Siobhan In Cameroon

Yup... Still here

2010-10-08T03:57:00.000-07:00

It seems that when I moved to a new city, I left the blog behind in Bertoua along with my dog and the humidity. So to assure you that I haven’t been taken as a chief’s wife or turned into a cow by a sorcerer, I will update you on the past 5 months or so- yikes it might be a long one.

I decided to stay longer than the standard 27 months because I wanted to get more experience in international development work, particularly in public health. Even though saying goodbye to almost all of the volunteers in my training group was really difficult, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work with Plan International. Turns out I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t done with Peace Corps- out of 33 in our group 8 of us are continuing our volunteer service either in Cameroon, China or Guinea. Reason #214 why I love my group.

I did the two day move across the country to my new city of Bamenda in May and expected things to fall into place pretty smoothly. I had assumed that it was going to be an easy transition after all I’d lived here for 2 years already, the North West region was English speaking, the city is relatively developed, and a favorite among Cameroonians and volunteers. Well I was wrong about the easy part.

Before I dive in I just want to say it’s not all bad! Bamenda is a wonderful city. Its surrounded mountains and waterfalls which I love even more after living in the flat forest. No more sticky heat and humidity- its 10am and I’m wearing a fleece. Although everyday for the past 3 months it downpours for a good 4 hours because its, yeah you guessed- rainy season. I mean every single day. It’s gotten old, but at least I know I can get water. And finally, the people are the nicest, motivated, hard working Cameroonians I have ever met.

On to the bad part. Lets just say, when I moved in May I hit a streak of bad luck. Life in general is bit harder due to the fact that it takes longer to do everything, communication is exhausting, always figuring out how things work- and then to add on top of that a series of unlucky events…. It wasn’t fun. I won’t go into it, but I will share some other things about my new life.

The official language of the Northwest and Southwest is English, but not American English. You’ve probably heard the differences between British and American English. Multiply that by ten. Here the differences a much bigger. Learning how to adjust my accent and speak slowly was painful. Here are some examples that I always forget:

What I call a… Is actually called….

Prune = Plum

Avocado = Pear

Moto Bike = Okada

Taxi Car= Moto

Plastic bag = Paper

This is one of my favorite examples….another volunteer speaking to her work colleagues

What she said: “It’s too hot to wear pants today”

Translation: “I’m too sexually aroused to wear underwear today”

Should have said: “I’m feeling heat so I will not wear trousers today”

Then there is Pidgin. I was thrown right into it on my first day of work. My best attempt to explain this language is it’s a really thick slang English with influences from other local dialects. I was already pretty good at “franglais”- (mixing French and English words together) and now I’m melanging pidgin words into my vocabulary. My English is suffering. Some of a few favorites:

Pidgin = Translation

You get chop for chop? = Do you have food to eat?

Wahala = Trouble

Nahow = How are you?

Ma belly don flop =I’m full

Runny stomach =Diarrhea

The most prominent word I hear about 20 times a day (even I say it a lot) is “Ashia” definition: sorry for you. Then you always have to say thank you back. I wouldn’t call Cameroon the most polite culture I’ve ever experienced, by far, but they never fail to say thank you after an ashia. You can use it at anytime, for anything. Someone died – Ashia. You are walking – Ashia. You have to go to your job – Ashia.

Speaking of jobs, I work on a child survival project that focuses on malaria, malnutrition, immunization, pneumonia and diarrhea in pikins (pidgin for kids) under 5 years old and mothers. Its one of USAID’s largest project child survival projects that has directly affected 200,000 children and 450,000 women of reproductive age here in Cameroon. Plan worked with local ngos to train women’s groups in the community on how to prevent and treat childhood illnesses. Then each member of the group is responsible for a group of houses in the community to make sure each family has a mosquito net hanging properly in the bedroom, to advise the mother on food for the children, to keep track of immunization records, weigh babies, etc. Then at the meeting at the end of the month the women combine their information on a simple chart they make to see what needs improving.

Plan also worked in health centers to train staff on identifying, properly treating, giving quality care, etc for those same illnesses that I mentioned in the beginning. When you go to the hospital, a nurse or doctor does a routine pre-consultation that includes checking your weight, checking your temperature, then they ask you a series of questions. Well it’s not routine everywhere and that is just one example of what Plan was trying to improve. The method of managing childhood illnesses Plan and the Ministry of Health in Cameroon recently adopted also focused on prescribing the right medications, communicating to mothers how to care for the sick child at home and enforcing supervision of health staff.

I came at towards the end of this 5 year project most of my work was assisting in the final evaluations. Going into the bush and training people to collecting information from household to household. In a month I’d already been all over the North West region. In one district I literally went to the end of the road, and then we kept driving. I’m promised another delicious porcupine meal if I ever make it back there.

A 12 month operations research was added to the project last November in one of the health districts were we work. Each community nominated a couple of people to become Community Health Workers (CHW). The only qualifications needed were to be able to read and write. Then Plan trained them on how to diagnose and treat pneumonia cases with oral amoxicillin. In Cameroon, and in many countries, CHW for Malaria already exist and the system works really well. People in the community, especially those who can’t afford the 50 cent consultation at the health center can go to the CHW who maintains a supply of malaria drugs.

So that is kind of a glimpse at what I’ve been doing. There’s a lot more to the project and I could go on and on about the success but I’ll stop. The project finished last week and the work load has lessened a lot. I’m going into the office only in the mornings now which has made be a much happier and better person. Wish I could post pictures but my camera was stolen literally the second day I moved here. I’ll try to grab some from other volunteers. Alright, thanks for reading. I’m off to the market to get a chicken.

New job, new city and a new date to come home

2010-04-23T02:39:00.000-07:00

After months of debating and weeks of waiting, emails, meetings and some traveling... I've got a new position in Cameroon! I'll continue to be a Peace Corps Volunteer but I'll be working with Plan International, a large development organization that works with children and families in 48 developing countries. If you want to learn more about what they do in Cameroon visit their website here. My role with Plan is still being developed and maybe I'll even get a fancy title but I'll give you some idea of what I'll be doing.

Where?

First I'll be moving across the country to Bamenda, the capital of the North West Region of Cameroon. The NW is one of the two Anglophone regions so that means I'll be speaking ENGLISH. If you couldn't tell by the caps there, I'm really excited about it. Bamenda is also one of the best cities to live in Cameroon for other reasons. It is a hub of dozens of other development organizations and has a large expat community. In addition to a few groceries stores in town (thats a big deal) they also have the best produce selection in Cameroon including broccoli, mushrooms, and celery. Bamenda is in the mountains, surrounded with gorgeous green hills and it's often a little chilly, some even say cold!!! I am moving out of the hot and humid rainforest. YES.

What?

The work that Plan does is incredible and I can't describe how excited I am to be working with them. I'll be with Plan as a special advisor and supervisor as apart of their Child Survival Program. The program works to help mothers and children prevent some of the top contributors to child mortality deaths under 5 years of age. One part of the work will be helping them improve their operational methods on a pneumonia research project in a village not far from Bamenda. The second part of my work will be overseeing and strengthening ngos, associations and other community based organizations trained by Plan in giving health seminars. I'll be able to observe the health animations the groups present and provide constructive feedback for improvement. Again, I can't tell you enough how excited I am about this position.

When?

Plan is just as excited about this partnership as I am and would like me to be in Bamenda in just a couple weeks. That means, I've got to close up my bank account, wrap up my projects as best as I can here, figure out what to do with my dog, etc, etc I won't bore you with the details but I'm going to be busy. I'm really happy to be getting started working right away though since this project is only going to be about 7 months long. Do you know what that means???? I'LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS THIS YEAR. I'll be the one in flip flops and a sundress at the Burlington airport in December but I'll still be there!!!! No set date yet, I'll keep you posted. Life couldn't get any better.

Many many MANY thanks go to my PC boss James who is fantastic. A huge thanks to family and friends that have supported me, encouraged my career ambitions even if it meant being far away and sent so many amazing care packages (I’ve probably gotten at least 30 - SO spoiled) that has made living half way around the world that much easier. Definitely tastier too.

with love, Siobhan

Favorites from 2010 So Far

2010-02-27T00:40:00.000-08:00

My new bunny! Isn't she adorable? Her name is McRabbit. We were at our friend's bar a while ago and some guy was going around selling them. I'd had a couple beers and it seemed like a very good idea to get one. The next day, I realized it wasn't. Unfortunately she didn't lead a long life.

My new favorite thing to read is The Pioneer Woman I'd like to be her when I grow up. Grab some wine and read the "Love Story" - of how she and her husband met. It puts most of my romance novels to shame

International Women's Day on March 8th is the best day of the year. This year the fabric is ugly but Elyse and I had a few beers with the ladies in our neighborhood and it was really fun.

It was raining at the time we took these pictures, also raining in the bar hence the head scarf. I know why people do rain dances now. After weeks without rain (I shouldn't really complain because people in the northern part of the country will go a half a year without rain), temperatures hitting a 100 and humidity, I'm just about ready to do a rain dance myself. The rains that come are few and far between since its the dry season but when it does rain... its really intense. And I run outside with every pot and salad bowl I own to collect it. Here's a picture of my buckets getting filled up!!

Mary Poppins in French makes everyone happy!!! And it keeps the neighbor kid entertained while her mom helps me clean the house and do laundry.

Books have arrived!!! I wish I could easily sum up the entire process but I still wouldn't do it justice. THANK YOU to everyone that helped fundraise, I wish you could have been in the storage room to see the boxes and boxes of books and how excited these schools are to receive them. Here are a couple pictures, and for more visit Wendy's blog at roundtwocameroon.blogspot.com

It's volunteer's favorite season right now... MANGO SEASON! I bought a small bucket full of them for a dollar on the side of the road and I didn't even have to get out of the bus. It's wonderful. Favorite dish right now: Black bean mango salsa with avocado. Soooooo good.

This is called mbool. NOT a favorite. The sauce is made of mbools- no idea what that is and other spices. It has the texture of slimy elastic snot and you eat it with a ball of sticky flavorless manioc. I think i've mentioned manioc before- there are dozens of different ways to prepare it but essentially its a nutritionally void carbohydrate . Its popular here because a four year old could manage to grow it, has a long shelf life and its got 3 times as many calories as an average starch. Mbool is not my favorite.

But we're at a friend's house for dinner so I'm going to pretend that I love it and eat it all. *choke*. Our friend's kids are pretty cute though
Hiking up the tallest Mountain in Western Africa is, well, not exactly my favorite thing to do I found out. The hike took 3 days and covered about 26 miles. Before this, I couldn't remember the last time I went up a set of stairs (It's not that I prefer escalators, multiple level buildings are not common here). And here I was CLIMBING, not even just hiking for a good part of this excursion. Good thing I went with an amazing group of people and we had porters carrying our bags, in flip flops and jelly shoes. We camped out and cooked 2 nights. Thankfully we brought tents to sleep in because the rats were huge. I fell a few times on the way down the mountain, got up and reminded myself that at the bottom was a new dress waiting for me. But I made it!!! with all my toe nails in tack. Do you know that happens to hikers?? I decided I like hiking and I like camping, but I don't like the two together. After 6 to 9 hours of hiking I do not want to collect water, make dinner and figure out the damn tent. Oh and next time, i'll start of with a smaller mountain.

Pictures!!

http://picasaweb.google.com/siobhan.perkins/2010SoFar#

Ending the hike and going directly to the black sand beaches of Limbe was a happy ending. We ate so much fish, calamari and shrimp that night. This is the hotel's swimming pool which also has fish in it.

I'll stick to the beach thanks.

Lastly, what we've all been waiting for.... Close of Service Conference. Peace Corps puts up our entire training group- all of us who came in at the same time, at the nicest hotel in the capital over looking the entire city. We spent 4 days eating amazing food, hanging out at the pool and having a great time. Time well earned I must say. Myself and a couple other people put together a funny slideshow of pictures with some fun facts from our group collected in a survey we gave out. It was awesome, thats all I can say until I get home and can show it to you.

During the day we filled out piles of paper work and learned how to get out of this country in one piece. Most importantly we found out when we'll be leaving. Well almost all of us. I'm looking into the possibility of staying another 6 months to a year, still under Peace Corps but also partnered with a large international organization doing development work here. It would be a BIG boost in my career and maybe a foot in the door to the organization. It's not without downsides though. It's another year away from family and it might be the 3rd Christmas in a row I would miss and all of the other holidays, weddings, time I can never get back, etc. It would also mean another year of volunteering. Money is not a priority, but some is necessary.

Whether I'll stay or go, hopefully that will be decided in a couple weeks. My next blog will either be about my date that I leave this country and travel ideas/plans around afterwards OR it will be about my new exciting position with ________ organisation. You're going to have to wait and see!

Why we didn't see elephants on the safari

2010-01-13T04:19:00.000-08:00

BBC News In Pictures: Saving Chad's Elephants

Christmas Vacation

2010-01-08T06:24:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the hinge of Africa. The holidays are never the same for me outside of Vermont so instead of trying to "fake it to make it" this year we just did the extreme opposite. Packed up our bags and headed to the hottest, predominately Muslim region of where neither Elyse, Lisa nor I have been before, nor do we know that many Peace Corps Volunteers. That’s the beauty of Peace Corps though. Volunteers you've never met are similar to that distant relative or second cousin in your family. When you show up at their door you're always welcome to a place to stay and whatever is cooking. The volunteers you see often are like brothers and sisters, sometimes you know more about them then you would ever care to know. But that’s family and its kind of nice sometimes.

Anyway! Off to the Grand North! The primary means of travel is to take the one and only overnight train that leaves from Yaoundé at 6pm and arrives in the city of Ngoundere at 6am. The process to even get train tickets is a whole other story. Since Lisa and I were coming from Bertoua, we planned to catch bus at 10pm to travel to a small town an hour north of here where we could catch the train passing through around midnight. Except, frequently, things don't work out. Hopefully if you've been reading my blog you could see that one coming. Its around midnight, we're trying to sleep on random planks of wood among the rumble that is part of the "construction" at the train station and we hear the train might pass through around 4am instead of... now. The busses that brought us here won't be back till the morning, its cold and after a couple beers I'm pretty convinced that this is what the apocalypse would look like. We slept outside for a while and then because we're foreigners, someone from the train station brought us into a little room with chairs and I slept on a coffee table. The train came at 11am that morning and we arrived in the city of Ngoundere at 7pm. Not even half way to our destination and the trip has already taken 20 hours. That’s pretty normal. I'm not complaining, I'm just stating.

Now don't be picturing a beautiful amtrak train here. There is 2nd class which most peace corps volunteers don't dare to venture. First class is where I was. Then there are couchettes- I don't know the name in english but its a tiny room that has 4 beds you can fold down from the wall. Think of first class like a little more spacious 1980's greyhound with a cockroach infestation. Just the smaller ones though. Definitely not spacious enough for the lady in the seat next to me with 3 kids. One of the kids slept under my seat for several hours and the 3 year old demanded for my headphones, split soda, and in general regarded me as a playground. I was astonished she even knew the word for headphones.

Luckily throughout the entire trip I'm traveling with Lisa and Elyse and we've become an unstoppable travel team. Bus stations are insane here, there are people selling stuff, pickpocketers, reserving or not reserving seats, someone gives you their kid to hold, getting your luggage up top, the loud goat on the bus might be under our seat, worrying about where to go to the bathroom, figuring out the ticket system, car sickness, arguing with a drunk lady about her bucket of worms taking up space on the bus... its a mad house. Or should i say bus and traveling around visiting places means you have to deal with this on a daily basis. Not only do the three of us figure it out, but we also watch out for each other and laugh off all these inconveniences. Shout out to us.

So I guess I should explain why we would want to go through this whole ordeal in the first place at Christmas time. We tend to think of Cameroon in three parts: the two Anglophone regions (northwest and southwest), the grand south (west, center, south, littoral, and the east), and the grand north (adamawa, north and extreme north). Those 3 parts of the country are completely different from each other.

The Grand north is cut off by the grand south by the large Adamawa region and it's notoriously bad roads. But once you get there, it’s a completely different country.
We went during their cold season (90 to 100 degrees) which is fortunate because when it gets hot there... it’s seriously hot. Like 120 degrees in the shade. Even in the "cold" your skin cracks up crocodile like in no time. It reminded me of how humid it really is in the East. In Maroua it hasn't rained since October and it won't rain again till around May. Correct me if I'm wrong northerns, the rainy/dry season is much different in the grand south.

The Grand North is mainly Muslim in comparison to the south that is mostly Christian. There are these gorgeous mosques in the large cities and you can hear the call to prayer as clear as a bell where ever you are. Since Muslims abstain from drinking, there are less bars, less Ivorian pop music blaring from the streets and therefore fewer people who are intoxicated. It creates a more peaceful region of Cameroon

A huge mosque in Ngoundere

Side note: youtube is amazing here is a great example of the music played 24/7 Seka Seka Compared to most, that’s actually a quality music video. And my favorite which I can't believe is actually online Ngwa'ak afup Hilarious. I know the dance.

Ok, back to the story, the Northerns also seem to have caught on to the idea that tourism is profitable because they are very friendly to foreigners. There were very few times that people yelled out "white woman!!!" "hey baby" "take me back to Europe with you" kind of calls that come by the dozen in Bertoua. That part alone made me want to pack my bags and move up, desert heat and all. The Grand South has a lot of fish but the North is where you go to get good meat. Beef and Goat especially are DELICIOUS and cheap. The farmer’s co-ops there make great yogurt thats found everywhere which I also had just about every other day. In coomparsion with dairy in the Grand South which is mainly powdered milk, the yogurt was a big upgrade.

So we arrived in the beautiful Capital of Maroua in the Extreme North and even though its in the which looks like the Sahel to me, every street is lined with huge green trees. The pavement is very nice there and all traffic is guided more systematically by intersections and rotaries all organized around this huge river that flows through the center of town. This time of year the river is completely dry, the only thing that goes on there are football games and cattle herding. The city also has great restaurants, a couple hotels with pools, and several artisan shops - I’ve had my eye on a crocodile clutch and a leather bag for a longggg time.

When we arrived at the transit house were already a bunch of volunteers there decorating cookies while listening to Christmas music. We got to know a few of the newer people over some beers and had a great time. A few examples of presents exchanged around the tree christmas morning were a can of pringles, couple packs of gummy worms, a box of corn flakes with a large bowl, and other luxuries that we rarely spend money on. Lisa, Elyse and I made pancakes for everyone for breakfast, followed by Christmas beers at the bar around the corner, lots of Christmas movies in the afternoon and Adam made delicious calzones for dinner. It was really really good Christmas.

After Christmas and before New Years was spent touring around. A bunch of us went to Waza National Park Cameroon's safari designation. They might enjoy having tourists up north, but that doesn't mean they know what to do with them. The park isn't successful at keeping a high population of animals around. There were a bunch of giraffes, monkeys, antelope type animals, birds, but that’s about it. The elephants and lions were on holiday in Chad. Still it was fun but a longgggg day to be in a van driving on paths made by animals (the same crappy kind of busses we normally spend countless hours in even though this time it was rented.

It was exciting looking out for animals but the day after celebrating Christmas- a few of us were more interested napping and being woken up when something interesting happened.

Nothing says traveling in this country without a breakdown. On our way to the Park, getting the bus tied back together
The next day we headed out to Mokolo a town about an hour and a half from the Maroua (capital city/transit house). Mokolo is where Fleurange (kate) one of my favorite fellow Business Volunteers lives and is also a stop over to one of Cameroon's most popular tourist sites, Rhumsiki. Its incredible that tourists from other countries- let alone Cameroonians get to this place because its kind of a trip. Since we definitely didn't have money for a private car we hopped on motos for hire in Mokolo, put on our ipods and flew for hour on what seemed like a dirt bike course with luggage. It was so fun.Highlights of the trip were
1. Almost getting bumped the moto off several times
2. Traffic jams of donkeys and cows
3. I pet a horse as a group of them were running along the moto while we driving down the road
4. The white people moto parade caused commotion in the small villages we drove through. I was waving to kids for a good half of the ride.
5. The gorgeous scenery as we approached Rhumsiki- we could even see Nigeria
When we arrived at the fancy (to us) hotel the concierge takes one look at our dusty dirty selves and says "oh you must be Peace Corps". Then proceeds to assume that we don't need a room with air-conditioning. Since we made out with a $4 dollar PC discount and snuck the three of us into the two person room we didn't really complain. The bed was only a double though so we separated the mattress from the box spring and voila! Two beds. And used the curtains as sheets

It was a legit vacation

I feel like I'm telling an epic journey even though it was a little over a week, but I’m going to keep writing. We ate dinner at a famous restaurant in Rhumsiki- might be the only restaurant - a nice set up of two long tables in an open courtyard right off the side of the road. The owner also looked at us and said "oh you must be Peace Corps". Right again. But instead of making us eat in the back hut or something he pulls out this huge welcome wagon and insists that we make ourselves at home. We sit down and he brings out bread right out of the oven with an amazing roasted garlic spread (I’ve never seen that before here) and chocolate croissants that they're making for the hotel for the next morning. I asked for a cold one and he said "why, you're at home! grab one out of the kitchen!" and took us all back to the kitchen hut so we could all grab something out of the fridge and watch them make the croissants. The owner claims he never left the tiny village for culinary training and has just adapted his cooking to the foreigners who've come through. I don't know if I believe him, but the meal was amazing. At the end we all wrote a little something in the large visitors book he keeps. Box spring or mattress we passed right out after

The next day we set off in search of the CraB Sorcerer. The elder of the village of Rhumsiki is able to predict the future with his all knowing crustacean friend. Who gets replaced every 3 months by the way. He didn't speak French so I had an interpreter to ask him about my future martial status. I wanted to ask him where I would live next year but I didn't because I know he'd be biased to Africaand it’s not like he knows the state capitals game.

