Recap

29 January 2008

A lot has been happening lately. Let's recap:

1. Africa Cup. Soccer! Les Lions Indomptables came off to a rocky start but are still in the running. The first match for Cameroon was against Egypt. At half, the Lions were down 0-3. When Magloire and I went to chat with others about the match during half-time, people seemed cautiously, doubtfully optimistic. "We'll even the score," they said. During the second half, the lions came out with a fury and energy, early scoring a goal. Much cheering, jubilation, and people actually began to believe that they might, in fact, score three goals. However, that first goal wasn't followed by a second until near the end of the match and by then Egypt had scored again, and it was clear that the Lions had lost, 2-4. Much grumbling. Afterward, as Magloire and I walked towards market for dinner, I saw him get the most fiery and animated as I've ever seen him, talking to the others who had been watching as well. "That Otto Pfister [Cameroon's new coach] is useless, he's changed the entire line-up; the Lions have never been this terrible" "Usually Egypt is terrible, we should have won."
The second match was against Zambia and considerably more exciting. When the Lions scored their first goal, everyone in the room jumped up, screaming in excitement, hugging one another, slapping high fives, etc. The room was crowded with about twenty men and two women (me and one other). People sat on the floor, leaned against the couch, crammed themselves into the small room to watch. For the first match, we had gone to the deputy's house, where he had a room the size of a rec room and enough furniture for everyone to sit. Magloire had said "Now you'll see how Cameroonians get fired up about soccer." I had been surprised at the relative quiet throughout the match as we watched the Lions get destroyed. Where was the cursing? The name-calling? The frustration with one's team? Now, for the second match, in Magloire's small living room, I saw the fiery emotion and pride of Cameroonians for their soccer team. Each successive goal or save by Cameroon's goalie brought more cheering, happiness - "wow! Eto'o fils!" (Eto'o is Cameroon's star attacker). By halftime, Cameroon was up 3-0. During the second half, they clinched the victory, 5-1. Afterward, Magloire and I again walked to market to get dinner and the centre-ville was quite animated. Music was blaring at one of the main bars and people were out in numbers, celebration. It was an interesting scene.
The third match of this first round of play is the day after tomorrow, against Sudan. I think Cameroon is expected to win, as Sudan is probably the weakest team in our pool. You may be wondering how on earth my little village in the middle of nowhere has 1) the electricity and 2) the networks to watch these soccer matches. The answer is that some people have their own generators, and about a third of the village has power when the generator at the sawmill turns on their generator for the village around 6 PM. Amongst those with power, many have TVs and satellite dishes (sure no running water and sometimes not enough to eat, but let's drop 40000 CFA on a satellite dish…) Voila! Football en brousse!

2. This discussion about electricity brings me to my next point: power in my house. I do not live in the quartier that gets power from the sawmill's generator at night (it's too far away). Initially, I branched a power line from the mayor's house across the street (he has a generator). Recently, however, the generator broke. But not before frying not one but two of my cell phone chargers (the second less than a week after I replaced the first one), and possibly my AC adaptor. I'm now without electricity, which is mostly fine, except for the problem of charging my cell phone. I've heard a little bit about a possibility of getting solar panels and solar power through a Cameroonian NGO, which appeals to me (what better way to make use of Cameroon's proximity to the equator and sun?), though I'm a little doubtful about it. I want to follow up with the NGO when I bank in February, but I'm a little doubtful. If that proves a dead end, I'll be living without electricity for awhile, until I figure something else out (or rather, if I figure something else out).

