Off to Akono!

Just over two weeks ago, I left my home in Sanguéré-Paul.  Tomorrow, I will be beginning a new adventure in a village called Akono, a small village in the Center region of Cameroon.

Almost immediately upon closure of my post in the North, my program manager called me with this reassignment.  I didn’t know much about the site other than that it is 40km south of Yaoundé, has a population similar to that of Sanguéré-Paul (approximately 3000 people), and that the past volunteer had set up a cookie business as an income generating activity for a women’s group (heck yes!  Cookies!!).

For the past couple weeks, I’ve been living in the Ngaoundéré and Yaoundé transit houses, waiting for the current volunteer in Akono to finish his service so that I can move in as his replacement.  This downtime has allowed me to reconnect with PCVs from other regions and to say goodbye to friends who are finishing their services and returning stateside.  It's also allowed for me to eat far too much pizza while living in the big city (as if "too much" is a thing...ha!) and visit a few tourist attractions (Coming Soon to 'Maria Goes to Africa': photos from my trip to the ranch!  Disclaimer: there were no cowboys).  Most importantly, however, these past two weeks of downtime have allowed me to fully process and accept what has happened, and allowed me to prepare for what is to come.

Like I said, just two weeks ago, I left my home in Sanguéré-Paul.  Tomorrow I will be moving to Akono.  It is almost as if I am starting my Peace Corps service all over again;  once again, I’ll be integrating into a completely different culture, learning yet another new language, and living in an entirely different environment.

At first this thought of starting over again scared the bajeezus out of me.  Its hard to be the new person in town, especially when that means being the sole foreigner, the sole white person, the sole "blanche."

Talking it over with other evacuees, I realized (or at least managed to convince myself) that there's no need to be scared.  Yes, I will be new, but I've done this before -- I've got it down.

My first three months in Sanguéré-Paul, I was nervous to leave my house and really put myself out there.  As Peace Corps Volunteers, we are encouraged to “integrate”:  to really try our best to be members of the community, building relationships and gaining trust (incidentally, this is what makes it so incredibly painful to say goodbye, even after a mere nine months).  Despite the “adventurous” nature of most PCVs, the act of integrating into a totally foreign culture, where nobody speaks your language or can even pronounce your name correctly, can be rather difficult.  I struggled those first three months at post, and thus was initially terrified/frustrated/anxious by the thought of having to relive this integration process.  Yet after having sometime to reflect, I now know that integration will be much easier for me the second time around.  I can do this.

Months ago, I would walk to the carrefour and buy some beans just to force myself to talk to people.  Now, I have absolutely no shame about inviting myself into a stranger's home to share a meal or dancing with random children on the street.  Living in Cameroon (for nearly a year now!!) has given me confidence to embrace awkward and unfamiliar situations.  Being in the Peace Corps has pushed me to learn resiliency and adaptation (throw me in the ocean, and I swear I'll grow gills... or at least learn to speak whale). 

I may be a new face for Akono, but I am no longer new to Cameroon, and I am no longer new to Peace Corps.  Yes, it’s truly unfortunate that I had to leave Sanguéré-Paul, and I will never forget the friendships that I found there, but I am trying my best to look forward to having a second chance.  I now have the opportunity to experience a whole new lifestyle and culture within the same country, and all that I have learned from my failures and success, both integration-wise and work-wise, will only serve to make my transition to a new village easier.  

And yes, maybe it will be difficult and frustrating.  Maybe I will face bumps along the way and have mild (or seemingly-psychotic) emotional breakdowns.  But now I know that those will be completely normal and totally okay given the circumstances of PCV life, and now I know that I have the most amazing support network all around the world, from Marblehead to Montreal, from Alaska to Taiwan, and from Yaoundé to Sanguéré-Paul.

So with all that being said, BRING IT ON, AKONO!  I'm a-comin' your way!  

The final days.

I’ve been putting off this blog post for a while now, because I don’t like to talk publicly about negative things. I generally like to pretend that everything is hunky-dory (because when it's not, I always know it will be soon enough).  However, I think we all know that life isn't always sunshine and rainbows, and I cannot begin to look towards the future until I officially accept what has happened and say goodbye to the past.  That includes acknowledging it here in blog-world.

As I previously mentioned, I received a call from Peace Corps on July 30^th, informing me that I was being evacuated due to increasing security risks because of Boko Haram.  The eleven days that followed – my last eleven days in village – were almost certainly the most difficult eleven days of my service so far.

I had planned on only telling close friends that I was leaving.  It’s difficult to explain that my time is being cut short because of terrorist activity that is still more than 200km away from our village, and I simply didn’t want to go through that process any more than absolutely necessary.  Aside from general protocol (the chief, sous-prefect, mayor, and IRAD), I had planned to inform only my counterpart, my community host, Tabitha’s family, and some other close friends.  That way, I could spend the last few days with the people who had meant the most to me.

First up was Djida, my counterpart.  Fortunately, we had already discussed the possibility of Peace Corps shutting down the North region just the night before.  When he received my text message urgently asking him to come to my house that evening, he already knew in his gut: this was it.

The next morning, Madame Tizi, my community host, came over to check on my health (I was still coming down from my fever and TB-esque cough).  She came in, I made us both hot cocoa, and then I broke the news.  Until this moment, I had been numb.  I had no feelings.  I didn’t know how to process it or what to feel.  We all knew it was coming, we just didn’t know when.  Until this point when I realized I was truly saying goodbye, I hadn’t felt the need to cry, but now, sitting across from Madame Tizi, I began to sob.  

