Happy Halloween

I have never put too much stock in any mysticism much before, but living in a place where people believe so highly in witchcraft and after hearing many stories about people claiming to see it with their own eyes, who I trust, its hard not to start thinking some things are possible.

 One example is a little statue many people have in their house. It is in fact a termite mound that can be found in the forest around where I live. They chop it off at the base and place it in peoples’ homes for decorations. They are highly abundant in my area; I just saw about ten of them when I was in the bush for two days. They are roughly two feet tall and resemble a little man with a big mushroom cap head. I have heard numerous stories that people have seen witch doctors bring them to life, see the statues breathe fire, and dance around eating sugar cane. They used to do these ceremonies in a field here in the center of town before the council outlawed witchcraft to be practiced in public. After asking as many people as I can about this phenomena I have heard two stories, either they bring them to life and this is actually seen, or the other story is that the witchdoctors rub some type of substance on your eyes that “make” you see these things… Either way, I have told everybody that has had these experiences that I want in, I want to see this little statue man breathe fire, dance around, and eat sugar cane. They say they will take me…

The other example of witchcraft I here from many different people is that certain vendors in the market are actually people who have been evil and died in another life and have been brought back to live as vendors forever. They usually appear in a town and leave without a trace and are always from a different area, never a local who has grown up around there like a lot of the vendors. It is said that people are always attracted to go to these vendors to buy things, for no obvious reason, they may sell the same exact things as the other vendors, but you will always see certain people unexplainably and unknowingly attracted to buying from the same person, over and over, no matter the price.

There are many stories that are centered around money, and the borrowing of money from strangers. This is where the mysticism turns to involve me, but first I will give an example to show how much stock the locals put in mysticism that my good friend’s wife told me last night. She was in another town and had switched purses; not knowing that the purse she switched to did not have any money in it. She asked a random vendor to borrow 500 FCFA =  <$1 so she could get a taxi to school, return home and then bring him back the money.  He said, “sure lady, I’ll expect you to return the money to me.” As she was walking away she started thinking it was a bad idea and started to look for some type of water source so she could “cleanse” the money before she used it. She made it to a stream and prayed, “Please God, I have taken this money in a non-evil manner, with out any evil intentions, please cleanse this money,” and then sprinkled water over the money. She then used the money, reimbursed the seller and has not experienced any type of evil, so she believes she is fine.

Now my story: This past weekend I was traveling and was running on fumes for money before I made it back to my banking city where I pulled out my normal amount of money and received everything in 10,000 FCFA notes, counted it in front of the teller, folded it, and put it in my pocket. I had no other money on my body, or any in my backpack that was stuffed to the brim with clothes, post office packages, etc. I took one of those 10,000 FCFA notes and changed it into smaller money so I could pay a moto driver to take me back to my house in Menji. I arrived home at night, unpacked my bag of everything, emptied the bag clear out because I had to start work again the next day and needed to use it to carry some things as I was making a two and a half hour trek to visit a school in a neighboring village. After I unpacked the bag, I bathed, went to a friend’s house for dinner, returned home and slept. I awoke the next morning, began packing my bag with the things I needed, while the same friend I ate dinner with the night before came over and used the internet. We parted ways, my bag on my back, and I met my other friend at the local high school where he teaches, who I had the program with to visit another school in the neighboring village, I opened my bag, put his folder inside to keep while we trekked and we started off. We made the trek pretty easily, my bag never leaving my back, and reached the administration office of the school at our destination, two and a half hours later. I am seated in front of the principal of the school and open my bag to hand my friend his folder and pull out my own notebook when an odd amount of money is pulled out from my bag with my notebook. I remove 10 – 2,000 FCFA bills, totaling 20,000 FCFA from my bag.  I immediately ask my friend if he put it in my bag, and he say’s, “No, I just put my folder in there and I didn’t have any money in the folder.” I sit there puzzled, counting money in front of the school’s principal, wondering how it got there. I call my other friend who was at my house in the morning asking him if he slipped some money in my bag while I was doing some things around the house and he says, “No, absolutely not.”

It is extremely odd to me that this money is there because:

A)   I have never had that combination of bills before, I always have 10,000 FCFA notes, break one, use it until it is finished, and then break another, and the cycle continues. I NEVER have had 10 – 2,000 FCFA notes at the same time, since I have been in Cameroon. I understand misplacing a random bill and finding it later, but not this combination of money, I have NEVER had 10 – 2,000 FCFA notes at the same time before.

B)   I unpacked my bag the night before from traveling, and then repacked it with things I needed for the trek. When I pulled out my notebook at the principal’s office, the money came out with it and there were things that I had packed that morning below the money. The money was on top like someone had placed it there after I packed my bag in the morning. They were crisp, perfectly flat, stacked on each other like they just came out of an ATM, while everything else was stuffed and crammed in my bag in a disordered manner. 

