LETTER #90 23 February 1997 Dear Everyone: Despite our having been in Buea for eighteen months, we are still having difficulties with various problems. It is quite likely at this point that we are having no more difficulty than do Cameroonians but to our foreign eyes they look like especial difficulties. One gently simmering problem has involving our plumbing. Perhaps three m months ago a small leak developed on the water company (SNEC) side of the water meter. We notified the water company informally three or four times and then by written complaint and got no response. Our lack of concern over SNECþs loss of their nickel faded as the leak slowly grew and we soon had standing water an the attendant mosquito population by our door. Then my thinking I heard the gentle sounds of water lowing in our plumbing late at night, perhaps indicative of a leak on our side of the water meter, was corroborated by a quintupling of our water bill last month. A local plumber could not repair any leaks until SNEC came in, and he pointed out we would get no action from SNEC unless we went to their office early in the morning to have the workmen schedule the repair, encouraged no doubt by a bribe. Instead we approached our landlord who is nominally responsible for paying the bill. This tack looked unpromising when we learned he had his own unresolved dispute with SNEC over a faulty meter which caused him to be billed $720 for one monthsþ worth of water. If we stopped paying our bill his indebtedness to SNEC would increase only slightly. We pessimistically repaired to our growing swamp, but, surprise, the problems on both sides of the meter were taken care of this week. Of course, our problems with them ail have been related before, and clearly Cameroonians have the same problems. Yet, I have some more details. This week re received a letter from Terry Delph mailed on 10 September and received on 20 September in Buea but unfortunately addressed to BP. 293 rather than BP 283. The letter took five months to move up two rows of boxes, about 10þ. On the other side of the coin, Steve Krawiec put a þplease forwardþ on a Christmas card from the Altenors and the 32 cent stamp carried it to Buea. The taxi and bus system here provides for a faster, more reliable, and somewhat cheaper mail system. Wanting to send a note to one of my recitation instructors who lives in a nearby town, I took a note addressed to him to the taxi park and paid a driver 20 cents to deliver it. The delivery system is crude. Last Saturday, on our way back from Kumba, the driverþs assistant shouted at some gendarmes to get their attention as we drove by, and when he had their attention, he dropped a letter in the roadway. OIC has been making on-again, off-again plans for graduation, combined with a 10th anniversary celebration. Each time, as the time gets very near, Janice is puzzled by the lack of preparation, but then the event is postponed. This past Wednesday, with the week of celebration to be held starting today, but with no preparations, the detailed schedule was announced. how do the students, parents, officials, etc. find out? There is very little publicity obvious to us, just a brief radio announcement, but everyone finds out, probably from an informal network into which we are not plugged. But what about prior commitments? It is hard for us to understand, but here the -1- importance of an event outweighs prior commitments of lesser importance, and commitments change. Of course one never knows whether something more important will come along. We thank Gwen, Carolyn Corliss, Terry Delph, the Altenors, and Bob Reeves for letters and Don Davis for two boxes of books (which just arrived). Love, Dad (Edwin) LETTER #91 2 Mar 1997 Dear Everyone: I am sorry that last weekend Gwen had a taste of how bad the communication system is in Buea. When we were first here it was reasonable to ask Gwen to call at a specific hour and expect Gwen to reach us at a teleboutique of our choice. Now I guess that is no longer true, as Gwen tried unsuccessfully one hour on two separate days to reach us. Luckily is was not important, we only wanted to hear her voice. Buea, in particular, is known to have bad communications, with other parts of the country, e.g. Douala, being much better. OIC did indeed have a graduation this weekend. Although it was a bit chaotic, with some people going hungry, which is ironic that some students were graduating from the catering and hotel management program. Last night was the graduation gala. Told it was to start at 8, we prudently arrived at 11:30, just abut when dancing began. Although the entertainment was expected to last until 6 A.M. we left around 2. Most of the music was Mokasa, with throngs of people on the dance floor. People mostly danced in pairs but in all gender varieties. So I was not particularly surprised when one of the male students invited me to dance with him. Later a couple intervened while Janice and I were dancing, and the males ended up dancing together and the females together. in a number of ways, Cameroonians are more androgynous than Americans. Males and females dress more alike, with some outfits, e.g. a popular shirt and short set style, being identical. indeed, in traditional dress, males and females wear identical wrap-around skirts. Some male and female hair styles are identical, especially the very popular brush cut, with the hair never longer than 1/2 inch. Physical contact between people most often does not depend on gender. Two males are as likely to walk holding hands as a couple of the opposite sex. Although men do not war as much jewelry as women, the difference is less than in the US. Michael Jackson is extremely popular here, but Cameroonians do not understand why Americans consider his demeanor bizarre. To them it is quite normal. Yesterday, while Janice worked at OIC preparing for the graduation festivities, I went to Kumba for a meeting of the Southwest PCVs. Because three companies compete for passengers from Kumba to Buea, when my (Kumba) city taxi entered the "taxi-park" I, like any other potential customer, was besieged by "moto boys" seeking my patronage of their particular company. To try to reduce the waiting time, I canvassed the manifests of the three concerns and booked a ride with the company whose bus was closest to being full. I still waited 40 minutes, so it wasn't clear my strategy had worked all that well. Anyway, at the first checkpoint, the guard noted that the manifest was undated an chided the driver. The driver sassed the guard. Cameroonians are -2- quick to shout at each other and to argue, although, with all the shouting they are not all that angry. in this case, the decibel level skyrocketed. Soon the driver and guard were in a shoving as well as a shouting match, and the manifest was in shreds. Then the bus emptied out, except for me and a lady guarding her bag of live chickens, and all the males from the bus and from the guardhouse got into this huge shouting match. After about 20 minutes, as I expected, everybody was joking with each other, poking fun at how badly each had behaved, the guard signed the shredded manifest, and we were on our way. When I looked through my empty mailbox into the mail room this Friday I was frustrated to see unopened bags of mail lying about as usual. Still, I can thank Gwen, Pearl Schmier, David Kniager, Talia and B. Avitzur for letters. Love, Dad (Edwin) LETTER #92 9 March 1997 Dear Everyone: As usual our week has been a mixture of the routine and of the singular events that to continue to make life here fascinating. For Janice, many months of frustrating delays of various sorts have finally led to her expending funds that originated with Mimi Stanfordþs group of returned PCVs. Last week Janice traveled to Yaounde and negotiated the purchase of a cooler and a large stove for her friends at the Rural Womenþs Development Council (RWDC). She is now in the process of renting and upgrading a store near the university where the RWDC will vend various farm products, including refrigerated juices--hence the cooler. Janice has been planning this for more than a year and hopes to have everything functioning before she leaves. A few days ago another Fulbright scholar entered our lives, in the person of Sarah Christiansen, who will be