Madame Tizi refused to look at me (Cameroonians attempt to hide their tears far better than I do) and as we continued sipping our hot chocolate, she kept repeating: “ne pleure pas, ne pleure pas.  Don’t cry, don’t cry.”  Unable to contain my emotions, I promised her that we would spend as much time as possible together over the next eleven days, and I promised to bake her a chocolate cake (her favorite American delicacy) every day.  She simply looked at me with disappointment, and told me that now, none of our projects would succeed.  Everything we had dreamt of doing for the community (most projects were planned to begin in September), would fail in my absence. 

She told me that I had ruined her day, that she needed time to digest things, and that we would see each other later.  I visited her house everyday following that; her children came out to tell me she wasn’t home.  I called her several times; she did not answer her phone.

The same day that I broke the news to Madame Tizi, I had to tell Tabitha.  She welcomed me into her home with a giant smile on her face, as usual.  “Djabbama! Welcome!"  “Mi jabbi!  I’m welcome!"  She pulled the wooden bench into the shade, and we sat next to each other, just as we had nearly everyday for the past nine months.

“Comment ça va?” (How’s it going?”)

“Tabitha, ca ne va pas. Pas du tout.”  (Tabitha, it’s not going well.  Not at all.)

I explained everything to her.  I explained that I am being forced to leave, that it’s not my choice and it’s not Peace Corps choice: nobody wants for me to leave, but due to security risks, it has to happen.  I explained that I would be leaving Sanguéré-Paul, but would be staying in Cameroon; I will not be allowed to visit, but I can call every week.

I was certain that I had spent all my tears on Madame Tizi that morning, but when I saw that Tabitha turned her head away from me to start wiping her eyes, the floodgates opened again.  She kept saying, “2014 is not my year.  First my husband dies, then they took my son away to Chad, and now you’re leaving me.  I’ll be all alone now.  2014 is not my year."  This was the most heartbreaking part of it all.  The fact that she was equating my departure to the death of her husband and the loss of her son demonstrated that she felt the same as I did: over the past 9 months, we had become family.

The next few days were draining.  Madame Tizi was still avoiding me and Tabitha would tear up every time she saw me.  Olivier came to my house, and we just sat in silence.  Whenever I saw Christine, she would immediately disappear behind a corner to wipe her eyes. 

I had imagined that I would be spending my last eleven days doing nothing but hanging out and laughing with the ladies that had become my best friends.  Instead, I was spending time alone in my house; whether I was avoiding people or being avoided, I don’t know.  I tried to distract myself by doing a couple of soy workshops with local women's groups, but my heart and soul were simply no longer in it. 

By the fourth day, I broke down.  Tabitha had been too busy working at church and therefore stood me up for our one-on-one tofu workshop in the morning (which was not at all her fault, but upsetting nonetheless).  Madame Tizi had blown me off for our scheduled work meeting later that evening.  I immediately ran to Tabitha’s house and was lucky to find that all of her children were out.  I didn’t mean to, I didn’t want to, but I started to cry again.

“Tabitha, I have one week left now, and all of my best friends have been avoiding me.  Where have you been?  Where has Madame Tizi been?  Why aren’t we spending every single moment we have left together?!"

She then promised that as soon as her children had been fed and put to sleep, she’d come over and we’d stay up together.  We stayed up til nearly midnight, sipping hot chocolate and enjoying the chocolate cake that I had baked for that meeting that never happened.

From then on, things got a bit easier, emotionally.  Perhaps I no longer had any tears left in either of my eye sockets.  I no longer had time to waste on emotions.  I spent each day running errands, arranging my things, and trying to sell my furniture.  I spent each evening with Tabitha and her children.  (I even managed to schedule a last minute day-trip with Tabitha to see some hippos!)

On my final night, Tabitha stayed over until midnight again while I attempted (but totally failed) to arrange my entire house's contents into just a few suitcases.

The next morning, moving day, I woke up early and started packing again.  My friend Roukaiatu came over around 9AM and helped me sit/jump on my overstuffed trunk so that we could get the latches to close.  She then helped me organize everything into my various bags.

At 10AM, Hannah came over to take my cat.  This was a terribly difficult decision to make, but knowing that many Cameroonians think cats are good eats (the guy who bought my fridge asked me how much I was selling Grumps for, noticing that he was nice and plump and ready to put in a stew), I knew that once I was no longer there to protect him, either a neighbor or the next tenant would make a tasty meal of my favorite furry companion.  It would also be far too difficult to travel with him to my next post (a bus ride followed by a train ride, followed by another bus ride, with the weeks in between spent in Peace Corps transit houses).  I decided to give Grumps to Hannah’s counterpart in Djalingo: a kind Cameroonian woman with an 8-year-old daughter who has a strong affection for all animals.

Over the course of the next few hours, all of my closest friends came by (except Djida, to whom I had said goodbye the night before, and Madame Tizi, who was still ignoring me) to help me pack, clean my house, and claim all the items that would not travel with me to my next post.  This lifted my spirits significantly – it was almost like a party, with five girls just hanging out.  We kept each other laughing as we sorted through all the little trinkets that had accumulated in my house throughout the services of four Peace Corps Volunteers.

With all of my bags finally out on the veranda, the girls said their goodbyes and left me alone with Tabitha and her ten-year-old son, Jamtu.  We sat on the bed in my living room (the only item remaining in the house) and waited for the truck to come to move all of my belongings to Garoua.  We hardly spoke; there were no words left to exchange.

The truck came; the men loaded my things.  I gave Tabitha a gigantic hug, thanked her for making my experience in Sanguéré-Paul incredibly special, and then took my seat next to the driver.

And just like that, it was over.

My Cameroonian Family
Back row:  Me, Olivier, Tabitha, Christine
Front row: Jamtu, Jonas, John