I just lost all I wrote for this post to a stupid internet connection and i dont have time to retype it. But I just want to let you know that I am going to be out of phone range until at least the 3rd of October; maybe more depending on how bad the roads are, as I am going down to work with some volunteers way down in small town called Mambalé  deep in the forest (which I am very excited about!). Hope everyone is doing well and I’ll fine a way to retrive what I originally wrote for this post when I get back!

Ok I owe you guys an apology, it’s been an appallingly long time since my last posting and I really don’t have any good excuses. Granted I have been busy though. Since April I have managed to get a staph infection on my face, have my house robbed, and then get malaria. When things finally settled calmed down in June I skipped town for a wonderful and much needed break with the family. Of course while I was gone people tried to break in my house again…

 

 But the main reason that I haven’t written is that I’m finding it harder to find inspiration to write about my life here. I find that what was once exotic and fascinating is slipping into the quotidian. When another volunteer tells me that the public school in his village at had a witchcraft outbreak which necessitated a school-wide exorcism it’s not exactly blasé but I no longer wonder what planet I landed on.

 

 Strangely though, I enjoyed my time here the most during all this. I’m not going to say I loved having a big oozing sore on my face or the excruciating malarial headaches and accompanying nightmares, but there was a good 3 or 4 weeks in there in which I was blessed with good health and seriously began to make this place my home. It also helps that as we move towards the big wet season starting in late July and August the suffocating heat and humidity abate a little. In fact now one could even venture to say it’s sometimes “cool” outside. It’s quite a marvelous sensation to enjoy a few days where the profuse amount of perspiration dripping off me is not the foremost thought in my mind every hour of the day. So this time of year would actually be a great time for any visitors…I know Cameroon is at the top of everyone’s wish list! Ok so it’s not the tourist capital of Africa, and ok so Africa’s not the tourist capital of the world, but I guarantee you’ll get a much more authentic cultural experience here than with most any other vacation! Seriously though my door is wide….wide open to anyone who wants.

 

 The biggest source of frustration in my life here continues to be my work. I’ve talked very little about what I actually ‘do’ here as a Peace Corps volunteer, and nonetheless that is one of the first questions people, both Cameroonians and other westerners, ask me. This is the area where the cultural shock was the greatest and yet where I’ve had the least success in understanding and surmounting it. I’ve been hesitant to say much about it because it’s very easy for that to turn negative fast. At the end of a long and frustrating day in which I accomplished nothing, when I come home to find electricity and water off, it’s very easy to slip into the “why can’t Cameroonian’s ever do anything right” attitude that is both counterproductive and self-fulfilling.

 

 Anyways, in terms of work, right now what I am most optimistic about is a income generating activity for a youth group. The group organizes activities for local kids, everything from football games to cultural dances. Batouri is a rough town for youth. The town has kind of a ‘frontier’ feel to it, a lot of young people (20 and 30 year olds) move out here looking for work in the mines or the logging industry. It also lays along the main trucking route to bring goods in and out of the Congo and Central African Republic. Many families are split up without warning as family members move in and out chasing jobs, or just as often, rumors of jobs. Kids don’t stand still either, moving towns for schooling reasons (I haven’t quite figured this yet but kids change towns a lot. I’ve heard that if you fall a grade instead of repeating the year in the same school you just continue on to the next year by enrolling in a school further out in the bush). All in all, this environment is not conductive to building community spirit, the “we’re all in this together ” attitude that brings people to work collectively for the common good. Furthermore, the transient population and lack of role models for youth proves fertile soil for STI’s and HIV infections.

 

 One of the aims of the group I work with is to provide kids in the quartier with some degree of stability in this turbulent and unpredictable environment. However, they need funding and for that they usually turn to the nearest development worker and ask for donations. Outside aid, besides being an erratic and unpredictable source, causing discontinuity in the groups activities as they wait for funds (thus not really being the island of stability they aim to be), using aid money can be damaging to the groups sense of self-efficacy. It sends a message to the kids that they need the white peoples help (no matter how many times I correct people: American = white, although Obama has done WONDERS to correct this whitewashed image of the states). It destroys the very sense of self-empowerment that development work is supposed to construct.

