The Closure of Guider

It finally happened. 

For those of you who haven’t heard, Guider, my home for the past year and a half, has been closed.  Peace Corps will no longer operate there, I won’t be replaced (as I wanted to be), and I will have to move months before I planned. 

Boko Haram struck again.  The third kidnapping and we’re out. 

The first was a French family in Waza in the Extreme North more than a year ago.  It’s about as far north as you can get in Cameroon.  The second was a French priest in Mokolo, about halfway up the Extreme North but still close to the border.  That was maybe half a year ago, and not very far from us.  The third is a Canadian nun and a couple of Italians from just outside of Maroua very recently.  The reports I’ve heard have said it was between 15 and 40 km from Maroua, which makes it 2-3 hours from us. 

I don’t blame the Peace Corps or the Embassy for closing us.  If you have not been keeping up with Boko Haram, whose name means Western Education is Sacrilege, you should.  They have been operating for years now, are gaining in power, and operate throughout several countries in the region, including Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon, and Mali.  Their attacks have been getting bolder and have been penetrating places in Southern Nigeria and Cameroon that they never have before.  They have burned hundreds of villages and raped, killed or displaced thousands of people.  There are entire regions that the Nigerian government have lost or are losing control of, but the only time that most Westerners hear about Boko Haram is when a fellow Westerner is kidnapped. 

Each kidnapping in Cameroon, the only open attacks in the country, has moved further south and further into the country.  Each one has gotten closer to Guider, and the last couple of kidnappings were only a few hours away.  While I don’t feel unsafe, I can understand why we would need to be moved.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t really make it any easier. 

Guider is a great town, and I have loved it since the moment I got there.  While I have had my share of rough patches during my service, they were never connected with Guider.  The town is beautiful and the people are kind, calm, and welcoming.  Despite how dry it is the streets are lined with trees.  Every sunset turns the sky and my entire house pink.  The vast majority of the people have treated me like a son, brother, or friend since I got there.  My work there has been great, and a lot of it has been meaningful and sustainable.  Guider is a fairly large place with more than 40,000 people in the main town, yet I have never felt more welcomed and a part of a community in my life. 

I’ll miss walking through town and the market, greeting everyone I see.  I’ll miss going over to my post mates’ houses, hanging out with them or their concession families.  I’ll miss giving and receiving random gifts of fruit with my neighbor.  I’ll miss our favorite hangouts, the people we spent time with, and all of the made-up names we gave to streets and bars.  Both of my post mates and I have celebrated the good times and shared the bad with the people of Guider, and none of us wants to leave. 

I have no right to compare my experiences with others that have been affected by terrorism.  My friends and family are safe and my home in America is not in jeopardy.  Though I have been forced to leave my home in Guider, I have other places I can go and people who can help me.  That being said, I still feel displaced.  I have a new post that I will eventually move to, but I will undoubtedly be homeless for the next few months, staying in cases (transit houses) and with friends. 

I think if you ask the average Westerner who Boko Haram is, they would have no clue – it’s just another terrorist group making people suffer in a part of the world that they don’t need to worry about.  Yet everyday, that terrorist group and others like it are killing, raping, torturing, and displacing people.  Our indifference only goes to give them more power.  I don’t have the solutions for how to fix this, but it’s wrong that we just ignore it.  I think I heard it best when I was watching Boondock Saints (though we should probably take a different route than they did). 

“Now, we must all fear evil men.  But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men.” 

Travel through the beautiful Northwest

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Well it’s time for another catch-up blog.  I’ve been busy, get off my back!  I really am going to try to write more frequently.  Honestly, I’m not even sure where I left off last time and I’m too lazy to check, so some stuff my get skipped, but whatevs.  

