Mi Wari, Mi Lari, Mi Dili: I Came, I Saw, I Left

One week. One week was what they gave us to stuff a few bags full of our chosen belongings, dispose of our household contents and leases, dissolve all utility and banking accounts, finish our projects--or not finish--and quietly say goodbye to our colleagues, friends, neighbors, pets, and the communities that we had come to call home, all before being required to position ourselves like sardines into a laughably brimming, shoddy passenger bus, ready to part after the first and very early morning Call to Prayer. This was our disappearing act. 

A short two months prior, thirty Peace Corps Volunteers dispersed throughout Cameroon’s Extreme North Region heard devastating news. The news came slowly to the region through spotty mobile phone service and the local grapevine. A French family of seven, four being young children, had been kidnapped from the country’s principal tourist attraction, Waza National Park--just seventy-five miles from me--and taken on the backs of motorbikes into an unforgiving, dry-season Sahelian landscape (i.e., one-hundred twenty degree weather, bleak sand, and dried up riverbeds). In Cameroon?! This couldn't be right.  

The father, a French gas company employee, and his family, all Cameroonian residents on vacation, were taken by Boko Haram, a radical Nigerian-based and al-Qaeda-linked terrorist organization. Boko Haram, which translates to “western education is sinful,” has been fighting for an independent Islamic state in Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim-dominant north for the last decade. They are responsible for thousands of deaths in Nigeria--mostly civilians, Muslims and Christians alike.  

Soon after, the surrounding Peace Corps Volunteers were consolidated into a safe house with armed guards within my own town, the region's most central and safest city. Headquarters issued a nightly curfew. I was given permission to stay in my own house, without armed guards, not far from the transit house. That concession was a honey-infused blessing, as it kept me from sleeping on communal sweat and dirt-soaked foam mattresses under pelt-happy (but beautiful) Neem trees, and from having to use intermittent plumbing and water with nearly twenty irregularly washed volunteers during hot season.  

The curfews, the armed guards, the continuous checking over my shoulder, and two waves of volunteers’ posts closings (more remote villages closer to the unclear and porous Nigerian and Chadian borders) created an incredible sense of insecurity, in and outside of work life. There was a slow but very present creeping feeling, but, deep down, I knew that my post would not be closed. I was safe. The remaining Extreme North volunteers were no longer being consolidated. Sporadic violence around the borders continued and our approved work territory was continually restricted, but we were still living and working “as normal." Weeks turned into months, and we all began functioning with a freshly developed, heightened internal alarm system. Our new standard of living. 

I was shopping for new pagne (patterned and colorful fabric used in most traditional Cameroonian wear), when my program manager called my burner phone. There was news from the U.S. Embassy. Peace Corps in the Extreme North region was being indefinitely closed. They were pulling us out. I should have seen it coming, but I had finally allowed myself to believe everyone else was exaggerating and I would not be going anywhere. I had been getting back into a routine. Then, poof. Not just the rest of my service but fifty years of Peace Corps work, integration, trust, and relationship building in a high-need area was immediately terminated. Done. And all because of encroaching ignorance onto a peaceful, yet bleeding land. A waking nightmare. Hate and fear were on the move. So easily, a hungry and hopeless person can adopt the extreme perspectives of radicalism. 

That funereal week was a wild blur with a few faint memories of frantically trying to find different owners (who may not want to eat) a batch of kittens, painting a big map of the world on the outside wall of my house for the neighborhood kids, and putting on a “yard sale” (which turned out to be strangely similar to any of our childhood garage sales where my Dad's terrible sales pitches and his “take-what-you-can-carry-and-give-me-a-peso-for-it" attitude reigned).  Bureaucratic necessities were finalized, but little closure came from that week. On my last day, minutes after I had handed the keys back to my landlord and for the first time in many months, a dark sky spat out angry hail and rain. It was cold and eerie; a perfectly-timed surrogate weep. 

With only two more months remaining in my service, it was decided that little fruition would come from placing me in a new post. I spent the remainder of my time as a vagabond volunteer visiting friends, helping with a few projects, and simply trying to embrace my little time left with Cameroon. It was wonderful and wearing. Then, after a handshake and a small souvenir pin, I was put onto a plane and flown home. 

That was it. A quick, two-year flash. La fin. 

