Day 17

Life here is good.
It's a beautiful Sunday. I spent the afternoon at Duke and Harvey's restaurant and treated myself to a chicken dinner with plantain fries while reading a UNICEF report on the maternal and child health mellinum goal. Oh, and I'm wearing a shirt that doesn't smell moldy! Certainly an occasion to celebrate.

Everything mildews here. If it's wet, it mildews. If it was wet, it mildews. Even if it never was wet, I'm sure there's some sort of 'just add water' dehydrated mildew spores all over it. Doing laundry is a dance of putting your wet clothes on the line when there's sun, then sprinting out when it begins to sprinkle a half hour later.

I'm getting used to it; I think I'm finially settling in.

Day 16

The Uninet outage continues. The wired internet has come back online a few days ago, but the wireless is still down. I tried to connect to the system through an Ethernet cable, but was still unable to connect for some reason, so I’m holding out for the wireless. I’ve been using internet cafes, but the problem with them is that they’re very slow. Even internet cafes that advertise ‘fast internet’ are barely fast enough to check my email, and I can’t open more than two windows without paralyzing the connection. Combined with their tendency to inexplicably drop the connection just as I press the send button, they are very frustrating to use. Another factor contributing to the update drought is that fact that the internet café nearest to my room has either been closed or without connection for the past week.
I think I'm going through internet withdrawal...

Day 13

As I am officially a member of the faculty at the University of Buea, I was able to attend a faculty meeting this afternoon. It was very interesting to hear the back and forth between the various department heads and professors. The major topics on hand at the meeting mostly dealt with the results of most recent exams and the administrative procedures for internships for medical and nursing programs. In reality, however, there was generally a lot of arguing back and forth and by and large not much getting done. This was mostly because the dean himself was not present, which apparently meant not much could be definitively accomplished.
Despite the lack of productivity even after going several hours over the scheduled end, the faculty look forward to these meetings, and I soon found out why. In the next room, there was a series of long rectangular tables on which a large variety of Cameroonian delectables: cocoyams, ndole, goat and beef roast, rice, and gizzard, which is traditionally only given to the venerable, but Dr. Kamga insisted I have it and assured me that the fact that he had twins would counteract any bad mojo, which he would confer onto me. I stuffed myself silly. This sort of feast is provided at every faculty meeting—I’m looking forward to the next one.

Don't eat monkeys

HIV is generally accepted to be a descendant of the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) from African apes and monkeys, since monkeys from Asia or the Americas don’t carry any strain of SIV that could cause HIV in humans.
A study presented in 2000 at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections suggested that the first human infection of HIV-1 was in West Africa around 1930. HIV-1 is thought to have originated from chimpanzees and been transferred into humans through the butchering and consumption of monkey meat, NOT by monkey sex as commonly thought.
HIV-2, on the other hand, is most likely thought to have been transferred into humans from sooty mangabeys. The first case was mostly likely in 1940’s in Guinea-Bissau due to consumption of bush meat (again, no sooty sex) and spread by the war of independence from Portugal.
In 2006, a group announced that they had located the SIVcpz strain (that was most likely the origin of HIV-1) in wild chimpanzees in Southern Cameroon.
The moral of the story: don't eat monkeys, you don't know where they've been.

Day 9

I’ve attempted to make some jiedan chao xiehongshe (eggs and tomatoes) with rice, and for the most part, it’s turned out fairly well. I've become comfortable with making rice, but it’s made me appreciate rice cookers that much more. Having the ability to cook rice and keep it warm without taking up cooking pots is very handy.

The local food here is pretty good. My favorite is grilled fish, grilled by fish mamas on street-side stands. You eat it with your hands and it comes with this green spicy sauce. Dr. Kamga taught me how to eat fish Cameroonian style, which involves eating the head. He also made me kiss the fish, which he said was a Cameroonian tradition, but I secretly think it's one of those things the locals make foreigners do for fun. While I have found restaurants nearby that will serve meals for about 500CFA (about $1), the market nearby means I can get fresh (as fresh as I can get at the market, anyhow) ingredients for about 1000CFA that I can draw out for a few days.

