I have a request to make to my readers. If you think you can help the grant-writing process at all by providing leads to foundations or tips on inquiry letters and/or proposals that would be awesome. But above all else I would really like to give my friend Vitalis as many Star Trek DVDs as I can get my hands on. If you think you can help in this area please email me! (cgm33@cornell.edu).
So I have been asked to cover more about the culture and I just thought maybe really quick examples would be good. Just a few hours ago I got back from watching a movie at Helen’s place. Helen is a trainee from Holland and she is staying at a girl’s hostel. I admit that I am a little jealous because living with 2 girls who are not African sort of removes you a bit from the immersion I was hoping for. At the same time it’s really really nice not to have mice in our house like Helen has in her hostel room which she shares with a Cameroonian girl named Dorcas. What this ultimately means for Helen is that she is one six ft.-tall blonde haired, blue eyed girl among 45 Cameroonian college-age girls who worship the ground she walks on. We were interrupted twice in the span of one movie with invites to come upstairs and meet inquisitive residents as well as plates of food. It was really nice but when we were done with the movie I think everyone was asleep.
We know because we flashed them and they didn’t flash back. Flashing is a way to contact someone without spending too much valuable credit on a phone call. People here use a system sort of like our trac-phones, where they buy a certain amount of credit and then just add more as they need to. I definitely think it ends up being more than what Americans pay for with a monthly calling plan, but it does create jobs. I would say (and this I wish was a joke but it’s not) that 40% of the gainfully employed people around here sit all day long at little wooden boxes with their cell phone and wait for people to come along so they can put more credit on their customers’ phones. What’s really sad is that since there are hardly any chances for young ambitious graduates to jump into the work force (even at the bottom wrung of the ladder with plans to work one’s way up) you see that most of the call-box people have degrees and dreams and this is just the best way to feed themselves for the time being. It’s really tough. Bill told us the other day that only 30% of the graduates will find employment in Cameroon within two years of graduating. That makes the temporary recession-induced hiring freeze in the US seem like no big deal. That 30% has been a reality for Cameroon since the beginning of higher education, but yet so many kids still go because the government does make it pretty affordable to attend university. And the public universities are (similar to what Laura has said of German universities) much better than private schools. This fact is probably the only positive thing I’ve heard of the Cameroonian government since I came here.
A random thought before I go to bed. The way Cameroonians pronounce “government” is SO cool to me for some reason. Watch Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond and he says it once or twice and that’s close enough to get the idea. It just makes you feel like you are in a Bob Marley song or something. Hard to explain. Good night!
Oh wait, one last thought. I promise. The other day in class we were playing an icebreaker and I had a kid in my group who told me his name was Leonardo DiCaprio. I don’t think he was kidding. But then again the last name DiCaprio is not Cameroonian at all, there are NO Italians here. I was and still am really confused because he signed the attendance sheet as Leonardo DiCaprio and his email is apparently ghettoleoking@yahoo.com . I am glad I only joked with him about being Kate Winslet for a little while before dropping it.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
The Week of July 12th
Yesterday was a great day. For a while I was feeling my patience strain in interactions with Cameroonian co-workers, people on the street, and my housemates. I think I did a pretty good job of hiding it, and the impatient feelings have subsided at least for the time being. It’s frustrating to be late all the time (I know my readers are finding that statement hard to believe, coming from me) but when you’re late all the time just because people walk slow it kills me. I have had a very hard time parting from my usual walking speed- a very fast pace that emulates speed-walking, necessary for those who cut it really really close all the time. There is a different emphasis on punctuality depending on the culture of a place. Locals have told me that when they were young, on a few occasions they did show up on time, but after having to wait on the event or the other attendees for up to an hour, they realized that later is better. Here people leave at the time they said they would meet. If church starts at 10:00 then don’t get there until 10:20 because you would have ended up catching the last 20 minutes of the early service, then having to sit through the service you had intended to, which won’t end until quarter to 1.
On the subject of church: the service I went to this past Sunday bothered me. Laura and I went with our co-worker Pam to her church called the Mercenary Gospel Baptist Church. The music was great but it wasn’t enough to pull me out of the low mood the sermon put me in. The pastor who spoke was just visiting from Nigeria, and he had an agenda in Cameroon. He preached about how the Nigerians have prospered and capitalized on their natural resources because they have made Jesus their nation’s master. The word “master” was used a lot, and I found that really strange, considering Cameroon’s history with the slave trade. As the pastor went on to mix politics and religion I got more and more anxious to leave. I understand that people living in poverty under a dictatorship that stifles any attempt at private business ventures need to put their hope and faith more devotedly in God than those of us living in a capitalist world with more comforts and conveniences than we need. I get that. But until that church service I had really struggled with the causation for all the poverty here. Any Cameroonian will tell you that it isn’t lack of resources- it’s the government, it’s mismanagement. I was shocked at how comfortable everyone is with blaming the man and then resigning themselves to “there’s really nothing we can do, would you like some more cassava?” At church I saw why there is that resignation- and what a Westerner like me tries really hard not to say but can’t help but think- that complacency. Like the pastor advised, when people are studying for an exam, they put their faith in Christ and they will surely pass. When they are trying to open a business they pray for capitol and it will come. I think a certain amount of faith is healthy but in many cases here it is taken to the extreme and actually ends up in a non-productive dependency upon God. And at church that dependency was being perpetuated by a highly respected minister and I just didn’t like it. Maybe I overreacted but it was hard to shake off. I am realizing what exactly sets “The West” apart. One thing I’ve realized is that I am incredibly secular in thought, more so than I thought back at home.
This secular mentality leads me to the subject of an instance at work. I realize that first I need to sum up what I’m doing at work so here goes: Aya, Laura, and I go to work from 9 to 4 Monday through Friday. On Tuesday we go to a school called Zenith Evening School (which is really just a normal school, I don’t get the “evening” part of it) and teach about HIV/AIDS for an hour (that’s what we’re supposed to limit ourselves to, but last week we talked for an hour and 45 minutes). We try to get there by 11 because these are holiday classes and students are dismissed by noon. But again, we go over, and the kids don’t seem to care too much. On Mondays we spend a lot of time at the internet doing research about grants for NGO’s like ours, the Elyon Rock Foundation. I have had a lot of luck in finding loads of American Foundations (Coca-Cola, Carnegie, Mellon, etc.) but Laura has had a lot of trouble with German companies as is Aya with finding Japanese funding. I think Laura has actually given up on getting any money from her mother country and is now hitting up American foundations like me. Wednesdays we go to a school called Salvation Bilingual College (Cameroonians speak both French and English) and deliver the same lesson we did on Tuesday. Then we have Thursdays for donor research/proposal writing. Fridays are very busy because we have two schools, one at 9 and one at 11. The one at 9 is the tricky because it’s the St. Theresa Catholic Secondary School (we’ll talk more about that later) and the one at 11 is Summerset Bilingual College.
