There goes my staj

Thursday, October 16, 2014

I haven’t posted a blog in a while – that isn’t to say that I haven’t written any, just that I haven’t posted any.  This saga with my tooth went on so long that honestly, the last blog I wrote shouldn’t see the light of day; it was a bit… incendiary.  Inappropriate at least.   Plus let’s be honest, I was as tired of writing about that tooth as anyone still looking at this blog was of reading it. 

About a month ago a solution was finally reached.  I was sent to Denver, where I’m from, to get the tooth extracted and an implant put in.  I was a bit surprised – the people in DC told me that I would be going for treatment to South Africa.  I’m not sure what happened but I’m assuming it had gone on so long (more than five months) that they decided to just let me go home.  Not going to lie – South Africa would have been awesome, I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t get to go there.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, but I’ll be going home in a month and a half for home leave anyways.   

Regardless, home was great.  I saw a lot of friends and family, watched football and hockey, played with my dog, ate great food, drank great drinks (it’s Colorado, home of the best beer in the world), and relaxed on the couch.  Everyone always thinks that I want to go do crazy things when I’m home, but really I just want to relax, eat, drink, and see people.  It’s the little things that I miss when I’m in Cameroon– being able to drink water from the tap (with ice!), sitting on comfortable furniture, getting my own seat in a car (or even driving), and using a microwave.  Of course, getting to go to the Great American Beer Festival was pretty awesome.  If you don’t know what that is, look it up and be jealous. 

Last night was my fourth time flying into Cameroon – when I first got here, xmas last year, Morocco, and now for my tooth.  Other than the first time, this was the weirdest.  Since I’ve been gone, another couple of my closest friends left.  I should get used to it – all of my staj (training group) will be gone by November 7^th.  I know I made the right decision to stay in Cameroon; my position working with M&E is exactly the job experience I want.  Plus I just wasn’t done living here; I would have already been gone for a couple of months by now.  I like Cameroon.  Coming back now though it seems like I underestimated how difficult it will be. 

Over the last ten years I’ve been lucky to find myself in situations with groups of people where we are all out of our comfort zones and go through everything together.  From college to Teach for America to grad school and now the Peace Corps I’ve met some amazing people that, partly because of our shared experiences, I am incredibly close with.  Even more than TFA, Peace Corps has probably been the most intense of these experiences. 

I think the work in TFA was more difficult, but the thing about Peace Corps is that you never leave work.  You are always viewed as an outsider and live life in a fishbowl; the hard part about Peace Corps isn’t the work that you do, but everything else that goes along with it.  Not only that but unless you’ve done something like it, you won’t get it.  Even the people here that I don’t like I’ve got a shared experience with, something that will always keep us connected.  Within a couple of weeks there will only be a handful of people left in country that I’m really close to.  I don’t know how I’ll get through the next year like this without so many of my people.  It’s been a great two years and I’ve met some of the strongest, smartest, and most fun people I ever will.  You guys will be sorely missed. 

Adventures of a Tooth… to Morocco!

Friday, July 18, 2014

In the beginning of April right before the National Girls’ Forum (NGF) my tooth fell out.  Don’t worry, it was a crown.  I got it knocked out in sophomore year of college.  I was playing hockey in a rec league and decided – like an idiot – to play without a mask.  Until then, I always had to wear a mask, it’s a rule in minor league hockey.  So when I started playing and didn’t have to, I took it off.  I played maybe four games before I had a big mid-ice collision with a guy and his helmet went straight into my mouth, knocking out one of my front teeth and one beside it.  Of course, I had to go to the first week of classes with two teeth missing, but since then they haven’t been a problem. 

Until one day I was in Yaoundé eating chicken at Container Bar close the old case.  Container Bar, of course, had that name because it is made out of an awning on the side of an old shipping container.  I finished the chicken, was getting a piece of meat out with a toothpick, when instead the whole tooth came out. 

Great tram system

Unfortunately, not only did it come out, but it fell on the ground and about a third of it chipped off.  Apparently making a crown isn’t something they can do in Cameroon, so that meant a medical trip to Morocco.  Of course, it happened right before NGF, a conference that I had been working on for seven months or longer and is one of the best projects that I do here.  The doctor in Morocco wanted to send me right away and wouldn’t listen when we tried to explain the situation.  Luckily, the medical officer here took pity on me and scheduled the trip for later. 

Roman ruins, still damned impressive

Of course, that meant having the chipped tooth cemented back in here.  I was able to get that done quickly …but it fell back out within a 24 hours.  By the time I finally got to Morocco, I had it cemented in and it fell back out three times. 

