cameroonians trying to form a parade. I will let you imagine for yourselves. Finally, the dozen or so members of the staff of my high school assembled and I was thrust to the front, walking directly behind the principal...something I recognized as a sign of respect and pride...but which ended up feeling (and for what would not be the only time that day) more like an exhibition...”Hey! Check out our white person!” So there I was, at the front of a parade, wearing inappropriate clothing, having no idea where I was going, people taking my picture from all sides, and, naturally, marching out of step (“Why are they shouting 'gauche gauche gauche' oh shit left foot left foot...”). I cannot help but encourage the stereotype that white people have no rhythm. I try to explain this to Cameroonians as an excuse for my ridiculous dancing (and, now, marching), but they haven't heard it before and I usually end up coming off as even more ridiculous.
Finally all the schools have proceeded past the grands and the milling about and awkward picture taking resumes. The crowd begins to disperse, and after being told repeatedly by my principal that I was to go to the “Maison de Femme” at 1 o'clock...and after repeatedly asking “What woman's house?” then realizing that he was referring to the Women's Centre in Mora, I was able to depart with Liz and Claire to Mora's delightful bakery, where we drank cold sodas and ate delicious meatball sandwiches, then caught motos to the Maison de Femme, having no idea what we were supposed to do there.
We walked in and saw teachers sitting in lawn chairs in the courtyard...being teachers ourselves, we figured this was probably the correct thing to be doing, and sat down too. A short while later we were beckoned by an authoritative man into a reception room clearly for the grands. Our principals were in there, and a fancy table was set up in the front for the sous-prefet and other V.I.P.s. Special treatment makes me acutely uncomfortable, especially when it is completely undeserved, and so I sat there awkwardly with the other volunteers, drinking Fanta and feeling very out of place. Yes, I am American, but I am a teacher like the others outside. In fact, I am not like the other teachers outside – I am pretty sure that I am less qualified and have less experience than most of them. I am also less well-dressed. In short, I have no business sitting in this room with important people.
Well, apparently someone else thought so too, because after a couple short speeches from the V.I.P.s, when everyone got up for the special V.I.P. Buffet, another authoritative man came up to us and said “please, come with me,” and led us out of the V.I.P. reception hall, back to the normal person courtyard...and to the front of the normal people buffet line, forcing us to cut in front of all our hungry colleagues. They were not pleased, and the teacher behind me insisted on standing practically on top of me as we made our way down the line, then nearly shoved me out of the way to get at a piece of meat. Very professional.
Feeling more than a little bit annoyed, we tried to find some empty seats, but naturally they had all filled while we were sitting with the grands. Someone saw us looking confused and told us to take the seats of people in line. With no other choice, we did, but were now feeling pretty worn out and frustrated. We hadn't wanted to sit in the V.I.P. room in the first place, and after being made to sit there we were kicked out, forced to cut people in line and then steal their seats. It was at this point that I looked down and realized the Teacher's Day skirt I had hastily created before the parade that morning was, in fact, inside out. Awesome.
After eating and drinking and making more small talk (in English and French) with the teachers we were sitting with (“No we do not have Teacher's Day in America...yes I know that it is international, I do not know why we do not celebrate it...”), it finally seemed like an appropriate time to leave and as we walked back into town the frustration melted away and we began to laugh about the ridiculousness of our day...to the point where I was doubled over with laughter on the side of the road in my inside-out skirt. Thinking about how professional I must appear at this moment, I began laughing harder.
Back in town I caught a moto back to the village...and although the driver looked older and responsible, it turns out he had a death wish and cruised home at high speeds, playing chicken with bush taxis on the wrong side of the road, hitting potholes so hard I was temporarily airborne, forcing me to shout multiple times “Hey! Doucement! Ca c'est dangereux!” to which he would nod, smile, turn around and give me a thumbs up. To be fair, he was very friendly, and I did make it home in record time...Around 5pm I shooed the goats off my stoop and walked through the door into my compound, exhausted and relieved to be back at my quiet, beautiful house. I took my shoes off, sat down on my couch, and once again began to laugh...
It began with a thunderstorm early in the morning, making it questionable if I would even be able to find someone to take me to Mora where the big party was, about 15km (half an hour on a moto) away. Motos tend to disappear almost magically when storm clouds roll in (especially when you are stranded somewhere you don't want to be), reappearing gradually and cautiously only several hours later. Around five in the morning when I got up it was still raining, but I decided not to worry until it got closer to the time I needed to leave. Which brought me to my next problem – when to leave. The Cameroonian concept of time is very different from the American concept, which is rigid and precise, based on clocks and watches and money (Cameroonians love to watch Americans get annoyed at tardiness, then say “Time ees money” and laugh hysterically), and so ingrained in us that we don't even realize how much we rely on it until we arrive somewhere that thinks about it differently...which I'm coming to believe is most places outside of America. In Cameroon things just happen...usually whenever people feel like showing up for them. When I asked my principal the day before what time things would start, he laughed at me and said “On ne sait pas” – literally “one does not know”. What a ridiculous question. When I asked him where it would be, he said, “I don't know...probably somewhere along the road.”
So, with no idea of where to go, when to be there, or how I would be getting there, I relaxed, had a cup of coffee, and then confronted my next problem. What to wear? As with most great fetes in Cameroon, there is a specific pagne (fabric) that everyone is required to buy and have made into an elaborate outfit, so we all match. On teacher's day, the school buys the pagne for all the teachers and distributes it. Naturally, I never received mine (apparently the discipline master tried to deliver it to my house over the weekend, but I was in Maroua...not that I can imagine having been able to get an outfit made with no tailor and about 48 hours notice anyway...). I kind of figured that this was a pretty normal thing to happen and there would probably be lots of people who didn't have the pagne, so I settled for one of my few shirts that isn't ridiculously stretched out from washing and a cleaner skirt.
Around ten o'clock, after many text messages sent back and forth between myself and the other two volunteers in the area (Claire in another village nearby and Liz in Mora), I had determined that now would be an appropriate time to leave and that the party would be taking place at the Place des Fetes (“Place of the Parties”...a logical venue). It had even stopped raining, although it was overcast and breezy and I was nervous to travel the 3km dirt road out of the village after a storm, as it tends to turn into a series of rivers, leaving your moto driver three options: 1) accelerate to plow through the water as quickly as possible, lifting feet high into the air to keep them out of the water and inevitably soaking the passenger; 2) crawl up to it, then crawl through it, fishtailing the entire way and teetering back and forth, giving the passenger enough time to think carefully about the chances that they will get schistosomiasis from falling into the river; and 3) the choice of most drivers – accelerate as fast as possible up to it, then jam on the breaks at the last second to fishtail slowly and terrifyingly through.
Nevertheless, I put my moto helmet under my arm, locked up my house, and set off across the market to find a moto. I have cultivated a very precise strategy for catching a moto – I stand in the middle of a public space, holding my moto helmet, until someone over the age of 15 pulls up on a moto and offers to take me where I want to go. Often it takes several tries, and I have to explain to many disappointed 12 year olds, “No, I will not go with you. You are too young.” The response is usually, “But you have a helmet! It will be fine!” Very comforting. Once you find a driver who looks as though he has at least hit puberty, the haggling begins. The real price to Mora is 1000 CFA (about two US dollars). Living in the village and often traveling back and forth to Mora, I refuse to pay more than this, as a matter of principle more than anything else. Like time, another thing Americans believe in is prices. Things should be one price, the price should be fair, it shouldn't change if you have more money or white skin. This particular principle is so ingrained in me that I will go so far as to waste precious American time rather than pay the extra 200 CFA (approximately 40 cents) that the driver is asking. I am an excellent haggler and can wait out even the most persistent local teenager trying to overcharge me, much to their surprise. I am getting better at remembering after these encounters that I am not actually angry...whereas when Americans get mad, they tend to stay mad (I am also an excellent grudge holder), Cameroonians will shout in each others' faces one minute and the next laugh and shake hands. I am trying to learn how to do this.
After getting a fair price I climbed on the back of a moto and spent the next half hour cruising through the Mandara mountain region of Cameroon. I used to be terrified of motos...but up here I love it. The scenery is outrageously beautiful – completely flat and then all of a sudden a series of mountains that look like giant rocks just happened to fall out of the sky in neat piles. You see all kinds of people – kids swimming in ponds, people working in fields, women carrying huge buckets on their heads...and then there's the breeze. The breeze is amazing.
I arrived at Place des Fetes around 10:30 and set about looking for my colleagues and the two other white people I expected to be there. Literally everyone was dressed in green or beige Teacher's Day pagne...except for some grands (important people) who were wearing elaborate robes and caps, a few women in elaborate ensembles and high heeled shoes...and me. I ran into some people from my school, then Liz, then finally Claire showed up. A lot of mingling ensued – the Place des Fetes was basically a giant crowd of several hundred teachers milling around in matching outfits in front of a podium where people took turns making muffled speeches. After many introductions were made (“Ah! These are your white sisters!”), many awkward pictures were taken, and many questions were asked about why I wasn't wearing Teacher's Day pagne, we asked permission of our principals to leave for a few minutes under the guise of dropping my bag off at Liz's house. “But the parade starts in 15 minutes! You will miss the parade!” Absolutely sure that we would not miss the parade (15 minutes in Cameroon can often last three hours), I set off with my white sisters, grateful for an excuse – however brief – to escape the endless confusion and awkward social encounters. I always struggle with events like this in the U.S. – I hate mingling and crowds and pomp. Somehow none of these things become more bearable 6500 miles away where everyone except me knows each other, is speaking the same language, and is dressed in the same outfit.