Always after teaching classes we head back to the office, then the internet to do more research and letter-writing. It seems mundane but classes and lunch are really exciting. Lunch probably more so because we have been hopping around from spot to spot- everyday we tried something new. That was until we found Mr. Clean． Mr. Clean actually went on vacation so now we are eating mostly at Mr. Munch. The reason these places attract us is because they do not serve tremendously spicy food. And Mr.Clean was really cheap, you could get good tasting rice and beans or ndole and plantains (my fave) for 350 francs, which is far less than a dollar.
So back to the religion in this culture. Today we were playing a game at Zenith with a class of 17 kids from ages 11 to 16. We may have overestimated ages because the game ended up being a bit awkwardly received. We asked questions of the class and kids would go to one side of the room marked “agree” or another side marked “disagree” or a different area marked “unsure”. Questions were “If a woman says no to having sexual intercourse, she really means no” or “I would drink out of the same glass as a person who is HIV positive” or “A woman cannot be raped by her husband.” It was the last one that really gave us some trouble. A third of the kids stood firmly along the “agree” wall. Aya thought that they must have misunderstood, (and to be on the safe side we repeat messages to the class almost three times because we each pose them with accents that make us hard to understand). I had a bad feeling that this was not the case and that in actuality these students were of the firm opinion that wives are property. It is worth mentioning that some of these agreeing students were girls. We asked a representative or two from each wall to explain why they chose the side they did. The one from the “agree” side said bluntly “the Bible says that a woman gives herself to a man when she marries him. A wife gives a man her body.” Aya and I looked at each other and I could tell she was going to protest somehow, but I suggested loudly that we hear from the disagree side and then move on. One of the rules I made for myself before beginning that game was that no matter how students felt I would try very hard not to make them feel wrong. It is their culture, I am an observer and by trying to impose my feminist values, (or what could be argued is just fundamental awareness of human rights), on them it would not change anything, but it might make us less wholeheartedly received. It was hardest though, to let the teacher sitting towards the back of the class applaud the kid for his statement and commend him on referencing the Bible. It was like what the kid was saying about rape was totally fine as long as it was from the Bible. The kid used the Bible to support rape. I know that he made that connection because Aya and I, after hearing his answer tried to ask in an objective way, if he would please define rape for us. He knew what it meant. Then we asked if there might be any occasion in which a woman would not consent to having intercourse with her husband. He said yes, maybe if she did not want to or did not want to have babies. So there is some sort of disconnect between the rightfulness or wrongfulness of rape in the circumstance of marriage- and that is imposed by the Bible, or this society’s interpretation of the Bible.
We are not allowed to educate students about condom use at St. Theresa’s Catholic School. We are to encourage abstinence although the priest/school master conceded that there are students at his school who may be sexually active. It’s funny that at the school where they tried to shelter the students most, I was asked twice for my number by boys in the class.
On the subject of church: the service I went to this past Sunday bothered me. Laura and I went with our co-worker Pam to her church called the Mercenary Gospel Baptist Church. The music was great but it wasn’t enough to pull me out of the low mood the sermon put me in. The pastor who spoke was just visiting from Nigeria, and he had an agenda in Cameroon. He preached about how the Nigerians have prospered and capitalized on their natural resources because they have made Jesus their nation’s master. The word “master” was used a lot, and I found that really strange, considering Cameroon’s history with the slave trade. As the pastor went on to mix politics and religion I got more and more anxious to leave. I understand that people living in poverty under a dictatorship that stifles any attempt at private business ventures need to put their hope and faith more devotedly in God than those of us living in a capitalist world with more comforts and conveniences than we need. I get that. But until that church service I had really struggled with the causation for all the poverty here. Any Cameroonian will tell you that it isn’t lack of resources- it’s the government, it’s mismanagement. I was shocked at how comfortable everyone is with blaming the man and then resigning themselves to “there’s really nothing we can do, would you like some more cassava?” At church I saw why there is that resignation- and what a Westerner like me tries really hard not to say but can’t help but think- that complacency. Like the pastor advised, when people are studying for an exam, they put their faith in Christ and they will surely pass. When they are trying to open a business they pray for capitol and it will come. I think a certain amount of faith is healthy but in many cases here it is taken to the extreme and actually ends up in a non-productive dependency upon God. And at church that dependency was being perpetuated by a highly respected minister and I just didn’t like it. Maybe I overreacted but it was hard to shake off. I am realizing what exactly sets “The West” apart. One thing I’ve realized is that I am incredibly secular in thought, more so than I thought back at home.
This secular mentality leads me to the subject of an instance at work. I realize that first I need to sum up what I’m doing at work so here goes: Aya, Laura, and I go to work from 9 to 4 Monday through Friday. On Tuesday we go to a school called Zenith Evening School (which is really just a normal school, I don’t get the “evening” part of it) and teach about HIV/AIDS for an hour (that’s what we’re supposed to limit ourselves to, but last week we talked for an hour and 45 minutes). We try to get there by 11 because these are holiday classes and students are dismissed by noon. But again, we go over, and the kids don’t seem to care too much. On Mondays we spend a lot of time at the internet doing research about grants for NGO’s like ours, the Elyon Rock Foundation. I have had a lot of luck in finding loads of American Foundations (Coca-Cola, Carnegie, Mellon, etc.) but Laura has had a lot of trouble with German companies as is Aya with finding Japanese funding. I think Laura has actually given up on getting any money from her mother country and is now hitting up American foundations like me. Wednesdays we go to a school called Salvation Bilingual College (Cameroonians speak both French and English) and deliver the same lesson we did on Tuesday. Then we have Thursdays for donor research/proposal writing. Fridays are very busy because we have two schools, one at 9 and one at 11. The one at 9 is the tricky because it’s the St. Theresa Catholic Secondary School (we’ll talk more about that later) and the one at 11 is Summerset Bilingual College.
Always after teaching classes we head back to the office, then the internet to do more research and letter-writing. It seems mundane but classes and lunch are really exciting. Lunch probably more so because we have been hopping around from spot to spot- everyday we tried something new. That was until we found Mr. Clean． Mr. Clean actually went on vacation so now we are eating mostly at Mr. Munch. The reason these places attract us is because they do not serve tremendously spicy food. And Mr.Clean was really cheap, you could get good tasting rice and beans or ndole and plantains (my fave) for 350 francs, which is far less than a dollar.
