Reflection Eternal.

Bonjour,

Hope you are all doing well. Life in Cameroon has been moving swimmingly…I am back at post after traveling from the Extreme North for the holidays and have been planning out my projects for my remaining 20 months here. We have just finished training our small business consultants at my primary NGO, Microenterprise Development Consultants (MICROEDEC), and resuming business classes this month. I will be starting a Peace Corps Partnership Program request to create a Counter-Trafficking Resource Center with my second NGO, Global Welfare Association (GLOWA). This is where I will need your help, but details to follow later. My quest for a fair trade project has been slow, but I am hoping to meet and collaborate now with artisans to export their handicrafts to the States (for example, Ten Thousand Villages). Finally, I’d like to plan an NGO fair in Bamenda next year so that we can gather all the NGOs (there are many) together to network and share information and ideas.

They say you learn a lot about yourself when serving abroad, and my experiences are no exception. I have been doing a lot of reflection about being an American, and then being a Chinese-American. As a child of immigrants who moved to the States, I grew up learning two different cultures. Living the village life in Cameroon with my host family was not too different from village life of my family in southern China – washing clothes in buckets, carrying water (Africans on heads, Chinese balancing with bamboo sticks), cooking with intermittent electricity, etc. There is a sense of community that family live together and near each other. Elders are respected and taken care. Corporeal punishment is enforced when students/children misbehave (common Cameroonian saying, “I will beat you!”). Polygamy is accepted, as men take in their third or fourth wives. People taking great pride in clean clothes and clean shoes (I was still getting yelled at in the States for wearing flip-flops 24/7). These are things I notice that I sometimes do not relate with a “white” American…for example, I remember discussing polygamy during training and trainees shocked at its existence here…this is also practiced in other countries.

At the same time, I consider myself a strong-willed, independent female (even though I have learned I’m also girly). I don’t like men talking down to me, expecting me to be domestic (although I’ve starting cooking and don’t mind doing the dishes if someone else is cooking…this is a goody; thanks Cameroon!). I am perfectly fine explaining that I’m 26, not married, and career-driven. I am a defender of human rights and cannot stand to hear of houses being burned down due to border disputes, drivers forced to give gendarmes money in order to pass the road, people being arrested for not having their papers, etc. These are American, democratic values of independence, self-reliance, and freedom. They are values that I struggled with balancing as a Chinese-American in the States…but I have gained a better understanding of this being in a developing country.

I recently joined the Diversity Committee with Peace Corps so that we can discuss our background and experiences with other Volunteers and support one another. It’s also great hanging with other PCVs and exuding Goal 2 to Cameroonians that our nation consists of people from all walks of life. I hope that my tenure here will end with me not only learning about myself, but also Cameroonians and Americans learning from each other in true cross-cultural exchange.

Bon…c’est tout pour maintenant. Merci pour votre temps, tout le monde! A la prochaine!