C)   I recounted my money I pulled out of the bank when I returned home and all of it was accounted for, this 20,000 FCFA is completely extra money I never had in my possession before this day. All of the money I received from the bank I folded and placed in my front pocket of my jeans. This money was crisp like it just came from the bank.

I returned home and went to my friend’s house to eat dinner and discuss the money, and his wife told me the story I said earlier about sprinkling water on the money after borrowing it from the person.  The conclusion we came with is that I will wait for a month to see if anything comes from the money, if anyone asks for it, or anything. If nothing happens than I am going to take it to the church and tell them how I came to be in possession of the money so they can bless it and use it however they wish. The money is not mine, so the church can have it. Until a month passes, I am not going near it, there is no way I am spending it. I sprinkled water over the bills, and placed them in the middle of a Bible and laid it on top of my bookshelf.

Yikes, Happy Halloween with a lovely full moon.

Aint no use

I have made it to post and the most effective words I can gather to describe the feeling is that it is a rather bittersweet transition. It is great to have the freedom to do as I please and have the privacy I was so used to having in the States: It was difficult to grow accustomed to the lack of privacy that I received with my host family in Bafia.  Now, I feel I actually miss it. I grew up in a small family with only one sibling, my best friend and older brother, Joe. As we grew up, we spent a lot of time together but with it being only two of us in the family it was easy to find my time alone, especially if there was a female involved. My mother would comment on how I enjoyed spending a Friday or Saturday night alone in my height of teen socializing; drawing, reading, or just relaxing on the couch, content. In Bafia I couldn’t get a breath of air that was not shared with someone else. Between four to five brothers, three sisters, mama, papa, and numerous cousins all under one roof, coupled with a culture that thinks it is strange to spend time by oneself: I didn’t stand a chance.

One night in Bafia, it was probably the third week I had been in country, I had just one too many whiskey sachets. (Dirt-cheap shots of alcohol sold in little plastic packets, about two shots worth in each that locals say make you go crazy and blind. One can regularly see moto taxi chauffeurs driving around with one clenched in their teeth, corner torn open, and sucking on it as they taxi people around. Sometimes you weigh your options at the end of the night between the least drunk of the moto drivers or trekking home.) The day following this night I had one of the worst hangovers of my life. I did not want to leave my room, doubled over in pain, clutching my hands around my stomach for hours mumbling through clenched teeth to myself how I would never consume a sachet again, in all eternity. It felt like a sachet had birthed something inside of me and it was clawing at my insides trying to get out. It seemed everyone in the world wanted to see what I was doing that day; every brother, sister, cousin, mama and papa, all knocking on my door yelling in French for me to come eat or just wanting to talk.  Being that this was within the first three weeks of being introduced to French, it was difficult to say the least.  First attempting to wrap my head around what they were saying in French, and then forming a response, all while being deathly hung over: It felt like the end of the world. I finally emerged with Papa Felippe exclaiming, “Jacob, my son, what happened to you, I was very worried.” I explained about the night before and how I only had ONE sachet, I was not sure what happened, but rest assured, Papa, I will NEVER drink another one as long as I am in Cameroon.  

Moments like these were when I wished for privacy and the ability to just lock myself in a room with out anyone bothering me. Now that it is gone, I find myself longing for it. I had never been a part of such a large family before and though there were some rather awkward moments at first where people would just sit by me, in silence and gratified to just sit and keep me company, I miss it.  At any moment there was someone at the house that I could talk with, sit with, or just gaze off the porch with.

Transitioning from this has been somewhat difficult, but I have tried to keep myself as busy as possible. I go to funerals, weddings, walk around the market, introduce myself to people, and play with the kids that are around in the family compound. Just now I paused from typing because I heard someone crying outside and walked out on my balcony to see what the matter was. The child crying was a girl who lives downstairs, Dian, who is about five years old. She is a beautiful little girl with a gorgeous smile and she immediately halts her tears looking up at me as I opened the door, remarking, “Uncle Jacob, how are you?” I reply, “Fine, fine, Dian, but why are you crying?” As she hastily wipes her eyes and mumbles, “Nutting,” I slip back inside and grab some monkey cola, (a local fruit that tastes similar to a grape but looks different with a tough brown outer coating that is peeled away before eating). I emerge with the monkey cola and knife, Dian trying to see as high as she can, head stretching back, eyes anxiously waiting for what is going to happen next. I then proceed to have a mini Mardi Gras, throwing out chunks of monkey cola off the balcony to Dian at first and then to a crowd of half a dozen little children once they heard the ecstatic screeching of Dian having monkey cola rain out of the air.   

