After the introductory dinner and dancing the first
night, we quickly got down to business the next day with our first sessions of
our 8-5 days. The first day was characterized by everyone giving presentations,
either in French or English, with their respective counterparts on the
different health concerns of the places and various interesting aspects that
came out during the community needs assessment period of the past 3 months. It
was fascinating listening to my fellow health stagemates explain aspects of
their lives in the community, and what they were most looking forward to
tackling in the future. Overall, the health concerns are pretty standard across
the board: malaria, HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy, underutilization of the hospital,
particularly by pregnant women for antenatal care and delivery, STIs, malnutrition,
etc. However, the nature of the problems differs greatly between volunteers
with posts in the ‘Grand South’ (every region south of Adamoua) and the ‘Grand
North’ (Adamoua, North, Extreme North), meaning that although I want to work on
the health issue of malnutrition in Kembong, it’s totally different in the fact
that the malnutrition that I’ll be working with is more of a nutrient
deficiency, vs. a total lack of food. Additionally, since the Grand North has a
predominantly Muslim culture, the volunteers will face different challenges,
e.g., working with women, since women predominantly stay in their family
compounds, and are not allowed/inclined to work with male PCVs, even in a
non-medical setting. In that sense, although my SW region has its own
challenges (witchcraft and traditional medicine are widely used, despite the
region being predominantly Christian) and although there is not so much of a
taboo about talking about issues of sexual health (teen pregnancy, HIV/AIDS),
that doesn’t mean that the people are any more likely to change their behaviors
than people in the Grand North. Although
listening to the presentations was highly interesting for me, I’m unhappy to
report that they were not for Pauline. In fact, Pauline was the very picture of
a rude, disinterested counterpart who literally complained about everything:
she whined about them ‘overfeeding’ us by providing us with a nice snacktime in
between morning sessions, but was the first person in line stuffing her face
with croissants and yogurt, she rued the fact that some of the presentations
were in French (Anglophone regions are the minority) when she fell asleep
during those that were in English. Her ridiculous, rude behavior knew no
bounds, as she unabashedly answered phone calls from her obnoxiously ringing
phone in the middle of different presentations. The snapping moment for me came
when we had to put together a mock project implementation plan, from goals and
objectives, to M and E indicators, etc. We were working in pairs with other
volunteers and counterparts, and Julia decided to tag along with Pauline and I.
Pauline sat there like a complete waste of space while Julia and I put together
the whole action plan…she offered no feedback, even when I tried repeatedly to
engage her in the work, and actually fell asleep. When Sylvie, the health
program manager, came around to see how we were doing, we presented the
information, Sylvie offered some minor critiques, and Pauline (who had suddenly
become active and invigorated after her siesta) decided to chime in with harsh
criticisms… I was done. It’s one thing if she actually contributed to the work,
but to sit there sleeping and then make me look like an incompetent fool in
front of my program manager was too much. She also feel asleep during the time
that her and I were supposed to be creating our 3 month action plan, dictating
the direction of my projects for the next three months. I called her out on it
several times, and then finally told her that I would be very upset if she didn’t
help me, or at least show some degree of effort/interest. The title of the blog
refers to a common response in the Anglophone regions when you ask how someone
is doing, their reply ‘just managing’ implies that they’ve been dealing with
some rough stuff, but they’ve made it through. Dealing with Pauline was the
rough patch of my IST, but I certainly made it through.
Another
rough patch of IST was in our ‘Men as Partners’ joint session with the youth
development volunteers. Genevieve, one of my friends from Emory and my MI class,
told of an incident where she was sitting on her veranda one day reading a
book, and a man came up and literally groped her boobs, thinking nothing was
wrong with his behavior. After Genevieve told the story, one of the male
counterparts responded with ‘I don’t see why she’s making such a big deal out
of this, it was just a touch!’ Needless to say, al l the women, particularly
the female volunteers, were livid. This man’s comments illustrate exactly why
we are having the damn session. Gaaaahhh. Anyway, some good did come out of the
session, as it facilitated a necessary conversation between Pauline and I. In the session, Pauline was all fired up,
talking loudly in favor of gender equity and cultural change related to how men
perceive and treat women. But unfortunately, there is a discordance between her
words and actions, meaning that she herself does not practice/promote gender
equity in her own home and in the Kembong community. After my one on one
conversation with Sylvie, I decided that one of my focus areas for health work
in the community would be youth empowerment, and would be accomplished by me
working with the health clubs at the government high and technical schools,
with a special emphasis on women/girl’s empowerment by forming a girl’s club. This
will also serve to promote sexual health education, particularly in reference
to preventing teen pregnancy and transmission of STIs and HIV/AIDS. For those
interested in the theoretical backing of the girl’s club, I’ll be using the
care group model to form the group. Although Pauline will be an asset to the
logistical planning of these activities, if she cannot ‘walk the walk’ with
gender empowerment/equity issues, then I need to find another positive deviant
model woman in the community who can work with me. Essentially, my point is
that if I am working with a woman who refuses to put into practice what she
preaches, my project/efforts to empower girls will not as successful.
