Thoughts 2

When I arrived in Philadelphia after an unremarkable flight from Detroit I started to meet the group that would be everyone I knew (or so I thought at the time) for the rest of my PeaceCorps experience. Kelly from U of M was the first, and Mary from Northern Michigan the second. They where easy to spot in the airport, overloaded with baggage, confused, and without a clue, just like me. Eventually after a few phone calls, and asking just about everyone wearing a uniform we figured out how to get to the hotel where the pre-training was happening. After arriving at the hotel and meeting with all the people that where already there I went with a group to get some breakfast and see the liberty bell which was only a few blocks away. Everyone seemed nice enough, and we all made the polite little chit chat that one engages in when meeting for the first time.

The whole experience in the hotel conference room was a little strange. It seemed like the introduction to some cult or something. Everyone sat at round tables wearing name tags in our business casual, filling out forms and doing “ice-breakers” while listening to the overly peppy and ever smiling speaker prattle on about our “mission.” We spent a lot of time talking about coping mechanisms and what to do if you ever think about quitting the PeaceCorps. I guess the whole point is to just get everyone together in the same room in order to meet for the first time, and you might as well talk about something, so not quitting the PeaceCorps is as good a subject as any. Not to mention, I'm sure they designed the whole thing so that if you loose your nerve at the last minute, its in Philadelphia instead of in the middle of a very expensive plane ride half way around the world.

After the day of meetings I ended up skipping on going to the bars on my last night in America. I know I missed out on some socializing but first off I was really tired after the night before, and second I hadn’t seen anyone smoking so I figured all the other volunteers where squares anyways (this was odd because as it turned out more people in the group smoke that don't). The next day in JFK during a rain delay I was pleasantly surprised by everyone’s enthusiasm to waste every dime of our per diam in the airport bars (a sign of things to come). At some point just before we landed in Brussels we where informed that we would not be able to make the connecting flight and would be spending the night in Brussels, courtesy of the PeaceCorps.

In Brussels, serendipity visited me, as it often does when it comes to drinking beer. As I left my room in the hotel to check my e-mail in the lobby I ran into a group that was ready to head out into the center of town. The group included my roommate, Carlos, not only a fellow Michigander, but a fellow Spartan, Martin from South Carolina, and Joe from San Francisco. Granted, according to some of the other volunteers we where not supposed to leave the hotel, but hell, I have never been one to follow arbitrary rules. When I was invited out it didn't matter that I was completely unprepared for a night on the town, there was no way I was getting left behind to hear the stories the morning after. We missed a connection with someone that Martin knew from studying abroad, but ended up in the middle of some medieval castle drinking incredible beer which wasn't so bad. We didn't have much of a plan but luckily we ran into a nice Lebanese guy named Nicholas who guided us to a bar with over 150 beers on tap, and ended the night three bars later with some sort of flaming absinth shots and having to drag Carlos away from a Belgian girl he had only just met but was in the middle of professing his undying love for. Nicholas gave us a ride back to the hotel, the five of us packed into his tiny hatchback, speeding down the empty streets of Brussels and screaming out the lyrics to “Where is my Mind?” by the Pixies. It was a good thing we got a ride because we only had 5 hours before we where supposed to be at the airport again, and the trains had stopped running hours ago.

I woke up to Mark and Martin, (Martin from the night before) banging on the door of Carlos and my hotel room and then bursting in and yelling at us like drill sergeants until we had packed everything and where out the door. Apparently we where already 45 minutes late getting up, and had to get directly on a shuttle to the airport without breakfast. It was a great start to a day that would end with my stepping foot in Africa for the first time.   

La Fête de Femme

International Woman’s Day (La Fête de Femme) is every March 8^th. I have to admit I was completely unaware of this fact until I moved to Cameroon, but it is kind of a big deal here. Think mothers day, only its for all women, and there is a parade, and lots of drinking, so really not like mothers day, or at least not mothers day at my house. Basically women aren't expected to do any work that day, and they all dress up in special woman's day pange and march through the center of town. After that everyone gets drunk. It would be nice to see more women doing something that was a little more productive given the venue, but mostly they just use it as an excuse to go to the bar. Not to say that its a bad thing, the men are busy doing the same thing the other 364 days a year and “respectable” women aren’t supposed to be hanging around in bars so I guess its deserved.

Afterwards, some women from Bibondi at the bar.

I didn't notice it when I took the picture, but this is a little bit scary.

Florence, the wife of my community host, is the woman in glasses.

The aftermath, every bar in Lolodorf was full.

Fortunately for me I got to help out a woman's group that my post mate Amanda works with so I felt productive. She does a lot of work with the preparation of soy as a supplement to the traditional diet, and generally healthy food in the form of soy milk, soy yogurt, and tofu. The day before the Fête Madame Bobo, the president of the group, got everyone together to prepare the milk, yogurt, and tofu and teach all the women the recipe's. Unfortunately the power was out that day so all of the soy had to be ground by hand which took the better part of two hours, and wasn’t exactly easy with the tiny little hand cranked machines. Once the actual cooking started we left, because the kitchen was small, hot, and cramped, and we where taking space from people who where there to learn.

The women washing the soy before grinding it

Grinding

Greg (Amanda's boyfriend) taking a turn at grinding

The day of the Fête we set up at the end of the parade route to sell the products in order to raise money for the woman’s group, and to teach people about soy. I mostly talked to people about soy cultivation, and got a list of people that put in orders for a few kilo's, and told them I would be able to come out to their farms to help them plant. There was a lot of interest which was great, and it was great to be able to just kind of tag along and help with a project that was already set up, so that I didn't have to do all the legwork myself.

Setting up

Like I said there was a lot of interest.