3. I can measure how much life has started to settle into regularity because I've begun to take up my normal habits from the states again. I've started to cook for myself every now and again. The whole food situation is a little tough since I have no fridge and thus can't cook a huge meal to keep for a week of leftovers, as I used to do. I'm getting accustomed to it, but I haven't really ventured beyond very simple meals. My most common meal is a sandwich I've dubbed "Sloppy Becca's." Basically, I sauté onions, tomatoes, garlic, and some sort of green leafy vegetable, and then throw this mix on a sandwich with either mustard or a hyper-processed cheese that doesn't need refrigeration (yum) - sometimes both. Sometimes I throw a fried egg in there for protein. Other than that, I have tea or hot milk for breakfast with toast and jam almost every morning.
When I don't cook for myself, I eat out at the restaurants in town. This often means some sort of starch (macabo, manioc, plantains, rice, or couscous de manioc, couscous de mais, even couscous taro or couscous de macabo) with a sauce - either a tomato sauce, often with a chunk of meat - or a peanut sauce, often with grilled fish. I really enjoy the couscous's because you eat them with your fingers (hello, return to age 3). Sometimes I have what is basically sautéed legumes (kinda like spinach?) - this is one of my favorite sauces. If it's not any of the above, then it's grilled fish with "condiment" (the catchall term for seasoning/flavoring) with baton de manioc. Overall, my diet is beginning to balance out in a way I'm happy with.
After a rather long hiatus, I've also begun to run again - in the mornings mostly. There are really only two general directions in which I can run, so this may get boring. For the time being, though, it's fine. The roads lead out to untouched savannah and forests which mix with each other without any real boundaries. Where I am is hilly (though not as much as in Bangangte) so there's some pretty views. Haven't seen any crazy animals yet, other than lizards.
The fact that I'm running and cooking means I've kind of figured out my water situation. My ideal would be to hire someone to draw water for me. In the meantime though, I have five bidons and two large buckets in which to store water, when they're all full, they'll last me about a week (maybe more), so I'm content to not have to draw water everyday or every other day.

4. Work. Is good. I've described before the idea behind CAPJ, but for the past few weeks, I've been feeling a little frustrated because I only had a vague idea of what was happening and what exactly my role was in everything. I felt like a common problem was we'd have a meeting and I'd ask what it was for, not really understand the response, and then at the meeting, be expected to give some sort of speech, which I was unprepared to do. Also, I could tell you that the objective of CAPJ was the "mobilization of the community/youth against HIV/AIDS," but I couldn't tell you what this meant in terms of concrete activity. At some point, I realized that I'd need to get more info and that I'd need to ask a lot of questions. Finally yesterday, I sat down with Magloire to try and begin to better understand, in specifics, what we're doing. A lot of things became clearer to me. I kind of finally feel like I have some direction to speak of it feels really good. We also began to sort of create an action plan for what we have to do. If there's anything that I'm realizing, it's that I am SUPER busy, and I think I will only get busier as time passes. This is truly a good thing, because I tend to become listless when I'm not busy.
One element of our work is going to be sensibilizing about HIV/AIDS the pygmies who live close by our village. Magloire says that they've done testing of some pygmies for HIV and that it appears as though HIV hasn't really touched the pygmies yet. I think they are quite insular, so if someone were to get AIDS, it could spread quickly and decimate the tribe, especially since they partake in some risky behaviors, such as sharing razor blades for scarification. For awhile, we've been talking about making a first visit to the pygmy campement closest to Ngambe Tikar (there are seven in our arrondissement). Now for awhile, I've been complaining to myself about how hard life in village is. Mostly petty things - like, it sucks not having power, running water, furniture, etc. I'll even spend a lot of time dreaming and daydreaming about how nice it'd be to go home and have all the "luxes." But if ever there was something to make me appreciate what I have, man it was a visit to the pygmy campement.
I don't want to sound horrible and judgmental, but the campement was… wow. Some things I noticed: no latrines (I didn't ask where they do their business), most of the pygmies were wearing drab clothing - holes everywhere and filthy, many of them weren't wearing shoes and it seemed like most hadn't bathed in at least a week. I often see villagers similarly dressed when they're going out to their farms, but that makes sense - no sense wearing one's Sunday bests if you're just going to be getting dirty. But I couldn't fathom why the pygmies weren’t wearing clean clothes when just sitting around at home and weren't clean themselves. It was startling, really. The contrast of the conditions of the pygmy campement compared to those of my village really jolted me into appreciating what is available in village and the lifestyle here. I do my laundry fairly regularly and bathe roughly everyday. My hygiene, thought not exactly what it was in the States, is at least pretty decent here. I wouldn't say the same for the pygmies. Aside from our work teaching about HIV/AIDS, I think there could be room for some basic health interventions - a la hygiene and clean water. This visit was good for me - very helpful to just appreciating what I've got.