Getting back into blogging…

Two months ago, on December 12, I arrived in Yaounde for the first time since swearing-in over a year before. Purpose:  my first vacation! Thanks to my very generous aunts, I got to spend the holidays in Belgium

While in Ngaoundere to take the train down, Meg and I got henna done. It was much better (and more expensive!) than the henna I had done for the fete of Ramadan but definitely worth every franc.

People in Yaounde apparently could tell that I was from the North, since this type of henna is a Northern tradition. When I was walking around Yaounde with some Volunteers, I heard someone yell out “Nassara!” amid a sea of people saying, “La blanche!”(The henna got smeared because we were in a rush to catch our train. The women at the henna place told me to walk barefoot since my flipflops would smear the design on top. Okay, sure. So, while I was walking barefoot to the transit house, people kept telling me “Madame! You’re not wearing shoes!” as if I was unaware of it.)

I happened to take the same flight with four other Volunteers, who were all going to the US after their layover in Brussels. Here are my three stage-mates, forming the letters “U.S.A.” with their hands, shortly before boarding the plane at the Yaounde airport

Basically, Europe was amazing. I got to see some family, eat a ton of food I haven’t eaten in 14 months (mushrooms! red bell peppers, blueberries, quality French fries!), and go to the Louvre! The reverse culture shock was really weird at times, but it hard to complain when I know that I am so lucky to have everything that I do.

Some noteworthy things:

• My aunt who picked me up from the airport was very apologetic for making me wait an hour. And then later, people seemed to think that 7 hours on a plane was a long time. I tried my best to explain that an hour was nothing and that 7 hours was the best part of my trip in comparison to 14 hours on a train or 8 hours on a crowded bus.
• Status: “I wish people would stop asking me me so many questions about what I want to eat and drink. I am really used to just having a Cameroonian woman putting a plate of couscous in front of me – without even asking me if I am hungry, because that’s irrelevant – and expecting me to eat every last bite.”
• While playing with my five year old cousin, she cut out little pictures of Christmas-y things and had me repeat them (not that I didn’t know the words. She just liked having me repeat things, like when we played with dolls). “Etoile.” “Etoile.” “Train.” “Train.” Whaaa? Is that a tickle in my throat? After 5 years of French, plus a semester in college, plus 14 months in Cameroon, I can finally sort of roll my r’s.
• My cousin also wanted to play “princess” with me and told me “Okay, in order to be a princess, you must…” and listed a few things. The first was “avoir confiance en soi!” (have self-confidence!) Wow, if only my Girls Club members could easily think and speak like that!
• When another five year old cousin was being fussy and refusing to eat his meal, my uncle tried to convince him to eat, saying, “In Cameroon, some children don’t have food.” And another time, “In Cameroon, some children don’t have water.” Oh, goodness.

I felt really refreshed and ready to go back to post. There were a ton of things I missed that I hadn’t expected to miss – like the sun and just hanging out outside. There were some days in Belgium when I was just inside all day, and I missed riding my bike and sitting on mats and eating couscous with my fingers.

When I got back to Cameroon, I had to spend another week in Yaounde for Mid-Service Conference – not exactly midway through out service, 13.5 months really. We had a  ’Best/Promising Practices’ session on Monday, and I then spent the next few days checking up with admin and going to the Medical Office and dentist. The dentist here was definitely… different than in the US but it wasn’t bad. The dental services are part of a Seventh Day Adventist church. There was some loud Christian music playing. My dental hygienist sang along while cleaning my teeth and asked me if I enjoyed the music as well.

I really just wanted to get out of Yaounde as soon as possible, since I had been away at post for almost five weeks.  I ended up making the trip up north “alone” (strange how we Volunteers use that to describe situations, when meant that we’re the only Volunteer around). I was pretty nervous, since I brought back a ton of stuff with me from Belgium. Tess, one of the other Health Volunteers, kindly came to the train station to help me get my stuff from the taxi to inside the train station.

Luckily, on the train, I met two nice Cameroonian women who were headed to work for a church in Maroua. They helped me buy my bus ticket to Maroua and also hire a porter when we got off the train since I had sooo much stuff. The train left just after 6 pm and arrived in Ngaoundere around 9:30 am. I got on the first bus that left 10 am, and I got into Maroua just 8 hours later, right when it was just getting dark. A moto driver tried to charge me five times the normal price to get to the transit house, since he assumed that I was a tourist with all of my stuff, but I just walked away and got another one in about 20 seconds. So, all in all, I was really glad that the journey was so smooth and that I managed to not have anything stolen  (The only thing that was different was that the price of the moto-taxi between Mora and Kolofata increased from 1500 CFA to 2000 CFA ($4). All of our gas comes from Nigeria, and since the government removed the oil subsidy, prices have gone up, which is yet another problem to add to the lives of people in my village. And, of course, there was a lot of talk about Boko Haram, but nothing happened in my village.)

Here’s a picture of my moto driver in front of my house, with all of my stuff – my Osprey backpack, my suitcase, and my smaller backpack. Normally, I try to leave Maroua in the morning. Since I had so stuff to take care of, though, I didn’t get in Mora until almost 6 pm, so I got dark during the journey.

Andddd here’s a picture of about 75% of the stuff I brought back. My two bags at the Brussels airport weighed a total of 45 kilos, which is almost as much as it was back when I first arrived in Cameroon for training.

Most of the stuff was FOOD – Vietnamese food, chocolate, candy, much-needed spices. I also brought back a ton of gifts (chocolate for other Volunteers, wine for Dr. Ellen and Myra, jewlery and photographs, toys, and books whatnot for my Cameroonian friends).  Last weekend, Martin in Mora had a housewarming party, and we made Vietnamese spring rolls and real brownies!

I felt conflicted about bringing back so much stuff with me. I came to Peace Corps expecting to live a simple life with few material possessions, but this does make up for how rarely I get care packages. And it’s great for my mental health, which, as Tess argues, will hopefully lead to more productivity at post.