Au Revoir Cameroun!!

I truly cannot believe I am leaving Cameroon tomorrow. It has been a crazy 3.5 months, so many ups and so many downs. I’ve learned so much about myself, about living in a culture radically different from my own, and about life in general. I will never forget going to a traditional chief party in Dschang, celebrating the fête du mouton in Ngaoundéré, my visits to the village in Kribi, getting about a million bug bites, puking on the side of the road, laughs and beers with my amazing group, bucket showers, hand washing my laundry, learning how to eat every morsel of chicken off the bone with my hands and exploring the wonderful city of Yaoundé. Though they will never read this, I must thank my families that helped me, frustrated me, babied me and loved me every step of the way during this adventure. My final thoughts lie within these experiences that made me so much stronger and a lot more open to others. Though I love my American, efficient, proactive, sanitary culture more now than ever, the Cameroonian values of family and of stopping to enjoy life as it passes have touched me.

For my final night I hung out with my incredible Yaoundé family. They have two cousins visiting who are wonderful. We put up a fake Christmas tree and decorated it with ornaments and flashing, neon Christmas lights. The four kids and I held hands around the tree and sang Christmas songs, though I don’t know the French words. As a special treat we went out to eat at a fast food place. Ilana, my 5 year old sister, sat on my lap on the way there, and she and her cousin insisted on sitting on either side of me at dinner. On the way back we drove for a while around Yaoundé, I saw so many memories flashing by me in a city that used to be so distant. Our many trips to La King for fabric, our crazy clubbing night at Safari, scary visits to Marché Central, shopping on the side of the road, and finally back in my home neighborhood, the local smoothie seller. It’s hard to accept that I may not ever see this city again.

Sitting in the car with my family I felt so at home. In town, you can’t forget for a second that you are a stranger, you are judged by your race, objectified and screamed at about every 10 seconds. I am confronted with my skin color every time I step out from my house, something I have struggled with a lot. But I realized tonight, as a caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror, that I was surprised by my white skin. I don’t feel like a stranger in my family, I don’t feel different, I feel like the older sister, wholly accepted. I am beyond lucky I ended up in a family as special as this one, and I will never forget what they have taught me, all they have done for my experience here, and all the love they have given me. I am excited to go home, but it will not be easy to leave a family and a country that I have grown to love.

I will post my final paper (the English version unless anyone is brave enough to take on the French version) when I have fast enough internet at home. Thank you to all that took the time to read about my adventures! I appreciate it a lot, and it was a lot of fun to write about them. Until my next adventure…

Half Through ISP Check-in

Cannot believe we are already half way through the month of ISP. It is officially less than three weeks until I am in the United States, time is flying by. Lots of recent experiences. Thanksgiving passed without much fanfare, but Jozy and I ate a ton of food to honor our American-ness. It was hard to not be with family but I will have many more Thanksgivings to share with them.

Perhaps the most important happened this weekend when I interviewed a man in my village of Grand-Batanga about the difficulties of life. He spoke through the holes in his mouth where teeth should be and quietly told me that village life is really hard. He never seemed like he was complaining, but he told me matter of factly that he lives day by day. That day he had had a little bit of rice and a small portion of fish and he was just waiting until tomorrow to hope he could catch some fish to sell so he could eat more. I guess what got to me the most was the fact that this wasn’t a hard time for him, this wasn’t economic recession, this was just the everyday reality of his life. And after so many years of fighting he just seemed worn out. It was heart breaking. I gave him some money because I truly believe everyone deserves a break in life. A couple days to not worry about where food is coming from. Most of us live our lives like this, but I hope I gave that to him at least for a while. He may drink the money away but after a lifetime of suffering I think he deserves to do whatever he wants with it.

I’ve been getting a lot done on my paper which will be written both in English and in French. It’s tough but actually fun to be able to write in the languages. I’m 95% done with gathering research so now it is on to big writing sessions. Today, however, we took a big break and went to boat up the river and see some waterfalls. We drove to the fish market to see all of the buckets and barrels and piles of fish that come in. It is the biggest fish market in Cameroon and people come from all over to buy their fish and resell it in Yaoundé and Douala. It was really cool to see. We got a big mound of crawdads for $5 and left them with a woman for later. We proceeded to go on a boat ride up the river. It was incredibly beautiful, rainforesty and calm. There were monkeys calling to each other and we saw them swinging through the trees. On the shore pygmy children were washing and swimming and singing. It was such an amazing couple of hours away from our lives. Then we went to another site and took a boat right up to the waterfalls (more like really steep rapids.) We bought a coconut and drank its milk then scraped out the meat. Finally we returned to the fish market where we ate the freshly made crawdads we had bought with some plantain fries, very delicious. Finally, we came back into town, sat near the beach and had a beer, then went down to the water for a beautiful sunset. We are living in paradise and it was fun to take a day to appreciate it.