Translation: 500cfa per crab picture

He took out rocks that represented different things -love, life, money, Cameroon, Africa, Europe, random things etc then stuck them in the pot of sand. Then he took out the crab, spit on it and then put the crab in the pot.. waited for 2 minutes while the crab knocks over stones and sticks (meanwhile I was thinking where did they find crab around here?? crab cakes would be delicious) until he pulled the crab out and he/she said.... That I could get married right now if I wanted to. Which is true considering the amount of proposals I get here and hate btw. But he said I would get married in 3 years not to an American but to an African and I have the power to have lots of children (yikes). But I would only have 2 boys and a girl. And I'll live happily ever after. (I added that last part).
The sorcerer

We did some great hiking around the rock formations that I heard somewhere used to be the core of small volcanoes and the rest has eroded away with time. I would have pictures of me hiking but instead I hiked off attempting to run around the mountain and lost the group. We spend the afternoon jumping in and out of the pool and reading trashy novels- clearly enjoying ourselves more than the other tourists. Then back on the motos with just enough time before the sun set on the mountains.

Lisa's face says it all.

We're back in the capital city for New Years Eve. The party planning is in the hands of Ehab from my training group and doesn't fail to represent how our group can throw a party even in Africa. It was a "graffiti party" hence the reason we're all dressed in white. The name is a little college/fraternity but its more fun in execution- especially now that we can write on each other in several different languages. It was easily one of the best New Years Eve I've ever had. After we did the big countdown to 2010 (according to someone's random estimation of time) we started the new year off going around hugging each other for about a half an hour. I love my peace corps family.

Here are some more pictures from the trip: Christmas Vacation

Hope everyone had a great holiday and a happy new year, Siobhan

The Obamas sent me a Christmas Gram!

2010-01-06T02:36:00.000-08:00

The catch up

2009-12-15T00:28:00.000-08:00

This morning I thought I would sit down with a delicious cup of coffee (the real kind, sent from the states) and finally catch you all up on my life since.. well since a while. Except i'm out of gas for my stove, as are many homes in the East due to a region wide shortage. So today I proved that even the city girl can split wood, splash some kerosene around and create a fire in her back yard. An hour later and I've got myself a cup of coffee and the start of more adventures with fire wood.

I've also tried out my plumbing and electrical skills recently which let me tell you... are pretty weak. I can only speak for cameroon, but it seems like this area of the world gets the short end of the stick on quality products. Or more stated more clearly, factory defects from the western world get sold here as brand new. So there has been some frustration with my "new" house. But i guess that's what happens when you decided to be grown up and switch from playing house to paying for the house.

On to other updates. My health project (community health insurance) is going pretty well. We've been progressing at a slower rate than I would like but thats okay. The best news is two large international donor agencies are coming this month to talk with us further about funding support! We started the group with our own money, taken time away from families and work and have not gained a cent so it will be really nice to get that extra financial support. It will also help the project advance and be more available to several communities and villages.

This is the logo design I thought of, Thryn created and our group decided on. We're legit.

Books for Cameroon has been successfully funded and we're in the preparation stage right now to receive all 22,000 of them. Hopefully the carton will be making its way across the Atlantic very soon. For a quick second I thought maybe it would be nice if it arrived with a pizza, you know for the kids.

Its hard to believe its the holidays again, especially with the start of the 90 degree weather and dust. My postmate Elyse and I have decorated the house and have been playing Christmas music to convince ourselves otherwise. Thanksgiving is something we do big in the East and this year has topped them all. There were 25 people all at one table it was awesome. We had two big turkeys- thanks to an expat who raised them. No I didn't kill them or clean them but I did brine them overnight in a bath of stock and seasonings = delicious. It was the first time I've ever cooked a turkey and I was damn proud! There was also apple sausage stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, pumpkin pie, green bean casserole with the crunchy onions and mushrooms, pumpkin bread, mashed potatoes, caramelized carrots, SWEET corn, creamed green peas and christmasy napkins. Thats not even including appetizers! We also had an assortment of bottled wine and liquor. Now this may seem like typical thanksgiving and thats the part that made it so amazing. Its so hard to recreate american food here so the fact that everyone agreed it tasted just like home, made me pretty happy.

Not really a surprise here, I kinda planned food for three times as many people. I could barely lift the potatoes.

Boxed wine + christmas music & decorating + elyse = greatness. She's still going to kill me for posting this one..

This time of year is by far the hardest to be away, again, from family and friends back home who are all celebrating together. So Elyse, Lisa, Tess and I are headed up to the Extreme North to spend it with a huge gathering of Peace Corps volunteers. We're also really excited about traveling up there because we've never been (a 3 day trip just to get there!) and because it is a completely different country in comparison to the southern part of Cameroon. I will take LOTS of pictures.

I did put up a random mix of pictures recently that you can see here Its been a while... here are some photos

And last night I went to a party so I thought I would upload those as well. Bandjoun Fete

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, with love, Siobhan

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!

A little video

2009-10-16T03:24:00.000-07:00

This basically sums up what I was thinking when I visited the states - for a good part of the time at least. Not that hilarious in real life but pretty funny on Conan...

Everything is Amazing and Nobody is Happy - Louis C K

Books for Cameroon

2009-10-06T02:19:00.000-07:00

Who wants to learn!?!?! These kids do

In partnership with Books For Africa, a dynamic peace corps volunteer who is also a good friend of mine Wendy Lee created a library project that will extended to over 30 schools/communities and thousands and thousands of students in Cameroon. The project plan is to bring english books to schools that not only need them but who have students that are wanting to learn. Why books you say?? In Cameroon, National literacy rates are at 67% and much much worse in rural areas. Its rare for students to have school books, and with few to no libraries or bookstores, education gets the short end of the stick. Its time to change.

I am blogging about this project a little late in the game, which makes it even more important. To this day, the team of four peace corps volunteers with the incredible support from people back home have raised $8,050 to get the 40 foot container of english books shipped over. Libraries across the country have been set up and library management training classes have been created to ensure sustainablity of the resources when they arrive.

The boat hasn't left just yet though. We still need $2034 to complete the project. Wendy likes to say "Donate you're next latte" at our website here...

Donate and learn more about the project here!!!

and I'm also going to ask, spread the christmas cheer a bit early this year (I saw decorations up already while I was in the states!!) and help us out with getting books to kids in cameroon. Fowarding the project link on threw emails, personal contacts, people you work with or to anyone you think might be intereseted would also be very helpful. Feel free to contact either I or Wendy as well.

You can also learn more about the project and check it out on facebook...
Books for Cameroon on Facebook

Classroom in Fombot

School in Diang

Classroom in Batouri

Home Sweet Second Home

2009-10-01T12:12:00.000-07:00

AMERICA!!!!!!!! I blend in right?

I’m back! (in Cameroon) I had the most amazing 3 weeks in the states. Seriously I couldn't have thought of a better trip. I even braved the cold weather like a real vermonter. Just being able to grab dinner with my aunts, babysit my cousin and run errands with my mom was AWESOME. My family's christmas celebration was fantastic as you can see by the decked out living room.

on the 21st of september

I went to DC for a short trip- wayyyyy too short for the amount of fun things to do and people I wanted to see- but even so... amazing. Yeah I had a lot of toasted bagels, pizza, delicious micro brews, loaded sandwiches, okay I can go on and on but seriously being around my family and friends was the absolute best. Family is family. And mine is awesome. Sounds cheesy I know… I also ate a lot of that.

In DC with Amy and Maggie

I just wanted to write a quick blog to let everyone know that I arrived in cameroon safely, no missed flights or problems traveling. Breakdowns and delays started when i got in country but thats all normal. Thank you to my family and friends who spoiled me rotten the entire time, i loved every minute of it. Thank you to those who listened endlessly to my stories, even if you were pretending to be interested, it meant a lot. I'm sorry to those who I didn't see, or didn't get to spend a whole lot of time with. 3 weeks went by SO fast and I hope next time will be a bit longer.

I got a few “Are you ever coming back??” questions while I was home. Yes, I’ll be back. I’d like to be closer to the people I love and that can be somewhere in the states or a job in the continent of Africa that can send me home a couple times a year. As for the blog, I’ve got a new enthusiasm to take more pictures now that my camera is fixed. Oh yeah and I'll write too. Next one is coming up bientot! with love, siobhan

Paul Biya Vacas too

2009-09-07T03:08:00.000-07:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8236962.stm

Jungle Fever

2009-09-04T06:22:00.000-07:00

No no I'm not sick. I'm perfectly healthy and have been very busy with a couple projects that are not yet completed but headed in the right direction. I've wanted to make a post earlier about the work that I've been doing, but unfortunately while I want to talk about the successes, its impossible not to mention the challenges. And ohhhh there have been challenges, many of which I'm not able to blog about. I think as an american I undervalued free speech. The next time I'm in the land of say-anything-i-want I'll be able to say how shitty and malfunctioning the government is. Or I could talk about how money hungry, selfish and lazy the goverment employees are. But i'm not in the states. Or I should say not yet.

I AM GOING HOME!!!!!!!!!! For 3 weeks I am going see my family for the first time in 16 months. We're going to celebrate christmas. I'm going to drive a car. Speak english. Eat cheese until it makes me sick - which won't be that hard. Hang out with friends at a real bar that serves more than just warm beer. See a movie in theaters... I can go on and on. This wasn't exactly a scheduled trip and it also doesn't sound like exotic vacation but I'm so glad to be home for a while, its going to be freaking amazing. It feels like I'm 5x more excited about coming home than I was to move my life to africa.

I'm going to procede to freak out for the next four days until I leave (the neverous excitement started several weeks ago) I'll arrive in the beautiful state of vermont sept 9th. I'm stoked that I'll be in DC sept 22 and 23. Another week at in vermont then it's back to cameroon sept 28th. I would love to see everyone so to get ahold of me, call my house, email, or facebook. Or I'll be the girl overwhelmed in the grocery store or the person ridiculously excited about things like pavement and parking garages.

Ahhhh it's good to be home already. see you soon, love siobhan

winner winner chicken dinner

2009-07-28T03:27:00.000-07:00

I'm writing to you to tell you about my latest accomplishment, an unfortunate death of a recent pet, and the adoption of a couple new ones.

First, the pet. The past couple months I've been thinking about getting another animal to have around the house. I did have a kitten but she ran away/I left it outside while I was gone and she probably died. Oh well, so I thought I'd get a bunny instead. They're adorable and not that much maintenance. They are also excellent in a stew. My PCV friend said he could get one for me but the day he showed up with the animal it wasn't a bunny but a week old baby duiker. Duikers are a smaller species of antelope found in central africa and there are several subspecies. This little red flanked duiker was found after its mother was killed and the hunter was giving out the babies. He was adorable, and was just learning to walk around and jump. The fact that I was going to have a small deer running around in my cement courtyard didn't really matter.

Its name was Donkey. We fed it powdered milk with a baby bottle and let it play with the dog outside. Being that it was so young, she didn't have a whole lot of chances of surviving. A few days later, a sunday night during a thunderstorm, it died. I dug a hole with a spoon in my garden, said some nice words and buried Donkey next to the previous volunteer's monkey.

Next animal.

I killed and cleaned a chicken!!! And I did it by myself. A bunch of us went over to our neighbor’s house to help her prepare my favorite Njama Njama with Kati Kati. I wanted to learn everything including prepping the chicken so that I could make it for other people sometime

Kati Kati's last moments

Not a pretty picture. First you dig a little hole in the ground and put the chicken's head over it so the blood doesn't go all over. Then you have to put one foot on the legs of the chicken, the other on the wings. This way the chicken can convulse under your feet and not all over the cooking area. Pluck some feathers from its neck for a clean spot to cut. Then while holding the head slice at the neck. I accidently cut a little too close to the body and lost some of that precious neck meat that cameroonians love so much but oh well. It wasn't like the knife was that sharp either.

Then you put it in boiling water for a couple minutes and pluck the feathers all off. Then grill it to get the little feathers off. Viola its that easy. Actually it wasn't and thats probably why most of us don't ever eat chicken. We dined on it 4 hours later though and it was delicious. I was very proud, and so were the guys including some of them who chickened out killing the second one.

Other than that, I officially sasha, the little dog at the transit house in bertoua when i moved in and became the Peace Corps Volunteer Leader. She's getting pretty big and not any smarter, but we're working on that. I'm also already planning thanksgiving so I'm sponsoring a couple turkeys that living in the village in the next town over. Another PCV is taking care of them, so let’s hope they turn out better than the previous animals I've had.

A prochain, Siobhan

AH! Its been a month!

2009-06-21T04:22:00.000-07:00

It's been a month since I've written a blog! annnnnnd most importantly it's been a whole year! Yup, thats right, I've been here for a year. Crazy huh? So this blog will catch you up with what I've been doing lately.

New trainees!

Cameroon recieved 30 new trainees on June 5th and I was at the airport to welcome them in. Linsdey and I were chosen to be the Host Volunteers. I liked to think of us as their cameroonian mommies, because we were there to help them with every step during their first week in country. Days before their arrival Linsday and I ran around Yaounde and to every Peace Corps office to see what they needed from the new arrivals. Buying one cell phone here is difficult enough not to mention 29 more, so in short.. it was exhausting.

I think was almost as excited to meet them as they were at the airport as they were to finally get to Cameroon. They were also on the same flight as the Cameroonian Lions Football team arriving in country to play a big qualify match against Morrocco. It made security at the airport a little more tight but not so much that a bunch of us could pass by customs & security to the bagage claim to start organizing the mounds of luggage.

As we were traveling back to the hotel, it was funny hearing their comments about their new strange surroundings. Like the crazy driving here, people walking with things on their heads, starved mangy dogs wandering around, the little boutiques and thrown together bars... and many more aspects of cameroon that all seem really normal to me now. The new trainees asked hundreds of questions a day and it made me re-reflect on things and reminded me what cameroon was like at first. I remember being nervous about getting malaria and I never missed my prophoylaxis. The first medical session on mango flies that wiggle underneath your skin, dysentary that will keep you in your bathroom for a week, or the several worms that can make their home in your body... that stuff scared the shit out of me. Now a year later, it's really not that bad.

The new group of volunteers are really fun and they are also qualified for the job. Read the article here on two of the new trainees

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124450268338295907.html#mod=article-outset-box

The best part of being a host volunteer was hanging out with them and catching up on all of the american stuff i missed. I learned about Susan Boyle the British Idol phenomenon. John and Kate are going to need to split up their eight. Yeahhhh and that's just about all i missed. Like I said, the new group is really cool and I loved hanging out with them but they also reminded me of the fast passed, internet dependent, twitter ridiculous life that many westerns live. My previous life included.

Conclusion: one year later and I still really like living here and I hope the same for the soon to be volunteers.

Yaounde is my new home!

Joking, but seriously I've been spending some quality time in the capital these past 2 months. Mostly I've been doing work in preparation for the new volunteers but I also had my Mid Service Medical Exams. The mid service is done in groups of a dozen or so and our laundry list of things to get checked up range from the dentist (kind of nervous about that one here in Cameroon but it was legit) to handing over a few stool samples. Not as exciting as the dentist I assure you. In light of this, my friend Thryn decided to make a game out of it.

Diarrhea is the freebie, everyone gets it. The BINGO card was sent out to PC staff and even our medical officers thought it was pretty funny. It was a weird disappointment that I didn't win this game but kind of a good thing that no one has... not yet.

Between preping technical presentations for the new trainees and medical stuff, we had some time to kill. Yaounde isn't the friendliest city and it's definitely not cheap so volunteers often find themselves staying in peace corps headquarters the entire time. Instead of being bored and spending tons of money eating out, we decided to cook because that usually took at least half the day to do. On average we were feeding 15 to 20 hungry volunteers and at most, like on homemade raviolli night there were 25 of us. Other nights we made egg rolls, an indian masala with paneer and nan, amazing pad thai, breakfast burritos, eggplant parmesan and alot more. Vegetarian chili, which i had my doubts about turned out to be good enough to make twice. The second week we cooked, we made it official with a menu and a restaurant logo.

"we make dreams come true" aka delivering american food to volunteers cheap and easy. for them at least. We have 2 locations and are opening a 3rd whenever Thryn and Gabe move to their new post. Here are some pictures and my first plea to Food Network to send some proper utensils along with a mixer and imersion blender please and thank you.

My hand in a metal cup makes a good bean masher

The transit house only has 3 spoons so we eat with measuring cups accompained with beer in a jelly jar.

Nik and his heaping plate of Pad Thai, imitating my pose for pictures

Whats next...

I'm going to have to say goodbye to my postmate Ann-Marie on friday which is going to be pretty tough. We've gotten to be really close and this next year in Peace Corps is going to be completely different with her not around. It might be a good thing though, I'm really looking forward to concetrating on projects and things I want to accomplish before I leave.

This weekend I'm headed to Bagangte the training village. I'll be doing technical sessions on corruption, management consulting, and working with community groups. I'm excited to see the new trainees again! Then, finally, after several weeks spent in the captial, I'll be going back to Bertoua. There's just no place like the East. Lots of love, Siobhan

Pictures

2009-05-13T01:18:00.000-07:00

I've been lucky enough to have high speed internet to load lots of pictures I've been promising. Pictures from France to come in a couple weeks..

http://picasaweb.google.com/siobhan.perkins

Home Sweet Home

2009-05-01T10:22:00.000-07:00

Paris was amazing. I took the TGV train from Nice. It was only a 6 hour trip and it was nice to see some of the countryside. Unfortunately I have developed some sort of reverse motion sickness. I now do better in those busses I normally take with shitty seats, bad roads and no shocks. Something about the spaciousness and smooth riding makes me horribly sick now.

Alison and I outside the Catacombs

It was great to see my two friends from GW Alison and Esther. I lived with both of them my last year at GW and with Alison years before that. Shout out to the Devenny Fam! It was nice seeing familiar faces and hanging out with people from what seems like my former life. We spent a good time laughing about old stories, most of mine included the library or some horrible sleeping or studying habit. Randomly another friend Eleanor from our first year at GW was in Paris for the weekend and we got to catch up and go out with her which was really great.

Esther and I on a boat tour of the Seine

Highlights of Paris include:
- When I first arrived, I walked around for 2 hours hungry because I couldn't decide on a place to eat. Everything looked that good.

-People watching was an activity by itself.

- We ate at this one crepe place 5 times! It was amazing. They used the same amount of cheese and meat we would use in Cameroon for six people but this time it was all for me. Chorizo, Chevre lettuce tomato onion or feta tarama olives lettuce and tomato were my two favorite.

- Shiny, clean and efficient. Ann-Marie likes to say that the developed world is shiny, and it was. Partly because it’s incredibly clean. Really clean. And nothing is better than efficiency. It was almost too efficient for me to handle. Forming lines, menus to order off from, functioning transportation systems, never waiting more than 5 minutes for anything!

-I went into the Sephora flagship store on Champs Elyse - the 5th Avenue of Paris. It was a total blur, I was overwhelmed. I walked out and didn't even know what happened. We went back a couple days later to put on lip gloss, Chanel perfume and my favorite Nars blush and repeated that same exact step every time we passed a Sephora.

- Wine, Wine, Wine. It was delicious and ridiculously cheap, especially if it came from the store around the corner instead of a restaurant/bar. A decent champagne was also only a few dollars. Got a little too excited about that and accidentally shot off one cork towards the apartments across the street from our hotel. No windows broken.

- I bought two tennis rackets for $25 dollars and brought them back with me so my Cameroonian friend Charles and I can try and play tennis. That wil be funny

-I spent hours just looking around in a grocery store. And I took pictures.

