Show N' Tell

Well guess what folks...I did it! Officially finished training and took the step from being a trainee to a volunteer, as my Pops would say, "ay ay ay!" The ceremony was on Thursday and the new volunteers celebrated that evening by having a dance party at a nearby hotel in Bafia. Moving to Dir early next week and am currently in the regional capitol of the Adamoua. I know a few of you have been asking for photos so I figured I would take advantage of the good internet connection to share some snapshots of the past couple of months:





 
       A view of Bokito, note: the village boys playing soccer in the background & the girl carrying  
                                       things on her head like it was no big deal!




 
         My host family! The two older boys are missing from this snapshot, but essentially this was the gang that I hung out with for 3 months. In the green shirt eating is Nick (16), in the head
wrap is Fabiola (21), the blue traditional dress is Jordan (17), the one planting a smooch is Patrick
                              (14), and in her workout clothes is Merveille (20).

        Merveille in her typical position as she cooks a meal for the family over the open fire. Note

             her munching on some corn (during season its an easy appetizer for most any meal!)



           A favorite activity in the Bogo household, the kids teaching me their dance moves! In this
                                  shot, Nick is teaching me some hip-hop moves.


         Patrick fell in love with my bike (provided to me by the Peace Corps!) and he would take it for rides once I got home from school. Side note: pink bucket in the background is where I did my
            laundry and also took my baths (although I would move it inside for bathtime!)

A picture of the chicken comitee happily eating pre be-heading. If you look closely you can see in the second picture that the chickens have been defeathered and we're getting ready to gut them! Also note the crazy hair design that Jordan gave me for the big day!



Blessing, one of the many village tailors, who quickly became our favorite. Many morning breaks were spent sitting and visiting with her.



                     The Bogo's dog, Reigne, had puppies about two weeks before I left!


         Most of the Sante trainees celebrating Halloween (note pirate patch in the background) at
                                                      a local bar in Bokito.


My host mother, Mama Bogo Therese, and I on the day of swearing-in!



           Post taking the Peace Corps Oath: 22 new-fresh-off-the-grill Sante volunteers! (A tradition here is that for any big ceremony, i.e. marriages, funerals, graduations, reunions, people
                 buy matching fabric and make uniforms...thus the matching clothes!)


           A glimpse of the train up north. Every hour or so there is a stop and local villagers come
            running up to the train with all sorts of goodies on sale...the original drive through!

Saying YES!!!

I got a bit of an advice from my friend Anisha recently, where she told me one of the things that I should do in this year after college is to say yes to things. Sounds so incredibly simple but I do think its something I need to work on and thus, I have decided to challenge myself during my time here to say yes to things and opportunities when they come my way. So far this philosophy has brought some funny experiences my way: A few Sundays ago, my host sister, Jordan asked me if I would go to youth mass with her. I agreed, and off we went, me being completely unaware that Jordan was in church choir and that what she was really asking me was to sing in choir with her at youth mass! If you've heard me sing, you know this was bad news bears for all the youth in the congregation, and in the States I would have shield away and said no. But my options were to sit by myself or to sit next to Jordan and belt it oooutttt, so I said yes and crooned and clapped despite not really knowing the words = ).

Continuing on the performing arts scale, my seven host siblings love to dance and as soon as people are up in the morning (sometimes circa 5 am) Jennifer Lopez starts blaring from the TV or Radio (granted theres electricity). Weve spent several afternoons and evenings dancing together and teaching each other some dance moves. Many Cameroonians are shy at first and say they don't know how to dance but I have yet to meet one who actually can't! My host sister, Merveille, is also the president of the Health Club at the Highschool. About half of the health trainees have been working in unison with the Health Club for a couple of weeks to organize a celebration for World AIDS Day (which was this past Thursday). Working with this club was incredibly rejuvenating, we met once a week to do sensitizations on AIDS/how it is transmitted/and how to prevent it. They were really motivated and had a lot of ideas for how to raise awareness. We ended up working together to make some great posters to hang up at the school, show a couple of short films about how AIDS affects people in Sub Saharan Africa, and they had a Jeopardy Tournament throughout the whole school with questions specifically related to AIDS. On Thursday, the celebration included a couple of songs the kids created, a few theatrical sketches (Cameroonians are very talented at theatre and are incredibly animated individuals), and the final round of the Jeopardy tournament. A couple of days before the celebration Merveille asked me if I could perform a dance for the high school! I thought about it, and decided that I would take Anisha's advice and say yes, aikes a beee! I ended up extending the invitation to four of my other health trainees and together the 5 of us put together a little last minute routine (Fuegolians you will appreciate this) to Shakiras "Loca Loca Loca"! The High School LOVED it and it was such a high to be able to perform again! Definitely so happy that I said yes and confirmed that dance is something I want to incorporate as a side project once I move to post!

