February is for Parties and Death

It's one of those mid-February days, when the rainy season isn't supposed to start for another month but the afternoons are already starting to become gray and threatening and windy. When everyone is rushing to fit in their wedding or wake or burial or funeral or other big event. When I simply cannot get any work done over the weekends because I'm busy attending all said events (and don't think I'm complaining, because I'd definitely rather be out with my friends). Two things seem omnipresent by the end of dry season: parties and death. 

Friends, family, food, drank.

Before I came to Cameroon, one of my many worries was how I would deal with death. I had this idea that people die every day in Africa and that it would be really emotionally draining. And in some ways that is true, but in some ways it's an exaggeration, and death is merely a part of the circle of life. 

So in these days when everyone holds their breath and watches the sky for rain, we also spend a lot of time mourning death and celebrating life. What better time than the end of dry season, when the majority of the plant life is dying of thirst but we know that the rain will soon come to make everything fertile again? 

Death rites are so interesting here in the Bamileke area of Cameroon, and I suspect more healthy than our own American system. When someone dies - old or young - the family holds the wake immediately. For one or several days, all the bereaved person's friends come over to cry with them. Whenever someone new arrives, they immediately go to greet the bereaved, who melts into tears. Women begin to shuffle dance in a circle around the drums, if the family has drums, or just in a circle if they don't. Men stand in a line, shoulder to shoulder on the side; they sing along but do not dance. And the song almost defies description: it has words but I could not tell you what they are; it has a tune but it's easier to follow the less you think about it. It's almost a song composed of suppressed moans of pain, perfectly in tune with muffled sobs, somehow expressing both sorrow and solidarity. The bereaved puts her hand on each of her friends shoulders, one by one; they return the gesture, saying "We are together" without need for words. Women shave their heads and wear all black. Everyone cries. 

Shortly thereafter is the burial. The dancing and crying is repeated, though the pain is clearly less raw, with the added component of a Christian service (in both French and Bansoa) for those who are religious. If it is a woman who died, all of her sons wear her clothes (yes, kaabas and dresses included); if it is a man who died, his widow and daughter wear his clothes. This is just another way of carrying the deceased with them, of remember him or her. The men dig a hole to bury the woman's body in front of her kitchen. There is more playing of drums, mournful singing, and dancing in circles. 

The drums.

Up to several years later is the funeral, and this involves no mourning at all. It is a huge celebration with all the friends and extended families (and with the giant polygamous families so common here, that can mean an entire village or two). Everyone stuffs themselves with food, drinks all the beer they can hold (unless the entire village has already run out of beer), and dances in more circles. The songs are no longer sad; the polyrhythmic bursts issuing from the drums faster and louder. The closest family members all wear matching new pagne clothes. Dry season is also funeral season, and it draws people back to their home villages from Douala or Yaoundé or Germany or wherever else they have landed as they grew up, to complain of the dust and backwardness of their place of birth. Despite all the complaining, they are happy to be home for a party, to see all their friends and family in a joyful reunion. 

Dancing in a circle at a funeral - with beers.
Each of those red boxes is called a "casier"
Each has twelve Cameroonian-sized beers,
Which equals two American-sized beers.

Then the money is finished and everyone goes home or waits, watching the sky, for rainy season to begin so they can start selling their fields' produce again. 

I <3 crazy hats. 

More crazy hats.
Also, that goat doesn't stand a chance...
#sacrifice

Like a Busy Bee

It's that time of year again - where work comes and sits on your vocal cords and crushes your dreams. (Oh wait, that's nodes. #pitchperfect)

The school year winding down faster and faster, continuously interrupted by national days of fête-ing that turn into weeks of no school (Bilingualism Day, Youth Day, Women's Day, National Day...) or by testing weeks. That means all my school-related projects - which are most of them - also have approaching ends. This is kind of exciting - the end of May will mean the end of most of my work, and I can spend the last few months frolicking and sitting at the café sipping sweetened condensed milk with a bit of coffee mixed in. (#wishfulthinking) But it's also kind of stressful, because there are still so many things that I still want to accomplish before the end of the year!

Here's a rundown of what I've been working on lately...

1. Club FORTES : An extracurricular program targeting female high school students (though there are now 3 regularly attending you men as well!) to teach life skills and puberty and sexual reproductive health, issues which are not normally discussed either at school or at home. I'm trying to find a counterpart to replace me when I leave at Lycée Bansoa-Mbri, the school just ten minutes down the road, but without much progress. I am having better luck at Lycée Bakassa, which is more like ten kilometers down the road, but as a new school is more engaged and open to change. 

2. Youth For Change : Another extracurricular program, this one teaching civic engagement and active citizenship. It's in partnership with my host organisation RIDEV and targets 2nd year (16 year old) students at the Lycée Classique in Bafoussam. We teach motivated young adults about issues in their communities, like HIV and the environment, and then teach them skills (leadership, communication) to address those issues in their communities. We hope to take the participants on several excursions to see our theoretical knowledge at work in Bafoussam before the students plan and execute their own volunteer project! 