So back to the religion in this culture. Today we were playing a game at Zenith with a class of 17 kids from ages 11 to 16. We may have overestimated ages because the game ended up being a bit awkwardly received. We asked questions of the class and kids would go to one side of the room marked “agree” or another side marked “disagree” or a different area marked “unsure”. Questions were “If a woman says no to having sexual intercourse, she really means no” or “I would drink out of the same glass as a person who is HIV positive” or “A woman cannot be raped by her husband.” It was the last one that really gave us some trouble. A third of the kids stood firmly along the “agree” wall. Aya thought that they must have misunderstood, (and to be on the safe side we repeat messages to the class almost three times because we each pose them with accents that make us hard to understand). I had a bad feeling that this was not the case and that in actuality these students were of the firm opinion that wives are property. It is worth mentioning that some of these agreeing students were girls. We asked a representative or two from each wall to explain why they chose the side they did. The one from the “agree” side said bluntly “the Bible says that a woman gives herself to a man when she marries him. A wife gives a man her body.” Aya and I looked at each other and I could tell she was going to protest somehow, but I suggested loudly that we hear from the disagree side and then move on. One of the rules I made for myself before beginning that game was that no matter how students felt I would try very hard not to make them feel wrong. It is their culture, I am an observer and by trying to impose my feminist values, (or what could be argued is just fundamental awareness of human rights), on them it would not change anything, but it might make us less wholeheartedly received. It was hardest though, to let the teacher sitting towards the back of the class applaud the kid for his statement and commend him on referencing the Bible. It was like what the kid was saying about rape was totally fine as long as it was from the Bible. The kid used the Bible to support rape. I know that he made that connection because Aya and I, after hearing his answer tried to ask in an objective way, if he would please define rape for us. He knew what it meant. Then we asked if there might be any occasion in which a woman would not consent to having intercourse with her husband. He said yes, maybe if she did not want to or did not want to have babies. So there is some sort of disconnect between the rightfulness or wrongfulness of rape in the circumstance of marriage- and that is imposed by the Bible, or this society’s interpretation of the Bible.
We are not allowed to educate students about condom use at St. Theresa’s Catholic School. We are to encourage abstinence although the priest/school master conceded that there are students at his school who may be sexually active. It’s funny that at the school where they tried to shelter the students most, I was asked twice for my number by boys in the class.
week of July 12th
Yesterday was a great day. For a while I was feeling my patience strain in interactions with Cameroonian co-workers, people on the street, and my housemates. I think I did a pretty good job of hiding it, and the impatient feelings have subsided at least for the time being. It’s frustrating to be late all the time (I know my readers are finding that statement hard to believe, coming from me) but when you’re late all the time just because people walk slow it kills me. I have had a very hard time parting from my usual walking speed- a very fast pace that emulates speed-walking, necessary for those who cut it really really close all the time. There is a different emphasis on punctuality depending on the culture of a place. Locals have told me that when they were young, on a few occasions they did show up on time, but after having to wait on the event or the other attendees for up to an hour, they realized that later is better. Here people leave at the time they said they would meet. If church starts at 10:00 then don’t get there until 10:20 because you would have ended up catching the last 20 minutes of the early service, then having to sit through the service you had intended to, which won’t end until quarter to 1.
On the subject of church: the service I went to this past Sunday bothered me. Laura and I went with our co-worker Pam to her church called the Mercenary Gospel Baptist Church. The music was great but it wasn’t enough to pull me out of the low mood the sermon put me in. The pastor who spoke was just visiting from Nigeria, and he had an agenda in Cameroon. He preached about how the Nigerians have prospered and capitalized on their natural resources because they have made Jesus their nation’s master. The word “master” was used a lot, and I found that really strange, considering Cameroon’s history with the slave trade. As the pastor went on to mix politics and religion I got more and more anxious to leave. I understand that people living in poverty under a dictatorship that stifles any attempt at private business ventures need to put their hope and faith more devotedly in God than those of us living in a capitalist world with more comforts and conveniences than we need. I get that. But until that church service I had really struggled with the causation for all the poverty here. Any Cameroonian will tell you that it isn’t lack of resources- it’s the government, it’s mismanagement. I was shocked at how comfortable everyone is with blaming the man and then resigning themselves to “there’s really nothing we can do, would you like some more cassava?” At church I saw why there is that resignation- and what a Westerner like me tries really hard not to say but can’t help but think- that complacency. Like the pastor advised, when people are studying for an exam, they put their faith in Christ and they will surely pass. When they are trying to open a business they pray for capitol and it will come. I think a certain amount of faith is healthy but in many cases here it is taken to the extreme and actually ends up in a non-productive dependency upon God. And at church that dependency was being perpetuated by a highly respected minister and I just didn’t like it. Maybe I overreacted but it was hard to shake off. I am realizing what exactly sets “The West” apart. One thing I’ve realized is that I am incredibly secular in thought, more so than I thought back at home.
This secular mentality leads me to the subject of an instance at work. I realize that first I need to sum up what I’m doing at work so here goes: Aya, Laura, and I go to work from 9 to 4 Monday through Friday. On Tuesday we go to a school called Zenith Evening School (which is really just a normal school, I don’t get the “evening” part of it) and teach about HIV/AIDS for an hour (that’s what we’re supposed to limit ourselves to, but last week we talked for an hour and 45 minutes). We try to get there by 11 because these are holiday classes and students are dismissed by noon. But again, we go over, and the kids don’t seem to care too much. On Mondays we spend a lot of time at the internet doing research about grants for NGO’s like ours, the Elyon Rock Foundation. I have had a lot of luck in finding loads of American Foundations (Coca-Cola, Carnegie, Mellon, etc.) but Laura has had a lot of trouble with German companies as is Aya with finding Japanese funding. I think Laura has actually given up on getting any money from her mother country and is now hitting up American foundations like me. Wednesdays we go to a school called Salvation Bilingual College (Cameroonians speak both French and English) and deliver the same lesson we did on Tuesday. Then we have Thursdays for donor research/proposal writing. Fridays are very busy because we have two schools, one at 9 and one at 11. The one at 9 is the tricky because it’s the St. Theresa Catholic Secondary School (we’ll talk more about that later) and the one at 11 is Summerset Bilingual College.
Always after teaching classes we head back to the office, then the internet to do more research and letter-writing. It seems mundane but classes and lunch are really exciting. Lunch probably more so because we have been hopping around from spot to spot- everyday we tried something new. That was until we found Mr. Clean． Mr. Clean actually went on vacation so now we are eating mostly at Mr. Munch. The reason these places attract us is because they do not serve tremendously spicy food. And Mr.Clean was really cheap, you could get good tasting rice and beans or ndole and plantains (my fave) for 350 francs, which is far less than a dollar.
