Happy X-Mas from Cameroon

We've got lots of Christmas lights and fake plastic trees up around Buea (seriously) and everyone is wishing everyone else a "Happy X-mas." Tonight should see lots of partying around town - usually Christmas Eve is when everyone goes out drinking with their friends. Tomorrow people will be spending the holiday with their families and friends. I've had several invitations so I'll be moving between several different places over the course of the day and night. I anticipate a long, steady, gorging process.

Hope everyone out there is enjoying the holidays! Best wishes from Cameroon.

Oh, Goody

Just what Cameroon needs: rebels.

Busy today trying to wrap things up before Christmas but I'll try to post more on the tortured recent history of the Bakassi peninsula after the holiday.

Fortunately I don't think there's any danger to me or any other Peace Corps volunteers - we're nowhere near this area. Just to be on the safe side though Peace Corps has given us orders to stay away from the beach for the next few weeks. Hopefully nothing will come of this.

Back to the Lecture Hall

VisiCalc: On the bleeding edge of technology

After my time at the university in Nanga, I thought I was probably done with the college scene here in Cameroon. Not quite. A member of my NGO's board of directors is an economics professor at the University of Buea (located here in ... Buea). A few weeks ago he invited Bill and I to give presentations on business and technology at a seminar for his students. So, last Wednesday we went before an audience of several hundred UB students (mostly economics, business, and accounting and finance majors) in a packed lecture hall.

Fortunately, we had technology on our side. The school had loaned us a projector, so we were able to set up a laptop and use PowerPoint for our presentations. I even got to include the cool VisiCalc screen shot above.

There were presentations by our host on the stock market (interesting) and by another Cameroonian professor on risk management (booooring). Bill gave a talk with lots of cool illustrations and animations and some video on how credit card transactions and online retail work (credit cards and online retail are not common here in Cameroon - the economy usually works on a strictly cash basis). I followed him with presentation introducing the use of information technology in corporate accounting and reporting. I gave a bit of history, then talked about spreadsheets as an essential accounting and reporting tool. After demonstrating how a spreadsheet works using Excel, I then moved on to a discussion of different types of accounting software packages from Quicken to SAP and some of the advantages and challenges of using them. I capped off the presentation with a demonstration of QuickBooks as an example of a simple accounting program.

The students seemed interested and we took some good questions at the end. All in all I thought it was a successful evening. It felt good to be back in the classroom.

The CAMTEL Customer Service Model

Customer service is a bit of an oxymoron in Cameroon. For whatever reason, most Cameroonians don't get the idea of customer service. Generally service here is slow and surly.

Recently, however, an incident involving CAMTEL (the Cameroonian telephone company) brought lousy customer service to a new level. Thankfully, CAMTEL is modern enough to be able to provide DSL service in Buea and other select areas of the country. The organization where I work has a CAMTEL DSL line which we use to power our cyber cafe. It can be a bit slow at times but is generally pretty reliable. We also have a land line provided by CAMTEL. (Most Cameroonians now just have cell phones using service provided by MTN or Orange, the two big cell phone service providers. Land lines are actually rare.)

A couple of months ago, our land line stopped working. The boss called CAMTEL to have them send a technician to see what was wrong. The technician showed up and after playing with some wiring got the land line working again. However, in the process he inadvertently screwed up and cut the DSL wire, so we lost the internet. Since the cyber cafe is the component of the NGO that keeps us in business, not having an internet connection was, shall we say, a tad inconvenient.

After repeated calls, the boss got the technician to come back and basically told him to just undo whatever he had done. Which the technician did - shutting the phone back off but at least getting our internet working again. He then presented us with a hand written receipt for 20,000 francs CFA for the work he just did. In other words, he was billing us to fix the damage he himself had caused. Furthermore, the bill wasn't even a legitimate CAMTEL bill, it was just him freelancing trying to extort money from, allegedly because we made him come out on a Saturday. Boo hoo. To add insult to injury, our phone line still wasn't working.

Understandably upset, our boss refused to pay the bill. The technician left but came back several times in the following weeks to demand payment. He was politely turned away each time.

Then, about two weeks ago, our internet connection went down. Occasional service interruptions are not uncommon here, so at first we didn't think much of it. Just one of Cameroon's many little inconveniences. But as our down time stretched from minutes to hours and then into two days, we realized something was seriously wrong. After checking our network and all our wiring to verify that the problem was not on our end, we called CAMTEL for help.

A team of CAMTEL technicians (including the one who had demanded payment for fixing his own mistake) came and started looking for the problem. After climbing the telephone pole, they discovered that the line had been disconnected.

At that point, the technician who'd screwed up our connection the last time announced that he was the one who had disconnected the line on his own time because we didn't want to pay him. His colleagues were just as shocked as we were. This was a really really dumb move, even for Cameroon. When our boss threatened to take it to his supervisor at CAMTEL, the other technicians begged him not to, because telling his boss would get him immediately fired. Of course, when I heard this my response was, "That's the point isn't it? This bastard should be fired."

However, my boss is a much kinder and more forgiving person than I am, so he decided to let the guy go and just drop the whole matter. He did however keep a copy of the guy's illegal handwritten bill as evidence. If the guy ever tries it again he'll immediately take it to the technician's supervisor and have him fired.

Ah, Cameroon, where service technicians demand bribes to fix the mistakes they themselves make. What a country.

