Updates From the Dust Bowl

It hasn't rained in three weeks. My garden is slowly dying and outside is desolate like the dead feeling of a desert. Clouds of dust pick up like when I played softball and in a strong wind you'd have to turn your head and cover your face to escape the twister. You can literally smell the dust. I taste it while walking to school or riding to Bafoussam. It's like you are breathing with your nose in the dirt. It's far worse than I feel like it was last year. This rainy season was brief and less intense than my first year. Some days I feel like I'm 100% sure I want to extend and others I feel 100% certain that I can't wait to get the hell out of here! This morning while walking to class I realized that after my trip home I'll only have about 6 months left and it blew me away. My time is really... over. Have almost two years really gone by since I've been here? Sometimes it feels like nothing is changing but then suddenly it occurs to me that so much time has gone by. I guess this is all a part of the Peace Corps story. When you're in it, though, you just are. You're just unaware of so much. This is the busiest time of the school year. Between correcting countless tests and essays, calculating averages, completing report cards, while at the same time planning lessons, executing classes, and putting together a weekly program of about 4 hours with the Girls' Club each Sunday, I'm exhausted. I rarely have a moment's time to reflect on the fact that it's all coming to a close and when I do I feel overwhelmed at the thought of it. Anyway, this is why it's gotten so difficult for me to keep up with the journal. Where to even begin it... Well, I went to Yaounde at the end of October to meet with the Country Director for Peace Corps about getting married. After 3 weeks with the 9 page questionnaire from the State Department about "Who is Claude" we finally sent it in yesterday. We expect to hear back in 2 weeks or so about whether they have 'approved' us. After that Claude will have to go to Yaounde as well to meet the Country Director for final approval and that will complete the last of the first round of hoops we have to jump through. After that will be registering for our wedding in Cameroon and then the Embassy. So much is unclear at this moment. I'm finalizing my grad school applications and analyzing all my options. It's tough to imagine not coming home all at once with Claude in tow but I fear it is a possibility. My official Close of Service is in August but usually people begin leaving about 2 months before the date and that is the last group's departure date. If I wind up heading for grad school in September I'll no doubt be leaving in June or July. I am applying to schools in New York, Massachusetts, and Colorado so there will be a process of coming home and then scurrying off to a totally new city... again. Sometimes I freak out at the thought of all the things I'd be adjusting to all at once. I panic a bit and think the best thing to do is STAY HERE! In March we will have our Close of Service conference and I will probably at least apply to extend. That will be around the same time I'll start hearing back from the universities so at least I'll have choices. If I am accepted to a school I may be able to defer for a year if I choose to. If I extended service I'd likely be going to another part of Cameroon and doing a different type of job. It could be with an NGO, which would probably be a really good experience for me. But then, the thought of moving in this country is dreadful, especially to stay for probably less than a year. Not to mention that here we are so central and close to Claude's family. I have adjusted to one way of life and it would be like starting over in some ways. Lately our power has been out pretty regularly and it's made me half mad. I can't imagine winding up someplace that has even fewer resources than the West because I really lucked out with this post. You don't realize how much electricity and water completely shape your existence. I guess if there was anything appropriate to write about on Thanksgiving- this is it! Rumor has it that the power outages in Cameroon are because they export electricity to other bordering countries-- and since it's being exported they pay more! Most Sundays there's no power but it's mostly only during the day and comes back on as soon as it gets dark (which is really early in this equatorial region). Sometimes, though, it goes off at other very inconvenient times. I've gotten used to reading and cooking by candlelight but I cannot get the gumption up to actually sit down and grade papers or do schoolwork when there are no lights. As it is I'm already exhausted after walking to and from school and then being on my feet in a classroom, talking, writing on a chalkboard, and trying to control 60-80 brats. If the power goes out- forget it-- my day is over. I fall into bed lately sometimes before 9 o'clock. Water is much less reliable than power. We don't have it more often than we do. The first months were the toughest with this because it's a matter of a figuring out how many water containers you need to get through the times the water's off. Sometimes I had to pay the neighbor kids to go and carry water. Doesn't it seem so strange that a ten year old child can carry my water bidons and I can't? Well, I can but not very far and not at all gracefully or comfortably. They just plop them on their heads and off they go. It's genuinely a feat of nature. So, now I have about 265 liters of water storage and as soon as you start hearing the hissing from the pipes you have to line them all up and get ready. It's a blissful event every time. During the rainy season it's a dance of buckets inside, buckets outside. At the first menace of storm clouds you rush it all outside and right back in at the buzz of the faucets. We had two REALLY dry months in which I buffed up from my trips to the well. Forty pulls to the top for each 10 liter bucket. All of it has become somewhat second nature now. Survival. It's rare I have to panic about it like I did in the beginning. It's weird to think in two weeks I'm just going to take a vacation from it all in the US. How this simple little fact really makes my reality so outstandingly different from everyone else around me. In the end for me, it's all just one big adventure and for them it really is... just this hard and hopeless. I hate to say that it's hopeless. It sounds so pessimistic. More and more pessimism is what I seem to feel. The problems of education are so infectious. Like ignorance is truly a contagion in the society. Uneducated parents breed complacent students and so on down the line. Worse, parents who have so little ambition or direction themselves have so many children they can't take care of that neglect becomes a serious epidemic. Recently I have witnessed so many cases of this and felt so discouraged. So often children are taking care of children. I'm not talking about teenage parenthood either, I mean leaving the infant with a 5 year old for hours at a time. A couple weeks ago I was walking down to school with next to a mama and we stumbled on a crawling baby who was about to make its way into the street, crying on the side of the road by himself. The mama recognized the kid and saw the older one who must've been about 2. She explained that their mother had gone out so I wound up taking the two of them to a seamstress next door but they were literally all alone. I told her that in my country you would lose your kids in a heartbeat doing that and she said, "Of course! It's not for nothing they created nursery school!" I was happy to at least have this person to relate to about it but I still couldn't imagine anyone thinking this is okay. The other day I was grading papers on the porch and kept hearing a baby crying. I kept thinking it was a little girl in the street and didn't think anything because most of the neighbor kids are boys. Finally I realized it was coming from the compound and went to investigate only to find the three year old and my favorite baby who's 9 months just hanging out by themselves. I sat with the baby until his mom got back and got filthy dirty because his diaper was wet and he had snot, dirt, and tears all over his face and clothes. A few weeks ago when I was putting fliers up all over the village I spent an afternoon pointing nursery schoolers to the side of the road as they walked home. This will probably shock most Americans but here it's perfectly normal for a two year old to walk to school from a mile away all by himself. The funny thing is, they ARE a lot smarter and more independent than we give them credit for in the States but at the same time, a lot of parents here are just very, very lucky that their kid makes it home everyday. Anyway, I'm very much looking forward to a retreat home for a happy occasion for the first time since I've been here. I absolutely cannot wait to spend time with family and friends. The thought of being next to the fireplace with the forbidding cold outside, hot chocolate, warm company. It's so exciting but also kind of sad because I just wish my fiance would be there with me. But hopefully soon enough. Can't wait to see everyone!