So back to the religion in this culture. Today we were playing a game at Zenith with a class of 17 kids from ages 11 to 16. We may have overestimated ages because the game ended up being a bit awkwardly received. We asked questions of the class and kids would go to one side of the room marked “agree” or another side marked “disagree” or a different area marked “unsure”. Questions were “If a woman says no to having sexual intercourse, she really means no” or “I would drink out of the same glass as a person who is HIV positive” or “A woman cannot be raped by her husband.” It was the last one that really gave us some trouble. A third of the kids stood firmly along the “agree” wall. Aya thought that they must have misunderstood, (and to be on the safe side we repeat messages to the class almost three times because we each pose them with accents that make us hard to understand). I had a bad feeling that this was not the case and that in actuality these students were of the firm opinion that wives are property. It is worth mentioning that some of these agreeing students were girls. We asked a representative or two from each wall to explain why they chose the side they did. The one from the “agree” side said bluntly “the Bible says that a woman gives herself to a man when she marries him. A wife gives a man her body.” Aya and I looked at each other and I could tell she was going to protest somehow, but I suggested loudly that we hear from the disagree side and then move on. One of the rules I made for myself before beginning that game was that no matter how students felt I would try very hard not to make them feel wrong. It is their culture, I am an observer and by trying to impose my feminist values, (or what could be argued is just fundamental awareness of human rights), on them it would not change anything, but it might make us less wholeheartedly received. It was hardest though, to let the teacher sitting towards the back of the class applaud the kid for his statement and commend him on referencing the Bible. It was like what the kid was saying about rape was totally fine as long as it was from the Bible. The kid used the Bible to support rape. I know that he made that connection because Aya and I, after hearing his answer tried to ask in an objective way, if he would please define rape for us. He knew what it meant. Then we asked if there might be any occasion in which a woman would not consent to having intercourse with her husband. He said yes, maybe if she did not want to or did not want to have babies. So there is some sort of disconnect between the rightfulness or wrongfulness of rape in the circumstance of marriage- and that is imposed by the Bible, or this society’s interpretation of the Bible.
We are not allowed to educate students about condom use at St. Theresa’s Catholic School. We are to encourage abstinence although the priest/school master conceded that there are students at his school who may be sexually active. It’s funny that at the school where they tried to shelter the students most, I was asked twice for my number by boys in the class.
On the subject of church: the service I went to this past Sunday bothered me. Laura and I went with our co-worker Pam to her church called the Mercenary Gospel Baptist Church. The music was great but it wasn’t enough to pull me out of the low mood the sermon put me in. The pastor who spoke was just visiting from Nigeria, and he had an agenda in Cameroon. He preached about how the Nigerians have prospered and capitalized on their natural resources because they have made Jesus their nation’s master. The word “master” was used a lot, and I found that really strange, considering Cameroon’s history with the slave trade. As the pastor went on to mix politics and religion I got more and more anxious to leave. I understand that people living in poverty under a dictatorship that stifles any attempt at private business ventures need to put their hope and faith more devotedly in God than those of us living in a capitalist world with more comforts and conveniences than we need. I get that. But until that church service I had really struggled with the causation for all the poverty here. Any Cameroonian will tell you that it isn’t lack of resources- it’s the government, it’s mismanagement. I was shocked at how comfortable everyone is with blaming the man and then resigning themselves to “there’s really nothing we can do, would you like some more cassava?” At church I saw why there is that resignation- and what a Westerner like me tries really hard not to say but can’t help but think- that complacency. Like the pastor advised, when people are studying for an exam, they put their faith in Christ and they will surely pass. When they are trying to open a business they pray for capitol and it will come. I think a certain amount of faith is healthy but in many cases here it is taken to the extreme and actually ends up in a non-productive dependency upon God. And at church that dependency was being perpetuated by a highly respected minister and I just didn’t like it. Maybe I overreacted but it was hard to shake off. I am realizing what exactly sets “The West” apart. One thing I’ve realized is that I am incredibly secular in thought, more so than I thought back at home.
This secular mentality leads me to the subject of an instance at work. I realize that first I need to sum up what I’m doing at work so here goes: Aya, Laura, and I go to work from 9 to 4 Monday through Friday. On Tuesday we go to a school called Zenith Evening School (which is really just a normal school, I don’t get the “evening” part of it) and teach about HIV/AIDS for an hour (that’s what we’re supposed to limit ourselves to, but last week we talked for an hour and 45 minutes). We try to get there by 11 because these are holiday classes and students are dismissed by noon. But again, we go over, and the kids don’t seem to care too much. On Mondays we spend a lot of time at the internet doing research about grants for NGO’s like ours, the Elyon Rock Foundation. I have had a lot of luck in finding loads of American Foundations (Coca-Cola, Carnegie, Mellon, etc.) but Laura has had a lot of trouble with German companies as is Aya with finding Japanese funding. I think Laura has actually given up on getting any money from her mother country and is now hitting up American foundations like me. Wednesdays we go to a school called Salvation Bilingual College (Cameroonians speak both French and English) and deliver the same lesson we did on Tuesday. Then we have Thursdays for donor research/proposal writing. Fridays are very busy because we have two schools, one at 9 and one at 11. The one at 9 is the tricky because it’s the St. Theresa Catholic Secondary School (we’ll talk more about that later) and the one at 11 is Summerset Bilingual College.
Always after teaching classes we head back to the office, then the internet to do more research and letter-writing. It seems mundane but classes and lunch are really exciting. Lunch probably more so because we have been hopping around from spot to spot- everyday we tried something new. That was until we found Mr. Clean． Mr. Clean actually went on vacation so now we are eating mostly at Mr. Munch. The reason these places attract us is because they do not serve tremendously spicy food. And Mr.Clean was really cheap, you could get good tasting rice and beans or ndole and plantains (my fave) for 350 francs, which is far less than a dollar.
So back to the religion in this culture. Today we were playing a game at Zenith with a class of 17 kids from ages 11 to 16. We may have overestimated ages because the game ended up being a bit awkwardly received. We asked questions of the class and kids would go to one side of the room marked “agree” or another side marked “disagree” or a different area marked “unsure”. Questions were “If a woman says no to having sexual intercourse, she really means no” or “I would drink out of the same glass as a person who is HIV positive” or “A woman cannot be raped by her husband.” It was the last one that really gave us some trouble. A third of the kids stood firmly along the “agree” wall. Aya thought that they must have misunderstood, (and to be on the safe side we repeat messages to the class almost three times because we each pose them with accents that make us hard to understand). I had a bad feeling that this was not the case and that in actuality these students were of the firm opinion that wives are property. It is worth mentioning that some of these agreeing students were girls. We asked a representative or two from each wall to explain why they chose the side they did. The one from the “agree” side said bluntly “the Bible says that a woman gives herself to a man when she marries him. A wife gives a man her body.” Aya and I looked at each other and I could tell she was going to protest somehow, but I suggested loudly that we hear from the disagree side and then move on. One of the rules I made for myself before beginning that game was that no matter how students felt I would try very hard not to make them feel wrong. It is their culture, I am an observer and by trying to impose my feminist values, (or what could be argued is just fundamental awareness of human rights), on them it would not change anything, but it might make us less wholeheartedly received. It was hardest though, to let the teacher sitting towards the back of the class applaud the kid for his statement and commend him on referencing the Bible. It was like what the kid was saying about rape was totally fine as long as it was from the Bible. The kid used the Bible to support rape. I know that he made that connection because Aya and I, after hearing his answer tried to ask in an objective way, if he would please define rape for us. He knew what it meant. Then we asked if there might be any occasion in which a woman would not consent to having intercourse with her husband. He said yes, maybe if she did not want to or did not want to have babies. So there is some sort of disconnect between the rightfulness or wrongfulness of rape in the circumstance of marriage- and that is imposed by the Bible, or this society’s interpretation of the Bible.