The Casbah, hundreds of years old and standing strong

I finally got to Morocco and had an amazing time.  I had probably the best medical reason to go – I wasn’t in any pain and I had a lot of free time to explore.  I was there for 8 days and had maybe 4 appointments, plus I had to go to the Peace Corps office every day to get my per diem.  Rabat is absolutely gorgeous.  It is basically like being in Europe but with Moroccan culture.  There was a great tram system, fast internet, running water, parks, fountains, great food; in other words, my trip was amazing. 

So much fresh juice, for a dollar each!  

Every day I went to the medina, or the market and just walked around.  The food was cheap and delicious and the market was clean and colorful.  It was kind of like a market here, except with tiled floors instead of dirt, a wider variety of nicer things, and not near as derangey (bothersome).  I bought a bunch of souvenirs and drank a ton of freshly made juices.  I explored the rest of the city too, going to see the roman ruins and the other sites.  Luckily, there were PCVs from other countries there and Moroccan PCVs that I could hang out with.  The PCVs that were with my friend who was in Morocco were there COSing (leaving), so she emailed a few of them and told them to make sure they brought me when they went out.  It was really nice, I just had a people knocking on my hotel door and telling me when they were going places. 

The Medina was awesome 

After they left, other people from Morocco came in, and throughout the trip I had a couple of friends from Cameroon there with me, one at the beginning and one at the end.  I had people I could explore with, and couldn’t have asked for a better trip.  The tooth was made and put in and looks good. 

…then I got back to Cameroon and a few weeks later the tooth fell back out.  I can’t tell you how frustrated I am with it; it’s a ridiculous situation.  I got it cemented back in here, again, so we’ll see how long that lasts.  I don’t know what I’m going to do.  They don’t really want to send me to Morocco again for the same situation, and of course they’ll do nothing until it falls out again.  They keep asking me to move my home leave up, but I’m not going to do that. 

Rabat is a beautiful city

Did I mention that I keep having nightmares about my tooth falling out at… inopportune times?  Yeah, that’s been happening. 

Oh yeah, because I extended, I get 30 days of home leave with a paid flight.  I’m also taking an extra 15 days of vacation, so I’ll be home from Thanksgiving passed New Years!  I’m hoping to go to NYC for a week before xmas too.  I can’t wait.

Look how awesome these colorful chicks look!
I mean, it probably isn't healthy for them, but still!  

After a few months… a new post!

This is my first blog post in a couple of months and there’s a reason for that; the last couple of months have been probably the most frustrating of my service.  I realized recently that since I got closed more than three months ago and the traveling I had to do between committees, National Girls’ Forum, and training at IST, I haven’t been anywhere for longer than a week in four and a half months.  The only exception is eight days that I spent in Morocco to get my tooth fixed, which of course, subsequently fell back out. 

I’ll go into some of the better experiences, like visiting some friends and that trip to Morocco, in a later post; I figure I should just give a general overview of my life first.  For the last while, I’ve been traveling around spending a few days in one place and a few in the next.  It was OK at first, and an experience that could have been a lot worse.  Unlike most people whose posts get closed, I had work the entire time.  My whole service has been lucky like that.  I’ve always felt busy, which is a rarity in the Peace Corps.  Even with all that, four months without a home is difficult.  I’ve been living out of the same backpack, wearing the same shirts and the same pants, and have spent a ridiculous amount of time on buses and in cases. 

This whole time I thought I was going to live in Ngaoundéré; something I was really happy about.  Ngaoundéré is one of my favorite places in Cameroon, and certainly my favorite out of the ones that were still an option for me to live in.  I really pushed for it and admin listened.  Unfortunately, based on my work it probably wasn’t the best choice for me, and they couldn’t follow through. 

In the last couple of weeks my boss finally got back from DC where she’s been for six weeks for trainings.  Since then, my job has become much more defined.  While all of my responsibilities haven’t been fleshed out and there are still some things up in the air, I will most likely have to be in Yaoundé at least twice a month.  That’s a lot of travel wherever you’re coming from, but for Ngaoundéré that would mean the train twice a month – a long and expensive trip (around 16 hours and $100 round trip). 

There’s also a housing problem in Ngaoundéré – apparently there aren’t any.  There is one PCV who has been living in the case in Ngaoundéré for more than seven months waiting for a house.  At this point, there are two PCVs who are about to leave in Ngaoundéré, but three who need houses, including me.  After living without a home base for more than four months, I’m not willing to wait for them to find a house, and the others have been waiting for longer than me

That means Ngaoundéré isn’t for me.  The most logical choice would then be Yaoundé, since I have to be there so often.  Unfortunately admin doesn’t want anyone living there for a variety of reasons, mainly security, housing is expensive, and it’s hard to integrate in a place that large.  There are other choices around, but they suggested Bertoua, and I accepted. 