Some of my time is spent just walking down the street and correcting the little children about my name, who do not know any better and are just stating the obvious when I walk by, excitedly exclaiming, “WHITE MAN! WHITE MAN!” with a big smile and waving frantically.  I will walk over and ask them, “What is your name? It is not black child, just as mine is not white man, you will call me by my name when you see me and I will call you by yours.” Now when I walk down the street by my house kids from around the area call out to me, “UNCLE JACOB! UNCLE JACOB!” They call older people in the Anglophone regions by uncle and aunt. Little children call me Uncle Jacob and my post mate, Kate, by Auntie Kate.

Weddings and funerals here are rather different than in the States. Here it does not matter if you know the person or not to be allowed to attend. PCVs would be the most well accomplished wedding crashers if that were the case. Weddings and funerals are great places to network and the locals really appreciate the cultural effort to participate in these events.  No matter what, the people are so welcoming and just wish for you to be entertained, (given food and drink in Anglophone regions.) I went to a wedding last weekend in the small village of Bangang with five other PCVS and we were always seated in the front, served first with the wedding party, and acknowledged by the M.C. numerous times for attending, even though only one of us had a clue of who was being married.  The rest of us had just been introduced to the groom the night before, as he was the brother of the PCV’s counterpart in Bangang, and lived in the same family compound as her.

One thing that I can always count on when I am missing out on my family from home, missing my family from Bafia, or just longing for Florida and the ocean, is music.  It’s that moment when I hear the first strum of the guitar, first step of the high hat, first key of the piano, or thump of the base to a familiar song that triggers a memory to jump to the forefront of consciousness that transcends me back to a different time and a smile spreads across my face.

It was Sunday morning after the wedding in Bangang and after haggling with the moto drivers about how much it would cost for them to take us to Mbouda and scarfing down some delicious spaghetti omelettes, (a PCV favorite dish: eggs, spaghetti noodles, beans, tomatoes, onions & peppers all scrambled together for about 400 FCFA ~ <$1) we were finally on our way. I was feeling rather nostalgic this Sunday, I am not quite sure why, the sun was out, wind rushing along my face, squeezed on tight with Kate and the moto man on the back of his moto.  I was on the back with my legs wrapped around Kate’s hips, hers around the moto driver’s, and our weekend packs strapped down behind me, creating a quite comfortable back rest with no need to hold on to the moto with my hands.  I remembered I had just bought a micro SD card for my phone with my brother in Bafia before I left and had loaded some music on it. I slid my headphones out of my bag, plugged in, and laid back.  The four songs I managed to load to the memory card in the correct format for it to play were: #1 Sugaree – Jerry Garcia Band off Let it Rock, #2 Loose Lucy – Grateful Dead off From The Mars Hotel, #3 Aint no use – Jerry Garcia band off Let it Rock, and #4 Rosa Lee Mcfall – Jerry, Grisman, & Tony Rice off the Pizza Tapes.

 As soon as I heard the first strum of Sugaree I was shot back to Gainesville, FL, outside in the early-winter sunshine, lying lazily under giant pines and magnolias with just enough scattered rays filtering through the foliage to warm the crisp air, laughing with some of my favorite people, weather breeding similarities to what I was presently exalting upon in Mbouda (minus the crisp brisk air of early winter Florida, it was rather warm and damp at the moment) and no one could have wiped that smile off my face if they tried; Jerry as my testament. The nostalgia was swept away like the tides sweep the Florida beaches, and pure bliss rushed in that could not be halted like the struggle to halt the march of the setting summer sun. As I rode the next forty-five minutes with those four songs on repeat, head laid back against the packs, staring off into the sun with out a care in the world for where I was, I could not have been happier.  

Aint no use: here I am, here and now.

Typical staple, baton de manioc. wrapped in banana leaves, texture and stickiness of a glue stick, no taste, mainly a filler to scoop up main courses or to dip in sauces. 

Le coch, sp? A vegetable that is beaten to a pulp and cooked to eternity, some sardines and fish oil added in, pretty raunchy first time I ate it, but now I look forward to it.

One of my favorite meals in Bafia, Poisson Braissé and baton de manioc. Braised fish wrapped in banana leaves sold road side by a fish mama, with onions and a tasty green spicy sauce. One of my language trainers thinks I have some black in me down the lineage somewhere because I love baton de manioc and she say's white people aren't supposed to like it, and she thinks I have a black nose. haha

My typical view for the past four weeks, layed up under the mosquito net, no power, lantern lit, LOVING IT.