We are not allowed to educate students about condom use at St. Theresa’s Catholic School. We are to encourage abstinence although the priest/school master conceded that there are students at his school who may be sexually active. It’s funny that at the school where they tried to shelter the students most, I was asked twice for my number by boys in the class.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
I would love to know who "mjkgvl" is! Right now I'm mystified, so if it's you please email me. cgm33@cornell.edu
To anybody checking in on this blog I'm sorry it's been a while, but my computer may have a deadly virus so I have to approach the blog-writing process a bit differently now. I had been writing them at home and then putting them on a USB stick and transferring them at internet cafes. More coming soon!
To anybody checking in on this blog I'm sorry it's been a while, but my computer may have a deadly virus so I have to approach the blog-writing process a bit differently now. I had been writing them at home and then putting them on a USB stick and transferring them at internet cafes. More coming soon!
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Limbe
Today Bryan, an eccentric and religious AIESECer decided that it was time to show us around Cameroon and orchestrated a trip to Limbe. Limbe is as tourist-y as Cameroon gets according to my guide book. I was expecting a ton of white people and tacky hotels etc, but I was really surprised. What I love about Limbe is what I love about Cameroon overall: it’s so untouched by tourism that the epicenter of tourism consisted of a beach with little huts for beach-goers to sit and have a complimentary drink and a wildlife center with a relatively steep admittance fee for non-nationals. There was a hotel near the beach, but I don’t even think there was a sign for it. Today I did see the third, fourth, and fifth white person so far in the last two weeks. Pamela and Helen (co-workers from Elyon Rock Foundation), Aya, Laura, Helen (trainee from the Netherlands), Bryan, and Bill (our boss) had a fantastic dinner at Down Beach after a beautiful day of swimming at Seme Beach. I have never been to a black sand beach nor had such amazing fish (eating fish with your hands makes it automatically taste better) . The water was so warm I could have stayed in all day.
I think the trainees and the lifeguard may have been the only ones comfortable with swimming because most people just waded, or maybe it was too cold for the natives of Cameroon because it is their rainy season after all. Most say that it’s so chilly while I’m standing next to them frizzy and sweating.
Laura, Aya, and I are all taking a little break right now and uploading pictures from the day and exchanging music. It’s really nice to be at home but we are hardly ever on break from the hectic socialite lifestyle.
Cameroonians are seemingly bred and raised to seek out foreigners and make them feel like celebrities and keep them under their wings by cooking for them and protecting them. After eating fish with Bill today he helped us get a cab back to Buea. He made us get out of the first one we entered because he had a bad feeling about the driver, then when we got in the second he had a stern talk with the driver to ensure that he’d be careful on the road. I know it might seem like perhaps it was necessary for Bill to be so cautious, but it wasn’t. He’s an overprotective African father. I feel bad for his future kids and am appreciative of his care of us.
I love being shown around by the people who live in this beautiful country because we live the way they do- we don’t do things that are too expensive because they themselves can’t afford it, we don’t get jipped at the market, they’ll braid our hair (I wish the connection would be fast enough to upload pictures of the braids I got) and they’ll go into the back of a restaurant’s kitchen to make sure “everything is clean enough back there”.
I think the trainees and the lifeguard may have been the only ones comfortable with swimming because most people just waded, or maybe it was too cold for the natives of Cameroon because it is their rainy season after all. Most say that it’s so chilly while I’m standing next to them frizzy and sweating.
Laura, Aya, and I are all taking a little break right now and uploading pictures from the day and exchanging music. It’s really nice to be at home but we are hardly ever on break from the hectic socialite lifestyle.
Cameroonians are seemingly bred and raised to seek out foreigners and make them feel like celebrities and keep them under their wings by cooking for them and protecting them. After eating fish with Bill today he helped us get a cab back to Buea. He made us get out of the first one we entered because he had a bad feeling about the driver, then when we got in the second he had a stern talk with the driver to ensure that he’d be careful on the road. I know it might seem like perhaps it was necessary for Bill to be so cautious, but it wasn’t. He’s an overprotective African father. I feel bad for his future kids and am appreciative of his care of us.
I love being shown around by the people who live in this beautiful country because we live the way they do- we don’t do things that are too expensive because they themselves can’t afford it, we don’t get jipped at the market, they’ll braid our hair (I wish the connection would be fast enough to upload pictures of the braids I got) and they’ll go into the back of a restaurant’s kitchen to make sure “everything is clean enough back there”.
Around June 9th- Some weird things and Jupiter Night Club
In the mornings around 9:00 Aya, Laura, and I head to work. We walk to the end of our long muddy road, through a nice little middle-class neighborhood (which is uncommon- middle class is almost non-existent here in Cameroon) and by the Bee-yah-ka (not sure how it’s actually spelled) nursing school. Beeyahka junction is the place where the big main road meets ours. By big main road I mean a wide single lane road, median, and then another single lane road with traffic flow in the opposite direction. We just have to stand there and then a cab will pull over and you hop in, sometimes sitting on laps, sometimes sitting so close to the stick-shift that you get yelled at when the driver needs to up-shift. A couple mornings ago a cab pulled up to us and there was no way all three of us could fit in so we flagged another one. The second pulled up but the first didn’t move on like we encouraged. Instead the driver of the first started yelling “whites whites” and kicked a passenger out of his cab to make room for all three of us. We probably shouldn’t have gotten in but I think I may have been the only one of the three of us to hear his reason for kicking out the backseat passenger. I was so incredulous that I didn’t bring it up until much later that day. The special treatment and the extra attention is really getting to be too much and it’s actually fatiguing to try to diffuse and ignore it.
