Thursday, November 25, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving from Cam Cam!

Happy Turkey Day from Cam Cam everyone!

I miss the crazy Wednesday night parties, watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade with the fam and, of course, gorging my face with delicious pies and wot not, but I'm making due here in the grand land of papaya trees, nut ballz (a delicious candy recently discovered), and annoying roosters that crow at all hours of the day.

We are having a massive pot luck dinner today and I'm going to attempt to make a squash casserol over the fire.  We also just slayed our turkey and are going to cook it over another bonfire and dance around it.  There's an American football game going on outside on the Peace Corps lawn and I'm happy to say that we are winning....the Cam Cams may beat us in soccer, but not real football!

I hit up the VIP bar yesterday with my buddy Katie and treated myself to an expensive Amstel.  It was a delicius 700 cfa!!!  So expensive!  Do you know how much that is? $1.30.  I'm not kidding on the expensive part either....I'm getting used to living on my meager Cameroonian salary.  It's all part of the acclamation process, right?

I head out to post in only a week, so I have to start packing up my room, which is super bittersweet.  I'm obsessed with the Etoko family and I'm going to miss them terribly.  This past weekend Mama Etoko and I made soy beignets, soy yogurt, and soy milk.  Just wait til I get back with all these cool organic recipes!  I also Let Mama use some of my American spices for the chicken we made the other night.  It actually tasted Italian.  Glorious.

Do you like how all my posts are about food? Yeahhhhh, it's pretty much all we talk about here and Cameroon and I guess I have an excuse today since it is Thanksgiving.

Hope everyone has a great time with fam and friends.  Love and Miss.

Your Cameroonian reporter,
MEg

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Happy Sheep Day!

Well Happy Belated Fete de Mouton to you all.  I know everyone celebrated their faces off back in the States, right?  As many of you may know from my recent Facebook away message I learned how to slay a mouton (aka sheep) this past Wednesday.  I even have all the gory details documented, so when I have fast enough internet I’ll post all the ghastly photos and videos.  Get excited!

So, I know I haven’t been on here in eons and many people don’t know this yet, but I switched host families a couple weeks ago and am now living in Bafia (the city).  Peace Corps does a family switch, so we get to see what it’s like living in the village (no electricity, running water, and all that) and in the ville (also no running water, and not much electricity, but a sweet house).  I’m now living with the Etoko’s until I move to post and am looooving it.

Anyway, Papa Etoko is Muslim, which is pretty rad, so he took me to this big open field Wednesday to see the Imam slaughter the official sheep of Bafia.  I felt pretty legit pulling up to the prayer site in his Benz sitting along side him and two of his other Muslim buddies.  This fete is a pretty big deal, so the mayor and all the officials of Bafia came to watch the prayer and the slaughter and to pay their respects to the Imam even though they aren’t Muslim.  Soooo even though I’m a woman and clearly not a “grande” of the village, who do I go and sit next to?  Yeah, the mayor….under his little official mayor tent.  Mind you, there are about 3,000 people at this event and I’m the only white girl.  Thank god, I wore my traditional garb that my host bro, Djibril, made for me (he’s a tailor).

At first I was kind of timid and wasn’t sure I should take pictures of all these people praying because I thought it’d be disrespectful, but when the frickn Mayor gave me the go ahead I got to it.  Sooo yeah, just imagine me, with my camera, in front of a sea of about 3,000 Muslims in their beautiful colorful clothes documenting EVERYTHING. I was literally standing right next to the official Imam.  It was so cool and cultural that I got really hyper and almost lost it.

Then, I got to get right up next to the holy sheep and watch the imam hack its head off.  It made this blood curdling gasping sound when it died.  Super cool.  I had to stand back a little bit though, so I didn’t get splattered in blood.  What is my life? 

I then when back to my house and documented my host dad killing our sheep.  I’ve got a great up close shot of all the guts pouring out.  Aren’t you excited to see it?  I ate like a king that day: delicious lamb, fried plantains, cous cous de maiz (yes, believe it or not cous cous is growing on me), pound cake, tomato sauce and rice, papaya, pineapple, and manioc leaves, and folore (this purple drink made out of hibiscus flowers). Deeeelish. Goooo culture.

I leave for Mandama in less than two weeks and swear in as an official Peace Corps volunteer December 1st, so that’s exciting.  I have my massive final presentation tomorrow morning on Moringa harvesting, which I hope to promote up north.  Moringa is this sweet super plant that grows in really arid environments and has more nutrients than anything I’ve ever seen.  You guys should check out moringanews.com to learn more.  I love this thing.  I’m also going to be doing a lot of work with soy promotion since it’s super abundant here and has an amazing amount of protein. Kwashiorkor is a huge problem in my region, which is caused by protein deficiency, so I want to get people to start putting soy and moringa in their children’s diet (since meat is $$$).  Kwashiorkor is that stereotypical malnutrition disease where the kids have the massive stomachs.

