IST in Kribi

After the volunteers in each stage have finished their first three months at post, Peace Corps holds a week of additional training called IST (Inter Service Training). Our IST was held the second week of December near the seaside town of Kribi.

IST is a chance to review everyone's progress at post, talk about problems and successes people are having, and review medical and security training we had during stage. And of course, it's a chance to get another round of shots from the Peace Corps medics.

There are also workshops on developing secondary projects and working with our Cameroonian colleagues. (Each of us was asked to invite a Cameroonian counterpart for the first half of the week.) I usually work pretty independently at school but I brought Souaibou (pronounced swy-boo) - he does a little of everything at the university and since he's chronically overworked I thought bringing him would give him a break. To my surprise they actually let him go.

Outside of town are beautiful beaches to the north and south with lots of beach side hotels, resorts, restaurants, and even a golf course, which cater mostly to foreign tourists (primarily Europeans). Most of the locals assumed we were either French or German.

Cameroonians are not swimmers. I was told that swimming is considered something for children, not adults. One of the counterparts told us that in Kribi there is a local legend about a spirit called "Mami Water" (or maybe it was Mami Water?). If you go swimming in the ocean, you might catch Mami Wata's eye. If you do, she will follow you to shore, and then, when you are at a party or a bar she will approach you in the form of a beautiful woman and seduce you. When you take her home she will reveal herself as Mami Wata and drag you off under the sea as her slave. Makes sense to me.

This was the first time Souaibou had ever been to the ocean. I tried to get him to try swimming. No dice. Best I could do was get him to walk in the surf a bit.

We stayed at one of these hotels. It had great food, air conditioned rooms (first time I've been in air conditioning in months), and was about a three minute walk from the beach. Clean too. It also had some nice courtyards and meeting rooms.

The hotel bar had a keyboard and microphone and two guys who didn't know the words or music to any of the songs they played. I think the keyboard player was playing the same tune to every song anyone sang. They did have Karaoke night though. I sang a truly horrendous rendition of "I Want to Know What Love is" by Foreigner. Volunteer Parker owes me a beer for that one. The best act of the night was Volunteer Ben, who sang a Gilbert and Sullivan number.

Training was decent - it was especially helpful to hear the stories and experiences of other volunteers. We spent a lot of time swapping teaching tactics and talking shop. It was also great to see everyone again. I had a good time getting to know people during training and after three months apart it was good to catch up again.

Our schedule for the week consisted of training sessions and meetings for most of the day (usually til about 4 pm) followed by a trip to the beach and swimming until dark (about 6ish here), and then dinner in town later in the evening. The beaches were great. Water was nice and warm.
We found a nice beach close to our hotel that had a small bar just off the beach, so we did some swimming and then hung out in the bar having a few drinks and watching the sun go down.

Didn't care for the town much. Since it's a tourist burg, the locals pretty aggressively hassle the tourists - street vendors coming up to us during dinner to sell us stuff, beggars, etc. It's also Cameroon's second port (the big one is Douala) so a lot of it had a gritty feel to it. Of course, most of Cameroon has a gritty feel to it, so maybe I was just imagining it. Or maybe Kribi has extra grit. I'm not sure.

One night we were hassled at a bar by one of the local fous. "Fou" means "crazy" in French, so in Cameroon one refers to crazy homeless people as "fous." Ours had fake white hair and a fake white beard painted on. I'm not sure but I think it might have been shaving cream. He was awesome.
Here Volunteer Bill flashes his gang sign while Volunteer Sarah isn't paying attention and Hans (Bill's counterpart) looks on with bemusement.

Since Kribi's on the ocean you could get fresh fish from the street vendors, which is what we had most nights. Ladies with buckets of fish and grills line up on the street selling braziered (i.e. grilled) fish. The normal procedure is to find a lady, have her show you the uncooked fish, haggle over price, then you go sit down in one of the nearby bars and have a beer and when she's done she has a kid bring it to you and you pick it apart and eat it with your hands. It's been gutted, but otherwise all the scales and fins and head are there. I had barracuda one night (pictured). It
was pretty good.
One night in town we had a moment that reminded us of one of the reasons we joined the Peace Corps. One night some of the other volunteers were having dinner at one of the local bars and a Cameroonian approached them. From overhearing their conversation he had figured out they were Peace Corps volunteers. He went on to tell them that when he was a kid in school (he was in his 40s or 50s) he had a Peace Corps volunteer as a teacher. Not only were they apparently a good teacher, but they helped him out by paying his school fees one year when his family didn't have the money. As a result he was able to finish school and went on to become an electrician. After telling them all how much he liked Peace Corps and Americans he bought them all a round and left. Cool story, huh?

We had a whole day off while we were there, so we split into groups and headed to the Lobe falls. The Lobe is a river that runs into the ocean a few kilometers south of Kribi. What's interesting about it is that it ends in waterfalls that flow directly into the ocean. Apparently there are only a few places in the world where that happens. There are also some nice beaches nearby.

Transportation in Cameroon is always an interesting experience. In this case, when we tried to find a taxi to the falls, to save money we all jammed into one taxi. There were eight of us. In a beat up old Toyota corolla. Good thing we all showered beforehand.

After arriving and massaging the feeling back into various body parts, we walked to the falls, which were pretty cool.

Along the way, various locals offered to take us out onto the ocean or up the river in their boats. They excitedly offered to take us to a Pygmy village, which I'm told was a big, depressing rip-off. Other groups went up the river, I got tired of haggling and went to the beach instead.

After swimming for a while, we set off in search of food. We found a neat little restaurant on some rocks over the water. The kitchen was up on top of the rock, and the seating was on shelf below it, and not far past the table was the ocean. We shared a giant platter of shrimp cooked in oil and garlic, another giant platter of fish, and a huge heap of fried plantains that we all shared. It was all quite good. It took a while since they had to go get the food and drinks so we hung out
playing Uno until it was ready.
After dinner we took a taxi ride home that was even more crowded than the first. Since it's outside of town and there aren't many taxis by the falls, we took the driver's number and he agreed to come back for us. We told him to find another taxi driver in town and bring an extra car, but I guess he decided he wanted the cash all to himself. So this time it was ten of us in the same corolla. We all had trouble walking after we got back. With that big a load the bottom of the car was scraping the ground most of the way. The driver had the nerve to complain that we had broken his car and ask for more money. Our response was that he was the one who was dumb enough to put ten people in a frigging corolla.

We had one more day of training and beach time after that, and then we were off. It was a great trip but I was pretty tired by the time I got back to post. Sick too. That's why I ended up just staying home and relaxing for the holidays.

The end of IST was also a little sad, as it was the last time in a while I'll see many of my friends from training since we are scattered all over the country. Oh well, I guess at least we'll all have that many more interesting stories to tell the next time we see each other.