It has now been nearly six months since I returned to envied American soil--when I, freshly-off the plane, thought how the town of Kenner, a very uninspiring concrete-sprawled suburb housing New Orleans’ airport, looked so beautiful, when I, with little grace, rolled out the bed of a pickup truck to surprise my uniformed sister on her twenty-fifth birthday, and when I met all four of my nieces and nephew for the first time ever. It took me only two and a half weeks to get back into flushing just-containing-urine toilets. I embraced my native land with a vengeance--all the hot water, all the food, all the new babies, all the magical sidewalks and superb conveniences. I even forwent my last assessment to becoming an officer in the State Department's Foreign Service, deciding that I wanted to be here, at least semi-stationary, for the next little bit. My younger brothers’ voices have changed, I have nieces and nephews that call me “Biff,” and after a hefty amount of bonding time, my family is surprisingly not completely ready for me to leave again. It is good to be home, in the land of plenty. Cameroon is, again, a hazy world away.

But, that is not true. Life in Cameroon continues--grave inequalities, hunger and disease, kidnappings, births, deaths, and celebrations.  I am not able to block it, not able to forget. 

Often, I have sat down to write my last “Elizabeth Goes to Cameroon” installment, but every time, I have been unable and left staring at blank paper (likely distracted and foiled by Netflix or happy hours). It seems only fair that I would attempt to write something as profound and eye-opening as my experience, something worthy of my gratitude for Cameroon and the Peace Corps. A great ode or ballad. But for the moment, I am resigned to leave it here. Perhaps when I hit seventy, I will be more eloquent.  I didn't feel I had enough good-bye time when I left my Cameroonian home, but that wound slowly heals, as I realize I am not closing a simple, adventure chapter in my own life book. My Cameroonian experiences, education, and friendships will remain with me in some form throughout my life. I was allowed an intimate look into her own trials, sorrows, and triumphs, her own similarities and uniquities; things that will continually help build and construct me--a better me. One day, I hope to see that beautiful place with its beautiful people again.

Thank you, Cameroon. Thank you, Peace Corps. Thank you, Peace Corps Family. Thank you, U.S. Government*. On est ensemble. Grand merci. Useko djur. 


Title: Mi wari, mi lari, mi dili (Fulfude, the most common local language of the Cameroonian North: I came, I saw, I left) 

* Post Script: Because it would be unheard of me to write a blog without a grievance…the U.S. Peace Corps, a government institution, gives its Returned Peace Corps Volunteers--after they have done two years of diplomacy and development work in harsh conditions and usually had multiple run-ins with tropical diseases such as malaria, typhoid fever, dysentery, tuberculosis...--a cute, little re-adjustment allowance and one month of health care. One month of health care. That's unacceptable. Let's do better.) 

Here's to wild and wonderful adventures in 2014!

 Some of my neighborhood rascals; I graffiti-ed the front of my house right before peace-ing out.  (Maroua)

 My next door neighbor, Grand-mere, and her goats. The matriarch of the neighborhood; don't cross her, kids. (Maroua)

 The Extreme North Exodus: Collection & Removal (Kaele)

Extremers for Life: John Jack, Earl, and I in our matching pagne at our training group's closing dinner (photo compliments: Jack Gaines)

All the Same, All the Different

Month 3: Swearing-in Day as Peace Corps Volunteers, so fresh.

Month 23: Close of Service Conference, in perfect Cameroonian fashion, there will be no smiles. 

Today, we had news that the French family of seven who were kidnapped in Cameroon several hours north of me two months ago by Boko Haram were released.  Incredibly happy to hear.  A huge weight lifted.  Alhamdulilah.

The Others

They hadn’t closed the gates on us.  Relief came with a bit of guilt for hurrying Earl’s last several inches of beer at the nearby bar.  We had at least fifteen minutes to spare and found Car 582, room A1 easily.  This part of my regular 25 hour trip from the capital city to my home is the highlight, a tasty piece of cake.  On a good voyage, the overnight train barreling us north towards our posts, away from the green, lush South and usually keeping herself on the tracks, only takes about 14 hours.  I was curious to see who they were going to bunk with us since we had insisted on being placed in the same sleeping compartment and, therefore, were mixing the sexes – something for which the ticket lady was unabashed in showing her contempt.  How indecent.  I never mind sharing the tiny two bunk bed cell with Cameroonians - male or female.  Typically, bunk-mates, love to share food and conversation and go to bed early – never seeming annoyed if the lights stay on past their early 8PM sleep check-outs.  Even the children and babies are well behaved.  My guess is drugging.

