Random, Diary-like Entry with Talk of Sunburns

Many people have asked me why I appear so pasty in pictures, living as I do inches from the equator and spending 75% of my waking hours out of doors. Even I assumed when leaving for Cameroon that I'd come back Baywatched out, finally not looking pathetic and mole-like next to my lifeguard sister. The X factor here is traditional Muslim culture, and my obligation to cover the majority of my body, the majority of the time. Yeah, it's hot and itchy, and I sometimes feel like I'm hiding spousal abuse what with all the turtlenecks in the summer, but the options are go with it and sweat, or allow everyone to assume I spend my nights earning a few extra dollars in the local brothel. As if they're not already assuming that.

With my recent trip to the beach, however, I reaffirmed that ultraviolet rays do, in fact, exist and are alive and well here in Cameroon. After frolicking beachside feeling nearly naked (but actually sporting a fairly conservative bathing ensemble) and a minimal quantity of sunscreen for 4 days, I was awarded with bar-none the worst full-body sunburn I have ever experienced. Now, I've had my fair share of beach days in sweat pants and polos due to burns (raise your hand if you have NOT been embarrassed by my choices in beach gear), but this one made me question if I would ever be capable of a hot shower again (no problem in Cameroon, as it were). I lost feeling pretty much everywhere for about 48 hours, and continue to find new patches of skin pealing to this day. Like, seriously. I just pulled something scaly off my leg. And I've been back in my village for a month. Distressing.

Beyond this minor setback, the seminar went well and the weather was lovely. The South of Cameroon isn't nearly as blistering hot (though still blistering-ha…sorry), but much more rainy and humid. I hope to have convinced some of the newer volunteers to try soy initiation and water projects in their villages, that being the reasoning behind my paid vacation, but you know, whatever. It turns out, one of the 2008 Health volunteers is not only a 2006 graduate of ND, but one I knew fairly well, so the chaos theory of reality is basically disproven as of now, because that is a ridiculous coincidence. I'll be submitting my paper to Science and perhaps the National Inquirer later this month.

Since I've been back in the North (I differentiate the poles so much because culturally and climate-wise, they really are different countries), things have gotten, well, hotter. I'm still drilling away at officials trying to get financing and organizational details squared away for my Hygiene Training, and researching a whole host of new project topics. It's slow-going to be sure, but do I expect anything else from a country in which one is praised for arriving 'early' 45 minutes late to a meeting and my fricking cell phone tower still isn't turned on after 3 months? Not that I'm anxious or anything; I just like the idea of being able to contact emergency services in the event of an emergency and, you know, receive calls.

With Cameroon's National Holiday coming up May 20^th, I have also recently been assigned another curious task. The evening of the holiday, the sous-prefet (highest-ranking official in the village) sponsors a huge party for all the functionaries and higher-ups at his residence, complete with all manner of food and drink, dancing and, inevitably, ethnic conflict and bottle-throwing. All the food is prepared the day before and day of by a committee of their wives, who despite this, do not eat until all the men have been served, and therefore don't get nearly as much. If I wasn't so desensitized to gender injustice, this might disturb me. Or if I wasn't thinking 'at least those women GET some of the food.' Anywho, somehow, the sous-prefet and his cronies are under the impression that I have the slightest interest or culinary ability to function on this committee, and have announced me as a member without my knowledge or consent. This means that for my last real holiday in Cameroon, I'm going to be prancing around someone's backyard, observing women cooking for hours and hours, as if I don't do this on a pretty daily basis already. It's not that I don't WANT to help them prepare, but things are done just so for parties here, meaning if I start peeling potatoes, inevitably someone will come over to inform me I'm peeling completely wrong, and why don't I go help the ladies making the goat, or better yet, here's some food, go sit in the corner and watch for a while. Here's a slinky if you get bored, and let me know if your diaper needs changing.

Needless to say, I'm going to do everything I mischievously can to get off this committee.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes; it was a sufficiently uneventful 24^th, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. I amazed my health center staff with American-style brownies (they now know 'brownie' in English as opposed to any other word of this, their other national language) and caught up with some old friends over beers. I can't say I'm ecstatic to be nearing a quarter century so soon, especially here where women my age have about five kids, jaded world views and boobs to their waists. I guess two out of three ain't bad.

That about wraps me up; sorry it's been so long, but hope everyone's rocking out the spring. See ya when I see ya…SLAV

Noy Jangol?

When I unpacked my bags upon arrival in Cameroon back in 2006, I found many laughably ill-conceived items, notably a raincoat (as if I do anything when it rains but stand under it with open arms clad as scantily as possible), red pepper (available at the local market for about half a cent a pound) and, most ridiculously, a fleece blanket. When I can barely handle a sheet over my feet at night, in what case would I ever have need for an insulating blanket? I contemplated making it into curtains and a tablecloth, but the hot pink doesn't really go with my Asian jungle/dirty cement motif. But friends, Armageddon has arrived; I've been using the fleece blanket. Like, religiously. I've never been so happy.

