Visit from a Volunteer and Women's Day

After PST-Reconnect, I traveled with Angelique back to my site for Women’s Day on March 8^th. We arrived in my village the day before the holiday and I showed her my small but adorable little house. The next day we got dressed in our Women’s Day pagne, I had the pink version and Angelique had the yellow version, and we went to the field. We went to watch the ceremony, hear the speeches, and see the march-pass. I greeted everyone that I knew and introduced Angelique to them. I tried to find the women’s group that I had been working with but I could not find them in the crowds. There were many speeches given. I was surprised that only two speeches were given by women. I wondered if it was a planning oversight or if all of the other capable women’s leaders were too shy. I was also surprised at how much bigger Youth Day celebrations had been compared to Women’s Day. It seems as though they should be celebrated with equal enthusiasm. The ceremony followed the same pattern that all Cameroonian holiday ceremonies follow. Near the end Angelique and I left so that we could get supplies for dinner.

               During her visit Angelique gave me some tips on how to cook since I did not know how to prepare much and had been making myself sick due to poor food prep. She also got to meet my cat who she now calls “psycho-kitty”. I swear that my cat is not that poorly behaved…

               Anyway the visit went well and at some point I will go to Angelique’s site as well. I saw her house because we stopped there on our way to my village but we only stayed the night so I did not get to see where she works or much of her village.

This is me in my Women's Day pagne with Olive, a friend of mine who is from Menji but is currently going to school in Yaounde.

PST-Reconnect

     PST-Reconnect is Pre-Service Training Reconnect. My training group had PST-Reconnect in Bamenda, the capital of the North-West region of Cameroon.


Doesn't Cameroon look kind of like a chicken? Yeah, it does.

So, the training was in Bamenda. We got to stay at a very nice hotel with showers and hot, running water! It was pretty great!

Our PST was mainly focused on technical training for the different sectors: Agriculture, now AgriBusiness, Youth Development, now Youth Empowerment, and Health. Whereas our PST-Reconnect was more focused on project development and planning and how to design an activity to best reach the people that it is created for. The training made me feel much more prepared for the work that lay ahead of me back at my site.

               Our counterparts, or local work partners, also attended this training and many of the sessions allowed us to work together with our counterparts to plan our projects and work. It was very good in making sure that the volunteer and their counterpart were on the same page and each knowing what was to be done. Each volunteer, with their counterpart, was to give a presentation based on the community studies that they each conducted in their respective communities. I was very pleased when my program manager congratulated me on my presentation! He said that I had done a wonderful job and that it was exactly what the program managers were looking for with the presentations.

               During our PST-reconnect, it was announced that one of our PCMOs (Peace Corps Medical Officers) was going to be finishing her service and returning home to the United States. She would be replaced in mid-August as she would not be leaving Cameroon until mid-July. It was sad to hear that she was going to be leaving. She was always very nice to me and always willing to try her best to do what she could for me. I hope that she is doing well now and that her replacement does a good job as well. It was also announced that our new CD (Country Director) had arrived and would soon be starting his duties. Our previous CD had already left Cameroon, having finished her term at the end of January. Many volunteers were sad to see her go because she was the CD who was present when we arrived in Cameroon and who was present at our swearing in as Peace Corps Volunteers.

               The conference was not all business; we had time to hang-out with our fellow volunteers outside of sessions and time to explore a little bit of Bamenda. Bamenda is the third largest city in Cameroon. Douala being the largest followed by Yaoundé. Some volunteers call it “Bamerica” because you can find many things there, although some things are easier to find in slightly smaller cities that are closer to Yaoundé or Douala. It is a nice place though and there is much more there than in a small village. During PST-Reconnect my friend, Angelique, and I did some exploring, mostly finding the market, and decided that we would have to go back and visit some time, especially since there were places that had hot, running water!

The First Three Months at Site

   The first three months at site are truly the hardest. I had heard this before going into Peace Corps but I did not realize how true it was until I experienced it. I was definitely pretty depressed; it was often difficult to get through each day. I missed home so much and even thought about telling admin that I wanted to go home. I decided to wait though and see how I would feel after PST-Reconnect (Pre-Service Training Reconnect). I am glad that I did because everything was much better after that. It is hard to describe exactly how I felt. It was a nice change after PST-Reconnect though; I felt better and was very glad to be feeling better. Sometimes you just need some time to adjust.

Youth Day, February 11th

  Leader of a nursery school group in the march-pass.

                Youth Day is a significant holiday celebrated in Cameroon on the 11^th of February. There is a ceremony where all of the schools and youth groups march past the delegates and important figures of the town. Jacob, my post-mate, and I went to the football field at 9:30am even though the program was supposed to have started at eight. We were not at all late; we waited just over an hour for the ceremony to begin. Once all of the grands or big men (important people in the town) had arrived the program started.

                First there was the raising of the Cameroonian flag and singing of the national anthem. This is how all of the national and international holidays start. The protocol and ceremony of things is very important here. There is a way that things are to be done. After the opening of the ceremony there were speeches given and then there was the march-pass of the youth. The march-pass started with the nursery schools, then the primary schools, secondary schools, technical schools, teacher training schools, and finally the youth groups. There were many, many schools and only a few youth groups. The march-pass took a long time because of all the schools and groups that were represented. The nursery school students were so cute! They marched with their knees coming up to their chests and their arms swinging wildly.

  Nursery school children marching.

  School children marching.

Then there were the private schools. You could tell which ones were private schools by their marching technique, which was very good. There was one private secondary school in particular that marched almost in unison. It was very clean and sharp.

