September 30th, 2014 by Rachel | Tags: Peace Corps | No Comments »
Training is very exhausting and intensive. It starts at 7 AM or 8 AM and runs until about 4:30 PM. We do have training on Saturdays too except that it ends at 12:30 PM. Sunday is the only day of the week when we are free. I have gotten more headaches than I normally would have, and it’s probably because I’m spending many hours listening to lectures and my brain is working harder in listening to accents that I’m not used to hearing. I have frequently asked myself, “How did I get through middle and high school where I sat for eight hours a day listening to lectures?” I often frequently heard that people with hearing loss do get headaches more frequently when they are in the classroom all day.
On the other hand, the training is a very rewarding experience and I wouldn’t trade my new job for anything else. I am receiving all the necessary information to ensure that my service will be successful and safe. The training includes lectures on cross-culture, technical skills, safety and security, and medical. We also have a French class.
On some days, the French class run for at least six hours. We will actually have the French class for a total of 120 hours by the end of training. I am placed in intermediate/advanced level which is very good because volunteers are required to be at intermediate or advanced level to be sworn in at the end of training. Intermediate/advanced level means that one can speak French fluently and has good grammar skills but needs to polish up on communication skills and improve vocabulary. My biggest weakness in French right now is learning how to listen well to different accents, especially in overhearing people’s conversations, and also vocabulary. It’s not that I need to secretly listen to other people’s conversations but being able to overhear means that I am also able to understand speech in any situations including communicating in large groups at cafés and holding conversations on the phone with ease. There is so much health terminologies that I need to learn in French. There were only three trainees including myself in our French class for the first two weeks. Every two weeks, they change our teachers and maybe some students’ placements. So, a few days ago, our teachers were changed and two trainees joined the three of us trainees. All French classes have no more than six trainees. My French teachers have been very open to working on meeting trainees’ and my needs in how we want to improve our French communication skills. For example, because we agreed that listening to different accents was something that we desperately needed to work on, we went to a bar during one class and sat with a few Cameroonians to just simply practice communicating in French.
If I am placed in a region where people speak Pidgin English or Fulfulde, I will have to also learn either language too based on where I’m posted. Pidgin English is based on English with some French and African local languages meshed in and is primarily spoken in Northwest and Southwest region. Fulfulde is a language that is primarily spoken in the Muslim community in Far North, North, Adamawa and East. I will find out where I will be posted on October 15th.
The cross-culture classes have been absolutely fascinating as we spend a lot of time understanding why Cameroonians and Americans interact and think the way they do. We’ve done a number of hands on group work where we had to create diagrams. For example, female trainees had to create a list of what are traits of men in general and male trainees had to do the same for women. Then the Cameroonian female trainers had to do the same, creating a list of what they thought of men and the Cameroonian male trainers had to do the same for females. It was quite interesting to see how perceptions of gender roles differed and were similar between the Americans and Cameroonians. Both American and Cameroonian men see women as strong and beautiful human beings. Cameroonian men saw women as caregivers and the ones who maintained the home while the American men saw women as independent and career driven people. While Cameroonian women saw men as breadwinners, American women saw men as career driven but sometimes lazy. Both American and Cameroonian women saw men as “macho.” The trainees then also had to create a graph showing how close we are in relationship to our family, friends, pets, colleagues and neighbors. The Cameroonian trainers had to do the same. The most striking difference was that Americans are generally super attached to their pets while Cameroonians in general do not really care so much about pets. Otherwise, Cameroonians and Americans both agreed that friends and family are equally important and they both generally don’t have very close relationship to their work bosses. It’s important to note that these opinions are just a small sample of Americans and Cameroonians and they do not represent everyone.
We’ve also been having classes on understanding how to perform our job in community health. We visited a community health center in Mengong last week to get a feel for what community health centers look like and how they are run. We also learned how the health system works in Cameroon. There are both private and public hospitals. Only 3% of Cameroonians have private health insurance. These are just a few little facts about the healthcare in Cameroon. I will later on write a blog exclusively about the healthcare. We still have so much more to learn about how to do our job.
September 30th, 2014 by Rachel | Tags: Peace Corps | No Comments »
There’s no cheese in Cameroon and I’m already sorely missing this food. I told my host family that I think it’s bizarre that cheese is not part of the Cameroonian cuisine as the French colonized the country and cheese is so big in France that the French eat it every single day.
When I watch TV with my host family, I frequently see a commercial for Leclerc, a big box store that is exactly like Wal-Mart and found everywhere in France. So, I asked my host family where I can find that big box store so that I could maybe find some cheese and other western world goodies that I miss and need.
They told me that Leclerc doesn’t exist in Cameroon. WHAT? Then how come there are commercials for that store? They explained to me that almost everything they get on TV is directly from France. In other words, they’re watching television as if they are in France and all commercials that are aired are targeted towards the French viewers. However, there are a few channels that are directly from Cameroon.
That doesn’t make sense. Are companies wasting money by showing commercials to an audience who have no access to buying their products.
I learned to ignore the commercials on the television.
However, my host family told me that I can find Casino, another French big box store, and a few other big box stores in the capital cities in Cameroon.
September 24th, 2014 by Rachel | Tags: Peace Corps | No Comments »
Two nights ago, I saw a black plastic bag moving and shaking on the floor of the kitchen in my host family’s home. One of my host sisters walked to the plastic bag and pulled something out of it. A chicken’s head popped out. She explained to me that the family was going to make chicken for dinner the following night.