This week was one hell of a week…I took 20 hours of extra French one on one tutoring, (plus the daily 8-4pm school schedule), gave a presentation on Thursday about the conclusion of our company assignment, (in French), took my language requirement test Saturday after completing the tutoring hours, and to top it off my host family moved houses in Bafia during the week. I was making myself so stressed about meeting my language level on Saturday I wasn’t sleeping; yet I was miserably tired.  I finally got some rest Friday night before the test with some help from one of my language trainers, Cedric. He forced me to go running with him Friday morning and do some serious stretching afterwards when he saw how drained I was and pretty much unable to speak/practice any more French Thursday afternoon.  The language trainers here, all Cameroonian nationals, are incredibly helpful and the biggest asset to the Peace Corps training process.

It is my last Sunday that I will be spending in Bafia and it is really hitting home now that I will be leaving my family in a few days. I will truly miss them.  This morning, I chatted with my sister and often sat in silence enjoying each other’s presence as I washed my clothes by hand for the last time in Bafia as she cooked breakfast over the fire. I cannot begin to describe how much help, care, and love they have shown me to help transition me from living in America to living in Cameroon.

Thinking back on the first night I spent here with my family it is priceless to think about how utterly scared out of my mind and stressed I was to be getting dropped off at a random African family’s house in the heart of Cameroon. The only thing I said to them that night in French was that I do not understand French. Even that I botched pretty bad I’m sure as they all had a good laugh when I attempted to say it. I quickly resorted to grabbing any pictures from home to try to keep the awkward silence at bay. The pictures lasted for maybe half an hour, next a surfing magazine was on the table, half an hour of flipping through that…and I’m spent. They knew how stressful it was for me as I am the fifth volunteer to stay in their house, so they were nice enough to leave me be in my room unpacking my bags with Francis helping and just getting comfortable with the silence. Looking back at that night I can honestly say nothing can be as uncomfortable as those moments and I always have that to fall back on as a baseline, it can only go up from there. That’s what I came here for, to get uncomfortable, it is the only way to grow. Now I sit, chat, joke, and really feel at home when I’m with my family.  The new house has one less bedroom so I even share a bed with Francis, the true African way. Normally they have three to a bed easily with maybe Vladimir thrown in between as he hops around beds as to whom he wants to sleep with for the night.

This was absolutely the best way to smoothly transition into such a wildly different culture. I could not have asked for a better training period and a better host family to help facilitate it. I have been gone for 11 weeks and it is the most amount of time I have spent in a foreign place. It is really awe striking to realize how much of the culture you do not pick up and realize from even spending three weeks in a foreign place when you are spending the time with only other people from your same background and staying in hotels or houses together. You truly have to dive into the culture and live it, or so many things will pass you by, unnoticed.  There are so many little things I could go on and on about that my family corrected me on, or laughed at me until I asked what the hell they were laughing about to fix the faux pas. A simple thing like when you are eating a staple meal of the country and which side dish or complement is to be eaten with which main dish, or which is to be eaten first. I would never have picked up on something like this if I was staying in a hotel and eating out at restaurants with others like me. I would still be going around the country looking like a fool to all the locals. It may seem like a small deal in our eyes but it is huge to them and they DO notice. I would sit at the table for nights in a row with my sisters giggling at me as I ate my food until my brother Francis would finally tell me what I was doing wrong. You have to live with the people and live like them to catch the small nuances and to truly integrate as best as possible.  I will have a different perspective and a different eye for what to look at and what to look for from now on when I travel to a foreign place. 

                                         My backyard from the balcony

                                          Center of town

Each volunteer is assigned a “community host,” which is a person selected by the previous volunteer we are replacing to help us integrate into our new community, introduce us to the right people, and collaborate on projects with. My community host, Christantus, is an extremely pleasant person, bright, and really striving to achieve his wishes of seeing his community develop. He speaks decent English, but is not too westernized at the same time, which I find to be a great combination.  He has some western thinking patterns of development, but is still raw and green enough to hold true to his African ways.  He speaks of aspiring to leave a legacy behind him. He covets the idea of people reminiscing about his achievements, what he had accomplished, and the improvements he had made in the organizations around his area after he passes.

Christantus came to Bafia for a two-day workshop with the other community hosts and then traveled with me up to my new site, Menji.  On the way to Menji we got on the topic of our families and his response about his children was nothing short of another awe-inspiring story of community. I asked him how many kids he had, he paused, and then described how he only had two kids of his own between him and his wife, a three-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy, but he also adopted six kids, and takes care of two others as well. The two others he takes care of are from his younger sister who passed away after giving birth to one of them. By blood he has only four people in his family, but chooses to provide for a family of twelve.

