I will start this blog with a quick note about PC medical office warnings about avoiding swimming in fresh water to not have a risk of getting schisto, those tiny snails that burrow into your heels and live in your brain.
Now, here is what happens when your work is practical... In the village of Ngouselmanna.. (need to get the spelling straight), everyone farms on this one hill that happens to be the most fertile. Trouble is, you have to cross a pretty serious wetland to get there. Every morning men and women wade through water that is hip deep, sometimes standing on underwater logs, usually avoiding tripping on roots, always barefoot, to reach the base of this hill. I had the luck of doing this! We started off this morning with a mama and my counterpart, all of us wearing woven backpacks and carrying machetes, just me wearing boots while everyone else wears sandals. We walk through a cacao field down a dirt path before we reach what appears to be a wet spot. I prepare to figure out a way around before I realize this is a maricoge-a wetland! So, off come my boots, pants rolled up as high as they can go, and weilding a baton and my machete we start off doucement, very slowly. After about 15 minutes of trudging through water with varying depths of knee high to hip high, we finally make it to the other side! Without seeing a snake or a leech, might I add. We passed a few farmers on their way out, and marched with several on their way in. EVERYONE does this twice a day, everyday!
To get to mama's farm is a brief hike through the jungle, barefoot or in flipflops. The earth here is good, terre noire. So every year, farmers clear out some land with trusy machetes and burn off the fallen branches and other plants. Sometimes you can find no trees on this cleared land, but this mama, and probably most people farming on this hill, leave the biggest trees. When you are standing in the field, other than the few visible staple crops, you feel like you are the first person to have discovered this earth. It remains unbelievably natural, whatever that means. We commenced with a brief lesson on macabo cultivation, a delicious tuber with huge leaves. One enleves the plant, pulling at it's base, then one pulls at the tubers to rip them from the plants, one searches the ground for tubers that have stubbornly stuck there, and then one cuts off the leaves, and the base of the bulb to replant for the future. We harvested like this for about an hour, and finally, with my sack full of macabo, which I had to spread out to the other women becuase it was HEAVY (Mamas put me to shame), we return, traversing the wetland once again.
I asked this mama why she picks a new farm every year. Her reply, obviously enough, was because the fertility of the soil decreases. But within her answer I sensed a more engrained recognition that by shifting cultivation among 4 or 5 fields, she is more protecting the soil from degradation than reacting to a degraded soil. It gave me a new perspective on slash and burn, I have to say, seeing this melange of trees and other natural plants mixed with agricultural crops. Even when my counterpart asked me if I thought there would be problems with erosion because of farming on a steep hillside, I decided that probably not, because there was so much vegetation covering the ground, and what was remaining from the "slash" was left on the ground- smaller tree trunks and other plant debris. As an outsider, it is easy to look down on slash and burn as antiquated, even savage, or to romanticize it as natural or native. I recognize it's problems; as the human population increases, land becomes more scarce, augmented by the impending global climate change that will kill us all if we don't protect our forests. But as I trudged through the wetland on the way back out, I realized I had a new perspective on this traditional cultivation method. Also, I probably had schisto.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Vulgarisation
It hit me yesterday just how funny of a translation 'extension' is in French. This as I was cutting grasses (herbes) taller than I with a machete just sharp enough to give me a blister. This was done for an hour at 7 am, followed by a short break, and then we headed off to another field to fill a truck with ears of corn cut earlier. Finally, off to meet the regional delegate for promotion of women and families because when you talk about agriculture in Africa, you are talking about women. So, it was a good day.
What is it like, starting off as a volunteer (3 weeks in, as of today)? Well, I spent Sunday on a moto riding out to a village about 20km from me, which took about an hour. This, of course, involves stopping along the way to say hello with my counterpart to his family and friends. And around here, everyone is family or at least introduced that way. The village of Abiere has an active farming GIC, or community, with the chef, who is wonderful. This is where the water project will be, and I also will work with the GIC to get more soy going and maybe (just maybe?) get them to plant improved fallow trees in the field so they don't have to clear new land every year. We walked about 10 minutes through the jungle (no joke) to get to the field, stood around and talked shop for a while about what they are doing, what they want to do, and then turned around and headed back. On the way out of the field, the mama, not the two men who were leading the pack, took a large chunk of tree, presumably firewood, on her head to carry it back home. If there is going to be a revolution here, it is going to start with the women. It has to.
