Then, before I knew it, I traveled to the States. Those 2.5 weeks flew by. I saw my sister, Sarah, graduate at Hofstra on Long Island. Then went to lovely Vermont to see family and friends with a week. Then I traveled out to Elmira to see some 2012s graduate. It was wonderful being home, but very surreal. Here are some observations I noted in my journal while traveling/ being at home:

while waiting in Brussels airport, my thought: people don't talk to each other here, it's too clean, what's the rush anyway?
"i have no service here, it says searching" - an american tourist.....honey i never EVER have service in my village, i wanted to say to her.

on airplane from brussels to jfk:
woman sitting next to me with her newborn baby: i hope you don't mind if i breastfeed
me (chuckling): it's no problem, i live in africa

thoughts while in the states:
-everyone is technology CRAZY, they are all hooked in, not to each other but to their technology
-instantaneousness (is that a word?), craze about the news and what is going on in every corner of the world at every single second
-facebook/twitters is turning our nation into a bunch of narcissists
-EXCESS of food, cards, clothes, materials

I think the hardest part about being home was simply explaining my life here to people. Only my father really knew what questions to ask, because he's been here and experienced it. The majority of my conversations went like this:
Friend: "So, how is Africa?"
Me: "Um, I'm not sure, but I can tell you how my small village in Cameroon is doing."
Friend: "Ya, what are you doing there?"
Me: "My job is health overall, but I'm doing mostly HIV/AIDS education with students from the high school".
Friend: "So, is it really hot?"
Me: "Not right now actually. The rainy season has started, so it's cooled down a bit".
Friend: "Oh ok. So did you hear what happened to (fill in name) last week?"

God love people. I guess it is normal. So much has changed and happened to me, but for the most part, everything is the same back home. I can't be upset with people about not asking about the children, or my peer-educators, or how I'm growing as a person. If they were in my shoes, I wouldn't know what to ask them either.

I was pleasantly surprised, though, at how many people told me they read my blog or loved seeing my photos on facebook. That means that all the trouble and time that it takes to upload a post/photo is worth it. Thanks for reading ya'll!

PHOTOS WITH A FRIEND WHILE IN THE STATES: visiting ithaca, ny with my friend laura

22 july 2012

I have not blogged in an embarassingly long amount of time. When was the last one? Ah, February? There is much catching up to do then. Here is a brief timeline of what has happened since February:

March-April: Dad came to visit

End of May-June: I traveled to the states

States-end of June: Hilary came to visit

early July: 2 girls summer camps

Now: Ramaddan

Ah how the time flies. Now for the elaborated version of the past 6 months of events:

Dad flew into Yaounde on March 22, 2012. We came straight up to Ngaoundere on the train; and by straight up I mean we left Yaounde at 6pm and arrived in Ngaoundere at 4pm (usually the train departs at 6pm and arrives at 7 am the next morning). Welcome to Cameroon Pops! Sometimes an overnight train takes two days. Apparently the problem was with the engine/the rails (neither of those being good things to break down). We occupied ourselves though; played cards and cut up a pineapple we had bought in Yaounde. Also during the train ride, I woke up at 3am to the sound of people talking outside. I looked in the bottom bunk of the train to find my father....not there. He had gotten off the train and went outside to speak to some children. "Dad, what are you doing?" I screamed out the window. "Just talking to some kids", he said. "Their French is too fast for me though". "Dad get the hell back into the train right now!!! What are you thinking?" I yelled back. After that, he didn't leave the train again. After Ngaoundere, we came straight to my village and spent about 4 days here. We did the tour and he met nearly everyone I know. He was fed couscous after couscous, but it was too much. "You are telling me these people eat this stuff three times a day seven days a week 365 days a year?" he asked me after trying it. "Yup", I said, "and they miss it if they can't have it". "Unbelievable", he commented, "it's not that it's bad...but every single meal for the rest of your life....no thanks". At night, when we wanted to make our own food, of course Fadi brought over a huge couscous and sauce....needless to say, Puppy ate a lot of couscous that night. After visiting my village, we headed up north in search of "les animaux". We went to Waza Park, the most-known wildlife park in Cameroon. We saw giraffes, antelope, so many birds, and a lion. We were so lucky with the lion. March is the dry season so usually there are more animals than usual looking for the man-made watering holes. But we got really lucky with the lion, who was sitting under a tree panting. I felt sorry for the guy with his big fur coat and all. After the animals, we spent time in Maroua shopping for cool locally-made crafts. My father's impressions of the north: hot hot and more hot. Yes, he had a point. It is the dry/hot season, and my thermometer no longer worked in the Adamawa (after 120 degrees farenheit it just says HIGH), and we were even more north and hot up in Maroua. Then we came back down through Ngaoundere and took the train back down (thankfully with no interesting events this time). We took a bus in Yaounde to the beach town of Kribi. It was the first time I'd been there, and we had a great time. We went out one morning on a canoe-trip to see the pygmies. There were a lot of other white people there as well. Apparently when you visit the pygmies, you're supposed to bring a gift of alcohol or cigarettes. We were not informed of this fact, so we just gave them money, but the other nasarasa brought boxed wine and cigarettes as a gift. The pygmies put on a show/dance for us, and I danced with them!! It was cool to dance with them especially because their way of dancing is so different from the north, but at the same time it was sad. It was clear to see that putting on the daily show for visitors was their livelihood. We were told that hunters from their tribe were out gathering food, but I don't know if I believed it. After the pygmie voyage, we went to these beautiful waterfalls called "les Shutes de Lobes". Those were beautiful and we ate some FRESH shrimp (my dad watched the guy catch them) on the beach. While in Kribi, we also enjoyed some great big fish and "baton de manioc". Manioc is a root found in the ground and it is dried out, ground up and cooked into a paste. This paste is then put into a banana leaf and tied so that it maintains its shape, hence the baton/stick part. After Kribi, Pops and I headed back to Yaounde and he flew out.

PHOTOS WHILE DAD CAME TO VISIT: facebook photos from dad's visit

After Pops left, so much worked happened in a short amount of time. The end of the school year had come; which meant lots of exam-giving, correcting of exams and filling out of report cards. On the last day of school, I gave out awards to the best students. The awards were not only based on the marks from their exams, but also for participation, attendance and most improvement in English. The students liked the little certificates.

Work also finished for the year in terms of Health Club and peer-educators of HIV/AIDS Awareness. Since the majority of my peer-educators are not from Gangassaou, they go to their hometown for the break. During vacation, they help their parents in the fields and at home. One of the peer-educators, Atou, suggested that we make pamphlets and each students take some home and educate his family and friends. So, the pamphlets were created by us and distributed during our last meeting. We will pick up with more activities when the students return in September for the school year. Also, at the end of the year, we had a diploma ceremony for the peer-educators. Diplomas were sent from Peace Corps Yaounde to peer-educators who not only participated in the HIV training back in November, but helped out with a minimum of 2 activities afterwards. Activities included: World AIDS Day and the HIV awareness campaign that we did between January to April. We held the diploma ceremony in the evening, so a lot of other students were present to see their peers receive the diplomas. However, before receiving their diplomas, we did our awareness routine for all who were there. Many students came up to me afterwards asking to me in the club for next year. I'm hoping they want to be in the club to educate other students, and not just because they want the diploma.

20th of february 2012

it is ten of eight on a monday night; so bedtime. and a pitter patter of raindrops has begun on the rooftop. the rainclouds started yesterday and i asked someone, acciddentally using incorrect french, if it was going to cry. they chuckled and said no, not yet but it is getting started. and the rainclouds, dark and grey and full of the long-awaited water, were back again this evening. now that i hear the gentle knocking of rain on the roof, i wonder if it will pick up. i wonder if this rain is enough to collect my buckets around the house and lay them outside next to my house under the tin roof to catch the rain. no not yet, the rain says. we are done for the evening. and as quietly and quickly as it came, the raindrops end, leaving us hot air and dry land for the next few months to come.

One year in village

21 fevrier 2012

525 600 minutes, how do you measure, measure a year?