-There were times that my French came in handy, especially in Nice were fewer people spoke English. I feel like it’s more respectful to at least start off speaking the language. Sometimes I would speak in french and people would speak back to me in english. Apparently my french isn't that good and its definitely not parisenne French. I'm hitting to books when I get back home to improve. Little french children were ADORABLE and I'm determined to raise my kids speaking French as well.

-We saw the most famous works in several gorgeous museums. We did the church scene like Sacre Coeur and Notre Dame. We did just about everything you could do in Paris, boat ride on the Seine, Catacombs, Eiffel tower, Bastille, Victor Hugo's hangout spots, Versailles, the list goes on. But probably some of the best times I had were chilling in one of the parks with a bottle of wine and delicious french snacks. Or just walking around into all of the little boutiques, books shops, and gourmet food stores.

- No one gave a shit what "the white girl" was doing. I was completely anonymous and it was amazing.

-Did I already mention the dogs? Everyone has a little dog and they are allowed to go everywhere. Even homeless people had a dog. Even the homeless people were clean too. I had a hard time not laughing when they asked me for money (all of 3 of them I saw). If they're asking for money while drinking a bottle of french wine, I'm pretty sure they should be giving me money.

-I brought back a big bag of cheese to share with everyone. Food always tastes better when you share it with someone else, Cameroonians get to experience something completely foreign and all of us volunteers would do just about anything to have cheese.

The only thing that would have made the trip better:

If I could have met up with my family.

If it was a bit warmer. (Never thought I would say that) Paris was between 55 and 65 degrees and I was freezing.

If Matt Damon was there. The "city of lights'" is also the city of love, tres romantique!

I'm trying to put up pictures but since my camera broke (no surprise there) before I left for France, I'm now relying on other people to send them to me. I'm uploading tons of photos right now, it just takes forever here. Until then, if you want check out this link http://alumni.gwu.edu/news/2009_05/aprofile.html Since the three of us are all successful GW grads living in different parts of the world, the Alumni Association at GW profiled us for the newsletter.

I did miss Cameroon a bit. It was weird that no one wanted to have a random conversation with me. I felt like I should have asked the guy at the hotel reception desk where he was from or how his family is doing. I missed the amazing network of support and friends that I have made in Peace Corps. Especially other volunteers, they make living here great. Surprisingly it wasn't that hard to come back to Cameroon. Yeah all of that extra stuff is great, the cheese, the perfume, being able to drive a car, the clothes but really I guess I don't miss it that much. I've lived long enough without extravagance to realize it’s not necessary and in some ways I'm better off without it.

The plane ride back was amazing of course. I watched a bunch of movies that I thought were brand new, but apparently came out last year. I sat between some Cameroonian women and explained to them what the plane food was and how to use their TV screens. The grandmother wasn't interested in the movies but we both enjoyed getting refills on the refreshments. Her gout of choice was Heineken, and the stewardess kept them coming. I knew I was on my way back. Half way through the flight the plane started smelling like B.O. and a latrine and Cameroonian businessmen were gathered around the steward drink stations like it was a free happy hour. Yup, I was almost in Cameroon alright.

I'm currently writing this at our transit house in Yaoundé and by the time I post it, I'll probably already be in Bertoua. Over the past 2 days since I arrived in country the mosquito bites have reappeared everywhere, including on my face! I've already fallen back into the habit of arguing about prices of taxis, beans, bananas etc. And the rat problem at the house right now is something I'm trying to not think about.... Home sweet home.

Nice! France!

2009-04-22T00:56:00.000-07:00

We're not in Cameroon anymore...

I started my two week vacation off with a smoked salmon, creme fraiche, melted cheese and dill panini. Accompanied with a mini carafe of alsatian wine and finished with an espresso. Sounds amazing right?? And it wasn't even at fancy place, just an average cafe. I was in HEAVEN. Even thought the unusual amount of dairy and rich food made me sick it didn't stop me from getting a Mcflurry afterward.

My french cuisine experience deserves it's own blog entirely, but I'll continue on with something else for now. Nice is a gorgeous city located on the French Riviera. It's a cool mix of French and Italian culture along side the beautiful blues of the Mediterranean. The buildings are warm yellow and rustic orange with terra cotta roofs, iron balconies full of flowers and sea green window shutters. It was absolutely lovely. It was even a nice change to be cold for a while, and I was definitely freezing at a chilly high of barely 70 degrees. This didn't seem to bother anyone else though. People were walking around in tee shirt, tanning on the beach and even some crazy people were swiming. The first night I slept in my fleece jacket under a thick blanket. I stayed in a hostel for two nights that could easily qualify as a three star hotel in Cameroon with hot water, shockingly nice customer service, free high speed internet, clean beds and right in the center of Nice.

Since I wasn't meeting my friends in Paris for a few days, I made friends with others in the hostel. Most of them were younger and almost all spoke english. It was really cool hearing about other people's travels around Europe but a little frustrating when some people had no idea where I had been living for a year. Worse was after I told them about a couple of my experiences, they tried to relate to it in some ridiculous way. It wasn't like that all the time, I did have some good conversations about working in micro finance, the things I missed the most about Cameroon/ and the states, etc, so that was really really great.

I think I handled the dramatic change pretty well. It was weird being in a predominately white country. I kept thinking that I saw people I knew. There were a lot of older people too (Cameroon's average life expectancy is a lot lower) and everyone had a little dog that they went everywhere with, even in stores and restaurants = bizarre. The amount of wealth was just astounding. Instead of running for the race I originally signed up for, I spent one morning recovering not from a bottle of wine, but from a cheese plate and then in the afternoon took a day trip with a few newly made friends to Monaco. The small country is the 16th most developed country in the world. Let me tell you, I almost threw up in my mouth after 3 Lamborghinis drove by us on the street. They made the BMWs there look like Saturns and the yachts were big enough to be confused for a small cruise lines. It was exhausting just looking at all of it.

That night a bunch of us went out to a bar that had a live band playing classic american rock, met some people from Lousiana and felt like a piece of me was back at home. Apart of me wishes that I just continued on to the states to see much missed family and friends. At the same time, I'm so happy to be seeing a new place and meeting up with old college friends. And surprisingly, I still miss Cameroon. Shout out to my parents that made this much needed vacation possible, where ever I ended up being, I'm loving every second of it.

Deep East

2009-04-17T04:37:00.000-07:00

I waited to post this blog because I wanted to post some pictures to go along with it, but you know, cameroon and technology doesn't mix that well so we'll just have to wait. They'll get posted one day, but until then grab a cup of coffee and get prepared for a long blog about my east province trip. But I promise it won’t be as long as the bus rides…

So we’ll start there. The first leg of the trip was a 12 hour ride on horrible roads in a prison bus. We were joking that prisoners in the states have nicer buses than we do. So do cattle. Thankfully I wasn’t traveling alone, I traveled with my postmates Ann-Marie and Kate and the other 25+ people packed in the bus. At one time, Kate counted and she was touching 7 people! (including 2 babies). Its so cramped that our knees were always hitting the metal bar of the seat infront of us or uncomfortably shoved up someones back side. Covered in dirt, knees bruised… I was not a happy camper.

God bless my ipod though, I would have never made it.

The bus only broke down once. Everyone in the bus was thankful for that, especially since the bus was missing a part called ______(insert French word I didn’t understand here) and if we broke down again we would have to sleep on the side of the road. We didn’t get the whole story but the bus was running regardless of this mystery missing part. As it got darker and darker, driving along we realized what that French word was… HEADLIGHTS. Yeah, kind of necessary. For an hour we drove in the dark. It was one of those times when you get really nervous and start freaking out so instead all you can do is laugh semi hysterically. So I laughed as people in the bus passed up their lighters with little flashlights on the end to try and help the situation.

We arrived in Yokaduma, a town known for it’s wild wild west kind of feel, where we met the other volunteers from the east waiting for us with cold beers. They were delicious. We headed out the next morning with the World Wildlife Foundation -WWF to Mambele, a small village of 500 people another 160 kilometers south. In the buses it takes about 8 hours. Lucky for us the WWF drove us down there in 5 hours in their vehicles since the roads were too bad for the bus.

The reason we were doing all of this traveling was to do a province wide collaboration project with Matt and Sarah Kuhn, two peace corps volunteers living in Mambele. I highly recommend reading their blog because their life is completely different and probably the most extreme of any volunteers living in Cameroon. And their stories are hilarious too. Their blog: http://6n12e.blogspot.com/

Matt and Sarah both work with the WWF in their largest conversation and anti-poaching program in the Central African Rainforest. They do anything from rehabilitating endangered African Grey Parrots on their front lawn to prosecuting hunters. More importantly they invited us over to their house for Tuna Surprise… and let me tell you, the surprise here in Cameroon is tuna because its too expensive for most of us to buy it.

The project went really well. Education Volunteers did a workshop with teachers from the district on effective teaching methods. Nik and I worked with a EcoTourism GIC on budgeting, management, and project planning. The health presentations were great and I still have some of the songs they used stuck in my head. The town was really happy to receive us and we already received really positive feedback about the sessions we conducted.

During the week we stayed at a camp and it was pretty nice. There were a couple semi sleepless nights listening to animals scratch outside my hut and/or me scratching mosquito bites inside my hut. But since I had a bed and a mattress it really wasn’t hardcore camping. In the middle of the night, I debated whether it would be cool to see a gorilla, but decided that when I’m outside peeing at 1am would not be the best time. There were always monkeys though, making huge jumps in the trees above. We collected our water in buckets from the river (bleached them of course- I don’t want shisto). We came prepared with all of our food supplies for the week since there was hardly anything in the village. We weren’t exactly prepared to be cooking everything over a fire but at the end of the week, I think we could have done crumb brulee. A year ago I was serving Norwegian water in polished crystal glasses and now I am using leaves as ovenmits, potlids have replaced fine china, and five times a day or more I find myself saying “is this clean??? (in my head I say no)… Meh, clean enough”

The amount of bugs were ridiculous. That week, we used a whole bottle of Ben’s 100% Deet and still got eaten alive by mosquitoes and something similar to deer flies. Not literally eaten alive though, the killer ants stayed away from us and only attacked some of the food. There were also hundreds of butterflies and birds all around the campground.

Once our work was finished we took a trip into one of the reserve parks. Just when you think you’re the furthest away from a starbucks than you will ever be… its time to go farther. The infrastructure for tourists is practically non existent. No places to really stay, no roads in the park and if I wasn’t a PCV I would have no idea how to get there. The WWF drove us on a “road” in the park and at various parts of the trip the driver would say to all of us cramped in the back of the land cruiser,“Okay. Sit well.”. And we’d try and hold on to a part of the car while ducking our head down away from the windows because we were about to get THROWN. We also had to close the windows because of snakes. We were dropped off and hiked the rest of the way to the clearing.

We had 2 Baka guides and a ecoguard (someone allowed to use a gun that was held together with a rubberband… hmmm) that came with us. It took a little less than 2 hours to the clearing where we camped out for a night. Petit Jean, our baka guide showed us things in the forest you can eat and cook with like sticks in the woods that smelled like garlic. He cut a vine down that we could drink water out of too. Along the way we saw some monkeys that looked like skunks, elephant prints, gazelles - african deer, and a couple meter long lizards. I was disappointed not to see any gorillas. Matt was saying that its good the animals are not acclimated to humans because it would only increase poaching. But one time, a few of us were walking to go prep dinner and we heard gorillas yelling and rawring and making whatever sounds they make. The furthest we could see was about 20ft because vegetation was so dense, sometimes we couldn’t see 5feet infront of us, or my own feet. But anyway, we heard them and I STOPPED immediately. I looked around, and then just booked it up to our little pygmy guide and frantically asked him in english “Gorillas don’t eat humans right?!?!? They just attack us????” Of course he couldn’t understand what I was saying, just looked at me like I was crazy. Sarah thought my freak out was pretty funny though.

So we hiked back, and did the whole travel thing again with a few minor road blocks like large trees and logging trucks. The WWF has amazing drivers that could navigate through deep mud, over ditches and were able to control the car when it was sliding over the bridge made out of 4x4s. We bought our driver a beer when we got to Yokaduma for getting us there safely and I was happy fall asleep in our 10 dollar a night hotel room – the classiest place in town.

Needless to say I did NOT want to travel for a while after that. Until now basically. I'm headed to PARIS!!!! In one hour I'm going to get on a bus, head to the airport and proceed to probably freak out. I'm excited. I'll write when I get back, love siobhan

A blessing? In disguise? Prob not.

2009-03-26T01:33:00.000-07:00

I made it out of the jungle! And I'm finally done traveling for a few weeks. I love how I was able to see both sides of the country and both were completely opposite from each other.. cold vs. humid, more developed vs. extreme poverty, english vs. sometimes very little french, etc. After being away from my post for so long, I decided that I am really happy in Bertoua, kind of in the middle.

I had the experience of a life time camping out in the central Africa rainforest, and I can't wait to tell you all about it. However there's a more important issue that I need to get off my mind first.

As a lot of you know, Pope Benedict came to visit Cameroon last week. I already mentioned in preparation for his visit the Cameroonian government decided to clean up the capital city- aka bulldoze hundreds businesses and homes in the middle of the night. After I witnessed it in Yaoundé, I was furious. Unfortunately Pope Benedict said NOTHING about this during his visit. Nothing.

From the Herald Tribune: "Pope Benedict XVI will not know when he visits Yaoundé that beyond the thousands of smiling faces welcoming him are millions of destitute Cameroonians who wish he did not come," said Michael Kimbi Tchenga, a resident of the capital Yaoundé.

THEN he denounced the use of condoms and further said that condom just aggravates the problem of HIV/AIDS. WRONG. I've been hearing a lot of international organizations saying that they hope some Cameroonians overlooked that part of the Pope's speech. But deep in the jungle, an 8 hour ride to the next town to get phone service... people we were working with knew about the condom comment a few days later...

The World Health Organisation responded: "These incorrect statements about condoms and HIV are dangerous when we are facing a global pandemic which has already killed more than 20 million people, and currently affects at least 42 million." (Times)

Too often words or pictures don't cut it. I'm not much of a writer anyway but they can't possibly show my feelings about this. I will post pictures later and the next blog will be a little more cheerful. Till then!

I'm back!

2009-03-14T10:51:00.001-07:00

I'm back from the other side of the country actually. This past week I did another collaboration project in a town called Kumbo in the Northwest Province. Two out of ten provinces in Cameroon are anglophone- colonized by the British. I was there to get some info from a really successful group of mutual health associations and use it for my project that I'm working on right now - MHO's are community based insurance savings groups. The visits to the hospitals and offices really helped, so I'm excited and have more confidence that my HMO is going to be sucessful.

The trip reinforced a couple ideas that I had: there are tons of ngos and governments working in the Northwest compared to other provinces and does not correspond with poverty level. I'll admit it though, English is easier and so is working in areas with better infrastructure. And thats one of the reasons why the poorest populations are not being reached... thats another discussion. The other thing I noticed that there are more religious based hospitals and organizations. There are some benefits to this, but I still have yet to form a solid opinion.

As a related side note since I witnessed it myself: The pope is coming to visit in a week so to prepare for this visit the government "cleaned up the streets" aka bulldozing. I'm without blog-appropriate words to tell you what I think of this but here's a little article about it if you want to read more:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090310/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_cameroon_pope_demolitions

Back to the visit, overall it was great. People were so friendly and welcoming. As I was walking around, even in the provincial capital Bamenda, I kept waiting for someone to give me shit or start harassing... but nothing. Really it was shocking. It's also gorgeous there, huge rolling hills and deep valleys. I got to see Tess and David from my stage which was great. I stopped by my friend Catie's in Bamenda and it was nice to see a familiar face from home for a bit (we went to GW together). It made me realize how incredibly diverse Cameroon is and equally how different own individual experiences are.

Speaking English proved to be a bit of a challenge. Even though my French still isn't that great, its still my default language. So now I suck in both languages. Awesome. No it wasn't that bad, it just made me realize how I melange the two and don't realize that I do it. Its interesting how the anglophone regions and french regions are distinctively separate from each other. I don't know if this is the case for francophone's but the English speaking part of Cameroon doesn't like being associated with the french Cameroonians, even though most anglophones speak french.. only if they absolutely have to. Some anglophones don't even speak english, they only speak pigdin which nicely put is a type of creole language. Some people like to say its just bad english.

While we were having a juice one afternoon with some friends in the center of Kumbo, I was lucky enough to see my first Juju. Jujus are kind of spirits, that posses power and are assigned to different objects such as death, jokers, weddings. They belong to chiefdom's so in Kumbo where there are 2 fons (chiefs) there are about 30 something different juju's in each clan. Don't quote me on some of this, but this is how I understood it. I found it really interesting that believing in jujus is completely separate from the worship of God and many people who do believe in jujus are also catholics, protestants, baptists, etc. Secondly its not just people of the village who follow jujus, many African leaders have been known to use them as well.

I saw one of the more common ones, the dealth juju. (i have pics but can't put them up now so you'll have to imagine with my description). He out in the town because one member of the fon's clan died. The juju was wearing a huge type of hat made out of straw dyed black. The straw hid his entire top half of his body and he held out sticks that looked like bamboo and he hit them together. A few other people dressed very traditionally ran after the dealth juju trying to constrain him as he ran down the street. So we had to duck down and hide behind the banister of the bar just in case the juju was to try and throw one of the sticks at us. While all this was happening, I had no idea what was going on, didn't know what a juju was or why we were hiding. But it was a great experience anyway.

This week I spent 33 hours crammed into a bus or a bush taxi - not including the wait time before those cars leave... and I am SO happy to get home. For one night only though, I'll be heading out to another corner of the country... THE DEEP EAST. I am pumped! You'll hear all about it too.... next week!

March Madness

2009-03-12T04:49:00.000-07:00

Sorry its been a while since i've made a post. I'm still here!!!! And doing really well. March has been a crazy month already. I'm currently in an anglophone province on the opposite side of the country doing some research. Next week I'll trek back to the East and go deep deep into the bush where we will be working on a provincial collaboration project amoungt all of the volunteers in the East. We're hoping to have a really sucessful project and explore some parts of the forest reserves at the same time.

There are tons of pictures to come, and I'll soon fill you in on the travel adventures as well.

with love! siobhan

February Funk

2009-02-20T02:30:00.001-08:00

I've realized that I no longer have the same enthusiasm I had before when it comes to writing blogs, emails and letters. This has happened for 2 reasons that pretty much exist across most volunteer's experience. First of all, things are just not that exciting or surprising anymore. So a sourcer was involved in someone’s death in town, that’s pretty normal. I had to shove some chicken gizzards down the other day because a friend kindly offered us the best parts of the chicken but that’s not really out of the ordinary. In short, most things in my life now are "normal". With that said, I've got a feeling I'm going to be a little strange when I get back...

Secondly, its not all beer and candy, sometimes living here just sucks. I complained for about 3 paragraphs but decided to make it a bit shorter, and less, well bitchy. I am tired of: bugs/mice, not being understood, Cameroonians giving me a lot of shit all day long, the overall lack of motivation, being away from family and friends, taking pepto pink crap and living in a less developed country in general. There I said it. And I feel a bit better.

I didn't want to be negative, so instead I just stopped writing. I think I'm slowly getting over the funk though. March is going to be a busy month and then April I'm taking off to France for a couple weeks (and I AM So EXCITED). I'm hoping to help with the newbie’s arriving in June which will be fun, and then already I'm at a year mark... not bad! I've never regretted my decision to be here, I've never thought about leaving and I don't think this is the last time I'll live in Africa. And all that is pretty darn good I think.

As always, thank you for your continuing support, the cards, the packages, the positive comments and lots of emails. It makes a world of difference. thank you and love, Siobhan

Fresh Air Fund

2009-02-19T01:50:00.000-08:00

A representative from the Fresh Air Fund asked me to write a blog about the programs they offer and the need for hosts, staff members, camp counselors etc. which I am more than happy to. (even though I copied most of it off their website). I was first introduced to the program when a neighbor hosted a child through the Fresh Air Host Fund Family. There are several other programs that Fresh Air orgainizes, here's some information about that you might find of interest:

Since 1877, The Fresh Air Fund, a not-for-profit agency, has provided free summer vacations in the country to more than 1.7 million New York City children from disadvantaged communities. Each year, thousands of children visit volunteer host families in 13 states and Canada through the Friendly Town Program or attend one of five Fresh Air Fund camps.

Each summer, 3,000 children enjoy themselves at one of the five Fresh Air camps in upstate New York. They are now accepting applications for counselors for this coming summer of '09. They hire staff members with a wide range in some pretty amazing fields. Fresh Air Fund is looking for college-aged men and women who love to work with children.

For more information please visit this website http://freshairfundcounselors.smnr.us/

February Funk

2009-02-18T00:56:00.000-08:00

You might be a Cameroonian Peace Corps Volunteer if…..

