Celebrating 3 Months at Post

The first three months at post have flown by which means that the grace period for integration into the community is now over, according to Peace Corps, and it`s now time to figure out what i`m supposed to be doing for the next 21 months. I do feel like it`s going to take much more than these two years to really feel comfortable at post especially because of the language barrier, but I feel like I have some idea of some future projects.

For the past couple of weeks Matt, my postmate, and I have been visiting various quartiers around our post to look at future well sites and to hold community meetings to get to know the needs of the communties better. The main problems that were found was the lack of water, water quality, distance from the health center, soil fertility, and maternal health. This post is pretty unique because it encompasses a great mountainous region of almost 50,000 people. The vastness of the region poses some problems with getting in contact with people, no cell service as well, and getting people to come to you or vice versa. In an attempt to give a better depiction of the post I`ll describe how we got to different some of these places.


Digging at a well in Hitoa


Matt's Counterpart, Abdou, decided it would be fun to bring sodas on the hike for a treat at the end. This meant that he hiked with four glass bottles there and back. Not logical, but so worth it.

Hitoa-this was a two hour hike to get to this place that is butting up against Nigeria.
Gossi-in order to get here you have to skirt Nigeria, the road is in pretty bad shape and I was holding onto the moto for dear life the whole. Recommened if you want to work the triceps.
Hitoa-a 20 minute moto ride from the center of town and then a 1.5 hour hike up and down two mountains. After this one I realized that I need to be in much better shape to travel around here.

The most eye opening part of this is that at each place we hike to the well site and then we go to the current place where they get water or it`s described to us. This year has been especially hard because I guess it didn`t rain as much as normal the past rainy season. Women, who are in charge of getting water for the family, have to hike over 10km over mountains, coming back with 20-40 liters of water. Here`s a little math problem: the density of water = 1kg/liter, 1kg=2.2lb, how many pounds of water would one carry back?

With the hot season basically upon us, this problem will only get worse. Speaking of hot, it hit 102F in the shade yesterday in Maroua and I was only slightly uncomfortable in jeans and a tank top. If it were this hot at home, I would either be in a pool/ocean or in front of the airconditioner. Will my body get use to a New England winter after living here for 2 years...?

Just a few images from women's day. Women's Day in Cameroon means that if you have the money you buy the special pange (shown in the pic below), and you march in a parade. Event leading up to the day of the parade include parties where the male elites of the community are served by the women and women pay to have the pleasure and honor of washing the windows of the police station and the mayors house for the big day.



This banner which states, "Women should be submissive to their husbands as they are to God." Col 3:18. Perfect for the day that is supposed to be celebrating women's empowerment.

Party like it's...

So it's the second month at post and settling in is underway full force. I almost have all the furniture i need for my house; Peace Corps admin came by to check on the house and apparently you need to have chairs in a PC house. I wasn't planning on spending money on getting some, but maybe i'll have to put more thought into it.

On the 31st of January the new mayor to our district from Mokolo, the city one hour away, came to visit which means the whole community shows up to the soccer stadium (an far from even sandy, rocky field) to greet him. Matt and I came to the ceremony thinking we were going to be part of the crowds that on the hot stadium listening to the mayor sweating bullets but when we got them we were ushered to front row seats. When the greeting line was made for introductions to the mayor we were the 6th and 7th people from the front; aka we were in the top ten of important people in village. It was a bit uncomfortable standing all the way up there when you village leader is behind you in the line.

It was a lot of pomp and circumstance, but the most rivating sight was seeing the lamido, the traditional leader of the mokolo district, show up with his posee. His guards dressed in turbans, long flowing clocks, and gauzy scarves leapt from the SUV and brandishing swords they started yelling the lamido's name. As the entourage marched around the stadium the guards whipped there swords around still yelling. There was also one person whose sole purpose was to give shade to the lamido by way of an intricate pink, frilly umbrella which he kept twirling at all times.