Here’s another case. We were leaving the NGO walking towards that same main road after work the same day and a group of guys were just finishing a soccer game. Since we are just on the boundary of campus I was intrigued as to whether it was intramurals or the University of Buea varsity team. Either way, they started yelling hellos at us as we walked by. A bunch of sweaty guys crowded around Aya and I and kept asking for a pen. They were holding plastic orange soccer cleats and trying to give them to us. I said “no thanks” but gave them the Sharpie I had in my bag. Then they gave it back to me and thrust the cleats towards me and kept saying that they wanted my autograph. I broke into laughter and couldn’t see a graceful way out so I slapped a big Kate McDermott on both. The guy told me, “don’t worry, I’m very good.” Phew, glad he’s good.
The last incident: while Bryan was taking my picture by the ocean I noticed there was a group of Cameroonian men crowding around him. They had a talk with him and then he came up to me relaying a message from them. They were wondering if one by one they could get a picture with me. Bryan stressed that it was OK to say no and I probably should have but I have been very worried about seeming snotty, thus misrepresenting Americans as a whole, so I said sure. It’s very hard to know what to do in situations that make you feel like a person in a Cinderella costume at Disney world.
Some of the friends Aya made early on invited us to go dancing with them. We met with them at 11pm and got to the club soon after. It wasn’t what I expected at all. It was a set up so that affordable drinks were served to an audience of live music in the cabaret, and then you could enter the night club. There was a coat check and a few security guards. So far I would say that Jupiter Night Club and Cabaret has been the most well-organized establishment I’ve visited in Cameroon thus far. The dancing was great. I was fully prepared for American hip hop and lots of MJ because that’s what has been blaring out of street-side shops and taxi radios, but I was pleasantly surprised with a majority of Macosa, a genre born in Cameroon similar to jazz but with more African upbeat. It was tricky to dance to though because I think I am usually very influenced by the dancers around me, and the dancing style here is way different than at home. I noticed that the movements are much freer but at the same time really repetitive. My AIESEC friend Eshwa stood in the same spot all night (for more than four hours) and sort of bounced and stepped from side to side the entire time. Very little variation. And that was typical. I had an epiphany though, because at one point in the night they played a really cool tribal song and people did the traditional dance that goes with the tribal song. That dance explained everything. If you’ve ever seen video footage of tribal dances the people were doing something similar, like a stutter step and quick head bobs. It’s really hard to put to words without being able to demonstrate- sorry. For anyone still reading this I salute you for hanging in there. Anyway, it just seemed so cool to me that all the young people in the club are embracing the hip hop of America (which actually was played periodically throughout the night) while loving their roots and dancing with the rhythms and movements ingrained in them by the traditions of their tribes.
The way tribes work, according to Bill (my boss), is as follows: Cameroon has ** provinces and each is divided into something around 13 tribes. Obviously the tribes came first and then had something to do with the way the provinces were divided up, but the German then British and French trumped the chiefs’ preferences. Bill’s dad was a chief in Limbe, and he married a princess from another tribe. Today policies are still made by tribal chiefs as well as city council members and national government people. It sounds as though the chiefs are losing more and more power in decision-making though. But as consolation the cities allow chiefs to keep their royal compounds even if it the city around the compounds wants to infringe. It’s really funny to walk by the chief’s compound in Molyko (the part of Buea where we work and the students’ College Town), because there’s this flag flying high above a little hut of thatch and bamboo, sandwiched between two pretty substantial concrete story buildings. The chief customarily has multiple wives. All the students at The University of Buea belong to tribes located throughout the English-speaking part of Cameroon (so either from the Northwest Province or this, the Southwest Province). Since every student knows English, French, and their tribal tongue, they are all tri-lingual. I take that back- they all know Pigeon English so that makes four languages total. It was really surprising to me that the tribal influences are still so strong even among young people; you’d never know by seeing them or getting to know them that they all so actively maintain traditional ways.
Monday, July 6, 2009
July 4-5
I had a lot of fun this weekend. Asher, Laura, Aya, and I were invited to Helen’s birthday party which took place yesterday on the fourth of July. I got the invite in an email before I even met Helen in person. I think as of yet that event has been the most emblematic of Cameroonian hospitality. Helen has been in the country for 7 weeks and has 7 more to go, she’s a Dutch 22 year-old working for Design Systems, an NGO which is focusing on bringing internet to Cameroon. I think basically the NGO is poised to become and internet café, and I am not sure if that’s a legit non-profit, but whatever, they threw a good party. That’s right, Heleen’s co-workers took it upon themselves to throw her a phenomenal Cameroonian-style birthday party. I think she ma y have given them money but they cooked all the food, organized music, games, bought her presents, and organized. They designated one of the biggest personalities in the business to MC. We were all in one main room, which has already been filled with desks and computers (donated from the US or Europe, and then purchased at Cameroonian prices), lined up against the walls, each of us seated in plastic lawn chairs. The first portion of the party was to have Helen stand outside and wait as we all counted to 21. On twenty-two she was told to enter the party and proclaim her age and everyone clapped. It was really sweet and she started crying as fifty people (her Cameroonian co-workers, Cameroonian AIESECers, and Cameroonian women’s basketball teammates) all sang happy birthday to her. We progressed through various speeches and introductions of new segments of the party. There was a very formal giving of gifts, in which we all lined up and gave them to her, then a game in which we asked Helen pre-written questions (I think the boss wrote them). One question was sort of awkward; it was “what do most Americans and Europeans think of Africans?” Then we ate fantastic food, I may or may not have taken pictures, I can’t remember. Finally the night ended with AIESEC dances (see above), only two of which I knew and 1 was Cotton-Eye Joe- the completely African version.
Today was also very nice because we went to our co-worker, Helen’s house to watch what I believe is her favorite movie- Twighlight. I had actually never seen it and it was good, especially because she filled in all the gaps at the end. She’s a remarkable person in that she reads everything that she can get her hands on, which I think (not to generalize, but just based on observations) is unusual in this culture. She wants to be a writer, and she majored in journalism at the University of Buea, right next to our NGO, but she is torn. She has a place to stay with her sister in the US and she wants to go, but if she goes she realizes that she may not be able to get a job in journalism because of her thick accent. Her sister has advised her to go into either pharmacy or nursing, but I hope she writes a novel or story someday because she told us the story of Twighlight: Part Two and she made it very captivating.
Before Sheila and Pamela, other co-workers picked us up on the way to Helen’s house, we had tried to prepare lunch. It went really badly. I am proud to say that I didn’t mess anything up. Laura (and this easily could have been me) tried to fry onion to add to an omelet, but the silver of the pan we were using somehow melted off into the hot oil that she was heating. I am not sure what that pan is made of, but its Bill’s, our boss, and I bet he doesn’t cook very often, so he couldn’t have warned us. Then Laura dropped about half of a container of palm oil on the kitchen tiled floor and we had to leave it to get to Helen’s. Forgetting that it was there, when I came home an hour ago I wiped out. Aya and I spent a lot of time on our knees just rubbing the floor with a bar of soap. Water is off right now, we have no towels, paper towels don’t exist, and so we have a very soapy floor now, but it is less slippery than the straight-up oil. We were challenged yet again with meal prep and because Bill’s water boiler thing also broke today, we can’t heat water and thus can’t eat. Well, I take that back, I just had my Malarone pill and a forkful of Nutella-like chocolate paste, (probably my favorite Cameroonian food product). Better planning tomorrow.