2009-01-30T00:42:00.000-08:00

I know some of you might be familiar with Jeff Foxworthy’s You Might Be A Redneck… If you’re from Vermont, not only do you know what I’m talking about, but you can probably also relate. Myself included. I had the daily quotation calendar thank you very much. A few weekends ago some volunteers and I watched the Blue Collar Comedy Tour and being in that mindset, we decided to do “You might be a PC Cameroon volunteer….”

Three quick things, this blog is co-authored by my very funny postmate ann-marie. Also the other day I was googling, and stumbled upon a You Might Be A PCV South Africa if… paying 15 dollars for Indian delivery food is too much. That’s when I stopped reading and decided that they were probably living in Jersey. Finally, I know there’s a few volunteers out there that read this blog, please feel free to add…

You might be a Cameroonian Peace Corps Volunteer if…..

· you don’t do a double take when the 10 year old selling rat poising is actually carrying around a dead rat as proof.

· you call a 12oz beer a baby beer and a 22oz is normal.

· spending 2500cfa (about $5) on a meal is considered splurging, and probably the most expensive food you can find in town.

· you’ve ever actually paid to pee in a hole in the ground

· you put on a sweatshirt at 70 degrees

· the “white man’s” grocery store is your tourist attraction.

· you opt out of using a fork because the food tastes better using your hands.

· you actually get annoyed and offended when someone tells you you’re beautiful.

· you have to ask the hostess/mommie cooking what kind of bush meat she is serving because you don’t want to eat monkey

· you’ve every found yourself arguing over 20 cents

· the word “deranger” is considered a word in the English language

· you are no longer embarrassed by having diarrhea, talking about diarrhea or discussing another person’s diarrhea.

· you dream about eating cheese.

· the idea of personal space no longer exists

· your alarm clock is roosters and the snooze button is pigs

· you think of boiled eggs as bar food

· you regularly eat beans for breakfast, lunch and dinner

· you’ve ever seen a woman breastfeeding in the market while the baby is propped up next to a dead monkey, and the mother is vehemently arguing the price of fish

· you see other white people and can’t help but stare

· you no longer know what clean white feet look life

·the best insult you can throw at someone is to call them “villageois” (villager)

· your favorite season of the year is mango season

· Having cleavage includes knee caps

· You have mosquito bites in places the don’t see the light of day

· Its not a meal if piment(a really spicy pepper), Maggie (MSG in cube form) or palm oil is not present

· you don’t do anything or go anywhere when it rains, just like everyone else

· you have used your medical kit for things not medically related i.e. bandage tape to hang pictures

· you’ve seen every movie you own at least a dozen times, and the deleted scenes making of the movie, and with commentary

· you wash the chalk like pepto bismuth down with beer or whiskey.

· your perfume is either Coopertone or Off Deep Woods and your wine glasses are made by Rubbermaid

Chez Barack Obama and other updates

2009-01-20T00:15:00.000-08:00

Today's the big day in the states. I kind of wish I was in DC for the inauguration but I guess you can't live in both worlds. We have a new bar in the center of town though...

Ann Marie is having some of our cameroonian friends over to watch it on tv at a convenient 6pm scheduled broadcast time. We're also having Kati Kati which is very exciting! This type of green vegetable (jamma jamma) and corn fufu my favorite cameroonian food pluuuuus chicken! We wanted to make only American food for the occasion but then we realized that people wouldn't come or they would go hungry, because they are terrified of our food. So instead we'll make an American dessert.

Oh and the last blog, I mentioned something about babies that my mother said was a bit confusing. Lets clear that one up. People ask me how I like it here, and the Cameroonain response is always "wonderful!! you should find a nice cameroonian to settle down with and have babies!" While I love this country, thats not going to happen.

Work at the Micro Finance Bank is going really well. We have been organizing, cleaning and filling which is wonderful. I'm also doing mini one on one lessons with the employees on the internet and excel. Much harder to teach in french but the value of knowing both of those tools for a bank is really huge.

So sad news, and old news. My little cat benny ran away.... around thanksgiving. I just didn't have the heart to tell everyone since I know she had a big fan club back in the states. Last time I saw her she was at the neighborhood bar. I picture she was pounding back shots of milk, got disorientated and didn't know how to get home. Kate's cat just had baby kittens...

but they're not going to trick me into taking one of them home with their cuteness. I'm going to get another animal instead..

I finally booked tickets for vacation!!!! IM GOING TO FRANCE!!!!!! and I'm beyond excited. April in Paris? Why wouldn't I be excited? I am going to eat SO MUCH amazing food. I'm flying into Nice on the 18th, running a half marathon on the 19th and then spending 10 days in Paris with a college friend. Oh yeah and about the semi marathon ( thats what its called in french, almost like its not legit, i think its funny). I believe that one can only find out how far one can go by going too far. And this time I mean literally as in kilometers. Right now, I can't even run 5 miles, but whatever. If I don't make it to 13, the only thing I've lost the lazy time that I used to sleep in every morning. Plus i'll be running literally along the coast of the mediterrainean in the south of France, how bad can it be? Instead of gatorade I picture having the choice of a chilled Alsatian wine or Cote du Rhone. Haahah no? I did read a review on the race and at the hydrating stations they give fresh fruit and cheese. Forget the finish line i'll just be concentrating on running to the next cheese stand. After months of not eating dairy products.. I am going to eat so much cheese its not even funny, and it probably won't be funny afterwards when I realize my stomach can't handle lactose anymore.

Anyway, its kind of nice planning a vacation this way. I can't wait to go but at the same time I can, because I need to be running a lot more miles before then. Finding a place to run here is a bit difficult, so is eating protein. Did I mention its the driest and hottest season here? ha. I've got 2 Cameroonian trainers, aka my friends. One makes sure I don't miss a run and the other is starting me on some type of bootcamp thing next week so we'll see how that goes... du courage!

This is a random picture, thought I would share. Ann Marie's mom sent her a new bra in the wrong size and I lucked out because it fits me. But its a color I have not seen in forever... WHITE! It won't stay that way for long so naturally I took a picture.

This kind of reminds me of one of those ridiculous myspace pictures people take of themselves.

I also put a couple more pictures from the holidays online, this is one of my favorites

Happy Inauguration Day! And until next time, take care tout le monde

Thanksgiving Part Two: Why Cameroonians Have it Good

2009-01-12T01:42:00.000-08:00

I'm doing to preface this blog with the same disclaimer I gave for the Why Americans Have it Good blog, now just the other way around. Disclaimer: I miss the United States SO much!! I love this country but really there is no place like America. Just because I'm never visiting during my peace corps service doesn't mean I'm never coming back, or getting married here and it certainly does not include me having any babies. I am going to be talking non stop about Cameroon when I first get back, so I figured I would get start a little bit now. The other thing is this blog will not do justice to how I have it good here. Being a pcv and essentially an important person in town... and well I have it really good.

When you first meet a Cameroonian, they will shake your hand - always and it’s a habit I’ve really picked up. They will ask you how you are, how work is, how the family is doing, how you slept last night... very friendly. People will say "Oh ma soeur or ma mere, ma tante, ma fille, etc" Translated directly I am the cousin, the sister, and the mother of many Cameroonians but really it’s just a nice way of addressing me.

Cameroonians love new years and I love it also. They will be saying prayers for each others new years and saying "Bonne Année!!!" till may.

People here like to give random gifts too. At the bank someone will give me fruit for no reason, or neighbors will bring over a plate of food randomly. And in Cameroon if you invite someone out for lunch or a beer, this means that the person who offered the invitation also pays the bill.

Oh and beers are twice as big as in the states. Not only is it common to drink during lunch and dinner but the bars are also open around 8AM just incase you're having a really rough morning. p.s. I don't do that. Forget red bull, chew on a kola nut instead (aka cola like the soda) that’s packed full of caffeine and a symbol of friendship when you break it apart and share it at the same time.

At anytime I am welcome to go to friends or a neighbor’s house and visit. In the states people don't really "visit" or you would at least call first if you were going to drop by somewhere. Here, an unexpected visitor is met with open arms, a couple beers and a full meal. Always. And you think it would be weird just to show up around dinner time at someone’s house, but its not at all, they enjoy having company. Cameroonians are amazing hosts.

Speaking of meals. Right now, I eat papaya larger than my head for 20 cents. Avocados are a big more expensive but they're also huge and have great flavor for around 40 cents. Bananas are a deal at 2 pennies a piece. Pineapple, tomatoes, oranges, passion fruit, hibiscus juice, carrots and melons are all pesticide free, in abundance and for how much??? Pocket change

Don't confuse that all I'm eating is fruits and veggies though, definitely not. Cooking is ALOT of work, a lot of work that I don't do regularly and I like the food that I can easily buy from someone selling out of their cooking pot on the side of the road. The meat here is all free range and freshly killed. I'm sure I could even watch it being killed if I wanted to (definitely can't do that in the states). Best of all, Cameroonians eat with 6 senses, the last being their hands. Some food really does taste better when you eat it with your fingers.

There is music everywhere. My neighbors have it on constantly. At the bank sometimes we'll have 2 radios going and we can hear the music playing outside from the other shop owners. Every little store here has a set of speakers and plays music. It’s not different from generation to generation either. The same music that plays in the bar, little kids shake to walking down the street, and it plays in the post office.

Forget black and white and shades of gray, this country is anything but. And white doesn't even stay clean. Cameroon is colourful in ever sense of the word. Where in the states can you dress in a complete bright magenta outfit with sparklies on it and you blend in??

It’s not necessary to have a vehicle here. In the large city I live in, I only know 2 people who have vehicles. However moto's fill the roads here. There are also a few traditional taxis that are usually packed full of people making a stop every 2 minutes to drop off and pick people up in town. So for the most part, I can find a moto, sometimes outside of my courtyard and go anywhere I want in a matter of minutes. This works if I wanted to travel father too. I can just hire a moto to drive me to the next village 30 minutes outside of town. It’s really easy and convenient.

This can be argued in both directions but I feel like the resources here are really used and not wasted. Every part of the animal has a place in a Cameroonian dish. Cameroonians can make anything with wheels drive for hours. At least a dozen times a day I say to myself "that vehicle/moving pile of aluminum should not be in working condition right now, but it is and I'll get on it for 100cfa"

This is an on going blog and I'm sure that I'll be adding to it later on or you'll hear it straight from me one day.

Bonne Année

2009-01-06T00:18:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!! Bonne Année!!!

Can you believe its 2009 already? That’s insane. I heard this year we get an extra second right? I'm impressed that I get that kind of news all the way out here. lol. This year I celebrated new years eve as usual, champagne, party hats and dancing... just joking. But New Years Eve/ the Fete of Saint Sylvester is a big holiday here and even without the usual stuff I had a really good time.

That morning I walked out of my door and everyone was prepping for the party. My neighbors killed and sold their pigs right on the side of the road. Personally it was a little early to be seeing that but whatever, hopefully this makes my neighborhood quiet down a bit, those pigs are so loud. Every time I see a cute little piglet though I contemplate about getting one as a pet/future dinner. Piglets are so cute. Anyway, I headed to work and area on the road where people sell chickens is full of them! and they are also in the road. I think it would be really bad story if the reason I got hit by a car was because I was moving out of the way for a chicken. But I didn't.
Go home in the evening, make some banana bread for the people at the bank and some neighbors, and have a couple glasses of wine. Then the power goes out for the 4th time that day. You'd think I'd learn my lesson and put one of my flashlights or canteen in a place that I could always find it easy in the pitch darkness, but no. Ask me in a year if I've gotten any better about it, and the answer will probably be no. Stumbling around in my house searching for the light, I hear this loud gawking outside in the courtyard. I'm thinking that some dog chasing a duck or a deranged chicken is not the kind of thing I want to deal with right now. I walk outside, the noise stops and then my night guard turns on his flashlight and I see his bloody knife in his hand. He explained to me that he was just cutting off the head of my neighbors chicken. You think I'd be shocked, but this kind of thing doesn't even surprise me anymore.

I didn't go out New Years Eve just because I live in city, and there were a lot of people out. I have friends here that I could have gone out with, so I wouldn't have been by myself, but still. The number of people out partying and drinking made me a little nervous. New years is more like a week long celebration too. A lot of businesses are closed the following 2 or 3 days after new years, then it was the weekend so the celebration continued. I visited some friend’s houses and brought my banana cake. Had some really good and not so good Cameroonian food that I washed down with a beer or two. It was fun. At my counterpart's house, the person who I work closely with at the bank, his little boy around 3 years old shoved 2 pieces of cake in his mouth before anyone else finished eating. He was so cute. The littlest baby, only 4 months, was the first baby I held that didn't start screaming right away. Even the family was surprised that he wasn't afraid of me. I guess that’s a good sign.

We're in the dry season right now, it hasn't raining in a month or so. It’s very dusty, always sunny and in the afternoons it gets hot. It’s the perfect kind of weather if you wanted to sit at the beach and read a book all day. Not the kind of weather you want to walk to town in, weave through the crowds of people at the marche and then lug all your goods back. The nights can get pretty cold (I say that and I think the cold temperature is between 70 and 65 degrees). I put on a sweater then. I'm sure most of you at home reading this would love some warm weather, but the grass is always greener on the other side I guess (literally) because I would love some snow and cold weather!

All the best for the New Year!

December wrap up

2008-12-31T01:47:00.000-08:00

Sorry I disappeared this past month! And I know I promised that I would right a post on "Why Cameroonians Have it Good" and I will. But I didn't realize how hard being away for the holidays was going to be. Yeah let me tell you, it’s really not that fun. December is a Closing service month here so there are a bunch of volunteers finishing their two years and heading home. Christmas isn't celebrated here as it is in the states. Santa Claus has never been here before. So with all things combined.. its a hard feeling to describe. That won't kill me will only make me stronger right?

I'm actually really glad the holiday season is over and I can just get back to the day to day stuff. It was a good time for a vacation and to see everyone from my training group who I haven't seen in 3 months! at in-service training. Unfortunately and fortunately, I got Dysentery the week before. Most often one gets dysentery from bacteria, aka feces, that contaminates most food that is either not soaked in beach for a half an hour or boiled. Appetizing right? I won't go into details but let me just say I was ready to pack up my bags and leave the country but I couldn't leave my own bathroom for more than an hour for four days. The treatment for this is gatorade but that isn't sold here so instead we make our own by mixing salt, sugar and lime for flavor.

I got better just in time to travel out with a bunch of volunteers to a beach town, kribi for in-service. While we weren't in all day long technical sessions during the day, we had an amazing time at the beach. We had bonfires, dinner on the beach, swam in the warm water with huge waves, went to the waterfalls outside of town... ahhhhhh I'm missing it already. We also had air conditioning in our hotel room that we turned down so low, just because we could and because feeling cold isn't something that happens often. I put up tons of pictures of the beach.

Seeing everyone was really the best part. I organized Secret Santa, and was a bit worried that something was going to go wrong, or I forgot someone. But it turned out so well! We exchanged gifts right before our final dinner together. Everyone got up individually and presented their gift often with a funny story. People were really thoughtful and for a few minutes there in the humid 90 degrees it felt like Christmas.

I was only gone for a week and a half, but getting back to post felt so good. As soon as the bus I was on hit pavement I was like "HOME!!!!!" And then when I got in my house I killed a cockroach with my shoe and then I was really home. lol that is disgusting but that’s what really happened.

For Christmas Eve a few volunteers in the east celebrated with a Cameroonian family just outside my town. Christmas day we cooked a big American Christmas dinner. We had a tree and each of us saved opening a care package from home until Christmas morning. I also drank plenty of wine and palm wine.

There's just nothing that can replace family, but the family that I have here is definitely the next best thing. I hope everyone at home had a wonderful Christmas, know that I missed you all and I hope you have a happy new year.

Post holiday update

2008-12-05T04:56:00.000-08:00

Long hair!!!!

I just wanted to let everyone know that I had an amazing Thanksgiving holiday here. It might have been one of the best times I've had here actually. Oh and I got my hair done! It’s a Senegalese Rasta twist. Never have I ever been a brunette and never have I had my hair this long. It took 8 hours to put in!!!! I was not happy sitting still but its cute so I guess it was worth it. It was so heavy I ended up cutting a bit.

Welcome to the good life...

Back to Thanksgiving, we were all traveling deeper into the east province to a smaller town known for its lack of electricty, horrible cell service and water shortages. My town is the only place with pavement in the entire province.. yeah.. so everywhere else is extremely dusty. But that didn't dampen the holiday.

It was hosted by a recent former peace corps volunteer who is now running a cameroonian tobacco company. He's got a tough job but some pretty posh living. I felt like I stepped into a tropical vacation getaway.. pool, hot water, patio furniture, full bar with a fridge, pool table, etc. I was in the pool for hours and I played with the pet monkey for a while. The girls did most of the cooking though, we were in the kitchen for 7 hours trying to recreate american dishes with things you can find in Cameroon. Not easy, but after a couple scotchs on the rocks, with some music, cooking was hilarious. Simple things like making green bean casserole turn into a production and basically a guessing game. Hmmm maybe if we just add this, that and whatever it'll turn out okay right?? And most things did.

The former volunteer raised turkeys that we stuffed and put in the oven. I was thankful I didn't have to see them die. We had deviled eggs to start, mashed potatoes, SWEET corn not cameroonian cow corn that they call sweet, cranberry sauce!, stuffing, green beans, and plenty of wine. Deserts were also amazing, with the help of some ingredients sent from the states. There was 20 people at the table, half of them were volunteers and the others were people from Doctors Without Borders, a Stanford student who was doing research and some people from the tobacco company.

Tony

So I made it safetly back! I might have mentioned it before but its tough being around so many americans and then not. One of those love hate things. I'm really looking forward to christmas. I'll be traveling into the bush for christmas eve celebrating Cameroonian style and then I'm planning Christmas day dinner here in Bertoua. It will be really nice and the other volunteers in the province are the most amazing people to be around during the holidays. However no matter how great the pumpkin pie is, or if there is a swimming pool and a bottle of 15 year scotch in the equation.. you just can't replace family. There's not subsitution that comes even close. Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, Miss you all to timbuktu and back!

Thanksgiving Part One: Why Americans have it good

2008-11-26T00:05:00.000-08:00

I am SO EXCITED for the holidays here. The first 3 months as a volunteer, admin requires that you don't travel. For some people, they get to travel about once a month to get to the nearest bank. Fortunately and unfortunately my bank is in my town so I don't really go anywhere. Peace Corps Volunteers are always "working" or "on". People notice everything I do and actual work is everything but 9 to 5 so getting out of my own town really makes a difference. Unfortunately Peace Corps makes pcvs take vacation days for holidays administration automatically gets off. I wasn't so happy to hear that but oh well. Thanksgiving marks 3 months at post (YeeaAHH) and headed to the "next town over", Batouri. I can't wait!

So I thought I would write why we've got it good. Part One: United States. Part Two: Cameroon. Disclaimer: I really like it here, Peace Corps seems like a perfect fit for me, I have a lot of great Cameroonian friends, I'm hardly negative and I feel really acclimated. Other volunteers have backed me up on all that too. However there are times when it sucks. I joke about it, try and make light of the situations. But all you can really say to me is "ashya". In pidgin it's a nice way of saying "that sucks for you" So instead of me being a repeat campaign of How to Save a Child on a Dollar A Day, because no one really wants to watch multiple commercials of wide-eyed hungry babies, I figured I'd just get it all out now. Also, most of these things that I'm pointing out are examples from what I used to do or say. I'm not saying that you should change after reading this either. Last note, when I say "you or your" I'm not referring to anyone directly. Just hear me out.

Americans have no F*!$"#!g idea how great we have it. NO IDEA. Maybe you can say that you understand.. okay, I’ll listen. But for most... trust me, you DON'T. Vacationing or doing a humanitarian trip is great, but it will never give you the full picture. Unless you've lived in a developing country where those extended bellied children on the commercials are your neighbors. Down to the simplest of things available to us in the states, we have NO IDEA how good we have it.

"The line at starbucks was so long" There was a formation of line? Incredible. Probably can't get sick off anything they serve and they'll have change for me when I pay. But I suppose they never get my grande- sugar free vanilla-extra espresso shot-half soy-half skim milk latte right anyway.

A volunteer I know likes to say that America is "shiny and efficient". Those two words say it all. Looking at pictures now, even the outdoors looks clean. Electricity, water, rent and all other bills have to be walked down to the business and paid every month. No line to pay, I push your way up to the cashier just like everyone else. Why did I ever think it was a pain to go online and pay my bills?

