Site Visit

Sunset on the road to Adoumori, with cows.



Me biking around Pitoa


Baby being weighted in Bibemi!



Site visit was this past week. This was the first time I got to spend the night in my new village, meet my future co-workers, go bar hoping in my new town, meet my new cat, meet my new neighbors, go to my new local market, actually help cook Cameroonian food, etc. All in all, a huge success I think. There are going to be 3 of us in the Bibemi district of Northern Cameroon – me, Mike, and Phil. Mike and I will be living in Bibemi and Phil in a neighboring town of Adoumori. Mike is an agro-forestry volunteer and Phil and I are both health. Alright so the 3 of us leave with the two volunteers who are currently living in the Bibemi district, Sarah and Andrew. Sarah is a health volunteer in Bibemi and Andrew is ag in Adoumori. We couldn’t procure a ride on a truck that was leaving anytime soon and rent a whole car was rather pricey sooooo we took mottos the whole way. Now this is only about 30 kms as the crow files but it took about 2 hours on mottos. In part it took this long because Sarah’s motto blew a tire, but mostly it took this long because you cannot go that fast on this dirt roads. But, it was a beautiful ride – it looks so very African in this part of the country. Honestly they could have filmed the Lion King on this route, if the Lion King was a filmed movie to begin with. Phil and Andrew left us in Adoumori and Phil would rejoin us in two days for the election and to do protocol. Mike, Sarah, and I arrived in Bibemi and ate some mac and cheese for dinner. Sarah was nice enough to share a package of her American sent mac and cheese cheese powder with us!

Monday was our first full day of site visit. Made an omelet on my stove (yes I have an oven, stove, and fridge) for breakfast that was fairly delicious. Then, Sarah took me to the health center I will be working at/with for the next two years and I got to observe and pseudo help with (as in write down the weight and blood pressure of the pregnant women when the nurse said them in French) prenatal consultations. I just helped with the in processing part. It was great to get to experience this with Sarah there to translate everything. My French is still far to poor to communicate much with people. Also, most women coming to these consultations don’t speak French (or much French) but rather they only speak Fulfulde. So, I need to get on learning that too! It was really interesting to get to observe that and got me excited for the next two years. After work (which is in the morning) we ate at the house of the head of the health center. His wife is a great cook and a super nice women who speaks French and made us chicken (which is very rare) and cous cous and it was delicious. I am very much looking forward to getting to know enough French to communicate with her and learn to cook some of her dishes. After lunch we headed back to Sarah’s house for some afternoon/heat of the day relaxing. We hit up the “veggie” market in Bibemi (a slightly expanded version of the daily market but smaller than the weekly Friday market). I got to try corn beignets there and we bought the stuff to make “stir fry”. We made a sauce/stir fry that consisted of hoola halla (that is terribly misspelled and probably not even the correct phonetic attempt but it is a double H word), aubergines (eggplant for you non-Francophones), okra, tomatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, pimont (super spicy peppers that are ground into a powder most of the time) and rice. On the way back from the market we stopped at two bars to meet some of the people in the town and I was introduced to two gendarmes (one very large man and one Anglophone who I can speak English with), I met a number of very nice community members at these bars – beer makes people so open and friendly and gives you an automatic in. Plus, everyone was so excited about the upcoming election that we were invited to two different celebrations for the election day. After visiting two bars and leaving a beer on reserve for tomorrow that someone bought us that night, Sarah and I heading home to make our delicious stir fry. It was honestly amazing. Tasty beyond belief. Mostly, it had LOTS of flavor and spices which most Cameroonian food I have gotten doesn’t because I think they are scared American’s cannot handle spice and therefore give me bland food. We ground up ginger root in a mortar and pistol made of wood, added garlic and pimont to make a delicious spice mixture. Cooking the hoola halla was interesting. It looks slightly like spinach and is rather bitter tasting until you cook it enough. Then you have to strain it, add cool water to cool it, restrain it and squeeze all the extra water out and then put it into a frying pan with all the other veggies. It is a rather long process but well worth it in the end. Mmm, in Joey’s words “mega tasty”.