Eyes Wide Open

Lately whole entire months are passing by and I seem to keep forgetting that they have. Like- September... I keep thinking it's still then. Work life is so loaded now that last year actually feels kind of like a walk in the park, though I have to say that this year's schedule gives me far more pleasure than that did. Girls' Club has been off to a good start and we seem to finally be establishing a consistent circle of girls who participate every week. They are even noticeable braver already than they were a few weeks ago and it's really exciting to imagine the changes I might actually see in them by the end of the year. My classes are going much better in most respects though some things seem simply unavoidable. I do feel more in control than last year, despite the protests from students half my size as I am kicking them out of my classroom, I feel righteous or something! I am trying to maintain a formation each month with the village women though this has begun to feel like more of a chore than a project. It feels in many ways like a pointless endeavor which serves little purpose except to eat up my time and money and encourage women to stop and ask me for a variety of things constantly. On the other hand, I have also been keeping busy by just trying to spend more time with neighbors or coworkers or other friends around town. Nowadays I really don't even notice the long silences I used to want nothing more than to avoid at all costs. I will probably make a lot of people feel very uncomfortable when I get back to America. As November creeps up I realize that already in just another month and half the bulk of the school year will be over. After December is essentially referred to as holiday season because literally there is a holiday that seems to warrant a whole week of slacking off every few weeks until May. As I filled out my first round of report cards for the first sequence today I couldn't help thinking how before I know it I will already be going to my Close of Service conference and thinking about transitioning back into American life. Or will I... I'm not asking that question to allude to a decision I've made but simply decisions that are actually available to us and that I have certainly already thought quite a lot about. For as long as I can remember I've had a plan. A very specific, to the T picture of exactly where I was going in my life. Any veering off track was a huge disappointment for me and only pushed me harder to correct my steering back to where I'd been headed before. For a long time I think that plan really kept me from falling in love or even looking for real love, or from settling anyplace. I didn't want to be safe, not until I could be here, doing this. Security may have been too tempting to turn away from, and I had just started feeling a bit too comfortable in Los Angeles when my invitation to Cameroon finally came. After Peace Corps my plan was always graduate school and once I had a Master's, that was where I finally had it in my head that I could loosen my collar and take a few breaths and stop worrying so much about being right on schedule. Maybe this whole scheduling thing in the first place was subconsciously my biological clock rushing me through all my adventure before starting to focus on my children's adventures. Whatever it was, after grad school the plan just sort of dropped off, like the way people imagined the world did when they thought it was flat. I had a lot of hopes for how it would all shake out-- perfect husband hopefully debuting around age 27, great job after school allowing me to do pretty much everything I hoped to in going to school for so long to begin with, and at 30-- babies! I have allowed myself so little flexibility in this plan that I almost constantly have this feeling of someone frowning at me if I even just THINK about making a tiny adjustment. Retrospectively I guess I can say that I was raised primarily by 3 very strong women who instilled a lot of very specific ideas in my head about how my life should go in order to pass muster with them. Now one of those women has already passed away and my mother has really let go quite a lot and begun encouraging me to make my own choices. Yet, somehow I still feel this strong pull for approval, for support in every way. At 26 I'm still not sure I have any better idea of what I'm doing than I did at 16. I wonder at this point if we ever quite figure it out. Without planning it, though, the reality is that my plan has bumped a tad off course. Not in a bad way at all, in a very positive one, actually. As it turns out, I am in love, in a time in my life when I had put my guard down and absolutely least expected it and with a person who, being literally from another world, is not the easiest to be so organized and programmed out with. I have been waiting to announce it because we have to get the Peace Corps' permission to follow through with our plans, but I also don't want everybody I know to feel completely shocked or think this was a totally abrupt decision for us. So, Claude and I hope to get married. And quite soon, actually! Hopefully around January. Obviously this puts a bit of a monkey wrench in all my best laid plans for what's next. And actually, no part of me is even discouraged about continuing on the path that I'd hoped to. As far as grad school, I have been working already on applications and the pressure is on to get them wrapped up before visiting home in December so I can ship everything off by then. Even the total bureaucracy that our marriage is forced to take on from the Cameroonian side to the Peace Corps to the Embassy, all feels like it's own little part of our interesting story. What's really beginning to pull my away from the burning desire to do everything the way I always pictured it is the realization that when you are always looking so far ahead, and feeling that push into the future from behind, sometimes I think you forget to notice the present and appreciate all the pushing you did in your past to go to it. After nearly a year and a half in Cameroon, the idea of how difficult adjusting to life back home might be is not lost on me. After all, after spending only 4 months in Senegal I was a wreck for nearly a year upon my return. After being here so long sometimes I notice things about my own noticing of things that makes me laugh. Like, for example, sometimes I think to myself while walking around the village- "Wow! What a clean child! How on earth did that kid stay so clean!?" Or, "Sheesh, that family has a baby bouncer! How chic!" The thing is, I used to see the kids here in their utterly filthy clothes, playing with cars they made out of sardine cans and flip flops cut into wheels and I felt so sorry for them. I felt this gnawing need to cure poverty, to fix everything, and I guess I thought fixing everything meant wearing your Sunday best and having really nice toys! Sometimes I imagine all those ads for Save the Children and all those other charities where the kids are painted in this sad, awful light of hopelessness and instead I think -- hey, that looks just like my neighbors! I mean, it's not that their situation isn't sad or that I no longer comprehend why it's sad. In fact, I think I comprehend better than ever WHAT is actually sad about it. And, on the other side of that coin, what is actually sad about American life that actually is quite present in life here. Some days I yearn for nothing more than grocery store aisles (lame, right, but when I was home with Grandma and was able to sneak out of hospice for a couple of hours, I literally poured over every aisle in Kroger!), iced coffee from a drive-thru window while riding around with the car windows down, nights out with friends, time in laughing and being together with family. I miss those things as basically a constant but the thing is, I know it's there and I know that at some point, be it near or not too terribly far, I am going to reenter that world whether I like it or not and probably be utterly consumed by it and even more probably at some point be very much detached again from this world that seems at present so familiar. Lately I just keep asking myself, will I really be ready for that in another 10 months? It's funny. So much of life gets under your skin here. Like my electric bill for about $16 when it should be about $3. Or the neighbor kids that are even at this very moment, crying hysterically. The kids in the classroom that seem impossible to silence regardless of the ultimatum or punishment presented to them and who sometimes make you just want to scream out "I DON'T KNOW WHY I'M EVEN HERE!" Even the expectations of total perfection from Peace Corps and the community. The trying to fit in someplace where you will always inevitably stand out. The gas tank running out right in the middle of cooking dinner. I could go on and on. So many things that you wish away nearly everyday of service. You just imagine that bright day in the future when you will hop on a plane and leave all those crying babies and aggravations someplace under a blanket of clouds. The thing is, those frustrations melt away the moment you step off the plane. Even going back to the States to deal with Grandma I realized how I was going back to a place that hadn't, in essence, changed a nip, and yet I feel I have changed in every way. How can you reconcile that and will I really be ready to in just 10 more months... or less if grad school is really going to be my next move... and not to mention with a new husband who is learning the language and trying to catch up on the formal education that is so hard to come by here. All of this is neither here nor there because I really have no idea which path I will choose and there are a lot of unknowns yet that will play into that decision-making process. But, a couple things I do know- now is a good time to open my eyes a bit wider and really see where I am, what I'm experiencing right this minute and to finally put down the heavy load I've made myself carry of such a continuum of personal expectations.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Find out what it means to me