Scribbles From The Den

Recently I came across Scribbles From the Den, the blog of a Cameroonian writer named Dibussi Tande. He posts both original material and also news articles and other blog posts about Cameroon and Africa. Lots of interesting stuff. He was nice enough to cross post my pre-election post on his blog, so I thought I'd return the favor by linking to his blog. Stop on by and check it out.

Deep Thought

There's something surreal about sitting in a little shack in Africa eating an omelet while the TV on the wall is blaring syndicated reruns of the Care Bears.

Fortunately the Care Bears were able to use the Care Bear Stare to save the Forest of Feeling from Professor Coldheart's dastardly plot.

America Drops the O-Bomb

Election day started on a comical note at the office. Two Cameroonian men came into our cyber cafe asking how they could vote for Obama over the internet. After a good laugh we gently explained to them that it doesn't exactly work that way.

Tuesday night turned out to be a big night here in Cameroon as well as America. I ended up staying up all night with some other Americans and Cameroonian friends to watch the election returns. We hung in there until the result (which came at about 5 AM here), then watched the candidates speeches and turned in for a nap around 7 AM. Rather, I would have liked to take a nap, but tons of Cameroonian friends immediately started calling and texting me with congratulations. Turns out none of them slept either. I was at Bill's house most of the night, but I heard lots of the bars around Cameroon stayed open all night and turned off the usual music videos and soccer matches in favor of CNN or the BBC.

Friends back home have emailed me about the spontaneous celebrations they saw in the streets of their towns. I wish I'd been able to see them. No parties in the street here as far as I know, but it was definitely an event.

Other Peace Corps volunteers have told me since Tuesday they have been approached on the street by strangers who ask if they're Americans. When they say yes, they are then congratulated and told how Obama's election is proof that America is the greatest country in the world. As I speculated in my last post - I think we just got a do-over with the rest of the world.

On a side note, Nigerian t-shirt makers are thrilled - they are going to turn a huge business selling Obama t-shirts all over west Africa. I've already seen a few around Buea. Bill told me he saw one in rhinestones. Ugh.

Congratulations to President-elect Obama. I just hope and pray that with all the tremendous problems we are facing he can meet the high expectations everyone has of him. America needs a great President right now and I hope he makes us all proud.

No one knows where the future will take us, but for now, it feels like America's back. Hallelujah!

OBAMARAMA, or, the 2008 US Presidential Election Through Cameroonian Eyes

I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible. - Barack Obama

If you thought I was out of touch with US politics, rest assured that’s not the case. Even if I had no internet access and no desire to follow politics, I would still be hearing about the election from all my Cameroonian friends (and some passing acquaintances and occasionally even strangers). Cameroonians have plenty of access to international news on the TV and radio. Via satellite or cable many households even have CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, not to mention the BBC, Al Jazeera, French news programs, etc.

Much to my surprise when I got here, Cameroonians love American politics. If anything, Cameroonians sometimes seem to follow American politics more closely than politics in their own country. Many also seem to follow American politics more closely than a lot of Americans I’m sad to say. I’m not sure exactly why the fascination. Maybe because the US is still perceived as the world’s only superpower and the President as the world’s most powerful leader? Maybe because they know that when the US acts in the world it can affect them in one way or another? Maybe because the prevalence of American popular culture around the world makes people interested in what’s going on in the US? Maybe because there aren’t too many surprises in their own political system, so American politics are more suspenseful?

Whatever the reason, many people here love to talk about it and ask questions when they meet Americans. I’m usually happy to do so – gives me a chance to help fulfill Peace Corps’ goal of promoting understanding of Americans abroad. It also gives me a chance to occasionally clear up misconceptions – they follow American politics but sometimes don’t always understand the mechanics (such as the difference between a primary and general election, federalism, the electoral college, etc.)

They also love Barack Obama. Lots of Cameroonians are borderline obsessed with him and his candidacy. The head of the NGO I work for talks about the latest election news daily – every twist and turn and jump or dip in the polls is discussed. The owner of the bar where I eat lunch stops to talk to me about Obama on a regular basis. The carpenters I paid to make some book shelves for my apartment had me hanging out in their shop for half an hour after we’d finished our business so they could talk about Obama. A random teenager I met who’s a friend of a friend invited me out for drinks just so he could ask me about the election. I see people walking around wearing Obama t-shirts and hats. (No buttons though – in Cameroon a button with someone’s picture is a way of memorializing the dead – if you wore an Obama button people might think he had died.)

Part of it is obviously because Obama is black. Africans often forget that not all Americans are white, so to suddenly see a black man in a position to become President astounds some of them. Even more so for the fact that his father was African. Amusingly, many Cameroonians think Obama is Cameroonian because the name “Obama” is a common family name among the Ewondo (one of Cameroon’s 250 different tribes.)

However, I think it’s also about what Obama’s candidacy tells them about America. It tells them that son of an African student can rise to become leader of one of the largest and most powerful nations on earth. It reinforces the idea that somewhere in the world is a place where people can rise above the limitations imposed on them by others and make something of their lives. More than one Cameroonian has told me “This would never happen in Europe or Asia – the son of an African would never become President of France or Italy.” They see America as special and Obama’s candidacy only confirms that.

I’ve met two or three McCain fans, but that’s about it. Mostly they say they’d rather see McCain win because Obama’s too young, and in a society where age is respected that carries some weight. But in contrast to the Obama supporters they don’t seem too inspired by McCain.

In general most Cameroonians I talk to about America have a positive view of us. They generally see us as “the good guys” in the world and are impressed by our society’s dynamism, prosperity, and democracy. And whatever our faults and limitations in all these areas they can’t help but look at their own society and wish politics here were a bit more like politics in America.