Two pale-skinned, pepper-haired Italian Jesuit priests.  Hmm.

Jesuits -- I could handle these guys, with their familiar pocket protectors, little luggage, and round bellies (like PCVs, they live relatively pampered but simple lives).  Having grown up with Jesuits, who typically in this day in age focus on education, an improvement, I feel akin.  Conversation would be easy - even in French, neither of our mother tongues.  Could even prove fun.

“My uncle’s a Jesuit,” I say after a few pleasantries.

“Ahh.”

“So, you must be excited the new pope is Jesuit.”  Light chuckles.

I try again, “Well, it’s nice to finally have a pope from the Americas.”  

More light chuckles, “His parents were Italian.”  

These old farts were way tougher than I had thought.  Luckily not too much more conversation had to be forced – bananas and avocados, delicacies in my town, were being sold out of the window at the next stop giving me an easy escape.  We kept the rest of the evening light.  I think I ended with a Buonanotte.

***

For some reason, I never know quite how to react when I see other foreigners in Cameroon.  Do I make eye contact or say hello if I wouldn’t normally?  (Of course in the above instance, I would.  I haven’t forgotten all of my manners.)  Because isn’t that sort of racist?  It’s not like we have anything necessarily in common.  Neither of us are wearing identifying Saints' jerseys or American flag insignia.  All I know is that we sort of share the same color skin and what does that mean?  Sometimes as a pastime, especially in bigger cities where NGOs and missionaries are plentiful, other “whites” unknowingly become part of volunteers’ slightly altered version of the “Punch Bug” game, and then internally or externally, we find ourselves asking “Who are they?  What are they doing here?”  I have this natural inclination to separate myself from these “others” – these étrangers - fearing I will be lumped with them.   I’m here living and working in a non-bubbled community.  I’m not a missionary, I’m not here with some ulterior motive, I’m not here to bring light to the darkness.  I desperately don’t want to fall into that blanketed, but still existing neocolonialist movement.  I so want to believe that, and I want my Cameroonian counterparts to believe that.  

I realize my initial aversions, or perhaps, hesitations, to being around other foreigners are fairly irrational and unwarranted, but there you have it, they exist.  Maybe it’s because we never share our motivations for being here – not typically a first round topic – and I guess I am not totally comfortable with everyone’s motivations for being here.  Or maybe it’s international development, something I am a part, that I’m not totally comfortable.

During the last two years of Cameroonian living, Peace Corps has, on a much more intimate level, introduced me to this giant world of “international development”.  Even if it’s still only a glimpse, I believe I have learned heaps, and even with its frustrations and major imperfections, it is a road upon which I think I would like to continue, at least in some sort of capacity.  A fellow Peace Corps Volunteer recently asked if he could film me saying two or three sentences about development for a documentary.  Two or three sentences?  I had no idea what to say.  What did he mean two or three sentences about development?  Was he trying to be purposefully broad in order to illicit some massive variation of responses?  Must be some sort of trap. "Sure. Let me think on it."  I evaded.

The term "development" is tricky to me, finding it ill-used and to be demeaning at times (even if unintentional).  Habitually begun with good aims, international development (not humanitarian aid - short-term emergency fixes), is often accompanied by major waste and corruption.  Of course, “good” can and does come from it, but the idea of development is not so clean cut as it is frequently portrayed in the self-proclaimed developed world.  There is no clear path, no easy way to create equality (if that indeed is the objective), no easy way to fix colonialism.  “Developers” come in all shapes and forms - sometimes coming in very humbly and sometimes coming in on their high horses and all with different reasons.  Peace Corps is a part of that.  Possibly, it is not as effective or not as ineffective as I would like to imagine, but if individual growth is the goal (communities don't grow until their members have), than it seems that what the best volunteers and aid organizations, including Peace Corps, are doing is simply exchanging ideas and information, to be used if desired.  They are optional catalysts.  And that is something with which I am comfortable.  The most helpful aren’t blindly giving out money, donating buildings, or handing out canvas shoes – because those things rarely last.  That's not creating.  Change can't be forced upon a group uninterested in that change.  No person can be told what his or her priorities are.