And, it's back to school already and somehow refreshing to feel a part of this school culture. A culture that must be at least somewhat existant in every country as formal education becomes the international norm. This period where life settles down and gets more serious and regulated, not just for the kids but for everybody. It's so comforting to find familiarity in seeing the same little ones toter off to primary school in their often filthy dirty farm clothes with giddy, determined looks on their faces, often joyously greeting me in French, English, or Ghomala and sometimes just staring at me in astonishment and wonder while tripping over their own feet. To meander down the hill while the morning fog is burning out of the valley and the layers and layers of mountain ranges begin to slide into view one by one while casually chatting with last year's students. It's so marvelous to be back and to have a sense of ease and calm. To feel less pressured to do it all and more confident about doing my piece well. I have started this year an entirely different specimen. I have just learned that I've been approved for the small grant I applied for to run my Girls' Club this year which is going to allow us to do so much more and dig so much deeper than what I did with them last year. I spent half the summer putting together a comprehensive program that begins with self-esteem building through a myriad of life skills like good communication and relationships, preventing early pregnancy and HIV, and being a leader, role model, and professional in the future. Our first meeting is Sunday and is the most enthusiastic I've been about anything at all since Peace Corps service began. It truly feels like my biggest chance to make a lasting impact and I can't wait to get going. I've been working with the village women more and more and now that I have a key to the community center and women stopping me all the time telling me they want to come to the next formation I feel quite official. School is still school and it's as challenging and frustrating as they warn you it will be and then some. This year is definitely easier than last year because at least I knew what to expect and went to the school administration to specify my desires way ahead of time. This means that as far as my classes go, I have 2 different levels this year rather than the 4 I was covering last year, my classes are Monday-Wednesday, all finishing by 1 in the afternoon, and I chose the levels I had the least issue with before. Unfortunately this kind of bit me in the ass because as it turns out I inadvertently chose the 2 largest classes of the school this year. Logically I could not have imagined this scenario. Last year I had 1 5e class of 62 students and I made the most progress with them than any other class primarily because I had them 5 hours per week. I requested to take them on again because though I wanted to stay with the same kids in the next level, I knew they were going to get mixed in with the other class which was quite notoriously the worst of the school last year. I avoided the 3e class because that was the biggest class at school last year with 85 kids and I knew a lot of kids might be repeating because it's an exam year. As it happens, I walked into both 3e classes today to find them remotely empty as compared to last year whereas my 5es are both classes of 83. The other class is that of the oldest students from last year who I have gotten to move up with. This year they will take another important national exam and it's nice to work with them again. It's been interesting to have some of the kids who are repeating who didn't have me last year because my students seem to be far ahead of them. These kids are much older and discipline is something I can control on more of a casual basis so far. The changes I recognize in myself in just a year are quite dramatic. Standing in front of 160 intently staring eyes last year I felt like more of a peer than a professional. Sure, I had just spent almost 3 years giving highly wonky presentations to oftentimes far more intellectual individuals than myself, but this audience was an entirely different ball game. TEENAGERS! Somehow the latent adolescent desires to be accepted and liked as one of them came burning back to life. I remember Claude saying to me as I attempted to fly out the door in my Reefs one morning, "Non, non, non; You cannot wear those to school; no one will respect you". This year is all about the respect. No more ignoring all that very wonderful advice from our trainers about starting firm and getting softer. These first few weeks of school are crucial for striking as much fear into the hearts and minds of Cameroonian children as is humanly possible without physical abuse. Not only that, but having SOME clue about where I'm starting with these students in terms of language ability takes a HUGE load off stress wise. It made putting together the academic program a ton easier and it makes lesson planning far easier. Now I'm trying to equip the students with as much vocabulary as I can jam into their already overwhelmed brains so when I speak to them in nothing but English all year I won't get mummified stares and chaos in return. Other than all of that everything is just moving along. I have been kind of wrapped up in lesson planning, grant writing, and statement of purpose avoidance these last couple weeks but I'm trying to make an effort to kick it at least a few times a week with the neighbors. Today I indulged in that pasttime with my favorite baby buddy Joel, who is already 9 months old and is growing like a weed and is the happiest and most amazing baby I know. His little delighted smile whenever he sees me melts my everything away and I go into this entire world of baby-mania when I'm with him. Now he's at this age where he's beginning to get cuddly and when he wears himself out from continuously darting his head and eyes about being curious about everything all the time he briefly rests his head on my chest and I feel the strongest desire to be a mom that I ever have. The Cameroonians would love nothing more than that! I few weeks ago I was sick and Diane hinted that I was pregnant and I could tell the thought of it made her feel more connected to me. It's an equalizer here, being a mom. It's what makes sense to them. Being a professional, being an independent, decisive, opinonated woman, that all seems like planning life out while life itself is passing you by. Like a popular song here says, "Life is beautiful; you most not complicate it." God, at 26, unmarried and no children on the horizon in the next few years- what the hell am I even living for! There's always so much more to say about life here, life in general, and just everything but it's past 10 and I plan on getting up at 5:30. Respect comes with getting to school BEFORE your students! I have a better internet connection now thanks to my ever attentive mother. Thus, I promise to write more and hopefully to add some pictures soon! Oh! Post script: You may be wondering about the name of the blog changing! Basically, I named my blog before I came to Cameroon and "Tubab" is a Senegalese term for a foreigner. Now that I've spent over a year here I figure it's time for a more culturally appropriate title- "Dok" means white in Ghomala and is the term villagers call me relentlessly in the street.

Paranoia paranoia

“Who indeed knows the secret of the earthly pilgrimage? Who indeed knows why there can be comfort in a world of desolation? Now God be thanked that there is a beloved one who can lift up the heart in suffering, that one can play with a child in the face of such misery. Now God be thanked that the name of a hill is such music, that the name of a river can heal. Aye, even the name of a river that runs no more. Who indeed knows the secret of the earthly pilgrimage? Who knows for what we live, and struggle, and die? Who knows what keeps us living and struggling, while all things break about us? Who knows why the warm flesh of a child is such comfort, when one’s own child is lost and cannot be recovered? Wise men write many books, in words too hard to understand. But this, the purpose of our lives, the end of all our struggle, is beyond all human wisdom.” -Cry the Beloved Country

Forgive me for being a slacker (still) after all these years. Again two months have passed and I have neglected to write a single word to tell anyone about my movements on a far away continent. The truth is, I haven’t been slacking quite as much as in the past, I’ve been working quite a lot and living quite enthusiastically, which sometimes doesn’t permit a good run at writing.

It’s hard to believe that in 2 weeks my long break will be finished and I’ll be back before a classroom of obnoxious hooligans, but in some ways I’m rather looking forward to it. Since July I have been somewhat all over the place and the pieces of time I’ve spent at home have been more focused on relaxing, planning next school year’s activities, and really spending time with people in the village. Mid-service was fun, I got to see a lot of volunteers I haven’t heard from all year and relax a bit in the Yaounde house. Afterwards was back to village to plan a regional meeting I hosted and then a training on tofu making the next day in my village, both of which were a success!

Getting across the halfway point threshold has birthed a whole new energy and tolerance for everything I’m here to do. It’s also inspired a lot more focus in lieu of frustration. I guess development work in general has this effect. It took the entire first year to really get my feet wet, stop cursing, and try seeing what the hell needed doing and how to do it. Now with just a year left, I feel more willing to step away from my own world to make things happen knowing that soon enough I will get to step back into it for good. This means sitting idly with my neighbors even when all they’re doing is passing the time, talking in mother tongue and watching the kids play. It means buying more villagers a beer when the whim hits rather than begrudging their request.

Early this month we took a weekend in the East with the Gym teacher from the high school and a group of kids who attended a sports camp for three days. Unfortunately most of the East I got to see was from the bus windows but the trip as a whole was really an adventure and it was fun to be a part of it. Claude wound up running into a friend he grew up next door to and hasn’t seen in 11 years and he helped show us around including renting a moto to tour around a bit with. Since being back I’ve helped run two summer camps that were a great hit and really felt meaningful. They provided great preparation for my work with Girls’ Club this year and I can’t wait to get started.