Two weeks ago I was invited to a panel that discussed the elections at the University of Buea, and one panelist presented American elections, warts and all, as models African nations should strive to follow. So cheer up, my fellow Americans depressed by politics, it’s better than you think.

That said, in recent years America has tarnished its image around the world and that is felt here as well. But here it seems like people almost feel confused by the events of the Bush years. Over the last two years I have heard lots of comments like “America is such a great country, why are you doing these horrible things around the world right now?” or “How could such a great country with so many smart people pick someone like George Bush to lead them?” I usually don’t have a very satisfying answer for these questions, other than that Americans are human and just as flawed and likely to make mistakes as anyone else on the planet.

I think this sentiment among Cameroonians that America is a great nation that somehow lost its way may also help explain the appeal of Obama. Simply by the fact of who he is and how high he has risen, he is telling Cameroonians (if not the rest of the world as well) that the America they admired is on its way back. If Obama were to lose the election tomorrow I suspect lots of people outside America will despair and wonder if we’ve lost our way for good. In America we often tend to forget that the rest of the world exists during our elections, but as I’ve learned here in Cameroon, this isn’t just OUR election.

However, if he’s elected, I believe America will instantly get a “do over” from much of the world. Especially here in Africa, it will be as if the last eight years had never happened, for a little while at least. Eventually the honeymoon will end and then it’s up to us, of course. But I guess that’s supposed to be the point of democracy isn’t it?

And We're Back...

Hello out there to any readers who haven't given up on me and still check the blog in spite of my long absence. As I noted in a previous post, I went back to the US for a monthlong break and returned to Cameroon late last month. Since then I haven't really felt in the swing of things as far as blogging goes, so I've been lazy and not posted anything. So, I decided it was finally time for an update.

Home leave was good. It was great to see friends and family again, to be back in the States, and to eat loads of unhealthy junk food. I gained a few pounds actually. I didn't have too many problms with reverse culture shock, except for bizarrely begin really uncomfortable being around white people for my first two days back. Odd... And of course I spent a lot of time telling people things that started with "In Cameroon..." over and over. All in all though, it was a badly needed change of scenery and I returned to Cameroon feeling recharged.

I've settled back into Buea easily. I've been putting in a fair amount of time working with my host institution, a local NGO called LINK-UP, that tries to help impoverished children and orphans in several communities in Cameroon's Southwest province. My work with LINK-UP has so far revolved around two main areas.

The first is a new micro-credit program they have recently started in collaboration with an outside group called Drombaya. This is a program to provide small loans to families the organization has been helping to start or expand their own small income generating activities. Generally, these are small scale projects like making and selling or reselling food items and small artisanal work. Before going back to the US I helped them craft some of their loan policies and design the paperwork and process. The program started up in my absence and seems to be off and running fairly smoothly. For the moment I'm not doing much in this area but I'll be revisiting it to see how the pogram is working once it's been operational for a few months.

My second project with LINK-UP is basically management consulting. The organization started small and has always been run by its founder and President. When it started he could do this out of his head and mostly by himself. However, as the organization has grown and been successful, they've passed the point where an ad hoc management style works effectively. So, I've been working with the President and the staff to develop and write down their internal rules and procedures in an effort to help them better manage their activities and make the organization more professional.

Outside LINK-UP, I've made contact with another local Cameroonian development organization called Nkong Hilltop, which mostly works in he agricultural domain, running micro-credit programs and building skills among farmers. I recently did a computer security workshop with some of their staff where I provided training in how to protect their computers against viruses (a huge problem in Cameroon) and use the internet safely. In the future we are planning more computer related training sessions in order to help them start trcking some of their projects and better manage their finances using computers.

Besides work, I've started taking a French class at the local Linguistic Center, a government sponsored language training center aimed at promoting bilingualism in Cameroon and offering French and English courses. Although my French is still pretty strong, now that I'm not using it daily any more I can feel it slipping a bit, so the five hour a week course is perfect practice to ensure I don't lose too much of it while I'm here.

Aside from that, I've just been hanging out with friends here in Buea and sneaking off for an occasional day trip to the beach.

So, that's what I'm up to these days.

A Video Tour of Buea

I just recalled that a while ago Bill posted this Youtube video someone made giving viewers a video tour of Buea, my new post. It's pretty good. So, to keep you entertained while I'm airborne, have a look. Enjoy!

Home Leave!

After two long years in Cameroon, I'm finally heading back to the good old US of A tonight for a badly needed month of home leave. I will do some posting while I'm home. See you on the other side of the Atlantic gang!

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.

Thank You!

Back in February I posted an entry about a public health campaign I was helping out with here in Nanga Eboko started by my friend Jerome. In the entry and in private emails I requested help from friends, family, and any interested readers in raising the money for the project.

I'm happy to report that in the last few weeks we've successfully raised all of the money for the project. Last week on my trip to Yaoundé I picked up the check. We're now in the process of buying materials and organizing things.

Unfortunately it took a bit longer than we'd hoped, so that may delay the start of the project until the next school year since school is almost over. Since students are the main targets of the project, it won't really work to go into the schools when they're out of session. So, that part of the project may have to wait until the next school year starts in September or October. But, since I am staying in Cameroon for a third year I will be around to follow up and see it through to the end.

