One Year

It has been one year since coming back to the states. I miss Cameroon enormously, am frustrated with the difficulties associated with communication with my friends back in Bafut and am eager to go back to visit.

I've decided to pursue a night program at the University of Colorado here in Colorado Springs to get my masters in business administration. I'm not quite sure what it will translate into, but I'm hoping it will give me some tools to get back to Cameroon, and with experience and knowledge that might be more appropriate to its bubbling-up economy. We'll see how I'm seeing things after two semesters of accounting.

I'm still working at the television station, learning to sell television airtime and Internet ad space. I've screwed up a lot, failed more than that, and it doesn't help that we've entered utter economic turmoil. Despite all, I have the feeling that I'm getting the knack of it. It's becoming more exciting and rewarding with each trial (and error).

I've also learned a few things about perspectives since returning. Some Cameroonians I've met haven't received me as well as I'd of hoped, not understanding or trusting some of the descriptions of my many experiences. I've been accused of lying and exaggerating, and have heard the word "slander" on several occasions. I feel like I've been sort of disowned, cast-off as a foolish American who spins defamatory tales willy-nilly.

Of course, I don't believe that is entirely the case. I adore Cameroon, its people, its geography, its potential, its fantastic folklore, music and magic. I am critical of many things, but my overall remembrance of the country is positive.

I received a hard lesson in politics. I simply hadn't imagined needing prudence because of the commonalities my friends from Cameroon would share with me. Of course, they being in the US and having lived in Cameroon, would understand my perspective.

I also, fresh off the plane from possibly the most consequential two years of my life, failed to remember that I hardly compared to Cameroonian immigrant in America. Two years was not an entire childhood in Cameroon, raised through economic crashes of the coffee and cocoa sectors, followed by years of hard work in the US, paying for school with night jobs, working tirelessly to rise up the ladder with little to no help from family back home. After all of that, whats the need of reminiscing or debating with an American who farmed with your grandmother a few times?

Furthermore, what do I know? What sort of bias and misinterpretations could I be loudly talking about? I've not had any journalistic training... what am I missing in my storytelling? Perhaps something, perhaps nothing. In any respect, I'm taking a closer look at what pictures of Cameroon I have in my head, and how they might be wrong, to the extent of being hurtful. For anyone that I've significantly offended, I apologize, I never meant to.

So, I've learned to be a bit more respectful and not so hasty with my ex-patriated friends (unfortunately, too late for a few of them). I would highly recommend this tactic for any returning volunteers... things are not as uncomplicated as they seem.

Otherwise, things are going well. There's a lot to look forward to and Colorado is fun.

Seven Months or So...

Mt Cameroon

Seven months after leaving Cameroon in an avalanche of confusing emotions, and I'm already ready to return.

That's right, I'm plotting my visit. I say plotting not because its going to be a secret event, but because I need to correspond the trip with as many holidays acceptable by my place of business with my sparse (though average) number of vacation days. It wont happen until 2009.

And why? How?

When i first landed back in the US, i faced a steady and fairly overwhelming number of questions, and one frequently asked was "do you miss it?".

And my unabashed answer was a full throated "no," oftentimes followed by a shake of my head and "absolutely not."

It's true. The stress of my return was overwhelming (how can one be stressed sitting on her parents couch, eating Chinese food nightly without tarantulas is anybody's guess.... Perhaps Africa really does do something to people). Someday my folks will get a proper thank you.

I needed to find a job. I needed to get a car. Clothes were a problem at first (mumus and dirty flip flops? Not in October.). I needed to leave the condo/nest. I needed to figure things out that i had put off for awhile (like 2 years). I needed to remember things that I liked and didn't like (hate vacuuming, love sitting on carpet). I needed to re-acclimate to dairy. I wanted to know whether i had a story to tell. And all of these things had a very obvious start date, somewhere around October 2nd or 3rd, whenever the plane touched down at O'Hare.

At least it seemed that way. In reality, my life included no more decision making than it normally did... it was just that the decisions came with the self-imposed poignancy of a RPCV with no plans and no way to process what had just happened.

So I made some plans... and some of them didn't work out, and some of them did.

I got a job with a television station as a researcher, and then I got a bigger job at the same television station after a few months. And before that I moved to Colorado. And after that I decided I would actually try and enjoy my time in Colorado, rather that complain about the lack of culture and overabundance of hippies, crazy Christians, shampoos, military presence and meth. And in doing that, I've come to remember what American culture can be.. and that it oftentimes has its own richness, however buried it seems to be.

This message is getting sappy.

I'm enjoying movies and music. I missed American food terribly, but now i remember that I can't eat half of it, and a good portion of it is crappy, and so it doesn't seem like it was worth missing. The mountains are gorgeous, and its nice to have good friends so close by that understand depth of humor and sarcasm.

Running downtown in Colorado Springs, I noticed a black guy that looked familiar to me. After hearing he had an accent, I asked him where he was from. He sort of despairingly answered "Cameroon" (apparently, he gets that question a lot. I believe my jumping up and down (while running) might have improved the outlook of the conversation), and with further questioning, we found that his grandmother lives absurdly close to where I lived in Bafut. In fact, he is a Bafut man, and grew up one quarter over. That was a surprising Tuesday. He's very encouraging of the wearing of brighter colors and grilled meat, and we hang out.

And everything has settled down. Its nice to breathe again and feel like things are moving in some kind of direction. The sadness of leaving started to creep in around two and a half months ago. Its lessened by the fact that Cameroon isn't so far away, what with cell phones and internet. My host family recently had another baby and named it after me. Maa Marie calls to greet. My friend and supervisor in Cameroon had a baby with his new wife, and they got the baby things I sent. E sent me an email to ask for money. Maurine sent a picture of Kesty.

