Monday, November 24, 2003

Friday, November 21, 2003

Tomorrow marks the three month anniversary of my being a volunteer for the Peace Corps, and a week from next Wednesday will by my six month anniversary in Cameroon. This means I am almost one quarter through my time here. Its hard to believe, but as long as it continues to be interesting, fun and I feel as though I'm helping someone, the time will continue to go faster and faster, I'm sure.

I wanted to talk a little more about the classes that I'm teaching. The school is called "Centre Scholaire" and is only for the children of employees of Alucam, owned by the now Canadian (formerly French) company, Pechiney. I teach two different classes each twice per week for an hour, so I'm there each Monday and Thursday from 3-5pm. Each class has exactly one white french boy and about twelve Cameroonian children for a total of about 25 students between the ages of 9 and 11. This is markedly smaller than the normal class size for that age which is around 60 in public schools- hard to imagine how they learn anything, but discipline is pretty strict.

In general, my kids are pretty bright. I speak English almost all the time, but occasionally translate when its really necessary to understand what I'm saying. Their retention is pretty good, considering I give them about twenty new vocabulary words each class. Yesterday, we learned "Old MacDonald had a farm" and learned the names of some animals. They seemed to enjoy it and hopefully learned something as well. Monday we're going to talk about family and the American holiday of Thanksgiving. Should be fun.

Wednesday, November 19, 2003

Wednesday, November 19, 2003

A very strange thing happened yesterday afternoon, and I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was...

Around closing time, three o'clock, my housekeeper Marie, met me at the office, as we had previously arranged. We had to go to the new house together so she could get through security and I could give them a letter stating that she is, in fact, my 'ménagere'. As soon as we got to the house, I got a call from my friend Gabriel who, upon learning that I was home, said he had something to discuss and that he was sending a driver over to get me. I quickly showed Marie around the new house, including the washing room- a separate room from the inside of the house with two large tub sinks and her own bathroom, and gave her copies of the keys to that room and to the kitchen, from which she can enter the house. It really is a great set-up. I told her that I would pay her a bit more since the house is further away and a little larger, at which time the driver arrived. He was the same guy who drove us to Douala on Saturday for a little shopping trip to buy Christmas items for Gabriel's store.

We arrived at the bar where Gabriel was talking with two other men, I greeted them appropriately, sat down and ordered a soda since I was a little tired and didn't feel like a beer. Gabriel has just about given up fighting when I order a 'jus' instead of a beer. The man sitting at the power position of the table was introduced as a very rich man who owns a road construction company with contracts throughout the country. He had come to Edéa to find someone to manage his in-process hotel that he is virtually finished building in town. It should be noted that he is building the hotel entirely with cash-on-hand, a completely foreign notion in the US. We began talking and I told him that I was not familiar with his hotel at which point he demanded that the driver take me over to tour it before we continued the discussion. I went over and the driver and the guardian of the site showed me around. The hotel has forty rooms, parking in the rear, an in-process "conference center" with two decent-sized rooms. The ceiling on the entrance level is low, but nicely paneled in stained wood. There are two sizes of rooms. One has a standard double bed with a small verranda and small bathroom. It is quite small, but serves its purpose. There is no room really for an armoire or television. The other is basically two of those rooms connected to each other with a slightly larger bathroom, and one of the rooms meant for sitting. This is the only one with an air-conditioner.

When I got back to the bar, the 'patron' decided that I was the one to make his business run well. He told me that Cameroonians only work hard for whites and that he would tell everyone that I had bought the place had was the real owner. He would give me a car and office and anything else I needed such that it appeared to all as if I ran the place. He would also, obviously, let me have a percentage of the profits. All this, just for giving him advice on how to operate the business and for showing my white face (and presumably introducing him to my white friends). I had a hard time taking him seriously, but he was in fact quite serious. Gabriel was to run the day-to-day operations, his new wife to run accounting-apparently she has some training in that field- and I would be the PATRON- while only the four of us would know that he was the one who actually owned the place and received a majority of the profits. I didn't know what to say other than I appreciated his offer and that I was a very busy person. I didn't want to ruin it for Gabriel, so I told him (Gabriel) that we would have to work through the numbers so I could advise him whether or not to become involved himself (there is a backstory there...), and then we parted ways with a promise to talk again later this week.

