Ask the Volunteer in Cameroon

In My Humble Opinion
1

So, I am a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon. Note that nothing I say represents any official view of Peace Corps or the US Government.

Cameroon is a very diverse country about the size of California with aspects of both West African and Central African culture and geography. It’s called “Africa in miniature” because of it’s extreme diversity of ethnicities and climates- from rainforest and Pygmies in the south to Muslims in the desert up north.

I live in a medium sized rural town in the North, in the arid Sahel region. The town is a mix of Muslims and Christians, but the culture is predominately Muslim. It’s poor, but clean. Most houses are mud brick with tin roofs, though round huts with thatch roofs are not uncommon. Men wear long flowing robes and pillbox hats. Women wear brightly colored wrap skirts, loose shirts, head wraps and open veils. It’s not the most diverse place in Cameroon, though there still is a lot of diversity. Language is primarily Fulfulde, though most men speak French, too. My town is fairly modern, though in surrounding villages you can find “National Geographic” stuff like chiefs and nomads and women without shirts and traditional religions. The line between “traditional” and “modern” isn’t as finely cut as we think of it in the States- most of my English speaking college educated colleagues prefer the traditional healer to the very nice Chinese hospital in town.

It is very, very, very hot, dry and dusty. It will not rain again until June. It will be 130 degrees here in April.

I teach computer science to high school kids. My classes are too big- often 150 kids and 6 computers. For most it is their first time anywhere near a computer. All of my kids are older- some are my age. Other challenges include a lack of facilities (some of our classrooms are made of reed mats on sticks blocking out the sun in a field), lack of resources (books are rare. I don’t know of an actual bookstore in the province, though school books can sometimes be found in markets), many kids don’t get to school because of school fees, cultural factors and early marriage (12 is not an uncommon marriage age. Pregnant girls are not allowed in schools) and the fact that I suck at speaking French, which I teach in. Most of the kids in my neighborhood do not go to school. But the kids that are in school are intelligent, though not all that motivated.

My life is pretty simple. I consider myself a teacher first and a Peace Corps Volunteer second- I have a pretty regular Cameroonian job and I make about the same salary as my Cameroonian counterparts, though I have health and housing perks as a volunteer. I live in a house in a compound with a family that doesn’t speak French. I shop in the open air market and travel on the same overcrowded minibusses as anyone else. Consumer goods are rare and mostly I buy seasonal fruits and vegetables from small local farmers. I have water and electricity, and my house is small and simple but clean. I work mornings, spend afternoons shopping, cooking, and visiting with neighbors. I usually spend weekends with other volunteers seeing a bit of the country. I feel like a part of my neighborhood and well integrated, though I’ve found it challenging to form real friendships because many women do not speak French and men can be somewhat aggressive- the culture is VERY marriage oriented and I get proposals at least every couple days. But over all people are very friendly, welcoming, clean and happy.

I am here for two years. I’ve already done six months. The time is going quickly and I am having a great time.

Anyway, I’ve get plenty of time on my hands to answer questions you might have about my little corner of Africa or my life here. My access to the Cybercafe is somewhat limited by when the electricity works and money, but I should be able to check every couple days or so to give answers. I know I knew nothing at all about Cameroon or Africa when I came here, and I know Africa in general is kind of a big blank space in most our knowledge bases and I’d love to talk about my experiences.

2

Did you guide the choice of country in any way?

What kind of training do you have? Did the Corps give you any teaching training?

We had a recent thread from Kyla, our PC voluntary in Bulgaria (yeah, she’s all ours, mwahahaha) so if you don’t get many responses it may be because people already got their answers there.

3

How well-prepared were you for the living conditions there? What is the process before you actually travel to the country?

4

How long are you expected to continue with your work there? Does the Peace Corps. shuffle you around a lot, or do you stay in one place for a long time?

5

I think you were the one who asked us for suggestions about how to teach computers with limited resources. What approaches have you wound up using? How is it working?

6

In another thread you mentioned you have a boy who helps you with stuff. Can you tell us more about him and what his duties are?

7

Any thoughts of climbing Mt. Cameroon? I know it’s an a different part of the country, but seeing as you’re in Cameroon anyway…

Also, how’s the English where you are? All the Cameroonians I ever met spoke pretty good English in addition to French.

