Life and AIDS Work in NorthWest Cameroon

Everyday People

   

Boy with chicken in wicker suitcase

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See the chicken?

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Jacob- the guy who has taught me the most about the local language of Kom.  He's very patient about explaining some of the unusual tones, like the swallowed nasal ihn sound, the aspriated breath used for emphasis, and contractions.

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Smart young girl, about to be trained as an peer educator in the UNICEF-sponsored training for out-of-school youth next week.

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Stylish young man in a soccer t-shirt in the Cameroonian colors.  With the furry purse, he's ready for the Paris runways.

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Even country women wear pants in Cameroon.  I love the cuffed galoshes, and I am not being sarcastic.  I wear my shiny yellow galoshes every time I slip down the red clay mud road into town. 

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Woman from the support group for caregivers of AIDS orphans

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Who said working in Africa is depressing?

Need your feedback on a fundraising idea

One common problem here is that people are too poor to pay for an AIDS test or treatment.  Although the cost of these tests and treatments are cheap by American standards ($4 for AIDS test, $6 per month for antiretroviral treatment), many farmers here earn very little and have large families to support.  Most families get less than a dollar a day for the mangos, corn, goats, they sell.

My idea is to sell napkins made out the fabulous African fabrics and greeting cards made by Sir Genius.  So my question is...

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How much would you pay for four napkins like this?  $5? $10?

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Market Outreach

Yesterday, we started a market outreach program in a new town.  We met with the mayor to introduce the idea during my first week, and for the last week, the market outreach volunteer, Eric has been securing the space getting the names of interested volunteers, gathering supplies, and begging for the $3 needed to pay for transportation, since we have not received UNICEF funding for the last 6 months.

When Eric arrived the promised stall had been given to someone else, he had to clear out the new space and sweep it out before he could hang up the posters.  But once he got out the microphone, he was able to lure in a large crowd, not just of youth who are the primary audience, but also many adults with questions and concerns.  Can you get AIDS from eating from the same spoon as an infected person?  Is it true that a man can prevent AIDS by practicing the withdrawal method?  One woman came for advice because she tested positive four years ago, has three children, but her husband refuses to get tested or to use protection.  A policeman came to say that condoms are causing sexual disorders and perpetuating AIDS.  Fidelity is the only answer, and these are the final days as predicted in the bible.  A boy came to ask what can he do to help with older brother who has AIDS but can not afford the $6 per month needed to pay for treatment.

Be sure to click on the second photo to se how the youth are responding to our AIDs prevention messages.

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Kittens!

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Last Saturday afternoon, there were some funny yowls coming from our lving room cabinet.  When we investigated, the cat Tiffy was giving birth to two little kittens.  This is her third pregnacy this year.  Last time she had five kittens.  So she seems to be taking a break from motherhood.  (It's hard to get the cat neutered here.  There a lot of doctors for humans around who are not willing to experiment on animals, and the vet in the nearest town apparently has a very dirty office and grungy equipment.)

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Training Dynamos

All this week, we all worked hard to plan a training for 50 women who lead local women's groups.  The topic was managing common childhood illnesses, including malaria, malnutrition, pneumonia, and HIV/AIDS.  There were many memorable moments.  Both the trainers and participants were lively and engaged: clapping, questioning, joking and throwing out big concepts and rich vocabularies.  Almost all women knew how to read and write, took copious notes, and were quite vocal and knowledgeable.  One even knew malaria was caused by the Anopheles mosquito, which she knew by name.

Photo 1: Local artist, Serginus, aptly pronounced "Sir Genius."  He is a shy young man who in addition to making incredible illustrations pof the various healthy and unhealthy behaviors, takes care of his sick, widowed mother and two younger siblings.

Photo 2:  Trainer par excellance and man about town, T Paul. 

Photos 3-6:  Members of the particating women's groups.  They had great names like "Bind Us Together," Love Ourselves,and Momora Farmers Union (an all woman group.)