A year ago, February 21, 2011, I arrived in my village. I think this calls for some reflecting. First of all, it does not seem like a year. It seems like a minute, like one blink, like one fast-falling sunset. How have 365 days already gone by? Have I let them slip by this quickly? I have been soaking them up as best as I could and appreciating the small things and every moment, but still, as the old saying goes, time flies....when you're having fun....or not looking at the clock.....or living the dream.

Upon further reflection, I think it took me a while to get into "the groove" of my life and work here. When I arrived in Cameroon, I underwent a three-day training in the capital of Yaounde followed by a week and a half in Ngaoundere to buy things for my house and get myself situated to open my post. I would say that I was a bit more than disoriented.

But, little by little, I got my feet wet. I relearned French. I started learning Fulfulde and Dii. I started teaching English. And somewhere towards the end of the summer, I determined that I wanted to focus my work on HIV/AIDS Prevention. Now, I am "en plein travail", or full into the work, of HIV/AIDS campaigns. Thus far with my peer-educators, we have successfully taught in nine villages surrounding us. We have two villages left to teach and will conduct an counseling/HIV prevention training for the teachers of the high school.

I am proud of the work and what the peer educators and I have been able to achieve. More than that, though, I have been proud of how I have matured along this journey. I walked into this village a year ago, knowing nothing, nowhere or no one (Cameroonians or other volunteers) and now ..... I feel good about where I am. I know nearly everyone in my village, and consider myself family with the house right next to me. I have made friendships with other volunteers that I know will last forever. What more, I can make my way around and am confident about my language and what I am doing. I am also proud and honored to call my village home. For my friends in village, it cannot be easy to welcome a complete stranger into your town. There will always be cultural differences where we will never see eye-to-eye, but I am honored that they invited me here and have welcomed me into their homes and their lives.

Resolutions for this next year (or really ten months until my close of service): continue to live and breath and be happy. Continue to work on the languages. Continue to teach, whether that means HIV sensibilisations or English at the high school. And most importantly, continue to learn....about the people and culture in my village and about myself.

In response to some questions...

09 fevrier 2012

Last week when I was in town, I skyped with a 1st grade class at my mother's school. It was great to talk to elementary school students in the US, show them photos of Cameroon via skype and hear their questions about life here. In response to some of their questions:

How do I get water?
During the rainy season, or when water is available in the wells, I "pull" water. This means I borrow my friend's bucket+string, toss the bucket way down into the well, and when it fills up with water, I pull it out with the string. Depending on how much water is left in the well (on some mornings when a lot of people have pulled water, not much water is left), it takes about 10 minutes to fill a bucket.
When there isn't water in the wells, I walk to the center of my village to the "forrage" where people foot-pump water up from the ground. This water is much cleannnner because it comes from very far in the ground. I have drank this water straight before. I would never think to do that with well water, which is usually brown and full of insects or grass.
(photo coming soon)

What do I eat?
Ok here is what I ate for today:
Breakfast - bread that gets driven in from the city of Ngaoundere plus peanut butter that a woman in my neighborhood makes from peanuts from her field
Lunch - two hard-boiled eggs and beans that someone was selling on the street plus rice that i bought from the local boutique. Note: these local boutiques, just like all the places in my village, don't have electricity, which means that any food they sell needs to be non-perishable. Examples of non-perishable foods: rice, flour, mayonnaise packets, cans of tomato sauce, soda in plastic bottles, crackers, etc.Dinner - i went to my friend's house for dinner and we ate millet cous-cous and a leaf and peanut butter sauce called koomby. It was so delicious :)
I try to eat as balanced-and-healthy a diet as possible, but it's a bit difficult during the dry season when fresh fruits and vegetables do not grow. If I'm lucky, I can buy fresh tomatoes once a week in the market, but the majority of the time tomatoes for me come in cans.
　
What pets do people have here?
This is an interesting question. When I think of a pet, I think of a dog/cat/bird/some sort of animal that brings you joy but doesn't necessarily have a job in the household, right? In that sense, I would say people have just dogs and cats as pets. A lot of other animals live in the houses though, like cows or sheep or chickens, but they all serve a purpose of feeding people through either eggs or meat.