8

I can answer this one quickly; PC is a 27 month commitment, with ~3 months of training and 2 years of service. In theory, you’re supposed to stay in your assigned site for the entire time, but it does occasionally happen that things don’t work out for whatever reason and you can be moved to another site. You’re supposed to become “integrated into you community” (one of PC’s favorite phrases!) so having to be moved in seen as fairly negative. Personally, it would take something really drastic for me to agree to being moved. I <3 my kids.

even sven, I’ve been reading a lot about Chinese involvement in Africa lately. What do people think about the Chinese in general?

Are you learning Fufulde? I guess you must be if your family doesn’t speak French. How is that?

Do you have pictures of your village online?

Is it most common for volunteers in Cameroon to live with a host family, or on their own? Is your situation unusual? (In BG, almost everyone lives in their own apartment; there are two people in my class who are living with a host family.)

Does PC send you issues of Newsweek?

What do people ask you about America?

9

Thanks for starting this thread, sven. Your service – and that of all of your colleagues in the Peace Corps – is greatly appreciated. I’ve said it before on these Boards, but – Thank You.

You’re posting from a Cybercafé, and I’m interested in how such an entity works in the Sahel.

In developed countries, local residents often have reasonably-priced Internet access available at home, work, or school. Cybercafés are typically used by tourists and businesspeople for whom the cost of access is generally worth it at (almost) any (reasonable) price… in the US especially, they’re often just WiFi Hotspots where it’s assumed that the customer will bring their own laptop and no public computers are available. For people just “passing through”, the ability to check e-mail and browse the Web is generally worth the few dollar-equivalents (usually, less than the prevalent hourly wage) that it costs.

In developing countries, there may not be the infrastructure to provide Net access to many of the local inhabitants, but there’s often clear business reasons why Net access is needed. In such places, any increased Net access pays for itself in short order.

What’s the business model in a mid-sized rural town in Cameroon? I’m assuming that the six computers at your High School have no Internet accessibility. Are there any businesses (or individuals) in town with Net access, or is it just the Cybercafé?

I’m assuming that the access in your town is via satellite, and that the overall bandwidth is not high (I’m sure it would be different in Yaoundé or Douala, which I understand are relatively well-wired due to the large number of International businesses involved).

How much does it cost you to get online, in terms of your salary? You mention that you’re paid the same as your fellow teachers. Now, the Internet was clearly an important part of your life pre-Cameroon, and is a valuable lifeline to your friends and family (and fellow Dopers!), so I can understand how you would want to spend your hard-earned CFA on Internet access. To what extent do your fellow teachers feel the same value in Internet connectivity?

How does the Cybercafé in your town stay in business? Is it purely a for-profit entity, or is there a subsidy (this isn’t a loaded question – I would absolutely understand if some of the costs were underwritten by a development organization). If there wasn’t Internet access in your town before the Cybercafé opened, and the educational system isn’t turning out Net-savvy kids, how does it achieve the critical mass of people who need Internet access and know how to access the Internet, but haven’t had it available up until now?

Sorry if this question is ill-phrased. I’m sure that the same issues applied to many “frontier” situations. You can’t have just one telephone in the world, or one computer connected to the Internet. But you also can’t just plunk a Cybercafé down in a mid-size town in the North Province of Cameroon and expect it to pay for itself – well, not unless you charge the sole local Peace Corps Doper one heck of a connection fee :wink: . So, are there a bunch of Net-proficient locals who have just been itching for the Cybercafé to open? Are there local entrepreneurs who help your fellow townsfolk increase their markets via the Internet, in the same way that cellphones have allowed third-world businesses to thrive in locations where there was never a landline telephone infrastructure? Does your Cybercafé have Net-savvy people hanging around, offering to send an e-mail to the nearest big city to find a buyer for the five goats that a local herder has been trying to sell?

10

Antonius, in Spain and Italy I’ve seen many places of the kind we call locutorios in Spanish (lit. “place where you speak”). Originally a locutorio was a place that had several payphones. They had almost disappeared, but they’ve come back with the enormous immigrant influx.

Nowadays they have payphones and computers. You don’t bring your own computer but use one of theirs (some of the most forward-thinking ones have unoccupied network cables so you can plug your laptop if you have one). They also have printers and a central CD-burner. If you want to use VoIP (most locations have the most common programs already installed) you have to bring your own earphones.

11

Ah, Nava,
[hijack]
I’ve used many a locutorio in Spain myself (to this day, I’d claim that over the telephone my spoken Spanish is better than my understanding of Spanish. I can get a long way with a list of phrases and a “tree” of expected answers…).