On a more gruesome note, the trainees decided to throw together a pot luck Thanksgiving celebration last Saturday. After seeing my family do it, I decided one of my goals during my time here was to kill a chicken, and when I saw there was a chicken committee on the Thanksgiving sign up list, I thought....why not?? The whole chicken experience deserves a blog post in and of its own. Finding the chicken was the first obstacle to tackle. The only chicken lady in Bokito told us that she couldn't sell us her chickens because they were too young. It was such an eye opening experience to think about the fact that food couldn't be ready immediately when we wanted it, and that these chickens werent being pumped with hormones so that they could be ready to eat in less time! Eddie and I (the chicken comitee) had to go door to door in Bafia, a bigger city nearby, to find some chickens and after about 5 houses we finally found three beautiful white chickens! We kept them at our training site in Bokito for a few days and then Saturday afternoon (the day of the festivities) got help from the man who owns the house and a couple of our language formateurs, and they talked us through how to kill, defeather, and clean out the chicken. It was grotesquely fascinating, especially the anatomy lesson that came with seeing all the insides. It was really neat to see the chicken through the whole process and I think its an experience that will forever make me appreciate meat when I eat it. And yes = ) I was able to feast on the chickens later on that evening and it waaas Deeelishous!

With all that said, training is quickly coming to a close and we are being officially sworn in as volunteers next Thursday! I can't believe how fast the month of November flew by, nor that it is already December. Things with my host family are going wonderful and some of my favorite memories from this month have been the celebration we threw together at the local bar for Merveille's birthday, or the nights when we go picking corn in the fields (its corn season now so the veggie is abundant!) and have teenager esque conversations about boys and girls while grilling it over the open fire, or the night my host mom invited me to a fancy party and decided to do my make up before we left the house (red eyeliner and metallic pink lipstick is a look I should have explored before coming here). I am going to miss them immensely and have a lot of nervousness as I move to Dir. I realize that a whole new set of challenges will come with the move and learning to live on my own in Cameroon, but I keep on reminding myself of how capable we are as human beings to adapt. And that even though I struggled in Bokito for the first few weeks, that with time I became comfortable here, and that with time the same will happen in Dir.

A month ago I wrote that I was going to spend a couple of days in Dir, I won't write too much about it now; but it was a wonderful visit and I feel really blessed to have been placed there. I am going to be collaborating with a doctor at the health center who has done a lot for the community and has a very real sense of what development is. Also, my community host Norbert, who is meant to help me integrate into the community, seems to know almost everybody (plus we have matching jean jackets which I think can only be a positive omen). I should officially have my own address soon, and when I do I will be sure to post it = ) In the meantime, Happy Holidays to everybody!

Dir Sweet Dir

Dir Sweet Dir

We got our post announcements on Wednesday! It was a very exciting morning as all 22 health (sante) volunteers got handed on a small piece of paper our home for the next 2 years! Felt just like Christmas morning (except take away Snow and Santa's cookies and insert rainforest and bananas).

A word about Cameroon before I get started. Before coming here I had read in guide books that Cameroon is considered to be, "Africa in Miniature". It's so very true, and nationals take a lot of pride in the diversity that Cameroon embodies. There's a multitude of ethnic groups, local languages, geography, and wildlife.

