The catch up

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

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

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

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

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

Jungle Fever

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

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