Last Day at the Farm

Hello there again!

Wow, it feels strange to be blogging away from Cameroon. Already three weeks have past since I’ve returned, and I’m still making small day-to-day adjustments. I think I can speak for the other volunteers when I say that there is definitely some counter-culture shock going on. It’s not so abrupt and huge as the term may suggest, but there is definitely some realizations you make once you return and are able to distance yourself from that foreign place in which you spent half of your summer. One of the most obvious outcomes is becoming more appreciative for every little thing we may take for granted sometimes when living in a place like the US. Everyday life in Cameroon was at or below the poverty level, but the people there were nonetheless happy to have what little they owned. Families were just grateful if they could bring food to the table, and sending children to school was sometimes nothing but a dream.

I learned from the community much more than I can put to words. They were a friendly group of people who more than welcomed us into their country, but also greeted us, invited us to their homes and churches, fed us, gave us gifts, and never failed to kindly say ‘hello’ and wave at us. Yes, we didn’t exactly blend into their society, but I had never felt so welcomed as I did in Cameroon. Perhaps sometimes people were a little too welcoming, if you know what I mean, but I never felt completely offended or uncomfortable. That’s just how their culture is.

Before I go on about my last thoughts on cultural differences, I would like to talk about the project. The last two weeks of the project found the other volunteers and me working on the Njinikom farm, which was, to and from, an hour and a half long hike each day. It was quite the challenge trekking up those steep, rocky mud roads each day but I always felt really accomplished at the end of a day’s work. There are about ten different groups of widows that will be benefiting from the money we brought for each of their plots of land, but we only worked alongside one group. This group was the arts and crafts group of Njinikom. Like all of the widows we have met across different groups, these women were really kind and giving. Throughout the last two weeks, our main focus was preparing the land for cultivation. Our main work consisted of clearing and hoeing the land, as well as building a propagator.

Along with the hard labor, the other volunteers and I interviewed key community members, like the president of the Njinikom arts and crafts widow group, in addition to the coordinator of the widows groups. This documentation and video recording will prove very useful and will be added to the wide variety of photos we have taken for the purpose of this project. We hope that these records will contribute to a successful project report and follow-up during the course of the months and even years to come.

The post-project part is in some ways just as or even more important than the project itself. Every volunteer doesn’t expect any sort of project completion during their stay, just project progress. Something as complex as a sustainable development project implies difficulty and lots of dedication. Sometimes that’s not enough because other factors play in, and as the other volunteers and I learned, culture is a BIG one. There’s not much you can do to influence change easily in a system that works differently from yours. It’s hard work and nothing seems to happen as planned. It’s not easy to get the results you want in the time frame you want them, but as a volunteer working for a good cause I was never expecting it to run smoothly. I was just happy to learn from my mistakes, learn from the community, and use those to help me move on and progress for the sake of the project. It took a lot of late night conversations and additional meetings to finalize some project details, and by the time we were leaving the other volunteers and I wished we could have completed more tangible work.

In the end, despite all the twists and turns, we were very content in our choice to come to Cameroon. We understood that although we didn’t accomplish much tangible work on the fields, we made a pretty good intangible impact on the people we worked closely with. I know that many of them could tell how much we cared to sort the issues out so that we can help them as much as we can. We were able to sit with Anna, the coordinator of the widows groups, and the project financial advisor, on two separate occasions before we left Cameroon to conclude the direction of the project once we were out of the picture. We feel much more secure now that we are close to establishing business workshops to be held for the leaders of widows groups. After all, teaching them a method of sustainable development is what Nourish International is all about. We hope that they will use those business skills to not only run their fruit and vegetation businesses, but to also grow and flourish these businesses. I would love to return back 20 years from now to see a Cameroon that is no longer suffering and limited as it is now.

