and a few more...

The bar in my village-across the street from my house.
The back of my house. My outdoor kitchen & the back door.
My counterpart on her bike. We rode over 60 km.

More photos...

Two men that I met in Mundum... one is a
subchief and the other is the mayor. The guy on the right had just
tapped palm wine and was pouring it into old bottles. I drank two
cups.


The local bar in Ako, looking east down the main
road.... it sort of looks towards my house, which is across the
street.

src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4326/1593/400/lookingeastfromfrontporch.jpg" border="0" alt="" /> The front porch of my house in Akofungubah
village, looking east in the morning. There is a path that goes down
to the stream where i will get water that goes right by.

Thanksgiving...

My latrines
Where I hope to live in six months in Mundum.

Road near my house in Ako, a nice view of the mountains, but shows how bad the road is.


Greetings!

Nothing much new to say. Thanksgiving was a blast. A good number of us crammed into the kitchen on Thursday afternoon after our daily training was finished. Peace Corps was kind enough to give us two hours of the afternoon to cook. I went to the open-air market and haggled for cheaper fruit with some of the agroforestry trainees. They mostly stood behind me and laughed while I demanded outrageously low prices for watermelons. I wanted 4 small melons for 800cfa (about $1.50). I ended up getting three medium melons for the price, though it took me walking away from the salesman after a few minutes of haggling. He lowered his price as I turned to walk away, but I stayed firm, saying, “Non. Huit cent pour le trios.” He angrily uttered the sweet words “donne-moi l’argent” and I got my three pasteques.

I bought 15 expensive, small apples (pomme de France) in the market, brought them back and found some space in the large kitchen at our training site. Every marmite (pot), knife, burner, corner of counter, pat of butter—was in use. Blair was scalding himself over a pan of hot vegetable oil, frying battered zucchini, onions and plantains. Kate was slaving over green beans and carrots. Ingrid fried garlic and smeared it on crusty baguettes. I drank wine from a metal cup and cut apples with Yune, then cut papaya. We shaved down the scraggly ginger I bought from a man in the market who had piles laid out on the ground… 100cfa (20 cents) for two cups or so. I bought real butter at the super marche, and mixed it in with some oatmeal and lots of sugar… Yune and I took turns standing in the corner next to the right back stove burner, stirring the ginger and apples. The kitchen was packed, cases of drinks were brought in, everyone laughing and making paper Indian headdresses. There was Journey on the radio, lots of photos taken. The Cameroonian language teachers and logisticians who live at the centre moved in and out, eyes a little buggy at our fanaticism for the grand American fete. When the gas ran out, we decided we should just eat… after a few words, the line commenced around the table. I had guacamole and fried plantains on the plate next to my mashed potatoes and stuffing. There was more food than the 40-or-so could eat.

We went around the room to say what we were thankful for. Jenny noted that we hadn’t gone around in a circle all together, saying a few words about how we were feeling, since we left Philadelphia. It’s amazing.. really amazing… to see how far people have come. To see who isn’t with us anymore. To look around the room and think… two months ago these people were just illusions in my romantic Peace Corps idea. As I sat on the arm of a chair, eating my ginger-apple-papaya crisp with a tiny plastic fork, listening to the distinct, recognizable voices of other Americans, I couldn’t help but think… I am so thankful that Peace Corps is nothing like I had imagined. It’s the daily revelations that come from the Cameroonian culture, the organization’s differing strategies and (at times) bombshell-esque regulation and the hourly unearthing of the character of my fellow stagiares and current volunteers—that are making the experience so exciting and worthwhile. Who would have thought I would/could make an apple-crisp like that?

Anyway, all this is to say that Thanksgiving was really something special… even though there were no yams with marshmallows or layered jell-o. Looking forward to celebrating a villagois Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Turkey day has arrived, and alas, I will be without turkey. However, we are cooking multiple chickens and will have quite a menagerie of other things. I am responsible for the cobbler--- Banana-guava cobbler and apple-guava. Scrumptious in a without-an-oven kind of way.

I still have beaucoup de photos to post, so keep checking. I will try to get that done this weekend.

Enjoy your football Americain!

Back from Site Visit... So Much to Tell... Plan Visits NOW

Well, I just got back from site visit, and boy am I tired! Wow. Site visit was an intense piece of two weeks. When I packed my bags, I really hadn’t considered how different life would be in the village. Bandjoun is America in comparison.

