August 10, 2008 - Sorry its been 2 months since my last entry, I havent had easy access to internet and I've been busy what with Europe and then helping with training. Im just letting everyone know I am still here and doing better than ever...when I get back to post in September Ill make sure to fill everyone in on how my summer has gone. Hope you all are having a good summer.
Brad
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Thursday, June 5, 2008
One Year in Country
June 5, 2008 - Wow. It's been a long time. How have you been spending these few months? Greet everyone for me…might be what I would say here. Anyway it has been a while, I've been busy with things and like other volunteers told me it gets harder and harder to keep up a blog and generally keep in touch with people. I hope everyones well and all of that. We just closed the school Saturday so I'm officially done for a few months. I have a project I'm working on (when the proposal finally gets going Ill send an email asking for money) and I will be taking some well deserved vacation. If any family and friends are reading this and thinking "wow I wish I could visit Africa and look around a little"…you can! You have a free tour guide here who will take you into the jungle, visit pygmies, see the desert, climb the tallest mountain in west Africa, whatever you want to do. We will spend at least a few days relaxing on the black sand beaches of Limbe, having ice cold beers served to us and eating roasted fish coming straight out of the ocean. Remember, the weathers always nice here. You have to pay your flight (about 2000US) and take at least 2 weeks vacation, but once youre here the exchange rate is very nice. I've seen Europeans traveling here with their kids, I assure you its safe. My village would welcome you nicely...I guarentee it would be the most eye opening vacation you've ever taken and will change away you think about life. Anyway, something to think about.
I know I had a whole speech before about how I'd turned a new leaf and would start to blog more often about different topics and I still have the list, but honestly I've been traveling and doing school work and just haven’t had the motivation. Hopefully I'll have some over the summer, but again I will be busy. The new training group arrives Saturday. Yup, that means Ive been in Cameroon for 1 year. It went fast no? Ill be helping them with training in a few weeks when I get back from my mid-service vacation which also starts Saturday. Unfortunately Im flying out of the other city in Cameroon so I wont get to see the wide eyed newbies coming in. Im looking forward to going to Europe but Im a little frightened of being overwhelmed. When I went to Yaounde for a conference the traffic itself threw me a little, especially when I saw it from the top of the Hilton. I cant imagine Paris. Anyway Ill let you guys know how it goes.
Let me give you one cultural tidbit that is annoying me at the moment. Everyone, mostly those who have never met another American, asks you to bring them things when you travel. Just now when I was going to the market a girl in my class said "what are you going to keep for me at the market?" I said "I don’t know Ill see whats there.."(I usually try not to commit to anything) What I want to say is "I don’t even know your name, what am I supposed to buy something for every kid in the neighborhood every time I go to get some pineapples?" I restrain myself of course and its usually alright if I don’t get anything, but its even worse when you tell people youre going to Europe. People have asked for computers, dvd players, cell phones... Im going to have to get some small things I think but it’s a lot of pressure. I have to remember probably 15 people, Im supposed to be on vacation! Now these people are not trying to take advantage of me, its just part of the culture that if you're traveling you bring back something, I think its usually to show that you thought about them. Just shows you that even after a year there are things that youll never understand.
Okay now a more positive story about the culture…I've discovered a strength I have in the Cameroonian culture that I didn’t know was there: my dancing. Now all my college friends who are reading this are snickering a little and thinking of how they so often imitated my dancing by rolling their shoulders and bobbing their heads. Cameroon has changed me and it comes down to two things: the freedom to express yourself and mirror dancing. First, the freedom. You can do ANYTHING here and people will accept it as long as you move with the music. My favorite game is choosing the most ridiculous dancer on the floor and imitating them, preferably if your partner is doing it too. Lots of fun. Also its not strange for 2 or 3 men to dance together, in fact they dance more exuberantly if its all men. Freaked me out the first time a guy came over to dance with me but now I'm used to it, its fun. So now to mirror dancing. In most of the night clubs here they have mirrors lining all the walls so that you can watch yourself or your partner dance. I don’t know how strange it sounds anymore because its pretty standard here and Im gonna miss it. If a person doesn’t have a partner he (usually the girls wont dance without a partner or will be picked up quickly) will just stand about 4 ft from the mirror and dance, watching nothing but himself. It takes maybe 5 minutes to get used to seeing yourself, but after 10 you get really into it. I hope it starts in the US. Anyway these 2 things have given me the confidence to be a little more creative when I dance. When my school colleagues saw me dance at the school closing I got tons of compliments, even won a free beer from the social committee. We had another occasion Saturday night called a burn house, which is a first year birthday party for a child. I was asked to open the dance with a few others…was a lot of fun. Im worried Ill go back to the US and look ridiculous, but Ill deal with that when the time comes. Hope everyone has a good summer, Ill update hopefully sometime in July.
I know I had a whole speech before about how I'd turned a new leaf and would start to blog more often about different topics and I still have the list, but honestly I've been traveling and doing school work and just haven’t had the motivation. Hopefully I'll have some over the summer, but again I will be busy. The new training group arrives Saturday. Yup, that means Ive been in Cameroon for 1 year. It went fast no? Ill be helping them with training in a few weeks when I get back from my mid-service vacation which also starts Saturday. Unfortunately Im flying out of the other city in Cameroon so I wont get to see the wide eyed newbies coming in. Im looking forward to going to Europe but Im a little frightened of being overwhelmed. When I went to Yaounde for a conference the traffic itself threw me a little, especially when I saw it from the top of the Hilton. I cant imagine Paris. Anyway Ill let you guys know how it goes.
Let me give you one cultural tidbit that is annoying me at the moment. Everyone, mostly those who have never met another American, asks you to bring them things when you travel. Just now when I was going to the market a girl in my class said "what are you going to keep for me at the market?" I said "I don’t know Ill see whats there.."(I usually try not to commit to anything) What I want to say is "I don’t even know your name, what am I supposed to buy something for every kid in the neighborhood every time I go to get some pineapples?" I restrain myself of course and its usually alright if I don’t get anything, but its even worse when you tell people youre going to Europe. People have asked for computers, dvd players, cell phones... Im going to have to get some small things I think but it’s a lot of pressure. I have to remember probably 15 people, Im supposed to be on vacation! Now these people are not trying to take advantage of me, its just part of the culture that if you're traveling you bring back something, I think its usually to show that you thought about them. Just shows you that even after a year there are things that youll never understand.