The internet at the Unversity has been down for the last couple of days, and the connection at the regular internet cafes has been too unreliable to even do anything on blogger. Last time i tried, the Cameroonian internet troll ate my post. I've been able to upload some photos onto flickr (before the Uninet went down) so when Uninet comes back up, look forward to some pictures scattered throughout the blog.

Day 6

I spent the majority of the morning churning peanut butter. My grand plans to spread glorious, golden peanut butter on glorious, toasty toast this morning were dashed upon opening the can. As I pulled back the tab and peeled away the lid, I realized why the can was so damn oily: the peanut butter had separated into peanut oil, and peanut concrete. Mixing the two together was an epic, cosmic struggle: it took an hour and a half, and left a few blisters, but by all that is holy, I got it.
It tastes awful.

Breakfast was saved by some awesome French toast courtesy of Lexi before she left for Dschang, in the West province. Thanks!

I spent most of the day at the University, in my new office. I haven’t talked that much about my work so far, mostly because it’s not that interesting, but also because not much has happened. Mostly what I’ve been doing is literature review, which means reading a lot of papers on prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, then searching and researching for more papers.

In the evening, Kamga and Njole, who both work at the University, took me out to experience some Cameroonian nightlife. At the Jupiter nightclub, I was introduced to Cameroonian beer—Castel; a new drink mix—Guiness and coke (not that bad); and Cameroonian music from a live band. The singer was particularly interested in me, especially when he found out I was American, and not Chinese. The place was quaintly decorated with strings of Christmas lights and the Castel branded tablecloth had little inspirational snips that I really liked.

Most importantly, I learned where to find fish mamas in Buea!

Day 5

I got very little sleep last night, with the rare z’s filled with bizarre, passionate dreams. The morning was unremarkable except for a botched attempt at French toast. Lexi and I headed to the Ecotourism office in the afternoon for a tour of the nearby tea plantations. The tea plantations themselves were underwhelming, although the opportunity to discuss Cameroonian issues with our guide, Ferdinand, made the trip more worthwhile. The tea plantations of Cameroon went from a reasonably successful government operation to a privatized monopoly which employs a fraction of it’s original workers, lowered wages, and ships the majority of tea overseas, according to Ferdinand.

On the route back from the plantations, he elucidated on the funeral practices of the Bakweri people. In a traditional home, where thatched roofing connects several smaller huts and floors are bare earth, a deceased elder is buried in one of the rooms (huts) of the home and the door is locked. When there is a dispute in the family, a family member is ill, or an issue requires ancestral intervention, the significant individuals enter that room. Outside of traditional villages, this practice is rare, but even in Christianized communities, esteemed family past are buried in front of their homes, marked with small porcelain tombs.

In addition to guiding tours of tea plantations, The Ecotourism office provides services for trekkers on Mt. Cameroon and the surrounding ecosystems, including guides and porters to the summit. The guidebook said that the Ecotourism office hires many former hunters. Indeed, Ferdinand tells us that he himself used to be a hunter on Mt. Cameroon, before becoming a guide for the Ecotourism office.

Once I learned that Ferdinand could track, I tried to get him to teach me, but the tidbits of advice he gave I already knew and his more advanced classes are for only for guides. Still, I think I will pester him some more.

We returned to the mission, and I enjoyed a frigidly refreshing shower. We tried a restaurant off a side street called Prime Cateres with surprisingly tasty fried fish. Lexi’s verdict of the fried chicken was also top-notch. After picking up some fried street-beignets, we took a taxi to Beno bakery. It had a lower selection of western name branded, but more practical items that Cameroonians may actually buy. In short: they had peanut butter! The can is all oily, but the price wasn’t bad (1750CFA=$4) for 1½ pounds. I’m going to spread this on freaking everything. Also grabbed a sausage, a couple of sugary beignets, and beer (Becks!). I’m a happy man.
By the time we were heading back to the mission, it got very dark. We both managed to cram into a taxi with 3 other passengers (in a sub-compact). When they say don’t drive or ride at night unless you have to, they mean it.

New critter update: millipede (not in my bathroom, but in the mission hallway).