But there are no plums here. There are no misty clouds hanging over the palm trees in the morning time, and no deluges pounding on my zinc roof. No people "kwan kwan'king" on my front porch in the afternoon, and no children's fingers under the door, begging for cookies from "Auntie Rose". And I can't have a beer around lunch time and feel okay about it, or hop in a taxi to get somewhere for 20 cents. And people just aren't as friendly, or as superstitious or as interesting as in Cameroon. And there's no palm wine.

But it is still there. Its so weird that things don't just vaporize when I leave them. It's still there! And it wasn't all a weird dream (I wont get into a mephlaquin rant). So I have nothing to worry about, really... except getting hit by a bus, or some equivalent to that. Even then, I think i'll not wait too long... maybe a year or two. I think there are more adventures to come, so look forward to more subjective internationally-based blogs down the line. Here are some photos of my days since the plane touched down.

First hours back.

Kentucky Derby.


Paddock at Churchill Downs.

Denver.

A Bafut man who skis. There's no word in the dialect for "snow".


Bratwurst in the fridge in Chicago.

Family at the Oktoberfest party.


My namesake "Siyou Kelsey" and host mama.

My host papa Jean... it appears he got to go on a boat.

Bye Bye

Getting my fancy Peace Corps pin. I'm now an RPCV.




Due to some circumstances outside of my control (or somewhere deep in my conscience), I am leaving Cameroon today... a bit early. Not without all the regalia of "gonging out," though.



It's been fantastic. I'll be back.

After two beers a few weeks ago, I invited Maa Marie and 10 of her family members to the fancy Dreamland restaurant. I figured she would invite family that I knew, and that we probably wouldn't reach up to 10. She made sure to fill the quota, though.... and surpassed the 1 plate of food, 1 beer limit. 50,000 francs later (100 dollars or so) everyone seemed to be having a really, really good time. In this country, you pay for your own send-off.

Pretty, pretty cameroon

My mom, after seeing the photo that included the car full of corn, realized that I have never really illustrated Cameroon on a large scale... I think she saw the clouds in the background and mistook them as mountains. So I guess that my blog is lacking in scenery photos and what-not. This is partially due to the fact that the scenery in my immediate area is beautiful, but... I live here, I guess. Not that interested in shooting photos when I walk to get my tomatoes, not to mention showing everyone in my vicinity that I have a shiny camera. In moving around the NW province, I have largely travelled inside 2-door toyota corollas packed to capacity with 8-9 people and enough cargo to turn the hatch-back into an exhaust-catch. I tend to find that the scenery is not beautiful at all when my neighbors armpit is raining on my shoulder and i cant see through the window because the right windshield wiper fell off and was never replaced (really, how necessary is it to have both?).

But lately, knowing that my work (my fine fine work) is coming to a close, I have done my best to take some photos despite the circumstances. So, here is a smattering of Northwest province photos. It really is beautiful. If only it had roads. And jobs.

This was a big guy... probably 3 inches long in his body with equal sized antennea. Just moseying along a cable line next to the balcony where we ate. It's not really scenery, but you can see that there are hills surrounding Bamenda in the background.

Hill with nubbin.

Again, not scenery. But cute. The baby is getting "baba," or strapped to his mama's back with a piece of fabric (or sometimes a towel). I would like it except that babies here tend not to be diapered.

The mountains and valleys on the kumbo side of the plain. The whitish spots are the rain falling and making the grasses oh-so-green.

We had to take an hour and a half detour so the driver wouldn't have to pay at a "mixed control".... it seems he had none of his "books" and it would have been expensive. But I got to walk a bit in the beautiful countryside near Reese's old post.

This waterfall is just up near Sabga, about 35 minutes from Bamenda.

This is coming down the hills of Jakiri, where the foulani people raise cattle and horses. It's a spectacular view, especially in the wet season when you can see all the rain falling. You have to cross that big plain below to reach Bamenda, and the entire road is unpaved. Its.... really muddy.

The road just after Sabga hill, a decent (though steep) portion of the road to Kumbo, which I travelled many, many times.

A waterfall near Sabga. Some of them are really roaring.

Thats my house... hills in the background and the cocoyam/plantain farms in the foreground.

A big storm moving in over the Bafut palace.

Small Small, No Be Sick

This car was coming from the farm, I suppose. It's full of corn!

This moth was almost as big as Kate's hand. It was really big. She touched it.

I did not touch it because it had these alien stingers. I'm sure they were stingers.

I'm sure that Africa is not the leader among natural medicines. I would guess that that would be china (since many Cameroonian medicine stores sell chinese teas and chinese-processed things). But the Africans are serious believers in most natural medicines (at at times very distrustful of Western medicines). This can be great, in the case of some properly manufactured concoctions (and decococtions), the likes of which we produced during my medicinal plant workshop this past June. But it can be obnoxious and possibly very damaging (as is the case of the "shiny shiny" powder sold on the busses going to Yaounde or other weird medicines sold off the top of people's heads). Furthermore, since a lot of things can be produced locally, its likely there are a lot of people getting duped. You'll see guys pulling up with their car and hawking curative venereal medication from the trunk, saying they can cure HIV and talking through a bullhorn (these are not my favorite people). I guess you just don't know who to trust, and nobody is prepared to say they can't cure something. I'm therefore not big on purchasing these sorts of remedies...