3. March 8th, International Women's Day : My peer educators and some motivated young women from Club FORTES are putting together and educational skit about early pregnancy to present at Women's Day. They will parade in matching yellow t-shirts in *distant* Penka-Michel (the administrative center of my town) and are very excited!

4. Camp FORTES : Round 2 is planned for mid June, right at the beginning of their long break from school. We're hoping to train 25 more young women as peer educators in Baleng, Bansoa, and Bafoussam - as well as giving the girls a "sleepover summer camp" experience that many Americans take for granted as part of their summer breaks!

5. Art Class : Postmate Danielle and I teach art class to four groups of 50 elementary school students at Kinder's House in Banock every Tuesday. The students range in age form 5 to 11, and as you can imagine, this makes for an exhausting day. But the kids love it, and their delight with using materials they've never been allowed to touch before makes it worth it - most of the time. We're currently playing with watercolors - all over their paper, their tables, their floors, their uniforms, their faces... 

(Special thanks to my grandma Kay Duffy and her artsy friends for donating so many art supplies to the school!)

There's plenty of other little stuff going on as well, but these are the big ones. 

Finally, during the first week of April, I'll be traveling to beautiful beachy Kribi for my Close of Service (COS) conference! I can't believe how fast time is passing; only six months left. 

Don't Write Me Off

Meet Jonathan -

Meet him today, and you see a teacher

dressed in an ill-fitting button down and slacks

with more children than he can handle

and his five or six year old students can't even write their own names. 

It would be so easy to judge him.

But meet Jonathan at six years old - 

If it was up to his parents, he would have stayed home not gone to school

But in elementary school he was always first in his class and he wanted to continue.

So he found ways to pay for his own books, notebooks, fees to go on to the next grade

he tried working at the market, in the town center, 

but no one would pay him.

They said: you are weak, I will not pay you, you cannot do this work. 

He learned to weave baskets instead.

They were so cheap, he made so little, and what he made had to feed him and buy all these things

but what choice did he have?

First year, he passed his class but couldn't pay fee to go to next level - by only 2 dollars.

Second year, he passed but couldn't pay the fee - by only 2 dollars.

During summer vacation, he bought two chicks;

during the school year, the chicks grew into roosters;

by the end of the year, he managed to sell one rooster 

for 2 dollars 

so he could go on to the next class.

Everything was like this, a struggle.

He had a lamp so that at night he could see to do his homework and study,

but no petrol for the lamp 

so it was useless.

First thing after school, he studied - 

he studied fast so he could learn everything before darkness fell.

Later, they put in some electric lamps in the center of town

and he and his friend would go study in the street, under these new electric lights

(mosquitos and all)

until they got tired of being bitten.

His mom died when he was sixteen

and his dad died soon after

and though they weren't very helpful in his education

it only made his life harder.

But he kept working.

He managed,

and he became an elementary school teacher.

Meet Christophe -
He'll introduce himself as "Christopher, like Columbus
The one who discovered America!"

Meet him today and look at a map with him

And he will ask,

"So these things you call 'islands'

They are surrounded by water?

And these things you call volcanos,

They spit fire?"

It would be so easy to judge him.

But meet Christophe-

Six years old, the student of Monsieur Jonathan.

If it was up to his parents, he would have stayed home not gone to school

but in elementary school he was always first in his class and he wanted to continue

he was discouraged

but M. Jonathan saw his struggle and told his own story

he said: if you work in the market, in the center of town, small jobs

you can pay for what you need

you can do it. 

So Christophe worked, even in the third grade,

so that he could go to school

satisfy his curiosity

answer the questions he always had.

Eventually, his mom died

his dad died

his grandfather died

his grandmother died.

He could not continue the schooling he fought so hard for.

But he still had those questions. 

So he worked - and he saved.

When he had a little bit saved, he said:

"I've heard of our capital, Yaounde.

I want to go.

I don't know anyone there

I don't know where it is

But I want to go."

And he did. 

He met new people and had them show him around the city

He paid their transport and he bought them drinks and he said thank you

And he learned.

But he still had those questions. 

So he worked - and he saved.

When he had a little bit saved, he said:

"I've heard of pygmies, small people who live in the East.

I want to meet them.

I don't know anywhere there,

I don't know where the 'east' is.

But I want to go." 

And he did. 

He met new people and he lived with the pygmies for a year.

He learned their language so he could ask his questions

And he learned. 

But he still has those questions. 

He went to Douala, and Kribi, and Ideo. 

He would go to other countries too

Except he can't afford a passport. 

He still has those questions. 

It's too easy to say:

Africans are lazy.

They don't know how to work or how to save.

Africans are only waiting for handouts, 

from their governments or from USAID.

Meet Jonathan, meet Christophe -

Men who have fought their whole lives

For the things that are handed to us.