My House

My house has four rooms: a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom. The kitchen and the bathroom are the smallest rooms. They are each about 10ft by 6ft. Whereas the bedroom is about 12ft by 15ft and the living room is 14ft by 18ft. These are very rough estimates done by a not very spatially oriented/adept person.
     I like the size of my house though! I think it is perfect, close, but not quite, too big for just me. The size of my bathroom is one of my favorite things about the house. This is because I often must take bucket baths. My house has electricty but the water rarely runs. So,because the water rarely runs I must take bucket baths and the space is great! It is entirely possible to take bucket baths in a much smaller space; I am just saying that having the space is nice. It is nice because I can take a bath without getting the entire bathroom floor wet... just most of it.
    Like I said I have electricity but not running water. I actually have running water but it does not work often enough that I can truly say that I have running water. Whereas the electricity works most of the time so I can say with confidence that I do have electricity.
    When I moved in there was no furniture in the house, except for a wardrobe and a matress. So, I am slowly (very, very slowly) working on getting my house furnished. I am especially excited to get a work table in my kitchen becuase counter space is not a thing that is done in Cameroon. My sink, which is a typical size, one basin sink, is almost half of my counter. Then, since stoves are simply ranges that are set on the counter here, it reduces the work space down to almost nothing. I think it is not seen as important because people, usually the women, who cook, are very good at doing all of the vegetable cutting and other prep work right in their hands. this means that they need little to no counter space to prepare food. While I am much too clumsy and bad with a knife to dare to try to cut anything in my hand, so I will be needing some work space until I somehow become unclumsy. Ha. Anyway, in Menji, one cannot buy furniture that is premade. I am not sure that furniture that is premade can be bought anywhere except in large cities here. So, since furniture cannot be bought I must go to a carpenter to have my furniture made. I do not usually go myself but have a Cameroonian friend go for me so that I can get the Cameroonian price. So far I have had a dresser and a cabinet made but have not been able to get them to my house yet, even though they have been done for over a month now. Maybe I should get that done. They are really heavy because they are made of solid wood, I will need to find someone with a car to help me. These two pieces alone cost me about 150 U.S. Dollars. This is what is going to make furnishing my house a very slow process; it costs a lot of money.
   I actually wrote most of this post almost a month ago. I still have no furniture at all though in my house. I did however just get a desk to borrow from my landlord. It is great to have a place to sit and work that is not my bed, or mattress on the floor. I feel much happier just having this. I have made my desk sort of like my own little corner.

 

   By the way, that is my little cat on the chair to the left! Her name is Ygritte. There will be a post about her in the future.

Here are some pics of my house and scenery around Menji:

Scenery.

My house.

Scenery.

Time

Time here is used and thought of differently than in the States. This is especially true of start times for events. Whenever there is an event, a start time is assigned to it but this time does not mean that the event will begin at that time. An event here starts when all of the people or important attendees are there. This means that events almost always start late, usually by about two hours. If someone does not arrive "on time" that just means that the event has not started even if the "start time" has passed. This happens with informal and formal events. I am still getting used to this. I still try to arrive on time even though I know that the event will not start on time. I just always bring a book or something else to do until the event actually begins. So, time here is seen as when people are together and not what time the clock says.