So, to all of you out there who contributed, THANK YOU! I and my friend Jerome thank all of you. We really appreciate it. I met with the principal of one of the schools involved today and he was very enthusiastic and grateful. In particular, I'd like to thank a few of my friends from college (you know who you are) who went so far as to organize a fund raising event for us. Thanks for all your hard work! For those who submitted their names I will be sure to send out thank you letters soon (a bit busy at the moment). For those who donated anonymously, this is my best shot at saying thank you.

I will post updates regarding this project as things develop. The school component may have to wait a while, but I am going to see if we can finish our work at the hospital and the prison before I leave Nanga this month. I will keep everyone up to date.

Thanks again!

COS Conference and Year Trois

As a government agency, Peace Corps uses a lot of acronyms. One of which is COS: Close of Service. This is the acronym for when a volunteer is about to finish their service and all the paperwork, medical exams, etc that go with it. Once a volunteer has finshed this process, they are said to have "COS'ed" and become RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers).

COS is preceeded about two to three months before a volunteer's scheduled departure date with a "COS conference" held at a nice hotel in Yaoundé. All volunteers from the same training group, who came in together and will leave about the same time, gather at the hotel for three days of seminars, paperwork, language tests, interviews, and other sessions in order to prepare for COS.

COS conference is usually a pretty nostalgic event, and ours was no exception. It was good to be back together with everyone from my "stage" (training group), some of whom I don't think I'd seen since training two years ago. The formal sessions were predictably long and boring. A session on job hunting by someone from the US embassy's HR department was particularly painful. Fortunately we ended up with a fair amount of free time to hang out in the hotel bar, at the hotel pool, during meal and coffee breaks, and in each other's rooms in the evenings. After the conference a few of us took a trip to Limbé to enjoy the beach one last time before the end of our service.

It was interesting to take stock of how we made out during our service. Some didn't make it: out of 46 of us who stepped off the plane in June, 2006, 31 remained by April, 2008. Some people had an overwhelmingly positive experience, others less so. Most were glad they had done it and knew they would miss their friends, but were also ready to go home.

A few however, were not quite ready to go home. Peace Corps is normally a two year assignment, but in most countries they offer a limited number of third year extensions. COS conference is the time when volunteers apply for these positions. Several people from our group sought and received extensions to work on various projects. One guy is staying in his village a third year, the rest are moving to different jobs and towns in Cameroon.

Two years in Nanga-Eboko has been a good (although often frustrating) experience, but I'm ready to blow this town. However, after a lot of thought and a lot of talking to friends and family in the months before COS conference, I decided that while I was ready to leave Nanga, I was not ready to leave Cameroon yet and applied for a third year position. The last two years flew by and I still feel I have a lot to learn and see here.

During training last year one of Peace Corps' staffers approached me to suggest I consider extending my service for a third year in a different post. Up to that point a third year had not occurred to me, but his suggestion did get me thinking and decided that if I was having a good experience here why not stay a little longer? So, not long after I started talking to Peace Corps administration to see what kind of assignments might be possible if I were to stay.

I did decide, however, that I would not stay in Nanga. I've learned a lot here and made some great friends, but I feel two years here has been enough. If I was going to stay I wanted a different experience. So, after a lot of discussions Peace Corps offered me a great third year assignment in a new post and new job which I decided to accept.

For my third year I will be working as a small enterprise development volunteer in the town of Buea. I've written about Buea before. It's a great place: paved roads, decent utilities, nice people, good food, English-speaking (kind of - I'll have to learn some Pidgin), and only 30 minutes from the beach at Limbe. It also helps that Bill, one of my closest friends from Peace Corps who is posted in Buea is also sticking around, so we'll both be in the same town.

As an added bonus, internet service is good in Buea and there are lots of cyber cafes, so I may actually be able to email people and update this blog more often! I've accumulated a huge backlog of stories and pictures I've been wanting to post but haven't done so because of the difficulties of getting online regularly.

Work wise, in my new assignment I will be working with a couple of NGOs in Buea training their staffs in computer literacy, helping with strategic planning, and helping them organize various small business development activities like community business classes and micro finance projects. In contrast to working as a teacher, where volunteers are stuck with their institutions, as a SED volunteer I will be free to pursue whatever projects in the community I want. I think this will give me a lot more flexibility and room for creativity than I have in my current position.

With a new job, a new town, and with good friends and the beach close at hand, I think I will have a great third year and I'm excited to get started. I will be moving to Buea in June and will be in Cameroon most of the summer in order to do some retraining for the new job and get started with work. I'll be coming home for 30 days in August and September on leave, so I will see family and friends then.

I want to thank all of you for the support and encouragement you have given me the last two years. I couldn't have done it and I couldn't stay a third year without knowing my friends and family were behind me.

FYI : I Am Still Alive

Well, that was a long break from posting huh? My apologies, dear readers. It's mostly been due to a lousy or often nonexistent internet connection. Not sure what the problem is. I've asked many times and been given various non-answers, most of which translate to "We don't know what the problem is." Every now and then I am able to get on long enough to check my email, maybe read some news from back home, and then the connection dies or slows down to the point where I can't load any pages, including this blog.

Today's the first time it's been good enough for me to post an update since the last entry. I'm a bit busy today so more details will have to wait, but I'm going to Yaoundé later this week and will post more in a few days.

Thursday Lizard Blogging

Gotta run and catch the train back to post. Since Internet has been down in my town I don't know when I will get online again, so for the interim, here are some pictures of lizards. No special reason. It's just been too long.