"Crazy drivers and ridiculous traffic".. Yeah it’s too bad that we have vehicles ALL TO OURSELVES, certified drivable and some traffic lights that make sure we're safe. What’s ridiculous is how many accidents I've seen. What’s crazy is that every time I take a bus here I pray the entire time that I will arrive alive at my destination. Or worse if I was to get hurt and the nearest hospital is 3 hours away. My praying on those rides makes up for any missed Sundays at church and then some. I can't wait to get home, take a greyhound bus and feel like I'm in a Cadillac.

Two words: washer and dryer. You probably won't get any sympathy from me complaining about having to do laundry when the only thing you actually "do" is put the stuff in the machine and then transfer it to another machine.

"Sexual Harassment" To be a woman here... SUCKS. I get so much shit everyday, not just from being white. Everyday I want to scream "STOP STARING AT ME". Cameroonian women experience this too. And its not just words. Confinement to certain jobs, abuse, assumed unintelligent. I feel like I'm stuck in a 1950's gender role nightmare, but worse and without the cute dresses.

QUALITY HEALTH CARE. I wouldn't have to bring my own gloves, needles and etc when I go to the hospital in the states. Life expectancy is over 45 years old there too! What would a hospital in the states look like if they didn't have running water? Betch ya I can paint a good picture. Malaria, Tuberculosis, Hepatitis, Cholera, Filariasis, more worms and parasites than you can imagine... I could go on.

I will never in my life say that gain: "I have nothing to wear or there is nothing in this house to eat". EVER.

Corruption. There is corruption in the states but not on ever level of society. Transparency International ranked Cameroon 141 out of 180 countries on corruption. (The US is #18 by the way). I was talking to another volunteer and she was telling me how a stack of her student’s papers were missing after she turned them into the schools admin to enter in the grades. Come to find out, admin takes the higher scored exams, refuses to give them the grade unless they pay to get their test back. WTF. I know another way you can get a good grade from your teacher and it rhymes with shmasitution. Meanwhile in schools across the states, school boards convene and discuss the light salad dressing options in the cafeteria.

Credit crisis? So I bought a bunch crap that I thought I needed but couldn't afford in the first place? Ashya? We have the access to credit everywhere.. SO important to development.

Like I said, I used to do all of this, and maybe when I go back to the states I'll fall into my old routine. Thanks for listening to my rant, next blog.. Why Cameroonians have it good P.S. I actually like my latte with the real sugar syrup and 1% milk. Au Bon Pain makes them better too.

Semi connected to the world

2008-11-18T23:56:00.000-08:00

My bank recently got internet which is really huge. For a business to have internet in Cameroon is rare, and I know that my bank is one of a couple of its kind to have internet. The fact that we have several computers which is also rare. However first electricity is nessesary. Days at a time the strength of the electricity is only strong enough to have one or two computers on, we keep the lights of and don't make coffee (because the coffee machine uses alot of power? I have no idea). Then the internet has to be working. We've had hookup for a month now and gone through 3 modems. If the modem is working, the connection isn’t. This is due to the really crappy internet service providers here. Paying monthy for internet here is about the same price as buying a decent cellphone, or renting my 3 bedroom house with a night guard for a month. Its not cheap at all and yet it is really unreliable. If my french was better I'd be complaining to the internet service providers a lot more. However, since my french isn't that great, I march down to their office to complain but just stumble over my words and I look like an idiot.

The bank got internet for the reason of making international money transfers. So far the internet has increased my email time and project research. The employees like to see their horoscopes everyday. The other day, one read " You should be careful when making financial decisions and transactions in the next couple of days" which the loan officer took serious thought to and vowed to try and keep away from money issues. Hmm we work in a bank... They also love to keep up on football statistics so thank goodness we now have internet for that. I helped them create email accounts (A bigger process than I expected) and afterwards i was like "Okay, you're all set to send an email" and they said "Who do we have to email? I don't know anyone with an email account, maybe you have friends??" And finally everyone and their uncle wants an American visa and all of the applicaitons are online.

When the days with electricty and a good connection shows up on the same day.. its wonderful. And I don't mind being at the bank little longer than usual. The internet is a huge resource for me and its also really nice to keep in touch with people. But if you haven’t heard from me… no news is good news. One of many peace corps mottos

So anyway, we completed out girls and boys camp this weekend. It was originally going to be just girls but it’s a new approach to gender issues, girl empowerment, HIV/AIDS prevention and sex education to have boys and girls together. I think there’s definitely some truth to that. Gender role playing Gender role playing again. This kid was pretending to be a health teacher and he used our penis picture. It was really cute

The French level was way over my head though. A bit discouraging seeing how I was talking to 11 year olds. But when in French class did I learn what the word for sperm is? Or how many ways do you know how to say “to have sex”? What da know, there are just as many ways in french as there are in english. Very confusing. We had sessions on the menstrual cycle, stds, planning their future, gender role playing, reasons to say yes/no to sex etc. We had some very nicely drawn diagrams by Matt and Kate of the penis and vagina. Which they copied down pretty well in their notebooks that we gave them. Some of the kids questions were a little out of the blue, something you can never be prepared for.

Blown up condom game

Condom race with bananas

We played lots of games which was really fun. My first ice breaker was charades. A game I LOVE. So the kids had to think creatively when acting out animals or professions. This was the first shocker… kids do not use their imagination here. Thinking creatively, working in a group, acting out things… nope. Not at all. It blew me away. Even something like draw pictures that represents you. Likes, dislikes, ambitions etc. Nope. Its just not the style of learning. This is also where I’d like to point out another volunteer’s blog post that I think decribes parts of cameroon better than I could. So if you’ve got time, it’s worth reading and so are his other blog posts.

Upbringing:
http://timhartmancameroon.blogspot.com/2008/06/whats-wrong-with-cameroon-ii-upbringing.html

Mentality/
http://timhartmancameroon.blogspot.com/2008/10/whats-wrong-with-cameroon-iv-mentality.html

Reading:
http://timhartmancameroon.blogspot.com/2008/03/whats-wrong-with-cameroon-reading.html

So anyway, other games that we played were lion and elephants where the lion is HIV the elephants are the immune system that protects the baby elephant representing the human body. We had a condom race with bananas. Hot potato with blown up condoms with true or false questions inside… we played that along to the song of “I kissed a girl and I liked it” I thought it was appropriate.

Most importantly kids here know their ABCs of sex. Hopefully you know this too. Abstinence. Being Faithful. Condoms. Stuff like that they know off the back of their hand. However if you were to ask “What is a good reason to have sex when you are married?” or “Why is it easier for girls to get HIV?” “Why do I have cramps when I get my period?” That stuff is not talked about. WHY and HOW TO are the big ones “How to know what I want in my future to wait to have sex” “How to put on a condom correctly.” It just opened my eyes to the way some sex education is conducted.

Overall I think it went well. It was good having girls and boys mixed for somethings. Hearing the girls talk about how they are pressured into certain situations and how the boys as friends could help was really good. It was extremely exhausting though. And here is my praise for all English/science/computer volunteers here in Cameroon….

I would never last 2 years doing what education volunteers do here. When there should be 60 kids in a classroom (still a lot) there are 160. Maybe a dozen of those kids have books. A new level of patience is needed. The style of teaching that volunteers do here takes a lot of effort and time. And when most of the class fails and has to stay back, which is very common, it takes a lot of determination to keep teaching. Kudos to you, I think that you’re all taking on a big challenge and I’m sure you’re doing amazing.

What to do in Cameroon when you get bored/ A tribute to all my former hairdressers

2008-11-08T00:40:00.000-08:00

Tita, Ann Maire and Carles

Birthday present!!!!!

What my living room looks like after i get a package, everything spread out

I cut my own hair!

Eeeeeek! I'm 24!!!! Which is almost 25 if you didn't know. I had a really good birthday, we went out to a nice restaurant and I had chicken which was amazing. I Ann Marie and Carles gave me macaroni and cheese! I had some the other night and basically teleported back to america, it was so amazing. I also got lots of love and messages from friends in Cameroon and friends and family back home and I really appreciate them. I am so loved on 2 continents.

So anyway, The other day I was bored. Really bored. No not like the bored in the states, there are several things Ill never complain about ever again when I get home, being bored is one of them. I feel like half of my old life in the states was centered around entertainment. There are things everywhere to be entertained by. Kids have Toys R Us, a store just for kids who are not yet old enough to even get an allowance let alone make their own purchases. From the day a baby is born, they're given toys and crib hanging things to entertain them. You know what kid toys are here? Machetes, a stick and a tire, a plastic bottle with a string attached to it so it can be dragged around, or a car made out of a sardine can. Animals in the states even have toys, battery opperated mice/balls that move around, carpet houses and dogs have doggy sweaters, booties and ensembles. They even make organic toys for pets now. What does that even mean?

I remember this is was an interview question for peace corps. They asked me what I will do if I get bored. I think I said I would go running or take a walk. Now that Im here, thats about the last thing that I want to do. The white girl who lives in town is already a show, the white girl who goes running?? Running where and why? Or the white girl who walks her dog?? Thats premium entertainment right there... for everyone else and I hear about it. No thanks.

This bordom was the kind where I can't possibly read another page or watch another movie because I've seen all of mine dozens of times, including the extras.. the deleted scenes, making of the movie, with commentary and without commentary. Oh yeahhhh, its a new level of bored. Also the last thing I want to look at is french or do work.

So I decided to cut my hair. This is the first time in my life that I can't afford a hairdresser. In the past I've paid some serious money to get my hair done (anywhere from 25 to 225 - the last figure was a one time thing). Secondly, there are not very many people here who would know how to cut my hair. Maybe at the spa at the hilton in yaounde, where renting a room would cost me my monthy salary. A haircut there might be my rent money.

So I cut it myself, a cute little bob, which I'm sure is not that even in the back. Cutting your hair in the back of your head is alot harder than it looks. But over all I'm pretty pleased with it. During inservice training I might have one of the girls fix it up a bit. I missed my usual routine that normally comes with getting a haircut though. Incredible talent and patience that all of my wonderful hairdressers had. Amazing smelling shampoo and products, head and neck massage, talking and catching up, freshly brewed tea or a cold beer. Yup I had it pretty nice.

When I get back, no I'm not going to spend 200 dollars on a haircut or get it colored every month like I would want to, because thats ridiculous. But I will take a day or two at the spa. Or three. The longer I'm here, the longer the spa appointment in my head gets...

Election Day

2008-11-04T01:33:00.000-08:00

I know that today is an extremely exciting day in America today, and I just thought I'd let you know that across the Atlantic Ocean, we're pretty excited about the election too. Voting for most peace corps volunteers happened a month ago with oversees ballots, even though oversees and absentee ballots are rarely counted. Electricity and running water here is more reliable than the mail system, and that’s not saying much. But that’s here, other problems that face potentially 6 million absentee ballots from coming in are things like unknown additional paperwork, ballots never received by the overseas individual or unrecognizable addresses.

Well anyway, we're still really anxious and excited. The polls will close today around 11pm this evening. When the presidential debates were aired at 2am Cameroonian time, we set our alarm clocks to wake up and watch CNN. This time I might just wait till Wednesday or it will be a long night.

Cameroonians are excited about the election too. Or I should say they have been excited for months now. I get asked all the time “Did you vote???" "What do you think of the candidates?" "GO Obama!". I've got to give it to people here, there are Cameroonians that probably follow this better than some Americans. A couple of my friends here are going to pick up some bush meat (porcupine, cane rat, etc) in celebration of today. And if Obama wins my neighbor will make beef stroganoff. Neither is American cuisine, cane rat definitely Cameroonian and stroganoff is Russian, but oh well it’s the thought that counts.

I just wanted to mention how lucky we are as Americans that we can vote in free and fair elections. We are notified when and were the organized polling stations will be. No one is worried that they will be threatened or chaos will erupted at the polls. Violence and voting is not something that Americans see often together. The elections are monitored here by a system that is credible and respected. And in the end the election results will be published. We also have free speech, right to form political parties, free to participate, free press. Sometimes I think we forget how valuable that is. As for Cameroon, I'm not going to go into the political system here, because it's not an appropriate discussion to be having on openly online.

Busy! Busy!

2008-10-20T01:00:00.000-07:00

I've been at post for almost 2 months now.. and have been surprisingly busy for a newbie. At first I wasn't busy. I painted my house, read 6 books, went to the bank where I "work" every morning but I was really just supposed to observe the bank for a few months and then start making recommendations and improvements, etc. This meant I was doing ALOT of french grammar exercises.

But things picked up. The accountant of the bank is going for a few months of training, which is great for him and the bank, so I’ve been doing a little accounting. Accounting or French grammar? Tough choice.. they're both so thrilling. However my counterpart at the bank and I are working on starting up a new project, a mutuelle health association, outside of the bank.

Brief description of health insurance here. Health care "systems" are another subject. Very few people have insurance, something in the single digit percentage. Its mainly private and very expensive. What happens when you don't have insurance and have to pay the complete hospital fee up front? A. Use up all of your savings B. Take out a loan from a family member or from a bank, like the one I work at, which is difficult to repay since you're not generating any income. C. Go to a traditional healer that may or may not be curative or don't see a doctor at all. Or option D. Die on the doorstep of the hospital. However, like mutual savings banks, mutual health associations are growing significantly in West Africa. In Cameroon they are a big success, particularly everywhere else except the East Province. Heard that one before..

So what we've been doing is building the structural part of the association, searching for qualified people (especially women) to be on the board of directors, on the surveillance committee etc. The large part of the work has been going to village meetings every Saturday and Sunday to present the mutual health association project and to have people sign up for it. Once there are enough members, the general assembly/ all of the members will convene, hopefully in November, and together they will make decisions about the association together with some guidelines and strong recommendations on specific things like monthly premiums. However it will be their decision to decide if premiums are best paid every month, quarterly, or annually. That’s the wonderful thing about associations and meetings here. People have the ability to decide and they'll trust putting they're money where they can see it. Insurance is not easily accepted here either. Simply put, you pay money every month to use incase you get sick. but when you're not sick, you don't get it back. That’s an idea not everyone grasps. Another good part about this being a community project, like the MC2 bank, after overhead costs, the profit goes back to the community. The money will be used to start preventative health programs, a pharmacy and finally it will fund the construction of a clinic.

Yours truly is one of these board advisors for the association. I'll let you sit with that thought for a moment because it certainly took me a while to grasp. (How did I get here and who thinks I really can handle this position!????) After meeting with a couple ngo's in the capital on how these Mutual Health Associations are run, I am now trying to catch up on all the work that needs to be done BEFORE it is formed like feasibility studies and cost analysis. It's good that it's taking off so quickly however there is some serious work that needs to be done to make sure it's going to succeed... and I'm really really nervous about that.

How to promote insurance: I go to village meetings, usually about 5 or 6 of them each weekend with my counterpart, a retired doctor, the president of all of the village meetings all across town and speak about the importance of this health mutual. Thankfully, they do most of the talking about the association. I present myself, explain my role as a peace corps volunteer how I’m available to work on individual projects outside the bank and the mutual health, explain how I oversee the management of this project, etc. These meetings are separated by gender and village. So sometimes I'm speaking in front of a room full of chatty women, probably talking about my choice of pagne (they're always really dressed nicely), but usually very receptive and interested in the idea of health insurance. Other times I’m at a larger village meeting, 50 people or so and I am the ONLY female in the room, and I imagine, as I have heard before, males taking about their opinion on women making decisions and running things. The white American girl standing up and speaking is enough commotion, and then I start speaking French.... Its nerve wrecking. For some reason, having an American overseeing this project installs a lot of confidence in people that no one is going to take they're money and run. A frequent problem here of promising new projects or village banks that turn out to be scams. So since I'm American, this development project is legit? Not sure where that conclusion is from.

You never know what’s going to happen from one meeting to the next. I now know how to share the kola nut, properly, when the chief of the village hands me the largest nut. Last weekend in between meetings I had 2 beers (equivalent of 4 in the states) with the sweetest chief. I've become an expert at mimicking what my other colleges do when cultural custom questions pop up... Power goes out, monkey is served, everyone else is drinking beer, pick up a new hand shake, and that’s how it goes.

From these meetings I know a huge part of this city including several neighborhoods that I would have never known they were there. I've also introduced myself to about 700 plus people. From this I am going to work with a GIC (pronounced jeek) a business association that in turns gives huge benefits to individual members. Kind of like a Coop in the states, and this one specifically is an agricultural GIC. I'm going to see how I can advise a group that assists with elderly care, like hospice, so I’m really excited.

The first project I worked on is with an owner of an ice cream production and sales business, which has only been running for a couple months now. He also happens to be the son of a gentleman I work with on the mutual health project. He's only a couple years older than me and thankfully speaks English. Although sometimes I talk too fast. This is an excellent first project to advise because he was a great contact and was already very well organized, so the basic stuff was out of the way. But I had a huge period of self doubt about this all. Who put me in charge or advising a business???! Who am I to be recommendations in the Cameroonian context? I haven't even been here a half a year! He's lived here his own life and has a master’s degree. Looking over his accounting books, I was thinking how much I hate numbers. When have you ever heard me say "I like math". Umm never. So I freaked out a bit, made some excel sheets and recommendations. And since the business is expanding, it’s going to be a continuous project.

Oh and in November, my postmates are going to do a girl's empowerment camp. More like a long weekend packed full of activities... in French. I don't mean to stress that most things I do are in a foreign language, lol it's more like a reminder to myself followed by a brief panic. TIA: This Is Africa. This is Peace Corps.

Cat, Dog

2008-10-07T04:29:00.000-07:00

A family photo

The new puppy, so adorable. Wearing a team east pagne colar and a pink leash, i love it

I mentioned before that I was going to get a kitten, and I was so excited. Kittens are so cute right? Everyone loves kittens right? Wrong. I've had this damn thing for about 4 weeks now, and she's neither. The kitten was born on the 4th of july so it's 3 months old, and growing. When I first got it, she was tiny and then she started eating through a box of cat food a week. Cat food isn't common here, I bet cats as food are more common than finding a box of meowmix. Kitty litter doesn't exist, so a box full of dirt is a cheap substitution.

The cat's name is Benny. She's named after Benson, a dog my family used to have that, like my kitten is completely black except for white paws and a white haired belly. Benson used to pass horrible smelling gas all the time and so does Benny. Our dog was so much better than this thing. Even then I keep thinking how many animals my sister and I had that my parents had to put up with. I had no idea what a pain in the ass it would be.

Benny meows all the time. She's attention deficit, meaning she runs around the house uncontrollably, without direction and she is always wanting attention. ALWAYS. It's so annoying. Meow, meow, meow, meow.. annoying. The other day my neighbor anne marie called me to say that she went over to get Benny because it had been meowing for hours. It also pees. It peed on my bed, on some of my clothes, in my bike helmet... I was pissed the last time it peed and dunked the cat in a bucket of water. It's not like I'm just going to throw those things in the washer, ca va, that's taken care of. No. Don't even get me started about laundry here. I keep telling myself that I hate mice, and cats are so much better than mice. But the other day there was a huge centipede in the living room, so I picked up that cat and put it in front of the bug where it just proceeded to sit there and watch it.

Benny has also inspired my 6 year old neighbor. We'll call him Christian, a little 6 year old boy who is always half dressed, mostly not wearing pants. As far as I've seen, Christians favorite past times include kicking around a water bottle or a plastic bag, rolling around on the porch of his house, and apparently playing with my cat. I came to realize this when the cat saw christian, hissed like crazy and ran off. Hmmm. So we asked Christian if he likes the cat and plays nicely with it, and his answers are mostly a few "oui's" and blank stares. Clearly guilty. I'm surprised the cat hasn't been put down the well yet.

Again, another day, Anne Marie thought something was wrong with my cat, meowing more than usual and scratching or something like that. Turns out it was christian. I walked in through the compound door, and Christian was hiding right behind it, squatting down, half naked, meowing. Kids are weird.

I think I should have got a dog instead. Luckily for me, my other postmate kate just got a puppy today and she's adorable. She doesn't have a name yet, but I want to call it Biya. Also happens to be name of the president of cameroon who has been in office for a few decades. I promised to help take care of it, which I don't think should be a problem since I love dogs and since I'm going to train it to be a good guard dog I now have someone to go running with. I'm pretty happy about it.

Next blog I'll write a little more about what I've been actually doing as a volunteer. I've not been so great about emails and updating this blog. I got my first miserably sick experience here last week. That sucked. I was kind of waiting for it anyway, it's just a matter of time for that to happen here. We've also been without power for several days at a time. Not a fan of living without electricity, because when it gets dark at 6:30 what do you do to pass the time with your canteen lantern and meowing cat?

Trevor was also visiting for a weekend, always a good time when other volunteers come through the capital. I think it's hard to escape the life here because very few things are familiar. But it's possible to find comfort in something familiar like people, movies, a good dream, a box of macaroni and cheese. Times like that its amazing how easy it is to forget where you are, it's disorientating. Like watching a great movie set in the states, it's great at that moment, but when the movie ends or volunteers travel back to their posts, reality hits. Not as fun. And not the reason I'm here, I know.