Moving to Post

The day after swearing-in all of the new volunteers, including myself, loaded onto three buses and headed off to post. As the bus that I was on pulled away from the training center the luggage on top caught a power line and almost pulled the pole out of the ground. A Cameroonian who was walking down the street jumped on top of the bus and pulled the wire loose. I do not know if the wire was live but I do know that the Americans were much more afraid of the whole situation than the Cameroonians were. I guess that they knew something that we did not.
About four hours later my bus pulled into Bafoussam and my fellow trainee, new volunteer, and now post-mate Amy met our soon-to-be post-mate Jacob. Jacob has been in Menji, my post, for a year and a half now. He helped us get all of our things to Dschang, our banking city, and then to Menji. We stayed in Dschang for a day to open bank accounts and such and then the next day we went to post. It is a two hour ride on, what I consider to be, a pretty scary, bad, but scenic road. We arrived just after dark and the power was out. I think that is bad luck that follows me around, whenever I arrive in a new country or move to a new place the power is always out. It happened in China, when we arrived in Cameroon, and when I arrived in Menji.
The road I have heard is actually a pretty good road as far as roads go in Cameroon. It has gotten better with the dry season but I am scared to see it in the middle of the rainy season. I will try to film it or something so that you can see what I mean. Anyone who wants to come and visit my actual post will have to travel along this road. Anyone who is not comfortable, I can make arrangements and we can stay in Dschang or another city if you are ok with not seeing my actual house and just seeing Cameroon instead.

Swearing-in and Malaria Prophylaxis

So, swearing-in was on the 20th of November, just over a month ago now. It was a three and a half hour ceremony in which the actual swearing-in of the new volunteers took about five minutes. Ceremony and the way things are to be done are very important here. Each distinguished person gets a chance to speak. At the swearing-in ceremony there were at least ten people who gave speeches, some of these being new volunteers who gave their speeches in French, Pidjin, and Fufulde (the three languages trainees study in training here).
After the ceremony there was food. I, not thinking, took my Malaria prophylaxis twenty minutes before the end of the ceremony, without having eaten anything for at least seven hours. It only took ten minutes for the terrible stomach cramps and nausea to start. It is one of the worst feelings, I cannot stress enough-DO NOT TAKE YOUR MALARIA PROPHYLAXIS WITHOUT FOOD. I learned that the hard way. I had a little bit of bread and water and was able to avoid vomiting but I almost would have preferred to just get the medicine out of my stomach so that the pain would stop. I have been careful since then to always eat before taking my Malaria prophylaxis. I have realized though that it needs to be a very significant amount of food, small meals only help a little. Although a handful of Swedish Fish seem to work quite well, don't take this as fact, it just seems to be so. I will have to test it out more and let you know.

And sorry about the weird way the pictures in my last post are showing up.

Almost One Month at Post

   So, I have been at post for almost one month now. I love my village but it is true that this is one of the lows. The stress of training is gone and the excitement of moving to post is almost gone. It has been difficult lately, especially with Christmas coming and knowing that all of my family in the States will be traveling soon to be together. I really hope that I will be able to talk to them soon.
   Other than that I have been settling into my village. I am pretty used to how things happen here. I wish that it were easier to get things that I need or want. I have to travel two hours on a rough road and pay six to ten thousand cfa just to get some of my necessities. It would not be so bad except that my house was totally empty when I moved in. It still is because I have to go to the carpenter to have furniture made and each piece of furniture costs almost half of my monthly pay check. Right now it looks like I will not have a furnished house until at least the end of summer. I have the bare essentials so it is fine. The only problem is that I work better when I am settled somewhere. Not having a comfortable place to go, or anywhere to sit at home, except the floor is rough.
   I have two pieces of furniture being made right now at the carpenter's. They are a dresser and a cabinet, so at least I will soon be able to put things away and maybe stop living out of my suitcases. I think that that will help a lot, just not having to dig through suitcases to find things that I need. The next things that I will have made, I think, will be a sofa set so that I can let people sit down when they come over and a dining table/desk with a few chairs. All of this will cost way more than my pay check. So, I think I will look into getting some money from home just to cover these things. After these few things I think I will be able to start being more comfortable in my house and will be more okay with slowly gathering furniture and dishes and other things that I will eventually need.

   I was finally able to buy some gas for my stove! So, I have been able to do a little bit of cooking. Mostly just eggs in the morning and some mashed potatoes. The mashed potatoes were amazing! It was great to have food like what I had in the States. I also made boiled dinner, without the meat, so that is cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and onions. I made this without the meat because the market day in my village is only every four days so meat is only available every fourth day and I do not have a fridge to keep any meats or left overs in.