This is the first time Claude and I have been apart for a while and it’s good to have some time to reflect and process things. In the coming weeks I will hold the second formation for village women, which is far less intimidating than the first. I ran into the school supervisor yesterday and he informed me he’s already back working so I will go Monday and try getting my classes put together. I have much different standards this year than the last and do not wish to be surprised with teaching classes that I will loathe.

Spending a lot of time recently with other volunteers, all in efforts toward work, has been really gratifying. It’s surprising how much being able to deeply discuss all the myriad craziness that is life in Peace Corps has a cathartic effect. It even helps to steer the ship back to shore, to remind you of why you did this in the first place and inspires you to push through the muck. Regardless, there are still days of great questioning and frustration. Luckily for me I’m just someone that never lets myself off easily in anything, I believe in finishing the fight at all costs, so, it never crosses my mind to throw in the towel in moments of fluster. Yet, sometimes I wonder if I’m not a complete lunatic for desiring to leave the sunshine of Los Angeles to come collect my water from a well, or walk through mud puddles in the market. To spend my little money in attempts to satisfy the high expectations of strangers. To risk life and limb in so many ways you don’t even put together until a year of living it and hear so many many stories and witness so many horrible things that you sometimes pray for it to end as quickly as possible. Lately my fears have risen. Maybe it’s turning 26 or being in love for the first time, or perhaps it simply really is due to the build up of testimonies of horror. I myself have witnessed 2 motorcyle accidents right before my eyes, a boy recently struck by a car lying on the side of the road in his bloodsoaked t-shirt. A student passing away, another passing into a state of unconscious consciousness for an extended time, stories of young people from village dying in motorcycle accidents- one just at the market. Other volunteers talk of what they’ve seen, children struck by motos, one killed by a volunteer’s bus. Stories of illness that kills quickly and unbiased. Even stories of sorcery inflicted on others in ways indescribable and nauseating. There is fear of witnessing violent acts like that of mob justice or domestic abuse. The other day several volunteers and I declared how absolutely afraid we are alone in our homes at night. So used to 911 and a virtual army just a few seconds away after a phone call, the thought of having almost no reprieve is horrifying in and of itself. Not to mention being a particular target for offense. Having to be on constant guard is a sentiment that didn’t even escape me when I was visiting the States last. In fact, it was hard to believe that I could sit on my front porch and perhaps no one driving by would even notice me there.

Yet, through it all, behind the blackness of the paranoia and anxiety, there is this sliver of hope at breaking through something. Making a tiny crack in the shell of all this chaos to bring a little more order. A hope that you will happen to survive amid the unpredictability to bring forth a little change.

There’s little else to update on. As the second year strolls in it’s no longer just a curiosity to examine the future after Peace Corps. My recent inquiries into grad schools left me surprised that there’s a rush to start applying already for next fall and to submit before the end of the year. I should also add that Claude and I are talking about marriage, which is very exciting and terrifying at the same time as I envision a complicated year of travel arrangements and visa hoops to jump through. But, contrary to what I’d imagined before getting here, there’s rarely a dull moment in this life.

Memorials and Anniversaries

July 1st, 2011

“What had to be seen was that the Chris I missed so badly was not an object but a pattern, and that although that pattern included the flesh and blood of Chris, that was not all there was to it. The pattern was larger than Chris and myself, and related us in ways that neither of us understood completely and neither of us was in complete control of.
Now Chris’s body, which was a part of that larger pattern, was gone. But the larger pattern remained. A huge hole had been torn out of the center of it, and that was what caused all the heartache.”
-Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Wow, July 1st. When I was a kid the adults in my family always told me that time would only pass more and more quickly the older I got and it turns out they were right. I have been in Cameroon a year already. Christmas feels like it just happened when in fact it was already half a year ago. My first year of teaching is over and I’m finally settling back into village life after two whirlwind trips to the US in the past 3 months.

Life, in fact, could hardly be more different than six months ago. I feel like I’m in an entirely different place. I was running into the first group already heading back to the States in June and it was so strange to feel like I’d hardly gotten to know them and now they’re already going back to their American lives. It seems like I just got here and was looking at them like the wise volunteers who already seemed to know so much more than I could imagine knowing about surviving in this strange place. Now that group of people is my group.

Yesterday I had this really funny experience. My colleague invited me to lunch to meet his older sister and nieces who live in Massachusetts. The younger daughter is 17 and the oldest is 21. They have been in the States for the last 8 years and the youngest girl has drastically more American habits than her older sister. When she speaks French it’s like hearing another volunteer speak it and when her aunt was calling her to come do something from the other room and she asked her mom, “What, is it like, if someone calls you, you have to go, you can’t say you’re busy?!” I had to laugh hysterically at this.

They were amazed that I had acclimated so well here and in fact while they were talking about how much things cost at Whole Foods, I felt more connected with the world of picking fruits and nuts from a tree. She served me pesto and broccoli and they were so surprised when I said I was growing broccoli and spinach and arugula in my garden. The youngest daughter said I am brave.

Since getting back to the village life has been easy like Sunday morning. In fact, I have absolutely nothing to do and it’s strange and blissful and also terrifying because I haven’t had absolutely nothing to do in like… 4 years. Grandma’s passing has settled in me much more calmly than I ever expected it to in the lifetime I dreaded it. She has graced me with serenity in her absence and I really feel her with me all the time, perhaps more so than ever while she was alive.

Claude and I are about to celebrate our first year together in just a couple of days and we just seem to get happier with each other everyday. It’s something I never imagined could be so simple. We have created balance and fairness in so many areas of our lives from the music we listen to the food we eat. Being from such different backgrounds, everything is a negotiation, and after a year of practice I’m happy to say that it just keeps getting easier to get along.

I’ve been trying to catch up on the myriad things I had longed to do from September-March like writing back friends who’ve sent things, reading and cooking more, visiting other volunteers, and doing my secondary project work. Unfortunately that last part has been a disappointment up until now. Since Bafia my hope has been to organize the women here. In fact, they already are organized, but to provide them with something that may be able to help them. Over time the patterns I seemed to notice indicated that they could be most helped with income generating projects. My community host has been on board to help me from the beginning so he says, but usually I guess he just talks a lot about it and doesn’t do much of anything to make it happen. Actually since I’ve been here he’s done things like not include me in meetings and gatherings and then asked me why I didn’t come as if I had some telepathic way of finding out it was happening. After going to talk about work a couple weeks ago and winding up having dinner and a beer with some others and he, work was merely mentioned. I went to his house a few days later and told his wife to send him over to see me or have him call me so we could discuss organizing and he never showed up. I finally called him and he told me he’d be here at 9 the next morning. I set my alarm (since now that it’s summer break I sleep in!), and, after a year of adapting, I made enough breakfast for everyone and Claude went out for baguettes and coffee. At 9:30 with the eggs already finished on the stove I called him again and he told me he’d be here in one minute. An hour later we decided to eat and shortly thereafter Claude watch him ride past on his motorcycle, not even seeming like he intended to stop.

I don’t know if I offended him in some way or he isn’t completely enthusiastic about my agenda which is fixated on women as well as certain behaviors that probably he’s involved in, like marrying a child and having kids with her. Either way, I’ve abandoned these high hopes of large gatherings of women or a large, ongoing project with them. I would still like to organize a few small opportunities for them to get information about different activities that could generate money for them but I’m basically convinced at this point that most of them will do nothing with it. Thus, my primary focus now is really on improving the scope of work of Girls’ Club next year and really trying to get the entire staff on board with the objectives of the group.