in Buea for a year studying the sociological aspects of environment conservation as part of her masters. It is n ice to talk to an American, and we hope to ease her introduction to Buea. Yesterday, while Janice joined the RWDC in participating in the parade celebrating the International Day of the Woman, Prabasaj and I went on a 55 mile bike ride to explore some of the rural area here. We went to Mujuka and then took a rope ferry across the Mungo River into the lands of the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), which is owned by the government and is the countryþs largest company. CDCþs holdings are vast. For hte whole trip we were either in or adjacent to CDC land. We traveled through endless stretches of rubber, banana, and palm kernel groves on the grid of dirt roads that give workers access to the land and on various foot paths that angle across the grid. At the foot ferry we saw men mining sand from the bottom of hte Mungo, filling their pirogues until the gunnels were inches above the water. We went somewhat as tray and followed a jungle path to a tiny village on the Mungo where women, dressed only in wrappas (cloth wrapped around the waist), as is the custom þin the bush,þ were washing themselves and their laundry. There we rented a pirogue to recross the river, enter another tiny village, and follow another jungle trail on a bluff overlooking the Mungo. Our journey through CDC lands started at Camp 1 and passed through camps 2-9 before we reached the Douala-Limbe Road, -3- our first view of pavement in about 20 miles. the camps are company towns, each one housing hundreds of workers and their families. By Cameroonian standards, the housing was fairly nice and well kept, considerably better than the company housing we saw at CDCþs Tole Tea Plantation. This bike trip more than fulfilled my expectations of how the bike would expand my view of Cameroon. Although I have not been converted to mountain biking, the mountain bike PC gave me served admirably on this trip. I can thank Nan Rubin for all 10 packets of pictures, which arrived together, and Marge May for a letter. Love, Dad (Edwin) ************************ [and from Janice] We have lived in Buea for eighteen months, the dry season is ending. Tall grasses have been cut. The necklace of fires encircling Mount Cameroon have extinguished themselves. Rich dark soil has been turned over with crooked hoes, the mounds await planting. We harvested lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, sweet potatoes, herbs and giant sunflowers. The þpearþ ( avocado) tree is bearing fruit and five banana trees are prodigious with their bounty. We will enjoy sharing them with neighbors and friends. We had joyous reunions with our children, Gwen, William and Talia, and cousins Barbara and Nan. Peace Corps gave us long-awaited mountain bikes. Edwinþs notoriety increased as he biked to work. The uphill homeward journey becomes prolonged by friendly greetings. Fred (the taxi driver) became a chauffeur for a private concern and used his training as an auto mechanic. Although pleased with the career move he aspires to win the U.S. immigration lottery and live in the United States. Edwin ran in the Mount Cameroon race; it will not be expensive to bronze what remains of his shoes. Janice beat Edwin at scrabble, twice. Edwinþs effort to provide textbooks to students was rewarded. Whether borrowed, rented or sold, they are gone. Janice discovered that umpire mangoes taste like apples. Edwin marvels at the perfection of the temperature in Buea. Janice enjoys moments of sheer, light-hearted fun. We stroll through our neighborhood on Sunday afternoons following hte sound of drumbeats that lead to the village green of Likoko Memba to watch traditional wrestling. We attend monthly meetings of an association, established to ensure a safe and healthy neighborhood. We are integrated in the community of Buea; there is purpose to our presence. We learn...every day; we pause to examine long-held values and attitudes. We partially understand local customs, two years to too short a time to understand the complexities of another culture. Edwin looks forward to returning to Cameroon. Janice is not quite ready to leave. Nonetheless we miss you, our family and friends. We are ever thankful. March 5, 1997 -4- LETTER #93 16 March 1997 Dear Everyone: We have had a number of disconnected things happen this week, so I'll write a number of disparate vignettes. On Friday I started day by withdrawing most of our money from BICIC Bank, the latest move to protect our money from what we perceive as a weak institution. On Saturday, the bank failed , with the government promising to protect depositors. On Friday, we received a package from Bertha Kniager mailed in January 1996 (yes, 14 months ago) and a package from Rona Roberts mailed in January 1997. The first package gave ample evidence that mice like Quaker Oats, as they completely cleaned out three boxes of the same. It will also give us a chance to test the shelf life of Peter Pan peanut butter. Not until this week did we learn of the number of people who were frustrated in their attempts to call us a few weeks ago. We had coordinated the time properly [actually, they confused it but the lines were busy anyway. gek], but had not taken into account the recalcitrant Buea phone system. Last night we attended the wedding of a woman who works with Janice at OIC. Although the couple has a six year old child, the wedding had been put off by the bride's father who wanted his daughter to finish her education before marrying. Because the bride's aunt and surrogate mother died about 5 months ago, the wedding was a subdued affair. The newlyweds sat stoically on a couch as if sitting for a daguerrotype, breaking their pose for the cutting of the cake, receiving gifts, dancing briefly, etc. On Friday evening we saw a concert by a Cameroonian pop start, Donnie Ellwood, whose last name is doubtless for the stage. This was the first time I have seen a first rate sound system in Cameroon. It reminded me of a visit that Nan Rubin and I made to Radio Buea toward the end of her visit after she, who thrives as a technical consultant to public radio stations, had heard two weeks of third rate radio programming and production. At the station she learned why as we viewed the dilapidated, antiquated equipment. There we saw why the audiotapes are often off speed because of worn out equipment and how the engineer uses his index finger on the reel to better match the recording speed of ht tape. We also experienced the casual professionalism of the staff when we left, because in characteristic Cameroonian fashion, the whole staff walked us about 100 or the 200 meters back to our house. Who was watching the store? Well, nobody. Anyway, back to the Ellwood concert. In some ways it was like an American performance, given the acoustic guitar wielded by Donnie and given the electric keyboard of one of his accompanists. his second accompanist played an African drum. The music itself was all in French, because Donnie hails from Francophone Douala, and was a mixture of French folk rock and French bluegrass. The concert was distinctly Cameroonian in terms of the behavior of ht audience. The audience participates rather than spectates. They sing along, they clap along, they sway along, and then some go up on stage to join in the performance and spontaneously to dance -5- along. to show their apprciation and admiration, individuals come up on stage embrace the performers and then stuff 1000 franc (CFA) notes (US$2) down their shirts, the performers not skipping a beat. Yesterday PCVs Cynthia and James Hall, whom we visited in Santchou in September, came by to stay. Today, the four of us walked on the mountain ending up at the Prime Ministers palace where we previously had a confrontation with the gendarme wen Gwen visited. This time a caretaker invited us in for a guided tour of the grounds, which consist of fairly well-maintained terrace gardens. Much to my surprise, I was also invited to tak photos of the palace, desipte it being off limits for photographers. This week we thank Adair Dingler, Ginny Delph, Eloise Kay, Don Davis, Stephanie Katz, and Gwen for letters. Love, Dad (Edwin) LETTER #94 23 March 1997 Dear Everyone: We are becoming