Tales from a Mud Hut

Dear Stomach,

2009-06-15T01:49:00.000-07:00

For nearly two months now, you and I have been engaged in a civil war such as has never been seen before for violence and suffering. Ceasefires have been signed and then rashly thrown aside, and still we are no closer to a permanent peace treaty.

I’m sure you must be as bored of this pitiful situation as I am. You can’t enjoy being pelted with medication missiles (with sexy names like ‘Flagyl’ and ‘Spasfon’) in attempt after futile attempt to annihilate your armies of amoebas. Time after time I thought you had finally thrown in the towel and admitted defeat, only to feel the drums of war echo through my swollen belly in anticipation of the forthcoming attack upon my lower intestine.

I know I have not been a kind and benevolent leader. I have forced you to consume unfiltered tap water, unwashed vegetables, meat of dubious quality and even halal hot dog sausages. Yet these are hard times: gone are the days of full English breakfasts, lamb chops, chicken tikka masala and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (1) . To my mind you haven’t even made an effort to appreciate the delicacies on offer here: fouléré and ndolé are really not that bad, and still you reject them in such a violently definitive manner.

To my shame, I have sought expert advice on how to finally overcome your insolent rebellion. I have visited the Hôpital CNPS in order to arm myself with better bombs and missiles, yet your guerrilla warfare tactics mean that you always evade my feeble attempts to regain power. Eventually, the Hôpital itself defeated me: aspiring bowel-dictators have to run a gauntlet of bureaucrats, doctors, nurses, laboratory workers and pharmacists before they can finally lay their hands upon those precious warheads that promise so much and deliver so little.

Please, stomach, I implore you, decease in your futile uprisings! What good do they serve? Neither of us will enjoy the last month in Cameroon if we cannot learn to live in peace. If you promise to end my suffering, I promise to only feed you mineral water and canned tuna until we reach England, and on your taste buds (2) and my wallet be it.

Yours beseechingly,

Emma

1 Note to parents: all of the aforementioned would make stellar ‘first meals back’.
2 I remember enough from GCSE biology to realise that stomachs don’t have taste buds; this was a rash attempt at humour. Not a very good one now that I read it again, but unfortunately I can’t be bothered to come up with anything better.

It's getting hot in here...

2009-06-02T00:55:00.000-07:00

[Author's note: I should have published this blog ages ago but unfortunately the Hot Season (see long, miserable rant below) has sapped all my creative energy. It's literally taken me two months to write this entry!]

The Hot Season arrived later than promised, but it’s here and is showing no sign of leaving. The heat is claustrophobic: imagine being trapped in a sauna when someone outside accidentally locks the door. Everywhere you go, the same force presses down on you from all sides. You can’t eat, sleep, work, think. All you can do is sweat. You take five showers a day but the water in the pipes is heated by the sun and comes out scalding. Even your electric fan provides no relief as it can only regurgitate the hot air that surrounds it. You begin to fantasise about grey skies, to hate that fiery yellow ball in the sky that beats down on you relentlessly, showing absolutely no mercy.

About a month of my life went by in this sorry condition. Finally, even the sky could stand it no more, and one day we looked up to see clouds. The rain, which came the next day, was greeted by hysterical VSO volunteers who ran out into their compounds screaming and dancing. I myself stayed outside in the storm until it was no longer possible to remain standing, and then I watched the rain from the safety of my front door. Never in my life have I felt such ecstasy. I think Sarah summed it up perfectly in the text she sent me that afternoon, as the first drops started to fall: “wooooohooooooo”.

Yet the rain, if anything, only exacerbated our problems. Now it was no longer just hot, but humid too. What’s more, the return of the rain reignited a cycle that normally only exists during the wet season: cool(ish), hot, hotter, hottest, thunderstorm, cool(ish)… Like heroin addicts, we have found ourselves gagging at every moment for our next fix of rain.

The lowest point came in the first week of May. I had been feeling rather peaky for a few days but, putting it down to a dodgy tomato, I didn’t bother going to see the doctor. One night, I was edging off to sleep when my fan, which hitherto had made a valiant attempt at ventilating my sauna – sorry, bedroom – spluttered, ceased to hum and slowly drifted to a halt. The electricity was gone. Temporary malfunctions are normal, but when it still wasn’t on the next day I began to worry. I would later learn that a power cable had been blown down near Garoua and that it would take a week for the electricity (and thus the water, as they come as a package) to return.
By this time I was really sick. My health had deteriorated rapidly overnight, and I found that I could barely stand. Furious at myself for not getting treated sooner, I feebly called Abdoulaye and asked if he could take me to the hospital. We arrived to find that, as there was no generator, the doctors were literally powerless to help me. I couldn’t be admitted or tested. A nurse listened patiently to my symptoms, decided I had amoebic dysentery again, gave me some antibiotics and sent me home.

Thus began the very worst twenty-four hours of my life. I lay in a stupor on my bed, drifting in and out of consciousness, drenched in sweat, summoning the strength to sit up only so that I could down another gulp of some vile solution that was meant to restore my energy but only made me feel more lethargic. I awoke in the middle of the night to find that it was so dark, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. My eyes didn’t pick up the faintest trace of light, not even the outline of my bedroom window. It was at this point that my body remembered that it had amoebic dysentery and decided to resume the activity for which this disease is so famous. A superhuman effort got me to the bathroom, where after a long and laborious battle with death and despair I realised that I couldn’t flush the toilet. No water. Remember that my house is very small and that the bedroom is squeezed up next to the bathroom. Desperate for water, I crawled into the kitchen and opened the fridge, realising to my horror that I hadn’t cleaned the bloody thing out since the power cut began 36 hours earlier. So there I was, trapped in a pitch black, baking hot, overbearingly smelly concrete block, sicker than I’ve been in my life, feeling ridiculously, pathetically sorry for myself.

Since then, my health has yo-yoed but I haven’t fully recovered. This seemingly never-ending bout of sickness and hot weather has coincided with the heaviest period of work in my contract: organising and facilitating a three-day workshop, writing a report of our data-collection efforts over the past six months and using that report to draft a five-year action plan. I’ve decided to see it as a challenge and have come up with several strategies to beat the heat and thus survive the last few weeks. Here are some of my more successful efforts:

Soaking my pyjamas and sheets in water, then lying (in pyjamas, on sheets) in front of the fan. Pros: hot air from fan is still cooling on wet skin. Cons: sheets/pyjamas dry within minutes, and whole process has to be repeated; inevitably wake up the next morning with a cold.

