Last Big Trip in Cameroon

Day 1
We set off at 9 am to go to a friends birthday/St. Patrick's day party in Lagdo. There was a group of 6 of us. We had to check at 3 different bus stations to find a bus that was going where we were going because it was a smaller town. After sitting on the bus for an hour, they finally loaded everything on top, called peoples' names and gave them their tickets. About 4 and a half hours later, we arrived in Ngong. They dropped us off at the bus station, which had no workers and 2 cars that were definitively not in working order. Some guy outside of the station said he would call the car to come. Surprisingly, about 20 minutes later, it showed up. Since there were six of us, we fit perfectly into the car that was the size of a tercel with the driver as well-2 in the passenger seat and 4 in back. After loading the bags, they told us the price was 700 francs. The other volunteers who live there had already told us it was 500, so they were just raising the price since we are white. We had to negotiate and threaten to leave before they gave us the correct price. About 20 minutes out, we got flat tire. Catherine stepped out of the back of the car and since we were so tightly squeezed, her entire leg had gone numb so she fell to the ground like a ton of bricks and said “I'm fine, I'm just going to sit here.” After the driver fixed the tire, we were on our way for another 10 minutes. They told us to get dropped off at the Catholic Mission. We immediately met some young people who helped us get to their house, after a bit of confusion because we called her our sister, because every white person is our sister or brother, but she thought we were talking about a nun. We finally arrived at her house at 4 pm. She rented out a kitchen at a hotel for the party, so we motoed over there and got a hotel room. It was located on a lake which was actually a reservoir. Of course they didn't have running water, so when we asked someone to get us water, he had to go to the lake, fill a bucket and bring it to us, and we bathed with that.
The party was really fun and the food was great. My friend Claire and I decided to sleep on the beach. We were thinking the party would end at around 3am, so we would sleep for a couple hours on the beach. But the party broke up at 11 pm. So we took our blankets to the beach and sprawled out. It was comepletly abandoned and dark. Then Claire went on a tirade about how anyone comes, we need to scream and we need to have our phone on someone's number to call them if we get into trouble. She suggests we take shifts watching out. I was like, it's pitch black, the person who is watching will fall right asleep from boredom. She proceeds to fall into a deep sleep. I can't sleep well after that conversation, and I keep hearing noises and seeing lights being turned on and off. Finally around 2:30 am, I see someone with a flashlight coming toward us. So I wake Claire up and I'm like, there's someone coming, what should we do?!? And then he flashes his flashlight on us and I flash my flash light on him, and we are all blinded. So Claire says Ca va? and he's like ca va and continues along the beach. About 2 minutes later another guy comes and I flash my light on him and he is carrying a big stick so we run back to the hotel room and I squeeze into a bed in the middle of two other people. The next day they were like that's a bad idea to sleep on the beach, the hippos come onto the beach at night.
Day 2
We wake up and are in a secluded beach on a Sunday, so we couldn't find anything to eat. We take motos into town and buy tickets to Ngoundere. We then scout out food. Claire gets a plastic baggie of tea, because she loves her chai. I go with a plastic bag of beans and beignets. The bus pulls up so we jump on and I eat my breakfast with my hands out of the baggie. Claire's tea is hot so she has to wait a little. The 4 hour bus ride passes uneventfully and we roll into town about 4 pm. After hot showers, they go to a party at a Lebanese friend's house, but I'm tired so I take a nap. I wake up and there's no one home. I get my stuff together to go to the office and use the internet, but I discover that I am locked into the house, and I don't have the key because I don't live in this region. So I call someone at the party and they say don't worry they will come rescue me.
Day 3
Everyone was hung-over so we had a late start. Claire rolls in about 11 am with wet underwear in her purse because she jumped into the pool at the party with her clothes on. She tells tales of hot dogs and cheese for breakfast and air conditioning at Waleed's house and we are jealous. I have a spaghetti omelette sandwich with extra hot pepper for breakfast, one of my favorite foods. We set off around noon. The bus company is one of the most inefficient. Although there are enough people to fill a huge bus, it takes two and a half hours to leave. There is a mob scene to enter the bus because people have already put things on seats to save them, but they say whoever enters first can move the stuff and take the seat they want. The crowd gets rowdy. There is a very old woman shouting in mother tongue, doesn't speak french. She's pushing to get to the front, even thought they're going to call names. Of course she just pushes her way in and gets the best seat.
After we finally leave, an incident happens about an hour later. The road is not paved all the way, so when the paving stops, the road is red sand. Everyone insists we have to shut the windows so we don't get dust on us. But we are thirty people trapped in a small bus and after about fifteen minutes it is unbearably hot and humid and gross. We are dying and I am slowly tryin to inch the window open but the people shout NO the dust! Finally after an hour it passes and we can open them again. All of us are dripping sweat.
When we arrive in Meiganga it is very pleasant and stop for a snack of yogurt and cake. I start to feel sick, so I go back while the others go get fish. I proceed to have explosive diarrhea in a latrine about 10 times and finally pass out.
Day 4
We have reservations for the 6 am bus, which leaves at 7:30. This road is not paved and notoriously dusty. Fortunately people are prepared to get dusty and they keep the windows open. The guy next to Claire has a full bed sheet wrapped around him to protect him from the dust. Unfortunately Rose gets seated next to the token loud guy on the bus who shouts the whole time when it's early in the morning and all we want to do is nap. I don't want to eat anything, is case my diarrhea returns, but I'm so hungry. We stop about 3 hours later at the half way point and everyone is absolutely covered from head to foot in red dust. We are uncomfortable, dirty and hungry. We question our decision to take this trip. The only things to eat are hard boiled eggs and beignets. I go diarrhea again in a latrine and then crack and buy an egg and some beignets. It's 11 by this time and I'm so hungry. We press on. Another 4 hours and we arrive. We meet the volunteer in Bertoua and immediately take showers. Thank god there is running water here. I have to wash my hair three times to get all the dust out. I use almost a whole bar of soap scrubbing myself. The water that runs off me is red for about 15 minutes. But a dinner of steak and fries and beer sets us right again.

