Friday, August 29, 2008

COS Conference and Tanzania

It's been a busy last few weeks – "busy" being relative, but it included a week in Tanzania and lots of quality Yaoundé time with lots of volunteers.  We'll "Tarantino it" and go backwards.

COS Conference

After Tanzania and a couple days to kill at the case, it was time for COS Conference, which is the unofficial beginning of the end of a PCV's career.  PC kind of spared no expense by putting us up in the second nicest hotel in Yaoundé, the Mont Fébé (the nicest being the Hilton).  The hotel is on the side of a hill looking over the city, which, from a bird's-eye perspective, actually looks kind of nice (don't be fooled).  Also, it's located in a nice area of town near the American embassy, the quartier where all of Yaoundé's ex-pats live, the presidential palace, the national assembly, and a home for the tasteless Chantal Biya, the First Lady.  The biggest plus about the accommodation side of the Fébé was the free wireless Internet, although the signal strength varied from room to room.

For the conference itself, it was basically an explanation of what we have to do before leaving post and being cleared to leave.  We chose our dates to go home, filled out a bunch of paperwork, and talked about our posts and whether or not we wanted to be replaced.  There was also a session in which we, the PCVs, gave constructive criticism on different aspects of PC Cameroon administration, which was an exercise in tact and restraint.  (For example, how to nicely say that while we, the PCVs, who all the admin is working for essentially, are expected to be respectful and control our emotions with staff, the staff can fling attitude in our direction left and right, which sometimes they do.)

Three sessions stand out from the whole conference, two made by people at the embassy.  The first embassy guy was, to put it politely, a huge prick.  He works in the consular section of the embassy, so he is in charge of visa approvals.  He was perhaps the most jaded and dry person we've encountered.  To give him some credit, he gets to see the worst side of Cameroonians every day, mainly the desperate hustler side, but he didn't seem to care at all about the country he was in.  He was also frustratingly vague about the requirements for visas, directing us to their embassy website but also saying that there aren't any set rules, only that there is an interview fee of $131, which means that an illiterate peanut farmer from Lagdo has as much of a theoretical chance as a guy top in his class at the University of Yaoundé to get a visa if they can fork over the fee, something that can't possibly be true.

Luckily, another, more jovial person from the embassy talked to us.  This second guy was the head of Human Resources at the embassy, and he gave us a presentation about looking for a job upon our return.  He made sure to tell us that he doing a condensed version of a $500 seminar that people usually signed up for, and it was really helpful.  For instance, I had no idea what an informational interview was before he told us. He pulled no punches in telling us how little time we have to make an impression on potential employers.  He worked off of a job search book which he gave us copies of, which will help only help to overwhelm me and make my head spin whenever I peruse it here at post.  Overall, the session was instructive, very terrifying, and left a better taste in our collective mouths than Little Miss Sunshine from the consular section.

After the HR guy, the next session was the most interesting of the conference: a RPCV panel.  (These three sessions happened to be on the last afternoon of the last day of the conference.)  The panel consisted of six RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) who recounted their post-PC experiences and basically gave their post-PC biographies.  Three of the six currently work for Peace Corps Cameroon, the country director and the Health and Small Enterprise Development APCDs (both APCDs were PCVs in Cameroon, with one girl from my stage posted at our Health APCD's old village – no pressure), one was a recent RPCV that a PCV from my training group replaced, another was a PCV in Ghana and now works for the CDC, and lastly, there was the second-in-command at the US embassy who was a PCV in Thailand back in the day.  Granted, all six haven't had typical RPCV experiences because they've chosen to continue to live and work overseas ("to be bitten by the bug"), but they all talked about a common theme: readjustment will be hard.  There seemed to be a lot of brooding, frantic job searches, and amazement at American supermarkets during their readjustment, and nearly all six spoke of the loneliness that they felt back in the States, leading all of us to laugh nervously hoping they weren't serious but knowing they were.  The most interesting aspect of the panel was that while their lives wandered from here to there, they all had one thing in common: everything they're doing now is directly related to their PC service, a somewhat obvious revelation on my part, yes, but it has helped me to start wrapping my head around coming back to the States and putting Peace Corps in perspective and knowing things will work out, even if I'll be afraid of malls and the pet food aisle for a few months.