Christantus is a very busy man with many things on his plate between teaching at a local primary school in Menji, cocoa farming, beehive keeping, and the numerous volunteer jobs he contributes to. One of the six kids he chose to adopt was a boy who attended his class at school. The boy consistently made the highest grades of the class, but every time it was time to pay for the school fees for the year the father said he could not afford it and the boy could not attend school any more. The idea of the brightest kid in his class not going to school anymore because of a 2,000CFA annual fee ($4) just did not sit right in Christantus’ mind. He could not fathom it, so for two years Christantus paid for the annual fee to keep the boy in school. The third year of school dues came around and the father quit paying rent on their home, told the kids he could not afford them anymore and they were going to have to find their own ways: He was abandoning them and moving to another village. Christantus told the boy, “Come live with me, we may struggle with feeding another mouth, but we will make it.” He saw the boy out through high school, consistently finishing first in his class, paid for him to go to university and now the boy is a civil servant, providing for himself and living on his own.

The sense of community I have experienced here in Cameroon thus far is incredible. The whole basis of America is individualism. We wanted to separate from England, become our own individual country and start something new.  That resonates in us today and is a wonderful idea, made me who I am today, and gives some background as to how I so hastily left my loved ones behind in America while bettering myself, (on a U.S. Government paycheck), somewhere across the world. At the same time I think we could learn a few things from other countries where the sense of community and working together to achieve a more fruitful life is more prominent. In the end I guess it also boils down to us living in a capitalistic society where dog eat dog, no matter who I step on and who I burn I am going to get to the top is trained and encouraged. Not all the answers lie in African communities to solve our problems in America, or I would not be doing development work in Africa. Africans would probably be doing development work in America if that was the case, but there are bits and pieces of this community that I am now a part of that are truly inspiring to witness and I hope to do a decent job of sharing it with my home community.

Today we found out where our new homes will be for the next two years. My post is located in a small town, Menji, which is in the Southwest region of Cameroon, bordered by Nigeria to the West. The Southwest is one of two regions (Southwest and Northwest) that is Anglophone speaking, meaning I will be learning to speak Pidgin English in the near future. I will do all of my banking in the town of Dschang, which is in the West region so I will still be able to keep up with my French, as I will have to do all my banking activities in a Francophone region. The temperature is relatively cool, located in beautiful lush mountains, contrary to the humid-hot training area of Bafia. The Southwest region is popular with tourism as Mount Cameroon is located there, an active volcano reaching over 12,000 feet that I plan on climbing as soon as possible, and there are plenty of animal reserves as well in the region. I also will be within four hours or so of Limbe, a popular resort beach where I hopefully will get a chance to surf at some point.  I will be the third Community Economic Development PCV in the area and I am very excited about it, as there is a lot of work to immediately start on. This is contrary to many PCV’s who have to spend a lot of time finding work and creating a network for the first few months at post.

I did not find my business degree to suit my future aspirations fully so I was excited to know that my farming skills would be of use in the PC. The choosing of my post was weighted heavily towards my agriculture skills and the opportunities of agricultural work in the community.  The host institutions I will be working with are the Agricultural Delegate and the local credit union that both work heavily with the local cocoa farmers. The local credit union helps farmers by looking for good markets for their products and advising them on the new methods of producing good quality cocoa seeds giving that agriculture evolves on a daily basis. They provide loans to farmers for the expansion and the renovation of their farms, and they also provide banking facilities to the farmers.

I was a little disappointed in not being chosen to go to a Francophone region to better my French abilities, but this isn’t all for me and it shouldn’t be. I am here to hopefully make a difference in some peoples lives and leave some sort of a lasting footprint of my name here.  I would rather walk away from this experience having lasting relationships with my community members and departing with a legacy behind me than leaving with French fluency and no positive impact. In other words, my agricultural skill matchup outweighed my language fluency matchup for the choosing of my post and for me to better achieve what I came here to do.  That being, hopefully to have the influence on someone, even just one person, who remembers Jacob Pace the PCV who ad an impact on the way he/she was thinking or working.  The same way teachers, friends, and mentors for me have changed my perceptions by one thing they have said to me.

 Here’s to the teachers as I attempt to pay it forward.

Today Francis sat with me as I watched the movie “Bridesmaids” on my computer.  I say it in that context because I am not quite sure if he was actually watching it with me or just laughing at parts when I was laughing. His English is not that good and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t following what the crazy white girls were talking about. I really enjoy spending time with him, I learn the most from him as he learns from me. There is no sense of privacy in Cameroonian culture; it is weird to be in your room by yourself because they are so big on community, so at any moment I expect Francis or Vladimir to barge in. At least Francis knocks, occasionally. We listen to music together a lot and help each other with our language. It is hilarious to hear him say “laundry.” He really drags out the laaauuuuuundry part of it in a country-sounding manner. I crack up every time and now he says it on purpose to make me laugh.