Cameroon has 10 different regions, and within these regions there is great cultural and geographical variance. The Centre Region is currently where we are at right now for tranining. It houses the capitol, Yaounde, is Francophone, and is characterized by rainforest and equal parts rainy and dry season. Littoral is next to Centre and houses the economical capitol, Doula. Other than that I've decided not to familarize myself with the other 8 regions, so that I wouldn't have any bias before recieving post announcement. But here is a little of what I know:

The East and South are mostly rainforest and have long rainy seasions. The West and Northwest and very mountainous (and are home to Mount Cameroon, another landmark that nationals are very proud of). My host family has told me that in these two regions you can find a lot of tradition, including traditional chiefs! Adamouwa is the nation's transitional region, hleping connect the hub of Cameroon to the northern regions. Our technical trainer, Theo, has said that Adamouwa is like, "the melting pot of Cameroon". The North and Extreme North provinces are infamous for their hot climates (fortunately its dry heat instead of humid because its desert), their conservative culture (no knees or shoulders allowed) and strong Muslim presence.

As part of training, we have current Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) come and give us technical sessions and share their experiences. This has been one of my favorite parts of training, as its really inspiring to hear their direct experiences. So far we have had 5 volunteers come to training and each one has sworn that "my region is the BEST one in Cameroon."

With that said, (drum rolll please!) I am posted in DIR, a small village in the Adamouwa region! Here is the information that I have thus far: Dir is a small village, about 6,000 peoeple. It it a Francophone post, although a lot of local languages are spoken. It is a pretty conservative village (so I'm gonna be putting away my knobby knees for 2 years! aaaannnnd...will probably have to cover my head! So happy that my headscarfs have translated over to the African continent = ) DIR has no running water or electricity and is divided inbetween a Muslim and a Christian population. I have a small enterprise development post mate in a close by village, and two other fellow health volunteers about an hour away by bush taxi! There are 4 NGOs currently working in DIR and I will be working at a medical center with Dr. Gaya, as my supervisor! On a fun note (Alison, you will appreciate this) Adamouwa is a cattle breeding region so I will have plenty of milk! And also bountiful mangoes during rainy seaon = )

On Saturday, (Karen and Kelly, flashbacks to Europe?) I will be taking a night train with my community host, Norbert, to the regional capitol of Adamowau. From there we will continue on bus, to Dir. I will be spending a few days meeting hte community and talking about both my expectations and theirs for 2 years of service. Then I'll head to the regional capitol with Samantha (another sante) and we will stay with a current volunteer and get a slice of what being a volunteer is all about!

Sending y'all love and will try to write soon about my time in my new home!

Du Courage

Du Courage

The Cameroonians say this saying often as a form of saying, "keep on going/ have courage". Neighbors say it to me when they see me on my morning runs, as I'm sweaty and huffing and puffing up this village hills. My host sister, Jordan (17) is constantly saying it to me as I learn how to do everyday tasks in an African household. When I am washing my clothes by hand, or sweeping the floor, or peeling potatoes she comes to me and says, "Amanda...Du Courage". My language trainers say it to me when I fuddle up a French answer and I have to search for it somewhere inside my brain. My other host sister, Merveille (19) tells it to me when my eyes get teary after a phone conversation with my parents.

I hear it at least once a day and its a saying that I have really come to love. Volunteers say that the three months of training are some of the hardest during your months of service. A time when you are gonna ask yourself, "why in the world did I ever dream of doing this?" when you have to get used to making a new country your home, and all your routines are turned inside out. Its really hard to believe that tommorow we start our fifth week of training! A part of me feels as if I have been here for so much longer, and I have no doubt that if for some reason I were to come home tommorow my life would forever be impacted by these past four weeks. There have definitely been those moments when I question my sanity and wonder why exactly I did dream of doing this since I was 12 years old. Those are the moments when I have to tell myself "Du Courage" Then there are those moments when I find myself loving the simplicity that has become of my life these past couple of weeks, when I feel immensely happy to be here, and it all feels right.

Our training class is HUGE! We have 22 health volunteers, and 33 youth and agroforestry volunteers. Most of the trainees are straight out of college, although there are a handful of us who are graduate students or who have been out in the working world for a couple of years. The trainees are really well qualified and there is a lot of enthusiasm and support in the group. Due to the size of our group, Peace Corps Cameroon decided to split up our training class. The health volunteers are in a village and we get to travel to see the other volunteers about one to two times a week. The village we live in is called Bokito, and living here has definitely been an introduction to African life. There are no paved roads, and everybody in the village knows that there are "white people" in town. The little kids come running after you interchangedly saying "la blanc la blanc!" or "good morning!" Electricity is spotty, and some of my favorite moments here in village have been the nights when I come home after school and hang out with my host family via battery powered lamp on the porch.

