Jess does da ‘Roon

 I picked up my skirts to rush out of Buea after only arriving a few weeks earlier from Ethiopia, the urge to escape the clouds and rain too strong.  My neighbors glanced up from washing their laundry, by now unsurprised at my huge pack.  I jauntily arrived in Yaounde, for our close of service conference. Volunteers need a little bit of preparation to re-enter normal society.

We all trooped into Mt. Febe, an extremely luxe hotel on a small hill looking out over the whole city.  The hotel staff must dread the time when Peace Corps volunteers come through, since we’re an evil combination of villagois (we’re ready to spit fish bones on the floor and steal food from the buffet) and highly demanding (we’ve been through 2 years of roughin’ it, how come the hot water’s not on? and where’s the music video channel!?).  I stepped into the room and my breath caught in my throat – the balcony door was open and light came streaming into this extremely clean and sparkling white room. May I never reach the point where small things like this don’t thrill me to the extent of giggles.

The conference tried to hit on all different issues volunteers have once going back, such as writing resumes and making skills such as “Blunt/Direct Communication” and “Being able to eat anything offered” sound professional.  We had a nice little trip to the embassy with American visa information, Foreign Service information, and a small ceremony.  Then some returned volunteers came and talked a bit about their advice for how not to go back and flip out staring at the 500 different types of toothpaste (it’s easy for us to get overwhelmed at all the different sparkly options). I’ve made the crucial decision that within my first days back at home, I will make a special pilgrimage to the grocery store and I will choose very carefully gets to accompany me on this trip since I will pee on myself at some point.

Anytime all of us get together, we’re bound to come up with some horrible form of entertainment.  In the past we’ve had eating contests, dance parties, and feats of strength. This time around we decided on some theme nights, including 80s prom.  I found a fantastic Vana White dress, fully gold sequined to the floor.  Unfortunately my dress would’ve been too heavy for me to participate in the swimming contest where women swam a lap in their dress and switched with a waiting gentleman.  Dresses were ripped. Dreams were shattered.
The band played, this time in some regal sequined costumes.  I was amusing in my off-timedness, but my energy compensated fully (I’m sure).  One of my favorite numbers was The Killers “All These Things That I’ve Done” where the dancers got to freestyle whir about and then do fun saluting motions.  But Kim did an amazing job on her duet of “In the Pines” – we opted for the less racist Nirvana version’s lyrics without the “Black girl, don’t lie to me” part.

Last night we went to a Michael Jackson “Africa’s Son” concert… it took them awhile to get that response organized I suppose.  It was held in the new Chinese Stadium, so there was quite a sprinkling of Asians in the crowd.  It was surreal to be in a basketball dome with nice fold down seats.  We all had doubts as to how long the thing will actually hold up.  The performance was… well done for the most part.  They brought in a lot of different Cameroonian acts to play all types of music, with xylophones and pygmy dancers, jazz with saxophone, and Macossa (I realized that in the States I might never describe something as “having a saxophone” but we get really excited).  But the highlight of the night was an albino/Chinese impersonator.  I’ve heard about him when I was in Buea, that’s how good he is.  In the crowd we speculated as to his origins with francophones- “Il est chinois” “Non, il est blanc” “Il est un albino!” Back and forth. Racism, not really a term yet here. At any rate, he danced amazingly well.  For “Thriller”, they actually organized spastic zombies painted in white face who attacked him.  We were howling (not literally, I was not ready for those looks).  Oh, Michael.

I’ve reached an interesting stage in the process.  I feel really somehow well-integrated but separate from the community, especially as I start to shift my focus onto what happens after Cameroon.  I’m unsurprised by most things that happen around me, and that’s not ideal.  One should be shocked at cars held together with string and packed with bananas/stuffed animals.  One shouldn’t be surprised when things that are lost are returned.  [I recently lost my small purse with my ID card and flash drive in it.  I was not shocked that the flash was stolen but was thoroughly giddy when a taxi driver tracked me down to return my ID - in return for a reward, of course]  Most of the time the response is simply “Ay! Cameroon!” and a suck of the teeth.