 

 Thus the income generating activity. We (another PCV and I) held a competition to see who could design the best income generating activity project proposal, which we would then help find the initial funding for. However, we told them this would be the last time they would be receiving financial assistance from PC volunteers. The project, raising pondeuse (egg laying chickens, I don’t know if there’s a word for that in English- yes I am a city boy), and then selling the eggs (all eggs are currently imported) is designed to support itself and the youth group indefinitely

. Further the project will teach important skills such as project design and management, financial responsibility and transparency and long term goal setting. The more intangible goals helping them on the path to financial independence include cultivating a sense of pride and confidence in the group and the community.

 Well I think I’m bordering on loosing your interest- that is if you haven’t already wondered on to another webpage. Hopefully I will be more faithful in my blogging in the future, but seeing as how I wrote most of this in mid July and am just now finding internet time to post it I can’t promise much.

 

 I have to say I am going to miss being at all the family reunions this august. Although it’s significantly easier now than it was for Christmas, its still hardest to be here when I know everyone else is getting together. I hope all the reunions and picnics go well and I wish I was there!

 

 Oh, and I’m trying to add a french version of the blog- see the tabs at the top of the page. I’m not promising much, its mostly a way to get me to improve my written french.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Got 16,987 cattle to sell as a Fulani herder in Cameroon? Well take a deep breath cause to say 16,987 is: ujineeré sappo e jowé go’o bee téméré jowé nayi bee chappan jowé tati e jowé didi….phew! That’s literally One thousand of ten and 6 and one (16,000) with one hundred of 5 and 4 (800) with 10 five and fours (90) and 5 and 2 (7), which of course adds up to 16, 987! Oh how you never realize how great the Arabic numbering system is until its gone! Next time you complain about your math homework, just imagine doing it in Fulfuldé…

Of course now that you’ve counted all your cattle you still need to agree on a price, so to simplify matters Fulfuldé has a whole new system of counting just for money, one which I only vaguely understand. It works by somehow dividing everything below 200 CFA (about 45 cents) by 5 and saying Dola (no relation to Dollar) before. Thus while 185 is usually téméré bee chappan jowé didi e jowé, with money it becomes dola chappan tati e jowé didi (literally “dola 37”). Then everything above between 200 and 999CFA you use the same system as regular counting (unless your from the north of Cameroon in which case you stay with the “Dola” system up to 500CFA), then above 1000CFA another system. Much simpler eh?

Ok, I’ll stop about fulfuldé now. I realize that while I find most of this stuff about languages endlessly fascinating, I am usually the only one. Though as interesting as I find studying languages academically speaking them in real life situation continues to prove next to impossible and sometimes downright dangerous. Of course it doesn’t help that once I finally got up the nerve to start a conversation with a local shopkeeper, I promptly inquired, with perfect inflection, “will you fuck tomorrow?” (Jango a wattan na?) instead of the much more quotidian “will you come back tomorrow” (jango a warttan na?). He did not come back. I don’t ask about people coming back anymore. Nor do I use to verb “to be able” as I usually end up informing people that I just farted (fotugo vs. fotugo). I’m making quite a name for myself here in my village…

Sorry there’s been such a lull in the blogging. I’ve hardly been at my post in the past few months, dashing between Kribi in the south province for a In-Service-Training, then the back to the East for a couple days before heading up north to Garoua for some Fulfulde language training. I am wiped out after all that. Traveling in this country can be a trying experience!  Now I’m back in Yaoundé, I had to see the doctor here after coming down with a nasty bacterial infection on my face…its was not pretty and more than a little bit painful! So this post is actually from nearly a month ago. Hopeful once I get back to post, into good health, and into a routine I’ll be more on the ball with these things! 