There are few things I know I will not miss about Cameroon. Cold showers everyday, for one. Going many nights and even days at a time without electricity was sometimes unbearable, but the other volunteers and I found fun ways to occupy ourselves. The electricity was out most of the times because it rained literally everyday there, and although I do miss it sometimes especially since Texas hasn’t seen any rain since I’ve arrived, the rain made the mud roads the worst to trudge through. There is no possible way to walk through that untouched by blotches and squirts of red, thick mud over your shoes and pant legs. And it also made slipping on your bottom very likely! Add that to steep roads and long hikes, you got one big workout! Although they were good workouts, I will never grow accustomed to steep anything! I don’t mind the walking so much, but steep hills will never be my friend. It also would’ve been nice to have more connection to the world. The internet connection was extremely slow and we only averaged once a week at the lab. It was quite difficult to handle at first, but in the end, it was a challenge I’m glad I endured. It’s good to distance yourself from a little technology sometimes. Making sure to bleach or use a UV light to clean your water isn’t exactly something I’ll miss doing either. Oh, the stomachaches! I will never miss those.

But enough of the negative, there was way more positive! They are much more general but also much more meaningful. I will miss most of all the friends I made there. This includes the women we worked with, the kids I met on the street, our lovely cook, and so many, many more! They made our stay worthwhile and I thank them for welcoming us with such open arms. Trying new food was fantastic, and no matter what it looked like or what the content, I always jumped eagerly into the dishes. I loved trying the exotic food and all of it was delicious. Thanks to our cook, Zita, Emily and I have some of her homemade recipes that we can cook on our own. We want to cook our favorite dish puff puffs first! I’ll dearly miss the beautiful landscape of Cameroon. From the beaches in the South, to the bustling cities in the center, and to the mountains in the Northwest region where we stayed, every view was beautiful. And I felt like I could see almost every star at night – it was breathtaking. I’ll also miss the excitement around soccer matches there. I felt privileged to be a part of something that was so special to the people of Cameroon. That was one thing that brought all of them together, and it was a sight to see. And although French was not so prevalent in my village as it was in other parts of Cameroon, I will miss the presence of French the times I was able to practice it in the southern cities and in Limbe in our final days.

I would definitely say that Cameroon was an amazing experience. An unforgettable one that I will only grow to appreciate more in the year to come. I know that our work there and after the project will make an impact in some way for the lives of those good women. So many people we met there hope we return soon, but all I could tell them was that hopefully one day I would. I really hope to visit them again but for now I must settle for emails and occasional phone calls and care packages as our only ways to stay in touch. And finally, I want to thank all of you who stuck by me on my journey and followed my blogs. I really appreciated the support away from home. And of course, thanks for supporting a cause that’s extremely important to me.

Hello again!

I have allowed two weeks and three days to pass by before posting again! and well, that is just plain irresponsible. I have much to share about life and work here in Njinikom, but once again, very little time.

After being trained at Pa Sala’s farm and meeting all the widow groups around Boyo Division during the first two weeks, we finally started working alongside the widows on their farm. I cannot believe how strong the women are here. Whether the hot sun or freezing rain is coming down, they are always working, never stopping and never seeming to tire. It is incredible. Not surprisingly, it puts me to shame, though I’m pretty sure the apathetic goats eating grass off to side could do that too. Just kidding. Sort of. Like Christina said, the work we’re doing isn’t complicated but it sure of heck is difficult! However, despite being spent at the end of each day I think it is also making me stronger. The other day, for example, I meant to lazily flick a bug off of me only to watch it shoot out of existence. I felt kind of bad but was pleasantly surprised by the power of my index finger and thumb.

Aside from working at the widows’ farm we’ve also continued another part of the project at Pa Sala’s farm on the other side of the hill.  (Interestingly, both farms are in valleys but on separate sides of the same mountain which we appear to be near the top of – it provides a funny sense of symmetry and a healthy amount of walking.) Other than his role as teacher, he is also in charge of growing the plantains that are to be distributed to all the widow groups throughout Boyo Division. This means Njinikom, Belo, Fundong, Mbingo, and Ashing – over 500 women in total. It is unfortunate that due to time constraints we will not be able to work on farms in these other locations but because we were able to build the propagator (Ben did most of that actually) and plant the koms (which are roots of plantains that will produce the seedlings to be distributed) we feel more secure about the success of the project after our departure.

