Blooper Reel: When ‘No’ Actually Does Mean ‘Yes’

I had the best laid plan to post this entry about a month ago - and the old adage about best laid plans certainly holds true here in Cameroon (gaaah to lack of reliable internet access). Although it's late and may not be totally relevant, I think it's still one of the more amusing posts I've come up with, so hope you enjoy! 

I decided to have this post to expound on several different ‘lost in translation’ or other interesting (both amusing and frustrating) cultural moments that have happened over my month or so in Kembong. The first, and by far most frequent moment occurs with my hair. In Cameroon, as is the custom in Africa in general, most of the women (if they don’t have their heads shaved), style their hair by plaiting it, or with what we refer to as ‘weave,’ but is called ‘mesh’ here in Cameroon. Because of my hair’s texture and style, many children and adults alike think that my hair is actually mesh. Frequently children have come to my house to greet me and chat, and after a lull in the conversation, they work up the nerve to ask me in a quiet voice ‘Aunty, your hair, is it mesh??’ and when I respond negatively, they look at me with wide eyes, to which I say that they are welcome to touch and feel my hair if they don’t believe me. They immediately shake their heads, but often, several minutes later, when they think I am not paying attention to them, their tentative hands reach out to grasp locks of hair, giving a little tug in the process to make sure. Younger children have even turned my hair into a game. When new children visit me, the regulars will ask their comrades whether or not they think that Aunty’s hair is mesh or not (pleased that they both know, and have tactilely confirmed the answer). They are highly amused when one of their friends guesses ‘mesh’ incorrectly, and then urge the children to touch Aunty’s hair. I find both instances very amusing.

            Another interesting lost in translation moment occurs at least once a day, often multiple times per day if I’m interacting with new people: incorrect responses to questions. For example, I will ask people upon greeting them “how are you” or “how’s the day?” and I will get the response of “yes.” But it’s always a very emphatic ‘yes’ and when I pause for a minute and wait for the correct response, they just stare back at me with the expression that seemingly says “why on earth are you looking at me like that?! I’ve just very nicely answered your question, you idiot!” Another favorite response is when I ask a question or make a statement, like ‘oh wow, it’s very hot today’ or ‘I’m going to Mamfe tomorrow to get some things’ and the response is ‘oh yes, thank you.’ One of the technical college teachers is notorious for doing this. When I told him what I was planning on doing for Christmas, his response was ‘ohh, tank you tank you’ (the ‘th’ sound really isn’t a thing, or very common here). Additionally, it’s VERY common to begin your response statement with the word ‘no.’ For example: “Are you going to the market today?” Response: “No, I’m just going there today to buy some small things.” Also, the response to a “how are you doing?” question has the abbreviated response of “no,” which would naturally mean that ‘yes, I’m doing fine, thanks for asking.’ Gaaaahhh. At this point in my time in Kembong, I’m pleased as pie that some people can actually understand me, make the correct responses to my question, and absolutely thrilled when I can carry on a more than five-minute conversation with someone. Really, it’s the little things in life. 

            On the subject of Christmas, it’s weird to observe the things that translate from American culture, like Celine Dion, and ‘Xmas.’ No one says ‘Christmas’ in my village, but instead ALL say ‘Xmas’ all the time. Additionally, Celine Dion is so incredibly popular here, it’s unreal. Case in point, at the wedding that I went to at the Apostolic Church, the groom and groomsmen processed/danced in while a churchwoman was screaming a Celine Dion song on repeat into the microphone. Additionally, after people open up to me, they often ask me questions about life in the United States, like: why do American women use so much oil on their skin (I can only assume that they mean sunscreen); is there a rule in the US that women can only have two children; do you have to shave your head as part of going to school (as it is in Cameroon); why are Americans so fat (the irony of this is that several people who have asked this are by no means trim and fit themselves); is it true that it’s only ten kilometers from Boston to heaven (whaat?! Talk about a question coming out of left field); why do you have a boy’s name (Valery is a boy’s name, particularly in the Anglophone region, as Valerie is a common girl’s name in the Francophone regions); why don’t US schoolchildren study African history like we have to study American history (a pretty valid question in my opinion), etc. It’s always interesting to hear what they want to know, or any preconceived notions that they have about American culture.  

            The final lost in translation moment occurred the other day when Njock, one of my friends here, and one of the many bushtaxi drivers in Kembong, took me out for a beer to celebrate Xmas. As a side note, I had originally come into my community with the notion that if I socially drank in my community that my community would get a bad impression of me. I quickly learned that this was exactly the opposite in a country like Cameroon with a huge alcoholism problem. In fact, me saying that I preferred to have ‘sweet drinks’ (soda) seemed to alienate me from people who wanted to enjoy a beer with me. With this in mind, I decided that if I was offered a beer, and in the mood, that I would accept it, and not actively try to never consume alcohol; this doesn’t mean that I’m going to practice alcoholic behaviors (I had to refuse palm wine offered to me by the Chief of the Health Center at 8 in the morning the other day…), but that I’ll be embracing the community custom of occasionally talking over a beer. Anyway, the following is the conversation that occurred between Njock and myself, with my thoughts being in parenthesis:

Him: Can I ask you a question?

Me: (thinking, uh oh, where is he going with this, because I’m really not in the mood to deal with a potential love confession, having had much practice in this respect with the horny, but harmless teenage boys in the community) Uhm, sure.

Him: Have you looked at yourself in the mirror today?

Me: (well this is definitely not what I was expecting, but not sure what he is trying to get at with this, so I’ll play along for now) Yes, I have. Why do you ask?

Him: No, I mean, have you really looked at yourself in the mirror today??

Me: (whaaatt??!) Uhm, yes, Njock, I have looked at myself in the mirror today.

Him: And what did you see in the mirror today?

Me: *unladylike snort emitted* Uhh, I saw myself. Just myself.

Him: Oh really? And nothing else?

Me: (no, you idiot, I’m done playing this game and have no clue what you expect or want me to say! Oh wait, yeah, I did in fact see the Boogymonster while putting in my contacts this morning!! Needless to say, I’m getting frustrated) Njock, where are you going with this? I saw myself in the mirror this morning, I don’t know what you want me to say…

Him: You didn’t notice anything different about yourself?!

Me: (did I suddenly develop a flesh eating bacterial infection on my face in the last five hours? I decide to feel my face, just in case, and attempt subtlety in doing it.) Well, I look pretty tan…(again, what does this guy want me to say?!)

Him: Well, that’s unusual, because you are looking really fat! You are looking like a real woman of the community now, being so fat. Yes, it’s true, you are fat! You are very fat.

Me: (baffled, since with the exercising and cooking for myself, I’ve actually lost weight being here…and more than a little annoyed that he would have the nerve to tell me this; or is this one of those weird things that translated, and he actually means ‘phat,’ as in ‘cool’?? gaaahh) Ehrm, is this supposed to be a compliment?! In the US, calling someone ‘fat’ is considered to be very rude.

Him: Oh no, you are looking good and fat!

Me: (internal facepalm)

I later learn in the conversation (after a few awkward moments) that calling someone ‘fat’ means that they are looking good, and that by telling me that, what he really meant was that I seemed like I was adjusting to the community and the community way of life (he had heard that I had tried some of their traditional dishes). Needless to say, if ‘fat’ is synonymous with ‘well-adjusted’ and ‘looking good,’ I can’t wait to find out the other interesting meanings of other seemingly inane words! Yahooo. 

“If You Shit, Then You Go For Chop, You Go Die”: Shining Moments in the Rough Patch