My last project in Buea is going to be an Artist Workshop with 25 girls.  It’ll be 6 sessions from October-November.

Following is the program with a wish list for anyone who is able to send supplies (if you’re around NC and can get them to my mom, she perhaps could rally them together).  Anyone who is able to support the program, if you could post a comment on the site/email me to let others know and to prevent overlap of materials.  We’re working on a timeline since things take forever to reach Cameroon.  If anyone has any suggestions, this is a working document and is not finalized.

Artist Workshop 2009

Introduction

Through a collaboration with female Peace Corps volunteers and American researchers in Buea, 25 female students at Government Bilingual High School of Buea ages 12-16 will participate in a 6 week program to experiment with different types of art and materials.  Students in secondary school in Cameroon do not have art classes and most students cannot afford art materials.  In order to help students appreciate what African art is, global art forms will also be introduced.

Participants will also explore their identity and self-concept since many Cameroonian girls are taught to be quiet and are not exposed to positive female role models.  Since many women and girls never learn about female reproductive health, health education will be incorporated into identity and body image.

Each session will last 3 hours, including a warm-up, lesson, and clean-up.  Students will have homework between sessions of at least 2 sketches to do in their sketchbooks. 

Objective

By the end of the 6-week workshop, 25 girls ages 12-16 will:

-         Art:

• Explore global art
• Develop skills in various areas of painting, drawing, collage, and sculpture

-         Health:

• Develop skills in stress management through different forms of meditation
• Be able to explain key elements of reproductive health including pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), prevention of pregnancy and STIs, and menstruation.
• Improve their self-concept through artistic projects focused on inward reflection
• Develop body awareness with human rights and self-image

Sketchbook Assignments

1. Your hand in 2 different positions
2. The scariest monster you can imagine
3. Household Objects (detailed): Draw 2 different things you can find around the house, at least one of them in up-close detail
4. A brand-new never-before-seen fabric pattern
5. Still-life of at least 5 objects: Arrange at least 5 objects on a table and draw them with shading of shadows
6. Portrait of a family member from real life
7. Chair with focus on negative space: The air/space surrounding the chair should be more interesting than the chair itself

Wish List:

-         Scissors (5 pairs)

-         Colored pencils (10 of 10 pencil sets)

-         Crayons (Crayola only)

-         Old magazines for texture (especially National Geographic, gardening magazines, food magazines)

-         Scraps of tin foil, wrapping paper, ribbon, or any other fun scraps

-         Face Paint (3 sets)

-         Erasers (the larger kind: 5)

-         Feathers, sequins, plastic beads (1 pack of each)

-         Strong glue (Gorilla Glue) (1 bottle), Rubber Cement (1 bottle)

-         Sidewalk chalk (15 sticks)

-         Paint brushes – cheap ones (15)

-         Anyone more comfortable with supporting the project financially can donate funds to assist with shipping costs or photo printing costs

“Let us have more oceans, more upheavals, more wars, more holocausts.  Let us have a world of men and women with dynamos between their legs, a world of natural fury, of passion, action, drama, dreams, madness, a world that produces ecstasy and not dry farts.  I believe that today more than ever a book should be sought after even if it has only one great page in it: we must search for fragments, splinters, toenails, anything that has ore in it, anything that is capable of resuscitating the body and soul.” – Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller

Excerpts from my journal:

Addis is big but not as assaulting as Douala.  The people are shockingly polite and we find ourselves rude often since we’re behaving like West Africans (or at least Cameroonian) – loud, demanding.  Ethiopia women are gorgeous – with all kinds of fluffy hairstyles and small little bodies.  Rastafarians (“Ras” meaning ‘head’ and “Tefari” being Selassie’s tribal name) are plentiful.  So are homeless people and beggars.  Apparently the country is very safe and that’s hard to get used to.   Amharic is really hard to learn and I’m lagging behind in remembering any words.  Most people here speak some English, otherwise we have to pantomime.  We keep speaking special English to be understood and it only seems to make things harder.  One little American girl thought we were German since we sound so strange talking in deep voices and stilted syllables. 