And on our ride back home, we stopped, again, to say hello and to find a woman I will be working with on soy. While waiting for her, at the bar of course (where else?), we struck up conversation with a pygmy. That's right, a pygmy. Only I was convinced it was a joke because he was a few inches taller than me, and maybe you've heard, but the pygmies are little. But it turns out he moved here with his family and collects honey en bruce (that's out in the jungle). Cool! My first pygmy.
This past weekend was the mini-commis, South region, where everyone comes out to show off their produce. Which consisted mostly of plantains, cacao, pinapples, and various roots. There were also lots of dried fish, and live animals, including the porcepic, porc, cane rat (actually a large guinea pig), guinea pig, rabbits, goats ( including 2 that were born 5 minutes before my arrival and blindly tried to eat my pant leg), and chicken. This elevage group was off to one side and confined to a small area since animal elevage, for sale is relatively new. This marginalization of animal raisers was probably the biggest difference between the commis and a county fair back in the states, where animals are the raison d'etre. Pictures soon to come, I hope!!!
What is it like, starting off as a volunteer (3 weeks in, as of today)? Well, I spent Sunday on a moto riding out to a village about 20km from me, which took about an hour. This, of course, involves stopping along the way to say hello with my counterpart to his family and friends. And around here, everyone is family or at least introduced that way. The village of Abiere has an active farming GIC, or community, with the chef, who is wonderful. This is where the water project will be, and I also will work with the GIC to get more soy going and maybe (just maybe?) get them to plant improved fallow trees in the field so they don't have to clear new land every year. We walked about 10 minutes through the jungle (no joke) to get to the field, stood around and talked shop for a while about what they are doing, what they want to do, and then turned around and headed back. On the way out of the field, the mama, not the two men who were leading the pack, took a large chunk of tree, presumably firewood, on her head to carry it back home. If there is going to be a revolution here, it is going to start with the women. It has to.
And on our ride back home, we stopped, again, to say hello and to find a woman I will be working with on soy. While waiting for her, at the bar of course (where else?), we struck up conversation with a pygmy. That's right, a pygmy. Only I was convinced it was a joke because he was a few inches taller than me, and maybe you've heard, but the pygmies are little. But it turns out he moved here with his family and collects honey en bruce (that's out in the jungle). Cool! My first pygmy.
This past weekend was the mini-commis, South region, where everyone comes out to show off their produce. Which consisted mostly of plantains, cacao, pinapples, and various roots. There were also lots of dried fish, and live animals, including the porcepic, porc, cane rat (actually a large guinea pig), guinea pig, rabbits, goats ( including 2 that were born 5 minutes before my arrival and blindly tried to eat my pant leg), and chicken. This elevage group was off to one side and confined to a small area since animal elevage, for sale is relatively new. This marginalization of animal raisers was probably the biggest difference between the commis and a county fair back in the states, where animals are the raison d'etre. Pictures soon to come, I hope!!!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Article from NY Times (VOILA!)
Climate Talks Near Deal to Save Forests
The New York Times
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: December 15, 2009
COPENHAGEN — Negotiators have all but completed a sweeping deal that would compensate countries for preserving forests, and in some cases, other natural landscapes like peat soils, swamps and fields that play a crucial role in curbing climate change.
Recent developments on the politics of global warming with background, analysis, timelines and earlier events from NYTimes.com and Google.
Multimedia
Environmental groups have long advocated such a compensation program because forests are efficient absorbers of carbon dioxide, the primary heat-trapping gas linked to global warming. Rain forest destruction, which releases the carbon dioxide stored in trees, is estimated to account for 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally.
The agreement for the program, if signed as expected, may turn out to be the most significant achievement to come out of the Copenhagen climate talks, providing a system through which countries can be paid for conserving disappearing natural assets based on their contribution to reducing emissions.
A final draft of the agreement for the compensation program, called Reducing Emissions From Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD, is to be given on Wednesday to ministers of the nearly 200 countries represented here to hammer out a framework for a global climate treaty. Negotiators and other participants said that though some details remained to be worked out, all major points of disagreement — how to address the rights of indigenous people living on forest land and what is defined as forest, for example — had been resolved through compromise.
A final agreement on the program may not be announced until the end of the week, when President Obama and other world leaders arrive — in part because there has been so little progress on other issues at the climate summit meeting, sponsored by the United Nations.