Day 4

There’s another America staying at the Presbyterian guesthouse. Her name is Lexi, a fellow blogger prowling through Africa. Though to be honest, to describe Lexi as a ‘fellow blogger’ is to imply we’re on equal footing, which, is far from the truth. She’s a member of an enviable breed of traveler-journalists, freelancing her way from Senegal to Madagascar, financing the 6-month trip out of her own pocket. Well, I suppose the last part isn’t so enviable, though it’s not far from what I’m doing. Check out her blog at Inkslinging in Africa.

Lexi is a Godsend. Everywhere we go, it seems, she has some advice to impart or experience to lend.

I took her to the university to find someone who could speak to her about polygamy for an article she was writing. I was also trying to find a computer lab on campus, which I did, only to discover there was no internet connection anywhere on campus that day.

On the way back from the university, we asked a taxi driver where to get some good food. “OIC” he said. Henri (Dr. Kamga) had told me that the OIC is one of the nicest restaurants in town, so I figured it would be expensive.
“Where can we get some cheap food?” we asked.
The driver thought for a moment, and replied knowingly “The OIC.”
We decided to go check it out anyways, but found that it, indeed, was a very nice restaurant, and it was, indeed, fairly expensive. We also managed to find a Fakoship, a small grocery store chain, along the main road in Buea. Jam, canned tuna, honey, liquid dish soap; hell, they even had frosted flakes. Everything was really expensive, though. We also ran into a couple of soldiers outside of the Fakoship: no problems, they were nice, but it was just a reminder to start carrying my passport on me at all times, in case one of them decides he needs to see my ID.

I didn’t end up getting anything from the Fakoship, but I did get about 10 cups of rice from the local market in Bueatown. I still need to get some peanut butter and some sort of preserved meat. They have a lot of dried fish in the market, but it looks and smells unappetizing, and judging from my experience with dried fish in Asia, it probably isn’t that great. Lexi points out that the kitchen in the guest house has an oven—a rarity in Africa—so now there is a possibility to bake meals and do more with the plantains, yams, and potatoes than fry them in palm oil.

I jury-rigged the wall adapter to fit into the socket by pressing a chair up against it. I only use it for the laptop, so it’s not too much of a hassle. Still, I’ll get the proper adapter (huge 3 pronged) if I see it. Ironically, I took that one out of my adapter kit since the guidebook said they didn’t use it in Cameroon. Bah.

They also gave me a room to use at the University of Buea. I should have access to the University’s wireless network from the room, but the best part is that it says “Visiting Professor” in big letters on the door, hah!

New critter update: geckos.

Day 3

It’s been a quiet and rainy Sunday, nothing extraordinarily special or productive about it. I fell asleep yesterday at 5pm, a runaway attempt at an afternoon nap, and woke up an hour before midnight, Cameroonian time. After a quixotic attempt to figure out which adapter would fit in the unfamiliarly shaped outlet in my room, (quixotic as in, running headlong into it with various adapters until one fit. None of them did perfectly, but Jim, the manager, assures me with a smile that any of them should work. Sigh). I read a little bit, then went back to sleep from 4 to 9am. I managed to sleep through the morning call to prayer and the buzz of hundreds of students waking up (the Presbyterian mission school, a large multi-building complex, is literally within a stone’s throw from my window). After a drizzly walk into town, I learned that most stores, the market, and Duke & Harvey’s restaurant were closed, probably for Sunday. A local man assured me that most of them would be open again at 2pm, but by that time, I was comfortable with my books under the mosquito net, and the rain had swelled to a voluptuous shower (to steal a line from Nabokov).

Woke up again at 8pm. It seems every night brings new creatures into my room. Last night it was a decent sized cockroach, and tonight I discovered a leech lazing in my sink. I have no idea how he got there, but if I had to guess, I would have to say he crawled up the plumbing. I sprayed some insect repellant on him and tossed him in the toilet, the final resting place for most of my visitors.

Cameroon: Days 1 and 2

I'm posting this from Dr. Kamga's office computer at the University of Buea. I got into Cameroon at 1:30pm (about 8:30am Eastern time) but I haven't gotten a chance to hop on the internet until now.

