Monday, December 22, 2003

My its been a while since I've written, and its because life has been quite busy in the past few weeks, I haven't had a chance to settle down and write it all down!

After Thanksgiving, I returned to Edéa for a mostly calm week until Saturday when I was picked up by Tyrone, the Peace Corps Director of the Small Enterprise Development program- my boss, on the way to our week-long training in the beach town of Limbé. I figured since he had to pass right through my town on his way there, I might as well ride with him! Since we got there a day early, I ended up staying with my friend Mike, who lives in Limbé, right on the ocean- rough life. We all went out to dinner with Tyrone for a nice meal seaside of roasted chicken and fries after which we went to an outdoor bar with live music and dancing. It was great fun, and of course I had to get up and make a fool of myself.

Sunday, a bunch of us who were already in town met up with Sonny for a ride in his pickup out to the beach for the day. Sonny is a one-in-a-million type guy. He's from rural Mississippi, south of Jackson and grew up a crop-duster. He decided that he would use his experience in crop-dusting travel the world. So, now he's in Cameroon living on the beach with his pickup truck. Three times a week he gets in his bi-plane and crop-dusts cocoa and coffee plantations and gets paid very well by local standards. Just a good-ole boy, never meanin' no harm...

The beach is a black sand volcanic beach next to Mt. Cameroon, the largest mountain in Western Africa. Obviously, this makes for a dramatic tropical backdrop from which to enjoy swimming!

When we finally checked into the hotel where the training was to be held, there was a large spread of food awaiting us. After we had finished eating, a group of women performed some traditional dances for us. The last of these, I have gotten used to and it requires appreciating the dancers by dancing with them and giving them money. What happens is the dancers come around and choose a man to dance with. This is signaled by putting a scarf or towel around their necks. The man is then expected to get up, shake it a little and place paper money of some denomination on the lead dancers forehead, where due to sweat, it usually sticks. We don't always get along, but Tyrone, who sent the dancers my way in the first place, seemed quite happy that I got into it.

The conference itself was quite boring, and I won't get into the details. The biggest problem from our perspective was that one person from each of our banks was there, which forced the conference to be in french and much more formal. If we had been there alone, we could've concentrated on more sharing of best practices with how to cope with daily life in a micro-credit bank in Cameroon. Each night we tried to decompress by chosing a different restaurant on the water to eat, drink and catch up on the last three months we had spent apart.

On the way back to Edéa from the conference, about five of us stopped at Kristen and Peter's place in Douala. Kristen, Isabelle's friend from DC who lives the expat life and whom I have hung out with several times, had invited us over for a lunchtime conference call. Kristen is a member of Democrats Abroad, and on the call that day was none other than Howard Dean to answer questions from concerned Americans around the world. Kristen got to ask the first question, about Dean's policy on renewable energy and throughout the call, Dean was impressive. He was knowledgeable yet personable. He was really able to convey that he truly cared about the issues and was not a stiff Gephardt-like politician.

Several friends followed me back to Edéa to rest for a day or so before heading on home. The refrain I kept hearing was "This is not Peace Corps". I was hoping they were referring to my innovative interior decorating, but I'm pretty sure they were talking about the large kitchen, air-conditioning and hot water.