paceyourself.: August 2014

I wanted to update everyone on the status of my Peace Corps Partnership Program project that I was recently advertising and fundraising for. I and my local counterpart, Chrisantus, created a micro-finance system for the local cocoa farmers to receive their farm inputs on credit during the pre-harvest period and to be repaid post-harvest. I was able to raise $4,000 for the capital needed with the help of everyone who contributed. Many thanks to each and every one of you who supported my community by any means you had. The project is completed, though it will be an on-going system that will be run by Chrisantus after I am gone and the Peace Corps Volunteer who will replace me. There were some bumps along the road, such as an unsuccessful robbery attempt on me after I had carried the $4,000 with me into the most dangerous city of Cameroon, (from what my Cameroonian friends tell me), to purchase the products for the project. Some people may ask why I chose to go to that city to buy the farm inputs. The reason being is that it is one of the biggest towns in my region with a large cocoa farming population, so we could go there and buy a large quantity in bulk, wholesale, at a discounted price.

So, Chrisantus and his secretary had already been in the city for the day arranging all the things we would buy from a vendor while I was traveling there on a bus to reach the place around 6pm, right at dusk here, with $4,000 on me, into “the most dangerous city of Cameroon.” $4,000 is a lot of money in America, but here, it is a gold mine. So I am about 30 minutes outside of reaching the city, palms sweating, getting nervous, trying to think of the best way to carry this money and divide it amongst my body parts, without anyone on the 30 person bus seeing me. I am wearing about eight inch high boots, so I put part of the money down the inside of my right ankle inside my sock, put part of it down the inside of my left ankle, the majority of it down the front of my pants inside my underwear, and the rest in the front pockets of my jacket I am wearing. Bags can be snatched easily, so I left my bag empty, just some documents and clothes, in anticipation of a robbery, I separated it like that to mitigate losing all of the money at once. If some gets stolen, ok, at least maybe they won’t find the money in my boots, or maybe the money in my underwear, and the project wouldn’t be a total flop. I am trying to do this all without anyone noticing too much on a 30-seater bus, with probably 40 people seated/standing inside actually. I have a window seat so my left is blocked and then one older grandmother to my right. With her being directly beside me, it was quite obvious for her to see me stuffing wads of money down my pants and boots and she just winked at me, smiled, and looked away.

Where the bus stopped to let everyone out was right in front of the store where we were buying the inputs, so I exited the bus, and my counterpart and the vendor were waiting for me there with all the inputs packed and ready to go. I just had to pay the vendor the money, have a few mandatory business deal celebratory beers, load the inputs back on the bus that I just used to reach there and be on our way back to my community. So the time I spent in this city was no more than three hours. We go straight to business to count out the money. The vendor is a big business man of the city so he tells me he also owns a cyber café next door where we could go inside and count the money. I expect to go in an office, but we just sit down in the middle of the room with computers lining three of the walls in a U-shape and the fourth wall being the entrance of the café. The front door is wide open, so everyone outside has a direct view of me, and all the stations of computers are full, so there are possibly fifteen local people using the internet surrounding us. Me being a white person, I always stick out like a sore thumb, and my cognizance of Cameroonians believing that all white men are rich was not aiding to the trepidation I was building up counting this money out in the open, in the "most dangerous city," in particular for robberies. Some of my Cameroonian friends from the area tell me stories of how you can just be making a call on your phone on the sidewalk and someone just begins to stand beside you waiting for you to finish the call. As soon as you drop the call they will just hold there hand out and say, "ok give me my phone back." You stand bewildered as it is your phone, they say again, "Give me my phone back," and you don't have a choice but to hand your phone over, or they lift their shirt to expose a weapon to get the point across, if you are really dull. My friend said he watched a European man get his car stolen in the same fashion. A white man parks his car, goes into a store, when he returns there is a guy leaning on his car. The man leaning on the car says, "Thanks for bringing me my car." The owner confused says, "What do you mean, this is my car!?" And the thief just held his hand out palm up asking for the keys again. The owner handed over the keys and that was the last time he ever saw his car again.

So it's easy to imagine why I am so nervous approaching this moment and then to find that I will be counting out $4000 out in the open, pretty much for the public to see. The owner assures me nothing can happen to me, this is his place of business. So I hesitantly start removing money from each place on my body, counting it out and square up with him. This all in view of everyone in the cyber cafe and anyone passing by the entrance, which are double doors, wide open.

We go outside and proceed to have some dinner together and a few beers with Chris and his secretary, while others load our inputs onto the bus in preparation of pulling out around eight o’clock p.m.

