Babies everywhere

In America, I would have to say that the average high schooler/college student/younger adult comes across babies maybe once in a while – perhaps a family member or family friend has a child and one gets to see and hold the baby. Here, well you practically can’t get away from babies. They are everywhere. I can’t even begin to count the number of babies I’ve held since being here, let alone all the ones that I just see every day. And sometimes I’m talking day old babies. Not only does everyone have tons of babies, but maybe since they’re just all over, people are not as concerned, I’ll say, about possible risky behavior for the baby. For example, it’s quite normal to allow a 3,4,5 year old to hold the baby, even walk around with the baby. You often see young children with babies attached to their back (like the mothers do) but sometimes I swear I don’t know how the child doesn’t almost fall over from the baby as the child isn’t much bigger herself. Then it's also normal to put babies on motos - either the woman just keeps the baby on her back while riding or even better, the moto driver rests the baby on the gas tank in front of them while on the moto. 

I really liked this particular baby and asked to
'borrow' him for a day or two but it never
happened don't think they took me seriously

Another common practice thats not so much possibly dangerous but just different from what we know is for one to allow someone else to raise their child. Often people send their young child to an extended family member for a while. And it’s also acceptable to even ask for someone’s baby. For example, maybe a woman’s own children are grown and she wants to have a young child to help with household chores and have around – so just ask someone you know who has recently had a baby. 

Here are some photos of just a few babies. Believe me there are many, many more …

A few day old twins

How most babies are carried around - just tie them to your back with some fabric

Home Sweet Home

My new house ! 

So almost an entire year and a few close calls later but I finally have the house that I want. And while it may seem ridiculous to be moving now when I have only 3 months left, it’s worth it. My first house was really great itself but there were problems more so with location. I’ll just say the problems were due to culture differences - some people here don’t have the same ideas about personal space and what’s appropriate as a neighbor. And for anyone who’s visited me, I’ll say one word – kudjo. So it’s better now that I have my own compound.

My new house is literally across the street – maybe 10 steps. It’s owned by the Lamido and was recently finished. It’s pink and green with a giant living room and high ceiling, two bedrooms and bathroom that even has a toilet seat and cover, an indoor kitchen and a detached kitchen for wood fire cooking. And there’s running water and power (most of the time)

  

I’ve only been here a few nights so far and still have a lot of work before it’s all pulled together, but it’s already been amazing being here and not having to worry about the many things I did before. I will most certainly thoroughly enjoy my last few months in my new house. And I hope my replacement will enjoy his or her full 2 years in this great house. 

My old house is on the left - again literally like 10 steps away

My new room 

Living room before... 

And after

Indoor kitchen 

So fresh and so clean

I would have to say that the thing that struck me the most about life here that I hadn’t expected at all is the importance of appearances, specifically clothing. I’m sure anyone back home wouldn’t really expect to see people here in Cameroon so nicely dressed and I know there are plenty of volunteers here that use the excuse – ‘It’s Africa and you just get dirty so why dress nice’. But appearances and attire are actually very important to people.

When people go out, they try to look their best, whether they are wearing traditional clothing or more modern clothes. And yes things are dirty here particularly now with the height of dry season and red dust absolutely everyone but that doesn’t stop people from putting on their whitest t-shirt and going out. It’s important to have clean clothes and clean shoes – yes shoes. People wash their shoes some almost every day. And for example every morning after students and teachers make the trek out to the school and are covered in dust, the first thing they do after arriving is make sure to dust off and clean their shoes. And even tennis shoes that are used for sport are cleaned. I myself have even begun to clean my tennis shoes even though I wear them every day for sport and they get dirty every day, it’s important here. Ironed, pressed clothes are also important. And when you look extra nice and clean, sometimes people will say you look ‘fresh’ which is a nice compliment.

So cleanliness is across the board an important part of looking nice when going out. But then there are other things that maybe wouldn’t be that popular back home, but people do love here.

- Tight t-shirts with decals or glitter/sparkles. ‘Africa’ and ‘Cameroon’ t-shirts are super popular right now. And Ed Hardy knock off t-shirts also.

This was given to me for my birthday

- Small ties. Every big man, important person at some point rocks out a super small tie. The smaller the tie, the more important you are. Also super pointy men's dress shoes.

- Man purses worn around the neck. You know something nice like Gucci or Louis Vutton.

- In the realm of traditional clothing, right now a popular outfit is pants and a long tunic for girls with of course a scarf to cover the head and hair

So while I don’t necessarily follow all the particular fashion trends here, I do always try to look presentable with ironed clothes and cleaned shoes. And I would say for any volunteers coming, don’t underestimate your appearance here. If I could do it over, I would definitely bring some nicer clothing and dressier shoes. Things do get dirty, but it’s nice to look clean and professional every now and then.

Don't they look so nice and clean

How integrated do you feel in your community?

Every 4 months, one of the responsibilities as a volunteer is to complete a report about my activities. As you would imagine, I list all the work that I have done over those months. but in addition, I report about basically all the aspects of my life in my village – how my language skills are, if I’ve had any security or safety issues, culture exchanged, etc. Well one of the questions we are asked is ‘How integrated do you feel in your community?’ I find this to be one of the most difficult questions to answer. What does it even mean?

