This has been a really exciting week! On Wednesday, all the stagiares mustered up some good ole’ American tradition and creativity to throw a pretty damn good Halloween fête. We had beans and beignets (from Abba’s mom – the best in Bangangte), booze, candy, and even some proper decorations. And practically everyone came out in a costume, which ranged from a ghostbuster and slimer duo, a duo of a moustique (mosquito) and moustiquaire (mosquito net), an intestinal worm (specifically, Andy’s), various cats and animals, a very good Dr. Njiti impression, and a jazzercizer (“Let’s Get Physical!”). The Halloween fête was way fun, and it conveniently coincided with our regular Wednesday night group dinners, so we already had permission to be out past our 6 PM curfew. The party was rockin’ til almost 9 PM! Wooo!
Also thrilling was the announcement of everyone’s post yesterday. I will be opening a brand spankin’ new post in Ngambé Tikar, a small village in the Center Province:
That’s “nn-GAHM-bay tee-kar” phonetically. The village itself is apparently quite small, and it is located in the northwest corner of the province, very close to Adamawa and West provinces. The capital of Cameroon, Yaoundé, is also in the Center Province, and this is also where the Peace Corps office is located. Initially, I thought that I would be going to the provincial capital to do my banking – and this would mean getting to stay at the Peace Corps office in Yaoundé about once a month, where theoretically, I would have access to the Peace Corps office internet, as well as the potential to meet up with fellow volunteers. However, more careful inspection has revealed that a closer and more likely place for me to do my banking will be Bafoussam, the provincial capital of the West Province (and I’m told, the 3rd largest city in Cameroon).
I’m not sure how I feel about all that – kind of ambivalent – but I am excited about my closest post-mate: Ralph! Ralph is posted in Adamawa, but he’s right on the Southwest border of the province and is very close to me, in Bankim. Ralph is a 63-year-old retired ski patrolman who once worked in the French Alps, Vietnam War veteran thrice over, French language enthusiast, and generally wise man, not to mention one of the most good-natured people I’ve met, considering he is far and away the oldest person in our 42-person stage (the next oldest person is 27). The other day, I asked him whether he thought sex and food made the world go ‘round. He answered, “definitely.” Then I asked which he thought was more important. “Food,” he replied. And Why? “Because, we’ve all been here in Cameroon for a month now without any sex and we’ve survived just fine, but where would we be without food?” Such sagesse. That’s “wisdom,” for you Anglophone folks. This is Ralph, with fellow stagiare Kate Legner:
So, although Ralph is only about a 45-minute moto taxi ride away (in the dry season), there is really not anyone else very close to me. Like, at all. In fact, one of the current PCVs who was here for training this week and who has seen my village told me flat out that it’s in the middle of nowhere. Which is both exciting and absolutely terrifying. Ten of the stagiares in our stage were placed in the West Province, and another ten were placed in the Northwest province, both of which are fairly small provinces, so these people are pretty close by one another, relatively speaking. Not like they’re all going to be partying with one another all the time, but if they’re having a rough time, any number of fellow PCVs are pretty close by to commiserate, etc. So I’m a bit scared about being practically all alone (speaking strictly about Americans). But at the same time, I’m not sure I’d want to be at a post so close to so many others. I guess the grass could always be greener if I dwell on this, so I’m pretty much just forging ahead and hoping everything comes up roses.
Which brings me to the things that I’m really excited about. The PCV who I will be staying with during my upcoming site visit, Stacey, has apparently pushed very hard for there to be a post in my village. Apparently, she thought that my future counterpart, who runs the local youth group, was so great and she thought the village itself was so great that it needed a PCV. Furthermore, my boss (APCD), Kim, confirmed me that my counterpart is very dynamic and motivated. These are things that I had mentioned to her as being important to me, because I think one of the toughest things to encounter in my work would be working and working and working and having no one in village motivated enough to work with me or give a shit. The community itself was asked to identify its needs, and they mentioned wanting to set up a “Centre d’ecoute” – literally, a listening center, but I think this roughly translates to a counseling center. Which is really exciting, as anyone who knows me knows that counseling is one of my favorite activities. They also listed about ten other categories for interventions, including my interests in family planning, repro health, and STIs/HIV, so I’m pretty excited to have the chance to work with a variety of health topics (including water sanitation and nutrition – bring it on, “maison de nourriture”). And I think I’ll be working with kids a lot, which I can say, based on my past experience teaching high school students, is a double-edged sword, but which is also ultimately rewarding. All in all, I feel at least a little at ease with regards to my work.
I had also mentioned wanting to be in Adamawa; there were only three health posts in Adamawa, one of which had to go to a man (Ralph), but my post is about as close to Adamawa as you can get without actually being there. In addition, Kim told me that the Tikar people are extremely proud of their tribe. Ngambé Tikar encompasses both Savannah and forest, so wildlife of both terrains abounds, and because of the forest, there are Baka people (otherwise incorrectly known as pygmies) there as well. So basically, it sounds like a fantastic, diverse mélange of really different environments and cultures – my own mini-Cameroonian version of NYC, n’est pas? As for amenities – I don’t know about running water, though I hear electricity might be a go (at least some of the time), and there is apparently cell phone service in some parts of the village, potentially my home itself.
I will close with the story of when I told my homestay father about my post. The conversation went a little something like this:
Father: so where is your post?
Me: oh right, I’m going to be in the Center Province, in Ngambé Tikar.
Father: …[long pause, in which he looks confused, concerned?] Merde!
Which, roughly translated, means, “Fuck! Child, you’re going to be SOL in the middle of nowhere.” Fortunately, our training director had told all of us, after finding out our posts, that when we told our homestay families where we were going that we shouldn’t listen to anything they said. Because, just like in the US, people have certain ideas about certain places, even without ever having gone there themselves (everyone in Kentucky marries their first cousin at the age of 15, right?). So I wasn’t overly concerned. But just in case I was, tonight at dinner, he told me that he had spoken to his friend here in Bangangté who is from Ngambé Tikar. He reassured me while shaking my hand, that Ngambé Tikar is actually a “nice village.”
As my fellow stagiares, Kate Wright, would say, I’m totally stoked.
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