Get L'eau Koum! Island traveling...

Water Source before.....

Water Source Afterwards!

Proud members of the Water Committee in Koum!

At the schools we have continued with our first crop of soy and moringa to prepare for our larger planting cycle coming up in March with the beginning of rainy season. With the gardens I started a hand washing program using rainwater collect from a large barrel and soap that UNICEF had provided. I’ve been dropping soap off on a weekly basis only to the schools that always had it available to the students (there were issues with corruption in the past) and have started ‘WASH’ clubs at each school that consist of 5 older students who are responsible for making sure all the students are washing their hands and know why it is important to do so. Its been a lot of work but the Parents, Teachers and Students have all been excited to work together on it , which has made the work a lot easier to implement.

Hand Washing Field Trips

With the community members I’ve been working on creating Water Committees to make sure that potable is always available in the villages. Each villages has a board of about 10 members- A president, Vice President, Secretary, 3 treasurers, 2 technicians and 2 board members who are allowed to vote on the issues. We’ve worked together to discuss how much they need to collect from each family in order to start a savings account for if and when their water source fails in the future. They decided times that water would be available to the community and who would be responsible for locking it up and opening it everyday.  In the East people are known to be very…. Aggressive. Most of these meetings were about 2 hours long and mostly consisted of people pointing fingers at each other and yelling- a total catfight hahaha.  But, all in all they have been working out and we just successfully repaired a Forage in Koum with the help of UNICEF and are beginning another in Messamena Village thanks to grants I received from USAID and UNICEF. At the end of these 2 water projects, over 900 people will have access to potable water.

This has all been a lot of work- but I have really been enjoying it! My day to day life is never the same and I like that mix. But- after a few months of this I was lucky enough to be able to take a vacation—to Cape Verde--- just in time for Carnaval!

My good friends Joe and Amanda were on board for the trip so although it was difficult to book the tickets, we made it work! We got to spend a few days in Senegal, 2 weeks in Cape Verde, then back to Senegal for another few days before returning to Cameroon.

Joe, Me  and Amanda headed out of Cameroon

Senegal was awesome- we were all so stoked to take a little break from Cameroon and explore. Since there is Peace Corps in Senegal we were able to stay at their boarding house while we were there and even use their bikes to cruise around Dakar. Dakar is a very pretty city- I was jealous of the Volunteers in Senegal because when they come to their capital they are minutes from beautiful beaches, plenty of clubs, paved roads and tons of restaurants (where you can even find sushi). One night we even went bowling… at a bowling alley. Dakar is a big city and was such a change from Yaounde. The one frustrating thing was that our Central African French was not understood by many people at all- turns out French isn’t spoken by much of the population at all.

Street Parade in mindelo

Then we headed over to Cape Verde- and I was so excited. Everything reminded me of Brasil which is all I wanted out of the vacation J But Cape Verde really blew me away and was above my expectations. The islands were spectacular, the people were so friendly, Carnaval was a blast, the fresh seafood was delicious and most importantly- the coffee was awesome! It was awesome to hear all the music, to practice portugues de novo and be with good friends. It was so fun to hop from one island to another and see how different each one was- there are 10 islands and they are all so different from eachother- including the local language and the peoples attitudes.

Carnaval Float in Mindelo

In Cape Verde we arrived on the Island of Santiago and headed to the capital, Praia, where we were staying with a couchsurfer, Emanuel. We met him and he immediately took us to a local bar to watch the soccer match with all his friends. 5 hours of food, music, dancing and laughing later- we left that bar. It was an awesome way to be welcomed into Cape Verde! One of the dancers on Amanda’s dance team in Boston had family in Cape Verde so we got to meet up with them and made more friends and we grabbed some drinks and watched the sunset- it was incredible. Then we ended up taking a 20 hour boat ride to the top of the islands to Sao Vicente where we arrived in Mindelo. There we met our next couchsurfers, Nelson and Marina who just moved from Portugual and we had great dinners at their place and late night swims in the ocean. We spent a few days relaxing on the beach and eating some fresh fish and drinking tons of good coffee. We had a few days before carnaval was about to start so we took another boat to the island of Santo Antao… it ended up being the most beautiful island I’ve ever seen, full of huge valleys and cliffs right up to the edge of the world with beautiful blue ocean below. Amanda and I took a 7 hour hike along the cliffs and got ourselves lost into one small village where we walked into a crnaval parade. It ended up being an old Peace Corps village so we made some friends and they let us stay at their place and made us dinner… it was awesome! We then made it back to Mindelo and Carnaval was starting. This time we were staying with another couchsurfer, Kiso- an awesome guy who knew so much about the island and introduced us to some how his friends who just came out with their 4^th CD and another guy who was filming Carnaval as part of his world tour career. It was so much fun! Carnaval was a blast, as expected… dancing in the streets, awesome costumes, samba music all around and everyone livin’ it up. The whole trip was such a blast… it was a like a slice of heaven to me… boarding the plane to leave Cape Verde was depressing, I did not want to leave (Duh).