Another thing we were able to do before our time is up was set up the business skills training for the women after we leave. To me, this may be the most important part of the project as it’s most important that the women are able to help themselves.  Even if we gave them no money, if we give them knowledge then we give them the power to help themselves and not have to rely on others. The main problem here is that due to the nature and structure of society here widows are forced to be reliant on others who have no desire to take on the responsibility of supporting them and therefore they are often the most neglected members of the community. So dependency then is the direct opposite of what we came here to achieve and getting this in place allows us to overcome that.  The person who will be heading the training often works with different NGOs and charities and he also mentioned that with this project we were really targeting one of the biggest and most prominent problems in Cameroon. So it felt really good to get that confirmed and in place.

Anyways, that was a lot in those three paragraphs.  I could keep writing pages and pages about our project but there are also lots of other things I’d like to talk about before I run out of time or the power goes off (this post wasn’t up on Thursday for that reason).

I mentioned before that on the weekends we get to travel around the region we’re in and it’s a really great way to get a larger sense of what Cameroon is really like. One of the most interesting things I’ve noticed is that even though we’re traveling to places that are all really close together, almost everywhere we go we encounter new cultures. On the surface things don’t seem all that different but after a bit you can start to get a sense for what makes this certain part where you are unique, just like the differences you might feel between Dripping Springs, Austin, and Dallas. I remember reading in my guide book that Cameroon was like a smaller version of Africa because it has so many different groups and tribes in it. Even though I haven’t left the Northwest Province I can definitely feel how that is true.

A really good example of that was when we went horseback riding just this past Sunday. We traveled to Fundong in a taxi and then trekked up into the country to where we’d be meeting our guides. Our guides were Fulani, a Muslim group of people in Cameroon that typically live high up in the mountains and herd cattle. I couldn’t believe how hospitable they were and just how much fun we had. Ben fell of the horse, I slammed my knee into a tree, Christina couldn’t get her horse to gallop, Stephanie didn’t have stirrups or a saddle, and of course we were all feeling rather chaf-tastic afterward but it was hands down one of the greatest experiences I’ve had here.

Anyways I’m out of time. This will probably be my last post before leaving Cameroon. Sunday there is no access to internet, we leave Njinikom and Boyo Division Monday morning, and once we’re on the road we probably won’t have time to stop anywhere. So I’m saying goodbye for now, though I hope you check back in for my one last follow up post. Perhaps for once in that post I will be able to tell you all that I have always promised to. Until then, Ahsha (I am with you).

Hey guys!

Sorry that it has been a while since I’ve updated my blog. A lot has happened and I’d like to share with you as much of my experiences these back two weeks.

So, week 3 was pretty chill and consisted mainly of visiting widow groups. We received yet another welcome last Thursday morning from a group in Belo. On Friday we were supposed to meet another group of widows in Belo but they weren’t able to meet us because most of them were at a funeral. Last week I definitely learned that funerals are a big deal here. Not that they aren’t back home, but when someone has passed here everything else seems to stop. Everyone seems to know everyone, so naturally it’s hard to organize an introduction with a group of widows when most of them are at a funeral. It was sad to hear that so many people I knew here were losing relatives. I knew of three different people who lost someone close to them that week. It just made me think of home and how I hope everyone was okay.

