Last week I parted ways with my training group in Bafia, I piled into a bus with all the other volunteers heading West. The journey wasn’t far for us, only a few hours, some volunteers had two days of travel ahead of them on various buses and a train to get up to the North and the Extreme North. We had heard that after training the Peace Corps leaves the new volunteers to fend for themselves. A sort of jump in the water and learn how to swim approach. I didn’t expect to take this literally. Bangangte, my new town, was the first stop along the road that goes West, the driver stopped at the intersection where you would normally turn to go to my town and told me and the other volunteer going to Bangangte to get out. Keep in mind this is a Peace Corps hired driver - the only passengers were volunteers, we asked him if he could kindly drive the 5 km. to get us to our houses or even just drop us off at the taxi station in the center of town, a very small favor to ask given the overall length of his trip that day. He aggressively told us no. We were left on the side of the highway in the rain with 2 bikes, 2 metal trunks, and all of our bags. Three motorcycle drivers graciously stopped, they attached all of our things to their motos and took us to our respective houses. 7000 CFA, over an hour worth of work and the need to dry all of our things could have been easily avoided if the driver had just driven the extra couple miles to our houses. There is a tendency for things to not go as planned here in Cameroon and everyone is flexible enough to deal with it. A saying that I hear almost daily pretty much sums that up as well as the attitudes of the Cameroonian people, “C’est La Vie”.
The city of Bangangte is about the same size as Bafia, but it has a larger feel to it. Maybe that’s just because I’m new here… However, there does seem to be a little more activity in this city, more people walking around, livelier market, even a pretty energetic nightlife. This city is undoubtedly cleaner and more well-run than Bafia. Every Thursday morning there is a citywide cleaning that takes place, many offices wait until 10 am. to open their doors, I even hear that you can drink the tap water here. The views are spectacular, there are many mountains in the surrounding villages and Bangangte itself is filled with steep rolling green hills. I think the elevation here is a little less than 5,000 feet.
I am in the process of furnishing my apartment and trying to make it my own. I have a way bigger place than I need, 3 bedrooms, 2 running water bathrooms, a giant living/dining room and even a large balcony. In my living room I have a fire place, I have built a fire almost everyday I have been here so far. My apartment is the second floor of a house, I share the same compound with a family. No one lives on the bottom floor but there is another house next to mine. The family happens to be the family of the President of the Microfinance institution I work at, he is also the Mayor of a surrounding village and owns several boutiques in Bangangte. At first I wasn’t very excited to be living on the same property as my boss more or less but the more I think about it the more I realize it’s a good thing. I have already started to build a relatively casual relationship with him and I have no problem calling him for anything that I might need. The only real downside to my living situation is the dog that lives on the compound. This is strictly a guard dog and has been specifically trained to dominate people if they come inside the gate. When the dog is out of its cage I can’t enter my compound or go to my house. They keep saying that after a couple months the dog will start to warm up to me but I’m not really sure that will happen. When I walk by his cage he starts freaking out and even bites the metal bars, I have never been so terrified of any animal in my life. The second night I was here, a few near-by volunteers came over to build a fire, when they were ready to leave the dog had already been let out of the cage, I called my neighbor to put him up but he didn’t answer. Four of us had to sleep on the cold tile floor that night because I had no furniture at this point (still really don’t) and we couldn’t leave my house to go outside.
As far as work goes I am working at a Microfinance institution (MFI). It is called MC2, its name comes from this formula that I have taken from their pamphlet “Victory over poverty can be achieved provided that the Means (M) and Competencies (C) of the Community (C) are pooled together. (M) x (C) x (C) = MC2” As of 2009 there were 78 MC2s in Cameroon, their main objective is to provide capital to people that would not normally have access to it. They are mostly found in the rural areas of the country. My role as a small enterprise development (SED) volunteer is not only to work with this organization but also to work with other individuals and groups in the community. My MFI will be a great resource for meeting people in the community who are trying to launch new projects, it could be something as basic as taking out a loan to buy seeds for their farms. I am treated very well at my organization; they have given me my own office with a computer that in theory has Internet. I haven’t successfully gone online yet at the office but I’m sure it will happen soon. We are told to not propose any changes or start any projects for the first 3 months of service but to simply familiarize ourselves with our businesses, that is tough advice because so many people ask what I will do to help them or how I will improve the organization. It will definitely take me some time though to fully understand the needs of the organization and to learn all the technical jargon in French.
Overall I am very excited about my post and am looking forward to getting to know this area of the country well and the people that live here. There also happens to be a pretty large cluster of volunteers in this region so I will be able to catch up with some of the friends I made in training every once in a while. I hope everyone is doing well back home and I am keeping my fingers crossed that a new CJ deal gets ironed out soon. Someone please text me when that happens, I’m looking at you Dad.
Peace, -Matt
P.S. The internet is too slow at this cafe to upload pictures to either here or facebook, I am in the process of searching for an internet key so I can have internet at my house, I'll upload pics then.
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