Send-Off Party

All of Muambong was involved in my going away party, called a send-off party here, and it was certainly a big event! To give you an idea of the size, my fellow PCV stated it was “more attended than a Beyoncé concert.” Literally all of my village came out for the event. We started things off by respecting the proper protocal. I waited at my house until the Clanhead came to get me. 

Then we walked along the road in a procession lead by the Clanhead to the event hall (aka the health center), where we were seated at the high table (the table reserved for “big men” and other notables). Then there were several speeches given by the Clanhead and several other chiefs, thanking me and wishing me well, and reminding me to greet my parents upon my return. There were also several dismayed comments relating to the fact that I have not married a Cameroonian. From there, we moved on to food and drink. The women in my party prepared food all day the day before, including ndolé, black soup, corn chaff, chicken, and a goat. Yes, we slaughtered a goat. That was rather gruesome, but the meat was delicious. 

In addition to my own group of women preparing food, each village prepared its own food and brought it to the event. The result: an excessive amount of food and palm wine. 

There was enough to feed all attendees from all 14 villages. People were squeezed into the health center and scattered all over the yard and street. After the official event, the party continued in the bars and clubs. It turned into a massive village dance, and after each song there was chorus of “Allely hoyay!” (a celebratory salute) and “Auntie Allely!” I certainly felt appreciated and absolutely had a blast. I will really miss my village and everyone I have met here. 

Food Demonstrations

Elizabeth and I finally got around to doing food demonstrations with some local women. I have worked on nutrition before and have found that it is a real problem in Cameroon. People do not often eat the right proportions of food and focus on starch-heavy diets. We are trying to promote balanced meals and fresh vegetables. Food culture here includes a lot of boiling, often for hours, removing a lot of the nutrients from the vegetables. Elizabeth and I therefore chose to do some cooking lessons to promote improved diets. We attended a women’s group meeting and taught them how to make salad, vegetable soup, and grilled green beans. We shredded cabbage and cut up tomatoes and carrots and put hardboiled eggs into the salad and created a vinaigrette dressing. I told the women they could even eat tomatoes raw and had them try some wedges. They thought that was absolutely hilarious and I don’t think any of them will ever do it again, but the salad was a bigger success. 

Those women chowed down! They loved the dressing and were happy that it didn’t include mayonnaise (commonly used here) as it was “more economical.” Even the kids came in to eat the salad. And, two weeks later, three of the women who had attended our meeting prepared salads on their own and invited us over to eat them! Success! We also made a simple vegetable soup. The idea here was that it is similar to their other foods but that they would not end up throwing out the water (and the nutrients with it). The women also loved this. We put in cabbage, carrots, potatoes, green beans, and a few other random items. We cooked in a traditional kitchen over an open fire, which really pleased the group. “This African woman!” was shouted a lot. We finished the lesson by preparing the green beans, which were very tasty, but not as much of a success as the other dishes. Apparently lightly cooked greens are just too different from the local food. The women tasted it and ate it, but they were not gone and people weren’t fighting over who got to eat what as they did with the other meals. 

Final Update for Nzimbeng

The water project in Nzimbeng is also (mostly) finished! They have completed building the storage tank and filter and last weekend they finished digging and we connected all the pipeline and built stand taps. 

Unfortunately, the catchment the local technician built at the river was not quite what the engineer had designed. The engineer will come out to see if it will still work or if modifications or rebuilding are necessary. Aside from that hitch, however, the system is complete and ready to go! The Nzimbeng people have been incredibly motivated and hardworking. They are so thankful for the chance to have water. They are eager to have everything working and are doing everything in their power to get it to that point. I would like to thank everyone who contributed to the project—we are all very grateful. 

The Nimbeng people showed their thanks to me by messages into the concrete and by giving a gorgeous handcrafted statue. The statue depicts community members rising up a central figure to show how the community came together to support me and lift me up. 

I am so happy for them and cannot wait for them to have a functional system! While I will not see the end of this project, my replacement volunteer is more than ready to take over, and I know she will help them succeed getting water. 

Final Update for Akid

Akid’s water project has (mostly) finished! We have spent the past several weeks putting on the final touches. We connected all of the pipeline, finished constructing the filter, and built stand taps. 

We started the pump and the water reached the filter, but unfortunately the pump stopped. We are having the engineer come out to inspect it to determine the problem, but after that, hopefully it will be a fully operational water system! Thank you to everyone who donated to the project and made this system possible! The people of Akid are beyond happy, and I am incredibly grateful to you for giving me the chance to help this wonderful village.

And I really do mean wonderful. In order to celebrate the close of my service, the people of Akid threw an incredible party! First, they made me a matching outfit with the chief (a traditional cabbah and jumper). 

Then, they created a feast with chicken and rice (both big honors) and lots of wine and drinks. They didn’t stop there. They had a local man carve several traditional wooden dishes for me. They are absolutely beautiful and simply an enormous gesture from the community. 

They wrote a heartfelt speech, causing me to cry, (and causing several grown men to cry as well). They finished the day by giving me a plot of land. I am supposed to build my house here within a year. Thank you Akid. 

Water Projects

Both of the water projects have picked up speed and seem to be nearing completion. Or at least I sure hope so. After months of delays and other hitches, it looks like we might actually have come out on top. This past week I divided my time between Nzimbeng and Akid, spending the nights in village to oversee the work.