Okay now a more positive story about the culture…I've discovered a strength I have in the Cameroonian culture that I didn’t know was there: my dancing. Now all my college friends who are reading this are snickering a little and thinking of how they so often imitated my dancing by rolling their shoulders and bobbing their heads. Cameroon has changed me and it comes down to two things: the freedom to express yourself and mirror dancing. First, the freedom. You can do ANYTHING here and people will accept it as long as you move with the music. My favorite game is choosing the most ridiculous dancer on the floor and imitating them, preferably if your partner is doing it too. Lots of fun. Also its not strange for 2 or 3 men to dance together, in fact they dance more exuberantly if its all men. Freaked me out the first time a guy came over to dance with me but now I'm used to it, its fun. So now to mirror dancing. In most of the night clubs here they have mirrors lining all the walls so that you can watch yourself or your partner dance. I don’t know how strange it sounds anymore because its pretty standard here and Im gonna miss it. If a person doesn’t have a partner he (usually the girls wont dance without a partner or will be picked up quickly) will just stand about 4 ft from the mirror and dance, watching nothing but himself. It takes maybe 5 minutes to get used to seeing yourself, but after 10 you get really into it. I hope it starts in the US. Anyway these 2 things have given me the confidence to be a little more creative when I dance. When my school colleagues saw me dance at the school closing I got tons of compliments, even won a free beer from the social committee. We had another occasion Saturday night called a burn house, which is a first year birthday party for a child. I was asked to open the dance with a few others…was a lot of fun. Im worried Ill go back to the US and look ridiculous, but Ill deal with that when the time comes. Hope everyone has a good summer, Ill update hopefully sometime in July.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
We had a little trouble round these parts
I wrote as the blog was happening, more for my benifit than yours, but here you go:
26/02/08 4:00pm - So, my last blog was about safety in
The worst city right now is
26/02/08 9:00pm - I have just gotten back from town and it was interesting. I watched the 730 news while eating poisson brase, baton de manioc and drinking a beer and the first story wasn’t even about the riots, it was about the Saudi Arabians meeting with Paul Biya….maybe important but not as important as the riots. The story about the riots told of few casualties, some burning cars. My friend next to me then told me that in the town they covered several gvt. buildings were burned and the brasseries (beer factories) were also burned. I don’t know how much of that is true because most of the buildings in the country are made of stone, but I think there was more to the story than they portrayed. At the very least all the Cameroonians were suspicious of the report which shows me the distrust they have for things run by the government. A report "just in" later in the broadcast showed clips from at least hours ago (it was still light outside) saying that the official strike would be ended tomorrow, but the Cameroonians around me said they thought the strike would go on longer, until the prices were lowered. We will have to see what happens tomorrow. Unfortunately for me although my mind is elsewhere I have classes tomorrow, and plan on going in without a lesson plan because I don’t have the patience to make one right now knowing I might be going home.
28/02/08 – 12:20am – I didn’t end up going into school at all yesterday, I really just couldn’t concentrate on teaching with so much going on. Today they were a little bit more serious than yesterday, but Im getting ahead of myself. The 27th was supposed to be the breaking point, where it would either die down or get worse. In the morning I was hearing that there were a few cars traveling, and it sounded like it was getting better. Then I talked to a volunteer in Dschang who said it was a lot worse than yesterday, police were throwing tear gas and shooting rubber bullets and someone was killed. The bakery that I buy yogurt at when Im in town was torn apart, and the bar which I usually go to may or may not have been burned down. I heard similar stories from other places and I sent some phone credit to a few friends who couldn’t leave their houses to buy it. I took a nap in the afternoon and when I woke up heard Paul Biya was going to address the nation. My friend brought some of his friends over and we played ping pong, I cut a Romeo and Juileta in half and we smoked it…a nice way to forget about what was going on. I went to the internet to watch the president's speech. The Cameroonians laughed most of the time, and though I didn’t get most of the French it was translated in English (Everyone here is bilingual or trilingual, most are quadralingual) and said the translation was very bad). Basically he blamed people for playing politics and generally it seemed threatened the people more than anything. It was definitely a Tipping Point (I just read the new book titled that I should be an expert). The Cameroonians at the internet and at the bar where I enjoyed poisson brase for the 2nd night in a row were immediately saying it wasn’t a good speech, and the next morning a few teachers confirmed. People didn’t like the presidents reaction to the riots, and if people who weren’t involved at all in the riots were thinking he was wrong to address it like that, I didn’t think the protesters would either. I didn’t hear as many bad stories today (one story about 2000 children being held hostage apparently made it on BBC) but mostly it was the tone that I was surprised at. The bars in town were unprecedently(word says its not a word but I disagree) empty tonight. No one was talking about anything other than the riots, some were saying its war, and no one was saying it should be over soon. I am now facing a real possibility of evacuation, in fact with the difficulty they would have evacuating us when there is no public transport I don’t see how they can risk stranding us out here if this gets better only to have another incident happen in a few months. Tomorrow or maybe after I finish this Im going to start seriously packing and choosing what to take and leave. It sucks that its so sudden, Im holding onto hope that I don’t have to leave but I don’t see another option. Im taking my camera into school tomorrow to take pictures with my students. I am just starting to get used to life here, Im either going to change programs entirely or go home, both of which will take serious adjustment I am not prepared for. More pressing, how am I going to get out of here? People are throwing rocks at all the cars passing and both towns with an airport are the worst to be in right now. Now that I face the prospect of leaving I feel like I haven’t been useful and I'm wishing I had started more things than I have, I'm not sure I've accomplished anything meaningful (not that I necessarily would have accomplished much but I haven’t even finished teaching a full year…).
a week or so later….That was the worst day. The day after I wrote that things calmed and cars were able to pass in most cities. There were rumors that the strikes would start again on Monday, so all the volunteers stayed in consolidation but it turned out that things were peaceful and everything went back to normal in the next few days. There are still rumors that the strike may start again but at least for now its fine. My feelings on the strikes are:
- Im very very glad its over, it was even exciting at first but then brought only stress
- I fear they will come back, since not much has changed as far as prices go
- I think most of the rioting was actually caused by people taking advantage of the situation, not the protestors themselves
- I feel safe here, I have heard that no matter how awful the protests get they take the weekends off to give people a chance to move, to buy rice and those things and get ready for the next week of staying inside. At least I will be able to stay in village until a weekend and then be evacuated.