 

 

Some days there is no place I would rather be than right here at the cross roads of west and central Africa. The first rains marking the end of the dry season are one of these days.

 After a few months without a drop everything around is parched and thirsty. The roads turn from mud to a fine dust which is kicked up by the logging trucks and gets on and into everything. So as the eastern sky blackens, the distant thunder rumbles, and the first hints of crisp, cool hits air sucked down from the heavens hits my sweat glistened skin I scurry to get home before the show begins. People, normally who at this early afternoon hour are just now rousing from the midday sun-induced stupor, seem today to have been infected with some the electricity crackling through the air and scamper about trying finish up any last business. As I dash down the past the market blinding clouds of dust and trash are kicked up by fickle winds. Northern women clutch their colorful, long flowing pagne to their faces and stride gracefully and confidently through the onslaught with an enviable grace, their brilliant fabrics sharply contrasting with the muted rust colored world quickly engulfing town. In a sudden moment of calm between gusts I raise my eyes and glance over the town from on top the hill near the market and glimpse the afternoon sun, usually sternly glaring down at me and generally making my life miserable at this time of day, now meekly skirting the edge of a mass of seething coal colored clouds. The sun’s formidable power is tempered by the encroaching tempest bearing down on it. To my left a blackness to rival that of midnight night forms the backdrop to a clump of flowering banana trees radiantly lit up with the last few remaining rays of sunshine sneaking in from my right. As the sun looses the battle the town assumes the ominous feel of a wild wild west town before a duel. Shopkeepers board up their windows, plastic bags tumble across the road, a few warning drops smatter the ground foreshadowing the deluge sure to follow.

Uh-oh, I’m not going to make it home on time. I quicken my pace wanting to get home dry, but yet not quite ready to leave the exotic scene playing out in front of me here in town. Running past the market I realize I forgot to pick up food for Mbango, the racist dog I inherited from the previous volunteer. I need to get something or he’ll steal my neighbors dinner again. After his last theft my neighbor (who has since moved) informed me the next time Mbango did this I would come home to “find him in pieces on my doorstep.” I’m not too sad that she moved…

Rushing into the market I hope that even though its late there will still be some dried fish left. No such luck however, the fish stall are already empty, all that’s left is the bush meat section with dead monkeys skulls and eerily human looking severed monkey arms and hands laying about scattered in between other unfamiliar animals that I would be hard pressed to name. I can’t bring myself to feed Mbango something so close to me on the family tree nor do I have any real interest in supporting the already thriving bush meat trade so I’ll just have to hope he stays out of my neighbors marmite. Though I honestly can’t understand his taste for the cuscus de manioc they’ll undoubtedly be cooking. Cameroonian cuisine, in general, has unfortunately yet to impress me (I still have some time).

 Surprisingly I make it home before the heavens open up. So after lighting the storm lanterns for the inevitable collapse of the power grid, I get to enjoy the spectacle of the thunderstorm from the dry comfort of my front porch. As another bonus I set out every bucket in my house to fill up, saving me from at least 4 trips to the well!

 

Life might not always be fun at post but it takes days like these to remind me that there is a lot of beautify here if I’m in the right mood to see it. I wont always be living in the bush in Central Africa so I might as well soak it up while I’m still here!

 *Just fixed the comment problem some people were mentioning. You should be able to leave comments now

 

 

 

 

Hey, I just wanted to give a quick update to let know that everything is quiet here in the East. Don’t know how much of the news is filtering to the media in the states (i’m guessing not much) but there have been some problems in the big cities here. All the volunteers in the troubled areas have been moved safely out and now its just a waiting game to see how these problems pan out. Its been pretty intense in some areas of the country but out here its been pretty much life as normal. Only thing we’ve noticed is that electricity and water’s been out for almost a week cause the generator for the East can’t get petrol but that’s not much to complain about.

Ok they’re some other volunteers that want to use the computer so I hope everyone’s doing good!