Half the week was spent getting physical and dental exams (I’m all healthy), and checking in with administrative staff. Then we spent two days presenting our “Best Practices,” or projects from the past year that went well and that our fellow volunteers could learn from. It was so interesting to see what everyone is working on. Posts and personalities are so diverse, there were quite an array of projects!
Just a quick run through to give you an idea:
A lot of volunteers are tackling water problems. My friend Kelly built a well in her village, then collaborated with a Health volunteer to teach villagers how to avoid water-borne diseases. Rachel formed a water committee to restore a broken well in her village, and experimented with ground-covering plants brachiaria and crotellaria to increase the fertility of farmers’ fields. Justin funded a gravity-fed water catchment system in his village. Jen is planting trees to improve the quality of a local water catchment. Mark is building 5 latrines in his village in an attempt to restore a nearby lake.
Others are focusing on income-generating activities. Liz helped a womens’ group start beekeeping as an income-generating activity. Beth, who majored in food preservation in college, works with womens’ groups to make fruit jams and juices, and will soon be opening a boutique to sell their products. Cyrus taught a 6-week business class to a group of 51 entrepeneurs, which got him an interview on the Cameroonian news channel. Trevor is developing useful technologies to make village life easier; so far, he’s created a clay jar refrigerator, corn shucker, and charcoal kiln and press. Mary Rodriguez teaches organizational skills and time management to womens’ groups in her area through interactive games and communication workshops. Megan promotes moringa, Neem lotion and soap, other medicinal plants, and Kombucha (a fermented drink) in her village. Jeff has started wine-making at his post and plans to help womens’ groups sell wine to local bars.
The rest of the presentations focused on agroforestry. Mary Snyder helped a group of high school students plant a tree nursery. Carlos received funding from UNICEF’s Young Cultivators’ Program to start a vegetable garden with a local school. Caleb partnered with the International Medical Corps to teach agroforestry techniques, nutrition, and gardening in 15 villages. Ashley started a tree nursery of several thousand trees with her community counterpart and sold them to the mayor’s office to plant in her area. Yaya is experimenting with urban gardening and teaches girls’ clubs life skills using an adapted version of “The Game of Life.” Ben works with cacao farmers and organizes all-day seminars on soy, using his background in psychology to persuade people to adopt the new techniques. Julius is working with cacao farmers and created a Common Interest Group (GIC) database for his NGO. Joe, whose post is in the middle of a huge rainforest, works with National Park authorities to inform villages on the boundaries of the park about the rules regarding the use of park resources (he says most of them have no idea a park even exists!!).
Aaaand last but not least, there’s Jessica Clarke, who presented the stunning results of her farmer field school (see earlier post), and is happy to report that two of her farmers have started their own composts!
We had lots of free time during the week to get out and see the city. Highlights for me were going to see Cameroon play in the Olympic volleyball trials for Africa at the Yaounde sports complex (Cameroon didn’t win, unfortunately)...
....and shopping for dresses at Marche Mokolo. Marche Mokolo is the biggest outdoor market in Yaounde, and infamous among volunteers for the harassment you get from the vendors. It’s quite an experience. In fact, I had a hard time getting another volunteer to go with me. Most of them said, “Hell no, I’m not going back there again.”
Verbal harassment is pretty typical for Cameroon, but the South differs from the North in that Southerners are much more loud and aggressive about it, and often combine verbal with physical harassment. Marche Mokolo is quintessential of Southern aggressiveness, and was a whole new experience for me. The market is so crowded that taxis can barely penetrate it. Our taxi dropped my friend Dori and I off at the perimeter, and we proceeded directly to the used clothing section. The alleyways were so tight we could barely get by and had to wedge ourselves between rummaging ladies to sort through piles of skirts and dresses.
