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!