much more aware that our time in Cameroon will soon be over. Tomorrow, all of our stage, except me, will be in Yaounde for a Close of Service (COS) conference. Janice set out for Yaounde this morning and will represent both of us. I stayed behind because, unlike everyone but Prabasaj, I have classes this week and because the bulk of the COS conference deals with graduate school and career counseling, issues irrelevant to me. This past week or so Janice has spent all of her time overseeing the expenditures, finally, of the Peace Corps Partnership funds she obtained for the Rural Women Development Council. The bulk of the money was spent on a cooler and a stove, but the remained is being spent on refurbishing a store near the university, with Janice acting as the general contractor. She is running around a lot, enriching the taxi drivers in the process, and she is enduring the frustrations of dealing with the local craftsmen, who are especially unreliable. As I am writing I am listening to the VOA, which is full of news about Zaire. This reminds me that many people have written asking about the effects of the Zairian crisis on Cameroon, a neighboring country. I keep on forgetting to write about this, because there is no effect whatsoever. Yesterday, I have tests to the students in both of my courses simultaneously with the usual controlled chaos engendered by testing 450 students, some of them with conflicting tests. Most of the students were from Math 210 and are quite familiar with my tactic of having different versions of the test to reduce cheating. Some students among the 100 or so students in Math 310 are unaware of this. One student came to me after the exam to complain that he had looked on another student's paper, saw a question different from his, decided there was an error on his (printed) test, and had changed the question to conform to the other student's question. I was unsympathetic. -6- I finish with a talk about Cameroonian hairstyles. I can dispose with the males extremely quickly, because almost all males keep their hair extremely short, say within « inch of the scalp. The resulting uniformity of appearance was initially quite striking, but now I hardly notice. The women, to compensate, show an extraordinary variety of hairstyles, aided by very heave use of wigs and tresses woven into their hair. Because Cameroonian hair is curly (if my mother can call my curly hair wavy, I can call their kinky hair curly) the straight-hair wigs are glaringly fake, as are many of the woven tresses whose color and texture are quite unnatural. There are plaits, which have an ancient history of at least 200 years. There are a number of styles based on numerous small pig tails, some with the tails pointing in all directions, others with the tails forming loops. This last appears to be a local tribal style. Finally, there is a popcorn style with the hair from a one-inch square gathered into a small ball so that the whole head is cross- hatched by the borders between squares. Oh yes, some women wear their hair very short, just like the men. I am somewhat puzzled that neither the men nor the women take advantage of their kinky hair to produce various sculpted styles, but no one does. This week I thank Gwen, Mary Ann Cunningham, the EECS department, Marge May, Steve Krawiec, Jean Davis, and Barbara Rubin for their mail. Love, Dad (Edwin) LETTER #95 1 April 1997 Dear Everyone: I am writing a little late this week, because I have been away on Easter break. I taught classes until Wednesday while Janice attended the COS conference in Yaounde. Of course Gwen knows that she talked with Gwen and her grandparents while in Yaounde. Janice went to the conference unsure what she would do during Easter break, but thought she might travel with some of the other PCVs. In the end she spent a few days in the sun at Limbe. Wednesday, after class, I bicycled to the taxi park and caught a bus to Bamenda, planning to meet Prabasaj there Thursday on his return from the COS conference, so that we could do a four day bike tour, starting in Bamenda. I take up most of the rest of the letter with a description of that tour. Bamenda is at the souther end of the famous Ring Road, a 365 km (226 mile) approximately circular loop in the highlands northof Bamenda, connecting a series of important communities-- in order clockwise, Beefed, Wum, Weh, Masije, Nkambe, Ndu, Kumbo, Ndop, and Bambili. Although my map on the wall indicates that this is a "principle paved route," that represents a dream that is just starting to come to fruition. We decided to ride the road clockwise, hoping to do around 90 km (55 miles) a day. We ended up following this schedule although the time in the saddle varied greatly from day to day, because of the differences in terrain. We chose this time of year because the rainy season has only just begun, thus minimizing both the dust and the mud. Each, at its height, is a strong deterrent to touring. The first leg, through Beefed and Wum to Weh, was moderately downhill and then uphill over unpaved -7- but well graded roads. The great clouds of dust we encountered near Bafut on our visit with the Rubins had been calmed by the rains. Along the way we visited Mentchum Falls, reputed to be the largest in West Africa but rather modest. The second leg to Nkame took us up to 5000' over an extremely steep and extremely rocky road that seemed to be barely motorable, if at all. We later learned there has not been a car on that road for years. The area is predominantly populated by Fulani, a distinct ethnic group of Moslems who arrived in central Africa few hundred years ago as herders and have maintained their identity. They maintain large herds of cattle on the grassy slopes of the highlands north of Bamenda. Early in the day we passed through mountain valleys, pancake flat and surrounding mountains. It was perfectly clear how millennia of heavy rains on these mountains had formed alluvial deposits at their feet. The local people exploited the resulting deposits by intensively farming the valley floors. Later int he day we passed through the Kimbi Game Preserve, but saw no game. We also passed near Lake Nyos, the site of a world famous natural disaster in 1 986 when it burbled a cloud of carbon dioxide that caused 2000 deaths. The third leg, from Nkambe to Nkar, which is near Kumbo, took us along a rolling ridge at about 6000 feet. With a mixture of well graded dirt roads and oil-and-gravel paved roads under our wheels, we traveled about twice as fast as the previous day. Along the way we passed by an immaculately kept tea estate in Ndu, stretching about 2km along the road. On the fourth day we descended from the high ridge to the Ndop plane, the rice bowl of Cameroon. We then ascended perhaps 3000 feet to Sabga and made a last long descent back to Bamenda. Fortunately, since our last visit to Sabga with the Rubins six weeks ago, the road form Sabga to Bamenda has been paved, giving our tour an exhilarating downhill finish. Our trip was notable for having no breakdowns of any sort, despite the abuse arising from the very rugged terrain we traversed. I am quite impressed by the Trek 830 mountain bikes PC has purchased for our use. The postal service has paid homage to the Easter holiday by delivering us no letters this past week. Love, Dad (Edwin) LETTER #98 20 April 1997 Dear Everyone: I am writing you on the eve of the Boston Marathon, so I can wish Gwen good luck, although the marathon will seem like ancient history when you receive this. Janice decided she wanted to climb Mt. Cameroon before leaving and we set aside this weekend for that purpose. We preferred to climb during the rainy season because the views can be spectacular between rains, whereas the views are always quite restricted by the dust in the dry season. Our plan to leave around 6 AM yesterday were disrupted by heavy rains that almost caused us to postpone the trip altogether. -8- Instead, we opted for a late start at 9:15, which meant we would not have time to get to the summit. Long ago we decided to ascend without guides despite all the previous problems I have encountered when going with out guides, because we simply resent the exploitation involved. Very shortly after starting the hike we encountered the head guide, who, very much to my