January was brutal in the Grand North of Cameroon, and by 'brutal,' I mean sometimes I need a long-sleeved shirt at night and, because I'm a wussy, I need to heat up my bath water in a pot. People ask me daily how I'm dealing with the cold (noy jangol?), and for once I can't flippantly answer "What cold? Where is it? You guys are crazy" because I'm wearing a parka and stocking cap just like they are. The question now is how much of my discomfort is actual chill and how much is my 16-month integration. I'll think about that as I gobble a fish head and sharpen my spear for my tribal dance date later tonight.

Bibemi is developing faster than the American dollar is devaluing; a dozen water pumps have been fixed or replaced AND a new cell phone tower is so close to working I can hear the inordinately expensive drunk dials already. Basically, when I got here, the village was a rusted-out Pinto and it's quickly morphing into a 2008 Lexus. Well, maybe a '98 Lexus. Let's not be silly. I've started water hygiene presentations in neighborhoods in tandem with the repairs, where we discuss carrying and storing water without contaminating it and how to make it safe for drinking (bleach is the key word). These take place AT the pump, with one meeting for heads of households and another for their wives (the ones actually fetching water). Without the pumps, the only water option is digging for it in the dry river and apparently things get precarious in March, so getting the pumps working is both tremendously gratifying and startlingly necessary.

In other news, I was selected to present on my projects at the next batch of Health volunteers' in-service training (at the beach!), so I'm getting ready for a vaca in the middle of March. With Women's Day right before on March 8^th and an as-yet-unscheduled Hygiene Animator Training sometime before that, it'll be about time for one. I'll try to get on here with an update on the pumps before I go. Until then, hope everyone had a great start to 2008 and I resent the winter you're probably getting sick of by now.

Joyeux Noel

Happy Holidays all! I hope your Christmases were merry and as white as applicable; I'll go ahead and say mine was very merry, but more earth-toned and sandy. After hanging my fake snowflakes on the windows with an ironic smile and endlessly explaining that they weren't stars, doilies or hair ties, I commenced my holiday activities Christmas Eve by having a quasi-American-style Christmas meal with my postmate, comprised of grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans and subpar American boxed cake. It was actually pretty delicious, and I ate enough to effectively put me out of commission for the rest of the night, though many of my neighbors sent pots of popcorn, sweet beignets and random meat (pictured above), which is the traditional party food. I accepted it with a tense smile and achingly false sense of gratitude, then proceeded to feed everything to my cat.

Christmas day, I left early to play Santa and give out all the American presents I brought back, like nice bar soap, watches, eyeglasses, etc. They were all terribly practical, but went over very well. The concept of the Christmas gift is pretty nonexistent here, but the concept of the 'back from a long voyage' present is quite real, so my gifts weren't surprises, but attributed to my trip to America, not Christmas. I was sent some gifts and candy for kids, so my favorite part of the holiday was finding a way to distribute everything without being ground into a fine paste by a children-stampede. I didn't always succeed, and the day I tried to walk around the Muslim neighborhood handing out smarties was the day I realized just how uncomfortable and distressingly intimate a mosh pit is. Bad decision Lamb Feast.

I found that my neighbors celebrate Christmas much like they do the other Christian/Muslim/national holidays, with lots of food, new clothes for the whole family and big parties. Since Bibemi is predominantly Christian, and the Muslim Lamb Feast also happened this week, this is probably the biggest holiday I've seen, and the one guaranteed to last the longest (generally until February-no joke). We're in the middle of the harvest here, so everyone is busy in the fields, but also collecting lots of money, so spirits are high. It makes work a little hard, as the temptation to make merry all day is omnipresent, but we're slated to start fixing water pumps the 5th, so I have tons of logistical nonsense to take care of. I suppose my next blog will update everyone on how that went, so until next time, keep your friends close and your enemies incarcerated, SLAV

Boyma Jahangal Mango (after the big trip)