          Although this past month has arguably been the hardest of my service so far (even the beginning adjustment period of living with a host family that only spoke French doesn’t compare to the rollercoaster of the past month – due in no small part, I suspect, to the fact that although I’ve got some semblance of a routine, the routine doesn’t feel entirely natural just yet), there have been lots of shining moments where I’ve felt that there’s no place on earth that I’d rather be, or that I’m meant to be more. And that is what keeps me going, along with the prospect that despite the hard periods in the emotional rollercoaster, it will get better. Additionally, I’ve learned a tremendous amount about myself, life in general, conducting public health work at the very grassroots level, and being a globally minded citizen, and that knowledge is well worth the moments of hardship.
           Continuing with the theme of my last few posts on imparting little nuggets of cultural knowledge from Cameroon, and cross-cultural education/comparisons, the people in Kembong are not shy about talking about bodily functions – what I mean by this is the fact that Kembong people, regardless of age, most often use the words ‘piss’ and ‘shit’ to describe the obvious. More than once, little girls that come to visit me have whispered in my ear, “Aunty, I have to go piss,” as she waits for my approval – not sure why – to march off my veranda and squat in the trench across from my house. A similar situation happened when one of the girls brought her baby brother over, and after pooping in his pants, all the children loudly chorused ‘ewww, Baby Obeni just shit himself.’ Not exactly the type of language that I’m accustomed to hearing from children, and thought that it was interesting.
            Additionally, another amusing cross-cultural experience occurred when Thecla, Richard (another volunteer assisting with the national immunization days – a four-day event to vaccinate children from 0-10 against polio) and I went out to the villages to vaccinate children. One of the overseeing nurses, Paulette, not my favorite person in the entire world, as she’s kind of abrasive, insisted that we do health talks in addition to the following activities: trekking all over the towns included in the Kembong health district, going door-to-door in search of all these children, practically prying their mouths open with a crowbar (not literally, of course) to drop the two drops of sweet vaccine onto their tongues (I tried the vaccine, and got my finger marked to show solidarity with the kids, and to not lie when I told them that it was sweet) while many of them wail and scream bloody murder, while some just plain hide from us, then proceed to wrestle their pinky into our grasp so that we can mark that they’ve been vaccinated, all while keeping track of how many kids we’ve vaccinated, trying to determine their ages (many don’t know, or can’t remember their birthdays, so we had to guess based on their year in school), and then have to remember the number of houses that we’ve gone to, whether the houses are open, closed, need to be revisited, or unoccupied, and mark all of this information in a type of code on the door and on our sheets of paper – all this done while in the blistering heat of the dry season. Now I’m certainly dedicated to the promotion of public health throughout the world, but I ask, as a human being, would you and someone you know want to give a full out health talk (after not having received any guidance of what exactly they wanted you to give said health talks on, not to mention the audience, etc) when you were busy doing all of the aforementioned activities with an already skeleton crew in the blistering heat? If you answered ‘yes, of course,’ I would have to call you out on being a dirty liar. Anyway, Paulette breezes up on her moto as Thecla, Richard and I are quite literally sweating pounds off, and demands that we give health talks in addition to all our other activities – keep in mind that we only have four days to vaccinate the target child population in the four surrounding villages, all of which are nowhere near to be nicely arranged on any sort of logical grid or street formation. Additionally, I’d be willing to bet big bucks that the people have absolutely not clue one what on earth the nurse, being Paulette, wants them to say when she shows up, demanding to know of them whether or not they’ve received a ‘health talk’ – unless we physically uttered the words ‘health talk’ over and over again in our pursuits of talking to them about hygiene, or whichever topic on earth she has in her mind that we give a health talk on, I can almost guarantee that they wouldn’t associate our brief health recommendations with her asking the question of whether or not they’ve received a health talk. Furthermore, she decided to follow up with one mother whose child we had just vaccinated, demanding to know what we had told her – naturally, the woman didn’t associate our hygiene recommendations with Paulette’s question of whether or not we’d given the health talk, so she responded in the negative to her question. Paulette then reamed us out for not giving the health talk properly – keep in mind that we are standing in the blistering heat being lectured by someone who has been coolly breezing around on a moto the entire day and without even a sheen of sweat on her brow – we, on the other hand, are practically taking a shower in our own sweat at this point. So, being the snarky individuals that they are, Thecla and Richard decided that, by god, if Paulette wanted a proper health talk, that they were going to give her one. For every house that we went to next, Thecla decided to tell the children in Pidgin the equivalent of ‘if you shit, and then you go to eat, but don’t wash your hands, you’ll die.’ Apart from finding the hilarity in the situation as she’s uttering this lie stone-faced to the children, I called her out on the blatant lie that she was telling these impressionable children. She reasonably countered that the children already know it to be a lie since they shit every day, don’t wash their hands, and then eat, and they haven’t died yet. Touché. After giving a moderately successful hand-washing demonstration with soap to 15 children gathered, I had to concede that she did have a point, particularly since there really wasn’t the time or materials to prepare a proper health talk. All in all, Thecla and I vaccinated over 400 children ourselves in the four-day period, not included the other teams that were part of the vaccination team.
           Another event over the past week was Felix Tanyi’s visit. I had to cancel a trip to visit the nearby waterfalls near Dylan’s village due to the fact that I wasn’t entirely sure that during my absence Felix wouldn’t volunteer me for at least five more projects that I’d have not the time, nor inclination to do. Surprisingly, the visit went better than I expected – him conceding that I had valid points on his brainchild of a project (namely, there’s no possible way that I would be helping him move forward on a half-baked project idea that might very well have more negative unforeseen consequences than actually serving to help the people; although I suspect his hesitancy in moving forward was due more to the fact that Kathleen was more moved to think seriously about throwing money in support of a half-baked project venture), and not volunteering me for any projects on which I had no desire to participate due to the lack of public health relevance. However, although these interactions were infinitely more positive than our first meeting, I am still going to proceed with caution, especially as I again got the definite feeling that he still views me as his volunteer. Furthermore, I got a weird, slightly creepy vibe from him when he was telling me about how he was basically in love with one of my predecessor volunteers with whom he worked – not that he ‘loved,’ but was ‘in love’ with one of the volunteers. Now I know that this may just be me overanalyzing the semantics of the situation, but after he told me that his wife had been jealous of his ‘relationship’ with the volunteer, I’m not so sure. Needless to say, I’m probably reading too much into the situation, but regardless, I’m going to be a little guarded in our interactions, and not hesitate to politely, but firmly assert myself as the situation calls for it. However, we did have a very nice conversation about his travels in the United States, his work in Kembong, his feelings about international aid and development, etc, and I enjoyed these interactions, and respect that he has a great deal of knowledge and is a very dedicated, driven individual that genuinely cares about the community and doing things right with his NGO.
           On another note, I seriously started doing my community needs assessment this week (for those that may have forgotten, every PCV is required to complete a community needs assessment on their community – it’s actually pretty detailed – and we’ll be presenting our findings at our IST conference in February, in addition to giving the results to the necessary stakeholders in our communities). Unfortunately, my appointment with Etum Arricum (a men’s group in Kembong that’s comprised of farmers) landed the day after I was diagnosed with malaria (the second time in less than a month), so I wasn’t feeling the greatest as I queried the men on everything from which crops they plant (yams, cocoa yams, cocoa, plantains, banana, etc) and then, to their thoughts on environmentalism (basically nonexistent in that they weren’t really concerned with environmental sustainability – due in no small part, I suspect, to the fact that there really isn’t the concept of environmentalism/environmental protection here – apart from the government’s haphazard efforts in the past decade or so to preserve what’s left of the elephant and animal population, and I suspect that either the people don’t know, or really don’t care why the government would try and preserve the animals when its own people are malnourished and dealing with lots of other, more pressing problems). The meeting itself was very informative, and I’m looking forward to meeting with more groups of people.
           I’ve also learned a lot more information about Kembong through my chats with Besong, who, on a side note, told me that my persistent fever was due to the fact that I was thinking about Caleb, and he was thinking about me, making me hot, thereby giving me the fever…he then proceeded to tell me (he was half-joking, half-serious) that I should tell Caleb to stop thinking of me, thereby, voila, solving all my fever/health issues. Through our conversations, I’ve learned that the Kembong indigents used to have slaves that they would either acquire through slave traders passing through the area, or themselves capture from the Northwest region – the region in which the slaves all came from, apparently. Even after slavery was abolished, slavery continued in Kembong at least until as late as the 1950s. He told me that his father had slaves, and that in order to keep the slaves quarantined, as to not mix with the indigent Kembongians, they were relegated to live in certain quarters of town (remember that Kembong itself is divided into 17 quarters). When I asked him if he knew some descendents from former slaves, he replied ‘ of course, it’s all those same people living in those quarters – no native Kembong person is going to live in those quarters nowadays because they know and remember the slave legacy and don’t want to be associated with that’ – very interesting stuff. He also echoed a belief that I’ve heard from other Kembongians that witches and wizards that practice black magic in the community can transform themselves into animal forms, such as owls, bats, elephants, buffaloes, and even hippos. After seeing another type of juju dancer dressed in all palm fronds, complete with other people banging with wooden sticks on long bamboo logs – all part of a death ceremony, it’s clear that I have still a lot to learn about the traditions in the community. I’m looking forward to continuing to learn more about the local beliefs, traditions, and whatnot as I continue with my community needs assessment. I’ll hopefully post snippets of it here once I’m finished.
           On a different note, since I’ve been not feeling 100% for about a month, I’ve become very familiar with the common phrase of ‘Aunty Val, don’t be sick-o!’ As a side note, practically everything has an ‘o’ added onto the end, such as ‘have you seen my beautiful baby-o.’ Slightly off topic, but I’m feeling marginally better – probably due in small part to the knowledge that all the test results came back negative (meaning I don’t have malaria again, or typhoid, and my liver and kidney function is apparently normal, indicating the my two bouts of malaria haven’t caused permanent damage). Additionally, PC Cameroon just “won” first place for malarial infections among PC countries worldwide…womp womp. There’s a decent chance that if I do contract malaria again (I’m literally doing absolutely everything by the book with taking my prophlaxis, using my mosquito net, etc), that I may be sent home due to the fact that getting malaria multiple times for a person with no sort of immunity is dangerous. Welp, cross that bridge when we come to it! On the note of semantics/linguistics, calling someone a ‘tomato’ means that you think they look very fresh and nice. For example, the previous line about the baby is a lyric from a popular song, and the next is ‘have you seen my tomato baby-o.’ It makes me smile every time. According to Pauline, at her wedding reception this weekend (just to remind everyone, I will be the one resembling the human version of the popular “My Little Pony” toy, crossed with ‘80’s prom princess), she will be changing the lyrics to the song and instead singing ‘have you seen my beautiful Peace Corps-o’ – oh boy. It should definitely be a fun experience, and look forward to pictures!