I’m really looking forward to coming home but I think I will miss a lot of my life here. Some days are really hard, some days I’m really just done with Cameroonian culture, but everyday I grow and mature and experience things that I can’t ever experience at home. Leaving will definitely be bitter-sweet.

*can't unload photos to my computer now so I'll put some up back in Yaounde 

The Face of Poverty

Finally on Sunday I was able to travel to my target village of Grand-Batanga. It is about a 20-minute taxi drive away but it is relatively super expensive ($20 round trip) because all the locals take moto taxis that we aren’t allowed to take so car taxis don’t want to go all the way there. There are also two checkpoints along the route where government officials demand bribes that taxi drivers are obligated to pay. But I went with my contact from the town and got so much accomplished! The leader of the woman met me right away in her house and set me up with interview after interview, extraordinarily efficient. I asked people about their needs, the village needs, how they define poverty and things that could help them make life a little easier. In total I did 10 interviews, which is unheard of in just 1 day! In general I heard over and over that people need “les moyens” – the means. They told me that if they could improve their little businesses their lives would be a lot easier. Most people sell things like fish they’ve caught, or crabs, or beignets, or other little things that they can make at the house. It brings in a small sum of money that is used to pay for their children’s schooling and food and clothes. Men in the family pay for very little though they make the most, when you walk around the village you see men drinking alcohol even in the morning and sleeping and hanging around. It’s the woman who are hard at work to make ends meet and provide for their children. I ended up interviewing mostly woman and they told me repeatedly that they just need a little money to modernize and make their businesses a little better. Then they can pay for schooling and health and everything else. This was really contrary for me to developmental ideals from a Western standpoint. We tend to want to build schools and install big things but these women don’t even think of changing the system, they just want to be able to succeed better within the existing, broken system. So I think my final paper is going to focus a lot on the difference between Western ideals and village realities and how they meet and should mix to create a development plan that has Western elements but fits within the village context.

My American friend Jozy and I went back to the village today to do our research projects. First I went to the local clinic that is run by a nurse and a couple local volunteers. It is only two small rooms but it the only option for the village besides paying $2 (a big expense here) to go to the town and back. The clinic isn’t free because it doesn’t have funding but it gives treatment as cheap as it can. It was really interesting to see it. I walked around the village just observing and trying to understand what life is like there. I met a Frechman who has been living there for 8 years who helped us understand things we would have otherwise missed. He showed us a house owned by a Swiss person that was for sale. It has many rooms and would be the perfect location for the clinic but it is too expensive for them to buy (even though it is a big house right on the ocean for about $400.) He then led us back to the clinic for probably one of the most life changing things I’ve ever experienced. We walked up to the clinic hearing screams and he told us to look in the back room. We watched a small girl, around 6, squirming and screaming as the clinic workers unwrapped her leg. The bandage was soaked with bodily fluids so I assumed she had a cut underneath it all. Finally, we saw that she had a gaping hole in her shin area. As it got unwrapped more we saw the huge chuck of her knee that was missing. The Frenchman explained that a while ago she got a cut on her leg and developed an infection, this in itself was not a problem, but her parents didn’t have the money to bring her to get treatment, so they just left it. By the time they brought her to the clinic her entire leg was massively swollen from hip to foot. They had to cut out pieces of her leg to get rid of the infection and pulled about a liter of liquid from the area of infection. They cut right through her muscles straight to the bone to get rid of it all. She will never walk the same, if she walks at all, and in Cameroon this is detrimental because crippled people are shunned. And the probability of further infection in this very unsanitary environment is high. She was in the room alone while her mother waiting outside, worrying about how to pay at all for this, and was constantly screaming “doucement tonton doucement” (softly uncle softly.) People call their elders uncle and aunt often, but I was so struck by the fact that a 6 year old child was going through this, without any anesthetic whatsoever, squirming a bit but trying to stay still all while saying please just do it softly. Her reality is unlike anything I have ever encountered. She has to sit through someone cutting up her leg with no medication to ease to pain, or face death, all as a 6 year old child. I don’t think I will ever lose that image from my mind and it proves to me that no matter what academics say about Africa needed to help itself, and no matter how many people criticize different types of aid, as long as there are children like that here, I have work to do. She is my face of poverty. Her story portrays how unfair the world is. The sacrifices I make to be here are nothing compared to the pain she is going through just because of her parents’ neglect. I know this is corny but please take a minute to think about just how lucky we all are and maybe find the time in your busy life to do something for someone a little less lucky.