Tanzania

To give you an idea of how much more developed the tourist infrastructure in Tanzania is compared to Cameroon, here are two examples.  First, the airports in Yaoundé and Dar es Salaam.  While the Yaoundé airport is a big cement building with ample cavernous space that resembles the Bat Cave's storage warehouse, Dar's is breezy and lets in beaucoup sunlight.  (It doesn't help my perception of Yaoundé since I've only been there, on arrival and departure, at night due to international flight schedules.)  The second example is the difference in safaris.  Upon our first ten minutes in Lake Manyara in Tanzania, our first day of safari ("safari" means destination in Swahili, by the way), we saw more animals than in whole daytrips to Cameroon's leading wildlife park, Waza.  We instantly saw so many giraffes, elephants, zebras, warthogs, and a slew of other creatures that it was hard to know where to look first.

It's almost unfair to compare the tourism industries in Tanzania and Cameroon.  First, Tanzania, specifically the northern part of the country, is unique geographically.  It's the start of the Great Rift Valley, has Mount Kilimanjaro, is in the middle of a huge animal migration area, and has a pleasant climate (at least when we went).  It has also historically caught the imagination of Westerners for all the reasons listed above.  Second, Cameroon is just shabby compared to the investments and upkeep that Tanzania has done.  Although I'm sure Tanzania has its host of problems, Cameroon's are more obvious after being able to see the flip side of African tourism.  You can tell Tanzania has taken a long-range view of its resources.  It's cultivated a large animal population, invested heavily in its infrastructure (roads, Western luxuries like running water), and seems to have a good, beneficial relationship between the government, NGOs, and private tour agencies; everyone seems to realize that if they all collaborate, the money will start pouring in, and it has.

Cameroon has taken a short-term view, if you want to even give them the benefit of the doubt that they've taken any look at all.  With some exceptions, I'm thinking Mount Cameroon, places are just left to their own devices.  For example, the Lagon Blue that's here in Lagdo, a hotel that's designed for tourists on the lake.  The road leading to the hotel is unpaved and gets worse and worse every year.  I've been there a couple times with visiting PCVs since the rains started this year, and the moto ride is becoming painful because of all the bumps.  Part of the road goes through Djippordé, the market village on the lake, so you'd think it'd be in everyone's best interest that the road is somewhat maintained, at least smoothed once a year.  Of course it hasn't happened.  Once you get to the Lagon Blue, it's in dire need of a paint job, and there's a gazebo a hundred meters or so out in the lake.  You can walk out there by a footbridge – well, you could, but it's been broken for over a year and not yet fixed.  (The difference between what it is acceptable for a hotel or a resort in Tanzania or Cameroon is remarkable.  If the Lagon Blue were in Tanzania, it would be forced to keep everything top-notch because a neighboring hotel would pop up next door and knock it out of business, but since that doesn't happen here, you either take what you can get and be happy with it or try to find someplace else less sketchy.)

Our vacation was really nice, but as you can tell by this entry, a conversational theme amongst the four of us was a can't-help-but-shit-on-Cameroon attitude.  We didn't want to, but the differences were frustratingly (from a Cameroon point of view) stark.  I forget where I was sometimes in Tanzania, and I had to pinch myself, especially in Zanzibar, to remember we were still on the same continent.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Tanzania Pictures


This little giraffe is my favorite photo from Tanzania. You can find more here.

Monday, August 04, 2008

Tanzania & Yaounde

Tanzania

 

There comes a point in every underemployed guy's life where a vacation is needed, or at least desired.  Channeling my inner George Costanza, the time has come for me.

 

A few other PCVs and I are heading off to Tanzania for a week of large animals and the beach on Zanzibar.  The flight isn't just a hop, skip, and a jump from Cameroon.  It's about seven hours from Yaoundé to Dar es Salaam, the capital, which includes a stopover in Nairobi for an hour or two, kind of like when flying from Europe to Cameroon, you stop in Douala for an hour before ending up in Yaoundé.  We're crossing the entire continent, and we end up in the Southern Hemisphere, which I'm excited about because I can check off "Southern Hemisphere" on my places-to-go list.  (Also on the list: Israel, Central Europe/Scandinavia, Argentina, and your mom's house.)

 

Once we get to Dar, we take another flight to Arusha, the main Tanzanian city in the north (Dar is on the coast), where the safari company will pick us up.  We originally wanted to go to the Serengeti, but we ran into the problem of it being more expensive than we thought and having an unaccommodating tour organizer that another PCV put us in touch with that wouldn't budge on a price and didn't really give us any alternative suggestions.  (Reasons for the problems with this tour guide I think stemmed from us not being high-end tourists that he usually does business with.)  We found another safari, the one we ended up hiring, who came up with a more budget-oriented trip that includes a whirlwind tour of just about everything tourist-related in northern Tanzania except the Serengeti and Mount Kilimanjaro, where, as Al Gore loves to point out, there ain't no snow there no more.

