1000 FCFA / hr

Surfing.  It is what I love. There is nothing in the world that compares to it besides my family; yet I receive things from the ocean and a piece of foam and fiberglass beneath my feet that I cannot gain from anywhere, including from my family. I think many of my friends can attest to that in our shared love for the sport. I call it a sport, because of its physical requirements and competitive capability, but it is so much more.. I really enjoy playing football (soccer –Americans), but everything is controlled by man on the field, as in so many other sports.  When in the water, surfing, who is in control? The relationship between man and Mother Nature in surfing has such a spiritual connection and demand for respect that cannot be felt in so many other forms of sport.  Learning to ride each different wave every time you stand up on a new one, anticipating what the wave is going to do, where no one wave is like another. I can liken a wave to a new girl I am kissing for the first time, where I want to show the wave my tricks, but I have to be mindful of how the wave itself is going to break and perform it’s own tricks, being able to react and accept the difference in styles.  That is where the sheer beauty of surfing lies, in the style, the art form, a surfer embodies when riding a wave, reacting and riding with the wave. No two surfers surf alike, no matter how hard they try to imitate each other. It is impossible to read and judge a wave exactly like someone else and emulate their style, perfectly.  Some person may have a full bag of tricks, but if they look like a crazed maniac when pulling them out, disregarding the form and intention of the wave, then the tricks are thrown to the wind, unimportant disturbing matters of movement that can make someone cringe in witnessing. Each time I step foot in the water I learn something new because no two waves behave similarly. That is why I can say that the two most important things in my life are my family and surfing, because both of them are constant learning experiences for me.  There is no reason for me to surround myself with stagnant matter. One thing that we can all agree on is that family matters are constantly demanding and changing, and those surfers out there, we can agree that we will never know when we have reached our peak of understanding about ourselves in the ocean and our/it’s capabilities.

It is a balance that I find between these two pillars of sanctity that controls my thoughts, my actions, the way I approach a situation, and the way I reason.  I avoid clichés, because they rather chap my ass, but unavoidably I have to say these pillars are my yin and my yang. My mother taught me to treat others as I wanted to be treated, to be healthy, proper manners, to share, to love, and to burp reallly loud, (I guess that cancels my proper manners talk, but there’s always a time and place to ‘let it rip chocolate chip,’ as she would say): My father taught me integrity, loyalty, and to be hard working: My brother taught me how to get my ass kicked and pick myself up again. Then there is my mother ocean, who has taught me patience, to be grateful, and above all, to be humble.

I can be stripped from the ocean, but the ocean cannot be stripped from me. Salt, sand, and foam, fill my veins. Those standout great waves I’ve ridden fill the voids in my head, where they are constantly playing on repeat inside my brain, so that anywhere I go in the world, there I am in my favorite place, at home, in the ocean, re-riding those waves over and over again. The beautiful thing about our brain is that it is not linear in thought but more like a spider’s web. Meaning that no matter how long ago an event occurred, it still feels like it happened yesterday, because the more we revisit that thought, or open that cabinet in our brain and pull out that memory, it stays in the present. It is the reason I can still smell, hear, and taste the difference in waters and sea air from different places I have surfed. I can tell you how the beach was at Trestles, San Onofre Beach, California when I was twelve years old, surfing in the NSSA National Championships, and exiting the water after my first heat to see my brother talking with a man who offered me my first sponsorship of riding for Town and Country Surfboards, (whose logo is coincidentally a yin-yang). I still remember each wave I rode in that heat, the struggle I had exiting the water due to coming in on the wrong side of the rocks, slipping in the cracks and getting sea urchins in my feet, and the unexpected rush of ecstatic excitement when I finally reached my family and heard those words spoken to me that changed the next few years of my life. The ever presence of humbleness that had already been instilled in me from the ocean, which I just exited, led the feeling of excitement about my abilities in the water to be really foreign to me. The idea that someone, a stranger, watched me surf, and believed in me enough to ask me to represent their company in doing something that I did just for fun everyday I could with my friends and family was unimaginable at the time.