Renting the salle de conférence at the Baptist Mission, which has air conditioning, in order to actually get some work done. Pros: with a bit of fiddling, air conditioner can be encouraged to produce arctic conditions. Cons: costs a small fortune; having to return to the sauna after experiencing relief from suffering is almost unbearable.

Spending every conceivable moment at the swimming pool. Pros: only viable way of getting total relief from the heat. Cons: can’t spend all my time in the pool (only open from 10am to 7pm, skin goes wrinkly if I spend too long in the water); haven’t yet figured out a way to write my report and swim at the same time.

Treating myself to goodies (ice cream at expat restaurant, weeny £4 tub of Nutella, real milk/cheese/butter) whenever I feel really down. Pros: makes me feel better instantly. Cons: I always feel down and therefore always try to justify purchase of goodies, meaning that I’m running out of money at a rather alarming rate.

A combination of these efforts and all-in-the-same-boat solidarity with the other volunteers has got me through the last few weeks, but I’d be lying if I said I was still relishing my experience in Cameroon. It seems that Africa has had enough of me and wants me to leave as soon as possible, and increasingly the feeling is mutual. I just hope and pray that the rains will come soon so that I don’t finish my year on a bad note.

Bake a Cameroonian event in twenty easy steps

2009-03-10T07:51:00.000-07:00

1. Take one apparently simple idea and spread across a group of colleagues. For example: a human rights letter-writing contest for high school students, with a prize-giving ceremony where the winning letters are honoured before being sent to the authorities.
2. Sprinkle colleagues liberally across Maroua, contest rules in hand, to speak to school directors and large, intimidating classes of teenagers.
3. Choose a day by which your event shall be ready. Change the date a minimum of three times.
4. Prepare the different layers of your event: a speech for the President (he cannot be expected to write it himself); awareness-raising talks and activities; a theatre group; an ensemble of young men who claim to be able to rap; a group of girl dancers who cannot be more than fifteen but who dance as if they were on stage at Spearmint Rhino.
5. Scour the city in search of prizes, using liberal amounts of emotional blackmail.
6. Pour in a large bottle of logistical problems: chairs, lighting, sound systems, refreshments, security, scheduling etc. Mix well until nobody is quite sure of what he or she is supposed to be doing.
7. Request permission from the sous-préfet well in advance of the event.
8. At midday on the day of the event, receive notice from the sous-préfet that the event cannot possibly take place as high school students (most of whom are over twenty, despite what their ID cards say) should not be allowed out after 6pm, when your event is scheduled to commence.
9. Organise the event for a different day/time, return to the sous-préfet and receive a lecture on how better to do your job. Resist the urge to smack the sneering, whiny, backstabbing, hypocritical little bureaucrat in his sneering, ugly little face by staring fixedly at the photo of Paul Biya (taken at least twenty-five years ago) framed on the wall beside him.
10. Submit seven copies of each required form to the sous-préfet’s office, only to be told that the form (of which you were given a hard, not an electronic, copy) ought to have been typed. Laboriously copy the entire form into a Word document, taking care to use the same font and spacing between lines. Argue with colleagues over whether the slightly faded letter in the corner of the original form is a C or an O.
11. Call the DJ to make sure the sound equipment is ready and working. Receive assurances that it is.
12. Prepare your inspirational, educational speech to the high-school students. Adjust the speech when a Cameroonian colleague informs you that your welcoming words to the invited authorities are in the wrong order – it’s the délégué and then the proviseur, duh.
13. Arrive on the day of the event to find that none of the authorities have shown up and the microphone isn’t working. Send colleagues on fruitless expedition to locate operational microphones.
14. Bake high school students in forty-degree heat for two hours while microphones are sought. Resign yourself finally to the fact that you will simply have to shout.
15. Cringe in horror as the President reads out his opening speech in a barely audible whisper with his back to the audience.
16. Improvise an entirely new schedule on the spot to account for missing microphone. Cue much chair swivelling, self-consciously over-enunciated speeches, and the sound of “what should we do next?” echoing across the compound at the end of each activity.
17. Dazzle high school students with succession of sketch shows, dance troupes and games, originally intended as awareness raising activities but now serving the higher purpose of distracting students from the heat, the lack of refreshments and the fact that prizes have yet to be given or even mentioned.
18. When presenting inspirational, educational speech to increasingly apathetic high school students, try to ignore the fact that the local drunk, who has somehow slipped past security, is busily constructing a fort behind you out of tables used in the game show.
19. Due to lack of genuine authorities, when awarding prizes, pounce upon random members of the audience, give them inflated titles and insist that they hand out awards instead.
20. As the ceremony draws to a close, flee with the high school students to ensure that you will not be part of the clearing-up committee. Congratulate yourself on an event well organised and pray that you will never have to organise another.