Part of the Peace Corps training is that you live with a host family for three months. The purpose of this is to really immerse you in the culture and allow you to practice your French with a Cameroonian family. They are told that they are to prepare me for living in Africa by myself, which is something that they are taking in full stride. Merveille even had me clean a chicken for dinner the other night. Even though I begged her to let me just watch she said, "No you need to learn" and then (you guessed it) she followed it up with a "Du Courage". I wish I could capture in words how amused my host family was by my reactions to killing/cleaning the chicken. I had to explain to them that chicken comes already cut and in plastic bags in the state, which they got a wonderful laugh out of. When I asked Merveille how old she was when she killed her first chicken she said, "Eight! I do this all the time...and when Lolita (our pet goat) gets fat enough I'll kill her so we can eat!"

My host family is the family of Mama Bogo Therese. She's a single woman who works for the local government here in Bokito, and although she only has four biological children, there are seven kids that live in her house. Fabiola is 22, Patrick is 21, Merveille is 19, Juniour is 17, Jordan is 17, Nick is 16, and little Patrick is 14. The kids absolutely run the house and its amazing to see how much they respect and do as Mama Bogo says. Jordan prepares all our meals (over an open fire) and started learning how to cook when she was six years old! The kids also breathe a lot of life into the house, there is constantly music playing (I'm more up to date on MTV's top 20 hits than I was in the States!) and their constantly putting on little performances and dancing around. Some mornings they go running with me, but only if they wake up early enough to finish their daily chores as well.

I think something that I've realized is that people are insantly born with courage here. My host sisters are the most fearless young women I have ever met and they laugh at me constantly for the way I freak out at little insects/snails/frogs/or snakes in our courtyard. The day I found a huge spider in my room and went running to them to kill it they simply laughed at me and said, "but why?" Which is an absolutely wonderful question considering that there really is no point in killing them, and that you just have to learn to live with them. The animals everywhere is definitely one of the things that I initially was struggling with, but I'm taking baby steps and the other day I was able to share my bucket bath with a frog without running to get my sisters!

Without a doubt though the scariest thing I have done since coming to Africa is playing soccer with the village boys. Female roles are very different here and the village girls dont play soccer after school. So here I am, the WHITE FEMALE, asking to play soccer with these fellows. They were gracious enough to let me play, but I can't tell you how intimidated I was throughout the game. These village boys are crazy talented at the sport. I think I might have proved myself after taking a ball to the stomach and the other day a village boy asked me when I was coming back to play!

I have also been fortunate enough to find a Catholic church in Bokito, and its been uber comforting for me to go to church with my host mom. The services here are easily two or three times as long as in the States, but dont seem like it. The singing and the dancing is really uplifting. A couple of weeks ago we sang a song for FIFTEEN MINUTES, and when we finished the priest said, "Where was the dancing?" and we sang it all over again including dancing this time around! Today at church I was suprised to hear a chicken clucking throughout the service and even more suprised when during the offering of the gifts the chicken was placed on the altar (no worries it was not sacrificed on the altar!)

I am really loving village life, and pretty much every day I wake up at 6 am and report to school by 8 am. Training goes from Monday to Saturday, for about 8 hours a day (sans Saturday, where we only have a half day of school). Our training has been pretty language intensive so far, because Peace Corps believes that you need to be able to communicate with the community that you are serving. We have also recieved plenty of technical sessions about health issues that we will be dealing with and seeing in our communities. The first couple of weeks were very theoretical and lecture oriented, but this past week we have started integrating into Bokito. We have visited a local health center, and an AIDS clinic, we got to do a community assessment with the children in the community, and have also started a community group that we will work with for the upcoming four weeks. It feels good to have those sessions where you get to interact with locals. The part of training that I love the most is that current volunteers are some of our trainers. Its been really refreshing and inspiring to hear their stories and experiences in country, and I think it makes all of us trainees excited and reminds us of why we are here.