Traveling thru the jungle is not easy... but it's beautiful

Beaches of Dakar

The boat we took for 20 hours to get from Santiago to São Vicente

Cidade Velha, Santiago- Cabo Verde

Dancin' it up

Beaches in Dakar

Fontaininhas, Santo Antão

Wowzas!

Kick off to Carnaval

Late Night Swims in Mindelo with out couchsurfers

! Santo Antão!

The past 2 months has been really busy with work and have been very exciting for me. The first months at my post were all set up for me to get to know everyone in my village and start small programs and write up grants for projects I wanted to do with UNICEF… but now I am at the point where I get to implement projects that I have been writing grants for the past few months.

Hiking in Santo Antão

But.. Im back in Cameroon and refreshed. It is another struggle to readjust to crazy jungle life, but I’m in the home stretch right now and have some exciting projects coming up. San Francisco and my motorcycle are just around the corner J

Biking in Dakar

Work in Progress

Its taken about 2 months to feel settled in after returning from the states but I now feel comfortable and happy again here in Cameroon. Work has been going really well and I am learning a lot everyday. I can tell I am getting situated into village life because after some time I found myself sweeping my dirt yard because I know my neighbors would judge me-weird, yes but so it the amount of work/money we put into grass lawns in the United States. I also have to sharpen my machete everyday because I am working in the field on my project and the villagers always make fun of my if my machete is not sharp enough…. This is when I realized I starting to get jungle weird and I’ve been away from electricity and Internet too long and I come to the capital, Yaounde.

This week Peace Corps Cameroon is celebrating our 50^th year here in Cameroon and are having a huge ceremony to commemorate it. It is open to the public and the US ambassador will be there as well as Chantal Biya- the first lady! I am excited to present my work and be with all the other volunteers.

Right now in Messamena I am working on some large scale projects with UNICEF- Repairing a forage in one village, constructing desks for schools , putting together a parade for World Aids day and starting 5 pretty large school gardens. The school gardens are my main focus right now. I’ve always wanted to do a project like this but I always imagined it to be with inner city youth but here I am working with inner jungle youth. The project is really important though, because malnutrition is a big set back in the development of youth here. Most of their diets consists of carbs, such as rice, cassava and macabo with little to no proteins or greens. So, I got a grant from UNICEF to design this project and I am working close with the parents of the kids to do sessions on nutrition and work together to build these gardens. To do so, we had to clear through thick jungle brush in order to make room for the vegetables! I split my time up between 4 villages that I usually have to ride my bike 8-12 miles through jungle paths to get to then work out in the sun with my machete. The communities are really impressed to see my commitment so they themselves have put in a ton of effort to get this project going. At the end of each day my hands are bloody, scrapped and blistered and I’m completely exhausted, but I feel great! Its nice that my dog follows me everywhere. She usually runs about 20 feet behind my bike as a ride but one time she went running ahead of me and barking and I saw that she chased off a 4 foot viper snake that I would have come into contact with. Its nice to have here around but villages aren’t used to someone having  a domestic dog like that here so they laugh (and laugh about everything else I do)

The gardens are HUGE. Way bigger then I expected. I told the communities it was up to them what size they wanted to make it and I will try to supply the seeds for it. One of the gardens is about 400 feet by 600 feet! We are focusing on planting soy for protein and moringa trees for vitamins. Moringa is this miracle tree that when you eat the leaves it provides incredible amounts of vitamins and minerals and is used in many countries as a form of medication. I found a few seeds and divided them up for the gardens. We are also planting a variety of vegetables and greens… Green Pepper, Tomatoes, Lettuce, Basil, Onions, Celery, Carrots, Garlic and whatever other seeds I can get my hands on. I tried hard to avoid buying seeds distributed by Monsanto… but that wasn’t happening. Its cool to do this project- I am learning so much! It’s weird that I am doing a farming project in a small village when I’m a city guy who is used to going to clubs and dancing. Ha- it’s a nice break and change from that for a few months.