Disorder in the House

Not long ago I wrote about the post-election violence in Kenya, arguing that what the outside world often perceives as "stability" in Africa (the absence of immediate, ongoing violence basically) automatically means that the society is basically healthy and calm and people get along. Everyone was so shocked at the violence because everyone "knew" Kenya was "stable."

I went on to say that many of the same frustrations driving the violence in Kenya were simmering away here in Cameroon, and that at some point it wouldn't surprise me if Cameroon experienced a similar meltdown.

Well, as if on cue, Cameroon just had an ugly round of civil disorder some of you may have heard about. While it was not a prominent story in the US, I heard from people back home that it did make a few papers and websites.

The trouble started around the 23rd or 24th of February. Over that weekend taxi drivers in Douala, Cameroon's largest city and economic capital, went on strike to protest gas price increases. As oil and other commodity prices rise Cameroon is getting hit with the same inflation that seems to be affecting the rest of the world now to varying degrees. And of course, new jobs are not appearing and salaries are stagnant, so people here are suffering.

Aside from economic anxiety, people are becoming increasingly frustrated with a government that does not appear to do much about any of these problems, other than steal everything that isn't nailed down. I mean, you should at least be able to get a job or some cheap gas for your bribes right?

This frustration has grown in recent months after President Biya announced that Cameroon needed to amend the constitution so he could run for another term as President. Under the current rules his presidency will end in 2011. Now it appears he's going to lift the limit (which he can easily do since the national assembly more or less does his bidding) so he can stay in power til he dies. Common pattern in Africa unfortunately. I guess the 25 years he's already been President weren't enough.

So, what started as a strike quickly merged with political frustration and turned on the regime. The strikes spread rapidly from Douala to other towns and cities and almost immediately turned violent. In Yaoundé and Douala and other areas people were burning cars, looting, breaking windows, and torching government buildings. Most of the violence appeared to be committed by unemployed young men. The government responded with a heavy hand, flooding affected areas with police and soldiers to reimpose order. I'm told that the army adopted a shoot on sight policy for rioters: no arrest, just a bullet. An unknown number of people were shot in the bigger towns.

Fortunately, it doesn't sound like the violence was ethnically motivated. Nor was it organized - just mob mentality taking over and angry people going nuts in the streets.

This continued for several days with the worst of the violence occurring on Wednesday the 26th and Thursday the 27th. Things began calming down on Friday, the 29th. The weekend was quiet, but tense, with rumors the strikes would resume the following Monday.

My village remained quiet, but some volunteers had the bad luck to be in areas that saw a good deal of rioting. Volunteer Bill has written a bit about what he saw in Buea during the riots on his blog, here, here, and here.

Naturally, Peace Corps became very concerned about this and almost immediately put us on alert. As the violence escalated, we were put on what they call "Standfast", which means pack a bag and be ready to evacuate if the situation deteriorates further. Volunteers in the Northwest province (where some of the worst violence took place) and several other areas were brought to Yaoundé to stay at the Peace Corps compound as a precaution. So, with all of us a bit nervous, we waited out a long, tense weekend. My Cameroonian friends all assured me that the violence would not resume because "Cameroonians are peaceful." As they promised though, Monday came and nothing happened.

Since then things have been pretty quiet. The soldiers have returned to their barracks and life looks pretty much like it did before the riots. Of course, the riots didn't really change anything, so who knows how "stable" this situation is.

For the moment we appear to have dodged a bullet. Let's hope we don't have to duck again.

Jungle Life

Jungle life
You're far away from nothing
It's all right
You won't miss home
Take a chance
Leave everything behind you
Come and join me
Won't be sorry
It's easy to survive

- Baltimora, "Tarzan Boy"

Sorry I've been out of teach for a while dear readers, but Internet has been effectively out of commission at post for the last few weeks. Oh, and the power has been out most of the time. Usual dry season power cuts and all. Fortunately the dry season is coming to a close -we've already had a couple of rains- so in a few weeks it should get a bit more stable.

So, for the last few weeks I've been cut off from most contact with the outside world, teaching classes at my little university in the beach, navigating by lamplight at night, drinking warm beer on weekends, and not bathing much (since water goes out when the power is out). Ah, jungle life...

Right now I'm back in Yaoundé on business so I will try to post a few updates before I go back to post tomorrow night. As some of you may have heard, we had a bit of a crisis here in Cameroon in recent weeks, so later on I'll write about what's been going on.

Peace Corps Partnership for Nanga-Eboko

In a previous post about Kenya, I wrote that I've seen enough here to worry about Cameroon one day experiencing the same kind of violence. As it happens, I have a good friend here named Jerome who often worries about the same thing. Jerome has started his own NGO (which he calls the Brotherhood Coast) which tries to use a variety of community and development projects to unite Cameroonians around common problems they all face.

Jerome is in the process of putting together a public health campaign in my village of Nanga-Eboko. Nanga is a poor village with big health problems: a high HIV infection rate; lack of access to clean water and, as a result, lots of waterborne disease; and lots of problems with malaria due to its location in mosquito central.

Jerome's plan is to conduct a series of events in the town's high schools, hospital, and prison that will try to teach students, patients, and prisoners how to protect themselves from these diseases.

In addition, the town has a recent history of ethnic conflict. In the mid-90s there was a lot of violence against Bamileké (one of the many ethnic groups in Cameroon) who had migrated to the town from the west province. In order to try to avoid a repeat, the training Jerome will be giving will also include conflict resolution and prevention strategies in the hopes that young people will be able to avoid violence in the future.