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My Colleagues at Project Hope

Here are pictures of some of my coworkers at Project Hope.

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1. The Project Hope main office, a container,with a roof on top. we also have a youth and AV entertainment center in a different building on hospital grounds.

2.  Jean Bernard- Oversees the home based care program for people living with HIV/AIDS, which is currently serving about 150 people in this area.

3.Dr. Chris Nji, Project Director, with Sister Anastasia, Finance Manager

4.  Pamela, the Internet diva at the hospital's cyber cafe where I write this blog.

5.  F. Paul and Shannon- collaborating on Monitoring and Evaluation and writing up a curriculum about worms and other intestinal parasites

6. Shannon, Serginus, and T-Paul: developing materials for a training.

Death Celebration

FUNERALS: Not a Morbid Affair

In this area, funerals are called "death celebrations," an apt name because they are a big party, with masks, dancing, free beer and food for hundreds.  Here are some snapshots from one I attended on Sunday.  Because I am an outsider and a woman, most photos were taken by James, the young man with the red jersey, slouchy hat, and big grin  like the cool dude from Fat Albert.

Living in the Lap of Luxury

I am living on the hospital grounds in a house with a Swiss medical student, a Belgian nurse, and a little cat who is pregnant for the third time this year.  My accommodations are very nice.  it is a three bedroom flat with a very large living room, a back porch with a view of the surrounding mountains, a kitchen with a refrigerator, gas stove, running water that you can actually drink from the tap, and even a large collection of spices. My room is small but has everything you would need a full sized bed with a wool blanket for the cold nights, a chair, a nightstand, and a wardrobe.  A local woman stops by twice a week to do our laundry and clean house.

So I am definitely not having the typical Peace Corps experience which involves stumbling to the pit toilet in the dark, reading by lantern light, getting water from a well, then boiling it for five minutes before putting it through a filter that makes the water taste like clay.   But as they say, I "have been there and done that" and have no compunctions about the comforts I now enjoy.

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1. My house on a typical cloudy afternoon

2.  View from the back porch.  Is this Switzerland or Cameroon?

3.  My housemate, Barbara, a medical student from Switzerland, studying on our front porch

4.  Tiffy, the cat, very small and very pregnant

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5.  The living room, never a mess like at home.  Great not to have a mailbox filled with bills, catalogs, and junk mail.

6.  The kitchen.  Boring looking, but I have stove, fridge, and running water I can drink from the sink without filtering.  Luxuries I really appreciate.

First Impressions

s         Formal introduction to the second-class chief, a frail old man of 81, who hacks and coughs, wavers and wobbles, and wears a sweater with kittens embroidered all over it.  The second-class chief reports to the Fon, the traditional leader of the whole district.  He recounts the history of the hospital since 1928 and the accomplishments of the various matrons (The nuns in charge of running this hospital).  He is rebuilding his entire compound because he worries it might crumble after his death. He says today’s generation is lazy, and all the men do is drink. I tell him that many women and children here are actively engaged in the fight against AIDS , but that they can not succeed without the involvement and support of men.  He promises to ask all the town councilors to get a test to know their status at the next meeting.  Whether they will follow through is another story, but the fact that he has AIDS posters on his walls is encouraging sign that he is another ally in the long-term struggle.

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s      Ad-hoc encounter with American anthropologist and would be philanthropist An elderly lady showed up for an ad-hoc visit and promised to get us money, so we spent a frantic two days writing two draft proposals for her.  She also set us up to meet her “son,” the “Lord Mayor” of Belo, the next town over, a progressive man with a good reputation who agreed to set up a stand at the local market for youth outreach.

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s         Thick accents and the unfamiliar tones of Pidgin English.  “Cameroon has no soh-jahs.”   What??  There are "soldiers" at the entrance of every town, bringing up rope if they want a payment/bribe to enter the town. Aha, but what he meant was there are no “surgeons” in Cameroon.