It was nice to have a chance to relax for a few minutes, speak some American English, and reflect on the hilariousness of our mornings up to this point. We dropped our stuff off and walked back to find much to our surprise that the parade actually was starting. It was news to me that not only was there to be a parade, but I was going to be in it. The staff of each school present was to walk two by two across the Place des Fetes, carrying signs and Cameroonian flags. The schools had begun lining up, and the three of us were swept in separate directions as we searched for our respective schools. Before parting, Claire handed me an extra piece of Teacher's Day pagne taken from her ensemble, and I hastily created a traditional Cameroonian wrap skirt. My colleagues applauded, and I prayed that it wouldn't fall right off as I paraded in front of the grands of Mora.
In addition to our rigid sense of time, another idea built forcefully into every American is the concept of the line. As children we line up to go into school, to go out for recess, to get on the bus or buy lunch. As adults we wait in line at stores and in cars on our way to work. As impatient as we might be while waiting, we believe firmly that what is fair and logical is for everyone to wait their turn. Cameroonians do not have this same idea...this was one of the most shocking things to a lot of us upon our arrival in country. Going up to buy lunch at the Peace Corps house, the American trainees waited patiently in line, shocked to see a mob of our Cameroonian trainers at the front, pushing their way through. The same thing occurred at bars, stores, bus stations...even the post office. In Cameroon you have to learn to push your way through, to jam your arm in just the right open space to call attention to yourself, then to angle your body precisely to block anyone else from ducking in front of you. Once you get over the American voice in your head shouting “how rude!”, it can be fun. It is certainly always a fascinating social spectacle, and the anthropologist in me tries to sort out the unspoken rules for who goes where and who gets service when.
Learning what I have about Cameroonian lines, I should have been more prepared for the complete pandemonium of several hundred Cameroonians trying to form a parade. I will let you imagine for yourselves. Finally, the dozen or so members of the staff of my high school assembled and I was thrust to the front, walking directly behind the principal...something I recognized as a sign of respect and pride...but which ended up feeling (and for what would not be the only time that day) more like an exhibition...”Hey! Check out our white person!” So there I was, at the front of a parade, wearing inappropriate clothing, having no idea where I was going, people taking my picture from all sides, and, naturally, marching out of step (“Why are they shouting 'gauche gauche gauche' oh shit left foot left foot...”). I cannot help but encourage the stereotype that white people have no rhythm. I try to explain this to Cameroonians as an excuse for my ridiculous dancing (and, now, marching), but they haven't heard it before and I usually end up coming off as even more ridiculous.
Finally all the schools have proceeded past the grands and the milling about and awkward picture taking resumes. The crowd begins to disperse, and after being told repeatedly by my principal that I was to go to the “Maison de Femme” at 1 o'clock...and after repeatedly asking “What woman's house?” then realizing that he was referring to the Women's Centre in Mora, I was able to depart with Liz and Claire to Mora's delightful bakery, where we drank cold sodas and ate delicious meatball sandwiches, then caught motos to the Maison de Femme, having no idea what we were supposed to do there.
We walked in and saw teachers sitting in lawn chairs in the courtyard...being teachers ourselves, we figured this was probably the correct thing to be doing, and sat down too. A short while later we were beckoned by an authoritative man into a reception room clearly for the grands. Our principals were in there, and a fancy table was set up in the front for the sous-prefet and other V.I.P.s. Special treatment makes me acutely uncomfortable, especially when it is completely undeserved, and so I sat there awkwardly with the other volunteers, drinking Fanta and feeling very out of place. Yes, I am American, but I am a teacher like the others outside. In fact, I am not like the other teachers outside – I am pretty sure that I am less qualified and have less experience than most of them. I am also less well-dressed. In short, I have no business sitting in this room with important people.
Well, apparently someone else thought so too, because after a couple short speeches from the V.I.P.s, when everyone got up for the special V.I.P. Buffet, another authoritative man came up to us and said “please, come with me,” and led us out of the V.I.P. reception hall, back to the normal person courtyard...and to the front of the normal people buffet line, forcing us to cut in front of all our hungry colleagues. They were not pleased, and the teacher behind me insisted on standing practically on top of me as we made our way down the line, then nearly shoved me out of the way to get at a piece of meat. Very professional.
Feeling more than a little bit annoyed, we tried to find some empty seats, but naturally they had all filled while we were sitting with the grands. Someone saw us looking confused and told us to take the seats of people in line. With no other choice, we did, but were now feeling pretty worn out and frustrated. We hadn't wanted to sit in the V.I.P. room in the first place, and after being made to sit there we were kicked out, forced to cut people in line and then steal their seats. It was at this point that I looked down and realized the Teacher's Day skirt I had hastily created before the parade that morning was, in fact, inside out. Awesome.
After eating and drinking and making more small talk (in English and French) with the teachers we were sitting with (“No we do not have Teacher's Day in America...yes I know that it is international, I do not know why we do not celebrate it...”), it finally seemed like an appropriate time to leave and as we walked back into town the frustration melted away and we began to laugh about the ridiculousness of our day...to the point where I was doubled over with laughter on the side of the road in my inside-out skirt. Thinking about how professional I must appear at this moment, I began laughing harder.
Back in town I caught a moto back to the village...and although the driver looked older and responsible, it turns out he had a death wish and cruised home at high speeds, playing chicken with bush taxis on the wrong side of the road, hitting potholes so hard I was temporarily airborne, forcing me to shout multiple times “Hey! Doucement! Ca c'est dangereux!” to which he would nod, smile, turn around and give me a thumbs up. To be fair, he was very friendly, and I did make it home in record time...Around 5pm I shooed the goats off my stoop and walked through the door into my compound, exhausted and relieved to be back at my quiet, beautiful house. I took my shoes off, sat down on my couch, and once again began to laugh...
Sunday, September 19, 2010
On est ensemble
So we are now two full weeks in to the school year. I had a big plan to write a couple more posts before now and then upload them all when I got to Maroua...but then, naturally, the power went out in Meme last Thursday and has not come back...so my computer battery was dead for the last week and a half, until I got here this weekend and could finally use some electricity. It's not as bad as you would think, not having power – I put my head lamp on at like 6pm, cook dinner, read books (I've been reading like several hundred pages a day...), and am usually in bed by 8. Not too bad...for like a night or two. But it does get old. And it sucks not having my computer to watch movies and listen to music.
School has been going really well so far...my kids are great – smart, interesting, REALLY want to be there. I say “kids” but in reality the majority of my students are taller than me, and many of them are older. So instead of hanging out with a bunch of 15 year old kids, I'm really standing up in front of 30 or so men in their early twenties, trying to get them to read out loud and conjugate verbs in the past perfect. It's pretty funny.
My colleagues are really great. I'm the only woman on staff, and I feel more than a little out of place in our staff meetings (which are over three hours long and in French, by the way) as I look around the room and realize I am not just the only woman, but the only white person, and the only person who isn't a native speaker of French. It's difficult to figure out how to be professional and make friends with your co-workers when you just feel like the weirdest person on the planet. It also doesn't help when we all go around the room to introduce ourselves, and in addition to saying their names and what subjects they teach, twelve of the fourteen men I work with noted that they were “single...and looking.” Everybody has been so nice to me so far, and completely professional, but nevertheless it feels like a bit of a complicated social scene to negotiate.
People are really looking out for me though – on the first day of school my principal made a big speech to the entire school (which was actually only about 40 of our 600 students...it rained that morning, and it was Ramadan, and it actually takes a couple weeks for word to get round that school has actually started), during which he talked about school rules, cholera prevention, etc. etc...then stopped and said “Look behind me. You will see a white person. She is Miss Rose. She is from America. That is 12,000 kilometers away. She is here to teach you. She does not get paid. If you are mean to her she will go back to America.” He then told them that the first student who was mean to me would be expelled. That's support, right?
But discipline hasn't really been a big issue yet...the students are SO well-behaved, and I think it has to do with either a) not very many kids get to go to school up here, so if you have the opportunity, you REALLY want to be there; or b) it is just too hot up here to do anything but sit quietly. Either way, it's great to work with kids who listen, do their work, and are interested in what you're saying...although I'm not sure if this reflects an actual interest in learning English, or if kids are just coming to my class to see what ridiculous thing the white person will do next.
Things have been going really well in the village too...getting into a routine, getting to know some people, picking up Mandara little by little...I feel like my village is such a wonderful place, and such an amazing place to be a Peace Corps volunteer – people are so friendly, so welcoming, so helpful. Pretty much every day as I walk to school or go to the market, people (sometimes I know them, sometimes not) come up to me just to say “bonne arrivee” and tell me how glad they are that I am here. There is a wonderful expression here that people say – “on est ensemble” – “we are together”. People said this during training, and people say it to me a lot in the village. It's a way of saying welcome, and even though we are so incredibly different from each other, our minds and our hearts are in the same place. It is really nice to hear...especially when you spend so much time feeling so different and so out of place.
I've started going for runs in the morning...I didn't know if this was okay, but then decided that it would probably fall under the category of “weird things white people do that are silly” rather than “weird things white people do that are offensive”. And it's true – everybody stares...but everybody stares at me all the time anyways. Lots of people call out to greet me, or say things like “Ah! Tu fais les sports? C'est bon!” Often they even applaud – this is my favorite. In Cameroon, you do not say you are going running...you say you are “doing the sports”. This expression confused me for several weeks, as my host dad would come in in the morning, greet me, and tell me he had been “doing the sports.” Trying to make conversation, I would say “Oh, doing what sports?” and he would look at me for a minute like I was crazy, and then say, “THE sports.” Duh.