My post-mate’s friends visited Guider, and while they were there we had formations at the Cetic de Lamorde on hand washing, the oral-fecal cycle, and just some fun soccer games.  Things went pretty well, considering we had a couple hundred students and zero help from anyone working at the school.  They did get a little hairy at the end when we tried to give out some prizes and got rushed.  ‘Luckily,’ that was when a staff member finally decided to get involved by getting a long stick (or a switch, as I’ve been told they’re called in the south) and beating all of the students back.  At this point, the latrine is almost done and we are waiting for the funds to come to finish up the water project.  Once both are done, we are planning on having more formations and probably making tippy-taps (bottles with soap and water in them, it makes it easier for people to wash their hands using soap). 

I said get back! 

After that, I started my travels south.  I went to Bamenda in the Northwest to do a couple of trainings at the newest stage’s IST (inter-service training, which they get 3 months after going to post).  Things went well, and since I had to be in Ngaoundéré a week later for meetings, I traveled around the Northwest a bit.  

Road to Widikum

I went to Mbengwi first.  I’ve been there a couple of times already, but it is only 20 minutes outside of Bamenda and a few of my favorite people in country are there, so how could I resist?  One of the nights we went to a Jangi (and I’m definitely spelling that wrong) party.  The idea with these is that everyone who is a member puts in so much money per month, it depends on the jangi, and then each person takes turns ‘winning’ the monthly money, and each meeting is a party.  It is basically a way to have a savings account.  Unfortunately, in Cameroonian culture actually saving money is difficult.  If you have money, you are supposed to give it to your family in need.  Saving money is a faux-pas. 

Road to Olorunti

This jangi group was all the big-men in the area (which included a few women, but that’s the term used).  They each put in 100,000 CFA a month!  I just realized that you can’t capitalize numbers for emphasis.  Someone needs to figure out how to do that, and create a sarcasm font.  To put that in perspective, that is about 2/3 of my monthly paycheck, (half if you include rent), or about $200 in America.  Needless to say, the party I went to was at a gigantic house and was a lot of fun.  The conversations going on were pretty incredible too, ranging from how long after a woman gives birth you can play with her breasts, if it is ok for grown men to drink breast milk, comparing the PCVs breasts there, and the ever-popular homosexuality.  Things were pretty awkward at times, but the drinks kept flowing, so we were ok.  I talked to a guy who looks like Rick Ross the whole time. 

After Mbengwi I met up with a buddy and we traveled to Wum to hang out with a couple of other friends.  The Ring Road, the primary road in the area that I assumed was going to be good, was terrible.  I’m glad it wasn’t rainy season.  Wum was topographically beautiful, but not my favorite town.  We were there for women’s day and kept trying to dance with everyone on dance floors at the different bars, but every time we tried, the dance floor cleared.  This is the exact opposite of every other time I have danced in country.  Usually, if a white guy starts dancing, everyone starts cheering and rushing over.  Apparently a couple of the guys were told that we were ‘ruining women’s day.’  A very weird experience. 

Before we ruined women's day.

After that we went to Widikum to visit another friend, and a small town outside of it called Olorunti.  Both were absolutely gorgeous.  Situated in the mountains of the Northwest, the moto rides to get to each were a couple of the prettiest drives I have been on.  I tried to take pictures but they don’t do them justice.  Olorunti was particularly incredible.  The only way to get there is a braided vine bridge after a long and perilous moto ride followed by a hike.  Yet somehow, the town had electricity and water, and the people seemed to really have their acts together.  I would love to be able to live there for a few months, but I know that could never happen because of the accessibility. 

Braided bridge to Olorunti

Finally we went back down to Yaoundé and I caught the train up for St. Addy’s Day in Ngaoundéré and meetings for National Girls’ Forum.  Since then, I have been working pretty much non-stop on NGF and the Cameroon.peacecorps.gov website since.  I head south again soon for more meetings and our COS conference.  Unfortunately I haven’t been able to go to post since (I could have gone for a few days, but it wasn’t worth the travel up there to attend a few meetings).

Swimming under the bridge

As for August, my boss has still not had the meeting with UNHCR so I’m waiting on that.  It promises to be a hectic last five months between my national work, work at post, trying to finish my MI paper, and trying to figure out what I’m doing after this.  Either way, I’ll try to update more regularly. 

Olorunti