“It is likely to be the most concrete thing that comes out of Copenhagen — and it is a very big thing,” said Fred Krupp, head of the Environmental Defense Fund.
For poorer countries, the payments will provide a much-needed new income stream. For richer nations, the lure of the program is not cash but carbon credits that can be used to cancel out, in part, their industrial emissions under a carbon trading system, like the cap-and-trade plan currently under consideration by Congress.
Forests “have become a pot of money or a get out of jail free card,” said Peg Putt, a consultant to the Wilderness Society. “Either way, there’s the prospect of financial benefit now, as opposed to just being told, ‘Do the right thing,’ like it was two years ago.”
The new plan represents an important shift from earlier United Nations climate programs, like the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, in which countries committed to curbing their industrial emissions but got no credit for reducing emissions through changes in land use.
The agreement is also being closely watched in Congress, where climate legislation passed the House in June and is currently stalled in the Senate.
Under the cap-and-trade system preferred by Democratic leaders and the Obama administration, companies that cannot meet their greenhouse gas pollution limit could buy extra permits by investing in carbon-reduction programs abroad. Plans to preserve forests under REDD would presumably qualify.
The forest program “offers the opportunities for U.S. companies to reduce emissions at lower cost, which is very important politically,” Mr. Krupp said.
Under the final draft of agreement, other habitats that absorb carbon dioxide — like peat bogs, which store large amounts of carbon dioxide in their soil — could be eligible for payments. This prospect has environmentalists scrambling to calculate the carbon storage capacity of other resources like swamps and fields, not for the sake of preserving beauty or biodiversity, but for their potential financial benefit.
“Why is everyone thinking about forest and peat land while overlooking oceans, the biggest carbon store on the planet?” said Dan Lafolley, marine vice chairman for the World Commission on Protected Areas of the Swiss-based International Union for the Conservation of Nature. “It would be a travesty if Copenhagen addressed forests but not other carbon stocks.”
The potential for payments has even pitted advocates for some types of forest against advocates for other types.
“Were not sure in Copenhagen there will be a definitive mechanism for monetizing forests, but if there is we think all forests should be included,” Steve Kallick, director of the Boreal Conservation Pew Environment Group, who studies northern forest stocks and noted that by some measures, boreal forests store twice as much carbon dioxide per unit as tropical forests.
Even if the ministers pass the agreement, as it is predicted they will, it will take some time before the money starts flowing. Many details remain to be worked out, including the exact level of emissions reduction the REDD program should aim for and by what date, and what system should be used to measure the carbon storage of various habitats.
Meanwhile, scientists and conservationists have flocked to Copenhagen to make their case.
“We’ve seen the idea of REDD start in forestry, but expand to other land use sectors,” Ms. Putt said.
Cary Fowler of the Global Crop Diversity Trust said he decided to come to Copenhagen when he saw no mention of crop diversity or agriculture in an earlier climate proposal.
“I thought I’d better come,” he said. “This negotiation will help decide what’s on the table — which issues are legitimate and which not.”
While progress was made on the forest program, little else was achieved at the bargaining tables here on Tuesday. A top United Nations official, asked to characterize the state of the talks, said simply, “Terrible.”
A new draft of a proposed global accord leaves critical questions unanswered: how deeply nations will cut their greenhouse gas emissions, how much money will flow to help poor nations adapt to global warming and how any environmental program will be monitored and verified.
“There’s a great deal yet to do,” said Todd Stern, the chief climate change envoy for the United States.
Mr. Stern also said that President Obama would not consider changing the American commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by about 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.
“It’s tied to legislation,” he said. “We don’t want to promise something we don’t have.”
Leaders have already abandoned hope of completing a binding international treaty here and say they will continue the work next year. Trying to infuse a sense of urgency, former Vice President Al Gore pressed the negotiators in an afternoon speech to speed up next year’s sessions with an eye toward completing a treaty in July. He also asked Mr. Obama and Senate leaders to set an April deadline for completing a Senate climate and energy bill.
Mr. Obama has been talking with a number of foreign officials in advance of his arrival here on Friday, the last scheduled day of the conference. He has spoken with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Ethiopia and Bangladesh since Monday, hoping to find a way to bridge the differences between the developed and developing countries that have divided this effort for years.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will arrive in Copenhagen on Thursday to help provide a final push toward agreement, a State Department official confirmed. She will stay until Mr. Obama departs, the official said.
Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the United Nations, addressed the delegates Tuesday night as they moved into the final days of negotiations.
“We do not have another year to deliberate,” he said. “Nature does not negotiate.”
John M. Broder contributed reporting.
The New York Times
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: December 15, 2009
COPENHAGEN — Negotiators have all but completed a sweeping deal that would compensate countries for preserving forests, and in some cases, other natural landscapes like peat soils, swamps and fields that play a crucial role in curbing climate change.
Recent developments on the politics of global warming with background, analysis, timelines and earlier events from NYTimes.com and Google.
Multimedia
Environmental groups have long advocated such a compensation program because forests are efficient absorbers of carbon dioxide, the primary heat-trapping gas linked to global warming. Rain forest destruction, which releases the carbon dioxide stored in trees, is estimated to account for 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally.
The agreement for the program, if signed as expected, may turn out to be the most significant achievement to come out of the Copenhagen climate talks, providing a system through which countries can be paid for conserving disappearing natural assets based on their contribution to reducing emissions.
A final draft of the agreement for the compensation program, called Reducing Emissions From Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD, is to be given on Wednesday to ministers of the nearly 200 countries represented here to hammer out a framework for a global climate treaty. Negotiators and other participants said that though some details remained to be worked out, all major points of disagreement — how to address the rights of indigenous people living on forest land and what is defined as forest, for example — had been resolved through compromise.
A final agreement on the program may not be announced until the end of the week, when President Obama and other world leaders arrive — in part because there has been so little progress on other issues at the climate summit meeting, sponsored by the United Nations.
“It is likely to be the most concrete thing that comes out of Copenhagen — and it is a very big thing,” said Fred Krupp, head of the Environmental Defense Fund.
For poorer countries, the payments will provide a much-needed new income stream. For richer nations, the lure of the program is not cash but carbon credits that can be used to cancel out, in part, their industrial emissions under a carbon trading system, like the cap-and-trade plan currently under consideration by Congress.
Forests “have become a pot of money or a get out of jail free card,” said Peg Putt, a consultant to the Wilderness Society. “Either way, there’s the prospect of financial benefit now, as opposed to just being told, ‘Do the right thing,’ like it was two years ago.”
The new plan represents an important shift from earlier United Nations climate programs, like the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, in which countries committed to curbing their industrial emissions but got no credit for reducing emissions through changes in land use.
The agreement is also being closely watched in Congress, where climate legislation passed the House in June and is currently stalled in the Senate.
Under the cap-and-trade system preferred by Democratic leaders and the Obama administration, companies that cannot meet their greenhouse gas pollution limit could buy extra permits by investing in carbon-reduction programs abroad. Plans to preserve forests under REDD would presumably qualify.
The forest program “offers the opportunities for U.S. companies to reduce emissions at lower cost, which is very important politically,” Mr. Krupp said.
Under the final draft of agreement, other habitats that absorb carbon dioxide — like peat bogs, which store large amounts of carbon dioxide in their soil — could be eligible for payments. This prospect has environmentalists scrambling to calculate the carbon storage capacity of other resources like swamps and fields, not for the sake of preserving beauty or biodiversity, but for their potential financial benefit.
“Why is everyone thinking about forest and peat land while overlooking oceans, the biggest carbon store on the planet?” said Dan Lafolley, marine vice chairman for the World Commission on Protected Areas of the Swiss-based International Union for the Conservation of Nature. “It would be a travesty if Copenhagen addressed forests but not other carbon stocks.”
The potential for payments has even pitted advocates for some types of forest against advocates for other types.
“Were not sure in Copenhagen there will be a definitive mechanism for monetizing forests, but if there is we think all forests should be included,” Steve Kallick, director of the Boreal Conservation Pew Environment Group, who studies northern forest stocks and noted that by some measures, boreal forests store twice as much carbon dioxide per unit as tropical forests.
Even if the ministers pass the agreement, as it is predicted they will, it will take some time before the money starts flowing. Many details remain to be worked out, including the exact level of emissions reduction the REDD program should aim for and by what date, and what system should be used to measure the carbon storage of various habitats.
Meanwhile, scientists and conservationists have flocked to Copenhagen to make their case.
“We’ve seen the idea of REDD start in forestry, but expand to other land use sectors,” Ms. Putt said.