The Culture Itch

2009-02-09T06:33:00.000-08:00

It’s now been over five months since I first arrived in Cameroon. When I was in Ecuador, it was at this point that the cracks in my “aren’t different cultures fascinating” smile started to show. The truth is that, after five months of eating unfamiliar food, struggling with a foreign language and providing mirth for everyone around you with the funny way you do things, the sheen starts to wear off the colourful new culture that so fascinated you in the beginning. Difference is suddenly bad – why can’t people simply drink tea and eat sandwiches like they do back home? Why does even the most basic procedure require one to break through layer upon layer of red tape? What’s so amusing about the way I hold my fork?
Fortunately, the five-month itch hasn’t bothered me in Cameroon nearly as much as it did in Ecuador. I cite two reasons for the change. Firstly, I went home for almost three weeks in January and therefore managed to get my fill of all things English: tea, Branston pickle, mince pies, tea, Stephen Fry, The Guardian, port, tea, old country pubs, tea… Fausto and I even went to Madame Tussauds, that venerable English institution of wax celebrities that I somehow failed to visit as a child. (I was excited to learn that I’m taller than Robin Williams, disappointed that the same is not true of Tom Cruise, and confused as to why David Beckham is in there twice.)
Secondly, I’ve already had my ex-pat illusions of England shattered. In Ecuador, whenever I missed home, I would indulge in British romantic comedies with such English luminaries as Hugh Grant and Colin Firth. Imagine my disappointment upon discovering that life in England is not a perpetual cricket match of jolly garden parties, easily embarrassed vicars and terribly affable young chaps lounging around country manors drinking sherry. Now every time I miss something from home, I remind myself that what I miss probably doesn’t exist in the form that I imagine and that, even if it does, I probably never ate, drank, watched or read it anyway.
David Mitchell (of Peep Show fame) recently wrote in his column in The Observer: “We British love to judge our close class competitors – people incredibly similar to us and therefore most threatening. We're quite tolerant of genuinely different ways of life but, for those very like our own but with just a hint of either the stuck-up or common, we reserve our highest octane vitriol.” I’ve recently realised that this is not only true of keeping up with the Jones’s, but can apply itself just as easily to the British expat. While I’m overly tolerant of most Cameroonian practices, however bizarre I find them, the slightest unusual (and by that I mean un-British) behaviour on the part of my Canadian colleagues is mercilessly ridiculed.
Take the David Mitchell article, which was a diatribe against people who hated Christmas. I showed it to my Canadian colleague Sarah as she, like me, believes Christmas is sacred and should be celebrated in as cheesy and ostentatious a manner as possible, whether or not you have children or believe in God. After she had finished reading, Sarah pointed to a word and asked me what it meant. “Bauble?” I asked in surprise. “You don’t know what a bauble is?” When I explained, she said, “Oh, you mean Christmas balls.” Perhaps it’s because I have a mental age of thirteen, but if someone says ‘Christmas balls’, all I can think of is stripping Santas. I eventually discovered why the word ‘bauble’ never travelled as far as Ottawa – try saying it in a Canadian accent. The best you will be able to muster is ‘babble’ or ‘bobble’, the long vowel being rendered completely unpronounceable. Incidentally, I learnt over the course of this conversation that bobble hats don’t exist in Canada; when it’s minus forty outside you have to make do with a ‘pom-pom hat’. Clearly the Canadians need our help.
Cultural itchiness aside, things are going well here. I have a 6-month plan that will allow me to finish work by July, so I’m trying to pack in as much sightseeing as possible. On Sunday I and a group of hungover VSO volunteers braved the hot African sun to see crocodiles in a lake outside of Kaele. After around 2 hours of patient grumbling, we managed to spot a tiny brown splodge on the surface of the water which, I am assured, was a croc’s eye. Some children threw stones at the splodge and it vanished beneath the water. Next week is hippos.

The Naked Man of Maroua

2009-01-28T06:51:00.000-08:00

I had been in Maroua barely one week when I was asked a question that I honestly never expected to hear in the orthodox environment of northern Cameroon.
“Have you seen the naked man yet?” a returned volunteer innocently inquired, as we wound our way across town in the back of the VSO jeep. I admitted that I had not. Our driver, Aziz, let out a snort of laughter.
“You’ll meet him soon enough,” he promised.
And, sure enough, I did. A couple of days later, liberated from training for a few blissful hours, I embarked upon a brief yet illuminating tour of the local produce market. My chief aim in this endeavour was to photograph the fly-infested slabs of meat that had so filled me with horror on our first tour of the city. And so it came to pass that the first time I saw the naked man was through the lens of my camera, poised and ready to photograph sliced animal remains. He appeared as if on the distant horizon, a lone figure of matted hair and leathery skin among the conservatively-dressed market traders. It was all I could do to stop myself taking a quick shot, Hungry Joe-style.
It is said that you can set your watch by the naked man. Every day he completes a circuit of Maroua city centre, beginning at roughly the same time and taking the same route at the same serene pace. At midday, for example, he can usually be seen outside the MDDHL office; he reaches the central market by late afternoon. Vendors always give him food; any who dare refuse find that their wares are soon marinated by a fresh stream of urine. He has no possessions as far as anyone can tell, and never seems to require more than basic food and water. Perhaps he is preparing himself to take orders as a Franciscan monk, in which case someone really ought to warn him that there are no abbeys in the Far North Province.
Stories abound as to the origins of the naked man. My favourite is as follows: he fell in love with the wife of his best friend, who came home one night to find the pair in bed together. Stricken with guilt, he promised his friend that if ever he betrayed him again, he would cast himself out from society. He resisted the call of his loins for a few days but finally heeded to his lover’s charms once more. Awaking the next day to the terrible realisation of what he had done, the man ran from his friend’s house, leaving his clothes behind, and from that day forward abandoned civilisation for the life of a vagabond.
Romantic as it is to imagine that the naked man is doing penance for a doomed love affair, the likelihood is that he is simply another victim of mental health problems for whom the State and society can do nothing. Hospitals here can treat malaria, typhoid and amoebas – they even tried to recommend a cream that would cure my freckles – but they cannot help people who hear voices or experience violent mood swings. Such people are left to fend for themselves, abandoned by families who cannot cope with their behaviour.
Then again, perhaps the naked man is not so crazy. In a country where temperatures can soar above 40 degrees, it must be nice to be able to dispense with the inconvenience of clothing. And why pay for food when you can get it for free? Anyone who can get away with doing as he pleases, eating whatever takes his fancy and defacing others’ property without so much as a word of abuse against him is, in my book, an absolute genius.

Dark deeds are afoot...

2009-01-24T06:47:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I met a friend for lunch. I asked her how things were going in Mokolo, the small town where she works.

"You mean, apart from the riots?" she replied.

Riots?

Apparently it started about a week ago. Several girls at a local high school suddenly came down with a mysterious illness, characterised in most cases by a sort of epileptic fit. It was not long before another high school reported a similar phenomenon. The girls were taken to hospital where they were found to show symptoms of diseases common to the area, such as malaria and typhoid.

This was not, however, the conclusion drawn by the local community. The fits were instead taken as absolute proof that the girls had been possessed by evil spirits. But who would do such a thing? The culprit, in everyone's eyes, could only be the local school director. He was, after all, from the south; furthermore, he had studied in Spain, where he had picked up a style of dress markedly different from the local fashion - including, on occasion, bracelets. There was no doubting that he was a wizard.