On
the positive side, in addition to focusing on youth empowerment, and doing a
training of trainers with the health club members, with the eventual goal of
having them go out and conduct health training sessions with different groups
of people in the community. On a different note, my primary project will be combating
malnutrition among children 0-5, the most susceptible age group of children to
malnutrition issues. My efforts on this front will include: going from quarter
to quarter in Kembong to determine how many children are malnourished, and
doing informal surveys and interviews with their caregivers to ascertain food
consumption trends, conducting nutrition education sessions at the antenatal
clinics and vaccination days at the health center (gotta love captive
audiences), conducting cooking demonstrations with proper food preparation
techniques (no, in fact, you don’t need to take a perfectly good veggie/green
and then cut it, pound it, boil it, and then fry it in order for it to be
edible), working with the nursery and primary school teachers to incorporate
nutrition education into their curriculums (using the ‘maison de nourriture’
model – the base of the house is the proteins, the walls are the
starches/carbs, and the roof is the veggies/fruits, while the latrine is for
palm oil/sugar), etc. I’m pretty excited about both my primary and secondary
project ideas, and looking forward to getting started!
The
rest of IST passed very pleasantly, as different members of my stage and I
played euchre and drank wine after dinner nearly every night, we celebrated
different birthdays, and got to watch copies of lots of new movies (the Oscars
won by cast members of Dallas Buyer’s Club were well-deserved), found a thrift
area of the market that had clothes from India, and bought a bunch of
handicrafts to decorate our respective houses. On Sunday, I went with Kate,
Cody, Ludi and Colleen to the Endarawa Tea Plantation , situated atop one of
the mountains outside of Bamenda. The journey there was absolutely beautiful,
and seeing the rows and rows of tea bushes stretching as far as the eye can
see, was incredible. We saw the Nestle tea plantation holdings, along with
those of several other companies. Although we didn’t get to see the factory,
the security guard giving us an impromptu tour showed us the owner’s menagerie
of sorts at the end of the tour. There, we got the opportunity to see peacocks,
vervet monkies, pythons, ostriches, and finally, and most excitedly, chimps.
Although I was not enthusiastic about the chimps’ living conditions, and in a
way, by seeing them, condoning these conditions/the fact that these beautiful
creatures are being kept as pets, I couldn’t help but be excited about the
opportunity to hold one of them , named Uncle Billy. Uncle Billy was very
gentle, and after walking a few paces, reached up to clasp my hand, and shortly
after, hold out its outstretched arms for me to take it in mine. Regardless of
the moral questionability of my actions, it was a cool experience.
The
next few days of IST flew by, and before I knew it, I was traveling to the
beach in Limbe with Sarah, Layne, Maria, Genevieve, Matt, and Edith (a
Fulbright scholar living in Bamenda). Our hotel had its own private swatch of
beach, and the hotel itself was situated a 20-minute drive from Limbe proper,
meaning that it was the idea secluded location. We swam morning, noon, and
night in the Atlantic Ocean, marveling at the beauty of our surroundings – ‘Baby
Mt. Cameroon,’ Mt. Seme, loomed over us in the distance, and the scenery was
picturesque. The first night that we swam, we were greeted with the unexpected
pleasure of swimming with bioluminescents! It was absolutely amazing to move
body parts in the water and see the tiny burst of light that followed. Apart
from the beach, we also went into Limbe to eat at the fish market, munching on
fresh-caught, grilled fish, and to check out Arne’s Café (easily one of the best meals I’ve had
in-country) and the Limbe Wildlife Reserve, a menagerie of sorts populated by
rescued animals, ranging from crocodiles to gorillas. Overall, a much-needed,
and very enjoyable vacation. I started the trip back to Kembong yesterday, and
will head back today. Although IST and hanging out with everyone was awesome, I’d
be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a little relieved to head back to my post
and settle back into my routine.
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