Cary Fowler of the Global Crop Diversity Trust said he decided to come to Copenhagen when he saw no mention of crop diversity or agriculture in an earlier climate proposal.
“I thought I’d better come,” he said. “This negotiation will help decide what’s on the table — which issues are legitimate and which not.”
While progress was made on the forest program, little else was achieved at the bargaining tables here on Tuesday. A top United Nations official, asked to characterize the state of the talks, said simply, “Terrible.”
A new draft of a proposed global accord leaves critical questions unanswered: how deeply nations will cut their greenhouse gas emissions, how much money will flow to help poor nations adapt to global warming and how any environmental program will be monitored and verified.
“There’s a great deal yet to do,” said Todd Stern, the chief climate change envoy for the United States.
Mr. Stern also said that President Obama would not consider changing the American commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by about 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.
“It’s tied to legislation,” he said. “We don’t want to promise something we don’t have.”
Leaders have already abandoned hope of completing a binding international treaty here and say they will continue the work next year. Trying to infuse a sense of urgency, former Vice President Al Gore pressed the negotiators in an afternoon speech to speed up next year’s sessions with an eye toward completing a treaty in July. He also asked Mr. Obama and Senate leaders to set an April deadline for completing a Senate climate and energy bill.
Mr. Obama has been talking with a number of foreign officials in advance of his arrival here on Friday, the last scheduled day of the conference. He has spoken with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Ethiopia and Bangladesh since Monday, hoping to find a way to bridge the differences between the developed and developing countries that have divided this effort for years.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will arrive in Copenhagen on Thursday to help provide a final push toward agreement, a State Department official confirmed. She will stay until Mr. Obama departs, the official said.
Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the United Nations, addressed the delegates Tuesday night as they moved into the final days of negotiations.
“We do not have another year to deliberate,” he said. “Nature does not negotiate.”
John M. Broder contributed reporting.
Voila!
Voila, my word of the next two years. It works wonderfully, in lieu of actual words to help in my expression of things like, "Exactly," "There you go," and just general agreement. One can use it multiple times to the point of annoyance. Hence the joy.
So, for those of you who have been dying to know... I have just around 102 weeks of service left. To say that things are starting off slow would be an understatement. First off, it is the month of fete de Noel. This means people are guarding money for either/or XMas or New Years, I am assuming. I will see how people en village celebrate the holidays. All I do know is that I bring utter confusion when I tell people I don't fete de Noel. Mama's are off to the champs early in the morning to harvest arachides (peanuts), mais (corn), and it appears as though the start of the soja (soy) harvest will start soon. So what exactly will I, as a PCV be doing? That is a good question...
Here in the South, land of abundant forest, people practice shifting agriculture, slash and burn specifically. With impending population pressure, as can be seen throughout the Western region, land will eventually become a scarcity and forests will no longer exist as they do now. I have two counterparts. One is Serges, who every past volunteer has praised for his hardwork. I learn more and more how helpful he will be during my service. The other is an ONG (NGO), CAAPRO. Judith and Solange will be my main contacts here, and they are both incredibly hardworking, dynamic, and kind people. My primary projects, as I have discussed with my supervisor will include 1) Continuing with the Soja project. By getting mama's to plant soja with other staple crops like manioc, mais, plantains, they can improve the health of their soil, they wont have to move fields every year, and as well all know, it is delicious and a good source of protein. 2) Integrating local trees for their non-timber forest products into cacao fields to stagger the income revenue/food source for families. As I saw during site visit, at prime cacao harvest time, men have a ton of money and spend it faster than I can even imagine. So, by integrating selective shade- giving trees (shea butter, the african prune-a local delicacy, wild mango) into the melange, because cacao requires shade, the cacao business can become better for the whole family. 3) A water project or two. 4) I have the luck of being at the site of the first national agro expo in 20 years. It is kind of a big deal, lots of opportunity to work with my village to show all of Cameroon how great farming in the South can be. And other possibilities.
For right now, life is going. I am learning that the neighbor kids are my saving grace. Without them coming in to my house and coloring for hours on end, I don't know how I would get by. They helped me build a fence of bamboo (a NASTY invasive here) for a small garden to protect veggies from les chevres et les muttons du chef, because the not very highly respected chef of the village lets his goats and sheep run crazy all over the village. I have a neighbor farmer who has a fish pond/porc/mais system set up (mais and household waste feeds the porc, porc waste feeds the fish), and I think he and his family will be good farmer leaders.