“The Loop”: Tourists often do a circuit of Addis and fly around to a loop of cities up north before coming back to Addis. Unfortunately we did the same.  A few times we saw the same people in multiple cities.

Bahir Dar

We flew to Bahir Dar and arrived at night.  I insist that arriving at night is the strangest way to come in to a new place.  We rambled off the tiny airport to the taxi for the Ghion Hotel that awaited us.  This hotel was my favorite in the whole country.  It’s little rooms are hidden amidst trees and beautiful white flowers.  The hotel’s got a perfect location, right on the large Lake Tana.  In the morning we sat overlooking the water and had a delicious breakfast under these arching trees, stretching toward the water.
We took a boatride out to the islands on the lake with these ancient monasteries.  The first was on an island but the church cost 30birr (about $3) to go in and I decided that was too much so I stayed outside.  I sat down on a rock.  Eventually one of the nuns, barefooted and wrapped in a saphron-colored robe came up to me.  She sat down on the ground next to me and we tried to talk.  She picked up the pamphlet I was looking at and told me the Amharic names of all the religious figures.  I smiled a lot and tried to pantomime.  I was so touched that she sat down and was asking me questions.  Although at one point she said something about “Amaraina” which I somehow translated to me being married, which later I figured out is the word for the Amharic language – she was commenting about how I don’t understand Amharic and boy, was she right.
The second stop we made on Lake Tana was on the Zeke peninsula to one of the more famous 14^th century churches.  We were picked up by a beautiful man who wrapped a knitted scarf (like the kind cool college kids make in the States) around his head.  The children were everywhere begging and trying to sell us all kinds of little things. The church itself was amazing.  We stepped through an entryway and then across a small field to the circular church.  We left our shoes outside and stepped into the first ring of the church, covered with grass mats.  The morning light came sneaking in through cracks.  This part was where people came to pray.  Then we entered one of the 12 HUGE original wooden doors, each one made from one enormous piece of wood, that had sketches drawn on the wood of religious figures.  People entered here to hear mass and take sacrament.  It’s an Orthodox Catholic Church and most of it was rehabbed in the 19^th century after it was painted in the 15^th century.  The paintings showed scenes of Mary with Jesus and other religious characters.  Often they were VERY violent scenes with people being punished.  Saints. Apostles. If they were supposed to be Ethiopian, they were painted with big eyes, sharp nose, and an afro.  I found this …somehow primitive (for lack of a more PC way to say that) but later I started looking at people… and… they sorta had big eyes and sharp noses.  Not always an afro. 

Gonder

We took a many hour bus ride.  I had no way to tell time.  For the most part, I liked losing myself.  The bus wasn’t overpacked (!!!) but they did stop and pick up farmers to let them sit on the floor, covered with grass to absorb mud and make things look fresh (this was common in cafes and restaurants as well, I really like it).  The farmers wear blankets draped around them with tiny shorts to show off their knobby knees.  Apparently they don’t really make the switch very well from the blazing dry season to the nippy cold season.  They didn’t get the farmer memo – Cameroonian farmers would NEVER go to the fields without long trousers and possibly long sleeves.  It’s just not prudent!  I had to eventually put my journal away since I was sitting next to the window and everyone kept pressing their faces up to the glass to stare at the page (where I had drawn a comical bony blanket-draped farmer).

Gonder is a mountain town with hills surrounding it.  Like other places here, it’s quiet.  Especially in the mornings: towns don’t seem to be up and running until after 9am at least, and that’s all the more evident on fasting days (we heard there were about 200 fasting days a year).  It’s got a long history: it was one of the capitals of Ethiopia (as were Aksum and Lalibela).  The “Royal Enclosure” (no seriously, they call it that) houses castles built by the different rulers.