(Although intertwined, if you are interested in seeing quicker "development," look to commerce and technology -- depending on the country's governing body.  International development, in the above mentioned manner, although much slower is still, certainly, more than necessary.  Both cell phones and AIDS currently have amazing multiplying rates.)

 A few of my cute neighborhood hooligans. Beware.

 Easter morning breakfast: Spaghetti omelettes and giant carrots.  Not too shabby.

Hanging out a reserve outside of Yaounde.  These chimps went inside because of the storm.  We didn't have the same convenience.

The Clock is Ticking...

Five months.  Five months at the most.  All that is left of what has sometimes felt like being stuck in a desert prison, a self-induced exile, and at other times felt like winning the lottery and living in some tropical paradise, a perfect little arrangement, is five months.  As the kids would say, “that shit cray.”  Like the gifts of that fast swinging pendulum of a ship ride at the state fair, which is well targeted at us crazy stay-close-to-the-earth thrill seeking types, I am left with some majorly strong and mixed feelings about my remaining time – excitement, fear, and vomit-producing nausea – although the latter is less heavy on the fried pickle and funnel cake aftertaste.  The angst that accompanies the much too accelerated and deafening tick-tocking with its impolite hot-breath "Winter is Coming" whispers is not all that cool.  I am actually a little frightened that if I blink too long, summer will already be upon us.  Minus a few days/weeks here and there, my last twenty-two months in Cameroon so quickly slipped away and abandoned me without even the tiniest of goodbyes.  Rude.  

Thus, that annoying look-back process has slowly begun, and I am left realizing how little I have accomplished of what I wanted to do.  Bucket loads of coulda, shoulda, woulda’s.  I am not ready for this little chapter of my life to end – so much more to do!  I am still having plenty of those moments when I find myself with a surprise unprompted grin and am telling myself “Hey, you get to live here, for free, and it’s awesome.”  (Yes, I say that silently.  Well, sometimes.  Ok, fine, sometimes, I accidentally say it aloud, but to myself -- which those occasions then, after I (or a child) catch myself, serve as little memory triggers to a past life when I would witness my mom having similar under-the-breath senile self-conversations as she would drive through town in The Battle Wagon (our faux wood paneled station wagon with back lookout seat) or The Gladiator (our awesome TV equipped, backseat-to bed converter full-sized van which would sadly later be made into a vancake) and I  would think, “Hmm, my mother might be a crazy.”)  Then again, I will probably be ready for this little part of my life to end – so many things waiting for my American re-incarnation.  Four of my four new and only nieces and nephew, who have yet to meet who will undoubtedly be their favorite aunt, are in great need of my presence.  Siblings speak of new design, writing, and furniture projects!  And ponies! There will surely be lots and lots of ponies and rainbows and butterflies and Mexican food!  I say hallelujah.  (As a mental-safety exercise, I must think of all these magical things that await me in the homeland in order to help outweigh the bad thoughts about the income-less, vehicle-less, homeless, healthcare-less life that also waits for me.)

Remembering as well that my Peace Corps departure is mostly inevitable and also because too much heavy contemplation takes its toll -- typically keeping that type of thinking limited to several minutes a day, I try to think and focus on other simpler things, like what am I going to eat next or the silliness of "reintegrating" into American society.  "Peace Corps Goggles" – that is what “they” say we get here.  We start seeing things through a different lens, at times making things a little hazy and bestowing us with new, non-back-home standards.  To give a few small examples, combining Laughing Cow cheese, tomato paste, and baguette together really does not taste like pizza.  It is actually kind of unappetizing.  Or leaving a load of dirty clothes in soapy water for hours and then dunking that into non-soapy water does not constitute washing.  After looking into the small, shallow pot of PCVs, and to be perfectly shallow, a volunteer who might have been a 5 on the good-looks scale previously can get promoted fairly easily to an 8.  Like most volunteers, in addition to having some blurred sensibilities (for the record, I scrub my laundry and consider all volunteers to be around a 7.3), I have picked up some different habits, which would be fine if I could remember if they were acceptable back home or not.  I know there are plenty of things that must be left behind, including the less than endearing behaviors such as hissing for a person’s attention, yelling for service at a bar or restaurant, doing the finger wag in someone’s face (I really like that one), “beeping” someone to call you back when you don’t want to use your own phone credit, or having a small child go do pretty much any errand.  (Truth be told, I am going to continue doing that last one.)  But then there are other things, the things that I have been racking my little brain to remember if they are America-acceptable.  After it becoming so normal to be piled on top of one another in a car or bus while exchanging sweat, phone numbers, and human shoulder pillows, can I touch another human when riding next to them in a car or subway? Like not major touching, but if our arms graze or I rest my leg gingerly next to someone else’s, will they do that uncomfortable but polite removal? I can’t remember!  And how often am I supposed to shower?  Toothpick teeth-picking? Wearing moomoo’s in public? Haggling at farmers’ markets? How much can I eat with my hands?  How much is too much mayonnaise? Are napkins really that necessary?