But then theres white cat. White cat, or "small small, no be sick" is a little tin of balm that you can use on/in just about anything. I had heard about the use of small small no be sick before, but had never bought it with any seriousness. Recently, i've been having some sinus problems (either that, or brain worms... i'm not sure). Bought some, placed it around my nose, and voila.... instant cool healing power of the white cat. Amazing! So, brain worms down, I'm now going to try in on cuts and scrapes, scars, dry eyes and ear aches. Really, its just cheap vicks vapor rub in a little tin... but they changed the name and sell it off the tops of their heads, and therefore it seems more like an obscure local medicine to me. I can take orders now if you want to try. I'll need to buy a bullhorn.

COS conference

The COS conference (COS=close of service) is a time for all we PCV's to learn how to write a resume and spend one last time all together as one. We got to hang out with monkeys and eat breakfast, lunch and dinner for free and sleep on spring mattresses for a few nights. Photos...

The road to Yaounde. People like to come on the bus and sell medicine called "shiny shiny" that is supposed to clean your teeth. We believe it may be finely ground rocks. This man nearly beat me when he thought i was taking his picture.

Ally and I in the Country Director (of PC Cameroon)'s mansion-like home. It has hot water, for goodness sake. And see... I got to brush my hair.

Charles and I planned matching sassy outfits.

The balcony of my hotel room at the Mont Febe hotel. That is the village of Yaounde in the background.

Walking through the wildlife reserve. Gorillas live here.... and TONS of catapillars.

This one was really really fast.

I wanted to pet him, but my flesh would probably burn off. I'm thinking of putting together a line of "alternative stuffed animals" to sell to children. Piglet squids and catapillars of West Africa.

Not-so-fuzzy.

Good halloween costume.

Baby gorilla in gorilla juvy.

We were so close to this lady, we could have shaken hands. If it hadn't been for all of the throwing of sticks and rocks and running of the huge gorilla-ness, I might have tried.

Close enough to punch. They are rascals.


My COS date has become officially booked. And I am not coming home married to a Cameroonian... my dad was so sure that was going to happen. I guess there is still a bit of time.

"The prince enjoyed a health remarkable even among princes; by means of gymnastics and good care of his body, he had attained to such strength that, despite the intemperance with which he gave himself up to pleasure, he was as fresh as a big, green, waxy Dutch cucumber." -From my current entertainment in Cameroon, Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina"

Here are some other glimpses into my day to day life in the last months of the Peace Corps experience...

Mami only had two teeth on the bottom. She wanted me to pay her for this shot. I did not.

The doorway of the Catholic juju house. Its probably one of the few religions in Cameroon that would go along with something like this. Inside they drink fermented tree juice from cow horns.

You might think these kids were looking at me because i had a camera. In fact, they stared the whole time. This is the interior of a Cameroon classroom in a village in the Northwest. Children of America... consider yourself very lucky and eat your peas.

This is one of the finest moto drivers in the NW. Notice the stereo system he has connected near where his feet should go. He goes just fast enough to give you that stomach feeling, but then it goes away.

I would seriously consider coming back to Africa JUST to weigh babies and wear a lab coat. This one wanted to see me very well.

This health center is run by a fantastic "doctor" who makes 10$ a month. He delivers babies, makes sure women have good nutrition and distributes medicines. See? There still are good people in the world. And babies. This one was in a very healthy weight range.

Doing a soy (soya) milk recipe with the ladies of the health center. Did you know one kilo of soy is equal to 3 kilos of cow meat? Meat is 1200 a kilo. At 350 for a kilo of soy, its a fabulous alternative. Don't I look ridiculous?

Grinding the soy beans.

Straining the milk through a clean cloth. Test tasting came after. Lots of "AB-AHYE!"s. The ladies really enjoyed their liquid meat.

Update...

Here is a photo of Reese's spider bite.

All day yesterday was the 11th, and today is the 12th.

I wrote a long and funny something about my anxiety towards travel in the states during my high school and college years, with special emphasis on my fear of flying. I chewed on how I have been downright desensitized in the last year to the uncomfortable and terrifying Cameroonian means of travel. However, I believe some of the photos I took in the last few days will better convey what is so unfathomably normal in this country.

In the last week I’ve of dreamed of airports three times.







These goods waved their fingers at me while i took a picture. It was a truck full of traditional leaders. My car was faster, so i snapped them anyway.





This is where my car fell in a ditch. I have a video of a bunch of boys picking it up and moving it, then another video of it sliding back in the ditch.










This is where they pushed a big truck up a really slippery hill. Note the tire tracks. Note the big truck that small people are pushing up a hill.








Overload heading out from the car park.










Cow Wey No Get Tail.













Ally and I heading to the village. 5 In the back and they were lacking in an actual seat. It was a piece of wood covered in felt.



13 people in the car on the way from the village. This was the front seat.






















Heading up to Ndu from the market.










Coming from the village. Ally and I make friends with our seat mates. We had 4 extras.

The Other Toenail…

Reese in Limbe.

I was made to pick up the chicken "like you would a football". He pooped a lot in his brief stay in my exterior room. It was really smelly. The other one tried to bite Reese twice. We enjoyed eating both of them.













A few minutes later. See how naked?? Not so tough now, eh, chicken??

It's a real treat to stay in the Case with Justin Fugo. Or I guess this was Ingrid Martens. There is a pile of stuff "up for grabs"... this rouge number was inside. We all have motorcycle helmets.

I’m in Yaounde after a brief period at post following my America trip. My boyfriend, Reese, was bit by a bird-eating spider and got his close of service (COS) early (I will try to get a photo of this wound). He's fine. I got to take a little vacation to come to “the Yao,” as Bill Zimmerman likes to call it, and see him off. Last night we had a doggone spread to celebrate Reese’s many achievements. This included slices of ham schmeared with cream cheese (dubbed “Kalamazoo rolls” by the sushi expert), sour cream & onion Pringles, groundnuts (peanuts) and fancy pitted olives. Yessir. Sad to see him go, but who doesn’t love a reason for a party?

