La Japonise!

Today, I had those favorite moments of mine where I felt like I was in a movie, and everything was absolutely surreal. After training, the two hosting PCVs took a few of us to the market. We walked approximately 10 minutes down the busy main street to get there. The market was amazingly exotic yet familiar all at the same time. The stands were located on mud grounds (red mud, by the way) and really closed to each other. The things what were sold are completely random but they reminded me of Taiwan. While we were walking down the main road, we walked by various food stands that were selling for the large number of cab drivers; the variety ranged from grilled corn to baked sweet potatoes (whole potatoes), to peanuts with shells (dad, you would love these). When I smelled that sweet potato, I felt like I was 10 years old again. I will have to buy one of those before too soon. It’s street food, but it can be peeled! Hurray!

The market was huge and it was really amazing. I got a piece of true life of the locals in this capital city. The size of this market was grand and there were stands in narrow alleyways on bumpy grounds. My friend referred to shopping at the market as an “adventure sport”. I was on a hunt for my first Kabba, a traditional dress that Cameroonian women wear. After trying on different ones and then haggling with the guy who sold them, I walked away with an ultra cute dress that cost 2,500 CFA (about $5). This was my first bargaining experience. I did fairly well considering, and especially in English. I think it also helped that my friend had also bought one from him while I was still deciding. Oh, the decision process was also hilarious in that 3 guys and only 1 girl were there to give me advice, making sure the Kabba was not only cute but meet Peace Corps non-risqué standards.

After spending nearly two hours at the market, we walked back to the PC office. The giant grey clouds started spitting some rain as we walked. The time was about 5:30pm and the traffic was even crazier then usual, with exhaust fumes looming the air. Just before we got to the office, the dark clouds couldn’t hold it anymore and began an unkind downpour. Luckily, we were near a small building with a shade, so we ducked under there. It was quite the scene seeing the locals ducking from rain, covering their heads, but all the while going on about their businesses. I stood underneath this awning with a good dozen or two Cameroonians, seeing the bustling traffic on the main road, and the lady next to me was sitting on a stool grilling corn for sale. The entire thing was surreal.

Oh, during our cross-culture training session today, we talked about how Cameroonians often call out to Americans, often by their color. La Blanche for the whites, La Chinoise for the Asians, and apparently the word for coconut for the African-Americans (brown in the outside, white in the inside). I hadn’t really notice the catcalls and remarks since I am not really paying attention or comprehending French that well. But today, my friend pointed out that someone just called me Japanese, so I began perking my ears, and sure enough, a while later, I heard someone calling me, “La Japonise!” It’s pretty hilarious that they didn’t follow the usual stereotype and instead calling me something I am not.

Steep Learning Curve

I wanted to write a bit about the training and how impressed I am with the Peace Corps, so far. This morning we received our language interview result. I was placed in Intermediate Low. The system is based on the ACTFL guidelines, splitting into four major groups: Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, and Superior. Within Novice, Intermediate and Advance, the levels are further broken into low, mid, and high. I was quite pleased with my placement. Trainees must reach the Intermediate Mid level for posts in Anglophone parts of the country and Intermediate High level for francophone posts. I absolutely want to have a francophone posts, and this means I only need to advance two more levels to meet the requirement. I have a feeling this language training will be so intense and amazing. We were issue FIVE French books today. I have never had five books for class of ANY kind. The language classes are broken into groups of 1-4 people. 1-4? There are 38 of us. That’s at least 10 groups; therefore 10 language trainers that Peace Corps had to hire. I am impressed on that measure alone.

After language, we had the first SED tech session. SED stands for Small Enterprise Development, the program that I was assigned as a volunteer. Like all other governmental agencies, there are so many acronyms in the Peace Corps world. I may type up a glossary for you frequent readers when I am really bored in the future. I am excited about all the things I will learn in my technical training sessions (27 in total!). The topic covered is really comprehensive, ranging from basic business principles in finance, marketing, accounting in the context of Cameroonian business culture, to the Peace Corps approach to development, microfinance organizations, etc. During training in Banganté, we will each be assigned to a local counterpart and have hands on experience in consulting a local business. So great!

Other aspects of training are more house-keeping related, covering many issues relating to healthy, safety, etc. Those are less exciting and something really common-sense. Tomorrow we head to our homestay families, and a new stage of adventure begins. My French is going to get SO GOOD. Imagine me 3 years from now in Paris, people will look at me funny because I will be this Asian person from the USA speaking Cameroonian French. Sweetness.

Welcome to Africa!

This morning, I woke up in the middle of the night at 3:30am and could not fall asleep for the life of me. Usually, I am not the type to lose sleep or have insomnia. Perhaps it’s the malaria meds, but I felt horribly uncomfortable and craved a shower. The malaria meds haven’t given me wildly weird dreams or make me hallucinate, yet. Though one of the side effects is difficulty sleeping, hopefully it won’t persist. Anyhow, I rolled out of the bed at 6:30am eager for a shower before first day of training. Of course, as fate would have it, I didn’t have much water. The water that did come out of the faucet contained disgusting orange-brownish looking… things. I noticed that it was coming from the showerhead, which seemed to have rusted and contributed to the grossness. I gave up on the idea of shower, dried my body and off I went. For the first day, I looked fantastically awful and of course dozens of group pictures were taken. Blast!