He showed me how to wash my clothes by hand for the first time on Sunday.  We first got on the moto and went to the local corner store, (a 3x3ft. tin roof shack), that sells cell phone credit, bread, candy, detergent (what we were in search of), and minor necessities. We came back and set up the two wash buckets, one soapy bucket and one rinse bucket.  The whole family and extended family was out on the porch to watch whitey wash his clothes by hand for the first time. I am still not quite sure who actually is blood related in this house. It doesn’t matter who stops by, they are getting fed and have a place to sleep if they need. Papa Felippe saw how dirty my jeans were and said we would need a brush to get the red clay stains out. Back on the moto we go.

The first two places didn’t have any brushes left, but we ran into one of Francis’ friends, Dani, who I see about three times a day walking around town. He rather usually sees me first and I hear a, “JJEAAAAAACCCOOOOOOOOOO” off in the distance somewhere and spin around until I see Dani throwing up a peace sign. I like to call him the pimp of the town, always dressed in some bright awesome get up, hissing, hollering and smooching at every girl that passes. Today he was dressed in a brown suede sport coat, designer jeans, flips flops, and a flower printed bright red baseball cap.

Francis asked him if he knew where we could get a brush. Dani laughs and tells him to scoot back on the moto, throws his leg over, Francis switches to the back and so me sandwiched between Dani and Francis on a 150cc moto go roaring off in search of a brush. Francis yelling from the back, “EASY DANI! EASY DANI!” Francis drives really slow and cautious sometimes grinding through the gears while Dani flies through the gears and works the clutch seamlessly screaming up hills and leaning through roundabouts like he doesn’t have an extra two people on the back of the bike. We head straight for the super marche which is closed even though its Sunday and Centre Ville is bustling with people and street vendors. Dani reroutes and zigs zags the moto across traffic and cuts down an alley way crowded with street vendors, with maybe a foot to spare on either side, all while smooching and hollering at every fine girl he sees. We finally come to a little stand that Dani stops at and tells me to go inside. They will have a brush, he reassures me. Sure enough 300 CFA later ($0.70) and I’m back on the moto. Francis slides on behind me and Dani whips the moto around on a dime in an area less than the size of an American parking space, never putting his foot down for balance and not ever wobbling a bit. All while dodging foot deep potholes that litter the clay street. We head back home but not before Dani hollers at twenty or so more women and yells at every moto taxi we pass on the road as we roar by them laughing the whole way and slapping my leg in content. We drop Dani off at the stand where we got the detergent because he had a flip-flop blow out and there’s a local man crouched on the ground with 50+ random shoes and sandles to be fixed in front of him. 

An hour and 300 CFA later we make it back home and can start my laundry.  The actual task of doing the laundry was rather enjoyable with Francis by my side doing half of it while jamming to some Bob Marley. One thing I have noticed in my travels is that no matter where I go, everyone knows Bob Marley. I’m finishing this entry by kerosene lantern, which I find quite enjoyable. The power has been out for a day and a half due to the severe downpour that just so happened to start as soon as I had my clean clothes situated just right on the broken down car in the front yard and clothes line. Oh well, this is Africa…

Cameroonians sense of time is almost non-existent and I am envious of this culture difference in some ways. Our culture just doesn’t allow for us to be in such a slow pace. One of our directors explained it like this; a Cameroonian’s mindset is that they always have time for everything; there is always plenty of time. Francis clarified this for me one day when I asked him what he was going to do tomorrow. He replied, “Ahhh nuting really, I sleep, I play futbol, I go back to sleep, I have nuting but time, time is on my side.” I was cracking up as he told me this because we just had the diversity class in training that day where our director told us about their attitudes toward time. He is Cameroonian himself and it was interesting to hear his perception of us. He exclaimed, “Where are you all rushing too all the time? You are always in a hurry.”  It is something that I have started to pay attention to because I noticed when I walk along the cornfield trails or roads I am always catching up with people and passing them. As I come up behind them I feel I may make them uncomfortable by coming up so fast on them, so now I keep telling myself to slowwwwwwww down, time is on my side.

The down side of this perception of time is that it isn’t very cohesive in an American business sense. If you are told to be somewhere at seven in America, you are there at seven or you could lose the account, get fired from your job, or at best to be reprimanded with out termination. We have been assigned to a local company here in Bafia, which we will work with while here in training over the next few months. This has been one of the more stressful situations I have been thrown into thus far. I’ve been assigned to a local hotel, Rim Touristique, who I am supposed to meet with once a week, observe, and give recommendations on business improvements. I am supposed to do this when I can barely communicate in French and the people at the hotel know zero English. The first time I met with the owner it was one of the most painful situations I have ever dealt with on my own.  A lot of awkward silence, me scrambling through my French dictionary and French notes I jotted down before the meeting, stumbling through a mixture of French, English, and Spanish, just trying to get anything to come out in a way that he understands. It was absolutely brutal, but one thing I got out of it was that he did want another meeting, so I took that as the one positive accomplishment, and that it in no way shape or form could it go any worse than it did that day. I was to meet him on Saturday at 1:00 pm, but ahhhh its Cameroon time, so of course he didn’t show up until 2:00 pm. After an hour of waiting for him, then I got to sweat through more awkward silence and him mumbling under his breath about how I don’t comprehend anything he is saying. I may not comprehend too much of his French, but I did get that part. 

