1 down, 5 to go

Turns out, my neighbor’s chest pain was in fact due to acid reflux, and my prescription of pepto bismol was dead on. I credit my medical savviness to the fact that I’m brown and obviously genetically predisposed to being a doctor. Yet alas, I am a Peace Corps Volunteer in Africa. Again, sorry mom.

Our first session of the business training was very stressful, but went very well. About 45 of the 50 people who registered actually showed up the first day, and about 5-6 newcomers showed up and tried to register on the spot. We allowed them to sit through the class but did not allow them to register, out of principle.

I taught Entrepreneurial Spirit and Goals and Action Plans on the first day. I bumbled through the curriculum with my mediocre French in front of 50+ attendants. I actually broke out into a sweat at one point while I was straining to comment on something that I was having trouble translating.  Luckily my counterpart Ibrahim and his staff were with me to facilitate communication. That was crucial to say the least.   We also invited a special guest for our first class to share his personal story. He is an Al-Hadji that owns a popular fruit shop in the main market. Al-Hadji means someone that has been to Mecca for the mandatory Muslim pilgrimage. Around here, it is also a status symbol, implying a certain level of success. His story was inspiring. He quit primary school to sell Papayas because his parents died. He then started a tiny farm which he grew into a plantation over the course of 40 years. It was a sort of rags to (not glamorously) riches story due to determination, discipline, and work ethic, the type that is incredibly rare to find here. Also, he did it all without any help or financing. For anything and everything he bought, he saved up for it. Now in Cameroon, that is a completely foreign concept. In any case, he got a huge ovation, as he should.  

With one class done, we have 5 more to go, which we will be teaching once a week over the next 5 weeks.  Will let you know how it goes

random update

I seem to be getting worse at this blogging thing. Since the last post, there was the festive Eid. As usual we dressed up, ate a lot, and visited people. There was also a ceremony at the Lamido’s palace in town which we attended. The Lamido is basically the chief of Ngaoundere. There was lots of marching and horse racing. We also saw the Lamido who came out with an enormous entourage which included personal fanning assistants and a guy that held up a sun umbrella for him while he was mounted on his horse. Biya forced me to take countless unnecessary photos of the event because he thought people in America would find it just that dazzling. I will put them up, but I guarantee you will not get through them all, and you will be left underwhelmed

I also took a mini vacation to the northern regions. It was a lot hotter and muggier than my part of the country. It is also more desert like, especially the far north. My trip was lots of fun and was the inspiration for my decision to not take my CFA Level III in June, but climb Mount Kilimanjaro with a friend of mine instead.  Mt K is in Tanzania. It takes about a week to do, and is more of a strenuous hike than an actual climb.  We are in the process of planning logistics but I have already started training.  As for the last CFA exam, I will hopefully take it once I’m back in the states.

Work has picked up. I’d been preparing for months for a large scale business training seminar which will begin on Tuesday. The team that will be taking on this endeavor with me comprises of the staff of Small and Medium Sized Enterprise. We started by identifying some serious needs that need to be met in the business community and setting goals to address them.  Next, we presented, studied, and revised the 12 subject curriculum amongst ourselves (during Ramadan) before we decided we were ready to schedule the course. We then put up flyers and broadcasted radio advertisements about a call out meeting where participants could register and learn more about the course. We expected about 60 people to attend and had set up classroom seating accordingly.  Amazingly, only 12 people showed up. We continued the presentation anyways and asked participants to fill out a form and pay the sign-up fee to register, which we set at a measly 1,500 CFA ($3) just to cover the actual workbook they would be using. Fyi, charging some sort of fee is essential as it weeds out unmotivated and/or lazy people who we do not want to work with anyways.  Finally, only 7 people actually registered. We were quite disappointed at the prospects of our seminar and decided to set the registration deadline for 10 days later, in case anyone who could not come to the meeting, still wanted to attend the course.  We preferred around 30 students ideally, but we expected a maximum of 15 would end up registering for the class.  It turns out, however, through pure word-of –mouth, a total of 50 people ended up signing up and paying the registration fee by the deadline.  We even had to turn dozens of people away that said they would pay the fee at the first class, or that showed up a day or two after deadline. Needless to say, we got more than what we bargained for, and definitely have our work cut out for us. We will see how it goes