Just How Much Have I Changed? – Reflections on Cameroonian Life Thus Far

Continuing with the reflective mood from my last post, and given that I’m looking back on a life well-lived in 2013, I wanted to share some of the small bits of how I’ve changed, or adapted to my life in Cameroon and Kembong. So here are some soundbytes to interest and amuse you: Regardless of what I’m doing, life here has a definitely different pace than what I was used to in the US – there isn’t really any sense of haste, naps are a daily part of professional life (the health center doesn’t really have any patients during the afternoons, due to the heat, so the Chief, nurses, etc all take a nap during the afternoon – to say nothing of the fact that the Chief indulges in palm wine and/or a beer many days, often before 10 am…), and people take the time to really enjoy human interactions – indeed, it’s considered very rude if you a) don’t take the time to greet someone, b) don’t take the requisite amount of time to be considerate and interact with them after greeting, or c) say ‘I’m coming’ (the Kembong equivalent of ‘I’ll see you later’) and don’t actually come back to spend an appreciable amount of time with them later. When I give the children balloons (like around the holidays), the children immediately blow them up and leave a bit for them to suck, like a little teet on the end – it’s super weird. Then they proceed to noisily suck on the end, pretending that they’re breastfeeding. And then they cheer when they pop each others. An additional revelation was that despite wanting two children within the next decade or so, having 20 children over in my house to watch a movie (as a side note, I started by showing them “Mulan” in a not-so-subtle attempt to break down gender stereotypes). Corralling and babysitting 20 children under the age of 10 is one hell of a job. After the second movie night of “Kung Fu Panda,” I think my movie showing days have a definite expiration date in the very near future. I love kids, don’t get me wrong, but not that many, and not all in my house for an extended period of time. A wonderful high on the rollercoaster of my life in Kembong has been my developing friendship with my Ejagham teacher and neighbor, Besong, an absolute dear of an older man, but with spunk – my favorite. Besong has made it his personal mission that I should learn Ejagham, and visits me every day so that we can have conversations in my stilted Ejagham. But I’m happy to report that I’m improving significantly, much to the delight of my village. Besong also took me to meet a friend of his, Harry Tabitha, the former chief of the Kembong health center. Harry was in this position for close to 19 years, and now in his retirement has decided to operate a clinic under the auspices of his NGO, which I’m not sure is exactly allowed in the provisions of his NGO licensure, but c’est le vie. It is clear that there’s a lot of bad blood between him and the rest of the current health center staff (they accuse him of stealing, he accuses them of incompetence – that he taught them everything they know). I am determined not to get in the middle of this feud. It’s clear that patients are still going to see Harry, regardless of the fact that his clinic is operating without any government/private oversight to the type of care that his patients are receiving (which is a little worrying). So I have determined that I will be Switzerland – a neutral party that is determined to work with both entities with the goal of improving the health of Kembong people. Additionally, Besong has become a very real friend to me; he asks me how life in Kembong is going and what barriers I’m encountering (I sincerely dislike being compared to all of the previous volunteers, particularly when it’s clear that they’re not even trying to get to know me in my own right), and helps me gain the local perspective in a very real way – something I really treasure, especially since I felt an overwhelming feeling of loneliness. Let me tell you, living by yourself, while fun at first, is incredibly lonely. I’ve noticed myself starting to talk to myself – aaahh! Nah, it’s really not terrible, but not ideal by any stretch of the imagination. But I’m working through it, and I’ll be a stronger person after for having done it. Another thing about Besong is that he respects my space, time, and is not creepy in the way that many other Cameroonian men are. Allow me to elaborate. The following is a conversation that I have had at least fifteen times throughout my tenure here: Cameroonian man: (upon seeing me) oooh, wow! which is invariably followed by a ‘hey, baby’ or some other comment on my looks or the fact that I’m white Me: (terse and with bitch face solidly in place) hello there C.M.: You are so beautiful, I love you. Me: (inner sigh to the effect of ‘here we go again’) thank you. but have you seen me before? do you even know my name?! C.M.: No, but I love you so much (then continuing to express his deep and abundant ardor for me that he has magically developed over the past two minutes that he’s seen me…) Me: you cannot love me when you do not even know me! (he still hasn’t even bothered to ask my name at this point) C.M.: You will be my wife Me: (seriously, buddy, you’re not even going to have the courtesy to phrase it as a question?!) well, then I think you will be a very nice second husband C.M. (smiling and nodding until he realizes what I’ve actually said) whaatt??! Me: Yes, my second husband. C.M. You already have a husband?! Me: (keeping up with the pretense that I already have a fiance; and polygamy is accepted here, but not polygyny – women having multiple husbands) Yes, you will be perfect as my second husband. C.M. (clearly horrified) uhm, well, aaahhh…I cannot be a second husband. Me: Well, I guess you don’t love me enough to be a second husband. Ashia (sorry) for you. (which effectively ends the conversation without me having to freak out and explain for the zillionth time that I will not be marrying a Cameroonian, let alone one that doesn’t even know my name) On a different note, after visiting all of the schools (I just had the government primary school and the Catholic school left), pretty much all the children are calling me ‘Aunty Val’ or ‘Aunty Valerie’ and no more ‘Aunty White Man’ or ‘White Man’ – hooray! They also follow me in droves around town – I’m not kidding when I say that I feel like I’m the Pied Piper… Furthermore, I’ve stopped being slightly concerned when I see them carrying around cutlasses and machetes with 1-foot plus blades. After giving an impromptu talk at the secondary school (didn’t know it was going to be a one-woman show until 10 minutes before the actual session where I was supposed to present on a health topic), I’m giving some serious thought to helping teach Biology there. As a side note, when I asked a student what she’d like me to give the health talk on, she answered ‘the menstrual cycle’…hoh boy, just what I wanted to talk about in front of 60+ teenage boys and girls – not. I ended up talking about HIV/AIDS, which was also relevant, but significantly more in my comfort zone. Another amusing lost in translation moment happened when I found out I had malaria for the second time in Cameroon, actually, the second time in less than a month – blargh. When asked what my tribe was on the intake form, I didn’t know what to respond, so I said American. The nurse (who already really wasn’t understanding much of what I was saying, even though I was speaking slowly and clearly), responded ‘no.’ Welp, I guess if I can’t be American, I guess I’ll just say Ejagham, the tribe of Kembong, which is what I did. To that she responded ‘really?! I don’t believe you.’ What am I supposed to respond to that? So I assured her that yes, in fact, if you’re demanding that I tell you a tribe, and you’ve already vetoed the most logical answer, I’m going to stand by Ejagham. After some quibbling, she accepted it. When I went in to see the doctor to discuss my “very positive” malaria test as the lab tech put it, he had his head down and was scanning my charts. I knew the exact moment that he spotted the Ejagham entry, because his brow furrowed and he looked up at me with a quizzical expression on his face. He then questioned me about it, and after both finding the humor in the situation, he wrote American over the Ejagham, so now I’m American Ejagham. There’s lots more to share about my second meeting with Felix Tanyi, trying new foods (including eating bushmeat for the very first time), helping out with the vaccination campaign, and continuing to prepare for Pauline’s wedding. All in all, apart from having lots of lows in the rollercoaster, I’ve also had a tremendous amount of highs, but regardless, I’m still happy that I’m here.

