Just Keep Swimming

Okay so soon after publishing my latest blog entry, I tried the craziest food I have eaten thus far in Cameroon (or I suppose I should say craziest thing I have knowingly eaten) – I ate brain. Yes, that’s right folks. I was sitting at one of my favorite bars in Garoua with two friends (Angie and Caroline) and we were catching up and this little girl walked by selling something we didn’t recognize, we asked what it was and were promptly told “cerveau” which is brain in French. Well, I didn’t know that word in French and Angie and Caroline translated for me (I won’t forget it, promise). We said no thanks and kept talking. Well, a few minutes/seconds later we all agreed that we kinda wanted to try brain once, or at least that we would try it once – so we called the girl back and we did it – we each ate one piece of brain. I went first and we agreed we had to chew it at least 3 times (sound like the same deal with my bug in Thailand, right?) and so I have photos and Angie has a video and yes folks, I have officially tried brain. It wasn’t great. The texture was the killer. It looked like a brain, all folded up and okay, I’m done I promise.

Anyway, I returned soon to Bibemi after this whole excursion and went to the market in Bibemi and bought some delicious foods to prepare and drank a bottle of fullery juice (think hibiscus tea that’s cold) because it was hot as hell and I needed a drink. Came home, and Phil and Mike were soon at my house. We went to grab a pre dinner beer and saw my counterpart at the bar. I introduced him to Phil and Mike and we chatted a bit and he said he had an invitation for me. He lived nearby and ran to get it and caught me as I was heading home to start dinner (there was no cold beer so I opted to return home after one luke warm one and leave the boys – Phil had won a second beer in the 33 contest that is currently going on). Well, the invitation was in fact for me, but it was addressed to “Madame le blanc de Corps de la Paix) for those of you who don’t speak French that would be “the white women of Peace Corps”. Yes, priceless I tell you. Don’t worry, I kept that beauty. Oh, did I mention it was an invitation for a meeting that had taken place 10 hours before I received it?

So, to make a long story short, I got sick. Apparently the brain didn’t do it (I got sick 24 hours after eating it) and I think it was the fullery juice at the market. I was sick for like 36 hours and then fine. It sucked a lot; it is annoying to be sick when you cannot stop sweating due to the heat. Speaking of the heat, hot season is going in full force now. A friend in Garoua told me it was 110 there 10 days ago and I can only imagine is it closer to 120 now. It is very warm, you sweat all day, every day. I have turned my AC on twice but it doesn’t really help that much (it’s really old and really hot out) and one of my two fans broke.

I have spent the past 2 Thursday’s going en brousse with the health center to a new village called Baksa that is about 17km (about 10 miles) away. This means about a 25 minutes motto ride in the raging sun with a helmet on – talk about sweaty. Anyway, the best part about Baksa is the location we hold the consultations at – the middle of a school yard while school is going on. So, the first Thursday was prenatal consultations and we had to wait for one of the classrooms to become available so the women would have a bit of privacy while their consultation went on (privacy isn’t a huge deal here in Cameroon but no one wants an audience while someone lifts up their shirt to listen to their baby with a metal funnel like instrument). So, while Bouba (the chef of the health center) goes into the room to do this part of the consultations he left me outside in the middle of the school yard (and school has now let out for lunch leaving me, 30 pregnant women, and about 100 school children all in a ring around me and the women. It was quite a scene. I had to call the women’s names and some of them are impossible to pronounce even if I could read the handwriting they were written in (which normally I cannot). It was quite embarrassing and I got the kids to help a bit, but I laughed it off and apologized for slaughtering their names (I apologized in French though and I don’t think most of them speak French so not sure how much good that did) and I took their blood pressures and sent them on to Bouba. It was an experience that lasted about 5 hours outside in the 110/120 degree heat and I was exhausted afterwards. The next Thursday was childhood vaccines. I thought since we didn’t need to wait for an empty classroom it might not take some damn long. I was wrong. I figured I would be but hey, a girl can dream right? So all in all about 30 women (a lot) brought their babies to get vaccinated and I weighted every single one of those babies with an audience of 40-50 school children who shouted out the weight on the scale (the shouted the big number the scale showed the weight was closest to, they didn’t get that dashes were decimal points). I was actually quite amused by the whole thing and thought it was kind of cute. The women who’s babies were being weighted didn’t really love it. Honestly thought I wish someone had a video of that situation. I learned how to ask “what is the babies name?” in Fulfulde (or at least to get the message across that I wanted them to say it) which is “Indee bingle”. I am learning slowly but surely, but slower than Mike which people never cease to point out to me. What can I say, I have gotten a fairly thick skin and it doesn’t really bother me.