He’s not gone that early, though. In a few short months (pending this same spider does not attack me), I’ll be going home too. I will probably fly in to Chicago… in the middle of December. I’m crossing my fingers for unseasonable warmness. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I will be reentering the United States with either toenail. The one that I wrote about a few months ago has ceased its growth. It is a stubby, painful little thing and I am forced to paint the front of my toe to achieve the look of a real nail. Today the left nail came off. It was quite a surprise.

What’s on the docket until November? Tree outplanting, soy milk fabrication, camps and songs, hanging at the palace, and lots of photos. Peace Corps time sure seems to fly by.

Note: The Fon of Bafut is presently in the United States. From what I understand, he will be in Maryland (Silver Springs), Philadelphia, Washington DC, Houston, Chicago and two other cities (maybe St. Louis and San Francisco).

After 21 months...

The O'Hare airport with my dad. I was very, very smelly and felt bad that I had to get into his new car so stinky.







This is my friend Gayle who is a missionary in Ndu, Cameroon. Yes... we happened to run into each other at Abba: the Music.

















Rare parents moment at Katie's wedding.





















This was just before the rehersal dinner. See... I'm clean.
















Fabulous shoes. Very white legs. People commented on it.


















Oopps... heres a couple of Katie photos. Elle est jolie, non?



















Katie and Jarrett. Lots of champagne was in the limo.















My brother Chase and I dance the night away... or day away, I guess.

















Pretty hair... goofy drink. I had three of them.









Can't a girl get a break?

Finally. I flew in to the US on the 26th to a red-eyed mother (I told her not to cry or I would have a panic attack. She managed to control herself... somewhat). We got into my dads shiny new Jeep and I began to play with gadgets and forgot completely where I had just come from. Except for my odor, which was more african and less america.

Anyway, I had a wedding to attend... that of my middle school friend Katie Phinney (now Katie Hunt) and her now husband Jarrett. So, I got some clean clothes and an eyebrow wax.... and a shower and a hair cut and color (I put some red in there... my mother says it looks unwholesome)... and I ate some crab rangoons just as soon as the ciprofloxin kicked in....... and headed to one of the Carolina's on an aeroplane just in time for the bridesmaid luncheon.

I have not a picture of her, but Katie was a lovely bride. I got to wear some really pretty red shoes at the rehersal and some shiny ones for the wedding and my feet stayed clean the whole time. They got married in a lovely ceremony and that was that... then we drank and ate the night away (and I ended up speaking some kind of french to a senegalese taxi driver that took my brother and i back to our hotel from the 80's bar at 3am).

After that, I got to go hang out with the family dog (who hates me... he is 77) at the most beautiful lake in the world where my parents have a new little cottage. We has pizza and ribs and hamburgers and I got to wear shorts and get a slight tan (which unfortunately caused my shin-fungus to flare up... what???). Also got to sit by another lake in the middle of the state of Michigan and drink beer in cans and watch my cousin's 2-year-old swing tiny titanium golf clubs about.

Now in Chicago, I fly out on Tuesday.... back to culture my fungus. We had Chinese food tonight...... Chimichungas have been saved for last. This is such a fun place, I think I will come back in a few months.

Some Notes on Funerals

I'm sure I've probably mentioned that funerals are THE event in Cameroon (and if you've talked to my mother, I'm sure she has mentioned those "CRY-DIES" that they have there... caps intended to denote a Michigander accent). The older you are when you die, the bigger the party, it seems. People spend years planning the events sometimes (my landlord and his family have held numerous family meetings over the last year and a half to plan "Pa's die") and spend ridiculous amounts of their dispensible income on beer, tents, plastic chairs and fowls... lots and lots of fowls.

Actually, at times the money spent is not all that dispensible. It seems that Bafut once had a number of people raising cane rats... a profitable business after the start-up costs have been offset... but they sold off the entire lot of animals to pay for booze at Pa or Ma's big celebration. It's not the kind of spending that thrills development workers (even the Rodney Dangerfield type).

What else can you see at a cry die?

Typically at these events people will try to get all matching african material and make matching shirts and skirts.... sometimes whole pantsuits depending on your importance (after that, you can determine who is in who's family from seeing the matching material all over the country).

They set up sometimes hundreds of rented plastic chairs under rented tents. Normally this is in the front yard of the dead person's house... even if their house was an apartment on commercial avenue in Bamenda....... in which case they set up the tent and chairs on the sidewalks and in the streets. Often traffic is blocked. In the francaphone zones, people dance in a circle holding peace plant sprigs and the headshot of the dead individual. Traffic in Bafoussam is typically blocked by a die circle or two when i come through.

The star of the show is really the corpse, a word that the african people use freely and often. Bringing the corpse, presentation of the corpse, burying the corpse, dancing on the corpse to pack the dirt down on the corpse. It's something we shy away from in the states, but it is really in your face here. The carrying of the corpse from the mortuary to the burial site is a big to-do. And I mean big. During your living years you will ride 4 to a seat on a 4 hour trip from Bamenda to Kumbo on a crappy dirt road in the crappiest hatchback you can imagine... but when you die, they rent you an entire land cruiser with flashing police lights and sweet, sweet Backstreet Boys playing out of bullhorns on the top. Bazor funerals in Bamenda has a whole fleet of these classy "last ride" cruisers. The competitor down the street is "Master P" Funerals.

