And the Winner is...America!

Yesterday, on the day of the U.S. national elections, the country of Cameroon, or more likely a minority of Cameroonians who benefit/profit from the current government, celebrated their president, Paul Biya, residing in power for now thirty years.  Thirty years.  Thirty years of unquestioned, dubious elections resulting in a continuously corrupt, painfully stifled, and suffering land.

Today, even knowing there was a chance that my picks weren’t going to win, I was giddy when I woke up, wanting to get to the internet early because I truly didn’t already know the results - this wasn't the Cameroonian presidential election.  Giddy, I tell ya - dancing around as if I were a middle-aged NPR enthusiast on the day she gets to see Ladysmith Black Mambazo live in concert (yes, me, previously, minus the middle-age part, add a fanny pack; with their sweet euphonious voices, and like with the miraculous weeping Marian statue of Medjugorje, tears were brought to these stoic eyes).  America, although nowhere near perfect, is controlled by its people and their votes – something many countries can’t claim.  I saw the reports -- although nail-bitingly close, a clear, undisputed win -- a hard fought triumph against some actual, worthy opposition.  And I felt a great sense of pride and fortune - not just because my candidate was victorious, but lucky to live in a place where its people constantly, often with great vigor and inanity and forgetting any afore-learned grammar or spelling, freely bicker over politics on Facebook, lucky to be able to participate in a real-life working democratic process, even being able to vote from far away lands - and vote for whomever I choose, simply lucky to be American.  Indeed, it's comforting to know that Americans can disagree, will continue to disagree, and that our offices will be perpetually governed by different ideologies - a swinging pendulum, all contributing to the good health of a great nation. (Of course, if we knew how to have real discussions, while speaking civilly/not be so sensitive, or how to work a bit better together...)

I had an early morning visitor.  It was my friend Prosper, a 19 year old trying to improve his English and with high hopes to make it to university.  He was all smiles and asked if I had heard the news.  I said I had and we simultaneously “Obama”d and he gave me a fist bump, a welcomed dap.  He said " Barack Hussein Obama."  That really happened.  He then asked me what a Mormon was. 

I know it’s not 2008, it’s 2012, but it really is pretty neat to be living in Africa and seeing the excitement here over our half-African president.  No matter what you think of our Commander-in-Chief, he is a symbol of hope and progress for a great many people in a place where those things have a serious dearth.  After living here, it is simply incredible to believe that a grandson of a Kenyan goat herder has now been elected twice to one of the greatest nations of all time.  Despite the fact that ole George W. did a fair amount for Africa, you don't see tons of boutiques, bars, cyber-cafes, barbershops, and anything else imaginable named after him.  Work in Cameroon is more than not discouraging, often making me consider packing up and getting the hell out of dodge, but that right there – having the knowledge that there are real viable possibilities for changing and bettering one’s quality or position in life, not just within the U.S. – gives me some greatly needed encouragement for sticking around.

(And just for the sake of helping release some of my giddiness, my day's mantra...Obama, gays, marijuana. Obama, gays, marijuana...)

Fair Trade

I once lived in the armpit, the dregs, the worst of the worst of this country.  It wasn’t.  It was.  It wasn’t.  Doesn’t matter the realities, it is affixed that way in my brain, especially now that I’ve left it, likely forever to remain in that manner, unfashionably so.  Yet for several months while living there, there was a bright spot, some goodness, a small buoy.  I was given a post-mate, another volunteer living about twenty minutes from me and my only connection to my now much smaller American world (besides a snail-paced internet connection and text messages from other volunteers), and I basked in the warmth of this godly gift.  Soon though and coming to some of the same realizations and conclusions that I had already procured, and our weekly shared dinners and my Daria-like charming personality just not being enough to satisfy, he slipped away into the night, a knobby stick over his left shoulder, a red handkerchief containing his most loved possessions hanging from its end, and jumped onto a train heading north.  I was left there, again, alone.  

I would soon follow.

These days, I live in a bustling city - bustling-ish/kind of sleepy - and, unlike before, I get visitors.  I like to think myself an attraction, the Mecca of Cameroon -- who knows, maybe it’s not me personally (though, most likely, it is).  Maroua is the capitol of the Extreme North Region and gateway to many of Cameroons’ treasures.  So passersby’s, being the polite people they are, call me up when they are indeed passing by.  Some days, it’s wonderful, some days, it’s exhausting.  Recently, my former post-mate, the one who had previously abandoned me in the pits of hell and who now resides five hours south of me, showed up at my doorstep bearing gifts of wine, good reads, and delightful company for our first visit since the days of old - my prodigal son!  We nestled back into my deep-seated couch (a stick frame with cotton stuffed into a casing) in my living room facing the coffee table (a metal trunk with some fabric atop) reminiscing of days past – which seemed now like a distant, too-long, bad dream – and of current, happier days.  The screen saver of my computer which sat across from us flickered on, and it began rotating my life in digital form – photos of family and friends from home, photos of a magical Italy trip my aunt took me on, sharply contrasting more photos of my time in Cameroon.  A picture popped up of me - back home and a few years before, hair down (possibly blown-dried), cleaner in appearance, with a slightly weird expression. 

“Your sister?” he asked.

“No, that’s me a couple years ago.”

“Wow.”  Pause.  Maybe a thought.   “Africa really does age us.”

Shoulder punch. 

Besides making me think of where in the world I was going to track down some anti-aging creamy elixir in Maroua (shit, I am in my late-twenties!), I thought about what he had said...Cameroon does age us. It has aged us -- concluding, however, it was like a good cheese or wine-type aging.  We might look a bit rougher, a little less clean, grayer, or balder, but we, as individuals, are probably better than when we left – and will return to the U.S. that way.  Cameroon gives us a little lagniappe for making the trip over.  She’s shared a great deal of knowledge with us - sometimes leaving me with a feeling that I shouldn't have been privy to it at all and rarely knowing what to do with or how to process all the gifted information, but I appreciate that it’s now mine and a part of my experience, a part of me.  No, it’s not like I’ve had to raise a child or be president, and I am definitely not infinitely sager than before, but living in Cameroon has bestowed on myself and other volunteers an amazing education – maybe tenfold from what we would have received if we were at home in this same amount of time.  So for me, a few extra lines, grossly calloused feet, and more alligatored-skin seem a pretty fair trade. 

The punch was still much deserved.

Convenience.  Selling fresh chickens right from the handlebars.  Customer weighs and discusses.  

Maroua, Extreme North Region, Cameroon

Mumble, mumble, boring thought, mumble:

As a Peace Corps Volunteer, especially a Community Economic Developer, "Monitor and Evaluating" is regularly heard in the vernacular - fairly obvious in definition, monitor and evaluate.  How do we know if the work we are doing is effective? How do the individuals, groups, and organizations who we work with know if their efforts are viable?  Data collection and analyzing.  So we look to implement or ameliorate systems to do this (often easier said than done).  Peace Corps life also affords a lot of minutes, many, to unofficially monitor and evaluate ourselves personally -- lots of reflection time.  A benevolent malevolence? causing PCVs (me) to allot far too much time for allowing discourse on oneself -- unflattering.  The quantity, not the quality, being the unflattering part.  (Well, no, the quality is pretentiously unflattering as well.) But, it is easier for me to talk about something I understand better or can at least take responsibility for versus making partial conclusions on the things around me - realizing that when I do speak of my host community, I am producing only small, incomplete photo-like observations. So, why talk/write at all? Vanity.