18 March 2008 - Welp, that was fun, but as I said the riots are over and theres no looking like theyre coming back soon, but we don’t know. Life is usual, Im getting ready for summer break (theres not summer here, they just call it third term break). I found out a few days ago that Ill be helping with training, which is a relief because itll give me something to do for our 3 months off (besides travel around Europe which im also excited for…Ill be there in 3 months, it feels like no time). Right now time is flying. It seems like every day is two weeks later on the calendar than it should be. I've officially been in
Brad
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Im OK
Hey everyone,
There have been some strikes in Cameroon and the country got a little crazy, Ive written about it but wasnt able to post it today. Ill do that later in the week, just know that Im staying, and Im ok.
Brad
There have been some strikes in Cameroon and the country got a little crazy, Ive written about it but wasnt able to post it today. Ill do that later in the week, just know that Im staying, and Im ok.
Brad
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Happy Valentines Day
...Which they do celebrate here surprisingly. Nothing too fancy like giving a valentine to everyone in your class, but people made them for people they had crushes on (I didnt get any). And now to my pretyped entry:
Howdy folks... oh I heard the first slang that was started since I've left, but I forget what it was…it was a version of "how you doing" but I didn’t understand it at all. Very strange. Also that computer world still going on? 2nd life? I read about it in newsweek and it seemed like it was getting big but I couldn’t really tell. If anyone has any epiphanies about things that would be new to me that I might not read in Newsweek or about the elections (the elections are really all I read about online, takes too much time to surf) send me an email (or an old fashioned letter). My addresses again:
bradford.melius@gmail.com
for packages:
Bradford Melius, PCV
B.P. 215
for letters:
Bradford Melius, PCV
B.P. 217
NOTE: do NOT send packages to the Dschang address, unless you want me to have to pay a rediculous amount of money to get it and risk having it already opened and searched through.
Also anyone who wants an email penpal here I have hundreds of students who would want one. Again, there would be no pressure you could write about anything and they would be interested to hear it, and would respond. Just send me your email address and Ill give it to one of my students.
So, I said I would give a talk a little more about life here. Let me start with safety in
The thing that I fear most is traveling. I talked about my traveling experience once but in case you forgot or missed it, they cram people in cars. It makes perfect sense to me now, because the people here would much rather fit 8 people (not including small children who sit on laps) into a small car than pay 25% more to travel. They always fit as many people who can squeeze in, which in cars usually means putting someone in the drivers seat with the driver. The cars are also not too well kept. You are lucky if you get in a car that has all its mirrors. All this being said the drivers are used to having another in the seat with them, not having mirrors, etc. and tend to drive very well considering. Also in some areas the roads are so bad that the car cannot go more than 15 mph, meaning even if there were an accident it wouldn’t be too bad. I estimate that my chances of an accident are 2 to 3 times more likely here than in the US, but since I take a car much less and I haven’t gotten in an accident in the past 6 years, so hopefully Ill be ok here. Also, not that I deserve it but I know that if something were to happen I would be the first to be taken care of. Whenever a car breaks down I am the first one the drivers find another car for. They may try to charge me more because I'm white, but I get service too.
As far as people breaking into my home, I have almost no fear of it. I lock my doors of course when I leave and at night, but my village is not too big and people just couldn’t get away with breaking in here. Very few people (especially those who don’t own the house) have their own room. If they show up with a camera or a computer or a lot of cash, people will know where it came from because news of the white man getting robbed would travel faster than a PK taken by eto'o (our star player. Not sure if you would have seen it because I don’t remember it, but the Africa Nations Cup was in Jan. Cameroon lost in the finals, very upsetting). I have a friend in a smaller village than mine and his house was broken into twice. They found the kids both times, and he got all of his things back. Im sure the kid was punished beyond what we want to know.
The final thing that reassures me is that people here are so nice. Most know that if an American is here its to help them, and they treat us with respect and kindness (they do try and charge us more, but that’s because they think we have the money…they have relatives in the US who send back money…but they don’t realize I have school loans and am on a Cameroon-set stipend. That being said I still do have enough money to pay a little more here and there, I argue mostly for entertainment. Shopping when you don’t really need something is the best, you can get very good prices.
All in all, I worry about transportation the most, but I travel maybe 2x a month maximum, and its not too bad. In other words you don’t need to worry about me, and if you want to come and visit (everyone should) youll be ok. If youre really worried about transportation we can depot buy the seat next to the driver or the whole car if you prefer, wouldn’t cost too much on an American salary.
If anyone wants to know anything specific, add a comment or send me and email and Ill write about it…remember things got less weird to me so I might not realize a certain topic would be interesting. Whutoh (means bye around here, sounds a little like ut-oh, somethings wrong)
Joefred about to jump into the water, I have a video too but its too big.
It was the right time to smoke a cigar sent from the states.
