Near Year Update

A-salot wuna! (I salute you all in Pidgin English). Hello from Cameroon! I know it’s been too long. So, here we go.

I am still equally as enthusiastic about my Peace Corps service as I was in the very beginning—maybe even more so now. I have been in country for over a year and living in Fundong for almost a full year. It is downright astonishing how fast the time has been moving. Come December I will have lived in Fundong for an entire year—it’ll be the halfway point of my service!

Before this becomes a wild cluster whirl of scribbled chaos let me try to organize this rant into overarching categories. My work now. My trip home. The future.

My Work Now is going all sorts of fantastically. I almost do not even believe it myself. Since we left off we have been quite busy in Better Family Foundation (BFF). Firstly, with much thanks to my amazing family and friends BFF was able to earn a permanent spot on GlobalGiving.org and Omprakash.org! This is an amazing landmark success for BFF. By becoming permanent partners with these two NGOs ultimately equates to access to international donors and an improved web presence. Both of which will help ensure BFF a more steady and sustainable future. Now BFF is able to collect donations and have them sent directly to Fundong without any middle people—whether it is Peace Corps Volunteers or other partnering NGOs. This is all sorts of terrific. Also, the idea of increased web presence, while it sounds like a completely ridiculous idea, is indeed incredibly important and powerful. Since becoming part of these two organizations our credibility as an NGO has been nicely articulated and further substantiated.  How am I measuring that success? Well, based on the number of other US based NGOs who reach out to us regarding potential partnerships; not to mention how many people express interest in short-term positions with our organization. We’re moving in an amazing direction!

Since April BFF has raised over $5,700 in donations! Over $4,000 of which went directly into the Alim-Boyui Community Water Project which completely rehabilitated the two village’s water system. In the end BFF was able to stretch the money and manage the project so well that we repaired 5 existing standpipes, constructed 25 new standpipes, fix at least 100 meters of broken pipeline, sensitize the two village and train a water management committee. Drinking water for everybody!

Towards the tail end of the summer BFF began a Child Sponsor Project under our Direct Financial Support Program. At first we aimed to sponsor a total of ten school children. As we began receiving donations we increased that number to twenty school children. We hoped to supply their books, uniforms and PTA fee which is essentially tuition—the government claims education is free but in reality does not supply schools with nearly enough money to operate so principals form PTAs in order to fill the monetary gap. Up until now we have raise $1,503! An amazing start. We have decided to sponsor a total of 18 children—11 primary children and 8 secondary students. Any remaining money will be rolled over into next year’s program. We decided this because we understand that we’ve yet to fully execute the project and realize we’re only bound to encounter many difficulties which we’d like to learn how to navigate before we began investing lots of money into the project.

 

Interviewing Nkwi Hestine-- this is, more or less, what Child Sponsoring looks like. At least the leg work behind it all.

Do note these children are NOT playing Simon Says, despite what the photo may lead you to believe. And yes, chances are they may be slightly confused.

 

And education! It’s BFF’s third, and longest running, programming area. Before I left for my month leave I had been working with two health care workers who are also BFF members in designing a course attempting to tackle Diabetes and Hypertension. The seminar series aims to sensitize community groups on early detection and helpful ways to avoid and/or mitigate either of the diseases—chiefly through nutrition and other lifestyle changes. We were moving along quite swiftly up until just about two weeks before my departure. One of the women I was working with fell sick and then shortly after the other experienced a death in the family—and if you recall Cry-Die’s are quite an event here and take up an immense amount of time. Now that I am back we’re regrouping and fleshing out the last of the work in order to begin in hopefully a month’s time.

In this very instant, other than the nutrition course, I am helping manage the Ameng Community Water Project. It is going incredibly well—the smoothest one yet! The community is awesomely enthusiastic and so hard working. Only small issue I am noticing is that they prefer to work only on ‘Country Sunday’—which occurs every eight days. This is slowing us up, but only by a bit. All in all, it’s going awesomely. The funding from this came from a Small Project Assistance (SPA) Grant which is channeled through Peace Corp Cameroon through USAID. Thanks, Uncle Sam.

By early 2013 a Seattle based NGO will arrive in Fundong to work with BFF and the local Fujua orphanage on infrastructural improvements. Now we’re in a serious planning phase in order to prep for the volunteer’s/NGO’s arrival.

 

Also—Simon has his eyes on HIV/AIDs interventions. He’s some great ideas on the approach to. He’d like to target youths by holding a sort of summer camp touching not only on sex education but other important life skills training. He doesn’t want to leave out the adults either—so he is thinking about revamping an old BFF marriage seminar which will give our NGO an opportunity to broach the subject in a less abrasive fashion. I am really excited to begin helping organize all of this—especially should we find some help from other NGOs it could turn to be a very large scale project.