We took a tour in the playful morning sun of the Enclosure with a guide very used to PCVs.  He pointed out the latrine hole in one castle and said, “People say shit happens but where does it go?” The castles are all so old that it’s hard to imagine actual people in them, using the theatre or the stables.  Grass grows across the huge expanse of a lawn and it’s nice to see it again.

Debark

We hopped on another bus to Debark, the staging town to climb the Simien Mountains.  The road wound around hills and mountains with great views.  One particular spot was muddy and sent us into a slow fishtail, which I sucked in air like my mom when I was learning to drive in a sharp hiss.  On one side of us was a LONG downhill into a valley and the other was the side of the hill.  Our driver chose the hill to crash us into and we didn’t roll, by some miracle, but stayed teetering on the side.  Everyone clamored out the driver side door to stand around in the mud.  The locals didn’t seem very frightened.  It was at this point that one of my companions shared the fact that Ethiopia has some of the highest motor accident rates in all of Africa.  Oh good.  Men started finding rocks to shove under the bus.  Crowds from neighboring villages start to gather.  Brian, ever the showman, puts on a spectacle for them by teaching them “Macarena”.  2 hours later finds us shivering in the rain with no shelter.  Finally a large truck comes and pulls the bus out, and we reluctantly climbed back in.  Our driver decided to prove himself by driving like we hadn’t just spent hours sliding in the mud, and he’s whizzing around curves.  Jessica, ever vocal, shouts out “Kez! Kez!” as she starts to get more scared.  I think that would be the equivalent to “Slow!” – we were later taught how to correctly shout out things.  The locals are alarmed at her shouting.  Eventually we make the decision to get off the bus, at risk of future rubs of death.  We find ourselves in a tiny town with huge bags.  HUGE rings of villagers form around us.  A few stagger off to a bar for a beer, Brian is shouting the American national anthem at the top of his lungs.  Finally a private car comes by and agrees to take all of us to Debark.  The roll bars have never looked so good.

We arranged to take a bus to the first camp of the trail – getting into the heart of the good part of the mountains.  We weighed our bags on a little hill and paid for porters (which were supposed to be donkeys – the boys were excited about donkeys.  Apparently donkeys get tired in the rain, so we had tiny old men carry our massive bags).  We quickly saw Cliff Jumpers – little deer-like creatures that go bounding through the fog.  We walked through Spanish Moss groves that were really peaceful.  The rain came and we all got wet.  All of the views were covered in fog, which was sad because later we saw the views and they’re amazing valleys and steep drops.  What we DID see were baboons.  I think some of my fellow African buddies are less jazzed about monkeys, apes, etc.  Forget all that. These are baboons and they’re prowling in huge herds, just grazing across grassy groves.  They’ve got no reason to fear people, since Ethiopians aren’t EATING them like Cameroonians do, so we were able to get really close to them.  We all crouched down to watch them, eerily through the wispy fog. 

We walked about 5 hours to Gich (“Geech” – someone should name a creature after this name), the second camp.  Gich village was hauntingly beautiful with small hay huts set in lush grass hillsides.  We saw waterfalls and had to cross through a few streams; I unfailingly nearly fell in every tiny body of water we passed through.  Usually I did it with an accompanying squeal.  Gich camp was a bit…. COLD. It was at the top of a hill in the wind and rain.  The altitude hit me hard and whenever I had to go uphill, my heart would pound and I’d lose my breath.  Even if I wasn’t tired, I had to stop and wait for my heartbeat to drop down into my stomach.  I had a steady soundtrack in my head of “Make me lose my breath” by Beyonce among other winners.  All hikers are required to have an armed scout (who don’t speak English), I came to think of him as our sniper.  He always waited patiently for me on the hills.  We got to camp by 5pm and set up tents (Ok, we had the porters do that, we were freezing).  We got a fire going, ate dinner, and were out.  The rain leaked through the tent and I didn’t sleep hardly at all – in spite of my 2 sleeping bags, fleece jacket, scarf, 2 layers of clothes, and 3 shirts).  We were up and going at first light.

