This week started off on both a great/bummer note, as I was excited to celebrate Youth Day with all my children (they had been practicing their songs and traditional dances on my veranda for the past week), but in the midst of doing my Community Needs Assessment report and presentation in preparation for IST, the start button of my laptop stopped working (additionally, my shift key stopped working – appreciate the shift key, people – you have no idea how unnerving it is to write an entire report using caps lock for all capitalized words in a 20-page report, haha). The Youth Day festivities started off with the Cameroonian national anthem and a procession in of the various community dignitaries, followed by the marches of all the various schools in Kembong. The nursery school children were beyond cute as they stumbled over one another in their efforts to simultaneously march in the correct steps, and sing their appointed songs. My companion for watching the day’s activities (traditional dances, games, singing, and other exposition events) was a small child who sat ensconced on my lap and insisted on calling me ‘Aunty Bess,’ which was most charming as she has a small lisp and an under bite. After eating with the dignitaries, I moseyed back to my house where my laptop magically started working, and Pauline and I had a heart-to-heart. Despite her rough, bulldozer exterior, Pauline is actually pretty sensitive; apparently her good friend/maid of honor cancelled on her three days before the wedding, and had waited til a week after the event to see how it went, but didn’t have phone credit, so she told Pauline to call her back/waste her own credit so they could talk – needless to say, Pauline was understandably hurt. It was good to chat with her, especially as I saw a different, softer side of her.
Several days later, Julia and I were on our way to collaborate on the Peace Corps-sponsored activities for the Race of Hope. The Race of Hope is a yearly event where people literally race up and down Mount Cameroon, the second tallest mountain in Africa, for a total distance of 24 miles. The day prior to the race, we stayed with Layne and other PCVs in Kumba, the biggest city in the SW region, with the biggest market in all of Cameroon. After living in a village setting for the last three months, the big city was a bit overwhelming, but very enjoyable. We visited the NGO that Layne’s been working with, called Needs for Children, run by an ambitious woman from Holland who truly cares about disadvantaged kids in Cameroon. We also experienced one of her more heartbreaking cases: a 10 year-old girl who had previously broken her neck and was now blind, now had terrible bedsores and a severely distended belly that was quite probably due to a form of cancer; she had had a surgery, and had waited an astounding 3 weeks for the biopsy results to be returned (the doctors ended up losing the sample, and the child ended up dying…) It was a sad reminder that while we, as international aid workers, can, and should do all in our power to help the people with whom, and communities in which we work, but at the end of the day, bad things will happen despite our best efforts, and you have to be satisfied that you did all you could. On a happier note, we got to hang out with different international volunteers and went out for delicious chicken from a restaurant where the owner honed his culinary skills in Louisiana. After Kumba, we all traveled to Buea to help out with the race and other preparation activities for the PCV-organized HIV/AIDS pre-counseling, testing, post-counseling activities. When we got there, the hotel had given away our pre-reserved room (we even had a receipt), and after much fighting and coaxing, the manager finally got us a room – complete with lime green mold snaking halfway up a wall, and a smaller than normal bed, with no running water, and sporadic electricity at best.
After the hotel fiasco, we moseyed over to the nearby school, where the other PCVs were helping to set up the all the different stations for the next day: registration, pre-counseling, testing, and finally post-counseling. We also set up the tables and tents at the race site for the male and female condom distribution/demonstrations. The next day, we arrived at the school to assist with last-minute preparations. We quickly realized that the distance from the race site to the school was a clear detriment to having people actually come and get tested, so after walking through the streets and race grounds to try and garner interest in the free testing and counseling, we decided to move everything to the actual race site where everyone was gathered. I lost count after doing 25 pre-counseling sessions, and quickly realized that I was going to lose my voice if I continued doing pre-counseling. From there, I assisted people doing registration until I got drafted to go throughout the crowd and gather people to be tested. I decided to focus on the big groups of people that were representing different cultural entities, and came in contact with a familiar person, one of my carpenters from Kembong who installed my cabinets. At first, we didn’t really recognize one another, and as such, he was really rather hostile toward me, asking acidly ‘and why on earth would we want to get free HIV/AIDS??’ clearly missing the part where I had said over and over again that it was testing and counseling. I politely clarified, and then after asking ‘don’t I know you?’ and figuring out the connection, his demeanor totally changed, becoming super friendly and amenable not only to being tested himself, but to bring along his male friend, and encourage all the other females to do so as well. When he showed up with his friend, I personally did the pre-counseling and walked them through the other steps of the process. After they went through all the steps, this man specifically sought me out to thank me so much for encouraging him to get tested, and thanking the other PCVs for our activities here. I was truly humbled by the fact that he went from being skeptical and suspicious to thanking me profusely, and being appreciative of our efforts. Although the day was overall a huge success (we tested over 900 individuals for HIV/AIDS, and registered over 1,000), it was not without its tragic moments. One for me came when I had started to do a bit of post-counseling, aka, telling people whether their results were either positive or negative for HIV. I thought that with my public health and anthropology background that I could handle telling people their status (it’s worth mentioning here that we never used the word ‘positive,’ but rather told the people that their sample showed that their body was showing antibodies consistent with HIV, but then referred them to a local hospital for a second, conclusive test). It’s one thing to say that you can tell people their status, and another entirely with having to tell someone that they may be positive for HIV – I could’ve been the bringer of life-shattering news, and I couldn’t handle it for those that were positive. Therefore, I only post-counseling people whose samples were negative. The most heart-wrenching case was when a mother had herself and her four year-old son tested. Working as a runner who matched up test results with the registration numbers that people had, I was inadvertently able to see the test results as I delegated people to different post-counselors, the majority of whom were trained nurses working at hospitals in Buea. The woman’s test results were positive, but her child’s were not – both a hallelujah moment for the child, but crushing for the woman. I was happy that the child was beyond the age for breastfeeding (breastmilk transmits HIV), but incredibly sad for the mother. I can only hope/pray that we caught her in the early stages of the disease, or better yet, that it was merely a false positive. We stayed at the race grounds till 5:30, and discovered that Layne and Julia both had things stolen from a purse (the purse had been set down for a period of time, and people rifled through it, stealing money and a camera). The most frustrating part for Julia and Layne was that the crime was most likely committed by people that were there being tested, given where the bag was positioned; they were upset that the very people that we were trying to help would then turn around and do this. It was great to hang out and do work with other PCVs, and despite the different bumps in the road for the visit to Kumba and Buea, I was really happy with the whole experience.
I headed back to Kembong the next day, and enjoyed a pretty uneventful next few days as I prepared for IST. I also forgot to mention that the previous week, I went with Teckla, Pauline, and the commandant of the gendarmes to the local ‘nightclub’ where we enjoyed roast fish, several beers and lots of dancing. I was also introduced to the very Cameroonian concept of ‘mirror dancing.’ Having gone to clubs in the U.S. with mirrors, I know the basic idea, but Cameroonians literally stand in front of the mirrors (in Chop My Money’s case, a pillar with small mirrors on all sides) and watching themselves dance. Personally, it makes me uncomfortable, I mean, why would I want to willingly watch myself make a fool of myself dancing? Although I don’t plan on going back anytime soon with any other community members, it was a great night. Despite a lot of interesting/challenging stuff happened this week, being involved with the Race of Hope and having shining moments of success reminded me that I have so much to be thankful for, and that despite living the majority of the time outside my comfort zone, I’m happy with where I’m at, and things could always be worse.
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