Secret Cults in Cameroonian Schools

As I was saying, magic is real here. Don't mess with magic. From one of Buea's hometown newspapers, The Post (their office is not far from mine - many of their reporters post stories from the cyber cafe I use), comes this "can't make this stuff up" story:

Students tangle with the occult because most of them are always finding shortcuts to success.The ideals of hard work, discipline and selfless dedication to God as the path to profound success that pastors, priests and teachers profess, is often ignored by wayward students in search of material gains. Children of this calibre are easy prey for the devil.

Awesome.

"What was left was tiny"

Saw this story a while ago and saved the link but forgot to post it until now.

Ah, Africa... where magic is no joke.

The Village of Waiting

I just finished reading the Peace Corps memoir The Village of Waiting by journalist George Packer a few days ago. So far it's both the best book about the experience of being a Peace Corps volunteer I've read and an incredibly insightful look at West African culture. Packer is an excellent writer and the book is an engrossing read. He served in Togo, but most of what he wrote about Togo could just as easily apply to Cameroon. While reading this book I constantly found myself saying "Yep... been there, done that." In the future I'll probably find myself liberally quoting from this book when I want to explain either something about Africa or about what it feels like to be a (white) Peace Corps volunteer in Africa. If anyone out there has the inclination to, I can't recommend this book highly enough.

First Weeks in Buea

The last few weeks have been pretty busy. Here's the rundown:

• Trying to get your power or water turned on in Cameroon is an ordeal that might be described as both Sysiphean and Kafkaesque at the same time. Wait around all day at the office to be told there are no meters available, or that there are meters but no technicians to come install them today, or that you are missing some document or stamp or didn't dot an i on the application form, or that you didn't pay for the technician's "transport" (i.e. the bribe necessary to get underpaid utility company emplyees to come to your house and do the job they're supposed to be doing). Fortunately it only took me a week to get the lights turned on so I could move in after that. Unfortunately, I've had worse luck with water. It's been a whole month now and I still have no running water. I've been going to the water company several times a week but there's always a different story for why there are no meters available today. Trying to get my water hooked up has turned out to be almost a full time job by itself. The supervisor for my buidling has been carrying jugs of water for me periodically. My neighbors have also helped me out and let me fill some containers. So, I'm getting enough water to wash (albeit not as often as I'd like) and flush the toilet but that's about it. Sigh...
• Since I switched my focus from teaching to working in a business development role, I spent a week in training with the newest group of volunteers in the village of Bangangté getting brought up to speed on some of the technical aspects of the Peace Corps' Small Enterprise Development program. I spent some quality time with Peace Corps trainers and volunteers getting oriented and had a good time getting to know the new kids on the block. Fun week, but the trips there and back were long and tiring.
• Been hanging out with Bill and my new post-mate Jessamyn (another volunteer in town) a bit, meeting their friends and colleagues and getting to know Buea, which so far has mostly meant getting to know where the best stores, restaurants, and bars are located.
• In between all that I've started doing some work with Linkup, my host institution in Buea. They are a rapidly growing NGO in the process of reorganizing. The first phase of this involved the physical overhaul of their office and their cybercafe.(They own a cyber cafe which provides the revenue to keep the lights on and fund their charitable activities.) Bill and I helped out for several days of manual labor, painting, running power and network cables, holding stuff, cleaning and repairing PCs, and finally helping to get all the machines back online so the place could reopen. I've started working on revamping the group's internal procedures and putting in place a better system of accounting and financial management. I'm also working with them and some would-be microfinance rainmakers to start a microcredit program the NGO can use to give loans to poor members of the community in order to help them start or expand income generating activities.

So, that's what I've been up to the last few weeks. Busy busy. Lack of water aside, all is well.

Happy Birthday America

Hope everyone back home is having a good Independence Day. In between cheeseburgers try to remember what it's all about. Have a fun and safe holiday.

Moved

Well, once again I've been delinquent in posting, partly because of a bad connection in Nanga, partly because I've been busy and mobile, and maybe due to a little blog fatigue. At any rate, I've finally left Nanga Eboko and moved to my new post, Buea, in the Southwest Province.

My last few weeks in Nanga were busy:

• I continued tutoring students using the donated computers I got last year. I actually managed to get a fair amount of teaching done before leaving. Mission accomplished.
  
• I finished up all of my grading, corrections, make up exams, and other paperwork for the semester. Tedious but necessary.
  
• One of Peace Corps' technical trainers is a Cameroonian computer teacher. He's been writing a series of basic computer textbooks for use in Cameroonian high schools. Since the country is bilingual, he needed someone to provide an English translation of one of his books for use in schools in the English speaking part of the country. I'd been working on it off and on for months, but finally wrapped it up and gave it to him a few weeks ago.
• I spent a lot of time with friends and saying goodbye to people. I was given a nice going away party by my colleagues at the University. Two women I know in town tried to convince me to take a porcupine with me as a gift for my father when I go back to the states. Uh, yeah. (An aside: porcupine is popular bush meat in southern Cameroon. It's actually pretty tasty - tastes kind of like pork but a bit stronger.)
  

While I was a little sad to leave my friends and students, I was also ready to leave Nanga and move on to something better. After spending a week in Yaoundé for medical examinations (they tell me I'm healthy) and a lot of paperwork, I finally moved to Buea a few days ago. I am gradually getting to know the town better and have already started to discuss my work for the next year with Roland, my new boss at the local NGO, Linkup, where I will be working.

I have a nice apartment already rented and am just waiting for the landlady to finish a bit of work and hook up the utilities before I move in. I'll post pictures after I've moved in. For the moment I'm staying with Bill and living out of suitcases. Next week I will go to the village of Bangangté (where the latest group of volunteers are in training) for a week of training in Peace Corps' Small Enterprise Development program.

So, for the moment, everything is in flux and I'm feeling a bit homeless: out of Nanga but not yet settled in Buea. But, I suppose that's normal. So far so good for year three.