Outside of all that, though I don’t know if I can say I’ll ever really get used to the 24 hour analysis of every behavior, word, change in my body (the teenage girl from the States yesterday told me with disdain, “Everyone keeps telling me how much weight I’ve gained!”), and the calculation of every minute I spend inside or outside my house, I have finally started to adopt the attitude of not giving a shit about pleasing everyone or even what they think of me at all. I feel like I go out of my way to be generous to my direct neighbors. I am constantly giving them baguettes or other food when I‘m out. I baked them cornbread and printed out tons of pictures for them from the States. I give the kids candy, pencils, and sometimes toys. Yet, they still constantly leave garbage all over my yard or in my compost pile and stomp on my garden. One of the kids even dug up all my first tomato plants and moved them to his own hidden garden. This may sound cute in a way until Claude called the kid out on it and he responded, “What have you ever given me?” My impression is that is not the talk of a 7 year old but rather, most likely, the adults around him.

I try to be sociable but mostly I just feel like this alien from outer space with them. That’s not to say I feel like that with everyone in the village because I’ve finally actually started developing some solid friendships with people, but these neighbors in particular just seem to have no respect for me. I think in some ways the way I handled the problems with water and electricity were less than completely tactful and they still hold it against me. They also don’t like that I tend to step in when a child is screaming bloody murder on my stoop or directly outside my window. A few weeks ago when all the kids were taking a turn on one of the younger ones who’d stolen food after I’d already told them it was enough, I huffed outside ready to really shake some fear into the kids and felt totally embarrassed when their mother came hobbling out of the house, having obviously instructed them to beat him. She never looked at me or spoke a single word for minutes until I retreated in shame back into my house. I’ve finally just decided I need to live and let live. Now if I hear screaming, I just try to turn up my own music and I don’t so often open the shutters behind the house that looks into their compound, even if that means being constantly told that I’m always locked up inside.

Today the chief’s wife drug Claude around when she caught him walking to buy bread. She said she was afraid to walk alone at night but I think she actually just wanted to investigate our life because she’s incredibly nosy. She talked all about the two times that she told me the Chief wanted to see me, forgetting that I didn’t come because she never called in the evening to tell me to. She said I’m not social and don’t go out. All this she primarily thinks because she personally gets on my nerves and thus I avoid her. She is the type of person that has absolutely no qualms about asking all variety of personal questions, even in front of strangers, ranging from how much money do I make to what does my boyfriend do all day. She also loves to ask me to buy her a drink when she catches me out, something she’s done since the very first time I ever saw her. She has never once bought me a drink and she is married to the Chief! She constantly asks me to buy her a wig of real hair the next time I’m in the States as though there are myriad wig stores on the streets of America and they are practically giving away wigs of real human hair. She also stabbed her own friend in the back because I was always buying my phone credit from her and she came and tried to convince me to buy it from her sister instead. The lady is obsessed with her moderate celebrity or something and I can tell it just drives her crazy that it doesn’t impress me.

Next week is mid-service and pretty much my break is already half over. Before I know it the school loop will re-run, and I hope this year will run much more smoothly than the last. In the meantime, je suis la, I’m living life and taking a breather. Regardless of what the rest of the village seems to think, I think I deserve it and, whether I’m inside or outside, nothing I’m doing is all that much different from what they are.

A New Beginning

“We were sitting at the kitchen table in our usual spots, my mother drinking her usual decaf tea with Sweet N’ Low, me with my usual mug of English Breakfast and sugar. Even though I hadn’t lived at home in four years, all it took was an oversized mug of microwaved tea and a couple of Reese’s peanut butter cups to make me feel like I’d never left.” - The Devil Wears Prada, Lauren Weisberger

As I prepared myself for my first real vacation since being in Cameroon at the end of March, my mother began calling with updates from home regarding my grandmother’s failing health. In February while I was in the capitol for the GRE they found that her cancer had migrated into her lungs, what the chemo had successfully prevented the last 5 years. We knew this news was bad but they restarted her treatment and waited to see how it went.

She frequently felt lousy after her treatment and this time was no different, the family thought at first. It turns out she had contracted a serious infection that wound up placing her in the hospital a couple weeks later. As she had already had a treatment or two, her immune system was too weak to fight the infection and a month later she was still in the hospital. Her body, it seems, has gotten too tired. The very same day I planned to travel my mom called to add that, in addition to Shingles, a yeast infection, and the C-diff, she was having congestive heart failure and had barely eaten in weeks. Thus, two days later I was on a plane back to Ohio.

The day I arrived Grandma had been moved to a hospice facility. John and Adrienne picked me up from the airport and we went straight there. Her room felt peaceful and warm, like a nice hotel room that first night. It was so nice in some ways to be back with the family, despite the circumstances. Those first few days at the facility were the toughest because she seemed to be suffering a great deal, unable to swallow or even suck on a straw, moaning constantly, waking up every 2 hours. I hated to see her in that state but to our surprise, just a couple days later she was sitting up, eating a lot more, talking a lot more, and having less pain. She was pretty clear about not having any desire to die right now.

The family was under the impression from the beginning that if she’d just start eating again she could get strong enough to go back to chemo, since they discovered that the first few treatments had in fact been working.

Post continued May 22nd

It has been three weeks since I began the last post. Time feels completely nonexistent lately. I have been back in Cameroon all this time. I came back to the same flood of work I had left behind only now all the more confusing because it’s exam period and school is ending and it is more chaotic than ever and it‘s all coupled with the most grievous event of my life.

The whole village was happy to see me, greeting me with even greater smiles than when I’d first arrived. Many people stopped by to welcome me back. In some ways I have been comforted and other ways exhausted. Exhausted by the constant analysis of my every move. The constant knowledge of where I’ve been, why, and the barrage of questions. Last Saturday Grandma passed away. It was a very bittersweet weekend, for some reasons I won’t discuss here. Claude and I were going to a wedding that night. We had gone out for a walk and I’d actually left my cell phone at the house. I figured Mom had his number if she needed to reach me.

I came back to get ready for the wedding and saw two missed calls from her. Before I could even process anything she rang again and I answered. I could tell her voice seemed timid and searching. Trying to figure out where I was before she broke the news.

Though I’d known she was dying it came as a surprise. Having been present in the hospice for a month and watched numerous patients coming in and passing away we had picked up on a sort of evident process that seems to occur so that the family has enough time to organize and come to the bedside of their loved one before they’re gone. For mom the call came in the middle of the night and 3 hours later Grandma had already passed away. Mom wasn’t even there either because Grandpa hadn’t been feeling well and they had to take him back home.

In some ways I feel the world has shifted like the movement of the tectonic plates during an earthquake. How can life ever be quite the same again? My grandmother was a second parent to me. She never missed a major event in my life, she never faltered in support of my every ambition. She was a wonderful friend, mentor, listener, and she always made me laugh. Even in those last memories with her in the hospital I was deeply moved by her spirit of strength and resilience; always refusing pain medicine and talking as if at any moment she would be right back to her old self again.

To be so many miles away and grasp that she’s really gone is tough. To help myself get some finality and to support the rest of the family I will go back to the US again in a week to attend her memorial service. With cancer everyday is a gift. You are really just fighting against time. We always knew that. We stayed positive, especially Grandma did, and we tried to come to terms with what seemed the inevitable end of her story. Yet, even after 5 years of familiarizing yourself with the idea, and even after seeing her so at peace in those last weeks, you can never prepare yourself for how deeply and sharply you will miss the person.