As soon as they saw us, the vendors kept up a hilarious running commentary: “Ma cherie!” “Ma cherie coco!” “Come on over here baby!” “Over here!” “You are beautiful!” “You are pretty!” “You please me.” “I like you, you turn me on.” “You have gorgeous thighs.” “You have a nice ass honey!” “Doesn’t she have a nice ass?” “Yea, she’s got a real nice ass.” Almost every man I walked by asked for my number. Which would be flattering, except they’re doing it as a complete joke. “Where are you from?” “Where do you live?” “I’ve got something nice for you sweetie right here” (motioning to crotch area). “La blanche! La blanche!” “Won’t you buy me something to eat?” “Won’t you give me a little money to put in my pocket?” “Marry me!” And one of my favorites: “You may think that because I’m fat and you’re skinny, we wouldn’t go well together, but actually, fat and skinny makes for a good match in the bedroom”!!
And I soon learned what the other volunteers had meant by too much physical contact. People there had no qualms whatsoever about grabbing my arm as I went by. A few people grabbed my wrist and wouldn’t let go; I pulled away and almost fell over when they let go. Men come up to you and stroke your arm or get so close to you they’re breathing in your ear; one guy started running his fingers along my ribs, etc! It’s like WHOA WHAT HAPPENED TO PERSONAL SPACE HERE PEOPLE?
Negotiating for clothes was complete pandemonium. At one point, my friend and I were trying to get a good price on four skirts, and while we were yelling at the vendor to get him to bring down the price, there were five guys huddled around us each yelling into our ears about completely different subjects! You couldn’t hear yourself think! There was a guy still asking for my number after I told him "NO!" for about the hundredth time. Some of the men just followed us around the market, picking up other vendors’ clothes and trying to sell it to us (“Hey you don’t even sell that! He’s selling that, I’m not buying from you!”). Others offered to find us whatever we were looking for “Anything! I’ll find it for you! Anything you want in the entire market!” I’m not sure what the benefit is for them, but either they get a cut of the sale price or they have nothing better to do.
Negotiating the price . People will use all the tricks in the trade to sidetrack you. (“No I don’t want 10 dresses, I just want this 1 dress!!”) They give outrageous prices and won’t bring them down even when they know they’re outrageous, like this one guy who wanted 8,000 for a skirt that usually costs 500. (“Are you crazy? This isn’t haute couture here mister…”) One guy said, “but these clothes are donated from your country!” as if that justified him giving us an unfair price.
We had to be on the alert for theft too; tons of volunteers have been robbed, even had necklaces ripped off their necks. I kept a hand on my purse the entire time, spread my money out in my pockets, and didn’t bring anything valuable (which explains why there are no pictures of Marche Mokolo). We emerged unscathed, with a couple cute skirts to boot. I did get sold a blank CD, though, because I forgot to make them try it in front of me before buying it.
Marche Mokolo would be kind of like this, x10!
My overall reaction? I actually had a great time. You have to laugh at their audacity, really, and how they’re getting a kick out of being completely ridiculous. I went in a happy, tolerant mood, which helped. I kept my sense of humor in tact, so I was able to laugh most of it off, and had fun trying to think of witty responses to their commentary. It’s a great thrift sale, you just have to work hard to get the clothes you want. It’s a good sign, too, of how I am now a veteran Peace Corps volunteer. A year ago, I would have been overwhelmed. But a year of shopping in the markets has taught me to tune out the obnoxious people and not let them distract me from the task at hand. You have to have enough street saavy to be firm yet keep on smiling. Experiences like that make me feel like I am living and breathing Cameroon; it’s completely different from anything I’d ever experience in the US.
Other highlights of Yaounde were the great restaurants- salads, hamburgers, Chinese food, pizza, schwarma- running around the football stadium in the mornings, playing Poker at night in the Peace Corps house, singing songs, exchanging stories from post, especially about all the weird skin rashes and tropical diseases we’ve had (Peace Corps Bingo- who’s had them all?), and joking about the conditions en brousse (Some see the glass half-full, others see it half-empty. A Peace Corps volunteer looks at the glass and says, “I could shower with that.”).
Morale was high. I think we all feel a real sense of accomplishment in getting this far, we feel like we’re having an impact at post, and we can smell the finish line- the next 10 months are going to fly by! Several volunteers are even going to extend their service and stay longer.
I'll be going back to Yaounde in a couple weeks to present my field school project to new agroforestry volunteers at their training conference, and then I'll be traveling around to other regions, so more to come on that.
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