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!