The flight over wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. It was long, to be sure (about 17 hours from DC to Addis), but my seatmate was very friendly, the service was great, and they served food and alcohol often enough to make the flight better than it otherwise would have been. I'm going stop short calling the flight pleasant. I watched all three in flight movies at least once (twice for the kingdom fo the crystal skull), and read through the bulk of the Poisonwood Bible. It is a wonderful book, by the way. I finally finished it in the hotel Ethiopian Airlines provided and was blown away by how much the book was able to contain in 500 or so pages. I highly recommend this book.

Hotel Ararat was a decent hotel room with a small TV and a fridge. They served complementary dinner (disappointingly, not Ethiopian cuisine) and an exceptional breakfast the next morning that put to shame every other hotel breakfast I've ever experienced. I also determined (too late) that each hotel room had it's own hot water heater. After the flight, I felt dirty enough to justify an icy shower on a cold Ethiopian night.

Pretty much all of Ethiopian Airlines' flights to Subsaharan Africa go through Addis Ababa, so rubbed elbows with a lot of interesting folks. There were two women on my flight that were adopting Ethiopian children and were flying over to take them home; Nicole, a perky blonde who was working a 10 week social work internship at an adoption agency; Karen and Janet, two occupational health nurses on their way to Johansburg for a photo safari before going to a nursing conference; and Dr. Emily Vargas-Baron, a former director for USAID in the Clinton years who now worked for UNICEF and the RISE institute. Over the non-Ethiopian dinner, she gave me some powerful advice, mostly about not complaining about cold showers.

The flight from Addis to Douala was fairly uneventful, except when a frenchman spilled red wine on my pants. Now I have a pair of pants with splotches of purple down one leg.

The doctor at the desk next to mine is playing Bryan Adams on his computer. Driving in Cameroon is as crazily exciting as I hoped it would be, and Dr. Kamga, who picked me up at the airport, drives a Mercedes, although the speedometer is forever stuck at 20kmph.

The room at the Presbyterian mission is nice and cozy with it's own bathroom. When I first moved in, there were some oversized bugs here and there, but after their eviction, I've gotten comfortable with the rest of the nonmosquito roommates. Hot water is hard to come by, so I've gotten used to cold showers. It's actually pretty invigorating. Nothing wakes you up in the morning like ice cold water dumped on your head.

What else is there to say? I'm still a little jet lagged, but not enough to stop me from taking a walk around Buea. It's beautiful here and in the morning, the clouds on Mt Cameroon part, baring the summit, which is majestic. Enormous cloud banks roll in under Buea, like a parade of fluffy primordial titans around a sailing, floating mountain.

Underway

I'm about to have dinner with my family before heading off to Dulles for the flight. Turns out I read the Ethiopian Airlines website wrong, and the checked luggage limit was 50lbs, not 70, so we had to rush to divide my one large suitcase into two smaller ones. Rush Rush Rush. Things are becoming more hectic and nervousness is starting to creep up on me. I'm starting to have those nagging feelings that hand on the edge of your mind and tell you you've forgotten something. Gah, I hope they're wrong.
*Deep breath*
Alright, see you guys in Cameroon!

An email from Dr. Jackson:

...You should keep a daily personal log of your activities while in Africa (starting from now) as well as an official record of your activities. This is something that you can regularly attend to in the evenings. The most important thing to take with you as you begin this trip is an open, flexible mind. Divorce any attachment you may have to material things. Stay focused. You will see, smell, and hear strange and sometimes repulsive things, but don't be alarmed. I believe that you will find the people to be as curious about and receptive to you as you are to them. You will experience some periods of loneliness, but at these times, remember the larger goal of gaining knowledge and dig deep in your soul for the committment to perservere. You are going to make a fine health professional. What you are doing now is getting your "in the trenches" experience. If you pay attention and learn from this hardship, it will serve you well the rest of your life. I have every confidence in you and your successful completion of this mission. Just be careful. Don't take unnecessary risks, but be open to new experiences. Other than the things we have for Dr. Ndumbe, don't give all of your gifts away in the first week because you will be meeting new people throughout your stay with whom you may want to give a momento of your friendship. By the end of your stay, however, be free of the gifts. Just so you know, in some places in Cameroon, it is the custom for people to give you something before you return home. But whether this happens or not, you will come away from Camerooon with many rich memories and significant insights that will be directly applicable in your public health career.