surprise, greeted me literally with open arms and wished us well on our (unguided)hike. We got the same reaction from the various other guides we encountered on the hike. Instead of receiving the expected harassment we were greeted like old friends, although we all recognized some of our previous discussions had been less than friendly. After a while it became clear that my running the mountain race again and my biking back and forth (or perhaps I should say up and down) to school have considerably increased my renown, or perhaps notoriety, so that I am considered one of the club. As we expected, the heavy rain of Saturday morning cleared out completely leaving the air pristine. We climbed about 3/4 of the way up the mountain to Hut II and stayed overnight, our reward being superb views in three directions: 80 miles to the north we could see Mount Manenguba, the site of the twin lakes we visited in September; 40 miles to the south we had a complete view of Mt. Malabo on Bioko Island, which is part of Equatorial Guinea; 40 miles to the west we had a complete view of the Wouri estuary, Douala, and the southern coast of Cameroon. Early last night an almost full moon provided pale daylight. Very early this morning, after moon- set, the hiking way was in clear view. Also staying in Hut II were a group of 8 French people from Douala, oil executives and two teenagers and apparently one wife, along with a guide and six porters. This party provided an interesting contrast we often see here. While the guide and porters warmed ground cocoyam wrapped in plantain leaves over a wood fire for their supper, the French cooked on butane stoves by the light of butane lamps and called their friends on a cellular phone with which they were correct in thinking they could reach Douala from high on the mountain. To continue the hi-tech versus lo-tech theme, I will finish with some tidbits about computers here. First, there are a number of places in Bea--the University, Pan African Institute [PAID], the Mt. Cameroon Project [funded by GTZ=German govt], Provincial Delegation--that have quite up-to-date equipment--Pentium processors, Windows-95, LAN equipment, etc. Second, everyone wants onto Internet but the Bea phone system is too ancient and thus too noisy for communication by modem [thus no email, alas. gek] Third, the environment is extremely destructive of diskettes. Mold, in particular, will render a floppy disk useless in three months unless special precautions are taken. [he keeps his disks in the closet w/the light bulb on.] Fourth, for some reason (perhaps the tropics?!) computer viruses flourish here so that none of the perhaps 150 PCS I am aware of have escaped exposure. Finally, the influx of computers into Bea, mostly a result of foreign aid, has given rise to infrastructure for supplies and for repairing computers. This facilitates further acquisition of computers, a nice side effect of the foreign aid. This week we thank Gwen (who missent the FL postcard to Box 298 -9- [my college address]), the Davises, Maggie (Dee) Golden, and S. Krawiec (email of 23 January) for mail. Love, Dad (Edwin) LETTER #99 27 April 1997 Dear Everyone: Janice is now pre-occupied with plans for leaving in just about three weeks. We will at least partially dismantled the household before she leaves. However most of our problems of how to dispose of our Cameroonian worldly goods has apparently been solved by the arrival of the Fulbright scholar, Sarah Christiansen. Now she is living alone in an apartment at Pan-African Institute, but within a few days of my departure she wants to rent a house to accommodate the arrival of her boyfriend. She has agreed to rent our house and also to buy many of our odds and ends. About 18 months ago I struck up an acquaintance with a provincial forestry official, whom I think Gwen met, Mr. Ndibi. He approached me for help with his applying to graduate school in the US, for some statistical advice, and for some practice in English to improve his chances, as a francophone of being accepted in graduate school. We have met sporadically since our first meeting each other, but not as often lately because he has been transferred to another part of the Province and is only in Buea to visit his family some weekends. One of our little projects involved rewriting a paper on the possible extinction on Mt. Cameroon of Primus Africana, the famous source of (some) important medicine that is always cited when people bemoan the loss of tropical rain forest and its diverse species. My involvement in the writing of the paper became so substantial that he invited me to be coauthor. Yesterday he came by with a letter from the Biodiversity and Conservation editor accepting our paper. Today we spent quite a bit of time working on the next paper. I guess I have been here long enough to try to report how people are employed, at least in Buea. Because Buea is a provincial capital, government is the biggest employer here. There are the local police, the gendarmerie (roughly internal police), the local army installation. There are Provincial delegation (offices) for Health, Culture, Sports and Youth, Women and Social Affairs, Education, etc. The University of Buea is also a big employer (although technically, most UB employees are paid by the government), not to mention an economic force because of the 4000 students who come to Buea for school. Among other things, the presence of the students has led to a construction boom around the University, with apartment houses and bars and restaurants springing up everywhere. This boom is employing many laborers. (By the way, construction in Buea is predominantly with concrete block. Such construction always starts with the manufacture of the blocks on site.) Public transportation and its attendant infrastructure is clearly a major employer: taxi drivers, drivers' helpers, ticket clerks, auto repair men, workers at gas stations, etc. Most of the above are almost exclusively male occupation. The market place for food and household items is run predominantly by women. And they are everywhere, in organized markets and on practically any street corner. This micro-business come and go: they require practically no capital, say $40, to -10- start and often close down without notice. Then there is subsistence farming, which is not part of the cash economy but very important to perhaps a majority of the population. The subsistence farmer is usually female and wields a hand-held hoe. Buea's extremely fertile volcanic soil makes this activity less arduous than elsewhere in Africa. Finally, there is the service industry, which is very substantial because labor is so cheap. Anyone of means employs watchmen for the compound, a cook, someone to clean the house, and someone to drive the car. This week we thank Bill, Steve Kay, Gwen, and Bertha and Dave for mail. Love, Dad (Edwin) LETTER #100 4 May 1997 Dear Everyone: Last Saturday I gave a test to my 450 or so students, and everything went smoothly. What a shame I should be leaving just when I have the system figured out. Today Janice had her students over, not because she is leaving but because they are close to the end of their formal training and soon will being "on-the-job training" as a prelude to graduation. Janice had the daunting task of cooking for a bunch of neophyte chefs. She survived the test intact, and I got to eat some good food. I'll finish this letter with some thought on how one can not simply characterize the manners of culture. In Cameroon every, and I mean every, social interaction starts with a greeting. That is, you always say hello, ask how the person is, and very often shake his or her hand. (At large social gatherings the hand shaking gets a bit out of hand, to make a pun.) Even after two years I sometimes err in not greeting someone. When I first went to the post office, I went to the counter and patiently waited for the clerk to finish what she was doing and serve me. Except she didn't stop what she was doing. Eventually she angrily asked me what I wanted. By then I was angry that she had been so slow to serve me, and, on top of that, seemed to be angry with my being patient. I concluded she was a rude Cameroonian. Later I realized she thought I was a rude America. I had failed to initiate the social interaction by