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