Thanks, Dr. J!

An unforseen dilemma

Do they have sunscreen in Africa?
I really hope so. I also hope it's not hard to find or really expensive. I'm taking doxycycline as a malaria prophylaxis, and about 10% of people who take it develop a sensitivity to sunlight. I plan on getting a big floppy hat, but I don't want to have to take a bunch of sunscreen with me on the flight.

Speaking of malaria, I've finished treating my bednet with permetherin, and there was still some solution left, so I'm trying to treat two shirts. I'm not sure how well it will turn out.

night blindness and books

My cousin is attending the University of Baltimore for accounting as an international student, so I've been going around with her, most to coach her on her driving and help her out with some administrative stuff. Her driving was initially pretty god awful, but it's improved dramatically. Except for the fact that she has trouble seeing the lanes on MLK blvd at night and her classes end at 8:30pm. On the way back today she switched lanes without knowing it once or twice; thank goodness we didn't get into an accident. I think she has a vitamin A deficiency so I fed her some carrots and my parents gave her some vitamin supplements, but we're going to have her eyes checked anyways to see if her current eye glass prescription is at all accurate.

The good side of all this is that while I've been waiting for my cousin's classes to end, I've gotten a lot of reading done. Yesterday I finally finished Nabokov's Lolita, which I started a long while back. I think I actually read it because I wanted to read Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, but for some reason, in order to do so, I had to first read Lolita. I'm all in all really impressed by Nabokov's writing. I have some mixed opinions about the controversial nature of the story. The book's unique and flowing writing style kind of draws you along, so that the actual obsession between the narrator and the namesake didn't really bother me too much until about the middle of the book, when it takes on a more sociopathic bend. I think this is where I initally put the book down. I picked it up again because I wanted to finish it before I headed off to Cameroon and it would mean one less book to pack, but the end went by faster than I had imagined it would. The writing is amazing immersive and I can see how it was ranked one of the best english language novels. I would highly recommend it.

I had time today, while my cousin was getting some academic counseling, to head into downtown Baltimore and visit the Powerplant, one of the most visually impressive bookstores I've ever seen. The store itself is a Barnes and Nobles and isn't remarkably different than any other besides maybe a larger selection. But they did have the remnants of giant furnaces that made up the base of cyclopean smokestacks that you could walk though. Pretty nifty. Anyways, I picked up some more books for the trip: The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier, the White Man's Burden by William Easterly, and the Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I also wanted to pick up Malcolm Gladwell's the Tipping Point, but they didn't have it in stock.

I made my way though to about a hundred in the poisonwood bible today. great so far. I'll probably finish it before next week, and I might post something about it then.

A don wolwa Anglais na?

I just found a page on wikitravel that has useful phrases in Fulfulde! This is awesome!

Hello.

Salaamma Alaikum (This is an Arabic phrase, used when entering houses).

Hello. (informal)

Sannu, Sannuko.

How are you?

Jam na?,

How is your health?

Jam bandu na?

Fine, thank you.

Jam ko dume.

Fine for the moment.

Jam ni towne

What is your name?

Noy inde ma?

My name is ______ .

Inde am ______ .

Please.

Useni.

Thank you.

Useko.

You're welcome.

Koi dum (it's easy

Yes.

Ohoo.

No.

Kai.

See you later

Sey yeeso.

See you tomorrow

Sey jango.

I can't speak name of language [well].

Mi nonata Fulfulde.

Do you speak English?

A don wolwa Anglais na?

Look out!

Hakilo! (Careful!)

Did you sleep well? (good morning)

A waali jam?

Good night (to sleep)

Jam wallah.

I don't understand.

Mi famay.

Where is the toilet?

Toy bao saare?

I want water.

Mi yiddi Ndiyam.

White person.