They make t-shirts with the mommie or papa dem's picture on the front. Buttons, too.

So, for awhile I thought that this was all kind of lame (and I still don't approve of the spending when you've not money to spend)... but I think I am undergoing a slow conversion to celebration of death. What else will you defininately get to celebrate but your birth and your death? You might not get married, have kids, anniversaries, big promotions... but you definitely get to die.

I'm proposing that for my funeral, I'm buried in the front yard (somebody's front yard, don't care much who). It will probably be a block party... I would like my face to be screen printed on t-shirts and the butt of sweatpants. Lot's of margaritas... and I demand that my corpse be covered in streamers and tied to the roof of an fallafel truck with the music blaring. People can eat pitas after. Tears and wailing are welcome, as long as followed by dancing, margaritas and debauchery. It's just the way it should be.

Some kine grass where he de cure some kine sick dem

This week I had the privilege of hosting around 20 folks from Mambu, the village that is about 500meters in elevation from me, at a medicinal plants training. The week holds some of the most boring, interesting and most amusing events of my Peace Corps career. For the most part, participants were chosen based on their previous involvement with medicinal plants or their need to learn for medical reasons. More than half of the group was made of up traditional (or native) doctors (or healers).

I didn’t really know too many native doctors before this week… mainly because they kind of freaked me out. If you look around (ha… next time you are in a taxi in the NW of Cameroon) at the backs of other passenger’s necks, you will see a series of º inch long scars closely packed together. One of the more typical procedures at the traditional doctor’s office is to make these tiny incisions and then pack a poultice of herbs over the top (I learned this week that these are sometimes chewed by the doctor first. Ew.). One volunteer in NW is working closely with the traditional doctor to see how HIV/AIDS might be spreading through unhygienic methods (i.e. lots of Czech-made razor blades). So, there’s the cutting… and then the fact that the doctors are often spiritually oriented… they have been known to make black magic charms to kill people, or to force unruly white women into marriage, or to give an enemy a bad sick. So, yea… I have just kept my distance until this week.

The first day made me a little nervous. Around 5 of the participants were wrinkled old men in traditional black caps with decorated with Big Man tokens (red feathers and porcupine quills)… they were mostly reserved, some of them looking suspiciously at other participants. We started the training by having them write their expectations and fears for the training program. Three explained that they didn’t have any fears, but if the rest of the group wanted to learn something from them, they would have to pay. Of course, the men who felt so strongly didn’t have the ability to write for themselves, so I copied down their remarks. Well, that was it for the intimidation. This is not to underestimate the traditional doctor’s wealth of knowledge on local concoctions, but I have a feeling that they would need to write my name on the charm for it to work.

We kindly explained that they didn’t need to share anything, but the protection of their intellectual property was going to hinder development of Cameroon… and shortly thereafter, the group discovered the traditional doctors to be nothing more than a group of Old Pas (and one nutty Old Ma) who want to eat their achu and laugh and yell at each other and be crazy. One Old Pa explained that he had been to South Africa, Gabon, Nigeria and Ghana to sell and teach about his medicines. He was a really funny little man. I’m pretty sure he’s never left the NW province, and his trips to Bamenda are probably not all that regular. He really liked me, and suggested that I marry here. We tried to squelch the idea that there is a cure for AIDS (many of them advertise that they have the power), and we clarified what typhoid really is (has nothing to do with your nervous system, Pa). Black magic stayed out of most of the conversation, and we tried to promote safe and effective means of treating people with herbs (teas, tinctures, rubs and such). I doubt that they will give up the slashing or the black magic, but they seemed to take our straightforward training really seriously. It’s a start.

Other than that the week was marked by a good deal of discussion on suppositories, diarrhea and piles (I just kept hearing the work “anus” and “shit” within the garbled pidgin… over and over and over), huge pots of herb water, burnt bones called “black stone” that suck out pus or something, Old Pa gas, and heaps of green that I saw as… well just green… and they all saw as “grass where he de cure some kine a sick.” And it rained every day no later than 2pm, just as we would finish and I had to ride my bike back down the hill.

Did you know I was an Agroforester?

This month has been my big month for agroforestry. I’ve finally succumbed to the idea that this stuff might actually be worthwhile (though it wasn’t such a willing yield) and have gone throughout the kingdom of Bafut waving the flag of Plenty Fine Stick Dem—or Lots of Good Trees—so that all will remember that Kelsey Cornelius was once here as the seed-bearing Father-EXMASS-like Sister-from-another-mister. I planted 10 nurseries with farmers from all over, riding on rickety Chinese motorcycles with moto drivers determined that I reach safely (I drank a glass of whiskey with one driver before returning from a site, and another smelled like cow meat that had been sitting in the sun and another had a bike that held together by bungee cords). I gave several talks almost completely using my broken pidgin English. I mentioned that instructional sessions will be held on MUMITAA, the local Sunday, and I was greeted with a barrage of laughter and whooping (Auntie Rose! WAAAY! Ha. You de talk Bafut? WAAAY! Wonders!).

Agroforestry does work, its true. It is a vast discipline… though I believe its fertilizing qualities are the bushy green superstar of the field. But it doesn’t walka as well as pig poo walkas, though it might smell better (but doesn’t taste better… that’s the winner for me). And not as well as fertilizer works in the short-term, though it might be cheaper. The real advantage of agroforestry is that it doesn’t cost me anything to do, except time and my unwavering, agroforestry tool-kit thumping advising. There is a fairly large labor component, however (for the farmers, if we want to call the program sustainable)… and if trees have to be nursed first, the time factor can be daunting for a people who live for today. Furthermore, after you reap your fertilizer, you might get a bundle of firewood… but you wont get 50,000 francs and your childs school-fees paid for because you sold your pork. AND its not like you get to sell your massive cassava under an “ORGANIC-TREE POOP GROWN” label and mark-up the price tag 400%.