It’s an awesome experience working out in the jungle with people of the forest. I have learned so many things about traditional medicines and alternative forms of healing from the people in the communities I work in- there have been some really interesting home remedies that they use. Most of the remedies are in the form of a moonshine they drink and it’s a big part of their culture. I am constantly trying to avoid drinking it, but when local chief offer you a glass, its really disrespectful. So you drink it- even if it is 7 am. The villages have been really kind too- they know I came back to Cameroon to work after my mother passed away and they have all been really supportive. One village said they were going to dedicate the garden to my mom and another held a mass for her and they invited me- it was the first time I went to a service here and man, was it a hoot. There were drums made out of carved out logs paired up with non-stop singing and dancing. The service itself was in their local language and I couldn’t understand anything besides the fact they kept mentioning Barack Obama. It’s been really great to work closely with all the local chiefs in the villages and the parents of the students.

UNICEF has given me a ton of supplies to give to the schools I am working with- I am trying to split it up and not give everything out at once so once I week I’ll show up to the schools and if I see they are working towards making the classroom a priority- I’ll distribute some of the materials. I feel like I’m the Santa Clause of Messamena right now- I’m making it rain with gifts. While I don’t really like the idea of hand-outs as a form of development work, I have to say that if there wasn’t hand outs available to me in terms of scholarships for college, I never would be where I am today. So, I’m trying to give out these handouts in a sustainable way and teaching everyone how to save the materials to use again and profit from. Well see how that goes. It’s nice that I still have another year to follow these projects to see how they carry out.

So I got another year in the village. Village life is quite interesting- there is so much small talk and gossip, its really humorous. One time the police office invited me to the police station to have a beer with him because he is asking me to try to get him a computer from the states- word got out that I am trying to get people arrested because I am friends with police. Haha. When 4 beautiful Peace Corps volunteers came to visit me a few weeks ago word got out that they were all my wife’s so now all the guys think I’m a big pimp and are trying to get a piece my girls. Haha, oh small talk. I’m using it to promote my gardens in the villages and it’s actually working really well. The jungle is beautiful. I get to see crazy wildlife like toucans, strange birds, weird insect, snakes and endless varieties of plants and trees. Its really cool and I’m enjoying it a lot- until I get my ass back to San Francisco.                                                                                               

The Health Club at the High School I am working with for the World AIDS day Fair

The Green House- protected area for the new seeds in Messamena Village. Here inn the picture are the Chief of the village, the director of the school and president of the water committee.

Children planting Moringa seeds in Polipods so the are protected and will be later transplanted

Planting Soy in Blondjock

Planting Soy with Parents, Chiefs and Kids in Koum

Beginning of Garden in Blondjock

Planting soy in Koum the woman on the left is almost 80 and still working in the fields everyday and dances at church every Sunday

Students preparing the land for planting

The massive garden of Messamena Village

Students planting seeds in Messamena Village

Babysitting my neighbors cute and bad kids

Students clearing land in Messamena- check out those machetes

Parent teacher meetings in Messamena Village

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Saying Goodbye

August came and I was getting ready for my trip back to the United States- a trip that I had bought the ticket for in January. In March of this year I found out my mother was diagnosed with cancer. Unless something dramatically changed with her health, my trip was still in order for August to visit her. I had just completed a pretty intense bike trip thru the jungle as part of a Peace Corps collaboration project in which I had no cell phone service the entire time. We made it to the end of the trip, which left us at the Atlantic Ocean, on the beach. I was getting ready to go back to the capital to prepare for my trip home when I got a call from my sister- my mom was in the hospital again, but this time it was very serious and the doctors said she only had a few hours to live. The call hit me like a punch in the face and I couldn’t function. I called Peace Corps Administrator’s cell phones at 10pm on a Sunday night and they, as well as the other amazing volunteers I was with at the time, immediately started to help me get to Cleveland as fast as possible. I was sent home on an emergency leave that was covered in full by Peace Corps and had full support for the time off. Within 24 hours of that call I was out of the Cameroon and within 40 I was back in Cleveland. It was by far the longest 40 hours of my life as I was trying to beat the clock to have the chance to see my mom once again…. And on top of that my sister was going into labor with her first child. Luckily I made it. I walked into the ICU and saw what a toll the last year has had on my mother from when I left for the Peace Corps. She was weak, but really happy to see me. I did my best to hold back the tsunami of tears and return look of happiness to her.