Nassara

Packing List

Carry-on Packing List
• Sturdy backpack [check] I've got my old search and rescue pack that's about 40-50 liters and is a hair over the size limit for carry ons (22"). I hear Ethiopian Airlines are pretty relaxed about this sort of stuff, so maybe I can get around it. The alternative would be to take my smaller day pack that fits 25-30 liters. We'll see where I am after this list
• Map of Cameroon [check] I had to order it from amazon.com, but it's the only map of Cameroon by itself (instead of say, the whole of West Africa).
• Copies of various documents [check] I've got copies of my passport, Cameroonian visa, and vaccination documents. I just need to get them authorized by the police department in Cameroon to make them "offical copies." I also bought a blue little waterproof case to put folded up documents in, but I can't find it.
• Rain jacket [check] Marmot Precip jacket: wateproof, but light enough to wear in hot climate. I got it with my employee discount and dividend when i worked at REI. Best zero dollars I ever spent on an article of clothing.
• Extra socks [check] mostly thin liner types for my walking shoes. I figure I'll buy a pair of sandals made from car tires in Cameroon. A friend of mine has a pair that's lasted longer than anything normal has a right to.
• Water bottle [check] taking my old nalgene covered in outdoor brand stickers. It's functional, but if I lose it, I won't shed too many a tear.
• Snacks [check] clif bars and clif shots! mostly for the 3 day flight, but the clif shots should help cope with jet lag, I hope.
• Door stop [I still need to get this] a security thing I picked up somewhere. You slide it under a closed door of a hotel or something, and it should keep a door from opening. It's only paranoia if it costs more than 2 bucks, right?... right?
• Travel pillow [check] I'm rethinking this. A pillow might be too bulky for a carry on, especially if I have to take the smaller pack.
• Alarm clock [check] I have a fear that the alarm will go off in the middle of the security line while the clock is buried at the bottom of my luggage and I will have to dig like a prospecting badger to get to it, resulting in an eruption of toiletries and undies :(
• Toiletries [check] toothbrush, toothpaste (I have two full tubes since someone told my mon it's going to be hard to find or really expensive in Africa), razor, soap, shampoo, towels, deodorant, and a few things I don't care about at this point.
• Camera [check] Nikon Coolpix L18. It's a pretty nifty camera that's easy to use but has plenty of features, and is at a decent price ($120ish). I wanted to dub this my Sameroon Cam, but my sister is against it.
• MP3 player [check] RCA Pearl 2gb. It's not ipod, but it's got some interesting features that drew me to it: can record voice memos, takes a microSD card for memory expansion, and takes AAA batteries. I thought the last one was a good selling point since I should be able to get double and triple As in most places, I don't have to worry about getting a converter for the charger, and I can take it on long trips away from outlets (like freakin long ass plane flights)
• Extra batteries [check] have bag o' batts, mostly AA. I'm sure I've seen a colony of AAA's somewhere around the house.
• Books [getting there] This will probably end up being the heaviest and bulkiest part of my carry ons. Here's the list of books I'm considering taking:
Betrayal of Trust by Laurie Garrett
Diffusion of Innovations by Everett Rogers
Epidemiology: An introduction by Kenneth Rothman
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azir Nafisi
Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues by Paul Farmer
Hunger: A Modern History by James Vernon
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingson
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
Faheinheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
I'm sure I'll add and remove books as I continue packing.
• First aid kit [check] a pretty standardized first aid kit
• GI pharmacy (lactase pills, peptobismol, immodium AD) [check] Also connected to books, if I can find it, I'm taking How to Shit Around the World: The Art of Staying Clean and Healthy While Traveling by Jane Wilson-Howarth. It is an excellent book and I would highly recommend it to anyone thinking about traveling overseas, especially to the 2nd or 3rd world. It's written by a physician and parasitologist and filled with great information and tips about hygiene, food, water, and sanitation, not just pinching a loaf.
• Hand sanitizer [check] yes, I've become that which I loathe: the traveler that takes hand sanitizer everywhere... but it's just so useful for cleaning your hands, I swear.
• Gifts [check, almost] I've got an assortment of items of individuals in Cameroon, as gift giving is an expected custom. I just need a gift for Henri, who has organized my lodgings for me, but it can't be more expensive looking than a silk tie, which I am getting for the Dean of Health Sciences. Hmmm.