Today (or tommorrow, according to different sources) is the start of the regional agropastoral expo, so I will check that out and make new contacts, I am sure. For those of you in the cold, it is between 70 and 85 degrees everyday, with 85 percent humidity. Kind of gross, but better than fighting the bitter cold. Hopefully my next post will be more eventful. And each post for the next 102 weeks.
So, for those of you who have been dying to know... I have just around 102 weeks of service left. To say that things are starting off slow would be an understatement. First off, it is the month of fete de Noel. This means people are guarding money for either/or XMas or New Years, I am assuming. I will see how people en village celebrate the holidays. All I do know is that I bring utter confusion when I tell people I don't fete de Noel. Mama's are off to the champs early in the morning to harvest arachides (peanuts), mais (corn), and it appears as though the start of the soja (soy) harvest will start soon. So what exactly will I, as a PCV be doing? That is a good question...
Here in the South, land of abundant forest, people practice shifting agriculture, slash and burn specifically. With impending population pressure, as can be seen throughout the Western region, land will eventually become a scarcity and forests will no longer exist as they do now. I have two counterparts. One is Serges, who every past volunteer has praised for his hardwork. I learn more and more how helpful he will be during my service. The other is an ONG (NGO), CAAPRO. Judith and Solange will be my main contacts here, and they are both incredibly hardworking, dynamic, and kind people. My primary projects, as I have discussed with my supervisor will include 1) Continuing with the Soja project. By getting mama's to plant soja with other staple crops like manioc, mais, plantains, they can improve the health of their soil, they wont have to move fields every year, and as well all know, it is delicious and a good source of protein. 2) Integrating local trees for their non-timber forest products into cacao fields to stagger the income revenue/food source for families. As I saw during site visit, at prime cacao harvest time, men have a ton of money and spend it faster than I can even imagine. So, by integrating selective shade- giving trees (shea butter, the african prune-a local delicacy, wild mango) into the melange, because cacao requires shade, the cacao business can become better for the whole family. 3) A water project or two. 4) I have the luck of being at the site of the first national agro expo in 20 years. It is kind of a big deal, lots of opportunity to work with my village to show all of Cameroon how great farming in the South can be. And other possibilities.
For right now, life is going. I am learning that the neighbor kids are my saving grace. Without them coming in to my house and coloring for hours on end, I don't know how I would get by. They helped me build a fence of bamboo (a NASTY invasive here) for a small garden to protect veggies from les chevres et les muttons du chef, because the not very highly respected chef of the village lets his goats and sheep run crazy all over the village. I have a neighbor farmer who has a fish pond/porc/mais system set up (mais and household waste feeds the porc, porc waste feeds the fish), and I think he and his family will be good farmer leaders.
Today (or tommorrow, according to different sources) is the start of the regional agropastoral expo, so I will check that out and make new contacts, I am sure. For those of you in the cold, it is between 70 and 85 degrees everyday, with 85 percent humidity. Kind of gross, but better than fighting the bitter cold. Hopefully my next post will be more eventful. And each post for the next 102 weeks.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
An ode to my homestay family
31 new volunteers. 16 health, 15 agro. We swore in as Peace Corps volunteers on Wednesday in a bittersweet ceremony. Our homestay families were there, the director, the ambassador, the mayor, and other VIPs. It felt a little bit like high school graduation in that there were lots of pictures to be taken, lots of people to say hello and goodbye to, lots of bright red lipstick on my cheeks, and even fake, plastic flowers (yes!).
In considering these past few months of my life, aside from the relationships that I have developed with the other stagieres (er... volunteers), it has really been my experience in homestay that helped me learn a lot about myself and about Cameroon. In particular, it was my little brother and little sister who helped me learn about and love Cameroon. Here it goes, this may be brief, but I hope it helps (myself).