The people here deal so commonly with death that they seem to, in some ways, to have developed a certain indifference to it. Every weekend most of the people of my village are attending a funeral or assisting a family who’s lost someone by sitting with them through their grief. Sometimes I feel alone because, though they offer their sincere condolences and comforting words, how can they really fully understand the depth of my loss when their families are so large and so often parents play such a distant role in their childrens’ lives? I know in reality that loss is loss and everyone in the world has a different definition of what family is but in the end, it always is the most important thing to most people in life anywhere in the world.

Being thrown back into school has been frustrating. The Cameroonian system feels to me like putting a newly walking baby at the bottom of a mountain and then telling them to climb up. The expectations are so outrageous that it’s discouraging even for me. I have been so busy with writing lesson plans, writing tests, grading, averaging, and filling out report cards since September that I’ve had very little time or energy for much of anything else at all. I have a hard time getting the villagers to understand this. Many of them comment on me not being constantly outside, socializing with everyone and walking all over the place. I think having a job with scheduled hours makes it harder for us to relate.

The other day for a couple of seconds sitting in my living room, I could hear birds outside and I had to cry. I know that I always talk about how peaceful it is here, and that is true, but not necessarily in a literal sense. Life here is centered around a culture without cars. Therefore, people live far more congested than generally in the States. On a daily basis there are very few moments of actual peace and quiet in my life here. In the morning I can hear babies crying, dishes being washed by my neighbors outside, kids running around getting ready for school. In the afternoon it’s still babies’ crying, people walking past talking loudly, motorcycles and big trucks that, on the dirt road, make my whole house shake until I can hear the window panes rattling, and before too long, the barrage of students broken free from school and noisier than ever. At night there are… you guessed it, babies crying!, the neighbors sitting around having dinner or chatting, everyone getting their baths, fighting and screaming, or doing their final daily chores. Often when I want to sleep I can hear the music all the way from the market, a good half mile or more away, like when you’re next to some teenage bonehead’s bass, and then the straggling drunks that roll home talking much more loudly than usual at wee morning hours. If it’s raining it’s louder than ever because the rain pounds on the tin roof with such vigor. Last week there was an evangelical church in town that sent a guy out all over the village with a megaphone, enticing people to come to what seemed to be an almost- all night- long service involving loud preaching and lots of dancing and drums.

This is everyday in a nutshell. I usually try to fall asleep by around 10 and by 6 or sometimes earlier, the rooster has already crowed again to wake up and repeat. I have so very little free time and yet feel so much pressure. Sometimes I can’t distinguish what of my frustrations are probably felt by every single Peace Corps Volunteer and what must be individual to my experience. On an at least weekly basis people ask me when I’m going to invite them out (A.K.A. when am I going to buy them a drink), when I’m going to invite them to my house, when am I going here or there and so on. People seem to have this unalterable impression that I have an endless stream of money, despite how many times I have explained that I don’t probably even make as much as many of the Cameroonian teachers do and happen to be buried under the traditional American Shitpile of Debt. Though they never see me out except on occasion having a beer or two, they don’t see me traveling all over the place or always having new things. My house is pretty simple and the only things that aren’t I didn’t even pay for but acquired. My house isn’t even paid for by me personally.

This week I’ve done nothing but the last of the year’s calculating, ranking, and preparing for class counsel. Somehow people offer their support but then seem to expect you to snap right back to normal. Friday is my birthday, which I happened to casually mention to a couple of my colleagues who informed me that this means I have to buy a bottle of expensive whiskey and they are going to come to my house to drink it. Later one of them even tried to embellish a little more about how usually people invite their friends over and prepare chicken and all kinds of things. Now I seem almost obligated to have them over, in fact they are literally just telling me they’re coming and since one of them is an administrator at the school it would be a bit taboo to refuse them. So, by the time I have a second to finally take a breath and process that Grandma is really gone, I will be packing a suitcase to fly home and really say the most painful goodbye of my life.

Alas! This is why you haven’t heard from me in a couple of months but, I’m still here. Life is more bizarre than ever but there is also a lot of hope for bright things ahead. So, we keep on moving. And talk about life really moving and a shaking, Grandma’s memorial service is exactly one year from the day I arrived on Cameroonian soil. All I know for sure is that Grandma always supported every ambition I ever had, as crazy as a lot of mine are. For whatever reason I always believed I had to do this whole Peace Corps thing before I could really get on with my life, my future, my family, so here I am. One thing I do believe, as frustrating as all the commotion and noise can often be for someone so accustomed to a healthy amount of ‘me-time’, it will probably be what gets me through this period more than anything else ever could.

The New Rich

“It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain.” -Walden Henry David Thoreau

I would be lying if I said that I had lost all track of time lately or had forgotten to write. In fact, my internet access has even been more constant than before since we managed to locate a tiny portion of the house where we can manage the faintest connection. The truth is life has just begun to feel a bit routine here and so the inspiration to write, though it is here all around me all the time, has somewhat dissipated.

Life is still chill and without too many problems. I took the GRE in February in Yaounde which was way harder than I’d imagined and was quite discouraging, especially reading an entire study book in the months prior as well as cramming with a few other girls in the Volunteer house for 3 consecutive days before the test. The good news is that everyone else also found it difficult. We’ll see in just a couple of weeks whether I actually stand a chance of being accepted to my first choice graduate program or not- fingers crossed!

Since the test I have been trying to really fixate on my secondary projects in the village. We are expected to do something called PACA (Paticipatory Assessment for Community Action) to establish the needs, resources, and motivators of the community for our projects to be sustainable. Unfortunately we didn’t receive any useful training on that during Pre-Service and therefore my own research and planning of it feels a bit like Alice’s rabbit hole. On the other hand, my Girls’ Club has become quite a hit and I am now working on having a summer camp with a small group to teach AIDS prevention and things like Family Planning and Life Skills. More and more I feel that working with the younger population of the community may be more valuable than with the adults.

I have been dealing with a rather frustrating problem in my house since before going to Kribi in December. My landlord’s son installed my power when I first moved in and my “divisionary” electric meter has been in his wife’s house behind my own. At first my bills were somewhat reasonable but then he started bringing me totals of 3 times what the other volunteers pay, and that was before I even had a refrigerator. When my Program Director called him to explain our policies he simply rearranged the charges so that the total was the same but that now it was coming from my water bill rather than my electric. I refused to pay and my boss had to come and work it out with us.

In January I wound up paying him a remaining balance, still much higher than I should’ve had to, but at last we signed a contract with him stating that the electric company themselves would come and install a meter on my house and that after January 31st I would no longer pay any bills that were not from the company. I also discovered during this same meeting that I have been paying the water bill for his entire compound as well.

At the beginning of February he came again with another outrageous bill, after having refused to take my offer for the remaining balance which was actually owed. With that I talked to my Program Director and he agreed that I could move. I found a house that was absolutely BEAUTIFUL, in fact, probably too much so. We thought that the guy was going to let me rent but, in typical Cameroonian fashion, he was just saving face. Cameroonians have a highly annoying cultural tendency to say they will tell you tomorrow or they need to do something with someone before giving you a response, yet never, in the end giving you one. Their way of avoiding the potential discomfort of saying “No’ outright.

Finally the electric company came yesterday and discovered things were not correctly installed and called him a “bandit international”. Already his kid came again today to do something with the power, which I refused.

Though I admittedly spent about a week dreaming of my new life in the (probably most) impressive house in the village, without dozens of children screaming and wailing nearly every second of the day, I have come back down to Earth now. In fact, I am reading Walden at the moment and it makes me realize how much less we really need than we convince ourselves that we do. Thus the reason we are perceived as rich by most of the world. Sure, the majority of us may be “making ends meet”, living “paycheck to paycheck” or just “scraping by” each month, but in most cases it is probably because we have consumed relative to our income to the point where there is hardly any breathing room. In reality, if people lived in a less superfluous way than we are accustomed to we would probably have thousands of dollars stashed away in bank accounts for a ’rainy day’.