A local woman I interviewed

We live in paradise

Spending the afternoon by the beach with Jozy

So many boats!

No words for this.

ISP Begins!

After much debate and many topic changes, I finalized my location in Kribi (gorgeous coastal town of Cameroon) and my research topic on the perceptions of poverty of a local village population juxtaposed with what a local NGO gives them in terms of aid. I am looking to see if there is a difference between the two and if there is, where it comes from and how it affects the quality / effectiveness of aid. I am super excited. I arrived in Kribi on Monday with another American student in the group. We took a typical Africa bus ride, which was quite an experience. There were 42 people in one bus, absolutely crammed in. I was smushed between my friend and an African man, not even enough room for my shoulders between the two. The bus ride was about 4 hours long with one stop on the side of the road so people could squat down and pee right by the road. It was such a relief when we finally arrived in Kribi. We immediately went to meet our host families. Mine seems really nice, 2 brothers and 1 sister and a very nice house. I have my own room which is great. There is no running water but the electricity has been on consistently since I’ve been here which is good when I have to do so much work on my computer. We went to see the office of the local NGO I am looking at and met with our contact there, Veronique. She seems very nice and very smart. I’m looking forward to working with her.

On Tuesday we arrived at the office around 7:30 because the NGO was having an open house starting at 8. However, Cameroon being Cameroon, we sat around for hours waiting for it to start. Finally at 12:30 the activities began, though it turned out to be more of a celebration than an information open house. It finished within the hour and we wanted to leave to visit the beach but Veronique made us stay to eat lunch because in Cameroon it is rude to allow someone to leave without feeding them. So we had some plantain fries then rushed to our houses to grab bathing suits and go to the ocean. It was sooo nice to hang out in the water (it was safe Mom don’t worry) because it is unbelievably hot here. Definitely in the 90s everyday and very humid and of course there is no air conditioning to sit in.

Wednesday we once again arrived too early for an event but it started only a couple hours late. The NGO (WOPA) had invited many women from the town and from surrounding villages to take part in a seminar teaching about microfinance. WOPA is providing these women with abour $200 each to start up a small business that will help them feed their children. It was very disorganized but during a lull period, I was able to identify three women that live in the specific village I am researching and interview them on their needs and also what WOPA does for them. So happy to at least have a few interviews done. After the seminar was over Jozy and I had a wonderful lunch in a local restaurant by the beach. The cook wasn’t there but the waitress called him in to make us some food. He arrived and told us there wasn’t any food but he would go to the market to buy some. After many hours of waiting, we enjoyed delicious omelettes and plantain fries. I got home and the house was so hot and stuffy I leave right away to buy a fan. My fan is my new best friend though I continue to sweat even when sitting in front of it.

Finally, today I had a very relaxed day. Veronique was busy all day and I have to organize my trip to the village with her at least for the first time when I don’t really know my way around so I hung out in my house all day alone. I cooked myself a nice meal and did some background research for my paper and listened to some new African music I bought off the street. I met Jozy in the afternoon to go dress shopping so we can be a little cooler walking around, had a late lunch and met Veronique to discuss details of travel. I’m planning on visiting the village on Saturday for the first time and I’m really excited!

So far Kribi has definitely had its ups and downs. I’m frustrated with the lax way of dealing with time here, and feel my precious research days slipping by unused, but I keep reminding myself it’s the culture here and I need to accept it. Plus, it’s hard to stay upset for too long when I can see the ocean every day! 

Lunch by the beach

So excited in my WOPA t-shirt!

So Many Fishhh

Walk to Jozy's

Does it gets any better?