Elvine. It took me a long time to learn your pet name; Bibish. You are already so much like Mama- strong willed (forte). I will always remember morning, walking out of the house to go to the bathroom, the sun rising from beyond the hill, sky red, orange, pink. There you are. Completely naked. Bathing on a metal sheet. You have no idea how this outdoor bath is exceptionally beautiful, filled with plaintain trees and birds. In this memory you are smiling, always happy to see me. You're 11, ready to become a woman any day, and yet nudity (in the morning at bath, in the evening just because) does not phase you. This I love about you- your comfort in your body, your self-confidence. Even when I tell you that I am not a Catholic, you tell me that I am, convinced that my wonder at the clear night skies of Bangante results from my faith in Jesus. I loved you that second week in Bangante when you went on a run with me and Andrea past the chefferie and you ran in your nice school loafers. And when you refused to eat the tomato soup that Julie and I made together for the larger family, because one always eats pasta with sauce, not soup with pasta. And when you changed the chant of my name from a sing-songy "Lauren, Lauren, Lauren" to a less enchanting nickname, which I can only type as "poopy net" which roughly means childhood stuffed animal; I have never been so proud to have such an embarrasing nickname. You're beautiful, you're forte dans la tete, you're my little sister.
Chrislain. Tibo. My favorite memory of you involves you, butt-naked, standing at the water faucet, completely covered in suds, with a huge grin on your face. So happy with life, so happy to say my name. You dance under the water, a well deserved bath after spending most of the afternoon playing football. When I ask you what you did today, the answer is always, inevitabley, "I climbed the guava tree, and I played." And I can tell that you climbed the guava tree because your pockets are completely filled with guavas, green and hard, but red and semi-sweet on the inside-the way I have come to love guavas these past few months. And I can tell that you played because your clothes are covered in dirt or mud, depending on the last rain. Your clothes are the rouge color of Bangante soil-such a rich red color that one must thrash their clothes on the cement to wash them. And Tibo, everytime you fell asleep on the couch and refused to go to bed, I yelled at you, but I completely remember what that was like as a child, an 8 year old.
Upon leaving, I realized how sad I will be. But excited to start working, excited to make new friends and learn a new city. Hopefully new, exciting things will happen and my blog posts will get better.
In considering these past few months of my life, aside from the relationships that I have developed with the other stagieres (er... volunteers), it has really been my experience in homestay that helped me learn a lot about myself and about Cameroon. In particular, it was my little brother and little sister who helped me learn about and love Cameroon. Here it goes, this may be brief, but I hope it helps (myself).
Elvine. It took me a long time to learn your pet name; Bibish. You are already so much like Mama- strong willed (forte). I will always remember morning, walking out of the house to go to the bathroom, the sun rising from beyond the hill, sky red, orange, pink. There you are. Completely naked. Bathing on a metal sheet. You have no idea how this outdoor bath is exceptionally beautiful, filled with plaintain trees and birds. In this memory you are smiling, always happy to see me. You're 11, ready to become a woman any day, and yet nudity (in the morning at bath, in the evening just because) does not phase you. This I love about you- your comfort in your body, your self-confidence. Even when I tell you that I am not a Catholic, you tell me that I am, convinced that my wonder at the clear night skies of Bangante results from my faith in Jesus. I loved you that second week in Bangante when you went on a run with me and Andrea past the chefferie and you ran in your nice school loafers. And when you refused to eat the tomato soup that Julie and I made together for the larger family, because one always eats pasta with sauce, not soup with pasta. And when you changed the chant of my name from a sing-songy "Lauren, Lauren, Lauren" to a less enchanting nickname, which I can only type as "poopy net" which roughly means childhood stuffed animal; I have never been so proud to have such an embarrasing nickname. You're beautiful, you're forte dans la tete, you're my little sister.
Chrislain. Tibo. My favorite memory of you involves you, butt-naked, standing at the water faucet, completely covered in suds, with a huge grin on your face. So happy with life, so happy to say my name. You dance under the water, a well deserved bath after spending most of the afternoon playing football. When I ask you what you did today, the answer is always, inevitabley, "I climbed the guava tree, and I played." And I can tell that you climbed the guava tree because your pockets are completely filled with guavas, green and hard, but red and semi-sweet on the inside-the way I have come to love guavas these past few months. And I can tell that you played because your clothes are covered in dirt or mud, depending on the last rain. Your clothes are the rouge color of Bangante soil-such a rich red color that one must thrash their clothes on the cement to wash them. And Tibo, everytime you fell asleep on the couch and refused to go to bed, I yelled at you, but I completely remember what that was like as a child, an 8 year old.
Upon leaving, I realized how sad I will be. But excited to start working, excited to make new friends and learn a new city. Hopefully new, exciting things will happen and my blog posts will get better.
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