That same night, the host family asked if I’d like to watch them prepare the chicken. The moment I saw the cousin of my host family starting to cut a live chicken’s head, I ran away from the scene, squealed and squirmed. I couldn’t watch a minute of my host family killing the chicken for cooking. For my host family, this was a normal, everyday routine for them.
About an hour later, one of my host sisters asked if I’d like to see where they were at the moment with the chicken preparation. I said OK and followed my host sister to the kitchen. The feathers have already been plucked off. The children proudly showed off the chicken to me by holding the legs and letting the chicken just hang upside down. They then challenged me to be the one to kill the chicken next time.
Challenge not accepted.
I told them, “No. I’m a baby.”
I did have the chicken for dinner last night, and it did taste good.
September 24th, 2014 by Rachel | Tags: Peace Corps | No Comments »
My host brother and mother both enjoyed the brownie.
One of my many responsibilities of my job is to teach Cameroonians about my American culture. My host family and I’ve exchanged many conversations about our cultural differences which included family roles, jobs, schools, and food. My host brother asked me many questions about the US, and I happily answered them. Because I noticed that the Cameroonian food is quite different from the American food, I thought it’d be a good idea to introduce them to some American food since they have never visited the US.
In my head, I went through a list of food I cooked on regular basis in the US and picked one that had ingredients that I could likely easily find in the village. The first one that came to my mind was brownies. All I needed was eggs, flour, sugar, butter, vanilla and cocoa.
When I proposed to my family last weekend that I’d like to make brownies for them and asked them where I could find “cocoa.” One of my host sisters went out and brought back a coconut. Yikes! I have to say that while I did feel badly for the miscommunication, it is a common problem that people often encounter when communicating in a foreign language.
We then went out together to the convenient store which we call “la boutique” to find the ingredients for the brownies. While I couldn’t find cocoa, I got dark chocolate candy instead.
We made the brownie as soon as we returned to the house. My host siblings tasted the batter and gave the expression as if they were in love with the taste. One of my host sisters kissed her finger once she licked the batter with her finger. While my host family has an oven, they ran out of gas and so, we took the unbaked brownie to their relative’s home where we used a stove. We turned the stove into an oven by taking a huge pot and putting the unbaked brownie with the pan inside the pot and the pot lid on the pot. It cooked the brownie beautifully except it took a little longer than it normally would take. I have now learned that I can still cook many things that require an oven on a stove instead!
The taste was perfect. It was certainly slightly different, but it still has the same great rich chocolate chewy taste. My host family loved it, as the brownies were gone within 24 hours. I told them that for the following weekends, I’d like to make them chocolate chip cookies and snickerdoodle cookies.
September 24th, 2014 by Rachel | Tags: Peace Corps | No Comments »
“We do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard.” – John F. Kennedy.
My host brother has been a huge help in carrying my water jugs.
“Elle est fatigué.” A woman just said that I am tired. I was pumping out water from a water pump into a big yellow jug that looks exactly like the logo of Charity Water.
“Non. Je ne suis pas fatigué. Je dois apprendre,” I said in somewhat broken French that I wasn’t tired and that I needed to learn to use the pump. One of my biggest challenges so far since starting my service is learning to get water from outside of the home. Using the water pump is not hard but it requires a lot of body work. When pumping out the water, it feels like kayaking. What’s even harder than pumping out the water is carrying water as the jugs are incredibly big. Women who put big buckets or jugs on their head makes carrying water seem so easy, but it’s not. It requires a huge muscle power. These people who can easily carry water learned to do it starting at a very young age while I always got water though a simple twist of a knob right in my own home when growing up. My host siblings have been helping me carry my big yellow jugs back to the house. These yellow jugs carry probably about six gallons of water each. I am always so impressed that little kids as young as five can carry big buckets of water. I am determined to learn how to carry these heavy water jugs and build a muscle power before I am posted. However, at least carrying a two to three gallon bucket is not a problem at all for me.
Another challenge I have been facing is laundry. I have to first note that in almost all homes in Cameroon, there is no washer and dryer. If I did my own laundry by hand, I would just mix soap and water with the clothes in a bucket and stir the clothes. Then I’d rinse it with clean water and call it a day. But my way of doing laundry by hands is not acceptable by the Cameroonians. My host mother and sister gave me a demonstration on how to do laundry. They take one bucket and put water and soap in it. Then they put all clothes in there. They then take one clothing at a time and scrub it with their hands. Then they put it into a bucket with clean water. They do laundry in a way that they can remove all the stains and dirt. Their work is impressive. When I tried to do it myself, my host mother giggled. No matter how hard I tried to imitate their way of doing laundry, I still couldn’t do it correctly. My host mother and sister were so patient and nice that they helped me do some of my clothes. “Je dois apprendre faire la lessive comme vous avant que je pars ici.” I told my host mother that I need to learn how do laundry like them before they leave. She told me that I will. It’s a matter of practice.
While I have been given new challenges, Peace Corps has removed some obstacles from me as a person with disabilities. Because my vision is not too great at night, I do not have to worry about navigating the town where there is very little to no light at night because Peace Corps has a strict policy that no volunteers can be out at night due to safety and malaria. I would have been ok with navigating with just a flashlight through. I also do not have to worry about not being able to get to many places. No Peace Corps volunteer can drive and this policy works in my favor because I cannot drive due to having some vision loss. Moreover, majority of the people in Cameroon do not have a car and cannot drive. That means that I’m living in an environment where everyone is like me and I do not have to worry about being restricted as to where I can go because the transportation system in Cameroon is accommodated to people who do not drive. There are buses, bush taxis and moto taxis.