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s         Clammy sheets.  Temperatures drop in the later afternoon.  Sheets and clothes are damp and cold from the rain.  Cold fingers and toes.  Drifting awake in the middle of the night to seek more blankets.  It's hard to believe that I am wearing a fleece jacket, layers, shoes and socks in Africa, in June no less!

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s         “Even the devil knows I am a winner.”   One of many rollicking, syncopated hymns from the service of the break-away Baptist church.  More on why they broke away, later.  Suffice it to say that misappropriation of funds not only happens in the government but also in the church.

Glimpses of Njinikom

PHOTO 1: Cornfields along the road to town

PHOTO 2:  "Downtown" Njinikom

PHOTO 3:  Baby from the orphanage.  If a baby's mother dies of HIV, the orphanage takes care of them until the child is weaned and then the child is returned to their extended family to be taken care of my an aunt or granmother or older sister.

My first day at work

After a relaxing weekend of going to market, checking out the Catholic youth service, and settling into my nice new apartment, I had my first day at work, which started off by, of all things, throwing up right in front of the office.  I had taken my malaria prophylaxis without eating breakfast, which made me nauseous.  Fortunately there was only a cup of coffee in my stomach, and I don't think anyone noticed.  But needless to say it was a surprising and humbling way to start the day.   

During my first two days at work, I have spent most of the time reading the binders left behind by the three previous former American volunteers and getting introduced to the local dignitaries.  This small little town has a mayor, a police chief, a sub commanding officer, and a representative of the Fon, the traditional community leader, all of whom expect a formal introduction.

I have also been meeting many of the 45 volunteers working at Project Hope, including three government appointed nurses working on antiretroviral compliance and home based care for AIDS patients, three young teachers working on youth outreach and other communications projects, a pharmacist overseeing 20 local health clinics that give AIDS test to all women coming in for prenatal care, and many others.  It seems like all the workers except for the two nuns in charge are men in their late twenties or early thirties, who in addition to volunteering for the project, have real jobs ( i.e. paid work) at the hospital or at the secondary school in town. 

The work days have been relatively short, from 7or 8am to 2 or 3pm, as is the typical Cameroonian schedule.  I am generally so exhausted from absorbing so much information that I need to take a nap before I can do anything else in the afternoon.  However, pretty soon they should have me working 12 hours days, if my experience will be like that other previous volunteers. 

Travel African Style

I traveled from Yaounde to Njinikom on Friday, arriving after dark after a very long day traveling.  I started at 7:30am at the Peace Corps headquarters in Yaounde.  They dropped me at the public bus station in some far flung red dirt neighborhood.  Some grungy but strong young men in dark shorts grabbed my two 50 pound suitcases, water filter, motorcycle helmet, and tossed it on top of an old rickety bus with bundles of leaves, rice bags, but no live animals.  Then we waited about 2 hours for the bus to fill up to overflowing.   In true African style I ended up sharing my fold down seat with a two other hefty, assertive women--one a flight attendant from KLM on the way to her home town for a family meeting. She sat with her pelvis on my left thigh and when she fell asleep her shoulder was under my chin.  On my right side was a young bureaucrat with gold rimmed shades.  He was so close I could feel him breathing against the entire length of my body.  Such physical intimacy with total strangers is quite an experience... interesting but uncomfortable.   Here are some photos to give you a flavor.

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Almost Paradise....

Greetings from Njinikom!

Njinikom, Cameroon is a spectacular little village up in the grassy highlands of northwest Cameroon.   When the clouds lift and the sun emerges, usually from 10am to 3pm, you can see miles of green rolling hills in every direction.  The tops of the hills are grasslands that the Fulani herders use for grazing their cattle, while the lower slopes are used to grow everything from coffee, corn, bananas, and peanuts usually all mixed together in the same field with avocado, orange, and manago trees sprinkled along the road.  Njinikom is as beautiful as a fairy tale, and the social life and culture seems to be as complex as a mysterious dream.   I encourage anyone who can afford it to come visit.

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