I was nervous about climbing anymore.  We’d reached the summit at about 3,900m (I think anyway, I suck at measurements).  It was foggy and we were tired.  We came down a bit and the second view was amazing, a sheer drop and waterfall.  The fog came in quickly though.  Most of the ground we walked was grassy or rocky but some of it was what I called “Lego blocks”, with odd shapes raising up out of the mud, making it awkward to step.  By the time we got down, we were taking long strides across an animal pasture toward the road.  We knew the bus wouldn’t come pick us up for awhile and then cold rain came… and HAIL too!? We ran for shelter.  A woman took us into her house – there were lots of us with the guide, porters, sniper – and she instantly starts the “coffee ceremony”.

We saw a few places where you could have some woman dressed in a pretty dress perform the “ceremony” that is required to make coffee traditionally.  Much better in some large, cold, garage type room with a woman and her 4 children.  She throws a handful of coffee beans on a flat metal disk over the coals.  She washed them and worked the beans through a tiny bit of water 3 times.  Then she roasted them, pushing them with a longish metal stick.  She put them in a wooden cylinder to pound them with a different, thicker metal rod (possibly a car part in a past life). She did this for awhile, with an infant sucking her breast and someone else fanning the flame to boil the water.  We all watched silently.  Finally she put the grounds in the teapot.  She brought out the set of cups and the serving tray (made from a metal “Sensation: 4 condoms for 1birr” sign).  She washed them with her hands, scrubbing them until they squeaked.  Then the injera and hot sauce was served with coffee.  Not being a coffee pro, I thought it was strong and good?  I think perhaps some of the deliciousness was wasted on me.

The rain had stopped and our driver had come.  This was the scariest ride I could imagine.  Luckily we had 4WD but I’d also had coffee.  So there I am, jittery and hyped.  Roads are muddy.  Cliffs, sheer drops on one side and mountain on the other.  Driver’s had chat (the equivalent of West African kola nuts, Ethiopian –men especially- love to chew on chat leaves, which release small amounts of caffeine… but we heard rumors that drivers often chew up to 150 grams of it… not small amounts anymore) – he’s all hyper and keeps talking and looking backwards.  Meanwhile I’m praying.  I realize I have no ID on me, no one knows where we are, it’ll be forever before my parents know I’m dead.  Not to think of death itself.  I’m only surviving on counting my breaths, I think I must’ve counted 10 rounds of 10.  Then I started trying to ohm peace into my center core, taking belly breaths to ease out fear.  I’m not looking out any windows.  Fear. Lots of it.  We blessed the ground as soon as we got down from the SUV.

Aksum

The original capital of Ethiopia.  It’s a charming small town.  Full of great colors – blue, teal, pinks, and reds on houses and stores.  The wide main road is divided by trees. Tuktuks are all over (motorbikes with covered carts to carry passengers in an intimate backseat), donkeys with occasional camels, bikes, and horse-drawn carts.  Sometimes cows wander onto sidewalks in front of bars.  There’s a meeting point in town with a sprawling, huge tree appropriately called “The Big Tree”.  Like everywhere else, people are often walking around with white blankets draped around them.

We went to the Northern Stelae Field, where huge obelisks sit scattered about.  There are 2 that are over 20m high, one returned by the Italians after they stole it in 1937.  There’s another 500+ ton one that is in pieces – they think it fell shortly after erection since it was too heavy to stand.  There’s still a lot of it to be excavated – there are all kinds of underground tombs.  I have a hard time understanding that a lot of it is almost 2,000 years old.  That the granite was chiseled and carted around.  Of course I need not comment on men’s need to erect a huge phallic symbol of their grandeur.  They were buried with treasure rooms which were (of course) robbed.  Going down into the tombs, there are fluffy piles of bird feathers in an otherwise completely rock room.  Mostly what entertains everyone is the chance to play – to lay down on top of tombs, to do optical illusion photos that look like you’re squeezing the obelisks, to have huge rock phalluses.  We are so disrespectful (not that I was any less entertained).  But the work and reverence that all these monuments used to hold!  As we left, the rain began.  Since I refused to pay another $12 to go to the church (I’d already gone on a mad dash across town to fetch my ID card for a $2.50 fee reduction/urgently relieve myself.  And I later found out women couldn’t go in anyway), Seth and I waited out the rain in a musty souvenir shop.  As it stopped, one of the mob of young guys offered to show us where a tej house was.  Tej being honey liquor.  So off we trekked, through the church compound with numerous small streams to do ultimate puddle jumping.  Into the quarter, I could never find that green gate again if I tried.  Cats leaped around buckets of rainwater as we entered the compound.  An older woman eventually brought us 2 bottles of tej to the dim garage where we sat on sofas, watching laundry get rained on outside.  The tej was good, it made me sleepy.  Later we went to eat shiro – delightful vegetarian sauce that tastes a bit like nacho cheese – it was my favorite.