I met my counterpart, Madame Beatrice before we left Bandjoun last week. She looked “bad-ass,” some might say. Hair all permed-up in a Jelly Curl, all denim, clean Adidas sneakers. She speaks pretty good English-english, and a handful of local dialects. At 7am Friday morning, we headed northward for Bamenda on an autobus. My voice had returned from the laryngitis little Boogers had given me. The autobus ride was incredibly scary, though the calm visage of mentor tata Katie gave me hope, and her words… “If this is your day to go, its your day to go. Just don’t look at the road.”

Bamenda’s nice (I am there now). Clean, somewhat resembles a city, lots of places to do things. Once in Bamenda, Mme. Bea and I broke from the group and headed to Akofungubah. Orrrr… no. We headed to her brothers in Bamenda. There was some confusion here. I had to look at photos for a good hour. Then we headed to Akofungubah… no, again. She wanted to stop and see her out-of-wedlock child that is living at the Presbyterian mission. We stopped to buy cabbage and cookies for him. Little Paul was cute, but I was really hoping to get to my site.

We finally hit the road in a small Toyota taxi. We paid 500cfa apiece extra to have only three people in the backseat, as opposed to the typical four. So, it was a comfortable ride… Mme. Bea made me tie one of the plastic bags she held around my head. She used the one that held the fish, I used the one that was used to double-wrap the fish. Dust. Welcome to the dry season. The temperature in the car was a stifling HOT, and I had a plastic grocery bag tied around my head. I had to laugh. I had to sweat.

Hour and a half of seriously ridiculous roads. All dirt, all dry… cant imagine what the canyons and slopes turn into in the wet season. We went very slow, but I was thankful for that. The scenery changed into beautiful grassy hills, then into bigger hills, with more hills behind that. It’s hilly. We crossed a few big rivers with decent bridges… by decent, I mean not made of bamboo. Arrived at Akofunguba. Its on the side of a hill, kind of nestled in (awww…). It’s a collection of maybe 20 or so buildings at a gentle curve of the road that crests a hill if you continue on. We are on the eastern side of the hill, and when you cross to the West, you enter the mountainous area of Mundum (another village in my work area).

Alright, so this is typical… I was greeted by a ton of people. Everyone wanted to shake my hand. Tell me “you are welcome.” Ask me why I am here. What I am doing. Will I come see their farm, etc. etc. Joyous. I drank at least a gallon of coke in the first two days, because the custom is to buy the person a beer. After a few marriage proposals…many questions… I am shown my quarters for the week. The room is on the other side of a room where Mme. Bea’s elderly mother sleeps. Next door is my apartment for the next two years. The whole building is pink… one of the only buildings in the village that does not have exposed red mud bricks. She shows me the three room apartment, all wired for electricity… and no where to go. The toilet is around the back. My two stalls are locked from the outside… two simple chambers with holes cut in the back and two pieces of tin roofing hinged on the front. One has a big hole, one has a smaller hole. Spiders live in both. Big spiders. I’m going to have to work on that.

The first night, Mme. Bea serves up rice with large pieces of meat on top. Looks like tongue. No problem, I can handle it. Its cow intestine. Now I’m having a bit of a problem. Gag reflex. I get one piece down and smile for Bea, but when someone calls her to the get a beer (she owns the local bar), I swiftly bring my plate down to the floor and ladle the pieces back into the pot. Seinfeld moment that kept me chuckling well-after I blew out my lantern.

Sooo! That was only the first day. To save your eyes, I will not go too much further. I rode on the back of Mme. Bea’s 20-year-old blue Suzuki motorcycle every day. I only thought I would fall off about 30 times… We traveled to all the big sites in the area… probably 50 or 60km of coverage in all. This is my work area. Its huge. We visited the mayor of Bafut, many chiefs. Went to the Palace of the Fon in Bafut. Very big Palace. 48 wives or something like that. I met the newest queen, a 16 year old girl named Maria and her 1st daughter-by-the-Fon, Violet. I told her my middle name was Rose, a flower like her daughter. She said, “Now I will have to name my next daughter Kelsey Rose.” Ah, so that’s cool. My African Princess namesake. I have been invited by special invitation to a dance at the Fon’s palace in Decemeber. I gave him a Vermont calendar. They had their last human sacrifice there in 1945. Ha. All this makes me laugh.