My Mandara is improving slowly but gradually...earlier this week I got home from class and my neighbors came over to bring me water (there's a pump nearby, and I pay them to fill up big jugs and bring them to my house, as they have a wheelbarrow and I am not strong enough to carry them by myself) and we hung out in my yard, pointing at things and saying what they are in different languages (Mandara, French, Fulfulde, English...). This is how we spend our time together...but I realized that afternoon that it had gotten easier. We were finding more words in common, I was recognizing some of the words they said, and found myself able even to start responding a bit in Mandara (“dyenka” – “I do not understand” – is usually the extent of my ability to respond, but still...it's a start). I also realized that hanging out with them has become easier...not because I magically learned how to speak Mandara, but just because somehow we've gotten to know each other and gotten comfortable around each other, even though we can't really have a conversation. Somehow we have figured out how to talk to each other, even though most of the time neither of us understands the words the other one is saying. I didn't know this could happen...but am feeling pretty encouraged!
Headed back to post today, keeping my fingers crossed the electricity is back. Anyways, I am healthy and happy and maybe possibly even starting to figure things out here. Miss you all, and thanks as always for all the e-mails, texts, and letters. It is always so good to hear from home.
School has been going really well so far...my kids are great – smart, interesting, REALLY want to be there. I say “kids” but in reality the majority of my students are taller than me, and many of them are older. So instead of hanging out with a bunch of 15 year old kids, I'm really standing up in front of 30 or so men in their early twenties, trying to get them to read out loud and conjugate verbs in the past perfect. It's pretty funny.
My colleagues are really great. I'm the only woman on staff, and I feel more than a little out of place in our staff meetings (which are over three hours long and in French, by the way) as I look around the room and realize I am not just the only woman, but the only white person, and the only person who isn't a native speaker of French. It's difficult to figure out how to be professional and make friends with your co-workers when you just feel like the weirdest person on the planet. It also doesn't help when we all go around the room to introduce ourselves, and in addition to saying their names and what subjects they teach, twelve of the fourteen men I work with noted that they were “single...and looking.” Everybody has been so nice to me so far, and completely professional, but nevertheless it feels like a bit of a complicated social scene to negotiate.
People are really looking out for me though – on the first day of school my principal made a big speech to the entire school (which was actually only about 40 of our 600 students...it rained that morning, and it was Ramadan, and it actually takes a couple weeks for word to get round that school has actually started), during which he talked about school rules, cholera prevention, etc. etc...then stopped and said “Look behind me. You will see a white person. She is Miss Rose. She is from America. That is 12,000 kilometers away. She is here to teach you. She does not get paid. If you are mean to her she will go back to America.” He then told them that the first student who was mean to me would be expelled. That's support, right?
But discipline hasn't really been a big issue yet...the students are SO well-behaved, and I think it has to do with either a) not very many kids get to go to school up here, so if you have the opportunity, you REALLY want to be there; or b) it is just too hot up here to do anything but sit quietly. Either way, it's great to work with kids who listen, do their work, and are interested in what you're saying...although I'm not sure if this reflects an actual interest in learning English, or if kids are just coming to my class to see what ridiculous thing the white person will do next.
Things have been going really well in the village too...getting into a routine, getting to know some people, picking up Mandara little by little...I feel like my village is such a wonderful place, and such an amazing place to be a Peace Corps volunteer – people are so friendly, so welcoming, so helpful. Pretty much every day as I walk to school or go to the market, people (sometimes I know them, sometimes not) come up to me just to say “bonne arrivee” and tell me how glad they are that I am here. There is a wonderful expression here that people say – “on est ensemble” – “we are together”. People said this during training, and people say it to me a lot in the village. It's a way of saying welcome, and even though we are so incredibly different from each other, our minds and our hearts are in the same place. It is really nice to hear...especially when you spend so much time feeling so different and so out of place.
I've started going for runs in the morning...I didn't know if this was okay, but then decided that it would probably fall under the category of “weird things white people do that are silly” rather than “weird things white people do that are offensive”. And it's true – everybody stares...but everybody stares at me all the time anyways. Lots of people call out to greet me, or say things like “Ah! Tu fais les sports? C'est bon!” Often they even applaud – this is my favorite. In Cameroon, you do not say you are going running...you say you are “doing the sports”. This expression confused me for several weeks, as my host dad would come in in the morning, greet me, and tell me he had been “doing the sports.” Trying to make conversation, I would say “Oh, doing what sports?” and he would look at me for a minute like I was crazy, and then say, “THE sports.” Duh.
My Mandara is improving slowly but gradually...earlier this week I got home from class and my neighbors came over to bring me water (there's a pump nearby, and I pay them to fill up big jugs and bring them to my house, as they have a wheelbarrow and I am not strong enough to carry them by myself) and we hung out in my yard, pointing at things and saying what they are in different languages (Mandara, French, Fulfulde, English...). This is how we spend our time together...but I realized that afternoon that it had gotten easier. We were finding more words in common, I was recognizing some of the words they said, and found myself able even to start responding a bit in Mandara (“dyenka” – “I do not understand” – is usually the extent of my ability to respond, but still...it's a start). I also realized that hanging out with them has become easier...not because I magically learned how to speak Mandara, but just because somehow we've gotten to know each other and gotten comfortable around each other, even though we can't really have a conversation. Somehow we have figured out how to talk to each other, even though most of the time neither of us understands the words the other one is saying. I didn't know this could happen...but am feeling pretty encouraged!
Headed back to post today, keeping my fingers crossed the electricity is back. Anyways, I am healthy and happy and maybe possibly even starting to figure things out here. Miss you all, and thanks as always for all the e-mails, texts, and letters. It is always so good to hear from home.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Kar balaye?
For the record – today is September 5th, 2010. I will only have internet access maybe once a month when I go to the city, so I am trying to blog multiple times and will post them all at the same time when I have internet.
As of yesterday I have officially been in country for three months...and as of tomorrow I will have been at post for two weeks. I have spent most of my time in village setting up my house, figuring out how to feed myself, planning lessons, meeting people, collecting rain in buckets, and attempting to learn Mandara. I have also read over a thousand pages and watched an entire season of the Office. I am usually in bed by eight (especially when the power goes out, which happens pretty regularly when it rains, and it's been raining almost every day), which means I am usually up by four or five. I am loving living alone, and my house is wonderful, even though I get the occasional cockroach and my yard is full of lizards (I counted six at one time, just in my latrine...) during the day, and full of bats at night. You know how it takes awhile to get used to the sounds a house makes the first few weeks after you start living there (Kyle and I thought someone was breaking into our apartment pretty much every night our first couple weeks in LA)? Imagine lying in bed alone in your house in Africa, in total darkness because the power is out, with lizards running across your ceiling (my house has a tin roof, but underneath that is a wood ceiling, and they like to hang out in the space between) and bats flying past your window screeching. I have found that a lot of Peace Corps is choosing your battles, particularly when it comes to being afraid or disgusted. I can CHOOSE to lie in bed awake and terrified, listening to all these weird noises and imagining them to be something horrifying...or I can choose to believe that they are lizards and bats (which they usually are), choose not to be afraid of them, and go back to sleep. Usually I am capable of this.
My village is really wonderful – small, “traditional” (a PC term that I will someday unpack...here it means that most people don't speak French and haven't gone to school, live in large family compounds (multiple wives for a husband; flocks of children, chickens, and goats running around), sit on mats on the floor, wear boubous and pagne exclusively (no Western-style clothes, like in the South and bigger cities), etc.) and quiet...although also very friendly. I am in a funny position of knowing only a handful of people, but having EVERYONE know me...Last week I was at my village's market, standing next to my friend Claire (a PC volunteer in a nearby village; she is also white, but that is pretty much the extent of how similar we look) and a man I didn't recognize came up to us and said “Rose! Rose! Which one of you is Rose?” and I said “Oh, it's me.” And he shook my hand, then stopped and said “What? You don't remember me?” This happens a lot. Also, while most people here are very welcoming and seem genuinely glad to see me, I seem to have a bit of a terrifying effect on children under the age of two, who have never seen a white person before. On multiple occasions when I have stopped to say hello to people, their toddlers look up at me, their eyes get huge, and then they begin to scream in terror, burst into tears and run in the opposite direction. Their parents think this is HILARIOUS.
I have been making friends with the neighbor kids across the street...they call me alternately “Hose” and “Ross”, and are tirelessly (and so far somewhat fruitlessly) trying to teach me Mandara. They know only a few words of French and a few of Fulfulde...and I know approximately three words in Mandara, so it is quite a battle. They are very patient, though, and we make lots of hand gestures and laugh. I am pretty pumped about learning Mandara, and am in the process of finding someone (preferably over the age of 12...who also speaks French) who can give me more formal lessons. It is an Afro-Asiatic language with maybe 40,000 speakers in northern Cameroon and southern Nigeria, and a pretty exciting consonant inventory – this morning my neighbor taught me a word with a voiced implosive bilabial stop. Yeah. You're jealous. Those things are RARE. It also has tones, like Chinese, although only three of them. I have never learned a tonal language before and am pretty intimidated...but am going to take things one at a time. Also, just for the record, although my Bachelor's in linguistics is very useful here, it did not make me such a master linguist that I was able to independently document the entire phonetic inventory of Mandara (pharyngeals, bilabial implosives and all), recognize three separate tones, identify the language family, calculate the number of speakers, etc. etc. in my first two weeks here – no, my wonderful father found me a really nice overview of the language (created by a linguist from Kyoto in the late 1960's, I believe – can't find the full citation right now), and so I've been using that as a baseline to process what I hear from my neighbors. I always feel successful when I go back to the word list and find that I have accurately elicited and transcribed a word in the same way.