Gabriel's story-which becomes clearer and clearer each week: Gabriel was hired two years ago by the Greeks who own the supermarket to run it for them and send them the profits while they left town (I don't know where they are yet). In the two years since, Gabriel has steadily run the business into the ground, to the point that he has trouble covering both inventory purchases and salaries when they occur within a couple weeks of each other. As nice as he his, he is not a very good manager of a retail business or of employees (he treats them all with contempt-as if they are all stupid and trying to cheat/steal from him). As a result of this and his barely competitive prices, his customers have found other places (including driving to Douala) to get what they need. The nail in the proverbial coffin may come in a couple of months when his chief competitor here, Petit Jean, opens a true supermarché on the main road in a brand new building.

Friday, November 14, 2003

Monday, November 10, 2003

We got our signs! Before today, the cooperative operated in a virtual shadow hidden behind a wall in the market. Now, we have three large signs which proclaim to the world that we are here! With the signs and the brochure that the Vice President and I are almost finished with, I'm hoping for loads of new members.

I also taught my first two classes of English today! I was incredibly nervous and sweated profusely during the first class. The second class went more smoothly and I'm hoping there will be at least a little retention. We went over introductions, colors and numbers through 20. They all seem to be fairly bright and were very well behaved during my classes. I hoping to settle down over the next couple of weeks and get into a rhythm of review, new stuff, stories and songs. If anyone knows a website or can send me words to songs we sung as little kids but which I have now forgotten, please email me!

Book report: I finally had some time over the weekend, while relaxing on the beach in Kribi, to finish "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde. I was expecting it to be a stodgy classic that would be mildly enjoyable, but that at the end I would be a better person somehow... Happily, that was not the case. I found myself deep into the story, laughing out-loud at Wilde's witicisms and almost sad when I had finished. There are some fantastic passages which, although the first Wilde book I have read, show his brilliance and insight into the human condition. Highly recommended (I must add that I've been very lucky with my choices thus far and have had to recommend almost all of them). After I get settled into my new home hopefully by the end of the week, I will begin Nabokov's "Lolita".

Thursday, November 13, 2003
I finally moved yesterday! Its amazing, and I am so much happier in the new house! I even have a screened-in porch and Alucam gave me some furniture, so I have enough to put some outside to enjoy the outdoors when the weather is nice. We started at around 2pm when I went up to the office of the Delegate for Agriculture, (the man who oversees agriculture for this Department-equivalent to a county in the US-for the government) who also happens to be a friend of mine. He also happens to have a pickup which I had asked if I could use for my move. The brother of the president of the bank was with him, and we got in the truck to get the other men who my friend Gabriel "lent" to me for the afternoon. The vice-president also came by so there were five of us (the Delegate had work to do, so he didn't help out) who loaded all of my stuff and the accumulated furniture of three generations of volunteers into the truck. It took us a little over two hours and three trips with the pickup, but we got everything over. My housekeeper showed up at the end to clean the empty house, and I gave some small furnishings to her, and to one of the men who helped. To the others, I gave some money-almost a weeks pay for a couple of them, and took all of them out to the bar after we were done to relax and celebrate. After all that, I went back to the house to assemble the bed that I sleep in. I have to say that a hot shower after a hard day's work and a nice air-conditioned room is a wonderful thing.

Thursday, November 06, 2003

Thursday October 30, 2003

Now that we’ve had the computer for an entire week, the members have begun to get the word out. We’re also putting up signs that tell people where we’re located (right now, we’re in an unmarked building in an unmarked office inside a cement wall, although there is an old, barely readable sign on one of the cement walls). We figure with the new computer, signs and the brochure that I’m working on that tells all the great things about the cooperative, we should have people flooding in to become members in the next few weeks and months. If they don’t... well, we’ll have to go to Plan B. Isn’t there always a Plan B?