Ngaoundéré In Summation

Our time in Ngaoundéré went by so quickly, I guess as all things have here. We worked a lot on our presentations but also had free time to explore. There are very few taxis in Ngaoundéré, almost exclusively motos (too dangerous to take) so we walked a ton - a half an hour to school and back every day, 20 minutes to lunch, etc. On average we probably walked around 2 hours every day, especially when we would go out exploring just to see what we could find. Ngaoundéré truly felt like a different country than the parts of Cameroon we have seen before. The dress isn’t nearly as European influenced, a lot of long robes and felt hats for men and headdresses for women. There is a lack of street food compared to the rest of Cameroon, I think because women aren’t allowed to leave the house and typically it is women who sell street food as a second source of income for the house (even though she will make only about $10 per week.) It is, generally, pretty clean, definitely due to the Muslim presence. Families are extremely different because of the gender power roles but girls go to school now. And the language difference was very difficult, people either didn’t speak French at all, or only spoke a little and therefore had a hard time understanding our accents. Living in Fulfulde speaking families was weird too because they would talk and talk with each other and I would sit there not understanding anything until someone would start talking to me in French. It was lonely at times, but I had a lot more independence than I’ve had which was really nice. And they didn’t force feed me like my other families do. There was a very relaxed atmosphere that we all liked a lot. It was hard to leave yesterday because our families were all so great and the city was so pleasant to live in. But we’re moving on to the next step.. individual study projects (ISPs)!!  

I will never cease to be impressed 

Luxury Flushing Latrine

My Mom, Brother and I

Kitchen Room

Beautiful Morning Train Views

Integrated Development Issue (IDI)

Ngaoundéré marked our final classes of the semester, all that remains is our big individual research project for the last month of the program. We therefore spent most of the our time in the north preparing our research and presentations from our partner research project on a development issue that we’ve been working on for the past 8 weeks. My partner Lauren and I chose to do ours on the informal sector in Cameroon. When we started out the second week of September we really didn’t know where this topic would take us, but we came up with research questions that we hoped to answer. (How big is the informal sector, who are its workers, what are their backgrounds, how much education do they have, what motivates people to work there, what is its future, etc.) We started researching during our Dschang stay. We handed out questionnaires to vendors working on the street and in back alleys and pretty much everywhere because the informal sector here is enormous (90% of the working population.) We asked them our basic demographic questions to get a better picture of what the sector looks like from the people who work there. We then picked two to interview formally. We asked them about their lives and their families, their hopes and their difficulties. Through these interviews we started to understand that working in the informal sector is not a choice, it is a last resort. We heard over and over again ca ne suffit pas (this doesn’t suffice) or seulement pour survivre (only for survival.) People talked constantly about their hardships not as complaints, but as reality. So when we set up an interview with an economics professor in Dschang, we asked him about the advantages and disadvantages economically of having a large informal sector, and also what is next for this population. There are advantages, employment provider being #1, but the disadvantages far outweigh them, and thus formalization is desperately needed. The minister in Dschang reaffirmed this opinion but said that the government had no plans to foster this transition between the informal and formal sector. We returned to Yaoundé with the clear idea of continuing to study the need and potential of this transition. We interviewed another government official who was actually devising a method of accomplishing this, and we were really optimistic after our interview with her, but then we interviewed a microfinance organization who told us the government follows through with nothing here. Corruption permeates every department at every level, and disorganization is a fundamental trait of the government. We finished our research with an interview with a tailor, who told us over and over again that the government does rien (nothing.)

Our final paper and presentation revolved around this transition through the perspectives both of the government and of microfinance and the contradictory opinions they gave us. We concluded however, they while this debate goes on in air conditioned offices, thousands of people in Cameroon are suffering everyday, and it therefore doesn’t matter where the change comes from, as long as it comes. It is very doubtful however that it will come any time soon. We learned so much through this process about people. On average people make around $4 per day, they raise families on that, they pay for school on that, everything. Most people have only a primary school education and nobody is satisfied with their work. I now barter much less hard for goods and respect people working in the streets so much more. 