There was also the traditional dance troupe which danced at the Cameroonian Culture Festival in December. The women dress in beads, wooden calabashes on their heads, bras and beautiful skirts with an assortment of beads, buttons, and other objects. The men dress in loin cloths and knee socks. Tourists come to my post every market day to see the animist women in calabashes and metal or wood sticks through their noses because it is unique to here. The mayor and his wife got pics with the troupe of course.





Oh crazy life

Just a quick update on my internet/communication status. I'll probably be getting internet about once a month therefore I apologize for the long wait between blog posts and pictures. The connection wasn't good on New Year's so I couldn't put up the pictures that I wanted to; I just realized that none of the pictures that I saved on my flashdrive are there anymore. Sorry, I guess you guys will have to wait another month for fun Xmass and pictures of my house. Also, my computer died over Christmas, but as of today has come back to life for the 5th time, but I only have basic tools like notebook. As long as I can find a movie player I will be satisfied. Seriously this computer, 5 years old and on its 4th hardrive has had a hard life and I'm surprised it has weathered Cameroon so far.

Enough of the boring computer talk. I've now been at post for over a month and a half and am still in the transition stage between training and being a real volunteer. This means I spend a lot of time trying to figure out my role in the community, community needs, and where I can buy vegetables because my village only has onions on market day. I realized last week that I would be living on starches, tomato sauce, and onions unitl I went to the capital, and probably would have if some other volunteers didn't come to visit bearing carrots, tomatoes, eggs, and bread. (They also ate all of my chocolate/starbursts/lifesavers so (hinthint) I might need some refills. (Thanks so much for all the letters and packages. Responses are either in the mail now or will be when they arrive). It might sound a bit dramatic, but basically I have to do a bit of preplanning when it comes to veggie/egg shopping in Mokolo, the city an hour away from my post. I'm trying to imagine going to a supermarket in the U.S. for the first time and the outcome of this trip can only be imagined in two ways: I immediately remove myself from the store being incredibly overwhelmed my the vast array of color and products or I faint dead away. Don't worry, I invite everyone to that spectacle in two years.

Aside from the small food issue, my post is amazing! I moved into my new house two weeks ago and am currently adjusting to living alone. It's very odd after growing up Delaney style and then never having less than 2 other roommates, but I'm learning to enjoy it. Since the pictures won't be going up any time soon, I'll just try to describe the house to the best of my abilities. It has 3 rooms: a living room with two trunks and a bookshelf (desk, chair, mat, and table will be there sometime in the first 6 months), a kitchen with some herbs that I just planted in calabashes so hopefully I'll get some mint and cilantro soon, and then my bedroom with my bed, mosquito netting, and hanging rods to hang clothes on. The make-shift closet was completely designed by little original me, shows off the Legasto creativity. My concession is kind of a disaster with a crumbling pile of mud bricks in one corner, a pile of old tires in another, and a small mountain of dirt in the middle, but I see potential.

As far as work goes, I held a meeting with village leaders with my postmate to go over general problems in the community and then I did the same thing with the community health 'board' specifically for health. The two most consistant problems were problems with getting drinkable water because there are not enough wells and during the dry season these wells dry up and women have to walk for kilometers to get water and then the distance to the health center from the villages up in the mountains. The first 3 months will be spent doing analysis much like this. I also did a presentation during pre-natal consultations at the health center on Family Planning. It was hilarious to see grown women get giggly and embarrassed when I pulled out a wooden phallus from my bag and did a condom demo.

I also went to a Health Club meeting at the highschool and it reminded me of a scene from the Little Rascals. The instructor was a nurse from the health center and had no control over the class. Every time he would turn around to write something on the board, 5 students would sneak out the back door and crouch below the windows as they sprinted past to escape.

I promise to post pics!!!! Miss you all. Muah!

And her they are finally!