greeting her. Thus there was no reason for her to stop her work and help me. The act of greeting takes precedence over many things. As a result, conversations are frequently interrupted when people with other business to transact join in. So, if I am talking with a student in my office, the conversation is much less sacred than in the states. A second student may come in and pre-empts the conversation with his or her own business. It's amazing how rude the second students seems. I, in turn, quite rudely ignore the pre-emption and try to continue with the original conversation. Another interesting area is that of personal space which is a lot closer here than in the states. My numerous references to packed taxis implicitly assumes my indifference to intimate contact with strangers--how else can two people share the bucket seat of a Toyota? This closeness of personal space has a peculiar ramification. The corridor near my office, because it's the site of a bulletin board, the principle means of communication on -11 campus, is often quite crowded. I can only get through by pushing and shoving. Standing quite close to an individual and expecting the individual to move aside is futile--there is no perception of my presence. The flow of letters is slowing, but we can thank Gwen and Talia, Joel Bader, Barbara Epstein, and Brenda Schultz. Love, Dad (Edwin) LETTER #101 11 May 1997 Dear Everyone: Janice is now in the process of becoming my senior, if only temporarily. She left for Yaounde today for her close of service (COS), and she will become an R (returned) PCV, while I will be a mere PCV. Following my mother's example of leaving her IRS job unannounced, Janice tried to leave OIC with little fanfare. In the end, she yielded to the trainees' request and attended a sendoff they organized on Friday. Thursday we took advantage of a National holiday (ascension day) and my having no classes on Friday. We took a bike ride through the small villages on the flank of the mountain down to Lime where we rode along the coast about 12 miles. We then returned to Limbe and stayed overnight at a fairly upscale hotel, squandering $10 in the process. The weather was magnificent, offering us beautiful views as we descended and a pretty sunset at the end of the day. For all of my time in Cameroon I have been fascinated by how much I have learned about language, especially as I try to make myself understood to Cameroonians and to understand Cameroonian English. Of course, many Cameroonians don't speak Cameroonian English, using only their tribal language, pidgin, or French. I will concentrate on differences between American and Cameroonian English as it is spoken. (Written English is quite different from spoken English so that the differences between the written versions are very small compared to the differences between the spoken versions.) The major problems I have in communication have to do with differences in accent and differences in semantic meaning. The problem of accent is relatively minor. It involved learning to voice and hear different phonemes, different rhythms, and different syllable stresses. All these characteristics are bound by rules which I slowly am acquiring. The semantic problem is much more formidable. The meanings, in the two versions of the language, of the same words overlap but are never precisely the same. Thus I must relearn, to some extent, the meanings of thousands of words, an endless task. I give two examples of how semantics differ from a given word. First, consider the phrase "Sorry." In Cameroon, if I am walking in the street and stumble, the nearest person will say, "I am sorry." The first time this happened I was quite startled because I understood the person to mean he was somehow responsible for my stumbling and thus apologizing, but he really meant, "You have my sympathy." My second example occurs in bars and restaurants. They never say "We are out of Coca Cola (or whatever)" but instead say "The Coca Cola is finished." The first phrase is arguably comprehensible to the Cameroonian and the second arguably comprehensive to the American. (I often thing the -12- Cameroonian is dodging responsibility in the latter case.) Finally, I note that Cameroonians often greet a person by saying "You are welcome" but never use the phrase to acknowledge thanks. Thus here the interchange goes "You are welcome," "Thank you," whereas in America the order is reversed. Belated Happy Mother's Day to all mothers reading this. We forgot the holiday until its announcement on VOA this A.M. Happy birthdays to Molly Ferriter and Margaret Krawiec. Thanks to John Sumner twice, Rona twice, and to Jean Davis for letters. Love, Dad (Edwin) LETTER #102 18 May 1997 Dear Everyone: Janice is all excited about her trip home tomorrow. She is muting her excitement, because my mind set is so different. She is thinking about passports, exchanging money, seeing her children, Gwen's graduation, etc., while I am thinking about the last week of the semester this week, photocopying my final exams, and then grading a five foot pile of exam booklets. We expected many people to visit yesterday and bid Janice goodbye but, by coincidence, yesterday elections for Parliament were held, a once in five year affair, and absolutely everything shut down. The borders were sealed, the markets, bars and stores were closed. Even the taxis were not operating to avoid having dead men vote and live men vote multiple times. For the same reason, travel in general was suppressed. Today we expect many visitors, and we have had a few already. In anticipation, Janice of course has bakes some cakes, cookies, etc. My planning for this last week of the semester is hindered by a peculiar problem. Tuesday is a national holiday, Independence Day, as is today because it is Sunday. People expect, but are unsure, that Cameroon will treat Monday as a "pont" (from the French colloquialism "faire le pont" which means to take the intervening (bridge) day between two holidays as a holiday). I probably won't know for sure until tomorrow and the official announcement of the pont. I am unsure whether to prepare for classes. Last week's letter, which you may receive after this hand-delivered letter, talked about difficulties in communicating here because of differences in accent and semantics. Now I move on to social linguistics. Simply put, communication here is less direct, so that questions are not directly asked and commands appear to be suggestions. Almost any time a person comes to another person for specific aid in solving a specific problem the first person states the problem in a general way and expects the second person to understand and solve the problem. This has led to many confusing interactions for me. When students come to about specific problems--misses test, obtaining their marked test, help with a homework problem--they often talk in such general terms that it is unclear what they want, and a garbled conversation ensues. As an example of sending a mixed message, once while walking with Njohjam Peter, I commented, as a matter of cultural observation, that despite my knowing the price of -13- bananas to be 3 for 5 cents, as a white man I almost never was able to get that price. Within minutes he bought me a large hand of bananas (at the right price) from a fruit stand we went past. As an example of not heeding a request, I recently arrived at the post office at 3 to find it closed, despite posted hours from 7:30 to 3:30. Having spare time before a 3:30 appointment, I sat down and started reading. A girl arrived, came over to me, and asked whether the post office was closed, and I said it was. She then said, "But I want to mail this letter." When I repeated that the post office was closed and returned to my reading, she stood there staring at me, obviously wanting something more from me. I finally realized she was asking me to resolve her problem, and I had ignored her request. Much later I realized that I actually could have resolved her problem by taking her money, taking her letter from her, affixing a stamp, and mailing it for her. Well, Dr. Kay, as Gwen will be by the time she reads this, I can only thank her this week for a letter. Love, Dad (Gwen) LETTER #103 25 May 1997 Dear Everyone, Both at school and at home my routine has undergone