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.