 

We're going to go to Lake Manyara and Ngorongoro for three nights, then we go back to the Arusha/Kilimanjaro airport and fly directly to Zanzibar.  On Zanzibar, I believe our plan currently is to spend two nights on the north side of the island, then one night at Stone Town, after which we'll take the ferry back to Dar es Salaam and fly back to Yaoundé with diligent notes to give to the Cameroonian Ministry of Tourism with the title being:  This Is How It's Done.

 

(Our Zanzibar plans are a little bit up in the air because of problems with the aforementioned original tour guide.  In addition to not finding us a cheaper safari, he wouldn't offer us hotels that were less than $75-100 for a double room, ridiculous when you can go online and see numerous hostels and hotels for 30 bucks at the most.  We gave him names of the cheaper hotel/hostels we wanted, which he said he could still book for us, but I don't think he ever did.  Now we're throwing ourselves on the mercy of the new safari company, Tanzania Adventure, or going to have to make online reservations between now and Thursday.  On va voir…)

 

 
COS Conference/Yaoundé

 

What really is exciting about this vacation is that it's the Beginning of the End.  We chose early August for a vacation because we're linking it up with our Close of Service Conference, which is in Yaoundé from August 18-20.  (COS Conference from here on out.  We also use COS as a verb to say when we go home:  "She COS's in June.")

 

The COS process, according to our handy COS Handbook 2008, starts at the conference and is where we start the process of getting us ready to go home.  We fill out forms, have COS procedures explained to us, and, most importantly, determine our COS date.  The three dates are already chosen, so it's up to the 25 or so of us COSing at the normal time (some people are COSing early for various reasons) to choose amongst ourselves who goes when.  I'm forecasting that this will either go eerily smoothly, or turn into a passive aggressive Lord of the Flies-like situation.  I'm looking forward to it as a social experiment.  A few of my friends and I were saying that we'd just choose the third week to avoid any friction with other volunteers and be able to COS with people we want; but, as it turns out, the second week is probably the best for me, so that's what I'll be aiming for.

 

Other than getting our pink slips, the bestest part of COS Conference is that instead of us staying at the volunteer hostel within the PC Cameroon HQ, the case (pronounced like "cause"), which, despite a kitchen, TV + DVD players with numerous movies, and three computers with Internet, is one of the dullest places in Cameroon, Peace Corps puts us up for three days/four nights in the second nicest hotel in Yaoundé, Mount Febé.  (The Hilton is the nicest; there's even an elevator.  I'm not sure if Fébé has one, but I'll get back to you since this is important information.  In case you're wondering, the only time I've been higher than the second floor of any building these last two years has been in September 2006 during our first week in country at the Hotel Jouvence; at the Yaoundé Hilton one time for Happy Hour; and while in Paris for Christmas.)

 

Mount Fébé is near the US Embassy and I think has a golf course nearby, so it's in a nice part of town.  It has a pool, and all of our meals are provided for us, which is really exciting.  I always feel a like a rube heading to the big city for the first time whenever I go to Yaoundé: traffic, food, big buildings, and hot showers.  I'm pretty sure there'll be a session during COS Conference about readjustment to America because it's obvious that I need it.

Photo Gallery - Soccer Tournament

Here are some pictures from the opening day and match of the Lagdo soccer tournament, which this year celebrates Excellence. (Last year, it was Hope. Yes, we can!)


Everyone on the organizing commission gets a badge, le badge, in French (Cameroonian French only, perhaps?). Even though my “fonction” is treasurer, the way the badges were made makes it look like everyone is the president of the commission. This is the second copy of the badge; the actual one is in a lanyard… ladies.

The tribune, where the grands sit for various parades and events, like soccer games. The guy in the front row in the orange-brown boubou is the mayor, while the guy to the left in the white is my landlord, who does something with the irrigation canals on the other side of the dam. Whatever it is, it warrants him a seat next to the mayor.



A wider view of the previous picture. To get a sense of where this is, it’s between the post office, on the left, and the new mayor’s office, on the right.



Some of the teams starting to line up for…



… Handshakes from the sous-préfet, mayor, and all the big men who decided to bless us with their presence and infinite wisdom.



