Training comes to its end

(Editor's note: This entry written August 16th.)

Bangangté has offered me a wealth of experiences and has essentially introduced me to life in Cameroon. I only hope the knowledge I've gained here will help me once I get to my village. So far, I can say I have a limited base of French that I can build upon, some knowledge regarding Education in Cameroon, and a few aspects about the culture. Peace Corps, at one time, used to send volunteers to Cameroon, drop them off at their post and say, "Okay, here it is," and that was it. I suppose the idea of some cross cultural training came up not long after. Thank the "gods" because I may have seriously panicked if I would have been "tossed in the water" my first day. As it is, I'm still nervous about being a volunteer and I've been in Cameroon for nearly three months.

Tomorrow the trainees are heading to Yaoundé to set up some banking and essentially do all the necessaries that are involved for the end of training. We will travel back to Bangangté on Wednesday, have our swear-in ceremony on Friday, and head to our villages on Saturday. The ceremony should be interesting because all 36 trainees bought the same tissue to have outfits made out of. We'll all be dressed the same. Should make for interesting photos, I imagine. I'll be sure to share those with you eventually.

On August 23^rd I will toss all of my bags into a "trés grande" house, complete with a huge living room, kitchen, 3 bedrooms, two baths, and a functioning doorbell. (Not what I expected when I signed up for Peace Corps). However, I'll have plenty of space for visitors and dance parties.

Today, the trainees presented their cross-culture presentations. We were assigned a project to explore and we were supposed to give a fifteen minute presentation in French on the subject. My subject was "witchcraft in Cameroon," which amazed and frightened me at the same time. It's amazing the scale in which witchcraft apparently affects life here. Sometimes, AIDS, malaria, and all sorts of things is blamed on magic of some kind. I say witchcraft, but it's really a term that should be taken loosely because there are all sorts of magic that exists here. There's the evil kind, the kind that heals, and the kind that helps people with all sorts of other tasks. Keep in mind I'm just telling you what I learned in interviews. I haven't experienced anything first hand and I have no opinions on the matter. I was also told that people are believed to sacrifice family members to "get ahead" in business affairs. I hope I never find out whether this is actually true or not. This is just a small amount of the information I received. If you want more, e-mail me… I have to be careful what I write in a public blog.

Speaking of this being a public blog, my friends and family are telling me people actually read this, so now, I feel pressure to make it interesting. I do keep a journal that I write in just about every day and recently I wrote about an experience in the market place. It's not amazingly poetic but it's something to share:

"So, today I spent some time in the market and realized that just because I'm American, I may have not gotten the best bananas that a vendor had to offer. Because I don't know any better. It's true, I can't figure out what makes one banana better than the other and I don't think I have the guts to demand anything other than the bananas I'm given. I even heard the women tell the boy selling me, "She's an American." And he grabbed different bananas. Damn it. I've lived in America all my life and haven't learned the simple art of appreciating and learning fruit… and maybe vegetables too. Now that I'm in Africa, I see people collecting it from the trees and from the earth every day. I see people haul it to the market on huge wheelbarrows. So, I'm determined: if there's one thing I'm going to learn in Africa it's going to be the "art" of fruit. I'm going to learn which fruits are better than others and how to tell what's the tastiest just from looking at the outside. My host mom can do it. She can look at a pineapple and tell which one is sweet and which one is sour. Sadly, they all look the same to me. But one day, I'm going to get the best fruits that vendors have to offer. That way when I go to a grocery store in the states, I will know what's really behind the life of fruit. I won't ever take it for granted. At least I'll try my hardest not to. And in truth, I have a feeling that once I taste the fruit from the grocery store, I'll quickly realize that even the fruit meant for "the American" will probably have tasted better than anything I can toss in a bag at Wal Mart. Damn you, Wal Mart. I don't miss you. Not at all."