Stranded in Cameroon

got back yesterday from my stay at the Keleng village chefferie. the village is very close to town ("en ville," in fact according to the chief), and is ironically closer to my homestay house in dschang than is the SIT office. thus, it wasn't so much of a rural stay, but it was interesting seeing a different style of life round these parts.
The chef/chief has two of his own wives, but inherited many others from his father (but i do not believe they are on the same level of intimacy as the two). I went along with Rachel, who was kept close because she is getting over typhoid fever. the chef is actually the coordinator for all the chefferie stays for us students. many children of all ages amongst us, but we each got our own room. the houses of the chef and wives were quite nice and we were allowed to use the chef's bathroom, which was tidy and had a toilette, but no running water. electricity was a yes as well.
got in thursday, but had nothing to do until dinner. we did chat with the chef a bit and did our introductions. each of the two wives cooks for him and their children, in two separate outdoors-ish kitchens. we ate heartily during the entire stay there. i also slept aplenty.
friday morning we went out to do some work in the fields with the chef, clearing old banana trees and debris to allow for new cultivation. i got to use the machete a bit, which was cool. not too much work friday, as we came in early to accept a visit from christianne (our academic director), who brought along the US SIT study abroad application coordinator for west africa, who was getting introduced to the program components in person. after they left, some nap time and down time. i did plenty of reading throughout the weekend. i played with the kids a bit too, and got to chat with the older ones.
saturday we spent in the fields a bit further from home, along with the daughters of one wife. they cultivated the whole thing - which is a process of bend over or on the knees chopping dirt forever. quite painful and tidious. i couldn't handle much of it myself, but rachel was active for most of the day, quite impressive. blisters on us both, however. after the work we came back to repose aka nap and sit around. dinner again came fairly late but was again filling and tasty.
sunday morning we leisured around a bit. i tried to help fix two separate computers - one of the chef's sons', which seemed hopeless and some mechanism issue, and the other of the neighbor of the chef, who also happens to be assistant director for SIT here, who had just got used computer from the US, but couldnt get it to operate in french. i was unsuccessful helping with each. the latter really made me think about the whole process of second hand stuff to africa - our old junk becomes their livelihood - which is also quite visible in clothing and cars. rachel said it well with the idea that there is no such consumer goods produced with the intent to sell to cameroonians, or for people of most developing nations for that matter.
we headed out late sunday morning, after which i spent the day at home in dschang with the family or chilling alone. the whole chef visit was great, being in a huge family, seeing kids playing and all and getting to know more people round our age. the wives and chef were really hospitable and open, so it was a great experience.
headed out to yaounde on wednesday morning to stay in a mission for a week and a half. ISP is around the corner, in the beginning of april, and i seem to be headed towards studying the idea of democracy in cameroon, as a foreign or naturally indigenous institution. i still gotta iron out details and my plan, and my subject may still change as i learn about different new things.
ive also been considering extending my stay as was planned. many students are heading out early, some others doing different things. the group most fitted to what i want to do is staying till the 31st, so that might be my plan. i need to get in touch with lyon travel today or tomorrow and settle it.
so all goes well. i'm missing american things or all varities, but hope that i will find more interesting stuff in yaounde, which has a totally different culture and is a huge city top explore.
just two more days

its been what i consider a normal week in dschang. had plenty of school work, but not excessive amounts. i spent the weekend planning for our development discussion about tribalism, interviewing folks about that and about ethnicity in general. i also skipped church and did laundry on sunday, which was tough but rewarding work. there was a tough power outage from mid saturday through mid sunday; poor lighting is annoying in the bathroom, and kills the tv-centered culture, but also i couldnt charge my cell phone or ipod. that kinda thing would be a problem in a tight situation, since i have no other means of communication. also no running water when there's no electricity, so we were running quite low on reserves until this morning. nothing especially interesting, though.
to correct a prior entry, the family's favorite show is in fact a comedy, not a soap opera, and its actually from burkina faso. there was another burina faso show on last night, so perhaps there is a decent afro-hollywood establishment round those parts. also some dubbed brazilian soap opera is often on everywhere here but i would really feel like i was wasting my time if i actually watched that while here.
what i have started doing is reading a lovely book i found in the SIT office - Star Wars: Tales from Jabba's Palace. I actually own it at home and i guess read it years ago, but its fun, and really takes me away entirely from the culture here. its a bizzare mental transition between that exotic space culture and this different kind of african life i am trying to lead. but i enjoy being able to do some fiction reading, at least.
upcoming: a new outfit, a bit more stylish, should be sweet. and after that, a rural bamileke village stay at unknown location from thursday through sunday. that will be interesting. but that also means i'll be out of computer range and possible cell range during that time. so wish me luck in that adventure. i'll give the full report for that in a week.

