It used to be that I could think of art as a refuge from such troubles. From the imperfections of life, one could take refge in the perfections of art. One could read a good poem--or better, write one.
Art was what was truly permanent, therefore what truly mattered. The rest was "but a spume that plays/Upon a ghostly paradigm of things."
I am no longer able to think that way. That is because I now live in my subject. My subject is my place in the world, and I live in my place.
There is a sense in which I no longer "go to work." If I live in my place, which is my subject, then I am "at" my work evfen when I am not working. It is "my" work because I cannot escape it.
If I live in my sbject, then writing about it cannot "free" me of it or "get it out of my system." When I am finished writing, I can only return to what I have been writing about.
While I have been writing abot it, time will have changed it. Over longer stretches of time, I will change it. Ultimately, it will be changed by what I write, inasmuch as I, who change my subject, am changed by what I warite about.
If I have damaged my subject, then I have damaged my art. What aspired to be whole has met damage face to face, and has come away wounded. And so it loses interest both in the anesthetic and in the purely esthetic.
It accepts the clarification of pain, and concerns itself with healing. It cultivates the scar that is the course of time and nature, over damage: the landmark and mindmark that is the notation of a limit.
To lose the scar of knowledge is to renew the wound.
An art that heals and protects its subject is a geography of scars.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Agroforestry Resouce Center/Library
One problem I have noticed doing the work I do in village, is that often there are many groups that pass through, NGOs, or developmental branches of government or corporations, each telling the same message about the importance of trees, etc. Often these organizations have many helpful documents, technical sheets, posters, literature, but they are in their various offices in other towns or cities. I also have many resources, posters I use for presentations, books and booklets I've picked up. So I proposed the construction of a tiny room central to the village, maybe 4 meters by 4 meters. The villagers were interested in this idea, and already had a spot--a building they had built with their Sodecoton GIC, but which has never been finished, nor is used for much other than some church group singing practices once a week, or a place to house big groups of people passing the night. It is three rooms, two small rooms and one big classroom, so we are taking the small outside room, renovating it by finishing it with ciment, doors, windows, and bookshelves, to exist as a small type library or place to put all these agro related documents. We've already been using the classroom for some classes, as it has a chalkboard, and is a better choice than the usual using the church, a habit which prevents the Muslims in the village from attending events. We wrote a proposal with budget and presented it to the Commune, and they agreed to fund it. The money was received last month, and "construction" should be finished shortly.
One might say, "well, the village is not very literate, and even those that do read don't read much--there's not a very academic culture." However it will also include photos, posters, and other resouces, as well as serving as a from time to time office for the Peace Corps Volunteer. It is nice to have a spot to go to once a week, where people in the community can come if they want to find you or have questions, and for that spot not to be your house. So to me, having these resources in one place, and being there to explain them, and other questions, seems like it might be as good as the meeting place under a tree in the market. We'll see how it works out. Maybe it won't work, but I think it is worth a shot.
One might say, "well, the village is not very literate, and even those that do read don't read much--there's not a very academic culture." However it will also include photos, posters, and other resouces, as well as serving as a from time to time office for the Peace Corps Volunteer. It is nice to have a spot to go to once a week, where people in the community can come if they want to find you or have questions, and for that spot not to be your house. So to me, having these resources in one place, and being there to explain them, and other questions, seems like it might be as good as the meeting place under a tree in the market. We'll see how it works out. Maybe it won't work, but I think it is worth a shot.
the door on the left is the to-be-refurbished room; the one on the right is the classroom
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Looking forward to Trip Home
I'm looking forward now to coming home in less than a month! It's so surreal. I'm coming home for two weeks to celebrate my cousin's wedding in June. I am looking forward to eating a lot of good food, seeing friends, being with family, maybe a short trip to the beach. I fully expect and hope to gain 10 pounds during this time. I should be flying in around the last weekend of May, until the 10th of June.
Article for the PCCameroon Agroforestry newsletter
I wrote this article back in December or November, and it just came out in the recent edition. Thought I'd post it here.