In week 3 we also continued to put the skills we’ve learned so far to action! We learned how to clear/hoe the land with shovels and even our bare hands. We ran into some crazy things along the way like huge ants, chameleons, and even a huge cockroach-looking cricket that one of the ladies who works on the land decided to take with her to eat as a snack later. Tasty! Ben and I also were able to use our great arm muscles to transport plantains by wheelbarrow from the farm to the roadside at Pa Salah’s. From there they would be transported to other farms so that each of the 18 groups of widows would benefit from the seedlings to eat from and sell. We also returned back to marcotting mango and avocado, or as they say ‘pear’, trees at the farm in Ashing. I wasn’t particularly happy about climbing up a tall tree to do this but it actually wasn’t that bad. I was afraid of falling and didn’t trust the ladder I used to climb up to the tree, so I decided I’d rather put all my weight on the tree than on the ladder. I expected it to be difficult to marcot that high up with limited working space, but I was pleasantly surprised with myself. I guess I’m getting better at this whole farming thing.

Last weekend our town of Njinikom held the first games of the football (I’m talking soccer, people) tournament. It was really exciting to see all the towns people come out to watch a nice game of football! I love the atmosphere and enjoy being around the locals shouting and even laughing at the players on the field. Even the players got a good laugh at themselves or their teammates when someone made a mistake on the field. We watched this match on Sunday afternoon and then some of us got together with football players and some of their friends for some beers. We discussed cultural differences on religion, homosexuality, and women. It was sort of awkward at first but as we really got to talk to some of the men, I became really interested to hear from them and I think they thought the same of us.

This week has been more work intensive and that explains why I wasn’t able to update my blog. With only 2 weeks (now only 10 days) left in Njinikom we wanted to get a lot more done this week. We visited another farm in Mbingo and brought some of the plantains that were from Pa Salah’s farm. We planted 50 of them and because of the teamwork from the women digging holes and the volunteers planting, the day was still new when we left. Like all the women we’ve met on the farms, these women were extremely kind and provided us with many ears of corn to thank us for coming. They were huge and Zita, our cook, would later roast us some good corn from them! It was my first time trying roasted corn and it was delicious. Ben was right, it does kind of taste like popcorn. Then I started to daydream about buttered popcorn from the movies with a big and juicy pickle! There has been quite a lot of daydreaming about American food between us volunteers lately. It often involves a bacon burger with fries. Emily and I have already made plans to try the newly-opened In N Out in Dallas when she visits for a few days in August! But more than anything, I crave a pickle and am currently going through pickle withdrawal. For those who know me, you know this is serious business.

This week we have also started to work at the Njinikom farm, Mugehuf. This will be the farm we work at from now on. This will allow us volunteers to be able to work around the same group of women, get to know them better, in addition to seeing all the skills we’ve learned so far in one place. That way we can really see all of the progress we make at one farm. Just as was expected, the women are very nice. We started to prepare the farm from scratch. So we cleared the leaves and branches from the trees that were chopped down. That took up most of day 1. Day 2 at the farm we cleared (mainly by hand) the leftover leaves and debris, then we began hoeing the land. This is no easy task! It requires a lot of arm strength and breaks between. The women are fierce! I was especially surprised by the oldest women, Helmina. She’s actually is the president of the group of widows on that plot of land. She takes breaks like everyone else but she can go on for the whole work day never seeming to get tired. She’s the only one who doesn’t switch off tasks. I like to hoe the ground more than picking up debris to clear, but at the same time, it’s much less strenuous. On the first day of hoeing the women were really impressed with my hoeing and even made comments about me now being a Kom woman and keeping me in Cameroon. I was happy to hear them pleased and just wanted to do my best for them. That’s why I am here after all!

The work takes a lot of endurance but it’s not difficult work. Once you get the hang of it, you’re set. I’ve learned a lot about farming and I hope I can apply that somewhere one day. I’ve always wanted to have a garden and I’m definitely thinking it will happen for sure when I get my own place.