Retribution was swift. A group of high school students started a demonstration that was quickly joined by most of the town. Teachers fled from their classrooms as their pupils were recruited to the cause by large gangs of protesters. The director's house was burnt down; his wife escaped with minor injuries. The director himself was cornered in his office by a mob clearly intent on killing him, until mercifully a police envoy managed to scatter the would-be assassins.

The director and his family are currently hiding in my friend's compound, unsure of what to do next. Curiously, it seems that this is not an isolated case of mass hysteria: people from the south of Cameroon who hold high positions in the north are often accused of witchcraft or other heinous sins. The south is considered to be more developed and its residents better educated, which is why many southerners, especially teachers, are sent by the government to serve a stretch in the north. The hope, ostensibly, is that the balance shall be evened out, but the more common response appears to be jealousy and hostility on the part of the 'less-developed' northerners.

The incident in Mokolo also brought home to me the influence of ideas about witchcraft and sorcery in northern Cameroon. Beliefs such as those described above are not confined to rural towns and villages; even the President of my organisation is a strong believer. We recently learnt that he consults a 'marabou', or sorcerer, on a regular basis in order to cast spells on those he wants to control. For example, if he wants to seduce a woman, he rubs a lotion over his hands and arms and then does the same to the object of his attention by shaking her hand, squeezing her shoulder or stroking her arms. The victim will then fall under his power and agree to marry him. The spell does not last forever, which is perhaps unfortunate for the woman who suddenly wakes up to find herself married to President Math. (I can't help feeling, however, that this is how most seductions in the West are carried out, only with the man drenched in Lynx or something equally repugnant).

Anyway, riots and sorcery aside, I made it back to Maroua with few hiccups (leaving my house keys in England being one of them). I had a wonderful time in England, ate twice my weight in mince pies and Christmas pudding and even managed to smuggle some marmite and bags of PG Tips into Cameroon. I also discovered to my delight that quite a few people have been kind enough to read my blog, making me feel very bad for not updating it very often. From now on I promise an entry at least every two weeks. Next week: the Naked Man of Maroua. You have been warned!

Volunteering week

2008-12-12T03:19:00.000-08:00

Last week was volunteering week in Cameroon, a nationwide celebration of the contribution that volunteers make to development efforts. At VSO, we were all invited to attend a meeting in order to coordinate our various planned activities. Perhaps a third of the meeting was, however, taken up with choosing a suitable name for the week. Ideas were presented, written down, accepted rejected, accepted again, until finally some bright spark decided to join all the suggestions together into one long name. Thus, after an hour and a half of fierce debate, "Solidarity and Engagement Week: Together for Development, Together Against AIDS and HIV, Together for Human Rights!" was born. Try fitting that on a banner (although, to their credit, someone actually did).

It was at the same meeting that the idea to produce a documentary depicting the work of volunteers in the Far North of Cameroon was conceived. A couple of days later I was asked if I would like to co-produce this documentary, mainly, it seems, because I have a Mac laptop with groovy movie-editing software. Within a week I found myself being chauffeur-driven to various locations in and around Maroua, eating lavish dinners put on by traditional chiefs, visiting schools, watching cultural events and occasionally filming volunteers doing some actual work. I also met the regional representative of Cameroon's version of the BBC, CRTV, who has since taken to stalking me demanding footage. Every time I get on a moto-taxi or walk down a main road he suddenly materialises behind me, wanting to know when I'm free to edit.

All this has taken place alongside preparations for Human Rights Week, the busiest time of year at MDDHL. Fortunately most of the events of HRW were film-worthy, so I was able successfully to combine my two responsibilities (as most people reading this blog probably realise, even one responsibility is usually too much for my poor brain to handle).

HRW was a truly breathtaking example of Cameroonian event planning in action. On Wednesday, for example, we were scheduled to visit Maroua's detention centres (mainly the prison and the holding cells at the police stations). This was an annual event, the date for which had been set at least a month beforehand. On Wednesday morning, however, it transpired that nobody had actually informed the detention centres that we were going to visit them. You're probably thinking, surely that was the point? Alas, not in Cameroon. Here you cannot so much as blow your nose without the official written consent of the Procureur de la République, signed and decorated with three separate but equally meaningless stamps. The acquisition of this sacred document took the entire morning and most of the afternoon, and with only two hours to visit the detention centres, we decided to split into teams. Fortunately, with Emilie on one team and Sarah on the other, each group had one pretty blonde to whom the police chiefs were willing to grant pretty much anything. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to film inside, or even outside in the street; I had to content myself with capturing people's reactions at the end of the day. Needless to say we weren't that impressed: each police station had only one tiny cell in which men, women and children were held together, despite the assurance of the authorities that this never happened.

The next day was a visit to the authorities themselves, for which we also needed, and were granted, written permission. By far my favourite authority was the Lamido. Each town or village in Cameroon has a Lamido, who is a sort of king or traditional chief. As the king of the largest city in the Far North Province, the Lamido of Maroua has more than the usual aura of self-importance about his presence. Everyone entering his palace had to remove their shoes and sit on the floor before the immense Lamido throne, a bizarre contraption that looks like a regurgitated, partially-digested beige sofa. On either side of the throne are wooden elephant tusks, and across the top is painted in wobbly gold letters "His Majesty the Lamido of Maroua". Sarah and I have plans to create our own Lamido thrones in our houses once we've built up a sufficiently large stock of cushions and gold paint.

On Monday Muslims in the Far North Province celebrated the "fête de moutons" (literally, sheep festival, although I believe the official name is' Tabaski') an event similar to Christmas in that everyone goes to church in the morning and then stuffs themselves with food in the afternoon. We dressed up in our finest and went to the largest mosque in Maroua to watch the prayers, a truly spectacular event: thousands of Muslims praying and chanting together. In the name of VSO documentary B-roll footage I got to bring the camcorder with me; I'll try to upload the footage to the internet as soon as I'm somewhere with a decent internet connection.