I’m certainly interested in how migrant groups create needs; around me in California, there are prepaid phone cards – and ways of sending money – to any number of countries, available in numerous local outlets.

Historically, one can see how cultures were spread by colonial demand: as an extreme example, the Opera House in Manaus, Brazil, wasn’t built to satisfy the needs of the indigenous Amazonians. It was built because there were sufficient (suddenly-wealthy!) immigrants with a desire to make their mark in the jungle.
[[/hijack]

Back to Cameroon: that Cybercafés would thrive in the capital (Yaoundé) or the most populous city (Douala) should be in no way surprising. But even sven’s mid-sized town in the North Province of Cameroon warrants different questions. I’ll make the assumption that there are not too many immigrants wanting to get in touch with their loved ones back home. In the case of sven’s Cybercafé, without a huge influx of immigrants or tourists it needs to meet a local demand. That’s my take on it at least, and that’s the gist of my question.

12

Most of the immigrants in my home town (read: the ones I’ve spoken to about this) make appointments with their relatives back home. Each party goes to a local locutorio at the same time. I’m guessing that at least a part of the business from the café in sven’s town may be people contacting their relatives in Europe. Last year there was a gent in a place in Valencia that offers, among others, international shipment services (UPS and others); he was giving as the only adress the capital’s airport and the contact info said to call him when the package got there. I interpreted a bit for him, since he was having problems with the clerk’s Argentinian accent and my French was good enough to help. The idea was that when he was told the package had arrived he’d contact his relatives and tell them to go pick it up. Leaning on his 24/7 cellphone and on the schedule he’d established with the relatives worked better than trying to contact the relatives directly. I think he happened to be from Cameroon, actually, but don’t quote me on that.

13

sven, I thought of another question: in PST, do they arrange people who’ve already studied French together, and people who haven’t together? In BG, it doesn’t so much matter, cause guess how many volunteers spoke Bulgarian before they got here. (One. She’s Bulgarian-American! They made her learn Turkish during PST instead, and placed her in a largely ethnically Turkish area.)

Has your village had a volunteer before? Are people freaked by seeing a white girl walking around? (The black volunteers here have had some really interesting reactions - almost always more amusing than anything else. Bulgarians see black people on TV all the time, but apparently to see an actual black person walking down your street and saying “Hi!” to you in Bulgarian is quite a shock.)

14

This is fun! Sorry, but I’m gonna lose your names in these quotes…

On the application you are asked to name your top two regions. My top was South Asia, and it was a little bit of a bummer when I learned there were no programs in that region. Africa was my second choice. But I think basically anyone with any French background at all and does not have complicated health issues gets sent to Francophone Africa.

We had 11 weeks of very intensive training. A lot of this was language- I did five hours a day or more. We also took classes on teaching, culture, health, and other relevent things. In the second half of our training, we ran a summer school. It wasn’t a huge amount of teaching training, but there is a serious teacher shortage here and even our brief training is more than many teachers here have. I felt well prepared for the classroom when I got there.

I have traveled in India and Guatemala before this, so nothing was that huge of a shock to me. I was actually surprised how much less intense the poverty seems here than it has in other places- there arn’t the same extremes of richness and poverty that I have seen elsewhere. My own living conditions are pretty comfortable (nothing fancy, but clean and basic).

Before you travel to the country you spend three days stuck in a hotel listening to lectures about cultural adaptation, the Peace Corps philosophy, health and other stuff. It’s all pretty boring and theoretical at that point. They also send you lots of documentations about your country and your program beforehand. Finally, they give you a fairly big per diem for this time period which you are expected to spend on good food and good times on your last days in America for a long time.

I am here for two years and unless something bad happens I will stay in this town the entire time.

It’s a challenge. I have six computers and some of my classes are 150 kids. I just break them into small groups for lab time. They don’t get nearly as much time as they need, but it’s the best I can do. I am also starting open lab hours. It’s working out okay, but I hope I can find us some more computers before next year- my goal is enough that each kid in a computer class gets a half hour in front of a screen a week.

He does my dishes twice a week and waters the garden daily. When I got in to town I asked the local kids if they knew anyone that could help around the house, and he came running. We are encouraged to have household help as a way of intergrating with and building ties with the community, as well as enriching it a bit.
Most Cameroonians, even those that can barely afford it, hire help because when you have to cook everything from scratch, wash dishes and clothes in a bucket, sweep daily to counter the crazy dust and water the garden three times daily, it gets to be a bit much. And it seems like most kids that are not in school enjoy working because it gives them something to do- many of my friends have kids that work for free out of sheer boredom.