dramatic change. On Monday Janice left for home, and on Thursday I taught my last classes at UB. Thus life at home has become more complicated, while life at school has become simple. Janice's departure was made unnecessarily more hectic when the driver promised by OIC for taking Janice to the airport failed to shop up. After waiting impatiently for half an hour I raced off on my bike in search of alternative transportation and was able to solicit the help of a French volunteer who has a car. Luckily there were few passengers for the flight so that her tardiness had few repercussions. It is unfortunate that Janice's last memories of OIC should be unpleasant ones. On a number of occasions Don Davis has written me about running together when I return to Bethlehem, and on a number of occasions I have responded that he probably would find my pace far too slow, but there may be some hope for me yet. Mr. Ndibi asked me to run with him, and I reluctantly assented yesterday. Maybe he was trying to flatter me, but on the hill from Bongo Square to the roundabout he seemed to be wiped out and opted to walk while I took a few turns around the roundabout waiting for him. In any case it felt good to know I still have good stamina (or resistance, as they say here). A letter or two back, I suggested that the physical boundaries of personal space here are smaller than in the US. Now I am going to discuss psychological boundaries in terms of privacy. Simply put, there is less of a sense of privacy here for social interactions. Many interactions that we consider private ones in which others should not intrude are public here. When a student is in my office discussing something personal, like a grade, a second student will walk in and effectively join the conversation, initially by announcing his or her business. I always have the strong feeling that the second student is breaking some rule, -14- i.e. is intruding. Other, seemingly private transactions, are similarly public. Last week I went to the cashier's office, a small room with a closed door, to get some money owed me. I knocked and entered (without waiting for verbal permission, as is the custom here, another aspect of less privacy) to find some other people obtaining money. As I started to withdraw from the room, the cashier insisted I stay and join the crowd. She then dealt with about six transactions in round robin fashion, of course publicising everyone's business in the process. My most fascination example comes from my doing some statistical work for the wife of one of the faculty, a Mrs. Oben. Computers are relatively scarce on campus and, of course, concentrated int eh administration building. After I refused to throw my (considerable) weight around (as one of perhaps three full professors on campus) to wangle access to one of the computers in the administrative building, the Obens somehow convinced the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (UB equivalent of Provost) to let me use his computer, which sits within a few feet of his desk. Over the last month, on many occasions Mrs. Oben and I sat at the computer for hours at a time trying to discreetly ignore all kinds of business that the Deputy Vice-Chancellor conducted, the nature of which seemed to be totally unaffected by our presence. I switch from "we" to "I" in thanking Gwen twice, Nan Rubin, Bill Shalinsky, and Margaret Krawiec for letters. Love, Dad (Edwin) LETTER #104 1 June 97 Dear Everyone: I am increasingly aware of my leaving Cameroon and returning to the US, especially since I received a postcard from Janice, sent on 22 May. She sounds thrilled to be back in civilization as we know it. Domestically, I am daily confronting the problem of keeping myself fed, no easy task for me, while at school the only task I have is the grading of 500 exams. At the same time, I am in threat of drowning in a rising tide of demands for statistical consultation. About five separate parties simultaneously realized I have statistical expertise and want help. Along the same line, Mr. Ndibi and I are working intensively on a second paper, which we hope to send out this week. Mr. Ndibi took a month leave to work on the paper, run with me daily, and avoid the rainy season's height in Bangem, where he is posted. Under Don Davis and I ran together we agreed to leave our houses at the same time and meet halfway between. Despite the mile leaving this gave us, we invariably met a few meters from the middle, a comment on our (obsessive?) promptness. Unfortunately, given the same arrangement with Mr. Ndibi, I cannot say "C'est l'Afrique." We also live about a mile apart, and we also meet within a few meters of the middle. At school I chaired a committee on how to bring Internet to UB, submitting my final report Friday. As far as I know, no one in Buea has access to Internet, primarily because the local phone system is too antiquated to provide a reliable communication link for computers. At some expense and at the cost of some political -15- coinage, the University can get a direct line to Douala to avoid this problem. Keeping the line open would be prohibitively expensive, say $30 an hour (a week's salary here), so the University would settle for email access. At least that is what I recommend as an initial step. Fortuitously, the University just installed a modest on-campus PBX (with no external lines yet), so we can start by developing on campus communication between computers. The rhetoric of many American causes are echoed here, because Cameroonians so admire and are so fascinated by Americans. So there is much talk here of environmental concerns, but the pollution is blatant. Litter is universally discarded on the roadside; many intersections are the site of neighborhood garbage piles; the cars, detuned to tolerate the dirty fuel refined in Cameroon or bootlegged from Nigeria, spew clouds of black smoke. Viewed from the output side, Cameroon has a long way to go. The view from the input side is quite different, because the input is so low. I make the educated guess that South West Province has 1,000,000 inhabitant and about 3,000 vehicles. Thus, the individual vehicles may be heavy polluters, but there are so few of them the problem disappears. Similarly, the typical household generates less refuse per week than one American family visit to McDonald's, although they dispose of the refuse poorly. Also, the tropical climate is ideal for the decomposition of organic waste sot hat discarding it willy nilly is of no consequence. In one way Cameroon is way ahead of the US. Everything useful is recycled. Plastic containers are reused by palm oil vendors, vendors of roasted peanuts, etc. Tin cans are fashioned into graters. Rice bags are fashioned into fairly stylish shopping bags (one of which Janice received as a going away present). Old GCE exams are used for wrapping bread or fish. Old cement bags are used as all purpose wrappers (adding an interesting taste to some foods). And so on. One disturbing trend started about two months ago. One of the soda vendors has started marketing some of its products in one-way plastic bottle in place of the usual returnable [glass] bottle. I hope that this marketing tactic fails. The mail has slowed to a trickle, but any complaints will be useless, as I will be leaving within a few weeks of your receiving this. I thank Janice and Eric Sumner for mail. Love, Dad (Edwin) LETTER #105 8 June 1997 Dear Everyone: I am now at the pont where I may get to you before my letters do, but I will continue to write you weekly until I leave. During my time here I have developed the habit of analyzing whatever I am experiencing in terms of how I will described it in my letters to you. I can't break that habit now. The underlying theme of my experiences this week has to do with the many ways in which I feel I fit in well here. The first incident may be resented by Janice, but I was offered a free ride by one of the taxi drivers who now I had a 2km walk from the roundabout to my house. In Cameroon people often attract other people's attention by hissing, a highly effective and somewhat more polite way to -16- communicate than by shouting. It is a popular way to hail a taxi. After dining at OIC on Thursday, I was about 50 meters from the main road when a neighbor drove by. I attracted