Day two aka election day. For breakfast (as I wanted to eat as much of the food in Bibemi as possible) we went to a place by my new house that sells beans in the morning that are already prepared so we bought some of those and ate leftovers from last night with beans. It was also amazing. Amazing food was a theme for me (even sans real cheese) and that makes me excited so stick with me. Today at the health center we childhood vaccinations. Now, they were out of regular needles. So, we could only do BCG (TB) vaccines (which use a needle similar to the one they use for the TB skin tests), oral polio, and baby weighing. I got to watch babies being weighted in this sling that was hung from a tree branch and attached to the bottom of a scale. I cannot properly describe how adorable this scene is so I will try to post one of the photos I took of it. Again, I just helped with in processing and it was very fun. Great to see how all that stuff actually works in a health center in semi rural Cameroon. I learned that for it to be economically, they can only do BCG vaccines on days when at least 10 children need them. Once they open the bottle of vaccine they must use it that day and each bottle will be enough for 20 vaccines and therefore they won’t open it if that day there aren’t at least 10 people who need them. Tuesday there were 13 so we could give them. The little babies screamed a cried at the vaccines but they were fine soon after. They seemed to take the whole being weighted thing very well. It was so adorable. Once again, after work we went to eat at the head of the health center’s house. This time his wife had made a green fullery type sauce (which is one of my favorites) and again I ate way to much lunch. Then, we went home to prepare for the election. Let me just point out that I wore an Obama shirt this day and I was very popular. Everyone was so thrilled for the election, asked me if I voted and if so who for – but only one answer was acceptable for them. Phil joined us this afternoon and then we set out for our fetes. Problem number one: the electricity went out around 3:30pm. Problem number two: the radio wasn’t working to pick up BBC. Problem number three: the brassiere (place that brings beer to all the rural areas) comes on Wednesday and maybe Saturday so Tuesday nights are always low on beer and EVERYONE was out celebrating the election. Word got around that one bar (that never had electricity and therefore only was able to offer warm beer) had alcohol and so everyone headed there. The whole evening was spent cheers “OBAMA” and learning a gendarme drinking command type game where the gendarmes would tell us to pick up our beer, drink our beer, and replace our beer. It was hilarious and all in French and I got maybe 1/3 of what was going on. We stayed out for awhile and then heading home for a late dinner. Despite the lack of electricity and the beer consumption we created a very tasty dinner of tomato sauce, pasta, and a peanut sauce. Literally the minute we were done cooking on the gas stove via light from a kerosene lamp, the electricity came back on. Of course, right.

Day three: protocol. This means that we spent the day going around to all the important figures in town (the majority of whom we had seen at the bar the night before and cheered Obama with). My sister (who rocks!) had been awesome enough to call the moment they declared the election (at 5:11am my time) and tell us that Obama had won. Apparently they waited til the polls closed in California, Oregon, and Washington and then called those states for Obama almost immediately and he won the election. I then got a text from Emily (thanks dear!) telling me Obama won. Everyone wanted to make sure I heard and I was glad. I swear Africa might have been happier than America. Kenya I heard declared a national holiday. There were literally Vive Obama signs that popped up in Bibemi. People were thrilled and everywhere we walked people yelled OBAMA at us. We yelled it back and it became quite and entertaining game. During protocol, we went to the house of the city chief. He is Muslim and the majority of the people are Christian. He lives in a Palace that has about 10 peacocks and a man follows him around and does things like hold his chair when he sits. It was incredibly odd but fascinating. Everyone was extremely welcoming to us and it was a great way to get a tour of the town as these buildings are all quite spread out. We stopped for a breakfast of spaghetti omelets (which are exactly what they sound like, eggs made into an omelet with spaghetti in the middle). It was much better than it originally sounded to me at least. Add some pimont and I enjoyed it. Throughout the day we would find radios playing excerpts of all the election night speeches and got to hear the most pro-American BBC broadcast I had ever heard. Everyone in Cameroon kept telling us that the election of Obama was going to save the world. The people hear were ecstatic to say the least. After all the protocol we returned back to Sarah’s house to make Mexican food. Yes, that’s right, Mexican. We made tortillas from scratch (quite an experience), guacamole that was sooooo amazing, used vache and velvetta to make quesadillas – it made me really want a Margarita. Then, seeing as we actually had the results of the election – we of course had to celebrate with the rest of Cameroon. More Obama cheering (this time with ice cold beers) and delicious food at Mike’s counterparts house. Then, we returned home to top off the beautiful day with a viewing of the Simpson’s Safari episode. It was as classy as it sounds.