Fete du Mouton (October 27)

Yesterday was the celebration of the sheep. It is a big holiday celebrated all over Cameroon and signified by the sacrifice of sheep. We had an hour of class in the morning, followed by some exploring and getting very lost because we never know how to ask where our homes are. But when I finally got home, there was a sheep carcass in my compound. The ribs and body of the sheep weren’t really shocking because you can find that in a butcher’s shop in the United States and is all over the street market here, but next to the body were the legs and in the corner in a bag was the skin. I came out of my room after putting my things down and a maid girl was cleaning the intestines in a bucket outside my room. I was pretty shocked at that so they laughed at me and brought the head out of our outdoor, open fire kitchen to freak me out some more: very successful. It was actually a very peaceful day even though it was a holiday. In the afternoon my dad had friends over and when they left my mom told me I could go talk to him so I went into the men’s room and had a very nice conversation with him. He’s a tailor who has his own store and employees now. He’s super sweet. Then another friend came over and I was served dinner (sheep meat sauce with rice) with them instead of eating with the women and children. The male/female divide here is incredible. After dinner I hung out with my family a bit but there was a guest over so everyone was speaking in Fufulde so I couldn’t understand anything. We are so lucky we were here on such a special day for them, and I know now that I have definitely grown since middle school when I refused to dissect a worm. The adventures never stop.

Today we had class in the morning at one center then had to walk a half hour to another center to learn Fulfulde. On our walk the lamido (traditional Muslim leader) passed us in a procession on the street. It was amazing to see. After learning some Fulfulde, we walked for 45 minutes to the center of town for lunch then went to see an artist. There is a famous disabled artist here that got funding to create a center to teach disabled people how to paint because otherwise they usually end up on the streets as beggars. He wasn’t there when we went which was unfortunate but we got to see their cool paintings! When I finally got home, my mom and I went to the neighbor’s to get henna done in honor of the fete. Before we left, however, I had to ask my father if she could come because it is the father who makes the decision if his wife can leave the house and she was too nervous to ask him.

Washing Sheep Intestines

Around Ngaoundere

Watching the Lamido Pass

Lamido!

Some of my Henna

Ngaoundéré

Our train ride to Our train ride to Ngaoundéré was very eventful. We boarded the train and found out that we were in upright seats, no beds for the overnight ride. This is first class, in normal cars people are squished into seats, some people are just on the floor, others have to stand. We spent a couple hours hanging out and chatting and eating bread and avocado for dinner. We made some stops in small towns and people came up to the windows selling fruits, honey, manioc, pretty much anything you wanted to snack on you could just reach out the window and grab in return for a couple hundred CFA (from 20 to 40 cents.) Around 9 we started to fall asleep but it was extremely uncomfortable sleeping so we were all in and out until 3:30 am when men came running through our with flashlights hitting people to wake them up and told us to get off the train. My first thought was that we were being robbed, but in fact a refrigerator in another car was on fire and we had to evacute. Eventually it calmed down and they said we could stay because they had detached the train from that car. We spent an hour waiting for them to try to put it out but we ended up leaving the burning car behind, no one was hurt but our director’s baggage was burned and abandoned. We finally arrived in Ngaoundéré in the morning, very tired. We went to the dormitory where we were staying and napped and rested until around 12 when we decided to go exploring in the rain. Even though Ngaoundéré is bigger than Dschang, it feels much more rural and we had a hard time finding food. Later that night we had a very nice dinner at a restaurant, watched an american movie in our rooms, which was a big treat, and went to bed.

This morning we woke up, went to breakfast and went to the Norwegian Center where we will being having some of our classes. We learned how to live in Muslim houses and had a bit of class before returning to the restaurant for lunch. After lunch we visited a traditional doctor who told us about his practices and told us about our futures by drawing in sand. He told me I am going to be extremely happily married to a guy who lives in a different city than me in the United States. After that we were dropped at our host families. Mine seems nice so far, my dad is a tailor and my mom is very kind. I have 5 siblings but there isn't a lot of French in the house because the maternal language here is Fufulbe. It will definitely be a different experience than either my Yaoundé or Dschang families but I’m excited.

Traditional doctor showing us plants he uses

Who can resist taking a picture of a beautiful girl in a colorful outfit?

Kribi!!