He is 15 and he works various odd jobs around the community. I’m not sure what he does with the money (most likely it goes to his family). I would like to pay his school fees so he can go to high school, but he has 10 brothers and sisters who I am pretty close to and I can’t pay for all of them and it feels wrong just to pay for one. Anyway, he is one of my closest friends here and he spends most of the day puttering around the garden, which is basically his project. I think he likes having his own little space and his own responsibilities. He’s a great kid.

15

No Mt Cameroon for me. I’ve had some bad mountain experiences. I’ll stay on the beach in Limbe instead.

Cameroon is officially a bi-lingual country. There are two provinces where English is the primary language and technically everything is supposed to happen in both French and English. But up here English is pretty no existant and even most people’s French is a bit shaky. Everyone takes a few years of it in High School if they happen to have teachers that year, but pretty much everyone forgets it and quality of intruction is iffy. There are about 6 Anglophone Cameroonians in my town, and they have a little club they are always inviting me too. But since the speak Pidgen English I understand next to nothing at their meetings, though I love the sound of Pidgen and wish I had a chance to learn.

Chinese are a big deal here. My town has a hospital with 12 Chinese people who run it. Mostly they keep to themselves and people are pretty suspicious of them. There is also a Chinese presence in Garoua and probably throughout the country. People are thankful to the Chinese when they build physical structures, like schools and hospitals, but suspicious of their motives.

Personally, I think Africa is going to be China’s Middle East. They want oil, and stuff is gonna get messy when other people want that oil, too.

I know a few things in Fulfulde, but not much. Just enough to amuse the people in my neighborhood and get a leg up when bargaining at the market. I am planning on getting a Fulfulde teacher. Last night, I just said my first successful original sentence to my neighbore- “I saw a cat” in explaination as to why I was standing in the middle of the compound looking confused.

No village pics up yet. People are senstive about photographs and so it can be ackward to take them.

Nobody lives in an actual home with a host family, but I’d guess that 75% of volunteers share a compound with someone- most houses are in multi-family compounds. Others live in their own mini compounds. Some people are close and share meals with their compound families- but I think most are like mine- a few pleasentries in the morning and a shared meal every now and then. It’s a very communal culture, so nobody is ever really “on their own”. My house is definately a seperate part of the compound with it’s own fence within the compound and a different building style (i.e. not a mud hut) than the other buildings.

I do, indeed, get Newsweek.

People’s concept of America is kind of hazy- most people would be hard pressed to point it out on a map or say much about it. Honestly- I just heard someone ask if Canada was in North Africa. Mostly they figure we are some kind of European and don’t worry about it much. People say we are all rich and ask if I personally know pop stars a lot. They also ask about violence and if it affected me there. I get the occassional question about George Bush and Iraq, but even those are pretty hazy. I’ve been told stuff like “America’s first president was an Arab” and asked “If the whole world got together, do you think they could beat America?” You see stuff like watches with Osama Bin Laden on one side and the Beverly Hills 90210 logo on the other.

16

Antonius Block,

Cyber Cafes are just hitting the big towns outside of the provincial capitals. Mine just opened a couple months ago- before then I had to take a two hour bush taxi ride to Garoua. I’d say about 25% of volunteers have cybers in their towns.

Ours is connected to the bank and represents the only connection in town, though I am in contact with others that would like to open another. Before this came, the bank had no connection to it’s other branches besides the telephone. The only schools with Internet access are in regional capitals. It is sattalite, though there is a cable connection somewhere in Garoua.

Here it costs me a little less than two dollars an hour. For comparision, a street food meal is fifty cents, a beer is a dollar and a good meal at a good restraunt is two dollars. It’s pricy for the area. But there is enough of a professional class that there is usually another person or two in the Cyber when I am there (there are four computers total), and awareness is growing daily. A few of my kids have gone. I saw the vice principle here once. I am sure with time it will grow, as in other towns in Cameroon I’ve been to, the Cyber is pretty busy involved in all the good and the shady that the net has to offer. Remember, I am not to far from the land of the Nigerian scam letter. People figure things out pretty fast when they are motivated.

I’ve offered to hang around and offer help to those that need it, but the Cyber would like to get more computers before making plans like that. They are starting sign ups now for private computer classes. People are pretty motivated, in general, to learn about computers.