his attention with a monumental hiss, one so impressive that he later remarked on it, and I got a ride home. I felt like a real Cameroonian. I often hear from Cameroonians that Africans have "strong stomachs" and white men "weak stomachs," a belief that comes from their observing that visiting white men (and women) universally suffer from "runny belly," a pidgin expression. I have vainly tried to explain that their "strong African stomachs" would have similar problems if they were to travel to the US. Last Sunday I dined at Mr. Ndibi's, eating, among other things, some delicious agusi pudding, a concoction made from ground calabash seeds. The next morning, as we ran, Mr. Ndibi complained that agusi pudding never agreed with him. Well, as Gwen and my other running partners know, for years I have been plagued almost daily with a need to make a pit stop during my daily runs, a pit stop for more than a watering of the flora, to be clear if not explicit. The year layoff from running pretty much eliminated the problem, but I still occasionally take advantage of Buea's porta-corn. Monday I had a major triumph, because Mr. Ndibi had to make a pit stop during our run, but I did not. On Tuesday I received a note from Patience Ntoko asking me to visit and photograph her one week old daughter, Janice Lee Kay Ntoko. Patience is a good friend of (our) Janice and works as a laundress at OIC. As a laundress she is quite poor. Wednesday morning I paid Patience and her family a visit. They live at the end of a very long and muddy path. Their house of three rooms consists of clapboard covered studs (with no interior walls) set on a concrete slab, the only luxury. As with all Cameroonian households, it is difficult to know how many members it has, but it includes at least Patience, her three children, her parents and one sibling. Like many Cameroonian women, she has no husband but is accumulating children and the responsibility thereof. The infant was swaddled in an impressive pile of knit clothing and blankets to protect her against the Buea cold. I related how at the same age I was bundled up the same way and put outside in the middle of the northern New England winter (at the advice of or at least the consent of the family doctor). This week I thank Janice and Ilene Levin-Dando for letters. Love, Dad (Edwin) LETTER #106 15/06/97 Dear Everyone: This week I am bringing a number of my activities to a close. On Wednesday, Mr. Ndibi and I finished our second paper and put it in the mail. On Friday, after more than two weeks of constant effort, I finished marking he 475 final exams, just in time for the department to take me out to supper for a modest "send off." Strangely, political considerations forced the modesty of the send off. Parliamentary elections were held on 17 May and the results announced on June 6. To dampen any unrest attendant to the elections and their aftermath, the Provincial Governor banned -17- all political AND social gatherings, lest the discussion at the meetings turn political. Dr. Mbuntum, my department chair, made a request of the governor for an exception but was denied. In the actual instance no politics were discussed; rather we talked about students, examinations and such, from which I have two interesting stories. First, a student purporting to lack a UB identification brought her registration form to prove she belonged int eh exam. The invigilator realized she had used the back of the form as a crib sheet and demanded the form. The student demurred, stuffing the form into her panties and refusing to yield it. The invigilator called on the aid of two male students taking the exam, and they eagerly responded only to learn their help was unnecessary after all. Second, a francophone student from the nearby Lycee was caught taking a French exam for a UB student. Both students were arrested and detained at the gendarmerie, I guess for violating some local statute about fraud. Whenever I have listened to reports of football matches on the radio, I have been puzzled by the announcer stating the financial details, the exact size f the gate, the take of the municipality, the team, the officials, etc. I finally realized this week that in this country of rampant bribery, corruption, and embezzlement, I was hearing a very public accounting meant to counter these problems. Before Janice left she sold of extra clothing, etc., and then sought some good cause to which she could donate the money. She finally got the idea of donating the money to the Bokwango health clinic which we only learned about perhaps 10 days before she left and which is on one of our jogging routes. I tried to simply give the money, a mere $60--modest to you and me, but substantial to the recipients--but they insisted on some formalities and planned a ceremony at 11 on Friday. I arrived at the clinic within seconds of 11, simultaneously with the Buea District Medical Officer, my contact in this business. The neighborhood-based board greeted us, showing that Africans can be prompt given the right incentive. Part of the ceremony involved a tour of the clinic which demonstrated how useful it is to the neighborhood and how spartan are its facilities, so spartan that they lack bed sheets and blankets, although the latter are not that useful given the climate. The tour convinced me the money was heading for the right place, and the very public announcement of the financial details of our largesse guarantees it will get there. I also announced that tow of my banking problems will work to their advantage. When I went to the post office a month ago to close my account, I learned it will take at least 3 months, which would be no big deal except for the 8% interest, of which I was unaware. I left $4 in the account to keep it ope until it is closed and will sign over the rights to the interest to the clinic. Since I surrendered the bank book I don't know how much is involved but any amount up to $200 would not surprise me. Janice and I have another account in Kumba, which I intended to close this coming Tuesday, but the bank failed this past Wednesday. It will take a few years to resolves this, so I will sign over the $40 in this account as well. Mr. Ndibi and I have evolved a daily jogging routine that keeps up fit and resolves the nagging problem of a 1000-banana crop -18- from our dozen banana trees and the daily dropping of 6- 10 avocados from our avocado tree. Mr. Ndibi eats the bananas about as fast as they mature and takes the avocados home for breakfast. I only received a letter from Terry Delph this week but it was chock full of juicy Lehigh news. Love, Dad (Edwin) word on the streets is, this is the 2nd last letter. gek LETTER #107 21 June 1997 Dear Everyone: I guess this will be my last letter from Cameroon. I will write as usual next Sunday, but carry the letter with me to the US the next day to expedite delivery. [In all the confusion and excitement, I forgot to get it. It will reach me via mail, as per usual. gek] Yesterday I finished all my grading, and tomorrow I go to Yaounde for my "close of service" (COS), which involves a lot of paperwork and a thorough medical. Wednesday the University had a very nice send off for me, with the planning done at the last minute, as usual. The invitations went out the day before, thus Janice received, so to speak, hers on Tuesday. I said she would come if the University provided transportation but they demurred. Tuesday afternoon they asked me for Peace Corps' fax number so they could invite Dr. Sammy Enyong, the associate country director. Of course the telephone lines failed, but they reached him, via the US Embassy, as 4, just as he was leaving the office. I was flabbergasted to see him at noon the next day. He finished the six hour drive from Yaounde just in time for the ceremony. I think that by example I have led the math department to adopt a more lenient approach to grading, so that the percentage of students passing in most of the courses has increased substantially. Ironically, my math 210 students performed terribly, and my pass rate in that course was lower than for many math department courses, 62%. I agonized at length how much to "moderate" my final exam scores, having a good idea what the pass rate would be for a given degree of moderation, despite my not