We only have 10 more days in Njinikom before we depart to the south for a few days in Yaounde, the capital, and Limbe, where we can find black sand beaches. I’ve knocked a few things off my personal to-do list in the past days. One, I got to carry a baby goat! Okay, I kind of cheated because I got my friend Emmanuel to catch it for me, but I’m still counting it. They’re not easy to catch! Second, I’ve began watching a Nigerian movie. Emily, Ben, and I are 30 minutes into it so far. Let’s just say I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s quality and the acting are horrible but it’s quite the entertainment! It’s called, “By Fire By Thunder.” Look it up! Something else we all want to do while we’re here is learn how to ride a motorbike. Hopefully we’ll be able to fix the one in our garage. In the meantime, I’ll just continue to enjoy my nights with my fellow volunteers playing games of Crazy 8′s under the candlelight because the electricity is often off at night. It just rains like crazy here. Afternoon, night. You name it.

Off to see a big waterfall, visit a palace, and ride horses this weekend! Until next time, my friends.

With two weeks left in Njinikom I figured it was time for another post. Time seems to have nearly stopped here but life is good. Last week we were without power for most of the week after a beer truck took out the power transformer in Belo,  I suspect the driver was enjoying a bit of the cargo. Our nights have been filled with candle lit dinners, card games, and more crossword puzzles than can possibly be healthy but somehow we have all managed to keep ourselves entertained and semi-sane.

Last weekend was the start of our soccer tournament which had a few hundred spectators and was definitely a highlight so far. The tournament was meant to spread the message of why we are here and give us a chance to talk with some of the younger people in the village. After 2 matches on Sunday we met with the captains of the teams playing in the tournament to have an informal talk about cross cultural differences. A case of beer went fast and the conversations really were helpful to shed light on how people perceive westerners in their country. Its hard to overcome centuries of exploitation by westerners and it seems people were weary of our presence here.  We did our best to explain religion, political division, sexual orientation and whatever else people had questions about including why exactly we had come to Njinikom. It got heated at points and eventually deteriorated into how to date American girls but its all good, I think we at least have opened peoples eyes a bit and they may accept that we are not here as missionaries, oil workers, or government agents.

Getting people to open up here takes time and there are a few people that have truly welcomed us into their world. As part of our stay here we hired a wonderful lady to cook for us named Zita. She has an 80 year old husband who cant work and 4 kids to support yet she is one of the most positive and hopeful people I have ever met.  Zita is about 30 and is staunchly baptist and loves to sing hymns or read passages to us as we eat. Its not preachy and talking to her has given me great perspective on the role religion plays in a part of the world where life is by no means easy.

We have opened our ears and in turn Zita was nice enough to invite us to her home for some roasted corn.  I can understand why many of the people here have respiratory problems, cooking basically involves sitting in a smoker for an hour.  Kids flocked in from next door to see the white people and we got a chance to ask how school was going for everybody. The hard part for many of the kids here is that most of the homes do not have lights and thus studying is nearly impossible. Combine this with school fees and the need to work to support the family and its easy to see why most kids don’t last long in school. One of the biggest needs here is a way to ensure that school fees are paid for students trying to succeed in school.

As far as work I spent yesterday constructing a propagator box while the girls went to the farm in Njinikom. The propagator will house 800-900 plantain seedlings and is a big part of our efforts here. For my work Pa Salah invited me to his home for some fufu, njama njama, and mystery meat which I’m pretty sure was guinea pig. I have really enjoyed learning from Pa and I will always remember him calling me a woman for eating 2 lbs of fufu. Men here are judged by their appetite and Pa put down about three times as much fufu as I could, gotta work on that I suppose.

We don’t have a lot of times left here and next week will be a race to get as much done as possible. Life here is challenging, work is exhausting, problems are everywhere, but people somehow remain hopeful that things are getting better. The Kom people are remarkably similar to us when you get to know them and its easy to feel at home talking to people here. Optimism is alive and well in West Africa and I feel incredibly fortunate to learn from my friends here. I’m hoping I can figure out a way to repay those who have welcomed me and taught me lessons that can only be learned from this type of experience

Hello again!