At the end of a week of these activities, a group of popular Cameroonian musicians that Jerome has worked with in the past will come to the town and hold a concert. They are the "hook" to get young people interested.

The point of all these activities is to try to show Cameroonian youth that despite their tribal differences, they share the same problems of health and poverty, and that they have a shared culture embodied in the music they will hear at the concert.

When he started planning all of this, Jerome asked if I or the Peace Corps could do anything to help. It's often hard to find people in Cameroon who are civic-minded and energetic enough to try something like this, so I felt I had to do something to help. If there was anything I could do to try to keep Cameroon OUT of the news I wanted to try to make a contribution.

Peace Corps has a program called Peace Corps Partnership, where volunteers in the field can post projects on Peace Corps' website. Interested donors can donate money to these projects online. When the funding goal for the project is reached, the money is sent to the volunteer for use on the project. For my project, I'm requesting $2,720 USD to help pay for the costs of this health and conflict resolution campaign. The money will go to pay for water filters and first aid kits in the high schools, mosquito nets for the hospital, various other supplies, and transportation. I will be working directly with Jerome on purchasing these materials, so I will be supervising the money and making sure it all goes where it needs to.

If any one reading this would like to help us out, you can find a short description of the project and make a donation here. I hope some of you will be able to help us. Thank you!

PS: We hope to pull this off in late March if possible, so if anyone plans to donate, sooner is better than later - ideally in the next two or three weeks. Merci Beaucoup!

Quick Hits

A few quick updates:

• Last night Cameroon defeated Ghana 1-0 in the Africa Cup of Nations. I and a few other volunteers watched it in a bar in Yaoundé. The post-victory celebrations were a sight to see. Men ran around tearing off the shirts, people waving Cameroonian flags, drinking and dancing, etc. Good times. They beat Cameroon in their first game, so I'm not sure if that hurts the Lions (intimidation factor) or helps them (desire for revenge). We'll see. Allez Les Lions!
• Last weekend Cameroon's neighbor, Chad, blew up. Thousands of rebels advanced on the capital city of N'djamena in a bid to overthrow the President, Idriss Deby. The capital has been torn apart in heavy fighting. The US embassy was closed down and all personnel evacuated since it was inconveniently located between the Presidential palace and rebel positions. At last report the government had fought off the rebels and was trying to impose a nationwide curfew. Good luck enforcing that one guys. All in all, an ugly situation, with oil and Sudan in the mix of instability.
• N'djamena is just across the border from the extreme north of Cameroon. The border is a river between N'djamena and the northern Cameroonian town of Kousseri. Kousseri is now flooded with refugees fleeing the fighting. I had an email yesterday asking if I was Ok - yes folks, I'm fine. The fighting is hundreds of miles away and has not spilled over into Cameroon. While there are some volunteers near the border with Chad, none are near N'djamena and no others have reported any problems, thankfully.
• The Kenyans are talking again. Let's hope they manage to calm things down.

Cosendai Adventist University

I've been meaning to do a post about the University where I teach for a while. If y'all ain't the readin' kind, y'all can just look at all the purdy pictures.

The Main Entrance

Cosendai Adventist University (Université Adventiste Cosendai in French) is a Seventh Day Adventist (link to wikipedia on 7th day adv) school. It started out as a seminary founded here in the 1920s. Many years later, a primary school was established here, then eventually a college (private high school) which shares the campus. Finally, they upgraded again and converted the seminary into a full-fledged University in 1996.

The University is one of only two private universities in Cameroon who's degrees are recognized by the government. (The other is Catholic university in Yaoundé.) Four majors are offered: Theology, Business and Computer Science (almost two separate programs with the same Dean), Education, and Nursing. Nursing degrees take two years to finish and the others take three.

Because the school is too small to support a large permanent faculty, the majority of courses are taught by visiting professors. Since they can usually only stay for a week or two at a time and since we have to take them when we can get them, the school schedule changes every week. On Fridays I find out what classes I'm teaching and when for the following week. Or maybe I find out I'm not teaching at all, which was a big problem last year. As you can imagine, this makes lesson planning and scheduling exams and homework a nightmare.

It also makes life hard on the students, since they frequently have to cram a 60 hour class into one or two weeks. Some weeks they have classes from 7 AM to 10 PM straight, every day, with only an hour break each for lunch and dinner. Giving homework is a problem both because they often have no time to do it with a course load like that and because the power is often out at night.

The school has about 370 students, mostly from Cameroon. The majority are from the country's two biggest cities, Yaoundé and Douala, but there are students from each of Cameroon's ten provinces. There is a large contingent of students from the Extreme North province, which is rare since that region of Cameroon is poorer than the south and tends to send fewer students to college. Most are here on church scholarships. Since it's hard to find pastors to serve in northern Cameroon, they finance the degrees of promising students who will later return north and serve the church there. As a result, after French and English the third most common language spoken on campus is Fulfuldé - the dominant language of the northern provinces.

The school also has an international contingent. We have students from all over west Africa. I have students from Chad, Gabon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger, Burkina Faso (my Dean's native country), Togo, the Central African Republic, and Cape Verde. The Dean of our Theology department and his wife are from Kenya (although they've lived in the US for over a decade before coming here and have applied for US citizenship). Most of the faculty and staff have traveled or studied in other countries in the region. We also get a fair number of foreign visitors associated with the church (missionaries, church administration, and professors from UAC's sister universities in Ghana and Nigeria).

