So a lot of time of passed since I last wrote, but it has been a bit of a whirlwind since training ended and I got to post. The entire process of moving from one stage to the next was a bit abrupt. Saying goodbye to my family was especially difficult. Right before we left we built a “foyer ameliore” together. It is an improved cookstove which creates more of oven than the fire they typically cook with. It helps reduce smoke intake, uses less wood and looks nice! It was great to get my hands dirty and do something truly productive for the family. I walked to the fields with my mother to collect dry grass and she was so proud of what we were doing together. Neighbors kept stopping by all day and my sister and brother were able to really show off their skills as they go to the masonry high school. It was the most productive day I had in Cameroon.
So I just spent the first week alone at my post. I tell you putting a house together in the states is a challenge, but with language barriers, bargaining and lugging everything around on motorcycles and what are basically wheelbarrows, I am exhausted. I think have created quite a scene this past week lugging giant plastic bowls and wooden beds around town. I spent two days painting the living room and kitchen. Although it was a bit of a herculean feat, it was quite hilarious to have people come by the house and watch with wonder my act of painting inside. Some young guys earnestly asked “do girls/women in America do this often?” But it opened a great door to come by the next day and help some new friends paint their place. It felt good to be of some use, even if it didn’t have anything to do with development or health work! But after eating crackers and peanut butter for a week, I have proper stove, gas tank and table to cook on. My first meal I think I ate in 20 seconds because it was so great to eat food I really wanted to eat.
So typically Cameroonians just burn their trash here. In my neighborhood if you throw something out the neighborhood children sift through it all. It is actually a pretty environmentally sustainable process, well except for the burning of plastic in the same vicinity where small children play. So the day the previous volunteer moved all of her stuff out of the house, I assume some of her Cameroonian family members helped throw things out and left some toilettries in a pile. So a half hour after the house has been purged and I am alone, three small girls return with a display of goods on the porch. There are a few bottles of contact solution, some lotion and well, a bottle of vaginal cream. The oldest girl asks in French that her mother wants to know what all these things are for. So here I am with an audience of neighborhood children staring wide-eyed. I explain the contact solution is medicine for your eyes but you can wash the bottles out and use them for something else, the lotion for your skin and then I am speechless. I can’t find a way to explain the vaginal cream, even if the mother was to use it for something. I also don’t want to ignore it and have the girls spread it on their faces or something. So I quickly take it back and burn it immediately. I like to think they were none the wiser.
I have a great marche in town open everyday. There is also a smaller marche only with food products at the end of my street. But the first time I went there I was the only shopper at the time and truly felt a million eyes on me, so now I go to the big show. Generally veggies and fruit are sold at small fruit stalls, there are always tomatoes, garlic, onions, peppers, bananas, oranges, herbs and dry goods. Lately I have seen green beans and eggplants so I am pretty content with my options. My new obsession is the grilled fish here. They are typically carp or capitaine fish, which are rubbed with a salt spice mixture and grilled. Then they give you some mayonnaise and a chile sauce with these battons of maize, which when I first ate thought they were rubbery sticks of starch, but have come to love. I could eat this fish everyday. I am in love.
For Christmas Cameroonians dress in their new clothes and basically just saunter around town visiting friends and family. So I did the same. I went to a party at the pastor’s house with filled with soda, tons of food and Spaceballs in French. Although it was a bit chillier than normal, but really it didn’t feel a thing like Christmas. I had to keep reminding myself, well that and cheesy Christmas carols being played in between Ne-yo and Usher songs and a few tinsel trees sold in the marche. I guess New Years is a big deal here too, well have to see if it can live up to epic years past.