When I first got here there was an ongoing list of things I just had to have in my head at all times. New sofa, refrigerator, guest bed, a variety of more luxurious food items that can only be purchased in the city, including highly priced olive oil. I saw certain other volunteers’ houses and felt pangs of envy because they chanced to fall into homes that were akin really to those we are used to whereas mine has wooden doors and windows and concrete floors, no kitchen sink, and a filthy paint job.

After 7 months in my village it’s easier to differentiate the needs from the indulgences. Now my 170 CFA per month (around $300) salary does actually feel quite rich. After accumulating all the must haves like my stove, bed , a kitchen table, and buckets and bidons for water storage, I have been able to budget to easily have around 40 CFA ($80) left at the end of the month, money a whole family here could probably live off.

After months of sitting on only my wooden or plastic chairs, or, worst of all, in my bed which is essentially a piece of foam already smashed down to practically nothing allowing the body only the sensation of the 2x4s supporting it below, I acquired Christine’s love seat, sofa, and coffee table. Now I feel almost ashamed of the luxury.

Finally I realize that I don’t necessarily have to drink coffee every morning, and on my days off a warm mug of it in my hand while reading a book on the veranda is one of the most exotic and enjoyable experiences I can have. When I allow myself to steal 300 CFA (less than a dollar) out of the week’s budget for a bar of Mambo chocolate, I carefully stash it away until just the right moment in which I break off each piece one by one and let the sultry richness of it melt on my tongue. A few times a month I buy Claude and I bottles of Top soda or a box of wine with dinner and it feels like New Years Eve.

We are programmed to believe that success is always obtaining more. A newer car, a better house, nicer clothes. I think success is a lot simpler than that. Being far from home and thinking back to all the complicated drama that so often exists in the world of excess makes me wish only for the simple joy of a belly full of good, natural food, the warm company of someone you love, the familiarity of a place you’ve made yours on the planet, and peace and contentedness of the present moment. I wish that could be the new idea of luxury in our country of constantly chasing our tails; always pursuing that which is just beyond our reach.

Not in Kansas Anymore

After 8 months in country and already more than 5 months in the village, there are times when it’s easy to forget that I’m even in Africa. Apart from the immediate surroundings, which I’ve adjusted to as anyone does a new environment after some time, and the fact that I am pretty much the only person with white skin that I come in contact with most days of the week, the nuts and bolts of life here seem perfectly natural. And, though people do talk of it, allude to it in offhanded ways, the suffering that is all around me is hardly evident in their friendly greetings, their seeming joy and carefree natures.

Yesterday, however, I was reminded of the realities which I myself escape by my myriad medical examinations, vaccinations, check-ins, extensive education of threats and preventions, and unlimited supplies and care that comes courtesy of the U.S. government to each and every Peace Corps volunteer. While walking to pick up report cards from the office a student in my youngest class stopped to inform me that one of their classmates had died. Though I don’t know all of my students by name, (especially the girls, who are obliged to shave their heads making them difficult to distinguish), as soon as he spoke her name I could see her wide eyes and bright smile shining from the back row of the classroom. I went to say a few words to the class quickly and was surprised to see that things seemed to be carrying on as they would on any typical school day. I mentioned it to some of the staff as I tried to share the initial confused shock and grief that is so unfamiliar to me.

I got little to no reaction from anyone and felt angry when the Discipline Master, who Claude later explained to me should normally be responsible for organizing the students and informing the school of the loss of a comrade, came to ask me to help them plan the Fashion Show for the Youth Holiday next week. Shortly thereafter and 2 hours before school had even terminated they brought out a sound system and started blasting music on the campus. By then my 5ieme class, Olive’s class, was to begin. I went and offered a few words of condolence, asked some details of the cause of her death, and requested that a few students guide me to where she lived so I could greet the parents, offer my support, and ask permission to come to the burial.

A virtual troop of students started walking with me and, deep in reflection, I was practically at her doorstep before I turned and realized that we had accumulated in such a way. I asked the students to stay behind, envisioning that a family who had lost their child less than 24 hours before would be in such a delicate state that a mass of students was wildly inconsiderate and could be a horrible reflection on me in the village. I insisted that 2 students join me and the rest wait, but upon arriving I realized that a crowd was already gathered there. One of my older students greeted me and stood to lead me to what I thought and hoped would be Olive’s parents. To my surprise it was her little lifeless body wrapped in a bed sheet, laid out on the family’s kitchen table under a chalkboard with equations written on it. Apparently all the students, knowing their own culture better than I, disregarded my demands and were all behind me in the room before I knew it. I am not sure whether the students or my gesture, or the two things combined with their grief led all the women assembled there to move into the room with us and begin singing and crying with such emotion it could have vibrated the house. They approached the table and I understood they were telling Olive that her friends and teacher had come from school; they shook her little body as if to wake her and cried harder when their pleas were answered by her silence. Her mother stroked her face and called to her, “Tata Olive”.

My students, who while walking in the road seemed to bear a cold indifference to the loss of their classmate, now began crying, some even sobbing, as well. Even the boys had looks of fear and confusion on their faces and I felt at home suddenly among their pain. Finally, there was the intense sorrow I had expected to find since the moment I heard the news. Finally, the commonality of our humanity was before me; pain, a reaction to death I could make sense of.

We stayed there like that for an undetermined amount of time. I felt a combination of confused, awkward, sad, and somehow more mature than just a few hours earlier as I wanted to reach out to the young girls who were clearly examining the mysterious finality of death for the very first time in their short lives.

Walking back from her house the girls were very somber. They too, I am certain, had grown older in a matter of minutes. I was happy to have Claude here when I got home to turn over the whole thing with him. I kept seeing her face all last night, in the classroom, and then on that table. Her body looking just as healthy as in the class last week. I found her homework on my desk, her words written there by her hands not a week before. And now she’s dead and I can’t quite make sense of why. When you ask people here the cause of someone’s death they always just say, “an illness”. Apparently Olive fell sick over the weekend and by Monday night she was no more.

It is here where true poverty rears its head. Poverty that prevents a family from providing their child with medical care. Poverty that prevents them from understanding why or how their child is gone. Poverty that allows for the possibility of other deaths, because we cannot even learn if what killed her was actually preventable to begin with. In the face of so many unanswered questions, it is simple to comprehend why many people here explain away death by saying that it is simply God’s design, or even more say that it is sorcery, that someone cursed that person and that is why they have AIDS or whatever it may be.

I take a lot of time to try incorporating basic sanitation education, nutrition, and general health in my lessons. A couple Saturdays ago when I was trying to explain so and so “died of” to one of my classes I tried to make them understand that in our context it is always important to know how someone died because you can gather statistics and possibly change the habits of the entire culture if there are seen to be lots of deaths from a particular cause. A student responded that life is just as long as God wills it. I asked him why then do people live longer in my country, does God love us more than he does them? That seemed to sink in.

A Cameroonian Christmas

Well, somehow Christmas and New Year’s have come and gone along with my much needed and much appreciated break from teaching. Already I’ve been back in the thick of it for nearly two weeks and feel less patient with the job than I was for the first part of the year. Luckily I’m told that the first trimester is the longest because there are so many holidays for the rest of the year. I also apparently neglected to notice that the 2nd trimester had already begun before the break began meaning that next week is already time to test students again.