I have decided that overall I am a very happy person. There’s the self-discovery my readers were waiting for! Aren’t you glad you’re still reading this blog? No really though, I was thinking as I laid in bed with three other girls last night, with a rumbling gut and a mosquito buzzing in my ear, that this is a great place, I am surrounded by amazing people, and I am SO enjoying my time here. If it was any easier I would have been very disappointed.
July 1-2
Today Laura, the trainee from Germany is really sick and couldn’t come to work. I’ve been staying with Eshwa in her apartment. Here in Cameroon an apartment consists of one room with a low full-size bed and colorful walls. At Mary’s (where Laura and Aya, the Japanese intern stay) there are very nice large tiles that Mary keeps immaculate despite the mud we all track in. At Eshwa’s there are various linoleum scraps that cover her floor. Running water is a luxury that Cameroonian, even relatively privileged students, can’t afford 24/7. Every time I’ve tried to use the tap for flushing, showering, or washing my hands at Mary’s “the water has been turned off”. I’m not sure if it is ever on. But at Eshwa’s (who I have deduced may be a little more wealthy) I have been able to flush the toilet once. That’s always a relief, because its really weird to just leave whatever you left in the bowl just hanging out until the next time the water is turned on. I have come up with maneuvers to escape from the bathroom without being seen. Last night Eshwa had her little sister over (here it is more like her “kid sista”) and Yvonne spent the night. I am really surprised that I slept so well with three in a full size bed. I am grateful that I sleep like a dead person.
I’m sort of sad that I won’t be staying with Eshwa anymore because she made me breakfast and we had good talks every night. We seriously talked until 1 am last night which is a HUGE deal considering Cameroonians normally go to sleep around 10pm. We had a really long talk about he slave trade and I found it very interesting that when history is taught in Cameroonian primary schools, both the negatives and positives of slave trade are covered, whereas in the US there can be no positive spin on the slave trade. I am still really having a hard time with their 50:50 breakdown of what was good about the slave trade and what was bad. Eshwa cited roads, European goods and infrastructure including buildings they still use today, commerce with the rest of the world, and advancements of all sorts. I asked her if they spent much time going over the way chiefs sold their own strong men to the slave traders, and she said yes, and that it really hindered the advancement of African society. It’s interesting to me that there is less sympathy towards African Americans from Africans than I expected. I feel that African Americans really grasp for heritage and “brotherhood” in Africans, but Africans are fairly nonplussed.
I went to the market with Mary so she could get food for dinner (which she did demonstration style so Aya, Laura, Asher, and I could fend for ourselves when al the AIESECers are gone for holiday (July 11 ). It was a really eye-opening experience. We got out of the cab (which 95% of people use here to get around, seeing as how no one can afford to own cars) and were greeted by a field of little shanty-stands. People selling everything from Matchbox cars to fish to traditional African fabric to mothballs were there advertising and selling their wares. A really cute little boy came up to me and waned to sell me these things that looked like Mentos from the heap of wrapped Mentos piled on a plate, balanced on his head. I wanted to give him money so I asked Mary if it was a good idea to get them. She really enthusiastically encouraged me (and positive enthusiasm from Mary is a big deal because she’s kind of too cool for school) and so I bout one bundle. She told me they’d make my clothes smell really good. When I got home I unwrapped them and realized they were mothballs, and was subsequently pressured a bit by Mary to put them in my suitcase. I’m not sure if she’s trying to prank me but I bet she actually likes the smell of mothballs. Needless to say I stink right now and have been searching in my suitcase (which is harder than it sounds because the lights inside are every dim and I have a hard time seeing anything) to fin that one friggen mothball.
I’ve been doing a lot of bonding with the girls from the West because they are all (except Aya) getting homesick. I really want to hang out with the Cameroonians more though. We go to bars and have drinks (the beer is pretty weak so I have been under control) and all the men there stare because here women don’t drink very often, we glow in the dark, and Asher and Laura have decided to smoke publicly. Here’s why I think that’s a terrible idea: Western ideals are really respected here, and there’s a good chance that women ma follow suit- I would not want to cause an epidemic of smokers in Cameroon. Even worse, we could be judged, which is probably more likely.
I have surprisingly not gotten sick yet, and thoroughly enjoying the food. Mom- be ready to be impressed- it’s super spicy and I’ve been clearing my plate at every meal. It’s so hot that I need to have tissues nearby because my nose starts to run. One of the dishes I’ve had twice now is Ndole: a really spicy mashed up biter weed with salty gritty past holding all together. It’s actually WAY better than the description. Bill, the boss at my NGO takes all his staff and volunteers out to lunch and describes each option before we order, and he somehow manages to make them sound really delicious without lying. Sorry that I don’t have that down yet. I LOVE plantains the most. They just boil them and peel them and you eat them with forks and they are delicious. Another thing is Cassava prepared in all different ways. There’s one way in which its beaten and rolled into a loaf and you pinch off bits and eat this gluey-textured (honestly, gluey tasting) in addition to spicy soup or a dip of sorts. The best was when Bill artfully described the soup we had yesterday (the stuff we suspect made Laura sick) and it arrived. We all looked at it and then politely tried not to look at each other because it was basically a fish in a bowl with some spicy sloppy broth that was probably mostly fish inards. Laura was too polite for her own good and ate it all. I may have done the same if it hadn’t been unbearably spicy for me. The fish are all sevred here with scales still on, bones and eyeballs still in. When grilled they are really good though, probably second only to plantains. I hope I haven’t been to critical in my descriptions because overall I love the food here and am a bit worried that American food will be too safe and bland for me when I get home.
I am moving into the apartment today after work. Yes, right now I am at work. Bill is out picking something up and Aya and I really don’t know what to do or how to do any work in general without Internet access, which will hopefully be set up in a month at the latest. We do work though, I promise. Every day we walk to the campus IT centre and pay a mere 200Francs ($1 = 455 Francs) for an hour of wireless access. I have been searching for foundations or subsets of big US companies that have grant initiatives. So far the odds are good that Bill’s NGO, Elyon Rock Foundation, will get some money via my efforts. I’m not sure how much, but I’m pretty certain that grant writing may be the best skill I can offer.