Certainly, one of my favorite parts of this whole Peace Corps experience is working with Foulbe Ladde or Mbororo* villages near my post. I love Fulfulde. I love learning it, speaking it, listening to it. I love the musicality of it and the facility of it. And especially among the Foulbe Ladde
populations whose isolation has perhaps kept it more pure, or else led to a deeper language, grammar and vocabulary, difficult even for many Northerners to understand, and against
which I don’t stand a chance! I have to say that that fresh milk is pretty good too, and showing up for a meeting or a fete and getting served warm milk as a guest, having the opportunity to buy it in my village whenever I want is something I have always been grateful for and never
grown tired of. I’m sad that the dry season is already here and soon the milk will dry up, till the cows come back and the rains start again! Then there is something romantic about walking two
hours on a tiny sandy path between towering hills, only fields and mountains in sight, to reach the little Mborroro villages on the other side. Kind of the “typical day in the life of a PCV” image we might have dreamed about before arriving in country. And true I admit I am a sucker for that romanticism. That romanticism extends to the fact that in my region, they are the population the most isolated, the most withdrawn, and the most untouched by the so‐called
modern world, who have successfully held onto so many old traditions, and whose lives are the most different from my own upbringing and life in the West. And wow aren’t they beautiful! The color, the stares, the hair, the stature, the pride, the grace, the smiles.
But perhaps the top reason is linked to Agroforestry. Here is a population of people who have traditionally been nomadic, yet are starting to put down roots. The villages I work with have been settled in that place for about 15 years now. Others have been settled for 30 years. The village stays while the cows and shepherds move seasonally on the trail of fodder. In the past they have had little desire or incentive to plant trees, yet now as they transition into a more sedentary way of life, their desire for trees could be described as a thirst. They want to plant trees, yet many of them don’t know how. It is their pure enthusiasm and complete lack of knowledge that thrills me, and makes me feel like I have something to give. My villagers are incredible farmers. They understand growing things. They for the most part know how to plant trees. They have had group upon group upon group come in and tell them the importance of trees. Many of them do plant them. Others don’t. Yet if they did, they would know how and why to do it. Some of them know how to graft. And often a volunteer wonders “who am I to be instructing them on trees and farming techniques?” If I worked here for years, or studied some of these techniques in more depth through college, yes, but where I am, I am no expert. Yet the Foulbe Ladde that I was working with did not know the necessary size for fruit tree holes, nor the fact that you need to water mangos through the dry season. There is much that I actually am able to share with them. It doesn’t hurt as well that they are people with money. They were one of the few groups I worked with though WWF who had all the money up front when it came time to pay for the trees they had ordered. This season one village planted 600 trees in their village and a few of their fields, all fruit and spiny trees; fruit trees for obvious reasons and spiny trees as a haie vive around their village as a form of protection against aggressors, something they are very conscious of having had many of their children kidnapped last year. Now, we are talking about training two or three of them as pepinieristes, so that they may produce their own trees in the village, to supply all their needs as well as those who live in villages around them. It has one of my “big” dreams at post, and something that seems to be actually occurring, evolving slowly. This is good in itself. But here’s my question. Could this shift in cultural practice, from a nomadic lifestyle to a more place‐based, treeplanting culture have even deeper affects? My area, like many areas in Cameroon, has ethnic difficulties. The Mafa don’t like the Laka who don’t like the Foulbe Ladde who don’t like…..etc. And there is certainly frustration for all the farming community towards the pastoralists, especially this time of year. Tree‐planting will likely not help end agro‐pastoral conflict, as much as I dream it would. Even if the Foulbe Ladde do start a pepiniere and do start producing and planting many trees, there will always be those shepherds who let their cows into an unharvested field, to profit from the easy food and pounds for their cattle. Selfishness and stealing will always exist. But there is also a lot of complaining a b o u t “Mbororo bergers” who slash saplings left and right as they walk with their cows and who destroy people’s plantations of trees with their cattle. What if creating a “tree‐culture” among Foulbe Ladde, giving them more understanding of growing trees, of the importance of them and the length of time that can go into it, might go years down the road towards teaching more respect for trees in general and those they find en brousse? Could years from now we see a tree planting project linking farmers and pastoralists, planting trees along the “chemin de betail” for fodder for animals? Will the young Foulbe shepherd who works in his family’s pepiniere planting trees in his village stop cutting those he finds along the path of his pasturing? One could say that this is the eternal idealist in me speaking and that’s fine, I won’t argue. I agree it’s a f a rfetched concept. However it could be the vision of something, my dream of something that we can hope may arrive someday, that putting more trees in the ground just may lead to more peace.