That's it for now. I'll be back in the UK on 29th December, hopefully with Fausto if the Visa Gods look upon him favourably. So if anyone's free to meet up between then and 18th January, let me know!

Racial equality for America, but not for Cameroon...

2008-11-05T07:29:00.000-08:00

One baking hot November afternoon, my colleague and I were sat by the pool (contemplating how difficult life as a volunteer can be) when we saw something very strange.

A tall, skinny man had entered the water. He would not have been particularly remarkable were it not for the fact that he was wearing a full body swimsuit at least three sizes too big for him. He was also acting very peculiarly: at random moments he would suddenly leap from the pool, run a lap around the edge and then throw himself back into the water head-first in a manoeuvre that reminded me strongly of a Fosbury Flop. He would then turn his head eagerly in our direction to find out whether or not we had been watching.

We had of course been watching - I've not seen anything so entertaining in years - but we pretended to be heavily absorbed in our books. After several unsuccessful attempts to get our attention, the man (I have christened him Baggy Swimsuit) lost patience and swam over to our side of the pool.

"You don't remember me, do you?" he said when he reached us. I had to admit that I did not. "I talked to you at the wedding," continued Baggy Swimsuit. Now I remembered. A few weeks ago, a British volunteer had married a Cameroonian and the entire VSO contingent had been invited to the reception. Unable to dance (I am physically incapable of dancing to any music that requires me to move my hips and my feet at the same time, and African music falls into this category) I contented myself with sitting at the side, rebuffing as many men as possible with the 'my fiance doesn't like me talking to strange men' line that had worked so well on you-know-who. Baggy Swimsuit had been one of those rebuffed - although, thinking back, he had been one of the most difficult to convince.

'I've forgotten your name,' said Baggy Swimsuit suddenly. I was in no hurry to remind him so I said 'devine,' which means 'guess'. 'Ahh, Divine,' he replied, 'now I remember!' And he swam away, satisfied, to dazzle us with yet more Fosbury Flops.

This incident and countless others have made me reflect on the curious attitude towards race in this country. I have never received so much attention in my life and it's bizarre to think that it is entirely because of my skin colour. Before I came to Africa, I had never viewed my identity in terms of race or ethnicity - in fact, I hardly thought about it at all. Here, however, the colour of my skin IS my identity: I am a 'nasaara', 'la blanche', someone from the West. I embody all the connotations therein, from sexual promiscuity to advanced technology and healthcare. I represent money, power and visa opportunities. I therefore receive an inordinate amount of attention as I go about my daily business.

The fact that Cameroonians themselves place me on a pedestal because of my race definitely surprised me. Yacoubou has tried to convince me many times that my country is far more advanced and developed than his, not only in economic terms but also socially and culturally. My presence has been requested at meetings and on trips that don't have anything to do with me, simply because having a white person as part of the delegation adds clout. Sometimes I want to shout, 'I'm 25! I'm fresh out of university! You all know much more about this than I do, so why are you all deferring to me?'

It's interesting to see how volunteers have reacted to their newfound rock star status here. I suppose it's difficult not to let it go to your head, but sometimes it makes people do things that they would probably never even contemplate back home. One country's quiet, middle-aged businessman is another country's serial dater of ever younger women. I was confused about the contradictory rules for giving way at roundabouts until I learnt that everyone gives way to the white girl on the bike. And as we discovered recently, one disapproving look from a recently splashed white swimmer can lead a lifeguard to evict an entire pool of black swimmers in seconds, whether that was the white swimmer's intention or not (it was not).

As Americans elect their first black President, apartheid and segregation are still alive and kicking in Africa.

A day in the life of an organisational development advisor...

2008-10-25T03:49:00.000-07:00

Life in my compound begins with the call to prayer at 4:30am. I had no idea that such an hour as 4:30am existed until the mosque near my house installed speakers; now their call to prayer is so loud my house practically shakes with it.

Not being muslim, I refuse to leave my bed until at least 7:30am, at which point I go to the bathroom to make use of the first of my Great Luxuries: running water. My shower is somewhat temperamental, in that more water comes out of the unidentified pipes on the wall than out of the shower head. Taking my morning shower therefore requires me to run back and forth between the various torrents while taking care not to slip on soap suds or passing spiders.

Having decided to avoid Men on Honda Street, my bike and I wobble down the longer but infinitely more scenic route to work. On our way we pass some or all of the following: herds of cows, sheep or goats that wander down the centre of the road, apparently without anyone to mind them; groups of children who shout 'nasaara' (white person) to get my attention before dissolving into fits of giggles (I've never been able to figure out what's so funny); the man who lives by the side of the road and holds long conversations with himself in Fulfulde; vultures with great hulking backs and tiny pink heads who pick at discarded trash; market vendors selling fruit, vegetables and phone cards, who think my name is 'chérie'; thousands upon thousands of lizards; women selling beans and beignets (doughnuts), the oh-so-sumptuous meal that is going to render me the only person to go to Africa and actually put on weight.

I arrive at the MDDHL office and begin Work. It turns out that VSO intends for its volunteers to do very little Work - we are supposed to assist others in doing more and better Work themselves, as apparently this is more sustainable. Currently I'm preparing a workshop that will explain all this to my colleagues: I hope to temper the news that they'll all have to do more Work by investing in a bountiful supply of tea and croissants; however I fear they may see through this strategy.

Some time between 12pm and 1pm I break for lunch with my two nasaara colleagues; some time between 2pm and 3:30pm we come strolling back into the office to discover that everyone else is still on their lunch break. Everyone, that is, except Yacoubou, who is a constant presence behind his desk at all hours of the day, even when (as is currently the case) he has malaria.

Twice a week at 3ish our Fulfulde teacher arrives. His name is Oumarou and his 'real job' is as a talent scout for professional football players. This means that at a moment's notice he may be sent to some far-flung corner of the continent to retrieve a promising young player and escort him somewhere equally far-flung. Such is the case today, and so Sarah (my partner in crime for Fulfulde classes and other Work-avoidance schemes) are planning to sit down with our copious sheets of illegible notes and see if we are capable of teaching ourselves. We may even do a better job than Oumarou, who sees nothing wrong with jumping from the present tense to the subjunctive when he knows very well that we can barely say 'hello'.