The waterfall is huge, couldnt get the whole thing in a picture. Rediculous.Saturday, February 9, 2008
Almost a Really Great Entry
February 9, 2007 - This was going to be my best entry to date; but alas i have to put in and take out my usb every time i want to insert a picture and Im not up for it; sorry. I think its still a good story Ill add the pics later:
Hello everyone, I've decided it will be too much of a pain right now to change sites, so well see how it goes slightly editing myself. Right now I'm a little upset because the fridge I bought on a whim isn’t working because of low voltage, which happens almost every night. Hopefully it will keep cold enough even if it goes off for 2-3 hrs a day? I don’t know maybe I can have an electrician come. Anyway I also bought a ping pong table which I'm more excited about, although it’s a little smaller than an official table it works just fine. Tomorrow (meaning today if I get to the internet after) I'm going to sand it and paint it with my friend and reinforce it early next week. He is down right now because his girlfriend got a few gifts from a wealthy gentleman around here which suggests they weren’t just friends. Hes not talking to her but hes having a rough time..he says table tennis should take his mind off her..well see. Anyway after we paint it I'm going to go to the internet and do a few chores and then go to Dschang, the city near me, for banking and to watch Cameroon in the semifinals in the Africa Nations Cup. We're playing Ghana, the home team and we haven’t played great in the tournament so we'll see. Would be great to move to the finals. Its on Thursday, Feb. 7th at 7 or 930 here (so 1 or 330 eastern). Look for it on ESPN2 if you don’t have a job.
**There is also the loudest bug Ive ever heard outside right now, I don’t want to open the door for fear its big and will get inside so I have to kill it. Im also in the middle of a minor cockroach problem and am feeling a little sick, hopefully a good nights rest and dousing the house with insecticide will make me good to go tomorrow. The fridge just came on for a sec and then off again…life must sound bad but it really isn’t right now.**
Last weekend I have a trip to tell you about:Lucky for you I wasn’t lazy and took my camera. My only regret is that I didn’t get a picture with the "father of jesus" but we'll get to that. The night before we were to leave, Marcellus (a friend I went with) went to talk to a guy who was going to show us to "elephant rock" a huge rock you can see in the distance from my post where supposedly elephants used to come and sun bathe. His motivation was that he was going to hunt for animals while we were there. He set a time for 800 when we would leave(gave him 500 francs for something, Marcel couldn’t say no he was doing us a favor), and then we bought food, fishing hooks to go with the line I had bought, and bait. We packed most of it that night. Marcellus and I woke up around 630, he was at my house at 7 we finished packing and cooked some eggs (for the guide too), ate some peanuts on our way to the guys house. We showed up at 5 to 8, and the guy wasn’t there. The kids wouldn’t even go look for him!(VERY rude to say no to anything an adult tells you) Here are the kids:
Anyway we wait around, and by 815 Marcellus is angry. Im used to having to wait for Cameroonians so I just sit, eat more, snap photos of the kids, and wait. The guy shows up around 830, apologizing profusely and says he will go get ready to go. We wait outside until about 845 and go in to see what the problem is. He says now that he cant leave until his wife gets back from wherever she was…Marcellus talks to him and the guy says ok its not far, 20 minutes, and we'll leave at 10 no matter if the wife is back yet (the neighbors would watch the kids, its what you do in Cameroon (I don’t watch any kids)).
We leave our bags at the house and go into town and get a drink (just juice, I thought about a beer though its not out of the ordinary here) and when I went to get some chocolate a guy who sort of looks like the guy says "are you ready?, lets go". Its only 945 so Im excited, were doing better then he promised. I thought it was him but it turned out it was his brother who looked like him. He was finishing a beer(see?) so we said we would meet him after he finished at the house. On our way back we see the guide on a moto towards town! He shouts "I am coming". We had nothing to do but wait at that point. At about 11 we finally got one of the kids to go look for him (we would have just left then but our bags were locked up). He comes back and says his father went to visit someone in the hospital, and we'll go tomorrow. This didn’t work for me, I had to teach the next day so we were out of luck.
Marcel was more pissed than I was, but his complaints which I generally agree with were:
1) we talked to him about this day about a month in advance
2) Marcel went by his house the night before to make sure
3) he still said we were going that morning, 45 mins after we decided to meet
4) the least he could have done was say we weren’t going or we might not go
Im not sure if he wanted to get as much out of us as he could and then not go or if there was an actual reason he had to go to the hospital then, but in any case he left us with our bags fully packed including some already prepared food, looking at hiking during the hottest part of the day if we wanted to still go.
On my our way back with our bags we go about 100 yds and see a man in a bubu (a formal dress around here) walking in the other direction. Marcel seems to know him and tells him the story about what happened. After about 30 seconds, the man shakes his head and says "No, come". We start to follow. This shows very well the two contrasts in Cameroon. Some people are always late, want to take advantage of everyone(This is going to be a long parentheses I have another story I probably wont tell unless I put it here..just know now that the guy in the bubu decided to take us, in contrast to the first guy and the guy Im about to tell you about. There was a teacher at the beginning of the year who was a pretty cool guy. He came over a few times and we talked about Cameroon, the government, philosophy of life, he seemed very intelligent and we had some very interesting talks. I was only about 1 month at post and he was probably my best friend at the time. One night he says hes thinking about starting a call box at the school(a call box is basically a pay phone except people sit with cell phones and you can call for cheaper because they buy in bulk, and you can also buy credit from them). It sounded like a good idea maybe students would use it to call their parents, etc. Anyway he wanted 20000fcfa (about 45 dollars) for help with the credit. I told him I didn’t have enough Id have to go to the bank, and he said that whatever I could give him by that weekend he would appreciate because he was going that weekend to buy the credit in the city. I decided to give him 10000, and before he took it I told him of what Peace Corps told us about Cameroonians trying to scam us. He said "in wine, there is truth" in the latin but I forget it (good thing Mrs. Griffin doesn’t know about the blog). I make him sign a receipt saying hes gonna pay it back by a certain time(what I was most worried about) and he said no problem. A few weeks later I realize I haven’t seen him since that weekend, and ask a colleague what happened. Apparently he didn’t tell anyone he was leaving, packed up all his things and moved out of town to take another job. He was completely lying the entire time. I was very surprised, and it was a good lesson to learn for only 10000 fcfa. Later while reading notes the last PCV (peace corps volunteer) left me it said "don’t trust _______ hes a mooch". Teaches me to read help that’s given too. I also discovered a white man store that apparently sometimes (not since Ive been here) has cheese and yogurt. If I get the fridge to work Ill go there more. Back to the story) and some people are the most welcoming people you could imagine. This guy had a plan of going into the field, working all day and meeting his wife in the evening, and decided to help us out instead (might sound nice to skip a day of work to hike around but hiking isn’t easy and farming is his only source of income).