The NGO is doing a lot of really broad things. I am looking at the chalk board which we used for a briefing session just a few hours ago. Elyon Rock organizes and carries out a youth initiative called Kidz and Teenz which is sort of like DARE but instead of Drug Abuse Resistance Education focuses on getting kids inspired about their future careers, as well as educating them on the dangers and modes of prevention of HIV/AIDS/STIs etc. The Foundation also has a holiday workshop (like a day-camp thing) with talent contests, debate contests, Creative Talent workshops etc. The first big successful effort of the NGO was “Break In”, a film that was featured on the Africa Magic network that runs throughout the continent. Apparently this and other efforts in short film and T.V. series such as “Survival” and “Risky” are meant to entertain and address social ills at the same time.
The craziest thing about Cameroon is how welcoming the people are. I think that if I had travelled to any village within the US and just plopped myself down that way I did here, that I would be really homesick by now. There’s a very communal mentality and I’ve heard it expressed by at least 5 people by now: one person’s problem is everyone’s problem. Even my problem is their problem. It’s amazing. I’ve been offered cooking lessons and trips to the beach and movie/girls’ nights and I think Mary, an AIESECer is going to cornrow my hair…
I’m sort of sad that I won’t be staying with Eshwa anymore because she made me breakfast and we had good talks every night. We seriously talked until 1 am last night which is a HUGE deal considering Cameroonians normally go to sleep around 10pm. We had a really long talk about he slave trade and I found it very interesting that when history is taught in Cameroonian primary schools, both the negatives and positives of slave trade are covered, whereas in the US there can be no positive spin on the slave trade. I am still really having a hard time with their 50:50 breakdown of what was good about the slave trade and what was bad. Eshwa cited roads, European goods and infrastructure including buildings they still use today, commerce with the rest of the world, and advancements of all sorts. I asked her if they spent much time going over the way chiefs sold their own strong men to the slave traders, and she said yes, and that it really hindered the advancement of African society. It’s interesting to me that there is less sympathy towards African Americans from Africans than I expected. I feel that African Americans really grasp for heritage and “brotherhood” in Africans, but Africans are fairly nonplussed.
I went to the market with Mary so she could get food for dinner (which she did demonstration style so Aya, Laura, Asher, and I could fend for ourselves when al the AIESECers are gone for holiday (July 11 ). It was a really eye-opening experience. We got out of the cab (which 95% of people use here to get around, seeing as how no one can afford to own cars) and were greeted by a field of little shanty-stands. People selling everything from Matchbox cars to fish to traditional African fabric to mothballs were there advertising and selling their wares. A really cute little boy came up to me and waned to sell me these things that looked like Mentos from the heap of wrapped Mentos piled on a plate, balanced on his head. I wanted to give him money so I asked Mary if it was a good idea to get them. She really enthusiastically encouraged me (and positive enthusiasm from Mary is a big deal because she’s kind of too cool for school) and so I bout one bundle. She told me they’d make my clothes smell really good. When I got home I unwrapped them and realized they were mothballs, and was subsequently pressured a bit by Mary to put them in my suitcase. I’m not sure if she’s trying to prank me but I bet she actually likes the smell of mothballs. Needless to say I stink right now and have been searching in my suitcase (which is harder than it sounds because the lights inside are every dim and I have a hard time seeing anything) to fin that one friggen mothball.
I’ve been doing a lot of bonding with the girls from the West because they are all (except Aya) getting homesick. I really want to hang out with the Cameroonians more though. We go to bars and have drinks (the beer is pretty weak so I have been under control) and all the men there stare because here women don’t drink very often, we glow in the dark, and Asher and Laura have decided to smoke publicly. Here’s why I think that’s a terrible idea: Western ideals are really respected here, and there’s a good chance that women ma follow suit- I would not want to cause an epidemic of smokers in Cameroon. Even worse, we could be judged, which is probably more likely.
I have surprisingly not gotten sick yet, and thoroughly enjoying the food. Mom- be ready to be impressed- it’s super spicy and I’ve been clearing my plate at every meal. It’s so hot that I need to have tissues nearby because my nose starts to run. One of the dishes I’ve had twice now is Ndole: a really spicy mashed up biter weed with salty gritty past holding all together. It’s actually WAY better than the description. Bill, the boss at my NGO takes all his staff and volunteers out to lunch and describes each option before we order, and he somehow manages to make them sound really delicious without lying. Sorry that I don’t have that down yet. I LOVE plantains the most. They just boil them and peel them and you eat them with forks and they are delicious. Another thing is Cassava prepared in all different ways. There’s one way in which its beaten and rolled into a loaf and you pinch off bits and eat this gluey-textured (honestly, gluey tasting) in addition to spicy soup or a dip of sorts. The best was when Bill artfully described the soup we had yesterday (the stuff we suspect made Laura sick) and it arrived. We all looked at it and then politely tried not to look at each other because it was basically a fish in a bowl with some spicy sloppy broth that was probably mostly fish inards. Laura was too polite for her own good and ate it all. I may have done the same if it hadn’t been unbearably spicy for me. The fish are all sevred here with scales still on, bones and eyeballs still in. When grilled they are really good though, probably second only to plantains. I hope I haven’t been to critical in my descriptions because overall I love the food here and am a bit worried that American food will be too safe and bland for me when I get home.
I am moving into the apartment today after work. Yes, right now I am at work. Bill is out picking something up and Aya and I really don’t know what to do or how to do any work in general without Internet access, which will hopefully be set up in a month at the latest. We do work though, I promise. Every day we walk to the campus IT centre and pay a mere 200Francs ($1 = 455 Francs) for an hour of wireless access. I have been searching for foundations or subsets of big US companies that have grant initiatives. So far the odds are good that Bill’s NGO, Elyon Rock Foundation, will get some money via my efforts. I’m not sure how much, but I’m pretty certain that grant writing may be the best skill I can offer.
The NGO is doing a lot of really broad things. I am looking at the chalk board which we used for a briefing session just a few hours ago. Elyon Rock organizes and carries out a youth initiative called Kidz and Teenz which is sort of like DARE but instead of Drug Abuse Resistance Education focuses on getting kids inspired about their future careers, as well as educating them on the dangers and modes of prevention of HIV/AIDS/STIs etc. The Foundation also has a holiday workshop (like a day-camp thing) with talent contests, debate contests, Creative Talent workshops etc. The first big successful effort of the NGO was “Break In”, a film that was featured on the Africa Magic network that runs throughout the continent. Apparently this and other efforts in short film and T.V. series such as “Survival” and “Risky” are meant to entertain and address social ills at the same time.
The craziest thing about Cameroon is how welcoming the people are. I think that if I had travelled to any village within the US and just plopped myself down that way I did here, that I would be really homesick by now. There’s a very communal mentality and I’ve heard it expressed by at least 5 people by now: one person’s problem is everyone’s problem. Even my problem is their problem. It’s amazing. I’ve been offered cooking lessons and trips to the beach and movie/girls’ nights and I think Mary, an AIESECer is going to cornrow my hair…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)