Ahh Bay Fu'u

Tomato sauce with SIX pepes. Thought I burned a hole to the back of my neck. Belated Christmas party, Chez Alex.


Gwen and I taking a moto from Mbengwi, where we visited Lindsay M. Three of us and two large bags on one bike. WONDAHFUL.


Wedding in the bush... dancing in the wee hours (they told me to sit down... ).


Christmas Party, Chez Alex.


Kids collecting outside my front door after school.



Nate and our Agro-Style Christmas tree. Its magic! Chez Alex.


It’s very common to meet people and become the best of friends in one night in Cameroon. I would even say it is normal to meet, become the best of friends in 6 minutes, end up going over to the family compound for some fufu and njama njama get dragged up to the grandmother’s compound in the bush (five minute hike from the road in the dark) for her little granddaughter’s traditional marriage where you have make a speech to the wedding party (on the topic of understanding and fidelity… because that’s what my fiancé and I have built off of) and finally you end up sharing a double-bed-size piece of old, brown foam with three gigantic African women. Nothing strange about that… I’m sure if there were a Nauruan walking around the local bar at the time of your daughter’s special day, you would demand that she be actively present for the entirety of the wedding ceremony. I tell you, we do not appreciate foreigners enough in America.

Peace Corps volunteers are very warmly received almost all the time. Though, sometimes it can be a touch too warm. Like when you are on your 3rd liter of palm wine with the village councilor, who’s conversation has ranged from the conquests of Napoleon to developmental tools from the Germans to polygamy to… do you want to be my third wife, Miss Rose? Politely, I decline. Maybe if you got a sweet gold bridge to fill in the four you’re missing in front I would consider the proposal. My favorite response of late has been, “I’m sorry… but I’m very expensive…” only used with Guiness-truck drivers and obviously foreign (generally francophone) fresh young men. I’m coping.

And what of work? I have received numerous emails inquiring about what the heck I’m doing. Last night my mom told me it would be nice “to accomplish something.” Well… its dry season, so unfortunately ma, I’m not doing much. Farmers (women) are “preparing land” right now… they are clearing, tilling the soil into ridges… and that’s about all. So, I have gone to a few farms to help do these things. I weeded for six hours with Lem, the woman from my village who also does my laundry. It was a three or so kilometer hike to her farm into the grasslands. When we arrived, she asked me to pray about weeding… then we pulled ferns for hours and hours. We only stopped to sit under a cassava tree and eat some plantains and soup that she had prepared with some chunks of beef knee. I had brought a “Jiff to Go” container of peanut butter, which I shared with Lem… and her beef knees. On the way back to the village, we were invited to the Lutheran pastor’s father’s house for some palm wine. I had two cups of hard wine from the dirtiest glass I have ever had the pleasure to consume from (I’m still alive and I’m feeling fine). The pastor blabbed for a good hour and a half, then sent me on my way with a branch of green plantains, two pineapples, three pears, a liter of fresh palm wine and some kola nuts. I wore gloves, but I still managed to callus the mid-digital knuckle part of my index finger. I carried the plantains the three kilometers on my head… hugely amusing to every Cameroonian I passed on the path. Vertebral stress fractures are funny.

I have also begun my demonstration plot. This is also amusing to the villagers… the idea of a white American woman getting dirty using a hoe and a machete and growing stuff! When I come back to the village from my plot I get lots of “wonderful”… not even just that, but it’s WON-DAH-FOOL!!! I am going to be growing pigeon pea and sweet potato and using a technique called alley cropping… but it will take two years to grow the agroforestry trees (green manure that will be incorporated into the soil) and have any tangible results. Really, I am starting the demo for the next volunteer.

Other than that, I am trying to participate in other village development activities… mostly the water development… but I am hoping to find the electricity and road committees. I am teaching with my post-mate Gwen Lee in Mundum, about an hour and a half walk (uphill) from my post at the Secondary school there. I’m teaching English and Computer Science… There isn’t any computer at the school, so it’s going to be pretty abstract. I’m thinking of teaching typing in interpretive dance form. And of course, there is the Akofunguba FUN RUN to plan for… a 5k race that will take place in my village in the small rainy season (April or May). (Ridiculously long and tedious) meetings will commence this Thursday to begin planning for the event.

Since last time, two walls have been painted in my house… it now looks a little less like a tortuous prison for baby boys. I made some Paul Biya window treatments that will only hang in my bedroom, for fear of being political. I wonderful dreams about dancing with cake-carrying pous-pouses (wheelbarrows) and am certain that I will have lifelong lung problems from inhaling reddish particulate matter suspended in the air. I ate achu with yellow sauce three times in one day and I truly believe that I will never not scream and violently shake in disgust after killing a cockroach with a broom and watching it hobble (minus two legs and a crushed big brown wing-thing) towards the door.

For my first and last weekly segment highlighting other Peace Corps volunteers living in my province, I want to briefly tell you about Massa Reese from Nseh. He’s tough as a Cameroonian woman (…tough), but has the best manners of any Big Man in his village… better than any other volunteer, in fact. And he makes a mean cornbread.

Heading to Yaounde on Tuesday for some bloodwork and fun times. Send me emails. Previous message deleted. Ashia.