MTV Cribs

Lions and Slaves

Yesterday, I went to a nearby village called Selbederong with the volunteer I’m replacing.  It’s a few kilometers away but well worth the bike ride. There we met the chief and his son, Osmanou, with whom my predecessor has already done some work and recommends highly. We saw his farm and pisticulture project, which was not going well due to some large swimming snakes (we witnessed one) that eat all his fish and also some weird tadpole/minnow looking things that were infesting his pond.  I guess I’m supposed to be able to advise him on this sort of thing even though I really don’t know jack.  Not much different from corporate life after all.

My favorite part of the trip came towards the end when we sat around and talked with the old chief, who was telling us how it used to be back in the day. He said it was all much less developed (there’s a large dirt road now connected the village to other parts of Adamawa) and was all basically jungle and brush. We began talking about the disappointing absence of wildlife in Cameroon due to extensive hunting/poaching. The chief’s son commented on how sad it is that Cameroonians essentially killed off all the exotic wildlife. At this point his father, the old chief, chimed in proudly exclaiming how he has killed 3 lions in his life. The last time he killed a lion was only as far back as 1945 (he’s apparently 96), and he did it because the lion was grubbing on his cows.

After the lion story, he also told us about the time his family brought slaves down from Chad.  They apparently walked up to Chad and kidnapped like 20 Chadians and brought them back to Salbederong as slaves. My predecessor asked if they perhaps sought Chadians because they were darker (as was customary in African slave trade) though I didn’t know how feasible this was since the chief and his son were already quite dark. They said because Chadians are ‘grand et solide’ (big and solid). When the country gained independence in 1960, slavery was outlawed and all slaves in Cameroon were freed. He said some of the former slaves still live in their house to this day and are pretty much like family (awkward?).

That’s all I got for now. I will post my mailing address soon so you can send me things as I know you’ve all been eagerly wanting to. 

First week at Beka Hossere…

Here are some details about my post.

Beka Hossere is a small predominantly Muslim village on the outskirts of a large city called Ngaoundere. It is in the Adamawa region, which is the southernmost province in the Grand North. The Grand North is known to be culturally different from the Grand South due to its predominant Fulbe ethnic tribe (prevalent throughout West Africa) and heavy Muslim influence. I typically wake up to the Adzhan (call to prayer) every morning and hear it at my house throughout the day. Many men in the community have multiple wives (but never more than 4) as is the local tradition. Majority of the community does more or less subsistence farming. My primary role is to advise community members on their existing businesses (usually farms), and/or help launch other income generating activities in a sustainable fashion.  

The volunteer before me had opened the post 3 years ago and had the house already set up quite nicely. Opening a post has a different set of frustrations and difficulties altogether and I’m lucky a volunteer has cleared the way so that I can focus on my projects.  I have a small mud brick painted house with a tin roof. There is a decent sized bedroom, family room, and separate dining/kitchen area. The latrine is a tiny room connected to my bedroom with a concrete floor. This is my only qualm as the latrine hole is damn small and rather difficult to use.  I have electricity but no running water. However, there is a forrage (French word for ground water pump) about 100 meters away, so I have to carry water to my house a few times a week. Also, in town is a major Peace Corps boarding house (about 2-3 miles away) with internet and other amenities.  Thus, I should have decent internet access.  Overall, I’m very content with my post and I think I’m a great fit here.

First week at post has been pretty quiet. I have basically been settling in and playing a lot with kids. The hangout spot for the neighboring kids happens to be my porch so the house is always popping. I have attended some girls’ group activities that my predecessor has been organizing for quite some time. Another love letter incident also happened here in bizarrely similar fashion to the first one. Anyways, I have also gotten a chance to meet a couple professional contacts which will be pretty crucial. In particular, I made contact with a community development specialist that works for the Ministry of Agriculture in Ngaoundere which I hope will be useful. I am also in the process of searching for NGO’s that I could collaborate with. One of the biggest frustrations that volunteers site is the absence of local NGO’s, counterparts, and support, when working on projects. My predecessor has also repeatedly emphasized the importance of this. Also, I have lost even more weight my first week at post. I’m not sure if it’s the lack of food options or that I detest my own cooking. Luckily I have been eating dinner at Nana’s almost every day. The menu is rice cous cous (nothing like what we consider cous cous in the states. This is kind of a blandish substance with the consistency that is between mashed potatoes and bread) and gumbo (this is a slimy flavored sauce usually with some type of meat such as beef). Everyone eats out of the same plate and bowl because it’s Muslim tradition. Not the most sanitary situation but it works.