knowing the details until the department, as a group, decoded the exams, combined the semester grades with the final exam score, and determined the grade via a predetermined formula, e.g. 50-54 C, 55-59 C+, etc. I finally settled on adding 11 to each score, knowing that the department would agree to call any 49 a 50 (a technique we call "pushing") to produce a C and thus a pass. This would increase my predicted pass rate. But then Vice Dean Ntoko unilaterally changed the procedures to accommodate the use of computers n the process, and we could not push a 49 to a 50. This was quite high handed because Dean Ntoko has had a running battle with the faculty over his desire to forbid pushing, a battle he always loses but tries to recoup through bureaucratic means. Over the last year or so Vice Dean Ntoko and Dean Titanji have been locking horns over many issues, in general because Ntoko is a stickler for following the rules while Titanji is more flexible, and in specific because Titanji favors pushing while Ntoko opposes it. Spectacular fireworks may ensue, but I will not be a witness, because yesterday, in decoding the grades -19- for Dean Titanji's daughter, a student of mine in Math 210, we recorded a total of 49, which we cannot push and which means she must retake the course. There are more things I could say about our PC experiences, and I could continue sharing my experiences here, but I am unsure whether at this point my audience finds this all tiresome. In any case, I finish this last letter from Cameroon with some brief statistics on the fate of the 45 volunteers originally headed for Cameroon. One person failed to show up in Philadelphia. One person quit the second day of training, another in the middle of training, and a third at the end of training. Six decided to leave during service, one was asked to leave during service, and one was given a medical discharge because of psychiatric problems. Of the remaining 33 two have married Cameroonians, one will marry a Cameroonian, and six will extend their service for at least another year. This year I thank Janice and Margaret Krawiec for letters, and both Janice and I express our extreme gratitude for all the letters sent us while we were in Cameroon. Love, Dad (Edwin) LETTER #108 29 June 1997 Dear Everyone: I am writing during my last few hours in Cameroon, at the end of a busy week of goodbyes, Peace Corps paperwork, and more than a little confusion. I had always believed that I would be flying from Douala on Monday on the same flight that Janice took six weeks ago. Just before leaving for Yaounde on Sunday I grabbed the paper with the flight information and was surprised to read that I would be leaving on Sunday. I stopped by Mr. Ndibi's house on the way to the taxi park to warn him that there might be a change in his plan to take me to the airport the following Monday. In Yaounde I confirmed the flight at the Air France office and was then sure that the flight was Sunday. I called Janice to tell her of the change in plan, but she seemed to know all along that I would arrive in Newark on Monday. I guess I was the last to know. The paperwork and health examinations by Peace Corps in Yaounde took three days, but I had plenty of spare time on my hands. I was one of about a dozen PCVs closing service, most from my stage, so that we spent a lot of time reminiscing and telling "war stories." One nagging doubt about my health involved the urinary tract infection I had developed in January, an infection that had never been definitely diagnosed. My doubts were eased when I learned there was no hint of blood in my urine. At this point in my stay in Cameroon I feel quite comfortable in this culture and think I have adapted to it fairly well. I always think of traveling by public transportation as a good test of this adaptation. The segment of the trip to Yaounde between Douala and Yaounde occurs on a Garanti bus comparable to the Transbridge bus from Bethlehem to New York City. Normally, change is always in short supply in Cameroon so that one must always anticipate change not being available for any given transaction, but Garanti usually has change, so I gave the clerk a 10,000 F CFA note for the 3000F fare. She lacked complete change and wrote the 2000F owed me on the ticket. When I boarded the bus the man -20- in charge of tickets kept my ticket saying he would pay me back later. Later, when the bus was about to leave, this man boarded the bus temporarily. I had a silent conversation in hand language with him asking for my money, and he gestured I should wait. Within a few minutes we were on our way to Yaounde, but I did not have my money, and I thought I had been cheated of 2000F. I was furious with myself. Here I was so confident I would get the money back, because it seems to be an iron rule of taxi parks that you will always get your change. Had I misunderstood the culture so that my last few days of travel I had let myself be deceived? On mini-buses the driver gases up at the beginning of the trip and then returns the change to some of the passengers, but Garanti drivers do not gas up, so there was no opportunity to get change then. The situation was really irritating me as I berated myself for not being able to negotiate such a simple matter. Later we stopped at a toll booth. I then thought maybe now I would get my change, but no. I imagined my argument with the driver when I debarked, demanding the 2000F and his denying any role in the transaction. Finally, I rationalized the whole incident by thinking that certainly my grasp of American culture is quite firm but I can still be deceived by sly individuals. Almost at the end of the three hour trip, the women who vended food came by with my ticket and my 2000F change.. Now I have to learn how to find my way in American culture. Love, Dad (Edwin) ******* From Janice 10 June 1997 Dear Reader, I am now an RPCV, a returned Peace Corps Volunteer. And how does it feel to be home again, wonderful. The 26 hour odyssey from Cameroon to the U.S.A. began May 19. Despite O.I.C.'s failure to pick me up, I to to the airport in Douala. Despite the strike of Air France crew flight 0004, I got to America. Despite being routed to New York via Cincinnati, I got to Newark. Despite forgetting my address book and being misinformed by a telephone operator (saying there was no phone listing for my sister) I boarded a plane and got to Worcester. Despite near hysteria after 26 hours of haphazard travel I arrived in Leominster, Massachusetts. So began the process of re-entry into America. The next twelve hours brought words of welcome as I spoke with Ellie, Margaret and my children. Their words of concern and love wrapped round me like a snug cocoon. The next twelve days found Natalia and me traveling down the eastern coast: stopping in New Haven to be a very proud mom as Gwen received her doctorate from Yale, visiting with dear friends in Bethlehem, and reaching our destination of Delray Beach (to be with our parents). I am being pampered and indulged. I am running, a little, reading, a little, and reflecting, a little. Semi-tropical Florida has strong resemblances to Buea. I have eaten of their mangoes and papayas--but they taste different. I have felt the warm breezes blowing through stately palms but this -21- is different from the cool breezes playing through the fronds of plantains. I am surrounded by Americana--high yellow arches and Winn Dixies, where purchases are made at prices as marked; a very different scenario from any Buea market, where every price is negotiable. Buea is remote yet on receiving my first set of photographs, my mouth drew into a wide smile as I looked upon the faces of friends in Buea. The present moments are rich and fulfilling. Gwen, Willie, and Natalia are each at exciting junctions in their lives. And, William has brought Tisa into our family, what a joy. Our parents look wonderful. Their health is not perfect but they cope. They are resilient, and stubborn if not feisty. I will close here, acknowledging that you, dear reader, were very much a part of our lives in Cameroon. P.S. to Gwen: you are irreplaceable, thank you for the hours you labored to transcribe and post our hundreds of letters. P.P.S. to Edwin: I am not sleeping well without you by my side. I miss you. Janice -22-