I still remember the pain and humility I felt the next year when I returned to the same beach to surf in the championships again and did not achieve the results I expected out of myself. The presence of pressure inside me to perform before the companies I was representing on the beach watching me that was lacking the year before was bizarre for me.  The surf was much bigger that year and I had moved up an age group to where I had a really competitive heat.  I had caught one decent wave all the way to the inside and spent the majority of the remainder of my heat scrambling to get back out to the line up.  I was cussing, fighting, paddling and kicking with all of my 100 lbs, taking wave after wave on top of my head, while I caught glimpses of my competitors catching wave after wave out in front of me. I was praying to see a clear path after the next wave broke, stuck in limbo, exhausted, overpowered and overmatched. One pillar present, my mother ocean, humbling me and reminding me that not everyday is my day, exiting the water and trudging through the sand, head low, defeated, with pats on the back from my other pillar, my family, and words of encouragement from my friends and team managers.

I sat down to write this post about the experience I had surfing in Cameroon, West Africa a few weeks ago and these memories came pouring back to me. They resounded in me and reminded me of the utter importance of the sanctity of my pillars of rock that keep me grounded.  I have been away from my family and from surfing for seven months now, and realized that these two pillars are one in the same. There is no one with out the other. We grew up on the beach; it made me who I am today. We were surfing together as a family, sun up to sun down. Beach days were everyday. If I wasn’t surfing with my direct family with mom on the beach, then I was gone all day hopping the trolley trying to find the best spot to surf up and down the beach, with my rat pack of little scrawny longhaired friends from the neighborhood, who all shared that wild passion for the ocean and that need to surf, forever.  If there weren’t any waves and we weren’t in the water than we were trying our luck with whose mom would let us crash the house and watch surf movies until we were kicked to the next mom’s house.  When we were given the boot from all of the moms than we took to the streets, skateboarding, building ramps to slide on that resembled waves, always trying to get another taste; there was no better drug.

Now, I am 23 years old, a Peace Corps volunteer located in Menji, a village that is the headquarter of a small sub-division in the South West region of Cameroon, West Africa, about 10 hours to the coast and about 14 hours to where I knew there was a possibility to go surfing.  I had gone to the closest beach a few months back, Limbe Beach, and body surfed until my heart was content, but still didn’t get that taste of surfing something beneath my feet. The group of volunteers that I came here with in June all had to meet back up at a mandatory weeklong training called “In Service Training,” from December 9^th – 16^th.  It just so happened that the Peace Corps’ administration decided that this was going to take place at Kribi Beach, where I had found out that it might be possible to go surfing.

I researched the Internet for anything about surfing in Cameroon. I found a site with a post from someone mentioning surfing in Kribi Beach.  All that it read was something like, ‘If you are in Kribi, Cameroon and you want to surf, go to Tara Plage Restaurant, go to the bar and ask for Gabriella and he can take you surfing.’ This was all the information I had, and had no idea how reliable it would be, no date for when this post had been made, but at least I had something.  I made the daylong journey down to Kribi, got in very late, ate and drank with my buddies I had not seen in a few months, and found a schedule for our training. The schedule read that everyday we had breakfast by 7am and we were in trainings until 5pm, with the last two days having some free time. I knew if I had a shot at surfing it would be in those last two days. During the week I asked around to hotel employees about the information I had and they all acted like I was crazy when I was trying to explain surfing in my poor French abilities. They did tell me that Tara Plage Restaurant existed and it was about three kilometers on the other side of town. I had enough information, now I just needed the time to get to that restaurant. The second to last day came and we had a half-day of free time, so I and another adventurous friend, Carlos, went out searching for the mysterious Cameroonian surf god, Gabriella. After the first taxi took us to the wrong place and being redirected by a different taxi, we traveled down a long red clay road and just after a military blockade there was a sign that read, Tara Plage Restaurant & Bar. After we got through the blockade and reached the hotel, we got off the bikes and I asked a man out front if there was someone by the name of Gabriel that works there. He looked confused and my hopes were dwindling, but another person over heard me and corrected me saying, “Yes there is a Gabriella, not a Gabriel, but he isn’t here today, you can take his number if you would like.” I jumped on it and called the man, he spoke in very good English saying, “Sure you want to learn how to surf, I will be there tomorrow all day, come back then.” I reassured him that I knew how to surf and that I just wanted to use a board if possible. It was refreshing to hear someone have knowledge and speak about the ocean and surfing. He said that it wasn’t the right time of year for surfing, it is better in June and July and the tide is better in the afternoon. I told him I would absolutely be there the next day.