I actually suspect rejoining won’t be all that hard for the most part.  I guess if anything, I have learned pretty well to be and to be comfortable with being the odd-(wo)man out.  Plus, when I commence my new life as an itinerant couch monger, I feel confident that all my flaws will be called out pretty quickly – maybe slightly more tactfully than how Cameroonians like to do - and I will chameleon right back.  But I will offer a warning, if I was thought to have been slightly hippie-esque or too much like my penny-pinching Great Depression grandma before this…it might have gotten worse.  Also, I know now that I want to own a small farm-type place with lots of animals, plots of fresh grown food, have a barn workshop where I can do lots of money making do-it-yourself projects, and live happily ever after.  Or I shall own a tiny adorable camper that sets up in a different driveway every month.  Either option seems pretty plausible for my re-American life, right?  Agreed.  Until then though, I'll be busy carpe diem'ing in Cameroon.

 Maroua, Extreme-North, Cameroon

Spiced Mangoes, Maroua, Extreme-North, Cameroon

A Tale of Tears

I wanted to blame it on the episode of “Downton Abby” - an episode that wouldn’t reach U.S. airwaves for months.*  It was heart wrenching.  A death in the family.  But maybe it was because my emotions had just been given a steroid shot, or more likely, it was the impending holidays and being far away from family for a second year in a row.  Maybe it was an approaching monthly visit from Aunt Flo, whose stopovers can sometimes create an allergic reaction in me with side effects akin to werewolf transformation at the slightest peek of a full moon.  Maybe it was the freshly received news of the mass shooting and killing of so many children in New Jersey.  Or maybe it was the eighteen months of Cameroon living, but for whatever reason/s, as I sat in my apartment watching, something went off in the deep, dark recesses of my brain, and I became a blubbering mess.  There came this unstoppable torrential tear downpour.  I felt so embarrassed - despite there being no one around to bear witness.

Strangely though, in that sick sadistic way in which I like to poke at my own bruises, it felt sort of okay.  I needed it, with its Drano-like effects helping to flush some of the sad and grit of the last while out of my brain.  It was something I had not done for so long.  Even though I like to pretend I’m some sort of amateur stoic, I’ve never been very good at saying “no” to donating a few daily tears for a sappy TV commercial or some cheesy, emotional firework-igniting song.  Those prevalent moments, which are like seeing the little red Salvation Army bucket swinging in rhythm to the good doer’s hand bell, are amazing compellers for making me contribute something.  Yet from almost the first day arriving in this country, my ability to feel strong emotions seemed to drain from me and my impressive self-regenerating tears went on sabbatical – forcing the realization of owning lazy tear ducts.  They didn’t want to have to work overtime and preferred sitting comfortably numb.

Despite the fact that most days, especially as my time here quickly fades away, I appreciate and love Cameroon more and more - the beautiful aspects of its people, its culture, its food, its majestic landscapes, it doesn't cover up the surrounding and all too-normal sadness which is so annoyingly present.  I walk out of my house and a group of Muslim men, sitting together on a mat, some with hands extended towards the heavens, pray for the small neighborhood girl who has died of Typhoid.  They will do this for days.  I go out on a run and see the same – this time, maybe someone’s mother.  I take a ride on a bus and pass yet another terrible car accident.  Death is a constant.  I shoo away the small begging boys with their metal bowls from morning to night.  I say “non merci” to the children forced to sell boiled eggs or tissues and cigarettes into the wee hours of the morning.  I avoid eye contact and walk around the ancient lady who lies next to her alms bowl.  I watch my neighborhood kids in their dirty clothes and ashy skin hanging out on our street, doing nothing, unable to afford school, and the women who sit with them frying their beignets – realizing how rarely they are even allowed to leave the quartier.  It is five o’clock in the afternoon and my friend reveals she hasn’t eaten today so doesn’t have the energy to go for a walk.  I wouldn't have enough tears even if I wanted to cry, and what would they help anyway? Cameroon with its never-ending bouts of sickness, corruption, and frustrations bestows on her people something of a seemingly impregnable challenge, and leaving me feeling that I’m only playing the silly role of eye-witness and pondering the “why” question-- not towards the identifiable sources of the sadness but the prolongation of it. 