       I spent the next 3 days up at the hospital visiting with my family and luckily she got to see her new grandson after he was born. It was so hard to see her this way in the hospital and she herself hated being seen this way. She was so weak but fighting so hard. On Friday we got the call that things once again took a turn for the worse. She had aspirated and was unconscious. At this point she had signed a DNR. My entire family rushed to the hospital and had to sit down with her doctor and hear the news that this was it.

      I’ve never seen anyone die, but seeing your mom die in your arms is really emotional. She was such a dear friend to me, she brought me so much happiness in my life that I am so grateful for. The next few days were a rollercoaster of emotions- I felt so guilty for not coming home sooner, I was so angry at the way she was treated by the medical professionals, I felt such sorrow for the pain she went through, I felt grief for the fact I’ll never be able to laugh and tell jokes or taste her lasagna again. As the days continued, I was happy for all great memories that I have shared with her. Her wake and funeral were really beautiful- just as she deserved. So many people came and it really warmed my heart to see how much love people had for her. My sisters and I did the eulogy and the whole service really helped me with the grieving process.

     As if the Peace Corps isn’t enough of a test of character, loosing your mother is by far the hardest thing I have ever had to come to terms with. I've learned to never take for granted the time you have with your loved ones. I wish I could have had another 10 or 20 years with her, she was only 62. But, she will stay alive and live on through her children who have all grown up to be such strong and bold individuals. She will always remain close to my heart. It has been a little over a month and I don’t think a day has gone by where I haven’t shed a few tears- I went through a whole pack of tissues just writing this post. But, life goes on. I’m so grateful for everything she has brought to my life and that I got to spend those last few days with her.

     I spent another month in the states and it was great to be there with my all my family and friends. I got to enjoy life in the states and make it out to California to see old friends and renew my love for San Francisco… coming back to Cameroon has been difficult as well as saying goodbye again to everyone. It was really nice to be greeted by my Peace Corps friends here when I arrived and my friend Joe  helped me get settled back in my house (which was taken over by spiders, mice, plants and I think a snake-but I haven’t found that yet) It is good to be back in Cameroon but hard to keep talking about loosing my mother. How am I? I’m as good as I can be, all things considered. It’s painful and difficult, but life goes on. I’m trying to stay positive- like my mom always told me to do.

 Rest in Peace Mom… I already miss you terribly

Walking my mom down the isle at my sister's wedding, Cleveland 2010

Taking my mom for a ride on my motorcycle, San Diego 2008

Our sense of humor- Xmas 2010

      

On The Go

Since my last post I have been to the extreme frontiers of this country in a whirlwind of travel- it has been amazing to see the diversity this country has to offer! .



Students and teachers in the program

  

Border Crossing into the Congo







 

One day I got the chance to walk along the border of the Congo and see the route the smugglers use to import and export goods in and out of Cameroon. For 20 cents I was able to take a boat across the river into the Congo to see the villages there. It was so cool to see that part of the country and work on the project.. it wasn’t all easy though. I had to deal with prostitutes literally throwing themselves at me, explaining to men that Im really NOT interested and that yes, it is illegal in the U.S. It also wasn’t easy not being in control of preparing my own food- in Messamena I have my own kitchen and get to control that… there in the jungle I didn’t have much choice but to eat what was served.. which was often porcupine, pangolin and other types of bushmeat- not always appetizing!





I’m happy to be back in Bertoua and head back to Messamena. 2 weeks left until I leave for Paris and the U.S… I can’t wait to see everyone!