We go to his house, he gives us some food, changes, and we head off around 1 oclock (the sun is sooo hot at this time). Heres a picture of the farmer's (Ernest, our new guide) view from his house). We start hiking, it takes about 1 hr and a half to make it to one of the rivers that surrounds the rock. I am told that the rock around it is part of the large rock, exposed here, covered by bush on the way and uncovered when we reach the place. This is where I take my favorite picture…Marcellus jumping to rock he was afraid to jump (all Cameroonians are better at hiking/rock jumping than me) but something must have rubbed off on me because I made it easily. I was practicing jumping on the side before I went an Marcellus was laughing hard, he said "if you don’t make it youll still have your life". That’s what I was thinking about when I jumped, in the picture I'm thinking "thank god I made it":
We look around, they think about swimming but the water is too rough and Marcellus insists theres a lot of magic around that place, and he wont go in. We start hiking to the rock, Marcellus realizes he forgot his machete and goes back to get it, Ernest and I continue on and make it to the rock.
Ernest:
Me on the rock:
The rock was like this all around, pretty cool not sure how it was made (any real geologists reading? Kaplan at least?)
We decided to eat the eggs we prepared there…the bread was too dry but eggs were good.
Here you can see where we left, my town in the distance. As we were leaving we saw a trap left. They had me pose getting caught in it(hurt more than I thought and almost whacked me in the eye) but the picture of Ernest resetting it was better:
This is where the trip started to suuuuck. We turned out to be going to Ernest's part of the other river, and there was no path. The machetes came in handy but still being 6'4" and going over and under brush is not fun, especially under the equatorial African sun in pants. Ok ill stop complaining for now, we made it to the open area and they decided to swim this time. I REALLY wanted to swim, but the peace corps says we cant because we can get schisto, a disease which is completely testable and curable (you do get worms in your eyes if untreated) but still, got to avoid it by sitting in the sun while they dip in the cool, brisk water. Batteries were low I think that’s why its blurry:
**I just took a break to talk on the phone to another volunteer for a little…if you call after 11 its almost free for however long you talk, really nice considering a 10 minute call is about 1 days salary normally. Anyway we got in an argument about whether a push cart is better called a trolley or a pulley. Im right saying it’s a trolley, right? You start to forget some of the vocab you don’t use here. Sometimes I say something like cake (they call the few cakes here gateaus which is French) and think about how long its been since Ive said that word.**
This is the time when they tell me that to get back to my village; we'd have to hike in the dark. The other option is to meet Ernest's wife in another village and spend the night there. By this time we were so far out our cell phones were out and I couldn’t inform Peace Corps, but I figured it would be safer to go to that village than to hike during the night. We made it there about 530, bathed in a nearby river they said was drinking water right before the spot we were at so I figured it would be safe (sorry ladies no pictures of that) and I took the two of them out for a drink while the wife stayed home and cooked the food we had on us (at least Ernest took the baby to the bar…right?).
The drinks were a little expensive but I was out of potable water and wanted a juice really bad, plus they had both helped me out immensely. It was the only bar in town, and on a Saturday night had 4 people in it when we arrived. There's no electricity in that village so we drank by lantern. We met some interesting people, a farmer there said his daughter was in my class…she came in and introduced herself and I didn’t recognize her. I asked if she was in my class and she said yes she was in Lower6th and took physics. I know both girls in that class by name, and she wasn’t one of them. She's never been to the 2 hrs a week that I teach of that class (many of them don’t come because the 2 hrs before and 1 hr after the teachers don’t come to class). I pretended it was my fault so she wouldn’t get in trouble and a little while she brought food for us to eat…very nice of her but I was so exhausted I wasn’t that hungry and I knew we were going home to food. I ate it all and hoped I wouldn’t have to eat that much at Ernest's house. I talked to the father a bit he was an interesting guy. The most interesting things he said:
1) He said he knows a place about 1 day out in the bush where hes seen elephants and chimpanzees. I would love to see them, and I'm planning on going with him…even if there are no animals it will be nice to make it far out and see what its like. Simon, you up for going out there? BUY YOUR TICKET.
2) He told a story about the only other white man to visit the village before me. He went to meet the chief, and while they were together the he kept "blowing gas"(Marcellus' words after he translated the story later). The Cameroonians near him asked the chief why he wasn’t upset, because if a Cameroonian did that in front of the chief he would be beaten at the least. The chief said the gas was not smelling so it was okay. The Cameroonians in the bar laughed hysterically at this story…apparently comedy translates across cultures(not sure if I'm sarcastic about that, depending on the telling it could have been funny).
3) He told me in English that the man across the bar (who later self proclaimed himself "the father of jesus" to the delight of the bar) used to be a spiritual doctor who could swallow a 22 oz glass bottle, or throw a bottle cap at the wall making it stick. In the end he didn’t keep up the requirements and lost his powers so he couldn’t show us, but he could do it before. The father of Jesus was drunk and spoke very broken English, I couldn’t understand most of what he said but he stared at me a lot, hope he was blessing me.
We left the bar, me regretting I didn’t bring my camera to get pictures of the folks inside, and headed back to the house. The stars were amazing…Im sure theres a limit to how good they can be but there were no lights around except candles and you could see a shitton of stars (sorry about the swearing but its necessary to get the feeling across). Inside Ernest's wife had prepared rice and fish that we had brought (she gave me the ziplock that held the rice back full of garri (yellowish ground…plant I think?)...I don’t like it much and don’t know how to prepare it so I gave it to Marcellus, but my point is they are poor and have a 7 month old baby and are still very generous to guests.
After the meal we played cards (something like UNO) which was a lot of fun, they all trashed talked in English. I have to admit I was a little uncomfortable when Ernest's wife started breast feeding in the middle of the game, Im trying to get used to it but women are not shy here. They also brought me a beer, again very generous.
