From Dinner with the Ambassador to Cleaning a Chicken

The past few weeks of training have been both intense sometimes six days a week (sometimes the days lasting from 7 am - 5 pm some days). We have a 7 pm curfew to ensure that we are with our host families before dark truly sets in. On that note, it was a full moon the other night and the night sky was absolutely incredible and ablaze with the lights of millions of stars – really put things in perspective/hit me that this is my reality.

            Picking up where I left off with the last post: the next few days in Yaoundé were spent doing various interviews, including one for those in the health sector with the program coordinators with questions encompassing: what are your strengths and weaknesses; in which regions would you like to be placed in the country; what are your ideas about the type of projects you’d want; would you mind colonizing a site (being the first PCV there ever), or taking over an existing post; and what are your fears. PC Cameroon has adopted a successful program that PC Uganda uses where they have a ‘bidding system’ meaning that we rank our top three preferences as far as regions to be in (there are 10 regions in the country), and our bottom three preferences, and we are pretty much guaranteed to be placed in one of our top three. At this moment, my preferences are for the West, Northwest, and Adamoua (pronounced “add-a-mow-uh”) or Southwest regions, and my bottom three are: the South, East, and Central and/or Littoral regions. Each region has their own unique flair: the West is typically cooler, and the NW and SW regions are Anglophone, whereas the rest are Francophone. If I went to the NW or SW, I’d also be learning WAPE (West African Pidgin English), which would be cool. Some in the group are dead set on going to Francophone regions, but language isn’t my main criteria for wanting to be in a place – it’s more about the type of projects on which I’d work. Health projects are focused on maternal and child health (MCH) – however, this statement is very deceiving in the fact that MCH encompasses infinite project opportunities. For example, the health (santé) program focuses on malaria, HIV/AIDs, training peer educators, nutrition, and so much more. So basically, although you may have an idea of what your primary project might be, you could theoretically do anything even remotely related to health (wide-scale tofu making projects, for example – something that’s definitely possible and on the list of things we’ll learn in PST). On a side note, we had to learn new hand motions: if you raise your open hand in the American hand signal for ‘stop’, but thrust your fingers forward, it’s a huge insult (aka, saying that your mother’s lady parts are huge). I have a feeling that these little cultural faux pas/lost in translation moments will become a regular occurrence. Hence, my open to anything perspective.

            On Monday, we had dinner at our country director’s house with several important stakeholders who have been important in the country, or with Peace Corps. I met with the CDC director, a wonderfully accomplished lady that offered great insights into Cameroonian culture and what was needed as far as health concerns in the country, and sat right next to the American Ambassador. We chatted about the Foreign Service, life in Cameroon, the merits of being a PCV (he stated that he couldn’t do it, since he likes to have the cushy amenities), his extreme dislike of posed pictures, etc. And then we posed for a group picture…when our eyes caught after the picture, he winked and me as we both of us shared a knowing smile.

            Fast forward to last Wednesday, the day that we moved in with our host families! My main criteria for my host family was that they be patient with someone just learning French, and I frankly couldn’t have gotten luckier. After dropping the YD and agfo volunteers off in Bafia, the santé kids headed to Bokito, our nerves/anxiety growing by the kilometer. Bafia is indeed a semi-urban area, whereas Bokito is very much a rural village, complete with no paved roads and no semblance of internet (either in internet café form or otherwise). Our town map was a hand-drawn affair, which is eerily on point for navigating the few roads. Meeting my host mother, Mama Pauline quickly put many of my fears to rest, as she greeted me with a huge smile and an enveloping hug. We then went back to hear house where I met the rest of my family: sisters Mireille, Charlene, and Natalie, and host brothers Daniel and Joseph, along with Mireille’s 9-month-old son, Abdel (yay, finally an African child who doesn’t wail, run, and/or hide at the site of a pale, blonde-haired white girl!). Everyone was so incredibly welcoming and very, very patient. We ate dinner (a mound of rice with canned green beans and carrots added in), and then attempted conversation in Franglais (French + English) before I helped with the dishes and passed out, exhausted but grateful. The next morning, I was awoken with roosters and the sound of banging around in the indoor part of the kitchen (the outdoor part is a mud-brick building where three cement blocks have been set up to put the gigantic pots over the firewood for cooking). My family feeds me enough food for three people, and I had to explain early on that I am not that hungry/cannot eat that much, deciding to say that I am like a little bird with eating, to which my family replied that I am a little bird with my size. We've had a mixture of foods so far: fried and fresh bananas, fried/boiled plantains, chicken, lots of fish (you get the whole, staring-at-you fish), rice, avocados, tomatoes, grapefruit, oranges, mandarin oranges, guava, cooked beef, fried tofu on a stick, onions, etc. My family is Pentecostal, and every morning and evening (they have never done it directly in front of me), my family chants their prayers and the whole house seems to hum with their rhythm. As I have quickly learned, Cameroonian culture is very boisterous and lively – at all hours of the day! One of the nights that the power went out, my family and I crowded in the living room that was shadowly lit with kerosine lamps (think circa 1800s style) and my headlamp, and I played my ukulele while my family and I sang songs. The highlight was a four-part harmony to Amazing Grace, which my family recorded on their phone. I'm very lucky - my host family has a flushing toilet that works most of the time (complete with a toilet seat!), and a semi-working shower - I'm one of the lucky ones; some of the others have pit latrines in the same room as the area in which they bucket shower. The next day, after a quick breakfast (something that wasn’t the bread and bread that we ate at the hotel – yay!), I headed with the other santé PCTs to Bafia for the day. As I said before, training is thoroughly exhausting, but I leave each day with so much new information and feeling excited to learn more – definitely a sign I’m in the right place. It’s been a surreal transition going from being a pretty high-functioning adult (very debatable at some times) to effectively a child, unable to express many of even my basic wants and needs to my family – an odd position to be in, but not entirely unexpected.

            The next week was filled with training: safety and security, lots and lots of language (around 15-20 hours per week for the next eight or odd week); health talks – which had absolutely everyone itching phantom bug bites/skin infections, which as we’ve been informed, we’ll no doubt experience, but don’t worry guys, finding 10-inch worms in your stool is totally treatable!; cross-cultural and history sessions. Since I’m the only novice low in the santé group, I have one-on-one language sessions with my language/cross-cultural teacher, Cedric, an awesome person, teacher, and friend at this point. Quite frankly, I’ve been amazed at my progress so far in the language – five+ minute conversations with my family have become a daily occurrence and I couldn’t be more pleased about that.

            In addition to practicing French at school and with my family, I’ve had many other unique experiences with them. Over the weekend, I did my laundry by hand, cleaned a freshly killed chicken, got my hair braided by one of my host sisters, went to a three-hour Pentecostal church service (lots of singing and dancing, despite the apparent government ordinance that several corrupt Pentecostal churches need to be shut down - not sure exactly how that impacts our open-air, cement church out in the bush), and took my host sisters out for beer and sodas (the beer is slightly colder than shade temperature – hooray!). All in all, it was a great weekend. PC has given our families a list of things that we should accomplish over the next 8 odd weeks; simple things like killing, plucking and cooking a chicken and other food; hauling water from the well; and cleaning – should be interesting! Having new experiences consistently every day has been both very challenging, but even more rewarding.