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.