School starts tomorrow, so naturally instead of planning my lessons I have decided to spend my evening writing a rambling blog post about my village, the Mandara language, and now the Cameroonian educational system. So you understand what I am talking about when I talk about my classes, here is a basic overview of how a Cameroonian high school (lycee) works...at least in the Francophone regions (Anglophone has an entirely separate system, that I will not get into right now...):
The grades:
Sixieme (6th)
Cinquieme (5th)
Quatrieme (4th)
Troisieme (3rd)
Seconde (2nd)
Premiere (1st)
Terminale (Last)
Grades are opposite the American system, so the 6th graders (sixiemes) are the youngest, while the terminales are the oldest. 6eme is the equivalent of 6th grade in America, with terminale being about the equivalent to senior year of high school. There tends to be a very wide range of ages in each class, so you might have 10 year olds in sixieme sharing a desk with 14 year olds...terminale can range from 16 to 25. There is a HUGE shortage of teachers in Cameroon, so class sizes tend to be very large (100 or more students in a class), although decreasing in size in the older years as more and more kids drop out. The Cameroonian educational system is all exam-based, with large national exams (kind of like those standardized state exams we would have to take every few years in public school, except that they determine your future) at the end of 3eme, 1ere, and Terminale. The national exams cover every subject you study in school and are VERY difficult. If you do not pass, you do not move on to the next grade or graduate. This causes the classroom to be very exam-driven, with a lot of focus on copying and memorization, and not much at all on critical thinking. So while to graduate high school kids will have had at least seven years of English classes and successfully passed an exam, they may be completely unable to hold an actual conversation in the language.
I will be teaching sixieme, seconde, premiere, and terminale. Five hours a week of sixieme, then three hours each of the others. This means that tomorrow I will be alone in a room with over a hundred 10-14 year olds who speak no English. This also means that half of my classes (premiere and terminale) are exam years, and if I do not do my job well, they will not pass their exams, and will not move on or graduate high school. No pressure or anything.
Anyways, I am trying to take things one day at a time (my general Peace Corps philosophy), and come into class prepared and enthusiastic...and ready to work my pants off. I am very excited and very nervous. Also, my principal (I would like to preface this by saying that he is REALLY excellent, and I am super excited to work with him) told me yesterday that he was still working on the timetable (schedule of when I teach what class) but would bring it to my house today...It is now five o'clock and I am starting to think he is not coming. So on top of everything else, I do not know which classes I am teaching tomorrow, or when I am teaching them. This is something that would have driven me CRAZY in the U.S., but which doesn't faze me here.
This is one of the big differences I have noticed in myself here – my friends are shocked when I tell them that in the U.S., I am the person who is ALWAYS prepared, who ALWAYS has the things she needs, knows what needs to happen, how to do it, and when to be there. Here, I jump on a moto one morning to do some curriculum planning with the other TEFL volunteers...I show up at my friend Liz's house. She asks:
“Did you bring your computer?”
“...no.”
“Your USB drive?”
“...no.”
“Textbooks?”
“...no.”
“Do you even know what grades you are teaching yet?”
“Hmm...no.”
And somehow I am not worried. And somehow it all works out anyway. This total lack of preparedness has been balanced out, however, by another surprising attribute – where at home, I would get lost driving around my hometown, couldn't read a map, etc., here I am an expert navigator, and somehow always seem to end up in front of the line, leading the way to the market, to downtown, to someone's house...often through cornfields and down tiny dirt paths. There are no street names and no maps, and I have to rely exclusively on my sense of direction...and somehow I always get us there. Often I even find a shortcut. Do you believe it?
Anyways, despite the fact that I don't know what classes I am teaching tomorrow, or what time they start, I should probably do some work tonight...especially seeing as I spent most of yesterday drawing elaborate charts for my classes in different colored pens, rather than planning actual lessons. And in about 14 hours, I will be standing in front of 100 children, speaking French (yeah...first day will be in French). Yup. I should probably get to work. Hope you all are well! Much love!
As of yesterday I have officially been in country for three months...and as of tomorrow I will have been at post for two weeks. I have spent most of my time in village setting up my house, figuring out how to feed myself, planning lessons, meeting people, collecting rain in buckets, and attempting to learn Mandara. I have also read over a thousand pages and watched an entire season of the Office. I am usually in bed by eight (especially when the power goes out, which happens pretty regularly when it rains, and it's been raining almost every day), which means I am usually up by four or five. I am loving living alone, and my house is wonderful, even though I get the occasional cockroach and my yard is full of lizards (I counted six at one time, just in my latrine...) during the day, and full of bats at night. You know how it takes awhile to get used to the sounds a house makes the first few weeks after you start living there (Kyle and I thought someone was breaking into our apartment pretty much every night our first couple weeks in LA)? Imagine lying in bed alone in your house in Africa, in total darkness because the power is out, with lizards running across your ceiling (my house has a tin roof, but underneath that is a wood ceiling, and they like to hang out in the space between) and bats flying past your window screeching. I have found that a lot of Peace Corps is choosing your battles, particularly when it comes to being afraid or disgusted. I can CHOOSE to lie in bed awake and terrified, listening to all these weird noises and imagining them to be something horrifying...or I can choose to believe that they are lizards and bats (which they usually are), choose not to be afraid of them, and go back to sleep. Usually I am capable of this.
My village is really wonderful – small, “traditional” (a PC term that I will someday unpack...here it means that most people don't speak French and haven't gone to school, live in large family compounds (multiple wives for a husband; flocks of children, chickens, and goats running around), sit on mats on the floor, wear boubous and pagne exclusively (no Western-style clothes, like in the South and bigger cities), etc.) and quiet...although also very friendly. I am in a funny position of knowing only a handful of people, but having EVERYONE know me...Last week I was at my village's market, standing next to my friend Claire (a PC volunteer in a nearby village; she is also white, but that is pretty much the extent of how similar we look) and a man I didn't recognize came up to us and said “Rose! Rose! Which one of you is Rose?” and I said “Oh, it's me.” And he shook my hand, then stopped and said “What? You don't remember me?” This happens a lot. Also, while most people here are very welcoming and seem genuinely glad to see me, I seem to have a bit of a terrifying effect on children under the age of two, who have never seen a white person before. On multiple occasions when I have stopped to say hello to people, their toddlers look up at me, their eyes get huge, and then they begin to scream in terror, burst into tears and run in the opposite direction. Their parents think this is HILARIOUS.
I have been making friends with the neighbor kids across the street...they call me alternately “Hose” and “Ross”, and are tirelessly (and so far somewhat fruitlessly) trying to teach me Mandara. They know only a few words of French and a few of Fulfulde...and I know approximately three words in Mandara, so it is quite a battle. They are very patient, though, and we make lots of hand gestures and laugh. I am pretty pumped about learning Mandara, and am in the process of finding someone (preferably over the age of 12...who also speaks French) who can give me more formal lessons. It is an Afro-Asiatic language with maybe 40,000 speakers in northern Cameroon and southern Nigeria, and a pretty exciting consonant inventory – this morning my neighbor taught me a word with a voiced implosive bilabial stop. Yeah. You're jealous. Those things are RARE. It also has tones, like Chinese, although only three of them. I have never learned a tonal language before and am pretty intimidated...but am going to take things one at a time. Also, just for the record, although my Bachelor's in linguistics is very useful here, it did not make me such a master linguist that I was able to independently document the entire phonetic inventory of Mandara (pharyngeals, bilabial implosives and all), recognize three separate tones, identify the language family, calculate the number of speakers, etc. etc. in my first two weeks here – no, my wonderful father found me a really nice overview of the language (created by a linguist from Kyoto in the late 1960's, I believe – can't find the full citation right now), and so I've been using that as a baseline to process what I hear from my neighbors. I always feel successful when I go back to the word list and find that I have accurately elicited and transcribed a word in the same way.
School starts tomorrow, so naturally instead of planning my lessons I have decided to spend my evening writing a rambling blog post about my village, the Mandara language, and now the Cameroonian educational system. So you understand what I am talking about when I talk about my classes, here is a basic overview of how a Cameroonian high school (lycee) works...at least in the Francophone regions (Anglophone has an entirely separate system, that I will not get into right now...):
The grades:
Sixieme (6th)
Cinquieme (5th)
Quatrieme (4th)
Troisieme (3rd)
Seconde (2nd)
Premiere (1st)
Terminale (Last)
Grades are opposite the American system, so the 6th graders (sixiemes) are the youngest, while the terminales are the oldest. 6eme is the equivalent of 6th grade in America, with terminale being about the equivalent to senior year of high school. There tends to be a very wide range of ages in each class, so you might have 10 year olds in sixieme sharing a desk with 14 year olds...terminale can range from 16 to 25. There is a HUGE shortage of teachers in Cameroon, so class sizes tend to be very large (100 or more students in a class), although decreasing in size in the older years as more and more kids drop out. The Cameroonian educational system is all exam-based, with large national exams (kind of like those standardized state exams we would have to take every few years in public school, except that they determine your future) at the end of 3eme, 1ere, and Terminale. The national exams cover every subject you study in school and are VERY difficult. If you do not pass, you do not move on to the next grade or graduate. This causes the classroom to be very exam-driven, with a lot of focus on copying and memorization, and not much at all on critical thinking. So while to graduate high school kids will have had at least seven years of English classes and successfully passed an exam, they may be completely unable to hold an actual conversation in the language.