No answers. I have none, but below are just some more disjointed, tiny incomprehensive thoughts on how things like sorcery play both parts of problem and solution helping to contribute to some of Cameroon's nagging ailments...

It's common knowledge that God has a reason for everything -- even if it remains a mystery to us lowly humans. That's not a foreign explanation to the American ear, but belief in it or not, Americans usually tend to dig a little deeper for at least a secondary explanation, hoping and realizing we have some control over our fates.  A young American man for no clear purpose destroys the lives of 27 people in a matter of minutes.  Devastating, and blame must be placed somewhere – mental health, gun control laws, a violent culture, parenting?  Something or someone must be held accountable.  Repetition is unacceptable, and our ways must change.

Similar initial reactions occur here in Cameroon – the unexplained is explained.  Yet to its disadvantage, answers are too often left in the hands of God, or another mystic power – and with that, personal and communal responsibilities are washed away.  The question is answered with itself -- it's a mystery.  Reality can be too ugly and when maybe, correctly, personal actions seem to do too little to change it, what's the point in keeping it around?  My neighbor told me his brother died of “the malaria” which to my surprise wasn’t the doing of mosquitoes but rather was caused by some jealous girl who had cursed him.  Possibly a truer tale would be something more aligned with his family not wanting to admit that they couldn’t afford the bills or being too proud to beg neighbors and family for money, keeping him from the hospital until it was too late.  The old witch lady in the adjoining neighborhood “took” a girl’s heart and the young girl almost died until the old woman was physically beaten and forced to “give” her heart back.  (I would be warned from walking past a particular home in order to avoid being cursed myself.)  I realize believing in the supernatural is super natural but when it is used as an excuse, a rationalization, for our own mistakes, especially in preventable cases, it becomes detrimental.

Sorcery – with both its worthy and wicked ways – is deeply engrained in Cameroon.  It’s even easy to come across a well-educated teacher or colleague that believes in its powers to a certain extent.   One can be a devout Catholic or Muslim and still hold their animistic or traditional beliefs.  They’re not completely separate. (If you’re already believing in one un-earthly power, why not another?  I get that.)  Although it may often seem that teenage girls are possessed by evil spirits, a modern medical doctor at the local clinic could tell us that the girl who collapsed actually wasn’t possessed at all and the root of her schoolyard seizure was health related and treatable.  But when the cost of medical bills keeps the majority of Cameroonians out of the hospitals for the majority of curable ailments, a Cameroonian may never hear or accept another explanation.  Hospitals are for the dying.  (Then again, so is the home so that works too.)  And why would a corrupt, selfish government want to take any blame for its lacking healthcare system?  It seems sorcery is the better answer for everyone.

Cameroonians are occasionally known not to lend a penny (well, a CFA) to a family member or a friend to go to the hospital for some very treatable but deadly illness, but then will no doubt come bearing gifts to that person’s funeral.  That really can hit a nerve, at least for a Peace Corps Volunteer.  But maybe when this life can be such a struggle, why not want to help celebrate that person’s seemingly recent promotion?  To be more positive though, I do think time and continual education will help.  As more clinics, more hospitals, better schools and resource centers open, as more opportunities become available, things will change – and that will take some of the sting, some of the unnecessary and avoidable struggle, out of the daily living, and then maybe Cameroonians will see the good and benefits of investing more money into their living rather than in honoring loved ones in death.

Insha’Allah.

*PCVs are impressively resourceful when it comes to keeping each other up-to-date with freshly released eye-craving media.

 International Youth Day 2013, Maroua, Extreme-North

Baka children (little Pygmies) in Lomie, East Region 

(maybe 2 or 3 African countries actually have a McDonald's)