At last we were off to Kribi! The bus ride was going fine, but alas, I ate a bad apple or some bad chicken for lunch and had to once again stop the bus to deal with that on the side of the road. We were so close to our destination and I really thought I could make it, but when it wants to come out, it’s coming out. We got to the building and I ran out of the bus, asked for the bathroom, discovered it was locked, ran outside again and let it all out under a bush in broad daylight. I am currently 0-3 on bus rides. But then it was all good because we got to our hotel and we were right on the absolutely empty beach. We walked up the beach for a while but then had to go to a meeting with the leader of an NGO that protects the rights of pygmies. The pygmies, more politely referred to as the Baka and Bakali, are an indigenous people who reject modernized life and instead prefer to live in the forests, hunting and gathering for food. However, they don’t technically have the rights to the land and are now being forced off of it and into villages and contact with other Cameroonians. They do not speak French, go to school or follow any other social norm or law. They are losing their culture and traditions due to this process, so this NGO represents them to help secure some rights and fight for their land. It was an interesting lecture. On Saturday we went into the field and visited two pygmy villages, one who still rejects all outside interaction and the other that has slightly integrated. The first one was incredible, they did a traditional dance to welcome us, and we talked to them about their ways of life and their goals. The next was very short because one of the members of our group is exceedingly ill so we had to get her back to the hotel to lie down, but we learned they are building a school and their children will begin to learn from French. Overall very interesting morning. And then we went to the beach and SWAM FINALLY. I have never been so happy to be in the water. I swam down the shoreline and back for 45 minutes, then played Frisbee on the beach. Later we grabbed some beers and went exploring. It was such an incredible, relaxing afternoon. Sunday we woke up and left paradise for Yaoundé. I think we would have loved to have stayed for a couple more weekends.

Welcome Dance

You don't give your children machetes?

Ocean!

Fishing boat by the water

Sunset

Corruption in NGOs

We spent the last week visiting different NGOs that work in and around Yaounde to better understand what development looks like on the ground right now. The first was LAGA, Ofir’s NGO discussed in the last blog post. Keeping everything he said in mind we went to our next one, UNICS, which ended up being more like an enterprise with a strong social responsibility sector. They are a microfinance organization that concentrates primarily on aiding women as they are traditionally barred from getting financial education or assistance. They have the leeway to help women that are somewhat of a risky investment by giving them a sum of money so they can modernize their activities a bit and eventually repay the loan with interest. They have very high return rates but they do not help women that are not already working, so definitely a city NGO and not a grassroots one. Next we went to ANICHRA (African Network Against Illiteracy, Conflicts and Human Rights Abuses) which you can tell even by the name is a very confused and disorganized NGO. Its leader has received 4 awards/grants from the United States that he has proceeded to waste by putting his hands in about 40 different projects, none of which can be fully funded. Just to cite a couple examples, they have a water project, help disabled individuals, buy books for schoolchildren, hold peace studies classes, hold public lectures, run a research office, oh and they gave an old man cataract surgery. Individuals, each of these projects is important and worth pursuing, however, tackled together you are left with an underfunded, wasteful and confused NGO. Everything the Ofir told us about corruption and ineffectiveness was ringing in my head during this entire meeting. We then went to CED (Center for Environmental Development) that worked to help move an enormous pipe pumping oil from Chad through Cameroon to the ocean so that it would avoid indigenous people. And finally Rolufa, that has a ton of cool projects. For instance, the American company Dole has expanded its plantation in Cameroon, displacing hundreds of farmers without compensating them whatsoever. So Rolufa came in to help them work with the land to which they had access to grow fruit, dry it and sell it. We had some while we were there and it was incredible. The project was two fold, help these farmers make ends meet, and raise awareness about their situation by the description on the back of the packages. It was completely successful and Dole offered compensation if they will just stop circulating these packages. It was an interesting week of development discussions, but though there were some impressive ones, overall it made me feel pretty hopeless about the NGO situation here in Cameroon because of the pervasive corruption in all of them (except Ofir’s of course.)

In addition to these visits we had a cultural exchange day when 10 Cameroonian students came to watch a movie about the difficultly of life for young people here and the decision to stay and try to change the country, or leave. We cook about 30 grilled cheeses and made chili for the event so they could have a taste of American food. It was a fun day talking about just how hard life is for people here, actually very easy to forget because we are living with middle/upper class families. We also went to a local restaurant to watch a big soccer game in which Cameroon was trying (unsuccessfully) to qualify for the Southern African Cup. It was too dangerous to go to the stadium because it was such an important game, and we even had to leave the restaurant early because they were losing and post game activities can become quite violent. Finally, we cooked breakfast in French class one day for the group and it was sooo delicious. Good old-fashioned French Toast and scrambled eggs. Overall it was a great two weeks in Yaoundé, now we are off to Kribi and the beach for the weekend to learn about the lives of Pygmies who are extremely marginalized here. And to swim in the ocean!!! First time I will swim since being here can’t wait!