I will be teaching sixieme, seconde, premiere, and terminale. Five hours a week of sixieme, then three hours each of the others. This means that tomorrow I will be alone in a room with over a hundred 10-14 year olds who speak no English. This also means that half of my classes (premiere and terminale) are exam years, and if I do not do my job well, they will not pass their exams, and will not move on or graduate high school. No pressure or anything.
Anyways, I am trying to take things one day at a time (my general Peace Corps philosophy), and come into class prepared and enthusiastic...and ready to work my pants off. I am very excited and very nervous. Also, my principal (I would like to preface this by saying that he is REALLY excellent, and I am super excited to work with him) told me yesterday that he was still working on the timetable (schedule of when I teach what class) but would bring it to my house today...It is now five o'clock and I am starting to think he is not coming. So on top of everything else, I do not know which classes I am teaching tomorrow, or when I am teaching them. This is something that would have driven me CRAZY in the U.S., but which doesn't faze me here.
This is one of the big differences I have noticed in myself here – my friends are shocked when I tell them that in the U.S., I am the person who is ALWAYS prepared, who ALWAYS has the things she needs, knows what needs to happen, how to do it, and when to be there. Here, I jump on a moto one morning to do some curriculum planning with the other TEFL volunteers...I show up at my friend Liz's house. She asks:
“Did you bring your computer?”
“...no.”
“Your USB drive?”
“...no.”
“Textbooks?”
“...no.”
“Do you even know what grades you are teaching yet?”
“Hmm...no.”
And somehow I am not worried. And somehow it all works out anyway. This total lack of preparedness has been balanced out, however, by another surprising attribute – where at home, I would get lost driving around my hometown, couldn't read a map, etc., here I am an expert navigator, and somehow always seem to end up in front of the line, leading the way to the market, to downtown, to someone's house...often through cornfields and down tiny dirt paths. There are no street names and no maps, and I have to rely exclusively on my sense of direction...and somehow I always get us there. Often I even find a shortcut. Do you believe it?
Anyways, despite the fact that I don't know what classes I am teaching tomorrow, or what time they start, I should probably do some work tonight...especially seeing as I spent most of yesterday drawing elaborate charts for my classes in different colored pens, rather than planning actual lessons. And in about 14 hours, I will be standing in front of 100 children, speaking French (yeah...first day will be in French). Yup. I should probably get to work. Hope you all are well! Much love!
Sunday, August 29, 2010
First impressions
Well, as of last Wednesday I am officially a Peace Corps volunteer. Left our training site Thursday morning, made it to Maroua last Saturday, then finally to post on Monday. Also have a new address...and you should probably send things to it:
Rose Edmonds
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 131
Maroua, Cameroon
My village is really wonderful -- about 7000 people, all of whom (well at least the ones that I have met) have been really friendly and welcoming...despite the fact that I do not speak Mandara or Fulfulde, and they do not speak French. My interactions with my neighbors take place pretty much entirely through smiling and hand gestures.
My house is also small but wonderful...the volunteer I am replacing left me a lot of furniture (couch, bed, bookcase, tables) and other household necessities (pots, pans, sheets, etc.) so that was a big relief. My compound is full of lizards during the day (big ones too -- like probably a foot long) and bats at night, but I have only had a couple of cockroach encounters, so I'm feeling pretty good about the whole pest situation. There is apparently a shortage of gas bottles in the Extreme North -- plenty of gas for cooking, but no extra bottles to put the gas in -- so my first couple of dinners at post involved me cooking ramen over a candle. It worked better than you might think. Then the principal of my school (who is really excellent) lent me an extra of his, so I have actually been able to cook myself real food...okay, I would have been able to cook myself real food, if I had had any. Mostly I eat a lot of beans. It's pretty okay.
My life continues to be very weird and surprising, and often also very fun. I spend a lot of time riding around on motos, catching rain in buckets to wash my dishes, and answering the incessant knocking on my door...which nine times out of ten turns out to be several small children from the neighborhood who shout "Bonjour!" at me (quite possibly the only French word they know), push their way into my yard, and then proceed to stand there and stare at me for several minutes. I think the novelty will eventually wear off.
School starts on the 6th, and as of right now I am still the only English teacher at my high school. Somehow I have managed to be at post for almost a week and accomplished nothing practical relating to my job, so I have no idea what grades I am teaching, how many hours, what my responsibilities are, etc...something to look into this week I guess.
I spent the weekend in Maroua picking up supplies and catching up with the other new PCVs, but am headed back to the village this afternoon. No internet there...or anywhere near there, so it's pretty likely that it could take me a couple...or a few weeks to answer e-mails. But I do have a phone, and you can call and text me on it through Skype, and I would really love to hear from you all...so if you do not know how to do that, you should probably talk to my parents or Kyle, who all have my phone number and know how it works to call me. Really -- I would love to hear from you.
Off to the market now, then back to post...hope all is well in the States! Please send me things (like text messages and hand sanitizer)!
Rose Edmonds
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 131
Maroua, Cameroon
My village is really wonderful -- about 7000 people, all of whom (well at least the ones that I have met) have been really friendly and welcoming...despite the fact that I do not speak Mandara or Fulfulde, and they do not speak French. My interactions with my neighbors take place pretty much entirely through smiling and hand gestures.
My house is also small but wonderful...the volunteer I am replacing left me a lot of furniture (couch, bed, bookcase, tables) and other household necessities (pots, pans, sheets, etc.) so that was a big relief. My compound is full of lizards during the day (big ones too -- like probably a foot long) and bats at night, but I have only had a couple of cockroach encounters, so I'm feeling pretty good about the whole pest situation. There is apparently a shortage of gas bottles in the Extreme North -- plenty of gas for cooking, but no extra bottles to put the gas in -- so my first couple of dinners at post involved me cooking ramen over a candle. It worked better than you might think. Then the principal of my school (who is really excellent) lent me an extra of his, so I have actually been able to cook myself real food...okay, I would have been able to cook myself real food, if I had had any. Mostly I eat a lot of beans. It's pretty okay.
My life continues to be very weird and surprising, and often also very fun. I spend a lot of time riding around on motos, catching rain in buckets to wash my dishes, and answering the incessant knocking on my door...which nine times out of ten turns out to be several small children from the neighborhood who shout "Bonjour!" at me (quite possibly the only French word they know), push their way into my yard, and then proceed to stand there and stare at me for several minutes. I think the novelty will eventually wear off.
School starts on the 6th, and as of right now I am still the only English teacher at my high school. Somehow I have managed to be at post for almost a week and accomplished nothing practical relating to my job, so I have no idea what grades I am teaching, how many hours, what my responsibilities are, etc...something to look into this week I guess.
I spent the weekend in Maroua picking up supplies and catching up with the other new PCVs, but am headed back to the village this afternoon. No internet there...or anywhere near there, so it's pretty likely that it could take me a couple...or a few weeks to answer e-mails. But I do have a phone, and you can call and text me on it through Skype, and I would really love to hear from you all...so if you do not know how to do that, you should probably talk to my parents or Kyle, who all have my phone number and know how it works to call me. Really -- I would love to hear from you.
Off to the market now, then back to post...hope all is well in the States! Please send me things (like text messages and hand sanitizer)!
Monday, August 2, 2010
Food
I think a lot of you probably remember that before I left, one of the things I was most worried about when it came to living in Cameroon was food...so now that we are about to hit the two month mark in country, I thought I would maybe give you the low-down on what I eat and how delicious (or not) it is...
The staples – the foods we eat pretty much every day here in Cameroon:
1) Eggs
Lots of them. Like easily four in a day. Usually for breakfast I eat some kind of omelette soaked in palm oil. Often it involves onions, and occasionally my host family will sneak some kind of fish part in there (possibly just as a funny prank on me). It is seasoned with maggi cubes, which I think is basically just a block of powdered MSG. Awesome. Then for lunch or in the afternoon I will usually buy a hard-boiled egg...they are sold from large platters balanced on top of people's heads or also often at the bar down the street from our training house.
2) Plantains
Fried, boiled, or even mashed. It is very unfortunate that they have so little nutritional value, because they make up such a substantial part of my diet. Mostly you get them burned almost black and dripping with palm oil, which is not so great (especially because they usually end up also being lukewarm), but sometimes you can get really thin ones, fried golden brown which are almost reminiscent of french fries...but sweeter.
3) Fish. Fish fish fish fish.
Sometimes I think about how hilarious it is that six months ago I did not eat fish at all...and now sometimes I literally eat it at every meal. Not always intentionally – Cameroonians are very crafty about sneaking it into your omelette in the morning, or onto your sandwich, or into your mystery sauce. Anyways, it turns out I actually like fish a lot...well, parts of the fish. Not a big fan of skin or bones or eyeballs, which end up in a lot of stuff here, but usually if you are vigilant you can avoid them. Or you can just close your eyes and pretend you are eating something else, which is what I did this morning when my host dad made me a sardine sandwich for breakfast (the stove had run out of gas, so this was the clear alternative to frying me eggs).
4) Starch
I guess I already mentioned plantains, but seriously we eat so many of them that maybe it is acceptable for them to be on the list twice. The bulk of the Cameroonian diet consists of starches – plantains, sometimes potatoes, but more often macabo and patates, which are kind of like potatoes, but drier and more flavorless.
5) “Legumes”
In French it means “vegetables”. In Cameroon it seems to be the name for any number of random green leafy products cooked until they have either reached the consistency of mush, snot, or grass. If you try to ask someone exactly what you are eating when they serve you something like this, they will invariably say “legumes”. Further inquiry into what KIND of legumes just adds to their mounting evidence that you do not actually speak French or understand anything they say.