Hey everyone, as promised, I’m actually using the page I set up to update you about my life to update you about my life! No one is as surprised as me.
Well, after a month of shameless gluttony, high heels and cross cultural sharing (aka “this is how we take a shot in Cameroon,”) I arrived successfully in Yaoundé, our capitol. Thanks are in order again for everyone who fed me, housed me, entertained me, or tolerated me falling asleep at like 4pm for the night on Thanksgiving. Jet lag plus turkey plus multiple microbrews equals what you saw there. In all seriousness, I appreciate the hospitality, so much so that I am tempted to play the “I live in rural poverty in Africa” card long after I’m back and working for Exxon/Mobil.
I had a bag left off my plane from Brussels, meaning I hung out in Yaoundé for a week to claim it, since they’re not exactly going to deliver it to my current address (‘the house to the left of the garbage pile with the kids trying to break in the window to get the American candy, Bibemi, Cameroon’). I was bored out of my mind down there, but took the opportunity to complete most of my obligatory mid-service medical exams…which I passed with flying colors you’ll all be happy to know. It’s actually something of an aberration to have completely clear blood and stool samples, so of course I attempted to pat myself on the back, realized I’m not nearly as flexible as I used to be, tried to disprove this by doing a spontaneous backbend, and ended up more in pain than if I had actually had one of the diseases I was cleared for. You win some; you lose some.
Once I actually got to my village (after a 20 hour train ride and combine 10 hour bush car rides, ish), it was like I was Robin Williams circa Hook, returning to the lost boys in Neverland after 20 years and them freaking out and dancing around about my return. Ok, it wasn’t really so much like that, but I’m having trouble thinking of a good homecoming pop culture analogy today, and Hook’s always a safe bet. Basically, everyone was really happy and dare I say relieved, as it’s hard for them to understand why, after being pampered and reintroduced to modern conveniences, I would CHOOSE to come back and wash my clothes in the river…Ok, pay children to wash my clothes in the river. Handing out pictures I developed was a huge deal; I plan to take way more this year now that I see the furor they cause.
It will be hard to get much work done before the new year; like the States, Christmastime is pretty much an all-bets-off few weeks. I’ll be sure to write again in January detailing how we celebrate Baby J’s birthday east of the Atlantic; I hope frankincense and myrrh are involved.
I’ve once again restructured my method for picture sharing. Pictures of other volunteers or anyone that’s on facebook will be posted there in the Tag Photos folder. Everything else (as in the interesting pictures) is to be found in my Google albums. I’ve attached a link. Almost my entire first year should be there (it’s pitifully few; I think I took more in two weeks in Australia). If there are problems getting to the page, let me know so I can inform you personally that there’s really nothing I can do about it. I’m trying to maintain a certain level of quick-response customer service here.
I wish everyone the happiest of holidays; I look forward to next year when we can go wassailing together, but until then, merry Christmas and watch the expiration dates on your eggnog, SLAV

Typical Clothing

Part Un: Traditional Pagne
The most common fashion, particularly for the older generations and pretty much everyone in rural areas, is the sometimes absurd/sometimes beautiful/occasionally incomprehensible and ALWAYS loud variety of African fabric, called 'pagne' here in the francophone Grand North. One buys it in a 6 meter sheet at the market or in stores in larger towns. In provincial capitols, there are usually young dudes walking around on the streets and in bars with 5-20 sheets displayed on their arms, apparently keen to take advantage of the drunken impulse buy...of a crapload of neon orange fabric with ducks fighting roosters on it. In my defense, the blue accents on the roosters' talons really bring out my eyes.
Pagne is something a bit hard to explain well, because it varies SO much. The fabric itself might be made of a million different materials, and the designs vary from a monochrome black silk with sporadic gold stars to a rainbow-colored affair covered in multilingual slogans and cartoons urging the populace to 'support their local post office,' 'honor their mothers and fathers,' or ' wipe from front to back...EVERY time.' Basically, your institution, national holiday, ethnic group or social initiative doesn't exist unless you've created a pagne pattern to announce it.
For the buyers, once you've chosen the pattern that defines your innermost soul (or you wake up wrapped in one you apparently couldn't live without the night before), the next step is to turn it from a sheet into a sundress or cute flowy skirt...or pajama pants in my case. Most villages are teeming with tailers, and once you've found your dude and he's taken your measurements, all you need to do is walk in, give him the newest fabric purchase and a rudimentary sketch of what you'd like made, and haggle down the price for the job. Since most women in my village prefer 80s-style huge sleeves and extra room in the stomach (for the inevitable next pregnancy), I've had a few disasters attempting to recreate American fashions, but Lucien (my man behind the sewing machine) is finally coming to understand that 'basic' and 'understated' never mean adding plastic beads and ruffles.
Part Deux: When Your Pagne is Dirty
Though pagne is infinitely more comfortable than jeans and a T-shirt (it's really more like wrapping yourself in a sheet than anything else), the impracticality of wearing it to work in the field and the ever-present and ever-growing influence of Western habits has led many in the country, particularly youth and those living in urban areas, to abandon the rainbow patterns in favor of tube tops, thrift store t-shirts and tight jeans...with rainbow patterned patches of course.
Where does one find these leopard-print vests and Thompson Family Reunion 1983 commemorative sweatshirts, you ask? At the Frippe, that glorious section of the market that's really just a huge, open air Salvation Army, specializing in everything from old-school Adidas track suits to boutique-quality hand-made beaded tops and accessories. The best frippes are in big cities or close to the border of Nigeria (aka Land of Wonders and Quality Electronics), but items as diverse as tapered jeans, knock-off LaCoste polos and Nascar jerseys occasionally wind up at local rural markets, for at most $2 a piece. Jackpot.