Also, I have been working as a sort of micro consultant for small enterprises. I am currently working with a packaged drink start-up, a hotel that would like to undergo a renovation project, and a women’s group that would like to start income generating activities.  With my microfinance institution, I have been pushing the bank to complete our application for KIVA, the non-profit internet lender; because I think it would be a huge boon. I even went to headquarters to meet with the CEO just for that reason. The meeting went great, although the CEO is a pretty intimidating dude. He started his banking career as an investment banker for Chase Manhattan bank in London, which he did for around 10 years. Not sure what brought him back to Cameroon. Finally, I am working on a project to fight against malnutrition. We’d been putting together a proposal to team up with UNICEF in order to get some support and credibility behind it. We have already met with several UNICEF officials and will be sending the final version out in the next few days, after which we will start setting up sessions with communities in the Ngoundere area.

On a completely random note, my neighbor has fallen ill with some chest pain. When I asked her husband what it was, he said people are claiming it is sorcery. Apparently they had bought some traditional medication for her which needed to be burned over a fire so that the fumes could be inhaled by the patient. Once she did that she started uttering the name of a well-known sorceress on the other side of the village.  I did my part by giving her some pepto bismol. After all, it does cure just about everything

Ramadan Mubarak

Ramadan started about 5 days ago. It really hasn’t been that bad thus far. The fasts are around 13 hours a day and there is not a lot of activity going on during this month, thus, work is slower than usual.  The only issue I’m having is with the enormous amounts of cous cous and gumbo sauce i've been eating for dinner, and then again for breakfast since Nana's family sends it over.  That means, I am spending majority of my waking hours either 1. Fasting or 2. Stuffing my face with cous cous and gumbo … I'm fairly certain I'll leave Cameroon with a severe allergic reaction to it.  Talking about it now is in fact making me queasy.  There is also this inter-village soccer tournament going on right now. I’m on a decent team, but we’ve been giving up too many lousy goals. We usually play at about 4:30pm, 2 hours before breaking fast.  It gets pretty tiring to play while fasting but actually takes my mind off of being hungry. It’s a ton of fun though because lots of the villagers come out to watch and get really rowdy whenever goals are scored. 

Since I’ve been back from my trip to the states, my projects have been finally getting off the ground. My main wok activities for the moment include doing business training with the Ministry of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (MSME) aimed at entrepreneurs and cooperative leaders, an organizational management workshop with the Ministry of Agriculture aimed at common interest groups and associations, and a project to address malnutrition with a local NGO by incorporating nutritious foods into local diets (mainly soy and moringa). 

All of these projects are in the beginning phases but are coming along. Of course, this would not be the Peace Corps if it was not for the countless setbacks and disappointments along the way. The idea is to keep pushing through and hoping that by the end of my 2 years, I have accomplished something.  My business training project is my main focus for the time being. So far we have gathered and planned the curriculum and structure of the course. We have also begun our “training of teachers”, in which I first teach the course to our MSME staff (there are 4 of them) so we can gain some experience and make adjustments to our program along the way. As a side note, one of the staff members looks straight up like Eddie Murphy and I can hardly take him seriously. The staff is essential though because at least one of them will be teaching the class with me. Since my French is still not totally fluent and Fufulde (local dialect) is almost nonexistent, it will facilitate adequate communication. My main counterpart there is Ibrahim, who is the awesome departmental delegue for MSME in the Ngaoundere area.  He is very motivated and enthusiastic about this project, which is immensely helpful.  We will most likely start the actual class after Ramadan. It will be one 3-hour class a week for 6 weeks. There is also assigned homework after every class. In order to receive a Certificate, one must attend all classes and do all homework.  Once the class is done and we have identified the Certificate owners, we will follow up with their enterprises personally (like mini-consulting). That’s the idea anyway

The organizational management workshop with the Ministry of Agriculture is modeled off of a project another volunteer did in the north, and I think it is very necessary and applicable here in the Adamawa region.  It is aimed to address the widespread problem of dysfunctional common interest groups, associations, and cooperatives.  The idea is to attend these groups’ meetings and take them through modules to instill organizational structure and the ability to execute profit generating projects.  I am supposed to work with Ministry of Agriculture agents that go into the field and already frequent these groups. However, they are super flaky and have not yet found a counterpart there I can count on. This is key, because it usually makes or breaks projects.