“Americans Take Life as Invariable”: Welcoming 2014

These past few weeks have seen me settling into some kind of a routine in Kembong, whether working at the health center, interacting with locals, or planning for future projects. It has also been filled with what I’m coming to regard as the usual rollercoaster, whether it be all in one day, or weekly. Case in point; finding out that Baby Valeria Ruth is dead, a definite low and the reason for round 2 of the waterworks since arriving in Cameroon – aka me bawling my eyes out with her family – but not bad considering all that I’ve been through, and then later that day, having an amazing conversation with the chief of the health center and other villagers that are, from all impressions from our interactions, very enthusiastic about working with me on future projects, and feeling the pure, unadulterated joy in a child’s infectious laugh. Additionally, I’ve now lived in Cameroon for 4.5 months, roughly the same amount of time that I spent living in Africa previously, which put me in a rather introspective mood. So in addition to recounting what I’ve been up to over the past few weeks since the last post, I’ve also decided to throw in some of the more interesting, and often humorous, musings of mine over the past 4.5 months. The New Year also put me in a reflective mood, particularly as all our cluster celebrated the holiday with the District Officer, the sous-prefet for all the francophones, and his family, where we did an interesting activity. One of the DO’s daughters passed out sheets of paper and then had us write the things from 2013 that we would like to symbolically burn in the flames of the roaring bonfire they’d built, while also writing the things that we’d like to amplify, or illuminate in 2014. I know it sounds rather corny, but despite that, I enjoyed it, particularly as everyone took it seriously – well, as seriously as one can take things after enjoying several libations, but let’s be real they even had Jack Daniels. 2013 was not without its challenges, but as I sat there thinking about the things that I wanted to burn and illuminate, it struck me that my list for things to illuminate was significantly longer than the ‘burn’ list. You can either take this to mean that I’m a person not used to looking at my faults, or you can choose to take the ‘glass half full’ perspective, as I did, and realize that instead of focusing on mistakes in the past, I can learn from them, move on, and strive to consistently better myself – in a nutshell, I’m grateful for a lot of things, and excited about the future possibilities. Speaking of future possibilities, Pauline both surprised and pleased me when she asked if I would be a bridesmaid in her wedding – yay – side note, the exclamation marks on my laptop don’t work, so you’ll have to just believe in my excitement, with or without exclamation marks. In accepting her offer, I’ve been learning a lot about how weddings function in Cameroon, particularly as she told me that I would be accompanying her on all of her three weddings – traditional marriage to be conducted on Thursday, legal court ceremony on Friday, and church wedding on Saturday with a huge reception to follow. Additionally, she first told me that I would be a flower girl, which immediately conjured images of me looking dowdy in a little Bo Peep-esque getup that would include me shepherding around five screaming little other ‘flower girls’…definitely cringe worthy. But then she explained that the bridesmaids all walk, or rather dance –ooohh boy – in together and throw flowers as they go – definitely better than what I had imagined, but can’t say I imagined my first time standing up in a wedding to be skipping down the aisle to the tune of a Celine Dion song. Furthermore, bridesmaids are NOT chosen based on their relationship with the bride, but rather based on the ‘look’ or ‘spice’ as they call it here, that the bride wants to have for her wedding. So even though Pauline and I do have a special relationship as she’s my counterpart, my analysis of the situation is that she choose me for a bridesmaid since a. I’m a white Peace Corps volunteer that will give her wedding more street cred/pizzaz and b. she likes how I’ll look in her wedding, again for the aforementioned reasons. Also, contrary to what I’m used to with American weddings, the bride has little say in what she actually wants – case in point with the bridesmaid dresses – the tailor picked out the dresses that she wanted to make, and told Pauline to give her money to make them. The same is true for virtually every other aspect of the wedding, from the flowers, to the food, and the fact that we went from the bridesmaids skipping down the aisle, willy nilly tossing flowers at unsuspecting guests – and believe me, if I’m 23 years old and tossing flowers, they’re darn well gonna be tossed – to sedately walking arm-in-arm with the groomsmen, a la most American weddings, this last piece of advice was given to Pauline by the lady doing her hair. Irrespective of the fact that I’m not very familiar with how Cameroonian weddings are conducted, I’m ridiculously excited to be in my first wedding, even if our dresses come straight from the likes of what you’d see in the prom photos of an ‘80’s yearbook. On the downswing of the rollercoaster, having/recovering from malaria is not fun in any way, shape, or form. Additionally, when I returned from celebrating the New Year in Mamfe, I found that some children had stuck small twigs in the lock of my door, rendering it inoperable – blargh. Although I think the children were probably just playing house or something of that nature, in the moment that I discovered what happened, I seriously thought about the merits of corporal punishment for said spawn of Satan that tampered with my door – as I may have mentioned, all children are beat here, whether at home or in school. Furthermore, after a carpenter finished prying my door open, I discovered that my most unwelcome house guest – a mouse – had not only taken the liberty to contort itself under my mosquito net to crap on my bed – not to worry, the sheets were washed in bleach immediately upon discovering the droppings – but mousey dearest had taken up residence in my kitchen – no bueno. After laying a poison-laced crawfish trap for dear mousey, I had my first experience of really killing an animal with by myself, previous lab experiments aside, when, after seeing mousey, I proceeded to douse the thing in Raid insect spray and then bludgeon it to death with the broom handle, after trying unsuccessfully to throw my doorjamb rock at it from a safe distance where it would be guaranteed that mousey couldn’t backtrack and run over my sandle-clad feet. All in all, despite my willingness to go out hunting with others, I’ve even field-dressed/gutted a few deer, I can say with absolute certainty that I will not ever enjoy killing an animal myself – and it was just a piddly, bothersome mouse, for god’s sake. Another huge downside/shock to the emotional rollercoaster was when Baby Valeria Ruth died. The baby was born with club feet, which, in order to be corrected so that she could walk properly, would need the aid of a specialist – in other words, lots of money that the family really doesn’t have. On top of that, it turns out that the baby has a congenital defect with her ‘alimentary canal’ as they call it here – essentially, the baby wasn’t able to drink breastmilk, let alone absorb the nutrients in the milk. Combined with the fever and eye problems, the baby died of malnutrition. I got the news early in the morning (a foggy morning, befitting the somber mood of the village – because it’s cold-ish at night here, many elderly people are dying of the flu due to the climate change, and there were at least 5 funeral preparations made that day). I went to be with her family, thinking along the way of what kind of life the baby could’ve had had circumstances been different; thinking about how she died due in no small part to money. As you can probably imagine, this line of depressed thinking is not productive in the slightest – imagining what could’ve been cannot bring back the baby girl, or ease her family’s grief. So instead, I just sat with the family, hugging them as we cried together. When I spoke with the chief of the health center about the baby, he made a very offhanded, and what I thought was a very heartless comment to the effect that ‘well, nature took its course with the baby, and it’s good that she died.’ I was furious. How could he say such things when I had just come from grieving with the family. It took me several days to realize that his comments did not originate from a place of heartlessness, but rather one where he grasped the severity of the baby’s medical issues and knew that if the family continued to spend money as they did, instead of trying to save 1 life, the lives of the rest of the family would’ve deteriorated. And he was absolutely right. It’s just a damn hard pill to swallow. Dr. Tanyi mentioned to me on his second visit the next week how Americans take life for granted, and as invariable: when I have children, there’s no doubt in my mind that I will try my absolute hardest to give them the world, and the thought of my child not having access to basic things, like school, medical care, safe water to drink, etc is incomprehensible as an American. But this is not America. I have seen firsthand the effect of not having these things – not to compare between the two, but I will not be taking anything granted anytime soon. I also forgot to mention that a common response here when you ask people how the holidays is “poverty, we are just managing the best we can with poverty.” So if you had any images in your mind of the ‘noble African savage,’ happily plodding along in the bush without any concept of their quality of life or their situation in the world, put it out of your mind at once. So it’s on a slightly melodramatic/depressed tone that I end this post, but also a hopeful one, because all that has happened has made me think critically about my life, my place in the world, my future, etc, and anything that forces me to do that is inherently valuable.