To be continued.....

International Women's Day 2012: Solidarity Among Mayo Sava Women

My first Women's Day in country was a little rough. I didn't know what to expect. I had the experience of two other fêtes, Teacher's Day and Youth Day, but for some reason I thought Women's Day would be special. However, when I was invited to a meeting of the female teachers at my school to plan the festivities, and I was surprised to find out that we were not only expected to pay for food and drink for all the teachers, but we were also supposed to shop, cook and clean for the entire party. Moreover, I discovered that many women in rural areas did not have money to buy the fabric and travel to their district capital to participate in the parade, and so they were left behind.
Even before we knew that the theme of this year's Women's Day was The Autonomy of Rural Women, my cluster and I decided to do a Mora Cluster Women's Day Tour 2012 in which we would travel to each of our posts as a group to do an activity and involve as many women of the Mayo Sava as possible. We ended up choosing to do a demonstration on lotion making and the properties of Neem, a local tree. We went to Catherine, Liz and Jess' villages, and also did it in Mora. Loftus was the lotion guru and wrote up information for us beforehand from her previous experiences. Each person took charge of planning the event in their own town- venue, time, who to invite, buying the materials, setting up, etc, and we all went out to the villages to support the women and make it festive.
The project was a big hit. We had about 100 women participate between the 4 groups. They really enjoyed learning about Neem, and about how to make a lotion that is anti-bacterial, bug repellant, and great in the dry heat. Everyone got to go home with a sample of what we made. More importantly, it was also a good way to come together as women and celebrate the fête.
On Women's Day in Mora,I marched in the parade with the other female teachers and some students. We all got outfits made out of this year's fabric. Each year, for each holiday, they design a special fabric. A lot of times they print it in a couple different colors. So I had a romper made, and because I am cheap I took a leftover piece from Louise in pink and a leftover piece from Jess in blue. The top half of my romper was blue and the bottom was pink. It was awesome. Pictures available on Facebook.
The best part of the week was on Saturday, when Jess launched her trash project (which involves putting out trash cans, finding a dump site thats not in the center of town in a river that has no water, and getting uniforms for the sanitation workers so they don't have to pick up trash in flip flops) she had a big ceremony and invited all the elites in the town. She also had environmental clubs from 2 schools come and we all paraded at the end through the center of town chanting CLEAN MORA TOWN CLEAN MORA TOWN. I was in 2 parades in one week and it was great!

A Night in Mora

I just had an amazing night of of international company in Mora. We were me, my postmates who are English and French-Canadian, a German, A French, a Spaniard and some Cameroonians of course. We shared so many laughs and had such a good time speaking French, English and even a little Spanish (by the end of the night, I was busting out my ghetto Spanish, phrases like pollo no bueno and Milan esta bandejo.) I never would have thought that this was possible in Cameroon, much less my small town of Mora, but when you are an ex-pat, you can never predict these crazy interesting nights of international camaraderie and exchange.

The Beep

The beep just might change your life. You see, people here don't have cell phone plans. We just pre-pay units of phone credit. So, people are always looking for ways to conserve credit without making the communication suffer. As a result, some really smart person invented The Beep. It is known as The Beep in the francophone part of the country. In the Anglophone regions, it is The Flash. There are many variations of The Beep, but the basic is this: you don't start using credit when you call someone until after the first two rings, so in essence the first two are free. Therefore if you want to say hi to someone without using credit, but don't have anything important to say, use The Beep. If you want to tell someone you're thinking of them but you don't necessarily want to talk to them, flash them. That's right- beep and flash are verbs. It's pretty cool. In Mora, we've taken it a step further and developed an tricate series of beeps in order to avoid using phone credit. One beep means Yes, two beeps NO and three beeps Maybe. Try it sometime.

Girls Club

This is an activity I did with my Girls Club at the primary school on hand washing. I started by asking them what are things that we know exist but we cannot see. I used the example of the wind. They came up with things like air, and God. Then I asked them what causes disease and they said germs, which is really good. So then I said that germs are so small we can't see them, but we know they are there and we have to wash our hands thoroughly to get rid of them. Then I had one of the girls help my with a demonstration- I put a bit of oil on her hand and then some dirt (we meet outside under a tree so this was easy to find). I told her the dirt is like germs and they are sticking to her hand so she needs to wash them. The left hand has cholera and the right hand has typhoid I said. Then I splashed water on her hand a few times but the “germs” would not all come off. So then we added soap and after scrubbing, the germs were all gone. Then I told then to show this to their sisters and mothers who do not go to school.