The Nzimbeng people have been incredibly hardworking and motivated. They have finished the storage tank and are in the process of constructing the filters and catchment. They have been carrying materials, cracking stones, collecting sand, and digging pipeline. I’ve been very happy with their results so far. Hopefully the cement work will be finished within two more weeks and they can finish the digging and begin connecting pipeline. Its looks like we’re actually on schedule to finish by January. Of course, things on my end aren’t quite as smooth. I’ve been going back and forth between the village and my house, my house and a larger town to transport material, and have barely slept in my own bed the past week. The community does their best to welcome me, and my days in village generally aren’t too bad. I sit at the site watching the work, mostly there for moral support, while men cut up fresh pineapple for me and feed me. The other day I was literally sitting in the warm sun, reading my book, while men went into the bush beside the tank site and chopped up pineapples with their machetes for me to eat. Then I went back to my host’s house and was fed several meals. Not so rough. Sometimes I do pay the price however. For example, this past time I had to knowingly sleep in a bed that would give me bedbugs. To top it off, some sort of rat or animal had died in the bedroom during the day (but they couldn’t find the body) so the whole room reeked of decomposing meat. I had to just tough it out and enter the room and sleep encompassed in the smell of rotting carrion. But Peace Corps has increased my ingenuity, if nothing else, and so I simply smeared toothpaste under my nose (just like vick’s right?) before going to bed, and everything was fine.

The Akid project hasn’t been quite as smooth, but there have been fewer incidents of things dying in bedrooms, so at least that’s appreciated. The Akid community was disheartened after a few mishaps with the pump. A few pieces broke as it was being installed, and after that they became demoralized and didn’t want to work anymore. That has created some problems for me and has caused the project to last longer than necessary. However, the engineer came out this last weekend and finally installed the pump, so everything should work now. The people were happy to see things moving, and are now eager to work and the project should (theoretically) really take off. All that’s left is to connect pipeline and build the standtaps. They are saying they will finish by Christmas (which I rather doubt), but January seems like a reality. Additionally, this past weekend in Akid offered me the highlight of having a meal prepared for me exclusively by a man. That’s right, in my two years here, I have never had a man prepare food for me (unless I was paying someone—like the streetmeat men or omelet guys). I have been served many meals in Cameroon, but all of them have been prepared by women. That morning, a man cooked pancakes for me. Building water systems and breaking gender roles, one person at a time! Love it! Of course when we asked if he ever did this for his wife, he quickly said no. We’ll work on it. 

Nutrition in Schools

Elizabeth and I went to the local nursery school to do a follow-up nutrition screening of children under the age of five. When I first arrived in village, I checked children for signs of malnutrition, gather information on weight, arm circumference, and anemia. 

During that initial survey I found that a decent number of children were below their proper weight for age, many had low arm circumference, many were anemic, and many students reported low levels of protein, fruit, and vegetable intake. I then conducted nutrition lessons in the schools and within the community, educating 221 elementary school students and an additional 268 community members. I taught participants about balanced diets, proportion sizes, specific vitamins and minerals, and reviewed healthy meals made out of locally available foods. 

By doing this year’s screening, we were hoping to discover if that education made any difference. I’m happy to report that the children’s health has improved. Whether its due to our efforts and lessons is hard to say, but at least there has been a vast improvement in healthy weight and dramatically less cases of anemia. We still find that children are not eating enough fruit, so we plan to do further cooking demonstrations and are going to try to get the nursery school to start a snack program where they will provide fruit to students. 

Lost Cat

As if my latest display of spider killing was not embarrassing enough, we one-upped ourselves in the “How American Can We Be?” category two days after that incident. Elizabeth had found a kitten in one of the villages under our health district that she wanted to adopt. We spoke to the owner and he was ready to give it to her on the spot, but we were unprepared to take it home, so we asked him to drop it off at the house on the upcoming market day. Bright and early on Thursday, he showed up as promised, with a cat in a bag. The poor thing was clearly slightly traumatized from its trip in the bag and immediately ran for cover under the couch. We tried coaxing it out for a while, but eventually decided food would be the only thing to do the job. We went up to the market and got some food and a can of sardines for the cute little kitten. We poured the sardines into a bowl and then went out to find the cat. It wasn’t under the couch. We realized the door was open just a crack. We had been the proud owners of a cat for about two hours. We checked all over the house, looking under the bed, behind the bookshelf—everywhere—but came up empty. The cat had clearly escaped. We began to inform all of our neighbors. “We lost our cat, it ran out of the house,” we told them. To which they gave us blank stares, as if to say, “Yes, cats belong outside.” But they would kindly respond, “Oh, so sorry.” Still clearly thinking, “Crazy Americans, why would you even want a cat in your house?” Nevertheless, we continued to tell our friends that it was just a baby, we had just gotten it, it wouldn’t know to come back to this house, so if they saw it please return it or tell us. They were all very supportive and told us if they saw it, they would return it. We even got all the kids to go out and look around. The neighborhood was on high alert. Then, that evening, we heard meowing. We ran outside, looking all around the compound. Nothing. We asked our neighbor again, “Did you see that cat? Can you hear it too?” She responded, “Surely, it’s still in the house, it’s just hiding.” We told her no, we had really looked everywhere. But it really did sound like the meowing was inside… We did another check of the house, and there was the cat, under the bed. We had lost a cat that had never been lost, and “found” it again. It was not our proudest moment, but we were once again the proud owners of a cat. Now, when any of the multiple neighbors we informed ask if we found the cat, we just say yes and never mention that it was never lost in the first place.