Wednesday night, I cooked my first big meal for my friends! It took a while to get up the courage, and to know the market well enough to know what ingredients were available, but I did it, and I think it was a success! I had over my friend Yves, the french guy who is helping me with the new house and who has cooked wonderful french food for me several times, and Gabriel, the manager of the supermàrché and his fiancée who have me over often for meals and to watch bad american films dubbed in French (“Showtime” with Eddie Murphy and Robert DeNiro-what was he thinking?- is a favorite). I made a classic southern meal of cornmeal fried fish with sautéed squash and onions and mashed potatoes. I have to say though, that I really dislike cleaning fish. The gutting part I can handle, but the scales flying all over the place it what really makes it bad (sorry for those of you who may be vegetairans). In my new house, I’ll have a real kitchen inside the house with a sink, so that should make the task of cooking dinner much more pleasant than cleaning fish in the bathroom sink.

This weekend, I’m heading to Kumba for the annual Peace Corps Cameroon Guitarfest! Its kinda like Lollapalooza, but different. Its being hosted by my friend, Cathy, who is supposed to be working for NISCAM, a now mostly defunct bank wrought with corruption, but is actually assisting local womens’ groups get organized. The big draws of Kumba are the large market with lots of black market items smuggled in from Nigeria-the home of the African black market- and Classy Burger, a hamburger and fried chicken restaurant run by an American who used to live in Georgia. It’ll be really nice to see some of my friends I haven’t seen in over two months now.

I promised to start my observations of life here in Cameroon this week, so for the first week since I’ll be traveling on them this weekend, I’ve decided to talk about Bush Taxis. Bush taxis are some melange of regular taxis and public buses which traverse Cameroon getting people where they need to be (but not necessarily when they need to be there). There are “stations” in every major town in Cameroon and in larger cites, mutiple stations depending on which direction you want to go. A number of different “agences” or bus companies have locations in and around the area of the station, each with their own specific destination. Perhaps its easier to understand if I explain what I will be doing Saturday morning. There are two “stations” in Edéa, one that goes to points north on the north end of town, and the other which goes to points east and south (on the south end). Since I need to travel to Douala to change buses there, I will be heading north. There are no agences based in Edéa, so I wait for a bush taxi passing through to stop to drop off and take additional passengers. This bush taxi can take several forms, a traditional Greyhound-type bus, a modified full-sized van or a Toyota Corolla or equivalent car. The price to Douala is a flat-rate of 1000 FCFA (a little less than $2), unless you command the entire small taxi, in which case its closer to 8000. The large buses are obviously the most comfortable, but they come around less frequently and only on selected routes. You actually get your own seat on those. The vans are modified such that there are five rows of seating, including the row with the driver. In these, about 24 adults including the driver travel- children are not charged and sit on top of either their parents or whoever else is willing to hold them. Sitting five across in these can be painful, especially if a large-ended woman happens to be sitting in that row. The aisle to get to the back of the bus are fold-down seats such that when full, no one is going anywhere unless the side sliding door is opened.

Once I get to Douala, I have to take a taxi from the south side of town where I will get dropped off, to the north side where the agence area is for points north and west of Douala. This includes Kumba. I've been told there's an agence that goes directly to Kumba, which is a good thing and will prevent me from having to change buses again in some, likely out of the way, city such as Buea.

10 observations and rules of the buses:
1. Buses do not leave the station until full, except Centrale Voyages between Yaoundé and Douala which leaves on schedule (mostly).
2. When buses are not full, they employ "hustlers" to try and get you on their bus instead of the bus next door by promising that they will leave first. These hustlers sometimes sit inside the bus making you think the bus is fuller than it actually is trying to persuade you to get on.
3. If you want to sit up front with the driver, you sometimes have to pay extra for the priviledge.
4. If you're in a van and sitting in the last row next to a window and you want to get out at your village which is not a regular stop for the bus, you will be expected to exit through the window, unless you are a woman or old man.
5. Vans, not often buses, are routinely stopped by police who control/extort money from drivers who are interested in arriving at their destination without delay. Without payment, police will examine all of the driver's papers (license, registration, insurance) and then proceed to examine each of the passengers' papers. This process can take hours if the policeman so desires. Usually, 500 will prevent this from happening.
6. If you have a package you are traveling with, it goes either above or below the bus (if that's an option). Much care is taken in making sure that things don't fall off the top of the bus during the trip.
7. Its generally accepted that the driver will have a beer or shot of whiskey before leaving. It "loosens him up".
8. Buses do not have shocks, and thus traveling over unpaved or poorly paved roads and speedbumps can be painful and is not recommended for those with bad backs.
9. If you need to go to the bathroom, inform the driver and he will decide where to pull over. The passenger side rear is the accepted place for releiving yourself with the maximum privacy. Women do the same.
10. Bad West African music (yes, there is good music, but its not very popular) is almost always played at loud volumes throughout the trip ensuring that you and more importantly, the driver, stays awake.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Tuesday, November 4, 2003

I returned from Kumba yesterday afternoon after almost six hours of travel each way on the vans described above. Needless to say, I slept quite well last night as my body recovered.