The third thing I’m working on right now is getting together a project to fight malnutrion, primarily among youth.  The local foods are very high in starch and carbs but low in just about all other important nutrients, especially protein. Therefore, the children are very skinny and often stunted in growth. I was approached by a member of a local NGO, Synergie de Jeunesse et Développement, to help him come up with a comprehensive approach to solving this problem. We propose to emphasize the importance of improved diets, provide live food transformation demonstrations, and promote income generating activities addressing malnutrition. So far we have written a complete project plan and pitched it to UNICEF. They seemed quite receptive so it looks promising for the moment. We’ll see

That’s all for now. a plus tard

..aaand I’m back

Lots has happened since poor old Simba died. 

A while back I had registered for the notorious Level II CFA (finance certification) exam.  I studied regularly from January until the exam on June 4^th, which I lined up with my vacation back in the states so that I could take it in Indianapolis while I was there for 3 weeks.


I originally thought it wouldn’t be so bad I since I set my own schedule here and could make time for it. Little did I know… studying in Africa is a beast of its own.  The lack of air conditioning, deafening storms, intermittent electricity, and unavailability of starbucks all took its toll as I neared exam date. Without delving into too much detail, it was awful, but I found out last week that I PASSED by the skin of my teeth. Of course had I failed I would not be disclosing all this because that would be plain embarrassing.  As many of my friends have asked, what does that mean?? Well, it means I’ll take the Level III Exam once I get back home... exciting, right? Level II is the hardest of the 3 levels however and I think preparing for the last exam in the U.S should go much smoother.  Next I will be taking the GMAT, hopefully by the end of the year, for grad school admission


My trip to the states was pretty BOSS , as kids are saying these days. The first week was a wash since I spent that cramming for my exam, but the last 2 were a blast. I spent about 2 days in Chicago and got to see lots of old buddies and coworkers.  Chicago in the summer is the best city on the planet. There, I said it. The rest of the time I spent putzing around with friends in Indianapolis as well as spending time with the family. Of course I was continuously bombarded with questions … what’s it like? do you get tired running from lions and throwing spears?  do people there wear clothes?  I fielded them as best I could, remembering I wondered pretty much the same things during my first plane ride to Africa. Seeing so many familiar people and my ‘old’ life back home was a bit surreal. Things at home seemed just about where I left them except for the onslaught of engagements and marriages among my friends. I suppose we’re at ‘that age’.

On the way back I had stopped by in London to see family and family friends, which was hectic but well worth it.  I had spent half the previous night in O’Hare because United Airlines’ computers were down and they had no idea how long it’d take to get back up. Not only that, they couldn’t issue any stipends or make hotel reservations for us because, again, the computers were down. We finally took off after a 6 hour delay (computers came back up). The actual flight was really sub-par compared to the European airlines (Swiss Air and Air France) I took on the way to the States. The plane was older, the stewardesses more grumpy.. and overall less aesthetically pleasing. Not to mention the ‘blankets’ they handed out that could’ve better been utilized as baby bibs.  I don’t like to admit this, but it was one of those times I was embarrassed to be American.

I finally landed back in Africa on June 20^th, 2011, and wondered for the 786^th time… what am I doing here?

RIP Simba

About my 2^nd week at post, I had gotten a kitten which I named Simba.  I’m not a huge pet aficionado but the rodent problem at my house was getting out of control, so I brought in a specialist.

Simba was a beast. Not only was he incredibly friendly, but he also enjoyed annihilating household pests. That includes mice, lizards, roaches… he even ate wasps.  He took care of the rodent problem almost immediately. Simba and I got pretty tight and hung out on a regular basis. 

He was an outdoor cat so I’d leave a window open practically at all times and he would come in and out as he pleased. Pretty much any time he wasn’t at my house, he was chillin at the neighbors or busy destroying mice outside.  The neighbors also loved him and the kids next door also grew pretty fond of Simba. Simba grew even bigger, faster, stronger.

Last week, I hadn’t seen Simba for about a day or two. I wasn’t too alarmed as I thought he could be just taking a little vaca.. between my oven of a house and all the hyper kids overrunning the area, he probably needed a break. However, when my neighbors also indicated they had not seen him at all for about 3 days, we grew a little concerned.  I told everyone to keep an eye out to see if we can find Simba.

The next day I came back from town and one of the kids next door told me he found Simba. I asked him if he was sick, the kid said no. He took me behind their house into a little plot of land and pointed to the ground. As I walked up, I saw what I initially thought was just another cow turd, nothing out of the ordinary. But as I got up close, to my horror, I saw Simba’s little decapitated head already in the process of decomposing. He took me a few meters further, and there laid his intestines and a severed paw. The rest of the body was pretty much missing.