My fellow volunteers have been much better about posting than I have, but they’ve done a pretty good job and describing what we’ve done here so far. It is like nothing I have ever been apart of before and though it’s not all mangoes and tea (‘peaches and cream’ Cameroon-style), this is honestly amazing.

I shall start by saying, yes, believe it or not I am doing physical labor on a farm, and yes, I am not messing it up. In fact when we have to marcot trees, I love climbing up to the higher branches. We do many other things than marcotting as well that are not quite as exciting (detailed in previous posts) though at the end of the day it feels good to have worked so hard no matter what. When we first got here our guide said he believes it is good to be tired and hungry, and I must say I agree.

I would like to describe to you more the scenery and landscape we’re surrounded by but I really feel there is no way to do it justice. We’re in mountainous terrain but it’s covered by lush green plants that look like they’d grow in the rain forest, and almost just as thick. Njinikom center and where we live is up at the top of one of the mountains so anytime you go anywhere you are either trekking up a hill or down it and you can see beautiful views any way you turn. It rains almost everyday here in the afternoon but that keeps it nice and cool for the most part. In fact sometimes at night it can get very cold – my guidebook also warns against hypothermia – but that may be partially because of cold showers. The way to handle that is something I like to call the Hokey-Pokey method: one body part at a time with a lot of dancing involved.

Despite everything being very different you get into the swing of things quickly. For example, the erratic driving of taxis is no longer alarming (going into oncoming traffic is no big deal here) and your body is no longer uncomfortable with fitting 8 people into a car that is smaller than most any you would see back home. Additionally, you generally become okay with seeing bugs around. Aside from perhaps the occasional tarantula (good morning to you too!  hope you don’t mind if I duct taped over all the holes in the walls because you crawled into one!), normally you just go, ‘oh hey,’ and continue on.

Something that was a little harder to adjust to were the gender roles they hold here. Though they recognize that you are a foreigner and therefore probably hold different ideas than themselves, they still evaluate you the same way and in order to work well with the community it’s a good idea to respect their way of doing things. Another thing I don’t think I’ll ever get too comfortable with are all the police and military checkpoints. I’ve gotten better at handling them but nonetheless it’s not too pleasant to recognize that you are in the hands of someone who is apart of the corrupt system of government here.

Anyways, I am still having a great time here. We’ve gotten very creative at learning how to entertain ourselves at night as the power is often out and we must be back in the house before dark. On the weekends when we’re not working we also often go to sights around the Boyo Division. This last Saturday we went to the Ndawara Tea Estate way up in the mountains and it was amazing. It was strange how quickly the terrain changed in just an hour. I commented to Ben about how I imagined this is what Italy looked like and he confirmed! except said it also looked cleaner. Basically it was beautiful. The place smelled wonderful and relaxing and we learned later that that’s the tea we drink every morning. I plan on bringing a tin back. This was also the first time we got to try the motorcycles that are everywhere in Cameroon. Generally when we’re traveling we do so as a group so we take taxis but since the road was so steep we had to take the motorcycles. I for one was very excited. It was incredibly fun though somewhat painful as it takes a surprising amount of muscles to hold on.

In the past week I’ve also been to Bamenda twice, and I enjoyed that. The cities are also exciting though somewhat hectic here. I went once on Saturday with Christina and again on Monday to sort through some business however the second time it was just me and our volunteer coordinator so we were able to walk all through the market sector and actually get to talk to more people and what it was like there. Additionally we drove through Up-Station where a lot of governmental buildings are (you can’t take pictures because they are very strict about that here) and saw the whole view of Bamenda. It was one of the experiences you hope to have when traveling around in a foreign country.

I think I’ve written enough for now though there’s always more to add. If you want any more information on a particular aspect write it in the comments and I would love to talk more about it! Until next time, I wish you the best and hope you may feel something like this Jungle Fever. Ahsha.