Cameroonian Drain-o

Unfortunately, the Cameroonian plumber who designed my bathroom did not exactly take into consideration the shedding that occurs for white women such as myself. Understandably so, since most women in my community keep their heads shaved or wear mesh that doesn’t exactly fall out in the shower. However, as a woman who does not shave her head, I in fact have a lot of hair that does fall out in the shower. So when my shower drain started to act up, I knew what had gone wrong. Water wasn’t going down as quickly and the bathroom was starting to flood (my bathroom is the size of a twin bed, so it doesn’t take too much effort). The bad news is that my bathroom is connected to my bedroom and the bathroom is at a higher elevation than my room, and thus water tends to want to go to my bedroom. My first plan of action was to try to snake the drain. This is where the plumber messed up. The drain has a plastic cover that seemingly tries to prevent things like this from happening, but the cover is cemented to the floor. It is not possible for me to stick anything into the small holes in the covering to try to get the gunk out. Next plan, some sort of chemical I can pour into the drain. I went into the local store and asked about it. I got laughed at. “I don’t think that exists in Cameroon,” I was told. I travelled to the largest city in proximity to me and started hunting around. People thought it existed here! They did not really know where though. I eventually found a man who had a bottle of chemicals that he promised would work to unclog drains. I took the bottle and read it, and it did indeed say it would unclog drains. It said to pour half the bottle into the drain and it would clear it out. Seemed pretty promising. Then I read the other side. It promised to clear “serpents, mice, genies, and all beings of a mystical nature.” I immediately became skeptical of this witchcraft drain-o. I pointed it out to the man, but he said it was also modern, they just wrote that for believers, and would deal with other normal problems. He promised it would work. For the equivalent of 2 bucks, I figured I would at least try it, and since the bottle said I should wear gloves, at least some chemical had to be active.

I went home. I opened the bottle and poured some of the liquid into the drain. Immediately, a large plume of noxious gas came shooting out of the drain. Genie? Possibly. That was it for me though. I didn’t want to be around any toxic fumes like the ones emitting from my drain, so I left the bathroom and hoped the smoke was more than just an elaborate display. I tried to shower the next morning and the drain was blocked almost worse than before. Conclusion: The genie is gone but the hair is most definitely still there. 

Men As Partners Program

I have begun a program at the high school that focuses on men becoming allies for women in regards to gender equality and health. It’s a program supported by Peace Corps that hopes to create “men as partners.” Topics include discussions on gender expectations, messages on sexuality, HIV, condom use, alcohol abuse, violence, romantic partners, and anger management skills. It is something I am very interested in teaching as I believe these topics need more attention in this society. I was very excited to begin the course. From my own experiences here, I have seen that men hold the highest rank in society and often experience more privilege and entitlement than women in this culture. To me, there often appears to be inequality. Whether it is a stranger I have never met before who thinks he is entitled to come to my door and ask me for sex, whether it is a man saying “I don’t need to serve myself because there is a woman here,” or men referring to any woman as “baby,” or a man taking the last piece of food and upon my inquiry as to why he gets the last piece over the four other people in the room him telling me “because I am a man,” it seems that there are countless cases that depict a disparity between the genders. That, of course, is not to say that every man shares these beliefs, or that people are even aware of it or intending it. And in no way am I trying to say any other country has really figured things out. It’s not that people here frown upon women or deliberately think lesser of them. However, from what I have observed, there are some very serious gender roles and expectations that are adhered to very closely.

Thus, I was very surprised on the first day of classes when I started the discussion with the question, “Do you think there is gender inequality in Cameroon?” And the class in unison responded, “No!” I rephrased my question and said, “You think there is complete gender equality?” Again, “Yes!” I decided to take a quick look at chores people were expected to do around the house based on their gender. We divided the group into boys and girls and had each write a list of things they were expected to do for their household in a day. The boys came up with two items that would benefit the whole family (working at the farm, and carrying things back from the farm). Originally their list included things like brushing their teeth, but we decided those types of activities should not really be included. The girls then read their own list. It had over 14 items, ranging from cleaning the compound, to doing the laundry, to working at the farm, to cooking and serving all the meals. I asked again if they thought there was equality between genders, and this time the group said no.

After the lesson, I ran into my female co-worker and decided to ask her about the students’ initial response. I asked her the same question, “Do you think there is gender inequality in Cameroon?” Again, she said “no.” At that very moment, she was carrying three large pots and some food ingredients to go to a man’s house to prepare him a meal. He is a grown man living by himself. She is not married to him, not directly related to him. She left her work at the hospital in the middle of the day so that she could walk to his house and prepare him some food because he asked her, and expected her to do it. I explained this to her, and said that he was inadvertently telling her that her work was less important than her “duty” to feed him. Was he not capable of preparing food for himself? She laughed. Probably because it was such an American viewpoint, and for her own culture it is what she expected to do, not just to feed a man, but to care for a fellow person. She did say though that yes of course there is gender inequality in Cameroon, and look what she is currently doing. So when I asked her why she initially said no, she replied that in general, if she is talking to a male friend, there is no inequality.

It seems like it will be a gradual process. So far, the class has proved very interesting for me, but not exactly in the ways I had originally expected. In one of our next lessons, when asking girls what they would want boys to know about their gender, they gave two responses. One, that men should pick good wives, and two, that men should stop calling them prostitutes because of how they acted or the clothes or jewelry they chose to wear. It has been a learning experience for me as well, to say the least. I hope to continue the class and soon we will move on to some sex education, so we will see how that goes!

Nutrition Work

The past few weeks I have been doing nutrition education with each of the villages in my community. People here have not been growing up in an environment that bombards them with information on what constitutes a healthy meal. There aren’t campaigns that promote healthy foods, not much knowledge on “eat your vegetables,” and little talk about diets within schools. You eat to feel full, to have enough energy to work at the farm, but you don’t worry about what exactly you are putting into your body. This often leads to people eating lots of starches and carbs—things like fufu or rice or plantains, with only very small amounts of fruits or vegetables. They’ll eat a giant plate of rice, with a tiny spoonful of boiled bitter leaf. Or a couple of balls of fufu with one small bowl of soup. Often, even the way in which they prepare their vegetables works against them and voids them of nutrition. Most meals consist of heavily boiled vegetables, which results in the vegetables losing most of their nutrients. People haven’t been taught how to balance a meal, they don’t always know that each type of food should be represented or even what type of food belongs to which group.

 I have been teaching men and women a simplified way to construct a meal, in which food is divided into three groups (a starch group, a protein group, and a fruits and vegetables group). We go over which local foods go into which category and talk about why each group is important for your health. Equally as important, we go over proper proportions and encourage a higher ratio of vegetables and protein in comparison to their starch food. We also discuss which traditional meals meet the standards of a healthy diet and which ones fall short. People have been incredibly interested and eager to learn. So far, the information has served as a good reminder to some, or as a new skill to others. The real issue is going to be behavior change now. Often these foods are traditional, culturally appropriate foods that families have been preparing for as long as they can remember. It is going to be hard to get people to alter their diets or prepare food in different ways than they are used to. I am planning some cooking demonstrations in the following month, so hopefully actually seeing and trying some new dishes will go over well!