What animals are there here?
In my village on a daily basis, I see / hear: lizards, cows, chickens, ducks, dogs, cats, goats, sheep
In this country, however, there are a lot more types of animals. A few times during the drive to my village from Ngaoundere, I have seen monkeys running across the road. Way up in the north of Cameroon, there are elephants, antelope, water buffalo, monkeys, lions and more. I haven't been up there yet, though, so I can't tell you all for sure what I've seen, but this is what I've heard from others who have traveled up there.

Youth Week

08 fevrier 2012

Today I played football (soccer) for the first time sinceeee 8th grade. This week in Cameroon is known as Youth Week. These are the events planned for the week:

Monday and Tuesday - normal classes

Wednesday - Youth clean-up day. Each class of students is assigned a certain area of the town to clean up. I was in charge of the Premiere D class and we went to the health center (of course) to clean. The students machet-ed down the grass, swept and mopped the floors. Because we finished early, they then helped another class burn down a field. Burning down fields is big this time of year during the dry season. The fields of grass, corn and beans that grew all during the rainy season are now dried stalks and people want to get rid of them. They want to start the year off fresh. Side note: my postmate told me that actually burning fields is one of the worst things you can do because it burns all the nutrients that were put into the ground from the previous year's crops. I tried explaining this to someone. They looked at me like I had four heads. So this is how burning goes: a group of people, in this case students, circles the land to be burned. One match is all it takes because once one dry stalk goes up in flames, the rest follow shortly after. It is quite interesting to watch as insects fly in all directions away from the heat, and students clap and holler as they move the flames to other areas. In the US, being a pyromaniac is frowned upon. Here, it is just part of life. For the student's work at the health center, the supervisor gave them 3000 FCFA. We split it among all the students and they went and bought bennets and beans with their hard-earned money. They were happy. After the clean-up day the kids had the day off.

Wednesday afternoon - All the teachers and administrators went to the neighboring town of Berem where we played a soccer game against the teachers of that high school. I played the whole first half of the game - and by play I mean I was running around, making a fool of myself, and attempting to kick the ball. I didn't touch the ball once - it's fine though, next time. Our team won 2-1 but Berem will come visit us next month for a re-match in our village.

Wednesday night - I was reading in my house and heard a knock on the door. To my surprise, 10 students waited on the other side. I welcomed them in to my house to practice their skits and dances for the following morning's cultural activities at school. It brought me such joy that they came to my house to practice. I like to be “serious” and an educator that students respect; but at the same time many of these students need an adult figure or role model in their lives. They came to my house because they knew it was a safe and positive environment to practice.

Thursday - cultural dances and skits at school

Friday - no class

Saturday - parade and festival in a village called Ngan'ha

rocks or diamonds?

10 fevrier 2012

when a day starts off uneventful...

this past monday after "doing the market" in village with my postmate, i was sitting and reading in my house.

salam alakum - i heard a quiet woman's voice outside

i wasn't sure if it was for me so i let the boy next door answer the door. the woman wanted to see me. i invited her inside. she was a small fulbe woman with blue tattoos forming lines, x's and stars on her face. she started talking to me in fulfulde but realized we wouldn't get very far, so we called the boy next door back in.

she has brought something to show you - the boy said

from within the folds of her panya, she pulled out a small black bag. she carefully untied it and within were beautiful gemstones coloring from blue to violet. inside of that bag was another smaller cloth-wrapped sac of clear crystals. i turned them over in my hands and held them up to the light. they were so beautiful.

does she want to sell them? - i asked the boy to translate

no, she just wanted to show them to me and see if they were worth anything. she heard i was here and maybe you would know something about them. she found them all up behind her house. she says there are a ton of them. her village is after saltaka.

what? i have no idea how to test if something is a real diamond or whatever.

if she leaves a few with me, when i go into town next, i can look up on the computer if they're real or not or how even to test if they're real or not - i said

she agreed and left me a handful of beautiful gemstones. she'll be back in two weeks to see what i've found out.