Round three was today for meeting with him and I accomplished nothing the first two times except for learning to deal with awkward silence. While at school I sweated the approaching meeting but tried to prepare some questions I wanted to ask about his business and got one of the language trainers to help translate them into French for me. What a relief today, I finally bridged the gap with him, joked around a bit and came up with the idea of creating a brochure for the hotel. He showed me all the amenities of the hotel and what important things he wanted included in the brochure, while not forgetting to remind me every few minutes that this needed to be in French when I gave it to him. I kept replying, “Yes Mr. Rim it will be in French by the time it gets back to you.” I chalked the day up for a win in my column because we actually had some two-way communication in French and it ended with him offering me a beer after I was done taking the tour and scribbling notes down.  Anything I couldn’t understand I got him to write in my notepad and I’ll get assistance on translating later. I am looking forward to creating the brochure for him and I am not hesitant in having my weekly Tuesday meeting any more. We have been told it is going to be hard to gain the trust of the locals and this definitely proved to be true, but once it turned around in my favor it was certainly gratifying.

Sit back, slow down, and roll with the punches.  A win is a win.

I am always open to trying new foods and from what I’ve heard from current volunteers there is a quite a lot of exotic foods to be had here in Cameroon, everything from porcupine, (not like the American type, they don’t have quills and is a delicacy here and usually served for guests), rat, dog, cat, monkey (bush meat), and many others. Today I had Antelope, which was incredible. My piece was covered in a layer of fat, not sure which part it was but it was quite tasty including the fat layer. It had been stewed in a spicy red sauce and was incredibly tender, served over a bed of rice with fried plantains. Another part of the Cameroon culture I have to get used to is that if you ask someone to go to lunch you are obligated to pay. I went home to drop my computer off after school and Francis was coming out the door, asked where I was going, and I nonchalantly told him I was going to meet up with some of my Peace Corps buddies to get some food and he was welcome to come along. Francis told us he would take us to a really good restaurant that was near by. We went off the beaten path down a little dirt road, came to a house and he yelled some French for a while until a lady came to the front door, greeted us with a smile and welcomed us inside. She told us the menu, which was either chicken or antelope, I of course ordered the antelope, and she said it would be a few minutes. I think she was making everything from scratch because we were the only ones in the place and I think the only customers of the day.  After 45 minutes or so she came with the platters of food and we all devoured our dishes, but not until I finished did it cross my mind that I would probably have to pay for Francis and started to get worried about not having enough money due to the exclusivity of the place. There were no checks, she just told us each the price and to my surprise and joy, the antelope was 1,000 CFA = $2.00 and the chicken was $1,500 = 3.00.  Together my bill with Francis was $5.00 and I had one of the greatest meals I have had yet in Cameroon. One thing our trainers have said is that we definitely won’t go hungry while we are in Cameroon, and so far I can attest to that.

OK, so it has been a few days since my last post and I have a lot to say, I'll try not to jump around too much. We have been very busy moving from Yaounde to Bafia, where we will be for the next three months in training, with our new host family. All I knew before pulling up to the training house in Bafia was that my host family name is Alemi. As soon as I got off the bus I locked eyes with a large lady that had an amazing smile, I knew instantly that she was going to be my new mother, Mama Susanne. We got off the bus, they called our name out and the host family name, they came out from the crowd, we hugged/kissed and were off to our new homes.  It has been really surreal in that we really hadn't been in Africa yet, since we spend so much time with all the other trainees at the hotel and had little contact with the locals until now. All of the sudden we were given away to these new families and wouldn't see each other until the next day. A really big awakening thrown into this new environment where there are so many barriers, (obviously the language being huge), but it is the best way to do it.

 I have three sisters, two around 14-16, one named Elise, not sure about the other, (she doesn't speak to me much). The older sister is Nedash, 25 years old, she speaks decent English, we play cards and she helps me with French as I help her with English. She goes to University in Yaounde for French and Banking, and works at a local bank here in Bafia. I have two brothers, one who is 3, Vladimir, who won't leave my side, just keeps screaming French to me and I have no clue what he is saying. We played futbol on the porch all night, (me avoiding the awkward silence inside the house due to the language barrier). The other brother is 24, Francis, who is very glad to have someone close to his age and we hang out a lot. He was admiring my stick of deodorant and smelling it while I unpacked, I threw him an extra and it almost brought tears to his eyes he was so happy and gracious. It is incredible what little things do here, it is just too expensive for them to have the basic necessities we go along with every day not even taking a second glance at. He grabbed my Eng/French dictionary and looked up the word "gentil" in French which means nice in English. He goes, "Jacob you are so very gentil." He took his rasta colored bracelet off his wrist and put it around mine. I still haven't met my host father, he has been out at their old village. One thing people warned me about was get used to the slow time of Africa, and I have seen it to be very true. Anytime I ask Francis when something is going to happen..."Francis when are we going to wash clothes?" Tomorrow, he says. Francis when are we going to go get new well water from the forage? Tomorrow. Francis when is your father coming home? Tomorrow. Everything will happen tomorrow it seems.

