Life in the Tower of Babel (Written May 01, 2011)

                Ever since my arrival to Cameroon, my mind has been a jumble of language; since moving to the Grand North, jumbled with the addition of Fulfulde and now also a decent amount of Voko, which is a very tonal language, lacking the rules and simplicity of Fulfulde, thus making it much more difficult to pick up on. The more time I have been spending in Voko (soon to be a fairly permanent placement), the better my language(s), since I’m immersed nearly 24/7, and I’m pretty pleased with my progress—I can now carry on basic daily conversation that makes me feel like I’m actually contributing and not just a warm body hanging around. I do get told that I don’t speak enough (a shock to all of you, I’m sure), which I find hilarious—I’ll be sitting with a group of people who are chatting, mostly Fulfulde with intermittent Voko, and then they turn to me and ask, “why are you so silent?! Speak!,” to which I usually answer “mi don nana!” (I’m listening) which actually does significantly help me pick up new words and phrases.

                Another high point of my recent stays in Voko have been my increasing popularity with the children, specifically a baby who was so scared of me he couldn’t even look at me without screaming and crying (yes, I have that mystifying power over children here). To try and win over his love, I bought him a piece of candy, and after accepting with careful consideration, this child sticks to me like glue. He’s taking to me so, that he dances around the concession singing “Shara don don, Shara don don! (because he can’t pronounce Nasara = white person in Fulfulde), and although I don’t like being called Nasara and he’s slowly learning my name, this is still totally adorable.

                In terms of work, right now we’re preparing for cultivation which should begin very soon as the rainy season is just beginning. If I haven’t already noted this, the crops that dominate here are corn (not the sweet corn you know), peanuts, millet, cotton, and rice. A few of the GICs I work with will be planting soy, and throughout the villages we will be planting various types of trees (for consumption, shade, and farm use). The women of these GICs are very interested and motivated in learning about all kinds of IGAs and are constantly asking about all kinds of different things that we can do. I’ve done soap-making sessions with a few groups and built an improved cookstove with another group. Some stuff that we might be doing later on include lotion making, products using soy flour, fruit-drying, canning, juice making, and cloth dying. What’s cool is that we’re constantly coming up with generating ideas; possibilities manipulate local resources and ways to preserve food products. A recent idea that I’m really looking forward to researching is the use of bees wax to make various products… updates to come!

Updates... (Wednesday, April 13, 2011)

                After my last blog post I realized that I forgot to tell my most recent achievement (or probably most recent obsession would be more correct). I’ve already mentioned that here in Cameroon, as is common across the continent, people carry many things on their heads—especially water. Since arriving at post I’ve often shared my interest in carrying water this way and have even been encouraged to do so by a friend or two who all told me that it is indeed easier to carry water on one’s head than to do so by hand… turns out, they’re absolutely right! It’s easier and virtually no water is lost en route. So now I’ve taken to carrying water (a bucket of filled to 17 liters) from the deep water well by my house a few times a day. I honestly thought that the first time the bucket was placed on my head I would just collapse under the weight (and I didn’t think to start small), but it wasn’t so bad and now I’m getting pretty good at it, it’s just a question of positioning and balance of the bucket, as well as the rolled up bandana underneath. I’ve been so excited about this recent development that not only have I been telling everyone and anyone, but I also like to take chances to practice, ex: carrying a case of beer on my head down a few blocks while in Ngoundéré.

Climbing Mt. Ngoundere

                Speaking of recent achievement, the other day while reaching the end of my morning run, just as I reached my neighborhood, I noticed a decent sized group of people singing and dancing under a few trees just behind the neighborhood. As I was nearing my neighborhood I could hear the chant-like singing growing in volume and once I had arrived, I stood and watched the group along with some neighbors. I later found out that this group of people, who are from the Toupouri tribe (generally living in the eastern part of the Extreme North region, but also decently populating my neighborhood), were celebrating a coming of age tradition, common among many (Northern) Cameroonian tribes. In short, these young boys had just spent a couple days en brousse (I later found out that these days that just means under some trees outside the neighborhood), are now returning as young men, and will each receive a new name, generally an evolved version of their old name.

I just got back from a spending a few days at the base camp of the park, which is about a few kilometers south of the last village (Mayo Djarendi) in the canton (Voko) and takes crossing the vast, but currently near-empty Faro River. One of the coolest parts of each day was walking down the empty river bed in search of a pool of water deep enough to swim in for a while (sans hippos, mind you!). Right now, the deepest water is usually knee-high and in fairly rare, sporadic pools, but once we’re well into the rainy season, the water should be a few hundred meters long and at a tree-topping depth (sorry, estimation isn’t my forte). Anyway, it was really awesome to walk along all kinds of fresh tracks from animals (hippos, various types of antelopes and birds) all doing the same thing as me—looking for water! One of the more unfortunate parts of being in the park base is again, witnessing the number of poachers and gold diggers arrested on a daily basis. It’s regrettable to see so many people risking prison and fines, and that animals (some already threatened) put at risk.  One man was brought in for poaching—a warthog, several lizards, a few antelope, and a monkey known as “the magistrate” because of its black and white fur resemblance to courtroom judge with a wig (a few of which I later saw hopping between trees!). On the note of gold digging, on any given day of the week, a majority of the people who live Voko (generally those living farther south, closer to the river) are not to be found because they have all gone down to the river to look for gold (think California gold-rush style). The other day my counterpart, the MINADER rep in Voko, asked a few women who regularly go down to the river to show us their findings; they promptly produced a dime-sized pile of gold “pebbles” which they said is easily worth 10.000 FCFA (about $20) and can take weeks to find.