**MY FRIDGE IS WORKING!! It was out for about 4 hrs…what do you guys think will it keep things cold? Maybe Ill have to move it onto a different plug but that would mean it would be in the bedroom, not convenient.**
By the time we decide to go to bed I am exhausted and ready to pass out. Good thing because turns out Im sharing a bed with Marcellus and Ernest. Im sure it was the only bed in the house, but Cameroonians give the guests nothing but the best. I slept pretty well, woke up around 7 and we ate leftover rice and after giving Ernest some money for helping us out (not sure if it was right to do but he accepted), headed out about 8. I realized that we walked almost all downhill on the way there and it would be uphill most of the way. I wasn’t disappointed. After climbing for about an hour I reached a point where I knew where I was, and about 10 oclock we reached the house. Us in front of my house:
It was a great hike, although I was exhausted and pretty sure I picked something up from one of the many cuts on my hands and arms (I took a Benadryl just in case and passed out after a while). Definitely going to keep exploring the area around me (I told some of you about the waterfall I went to…that was closer and more beautiful than this, if anyone visits we'll definitely go there). Its 1245 (only time Ive stayed up this late was 4am to watch the pats lose in the final seconds last Sunday). Cant say I was too disappointed, it was time for them to lose a superb owl (typed it right but word said it was wrong and suggested this, never realized superbowl=superb owl) and I like the giants. Anyway as usual hope you guys are great, Im doing alright here, keep in touch. Don’t expect such detailed blogs in the future but Ill do my best.
Brad
Hello everyone, I've decided it will be too much of a pain right now to change sites, so well see how it goes slightly editing myself. Right now I'm a little upset because the fridge I bought on a whim isn’t working because of low voltage, which happens almost every night. Hopefully it will keep cold enough even if it goes off for 2-3 hrs a day? I don’t know maybe I can have an electrician come. Anyway I also bought a ping pong table which I'm more excited about, although it’s a little smaller than an official table it works just fine. Tomorrow (meaning today if I get to the internet after) I'm going to sand it and paint it with my friend and reinforce it early next week. He is down right now because his girlfriend got a few gifts from a wealthy gentleman around here which suggests they weren’t just friends. Hes not talking to her but hes having a rough time..he says table tennis should take his mind off her..well see. Anyway after we paint it I'm going to go to the internet and do a few chores and then go to Dschang, the city near me, for banking and to watch Cameroon in the semifinals in the Africa Nations Cup. We're playing Ghana, the home team and we haven’t played great in the tournament so we'll see. Would be great to move to the finals. Its on Thursday, Feb. 7th at 7 or 930 here (so 1 or 330 eastern). Look for it on ESPN2 if you don’t have a job.
**There is also the loudest bug Ive ever heard outside right now, I don’t want to open the door for fear its big and will get inside so I have to kill it. Im also in the middle of a minor cockroach problem and am feeling a little sick, hopefully a good nights rest and dousing the house with insecticide will make me good to go tomorrow. The fridge just came on for a sec and then off again…life must sound bad but it really isn’t right now.**
Last weekend I have a trip to tell you about:Lucky for you I wasn’t lazy and took my camera. My only regret is that I didn’t get a picture with the "father of jesus" but we'll get to that. The night before we were to leave, Marcellus (a friend I went with) went to talk to a guy who was going to show us to "elephant rock" a huge rock you can see in the distance from my post where supposedly elephants used to come and sun bathe. His motivation was that he was going to hunt for animals while we were there. He set a time for 800 when we would leave(gave him 500 francs for something, Marcel couldn’t say no he was doing us a favor), and then we bought food, fishing hooks to go with the line I had bought, and bait. We packed most of it that night. Marcellus and I woke up around 630, he was at my house at 7 we finished packing and cooked some eggs (for the guide too), ate some peanuts on our way to the guys house. We showed up at 5 to 8, and the guy wasn’t there. The kids wouldn’t even go look for him!(VERY rude to say no to anything an adult tells you) Here are the kids:
Anyway we wait around, and by 815 Marcellus is angry. Im used to having to wait for Cameroonians so I just sit, eat more, snap photos of the kids, and wait. The guy shows up around 830, apologizing profusely and says he will go get ready to go. We wait outside until about 845 and go in to see what the problem is. He says now that he cant leave until his wife gets back from wherever she was…Marcellus talks to him and the guy says ok its not far, 20 minutes, and we'll leave at 10 no matter if the wife is back yet (the neighbors would watch the kids, its what you do in Cameroon (I don’t watch any kids)).We leave our bags at the house and go into town and get a drink (just juice, I thought about a beer though its not out of the ordinary here) and when I went to get some chocolate a guy who sort of looks like the guy says "are you ready?, lets go". Its only 945 so Im excited, were doing better then he promised. I thought it was him but it turned out it was his brother who looked like him. He was finishing a beer(see?) so we said we would meet him after he finished at the house. On our way back we see the guide on a moto towards town! He shouts "I am coming". We had nothing to do but wait at that point. At about 11 we finally got one of the kids to go look for him (we would have just left then but our bags were locked up). He comes back and says his father went to visit someone in the hospital, and we'll go tomorrow. This didn’t work for me, I had to teach the next day so we were out of luck.
Marcel was more pissed than I was, but his complaints which I generally agree with were:
1) we talked to him about this day about a month in advance
2) Marcel went by his house the night before to make sure
3) he still said we were going that morning, 45 mins after we decided to meet
4) the least he could have done was say we weren’t going or we might not go
Im not sure if he wanted to get as much out of us as he could and then not go or if there was an actual reason he had to go to the hospital then, but in any case he left us with our bags fully packed including some already prepared food, looking at hiking during the hottest part of the day if we wanted to still go.