There’s so much to say about my post, but my fingers are tired and who knows when the internet will give out.  I will say though that my house is in the vast glorious middle of nowhere.  It kind of looks like a mix between the land before time and Utah. I climbed a mountain and visited this ancient village when I was there and ate trail mix on top of what looked like pride rock. Surreal and awesome.

I’m going to be a crazy hippie kid when I get back I think.  I’m learning how to make soap, how to compost, and how to garden.  I’m replacing this awesome Peace Corps volunteer who made a huge garden in my back yard (yeah, so I’ll be the second Peace Corps volunteer at my post, so she paved the way for me pretttty good.  I’m super lucky in that sense).

I don’t have any running water, electricity, and to make phone calls I have to climb a hill and search around for one bar of service, which sometimes may not come.  Yeah, I guess it doesn’t surprise me they put me way out there.  I am, however, only 15 minute moto ride from another Peace Corps Volunteer, and an hour moto ride from Guider where there are two other volunteers.  One girl in Guider, Karen, is obsessed with Bodypump like me, so I’m sure we’ll have some good times together.

Okay, I gotta run.  Miss you all and hope everything is grand.

Much love,
Meg

Ps-My new address is:
Meg Pollak
Peace Corps/Corps de la Paix
BP 102
Guider, Cameroon

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Jamna!!! Jam bandu na?

Wowwww so a lot of stuff has gone on since last time I wrote, but
seriously what’s new?

I’ll highlight a few adventures since I don’t have much time before my
Fulfulde class (yes, I’m now learning this sweet dialect spoken in the
Northern Cameroon).

1)      We had an awesome dance party with the chief of my village a couple
weekends ago.  Let me tell you, Cameroonians know how to dance!
2)      I had pattes d’arichides for dinner the other night aka PEANUT
BUTTER.  Yeah, who knew?  After eating cous cous (African style cous
cous…not the same), fou fou and fish for 25 nights straight (an
exaggeration, but it feels like it sometimes) my host mom put down a
sketchy looking bowl in front of me with what looked like some kinda
weird meat in it.  I was insanely skeptical, but when I smelled the
sweet orgasmic fragrances of peanut butter I almost fainted.  Okay,
get this: we had peanut butter and bananas for dinner.  I was SO
HAPPY.  Hey, it’s the little things that count Africa, right?  I was
so excited that people eat peanut butter here that I m I figured out
how to make it and prepared a super American dinner for my fam the
other night: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with bananas for
dessert. Glorious.
3)      Watching somebody eat a watermelon for the first time is an
experience.  I certainly don’t remember the first time I had one since
I was like negative 2, but I’m sure it was something.  So, I had a
mini field trip to Western Cameroon Tuesday and bought a watermelon
for my family as a gift.  I know my host sis loves them, but they are
a little expensive here in Bafia, so they don’t get them much.
Anyway, Mama Martine has never had one before and didn’t really know
how to eat it.  I showed her how you just kinda sink your face into
it, which she did with great enthusiasm.  It was great.  It was like
Watermelon Day in sailing camp; chunks of delicious redness and water
went flying everywhere…and I’m so nasty dirty at this point it doesn’t
matter.  My clothes are all pretty much destroyed anyway haha
4)      And the most important news of all.  I’m going to be living in
Madama in Northern Cameroon for two years!! Yes yes, I received the
grand news last week and am still ecstatic about it.  If you’re
wondering where this little gem is don’t bother looking on the map
because it ‘aint there.  Yeah, I have the most remote post out of any
volunteer apparently because I’m so H core. Haha.  No, not really,
but it is out there: no running water, no internet (obviously),
sketchy cell phone service, and a generator for a couple hours if I’m
lucky a couple nights a week.  I know, paradise, right???  Well, it is
for me.  I can’t wait to get out there in the field and have agency
over my life again.  It’s also supposed to be absolutely gorgeous.
Unlike southern Cameroon, which is hot, humid, and jungle like, I’m
going to be in the harsh beautiful dry hilly region. There are
apparently giraffes and elephants where I am too.  I don’t know, for
some reason I think it will look a little like Utah, but who really
knows.  I’m also really excited because I’m learning a sweet new
language that sounds slightly Arabic and a whole lot of African.  I
will probably be doing a lot of work with Muslim women’s groups and a
health center near by.  I’ll find out in a week when I head up there
next week for my sight visit.

So yeah, I guess that’s my life in a nut shell. It’s still pretty
insane and awesome. I miss you guys so much and please if you write me
and I don’t respond please know it’s because I don’t love you….just
kidding.  As you probably know by now internet here is pretty much
nonexistent.

Seyesso!!!!

Meg