I was irritated for a total of five minutes, whereas back in the USA, something like that would’ve sufficiently ruined my entire day. There was a distinct moment where I made the choice to laugh it off and made it the welcome gift Africa gave me. That’s not bad; she could’ve given me a big old rat or other worse things.

In other news, yesterday we had a few hours to wander the street of the city. I said street because a group of us literally walked half mile one direction on the road that the hotel is situated and turned around when we hit the stadium. That bit of walk was plenty for one day. It was a lot to take in, even though it was a Sunday and the city was relatively dead. We walked by different tiny street vendors selling a variety of things. There were many men that would carry a medium size box on their head, full of random items for sell. Beyond that, many others carried different things without using an arm to balance. The whole image reminded me when my mom attempted to teach me “proper posture” and said I will have reached such state only when I can walk a straight line with a book on my head. I am amazed not only at the impeccable posture, but also the great efficiency that comes with using one’s head to carry things rather than arms. That’s fantastic!





Last night, the trainees were invited for dinner at the Peace Corps Country Director’s residence; among others, we met the current U.S. Ambassador to Cameroon. The house was grand, thanks to our U.S. tax dollars. The backyard was set up for dining and we had a garden party styled cocktail hour prior to dining. It was like any garden party that may take place in the U.S.; except there were swamps of bats flying over our heads and well, we were in Cameroon. The food was delicious! I can’t quite accurately identify all the food items, but I know they were GOOD. I so will not starve here. That jar of peanut butter I had to leave behind is not missed.



Jump back to today’s training. We had the typical welcome/introduction speech, received our gigantic medial kit, and had a French interview to determine what level of language group to be placed. I chatted for 20 minutes with one of the Cameroonian language trainers about various things. The conversation ranged from weather, family, area of studies to differences between economics and finance, how they impact development, then which I think is more important to development: economics or politic. It got to a clear point where I could not keep going with my limited vocabulary, then we returned to the more basic conversation of what I did and what I will be doing in the coming days. I think it went pretty well considering. As much as I may have complained about M. Pautrot’s class last semester, I am now grateful that he was so French. :)

Alright, enough updates for now. More to come, I am sure. Thursday, we will be moving to our home-stay families. So far, I’ve had fairly regular Internet access, although the quality is certainly sub par. I’ve been getting so frustrated that I simply had to log off the computer. All you people living in the industrialized countries – cherish your broadband and wireless Internet.

First Day!

After more than 24 hours of travel, all 38 of us arrived to Cameroon safe and sound, as did ALL of our luggage. Now, that is a miracle in and of itself. The journey was quite long, but I slept through nearly all of it. When we arrived to the airport, PC Cameroon staffs welcomed us and took care of many logistics, then we were loaded on this gigantic bus on our way to the hotel.

The sun had set when we finally left the airport, so I wasn’t able to see a lot on the 45 min. ride to the hotel. Even so, I extracted bits and pieces of pictures among the darkness. The street was narrow with only two lanes; one going each direction. What I saw reminded me of rural Taiwan. The houses were typical for most warm climate cultures. The stands that people set up to sell various things from coffee to handbags reminded me of my aunt who sells food in stands on the side of the road for tourists. I look forward to seeing more of the city tomorrow when the sun is out!

The hotel is quite nice considering. Compare to the US standards, this would probably equate to a Motel 8 or the like. But I am impressed that the establishment has an elevator, water heater, electricity and window air conditioner unit in all rooms. Not bad at all.

We were briefly introduced to all the technical trainers for different sectors, language trainers and other staffs. They were all Cameroonians welcoming us with great enthusiasm! I can’t wait for the training to begin! For now, I will catch up on beauty sleep. Bonne nuit!

The Malaria Diet

Our time in Philly is wrapping up! Tomorrow morning, we all go to the clinic to get shots and then off to the airport for a very long journey to Cameroon. We’ll fly 7ish hours to Paris, 8ish hours to Douala, then another 50 min. to the capital. It sounds bad, but not as bad as 14ish hours of direct flight from LA to Taipei. When a 14-hour flight like that is your first flying experience ever, all subsequent flights seem pretty easy. I should be okay. I have a couple of books ready to go and lots of podcasts loaded on my iPod. I love flying, but I don’t want to rub it in when all the others are dreading the long journey.

In less than 36 hours, I’ve bonded with a new set of family. Our group consists of 36 great individuals from across the US; approximately half in education and the other in business. Already, I have discovered different personalities and quirks. These next three months will be very interesting!

Today, our training consisted a lot of safety and health issues. Among the volunteers, many conversations took place about things that we are worried about. I, apparently am very naïve, and hadn’t thought about half of the things people discussed. These issues range from, “I wonder if we have to start a fire” to other things having to do sickness cause from water and food, etc. There were many moments tonight where I thought, “wow, I really didn’t think of that.” But a part of me think that naiveté had saved me because there really wasn’t a darn think I could’ve done to better prepare myself. My mentality was always, “if people with nothing can live through war and crazy things, I’ll be fine.”

Funny side story: Some girl was telling a story of a person who had gotten malaria many years ago and had lost a ton of weight, but has never been able to regain the weight since. So I said, “that sounds fantastic, maybe I should get malaria.” With that comment, I am now the girl who wants the “malaria diet”. My friend said, “we’ll go visit you in the hospital with flowers and say, ‘Wendy, you look so great! Malaria really worked for you.’”