*as I have gathered, the term “Mbororo” is somewhat derogatory. One Foulbe told me it literally is a word meaning “people without God” or Pagan. Non‐Foulbe Ladde populations often use it derisively as an ethnic slur, and while some Foulbe Ladde themselves use the term, often they don’t appreciate when others do, though their pride might prevent them from making that obvious, and they might make exceptions for the “foreigner working amongst them”. But, to be safe, it would give more respect to use the term “Foulbe Ladde” (“Foulbe of the Brousse”) than Mbororo.
Certainly, one of my favorite parts of this whole Peace Corps experience is working with Foulbe Ladde or Mbororo* villages near my post. I love Fulfulde. I love learning it, speaking it, listening to it. I love the musicality of it and the facility of it. And especially among the Foulbe Ladde
populations whose isolation has perhaps kept it more pure, or else led to a deeper language, grammar and vocabulary, difficult even for many Northerners to understand, and against
which I don’t stand a chance! I have to say that that fresh milk is pretty good too, and showing up for a meeting or a fete and getting served warm milk as a guest, having the opportunity to buy it in my village whenever I want is something I have always been grateful for and never
grown tired of. I’m sad that the dry season is already here and soon the milk will dry up, till the cows come back and the rains start again! Then there is something romantic about walking two
hours on a tiny sandy path between towering hills, only fields and mountains in sight, to reach the little Mborroro villages on the other side. Kind of the “typical day in the life of a PCV” image we might have dreamed about before arriving in country. And true I admit I am a sucker for that romanticism. That romanticism extends to the fact that in my region, they are the population the most isolated, the most withdrawn, and the most untouched by the so‐called
modern world, who have successfully held onto so many old traditions, and whose lives are the most different from my own upbringing and life in the West. And wow aren’t they beautiful! The color, the stares, the hair, the stature, the pride, the grace, the smiles.
But perhaps the top reason is linked to Agroforestry. Here is a population of people who have traditionally been nomadic, yet are starting to put down roots. The villages I work with have been settled in that place for about 15 years now. Others have been settled for 30 years. The village stays while the cows and shepherds move seasonally on the trail of fodder. In the past they have had little desire or incentive to plant trees, yet now as they transition into a more sedentary way of life, their desire for trees could be described as a thirst. They want to plant trees, yet many of them don’t know how. It is their pure enthusiasm and complete lack of knowledge that thrills me, and makes me feel like I have something to give. My villagers are incredible farmers. They understand growing things. They for the most part know how to plant trees. They have had group upon group upon group come in and tell them the importance of trees. Many of them do plant them. Others don’t. Yet if they did, they would know how and why to do it. Some of them know how to graft. And often a volunteer wonders “who am I to be instructing them on trees and farming techniques?” If I worked here for years, or studied some of these techniques in more depth through college, yes, but where I am, I am no expert. Yet the Foulbe Ladde that I was working with did not know the necessary size for fruit tree holes, nor the fact that you need to water mangos through the dry season. There is much that I actually am able to share with them. It doesn’t hurt as well that they are people with money. They were one of the few groups I worked with though WWF who had all the money up front when it came time to pay for the trees they had ordered. This season one village planted 600 trees in their village and a few of their fields, all fruit and spiny trees; fruit trees for obvious reasons and spiny trees as a haie vive around their village as a form of protection against aggressors, something they are very conscious of having had many of their children kidnapped last year. Now, we are talking about training two or three of them as pepinieristes, so that they may produce their own trees in the village, to supply all their needs as well as those who live in villages around them. It has one of my “big” dreams at post, and something that seems to be actually occurring, evolving slowly. This is good in itself. But here’s my question. Could this shift in cultural practice, from a nomadic lifestyle to a more place‐based, treeplanting culture have even deeper affects? My area, like many areas in Cameroon, has ethnic difficulties. The Mafa don’t like the Laka who don’t like the Foulbe Ladde who don’t like…..etc. And there is certainly frustration for all the farming community