Guitarfest was awesome! There were about 25 of us who came from all around the region to get together for food, friends and fun. My friend Zal who lives in Kribi came up on Friday night to hang out in Edéa for the night and to travel to Kumba together on Saturday morning. We had a great dinner of roasted chicken, plantains and fries and took a nice walk around my town. The trip to Kumba was much as expected, but when we arrived and saw many of our friends the drain of the trip left us.

The party started after dark, and there were five performers, including me! I was encouraged to perform a few numbers at the last minute and one of the guitarists who could read music well agreed to help me out with no rehearsal whatsoever. I sang five songs, but really should have only sung three. The other two were sadly lacking in practice, but it was all in fun, so why not? The other performers varied in skill levels, but just getting up there was something and the audience, although admittedly a bit under the influence, was very encouraging. There were even a couple who had written songs themselves and performed them. My friend Jeremy, who lives virtually on the Nigerian border, had a particularly funny one about being a "psychotic, neurotic Peace Corps volunteer". The evening was one of those experiences I will look back upon fondly for the rest of my life.

Kumba, the city, is not all that special, although we did eat at Classy Burger several times- which did have quite a tasty cheeseburger. I did get a chance to walk around the market, which, although very large, was mostly unremarkable for the product selection. I did get some nice fabric to have a shirt made, and now need to find a good tailor. I also had the opportunity to practice my pidgin, which was lots of fun. The woman I bought the fabric from in the market was pleasantly surprised with the amount of pidgin I knew, which was great to hear. Pidgin is derived primarily from English, but is truly its own language. For example, "I want to eat a steak" is translated to "Ah de wan chop kaw-bif". Fun stuff!

I went by my landlord's house on Friday before I left and told him that I was moving out before the end of November and reminded him that I had already paid the month of November. His wife, who really runs the show, was not there at the time. She was, however, waiting for me in the market and stopped me on my way to work this morning. She was clearly not happy that her three-year Peace Corps gravy train was coming to an end. She even had the gaul to suggest that I hire a full-time guard to stand outside my house in my crowded neighborhood to protect me. I told her that I shouldn't have to pay for a guard just to stay in that house. She started to give me a whole sob story, but I stuck to my story, and she saw that I wasn't going to change my mind and that it was already done. Finally, after about five or ten minutes, she let me go. I told her I would return the keys after I had left the house. I knew she wasn't going to let me go easily, but its all for the best.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXxxx

Wednesday, November 5, 2003

I took a tour of the school in which I will be teaching beginning next week, and of my new house last night! The school is for the kids of the employees of Alucam, and while not quite to US standards, is probably the nicest school in the country. Their classrooms even have air-conditioners, and they have a computer room with dial-up internet access! Its pretty unreal, and I would feel as though I'm not helping the people who need help except for the fact that 98% of the students are Cameroonian, and its opportunities like this that give them a chance to succeed in the wide world and give something back to their own community. I will be teaching two different classes each for two hours a week beginning on Monday afternoon. The students are between 8 and 10 years old. I'm very excited about it!

The house is about three doors down from the school within the Alucam "plantation". Its a really nice two bedroom house with screened in porch, kitchen and outdoor sink for washing clothes. I feel a little guilty about this, but I have three airconditioners and two water heaters, which is absolutely unheard of for Peace Corps volunteers. I am getting all of this for the same price per month as my current house, with the balance being paid-in-kind by my work at the school. The best part is that utilities are paid for and that my closest neighbor will be a healthy fifty feet or so, which will allow me to sing and play music and have dinner parties without people caring. I will be getting the keys sometime late this week or early next week after their finished putting a new coat of paint and fixing the place so its close to perfect! I can't wait!!!