Besides that, I've been busy working, helping someone open their own business and launching a new health project. Nope not a health volunteer but that's how peace corps works. Just got to go with it... "I'm not an expert in french but I am an expert in _______" Fill in the blank, and sometimes that'll change with the day.

P.S. I totally mastered riding side saddle on a moto! The other day I was about to hop on a moto in a fited skirt that had double side slits a little to long. Too late to run back and change, I braved the side saddle ride all the way from tigaza to my house. Which doesn't mean anything to most of you, but it was a pretty long ride on some back dirt roads.

Smells of Cameroon

2008-10-05T03:21:00.000-07:00

I described the sounds of cameroon.. now I think its only appropriate to talk about the smells of Cameroon. I read in a book recently, because I do alot of that here, about a family that went back the the states and realized it doesn't smell. Things smell in the states when you put your nose right up in it, but there are hardly ever general smells. I think this might be true, other volunteers say so too. Cameroon however has tons of smells. The ones I'm about to write about, are my oppionion, not of everyone and not of everything.

The smells started on the flight over here from Paris to Yaounde. Just circulating the same air and same smells of people who probably had been traveling just as much as we had. Put it this way.. my post mates sister came to visit a couple weeks ago, and when she was leaving they confiscated her deoderant at the airport because securitydidn't know what it was. Point made? That probably goes for toothpaste too.

However I think the most dominating smell is of wood fires. Most families do their cooking over a traditional wood fire outside in a 3 walled kitchen. I like the smell of it, I don't actually like smelling of it so thats why I don't use my traditional kitchen in the back of my house. And it's ALOT of work. Along the sides of the street, mommies cook over grills made out of metal barrows or tire rims that they fill with coals. They grill corn, prunes, fish, plantains and other stuff. The fish always smells the most amazing. Men are more likely to be grilling the soya or brochette, strips of meat on sqwere, grilled over a similar homemade barrel grill kept hot by logs of wood sticking out one cut out side of the grill. Cameroon smells of delicious food.

Side note: The selection of meat is a bit different than what I was used to in the West Province. There is beef and if I'm lucky, goat. But the East is famous for it's bush meat. Cane rats- rats larger than cats, porcupine, some armadillo like animal I forget the name of that has scales and climbes trees, viper, and monkey. As you've heard me complain about before, there are pigs and ducks all over the place, but I've never had either since I've been here. I'm determined to find out why.

Pigs smell too, obviously. But they particularly smell because they are behind my house. Chickens kind of have their own smell too, and they walk around all over the place or wait in cages along the side of the road to be sold. If they didn't have a scent of their own, I bet they picked up another smell hanging out in garbage piles or in the fields. It's a new meaning of "free range meat" here.

There are no regulatory systems on pollution, specifically from car exhausts. There are tons of motos around here that add to that smell in the air, but worse are the huge logging trucks and agence busses that go from city to city. Thick black exhaust.

walking outside through the fish market, well that smells, and so does the meat market, also outside perfuming the air. The fruit and veggie stands are not that far away to its a nice balancing smell.When you walk into hannafords or price copper is the first thing is the veggatables and fruit, but can you smell them? Maybe its the pesticide, or the shiny wax coating or the blowing air conditioner that prevents the smell. Same with meat behind the cases or the fish on ice in the back of the store. Thinking about it I bet you can't even smell the lobsters in the tank unless you put your nose close enough. Not the case here.

There are very minimal sewage systems. Example: my well where I get water is right next to my dranage system for my house, hence problems with water contaimination. Anyway, most people use latrines/outdoor bathrooms or just go to the bathroom outside. I have no problem with this, I didn't think one could actually be an expert at squating outside.. I think I'm getting there. I think that private latrines are very clean, like if I was to have my own latrine in the back yard, it would be clean. Otherwise.. if the world is your bathroom, it will probably smell like it too. And sometimes it does.

Laundry.. doesn't smell like lavender snuggle spring breeze fabric softener that's for sure.

Finally, I think that Cameroon smells like earth. Sounds strange, I know. It smells like earth especially when it rains or when its really sunny and all the vegetation is growing. There is a huge lack of pavement here, the provincial city I think it the only one in the province that is paved, other than the road to the capital which is currently under pavement construction. I can also count how many buildings there are above 1 story. Maybe these are some of the reasons that it smells like I actually with nature and earth. Sounds a bit hippy-ish, but it's true and it smells nice. Don't worry i'm not turning into that crunchy granola peace corps volunteer some of you have pictured in your immagination or in my nightmares... I still wear mascara everyday.

Pas le meme chose

2008-09-20T04:24:00.000-07:00

I made a short list of things, here in Cameroon that I think I understand but translated or given an american meaning, they're not the same. Pas le meme chose. ....

Men hold hands here. It's a friendship thing not a romantic gesture. Homosexuality is actually illegal.

Just because there is a price tag on an item, which price tags really aren't the norm, it doesn't mean the price isn't negotiable.

While having a beer... and someone says "Are you well?" In Cameroon you should say back "No man, no well or me chest be well" Otherwise if you say that you're well then the person will ask you to make him well too. As in buy him a beer. A girls night out has a different meaning too. If a girl is alone having a drink, she is most likely a prostitute. Smoking a cigarette.. probably a prositute. If I go out with a group of girls, no guys, we're probably all prostitutes.

There was two people in front of me at the teller desk at the bank the other day. Unconsiously thinking back to the countless times I'd waited in line at a bank in the states, I'm thinking that it's going to be a 2 minute wait. Silly me. It took 30 minutes before I was at the teller counter.

Cameroonians are very friendly. They always say hello and shake everyone's hands when they enter a room, ask how your family is, etc. People always ssay "bon appetit" when you're eating. Very friendly. But there are other things they say that in the states would seem extremely rude. Like when you're eating lunch, and someone says "hey where's my part? where's my lunch?" Or in refering to food, clothes, items around the house, or anything people would say.. "Could I have that?". Why not ask right? If you've put on weight, they'll always say something about that, but it's not an insult.

You can say anyone is your sister or brother. I do it all the time, it's just easier saying that trevor is my brother instead of my friend who comes over and hangs out at my house. Cameroonians call people their brothers or sisters all the time too. I think that's why it took some of us so long to figure out just how many siblings were in our homestay families. So you just have to ask "is this your vraiment sister?" meaning true sister.

Food is another pas le meme chose. Cameroonians eat tapioca, but it's not a desert. It's made out of manioc, I think, but it tastes like a cold grainy soup with sugar and peanuts. Couscous is also very popular here, I think I've talked about it before. It's not middle eastern couscous, but a glooey pasty ball of mashed up manioc. Manioc is a root plant here, with no nutritional value that I know of, and is very filling.

On another note, I'm not sure if this has come across in my blogs or not, but I really really like living in Cameroon. I love the east province, people here are wonderful and i'm starting to crave cameroonian food (the other day I had juice from a hibicus that was sweetended and ice cold, it was amazing). I'm really happy being here and just incase I haven't extended this invitation formally, anyone at anytime is more than welcome to visit. It wouldn't be your typical vacation, but I promise it would be an experience.

Sounds of Cameroon

2008-09-13T03:45:00.000-07:00

In an attempt to draw the best and most accurate picture of cameroon, I thought I'd let you know what it sounds like here. Lets start off in the morning. 1am, 1:30am, 1:33am, 1:34am.. who ever said that roosters crow when the sun comes up was completey wrong. I think they actually sleep from around 8pm to 12pm, and then commence driving me insane sometime after midnight and throughout the day. They're so loud I swear the run right up to my window and "cock-a-doodle-doo". It's not a pleasant sound really.

At 4:30am the prayers at the mosque start. It's so dead quiet at that time, that I can hear crystal clear the prayer called from a half a mile away. It's pretty cool. They also pray at night, around 7:30 I think. I can hear it everytime.

The pigs at the pig farm directly outside my bathroom window (yeah it smells), they get fed at 7pm. This is no cute Babe or Wilber from charlette's web having breakfast... no, it's more like a screeching and whinning and it sounds revolting.

Ducks usually come out in the morning, hang out waddling around on my roof throughout the day. These are big ducks, must not be the brightest in the flock because they fly in and crash on my tin roof. It sounds like someone's is up there trying to break in (that's often how people break into houses here)scares the crap out of me. When the little birds walk around up there, it only sounds like mice crawling in my ceiling. Not that much more comforting. But what is comforting is when I think about how I nice roasted and laquered ducks would taste along with a side of cranberry and beet greens. Sounds lovely right?

The sun comes up at 6:30 everyday, so does every cameroonian, way before that even. I always hear kids, they're outside 20 hours a day. The median age here is 19. Pretty young, 40% of the population is uner the age of 14 years old.. lots of kids. They laughplay, scream, cry. I have never been around so many kids. Cameroonians LOVE to laugh too. Often, they like to argue too. Music plays all day here.Celine dion, bryan adams, cameroonian pop, traditional cameroonian music, chris brown you name it. News radio is usually on. If you're neighbor is blaring music or their tv, that means you need to turn yours up louder. Dogs are another loud animal, they're all street dogs. Gangs of dogs that probably have made a bad decision to be involved with another dog at one point that may or maynot have rabies. Not nice dogs.

In between these noises I'm reminded that I live on the African continent. There are so many georgeous birds here, I feel like I'm in a bird santuary. Tons of frogs and crickets or what ever those bugs are, that make it sound like I live in a pond in the country. Yeah well those are here too, but really loud.

When I walk to town/through town I hear "Nassara", "ma blanche" "ma chere" "ma coeur" "watt" and other words and phrases thankfully I don't yet understand in french or in the local language. Translated, it's the white, my white, my darling, my heart, won't you take me to america with you? give me money. i'm going to be your husband yatta yatta yatta. And when I say I hear this in town, I mean I hear it 20 times in 2 hours. It's not all bad though, some people are very polite. And I am white, but if you're going to call me that, don't be rude. Say good evening white. Then I'll say good evening back.

Another noise in town.. when you want to get someone's attention you make a "Ssssss" sound. Kind of like hissing, but without the "H" sound. At first I thought hissing at a waitress, a cab driver, or a vendor is extremely rude. That was before I realized how effective it was. Even the quieteist of hisses will stop a moto driver speeding along to pick you up. I think they can hear it from miles away. The other sound to get someone's attention is a kissing sound. This I definitely hate. I'm not saying everyone yells nassara or hisses, some people say madamn or miss.

This is the golden rule of driving: honk your horn. Driving is mostly moto's here in the east, vehicles are a huge sign saying "important person in the province like the mayor or something, or foreign aid workers, or foreigners in general". There are a few taxi cars but here they're mostly taxi moto's. So anyway, when you pass another moto, honk the horn. Someone's driving too close, honk. Want to pick up a passenger, get some random person's attention walking by, turning a corner, comming up to an interection... honk honk honk. I'm not exagerating when I say my moto driver will honk a dozen times within 2 miles. Sometimes I can't even figure out why. Maybe because if you're happy and you know it you honk otherwise I have no idea.

minor challenges

2008-09-04T07:43:00.000-07:00

So the past 4 days or so we've been without running water. As I so simply said before in my last post, "oh not a problem" there's a well in the front courtyard. It's really not that huge of a problem, it just takes me 3 times as long to do anything. The water's not that clean, so I'll boil it first. To filter the water to drink, I have to wait for it to cool down again. Bucket baths, bucket dish washing, bucket toilet flushing, etc etc, you get the picture.

It did come back on yesterday though! And then there was a huge storm last night that blew out the electricity. It gets dark here at 6:30, really dark. No electricity, no problem, other volunteers live without it all the time. Only difference is that they're prepared for it. I search around for my flashlights, remembered that I think i've lost half of them already, but find one! Turn it on and a couple seconds the batteries die. Instinctively I search for the tv remote to raid the batteries and I remember I don't own a tv. I've got a canteen though, but no kerosine. So in the dark I found one candle in the bottom of my luggage and then my trusty wind up flashlight. I heard from our neighbor that hopefully it will be back on in a few days because the transmitter broke or something along those lines. Most people don't have generators just because they're so expensive and gas isn't cheap either.

Anyway, the best part of the wind up flashlight, well first of all it was a going away gift. And a wonderful one at that! So I brought this rather large windup operation out into town the other night, and my cameroonian friends LOVED IT. We were sitting there talking, and they were just cranking it up (charging it) which is kind of work. But they were determinded to see the green light come on significating that it's fully charged. They think it's entertaining, I think it's beneficial. Then I said I had the adapters to it to charged phones, and they started winding it up even faster.. until the handle broke off. LOL. Everything here is fixable by superglue, I'm really not worried about it, at all. Rechargable anything is still wonderful.

Final challenge of the week/my life here is trying to act like I belong here. When you're visiting/living in a foreign country it's best too put on that "blank expression of competent invisablitly.. which makes you look like you belong there, anywhere, everwhere" I stole that part from a book I'm reading because I think it summed it up pretty nicely. I have to pretend to look like I'm not lost when I have no idea where I am. I need to take that shocked expression off my face when I ask "what's menu du jour?" and they say "monkey". First of all because it's rude to look like digusted and secondly I'll really look foreign. It's almost unnatural to not look people in the eyes when I'm walking down the street but it only causes more comments or invitations for remarks. It's hard walking with determination and calmness when this city seems so busy and unstructured.

Day by day, little by litte. In swahili, Haba na haba, hujaza kibaba. In french peu a peu. In pidgeon, small small catch monkey... I'll get better.

New Job, New Description

2008-08-30T05:32:00.000-07:00

I was thinking that some of you might be wondering what I'm actually doing here. Besides providing semi-entertaining stories of living in Cameroon, I actually have a job description that I thought I would share. The description itself is very very broad, I have alot of flexiblitly to choose who I want to work with, what I feel is nessesary to work on, etc. And the final note about all of this.. I've just started, this is just the general idea/goal.

I am a Small Enterprise Development Volunteer, SED for short, and enterprise is obviously just another word for business. I'm assigned to work with a Microfinance Bank, MC2 in the East Province of Cameroon. Microfinance in the developing world is very successful. An individual becomes a member, invests in the bank by buying shares, and has the ability to take out loans with little collateral. Access to credit = development. The MC2's here are very new, some only a few years old, and for a bank primarly giving out loans, it's risky and challenging. As a SED volunteer, I'll be looking at their procedures and making recommendations for improvement. Hopefully this will include working on increasing repayment rates, improving accounting systems, and increasing loan outreach especially to farmers and to people in villages. The MC2s are also trying out offering health insurance, something I would really like to work on just because it's not common and the idea of it is difficult to understand.

Through working with the bank I'll hopefully meet entreprenuers that I'll be able to guide the way on business start-up. The same goes with business owners that I'm able to advise with accounting, marketing, and operations of their business. I'll also try and encourange linkages and cross-sector collaboration with the businesses, non-govermental organizations, markets,and community groups to increase a more efficeient business community, increase information sharing etc.

All of this is great, but since I'm not living here forever, it's not sustainable. It's important for me to identify people in my community, that will be able to learn and carry on consulting in business start-up and management. This goal is probably one of the harder ones for volunteers to achieve. It's easier and quicker to do things ourselves, instead of teaching someone else to do it.
I'll also be teaching business classes. Most likely in a small village about an hour away to groups of women. Apparently there's a catholic convent out there were I can stay while I'm teaching the classes. Traveling to a place and back in a day, even if it's only an hour away, well it's just better not to.

Alot of the work mentioned above is really focused on women and youth. Helping with career planning, emphasising savings and credit, business and life skills, are all important. None of these things have to be in a formal setting either. People always, always ask what I'm doing here. I bought paint the other day at this hardware sort of store, the owner asked me what I do, and I gave him a super condensed version of what I just told you. He didn't give me a receipt for the stuff I bought, which led to a converstation about bookkeeping. Viola.

Pretty broad description right? Oh yeah and this is all in french by the way. Piece of cake... ha. Wish me luck, my first day is on Monday!

I moved to the East!

2008-08-28T05:40:00.000-07:00

Hopefully I'll start this were I left off.. I made it to the east! With all of my things, which is great. No huge problems. Peace Corps rented out a prison type looking bus for us, which they loaded with furniture for a new transit house out here, on top of our luggage and bikes, it was a bit crowded but good.

I have my own house! That's a first. Someone hasn't lived in it for a year so there's some cleaning to be done. I just watched Under the Tuscan Sun, and my situation kind of reminds me of that. Except I don't live in Tuscany, I have to do stuff myself, people don't convienently speak english in this foreign country, and I highly doubt this story is going to end up with a georgous guy living in my villa, in this case, my compound. Wait that's not one of the goals of Peace Corps? Just joking. It's a nice house though, I've got a little screened in front porch, a good size living room, 2 guest bedrooms, a master bedroom that connects to the bathroom and a little kitchen. Lots of spiders, a few cockroaches and a bunch of geicos also live avec moi. I've got pretty constant electricity. Running water is a little less dependable, which is fine, I've got a well & bucket in my front yard. Directions to my house: Mother Hen, Piggy Bar. No joke.

It's strange to think that I live here, not just visiting. Especially because it's so different than the West Province where I've been living since I got here. It sucks sometimes not being around everyone else, but at the same time I really like the independence. I love having my own kitchen.. american food! Kind of. I still grab stuff in town a lot because I've grown to really like Cameroonian cuisine. Did I mention porcupine, viper, monkey and some armadillo like animal is really popular out here. I'll let you know how those are...

I'm really lucky to have 2 great postmates. Anne Marie lives in the house next to mine in our compound, and Kate is a Peace Corps Volunteer Leader who lives in a house around the block. Not really around the block, more like down the dirt road and through the path in someone's field, but anyway. The PCVL is a new position, Kate is a good person to go to with issues or questions because this is her 3rd year living in the East and she kind of acts as a middle person between Peace Corps admin. She also lives in a house large enough to house people traveling through, and will have a frigerator and an oven. That's pretty posh living. Both Kate and Anne Marie helped me buy stuff for my house yesterday. Price tags are extremely rare, so you have to know the price before you want to buy something or you'll get ripped off, which is on top the other reasons why I'm more likely to get a different price. I'm getting better at negotiating, but Kate and Anne Marie are pros.

Plenty more domestic stories to come, but this entry is getting long. All the best to those

Day 1 as an official peace corps volunteer: holy shit

2008-08-23T12:45:00.000-07:00

Me at the Boulangerie. Respectfully admiring the cakes

Before that though, I'll briefly tell you what we've been up to for the past week. We traveled last sunday to Yaounde for banking, admin and last medical stuff. We were also forwarded a move-in salary and our salaries for the next 3 months. It was a chunk of change, in USD it doesn't sound like that much, but we're volunteers after all, and in comparison here, pcvs do live nicely. Anyway, in Yaounde there's pizza, milkshakes, Chinese food, burgers, etc. But they all just imitate food back home, it's far from being the same but the resemblance is there and that's good enough. I had white cheddar cheese too, and it was worth every CFA. I left the grocery store, with nothing that I originally set out to get because I was so overwhelmed.

We went to happy hour at the hilton hotel, probably the nicest hotel in the capital. Just walking into the lobby, I felt like I teleported to America. Air condition, sparkling floors, carpet, lobby furniture, I can go all day talking about this. And then we went in a lovely elevator. See picture below of me demonstrating how wonderful the elevator is. The bar/lounge is on the top floor that has a gorgeous view overlooking Yaounde. The cocktails/mocktails, were pretty expensive, weren't perfect, and it took them a half an hour to make, but seriously I'm not complaining, it was so worth it. And of course, the guys also sported they're ridiculous mustaches and sunglasses.
In the elevator

So we had 4 days of this in the Cause and it was awesome. And you'd think after spending 24 hours everyday with each other.. eating, sleeping, and never being alone, we'd be sick of each other. Not the case, at all. I've already told a couple people here, my future wedding party just doubled, and the bar tab tripled because I know some of these people are going to be around for a while. We did Superlatives of the people in our stage, some of them were clearly stolen from a high school year book, like best laugh or nicest smile, others categories had people already in mind. David won "most likely to be broke during the peace corps", he's a baller spender, funny enough he also won "most likely to be rich after service". Jim's blog won "most likely to be shut down by PC". Your's truly won "nicest eyes", "most likely to steal food from the cause" and "most likely to be polygamous". Using food in the cause's kitchen is probably true, I do cook, and about the polygamy.. no comment.

The swearing-in ceremony was great, the SED girls had french toast brunch and mimosas at 9am before, we all looked great in our matching outfits, (i've added new pictures). The adorable Embassy boy scouts club started the ceremony off. There was traditional dancing, speeches in Pidgin, Fulfulde and French. We had a nice dinner, and after we continued celebrating at the SED house, at the marche where we ate grilled street meat and grilled fish. We went dancing at a hotel club where we were the only people making fools of ourselves, it was great.