So, yea… it’s a good program. Or it’s better than nothing. Or it’s cheaper than the other thing. So, okay fine… I admit I don’t buy it. I don’t buy agroforestry as the best thing for the people of the NW and those in Bafut. I want the UN to give my farmers a few million dollars so that they can be trained in enormous numbers of people on livestock and fertilizer production and crop rotation. I want it to be in loan form with ultra low interest so that farmers can pay back and the money can be recirculated. And they will be the biggest exporters of salami in the world and no one will have to worry about the soil (who wouldn’t buy African salami? Mango salami! Pineapple salami! Kola salami!).

But who am I to say? Who am I to know what people need? I have walked away from every nursery planting with something in my hand or in my belly. I received 3 pineapples, 8 mangoes, 1 liter of palm wine, 1 liter of red wine, a beer, a piece of bushmeat, fufu corn and njama njama and 1 fried dough ball upon completion of various nurseries. People are ridiculously grateful for my 30-minute nursery construction assistance, 50 cents worth of seeds and 10-20 minutes of instruction. And I’m planting trees, so I can’t be in the red (unless I were planting eucalyptus, which soaks up all the water in the ground and keeps my toilet from flushing). But its like… somehow I feel I’m in the lifeboat, paddling towards humans lolling around in the icy water (or shark infested… however you like) and I stop to get… a roast beef sandwich with horsey sauce and a jamocha shake (at the fan boat Arby's) and continue paddling on with one hand, drinking my shake.

So, when it comes down to the nitty gritty, it seems that Arby's is everything that is wrong with development.

And in other news, there is a monkey named Tom at the Savanna Botanic Gardens in Bafut. He eats chicken heads and would very much like to sit on your head and hold your ears with his crazy little monkey hands. I know showing teeth is a sign of aggression, but I just can't help but smile.

Yaounde

I came to Yaounde last Sunday... thinking I would spend a few days down, take care of some medical stuff, talk to some admin. I came directly from Charles Norton's fondom where he (and Jessie Girl... not sure of her last name) was named prince or priest or something good. He got a plaque and we got to drink a lot of beer. Anyway, Bafoussam is already south of Bamenda, so I figured i would just continue in that direction... finish up by Tuesday and head out on Wednesday.

WELL, Peace Corps' transit house was a bit busy with people coming from the beach, and all of the admin was a plane ride away in the northern provinces. Monday and Tuesday went by... no unenventfully. Nate and I made white russians and brie sandwiches (yaounde has refrigeration!) after my 30-minute-long medical session. Wednesday I was sick because of the dairy in the white russians. I still hold that there is no difference between cream and whipping cream. Couldn't go home then. The admin person that was still around couldn't meet on Wednesday, so Thursday it is. Thursday I met with her for about an hour... and watched some more dvds. Thursday night my toenail ripped off (it was black already) when I hit it with my shoe. It didn't come all the way off, and Reese and Ingrid taped it back down because i couldn't look.

Friday we watched Aladdin and made mojitos.... tonight we make chicken breasts. Toenail came off all the way (I'll be very pretty for Katie's wedding. I wonder if I can wear gold clogs?).... and I will be here until next tuesday, it seems. Its just.... the motivation to get into a steaming hot bus with 69 other steaming hot people and lots of weird smelling foods and travel for 9 hours on a scary road... its not there.

Washing the Kitchen Floor

My Cameroon kitchen is probably where I spend half of my time in the country. Since food preparation is from scratch for the most part (see “Chimichungas in Africa”) and there are sanitary and cook-the-crap-out-of-it techniques to be taken into consideration, if one wants to eat well in Cameroon, he/she must spend a lot of time in the kitchen. So, voila. Spending a lot of time in the kitchen inevitably means that the kitchen will be filthy.

I don’t like a messy kitchen… but sometimes there is only so much a person can do. For instance, in the meat grinding process, oftentimes ground meat bits will fall to the cement floor. This is a space in between the water filter stand and the counter table… and often laden with spider webs. And since the meat grinding process involves cleaning more directly/regularly handled such as the grinder itself and the counter, those chunks are often forgotten… for a little while. They are too small to smell, so instead they form little dried-lava-like blisters on the floor.

One of the more frequent activities is bread making. Flour tends to fly in the process, landing on the floor around the counter… near the door…. On the window. You would be right to think that it could be easily swept up, but I have to wash my hands and get the bowl cleaned and greased and get the counter clean… and it just gets forgotten. For some reason, flour on a cement floor in Africa morphs into a paste which cannot be removed from the floor without sandpaper.

So, its not easy. I did make one enormous error not long after moving into the house that has added the the kitchen mess for some months. I had a bit of a rat problem for a few weeks, and tried a number of different traps. I discovered that “rat glue,” a non-poisonous ultra-strong rubber cement, was the best means of getting the little pooping terrors. You put the glue onto a piece of cardboard, the rats get stuck in it and then you throw their writhing little bodies out to the skinks. Worked great… except the glue changed properties after a little while on the cardboard and oozed off onto the cement. No big deal that I couldn’t get it off (they said kerosene works… but it doesn’t. Dang Nigerians.) as it was in places where I didn’t walk. But then the rats started glueing themselves to the floor. I have to scrape them off with a cutlass after waiting for them to die. It’s terrible, but that’s kind of the consequence for eating my boxes of jell-o pudding, huh? These patches also catch crickets, ants, enormous spiders and hornets.

