I have never been so impressed with my legs! Aya and I got to the summit of Africa's second highest peak- Mount Cameroon. I think it is 4,099 meters and we made it with minimal altitude issues and no injuries! The way up was challenging and thrilling. Contrary to what the locals told us the weather was beautiful. In fact the sun you see here is the best sunshine we've gotten throughout our whole stay in Buea. Once you get above the permanent cloud cover the air is drier and the landscape surreal. The way down was probably the longest duration of pain I've ever experienced as I forgot to pack Advil. Overall the climb was the coolest thing I think I've ever done.

Interesting...

if anyone has time it's really interesting to read my friend Helen's blog. I met her in Buea and worked with her for a month. She is an amazing person and I definitely have referenced her in this blog. She is now in the United States where she'll be living permanently. She's never left Cameroon before and her impressions will be really interesting. She's an incredible writer and I loved what I just read of her blog!

her blog, "New Soul" is at outofbuea.blogspot.com

Also, how's it going with the hunt for Star Trek DVDs? I am not above pirating...

Work

I haven’t posted much about my experience at the Elyon Rock Foundation because every day I leave with a different feeling. In reflection I never really know what to make of it. I guess I can elaborate on the complexity that is the work situation here in Cameroon. And I mean work in the broadest sense because the problems facing this NGO are present in every single business in this country. Work, for people here goes like this:

Every morning I wake up and go to work and there’s really no problem if we are ten or twenty or thirty minutes late because I think everyone is. And if not, then somehow being temporary unpaid international interns in the foundation makes us impervious to rules which might apply to employees. We never knowingly take advantage of these relaxed rules, but I think we are late more frequently here than we would be at home becsue its so acceptable. I actually have a hard time accepting my own tardiness because I know I am on some level not contribution my very best here, but the climate of mediocrity (when it comes to productivity ad output) is so pervasive that the other two interns and I are just trying not to get completely swept away in it. I guess I can some it all up this way: it feels like I am 60% on vacation and 40% here to work productively. And I would add that that’s on a good day.

It’s tough because I’ve reserved making judgments about the African work ethic due to the economic situation here. What I see (or to be correct what I used to see- let me get to that later) in the office are two employees, Pam and Sammy, Bill in his office and two to four volunteers who after three months of “probation” have the potential to be paid. They are all idly pecking on computers or reading reports that have been re-written literally four times. Bill funds this very nice third-floor office and underlying two-story school facility with his family’s money. Bill’s parents are a chief and a princess, his brother is a neurologist in Italy, his sister a fashion designer in Washington state, and his other brother is somewhere else abroad making a ton of money. So he gets money from the fam; probably from his siblings as a thank-you for staying home to take care of their mom, as I think she’s pretty sick. Bill’s dream is to create movies, and as he is very religious and sensitive to the social inequities here he decided in college that he would create socially-relevant films and pioneer the Cameroonian film industry. I wish he could have just stayed with the one consolidated dream and go after it, but I think he began an NGO because that’s how someone with limited means can start a company here, call it an NGO, do some charitable things, get some foreign funding and you’re all set. The only money seems to come from outside Cameroon. Spoke with a recent graduate from the University of Buea last night (an AIESECer of course) and he said that the only way to get employment here is to start your own business. There are no jobs to be found for even the most qualified individuals. Either start your own here (somehow) or get out of the country.

I will try to get to the point here: the reason everyone is so non-productive is because there is only enough money for rent for this space. There’s no money to advertise the upcoming Shalom Academy enrollment period in which we need ten students to enroll in all of the following schools: Business and Management, Social Studies, Creative Arts, and Information Technology, in order to actually break even. There’s no money to pay the promised and to-be publicized scholarship in tuition for qualified staff members of community-based organizations and social rehabilitation groups, as well as current students. Thus we have empty promises and cannot fund execution of this project which has cost Bill so much money that he hasn’t paid Pam and Sammy for three months. But this is a viscous cycle, just keep reading.

So he’s sunk all this money into the first financially sustainable dream he’s dreamt (among MANY unexecuted, poorly-planned dreams) and he can’t get the return because we don’t have money. And he’s relying on his three interns to get donor funding before enrollment ends in October and theoretically classes begin. But no Foundation will ever give him money because it’s not viable.

Poor Bill has given assignments to his volunteers and Pam and Sammy in hopes that they can pull together a budget and prepare us with the logistics we need to write these proposals. Sometimes I write bullshit about what I think they should do, for instance to evaluate the success of Shalom Academy by holding board meetings and feedback session with faculty and handing out evaluation forms to students, and then he’ll read it and say, “that’s a great idea, we will definitely do that.” So that part has been fun. But as far as receiving any hard information on logistics, the most I have gotten is a problem tree (e.g. economic hardship leads to illiteracy leads to unemployment and Shalom Academy will solve that), addressing none of the budgeting or logistical concerns. I am not even convinced that we have teachers still on board to teach in October.