Day Four: Went to the Catholic Mission to meet the nuns and check out the large pharmacy they have there. Apparently they are resource that I should tap into in the community and someone I can work with to do nutrition and cooking demonstrations and whatnot. They also have the best stocked pharmacy. Oh, did I mention they have running water when no one else does – another major benefit! Then we headed to the largest cattle market in the country and the region to be honest. It is in Adoumori. Got to see the cattle market, the regular market, and the Bil bil (home made local alcohol market). Want to guess which was most crowded? We caught a bush taxi (large van that is crammed with almost twice as many people as it should be) there and it was a pretty smooth 20 minute ride. But, I did get to see my first person riding “petite chauffeur”. This is when a person sits in the front seat straddling the gear shifter so that when the driver shifts gears he does so between that persons legs. It is as awkward as it sounds. The man next to me had that privilege. Lucky him. Then, the fun started as we caught a bush taxi home to Pitoa. We caught one no problem, put our bags on the roof and climbed into the 15 passenger van with 20 other people (totally 23 now with us). Two of these people brought chickens (live ones) with them that proceeded to head butt my legs throughout the ride. Two of the people brought giant AK 47 style guns in the bush taxi. 20 minutes into extremely bumpy ride we had to stop because our axle was shredded down to the point where the axle and wheel had no groves between them – raw metal on metal. The sounds this bush taxi was making are not describable and certainly not sounds a car should be making. We stopped on the side of the road for about 30 minutes while the took the whole tire apparatus off and did something and then put it back on. The car still sounded awful. About 15 minutes later we get stopped by the gendarmes who are planning to make everyone show there ids and give some unlucky passengers some trouble possibly. But, the three of us knew of the gendarmes. Sure enough, one of our new Pitoa friends! So, rather than being stopped and searched we stuck out heads of the window and told him we were heading home but would be back in a month – then we ended the conversation with a friendly round of OBAMA shouts and our bush taxi went on its marry way. I can only imagine the thoughts going through the minds of our fellow riders. Well, 20 minutes later, one of the metal bars that was helping hold the overweight ceiling up fell onto Phil’s lap. People then began helping to hold the ceiling of the van up as we went over large bumps. Then, we broke down again about 20 minutes outside of Pitoa. Another 20 minute stop and tire fix and we were back on our way. We did make it home successfully this time. What a beautiful site visit.

Some information about my house: It is near a river about ½ the year and near a giant sand bank the other half (there is only water in the river during and soon after the rainy season). It is basically in a eucalyptus forest and smells faintly of vicks outside (which I like). It has electricity (complete with oven, stove, and fridge) but no running water. There is a bucket toilet (which means it is a toilet but you flush it by pouring buckets of water on top of where you just went to the bathroom). At some point when an NGO was in my house it had running water and that is why there is a toilet, sink, and shower. None of them work currently (as in they lack running water) but I get to take a bucket shower in a shower stale and the drain works. The sink is currently clogged but that is getting worked on. There is a nearby pump and I pay to use this and then pay to have local children bring me water with their families cart. I have a cat that has kittens basically every 3 months like clockwork – she is black and white. My house is cool inside because it is shaded by the forest. I have a porch that is pretty sweet so that I don’t have to invite visitors into my house but can host them on the porch. The temperature at night is very tolerable and I even used my fleece blanket at night (keep in mind that what feels cool to me now would make all of you sweat still). I have a guardian at my house that lives nearby and looks out for me and the property. The bugs are minimal in the house and it is pretty well insulated. I have windows that provide light and can also be closed with metal doors to make it darker if I wanted to sleep in (not all the windows have this but the biggest two do). All my windows have screens and bars. I have a screen door (which is key to allowing cool night air in but keeping mosquitoes out). I have cement floors which help keep it cool. Hmm, I cannot think of anything else to tell you all about site visit or my house. Bibemi seems like it will be a great experience. Sarah has left big shoes for me to fill in the town but I feel I am up to the challenge. I am going into Garoua tomorrow to post this on the internet soooo hope everyone is doing super duper. Don’t forget I got a new number and it works much better so I expect to hear from all of you shortly!