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

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!

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!