The sous-préfet kicking off ceremonially.



The actual kickoff. Only two hours late after all the pageantry. Not bad. And, as commissaire de match, I sit at a table where this picture was taken, so right on the sideline. That’s the sous-prefecture in the back there, so you can get more of an idea how things in this part of town are situated.


A fight broke out amongst the teams… Sigh. It’s a precursor of things to come. Sorry for the poor picture quality, but notice the bodies of players strewn about: the guy in the pink jersey, the goalie, then another guy in white shorts and red jersey by the right goal post. Both of these guys would be fine and on their feet once all the fuss was over. I hate soccer sometimes.


Since I’m the treasurer, I hang on to all the money. This is the special safe I keep it in. God bless Ziploc, and God bless America.

Grave Injustices - Soccer Tournament, Part II

This soccer tournament, le Championnat de l'Excellence (last year it was the Championship of Hope, l'Espoir), has turned into a crucible of everything I like and dislike about Cameroon.  There have been fights, suspensions, fines, countless yellow and red cards, all of which culminated in a five-day suspension of all games.  This all happened in the first two weeks.

 

Just a little synopsis of how the soccer tournament is set up before continuing on with the tales of misdeeds.  There are eight teams that have to pay a 20.000 cfa entry fee, plus a 1.000 cfa inscription fee.  Each team plays each other twice in two rounds, the first the "aller" and the second the "retour."  Before each match, each team has to pay a 500 cfa referee fee, of which there are three for every game (they split the 1.000 cfa three ways), the central referee on the field and two line judges patrolling the sides.  There are financial penalties for receiving cards, 200 cfa for a yellow and 500 for a red that have to be paid before the next game.  In addition to these penalties, there are licenses that every player has to have with a 4x4 photo (centimeters) that costs 700 cfa each for insurance purposes (for the tournament to cover its ass in case something happens, and also a way for Ministry of Sports officials in Garoua to get a piece) and to cut down on "mercenaries," players from outside of Lagdo, which each team is allowed three to five, I'm not sure which.  I'm telling you all this so you understand that this is an expensive tournament for a team to enter, even if it is usually a wealthier-than-average guy who is the financier, and even with the prize money for the first place finisher, the team president will likely not make any profit.  So, the only real reason they dispense so much argent is for The Glory.

 

Despite this tournament of excellence being open to the entire arrondissement, it only consists of teams from Lagdo Centre, Djippordé (the village by the lake a few kilometers from Lagdo), and I think one team from Ouro Kessoum, a village outside of Lagdo on the paved road a few kilometers away.  It's just not feasible for people in the faraway villages to field a team, and because most of the wealth in the arrondissement is concentrated in Lagdo and Djippordé, this tournament is basically just amongst some quartiers in Lagdo and our neighbors.

 

The suspension of all games came 10 days after the tournament started.  There are two games scheduled for each day during the aller and retour, and on this day, both of the games disintegrated over disputed calls, the overarching theme of all the tournament's problems.  During the first game, with the score 1-0 near the end of the second half, Étoile FC received a penalty kick by an obvious foul in the goal box.  After Étoile equalized, Monde Arabe's supporters stormed on to the field and harassed the referee until time ran out.  (By supporters, I mean a handful of men, ranging from the ages of 25-45, then a sea of children, young boys, that stream onto the field whenever anything happens, which in Lagdo means when a goal is scored or when a team's supporters storm on to the field to harass a referee.  When that happens, the crowd of people moves across the field like a swarm of bees.)

 

During the second game, an actual referee error caused Danay FC to stomp their feet and refuse to play out the game like spoiled children.  After a bad throw-in by Danay was flagged by the line judge, and which Barça quickly recovered, the central referee didn't see that the line judge had called it, so play continued.  Danay didn't even recognize there was a missed call, and Barça scored on the ensuing play, of course.   It was only until after the play ended that anyone realized that the ref missed the call.  Immediately, at the kickoff to restart play, Danay's coach yelled at his players to kick the ball off the field, which they dutifully did, and refuse to play because of the grave injustice of the missed call.  The goal that Barça scored was an equalizer, so the score was only 1-1, and there were more than twenty minutes left in the second half.  So the game finished out with the players on both teams standing on the field and groups of Danay coaches, reserves, and whoever decided to come on down to the sidelines animatingly yelling at each other, despite agreeing, about the grave injustices inflicted upon them, and with the ball nesting out of bounds near my table.

 

A great day for Lagdo football.