Half-assed Disclaimer

So I'm going to attempt a new concept with this blog, as my devotion to the 'pick a random picture and describe it' motif is clearly weaning. Since uploading the pictures is the difficulty, I'm going to forgo them unless I have one really pertinent to my topic (I mean, if I'm talking about fashion, NOT including the pic of the functionary sporting the 3-piece dinosaur print suit with straw cowboy hat and neon orange Puma slides would just be negligent). I came to realize the other day that my tightest emails and snippets involve me elaborating on a theme, so I'm going to describe village life in segments, covering each subject area as completely as possible before general malaise and desire to forget my surroundings at imdb.com take over the proceedings. If pictures are more your jib, there's a few assorted shots on facebook, and more to come after my strongly worded letter to the nation's government, unmasking the REAL development crisis (slow jpeg upload speeds), is received and acted upon. Until then, I guess just imagine me hanging out in whatever you conceive Africa to be; in other words, yes, I'm touring a war-torn village with Angelina and Oprah until my date to a female circumcision ceremony, after which I will sponsor 1 child with $20 a month ($4 of which she will see), raise a lion cub on grubs and good-natured apathy, run from a dude with a machete, encourage my boobs to sag to my mid-thigh by tying a baby to one and an anti-apartheid sign to the other, and devise a way to extract billions in oil revenue without paying my host government a cent in taxes. Oh yeah, and I'm doing all of this using ONLY clicks and tribal dancing to communicate. Hope you enjoy the new format, and dear god quit sending me emails telling me to update my blog...

Traditional Meals

Nourishment in a village is a curious thing. On the one hand, you're eating exclusively fresh, unpackaged and preservative-free food. If you're chomping ona steak kabob, you can rest assured the cow was killed that day, and it's head is probably still resting next to the skin and entrails on your butcher's roadside table, staring at you. If your friend gives you a banana, she probably carted herself out to the grove outside of town to pick it. Not bad.
On the other hand, since cultural traditions and the realities of the desert dictate an emphasis on quantity, availability and food that makes you feel fullest, the meals prepared from these fresh ingredients is extremely hit-or-miss. Take the basic staple, couscous. First, a few words about terminology. The French is couscous, but this isn't your mother's couscous (or your friend Susanne's). It's comprised of whatever carb or starch you have a surplus of (normally corn or millet) ground into a powder and mixed with boiling water, forming a thick, chunky paste that tastes like gritty, well, grit. Revolutionary concepts like 'adding salt' or 'striving for a less gag-inducing texture' haven't played out because this food is about sustinence, not a pleasant dining experience.
The other word in need of clarification is staple. In the States, I would consider a chicken breast a staple food for me, as I tended to eat about one per week on a fairly regular basis. Maybe same with sliced bread and (at a certain period of my development) vodka sodas. In the villages here, however, couscous isn't a favorite meal or the stereotypical food; it IS food. Like, the native language word for food is THE SAME as for couscous, with no distinction needed. Midday and nighttime meals nearly always involve huge piles of couscous (unless one is upper class and can afford piles of rice or potatoes sometimes) with an accompanying sauce.
Thankfully for some, variety is possible in the sauce (though unfortunately for others, it's not universally affordable). Most involve a particular leaf from a tree or bush plant, salt, maybe some dried fish (reliably 70% bones and heads), MSG cubes, and 'gumbo' (also misleading), which creates a sauce with the precise consistency and temperature of snot, down to the stringy, globby details. To eat, you pick up a glob of couscous, depress it a little and then dip it in the communal trough of sauce, virtually slinging it onto the mush and into your mouth in a gesture most people here have done daily their whole lives.
I'm writing this pretty frankly and perhaps a little unfairly not because this is the way I currently view dinner at my neighbors' houses, or because I'm looking to score some cheap sympathy, but because this is how I imagine a Western 'outsider' would describe them. If you were visiting me and eating with me at someone's house, this account is undoubtably what you would come away with.
That said, don't worry; it isn't really all that bad. I'm pretty used to the couscous and gumbo 1-2 punch, and sometimes enjoy it when it's well done and I'm hungry. Also, this is just the most common meal, there are also leaf sauces made with peanut paste, beef bits and tomato paste that occasionally transcend the mediocre...and at MY house, I can make them with rice.

Now, don't everyone rush out to buy there plane tickets to Bibemi at once; I'm pretty sure there's only 1 plane coming here this month, and the soccer team's already booked most of it.