6) Palm nuts
Palm nuts, in various forms, are the basis of pretty much everything you eat in Cameroon. They can be made into palm oil which is used to fry eggs, plantains, and sometimes potatoes. They can be turned into palm wine, which is actually pretty mild (in flavor and alcohol content) and which is usually drunk out of a gourd. Palm nuts can also be mashed with a king size mortar and pestle into a nut pulp, which makes up the basis for many Cameroonian sauces. My sister also claims that you can break open the pit and there is ANOTHER nut inside which you can eat...although I don't actually think it is edible. It felt pretty much the same as trying to eat a rock.
7) Manioc
Also comes in many forms, but my favorite is the baton. You will have to google pictures of it, because it is just the weirdest color/texture/flavor/consistency...but somehow it is also just outrageously delicious...especially when eaten alongside grilled fish and a cold beer in the shack next to the bar on Saturday night.
I've been going on and on to some of you about how much excellent food I am going to cook you when I get back to the States, so maybe now is an appropriate time to describe some of the things I enjoy the most here, so you know what to expect...as much as I love fried plantains and mystery fish sauce, here are the things I REALLY look forward to eating:
1) The Avocado-Spaghetti Sandwich
It is exactly what it sounds like...spaghetti, lightly coated in tomato sauce, topped with a mix of avocados, tomatoes, and onions...on a baguette. Delicious. This is what I often eat for lunch, and sometimes also for breakfast, if I can sneak out of the house quickly enough in the morning before someone starts cooking for me.
2) The Bean Sandwich
Again, exactly what it sounds like...literally a bunch of beans on a baguette. Somehow, just outrageously delicious. Especially if you get them from the bean stand on the way to the center of town...although it often takes a lot of explaining to get them to make you one (“Hold on...you want me to cut the bread and then put the beans ON it? Really?”...it's a pretty ridiculous idea).
3) Peanut Sauce
Cameroonians make excellent excellent peanut sauce. I am not sure what goes into it, but it has a different texture and flavor from Asian peanut sauce...often it also has chunks of fish or meat and other mysterious vegetables thrown into it, and is eaten over rice or (if you're lucky) mashed plantains. Delicious.
4) The Spaghetti Omelette
My family doesn't make them, but many do, and they can also often be bought on the street. It is an omelette with spaghetti in it. You eat it on a baguette. It is delicious. I will make them for you in 2012. It will be great.
I also eat a lot of bananas and avocados...although they do not have these in the Extreme North, where I will be moving in two weeks. It is kind of a mystery to me what they DO have in the extreme north...so far all I have heard is millet and onions. Oh well. One time I also made macaroni and cheese for my host family...which despite having to use powdered milk and laughing cow cheese (the only kind of cheese you can get, besides in the regional capitals), I thought was delicious. It got mixed reviews from my family...my sister's reaction was “Oh, so this is why all Americans are so fat,” but my 18 year old host brother and his friends ate absurdly large amounts of it as quickly as possible. Overall I would call it a success.
In general I like the food here a lot more than I thought I would, although every once in while I get stuck eating something that tastes disgusting, has a weird texture, and also has no nutritional value. But in general I am pretty happy to eat nut pulp and legume paste with macabo...until someone calls me to talk about the enchiladas he had for lunch.
It was a very fun weekend, which involved spending half my paycheck on gas station print pagne, eating an entire fish with my hands, and then somehow ending up dancing to Britney Spears and Shakira at a nightclub until four in the morning (we really wussed out – the party doesn't start here until 2, and usually goes until at least 6 if not 8 in the morning). Sometimes I wonder if I am maybe having too much fun here (but ain't no such thing, right?).
Anyways, training is winding down here and we are all gearing up to leave for post on the 19th. I am nervous of course, but mostly just very, very excited to have my own house, cook my own food, and start my real job. Miss you all and hope you are well...please send more news from home!
Much love,
Rose
The staples – the foods we eat pretty much every day here in Cameroon:
1) Eggs
Lots of them. Like easily four in a day. Usually for breakfast I eat some kind of omelette soaked in palm oil. Often it involves onions, and occasionally my host family will sneak some kind of fish part in there (possibly just as a funny prank on me). It is seasoned with maggi cubes, which I think is basically just a block of powdered MSG. Awesome. Then for lunch or in the afternoon I will usually buy a hard-boiled egg...they are sold from large platters balanced on top of people's heads or also often at the bar down the street from our training house.
2) Plantains
Fried, boiled, or even mashed. It is very unfortunate that they have so little nutritional value, because they make up such a substantial part of my diet. Mostly you get them burned almost black and dripping with palm oil, which is not so great (especially because they usually end up also being lukewarm), but sometimes you can get really thin ones, fried golden brown which are almost reminiscent of french fries...but sweeter.
3) Fish. Fish fish fish fish.
Sometimes I think about how hilarious it is that six months ago I did not eat fish at all...and now sometimes I literally eat it at every meal. Not always intentionally – Cameroonians are very crafty about sneaking it into your omelette in the morning, or onto your sandwich, or into your mystery sauce. Anyways, it turns out I actually like fish a lot...well, parts of the fish. Not a big fan of skin or bones or eyeballs, which end up in a lot of stuff here, but usually if you are vigilant you can avoid them. Or you can just close your eyes and pretend you are eating something else, which is what I did this morning when my host dad made me a sardine sandwich for breakfast (the stove had run out of gas, so this was the clear alternative to frying me eggs).
4) Starch
I guess I already mentioned plantains, but seriously we eat so many of them that maybe it is acceptable for them to be on the list twice. The bulk of the Cameroonian diet consists of starches – plantains, sometimes potatoes, but more often macabo and patates, which are kind of like potatoes, but drier and more flavorless.
5) “Legumes”
In French it means “vegetables”. In Cameroon it seems to be the name for any number of random green leafy products cooked until they have either reached the consistency of mush, snot, or grass. If you try to ask someone exactly what you are eating when they serve you something like this, they will invariably say “legumes”. Further inquiry into what KIND of legumes just adds to their mounting evidence that you do not actually speak French or understand anything they say.
6) Palm nuts
Palm nuts, in various forms, are the basis of pretty much everything you eat in Cameroon. They can be made into palm oil which is used to fry eggs, plantains, and sometimes potatoes. They can be turned into palm wine, which is actually pretty mild (in flavor and alcohol content) and which is usually drunk out of a gourd. Palm nuts can also be mashed with a king size mortar and pestle into a nut pulp, which makes up the basis for many Cameroonian sauces. My sister also claims that you can break open the pit and there is ANOTHER nut inside which you can eat...although I don't actually think it is edible. It felt pretty much the same as trying to eat a rock.
7) Manioc
Also comes in many forms, but my favorite is the baton. You will have to google pictures of it, because it is just the weirdest color/texture/flavor/consistency...but somehow it is also just outrageously delicious...especially when eaten alongside grilled fish and a cold beer in the shack next to the bar on Saturday night.
I've been going on and on to some of you about how much excellent food I am going to cook you when I get back to the States, so maybe now is an appropriate time to describe some of the things I enjoy the most here, so you know what to expect...as much as I love fried plantains and mystery fish sauce, here are the things I REALLY look forward to eating:
1) The Avocado-Spaghetti Sandwich
It is exactly what it sounds like...spaghetti, lightly coated in tomato sauce, topped with a mix of avocados, tomatoes, and onions...on a baguette. Delicious. This is what I often eat for lunch, and sometimes also for breakfast, if I can sneak out of the house quickly enough in the morning before someone starts cooking for me.
2) The Bean Sandwich
Again, exactly what it sounds like...literally a bunch of beans on a baguette. Somehow, just outrageously delicious. Especially if you get them from the bean stand on the way to the center of town...although it often takes a lot of explaining to get them to make you one (“Hold on...you want me to cut the bread and then put the beans ON it? Really?”...it's a pretty ridiculous idea).
3) Peanut Sauce
Cameroonians make excellent excellent peanut sauce. I am not sure what goes into it, but it has a different texture and flavor from Asian peanut sauce...often it also has chunks of fish or meat and other mysterious vegetables thrown into it, and is eaten over rice or (if you're lucky) mashed plantains. Delicious.
4) The Spaghetti Omelette
My family doesn't make them, but many do, and they can also often be bought on the street. It is an omelette with spaghetti in it. You eat it on a baguette. It is delicious. I will make them for you in 2012. It will be great.
I also eat a lot of bananas and avocados...although they do not have these in the Extreme North, where I will be moving in two weeks. It is kind of a mystery to me what they DO have in the extreme north...so far all I have heard is millet and onions. Oh well. One time I also made macaroni and cheese for my host family...which despite having to use powdered milk and laughing cow cheese (the only kind of cheese you can get, besides in the regional capitals), I thought was delicious. It got mixed reviews from my family...my sister's reaction was “Oh, so this is why all Americans are so fat,” but my 18 year old host brother and his friends ate absurdly large amounts of it as quickly as possible. Overall I would call it a success.
In general I like the food here a lot more than I thought I would, although every once in while I get stuck eating something that tastes disgusting, has a weird texture, and also has no nutritional value. But in general I am pretty happy to eat nut pulp and legume paste with macabo...until someone calls me to talk about the enchiladas he had for lunch.
It was a very fun weekend, which involved spending half my paycheck on gas station print pagne, eating an entire fish with my hands, and then somehow ending up dancing to Britney Spears and Shakira at a nightclub until four in the morning (we really wussed out – the party doesn't start here until 2, and usually goes until at least 6 if not 8 in the morning). Sometimes I wonder if I am maybe having too much fun here (but ain't no such thing, right?).
