Summer Camps

Below are a few photos of the adorable children at another summer camp that I helped out with teaching a whole range of topics including savings, water & sanitation, and goal setting. We started this camp out by both milking a cow and delivering a baby cow...

Jewelry Making Project

I started a jewelry making project with another volunteer at an orphanage in Dschang. The idea is for the orphans to make money to pay for school and medical costs, as well as save some money and learn a trade for when they leave the orphanage and start living on their own. We invited an artisan to teach them how to make necklaces, earrings, and bracelets. On the right, the orphans are using a candle to secure the clasps. We divided the older orphans into teams of quality control, anti-theft, and finance, which they really like! We made a website: https://sites.google.com/site/cibaeeva/

A few weeks ago, we also taught the orphans how to crochet purses out of old plastic bags. None of the volunteers got it, but the orphans got it right away and started whipping out purses complete with zippers and handles in just an hour! It's another potential income generating activity which they are psyched about.

How to bake a cake without an oven

Ovens are scare here, but don't worry, there are still ways to make baked goods. What you do is take an enormous pot, put a bowl at the bottom, then put the pan with the cake batter on top. You put the lid of the big pot on and place the entire thing over a fire. It gets tricky setting the right temperature, so you have to play around with it a lot adding wood and taking some away.

The food here, otherwise, is sometimes great and sometimes not so great. Unlike Madagascar where I had rice every single day, I eat a much more varied diet of starches here: corn, manioc, rice, pasta, and lots of plantains. My homestay family’s favorite meal was couscous de maize.Do not confuse these couscous with those of Northern Africa…what they mean by couscous here is dried, powdered corn or manioc that is added to boiling water and essentially tasteless and void of any vitamins. My first night in country we ate it with Gumbo – a snot-like, guey green sauce, which did not make a good first impression. Luckily, there is really great fruit!

On the right is a picture of a baker's oven. I'm trying to teach him how to make chocolate chip cookies!

The Bread Man

This is the Bread Man. He, along with his buddies arrive bright and early every morning at each boutique with a big stack of bread on the back of their motos delivering fresh loaves. In my village, we get Mbouda bread as it comes from a town called Mbouda and it is the best bread in all of Cameroon. It can only be purchased from the bread men if you’re not actually in Mbouda, so there is only small radius in Cameroon where it can be bought. If you put a little cream cheese on there, it is the closest thing we can get to a Bagel!

Introducing Wala Wahala

This is my new kitten! I got her to chase all the mice away and maybe even some bugs. Her name means “Nothing but Trouble” in two languages spoken throughout Cameroon– Fulfulde (Wala) and Pidgin (Wahala).

The World Map Project

My postmate and I decided to do the World Map Project at the local high school. We are doing this project for two reasons: 1) Unlike in American schools that have walls covered in diagrams, charts, and art work, the walls of schools in Cameroon are completely blank, and 2) Some of the students have never seen a map and many had trouble pointing out which continent was Africa.

The painting of the map went well until we started getting help from the students. As a result, some of the countries are now missing as they were painted over with the wrong colors, some new countries have appeared because two colors were used on one country, and I’m pretty sure Brazil is never going to dry after the technique of globing paint was used. Also, all the islands around Canada were painted, as in the sea was painted – not the actual islands. It turns out half the project is going to be devoted towards touch-ups. In the end, however, everyone had a lot of fun, especially since many of the students have never painted before (no art classes here). And the map eventually turned out all right:

Expo

ACREST and I organized an expo to sell their improved stoves among other products. We set it up outside the microfinance bank on big market day, which takes place every 8 days. On big market days, the 30,000 people of Bangang come to sell and buy food, which is usually pretty overwhelming since downtown Bangang is pretty deserted any other day of the week.


Above is a picture of me and my counterpart, Beatrice, setting up. We made posters illustrating the difference in wood usage of the improved stoves vs. traditional stoves (which are just 3 stones that you put a marmite on). We also made tea and boiled peanuts to attract people. Below is a picture of me trying to explain how the improved stove works to the villagers in French and in the few local language words I know.