We finish eating, drinking, and shake hands just as the bus is ready to leave and I tell my counterpart I need to urinate before going and I step just about 20 feet behind the bus around a corner to do it. Now I don't have any money on me, just my phones and documents in my backpack. I unzip and start to relieve myself as three young boys come from behind me and surround me, all around 16 years of age, I'd guess. The "leader" starts speaking to me, "You think you can just piss anyhow, anywhere? Is this what you do in your own country?" I begin to laugh as I'm a little buzzed and know what they are really there for. He's asking, "What are you laughing for?" I am still peeing, and say to him in pidgin-English, "Haha, masah, money don finish, you don miss, ashia." = "Haha, my brother, all of the money is gone, you are too late, sorry." They were taken back hearing a white man speaking pidgin so it gave me the opportunity to zip up, sling my bag over my shoulder, shove the leader back away from me, and as I do this Chrisantus came out of nowhere and grabs the other two boy by their collars and I run and jump in the bus. Funny thing about it, after the white man (with "all" of the money) got away they knew they had failed and in the struggle my counterpart lost a sandal. One of the boys picked it up for him and handed it back to him. Chrisantus jumps in the bus after, laughing, telling me how he was ready to just run in the bus and leave the sandal, but once I had escaped they were just like. "Damn, oh well, sir, take your shoe."

Pidgin English started in the colonization period for the means of the Africans and Europeans to communicate, roughly. There are English words in it, German words, African words, and very poor grammar. It is mainly very slang nowadays, forbidden to be spoken in schools, and most parents don't allow it in households. It is still prominent though and especially amongst the lower/middle class. Many old farmers can only speak either their local dialect or pidgin, so I picked it up over the two years to be able to speak to all the farmers I work with and for occasions like this, in particular also. One of my Cameroonian friends advised me if I ever got in a tight situation to speak in pidgin to the person like that and either they will be bewildered or know that I'm not just a tourist and have lived in the country for a while.

University of Bamenda Campus. Bamenda, Cameroon

So Chris and I are in the bus exalting while at the same time calming down with the rest of the bus patting me on the back and laughing at the story, telling me I'm lucky and God is watching over me, etc. After six hours on the bus we reach our village, relax for a day and then hold our training with the group of farmers. We train them on the proper usage of the fertilizers and fungicides since a lot of cocoa has been rejected by Europe for chemical residue. We then distributed the inputs to the farmers of the group.

A big problem for the farmers here is that there are x, y, and z chemicals on the market with x, y, and z concentrations and dosage levels. The farmers old way of measuring out the chemicals for their spraying was a standard measurement for all x, y, and z, using an old sardine can for example. It was a long and strenuous two years trying to get these old farmers to change from their old ways, but finally they are realizing the benefits and adapting.

Now with the help of my predecessor's work, and my continuation of it, I came into my community seeing the farmers receiving cocoa prices as low as 450 francs cfa per kilo, and as I have finished my 27 month contract we are seeing prices regularly at 1,300 francs cfa per kilo and we haven’t even gotten into the big cocoa time of year for 2014, which will be closer to November. This is a tangible absolute figure we can report on and a visual aid for all of the farmers of the area not working with us to join the group and work with us also.

Since I left I am starting to feel I have actually left some sort of a footprint, which is difficult to see sometimes, and I just want to thank everyone who ever supported me in any way. I particularly want to thank those that supported the capital needed to start the micro finance system project I began last December through the Peace Corps Partnership Program. Without the money needed to buy the fertilizers, fungicides, and pesticides for the next years harvest, the farmers wouldn't be able to have this quality and quantity of cocoa to sell at such an increased price level. The beautiful part about this project is that as the farmers repay the loans that money is kept in a bank account for the subsequent year of input purchases. So now, no matter what, the farmers will always have the money to prepare their farms in the proper manners for the following season.

Thank you all once again, this was the best decision I have ever made to join the Peace Corps and I hope that I gave back one tenth of what I received from all my Cameroonian, American, and international friends I have met over the past 27 months.

I have a list of donors who personally contributed to this project and I would like to personally thank on behalf of myself, my community, and the Peace Corps; Amy Falk, Ann Mazenko, Carolyn Reeder, Cynthia Petrie, Elizabeth Greenman, Jim & Jeanette Devries, Joe & Faye Rosenbaum, Joseph L. Pace, Joseph W. Pace, Linda Barker, Margaret Weldon, Marnie Sandborn, Matthew McGrath, Michelle Shapiro Arroyo, Phillip Spake, Richard Middlesworth, Rodney & Connie Randal, Rose Anderson, Roy Hillen, Sparkie Folkers, UPS Foundation Inc., & The RPCVs of North Florida.

Thank you all, I can post pictures of us distributing the inputs to the farmers, but it won't do the people justice in expressing their gratitude. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. It is inexplicable how huge this project is for the cocoa farmers in my community.

I will be switching blogs out here very soon, leaving this one up for future Peace Corps Volunteers to read over that may get sent to Cameroon. My new personal blog will contain anything about me, my photography, travelings, writings, art, links to things I think are worthy, etc. Stay tuned…