Anyways, training is winding down here and we are all gearing up to leave for post on the 19th. I am nervous of course, but mostly just very, very excited to have my own house, cook my own food, and start my real job. Miss you all and hope you are well...please send more news from home!
Much love,
Rose
Thursday, July 22, 2010
C'est comme "yo momma"?
So sometimes you are sitting in your French/Fulfulde class and you've been teaching all week and your host family has forgotten to feed you and you are trying to learn how to count and you are very, very unhappy...and then the trainee you are sitting next to turns to you and says "C'est comme 'yo momma'?"...and you start to laugh and things suddenly do not seem as bad.
I think a lot about universals here -- things that are funny both here and in the U.S., things that are offensive...for example, when I was riding in a bush taxi during site visit, a man was attempting to pass a sachet (basically a plastic baggie filled with some kind of liquid -- ice water, milk, juice, whiskey) of eau glace to someone in the row behind him, and it burst open on top of the head of the man sitting next to him. The man was soaked, and all 20-something of us in the van burst out laughing. Apparently, in a similar way that people getting water poured on their heads is funny everywhere, people making fun of your mom is also very offensive in both the U.S. in Cameroon. Our teacher was explaining to us that showing someone your palm (the high five symbol in the U.S.) is really offensive up north, and has something to do with insulting your mother. In other words, trying to high five someone in the Extreme North is pretty much the same thing as telling them a yo momma joke...except they will not think it is funny.
Just finished my second week of teaching -- am exhausted and looking forward to the weekend. I am learning a lot and working very hard...sometimes I even feel like I am effective. Mostly it is really hit or miss whether an activity will work (kids will be able to understand it and will be interested), or whether it will just fall flat on its face. Cameroonian kids are excellent at copying things off the board...but that seems to be about all they have learned how to do in school. Critical thinking skills? What a ridiculous thing to teach a child. Most of what I do is try to figure out strategies to bridge the gap between what I write on the board and what I want them to be able to understand, think about, and tell me. The education system here is entirely exam-based, and I am trying to find a way to reconcile teaching successfully in Cameroon (i.e. getting kids to pass their exams, graduate, etc.) with my own philosophy of language learning -- that it should be practical, useful, interesting, and fun...and that kids should maybe know how to use the language in real life after school.
It is a lot to think about...and in general I am still trying to take things one day at a time. Another thing I try to remind myself is that you never know what kind of impact your teaching will have on kids til way later down the line -- I have been doing my best to try to make English fun and interesting, and to show kids that I think they are smart, capable, and often very funny...I don't think there are a lot of teachers here who do the same, and I feel good about being able to bring at the very least some optimism and enthusiasm into the classroom, even if I still feel that my qualifications to teach English are a bit lacking.
Anyways, all is well here...well, I guess a bunch of us have typhoid (Peace Corps took a vanload of people to the hospital yesterday), but I am fine! Hope you all are too...Much love!
I think a lot about universals here -- things that are funny both here and in the U.S., things that are offensive...for example, when I was riding in a bush taxi during site visit, a man was attempting to pass a sachet (basically a plastic baggie filled with some kind of liquid -- ice water, milk, juice, whiskey) of eau glace to someone in the row behind him, and it burst open on top of the head of the man sitting next to him. The man was soaked, and all 20-something of us in the van burst out laughing. Apparently, in a similar way that people getting water poured on their heads is funny everywhere, people making fun of your mom is also very offensive in both the U.S. in Cameroon. Our teacher was explaining to us that showing someone your palm (the high five symbol in the U.S.) is really offensive up north, and has something to do with insulting your mother. In other words, trying to high five someone in the Extreme North is pretty much the same thing as telling them a yo momma joke...except they will not think it is funny.
Just finished my second week of teaching -- am exhausted and looking forward to the weekend. I am learning a lot and working very hard...sometimes I even feel like I am effective. Mostly it is really hit or miss whether an activity will work (kids will be able to understand it and will be interested), or whether it will just fall flat on its face. Cameroonian kids are excellent at copying things off the board...but that seems to be about all they have learned how to do in school. Critical thinking skills? What a ridiculous thing to teach a child. Most of what I do is try to figure out strategies to bridge the gap between what I write on the board and what I want them to be able to understand, think about, and tell me. The education system here is entirely exam-based, and I am trying to find a way to reconcile teaching successfully in Cameroon (i.e. getting kids to pass their exams, graduate, etc.) with my own philosophy of language learning -- that it should be practical, useful, interesting, and fun...and that kids should maybe know how to use the language in real life after school.
It is a lot to think about...and in general I am still trying to take things one day at a time. Another thing I try to remind myself is that you never know what kind of impact your teaching will have on kids til way later down the line -- I have been doing my best to try to make English fun and interesting, and to show kids that I think they are smart, capable, and often very funny...I don't think there are a lot of teachers here who do the same, and I feel good about being able to bring at the very least some optimism and enthusiasm into the classroom, even if I still feel that my qualifications to teach English are a bit lacking.
Anyways, all is well here...well, I guess a bunch of us have typhoid (Peace Corps took a vanload of people to the hospital yesterday), but I am fine! Hope you all are too...Much love!
Monday, July 12, 2010
Adaptation!
So it has been way too long since I have written. My bad. Sometimes when you try to go to the internet cafe in Cameroon, there is no electricity. And then you spend a solid week on a bus/train/bush taxi/moto traveling to the extreme north and back. And then you come back and the Peace Corps training house has wireless internet, but now all your classes are at the lycee (high school), and to get to the Peace Corps house from the lycee you have to walk by the bar, and somehow an absurdly long time goes by without updating your blog.
I got back about a week and a half ago from my site visit to the Extreme North, which was long and intense and excellent. I also had the opportunity to take every form of transportation available in Cameroon: buses (from the travel agency Super Amigo, no less) with rows built for three people and holding five (periodically during this part of the voyage, one of the community hosts we were traveling with would stand up, pat our shoulders, and shout "Adaptation!"), trains (the couchettes aren't bad, unless you are trapped in one with a crying baby for 15 hours), bush taxis (vans built for 12 and containing about 20, plus at least one chicken and maybe a goat), motos, etc. The Extreme North is truly wonderful, my village is small and friendly, my house is adorable. I will write more about all these things later. Suffice it to say that I cannot wait to move to site, and that travel in the US will never seem difficult or uncomfortable ever again.
Also, as of this morning I am officially a teacher...As in I taught a real class with real students (about 30 of them...which is probably the smallest I will ever have; approximately sophomores/juniors in high school). For two straight hours. The kids were pretty rowdy but it turns out I'm pretty good at laying down the law, and I managed to keep things under control, most kids at least reading/writing/speaking/paying attention most of the time, and I think a couple of them might even have a vague idea of how to form the present perfect, which they didn't when they woke up. Overall, I am left with the impression that I could eventually be very good at this. And I suspect that often it might even be really fun.
Okay, off to more cross-culture sessions, then Fulfulde. Yes, I am learning Fulfulde...from French. It makes me feel like my brain is going to explode, but also like maybe this is exactly what I have been wanting to do since I was about 13. So yes -- life is still always exhausting, usually surprising, and most of the time a whole lot of fun. Please keep writing to me -- I miss you all and want to know all about your lives. Much love!
I got back about a week and a half ago from my site visit to the Extreme North, which was long and intense and excellent. I also had the opportunity to take every form of transportation available in Cameroon: buses (from the travel agency Super Amigo, no less) with rows built for three people and holding five (periodically during this part of the voyage, one of the community hosts we were traveling with would stand up, pat our shoulders, and shout "Adaptation!"), trains (the couchettes aren't bad, unless you are trapped in one with a crying baby for 15 hours), bush taxis (vans built for 12 and containing about 20, plus at least one chicken and maybe a goat), motos, etc. The Extreme North is truly wonderful, my village is small and friendly, my house is adorable. I will write more about all these things later. Suffice it to say that I cannot wait to move to site, and that travel in the US will never seem difficult or uncomfortable ever again.
Also, as of this morning I am officially a teacher...As in I taught a real class with real students (about 30 of them...which is probably the smallest I will ever have; approximately sophomores/juniors in high school). For two straight hours. The kids were pretty rowdy but it turns out I'm pretty good at laying down the law, and I managed to keep things under control, most kids at least reading/writing/speaking/paying attention most of the time, and I think a couple of them might even have a vague idea of how to form the present perfect, which they didn't when they woke up. Overall, I am left with the impression that I could eventually be very good at this. And I suspect that often it might even be really fun.
Okay, off to more cross-culture sessions, then Fulfulde. Yes, I am learning Fulfulde...from French. It makes me feel like my brain is going to explode, but also like maybe this is exactly what I have been wanting to do since I was about 13. So yes -- life is still always exhausting, usually surprising, and most of the time a whole lot of fun. Please keep writing to me -- I miss you all and want to know all about your lives. Much love!
Saturday, June 12, 2010
There is no wikipedia in the village
"You Americans google everything. But there is no wikipedia in the village!"
This is what our training director told us on our first day of PST (Pre Service Training). Its true...there is no wikipedia in the village, which means that instead of looking things up ourselves, we have to ask someone else, almost always in another language. And there are a LOT of things we do not know.
Im in an internet cafe about two hours away from Yaounde in the medium sized city (pop. 70,000) where I will be living until mid August. Training is intense (I spoke French for four hours this morning), but my host family is wonderful, the scenery is beautiful, and every day is full of surprises. We have been here since Tuesday, and since then I have learned how to take a bucket bath, flush a "modern African toilet", eat a fish (like the whole thing. Cameroonians love eating fish eyeballs. I havent been that adventurous yet), buy things at the market despite a constant barrage of "La blanche la blanche!!" (which basically translates to "hey white lady!") etc. etc. I am tired all of the time, and happy and excited almost as often.