The first night of laying down in bed under my mosquito net and Francis telling me to shut my windows at night I knew that I had to shave my head immediately. It is stifling hot in my bedroom. I told Francis I wanted to get my haircut when I woke up the next morning and he said ok I will take you TOMORROW. Of course, that didn't happen until two days after that. After school we had a beer and he took me to a little shack, about the size of an outhouse, enough room for the barber, a chair and him to work around me. We walked through the corn field to get there, holding hands, (Cameroonian culture between men, though homosexuality will land you in jail in Cameroon, they don't have the stereotypes that we do.) We hold pinkies a lot walking to places down the street. As we made it to a little intersection of trails in the corn field I see this little shack with music blaring from it, sounding like it was straight from 93 BLX in Pensacola. Ten or so little girls playing hopscotch out front in the dirt. The inside of the shack is covered in posters of 50 cent, Ja Rule, Rihanna,  Beyonce, Eminem, Ronaldhino,  etc.. and Francis proceeded to read them all off to me telling which ones were his favorites while dancing around the barber with an inch or so to spare on either side. He loves Rihanna, Eminem, G-Unit, and Lil Wayne. I think the whole village came to see whitey get his hair cut. More and more eyes kept stacking on top of each other to get a peek inside through the windows or doorway to watch, giggle, and snicker off to go grab more people to come watch. The barber was just freestyling on my head, no guard, straight clippers and did a terrible job, with bald spots spaced sporadically through out, but oh well, what an experience. It only cost 300 CFA = about $0.60!! Services here are ridiculous cheap. I got it tidied up by a fellow trainee, Patrick, the next day after school. His name is Patrick Dennis and I have him in my Cameroon phone as P.Diddy. Francis was going through my phone and saw P.Diddy in my phone book and thought I knew the real P.Diddy. Pretty comical, I had a good laugh and told him I would introduce him to P.Diddy, TOMORROW, of course.

2nd day in Cameroon

The second day in Cameroon was a blast. We had our language test in the morning, which was brutal to say the least with my lack of French preparation while I was trying to see all my loved ones and friends before I left. Definitely expected that one to happen, but good news is everyone says the Peace Corps language training is wonderful. After that we walked around the capital of Cameroon, Yaounde, which we will be in for five days before moving to PST (pre service training) in Bafia. Then we headed to the futbol match between Cameroon and Congo. Cameroon won by a penalty kick, it was incredible, I have never seen such a wild place before. The shots of whiskey that are sold in little plastic baggies could help! We were then honored to go see a local Cameroonian dance which was performed by the CED's (community economic development) wife and backing band. When she was done she invited all of the trainees on stage to dance with her and get down, it was great. We sat down and she invited the rest of the crowd on stage, and who else to be there but part of the Congo futbol team that had just lost the match earlier. (guess they were drinking the loss off). Back to the hotel for a round of beers and shots for Joey's birthday, a fellow trainee turning 24 at midnight.

HITTING THE HAY, HARD!

So I have made it to Brussels, Belgium. Sitting in the airport, anxiously waiting for what is around the corner in Africa. Should get in to the capitol, Yaounde, tonight around 6pm and we left JFK at 6pm yesterday. Little out of sorts, but everything is going smooth so far. Had to purchase the wifi here at 6 euros for 30 minutes, spent half my time already trying to navigate out of the Dutch Google by randomly guessing words and ended up changing it to Jamaica Google, for some reason USA or English wasn't available. Off to grab a delightful Belgium beer before we have to board in a few minutes. Bon Voyage!

Not many hours left...It is Sunday night and I leave at 10 am Tuesday. Loading my ipod, external HDs, and kindle with as much music and books as possible. I could really use an extra day to tackle all of this. I don't have anything packed yet,  everything is ready and scattered about on the floor, I feel like half the reason I haven't packed (other half being lazy), is that it really signifies that I am leaving. I am very excited about this new adventure it is just really hard to wrap my head around leaving my loved ones for over 2 years now that it is actually here. I just need to get on the plane and I'll be all good. All sorts of mixed emotions...but onward is the only way.