This is the American extent of carrying water on your head

Yummy food for Cultural Exchange Day

French Toast and Eggs!!!

Another view of the city

Encounter with an Incredible Individual

It has been a good week back in Yaoundé but we’ve had a good amount of work, which has prevented us from going on adventures after school. We have started to really delve into the subject of development by talking to different NGOs to understand some of the things they have been accomplishing. Our first meeting was life changing. We met with a guy named Ofir Drori whose story impacted us all. He came to Africa for the first time when he was 18 years old and decided that he wanted to see it on foot. So he went to a reserve and started to chase antelope and giraffes until he was so lost and far out of the reserve that he had to set up his tent in the bush. The Masai found him and he lived with them for a couple of days, which changed his whole life path. He decided to not attend University and to instead explore Africa on foot, avoiding even dirt roads, for 2 years. He became a photojournalist and travelled all over Africa from Sudan documenting Darfur, to Nigeria documenting human rights violations. Eventually he found himself in Cameroon needing a break from such a close proximity to violence and decided to write an article about the bush meat trade, a field that is completely unregulated by the government. He found that NGOs were doing nothing to actually help the animals, just educating children and school and doing periphery stuff. He came across a baby chimp that was being sold by some poachers and instead of buying it and supporting this trade, he went to the authorities. But they told him that they would only go confiscate the chimp if he paid them (corruption infiltrates everything here.) Instead, he went to the poachers himself and bluffed by telling them he was the director of an NGO that was coming with the authorities to arrest them and prosecute them for buying and selling endangered animals. He said that they could avoid prosecution if they agreed to be informants; they bought it and eagerly agreed. He saved the monkey and lived with it until there was a reserve that agreed to take it. After that day he worked nonstop to create the NGO that he had invented to trick the poachers, and they have now been operating for 7 years and have 450 convictions – there was previously 0. They operate on a strict moral premise, they give extremely low salaries, they hire people based on their personality traits and not their qualifications, and they only accept donations from people that are truly on board with their mission. He affected us all so much with his story and his values. He taught us about how all the NGOs here are corrupt, even Transparency International has inflated budgets to pay for bribes and under the table money that is needed to get stuff done. He has set the standard and takes a more difficult path by refusing to engage in these acts. He brings into question how we value education and knowledge without having real experiences. It was incredible to listen to him and I think it will affect all the decisions I make surrounding NGOs and even life here.

Otherwise our week has been pretty tame, some nice afternoons hanging out with the group and celebrating a 21^st birthday, eager to get through next week and spend a weekend at the beach!! 

My Beautiful City

And We’re Back.. Dschang and Bamenda in Review

The Internet in Dschang was preventatively slow so here’s a recap of our sejour.  Dschang is a beautiful little city in the west of Cameroon and is home to the Bamileke, a controversial ethnicity that we spent a lot of time learning about. It is a hilly place, and left me quite sweaty after an uphill 40 minute walk to school every morning (see picture 1). But it is nonetheless beautiful (see picture 2). We spent twelve days living and exploring the city, as well as taking many day trips to nearby destinations. Here are the highlights:

Picture 1: A look at my hill walk to school. I lived way off in the distance.

Picture 2: Centre ville, so many motos that do not care about your safety!

Excursions

We went to a chefferie in Batoufam, about two hours away from the city. We spent the day speaking with the chief and taking a tour of his palace. It was incredible to learn about how traditional chiefdoms continue to function and adapt in an increasingly modernizing world. The chief is still an important and iconic figure in his village, but must also embrace changes in the world, for instance he now obtains his wealth from his business. He was about to celebrate the opening of his museum, and he invited us to join the ceremony. When a chief requests your presence at an event, you really can’t say no. So two days later we returned to the chefferie for a day of celebration. There were an incredible number of traditional dances (see picture 3) and people in costumes everywhere. His secret service was omnipresent but blended into the festivities (see picture 4). It was a day I will never be able to replicate and will never forget.

We also visited the Kataba monastery that produces coffee and jam with modern farming equipment, a rarity but made possible by loans from the Central Church. We went to a Sultan Palace in Foumban and learned all about the history of the Bamune people. 