Other things… if the power goes out for more than 6 hours, the freezer starts to melt a terrible gas or oil smelling water that ruins most things in the fridge and gets all over the floor. Coffee beans sometimes fly (look out!) of the hand grinder and land in places where I don’t notice them until I step on one. Tomatoes rot and bananas go bad and sometimes they hide from me… and sometimes they ooze. We Peace Corps and our gas plates use a huge number of matches each day, and you try to get them all in the trash… but. And I always have people over, and they never put the butter away. And of course, there is that minor detail of very frequently (like… 95% of the daytime), I don’t have running water.

Today (yes, this morning.) I washed my kitchen floor. I’m going to try to make it a more frequent practice… especially since the rains are back and things could potentially get really nasty. The soapy (bleachy) water ran brown out the back door, littered with cricket carcasses and njama njama leaves. But give me a little credit. I do make good bread (… and buttermilk fried chicken, meatball subs, artichoke dip... do you know what we’re up against? Pounded cocoyams and sauce made of limestone and orange oil).

(I’ve also started to regularly burn my kitchen garbage. The kids run to the pile while I pour on kerosene, begging me for “the container,” I say, “no… its trash” and light a match. As soon as I turn my back, they start pulling flaming tuna packets and buttery paper towels out.)

Chimichungas in Africa

I’m not sure I can adequately express my love for chimichungas. When I come home in June, it has been decided that that will be my first meal off the plane.

I had not realized that chimichungas were something a single person could actually produce… (single non-mexican person?) but I have been shown that just about anything can be deep fried, including burritos. I must say, it was such an enormous process that I feel I need to share the extent of it all with my readers.

Black Bean Chimichungas

Ingredients: black beans, Mexican rice, tortillas, cheese, tomatoes, ranch dressing, deep fried

Black beans: The beans come dry. I boiled for a minute in the morning, then let them soak for a few hours. Later, I pressure cooked (always a little bit frightening… especially when you’re pressure nozzle wont rock because you put it down in varnish one time and it likes to stick to the little hole) the beans for 50 minutes with a few cups of water, salt and a chicken boullion cube. My pressure cooker is like… 18 quarts or something. Thanks, mom for sending me such a practical pot.

Mexican rice: Seasoning packet, onion, tomato and rice for 20 minutes on a simmer. Made that in the morning.

Tortillas: Made fresh and thin and not cooked so long that they would be crisp and unrollable. I am a queen when it comes to tortilla making. My rolling pin is always dusted with flour and ready to go.

Cheese: I was out of cheese on chimichunga day. And a chimichunga needs some kind of dairy. So, we decided to make cheese. I dissolved about a cup of powdered milk in water, heated it to a boil… which takes a bit (so not to scald). Then added a few spoons of vinager to the hot milk to separate the curds from the whey. Then drain off the whey with two different sizes of strainers and voila, cottage cheese for chimichungas.

Tomatoes: More difficult than you would think. I scrubbed them with my brush then let them soak in bleach water for thirty minutes. Standard for raw, unpeelable veggies in Africa.

Ranch dressing: Delicious. Travelled a long way to arrive in Africa.

Deep Fried: Rolled them up and added a little egg wash to seal one side. Under the guidance of my deep frying mentor, I let them cook until golden brown, pulling them out with tongs before eating very hot off the blotting paper. And that is how you make a chimichunga in Africa.

Morning in Bamenda

Morning is better in Cameroon. Guys are eating their pap (sort of like thin cream of wheat), spooning it into their mouths like little babies. Dipping fresh balls of fried dough in their nescafe, chewing quietly, the pillow creases leaving their faces with each long sip of tea. In a few hours they will be yelling at me; "baby! I want to enjoy with you," "white! you need something???" Some of them will grab. And the music will get turned up and the honking will be more incessant as the temperature rises and the dust lifts into the air.

But in morning, the air is cool and feels a bit damp, and the garbage piles aren't so hot and stinking yet and I feel very hopeful and sure that it can all work out today. It usually doesn't... and I typically feel bad about it. That i lost my temper and yelled at the guy in the greased-up coveralls. That i didn't travel all the way across town to talk to that bee guy. That my motivation is gone. That i no one here seems to understand or care what they might be missing out on. That I don't know how to show them or that its hopeless anyway, so why try. That I might be the one missing something. But then there is another morning and its all just sort of lovely again.



Visit www.nowefor.com that Reese recently finished for news and information on our NGO, the Northwest Farmers' Organization. We need a truck, so if you are interested in giving a tax deductible donation to NOWEFOR, it would be very much appreciated. I have put my mother (suecorn@aol.com) in charge of America-side fund raising.

And I am starting an "I love to read!" campaign (i don't know if I can call it a campaign because its just one nursery school in Bafut). Reading for pleasure isn't really in the cards for most Cameroonians... and these kids are just about the cutest little pumpkin-faced pudding pies you ever saw and they are absolutely in love with me. So, if you want to help out Auntie Rose with some children's books (English primarily, but some in French would work) to put together a small corner library, that too would be great. Suecorn@aol.com again.

Buea mountain race

Buea mountain race
Originally uploaded by rbairdpccam.

Maa Marie, Shella, and the new small woman

Maa Marie, Shella, and the new small woman
Originally uploaded by rbairdpccam.

Small Woman at youth day

Small Woman at youth day
Originally uploaded by rbairdpccam.

Youth Day, Buea, Babies

My best woman friend from Bafut just had her second child at 21. Maa Marie, the Fon of Bafut's 6th wife gave birth to healthy baby girl on the 12th. She can't name it until after the Fon gives her the traditional name... but it's looking good for Kelsey Rose (2). They have said the baby will be "very black!" (then they snap their fingers and say "tcha"!!) because it's ears are dark.