Visited Mundey. Incredibly mountainous. Motorcycle had some trouble and I had to let Bea ride ahead while I walked uphill in the 90- degree heat with my 6 lb red ninja moto helmet on. Oh, what a laugh. Met a new young chief and didn’t know it, tried to shake his hand. You don’t shake the chiefs hands! Ugh. I ate two kinds of fu-fu and more cow intestine, went to the market and saw the butcher block, was installed as a Assitant Chairwoman at the Presbyterian Church on the hill. I ran out of pages in my book on Wednesday afternoon. I took to sketching palm trees, then reading the bible. I will be better stocked when I come to live.

That’s about it. As I was leaving this morning, a report came in that an Old Pa that had been in village yesterday had done some wizardry on a mute man that lived in the Bush. The mute man was found dead this morning (sounds au naturalle to me, but this is Africa). There was some kind of a man-hunt type thing going on as I was pulling out in the taxi. Sista Bea thought it was funny, so it couldn’t be that serious! Very happy to be back in town and will have a very good idea of what I need to bring when I come back in mid-December. But all-in-all my village seems really great, the people are something else… real characters. I’m sure I’ve forgotten a ton. More stories to come, I am sure!

Sorry for the change in tenses and probably spelling errors… Have a great week… I will get photos up just as soon as I get my camera connected!

P.S. Akofunguba means “Bush of Fungubah”. Laugh on.

The Non-Negotiables

What I have learned is that, in Cameroon, non-negotiables are always negotiable. At times, non-negotiables are not even negotiated… you just have to deal with it.

And so, when I sat on one of the more comfortable foam-padded chairs in the country and looked into the eyes of my formateurs and heard the words “sans electricite,” I knew that I was going to be okay. It was not because I didn’t cry or argue about the loss of easy computer use, bright lights or a the ability to charge my batteries, but that the non-negotiable was immediately ameliorated in my mind. Its good. It’s meant to be. It’s going to be romantic. It’s going to hard. It’s going to incredibly annoying, and probably scary sometimes. But it’s great. It’s FINE.

You have to be able to change your mind in Cameroon, because the rules and ideas are as shifty here as the winds off the Sahara in mid-November (which have shifted, I think. We are in dry season).

Woo. So, bottom line--- I’m living in a very small but very large village in the North-West Province for the next two years. It’s very small because I wont have too many neighbors. It’s very large because I might need a horse to take me to meet all of my farmers. I’m about 35 km outside of the provincial capital of Bamenda, 35 windy, mountainous kilometers. There is a valley near my house that has a lot of bananas. There are farmers and there are grazers, and there are issues needing some third-party attention. My house, provided by the community, is without electricity and without running water. My water will have to be carried from nearby streams.

Like I said. This is a bottom line in Cameroon. Adaptation is quite a thing. I leave for Ambukfungdo on Saturday to spend the week orientating myself to the area, and will be back Friday. Look for a post in two weekends detailing my first solo experience here in Cameroon. And if you’re the praying kind, well :)

Kelsey's Post Assignment

I got a telephone call from Kelsey today...very excited to have received her information about where she will be for the next two years. In the "interview" process, she mentioned that she really...REALLY would like electricity. You know, she has to power up her laptop, her I-pod, did she take an electric shaver? Maybe not. Well...she is very excited but...she will have no electricity and no running water. We had a good laugh on the phone about that! She will fill you in on more detailed information, this is what she told me. She will be in a mountainous region in the North West Province. Her village of Ako Funguba (she also mentioned Mundum)...is west of Bafut...which is north of Bamenda. Of course on the map above it does not show her village. She was not sure there really is much of a road to it. She said it is 35K from Bamenda and 30-40K from the Nigerian border. I will let her fill you in on what her duties will be and the different languages they speak in the area. She will travel to the area on Saturday and spend a week. Wow...little Kelsey Rose! I tried to put a map up...and it did not work.

Happy End-of-Ramadan, Everyone!