  Impressive marching by a private school.

                After the march-pass the schools presented songs and then traditional dances. Once again the nursery school children were adorable!

 

Although some of the primary schools had great singers and some of the secondary schools had impressive traditional dances;

There was one dance where one of the dancers was up on stilts dancing. Then, as part of the dance, he used a pole to lower himself to the ground and then used the pole to pick himself back up onto his stilts. It looked terrifying (so terrifying that I forgot to take a picture!). The crowd loved it, even though these things are their own culture people still crowd around to see the dances and performances.

A note: Whenever the audience likes a group of singers, dancers, performers, they either drop money at the performer’s feet or stick it to the performer’s forehead. And yes, this is done in the middle of the performance. This is a tip for the performer and it means that that audience member is really enjoying their performance. This was done several times throughout the day and there really were some very good performers. I did not join in because I am still trying to establish myself in the community and did not want to start off by favoring groups.

Exercise

I have   started exercising, well running. I run about four times a week. I am really enjoying it and it makes me feel better. It is something to look forward to and to get up for in the morning when I don’t have anything else to get up for. I used to go and run at 6am but now I have moved it to 5am because it is still dark and there are no other people out yet. Running this early greatly reduces the number of people who stare at me, and if they are staring at me, I do not see as much of it because it is darker.

                I have rules though for myself since I do go running before the sun comes up. Rules: the power must be working so that there are street lights, there has to be at least a quarter moon for extra light, and if I ever have a bad feeling about it or get nervous because of people on my way to the field, I go home. I have gotten used to when people start to move around and what they should be doing if they are moving around very early. So far I have not really been nervous about anything because people are almost always doing typical sorts of things, like getting their car ready for passengers to Dschang.

                I am really glad that I started working out, or as they say here “making sport”. It has greatly improved my mood and my overall outlook on being here!

  The sun coming up over the mountains, as seen from the football (soccer) field.

Menji and Dschang

Menji is the village where I am posted. It has a population of about 5,000 people and is spread out through a valley in the mountains, in an area known as the Lebialem Highlands, in the South West region of Cameroon. Lebialem is the Division, Fontem is the Subdivision, and Menji is the town. Menji is rather hilly. Although there are not too many hills that are very steep it still takes some leg strength to trek (or as we say, walk) around Menji. So, walking around Menji is sometimes difficult but it is getting easier and it makes for beautiful scenery. The village is surrounded by mountains to which clouds and fog usually cling in the mornings or on overcast days.

                Peace Corps gives us bicycles to take to post with us (although I believe that I was part of the last training group that will be given bicycles). I realized, once I arrived in Menji, that I will not be using my bicycle very often or possibly at all, especially since I live on one of the biggest, steepest hills in town. It would have been nice to know this before bringing my bicycle all the way to Menji because it added quite a large cost to my travel costs.  Such is life though, you never know until you get there, you just have to prepare as well as you can with the information you have.

                Dschang is my banking city. It is at a higher elevation than Menji, so it is usually colder. Even though it is cooler it can still get hot during the days in dry season, just like Menji. I travel to Dschang typically every other weekend in order to pick up my monthly living allowance or things that I need that I cannot get in Menji. Or I use to do this but now I usually only go to pick up my allowance or because I am traveling through to somewhere else. To travel one way between Menji and Dschang costs between 2,500 fcfa – 6,000fcfa depending on the season, time of day, mode of transportation, and road conditions. By the way, there are 500fcfa to 1 U.S. Dollar, in case I have not mentioned it before. Right now it is 2,500fcfa in a car and 3,000fcfa on a motorcycle as one of two riders and 5,000fcfa as a single rider, this is because it is dry season and the roads are in better condition than in the rainy season.

                Dschang is very dusty right now since it is dry season. Even though the dust can get so bad that you are red, from the red dust, when you get off the bike, I prefer it over the mud. When the roads are muddy I am nervous traveling between Menji and Dschang because the bike slips sometimes.

                Dschang is definitely a city compared to Menji, although I do not know the exact population. (Note: Douala is the largest city in Cameroon with a population of just over 2million people.) I can get most things that I need, as in necessities, in Dschang but definitely not everything I could want. There are some things that simply cannot be found in Cameroon, for those things I must ask that they be sent from the States. Dschang has several large markets, super markets, and of course my bank. And, by the way, those super markets are not what we think of as a super market in the States; those are only in Yaoundé and Douala. It is also in the West region of Cameroon, this means that it is a francophone region. So, in order to pick up my monthly living allowance I must navigate the bank and the city in French! If nothing else I will have French banking vocabulary by the end of my service. This will certainly keep me from losing my French completely. I like Dschang except for the cold and dust but I like my village a little bit more. I also like how there are French speakers in Menji as well. I like speaking with these people because then I also get to practice my French in my own village.

Hair Extensions

Hair extensions are very common here; almost all women have hair extensions. They keep their hair short and then they simply braid/weave in their different hair extensions or styles. These hair extensions are also often colored with colors like blond (the only natural color), red, blue, green, purple, yellow, orange, and pink. Women living in cities and villages alike use hair extensions almost all of the time. Just like women in the States change their hair style, women here change out their hair extensions. Many people ask me if I use hair extensions because I have long hair and when I tell them that I do not have them they suggest I try it. I have heard however that if you have long hair then it is expensive and takes a very long time to braid the styles in. I might try it at some point but I would probably but my hair a bit first. I had wanted to try to use this time to grow my hair out though. We’ll see.