So today Laura, Aya, and I walked in and no one was here but Bill. My heart sunk because Bill is an awesome guy and although he lacks practical business skills he has a great heart and it’s sad that his unpaid team had no choice but to desert him. But no, Pam and Sammy did eventually come to work, but the rest of the volunteers have left. It’s funny because in all the proposals I have still been instructed to write that the staffing of Elyon Rock Foundation is “composed of the senate made up of eight staff members, the committee of joint heads made up of six staff members, and general members and volunteers”. I have no idea if they’ll actually make me write the names of former employees and volunteers, (as there have been many) or if they will eventually realize that that’s illegal. Maybe I’ll have to remind them…

In comparison to the output of the staff here the interns are this organization’s life force. We are teaching HIV/AIDS classes (completely funding transport and materials ourselves, but it’s so cheap and there’s no point to ask for money) every morning reaching 200 students overall. This month we’re going to try to reach 700 in conjunction with other AIESECers working in other NGOs. After the morning classes and lunch we come back to work and write inquiry letters and proposals. I hope to get them all sent before the end of next week so that if any reply positively I can show Pam what we’ve been doing so she can execute the full proposal and maybe get some money.

It’s just this dismal cycle that I could analyze for a long time… they have no money, they must spend time trying to find it but also show donors that they are viable and productive and already self-sustainable. Yeah right. And then they can’t do much without money in the first place and what they could maybe fund should rightfully be the employees’ salary… and when the employee’s aren’t paid of course they are going to lay their heads down on their desks and take naps and download pictures and songs and do NOTHING PRODUCTIVE AT ALL.

So to wrap this rant up, this experience overall has been very illustrative and leaves me realizing the importance of development from inside a country, the power of strategy and logistics, and how lucky I was to be born in a place where all this stuff had been streamlined a long time ago- above of the curve globally-speaking. Development is on the other side of that curve here in Africa and it’s personally enriching for me to have to deal with it.

Kumba

This weekend the girls and I went to Kumba at the request of our AIESEC friend Tbong Arnold Tbong. We call him Arnold. Aya and I went on Friday night and wanted to get there before dark, so we made it to Mile 17 (the van-loading transfer place- basically a muddy parking lot with vendors and chaos) by 6:30. Arnold told us that it would take an hour from Buea to Kumba at most, so we knew we were cutting it close but we should have been fine. That is if the van filled to capacity quickly, which it didn’t. I can see now why Africans are generally not the most punctual. Their transportation is the epitome of unreliable. We sat in the van for 3 hours waiting. There were no other vans to Kumba. We finally got there at 10:30 which was fine because Arnold’s sister from The States was visiting and she had set the trend in their family to stay up late. In fact, she didn’t serve the family the dinner she’d prepared until we got there at 10:30. Aya and I felt really bad but it’s the way of the amazing African host to suffer for their guests’ comfort.

Arnold’s family is pretty interesting, at least to a non-African. His now American sister moved to the US when she was 21 with her husband. She studied at night college and then got her masters and now is a K-3rd grade teacher in Newark, living in Easton, PA. She is the second girl of 8 kids total, Arnold being somewhere in the middle. Arnold’s mom is his father’s second wife. His dad is the chief of their tribe and the district magistrate or something, which means that he’s entitled to having many wives. He has three total. We met wife #1 and she seemed very demure and of course, welcoming. One of Arnold’s brothers lives in China, and the oldest sister lives in Yaoundé. We’re going to see her next weekend when I go visit Janet the ambassador. We’ll be able to stay with the sister Nelly, and that will be really nice. Also Vitalis, (the friend who is still very interested in Star Trek tapes ) has a sister there so that will be really nice to diffuse the Arnold family-ness.