towards the pastoralists, especially this time of year. Tree‐planting will likely not help end agro‐pastoral conflict, as much as I dream it would. Even if the Foulbe Ladde do start a pepiniere and do start producing and planting many trees, there will always be those shepherds who let their cows into an unharvested field, to profit from the easy food and pounds for their cattle. Selfishness and stealing will always exist. But there is also a lot of complaining a b o u t “Mbororo bergers” who slash saplings left and right as they walk with their cows and who destroy people’s plantations of trees with their cattle. What if creating a “tree‐culture” among Foulbe Ladde, giving them more understanding of growing trees, of the importance of them and the length of time that can go into it, might go years down the road towards teaching more respect for trees in general and those they find en brousse? Could years from now we see a tree planting project linking farmers and pastoralists, planting trees along the “chemin de betail” for fodder for animals? Will the young Foulbe shepherd who works in his family’s pepiniere planting trees in his village stop cutting those he finds along the path of his pasturing? One could say that this is the eternal idealist in me speaking and that’s fine, I won’t argue. I agree it’s a f a rfetched concept. However it could be the vision of something, my dream of something that we can hope may arrive someday, that putting more trees in the ground just may lead to more peace.
*as I have gathered, the term “Mbororo” is somewhat derogatory. One Foulbe told me it literally is a word meaning “people without God” or Pagan. Non‐Foulbe Ladde populations often use it derisively as an ethnic slur, and while some Foulbe Ladde themselves use the term, often they don’t appreciate when others do, though their pride might prevent them from making that obvious, and they might make exceptions for the “foreigner working amongst them”. But, to be safe, it would give more respect to use the term “Foulbe Ladde” (“Foulbe of the Brousse”) than Mbororo.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
travel through the Adamaoua
My mother asked for more videos after I posted that one from the Harmattan, so I took some more during my car ride through the Adamaoua to get to Banyo on the way to helping out with IST. These are short, but might be enjoyable as little visions of the passing villlages and countryside from Ngoundere to Tibati.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Mafa Kilda is movin on up!
Newsflash, newsflash, Mafa Kilda now has...(drumroll please)..cold drinks. Last week I eyed the "freezer" in one of the boutiques. "what is that?!!! What's in it? Are there drinks?!" Yes. 5 small cokes. Yes indeedy sir step right up for a cold drink that may be about the temperature of if you took it out of a refrigerator at home and sat it on the counter for about 10-20 minutes. Now I have gotten very used to drinking hot water. This time of year, that is what it is. Yest hot, not boiling, but like you cooked it on the stove or microwaved it for a bit. And the beauty is, I like it. The thing is when you're hot and parched water, any water, is wonderful, and I gulp it down appreciatively. But...now there is the possibilty of, every now and then, a cold drink--Coke. That's a dififcult thing to pass up. So tonight, I bought one. Clutching it like a baby in its little black plastic sac on the way home in the dark, I felt its coolness against my stomach and worried that its seconds there against my skin wouldn't take away too much of its chill. And the anticipation the way home was immense. I had already cooked at lunchtime. All I would have to do was warm up the lentils, sit on my porch, open the cold drink and enjoy the sweet and cool end to a long days work. So you can imagine my disapointment when I got to my kitchen and after looking around a bit realized I don't have a bottle opener! Nor do my neighbors as everyone just uses their teeth. Now I know if they do it anyway, I could have just asked them to open mine, but if I'm not willing to risk breaking my own teeth I can't justify asking them to. After tryign that option for a milisecond, I passed on it, not willing to trade a cracked tooth for a Coke, and went through my kitchen utensils, the wooden posts of the hangar off my porch, and other tricks all to no avail, counting the seconds going by and with that the coolness leaving. So I gave up deciding I'd take it back in the morning, get my money back, and buy a bottle opener in Garoua! Instead, I ate a fresh mango, which afterall is just as sweet, and while lacking the coolness factor, is certainly more healthy and 1/12th the price!
I say though, cold drinks! Mafa Kilda is moving on up in the world. Electricity in September, a pump (now broken for the second time) and Callbox (where I we can buy phone credit) in October, and now cold drins in March! It's as people say here, practically the city!