Picture 3: Traditional Dancers in the Ceremony

Picture 4: Secret Service of the Chief

Everyday Life

We went to school each morning and had French class, a thematic seminar where we learned about the Bamileke traditions and challenges and also the changing role of women in Cameroon and a methodology class to prepare us for our research project at the end of the program (see picture 5). Classes are almost always interesting and we learn a ton. For instance, we had a panel discussion with two young Cameroonians to discuss the role of women and the young man told us that a woman’s place is in the kitchen, her duty in life is to please men sexually and have children and she should be completely subordinate to men. It was shocking to say the least. (He also went on to ask for our numbers and pretty much stalk us until our departure, surprising since we basically yelled at him for an hour for his comments against us.) The young girl however followed a more modern way of thinking but still said that if she found out that her husband had another family on the side, she would not divorce him. For lunch I went to the same omelet man to get an omelet sandwich for 60 cents. (Side note: Lauren and I are doing a research project on the informal sector and did an interview with him and learned that he makes 5 cents off of each sandwich that he sells and that he uses that income to pay for University. After that I tipped him every lunch.) We would go exploring in the afternoon, to centre ville or just walking around buying food off the street. Around 530 when it started to get dark we returned home to eat dinner with our families and do homework. 

Picture 5: Lecture on Bamileke Traditions

Family

This was the hardest part of Dschang for me. My host mother was obsessed with talking about money issues with me, which made the atmosphere of the house uncomfortable. She would talk to me about how she wants to visit America but she needs help from me to get there, and constantly ask me how much things I bought cost, she even borrowed some money from me without returning it, only $2 but that is a significant amount here. And my sister was terrible. I can’t put into words how hard it was to deal with her but it was a constant struggle. I am around children almost constantly in the summer and love every single minute of it, but for some reason I could not deal with her. She would lie to me, pinch me, pull at my hair, climb on me and just generally do anything she could to annoy me at all times. In Yaounde I do my homework in the living room so I can be around the family, but in Dschang it just wasn’t possible for this reason. I also had a father who seemed wonderful, but he spent the entire time in his room watching tv. However, I tried to realize while I was there that a lot of the things that were the most difficult for me were just differences in culture, for instance when my sister would talk to me with her mouth overflowing, spitting fish bones onto the floor instead of putting them on a plate, washing the dishes in very dirty water, etc. I feel proud that I experienced that and was able to accept most of it by the end. Another thing that should be mentioned is that there was no running water while I was there so the toilet was a port-a-potty and foul smelling, and I was unable to wash my hair for a grand total of 14 days. Occasionally I would dunk my hair in a bucket of water, the smell of which would make me gag. But what’s a Cameroon experience without poor hygiene?

Overall

Dschang was a mixed bag for me for sure. I loved the city and would like to spend more time there, but the family situation left a bad taste in my mouth that I don’t think I could get over. But we had a ton of fun trying out a bunch of different tailors for African clothing!! (see picture 6) I was so thrilled to get back to Yaounde. It truly felt like we were coming home.

Picture 6: New African Dress for the Chief's Ceremony

Bamenda!!

Before we came home however, we stopped for a weekend in Bamenda, an Anglophone region. It was so weird to speak English with people as everyone’s default language with people here is French. They mostly speak Pidgin English though so it was still hard to communicate. We stayed together in a guest house at a Baptist Center and we had a ton of fun together. An academic break was definitely needed. We did a lot of learning though because the Anglophone minority is marginalized in Cameroon and it was the perfect place to study the problem. We first met with a member of the secessionist party SCNC, which was a really crazy experience. They believe that Anglophone Cameroon is truly a different country and should be granted independence by the government. We then met with a government official who denied that there is an Anglophone problem (Picture 7 is outside that building.) And finally, we had dinner with the head of the opposition party here, the SDF. John Frundi has been running in every presidential election since 1992 when Cameroon became a multi-party state. He has lost due to rigged elections to Paul Biya who has been the president since 1982. It was an incredible evening. After our small break from English we returned home to Yaounde. However, on the drive I ate some coconut from a market that had been washed in dirty water and within 10 minutes had the bus pull over so I could empty my entire system from both ends in some grass by the side of the road. Luckily it was short lived but wow what an experience. 

Picture 7: Grace and I before the Government Official Meeting