To say the least, I was shocked. As we thought of the possibilities, we concluded that the most likely explanation is that someone had eaten Simba, as his head did look as if it had been burned.  Had another animal killed him, there would most likely be a mangled carcass, which was not the case as it looked as if he had been deliberately been taken apart. People in the region have been known to eat just about any animal that comes there way, including dogs, cats, monkeys and mice, because it is more or less free... which I guess is a big draw when you have no money.  I still don’t think any of my neighbors would have eaten him. Many of my Cameroonian friends claim it was an act of sorcery.

I guess we will never know.  RIP Simba

Cyrus Kikgui

So I had a baby named after me last week.

Background

As a part of our Peace Corps program, we are to attend a week long seminar called In Service Training (IST) after 3 months at post. Now that my first 3 months at post (and 6 months in country) had flown by, it was time to prep for IST.  IST also happened to be taking place in my town (Ngaoundere) so I was sort of the quasi-host volunteer for my training group. One of the most important aspects of IST is for every volunteer to invite their primary counterpart. A counterpart is a host country national that will work side-by-side with us and provide support, resources, and sustainability, for our projects.

As I’ve mentioned, I have been working quite a bit with a local Microfinance institution called Credit du Sahel, and my counterpart there, David Kikgui, works predominantly with Agro-pastoral common interest groups and associations. I’m therefore paired with him to help serve this demographic.  Meanwhile, David’s wife was pregnant at the time and due in about a month. However, just about as soon as he arrived at IST with me, his wife started having pains and had to be attended to. Thus, David ended up missing out on about half of IST due to his wife’s hospitalization and his second son being born.

The day his baby was born, he called me and gave me the great news. I said congratulations and whatever other appropriate thing I could think of with my 3^rd grade French vocabulary.  He then asked me for a first name. I was totally at a loss at the moment, so I told him I’d think about it and let him know. So, I did what I usually do in uncomfortable situations... ignore it completely

I saw him about 3 days later when he asked me again about the first name. I had then realized he actually wanted my first name for the baby, which made my job considerably easier. I of course gladly hooked him up. Thus was born Kikgui Dourine Gnassiri Cyrus (first names are listed last here, and his family name is Kikgui, same as his dad's)

The Situation

Is Jersey Shore still cool? I’ve clearly lost touch with all important things

Work Situation 

Now that we’ve hit our 3 month mark at post and just had our IST conference (in service training), we are expected be reasonably integrated and begin working on projects. This brings me to the real reason I’ve come here… development work.

My work situation here is pretty interesting yet chaotic.  As an Agribusiness Advisor, my focus is to improve profitability of agricultural operations with enhanced business practices and move from subsistence farming to commercial farming. Till now I’ve been mostly meeting lots of common interest farming groups and other contacts around the area that will be valuable resources for my work going forward. I’ve thus far learned quite a bit about local agricultural issues and the general challenges faced by the poor in West Africa. 

I am also partnered up with a micro finance institution called Credit du Sahel, and work closely with an associate dealing primarily with Agro-Pastoral common interest groups and associations in the area. I often take trips with him en brusse to meet with clients to follow up on undergoing projects and financing proposals. I am also looking to work on management projects that could improve our branch’s efficiency somewhere down the line. Being paired with an institution helps with work consistency and support, and my counterpart there is pretty legit. As a random side note, I’ve just realized everything I’ve described thus far sounds a lot cooler than it actually is. score.

Apart from primary activities, I have ended up working quite a bit with the local youth. Specifically, I had been teaching English at the local primary school once a week, and now that I’ve finished there, I will be teaching English for the last trimester at the local Jr. high. I will probably not continue with teaching English past this year because I’d like to focus on my primary work, however, it has been a big boost in helping me integrate into the community and raising my visibility around the village. Probably the most random thing I’ve worked on here is my girls group. It was a project my predecessor left me, and is something I’ve continued, with the help of my post mate, who is a girl (it makes much more sense when she is there). Every Thursday at my house we usually do some lecture or activity, followed by an English lesson. The girls range from 7 to 14 years old and are a pretty spontaneous group.  A few of them are standouts in their class and the group has been helpful to them in promoting a certain degree of ambition and motivation.  This has also helped me integrate into the community but I will probably be looking to hand off the torch as I get busier with my primary projects.