That actually occurred on November 3^{rd, for those of you not well immersed in Islamic culture. My location in Cameroon is actually not primarily Muslim, though there is a high population of Muslims in the North regions.}

Not much has happened since my last posting. We celebrated Halloween by carving a pineapple (and later eating the blackened interior), making guacamole and tortilla chips and playing cards. It was a fun time for all.

Next week, the location of our posts will be revealed. We agros know that the majority will be in the Northwest and West provinces, and a few will head to the Littoral region. I have asked for electricity, though that will not be the determining factor in my placement. I am hoping I will be able to open a post because my experience in Young Life mirrors the beginning stages of a Peace Corps post. Contact work, hanging out with Cameroonians, and club are all pretty much Peace Corps tactics, too.

We visited two more volunteer posts since my last posting. We headed to Natalie's post near Dschang last week and Rich's post in Bangang this week. Both were really enriching experiences and helped us all to get a better idea of the volunteer's role. At Natalie's, we walked into the hills (beautiful vistas) and saw some really intense farming sites (steep, exposed slopes). We ate with the village members (who had written songs about agroforestry), met the chief (chef) and drank a few glasses of palm wine before heading home. At Rich's, we actually participated in cutting down young trees that had been planted in a field as an alley-cropping demonstration. We cut with our machetes, and then watched the local farmers cut another line with their machetes far more efficiently than we had. They said our machetes weren't sharp enough. We also saw a medicinal garden at Rich's, and ate (of course!) some local food with LOTS of piedmont (habanero hot stuff). Once again, half of my face became numb.

In both of these trips, the actual driving there was an enormous adventure. We took Peace Corps vehicles both times, and drove up some roads that were really, really… bad. Steep, with huge holes and lots of mud. Coming back from Rich's post, we had a bit of rain… and a bit of slope. The combination was… well… scary. Megan at one point yelled "HIGH SIDE!"- If that helps to paint a picture. I pressed my whole body against the window in semi-hysteric state. We slid down a couple of hills sideways and ended up pushing the red van for awhile (I watched.. hehe).

Last week we were also given the honor of visiting a Chefferie in Bamenjoun. This was really pretty cool (hopefully I can get some photos up from the event). This particular Chef has a pretty big kingdom and we were allowed to enter his palace. When we arrived, we were greeted by three groups of dancers, each performing a different dance. One was a huge circle of women singing and dancing. Another was a circle of men dressed in white robes with red hats (the "purification" dance). My favorite was a war dance that was made up of men dressed in fur robes with hollow nuts on their legs. They danced to a strong, fast drumbeat. We sat in a smallish room and were able to ask the chef questions.

His entrance was an interesting one, none of us really knowing what to expect. He came in with a guard who would periodically "Yelp!" and wore what looked like an upside-down colander on his head. He had two ministers with him dressed in traditional clothing. He sat in a large chair of a dark wood, completely carved with African symbols and scenes. We had to bring gifts, and I believe we ended up pitching in together for 20 liters of oil and a huge thing of rice. We gave him a box of condoms, too. I didn't really get that. The guy has 14 wives. He gave us a tour of some of his palace, and we saw his "museum" that was mostly full of pictures of the chef at various stages of his life. He did have some interesting statues, pelts and carvings. After the tour, we were brought to the main court of the palace where another dance was taking place. This one was done by the medicine man. I called it the "scary dance", because it was… it was scary. Scary masks, scary statue of witch. Scary. Also intended to "purify" us.

Other than these activities, training has continued to slowly plug along. French is still a struggle, but my host-Grandfather told me today that he thinks I am improving. He pointed at his ears, and then at me and said "Tu comprend!? Bien!!" and shook my hand vigorously. Then he said "bien" about a hundred more times, and shook my hand with each bien. Thanks, gramps!

My next posting will probably be about my post! This is big, as it will determine my surroundings for the next two years! Very excited! Can't wait to cook my own food and eat vegetables not deep-fried or surrounded by carbohydrates!

Oh, yea.. and I hurt my foot. Sprained a tendon. Apparently, not worthy of a trip to S. Africa (not even worthy of a Cameroonian hospital visit). I have been told to "take it easy". Haaaa. Suuure. Oh, and I puked last week. First time. It was the boiled bananas and meat in peanut sauce. But, I made it a month!

Affectionately African,

Kelsey

hi!

hi... doing fine. african computers are NOT my favorite. hopefully get my big post up today.