Jessica and I walked around town, shopping for tourist stuff.  We went in a few dusty shops with all kinds of jewelry and paintings.  All of it stuff we pretty much couldn’t afford.  There were beautiful rings to be strung on a necklace and old coins and crosses, weird metals, forks, and a leopard pin with sparkling eyes.  Magic scrolls and wooden neck “pillows”.  It felt really Mexican somehow.

On the way out of Aksum on the way to Lalibela, we got stuck in the airport.  We were delayed by a day and a half.  The airline put us up in a nice hotel with a nice pizza dinner.  (We ate so much pizza in this Italian-influenced country it was out of hand).

Lalibela

At 2,600m, the town feels a bit like a ski town.  No snow, mostly mud and cobbled streets.

We dropped our stuff at the Asheten Hotel, an odd little cottage/dungeon-like hotel, and booked it down to the churches.  Everyone who’d been to Ethiopia ONLY asked if we were going to Lalibela.  Because of the flight delays, we were arriving much later than anticipated.  The ticket office for the churches became a bit of a hang-up since the $10 fee had tripled without anyone telling us, apparently as of 2 weeks prior.  Now, I’ll admit $30 to see 11 ancient churches really isn’t a large sum.  Really.  But we didn’t think we’d make it to all 11, we only wanted to see about 3, and we only had a few hours. 

In general, the churches chiseled into mountains were grand and impressive.  Inside there were curtains and rugs to soften the all-rock rooms, paintings usually of the saint whom the church was named for.  The rock paths became slippery with a thin layer of red clay moistened with rain.  Some places of the church were worn shiny and smooth from so many hands and feet passing or kisses placed.  I felt irreverent following behind groups of Ethiopians who had come back from abroad to take a sort of pilgrimage.  They carried video cameras and crossed themselves, kissing doorways in these ancient holy places.  Priests came out in hats and robes, presenting gold crosses to be kissed.  We didn’t know to wear socks and so I gingerly stepped over worn rugs and across cold stone thresholds with my bare feet.

My favorite church (and many others’ favorite too) was St. George.  It was a cross-shaped church, the cross level with the ground around it.  There were cemeteries on the hills around, with lone stoic trees, and mountains in the distance.  In spite of a few groups of tourists sauntering about, the place was still calmly serene.  After you clamber down the steep stairs, the church is covered in yellow-green algae and it’s beautiful.  There were a few coves around the walls of the carved pit.  One held the 400-year old bones of some pilgrim, with little feet well-preserved.

The following morning, the airline called with updates as our flight was delayed hour by hour.  Jessica and I stepped out for a stroll about town.  We headed toward the Mountain View Resort, known for having a Jamaican cook.  It was a ways outside of town.  Finally we reached it, at the end of a residential road, on a cliff.  All brick and glass, it was an amazing piece of modernity letting the ancient hills of Lalibela shine through.  We skipped up the steps to their outdoor deck with a panoramic view of the layers of mountains all around.  The rain quickly drove us indoors to their open, high-ceiling café.  We sat and slurped mushroom soup, reveling in our peaceful cove, while praying for the flight to be delayed until the next day so we could somehow weasel our way into one of the bathtub-equipped rooms.  No such luck, but Addis isn’t a bad reward.