Living in a Potential Epidemic Zone: A Kembong Christmas

There was definitely a festive feeling in the air around Kembong, although with a decidedly different flair than that present in the US around Christmas time. Unlike the US, there was no Christmas music playing right after Thanksgiving. In fact, the absence of Christmas music (apart from the musical stylings of the ‘70’s band “Boney M” with their rendition of “Mary’s Boy Child” and “Feliz Navidad” – if I never hear their music again it will be too soon…) was notably different. Although there was tons of music being played anywhere and everywhere. Makeshift watering holes had sprung up all along the main road, and each playing music vying for the loudest volume (shockingly, Celine Dion was absent, but the five Michael Jackson songs on repeat more than made up for her uncanny absence with the festivities). There was an air of excitement in the hot and sticky air (apart from being chilly in the mornings due to the dry season Harmattan winds, dry season is most certainly upon us) as people bustled around getting last minute food and refreshments for visitors coming from near and far. Everywhere there were greetings of “happy happy” (the abbreviated version of both ‘Happy Xmas and Happy New Year’) and the Tuesday market was brimming to capacity. Although the market included a rather unexpected sad/scary surprise: a woman with a suspected case of yellow fever. This older woman, with the whites of her eyes being the color of pale egg yolks, was milling about at the market with her peers, not forgoing the cultural custom of greeting with a handshake and small chat. Teckla had stopped to chat with her about going in to the health center to get the second round of blood tests that would be sent to Yaounde for definite confirmation of the disease’s presence (if positive, that will mean that I’ll be living in a yellow fever epidemic zone…happy Christmas to me, indeed!). The woman assured Teckla that after all was said and done with her Christmas celebration, that she would go to the health center. No word yet on whether or not she’s had the tests done, or the test results…oof. In the nights leading up to the holiday, the number of children nightly visiting my house to chat and play on/near my veranda increased to around 20, which was a welcome reprieve from thinking about how I’d be celebrating Christmas had I been in the US. They insisted that I sing Christmas song after Christmas song to, and with them (“ringle bell ringle bells, ringle all the way” was their chorus) and explaining what certain verses meant (the concept of a ‘one horse open sleigh’ is not universally known). Christmas is by far my favorite holiday, and I was more than a little bummed to not be there with loved ones and friends, celebrating with traditions like snowshoeing under the moonlight or dancing around the house to “Santa Baby” as I decorated the tree to falling snow outside. Although I was certainly nostalgic, I was also happy to be spending the holiday in Kembong with people who seem to genuinely care about me, and who were over the moon with my presence there. When Christmas Day finally arrived, I was more than prepared to celebrate it the Kembong way. Christmas in Kembong is celebrated more like Halloween is in the US, in the sense that after going to the respective church services, people go visiting to each others’ houses – the children start at one end of town and work their way from open house to house, collecting little bits of food and small trinkets along the way. I had several of my neighbor ladies help me make a huge tub of popcorn and roasted peanuts, which I packaged into bags to easily pass out for adults and my favorite children. For the other children, I had balloons (a big deal here – children absolutely love the balloons). It was also interesting to note the different type of presents that the children were getting here – if their family could afford to buy them presents at all. One of my favorite neighbor kids, Kelly, had gotten a plastic bangle, ring, and neon colored glasses for Christmas (in total, costing less than $1 spent on presents, but a real treat for her that she was getting anything at all). I wonder how kids and adults alike in the US would react getting a comparable amount of presents for Christmas? Being here and experiencing how Kembongians celebrate Christmas really had a way of putting things in perspective for me; yes, I may not be able to be with those I love and care about at the holiday, but I have SO much to be grateful for, not the least of which is that I’m actually here, living in an African village, and having the time of my life. I went to the big Catholic church at the opposite end of town with my landlord, David, and was treated to a lively rendition of the mass with lots of singing, dancing, and drumming. From there, David and I trekked (as walking is called here) back home and ate fufu and eru (his wife set a special portion aside for me, which didn’t include pepe!) while watching Boney M music videos (seriously, someone watch this stuff so I can commiserate – but in perspective, it really wasn’t that bad). From there, I hung out at my house and greeted the plethora of kids and adults who showed up, giving them their popcorn/peanut combo and balloons. After a time, I headed to the health center to head over to the Chief’s palace (the actual Chief of Kembong was in town from Doula, where he lives and works) where we were treated to cold imported beer and great conversation ranging from treatment of albinos to different stories of community life. I had a great time and am looking forward to future interactions with Chief Bati Eno (just two of his multiple names, as is common here). Pauline and I then headed back to the health center to celebrate with Teckla, the Commandant of the police, and other community members. Another highlight of the day was being able to talk with loved ones from the States! Exhausted, but happy, I returned home late in the evening to continue the celebration with the regular kids. The next day, I headed over to a friend of mine, Rachelle’s house to celebrate Boxing Day with her and her family – which turned out to be one of my best interactions with community members so far. This was due in no small part to the fact that they were asking me a ton of question about health issues in the community, and together with them, I brainstormed the spine of a plan of action for my health activities in the community. In addition to my family planning counseling, work with the health clubs at the schools, and other nutritional endeavors, I want to put together weekly health education sessions, to be held at the health center at 4 pm on Sunday afternoons, while having the topics be thematically arranged (e.g., International Women’s Day is in March, so having the weekly sessions focus on issues of maternal and child health, like having one week focus on antenatal care, the next focusing on child nutrition, the next focusing on vaccinations, etc; World AIDS Day is in December, so having the weekly topics focus on issues related to HIV/AIDS, and so on and so forth with malaria, family planning, water and sanitation health, etc). We’d advertize the sessions, which would be translated on-site into both Pidgin and Ejagham by local people who could be part of a ‘health ambassador’ program of sorts that would be a component of this project. Additionally, before we’d even begin, Pauline and I would go around to all of the churches on Sunday and to various community groups (captive audience) explaining the goals and objectives of the project and asking if people would be interested in facilitating, or helping to facilitate the information, thereby making some effort to ensure the sustainability of the project, since the more people that know, the more they can teach others and be community resources themselves. Additionally, to ensure that there’s an element of monitoring and evaluation, we’d administer a pre- and post-test of sorts to the people that attend the session, which would also gauge their initial, baseline knowledge and serve to help us focus on what we could improve for future sessions. Since literacy is a definite concern, I’m still mulling about the details of exactly what these tests would look like. With Rachelle and her family’s input guiding my ideas, I got really, really excited about working out the details, and determining whether or not this is even a viable idea based on the data that I’ll gather in my impending community needs assessment. On Friday, I met Dr. Felix Tanyi and a returned PC volunteer that taught math in Mamfe from 1985-1987. It was great to meet with her to hear about her life in Cameroon, and the ongoing connection that she’s cultivated with Cameroon and its people since then. Nearly directly after meeting Felix, he volunteered me, much to my frustration, for writing a grant proposal for the funds for an additional classroom for the Catholic primary school. Although I took a grant-writing course and have written many different mock funding proposals, I was very taken aback by his blatant disregard for my mission as a health volunteer (in no way, shape or form does this proposal have anything to do with public health). After more of our interactions, and him essentially telling me that he wanted me to conduct an additional feasibility study for a pet project of his (a gigantic project that involves creating a sort of community center with computers (the computer idea is good), but also creating a hands-on portion for the technical school and high school’s