The break was certainly interesting and mostly good. Kribi was beautiful but we didn’t have all that much time to enjoy that aspect of it. It was great seeing the whole group again. It’s amazing how just a few months together in training really did bring us close and to see everyone again after seeing mostly Cameroonian faces everyday was more enjoyable than I’d even anticipated. I, however, was one of the few if not only lucky individuals who did not encounter any major issues while there. Over half of the group was incredibly sick with a myriad of maladies and most of the people who were not ill wound up being robbed at gun and machete-point at the beachfront bar we spent most nights in. Had I not been feeling a little sick to my stomach myself that evening I too would’ve most likely been involved.

We had negotiated to take a free personal day after the seminar had finished but with all the bad vibes floating around I decided to head out on time and meet Claude in Yaounde. I was disappointed to get a rather cold reception from fellow volunteers when I brought him into the volunteer house, especially considering that I had just been asked in Kribi to speak about my experience dating him and how it effects my relationships with the other Americans.

I suppose in some ways I can understand that a lot of people view the volunteer house as a space to be completely American and escape the natives for a day or so, but Claude isn’t like some traditional Cameroonian elder or something; in fact, I have more in common with him than I do with most of the other volunteers. When we left the house I was angry but Claude took it in stride. He said that not everyone joins the Peace Corps for the same reasons and I realized that he’s right. I signed up to be here because I really believe in the idea that human beings all over the world don’t differ all that much from one another. When I am with Claude I hardly even think about our many differences because most of them seem pretty peripheral to our true selves. I spent Christmas with his family and I couldn’t have felt more at home if I was with my own family. They discussed, joked, bickered and appreciated one another the same way any American family might.

I felt a little left behind when all the others were talking about their big travel plans to Mt. Cameroon and other tourist spots but in the end I really enjoyed the break and I think in the long run being with Claude will get me a much more intimate look into Cameroon than probably most anyone else. Plus, I still have nearly 20 months here and I don’ t need to be in a huge hurry to see everything I possibly can. To me, the holidays are far more about the company you share than where you happen to land and I am glad I made that decision. I also got to see my host family and many of the other people I got to know during our time in Bafia. They were really appreciative that I thought of them, especially those who had not heard from their volunteers since they went to post.

Another perk of being in Bafia again was getting to load up my internet key for a couple of days and Skype with Katie on Christmas morning and a bit with my family in West Union that night. Unfortunately we lost our connection before our traditional 12 Days of Christmas singing but it was great to be somewhat a part of the celebration just the same. Since my mom discovered that the phone company doesn’t actually have the international calling package they misleading sold her a month ago she is going to help me pay for internet at the house soon. Hopefully the connection will be decent enough to Skype some more because it is really amazing! Claude got so excited that he picked up the laptop and ran off with it, giving Katie a tour of his house!

I came back to discover that my closest American friend here has flown the coop and gone back to the US for good. Since being here I haven’t spent too much time with really any of the other volunteers aside from her since getting to other villages is pretty much an unavoidable pain in the neck so the reality that she is no longer here is still setting in. At least there are plenty of other people in the area so I can still catch up with them if I feel the need to. I spent the first day back in my classes going over a new list of class rules that I assembled during the break based on my ‘on -the- ground internship’ known as the first trimester. Unfortunately I don’t know if I can ever fully undo the damage that I did by coming in to class being so carefree and lighthearted. Probably the worst mistake I’ve made in country is not heeding the advice to start hard and get softer rather than the other way around. It’s funny, I’ve been watching The Wire the past couple of weeks and there is a guy who gets a teaching job at an inner-city Baltimore middle school in one of the seasons. It’s unbelievable how much his job in the classroom is like mine.

I decided that I wasn’t punishing anyone harshly enough for them to take me all that seriously before. Sending them out required always more distraction from class to ensure they would actually go to the Discipline Master; forcing them to put their nose to the chalkboard, though they don’t enjoy it, didn’t seem to do the trick. I have concluded that once kids are exposed to harsher forms of punishment it is extremely difficult to have much effect on them when you are trying softer approaches. One day I forced a few students to kneel, asking them if they preferred the Cameroonian method, even though it is actually outlawed. It didn’t matter anyway because I felt horrible that I compromised my own principles out of frustration and vowed to never do it again.

Finally I designed a plan to force the worst behaved students to stay after school with me for an hour on Tuesdays. Last week I made 3 kids pick up trash on the campus, whining and complaining all the while but eventually seeming proud of their work. Yesterday I had accumulated about 30 delinquents, though, and without someone to help me the only thing to do was to form a sort of detention. Since the whole concept is new to them I couldn’t get them to shut up or do work until finally the Discipline Master happened upon us. I was so frustrated and angry and he could tell so he too became angry with how the kids were disrespecting me. He called on one of them to explain why he was there and come to the front of the room. He picked up a 2x4 that was on the floor and hit the kid on the butt. He was about to continue beating him but I stepped in and explained that the reason they were there was because I didn’t like beating.

The entire day all the kids who I’d arranged to have after school followed me around complaining that they wanted to do their punishment during school hours rather than after school because there was a traditional dance in the village center that only happens every 2 years. In fact, my youngest class who I am with the last 2 hours of the day got in a lot of trouble because of a (rather clever) stunt they pulled when they rearranged the whole classroom to wash the floor before my class so that I would have to send them home early. When I stopped the Discipline Master he looked at me and said that sometimes you need to be savage to get your point across. I looked at everyone in the classroom and said, “Is that what you prefer? If everyone comes up and takes their 5 beatings you can all go to your party.” Everyone refused and when the Discipline Master left a series of them raised their hands to ask for forgiveness and I didn’t have another problem for the rest of the hour with them.

Some days I feel like teaching English to a bunch of Francophone village kids who barely even know French is pointless. Especially since they don’t seem to get over half the material no matter what. But, since coming back from the holidays, I have noticed some improvements. The things I’ve worked the hardest to drill in seem to have finally stuck and I feel proud of their work and my own. This week and last I had decent turnout for Girls’ Club even though now it is only my own students who come. They have started to open up to me more and are asking questions. Last week I talked to them about feminine hygiene and today we had a mini-sex education lesson. Next week a fellow volunteer is coming to do a yoga class with us.

Our time in Kribi really inspired me to begin some income-generating projects with the women of the village but I’ve put everything aside from my primary responsibilities on hold until after I take the GRE in February. I have been studying everyday and being reminded of how much I hate/suck at math. I only hope I can perform well enough on the other parts of it to outweigh how poorly I’m almost certain I’ll do on that section. It’s hard to believe that it’s already time to be doing something like that to get prepared to go back to a life in the US. It’s funny, some days I dream of being back there where I can wash dishes in a kitchen sink and take a shower without a bucket and a cup but at the same time I know that when I do get back it’s going to be a major adjustment and in the end I’m going to damn sure miss it here. Ever since my first time on this continent it’s been under my skin. It’s a place that just changes you in ways you can’t explain. Maybe it is that being back closer to the way humans were designed to be, farther from all the technology and instant gratification. Where, when I think of my loved ones I’m forced to sit down and actually write them a letter instead of just sending them a text message or a face book chat. Where I have to appreciate every single drop of water that falls from the sky, every positive interaction with someone, where every indication of minute progress in any sense is a blissful reward. In fact, I think on the whole I was far more stressed out and miserable when I was suffering through making payments on time, rushing from meetings, sitting in traffic jams, and attempting to balance the scales of social and professional life without losing my mind, even despite coming home to a host of modern luxuries designed to make life easier and better.