   I am sorry that I sound so down. I had a stressful weekend, I am sick, and just kind of lonely. I will talk more about my village and my post mates in my next post. I miss everyone at home and hope that they are doing well. By the way, I am actually missing the snow right now. If anyone has some pictures of the snow there I would love to see it!

My Home Stay House

This is the kitchen. The stove is a gas stove. Gas is expensive though and not always available so my host family also had an outdoor kitchen that they used more often than the indoor kitchen.

This is also the kitchen. I have moved into my house at post and can't wait to get a table in my kitchen. For some reason counter space is not a thing here. I think it might have something to do with many people still cooking outdoors or using outdoor kitchens.

This is the sink. I did not think that helping my host mother with the dishes would teach me how to do dishes here in Cameroon but it did. I thought that she was going to have to explain it to me but just watching her and helping her with the house hold chores, like dishes helped me get ready to do these things on my own. So, watch and you will learn.

This is a marmite. It is a big heavy pot that EVERYONE uses to cook just about anything. I do not think that I saw anyone use any other cooking ware. I already have one at post that I also use to cook most everything.

This is baton de manioc. Many people here like it and eat it often as a snack or as part of dinner. I am sorry to say that I was never able to swallow a mouthful of it. It is not to my taste. It is a very Cameroonian thing though and I would suggest that everyone who visits Cameroon should give it a chance because who knows maybe it will be the best thing you have ever tried. It is mashed up manioc that is fermented and rolled up in some type of leaf, that I cannot remember right now, and tied with a string. It always looks good, I am often sad that I do not like it much.

This is the dinning room. I ate all of my meals at this table unless I was eating at school. I had breakfast and dinner here all the time and usually had lunch at the training center. This is also where I often talked to my host mother after dinner. I was surprised by my French many times here.

This is the hallway that lead to the bedrooms. My host parents' room is on the left and the bathroom is on the right just across from it and my bedroom was the next door down on the right. They also had the only washing machine that I have seen in Cameroon, although it was not hooked up. The water only ran every now and again so really it was probably that doing laundry by hand is more reliable than waiting for there to be enough water to run the machine. I was just surprised because I was told by many Peace Corps Volunteers that washing machines did not exist here, yet I found one.

This is the short passage to the bathroom. These buckets are for bathing or flushing the toilet when the water is not running. This was most of the time. I was lucky to have a well just in the backyard. I am so glad that I did not have to go all the way to a forage or anything. It was great!

This is where I took all of my bucket bathes. When I first got to Cameroon it took me an hour to wash my self from a bucket. Now I would say I can bath faster from a bucket than I can with a shower... or at least I can take a bucket bath just as fast as I can shower. We had a shower at my home stay and I did take advantage of it whenever the water was running. Once you get used to it though bucket baths are not too bad.

This is the washing machine that everyone told me did not exist. Ta Da! Here it is! My host parents rented out the other half of their house to another family so further down this hallway is a door that leads to the other side of the house. The door was usually locked but the neighbors considered my host parents to be like grand parents to their children so they would go over and visit all the time.

This is my bedroom. It used to have a lot more stuff but this is after I had packed up most of my stuff to go to post.

This is my closet with my bathing bucket. Also much more empty than it used to be due to packing.

These are my bidons that I saved bath water in and such so that I always had water when I needed.

This is the back of the washing machine. There was a very brave little mouse that lived under there and I swear it was after me. It would run right up to me and seem to challenge me. It would also purposely make a lot of noise during the night.

This is the living room with many different sofa sets. And that is my host dad playing solitaire.

So, these are pictures of my host family's house in Bafia. I hope that these pictures give an idea of a typical family home here. Honestly, before coming to Africa I thought that everyone lived in mud huts with dirt floors. Some places in Africa and Cameroon are still like that. Bafia is not one of them though. Even though houses are not usually dirt floors lizards are still common visitors in houses. They find their way in. No one even notices when there are lizards in the house because they are so common.