And here’s why diffusion will be a good thing. I had never really given Asher, the American trainee from the US who’s been staying in an African home with her boss and boss’s family since we got here, always complained about the way the family treated her, until this weekend. In African household kids are seen as free labor, sort of like how my dad sees us. JK, it’s not even close. When we got to Arnold’s the kids (his sibling and half-siblings) snatched our shoes and went to clean them. I have literally never seen my sneakers that clean since the day I bought them, and they had layers and layers of red African mud plus Glens Falls Hospital grossness on them. They did this throughout our 3-night stay in Kumba. Also, the royal treatment extended to Arnold paying for EVERYTHING, which was his prerogative so ultimately I let him after much resistance, but it gave me a really weird feeling to let him pay for our food and drinks and transportation and everything. I don’t even want to think about how far back this weekend has set him. And finally there was this overarching feeling of overprotection and possessiveness. When we went to the market Arnold and his half brother Hilary wouldn’t let us look at whatever we wanted, we had to go to stands that were secluded because they were convinced we’d be stolen from them or mugged or something if we walked where everyone else was. Also, at the club we went to with Arnold and his weird uncles and Yvette, the now-American, there was a drunk guy who kept trying to dance with Laura and I, which is normal anywhere in the world, but the men in our party WAY overreacted. The guy followed our group out to the taxi and asked Laura for her number and she said no thanks and got in the cab and we thought that would be that but the men we were with actually ended up yelling and punching and beating the guy. I believe that was the turning point at which Laura and I decided their protection was unnecessary and creepy. Lastly, I plan on climbing Mount Cameroon this weekend, and Arnold kept saying “if I had my way you wouldn’t climb the mountain, it’s really cold and very slippery in the rainy season blah blah”. I am SO glad not to be an African woman, because I would have to put up with this crap from men all the time and it’s ridiculous. I could analyze this more objectively from an anthropological perspective but I’m tired of doing that all the time so I am just going to say that it sucks for African women. SUCKS.

Kumba overall was great, as was living with a family, though Laura and I both decided that we no longer envy Asher’s opportunity to live full-time with one. I drew several portraits of Arnold family members and one was really good. Tatiana and Cynthia, Arnold’s sisters braided my hair and Aya’s and I think we look pretty good. I have gotten many compliments from Cameroonians and trainees so it must be OK, although I don’t have a mirror (SO liberating by the way, everyone should go 8 weeks without a mirror at some point in their lives).

On the subject of hair, here goes some observations. Appearance is very important to Cameroonians. I don’t even know what the GDP of Cameroon is, but just think really really really low. And somehow people are dressed quite well, albeit mismatched at times or wearing what an American would try to sell at a yard sale. Overall though, they have great fashion sense and work with what is available to them in the way of clothes. But what really mystifies me is their hair styles. I always wondered how the got their hair to be so beautifully straight and glossy, and a few weeks ago co-workers revealed their secrets. They wear wigs. Their real hair is usually pretty short and braided in cornrows to their head. Then wigs are sewed to the corn rows. I cannot imagine how uncomfortable it would be to wear a wig like that for four months at a time. But that’s the norm here. The other thing is hair attachments. These are strips of hair (plastic Africa-textured hair in any color imaginable that are sold all over the place) that are glued to real hair or sewed in a mysterious way. Finally there are braids. Braids would be no good if there was nothing artificial to work into them, which is what Aya and I finally opted for this weekend. We bought what is called mesh, and that mesh was braided into cornrows of our real hair and then the ed were dipped in boiling water which makes them just grip togther enough to look real still but keep the braid from unwinding itself. Quite ingenios. Right now my head is itching so bad. Any African woman mustn’t get her hair wet (not sure why yet- to be answered later) so they walk around with plastic bags on their heads a lot because we are in the rainy season. Also shampooing a wig or attachments or braids is a no-go. I was advised to keep the braids in for one month but I don’t know if I will even be able to fall asleep tonight with the itching like it is now but I will really try to suffer through it 

Another observation about Cameroonian appearances: they all know how to walk in mud so that they don’t get a spec on them. I am only slightly clumsy and focus VERY hard on trying to keep on solid dry-ish clay rather than deep mud wherever we go, but I still find myself with must between my foot and flip flop every time I walk outside. Still, and I am till not used to the squishy feeling and the clean-up. But what people here lack in speed they make up for in treading carefully and cleanly. I never see dirty hemlines or shoes or sandals or toes. It’s amazing. And the clean-shoe obsession is African, not Western. We tend to sacrifice the appearance of our footwear because we can buy more shoes when the ones we own are old or dirty, but when you can’t you protect and constantly clean the ones you have. In fact, Westerners like the broken-in look to some extent, but that is not attractive to people here. They like brand-spanking new.

Cameroonians are just immaculate all around though. They have spotless taxis and hallways and porches and carpets (no vacuums though, so again, I have no idea how they achieve this). I think cleanliness is a HUGE value to them. They shower despite limited running water at least once every day.

One Cameroonian friend Helen, (going to live in the US on Thursday actually, it’s really a cool think to be here while she gets ready to join her sister in Baltimore) said that she loves the way white people smell. I think that it’s really funny that we have a smell. But I get what she means because I noticed a distinct African smell when I first got here. I don’t smell it anymore.