As a result of this international character I have been learning a lot about life in other parts of Africa. Most Americans tend to lump all of these nations together as "Africa" - one big undifferentiated mass of people. (Who are either starving or dying of Ebola or getting hacked to death with machetes.) While there are cultural characteristics that are common to these countries, lumping together Cameroon and say, Niger is like assuming that there is no difference between France and Germany because they are both European. So being posted here has been a good opportunity to learn more about the complexities of Africa.

The facilities here are not very good. There aren't enough classrooms and those we do have are run down and often crowded, as in most Cameroonian schools.

Power and water go out often. We have a generator that can power the campus during blackouts, but it broke down back in March and still hasn't been repaired, despite repeated efforts.

The library is small and many of the books are outdated American textbooks donated years ago. The Peace Corps volunteer I replaced did a lot of work in the library. Now there's some organization and he got them on the Dewey decimal system. Before books were just laying around in piles.

We have a lab with 18 computers. That's both for classes and for the extracurricular use of 370 students who are all itching to get in there to write papers and use the internet. Fortunately they are almost done building a second small lab, which will help considerably.

Since land lines are impractical, we have a satellite internet connection.

The University is a religious school, but it is open to students from other denominations. About half the student body are Adventists. The rest are a mix of Catholics and members of other protestant denominations, with a scattering of atheists and now and then a few Muslims as well. Students are not expected to become Adventists, but they do have to live by the rules of the church.

This means that all classes start with prayers and often singing, and that students are obliged to go to chapel twice a week and mass on Fridays and Saturdays. Too many absences can result in disciplinary action.

All students do manual labor on Thursday and Sunday mornings. They are organized into groups and spend two hours cleaning floors, cutting grass with machetes, picking up trash, digging ditches, whatever. Basically they're free labor for the school to use in maintaining the campus.

The school has strict moral codes. Drinking alcohol, smoking, or using drugs are grounds for dismissal, on or off campus. As a result of all these rules, there's not much night life around the campus aside from choir practice. Makes it easier to sleep I suppose. Fortunately I'm not bound by these rules. :)

Of course, lots of students drink and smoke, but they do it in town in the backs of bars or in their homes, hidden from the eyes of the administration. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to report them, but on the odd occasion when I go out for a beer and run into them, I don't say anything. Their lives are hard enough without me acting as the morals police. Besides, since I'm usually having a beer when I see them it's not like I can say "don't drink that" with a straight face.

The school also regularly hassles female students about dressing modestly so as to avoid tempting the men.

With a church that serves both the University and the local community, on campus baptisms, weddings and other events are a regular part of life here.

One nice thing about living here is the music. There are a number of choral groups on campus that regularly sing in church, have concerts, and rehearse in the evenings. I can often sit in my house and hear singing all over campus. Since these groups are all pretty good, it's nice.

Food options are, sadly, a bit limited. There is a cafeteria which make serviceable meals but gets a bit boring after a while since they rotate through a pretty small repertoire. It is however reasonably priced and conveniently located, even if lunch is never ready on time.

At the edge of campus is a long hut where a group of women (who I refer to as "the fish mommies") come to sell food to the students. My typical breakfast is a bean sandwich purchased from one of the ladies who works there. When I don't feel like cooking at night I can get beans and rice or grilled fish from them as well.

Students live both on campus and off campus. Some students live in small, two person "cells" that are scattered around campus. Tiny concrete huts divided into two rooms, each with just enough space for a bunk bed and a tiny desk and chair. Others live in larger dorms. From what some students have told me, it sounds like life in the larger dorms is close to prison life. They live four, five, or six to a room and have a strict curfew after which the doors are locked.

There are also a limited number of apartments and houses for students with families and for professors. Some of these are decent (depending on how big the family is) but there aren't enough to go around.

Because there is not enough housing on campus (and because they want some freedom) many students live off campus. There is a small quartier (neighborhood) that surrounds the campus. Some students are able to rent rooms there, which is at least convenient for classes.

The rest have to find housing wherever they can in town. Often this means being several kilometers from campus. So, either they have a long walk to school, or, they have to pay for a motorcycle taxi ride - which starts to bite given that most of the students aren't exactly rolling in cash.

In general I like most of my students and the rest of the faculty and staff and have made a lot of good friends here. In spite of the school's organizational headaches and the area's problems with power and water, this is a great assignment for a Peace Corps volunteer. I've had many frustrating moments here, but the longer I've been here the more I've come to appreciate all I've learned here.

Out of Africa

We just got word yesterday that Peace Corps is pulling out of Kenya. Some volunteers had already been sent home due to the ongoing violence, but now they're suspending the program entirely and are in the process of evacuating all the volunteers this week. Oy.

Over at Peace Corps Journals, I checked out some of the Kenya blogs and read some posts from volunteers. Here are some thoughts on coming home this way from Diana, Nicholas, and Rachel.

Victory!

So, Cameroon beat Sudan last week and last night went on to beat Tunisia 3-2 in overtime in the Africa Cup of Nations. Watched the game in a bar here in Yaoundé. It wan pendemonium after every goal. When Cameroon won at the end the locals all started shaking their beer bottles and spraying the ceiling, walls, and each other with beer. Wish I'd had a video camera. Truly a sight to behold. Then I fled before they started lighting things on fire.

Throughout the game there was one drunk patron who kept shouting that the Tunisians were terrorists. Apparently the Cameroon-Tunisia match was a major battle in the War on Terrorism® and he kept screaming things like "We must beat the terrorists!" and "Terrorism must be punished!"