With all of this going on I am continually reminded that I’ve many other little things I’d like to do work-wise here before I leave. The biggest, and maybe most important thing as I see it, is to create a computer literacy manual for BFF members so that they too can understand and productively use a computer to continue all of this work after I leave.

That’s my work, in a nutshell.

My Trip Home was also all sorts of fantastic! I really enjoyed the vacation back to the USA. It was, at first, a bit of a culture shock—endless food, endless running water, endless electricity, endless paved roads. Within the first week, and definitely by the second week, I felt back home. It was so wonderful seeing my family and friends. It was really nice hanging around with my mother and stepfather—though it sometimes seemed I was barely home. I was even lucky enough to shoot up to New Hampshire to see my father and his side of the family—unfortunately I missed out on my cousins wedding which just passed in September but I was lucky to surprise an old best friend’s wedding and enter wearing traditional Kom clothing to the Lion King Theme song. As you’re probably imagining it was a fun night. 

Popping in and out of New York City visiting friends, eating in fun restaurants, dancing, catching waves, rekindling old love affairs (yes yes, I am taken now! It’s all sorts of wonderful and exciting), seeing old friends, making new friends, visiting old high school stomping grounds, reliving many old and cherished memories all the while creating new ones—it was nostalgic to say the least. There was a change happening, slowly.

My future was quite uncertain before the end of my trip home, honestly. If you had asked me what my plans were after my Peace Corps service I was most likely to tell you I planned on extending my service. That tentative plan had not really been thought out, by any means. I knew I really enjoyed what I was doing (and still am/still do!), I was certain I would be welcome another year at my post, I felt that the work I was doing was affective and productive. Why not extend?

But after being home for some time I realized and remembered a few things. I remembered that basically all of my major support networks (family, friends, etc.) are in the States. I realized that many of my friends were very lucky to being ‘Playing Life’ as we say in Pidigin while in their 20’s. This is to say they have decent jobs, live in nice apartments, have fun on the weekends and occasional weekdays, save money, travel; you know, do the damn thing. I also realized many of my friends are trying to get to that point but are still managing quite well even if they haven’t quite made it yet. I realized that development work is multi-faceted and can be done, in a way, virtually anywhere. I remembered I’ve a wild love for New York City. I realized I’ve a stellar relationship to come home to and give time to grow. I remembered I’ve an obligation to my student loans that I am hell bent of freeing myself from. I feel like there were more realizations and things remembered but let’s leave it there for now. All in all—after my Peace Corps service I am planning to come back to the US, find a decent job, pay some bills, let this love grow, enjoy and then see what the next step is. Sounds good, right? No—it sounds great.

In other cultural news pertaining to Kom I will shortly become a ‘titled’ man at the Kom Palace! The Fon told me during my last visit he will give me a red feather, thus making me a ‘Chindo’. A Chindo (or more often times referred to as a Chinda by other Northwest ethnic groups) is an honored title for men here in Kom. It is essentially an extension of the palace. This is incredibly exciting as it will give me an honest glimpse into traditional Kom culture and practices. I am really excited and honored to soon receive this title! With it comes some rights and rules—so I must becareful to abide by the rules soon to be imposed on me otherwise I’ll have to ‘pay a fine’ to the Palace—literally, like give them 50 cents if I do something wrong. Otherwise it’s pretty awesome. When I enter any palace in the Northwest Region I must enter through a special door, I get to sit on the privileged side of any palace courtyard. It’s pretty stellar. Most importantly I get to finally walk around Bamenda while wearing my country cap and have people accurately identify who/what I am.

 (Background on the hats. The Northwest Region in comprised of so many different ethnic groups—all who have unique cultures and traditions, though similar in many ways. So, for Kom people any man may wear a country cap. There is no need for a titled position from the palace. If you like the hat, you can wear it. It is, though, more likely that an older man/powerful man would wear it—but not always. In many other parts of the Northwest—chiefly in Banso (either Banso or Kom is the largest ethnic group in the NW)—to wear such a hat means you have a title. So as I walk around Bamenda people are always shouting out, ‘Hey, Shufyi!’, ‘Hey, Shay!’ attempting to guess who has titled me/what my title is. I always have to explain I don’t wear a title, Kom people don’t need a title, but you can call me ‘Bo-Mucum’ (Father of Jujus).  Now, it’ll be, “Hey, Chinda!” While I will officially be a Chindo—it’s close enough. Beats being called, ‘Hey, white man.’).

So! This is my life for the time being. It’s all sorts of wonderful and I wish each and every one of you reading this could be here to experience it with me! Nothing but love and smiles for the motherland.