Welcome to my latrine. The SED volunteer from Mokolo came up to visit Tourou, she helps out with the financial aspect of some of the community groups i work with at post, and nature called. I pointed her to my latrine and off she went. After a few minutes she was back in the house wondering 'where exactly was this latrine?' Yep so look closely and you will see the pot top that is my latrine cover, apparently this type of cover was entirely new for her and thus she was extremely confused.



This is my beautiful kitchen. I'm attempting to growth some herbs (mint, cilantro, basil, rosemary) but my green thumb has proved to be pretty black. So far only on cilantro sprout and 2 basil sprouts have survived my infrequent watering.



This is the back of my house. On the left side is my well and the clay pot next to my back door is where my water is held. It stays pretty cool in there, almost like fridge!

Oh Christmas Tree! Oh Christmas Tree!

I’ll start off with a picture of the Christmas tree that some agro volunteers made by ripping down branches from trees at the peace corps transit house in Maroua.



Beautiful right? Alright so it’s a little mangy but it did make it feel little like Christmas opening Secret Santa presents under the tree the next morning. I got 3 carved wooden masks for decoration for my new house. I still haven’t moved into my house yet, but hopefully this weekend is the big move in day since my bed just got finished a few days ago. This means that I have a bookshelf and a bed! After I get a bit more settled I’ll take pics of my house, no worries.



Picture of another volunteer’s puppy in a helmet. He’s been fed baby food out of a coke bottle with a nipple on it, cute right?

I’ve been at my post for about 3 weeks now and there’s nothing really to report. I’ve spent these weeks helping my postmate clean his house, playing with neighborhood kids, learning how to cook/trying out bean and tomato sauce recipes, hanging out with the nurses and doctor at the health clinic, and making plans for when the real work starts in January.


Here’s the car we put all of our stuff on. We sat with the driver in the car and then about 30 huge bags of rice and 3 guys got on the back with our luggage. One thing that I have learned is that I should learning Hide (Hiday) quickly in order to be able to communicate with any children or women and most men. So far gesturing and broken French has worked, but I would really like to learn enough to be able to have a basic conversation by the end of the first year. We’ll see you that works, Hide is really difficult; it’s been in one ear out the other when people teach me phrases.

From Trainee to Volunteer (written Dec. 7)

As of last Thursday, I am now an official Peace Corps Volunteer! This means that I somehow passed my language training. I don’t really know how though because I lost my voice that day and was slightly disorientated from the cold medication that I took earlier that day, but it happened. It’s good to finally be done with training, but a little bittersweet to leave the 28 American’s that I’ve been incessantly hanging out with for three months.

We had the ceremony at the superfey’s house (kind of a more important mayor). The U.S. ambassador to Cameroon came along with tons of government officials from the area and the PC Director. It was a lot of pomp and circumstance and more than a little bit uncomfortable because of the black pagne all the girls had to wear, but very exciting as it was my second graduation this year.


The boys in their bou-bous.


The girl’s in the black pagne that absorbs the sun.


One of the musician’s that played music, before and during the ceremony.


With my homestay brother, mom, and sister. Notice the chickens and eggs on my mom’s pagne. They also have pagne with fans, oil cans, Paul Biya, toasters; I’m sure my fashion taste will only improve here. I heard through the grapevine that Obama pagne might be coming to Cameroon at some point.

After 11 weeks of training, I’m not sure I’m completely capable of making my own schedule, cooking my own food, and basically taking care of myself. I’m sure I’ll figure it out. So far I’ve helped Thea, a volunteer living in Mokolo, clean/rearrange her house because I’ll be staying there a fair amount to get fresh veggies, internet, and do banking. Tomorrow I’ll be moving to my post, but unfortunately not my house as I would like to some furniture in it before I settle in it. I’m a little bit nervous, but mostly excited to start meeting people in my community and begin the two years.


Drinking some billy bill at another trainees house. It's an alcoholic drink made from mill and tastes like balsalmic vineger.