In the evenings I cycle home. The light here is so beautiful around 5:30pm that the whole city appears to be under some kind of enchantment, and even the cries of 'nasaara! nasaara!!' can't disturb my peace. I arrive at my house to find Babadou, Abdoulaye's cat, waiting for me to let him in. He spends about an hour scuffling about the living room, looking for trouble and tinned fish, before eventually getting bored and wandering off.

Each evening the question of how to fill the hours of darkness between 6pm and whenever I decide to go to bed is raised. Occasionally I find that the solution is to go to bed at 6pm, but mercifully there's usually enough going on in Maroua to keep me occupied. Fried fish, grilled chicken, and even pizza and banana bead (courtesy of a fellow volunteer's chef boyfriend) are all a moto-taxi ride away, as are the houses of various volunteers who are often equally baffled as to how to kill time in the evenings.

On weekends Maroua fills up with volunteers coming in from the villages, looking for entertainment. So far this has meant that a large and raucous group of ex-pats has gathered at The Bar Opposite the Chicken Place (to use its official name) drinking Cameroonian beer and eating fried chicken with their fingers in the dark, so that you cannot tell until you put it in your mouth whether what you are attempting to eat is chicken, bone, slice of onion or random stray insect.

So that's what I do all week. Not a bad life, all told.

Unwanted Attention

2008-10-17T06:25:00.000-07:00

Are all the men in Maroua completely mad?

One evening, shortly after I arrived home, there was a knock at my door. It was Bogo, my landlord's mother in law, who handed me a sheet of paper and launched into a long explanation in Fulfulde, not a word of which I understood. The sheet turned out to be a letter addressed to someone called 'Jeanne' and signed 'Dieudonné' (yes, literally 'God given'). Being that my name wasn't Jeanne, I had never heard of a Dieudonné and Bobo's insights into the matter were lost on me, I decided to ignore the letter.

A week later a young man with glasses and a baseball cap appeared on my doorstep. When I opened my fly-screen door to see who it was, he greeted me like an old friend and asked me if I was settling in well. I have a terrible memory for faces but I was sure that I had never seen this person in my life before. I asked him who he was and he replied in astonishment, 'Mais c'est moi, Dieudonné!' I wracked my brain and then remembered the note. 'Didn't you receive my letter?' he asked. 'Yes,' I replied, 'but my name isn't Jeanne.' 'But you're a new VSO volunteer. I do a lot of work with VSO,' he continued, 'helping new volunteers to settle in.'

At this point he made a gesture to come into the house, but I blocked his path. 'So you work for VSO?' I asked. 'Well, not exactly,' replied Dieudonné. 'I assist VSO volunteers if they need help. 'But if you don't work for VSO, what do you do?' Pause. 'Actually, I'm a student teacher... but I appreciate the work that VSO does and I want to help VSO volunteers.' Again he tried to enter the house and again I had to stand in his way. 'Could I have a glass of water?' he asked, finally. 'Of course,' I replied, and as he again made his way up my front steps I closed the fly-screen in his face and left him outside as I filled a glass from my water filter. Thinking back, I wish I'd given him amoeba-water straight from the tap.

By the time I brought him his glass, Dieudonné had recovered himself and immediately launched into a detailed description of all the VSO volunteers he was friends with. As I heard names I recognised I began to feel guilty about treating him so coolly - had I just insulted someone's best friend? I mentally chastised myself for being so mistrusting of people's motives, and so when he asked for my phone number, I couldn't think of a single reason to say no.

My suspicions had not gone away, however. The next day I decided to investigate Dieudonné's background from the many volunteers he had listed as 'close friends'. Of the ones who had heard of him, most said that he had randomly turned up at the Baptist Mission in an identical manner to my encounter, alleging an alliance with VSO and promising to help them with any problems they had settling in. Some people were concerned by what had happened and encouraged me to do something about it. 'You should tell Abdoulaye,' they warned. 'If Dieudonné knows where you live then it could get more serious.'

My relationship with Abdoulaye is two-fold: he is in charge of VSO volunteer welfare in Maroua, and he is also my landlord. My little house, squeezed into his compound, is so close to his that I wake up if one of his wives so much as coughs in her sleep. I cannot begin to describe how comforting it is to live within a stone's throw of someone whose job it is to keep me alive and out of trouble.

Abdoulaye has already caught on to how completely daft I am (whenever he explains things such as how to pay the water bill or where to empty my rubbish bin, he turns to me and says 'Do you understand? Are you sure?'). For this reason I was a little hesitant to relate my Dieudonné story to him, especially as I had so rashly given away my phone number. 'Well that wasn't prudent,' was all he said when I eventually told him, 'but if you hang up whenever he calls you, he'll get the message,' As an afterthought, he added, 'If he keeps calling, tell him you have a fiancé.'

Dieudonné called and texted at all hours of the day and night and wasn't in the least put off my my non-response or by my hanging up on him. In an effort to avoid surprise visits I spent my evenings at friends' houses, not returning home until after 9pm. Thinking myself finally safe after a lull in the phone calls, on Tuesday evening I invited some other volunteers over for a curry at my house. Realising that after several days of avoiding my house I had not so much as washed a plate in a week, I headed home early to start scrubbing pots and peeling vegetables.

About ten minutes after I arrived, Dieudonné appeared at my door. 'Can I come in?' he asked. 'I'm busy tonight,' was all I could think of to say. 'What about tomorrow night?' he continued hopefully. My British phobia of being rude to people can be really inconvenient sometimes! As I stood in the doorway, stammering, trying to think of a polite way to say 'sod off,' Abdoulaye suddenly marched around the corner towards us. 'Are you Dieudonné?' he asked. When Dieudonné replied, Abdoulaye launched into a furious tirade in Fulfulde. Snippets were in French and so I caught '...you can't just come to volunteers' houses uninvited...' '...taking advantage of people who are new to the country...' '...no connection with VSO...' '...her house is private...' . Having said all he needed to say, Abdoulaye turned and went back to his house. Dieudonné, slightly shaken, turned to me and said, 'so can I come in?'