Other miscellaneous ambitions include my attempt to make the village’s first computer lab as well as an upcoming business class.  Work here comes along at a snail’s pace, but as they say in Pidgin… small small catch monkey (real English translation: little by little).

Youth Day

February 11 is Youth Day in Cameroon. It is a special holiday to commemorate the Youth and is a pretty big deal around the country.

Leading up to the big holiday (Feb 9^th), I was invited to a remote village about 15 km from Beka Hossere. It is a fairly small poor village where my predecessor had built a school. They invited me to partake in their Youth Day festivities and give a sort of keynote speech. I had prepared what I hoped was a motivational discourse focusing importance of education for the Youth. I also brought along with me a bunch of French books, notebooks, crap tons of candy, and soccer ball.

Upon reaching there I realized I was actually sort of the guest of honor. My post mate had come with me and we were welcomed with a reception. There was a lookout posted at the front of the village with a whistle, and as soon as he saw us riding in on Biya’s (Nana’s little brother) moto, he signaled for everyone to get ready to begin.  The school’s teacher welcomed us and a little girl handed me a bouquet of bright green artificial flowers. The kids were all lined up ready to start the ceremony, and the rest of the villagers were gathered around the school to watch.

As we greeted everyone and settled in, a group of drummers (playing bongo type drums with their hands) entertained everyone while the little kids gathered around and danced.  They also sang in Fufulde, which I don't quite yet understand, but every now and then I’d hear my name in there.  They insisted that I get up and dance, which is of course exactly what I was waiting for. I busted out all the African dance moves I had acquired over the past 6 months which they were delighted to see. The chief of the neighboring village came up and stuck a 1,000 cfa bill ($2) on my forehead, which is a sort of customary thing to do. I felt a little awkward for a second because I can’t possibly take a villagers money.  1,000 francs is a lot in that village. Luckily someone else started dancing so I stuck it on his dome and of course he had no qualms about it. I think I was getting carried away because one of the village elders told me to sit back down. They continued dancing for a while longer and did some choreographed routines the kids were working on. After, the school teacher gave a speech explaining how grateful they were to have us there on this occasion, after which I gave my speech.

The speech went pretty well. I basically did my best to motivate the children to go to school and think about how to attain their highest aspirations. I also explained how my family was from Pakistan, and how there were so many similarities in our cultures, and that they actually remind me of my extended family there. I later included a hadith by prophet Muhammad (since vast majority there were Muslim) encouraging seeking knowledge ‘even unto China’, and concluded with a statement about how the youth are our future, which was meant to be inspiring, though I’m not sure how many people were still paying attention towards the end. Someone was next to me the entire time translating my French into Fufulde. French is the official language in this region, and though they speak French in schools, government institutions, and centers of business, they predominant language is actually the local dialect of Fufulde. Since most of the villagers are illiterate/have not attended school, they only speak Fufulde.

After this I gave my random of assortment of gifts and watched the rest of the ceremony which included some humorous plays, more dances, and some singing.

After the long ceremony, we had lunch in someone’s mud brick hut, which consisted of rice, fish, bread, cous cous, potato, cassava, tea, and of course other stuff I was not familiar with. We left the village that afternoon and headed home.

One thing I noticed leading up to Youth Day was the excitement of the older youth, who were enthusiastic about their potential for attracting females at Youth Day parties.  I remember speaking to a group of them on my porch one morning about their prospects. They were incredibly confident about their capabilities; it was not a question of if but how many. In the culture here the amount of wives one has indicates his wealth, status, and power. I certainly see this mentality engrained at an early age. When I was skeptical, they clued me in on a secret advantage; magic oil. I laughed only to discover they were not at all joking. They were explaining how people do magic way out en brusse and make this strong perfumed potion which females simply could not resist. Apparently upon wearing it, all you had to do was greet a woman, and it was game over, she was ‘trapped’. I thought to myself, if what they said was in fact true, I could import this product to Indianapolis area alone and retire before the age of 30

The young guys told me to come to the Youth Day festivities in Ngaoundere on Feb 11th to see for myself. I gleefully agreed and came into town with my camera. The actual Youth Day event was pretty spectacular. Every school from the area was organized and marched through the town in a parade. It was followed that night with Youth Day parties throughout the area.  Unfortunately, due to enormous crowds of people and jammed cell phones, I was unable to find and witness my group of young guys from Beka Hossere dazzle the women at Youth Day.