Unfortunately, today has been the only unhappy day since I've been here. We split up, the people going north and east headed off through Yaounde, where I am now, and the other headed to the West, NW, SW, and Adamoua provinces. Laura and I, left Wendy and Kate, all crying, going in opposite directions of the country. Luckily, I'm hanging out with Laura for one more day before we both head off again, me to the east and Laura travels almost 3 days to the north on the border of Chad. Then in my city, Bertoua, I'll have to say goodbye again to Trevor and Nik and the Ed's going to the east when they separate off to their own posts. We're going to have quite a change. Lately we find ourselves asking the "What am I actually doing here?" question all the time. All of a sudden I don't have a schedule to follow, homework to do, family to go home to. Change here we come again. I'm excited though, ready to be challenged. And on a happier note, I'm getting a kitten! To eat the mice and bugs. I think I'm going to name it Giselle, even though I named Nik's avocado tree Giselle as well. Much love, from Siobhan as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Ihop? Nope, dinner at the King's house...close enough

2008-08-18T12:42:00.000-07:00

After a Saturday evening of hanging out and having a couple drinks, I say evening because remember my curfew is at 7 which I always respect…, and a couple drinks includes soda because of a limitation on alcohol while in training… right anyway, after an night of that, I still always crave Ihop on Sunday mornings. A bad but delicious habit that was formed this past year. Nothing beats talking about the night before, over a brunch of coffee and chocolate chip pancakes. (I’m kicking myself just for thinking about this again).

Instead, this past Sunday we went to the king of Bagangte’s house in the secret/sacred forest. Once someone visit’s the chiefs house, they can officially say that they visited the village. The chief said it would be like visiting the United States without going to the White House. He also said he had about 20 wives or so, and around 60 children. We were saying how we'd hate to be the "20th or so" wife. We got a history lesson on the kings before him and then ate tons of great food, drank palm wine, beer and wine. (people like to drink here). It's always a strange mix of tradition and modern here. For example, at the palace (not the same in english), we were looking at the old weapons on the walls, the pictures of how they tatoo someone doing initiation, while listening to one of the older King's advisers/right hand guy was telling us about the history of the tribe... there were pink embroidered doilies on the couches and the guy speaking was wearing the sickest pair of Ray Bans I've ever seen. It's a little hard sometimes to make sense of it all.

For a more indepth version of what I've been doing.. I suggest reading Jim's post "How do you spend your sunday morning" about the king's place, he's hilarious and it's true. Also Wendy's "expectations" post describes the past few days and an amazing meal we had perfectly.

Not that I'm counting.. but I am, and I've been here for over 2 months! Holy crap is right. Summer is almost over for you guys in the states, and there is only hot weather to come here because right now is the "cold" season. It's 70 and my host dad says I probably should put on a sweater.

I helped choose the matching pange for the group which was really fun. Four of us were actually able to pick out an african print that everyone would like. So if you liked the last picture of us from the east all matching, in almost a week there will be 36 of us matching for the swearing in ceremony. Which we're all really excited for, at the same time, it's going to be so hard to leave people I've been spending all my time with. It really has been great. I've uploaded lots of movies, 30gb of music, and shared lots of pictures with the other trainees. I've also traded syrup for amazing deodorant from the states, a cushy bike seat and much needed rat poison.

But now we're in Yaounde, the capital staying at the peace corps headquarters finishing up some medical and administrative stuff before they send us out to our middle of nowhere posts, well, some of us. I've posted alot of new pictures seeing how I have free higher speed internet, and I'll definitely post another blog soon about our last week as trainees, just because that should be documented. Lots of love and thank you for all your wonderful comments and support.

Almost at the end of training

2008-08-07T03:10:00.000-07:00

I can't remember if I've mentioned this before or not, but my host family's host is like a transit house during the summer. It's great because I get to live with 8 or 9 or whatever number of host siblings for a few weeks at a time. This isn't counting all my cousins. It's good practice for my french, because the first week, there is no comprehension of each other at all so it results in many long awkward silences. I'm not just talking about the language barrier here. There are things american's do that are strange, and there for, until my new host siblings get to know me, I am strange. Understandable. I boil and then filter my water in my bedroom. I'll grab my bread for breakfast and run out the door with wet and messy hair for school. I wear bug spray and sunscreen. Not exactly typical.

Anyway, one of my brother's patou who has been gone for the past few weeks returned today and I was estatic. My host father also came back from a week long vacation with a stereo system. Back to the movements in the transit house... my cousin Papi who was staying with me for the past week, left and gave me a cameroonian bracelet that everyone around here wears. I gave him a burned mix cd. In cameroonian context it could mean that we're going to have to get married, I mean.. mixed tape and a bracelet? Hopefully not, and it just means what I think it signifies, that he think's I'm not completely strange. So last night we listened to Hank Williams on the new stereo over dinner. And afterwards I immitated John Cena, a WWF wrestler, and my family actually knew who I was talking about. Oh and my sister Cristal had a baby girl. The family jokes that they're going to name it "Shivance". My dad here calls me shivance, the rest of the family including him I'm sure know's it's not even close to the correct pronounciation, but says it anyway.

Someone asked me, what keeps me motivated to be here? I thought it was a great quesiton so decided to share the answer with all of you who make it through reading these long blog entries. The short answer is I get the experience of a life time everyday. When was the last time I listened to Hank williams and talked about wrestling, and babies being named after an incorrect pronounciation of my name all at the same time?? This weekend I learned how to repair my own bike, tires, brakes, chain and all. The other day I saw a chicken's head cut off (it was dinner). Nik, trevor and I, the only SED volunteers going to the east are all matching today. I had cheese for the first time in 2 months. I taught a simulation business class in french today and sunday we're going to visit the chief's house in the sacred forest. Alot of those things are little, not really significant, but when's the last time any of that's happened?

I also love all of your comments, emails, phone calls, cards and packages from home. Recieving anyone of those things is just like christmas. And christmas is my favorite. Hopefully this blog ends on a more upbeat note than the last one. Best wishes home, and Happy Birthday Analesa! And Happy Late 21st to David!

Oh how the way things used to be

2008-08-04T10:18:00.000-07:00

I think I had my first case of homesickness the other day. It started off with a malaria medication induced dream. Itís a side affect of the medication that produces extremely vivid and sometimes stressful dreams. There will be mornings when I wake up and I really thought I went somewhere else in the middle of the night. So when I dream about the states or people I miss back home, it sucks to wake up in a strange place thousands of miles away. We were all talking about this the other day. When you wake up after these dreams and you're lying in bed not wanting to open your eyes to reality but it's too late because you can now feel the boards under your thin foam mattress and those people yelling/crying outside your window are your host siblings. Someone had a dream about how they were in the states, using high speed internet with 15 windows open and were all staring around it in awe of it's speed.

I may have mentioned this before, but the largest contributor to missing my old life, is that there is nothing that reminds me of it here besides the things that I brought in two 50lb luggages and the other volunteers. Itís like everything Iíve experienced in my life is suddenly not there. And now Iíve just picked up a new life in another language that Iíve got to get used to it. Although there are some random times, like when I was helping my sisters cook dinner over the traditional fire stove, and we sing Usher and Rihanna. My host brother knows more about whats new in the U.S. elections than I do. My host father thinks that McCain won't win because he doesn't understand the "hip-hop".

There are some things that I would have never thought Iíd miss either. I would love to go to a baseball game right now. The convenience of a grocery store is huge. Even before you walk into the grocery store.. Automatic doors so you can stroll a cart on wheels through it. Before that though: parking lots. I'd look like a crazy person if I started taking pictures of automatic doors and paved roads.

I don't miss everything though and there are creative solutions to everything here. Cooking is a good example. No rolling pin solution: beer bottle. No plates or napkins= random scrap paper and toilet paper(sometimes). Picture for sangria and wine glasses, definitely don't have that but we use a water filter bucket and we cut plastic water bottles to make into stemware. And cooking utensils pretty much comprise a couple forks and spoons. And most of all, thanks to the other amazing trainees and volunteers here, things are not that bad at all.

18 days until I'm officially a volunteer and moving out into the east! Miss you all very much!

Desensitization

2008-07-25T08:36:00.000-07:00

The word of the week is desensitization. I’ve noticed that there are things that stop being a surprise or are no longer considered odd. For example, if I see ants on the food I’m about to eat, I’ll brush them off. Cockroaches in the bathroom.. normal. The fact that one of my favorite meals here sound like something a three year old would love, (spaghetti and red bean omelette sandwich, with ketchup if I’m really lucky), that’s okay with me. When the water in town gets shut off, when I’m standing there naked in the shower.. I’m not surprised. And I’m certainly not surprised to then find that the car in the driveway got washed with the water storred specifically for this reason. Not to say that it’s getting boring here or not much is interesting anymore, I’m just getting used to somethings. Before I left the house this morning, I asked what was in the bucket in the kitchen (the bucket I normally use for water and to wash my clothes). My cousin told me it was cow skin, for dinner, bien sur (of course). Doesn’t sound too appetizing huh? I’ve had it before, and it’s not.

I’m glad you all enjoyed my story about our little trip to the east. As we were all debriefing our trips in class, we remembered another funny story that I thought I would share. So work was being done on the road that we were taking from Yaoundé to Bertoua in the East, and it was only one way. (alot of the road is really only one way, but I guess they decided to make it legit this time). So there was a worker at the start of the construction with two large flags with like 5 feet poles. We were flagged down with the red flag to stop, and then the construction worker shoved the large green flag into the front of the van. Were we proceded to drive with it, in the car, until we got to the end of the construction were there was a long line of cars waiting to go towards Yaounde and we passed the flag on to the next car.

Other news we’ve been in Cameroon for 50 days! Not bad, however there have been 2 people from the education group who have decided to head back home. They'll be missed but we wish them the best.

I made it and lived to post a blog about it

2008-07-18T07:28:00.000-07:00

Trevor and I just arrived in Yaounde from the East today, hopefully Nik is on his way too. We were out there for a week and had a really great time. So I guess I'll start from the begining, this might be a long post... be prepared. Thankfully it won't be as long as it took us to travel out there.

Day 1. Left Bagangte in the West Province in a packed peace corps bus with our counterparts and took a quick 3.5 hour drive to Yaounde where we stayed the night. The next day, early, we headed to the bus station in a taxi that no one could see out of the windshield because it had spiderwebbed cracked over the entire thing. Probably not a good sign. The bus station was chaotic. People talking in your face in french, grabbing your bags to get on their bus and not the competitors, amoungst alot of people and animals waiting to board the bus. We end up going with a VIP bus, that doesn't pack as many people in, and is smaller and overall nicer. Excellent choice. Except our driver seems intent on getting to Bertoua in good time regardless of the unpaved, potholes or I call them mineholes, in the really muddy roads. I'd like to tell you how fast we were going, but spedometers, gas tank indicators and the like, don't typically work in vehicles. We fished tailed alot due to the mario kart style of driving, literally the back of the bus slid from one side of the road to the other side, several times. Then one time, the bus spun around and crashed into an embankment. No one was hurt, and the bus was still fine to drive, faster than before actually. When the Cameroonians start saying "slower!!!" then you know you're going fast. We passed another bus off the road, and continued to go faster. Luckily we arrived, stayed with Ried, a volunteer in the East and didn't go anywhere for the rest of the day except to get a much needed beer.

Trevor and I left for his city, which is about 55 miles east of mine. In another bus, but this time it wasn't so comfortable. We managed to get the worst seats in this prison type looking vehicle. There's not a lot of move around room either in these things, you know when you're riding in a car, and you turn a sharp corner so that you end up being skwooshed to the person next to you? That's what it's like all the time. If it's made to sit 20 there will be 30 people in there, etc. The road to his city is a bit worse so we had to go slow. 55 miles... it took 4 hours. Which is about average. In the rainy season it can take up to 6 hours. In a private 4 wheel drive vehicle less than 10 years old, it takes a little over an hour. So all you badasses with landrovers and hummers should get out of suburbia and go where you can actually use your vehicle.

Again, we were really happy to arrive there. We hung out with Matt who is a health volunteer there and Tiffany who is a week away from finishing her 2 years. We had a great time, the town is awesome, great street meat or soya it's called here, and amazing grilled fish. Matt and Tiffany also made us faux fetticine alfredo and cookies which was amazing. We hung out with Ben, who was a volunteer and now lives in country managing a company. He's hooked up with internet, has a pool, company cars, and apparently can cook really well. I've got a feeling I'm going to be spending some time there.

After 2 days there we traveled back to my city, this time with better seats on the bus and with an ipod which was a lifesaver. After singing outloud, people probably thought we were too crazy to try steal the ipod from us. Hoped they liked ashley simpson. We stayed with Anne Marie, who is my compound neighbor. The other compound neighbor is a cameroonian family, and there is also a pig farm in the back of the compound as well. We also have a night guard that watches the door with a bow and arrow. The city is big, but I really like it. I also think Anne Marie and I won't have any problems being neighbors. Did I mention she owns every season of sex and the city?

I also had my fair share of moto rides, motorcycles basically. That you pay 25 cents for them to take you across town. At first I was pretty nervous about these things, they also pack 3 people, plus babies/animals/luggage. I got used to them though, got the way to get on and off when wearing a skirt, and no longer feel like I'm going to fall off it.

After over 30 hours in traveling, not including the 10 hours we probably spent waiting, we're staying at the Case, in the Peace Corps compound in Yaounde. Its similar to a frat house with volunteers coming and going, lots of dvds to watch, a big kitchen, books to borrow, and most importantly there is a washer and a dryer! I also took a HOT SHOWER. I was so excited I almost burned myself. Anyway, if you're still reading, thanks for listening, promise it won't be this long next time. I'll post some more stuff about my city and the east province in general sometime later. Until then, hope everyone is enjoying summer, who knows maybe even a vacation like my past trip

Posted Pictures!

2008-07-13T07:25:00.000-07:00

Hey! I posted some more pictures while I have faster internet, the picture above is of Me, Nik and Trevor, soon to be the only Small Enterprise Development Volunteers in the East Province.. welcome to the jungle

http://picasaweb.google.com/siobhan.perkins/SiobhanInCameroon?authkey=5VsLBOGazOo

I'm in the East Province!!!!!

2008-07-10T07:50:00.000-07:00

I'm going to the East Province! My official post is in a large city. Email me if you want the name of the city, for security reasons im not allowed to post my location. Most likely I'll have running water and electricity, one of the few places in the East Province were you can say that. It's a hard core province, it's the jungle. There's even a facebook group called "The forgoten volunteers of the east" LOL. Awesome. I'm in the city though so it's pretty nice, translation: there's a grocery store. But I'm not quite in the 'posh core'.There are 2 other education volunteers who have been there for a year and one has been there for 3 years. I'm the 3rd small business volunteer to be placed there.. the previous two didn't complete the 2 years though. 3rd time's the charm? I'm extremely excited. I'll be visiting my city and the Microfinance Bank that I'll be working with next week. It will be the first time traveling without the Peace Corps entourage, so that will be interesting. Last people knew, the road there still wasn't finished. I'm lucky enough to be living next to Trevor and Nik, both of them are a couple hours away from me in opposite directions. If there's anyone to have around you when you need a good laugh, i'd be those two.

I'm happy to say that there are still 38 of us. Including the trooper who got Malaria and Typhoid fever. Being sick here is not easy. No guarentee of running water, electricity and certainly not a clean bathroom. But relatively speaking, it's not the worst thing that can happen. Getting sick is phyiscally hard. It's the mental and emotional stuff that's the hardest. I'm happy to say that I haven't had to seriously deal with either of those things, not yet at least.

I made banana pancakes for my family last night. Maple syrup is like nothing they've ever had and watching them eating it and trying to describe it was pretty great. Unfortunately, halfway through the batter I decided to double the recipe, using the family's flour this time though because the flour I bought ran out. What I thought was flour was actually finely processed corn. So corn pancakes it was. Anything I do is either strange or funny, so when this happened, Patou and Maggie just laughed and laughed. I told them it was a good excuse to use more syrup.

I'll tell you next week about my adventures in the rainforest.. wish me bon voyage!

week five

2008-07-07T07:49:00.000-07:00

My host dad and I
The SED volunteers! Starting with me, Kate, wendy, our trainer olivier, courtney, another trainer djennabo, austin is behind me, then michelle, kate fleurange, laura, ehab and david are hugging each other, then left to right in the back is nik, another trainer, ben, joe, and trevor

All of us were invited to the mayor's house on saturday night for some amazing food and drinks. The party came at a good time. The entire town had been without electricity and water the whole day, and for some it's been over a week without running water. A generator-powered modern house was a warm welcome. Little highlights of the night: a toliet paper holder with toliet paper in the bathroom, there was soap in there too. I had a drink out of glassware with ice, and I had some cold water for the first time in a month that tasted so good. Ice cubes, good wine, the fact that I ate lettuce and shrimp, may not seem like an exciting saturday night to you, but you have NO IDEA. You may think you understand, maybe could picture life without somethings, but really you'll never know until you live it.

My sisters took me to the saturday market where they bought basically all the food for the week there. The weekly market here is chaos and takes lots of patience. All prices are negotiable, which involves discussing the quality of the product, refusing to pay the asking price, walking away, walking back, agruing the price some more and then deciding which vendor to go with. 15 minutes later, we've got a handful of carrots. Next item...lol. We went to the meat section as well. Translation: we walked through an area of maybe 100 chickens with leashes on their legs, the same goes for the goats, rabbits and other small living creatures waiting to be dinner. I almost tripped on a cow's head on the ground. Just the head. Most beef is sold hanging up on hooks from the ceiling of a large shed type building, or you're able to buy it from piles on the vendors table, we're we got ours from.

Happy 4th!!!

2008-07-03T08:21:00.000-07:00

Maggie and Patou
The "paved" streets of baffousam, the large provincial capital with cratersize potholes
Et moi!

Recognize me still?? I'm assimulating into the Cameroonian culture and I'm pretty happy that it includes getting my hair done and buying clothes. I love it. The hair took 5 to 6 hours and it was a bit painful at times. I like it though because its kind of crazy looking and it's less time I spend in the freezing shower. Maybe next time we might put some bright blonde or use some red weave. I bought some Peace Corps pagne (pagne is the vivid, colorful and paterned material), and I'm really excited to get another formal dress. Like a true father, my host dad said to me.. "You're getting you hair all done up and you've got a new african outfit... Who's the boy??"

School has been going great, it's been really busy. We went to a neighboring city to visit a couple Microfinance Banks there. The highlight of the trip being that we went to a supermarket (aka a small size grocery store in the states). There are definitely things that I'm able to purchase here in Bagangte, but there are no "stores" that one actually "goes into". Its more street vendors and 3 walled street shops where I do my shopping. And of course there is the market on wednesdays and saturdays, like a farmer's market only I can get tooth paste, flip flops, plastic flowers and other random things.

We've been given plenty of "homework". I'm working with a Restaurant/bar/catering company here on how to improve their services. Yup. I'm advising a business in French. Insane. At school, we've also started a Village and Savings Loan Association, something that I'll might start up at my post so people who don't have enough money for a bank account can be apart of an association that one can buy shares of, accures interest and are able to take out loans. And then the last assignment we have to work on is a needs analsyt of the town. There is a final cultural assigment that's pretty big, but not until the end of training. Probably an easy guess, but I'm doing my assignment on Cameroonian Cuisine. Oh and did I mention that we are no longer able to speak english at school.. whatsoever, even to each other when class hasn't started. I've already been caught breaking that rule. Manytimes

One more week and we find out where we're going to be posted. Cameroon is as diverse as the United States even though it's about the size of Califonia. There are 10 very different provinces so I'm very excited to be able to tell you exactly where I'm going to be soon. Everyone is still with us, unfortunately though, one girl is really sick with Malaria AND Typhoid. Yes those are both diseases that one in the United States hasn't had to worry about for 100 years, but even with the vaccines and preventive medication.. it's still very possible here. Shes a tough girl though so we're all hoping she gets better soon.

I taught my younger sister and brother (Patou and Maggie) how to play egyptian rat screw.. hilarious. Only in Africa these kids know how to cheat in card games BEFORE they actually learn the game. Oh and we're painting our nails on saturday.. get excited.

Oh and I know that my Aunt posted a comment about sending mail, which is great because I forgot to do that. If you do want to send mail... write religious symbols all over it, crosses, pictures of jesus, and feel free to address it to Sister Siobhan Perkins. Because mail like that has got something like a 50% greater chance of actually reaching me. Send nothing of value though. No guarentee that every customs official loves jesus.

Happy 4th of July!!