In any case, more later

La fin de stage

I have lots of catching up to do here. I am now done with training and settled into my new home for the next 2 years. I will try and briefly recap what I’ve missed since last time.

For the second half of training, we switched homestay families and I was with another family in the more rural village of Nyamsong (right next to Bafia, our training site). At first Nyamsong was quite another culture shock. I was living with a family of 5, consisting of the host father, mother, a 15 year old daughter, 22 year old daughter, and the 22 year old’s 2 year old baby. There was basically never electricity, the bathroom facilities consisted of just a hole in the ground outdoors, and an insane prevalence of ‘moot moots’. Moot moots are the small biting black flies that can cause river blindness (don’t worry we will receive medication to prevent this) several years down the road. They were common in Bafia (my home for first half of training) but are even more so in Nyamsong.  They are barely noticeable, though certainly more than mosquitos. Also, their bite tends to break skin and afterwards it itches like hell. Anyways, during this period, the first love letter incident went down, which I’m not going to detail here. By the time I was done with training however, it was incredible how comfortable I’d become even in Nyamsong despite its challenges and lack of development. I feel like I’ve already changed and adapted quite a bit, albeit only 3 months into service.

I received my post of Beka Hossere. It is a village on the outskirts of the major city of Ngaoundere in the Adamawa region. I will talk more about post later but will include only a quick story here.  At training in Bafia (which is in the centre region of Cameroon close to the capital of Yaoundé), we all met our community hosts that were invited down from our future posts to attend a workshop. I met my community host, Nana Bakari, who is a charismatic ‘grand’ in my village and has lots of important contacts in the local government and community.  We initially had trouble communicating due to my lack of French proficiency and his northern accent. In any case, he told me I’d love the village and I was stoked for my site visit.

To get to Ngaoundere, which is the regional capital of the Adamawa region, we took a train up from Yaoundé. Everyone going to the Grand North (Adamawa, North, and Extreme North) traveled up together. It was a 14 hour train ride but we got couchettes (rooms with beds) so it actually wasn’t too bad at all. On our way up, we randomly came to a rolling stop in the middle of nowhere and realized the front of the train had disconnected and left without us. Not only that but no one had cell phone reception, so we had to wait for them to realize they were missing the back of the train and come back. During this time, many of our community hosts were hanging out outside, so I met up with Nana and we chatted for a bit. A local who lived close to where our train had stopped was nearby talking to Nana and another community host and invited us to his home. Nana agreed so we went.  His home was basically a cluster of straw huts (each used for different purposes), about a 4 minute walk through the brush from the train tracks.  They guy pulled some peanuts and cassava out of the ground for us which we munched on. My community host bought a big bag of peanuts and also one of his chickens as a ‘souvenir’. After a couple hours we heard the train coming back so we took off toward the tracks. It was sort of funny watching Nana run with the sack of peanuts in one hand and the chicken tucked under his other arm like a football. Luckily, we were out in front of the train so they clearly saw us running in and waited for us to board. We reached Ngaoundere about 3 hours later.

After site visit, we came back to Bafia to finish up training. I took my language test and passed out of the minimal level of French necessary before moving on to post. I have much French to learn but have already come a long way. After passing out of French I also started learning Fufulde, which is a local language spoken by the Fulbe ethnic tribe and is very common in the Grand North. Though French is spoken by government officials and for business purposes, Fufulde is more widely spoken by the locals.  Many people, especially those without formal education (lots of them), speak only Fufulde. I can already see this language barrier posing as a hindrance in the near future but we’ll see how it works out. 