The Lions are playing Ghana on Thursday. Woot woot woot!

The Road to Hell is Unpaved

Another volunteer pointed me to this article from the Economist about the hellish state of Cameroonian roads and their impact on the country's economy. One of the roads he writes about happens to be the road to my village, and I can personally vouch for everything he writes: the mud, the rain barriers, the gendarmes, etc.

An excerpt:

The plan was to carry 1,600 crates of Guinness and other drinks from the factory in Douala where they were brewed to Bertoua, a small town in Cameroon's south-eastern rainforest. As the crow flies, this is less than 500km (313 miles)—about as far as from New York to Pittsburgh, or London to Edinburgh. According to a rather optimistic schedule, it should have taken 20 hours, including an overnight rest. It took four days. When the truck arrived, it was carrying only two-thirds of its original load.

The scenery was staggering: thickly forested hills, stretching into the distance like an undulating green ocean, with red and yellow blossoms floating on the waves. Beside the road were piles of cocoa beans, laid out to dry in the sun, and hawkers selling engine oil, tangerines, and succulent four-metre pythons for the pot. We were able to soak up these sights at our leisure: we were stopped at road-blocks 47 times.

These usually consisted of a pile of tyres or a couple of oil drums in the middle of the road, plus a plank with upturned nails sticking out, which could be pulled aside when the policemen on duty were satisfied that the truck had broken no laws and should be allowed to pass.

Sometimes, they merely gawped into the cab or glanced at the driver's papers for a few seconds before waving him on. But the more aggressive ones detained us somewhat longer. Some asked for beer. Some complained that they were hungry, often patting their huge stomachs to emphasise the point. One asked for pills, lamenting that he had indigestion. But most wanted hard cash, and figured that the best way to get it was to harass motorists until bribed to lay off.

.......

Even without the unwelcome attentions of the robber-cops, the journey would have been a slog. Most Cameroonian roads are unpaved: long stretches of rutty red laterite soil with sheer ditches on either side. Dirt roads are fine so long as it does not rain, but Cameroon is largely rainforest, where it rains often and hard.

Our road was rendered impassable by rain three times, causing delays of up to four hours. The Cameroonian government has tried to grapple with the problem of rain eroding roads by erecting a series of barriers, with small gaps in the middle, that allow light vehicles to pass but stop heavy trucks from passing while it is pouring. This is fair. Big trucks tend to mangle wet roads.

The barriers, which are locked to prevent truckers from lifting them when no one is looking, are supposed to be unlocked when the road has had a chance to dry. Unfortunately, the officials whose job it is to unlock them are not wholly reliable. Early on the second evening, not long after our stand-off with the police in Mbandjok, we met a rain barrier in the middle of the forest. It was dark, and the man with the key was not there. Asking around nearby villages yielded no clue as to his whereabouts. We curled up in the hot, mosquito-filled cab and waited for him to return, which he did shortly before midnight.

The hold-up was irritating, but in the end made no difference. Early the next morning, a driver coming in the opposite direction told us that the bridge ahead had collapsed, so we had to turn back.

Bigger Than The Superbowl

Cameroon is a football (soccer) country. Forget the Superbowl, the World Series, or March Madness. You haven't seen sports fanaticism until you've been to Cameroon. Not only do people follow the sport religiously on TV, there are informal teams and matches in every quarter and village in the country. The poverty of the country makes it difficult to build stadiums, but if you were to drive around the country, you'd see makeshift football fields everywhere (easy to spot because of the improvised goals - often just sticks or tree branches jammed into the ground). I hear the rest of Africa is not too different.

Right now we are in the middle of the Africa Cup of Nations, which surpasses even the World Cup in importance here. The 2006 World Cup was being held during my training in 2006, so I got a taste of soccer culture then.

On days when the Indomitable Lions (the Cameroonian national team) play, everything shuts down during the game. At the University, evening classes were cancelled during the last match. Taxi drivers stop driving, stores and restaurants close, and everyone heads for the nearest TV. Bars with TVs are usually packed. When a goal is scored you can hear half the town screaming. When the Lions are playing, the day of the game is always an unofficial national holiday.

As I mentioned in my last post, Cameroon is a country with plenty of divisions, but the Lions are one thing that unites them all. When the national team is playing, everyone is Cameroonian, no matter what their tribe, religion, language, or politics. It's actually a little touching.

Last Tuesday night Cameroon lost its first match to Egypt, 4-2. I watched the game at a friend's house, so I probably missed the full effect. Needless to say, the mood the next day was almost funereal. On the bright side, one of my English students was watching it with us, so it gave me the chance to explain what an "kicking ass" was.

On Saturday night, Cameroon played Zambia. They somehow got their groove back and won 5-1.

This time I watched it with a friend in a local bar, and the patrons and employees all went wild with joy with every goal. I was able to explain the expression "kicking ass" again, but in a more positive light this time.

Cameroon is playing Sudan tomorrow night. It's probably a good sign for Cameroon that Sudan was beaten by Zambia. If Cameroon wins, they will move on to the second round. I can't imagine the celebration that would follow if they were to somehow win the cup (probably unlikely after the drubbing they got from Egypt). Ah well, onward! To victory!

As a side benefit, the government and SONEL (the power company) are working overtime to make sure the televisions stay on during the cup. So, power has been remarkably stable the last couple of weeks. Makes you wonder why they can't manage to keep the power on the rest of the time, but, c'est l'afrique.