Bertoua is the capital of the East, the only region I hadn’t been to.  I have to say, I like it so far.  The East is kind of a weird North/South/forest hybrid.  It’s both the largest and the least-densely populated region.  Bertoua is a small city, about 90,000 people, but pretty compact and busy.  It’s kind of like my favorite neighborhood in Garoua, Yelwa, and seems to be the wild west of Cameroon.  It’s basically like a smaller, dirtier, derangier (more bothersome), and busier version of Garoua.  It’s 5-6 hours by bus to Yaoundé, and while there may be places closer to live, I think it will be the best fit for me. 

My house is a double-edged sword.  It’s a pretty nice layout and the guy who has it now (and is leaving in a day or two) has set it up really well.  It has a leather couch, a fridge, a stove (basically unheard of), and free Wi-Fi.  The reason for that Wi-Fi is the other side of the sword – it’s in the same compound as the case.  That means I will have a lot less privacy.  I may be able to escape to a point by going to my own house, but there will always be people right there.  It’s going to be an interesting last year. 

A month without a post

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Guider has now been closed for a solid month.  The first few days I was in Limbé for the National Girls’ Forum, so I was pretty busy and distracted from it.  After that, I took the train up and stayed in Ngaoundéré for a couple of days.  The local Peace Corps staff in the Grand North has been amazing.  I got a ride up with them to Garoua, where I had to stay a week or so.  I planned on going earlier but they wanted to confirm the plan, which they kept changing.  Luckily, I was able to go back to Guider for a week. 

It was funny the different tracks that the three of us in Guider have taken.  One of my post mates came back just a couple of days before we were closed, so he didn’t have much time to say goodbye to people.  My other post mate was there about the same amount as me, and made a strong effort to go around and say goodbye.  I said goodbye to some people, but it’s like I couldn’t get myself to actually do it or even pack.   I don’t know if I was in denial or what, but I packed a bit and mostly just lived like I would have anyways.  Out of the three of us, one is going home a couple of months early, one is staying the normal time in a new post, and I am planning on extending. 

Everyone in Guider was really understanding about the situation though.  They knew that it was not our fault; our bosses made the decision.  They also know how dangerous Boko Haram is in general, and they were glad that we are going to be safe.  A friend of one of my post mates even told him that he had a new neighbor, and that Guider might not be safe for us anymore. 

After a week in Guider, Peace Corps helped us to move our stuff to Ngaoundéré.  We are incredibly grateful for that – most of the other closures did not have near the time to move or the help from Peace Corps.  I stayed with a friend in Dir in the Adamaoua for a few days, and then headed south to Yaoundé.  Long story short, I’m just hanging out here until I can go to Morocco to get my tooth fixed.  Apparently my extension can’t move on until I get medically cleared – not even finding out where I will live. 

While there have been a lot of changes in the last month, I think the biggest one is that people have actually heard of Boko Haram now.  Since I’ve been living mostly in cases (transit houses) for a month, I’ve had pretty good access to the Internet.  By now, it seems like everyone has heard about the close to 300 girls that were kidnapped by Boko to be sold throughout the region.  All I see on Facebook is pictures of protestors and signs with the hashtag #bringbackourgirls. 

I think that it’s great that the rest of the world is finally recognizing the atrocities committed by this terrorist group, but the fact is that Boko Haram has been operating for years.  More than a year ago, the post closures started happening in the Grand North of the country because of kidnappings.  Since then, I have had a Google alert on them, and have watched as story after story has unfolded of Boko Haram burning down schools and entire villages, often with people inside, slaughtering hundreds of men, women, and children.  It’s terrible that it has taken the international community this long to catch on.  Also, while the girls being kidnapped is an absolutely awful situation, the boys were just slaughtered. 

Boko Haram has destabilized the entire Northeast of Nigeria.  Schools have been shut down because any kept open are attacked, burned to the ground, and the students killed.  The government has no control, and the military has been accused of the same brutalities.  The conflict has started to spill into Cameroon, and most of us who have been closed heard of Boko Haram being in our posts.  Meanwhile, on Cameroon’s opposite border, the Central African Republic is slipping further into chaos and closer towards genocide.  Muslims fleeing towards Cameroon have been massacred.  I’m very glad that the issue is starting to come to the forefront, I just hope that people realize that kidnapped girls are only a part of the problem, and more than five times that number have been killed by Boko Haram this year alone. West/Central Africa needs help, and I don't think hashtags are going to do it.