God bless the rains down in Africa

2008-06-30T07:37:00.001-07:00

My sister Josiane and I

Seriously, thank you rain. Yesterday it rained so hard, that for a half an hour we couldn't hear each other in french class. It was great. The rain was so loud our professor had to assign a reading instead of discussion.

I've been hanging out more and more with my family. Getting to know them better, maybe even comming close to figuring out just how many people are family (it keeps expanding as the weeks go on). My 14 year old sister maggie, now lives our house as well instead of living with her mother in another town. We read Dr. Suess's "Oh the Places You'll Go" together. Dr. Seuss isn't the best english grammar example.. she was like "what's a who-sit? or a mind-maker-uper?" We translated it in french which she understood a bit better, and it was surprisingly hilarious. Maggie, Patuo and I watched Enchanted in french the other day as well. The songs are GREAT in french. And I didn't realize how funny the movie was until I saw those two laughing hysterically. They loved it! It's amazing how something can be so much better once you see someone else enjoying it. So since then, I've been hanging out with maggie more. She actually likes to quiz me with accounting words (in french). She's 14, doesn't know much about accounting but yet still tries to also memorize the words in english. If I was her age on my summer vacation, I wouldn't be looking at finance terms in a foreign language for fun. Education isn't free so they work pretty hard for it here.

On another note, I've got roommates.. yup. Mice. They kept me awake for 3 nights. They literally walk in throught the front door of hour house, and then crawl underneath my door I'm hoping now that they're gone. I put out some poison for them to chew on instead. Thank goodness I haven't woken up to them nibbling at my feet in bed like another trainee. And theyre pretty tiny here too, the same size as the cockroaches actually, which gives you an idea just how big those are. Im going to post more in the next couple of days.. picutres too of my new clothes and hair...

laundry lesson

2008-06-24T09:38:00.000-07:00

Saturday night we had our curfew extented from 7pm to 9pm which was awesome, thank Jim for that. We cooked a bunch of random food like banana pancakes, guacamole, bruchetta, scrambled eggs, popcorn, salsa and tortia chips at the SED training school. I brought the syrup because I packed plenty and it

I recieved a lesson in washing clothes too. At first I told my 14 year old sister that I'd be fine doing it by myself, so while she was doing her laundry, she had a good laugh at watching me attempt to clean my own clothes. Not an easy thing by hand! And to conserve water at the same time. I was making no progress, except getting myself wet, so she came over and helped me. I watched Bad Boys 2 (or Mauvaise Garcon deux) in french with my 19 year old brother Patou, who loved it. He also says to say hello to everyone I know in the states whenever I say I'm going to send an email. Hopefully I'll get some pics of the family up soon.

I love all of your comments and emails that you left too! Alicia- An ABP vanilia latte sounds AMAZING, you're going to have to enjoy them for me, until I get back to DC and go to the one on M and 19th because they're just the best there. Amy- I'm glad you made it safe to work because of things like traffic and safetly laws, legitamit roads, and mostlikely not with a car that's older than 1988 held together with crazy glue. Lol seriously. And to all of my family I'm so glad you are all reading the blog and the other PCVs blogs! I love all of your positive and encouraging comments. Hopefully I'm able to give you an idea of what my life is like here.

Peace Corps Health session

2008-06-18T09:12:00.000-07:00

If you know me pretty well, some of you might find this surprising, but I'm actually liking the slower pace of life here. The word "to hurry" doesn't exist in cameroon and I'm okay with that. It's nice taking my time, saying hello to people and asking them how they are doing, even though I may have just seen then 2 hours before. I'm not sure I'm liking it because living here is still really new to me, or because I actually like it. But for right now, it's good. I'm surprisingly not bored. (that statement excludes french class). The days go by fast, but it seems like I've been living this life for more than the two weeks that I've been here.

I really have the chance to take everything in here. It's made me wish I'd done the same at home more often, because if you don't know already... americans have it pretty darn good. There are some things that unknowningly we take advantage of. Without steet signs, directions go like this "take a right at the corn field, go past 2 patches of corn, and there should be a trail next to some corn a bit further". Trash removal-- if it wasn't picked up for you..where do you think it would go? probably around some corn fields. Universal education is essential. I've got a extreme version of a brita filter and that's the ONLY water I'm drinking. You can't just eat or drink anything else without excepting the possibility of getting a parasite or getting sick with something else.

Speaking of which, we had a very imformative health lesson yesterday with one of our Medical Officers who is very to the point and doesn't sugar coat anything when talking about what health issues we're going to face. I think I can handle alot but just listening to this session, I wanted to be sick. I especially enjoy that sometimes out self diagnosis results can be something like "a flu or dysentry", "ringworm or just a bacteria fungus rash".. awesome.What's difference again? We're taught how to self diagnosis and often self medicate which sometimes is the best option and is pretty intense. I bet you've never ironed all of your clothes, and underwear! to prevent mango bugs from hatching underneath your skin. Ohhh you bet I have though, right after that health info session.

I was going to end with a funny story about how a chicken walked into the bar the other day. Until another volunteer said that a chicken and it's chicks walked into his morning shower and it was much funnier.

2008-06-16T10:09:00.000-07:00

Allen in Africa

2008-06-16T10:03:00.000-07:00

The red road to school

My house

my french classroom.. yes its basically outside

My new family

2008-06-16T09:41:00.000-07:00

I've officially started training and things are going great. My host brother and sister picked me up when I first arrived in Bagante, they even made me a sign which was really nice. A little awkward at first living with a family who speaks a language I don't know all that well but I got over it pretty fast. One of my host brothers is great because he speaks french slowly and even speaks a little english. The house is really nice, they even have a TV running water too. It takes a few minutes to get used to the cold shower, but I'm not going to be in there for more than a few minutes anyway so it's not that bad. My bedroom is great, it has a large bed, and a desk, and a mosiquito net, which is very important. Oh and they also have a tv. The family is going to help improve my french and teach me about world soccer. I left my host brothers who are in high school use my ipod while they were studying. then over dinner one of them started signing... My humps, my humps, my humps my lovely lady lumps.. it was hilarious. I was a little upset to find out that i didn't have any really younger host siblings, but from my room i can hear the neighbor's babies quite well so I'm okay with it. Same with the roosters, all 30 of them next door.

The roads are very muddy here with red clay mud. It's really important to be clean and most importantly to keep your shoes clean here. It's a sign of respect. Litterally when I meet someone, they smile at me, say bonjour and then look at my shoes. So I've got to work on keeping clean better. Apparently it's their cold season, which is 65 at night and 75 degrees during the day. Besides the short hurriance like downpours that turn the roads to rivers, it's perfect weather.Speaking in french constantly is really exhausting though. It's at least 4 hours a day of french lessons at school and then more at home when I attempt to understand whats going on in the house. One of my host brothers is learning english, so I'm helping him and he helps me out by speaking slower in french. The accent here is much much different than a traditional french accent which is alot of the confusion. I'm starting to think in french which is good sign though. All of my professors are cameroonians as well and there are definitely some communication barriers. I tried to explain deer hunting season (chasing season of an animal that doesn't exist in Cameroon and maple syrup/ maple fest (sugar from a tree festival). I got some weird looks.

The food is definitely different. I eat tons of avocadoes, bananas, rice, bread and potatoes usually along with some kind of meat that I'm not yet able to identify. But my sister is an excellent cook. She does all the cooking, cleaning and shopping.. alot of work! I can always go to the market for a spaghetti omelette, or a meat kabob, or for something more expensive (we're talking $2) I can get a box of cookies or crackers. For about $3, I can go to a nicer restaurant here, but that's expensive.

Well I guess that's all for right now, either I have nothing interesting to say or some foreign things have just become normal already. A bientot!

i am in africa!

2008-06-11T09:52:00.000-07:00

a cozy ride in the peqce corps van through the city

at the airport with almost 150lbs of luggage the busy streets of yaounde

view from the hotel

I made it! After a seriously long trip, almost 24 hours traveling, we all made it to Yaounde. I’m lucky that I’m surrounded by other entertaining and hilarious volunteers, because it made hours of flight go by a little quicker. Things are going great, it’s been such an easy transition. Probably because I’ve been staying in a hotel for the past week which even has AC in most of the building and hot water! Thanks to the guards with large guns in the lobby 24 hours.. It’s also very safe. Yaounde is busy, but the country itself is gorgeous. Very green and tropical with red dirt roads. It’s really beautiful. Traffic and driving is insane. I’ve seen 2 traffic lights in the entire city. Just on Sunday we saw 2 traffic accidents. I have no idea how they decide who has the right away at intersections. I think they don’t and just drive instead, hoping for the best. The people here dress very nicely. Walking on a dirt road it’s not uncommon to see a woman in a dress and heels or a guy wearing a complete dress suit either. The weather is gorgeous. It’s been about 75 to 80 degrees, a little humid and mostly cloudy everyday. It is the beginning of the very heavy rain season so we there’s more rain to come in the next few months.

We’ve been spending our time doing paper work, getting I.D.s, going over safety precautions, learning how to filter our water, and getting lots of shots. The malaria medication gives me insane dreams. My fingers are crossed though, I haven’t gotten sick yet. Unfortunately not the case for 3 other people in our group. So we’re basically going over things that we’ll need to know for the next 10 weeks that we’ll be in training and living with our host families whom we’ll move in with on Thursday! I’m very anxious and a little nervous about it. No guarantee of running water or electricity probably with a large host family members who don’t speak English. Yup. Peace Corps has done a great job of getting us prepared though and I think I’m ready for a challenge so we’ll see. After about 5 weeks or so into the training, I’ll find out where I’ll be placed for my post assignment and more exactly what I’ll be doing as a small business advisor. My French isn’t as bad as I thought so I’m definitely looking forward to study another language either Pidgin or fulfulde.

I did get a cell phone which is exciting. Yeah I think I’ve got a better chance of cell phone service than running water…. I’ll take it! To dial internationally you need to dial 011, then the Cameroon country code which is 237 and then my number 79 49 60 07. It’s pretty expensive for me to call home, but free if you call me. In the states you can get deals on international calling cards but email works great too if you want to contact me.
I’m off for now and probably won’t be able to get online until I settle in Bagante for a few days. Hope all is great back home!

Flying out tonight!

2008-06-06T09:39:00.000-07:00

It's finally here! I'm headed to Yaounde, Cameroon with the Peace Corps this evening. It's been quite a process to get this far but I'm happy that I'm here. The past month has flown by, I'm happy that I've gotten to spend time with people I really care about and I know I'll miss so much. To those who I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to, I'm sorry I missed you! I really do hope to keep in touch with everyone as best as Cameroon's internet/cell service will allow.

So for the past 3 days I've been in Philadelphia for a short orientation. I've met the other 37 volunteer's I'll be training with for the next 12 weeks and they are all incredible. It's amazing how soon we've gotten to know each other and how well we all get along. Half of us are in the Small Business Program, including myself as a Small Business Advisor. The other half are teaching english, i. t. or science. Unfortunately, I don't have my official post just yet, but until august 22, 2008 I'll be in the town of Bagante for Pre-Service training. The majority of us are girls, about 60% which is pretty common for the peace corps and we've from all over the U.S. Surprisingly, I'm not the only one who's brought maple syrup either. However, I did bring the most hair product. The days have been packed with training sessions and at night we've been enjoying our last american meals and beverages. The Peace Corps staff have been great resources and have done a great job of providing us with information.

After all this anxiousness, paperwork, vaccinations, etc. I'm finally headed off to the airport for a longggg flight. Please feel free to send mail and emails! I've really appreciated all your support and best wishes and hope to hear from everyone. Take care and au revoir

Visiting Cameroon

2008-06-06T09:18:00.001-07:00

1. Planning. Start planning at least six months before departure since several things have to be done sequentially which can add up to several weeks/months. Keep in mind that communication takes a long time, so arranging the logistics through the mail will require a lot of lead-time. Make sure that the timing of your visit is convenient for the Volunteer you are visiting. A Volunteer's primary obligation is to his/her assignment, so be sure that your visit will not disrupt any work plans. We recommend visits at some point during the second year.
2. Passport. If you do not already have a passport, obtain a passport application and application instructions from a post office or your travel agent. To apply for a passport, you will need the completed application with two passport photos (with your signature on the back of each photo) and the application fee.
3. Visa. To apply for a visa to Cameroon, obtain two application forms from the Cameroonian embassy, 2349 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20008 or over the Net; the phone number at the embassy is (202) 265-8790 . After completing the applications, send them to the embassy with your passport, two passport photos, W.H.O. records showing the required yellow fever shot (see below), the application fee, and a copy of either your tickets or your detailed flight itinerary, and a bank statement. You may also need to submit a letter of invitation from your Volunteer family member. Peace Corps Cameroon will also provide you with a letter supporting your visa application if your volunteer provides the offices with the details of your visit. You will be issued a single entry visa only, unless you specifically request multiple entry. You must have multiple entry if you plan to leave the country and return during the period of the visa's validity. Be sure to call the Embassy and verify with them that procedures have not changed.
It is our understanding that the Embassy will not return your passport to you unless you send a pre-paid express mail envelope. If you are in the D.C. area, you can pick it up at the embassy.
Separate visas are required for almost all African countries you may plan to visit, except for intermediate stops where you will not go outside the terminal while en route to or from Cameroon. Each embassy requires that you send your passport with the visa application, so you can only apply for one visa at a time.
You can consolidate and expedite your passport and visa applications if necessary by going through a private company that handles it for you for an additional fee of approximately $30 per visa or passport. (Ask a travel agent for details).
4. Health. A yellow fever vaccination is required. This immunization must be logged in a World Health Organization (W. H. O.) International Certificate of Vaccination. For more information on what additional vaccines, antimalarials or medications are required or recommended, contact your local health board or the Division of Immunization at the Centers for Disease in Atlanta, Georgia, (404) 639-1870 , or on the Internet at http://www.cdc.gov/travel/cafrica.html
You should also plan to take anti-malarial prophylactic drugs prior to departure from USA and during your stay in Cameroon. Contact the Malaria Hotline at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, (404)639-1610 for information on what drug(s) to take and where you can get them.
While in Cameroon, precautions must be taken with food preparation and water treatment. Drink only bottled water in sealed bottles or water that has been filtered and chlorinated or boiled. Vegetables must also be soaked in chlorine if they are not being cooked or peeled.
There are health risks, and the medical facilities in Cameroon are not comparable to facilities in the United States. Peace Corps medical Staff cannot provide care for family members or friends who require medical attention while in Cameroon. We strongly suggest that you consider extra insurance with emergency evacuation coverage from a company such as International SOS Assistance, Inc. (P.O. Box 11568, Philadelphia, PA 19116, 1-800-523-8930 or 215-244-1500 in PA).
5. Money. The currency used in Cameroon is called franc CFA. The franc CFA is fixed to the Euro (656 CFA = 1 Euro; 1 USD is about 400 CFA.) Travelers’ checks are safe, but incur exceedingly high commission rates and other charges (up to 25%). Travelers’ checks in dollars have also become increasingly difficult to change. You may want to take at least some travelers checks in Euros, since switching dollars to CFA in Yaoundé is usually more expensive than switching dollars to Euros in U.S. and then Euros to CFA in Yaoundé. Some of the big (and expensive) hotels in Yaoundé will accept an American Express or Visa credit card (caution advised). ATMs on the “Plus” system are increasingly available around the country. The best person to answer questions about money (and how much to take) is the Volunteer whom you are planning to visit.
6. Baggage. Have all your suitcases locked. On most airlines, you are allowed 2 pieces of baggage (not to exceed 50 lbs. each) per passenger for trips from the United States to Europe, but only 20 kg (44 lbs.) total for intra-European or African flights. Therefore, you may be charged an excess baggage fee for anything over 44 lbs. from Europe to Africa unless you check your baggage through to Africa directly from the U.S. (If you check baggage all the way through, be sure the baggage ticket has all appropriate code letters for the trip; the code for the airport in Douala is DLA, the Yaoundé airport is NSI, and the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris is CDG). Consult your airline or travel agent for further information.
7. Flight Check-In. If you fly through Paris, arrive at the check-in counter for the flight to Douala or Yaoundé two hours before take off. They start checking passengers in then and you cannot get a seat assignment until this check-in. The check-in process goes very slowly, so plan to stand in line a long time. They will not allow large carry-on bags.
8. Arrival in Douala / Yaoundé. You must have both your passport and W.H.O. card for immigration when arriving at the airports in Cameroon. French and some English are spoken at the airport, but it would be best to ask the Volunteer you are visiting to have someone meet you at the airport. You will have to open all bags for inspection. Try to keep all your bags in sight once they come into the baggage area. There will be men vying to carry your bags for payment. Carry your bags yourself if you can. If not, negotiate a price with one person before allowing anyone to take your bags (about 1$ per bag.) If no one is going to meet you at the airport, get instructions ahead of time from the Volunteer on how to take a taxi to your next destination.
9. Accommodations. Your best source of information about where to stay is the Volunteer whom you are planning to visit. The Yaoundé Hilton presently has a special rate for families and friends of Peace Corps and is recommended by Peace Corps staff, and the Akwa Palace Hotel in Douala gives a Peace Corps discount as does the Parfait Garden.
10. Photos. Picture taking is fine, in general, but you should always ask permission before taking anyone's photograph. Photos are never allowed at the airport or any military installation, so please keep your camera concealed when near these locations.
11. Identification. During the course of your stay in Cameroon, you will have to show your passport to the police several times, so you must carry it with you in a safe place at all times. It is sometimes convenient to have a certified photocopy of your passport to present to officials. Your volunteer will know how to do this.
12. Departure. Presently, you must pay a departure tax of 10,000 CFA at the Douala or Yaoundé airport before boarding. Check ahead of time, as this tax needs to be paid in local currency, and most likely you would need the exact amount.

Sending mail

2008-06-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

The following suggestions and postal regulations may be useful:
1. Mail should be sent directly to:

Siobhan Perkins, Peace Corps Volunteer
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 215
Yaounde, Cameroon

1. Write Sister Siobhan Perkins and or put lots of religious symbols all over the package. More the better, phrases like God Saves, Jesus Loves All etc.. work well too.
2. Both Volunteers and family members should number letters sent so that the receiver can determine whether any letters do not arrive.
3. Packages should be sent via air, not surface mail (surface mail has been known to take longerthan two years to arrive.) FLAT RATE INTERNATIONAL is the best bet and insuring the package is a good idea
4. Sending packages to your Volunteer in Cameroon is a risky proposition. Theft of packages isnot only a problem in the Cameroonian postal system, it also occurs on the U.S. side. Although occasionally a package arrives quickly and without problems, it may take months or it may get"lost" along the way. Therefore, it is not advisable to send valuables this way.
5. If you do send packages, bubble envelopes seem to work better than large boxes. They areless tempting to would-be thieves. The sender should clearly and honestly mark the contentson the outside of the package, but a general description of the contents is sufficient: "clothingand candy" rather than "Nike high top sneakers and 2 lbs. Godiva chocolate."
6. Express mail is an expensive option that may take just as long to get to Cameroon. Perhapsa more secure option than regular airmail for documents, checks, etc., it is subject to morescrutiny by Cameroonian customs than regular mail. For items other than documents, PeaceCorps staff has to submit import licenses to customs, and clearance can take up to 10 days.Thus, you may not necessarily save any time by using Express mail. DHL and UPS operate in Cameroon for those important documents. Note that current prices for these services runaround $100.00 for one pound or less.
7. There is a tax which Volunteers will have to pay on all packages received before they canretrieve them from the post office. This tax varies according to the size of the package. It mightbe a nice gesture from friends or family to send a six-pack of Mountain Dew, but it may cost a Volunteer up to $10.00 to get it out of the post office.
8. Packages sent to the Yaoundé office are sent regularly to Volunteer posts. This may delaydelivery to the Volunteer by up to several weeks.
9. If Volunteers wish to send a package from Yaoundé to the States, Cameroon postal ratesare high and insurance is not available. For this reason, many Volunteers wait to sendpackages with returning PCVs (whom they ask first, in country) or wait until their Completion of Service (COS) date to send home gifts and souvenirs. Letters going to the States through the Cameroonpost have been quite dependable.
10. US postage-stamped letters can be put in the "next traveler" box at the Peace Corps officein Yaoundé, to be hand carried by the next person going Stateside. Note that this is a courtesy,not an obligation, and Volunteers shouldn't expect any traveler to carry more than letter mail, unless special arrangements are made with the individual. Air travelers may be required toopen letters and packages and/or submit them to X-rays, especially when they don't belong tothe traveler.
11. The Cameroon Desk in Peace Corps Headquarters, Washington, is available to answerVolunteer & families' questions about mail. Due to staff and budget constraints, they cannot, however, facilitate the sending of personal mail for Trainees and Volunteers.