Le Debut

Bonjour!

Unfortunately I’ve not been able to post since arriving to Cameroon. A lot has happened in the past 3 weeks but I’ll try to be concise.

The trip started out somewhat shaky. After orientation in Philly, we were caught in a huge storm in New York causing us to stay overnight in Brussels and fly to Douala instead of Yaoundé. After that we took a bus to Bafia, a medium sized village around which our training is taking place over the next 3 months.

My training group is fairly large (50 total), with 25 of us as Health volunteers, and 25 in the Agro forestry program. Within the Agro Forestry program, there are about 5 Business Advising volunteers apart from myself.  Our group is a very interesting mix of people. As a whole it seems like a pretty intellectual and obviously liberal group that I’m sure will go on to do great things

Our arrival to Bafia was a spectacle in and of itself. As our bus pulled in, all our host families were gathered to receive us at our training center. What entails next is a key awkward moment that my family and certain friends would truly enjoy and relish in. We got off the bus and lined up on one side, while the local community members sat/stood across from us gawking in amusement. Then, a program director would read off the name of the local Cameroonian host family, and the name of the Peace Corps volunteer that would be staying with them during training. Finally, everyone from the community, volunteers, and Peace Corps staff would watch you as you met your host family for the first time.  After several botched hugs, uncoordinated handshakes, and uncomfortable kisses, we took our belongings and left for our home stays.

My first day with the family was quite a culture shock as can be expected. Especially with my French being virtually nonexistent, communication was very difficult. It is also the first time I was really able to reflect upon the seriousness of my decision to move to Africa for the next 2 years.

The nucleus of the family consists of 3 male children, ages 21, 6, and 4, and one 15 year old daughter. I say nucleus because there are about 4 to 5 other extended members that stay at the home as well. The father is a retired government official and the mother is a restaurant owner/caterer. The house is small, made of concrete, and a tin roof. However, they seem well off according to Cameroonian standards.

Although I felt quite nervous and uncomfortable moving in with this random African family, they made it an easy transition for me. The first few days I barely spoke to them due to my severe language barrier. However, on about day 4, I read to them an essay I had translated into French, explaining a little bit about myself. They were surprised to learn I was ethnically Pakistani and not Latin American, and even more surprised to learn that I was Muslim. This brings me to my next interesting observation. The father is Muslim while the mother and children are Catholic. I have from time to time accompanied my father to prayer at his friend’s house, and the local Cameroonian Muslims find me to be quite a random delight.

In any case, the kids are fantastic. The youngest one is especially hilarious and lively. One thing I noticed right off the bat is how independent the children are here. The family puts out food for them to eat and helps with bathing but the kids are very low maintenance and essentially raise themselves. They also rarely cry or throw fits. The entire family works a lot... except for the father, who still does his fair share of driving everyone around and supervising. The family really does not really spend much of any time idle or loafing around. The eldest son does everything from washing the clothes and slaughtering chickens to fixing doors. He’s definitely been very helpful in helping in helping me assimilate and learn French.

There's lots more, but that's all for now

Au revoir!

Preface

Bonjour

In a couple days, I will be leaving for Cameroon, West Africa to serve as a Business Advising volunteer in the Peace Corps. I started this blog (my first!) ahead of my trip in order to record my journey, communicate with friends/family, & prove to my parents that i really am volunteering in Africa and not beach bumming in the Caribbean

To briefly catch up on what has culminated to this crazy/bold/exciting step I...

-graduated with a degree in Finance in 08' from IU and moved to Chicago that July to work in the securitization industry for a large bank

-realized quickly that i needed to evaluate my goals and interests, and decided to pursue the business development program in peace corps (i can elaborate more on this in another post)

-applied online in Sept of 09' and was eventually nominated and invited to serve, departing September of 2010!

I feel fortunate to receive this opportunity as it meets several of my objectives and the timing simply could not be better. Though I'm still not sure how i will cope w/ lack of A/C, inescapable parasites, and the ordeal of going #2 in adverse conditions, I am excited about the next couple years and invite you to follow my difficult but enriching endeavor!