curriculum, including an apprenticeship program for technical trades –aka, not so good or well-formulated), and to oversee the entirety of the building of an additional classroom for the technical college, I felt the intense need to clarify and politely assert that no, in fact, I will not be doing these different projects, as I have not the time, experience, or inclination to carry out these projects. Additionally, the project is in brainstorm stage, at best, and the technical, hands-on portion is based on the rudimentary assumption that if you train technical trades workers well, that there will automatically be well-paying positions for them…ha. Needless to say, all of us agreed that the project needs significantly more thought and work before anything would be operational – to not put in a great degree of time and effort into formulating the project plan would only serve to be guilty of the fault of many other NGOs and governments alike: simply throwing money and resources at the problem without a comprehensive understanding of it. It would be a drastically different story if these projects had any relation at all to health, and if there was no work to be done in the community. I didn’t completely close the door on working with his NGO, or assisting in a sort of supervisory role with the projects (but not as the main contact point, but instead, for example, attending the feasibility study meetings with him). And furthermore, I’m super excited about my weekly education idea, among other potential projects in the community. During a meeting with the microcredit women’s group in the community, Felix also decided to tell Pauline about my weekly education idea – but instead presented it as his own when I was sitting right there! No. Bueno. Needless to say, I think that our interactions in the future will be characterized by me making it very clear (yet again), that I am a different health volunteer, one that is assigned to the health center and not as his volunteer working with his NGO, and although am happy to assist marginally with his other projects, will not have projects thrust upon me without my approval or thought for my work in the community. It’ll all be okay, but I was not incredibly pleased with our initial interactions. On a happier note, I went to Mamfe for the joint birthday party of two of the girls in our cluster, Rachelle and Carybeth. Our cluster was joined in celebrating by roughly 10 other PCVs from all over Cameroon, and several Cameroonians. One of the Cameroonians was a journalist, who asked me why Kembongians go to the Afab health center to receive care – an interesting idea that I intend to investigate further. After dancing the night away and eating American snacks sent by Rachelle’s aunt. Even though my food standards have lowered by being here, Velveeta cheese still tastes god-awful. The next day, I returned to post and was not feeling super hot. After doing two rapid malaria tests with Teckla and Pauline at the health center (the first one came back as invalid), it was confirmed that I have malaria (round 2 – hooray!). Although not feeling well is never fun, I’ll be just fine, and am still happy with life in my community!

Nurse Nelson? I Think Not: Coming to Terms with My Public Health Trajectory and Week Three of Kembong Life

This week was very insightful on a number of things, and for a number of reasons. One of the many reasons that I decided to do Peace Corps was to refine my professional goals for the future, one of which being whether or not I wanted to pursue the clinical side of health and pursue a Bachelors and Masters in the Science of Nursing, which would mean that I would be a nurse practitioner at the end of the three- or four-year program. I was looking at different dual-degree BSN/MSN programs at Johns Hopkins and Duke (with the Peace Corps Fellows program, too) for upon my return. But after doing some soul-searching and my experiences here thus far, I can definitively say that I will not be pursuing the clinical side of public health, at least not as a nurse practitioner. I’ve found that the clinical aspect of healthcare, while interesting, is not something that I would find fulfilling for the rest of my life. I’m much more interested in the public health side of things (a very good thing that I’m happy with my MPH degree, especially considering the amount of debt I’m staring down). This became especially clear after being invited to observe various clinical procedures at the health center, namely various pregnant women’s examinations, a circumcision, numerous IVs being put in, and listening to the guttural grunts and piercing screams of a child whose finger had been cut off/hand sliced open due to a machete accident with his brother. So by clarifying what I definitely don’t want to do, what I do want to do has become infinitely clearer. On another health note, after finding and bringing in the children with bowed legs and their mothers, the Chief told me that he was so impressed with my dogged dedication to finding these children and with other ideas for community health work that he wants me to take over the family planning portion of the health center’s work, including meeting and counseling with couples and parents of children who wish to have more invasive birth control measures (pills, injection, implant, IUD, for example). I think it’s a testament to how much I have changed by being here that the prospect of doing this didn’t even phase me. Just as a refresher, I told the health program managers that the one thing I definitely didn’t want to be doing was sexual health education, but over the course of training (my work with the secondary school health club to educate them on family planning measures and different aspects related to HIV/AIDS/sexual health), I’ve become significantly more comfortable with the idea, particularly as it would not be my sole mission in the community, but rather part of the bigger health landscape, the complexities of which I’m only just beginning to understand. I also enjoyed doing the counseling with the bowed legged children’s mothers; reviewing with them the importance of nutrition, the meaning of the supplements, and the importance of taking them while the children are still growing (not to mention ideally avoiding potential pelvic bone deformations with the female bowed-legged children). Later in the week, Julia and I decided to go to Bamenda for a little break, see other PCVs from our staj and buy some supplies (notably an internet key for me). Bamenda (the capital of the Northwest region) was both great, and very overwhelming. In Kembong, apart from the ‘white man’ and occasional other comments, people really don’t bother me that much at all, which is not the case in a big city. We met up with TJ and Casey and Edith, a Fulbright fellow, at PresCafe (a café operated by the Presbyterian church), and had salads (aaahh!) with homemade feta cheese and smoothies – oh, the luxury! There, we learned that Erich, a YD volunteer from our staj, had ET-ed due to family and other personal issues. I was shocked. Erich was one of the last people that I had ever expected to ET, and his departure was instantly saddening; we became like a family during the first three months, and any person’s loss will always be felt. After a day spent getting different things, especially in preparation for Christmas (including pamplemousse rouge – my favorite!), Julia, TJ and I headed to TJ’s post in Bali for a delicious meal of puffpuff and beans (beignets without sugar or fish and deliciously spiced black beans). The next day, after negotiating the insanity that is public transportation here, we made it to Mamfe and then I headed back to Kembong, never more happy to be in my own community and own space. The next day, I went with Pauline to one of the last churches I had yet to attend in Kembong, the large Presbyterian church across the road from my house. The service was lively and highly enjoyable, and also included me introducing myself to the 300 or so church members gathered (yay for integration!). As part of the service, they also had an auction of various items that people had cultivated at their farms, mainly yams (think the size of a small child – and I’m not kidding), a whole plantain bunch (roughly 50 plantains per branch), the plant to make eru and other small items. In total, Pauline and I were there for 3.5 hours, and the service was just getting into full swing when we left. Later that afternoon, Pauline called me to take me to an Ekpe initiation ceremony several villages over that was being held for a relative of hers. There were three separate parts of the ceremony (essentially three different parades) and it was super cool to witness all of them, and participate as a part of the female entourage of dancers. In fact, after the last parade, there was a giant dance party, where people where drumming, singing and dancing. The older women in the Nkanda society would often grab my arm and insist that I danced – at one point even having my own dance circle with a woman who had to be pushing 80 years old – a real treat! The women went wild when I danced with them, and I felt pretty damn good, too – there’s something amazing and freeing about just letting everything go and just going with it. After the dance party, there was lots of feasting, and then Pauline and I grabbed a bumpy moto home in the pitch-black dark. When I arrived home, I couldn’t help but do the proverbial pinch to see if indeed the life I am living is real, and to take a moment to be grateful for all that I’ve been able to experience while being here.