'My fiancé doesn't like me having male friends in my house,' I replied upon a sudden burst of inspiration. It seemed I had found the magic word that could do what even an angry onslaught of abuse in Fulfulde couldn't: Dieudonné apologised for troubling me, turned and walked straight out of the compound. I haven't had a single call from him since.

The next day, I was cycling home from work when I head the sound of a motorbike behind me. I moved closer to the side of the road to allow the bike to pass, but instead of continuing down the road, the biker cut across in front of me and tried to block my path. As my bicycle is slightly too big for me, I try to avoid stopping (and therefore falling over) whenever possible and have turned wobbling precariously around obstacles into a sort of art form. I therefore somehow managed to circumnavigate my interceptor and carried on cycling, speeding up so as to put some distance between us.

The biker accelerated and then I realised that there were two of them, both well-dressed, in their thirties and riding large Hondas. One drew level with me and the other followed behind. At this point I started to panic. I tried to maintain a passive expression and ignore them but this became more difficult when they again attempted to cut in front of my bike. 'Leave me alone!' I shouted to the first biker. 'I won't leave you alone!' he shouted back. I sped up and he kept pace with me (to be fair, I can't cycle very fast and he was on a motorbike).

Not knowing what else to do, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my mobile phone. Before I could even dial the number, the bikes were gone. I called my friend Calla who lived about two blocks away and five minutes later I was recovering in her living room, trying not to burst into tears. When I recounted the story of my traumatic encounter, first to Calla, then to some friends and finally to my work colleagues, they all concluded that the men had simply wanted to talk to me. And they couldn't think of a better way to get my attention?!

Anyway, I'm fully recovered now and according to my Theory of Limited Fear (in that I cannot be afraid of too many things at once else I'd be in danger of spontaneously combusting) Men on Hondas have replaced cockroaches on my list of Scary Things. Which means I'm no longer afraid of entering my bathroom, and that can only be a good thing.

Things start to happen...

2008-09-27T06:53:00.000-07:00

Lots and lots to tell...

Firstly, I survived the dreaded amoebas and feel ready(ish) to face whatever Africa has to throw at me next...

Secondly... I have a house! True, it's smaller than my hotel room in Yaounde, but it has three whole actual rooms with which I can do as I please. For those taking bets on how long it takes me to burn the place down, I'll put £50 on the first week of October.

Saying that, at present I'm actually ridiculously house-proud. I can't stop buying domestic-type things - so far I've bought pots, sheets, a broom, a wash tub, a fan and a 47 piece tea set. All of which, incidentally, can fit on the back of a moto-taxi. At once. I am especially proud of the tea set, even though the cups are too small to hold any useful amount of liquid. I keep inviting bemused volunteers around to my house for tea and biscuits - they probably think I just really miss England.

I've finally braved the moto-taxis as they're the only practical means of getting round the city. VSO have generously provided me with a helmet which is next to useless as I refuse to fasten the chin strap. This is due to a rather traumatic early moto-taxi experience: the driver (who sits in front) farted, and the smell rose up into my helmet and gassed me. When I arrived at my destination I hurried to remove the helmet only to find that the strap was stuck and I couldn't get it off. The horror is still fresh in my mind.

I have also started Work. I'm still not quite sure what Work entails, although I received a vaguely clearer picture yesterday when Yacoubou, my supervisor at MDDHL, sat at my desk (I have a desk) and told me everything that was wrong with the organisation. He finished this twenty-minute diatribe with the ominous words "...and so that's why you're here." Dad, if you're reading this, I think being the patron saint of lost causes might be hereditary.

Other than surviving amoebas, my greatest achievement to date is killing the monster cockroach that I found in my bathroom with only minimum shrieking and squealing, even though the bastard thing started chasing me when I tried to attack it with bug spray. Honestly, why run towards the person armed with the can of poison? I am now on full Cockroach Alert and sleep with the spray under my pillow, which is probably none too healthy.

Description of Maroua coming soon I promise!! As I write there is a giant orange lizard sitting next to me on my table, he looked quite cute at first but now I worry that he's planning to eat me so perhaps I'd better sign off here and leg it before his plans become any more concrete...

At least it's not malaria....

2008-09-17T03:33:00.000-07:00

It started at around 2:30am on Monday. I awoke to find myself sweating profusely and barely able to breathe within the stifling confines of my mosquito net. The fan had been turned off in our room and with five people and the accumulation of a day's heat it was like trying to sleep in a furnace. Eventually I gave up, smothered myself in insect repellant and went outside. There I settled into a plastic deck chair and listened to the distant Ramadan prayers and the shrieks of giant bats. My whole body ached, my skin felt sore and even my eyeballs hurt - I knew something was wrong, yet for some reason I had neither the energy nor the incentive to wake someone and ask for help. Eventually the mosquitoes became too much and I staggered back into the room and collapsed on my bed where I managed maybe half an hour's fitful sleep.

Forcing myself to go to the bathroom, I found that I couldn't make it back to the top bunk and so slumped into another volunteer's recently vacated bed. She returned from breakfast a little confused as to why I would have chosen her bed over my own. I mumbled my symptoms at nobody in particular; all I wanted to do was sleep, but when our resident returned volunteer pointed out that these were precisely the symptoms of malaria, it was decided that something had to be done. At first the inference was that I would have to travel to the local hospital on the back of a mototaxi (literally, a motorbike taxi), braving the thunderstorm that had just erupted outside and was in the process of drowning the entire city. This decision was mercifully overruled and a VSO car came to pick me up. Diana, another volunteer, was showing similar symptoms, so we headed off to the hospital together, competing on the back seat over who could appear the most anaemic and floppy.

Malaria is apparently business as usual in Cameroonian hospitals. I described my symptoms in rapidly deteriorating French, was weighed (I had already lost three kilos) and had my temperature and blood pressure measured; a prick of blood was taken from my finger for testing, other tests were carried out and finally I was asked to return at around 2pm for the results. I went back to the Mission, forced some rehydration salts down and immediately felt better, so I wasn't surprised when 2pm came and it turned out that I didn't have malaria. "Amoebas," said the doctor, examining his findings. "You have to be very careful about what you eat and drink - no fruit, no tap water - wash everything carefully in filtered water." He drew the same conclusion from Diana's results and prescribed us both with several boxes of chalky, foul-tasting, over-priced pills.