life goes on in dschang. i've had a fairly busy week, having to do my one-time report on the weekly news, amongst the typical french essays. also am co-leading a "development discussion" next week to be about tribalism. in general, more free time would help to get everything i need to get done, done.
a group dinner last night was fun. we bought and cooked our own for the first time here at the SIT office. spaghetti stir fry, guacomole, and chocolate chunk cookies were on the menu. i did what i could to help, including cutting onions and polishing off the extra food. quite good. i was also quite stuffed. group dynamic is feeling pretty good, but being the only guy is i think really going to be a marker of my experience, but i just have to deal with it.
we were encouraged today to make more community friends and connections, which can be hard with our tight schedule. of course the way things work in the area is that everyone recognives us, standing out as a pack of white students, while we are just trying to get by, walking fast to class or talking amongst ourselves, perhaps coming off as a bit rude. having extra time is really an issue though, since our curfew is 630 and my walk home takes half an hour. at best i get just 2 and a half hours (and perhaps lunchtime) any weekday to handle any shopping, internet, and any homework that i have to do outside of the house. then of course you dont want to shy away from any family time, which also discourages getting out on sundays. what time we have here doing anything is wonderful, but really exploring the community is hard with the restraints we have. i will try though...
planning on working in the family field tomorrow. they do potatoes, but on a very small next door plot. we'll see how i feel getting my hands (very) dirty for the first time. laundry is also needed, along with another pair of pants. i probably should have packed more of those, in retrospect.
trip to a rural village later next week should be very interesting, but i am looking forward to life in a chefferie. much more can be said about that once it happens.
note: the prior entries- the first was emailed before completion because of finger slippage. it took too long to get into the blog website, so i didnt get a chance to delete it. obviously, just bother reading the more recent one.
till next time...

Trip to Bamenda this past weekend was so much fun. The city is the largest in the anglophone province which is the area originally colonized by the brits, constituted by the two farthest west provinces. It was nice getting to speak english in public for a change, and I did a fair bit of shopping (I am finding this quite amusing right now, because i wrote an essay in french about pretty much the same things).
Anyways, we arrived friday morning. During our time there we stayed in a baptist mission which had hot, running water and delicious breakfasts. Again I was in with the Cameroonian staff men, but oh my lord, Gaston, driver guy, snored like a jet engine. I somehow survived and slept a bit. Food was good overall, and we got buffet style deliciousness at a restaurant for dinner both friday and saturday.
Friday included a lecture on HIV/AIDS, which is obviously fairly prominent here and also a trip to a traditional chiefdom, which was interesting. the architecture and furniture and all were quite unimpressive, but the culture was there with the chief and his actual administrative control over the large area.
Saturday, we got time during our "drop off" to explore the city and buy things. Bamenda is known for its fabric, so I got two pagnes (six yards) to have more things made. I did not buy any art or stuff yet, maybe regrettably, though I expect to find more in Yaounde or even in Dschang on market day. ME and the two girls I was with ate lunch at a hole in the wall place, which was tasty and dirt cheap (ie 1 dollar for all three). those places run some small health risk, but are the way people do it here. Saturday afternoon we heard from a group fighting for the creation of a separate anglophone cameroon state (southern cameroons). a big issue in cameroon is the political and population dominance of the francophone area over the oil-rich anglophones. This group considered it a colonisation of the region and are working through international orgs to remedy the issue. I think similar problems of minority non-representation can be found in many african states, stemming a lot from colonisation and the many ethnic groups which get boggled together. Their perspective on the matter was interesting and might be worth watching in the coming years.
Sunday we spent with John Fru Ndi, who is the leader of the largest national political opposition party, the Social Democratic Front. He was first to force Cameroon to allow multiple party elections and was robbed of the presidency in 1992. IT was truly an honor to be granted time with him. We went to his church in the morning. The building was really large, there was great music in the service, although the service lasted 3 hours. Fru Ndi's whole SDF posse was with him, as it was a big get together for many SDFers. He himself spoke a bit during the service, then later, mid-service they auctioned off plantane bunches to raise money, which was really curious. In the afternoon, we headed to Fru Ndi's compound in the city where there was a political rally, with a couple groups (including us) giving him "new ears wishes," as is common in cam official stuff. After that he fed us and we got a chance for some q and a with the man himself. that was very interesting, and i got my questions in too. by the time the day was finished it was too late to drive back, so we spent another night at a separate mission, then headed out this morning.
Bamenda was fun and is encouraged me to think about travel to another anglo african country sometime. The entire political experience we had was also really interesting, and could somehow fit into my ISP at the end of the program.
Now its back to Dschang and school for 9 days. and by the way, a girl got malaria, but its really nothing to fear - its normal business over here. im staying comfortably healthy myself so far, fortunately.

Trip to Bamenda this past weekend was so much fun. The city is the largest in the anglophone province which is the area originally colonized by the brits, constituted by the two farthest west provinces. It was nice getting to speak english in public for a change, and I did a fair bit of shopping (I am finding this quite amusing right now, because i wrote an essay in french about pretty much the same things).
Anyways, we arrived friday morning. During our time there we stayed in a baptist mission which had hot, running water and delicious breakfasts. Again I was in with the Cameroonian staff men, but h my lord, Gaston, driver guy, snored like a jet engine. I somehow survived and slept a bit. Food was good overall, and we got buffet style deliciousness at afor dinner both friday and saturday