Traveling, harassment, death, and HIV… and other things that just plain suck.

It’s been a sad last few weeks. Though fortunately, I wouldn’t say I’m as depressed as I was before (I guess I’m getting used to village life, even liking it), the last two weeks have not been kind to my life.

I came back to village from a truly terrible banking trip last Friday. I’m still recovering. The travel was altogether exhausting and it felt like everything that could go wrong, did. There were times when I actually feared for my life due to travel conditions. I was also super harassed while in Yaounde (people yelling out, in French, “Go back to your home in Europe!” Mental response: 1) Thanks. 2) Fuck you 3) Honestly, I would love nothing more than to go home. Then, not ten minutes later: a guy telling me in English he loved me and wanted to “fuck” me… deep breath… ignorant assholes), so by the end of the trip, I was kind of shell-shocked and terribly thrilled to return to village, where I don’t have to deal with life-threatening and terrible road conditions, and ignorant assholes who harass me.

The icing on the cake is that all the frustration and harassment and awful travel conditions were really actually pretty normal. Upon return to village, I was telling Magloire about all of it, and he told me it was all extremely normal, and that he’s been through worse. Well, that only made me feel mildly better. Mostly though, it’s depressing – that I am so shell-shocked by what is “normal” doesn’t exactly make me feel capable; furthermore, that it could be worse isn’t exactly an incitement to keep on traveling. Trying to be optimistic, I tell myself that it was a good learning experience. What I learned: traveling within Cameroon SUCKS. Avoid it at all costs.

Which brings me to another point: I was talking with Ralph about how even the negative experiences here can be positive, because often I’ll learn a lot from them. Or even if I’m not learning a lot, I’ll appreciate how things are run in America just that much more. I came to Cameroon so down on the US (I can’t even remember why), and now I cannot wait to get back. Ralph pointed out that yeah, that’s true about learning a lot, but so much of the learning as a PCV is negative learning. Like, learning not-to-touch-a-hot-stove-by-touching-it-and-burning-yourself-learning. I think that’s true. There’s not a whole lot of positive reinforcement – which may account for the whole roller coaster of emotions phenom. When roughly 90% of learning is negative learning, that 10% of positive reinforcement learning is a high better than drugs, sex, and rock-and-roll.

So after I got back to village and nearly collapsed from exhaustion, Magloire had more “good” news for me. There was an old lady who used to sit at this table in the middle of village and sell papayas and bananas and other assorted produce. She was always sitting there, and was really sweet. One day, she called me over and gave me some bananas. She always said hi to me. Well, apparently, she died last Tuesday (I got back on Thursday), and Magloire said she was asking about me, “Where is Rebecca?” the day she died. Though it’s not a tragedy – old people die, after all – it was sad. I welled up when Magloire told me. But that wasn’t the only news.

I don’t have many friends here, and many of the friends I do have I’ve met through Magloire and through the work at the youth center. One of the women who’s been involved at the youth center since its beginning (in 2005), has been, if not a close friend, at least a friendly acquaintance, and someone who I like. She recently got herself tested and found out she has HIV. Magloire said she came to him, sobbing, very distraught. It’s upsetting on a few levels, and it takes a bit of explanation to sort out. First of all, it was surprising, given that she’s been involved in work in “le lutte contre le SIDA” so I guess I kind of thought she might have picked up the knowledge, attitudes and behaviors to avoid contracting HIV. Furthermore, I now know several people in the village who have HIV, and none of them has any sort of support. All of them are hiding their status and have told practically no one, as far as I know.

Magloire knows many of the people in village who are HIV positive because he’s practically the only person in village trained in pre- and post-test counseling. So whenever someone tests positive at the hospital, they send the person to Magloire for help. It’s kinda fucked up – why doesn’t the hospital staff get some training in HIV counseling? And there’s really intense pressure not to disclose status, because there’s still insane discrimination for people living with HIV. Even though Cameroonians actually are pretty well-informed about how HIV is transmitted and what behaviors are risky (handshakes = not a risk; unprotected sex = risky), it’s like this knowledge has no effect on behavior. People who are positive are shunned from society, people won’t shake hands with them, won’t eat with them. But then you say, ‘use a condom if you’re having sex with someone and you don’t know his status,’ and that’s seen as absurd. “Condom?! No way!” It’s baffling.

So, in addition to the absolute lack of moral, emotional support, there’s no real medical support either. First-line ARVs (the cheapest ones) are supposed to be free for Cameroonians with AIDS, paid for by the Cameroonian government. However, that assumes that someone who needs ARVs can get to the provincial hospitals where they are distributed and where CD4 tests must be done to prove that someone’s immune system is depressed enough to need the ARVs. The transport to get out of Ngambé Tikar to a hospital where CD4 counts can be done and ARVs administered costs about 5000 CFA one-way, or 10,000 CFA round-trip (about $25).

To give context, I’d say I spend about 10,000 CFA in two weeks in village, but I’m a pretty big spender, comparatively to most villagers. Most people cultivate food, so they don’t have to pay for it – they just eat what they grow. I’m lazy and not Cameroonian, so I buy what others produce and do not grow anything myself. But since food is practically the only thing that I spend money on, I can’t imagine how long I could make 10,000 CFA last if I were your average villager. A month? Two months?? Who knows? So to tell a Cameroonian that he has to spend a month’s wages just to get to the hospital where he can take a test and get ARVs is kind of absurd. Especially since the majority of Cameroonians live in rural areas like Ngambé Tikar, where transport out of village is likely to be expensive.

The point is, rural Cameroon is not a good place to be HIV positive. My friend who recently found out she has HIV didn’t even get tested here in village – she went to a bigger, neighboring village to get tested, because a common perception is that the health center here doesn’t practice confidentiality, and if you get tested there and are positive, everyone in village will know by the next day. It’s such a shitty shitty system. I remember one day thinking that I’d like to get myself tested here to set a good example, but then immediately re-thought the decision, because I knew that everyone would know I got tested. And my irrational mind went to the “what if by some freak occurrence, somehow I was positive?!” Holy crap, I remember thinking about the fear of a small community knowing me to be seropositive, and thinking how I don’t know how I could deal with that. I mean really, I have no clue. On so many levels, it would be overbearingly depressing. My one loophole is that I could always leave and go back to the states, where things are no longer as bad. People here can’t.

I’ve got to work on improving this situation. I’ve got to figure out how.