Namesake Babies, Nursery School Programs, and Namaste: Week Two of Life In My African Village

Although no less busy or enlightening than my first week, I can already tell that I’m feeling more comfortable here in Kembong, and therefore, this week was that much more rewarding, not to mention filled with exciting stuff. Monday started off with “making sport” (as exercising is called here) with Tita (one of the policemen that was formerly employed by the Peace Corps in Yaoundé) and David (my landlord). We ran down to the GHS (government high school) at one end of town, and then ran back to do some stretching at the dirt track area on the Presbyterian school grounds across from my house. Although there were multiple weird stares as we all jogged along, it was so worth it – not only had I been wanting to run for a while, but the action of being seen around the community, while valuable in and of itself, was heightened by the fact that I was exercising with two prominent community members, thus pinpointing me as a serious player in the community. I suggested that sometime in the future we could all do one of the exercise by doing one of the yoga video sessions that I had brought. Being that yoga isn’t really a thing here, I seriously doubt that this will actually happen, but hey, doesn’t hurt to offer. I also decided to conduct ‘protocol’ (lots of meet and greets) with the various schools in the community to introduce myself, state my purpose for being in Kembong, yadda yadda, after having heard from the students/kids that daily visit me that they originally thought that I was a tourist, but after having stayed for several weeks, figured that I was either A) a crazy person, or B) something more than a simple tourist, since what person would be crazy enough to want to spend a significant amount of time in an African village at the beginning of the dry season?! Conducting protocol was extremely valuable on a number of levels: firstly, I was able to express to the students that my name is “Aunty Vaaaaall” or “Aunty Vah-leer-eee” (said with an emphasis on all three syllables), and not “Aunty White Man” or “White Man”; secondly, that I’m not a doctor or nurse and although would be more than happy to discuss any and all health concerns, the kids should not come to me in lieu of going to the health center for treatment/medicine; thirdly, that I’m incredibly interested in getting to know the community, learning the Ejagham dialect, and interacting with all of the community members, essentially extending an open visit invitation to any of the children; and finally, that although I love to give the kids snacks (the villagers have a habit of giving me fruit in bulk (‘hey, here’s a gigantic popo (as papaya is called here) that there’s no conceivable way you can either keep or eat before it goes bad/gets overly ripe!’), I cannot feed all of the children that come to me telling me they are hungry, nor give any medicine to children and adults alike that show up at my door telling me they are sick – essentially: although I am a Health PCV, that doesn’t mean that I’m here to replace the clinical services at the health center. Several hours later and a case of near laryngitis later, I had successfully visited the government technical college (not actually a college, but more like a trade high school), the government high school, the government nursery school, and the Presbyterian primary and nursery schools, leaving only the Catholic and government primary schools left for January (as the schools were doing wrap up activities before the holiday break). I was grateful that the teachers in each of the classrooms had assisted me in translating what I had said (even though I had spoken very slowly in English) into Pidgin, so that the children were sure to understand it. Overall, it went very well, and especially at GHS, where I was able to speak with the health club coordinators and brainstorm ideas for the future for health activities within GHS, in the other schools in Kembong, and for the community as a whole. The students also invited me to their ‘Social’ day on Wednesday, wanting me to do a presentation on HIV/AIDS – a topic not only relevant in Africa, but especially for this target group that is likely to become sexually active in the next few years (if not already). I’ll also be assisting the GTC with the formation of a health club, starting in January. I left the government nursery school (the preschool/pre-K equivalent in the States) with an invitation to their holiday party on Wednesday, which I graciously accepted. Tuesday brought the arrival of the weekly antenatal clinic at the health center and the village market. After having helped with the clinic the week prior, I was eager to assist the pregnant women with the intake forms, taking their height and weight, and then helping Pauline with the actual examination (palpating the belly, checking the position of the baby, and checking the baby’s heartbeat – even having heard it several times by this point, it never fails to utterly amaze me). I also chatted with the Chief of the health center, as he wants me to conduct some disease surveillance for the four diseases with the potential to reach epidemic proportions (the Cameroonian government has declared that if even there are suspect cases of any of the following diseases, samples must be sent to Yaoundéé, and if even one case is positive, the area is declared an epidemic zone with various accompanying actions): tetanus (both adult and child), measles, polio, and yellow fever. Just as a note for all you worriers: I’ve been vaccinated for all those, so have no fear. Essentially what the Chief wants me to do is to be on the lookout for anyone exhibiting symptoms, and I suggested that we use the health clubs at the schools as a further means of reaching the community – if there’s a suspect case, the person should come to the health center, or me (if I’m closer to where they are), and we’ll travel to the health center to conduct the necessary bodily tests. On another exciting health note, through both active and passive surveillance for children with bowed legs, I’ve found over 11 children (all under 5 years of age) that have the condition. Again, I can’t say definitively that calcium deficiency is the cause, but I certainly don’t think that having the children and their caregiver come to the health center to get the calcium supplements (which also contact vitamin C) and vitamin A supplements would hurt them in any way. Although this is both very sad, but fantastic news from a health standpoint, I’ve come to realize that it has tainted my view of children: wherever I go, after giving a cursory glance to the child’s face and greeting them, I look down to inspect the legs for evidence of bowing…. probably not the best strategy to make friends. On a sobering note, I also discovered the first step of what the Kembong health center does for disposal of medical waste: there’s a huge garbage bin that’s positioned outside the health center and anything from bloodied cotton balls from the IVs that have been administered on the roughly hewn wooden benches outside the health center rooms, to the needles used to administer them, are thrown into the bin – definitely not the best situation, since the bin is accessible to anyone and everyone, children included. Although I don’t know if this has been a problem in the past, I’m thinking there has to be a better initial step in medical waste disposal; even moving the bin inside so that there’s no risk of the public getting into it would be better than the current situation. Ah well, I’ll add it to the rapidly expanding project list. On a happier note, there was a woman at the health center who had just delivered a healthy baby girl, her third child, and asked me to come up with some American names to choose one for their child, or so I thought. When I presented them with a list that Teckla (the other nurse at the health center) and I had compiled, they said ‘Oh no no! We want to name our child your name! Will you let our child have your name?’ After having experienced many interesting lost in translation moments with my name (Valery is a common boys’ name, but only in the Anglophone regions – gaaah! See ‘Blooper Reel’ post for more explanation), I thought it would be a good idea to name the child ‘Valeria’ instead, so now there is a baby Valeria Ruth in Kembong. Think of ‘Valeria’ being pronounced not like ‘malaria’ (in my opinion, the prettier pronunciation of the name), but rather like ‘diarrhea’ with the difference in syllable emphasis – the irony is that I was trying to give the child a name that sounded nice and with which she wouldn’t get teased, and due to the foreignness of the name, it didn’t end up that way – haha, oh well, it’s the thought that counts. And needless to say, I felt very honored, and as familial and name associations go here, the baby is now considered like a daughter to me. On Wednesday, I went to the GHS Social and found out that my little presentation maybe in front of 15 people turned into me giving the presentation with a microphone in front of the entire school. After taking my position with the rest of the student council as a guest judge in front of the gathered students, I gave my presentation about prevention and transmission of HIV/AIDS…and have never been met with more blank stares in my life. Even though I was speaking slowly, loudly and clearly, either the students didn’t really understand what I was saying, or wanted me to stop talking with them so that they could get to their more exciting events of the day (probably a combination of both). After talking with the Chief of the health center and Pauline, we agreed that it would probably be more comfortable for the students to come to me regarding family planning questions, rather than come all the way to the health center. With this in mind, and given that male condoms are currently being distributed for free at the health center (normally they are 5 CFA – super cheap, even in Cameroon), they gave me a bunch of male condoms to distribute if any male or female Kembongians came requesting them from me. From the Social, I went to the nursery school holiday celebration, where I was surprised to be invited as a guest of honor to sit at the head table. The children’s program for the day included: singing, little skits, rhyme and Bible verse recitation, and a model walk competition (in which both girls and boys participated). During the model walk, one of the teachers narrated with comments that included: ‘oh look at this little American girl! She walks just like she’s been living in America for five years! Just look at that walk’ and ‘oh, now this is a little German boy right here! He has just come back from living in Germany with that walk!’ Needless to say, the commentary was hilarious, made even more so as I was the only foreigner in the room, and none of the others there had ever been outside of Cameroon. A less amusing moment was when the children went to recite their rhymes, one of which being “I am a banana, color me yellow, eat me and I will give you vitamin C, vitamin C, vitamin C.’ This is problematic for a number of reasons: firstly, bananas don’t actually give you vitamin C, but rather vitamin K (potassium); secondly, the teachers are teaching this rhyme wrong and inadvertently teaching the children wrong information that could negatively affect their health; and finally, the students are reciting this rhyme not only at school, but at home and in the community, thereby serving to perpetuate wrong information for future generations. Dealing with this too will be added to the project list. The rest of the week passed with several more highlights. The first was when Besong (the man who is going to give me the blue sapphire) came to my house and, with the two other children there (two of my favorites, Kelly and Vincent) decided to start teaching me the Ejagham dialect, giving me a history of the language in the process – super cool. I now have the basic greetings in my language arsenal, and am really looking forward to learning more! The second was Julia coming to stay with me on Friday (since the rest of the cluster is gone at IST – in-service training, conducted six months into your service – Julia and I have been trying to get together either at her place in Afab or mine in Kembong to keep each other company). After listening to some of her tales from Afab, I have a newfound appreciation for life in Kembong with reliable running water and welcoming, wonderful people. Other highlights were: having the carpenter come to install my self-designed kitchen cabinets and armoire, meeting more people in the community (especially as I went to the Catholic mission church this week), and going to a traditional wedding. The traditional wedding was held in the backyard area of one of Pauline’s uncle’s compound, and was really neat. The ceremony started off with a female member of the bride’s family (typically her mother or stepmother) leading out different women, one-by-one, hidden by a sheet, and the bride’s father and groom had to guess which one was the bride (the guessing process could be aided by bribing the mother to be able to touch the sheet-clad woman). After the correct bride was brought out and guessed, the bride and groom (each clad in the traditional wedding garb of blue), sat down and waited as the elder men (in this case, the bride’s father) handed out rations of palm wine. After several men had come up and chugged a gigantic glass of warm (and incredibly strong) palm wine, the father turned to me and said ‘now it’s the mokara’s turn’ (mokara is the term for ‘white man’ in Ejagham). Apart from being incredibly surprised that he thought highly enough of me (I had met him the day before the ceremony) to warrant me getting a portion of palm wine before other male elders in the community (a big deal), terror set in as I thought about the prospect of having to chug warm and strong palm wine in front of the hundred or so guests seated outside (did I mention that Pauline, my host for the wedding, had promptly abandoned me upon arrival, citing business at the health center? Gaaahh!). I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I realized that he was getting a separate glass (yay for the prospect of no meningitis since I wouldn’t be sharing a glass that 10 men before me had drank out of!) and that since I was a woman, could serenely drink the palm wine at my seat in the audience – phew! After giving it a valiant effort of drinking half, I passed the rest off to my pseudo-host for the event, a woman I had never met who Pauline had told to answer any questions I had while she was gone. After the palm wine ceremony (only select members of the audience got the palm wine), popcorn and peanuts were passed out in addition to beer and other drinks while the bride and groom where questioned to determine whether or not they were actually fit and ready to marry. By the time that the huge tubs of food were brought out, the bride, groom, and representatives from both families had gone inside the house to hash out the details of the bride price (around 500,000 CFA that the groom’s family would pay to the bride’s – again, conversion rate is roughly 500 CFA to $1). After the food and drinking, then came the dancing (dancing is really big here – everyone from small children to elderly individuals is expected to dance, and seemingly really enjoys it). Another huge highlight was accidentally stumbling upon the initiation parade/ceremony of the Ekpe society, the most prominent secret society in Kembong. I am highly interested in the kind of countercultural elements of the community, like traditional medical systems, including witchcraft and sorcery, and the functioning of secret societies (although they’re not really ‘countercultural’ here, but rather just another element of the culture). From what I’ve learned from various community members, the Ekpe secret society is ‘secret’ in the sense that they have secret rituals in which only the male members can participate (only men can be members of Ekpe, but there’s a branch called ‘Nkanba,’ or ‘Nkanda,’ in which females can participate). The secret rituals are part of larger public ceremonies (more like parades) throughout the village proper. The society has several levels, the highest of them being seseku (pronounced like ‘sissykoo’), which are differentiated by the wearing of crocheted white caps that are decorated by small conch shells, feathers, and anything else the wearer feels is significant, and a towel or scarf laid over the left shoulder. The society, as Pauline herself said “doesn’t include any bad juju,” meaning that the society doesn’t do human sacrifices or anything else like that, but is rather a type of village disciplinary action. For example, if a man beats his wife and is a member of Ekpe (or even if he is not), and Ekpe members find out, the Ekpe members will come to the man’s house and tell him that the ‘ngbe’ or ‘mgbe’ (the mythical tiger symbolizing peace, success, and goodness) has left the house and gone into the bush, and the man must make some reparations (not just by paying a few CFA, but a pretty hefty sanction so that the man really feels the punishment) so that the ngbe will return to the house through a ceremony that other Ekpe members will do. Very interesting stuff. Although every day is often a rollercoaster of emotions, I’m learning and doing a lot in my village, and for the vast majority of the time, enjoying the hell out of it.