I feel like so often when we talk about life in another country as a volunteer, we talk about how we have ups and downs, how it can be so challenging with a different culture and how we try to integrate into our community. But really what does any of that mean? I think we often too easily say that our life is so different just because we are in a different country, but is it really? Why do we put such an emphasis on the highs and lows and that we are working and living in another country? I mean do you not have good days and bad days when you are back home in America? Do you not have moments when it feels like nothing is working how you want when you are in America? Maybe other people don’t but I definitely do. When I look at my life here and compare it with my life from before, I realize that really there are so many similarities. Yes, of course some of my daily activities are different, but in essence, isn’t most of it the same? I have my friends here who I care about and spend my time with. I have my work and responsibilities. I have days that I wish would never end and some that don’t end soon enough. But isn’t that all part of life no matter where you are or what you're doing?

So back to the first question – How integrated do you feel in your community? – Well for everyone back home, I mean do you ever ask yourself this question? No who does. And well if you did, what would you even say? It’s not something you think about and even when you do, how do you determine an accurate response. But here it’s something we discuss at times a lot with one another and I would just like to say that sometimes I find it to be an absurd question that we would otherwise not ask one another if it weren’t for living in another country and culture.

Boys English Group

So I don’t usually really talk about my work and most of that is because my work is really just teaching English everyday but here is a small project that I’ve recently started that I wanted to share about because I was happy it was finally happening.

Since coming to Banyo and starting work at the lycee, I have wanted to work with students outside of regular class – to work with a small group and do more activities that I was interested in and that they were interested in. Well I have finally gotten things rolling (only after a year and half). Some of my younger students came to me a few months ago and wanted an opportunity to practice English with more of a focus on conversational skills. So I invited a few more students of the same age level and we set a day and time to meet each week. It’s been going well for about a month now. And the students really seem to enjoy it and I definitely enjoy working with such a small group where I can actually hear everyone and they all have a chance to participate. The meetings thus far have been rather unstructured, some meetings we go over more in depth what they learned in class, some meetings we just talked about culture like school and differences in America and here. But I think it is going well and I am planning on using our meetings to incorporate lessons on topics like study skills and life skills while also allowing them to practice their English.

Here are some pictures of an activity we just did this past week. I brought in maps of the US and the world and we discussed some geography and I shared about America. Then they drew a map of Cameroon and described their country. All of this in English of course for them to practice.

Cooking with Fire

I know I’ve talked about food before but I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned just how exactly people go about cooking their food. Most volunteers cook with gas which means when we first move to our post, we have to search for a gas bottle to buy in a big city, transport the bottle to our village and attach to a ‘stove’ which usually has just 2 burners, maybe a small third one if it’s fancy. The gas bottle can last anyway from a few months to over half a year depending on how much cooking you do. When it runs out, you hope there’s gas available in town so you can exchange the empty bottle for a new one otherwise you’re stuck waiting with no way to cook or heat water for a warm bucket bath. Well this was the case for me a few months ago and I waited but apparently the whole country was out of gas (still don’t quite believe that) so I had to turn to more traditional ways of cooking….

Cameroonians do cook with gas but most find it expensive for the kind of cooking they do so they prefer to cook with wood. Just set up a few rocks to put a pot on top of. Place a few logs underneath and start a fire. Well at first I thought I would try this after I failed to find gas but one of my friends who I asked to help me get started advised me or more so gave me a reality check and told me that would be too difficult for me to do. However, he suggested a different method that would be a little easy. Here’s what I got: a metal cylinder, wood chips and wood. Here’s how it works: use an empty bottle and place in the center while you pack in wood chips then take the bottle out leaving an open hole in the center. The wood goes in a little opening on the bottom and put some petrol on it all to start the fire. Then get a cooking. Now my friend after buying everything did explain and show me (while almost starting a fire in my house as he told me it would be no problem to cook with inside – not true) and I have seen Cameroonians using them all the time particular at night cooking beignets, omelettes, etc. Well here’s what happened the first time I tried to use it (fortunately I had a fellow volunteer with me to help so she can attest to the story and could probably tell it much better)

Well we wanted to cook French toast and some tea. We set up the cylinder outside my back door and the volunteer got a stool to sit on so she could cook and fan the fire. We also decided that we had way to many things to do at once so we brought out my living room table to put the bread and everything on. Thing started okay but then… well we had a difficult time fighting off my neighbor’s chickens while also keeping the fire under control and in the madness I knocked over the petrol bottle and almost got both of us burnt. And we ended up eating burnt French toast. It was rough but I eventually got gas a few days later and it was like back to living in luxury.

The first morning cooking with wood...stressful

I will say though since this experience months ago, I have continued to use the wood fire and for the most part have gotten the hang of it. I heat water, make cakes – it’s not that bad, kind of fun sometimes when I don’t mess it up.

Youth Day

February 11 is a national holiday: Youth Day. It’s pretty much like any other holiday with special pagne, games and events, parade, party – the whole package but it’s dedicated to ‘youth’ which in this country can stretch to mean as long as you are not married you are a youth.

Last year I was not in Banyo for the holiday so this year I got to see and participate in all the awesome activities. And of course being a teacher, there really were some things I was supposed to help with. the first was ‘parade practice’ at school with all the students. Basically I just stood around and watched but the other teachers did help direct students and yell at them when they were not in a straight line. The students marched under the hot sun and chanted songs about how they were tired and wanted to go home.

Another day was ‘community service’ which basically meant students had to do manual labor and complained the whole time that they were again tired. And I again I didn’t really know what I was doing and I still don’t understand sweeping dirt here so the students asked if it was okay and I just said I don’t know. After about an hour of them asking I just gave up and they left. I think the ground was clean?

Then there were other events like some games against schools but I didn’t make it to all that. I did of course go out for the big parade on the Saturday. All the schools march in their uniforms and then youth groups and associations come out also. Even the moto-taximen march. It was quite an event.

It's Toga!