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.