I thought that would be the end of it but apparently it was only the beginning. Every time I think I'm getting better, I suffer a relapse within half an hour. The medication makes everything taste awful, the result being that I have no appetite and can only stomach the blandest of food - even rice is unbearable. A trip to the kitchen to get water or bread necessitates a siesta of at least half an hour to recover from so much walking. My body is a human blender. All in all, the shiny veneer of Africa has been tarnished somewhat by the experience, but I'm optimistic that it'll redeem itself in due course. And it hasn't been all bad. My employers and VSO have given me all the time I need to recover. And really it couldn't have come at a better time, as I'm surrounded by volunteers with nothing to do but wait for their placements to start and satisfy my every whim in the meantime. They've all been fantastic, especially Grahame, who accompanied Diana and me to the hospital, made us food and rehydration salt solutions, let me sleep in his room for hours with the fan on and has been keeping a constant eye on us to make sure we eat properly. He deserves a medal and all he gets from me is muttered grumbling when he tries to force feed me bananas.

I'm beginning to realise that this year is going to be far more challenging than I had ever anticipated....

The journey to Maroua

2008-09-10T06:16:00.000-07:00

Djabbama! I'm finally in Maroua after nearly thirty hours' travelling by bus and train. The journey would have been unbearable were it not for the awe-inspiring scenery that we passed through - mere words cannot do justice and my photos are all blurry but suffice to say I'm beginning to understand why so many people fall in love with Africa. Over the course of a single journey the view from my window changed from rainforest to savannah and then to desert, with occasional pockets of civilisation in the form of conical huts made of straw and mud bricks.

I managed to somehow involuntarily cause an incident on the train. Shortly after we departed from Yaounde, a waiter came to our carriage to place orders for dinner. I wasn't overly hungry, yet faced with an overnight journey I thought it might be wise to eat something and so I ordered ndole-chevre (a spinach-like vegetable served with goat's meat). The waiter returned after a few moments to inform me that there was no ndole but that he could serve me goat's meat on its own. As I had been regretting my decision to eat I took the opportunity to cancel my order. He appeared upset by this and repeated that the goat's meat was available. I told him that I wasn't hungry. He gave me a slightly hurt look and left.

Half an hour later a steaming plate of goat's meat was placed under my nose. Surprised, I reminded the waiter that I had cancelled my order. 'Yes,' he replied, but the chef had already prepared your food and so you have to accept it.' Having argued down the price of a beer in French earlier in the week I felt confident of my confrontation skills and so refused to take the tray, reminding him that this wasn't even the dish I had ordered. 'You're being very rude,' said the waiter. By now our stand-off had acquired a small but rapt audience. My waiter took advantage of this and repeated again, loudly, 'It's extremely rude not to take this food. What do you expect me to do with it?' I was tempted to give him some suggestions but felt that this would not help matters. There followed a prolonged battle of wills in which the waiter proffered his tray before me and repeated how rude I was, and I shook my head and muttered apologies. He finally left in disgust.

The remainder of the journey passed without mishap, and we arrived in Maroua on Monday evening. I'll save my description of the city until I've had a chance to properly explore but from the brief tour we had yesterday it seems like a nice place. I still don't have a house and might have to stay a little longer at the Baptist Mission where VSO have placed us for our second week of training. We've also had some basic training in Fulfulde, the local language - mi wolwata Fulfulde amma mi don ekkita - and I'm hoping to start proper classes soon. 'Work' starts next week apparently, although nobody is as yet completely sure what we're expected to do. But I'm sure all will be revealed in due course - as they're fond of saying in Cameroon, time is flexible.

One week down...

2008-09-07T02:41:00.000-07:00

How to start this blog? When I expressed my intention to join the blogosphere at lunch last week, I was informed by several seasoned bloggers that a blog is not something one simply 'starts'. There is apparently a finely honed skill to blogging, helpfully described by a French-Canadian colleague as 'l'art du blog' - the fundamental principle of which is that blog entries should be brief, concise and coherent. If this is the case then I am clearly going to be a terrible blogger and apologise in advance for my protracted, rambling posts.

So my malaria tablets and I are now safely in Cameroon. I arrived in Yaounde last Friday, having misread the date of my flight in true Emma style. I can honestly say that I know so little about Africa and my expectations prior to arriving here were so confused that if, upon arrival at the airport, a lion had thrown itself up against the window of the plane, I would not have been the least bit surprised. However, so far everything has been comfortably familiar. Yaounde is like any other large city (although perhaps with more chaotic traffic than most), the climate is pleasant, terrifying mutant insects have been kept to a minimum and so far I have not seen a single lion.

My home until now has been a Catholic Mission about a kilometre from the city centre. I must admit that I did not expect this kind of luxury from VSO! I have a large room with a double bed and en suite shower (although the latter gives me an unpleasant electric shock every morning that leaves me with pins and needles until almost lunch time). There's even a passable wifi connection up on the covered terrace, meaning that I can sit with my laptop on warm evenings and watch the sun set over the city horizon. This is also by far the best place to witness the mindblowing thunderstorms that are apparently scheduled to perform every evening around 7pm.

Unfortunately, besides classes on cultural awareness (do not pass anything with your left hand) and prevention of HIV infection (complete with condom demonstration through which I giggled like a ten year old schoolgirl) not a lot has actually happened! Veteran Africanists will not be surprised by this: it seems that Africa considerably outclasses Latin America when it comes to the concept of mañana. They're also leagues ahead in other areas, most notably flirting, as I discovered when a quiet after-class beer in the local bar turned into an episode of The Benny Hill Show While the Latin American gringa hunter gives a certain degree of credit to his prey and will avoid out-and-out cliches or obviously insincere statements, the Cameroonian dragueur soldiers through an exhaustive list of Mills and Boon lines and can conjure up authentic surprise and devastation when you still refuse to marry him.

On that note I'll draw my first post to a close. In theory I will be travelling to my VSO placement in Maroua today; however, as we've already been delayed by a day due to the inconveniently-timed derailment of our train, this might be slightly optimistic. If all goes to plan, however, my next entry will be from the Far North Province. Apologies for any ramblings, please leave comments, and useko djurr!