Women’s day. What can I say about women’s day. I got invited to go to a meeting that took place two days before the fete. Well, I was invited to 2 meetings before that, one 10 hours after and one while it was going on and I was at work. So, this was the first meeting I would have been really able to attention. It was scheduled for Friday at 8am at the Ministry of Agriculture building. I knew that 8am didn’t mean 8am but being American I couldn’t be too late so I showed up at 8:40. Not a sole was there. There was the guy who works there sitting at his desk and no one else. So, I asked him about the meeting and he told me there was no meeting. I said, oh, well I heard there was a meeting about women’s day here at 8am. Sorry I bothered you, I must have gotten the place wrong. He said to hold on he would check the schedule and let me know where it was. Sure enough, it was suppose to be there and it was suppose to have started 40 minutes ago. I waited until 9am and then decided it was too hot to wait outside I would go to Mike’s (he lives much closer this place than me) and wait a bit and then go back. I waited at Mike’s til about 9:45/10. Then, I showed up again. This time there were about 15 women all outside not meeting but rather selling things. I gathered from the small conversations I could have that they were selling things to raise money for women’s day. So, I waited 30 more minutes for a meeting, none happened. So, I bought a fan one of the women had made and went home. Crazy. So, then the day of the fete arrived. I sported my pink women’s day pagne. I don’t have any pictures of me in it (I have lots of pictures of other people and am not sure how I ended up without one of me) but there is a picture of 20 of me floating around town from that day I am going to try to get my hands on. It was fun. Again, it started about 2.5 hours late but I went to Mike’s and we ate beignets and waited. There was a decent turn out and I would say about 300 women and girls participated. I got some great pictures and videos of this event which I hope to one day get on this blog. I won two free beers that day (Mike only won one and he won it on his last beer and he was convinced the bottles knew it was women’s day and kept giving me free beers). But, Mike made dinner for me that night (women’s day, women shouldn’t work right?) and we tried desperately to explain to the people in Bibemi that Mike was cooking me dinner and this was a fete to celebrate women and all the work they do all year and how this one day a year men should do the cooking and whatnot. I don’t think we convinced anyone. They all responded with things like “I don’t know how to cook” or “only women cook food here”. But, Mike tried valiantly and I talked about how mother’s day (the closest thing I could think of to compare it to in America) men did things like that for their wives and I knew lots of men who cooked and Mike was a good cook and I was excited to eat what he made me. I am not sure we convinced anyone, but they are now all aware that American men do cook for American women sometimes. It was fun to see all the women in their outfits (some were really cute) and everyone yelling “bon fete” to me all week. I enjoyed the scene for sure.

Animations. I began that daunting process this week. I thought I would be doing just one, an animation about HIVAIDS to the health club at the middle school. Wrong on so many notes. That animation was suppose to be on Wednesday (and it was) but Monday at the health center my counterpart turns to me and goes tomorrow I want us to do an animation to the women who bring their children in about meningitis. What? That was like 22 hours away. I didn’t have any resources really about meningitis and no real French vocab for phrases like “stiff neck” – I mean does that even translate? But, I didn’t let my counterpart know these nervous thoughts and if he wanted an animation on meningitis, he was going to get one. So, I came home and broke out my health books, my French dictionary, my Peace Corps toolkit and went to work. I ended up with a decent animation (boring, but informative) and vowed that in the future I would draw out these symptoms so that they were really clear to people but I had no paper on hand to do so for this first one. Tuesday, my counterpart and I spoke with about 25 women about meningitis and it’s symptoms and how important it was to take their children to the hospital if they had these symptoms. Job well done. Wednesday, I had prepared (an my counterpart had too) an animation on AIDS that I was told we were doing to the health club. Wrong. We did it to the whole fucking school. Literally, about 120 (I stopped counting at 100 and I would guess there were 20-30 more kids) students and about 7 faculty members came to hear us. But, despite the large audience and how caught off guard I was, it went well. We got all the basics that I felt strongly about (like that the treatment is free and available in Cameroon and the test is free to all students and the ways you transmit HIV and the ways you don’t – like mosquito bites and hugging) and some of the questions were just hilarious – so middle school. We had one student talk about how he prevents himself from getting HIV by practicing abstinence. To counter this, another student stood up and said he has lots of sex but he prevents himself from getting HIV by using condoms each time he has sex. Priceless. Me, my counterpart, and the head of the school decided that next time we would talk only to the girls (in a school of 270 students there are 68 girls) and we would talk about sexual health and STDs. The girls don’t get this information from their parents are embarrassed to ask questions in front of the boys. During our AIDS animation there were probably 20 girls to the 100 boys and not a one of them spoke. So, I am super excited to get to talk with those girls after IST. Speaking of IST, that is where I will be soon – Maroua here I come. I am bitter about the lack of Kribi (beach versus hot season up North) but I will get over it eventually. It will be great to hear about all the things my friends have been doing since I last saw them! Must go, Angie is going to visit tomorrow and so I must get some sleep and rest up for my tour guide job tomorrow!