In other news, I went to Youth Day in Nseh where I have discovered I like to watch handball very much. Lots of cute kids doing nutty traditional dances and karate demonstrations.

In the beautiful town of Buea in the SW province, I witnessed the most amazing feat of insanity and human willpower. Around 500 people ran up and back down the highest mountain in West African in a 44km race called "Mt. Cameroon Race of Hope." A number of people ran in those clear plastic "gelly" sandals, I saw one guy shoeless. The winner crossed the finish line on his butt, winning a few million francs (couple thousand dollars). It was quite hot... and more than a little bit amazing. We plan to hike up and back down over a 2-3 day period. The fastest runner did that in about 4 and a half hours.

Dry Season

This was a photo from some time last year. I had more, but the internet is not cooperating.





Dry season! Black boogers and an endless, dry hack of a cough. Chapped lips, sunburn, dust clinging to your skin. Everyone is orange! One color, one people! Dust colored!

I don’t remember really hating dry season the last time around. I was excited for wet season because I hadn’t really seen it and I like rain in the States. You get to use an umbrella, sit inside and read or stay in bed. Get in your car and use the windshield wipers. It’s the same here, except then the rain doesn’t stop and you lose your umbrella and end up buying twelve of them. Then you lose those and the handle breaks off your newest one because it was cheaply made in Korea. But you still carry it around handlelessly, the twisted metal cutting into your palm. And you can’t just sit in your house because it smells like a wet dog and there are green things growing on all of your patiently-waiting-for-dry-season clothes and you go outside and get wet and the water comes through your tennis shoes and there is mud on your butt from your shoes getting sucked in to the goop and the goop violently releasing your shoes again and again. Unlike the Africans, for us wet season does not include sitting in the traditional kitchen over the traditional kitchen fire during the evening when you come in drenched and shivering. You feel hypothermia setting in because it’s in the 60’s and you know it can happen. And you know the hospital is far away and you don’t want to bother the medical officer because you’re not sure if its hypothermia… so maybe its not. Probably not. You’d probably know if it was, right?

So, I didn’t hate dry season before. Didn’t hate it, but I was excited for the rain. But then I hated parts of wet season (did I mention the rash I had that just wouldn’t go away?) and was thrilled for the sun to come out and dry everything up: my clothes, my rash, nasal congestion, black mold I was sure was growing in my lungs. Dry season! Glorious. But it seems that every season has its serious downsides. With every passing truck, I watch the plume of dust rise and move towards my front door. It sticks to the cleaned laundry hanging on my porch (cleaned by my hands), then moves closer and leaves little particles on my not-so-clear windows. Some gets into the house, building up on the floor, the tables and chairs. I have already mentioned the blackness that comes from the nose. My eyes are like an advertisement for those lubricating drops…. Like when they put the sand on the huge eye and then pour water over it. When cars pass on a dusty road, I hope I’m on the side the wind is coming from. Sometimes it doesn’t happen and sometimes the air is stagnant and I turn my back on the dust. But it hugs me and finds my face and I taste the attic-y flavor enter my mouth and feel the miniscule pieces of soil sticking to my lungs.

It could be a lot worse. The people on the other side of the ring road have an hour drive on nothing-but-dust part of the road to reach Kumbo (there is no air conditioning in the cars and all windows must be closed… I suppose I should mention it is wildly hot during the day). I come visit there from time-to-time, so I understand a bit. My friend Ally lives after the town of Kumbo on a major part of the ring road. The road is not paved and there is something about the earth up there that allows it to, when very dry, suspend in the air for what seems like hours (eternity, really… the eternity that is dry season). The red air blots the sun out at times, making it seem like rain clouds have collected and are about to break (there is no break). Ally also has no flowing water in her house, and she must (happily) let the “Ndu Powder” settle on her stuff.

So, misery and frustration would be the words I would use. Maybe not all the time, but a lot. Dry season and wet season… the weather here is brutal. You cannot escape it. Luckily for Ally and I, we don’t have to stay here. But its very good to know that people do live with dust or black mold in their lungs at different times of the year, because it really puts American’s coughs and colds in perspective. Or maybe I just don’t have what it takes. I am really looking forward to the wet season.

The Mid-Service: Yaounde

Fun times with many of my training group collegues in Yaounde this week. It was a week jam-packed with stool samples, blood tests and other bodily fluid evaluations. Still waiting for my results to come in, but I'm hoping for an undulating malaria level and worms.

We crashed at a foreign service officer's beautiful house (he's gone having a baby) and watched his American television. Dozens of new movies in the peace corps transit house to watch and I actually had a bratwurst from one of the fancy supermarches.

Sick boyfriend and closed sushi buffet are the only troubles I face in this semi-developed wonderland. Here are some photos form the foreign service house and out on the town in Yaounde.


Charles wears a jersey and an apron. He made the white sauce and complained all night that my red sauce was crappy and inferior.


We made noodles with two kinds of sauce, garlic bread and salad for a dinner celebrating our friends Grace and Rich and their recent marriage. Rich works at the embassy now, but was a Peace Corps volunteer that trained us.



Reese and Charles next to the MAHIMA supermarket where you can find Havana Club rum and feta cheese... very rare.



At the foreign service house party... From left to right: Ben, Milo (dog), Me, Reese, Lindsey, Charles, Yune (back r to left), Nate, Matt, Grace, Rich, Megan and Kazaam? (francophone, so we didn't talk much).


Update: I have and am being treated for ECOLI!