On my our way back with our bags we go about 100 yds and see a man in a bubu (a formal dress around here) walking in the other direction. Marcel seems to know him and tells him the story about what happened. After about 30 seconds, the man shakes his head and says "No, come". We start to follow. This shows very well the two contrasts in Cameroon. Some people are always late, want to take advantage of everyone(This is going to be a long parentheses I have another story I probably wont tell unless I put it here..just know now that the guy in the bubu decided to take us, in contrast to the first guy and the guy Im about to tell you about. There was a teacher at the beginning of the year who was a pretty cool guy. He came over a few times and we talked about Cameroon, the government, philosophy of life, he seemed very intelligent and we had some very interesting talks. I was only about 1 month at post and he was probably my best friend at the time. One night he says hes thinking about starting a call box at the school(a call box is basically a pay phone except people sit with cell phones and you can call for cheaper because they buy in bulk, and you can also buy credit from them). It sounded like a good idea maybe students would use it to call their parents, etc. Anyway he wanted 20000fcfa (about 45 dollars) for help with the credit. I told him I didn’t have enough Id have to go to the bank, and he said that whatever I could give him by that weekend he would appreciate because he was going that weekend to buy the credit in the city. I decided to give him 10000, and before he took it I told him of what Peace Corps told us about Cameroonians trying to scam us. He said "in wine, there is truth" in the latin but I forget it (good thing Mrs. Griffin doesn’t know about the blog). I make him sign a receipt saying hes gonna pay it back by a certain time(what I was most worried about) and he said no problem. A few weeks later I realize I haven’t seen him since that weekend, and ask a colleague what happened. Apparently he didn’t tell anyone he was leaving, packed up all his things and moved out of town to take another job. He was completely lying the entire time. I was very surprised, and it was a good lesson to learn for only 10000 fcfa. Later while reading notes the last PCV (peace corps volunteer) left me it said "don’t trust _______ hes a mooch". Teaches me to read help that’s given too. I also discovered a white man store that apparently sometimes (not since Ive been here) has cheese and yogurt. If I get the fridge to work Ill go there more. Back to the story) and some people are the most welcoming people you could imagine. This guy had a plan of going into the field, working all day and meeting his wife in the evening, and decided to help us out instead (might sound nice to skip a day of work to hike around but hiking isn’t easy and farming is his only source of income).
We go to his house, he gives us some food, changes, and we head off around 1 oclock (the sun is sooo hot at this time). Heres a picture of the farmer's (Ernest, our new guide) view from his house). We start hiking, it takes about 1 hr and a half to make it to one of the rivers that surrounds the rock. I am told that the rock around it is part of the large rock, exposed here, covered by bush on the way and uncovered when we reach the place. This is where I take my favorite picture…Marcellus jumping to rock he was afraid to jump (all Cameroonians are better at hiking/rock jumping than me) but something must have rubbed off on me because I made it easily. I was practicing jumping on the side before I went an Marcellus was laughing hard, he said "if you don’t make it youll still have your life". That’s what I was thinking about when I jumped, in the picture I'm thinking "thank god I made it":
We look around, they think about swimming but the water is too rough and Marcellus insists theres a lot of magic around that place, and he wont go in. We start hiking to the rock, Marcellus realizes he forgot his machete and goes back to get it, Ernest and I continue on and make it to the rock.Ernest:
Me on the rock:
The rock was like this all around, pretty cool not sure how it was made (any real geologists reading? Kaplan at least?)
We decided to eat the eggs we prepared there…the bread was too dry but eggs were good.
Here you can see where we left, my town in the distance. As we were leaving we saw a trap left. They had me pose getting caught in it(hurt more than I thought and almost whacked me in the eye) but the picture of Ernest resetting it was better:
This is where the trip started to suuuuck. We turned out to be going to Ernest's part of the other river, and there was no path. The machetes came in handy but still being 6'4" and going over and under brush is not fun, especially under the equatorial African sun in pants. Ok ill stop complaining for now, we made it to the open area and they decided to swim this time. I REALLY wanted to swim, but the peace corps says we cant because we can get schisto, a disease which is completely testable and curable (you do get worms in your eyes if untreated) but still, got to avoid it by sitting in the sun while they dip in the cool, brisk water. Batteries were low I think that’s why its blurry:
**I just took a break to talk on the phone to another volunteer for a little…if you call after 11 its almost free for however long you talk, really nice considering a 10 minute call is about 1 days salary normally. Anyway we got in an argument about whether a push cart is better called a trolley or a pulley. Im right saying it’s a trolley, right? You start to forget some of the vocab you don’t use here. Sometimes I say something like cake (they call the few cakes here gateaus which is French) and think about how long its been since Ive said that word.**
This is the time when they tell me that to get back to my village; we'd have to hike in the dark. The other option is to meet Ernest's wife in another village and spend the night there. By this time we were so far out our cell phones were out and I couldn’t inform Peace Corps, but I figured it would be safer to go to that village than to hike during the night. We made it there about 530, bathed in a nearby river they said was drinking water right before the spot we were at so I figured it would be safe (sorry ladies no pictures of that) and I took the two of them out for a drink while the wife stayed home and cooked the food we had on us (at least Ernest took the baby to the bar…right?).
The drinks were a little expensive but I was out of potable water and wanted a juice really bad, plus they had both helped me out immensely. It was the only bar in town, and on a Saturday night had 4 people in it when we arrived. There's no electricity in that village so we drank by lantern. We met some interesting people, a farmer there said his daughter was in my class…she came in and introduced herself and I didn’t recognize her. I asked if she was in my class and she said yes she was in Lower6th and took physics. I know both girls in that class by name, and she wasn’t one of them. She's never been to the 2 hrs a week that I teach of that class (many of them don’t come because the 2 hrs before and 1 hr after the teachers don’t come to class). I pretended it was my fault so she wouldn’t get in trouble and a little while she brought food for us to eat…very nice of her but I was so exhausted I wasn’t that hungry and I knew we were going home to food. I ate it all and hoped I wouldn’t have to eat that much at Ernest's house. I talked to the father a bit he was an interesting guy. The most interesting things he said:
1) He said he knows a place about 1 day out in the bush where hes seen elephants and chimpanzees. I would love to see them, and I'm planning on going with him…even if there are no animals it will be nice to make it far out and see what its like. Simon, you up for going out there? BUY YOUR TICKET.
