Sunday, November 13, 2011

"The last defender of the sprawl / Said 'Well, where do you kids live?' / Well, sir, if you only knew what the answer's worth / Been searching every corner of the earth..."


If I could sum up the last 6 weeks in one word, it would probably be babies (les bébés)!  In addition to waking up to discover that Cardamom had decided to have kittens in my bed on my freshly laundered blankets, several female acquaintances have given birth (accoucher).  The traditional meal after a woman delivers is nkwee, a slimy dish relatively the same consistency as aloe vera, but brown and stickier.  One must eat this by taking balls of corn-meal mush, roll them around in the sauce, and slurp it quickly out of your hands.  While I don’t mind the taste, the texture and technical finesse necessary to consume it takes some getting used to so I have to cheat and gulp it out of a cup.  Needless to say, I’ve eaten my fair share of nkwee lately.  Lest you think I’ve gone completely Cameroonian in my diet though, I’ll be honest and add that recent kitchen concoctions include lemon bars, lemon tofu stir-fry, and chocolate nutmeg cookies.  I’m clearly not suffering here… 

For awhile, I was in denial thinking she was just getting fat.  Nope...she was harboring 5 kittens in there.

My new PCV neighbor, Kim, and one of the chatons
A friendly Ultimate Frisbee match at the beginning of the month pitted the PCVs of the French-speaking (francophone) West region versus those in the English-speaking (anglophone) Northwest – and one game of “newbies” versus veterans.  Because of several weeks of rain, the playing field was very muddy.  People were filthy by the end, but it was a great chance to meet many of the most recent group of volunteers who swore-in.   

After much scrubbing, I almost got my shoes "Cameroonian clean"
I’ve found a great woman who has now helped me with two soy demonstrations and has taken the initiative to sell tofu at the boutique in the village center.  It is always helpful to have a Cameroonian woman take the lead as they can better explain some of the cooking intricacies (especially in patois) and know how to season it so it will be more accepted.  As a thank you, I surprised her by making and delivering a banana cake.   Although I think she’s in her sixties, she said we’re African sisters which kept a smile on my face the entire hour-long walk back to my house.   Bapa is also speeding along into the 21st century as I recently discovered that they have a website!  It’s in French, but check it out for yourself if you want to learn more about the history of my village, the lineage of the chiefdom, and see a few photos of the places I see on a regular basis: (http://www.royaumebapa.reunis.fr/)

The Cameroon presidential election came and went without incident.  Despite occasional murmurings that this might be the year for change similar to those other African nations have experienced, incumbent Paul Biya (who has held the position for nearly 30 years) took the title again.  The Peace Corps took the necessary precautions of declaring that volunteers were on Standfast and not to leave their respective villages in case tensions escalated.  All in all, I felt pretty removed from the activity, though found being in Bapa eerily similar to living in predominately red-state Ohio as a moderate/leftist political thinker.      

I actually saw more people actively riled up during the national mosquito net (moustiquaire) campaign last month.  The Knock Out Malaria campaign kicked off with community volunteers conducting a door-to-door census.  Despite my multiple inquiries about the process and how I could be involved, I was kept in the dark about many of the intricacies of the process.  I only learned of the distribution day because a neighbor asked if that’s where I was headed one morning.  I quickly turned around to grab my posters and other materials about malaria.  I was hoping to incorporate lessons about WHY mosquito nets are important and other ways to reduce one’s risk of contracting the disease, but was disappointed since overall we missed a major opportunity to sensitize the population.  Instead, it was absolute chaos.  The team tried to be organized, but there were a lot of details in ensuring all the paperwork was filled out correctly (bureaucracy reigns!).  Meanwhile, people waiting became anxious and impatient.  The concept of a line (queue) doesn’t exist here, so people were shoving each other and the crowd nearly broke down the doors to the health center.  The yelling escalated, a fist-fight broke out, and old women got trampled.  The fiasco literally made me lose a little faith in humanity for a bit.

I also finally attended my first wedding celebration.  I had the fortune to miss the actual ceremony (my friend waited more than 5 hours for the festivities to begin), and only went to the evening party because it was close to my house.  My neighbor and I walked to the house at 8pm and, because the electricity was out, sat in utter darkness for nearly 2 hours.  The power returned, but the couple didn’t arrive until nearly 10:30pm.  There was singing, dancing, and a buffet of sorts, but I left at midnight.  

After all, we Americans had our own party the next night – a Halloween bash.  A group of us girls had intended to go as the iconic 90s pop group, the Spice Girls but unfortunately had two people cancel at the last-minute.  We still had fun…and even introduced a new addition to the group: Cameroonian Spice (a.k.a. Maggi Cube).  Maggi is a brand of “seasoning” here - and I use that term loosely - that gets added to everything.  Literally just nuggets of MSG, these bouillon-like cubes come in a variety of flavors.  After all, “Avec Maggi, chaque femme est une étoile (With Maggi, every woman is a star).    
The Spice Girls - Cameroonian style: Posh, Maggi Cube, Scary, and Ginger