The following day we were finished with training by noon and I rushed back to the restaurant to find Gabriella. He was not there like he said he would be and was now not answering his phone. A few friends and I sat and drank a few beers waiting around, him finally calling me back saying, “I’m coming, I’m coming,” (this meaning, it could be fifteen minutes, three hours, or the next day in African time.) I lost hope after a few hours and decided to body surf, after an hour or so of body surfing I see a man on the beach waving me in. I came in excited to find a cheerful Gabriella explaining, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I am the manager at the bar and I am very busy, but follow me to see about the board.” I have no idea what to expect out of these boards, being such a foreign place for surfing where everyone lives their lives day to day on the little money they have. He takes me to a shed behind the hotel and I enter the dark damp musty room to find two board bags where he pulls out two decently shaped boards around 6 ft. long and in actually really good condition. He said he had made a friend some time ago from France that promised he would send him back some boards and he came through on his word. He let me take one of them out and by this time it was about 4pm with the sun setting just after 6pm.

The waves were small, about thigh high, and about 30 meters off of the beach.  They had decent power and were enough to do a quick turn or two before jumping off on the shore. Once the sun finally set and the tide came in all the way making the waves crash directly on shore, I returned the board to the shed, grabbed a beer and conversed with some beautiful girls at the bar; that is, before they told me 1000 FCFA/hr ($2/hr) and asked if I had a room there where we could “dance.” I parted ways from Tara Plage Restaurant soon after exiting that situation with an irremovable smile tattooed across my face. I was happy as a peacock returning to our hotel, hitting play on those brief wave memories in my brain experienced shortly beforehand, sitting off to the side of our hotel’s dance floor, sipping on a few more beers, enjoying watching my friends cut loose dancing, but mentally not there as I reveled quietly in my ecstasy of experiencing surfing in Cameroon. The experience of finding the restaurant, finally meeting Gabriella and getting the surfboard, and actually riding a few waves before it got dark made everything hard to believe with the little information I had originally to go on to accomplish the feet. It didn’t matter where I was in the world at that moment, I was happy and I was at home.

Chew Slowly

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BEKA-NDA: The tribe of my village here are Bangwa people, and in their mother tongue the saying, “Beka-nda” literally translates into “chew slowly,” but to relate this more to an English saying, they mean it as, “Choose wisely.”  Either way I really enjoy this saying at it’s philosophical disposition. They use this saying about meeting new people and judging someone’s character. I recently let someone into my house very carelessly with out keeping an eye on him or her while I was cooking with another friend in my kitchen. In a small village like this where people watch over each other very much and take many justice matters into more of a marshal law status, it is easy to grow comfortable and let your guard down.  I feel more protected here by the people than in my own country with such a police state for justice. I let my guard down with this individual in my house too soon and noticed something missing from my home the day after they visited. When the person came back to visit yesterday I was in the house with my landlord and some friends. This person came in with a smile on their face, obviously thinking that I had not noticed this missing object, as it was kept somewhere out of sight. I calmly told the person not to sit down but to go outside on the veranda so we could discuss something. I confronted the situation and told the person to leave my residence; I want to continue enjoying my Sunday afternoon football matches with my friends. I returned inside to explain the situation to my friends and my landlord said in the Bangwa dialect, “Beka-nda.” He then proceeded to explain to me that no matter how comfortable you are in a place, never forget to “beka-nda,” or to chew slowly when determining who your friends are and who you keep close to you.

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.