The White Man Says “How”: The First Week of My Life in Kembong

The day that I moved in to my turquoise and maroon-colored house in Kembong seemed to pass both in slow motion and as a blur. After a bumpy ride (understatement of the year, right there, as there were times that our car was almost completely vertical due to the muddy, unpaved roads), we met to meet with the vice chief of the village, a blunt, but kind man named Joseph. From there, we met my landlord, David, and began moving in all the things I had brought into my house. The next few hours were filled with unpacking, organizing, surveying, and greeting people – seemingly all at the same time. Although it was overwhelming, I was glad that one of my cluster mates, Dylan, had volunteered to help me move in and negotiate my first day at post, and secondly that all the community members seemed genuinely thrilled that I was there and would be staying for an appreciable amount of time. The excitement of the community members really did a lot to calm my nerves and give me an introduction to the general friendliness that I have come to associate and expect from my community. Kembong is the second largest city in the Manyu division, after Mamfe, and I didn’t expect my town to be quite so big and lively. If I had to describe the climate, I’d say that Kembong fits with the description that the Southwest is ‘jungle-y’ with a mixture of virgin forests, mountains in the distance, and some waterfalls (I’ve been told that there are several not too far away from the town). Additionally, Kembong is divided up into quarters (17, to be exact), and each quarter is denoted by the name on a green and white sign (I live in the Okem Benem quarter). Dylan, Pauline and I took a break around lunchtime to have a traditional meal of fufu and eru with snails (yeah, the same snails you may see in your garden after it rains…). Fufu is made out of cassava and has the consistency of sticky play-doh and is served in a cylindrical blob – you break off pieces with your right hand and dip it into the eru mixture to eat both together. Eru is comprised of greens that are gathered from the bush/forest, bound together, and then sliced to make stringy pieces that are boiled, mixed with pepe (SUPER hot peppers that only add sheer spice to the dish, and no actual flavor, in my opinion), and served with an obscene amount of palm oil (the whole mixture stains your hands orange). Needless to say, apart from the pepe (and the accompanying nose running, eyes watering, and sweating all induced by the pepe), it definitely wasn’t a bad meal. The rest of the day was spent entertaining visitors on my veranda and organizing my things before my reception in the evening. One of my visitors asked if I knew anything about mining, as he has a CIG (community interest group) in Kembong that concerns mining. When I told him that I didn’t, but would be willing to learn, he told me that the rock samples they had found so far in the mine indicated that there are diamonds nearby, and they had found blue sapphire in another, he said that he would bring me a blue sapphire (my birthstone) to have, in addition to taking me to the mines. A short time later, Pauline came to pick me up for the reception at the town hall. When we arrived, there were already 20 or so people, and by the time we started, there were over 50 people that had come to greet me. After Ashu did the introductions, Joseph, the vice chief, gave a speech welcoming me to Kembong, giving a brief history of the PC presence (I’m the tenth volunteer here), and saying that he hoped that I’d fall so much in love with the community that I would stay there, marry a Cameroonian man and live in Kembong (the whole room erupted in laughter at his statement). From there, everyone in the room introduced themselves (name and their role in the community), and one man said that he would be the pastor at my future wedding, and another younger man said that he would be the groom at our future wedding – no bueno. When it came time for me to introduce myself and give two unexpected/impromptu speeches, I explained why I was in the community, a little about myself (education, family, where I’m from in the States), I also decided to say that I had a fiancé and therefore would not be marrying any Cameroonian men – female volunteers have been known to say they’re married in the past to discourage unwanted male attention and numerous offers of marriage (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t discourage anything/anyone). It may seem silly, but I wanted to take advantage of the joking mood to get that possibility off the table from the start so that people could focus on me being the resident health volunteer working with the health center instead of the “young and beautiful” potential marriage partners (as one of the reception males described me), or a green card opportunity. The reception ended with a meal of plantains and fish in a sauce called ‘pepe soup,’ which ironically, wasn’t hot or spicy in the slightest. After saying my goodbyes and with promises to either visit them, or inviting them to drop by my home, Pauline took me home. All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a better first day – people were nice, my landlord and counterpart (to say nothing of the rest of the community) are genuinely concerned with my happiness and success in the community, the weather is pleasant (not nearly as hot or humid as Mamfe), my house is quaint (four rooms – parlor/living room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom), my landlord is willing to work with me to make the necessary minor repairs to my house, and I have reliable running water, and semi-reliable electricity (including a flushing toilet that actually flushes and doesn’t smell!). I feel very lucky. The next day, I went to the carpenter to buy a bed and had him come to my house to take measurements and draw up a homemade contract/receipt for the armoire and kitchen cabinets I’d designed. The plumber also came to fix my shower, kitchen sink, and toilet, in addition to putting in a lower tap in my bathroom so that I could easily fill my buckets for laundry. I also went to the health center to check everything out and to help out with the antenatal clinic. With the assistance of another nurse, Teckla, who speaks Pidgin and Ejagham, I asked the women the preliminary questions, figured out their due dates, took their height and weight, and perhaps coolest of all, assisted Pauline with doing the physical examinations (again, zero privacy or confidentiality laws here) – palpating the bellies of the woman to determine position of the fetus, listening the baby’s heartbeat (a first for me!), and asking if they had any complaints, including writing minor folic acid prescriptions for them. Later that day, I also met with several of the gendarmes (policemen) and commandant of the police station, which is comfortingly close to my house. Tita, one of the gendarmes, upon hearing that I like to run, made me promise that we could “make sport” (as exercising is called here) very soon. I’ve also been able to hear more of the local language, Ejagham, and have spoken with Pauline about seeking out a language tutor to help me learn the local dialect, as it is spoken much more commonly that Pidgin English here. Julia also came to stay the night with me, as she just moved into her house and it’s a dirty mess from the previous volunteer who left all of her stuff, to the delight of the rats and mice who’ve been scavenging over the past few months. The next day, I went to the weekly market with Pauline and bought several food items for that day and the next. As a side note, it’s a totally new experience having to buy your food items every day, since without the presence of a refrigerator and reliable electricity, it’s impossible to keep simple food items (like tomatoes) for over a day, given the climate and the insects. Later that day, I also went to the health center and spent some time holding the newborn babies in the absence of any other health concerns present. The mothers of the two babies (one boy and one girl) asked me if I would help them name their babies by writing down some American names. Thus, it came to be that Baby Ingrid and Baby Bruce were named. Julia came to stay with me again on Tuesday night, and after hearing her tales of life/interactions/her house in Afab, I felt a little guilty for having such an amazing set-up/life thus far in Kembong. People Are Dying Because of Money On Wednesday, I headed to Mamfe to go to the bank, post office, and buy some other supplies in the big city. En route in Njock’s car, I had a very interesting health discussion about malaria, HIV/AIDS and other health concerns within the community – definitely giving me lots of food for thought, especially after Njock’s comment of “People are dying every day because of money.” In that moment, although I have ideas about what can be done in the community as far as health outreach/education activities, I also felt incredibly helpless due to my lack of knowledge about the community, and quite frankly, not even knowing where to start. Although I felt troubled by the conversation, it was also good for me to get ideas about the potential barriers that I’ll most likely encounter in trying to formulate a project. After doing some shopping for essentials and checking my bank account, I giddily unwrapping my package from my Grandpa, and shared some of the yummy American snacks with my cluster mates while they prepared to leave the next day for their IST (in-service training that happens six months into your service). The next day, I returned to Kembong to my house (it’s slightly strange to realize that it’s already starting to feel like my own place even just after a few short days), before heading to a vaccination training – there’s a country-wide, government and WHO-sponsored poliomyelitis vaccination campaign that Kembong will be doing in the next few days. After the training and going over logistics of the campaign in Kembong, I headed home to spend time with the hoards of children who have come to spend every evening on my veranda (there are literally 10-15 children every night on my front porch). The next day, all the health center staff and I set out on our assigned parts of town to vaccinate all children 0-5 years of age for polio (two drops of the vaccine, administered orally). We started at the nursery school section of the Presbyterian school across from my house, and then worked our way from house to house on foot, shouting “we di vaccinate, we di vaccinate” (Pidgin) as we went. Unfortunately, many of the children were simultaneously intrigued and terrified of me, which made for a significant amount of wailing as we nearly strong-armed them into opening their mouths for the precious seconds that vaccinating them took. Additionally, I identified another big problem in the community (although not surprising in the slightest): nutrient deficiency, specifically calcium and vitamin D, causing the legs of children to be severely bowed. I saw at least 3 children like this, all under 5 years old, as we vaccinated them all, and want to do something about this before their growth plates close and they are potentially left permanently bow-legged (a long way off, but still). Over a meal of grilled fish and plantains that evening, I spoke with the chief of the health center, and formulated a plan. Our health center doesn’t have any calcium supplements, so the next time I go to Mamfe, I will take the written directive that I had him write to the pharmacies, buy the calcium supplement and bring it to the health center. Once I have the supplement, I will again track down these bow-legged children and encourage them to go to the health center to get nutrient supplements – I’ll supplement half (or more) of the cost of the calcium supplements if I have to, but I’d rather not give them for free – not only is that not sustainable in the long run, but I also don’t have the discretionary funds for that or to supplement future projects, and I want the family to be invested somehow in the health of their children, but at a cost that can hopefully be more affordable. I know this isn’t a viable long-term option, but I’ll be damned if I will sit by and do nothing, let alone let the children and parents think that their children living with bowed legs is a normal, expected part of life, something they can’t do anything about. But until I know the community better (namely nutritional habits) and can conduct my community needs assessment to identify other health needs, I can’t really do more or formulate a more comprehensive project. So I’ll have to be content with doing something in the short-term knowing that I have the best of intentions to do something more and better in the foreseeable future. On a happier note, working with Pauline on the vaccination campaign accomplished exactly what I wanted it to as far as furthering my integration in the community: not only did the people see me in the community, but they also saw me doing a health activity (serving to hopefully help them subconsciously associate me with community health/the health center), and I was able to further familiarize myself with the community. Over the next two days (roughly 10 hours of activity), we (six people) vaccinated over 600 children in the community, and I have to say, I’m pretty damn pleased. Your ‘Amen’ Has HIV/AIDS After more vaccinations on Saturday, I checked out the bakery, spent time with my little friends (the regular children who spend hours on end on my porch), and headed to Julia’s house to spend her birthday evening with her. The next day, I returned to Kembong to take several of my neighbors up on their invitation to go to the Apostolic Church in Kembong for a wedding. As a side note, religion is a big deal in Kembong, to say nothing of the rest of the regions of Cameroon. With that in mind, I’ve decided to attend the church services at each of the main churches (Apostolic, Presbyterian, and Catholic) in Kembong as a means of meeting people, cultivating a relationship with the members/community (which may be crucial for future health interventions, as Pauline mentioned that before they do any major health campaigns, they make announcements about it at all the church communities), and demonstrating to people that I am interesting in integrating into the community. I got to the wedding an hour after the church services were supposed to start, and witnessed the beginning program of the wedding to occur that day (I was there for 3.5 hours and the wedding hadn’t started yet). Even though I left before the actual wedding, being there accomplished a lot – the pastor invited all new/invited members to stand up and introduce themselves and when I did, the church erupted in applause/excited shouts; I was able to greet many people, including my neighbors who invited me, and witness part of the wedding ceremony. From there, I went home, acquiring a shadow of seven little boys who wanted me to play their “big man/chief” game with them on my veranda. More children trickled in, until I had a revolving door of 15+ children, when all I wanted was a few moments of alone time. Aside from the frustrating elements of the day (toilet flusher slightly breaking, being called ‘white man’ innumerable times) and the seemingly endless barrage of children coming, wanting attention, and sometimes demanding things from “Aunty Val” (my name here in Kembong – pronounced like ‘Vaaaaaal’), I realized that even though I’ll sometimes (even often) be frustrated and exhausted, I have so much to be thankful for: amazing family and friends, great community who truly cares (even if it means often not letting me have any space/privacy), and so much more that at the end of the day, I’m incredibly lucky. As for the title of this post, those community members who don’t yet know my name call out “white man” to me as I pass on the street – unlike in the U.S. where it would be highly irregular/rude to greet someone by calling out to them based on the color of their skin, here, it’s simply a way to distinguish who you are greeting, and denote an element of notoriety in the community. I suspect that even if I have a chance to greet the majority of the people in my village, or at least meet those that will tell/correct others in regards to my name, I will always hear calls of “white man” when I walk around. Secondly, the “how” refers to a typical abbreviated greeting in Pidgin – you might say “how for you,” or “how for skin,” or “how your day,” so instead, the greetings have been largely abbreviated to “how?”