This will probably be my last update for a while, because I will be heading up to Ngaoundéré for “In Service Training” in less than a week. After IST, which lasts a week, some other volunteers and I plan on doing some traveling to visit other volunteers posts around the Grand North for a while, so I will be gone for a good 3 weeks. Hopefully my next post will have pictures of me riding a hippo (no joke).   

En Bruse

 This post is going to be mainly photos, which I hope you guys enjoy because it takes me like 10 minutes to upload each one. All of the pictures where taken during random trips into the bush. August, my community host is the president of the community forest of Bikoka/Bibondi so he goes out into the bush a lot. Sometimes I go out with him to help scout for tree's, see the work that is being done clearing the roads and trails, and of course tramping around in the rainforest is a lot of fun anyways so even if I'm not helping much I enjoy it.

The idea of a community forest is a really good one. Basically a community is put in charge of managing a tract of forest so they can sell the wood and non-timber forest products and the proceeds go towards the community instead of the pockets of government officials. The forest in Bikoka/Bibondi is separated into 100 sectors, and they take wood from only one of the sectors at a time so the trees have time to grow back. They don't clear cut the wood either, they harvest only the mature tree's, and process them on site then carry out the wood on trails to one main road instead of putting roads throughout the whole forest. All in all the way the community forest is managed here is pretty environmentally sound, and a lot of the money seems to come back to the community. Unfortunately a lot of the community forests here aren't really managed that well, and all of the wood gets clear cut by the Chinese, and the community doesn’t see a dime of it. It's all really part and parcel of the corruption that is endemic here. If you put a community in charge of a forest, chances are some one who is a little less than honest is going to make sure they are in charge, and then steal and embezzle as much as possible.  

In any case, here are some pictures.

This is the root of a vine that is over a foot thick, and reaches about 250 feet into the air.

This group was cutting a border around the 2011 sector to make identifying and transporting tree's easier.

This is how palm wine is made.  This palm was cut about 15k from the road, and is pretty much just for the people working on the community forest.  A tree will give about 10 liters a day for 3 weeks. 

Bibondi river right after the trail crosses it

August, and a really big tree.  It is hard to get a picture that really gives a sense of how big these tree's are, but this one is probably over 200 feet tall

Some mist rolling over the mountains

Some guys taking a palm wine break from clearing the road.  These two cleared a kilometer straight through the Jungle with just machetes, also in case you didn't notice this is August's "en bruse" outfit

A really pissed of Chameleon.  According to August seeing one of these en bruse is good luck

Comice

So I have been kind of busy/lazy/not had the internet for a while, but here is the update from the Comice that I was supposed to post like a month ago.

Ebolowa, the regional capital of the South has been preparing for the Comice for a few years now, so the whole city looked pretty nice. Coming into town there where banners all over the place, all the building where new or freshly painted, and some one had obviously came through and picked up most of the trash that tends to be everywhere in cities. They had built a new hotel for all the elites who would be showing up, and a new park dedicated to Paul Biya in the center of town (which was of course locked, and not open to the public). Coming into the village just outside of Ebolowa where they had set everything up for the show I was struck by how nice it all looked. It reminded me more of a music festival than anything else. All of the stands where in brand new tents, the entrance was huge and well made, and there was a gigantic stage with a huge sound system and lights. Also Castel had a beer tent set up, which was awesome.

The main entrance, with the obligatory giant picture of Paul Biya

On the first day we where not able to actually get inside to set up our booth, so we set up outside the main entrance. We probably got to talk to a lot more people seeing as most of them had the same problem as us. The security was ridiculous because the president was there giving a speech to open the fair. It really only makes sense in Cameroon to have a Argo-Pastoral dedicated to the hard working farmers of Cameroon, and then not let any of them in.

At lest we didn't miss the parade! (I hate parades)

The table right after we set up.

A group of random Americans is known to draw a crowd pretty quickly.

On the second day we finally got in and set up the booth which I thought ended up looking pretty nice. There where a bunch of volunteers there, and we where all supposed to be talking about different things depending on where at the table we where standing. There was a section on AIDS education and family planning, some stuff on soy cultivation, and then an area for medicinal plants. All of the volunteers where also supposed to talk about what it is exactly that the Peace Corps does. Unfortunately for me my French wasn’t quite good enough to be doing any of that with proficiency, and I had been a Volunteer for about a month at that point, so I didn't really know myself what it is Peace Corps does in the country. In spite of that, I had to do a lot of talking, because the booth stayed busy pretty much all day for the whole six days, how much I was understood I don't really know, but at least I tried.  All in all I would have to say it was a good experience, but it was a little bit frustrating.

The inside of the booth.

The Front

There was some faux cultural stuff set up that was pretty cool, but I would have to say this painting was about the most awesome thing there. I also bought some masks, and probably over paid, but I liked them a lot so I don't mind.

Clay dome Houses from the North.

I think this is from the North too.

This is supposedly what the inside of a house in the South looks like, but I can tell you its not exactly accurate.

That would be Paul and Chantel Biya picking pineapples with The Obama's

Mask 1

Mask 2

The highlight of the whole thing was meeting Paul, and Chantel Biya, and shaking their hands. I can now say that I have met a dictator. The ambassador and his wife also came by, but I had already met him before so it wasn't quite as exiting.

The ambassador and his wife checking out the booth.

Paul and Chantel, Paul is much shorter in person that I thought he would be.

A couple other random pictures:

There was a small, rather sickly looking lion that didn't seem to happy about being on display.

This is called a cane rat, and people have begun to breed them for meat here.

African elephant snails.  I hope to start a snail raising project with someone from my village, so I talked to the guy who raised these quite a bit.

I have a bunch of pictures from trekking around the rain forest, and some from my post mate Amanda's Women’s Day soy project that I helped out on that I will try and get posted soon.