Sitting in a Baobob Tree









Amanda's Community Soy Garden Project



My friends Chocolate farm



Housing in the North

Mogode

Rhumsiki

Water Source in Messamena

Top od Mount Ngaoundere



Waza National Park



Maroua Craft Market





Breaking it Down in Village while working with UNICEF

 

Baka Encampment

In Messamena before I left, I got the chance to invite the Ministry of Technology  of Cameroon to the projects I am working on to do an assessment  and give us the details of what is needed for the construction and repair of wells and forages in Messamena- After their visit I found out I am working on a $35,000USD project… it’s going to be a lot of work in the next year- hopefully I can manage to pull it off.

Training of Trainers in Bertoua

After leaving Messamena, I started to head north to visit some of the schools where UNICEF has built latrines and forages and took a few vacation days to visit and explore the north of Cameroon- it was AMAZING! The north is extremely different from anywhere else I’ve been so far! For one, the people in the north are SO calm and polite- I am used to the east were the average conversation includes at least 3 violent out lashes or harassing comments- in the north its totally tranquil. I got to stop at my friend Amanda’s post in Dir and see her awesome community soy garden, in Ngaoundere for a few days and hike to the top of Mt Ngaoundere, then to Garoua, then to visit  Sean’s post in Pitoua to walk through and old Baobab grove, up to Maroua, to Suzie’s Post in Magode, visit Rhumsiki and celebrate our friend Joe’s birthday over an amazing home cooked meal and watch the sunrise over the valley,  then to Tina’s post in Mokolo, Up to a safari in Waza to hang out with a bunch of giraffes, then down to Yaounde to celebrate the 4^th of July with other PCV’s then finally to Messamena. It was such an awesome trip and it was great to be able to see all my Peace Corps friends along the way. This whole experience has been such an adventure!



Traveling through the jungle on motorcycles





My bungalow where I stayed



Nguilili School, right in the jungle



Soon after (One day later) I was back in Bertoua to attend a teacher training program that I was contracted by Unicef to supervise. After the training I traveled with the teachers to Moloundo, the fartherst southeast corner of Cameroon on the border of the Congo. I was stationed there for 2 weeks to follow their program that Unicef is conducting. They created a summer session primary school for children aged 5 that couldn’t afford schooling to prepare them for the upcoming school year. The program is targeted primarily at the Baka pygmie tribes here in the region, a group of people who live deep in the jungle and are hunters and gatherers. They are a very vulnerable population as their land they inhabit is quickly being depleted by logging and being paid with liquor to cut down the forest which has been their home for centuries. The chance to be educated can help the Baka avoid being taken advantage of by these companies coming in and stripping their homes from valuable resources.





 

Congo



Baka Housing

The road to the bungalow where I stayed

It was so interesting to work in these conditions. This part of Cameroon holds the largest stretch of untouched rainforest outside of the Amazon. I was DEEP in the jungle and got to see so many different types of trees, plants, wildlife… and weird insects. Toucans, parrots and monkeys were a common sight as we traveled to the Baka encampments were clothing wasn’t really an option for these peoples as they do not follow a very capitalist lifestyle many of us are used to, their houses are made out of sticks and leaves and once they have lived of the fruits of the land, they move to their next encampment.  The Baka have an average height of 4.5ft and culturally sharpen their teeth to help them eat such types of bushmeat as, monkey, porcupine, gorilla, elephant and a few other animals not native to anywhere but here. I had the privilege to meet the chief of the baka tribes, who was smoking and interesting substance the entire conversation we had with him, to discuss t he importance of the program. I really couldn’t believe my eyes or ears most of the time- driving through the jungle on the back of a motorcycle and seeing valleys of small villages of mud huts, going to sleep with the howling of monkeys or the singing of the toucans, walking through swarms of vibrant butterflies and seeing the skulls of elephants scattered throughout.



  





 

One day I got the chance to walk along the border of the Congo and see the route the smugglers use to import and export goods in and out of Cameroon. For 20 cents I was able to take a boat across the river into the Congo to see the villages there. It was so cool to see that part of the country and work on the project.. it wasn’t all easy though. I had to deal with prostitutes literally throwing themselves at me, explaining to men that Im really NOT interested and that yes, it is illegal in the U.S. It also wasn’t easy not being in control of preparing my own food- in Messamena I have my own kitchen and get to control that… there in the jungle I didn’t have much choice but to eat what was served.. which was often porcupine, pangolin and other types of bushmeat- not always appetizing!





I’m happy to be back in Bertoua and head back to Messamena. 2 weeks left until I leave for Paris and the U.S… I can’t wait to see everyone!