Yup... Still here

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

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

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

BBC News In Pictures: Saving Chad's Elephants

Christmas Vacation

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!

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

AH! Its been a month!

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

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

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:

1. If I could have met up with my family.


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


3. 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!

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

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