I say though, cold drinks! Mafa Kilda is moving on up in the world. Electricity in September, a pump (now broken for the second time) and Callbox (where I we can buy phone credit) in October, and now cold drins in March! It's as people say here, practically the city!
Trip south
A few nights ago I woke up in the middle of the night. I don't know what time it was cause my phone wasn't with me, but probably between 12 and 3 am. And I woke up because I was too hot to keep sleeping. My mouth was cottony. I drank some water, stumbled to the bathroom, went to the bathroom, poured water from a tea kettle all over me, and then stumbled back to bed. Only when sleeping in wet clothes, or with a wet sheet over you, is it bearable lately. I thought last year that March was hotter than April, but maybe I don't remember correctly, or maybe it changed this year. People are saying that it might start raining the end of this month even, with this heat. Anyway, all that is to say, that it certainly is bearable, but I am quite looking forward to my two week trip down south, coming up on Sunday. I will be traveling through the Adamawa, get to see another part of the country, stopping at my stagemate Anna's post in Banyo, west Adamawa just in time for her birthday. I'll continue on to Foumban in the West province for the training of the agros who have now been at post for 3 months. I'll be speaking about the Agroforestry Steering Committee, of which I am a part, and also sharing a "Best Practices" idea. I'm also looking forward to the field trip planned, excited to see agroforestry in another region, all while enjoying a part of the country whose rainy season has already started and who hopefully while have a nicer climate right now. They say the road from Ngoundere to Banyo (and then to Foumban) is hell, but I have to say after 13 trips on the train, I'm ready for a change, and willing to risk it (probably for the last time) with the car. It will be very good to see the other side of the Adamawa even if its terribly uncomfortable! After Foumban, maybe two days at the beach before heading to Yaounde for the Agroforestry Steering Committee meeting, before heading back home. It will be a very good break, which I feel I need, as the heat, plus being in village for a while seems to be wearing me down a little bit, or, rather my temper short! I'm finding in the past three weeks I have become very irritable, angry, frustrated with people, which is never a good thing, and a likely sign that maybe I need a little time away to recharch so that I can be nicer! And of course praying for more love to give to those around me instead of crabbiness! I'm looking forward to a little break!
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Follow up on WWF plantings
I am doing rounds now for the trees we planted with WWF. They have a form to fill out to monitor the trees, which is a good thing. You mark how many trees people received, how many were put in the ground, how many protected, what species, how many died, and reasons why. Monitoring is very importnat, to know esp who are those who are really devoted to taking care of their trees. Good success rates means more trees for the future. Bad success rates means perhaps they won't be recipiants of the trees in the future. Usually the biggest problem is that people haven't protected their trees from goats or watered them. I just returned from the Muslim Quartier and it is really disheartening. This year grasshoppers have been really bad. They swarm on the mango trees in large numbers and have eaten through all the leaves, and then start on the stems so all you have left is one branch sticking up. This is a big problem this year all over the region., apparently not usually like this, and it brings to mind stories of plagues in Egypt in the Bible. And walking house to house yesterday it was so frustrating becuase here are a bunch of families who probably never planted a tree before, who were doing something new and different, partly because of me, and hoping for the future. And most of them even protected them well from goats and watered them daily. Adn most were tall, to my shoulder height with lots of new branches and growth when I came by last month. But now all are just stems. And its so frustrating because its like, with the dryness, the heat, the bad soil, the termites that eat through roots, the goats that chomp every available tree down to the ground, the cattle that trample small trees, its really really hard to get things to grow here. And now you have to add on to that grasshoppers this year? What's the point when everything is against you? And the hopes of people dashed like that. Is it even possible at this point to say Öh well, lets try again this year from scratch." I don't think so.
The water in the well went down further, overnight even. Had to get down low for the bucket to reach, whereas last night it hit the water with me standing up. I hope it doesn't descend any more or I'll have to add yet another addition to my already 12 m long rope.
The water in the well went down further, overnight even. Had to get down low for the bucket to reach, whereas last night it hit the water with me standing up. I hope it doesn't descend any more or I'll have to add yet another addition to my already 12 m long rope.
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