Speaking of which this upcoming Wednesday we get our post announcements! We've had a couple of interviews with our program manager as to where we envision ourselves doing our service (as to what region of Cameroon we would like to be in) and on Wednesday the health posts are announced! Following that, on Saturday we travel with our community host (an individual from our post who is in charge of helping us integrate into our community) and get to stay and live in our community for a week. This will be the first time since coming to Africa that I wont be with my fellow Americans! I'm a bit nervous about that, but really excited to see where I will be serving for the next two years! I'll be sure to write about it next time I blog, until then...Du Courage = )

The Countdown Begins

On a frequent basis, the Peace Corps publishes a book titled "A Life Inspired: Tales of Peace Corps Service". This book contains several excerpts from Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCV) during their time of service. When I was twelve years old, my mom brought home a copy of this book from church. I read it in an afternoon and since then have dreamt of joining the Peace Corps. My immediate family and closest friends can tell you it's something that I have always spoken of.

It's a crazy feeling now to realize that the countdown has begun for my (almost) 10 year old dream to become a reality! As the date of my depature (September 21st) draws scarily close there are a million emotions running through me. There are days when I am very scared, anxious, unnerved, and unsure. Equally, there are days when I am excited, confident, and seemingly bursting at the seams. Despite how well I am getting to know my emotions lately, I'm very thankful for them. The feelings of insecurity assure me that I am aware that these next twenty seven months will be full of challenges I can't quite imagine. The feelings of excitement remind me that I am making a dream come true.

My summer has been an absolutely wonderful one! I have spent the majority of my summer in Boston. Here, I spent some time with the kids I nanny, studied for (and passed!) my nursing boards (scary to think I am a Registered  Nurse in Massachusetts, huh?!), and adjusted to post-graduate life. Mostly though, the biggest blessing of my summer has been quality time with people that I love and will miss dearly over the next couple of years. I had an amazing experience backpacking through Europe with Karen and Kelly (two of my best friends from highschool), spent two wonderful weeks with Dave and his family at the Jersey Shore, and had my older sister, Alison, come visit with me in Boston for a week. In a couple of days, my mom and I will head down to Mexico to visit and spend some (much needed) time with my abuelitos and the rest of the family.

Good-byes have been hard and have made me realize how much I will be missing in the next couple of years. I am unsure of what my communication will look like once I arrive in Cameroon. I am not sure how often I will have internet access, phone access, etc...(or how good the connection will be!) I hope to use this blog to update you on the happenings of my life. However, I plan to exercise my hand plenty by writing letters = ) For anyone who would like to communicate, please know that your letters will be very welcome and that I can't imagine how much it will mean to me to recieve news about your life!

The address which I will be using for the first three months (while I am training) is:

Amanda M. Russell, Peace Corps Volunteer
La Paix du Corps
B.P. 215
Yaounde, Cameroon
AFRICA

(I read in a book written by a RPCV from Cameroon that if you write on the envelope in red ink, draw religious symbols on it, and address it to "Sister Amanda M. Russell" the mail is less likely to be intercepted! It has something to do with superstitions I believe.The mail will also have to have "AIR MAIL" written on it. Also, because the mail system is not (NEARLY) as reliable as the good ol' U.S. Postal System, I have been told that it helps if you number your letters in case they arrive in non-chronological order.)

For the first three months of my service I will be in Bafia, a province of Cameroon, about an hour north of Yaounde (the capitol of Cameroon). In Bafia, I will go through 11 weeks of training with other Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV). We will learn and be tested on language skills, cultural skills, health, safety, policy and procedure. To help us integrate into the culture and into the language (80% of Cameroon is French Speaking, with multiple dialects) we will be living with a host family and reporting to headquarters for classes. I've heard from various PCV that these three months are intensive, exhausting, and challenging (I can't wait!). If all goes well, at the end of these three months I will officially be sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer (currently, I am considered a trainee) and recieve my actual placement where I will serve for two years!

As I begin these next two years of my life, I am keeping the title of the Peace Corps book close to my heart. I have always imagined myself entering the Peace Corps. Starting the application and accepting my invitation seemed the most natural thing in the world for me. However, I have no idea of where my life is leading me beyond this journey and my heart is open to the inspiration these next two years will bring......