And yeah, no immigrants or tourists here except the occassional Chadian refugee or Nigerian businessman. I’ve never seen a non Peace Corps white person in my town and many people think I am Chinese. I get called Chinese daily.

17

Are there other NPOs in your area?

18

How is this experience changing you as a person?

Do you still experience culture shock?

Do you think it is giving you the focus that you once declared was lacking in your life?

Do PC volunteers “date,” or is romance and companionship pretty much off the table for two years?

Are good computer skills important to the employability of residents of rural, pastoral Cameroon?

19

We are seperated out in PST. The ones that already know French spend their days eating bananas and peanuts and writing a weekly newsletter in French.

My village had had a few volunteers in the past. The last two are women who have married Cameroonians (very very common here…) and there has been a bit of concern about placing more volunteers here because of the expectations that might bring. Local rumor is that they had love sorcercy put on them by their husbands, who are both from a tribe well known for their love charms. It’s been two years since the last volunteer was here. I had a post mate for a while but he left after a month. People still call me the names of the other volunteers, as well as the Fulfulde names of every volunteer in the area (my town is a regional hub for volunteers in remote villages). I also have a whole collection of Fulfulde and Arabic names the community has given me. A lot of people have a hard time telling white people apart and they arn’t really sure why we are here, but not really worried about it, either.

I think we have an advantage because there is so little white present here that people don’t really think too much about it and treat us pretty normally- even things like getting a ‘white man price’ at the market are pretty rare. There is a cultural trait of saying the obvious here (comments like “you are wearing a blue shirt” or “I am sitting under a tree” are common), so people will yell out “Nassarra” (“white person”) everywhere I go. But you get used to it and it is better than the “La Blache!” they yell down south. A lot of people think I am Chinese and say “Ehhhhh Chinois” as I walk by (funny, because I am blonde haired and blue eyed).

Almost everyone is welcoming and friendly though. I think it helps that I wear local clothes and know enough Fulfulde to greet people. I know I feel like a freak all the time walking down the street all white, and I’m so used to everyone being black that when I see white people I double take- I even sometimes see someone and think to myself “hey white guy” and then realize, no, he’s not. I see white people in the provincial capital and it’s always kind of wierd and ackward- usually we stop and stare at each other in shock for a while and then kind of quickly rush away.

The black volunteers do okay, but have their ackward moments. Either people don’t believe they are American or else they honestly don’t believe they are black (most black people in the states look pretty different from people here). They spend a lot of time explaining things.

20

I don’t know that is it really changing me as a person much. I am having some amazing experiences and I will never, ever, be at a loss for a good story to tell. But I’m still the same old me.

There is this glazed look and monotone voice that long time volunteers tend to get- kind of what you expect from people who have been in a war- and I’m afraid I might be screwing up my life by getting that. There is a fair amount of post-traumatic stress that volunteers get. It’s not like we are being shot at, but people die here a lot, often traumatically, and you do see a lot of stuff that hits you in the core.

I don’t get too much culture shock. Every once in a while I get too used to things and then someone- often my college educated very worldly collegues- tells me something I think is absurd (“Hairy bellies on women are sexy!” “The traditional doctor is waaaay better than the hospital!” “The king of Banyo just cursed you! You must get a benediction from the king of Maroua!” and it dawns on me that I am very far from home and I don’t quite have everything figured out.

If anything, I have less direction here than when I started. Maybe I’ll figure it out, but the whole “grad school after Peace Corps” grind seems pretty unappealing to me now and the world seems very open and full of possibilities- but which to choose??

Something like 80% of volunteers are sexually active. Much of the time this is with other volunteers- it’s kind of like college, but a college where beers are a dollar and there are only ten or so eligible people within a three hour radius of you. The rumor mill here is amazing. There is also a lot of dating of Cameroonians, though AIDS and education levels are a factor- there just are not many people with above a high school education in the villages, especially who are not already married. I’d say about 30% date Cameroonians…maybe a bit more.

We are the hottest ticket in town. I get men knocking on my door several times a day. It’s kind of like America with sex- people are a little prudish, but sex is everywhere and on everyone’s minds always. People’s marriages play out like soap operas- especially given that polygymy is common as are affairs for both men and women. It’s a very marriage oriented culture, and the marriage proposal is a common way of flirting- I get them daily. A fair number of volunteers marry Cameroonians, and it’s considered one of the more “romancy” Peace Corps countries.