My language classes involve a group of four of us (plus the professor) sitting at desks outside the local school, speaking french for hours at a time. This is apparently very interesting and exciting for the students at this school (starting as young as 8 or 9) who flock around us, sticking their heads through the window of the classroom (about a foot from my face) to watch us. If they become too distracting, our prof will yell "Eloignez vous!" at them, at which point they disperse. Yesterday, however, after dispersing they all seemed to go off to brainstorm more ways to be distracting, because about twenty minutes later approximately two hundred kids came running down the hill at us, all shouting at the top of their lungs. It was a lot like the game "run and scream" that we play at camp, except all the kids had machetes (they were on their way to cut the grass on the school lawn).
Anyways, I am very happy, reasonably healthy, and having an excellent time here in Cameroon. I cannot say enough good things about my family, who are incredibly hospitable, patient, and unafraid to laugh at me when I do something ridiculous like stir a pot with my left hand. This weekend they claim they are going to teach me to carry water on my head...I think the only reason they brought this up is because they know how funny it will be.
Please keep emailing, texting, writing letters, etc. I cant always respond right away, but know that you are making my day!
This is what our training director told us on our first day of PST (Pre Service Training). Its true...there is no wikipedia in the village, which means that instead of looking things up ourselves, we have to ask someone else, almost always in another language. And there are a LOT of things we do not know.
Im in an internet cafe about two hours away from Yaounde in the medium sized city (pop. 70,000) where I will be living until mid August. Training is intense (I spoke French for four hours this morning), but my host family is wonderful, the scenery is beautiful, and every day is full of surprises. We have been here since Tuesday, and since then I have learned how to take a bucket bath, flush a "modern African toilet", eat a fish (like the whole thing. Cameroonians love eating fish eyeballs. I havent been that adventurous yet), buy things at the market despite a constant barrage of "La blanche la blanche!!" (which basically translates to "hey white lady!") etc. etc. I am tired all of the time, and happy and excited almost as often.
My language classes involve a group of four of us (plus the professor) sitting at desks outside the local school, speaking french for hours at a time. This is apparently very interesting and exciting for the students at this school (starting as young as 8 or 9) who flock around us, sticking their heads through the window of the classroom (about a foot from my face) to watch us. If they become too distracting, our prof will yell "Eloignez vous!" at them, at which point they disperse. Yesterday, however, after dispersing they all seemed to go off to brainstorm more ways to be distracting, because about twenty minutes later approximately two hundred kids came running down the hill at us, all shouting at the top of their lungs. It was a lot like the game "run and scream" that we play at camp, except all the kids had machetes (they were on their way to cut the grass on the school lawn).
Anyways, I am very happy, reasonably healthy, and having an excellent time here in Cameroon. I cannot say enough good things about my family, who are incredibly hospitable, patient, and unafraid to laugh at me when I do something ridiculous like stir a pot with my left hand. This weekend they claim they are going to teach me to carry water on my head...I think the only reason they brought this up is because they know how funny it will be.
Please keep emailing, texting, writing letters, etc. I cant always respond right away, but know that you are making my day!
Friday, May 28, 2010
Five days to go
Hi friends,
I'm leaving for Cameroon with the Peace Corps on Wednesday and thought this blog might be a convenient way for you all to follow what I am up to for the next couple of years. I'm kind of ambivalent about the idea of having a blog, but it does seem like the easiest way to tell stories, share pictures, let everyone know I'm still alive, etc., so here goes.
I started applying to the Peace Corps in September 2008, at the beginning of my senior year at the University of Michigan. I had always thought it sounded like something I would like to do someday, but did not seriously consider applying until two things happened that fall: 1) I realized that at the end of the year I would no longer be a student and would need some kind of grown up job; and 2) a buddy of mine left for Turkmenistan with the Peace Corps and it became for me something that people actually did, rather than simply thought about.
So, I began my application. But then my life became filled with senior year of college -- friends and the co-op and my thesis, the existential quest in the modern novel and oh god so much Salish-Pend d'Oreille. And then I looked up and it was March, I was a few weeks from graduation and still had no kind of life plan past wrangling horses for the summer. And so I finally finished my application.
I then spent one of the greatest summers of my life at Camp Henry as a wrangler, driving into Fremont during rest period to get fingerprinted, staying up late in the office to finish the set of additional materials Peace Corps had sent me, and trying to set up an interview that didn't interfere with Pirate Day, the Pants Relay, or Pony Express. I did my interview over the phone from my room in Idema house dressed in a llama costume (because, you know, it was the olympics) and after a couple false starts got nominated to teach English in sub-Saharan Africa in early June 2010. I was thrilled.
In September I returned home to Wisconsin in order to harass a team of doctors, nurses, and dentists into signing forms that stated that I did not have tuberculosis, false teeth, eyeglasses, or any genetic disorder known to man. Somehow I passed medical clearance on my first attempt and was able to move on to the exciting process of waiting. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting.
And then it was February, I had just left Los Angeles and was at the zoo in New Orleans checking out some sweet albino alligators when Peace Corps called me up and asked if I would go to Central Asia in March. Like two weeks from then. I thought about it for a few minutes, then decided that this was simply too big of a life decision to make at the zoo, and said I probably couldn't leave until at least April. They sounded disappointed and I felt bad, but a couple weeks later I received an invitation to serve in Cameroon starting June 2nd, and I felt like everything had finally fallen into place.
So that is the "how" of my joining the Peace Corps. As for the "why" -- I don't think I was really sure of this at the beginning, except that I wanted to live abroad, volunteer, have something lined up to do after college, etc. However, as I learned more about the Peace Corps, I realized its mission made a lot of sense to me: answer countries' requests for trained workers in particular fields. In the process, volunteers learn about these countries, teach people there about life in America, and come home to teach people in America about life in these other countries. As a native speaker of English and student of linguistics and anthropology who loves to learn and share knowledge with others, teaching English (not to mention learning and sharing information between cultures) is something I am outrageously excited for, and probably relatively qualified to do (with help from Peace Corps training). Cameroon wants English teachers. So, here I go.
It sounds like internet access in Cameroon is fairly common, although often unreliable and certainly not ubiquitous. Anyways, I will write when I can and let you know where I am and what I am doing. Thank you all in advance for your love and support over the next two years!
I'm leaving for Cameroon with the Peace Corps on Wednesday and thought this blog might be a convenient way for you all to follow what I am up to for the next couple of years. I'm kind of ambivalent about the idea of having a blog, but it does seem like the easiest way to tell stories, share pictures, let everyone know I'm still alive, etc., so here goes.
I started applying to the Peace Corps in September 2008, at the beginning of my senior year at the University of Michigan. I had always thought it sounded like something I would like to do someday, but did not seriously consider applying until two things happened that fall: 1) I realized that at the end of the year I would no longer be a student and would need some kind of grown up job; and 2) a buddy of mine left for Turkmenistan with the Peace Corps and it became for me something that people actually did, rather than simply thought about.
So, I began my application. But then my life became filled with senior year of college -- friends and the co-op and my thesis, the existential quest in the modern novel and oh god so much Salish-Pend d'Oreille. And then I looked up and it was March, I was a few weeks from graduation and still had no kind of life plan past wrangling horses for the summer. And so I finally finished my application.
I then spent one of the greatest summers of my life at Camp Henry as a wrangler, driving into Fremont during rest period to get fingerprinted, staying up late in the office to finish the set of additional materials Peace Corps had sent me, and trying to set up an interview that didn't interfere with Pirate Day, the Pants Relay, or Pony Express. I did my interview over the phone from my room in Idema house dressed in a llama costume (because, you know, it was the olympics) and after a couple false starts got nominated to teach English in sub-Saharan Africa in early June 2010. I was thrilled.
In September I returned home to Wisconsin in order to harass a team of doctors, nurses, and dentists into signing forms that stated that I did not have tuberculosis, false teeth, eyeglasses, or any genetic disorder known to man. Somehow I passed medical clearance on my first attempt and was able to move on to the exciting process of waiting. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting.
And then it was February, I had just left Los Angeles and was at the zoo in New Orleans checking out some sweet albino alligators when Peace Corps called me up and asked if I would go to Central Asia in March. Like two weeks from then. I thought about it for a few minutes, then decided that this was simply too big of a life decision to make at the zoo, and said I probably couldn't leave until at least April. They sounded disappointed and I felt bad, but a couple weeks later I received an invitation to serve in Cameroon starting June 2nd, and I felt like everything had finally fallen into place.
So that is the "how" of my joining the Peace Corps. As for the "why" -- I don't think I was really sure of this at the beginning, except that I wanted to live abroad, volunteer, have something lined up to do after college, etc. However, as I learned more about the Peace Corps, I realized its mission made a lot of sense to me: answer countries' requests for trained workers in particular fields. In the process, volunteers learn about these countries, teach people there about life in America, and come home to teach people in America about life in these other countries. As a native speaker of English and student of linguistics and anthropology who loves to learn and share knowledge with others, teaching English (not to mention learning and sharing information between cultures) is something I am outrageously excited for, and probably relatively qualified to do (with help from Peace Corps training). Cameroon wants English teachers. So, here I go.
It sounds like internet access in Cameroon is fairly common, although often unreliable and certainly not ubiquitous. Anyways, I will write when I can and let you know where I am and what I am doing. Thank you all in advance for your love and support over the next two years!
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