2) He told a story about the only other white man to visit the village before me. He went to meet the chief, and while they were together the he kept "blowing gas"(Marcellus' words after he translated the story later). The Cameroonians near him asked the chief why he wasn’t upset, because if a Cameroonian did that in front of the chief he would be beaten at the least. The chief said the gas was not smelling so it was okay. The Cameroonians in the bar laughed hysterically at this story…apparently comedy translates across cultures(not sure if I'm sarcastic about that, depending on the telling it could have been funny).
3) He told me in English that the man across the bar (who later self proclaimed himself "the father of jesus" to the delight of the bar) used to be a spiritual doctor who could swallow a 22 oz glass bottle, or throw a bottle cap at the wall making it stick. In the end he didn’t keep up the requirements and lost his powers so he couldn’t show us, but he could do it before. The father of Jesus was drunk and spoke very broken English, I couldn’t understand most of what he said but he stared at me a lot, hope he was blessing me.
We left the bar, me regretting I didn’t bring my camera to get pictures of the folks inside, and headed back to the house. The stars were amazing…Im sure theres a limit to how good they can be but there were no lights around except candles and you could see a shitton of stars (sorry about the swearing but its necessary to get the feeling across). Inside Ernest's wife had prepared rice and fish that we had brought (she gave me the ziplock that held the rice back full of garri (yellowish ground…plant I think?)...I don’t like it much and don’t know how to prepare it so I gave it to Marcellus, but my point is they are poor and have a 7 month old baby and are still very generous to guests.
After the meal we played cards (something like UNO) which was a lot of fun, they all trashed talked in English. I have to admit I was a little uncomfortable when Ernest's wife started breast feeding in the middle of the game, Im trying to get used to it but women are not shy here. They also brought me a beer, again very generous.
**MY FRIDGE IS WORKING!! It was out for about 4 hrs…what do you guys think will it keep things cold? Maybe Ill have to move it onto a different plug but that would mean it would be in the bedroom, not convenient.**
By the time we decide to go to bed I am exhausted and ready to pass out. Good thing because turns out Im sharing a bed with Marcellus and Ernest. Im sure it was the only bed in the house, but Cameroonians give the guests nothing but the best. I slept pretty well, woke up around 7 and we ate leftover rice and after giving Ernest some money for helping us out (not sure if it was right to do but he accepted), headed out about 8. I realized that we walked almost all downhill on the way there and it would be uphill most of the way. I wasn’t disappointed. After climbing for about an hour I reached a point where I knew where I was, and about 10 oclock we reached the house. Us in front of my house:
It was a great hike, although I was exhausted and pretty sure I picked something up from one of the many cuts on my hands and arms (I took a Benadryl just in case and passed out after a while). Definitely going to keep exploring the area around me (I told some of you about the waterfall I went to…that was closer and more beautiful than this, if anyone visits we'll definitely go there). Its 1245 (only time Ive stayed up this late was 4am to watch the pats lose in the final seconds last Sunday). Cant say I was too disappointed, it was time for them to lose a superb owl (typed it right but word said it was wrong and suggested this, never realized superbowl=superb owl) and I like the giants. Anyway as usual hope you guys are great, Im doing alright here, keep in touch. Don’t expect such detailed blogs in the future but Ill do my best.
Brad
Thursday, January 31, 2008
More pictures, other stuff
January 31, 2008 -
My school from above. There are 1077 students.
Swearing in day...we all wore the same pattern. What Im wearings called a bubu, I havent worn it since.
Attacked by creachies! Nasty little buggers secret a poisonous juice, I have another rash on my shoulder now.
The fonts palace. The font is the head chief, pretty big dude. He wasnt there so I didnt get to meet him.
Ants eating a cockroach...I think its a cool picture.
So, Ill start with my usual apology for going so long without writing. Sorry. Ive been getting into writing emails to people, its hard to keep writing to a wall and to not get any feedback. My new strategy is to start inserting sections of emails into my blogs. I'm going to change the blog though, for a few reasons. First I am going to be more organized. Now that Ive been here for a while I have somewhat of an outline of things I can tell you my general feelings about things. I am thinking about changing sites, because this site wont allow me to put a password...I can make it private but then everyone needs their own password to get in...if some google person reads this, this is why Id leave. Im going to see how it turns out and decide then, but ill make sure to post the new site and email the new password to everyone. Its not that I think a reasonable peace corps staff member (they do read our blogs) or future employer would judge me on what Ill say, but its like writing a diary entry knowing someone might read it…I want it to be what I really think.
Im doing well. I think changing my malaria medication was a good idea, I've been much more productive in school and I'm feeling better all the time. I still dream about the states (less about food also and more about company….I would love to be home for the super bowl). I'm going to try to be with Americans that night but might not be able to and might end up not watching it…If I do end up watching it itll be live, ill put it on my blog that ill be on so if you want to call and say hi you can.
I am working on a proposal to get a basketball/volleyball court built at the school. They have a foundation but no money to finish it, put up hoops, etc.
Id like to give a shout out to the Mahars, thanks for reading the blog and getting something to my mom to send. I ate all the sour patch kids in 24 hrs, the Swedish fish the 2 days after. They were delicious. Let it be known if you give my mom something to send to me she'll get it here.
I bought a guitar right after Christmas, its been really nice to have…between things I need to do I practice…Im planning to be pretty ridiculous when I get home, or at least be able to play free bird and deuling banjos.
Heard its looking good for a democrat but we're not sure which one, I'm a little out of touch but just to let you guys know, if you want to see me in the next 5 years vote democrat, if a republican gets elected I may just wait it out. That’s all I got right now, Im going to try and figure out the password thing and then you should get an email…again if not email me. Everybody take it easy.
brad
My school from above. There are 1077 students.
Swearing in day...we all wore the same pattern. What Im wearings called a bubu, I havent worn it since.
Attacked by creachies! Nasty little buggers secret a poisonous juice, I have another rash on my shoulder now.
The fonts palace. The font is the head chief, pretty big dude. He wasnt there so I didnt get to meet him.
Ants eating a cockroach...I think its a cool picture.
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