Small Time I Di Go, But For Now I Go Over Enjoy

I was talking with a friend when I spoke this Pidgin phrase, meaning, “Soon I am going, but for now I am really enjoying being here.”  

Little Stone Lodge in Kumbo

 I was in Kumbo last week facilitating a workshop with 30 peer educators on promotion of exclusive breastfeeding.  I lived in Kumbo from 2011-2012 when I was doing research for my doctorate.  When I arrived last Monday I walked into the Little Stone Lodge where I lived in 2011,  immediately the smell and sight of the place brought back memories of the people I met, the struggles, joy, and lessons learned during that year.  I laughed and was filled with delight as I saw people again who were a big part of my life when I lived there.  Like, Doris, who neatly packed away my earrings and peanut butter that I accidentally left in the house 6 months earlier.  Nothing says friendship like someone who packs peanut butter inside a cardboard box with the words written, “Sister Kate’s things, DO NOT TOUCH!!” and hides it in a cupboard for six months.  

Facilitating the workshop brought my life and work full circle.  The first phrase of my research in 2011 involved asking a variety of people in Kumbo about breastfeeding practices, knowledge, and beliefs.  I quickly learned that the women knew a lot about breastfeeding and were provided with good information at the antenatal clinics, but their husbands and grandmothers did not and often influenced the women, or they themselves, gave the baby other foods or liquids before six months.  There was a need to develop tools to educate other people about the importance of exclusive breastfeeding instead of only pregnant and lactating women.

One of the first people In interviewed in 2011 and still meet each time I go back to Kumbo

When I returned to Cameroon last April as a Nutrition Advisor for an HIV grant, one of my goals was to promote exclusive breastfeeding in the community.  I desired to do this because research has shown that if an HIV positive woman exclusively breastfeeds her child for six months and takes her anti-retroviral drugs the risk of her transmitting HIV from mother to child is almost zero.   So there I was almost 3 years later telling peer educators, people respected in their communities, that sex does NOT spoil breastmilk nor does palm wine stimulate breastmilk flow, beliefs that I learned earlier that negatively influence breastfeeding practices.  I think they were surprised that a “white man” knew of such beliefs and openly spoke against it.  That or they enjoyed my attempts at explaining why the beliefs are not true in Pidgin.

One of the Peer Educators learning about proper positioning and attachment for breastfeeding

Some of the Peer Educators and Life Abundant Primary Health Care Health Promoters 

Song about breastfeeding that the Peer Educators wrote to sing in their communities to promote exclusive breastfeeding and women's nutrition

  Each morning as I watched the sunrise from the upper window in the Little Stone Lodge I reflected on my life and work in Cameroon in the past and in the future.  I continue to be amazed at how my past experiences have prepared me for what I’m doing now in Cameroon and what I will be doing in the United States in a few short months.   A couple of months ago I was offered a position as Associate Professor in the Masters of Public Health Program at Liberty University.  After a lot of prayer and thought I accepted the position with the stipulation that I could continue my work in Cameroon.  The school administration agreed and I signed a contract to start January 2014.  I have tried twice to completely leave Cameroon and have failed both times.  This time I am trying a new approach of simultaneously working in both continents, but with a home in the US and yearly visits to Cameroon.  The opportunity also enables me to work towards my goal of bringing students to Cameroon and exposing them to the realities of health and life in developing countries.  When I was in college I was able to visit a couple of developing countries with my professors and it strongly influenced my lifestyle and career choices, I hope to provide the same opportunities for my students. During the five years that I have lived and worked in Cameroon I have learned so much from the people, not just about breastfeeding, but about life.  In the future I hope to continue learning from them while also sharing what I have learned with my future colleagues and students.      

 

All is grace.  Light and water, shelter and food, work and free time, children, parents, and grandparents, birth and death--it is all given to us.  Our vocation is to receive these gifts and say thanks.  If I have any vocation it is to receive from the people the gifts they have to offer to us and to bring these gifts back up North for our own conversion and healing.
Henri Nouwen,  Discernment

Belly No Di Bite

After my discussion with my friend Peter about his visit to the traditional doctor, he promised to take me to meet Dr. Moses.  After buying boxed wine and bread for the doctor, we took a taxi and then a motorbike to his house about 30 minutes outside of Bamenda.   When we arrived at his house, we were warmly greeted and given bamboo stools to sit on inside his mud brick home.  After some brief introductions, Dr. Moses looked at me and said, "You have stomach problems and you have terrible dreams that worry you so much that you sweat in the night."  I was flabbergasted.  How could he know this after only telling him my name and my relationship to Peter?  He was right, my stomach was bothering me that morning and a few days earlier I had a terrible nightmare about one of my friends that   was disconcerning.  I asked Dr. Moses how he knew this and he said that he had four eyes and he could see spiritual causes of sickness that other people cannot see.  

Dr. Moses and his son in front of his house

He then walked across the room and reached inside two rice bags and pulled out two different kinds of powders,  one was reddish in color and the other greenish.  He placed the powders in my hands and told me to eat it.  Both tasted like sawdust and dirt. 

Dr. Moses' pharmacy

After drinking half my water bottle to rid my mouth of the taste, Dr. Moses showed us around his farm where he cultivates the medicine.  Before we looked at the different plants, we walked past his father's grave.  His father taught him everything he knows and when someone is very sick, he asks that person to stand on top of his father's grave so he can invoke his father's spirit to aide in the healing.  

Dr. Moses' farm

One of the leaves Dr. Moses uses to treat stomach pain

One of the pods Dr. Moses grinds and mixes to treat "man pikin" (male) problems

Berries!  An unusual site in Cameroon.  The leaves of the berries are used in medicine.  

After visiting the farm we returned to Dr. Moses' parlor/consultation room where he showed us the traditional bags that he uses in treatment.  The bags were made by his father out of animal skins.  Before he uses them they are warmed in front of a fire and then medicine is placed inside.   He will then hit the sick person with the bags wherever they feel pain.  Next, he lit a fire inside of a clay pot so that the smoke would drive away any evil spirits that were seeking to harm us.  

 

While the fire was burning we talked a bit more about my "belly pain".  Dr. Moses told me that it was the result of someone in the United States casting a curse upon me and there was an evil spirit inside.  He told me to hold my stomach while he held out his hand, closed his hands, and uttered some words.  He then promised me that the pain would be gone forever.  Was he right?  Does my "belly no di bite" as is said in Pidgin, meaning no more stomach pain?  Time will tell.  

I No Be Fine

As a Nutritionist I talk often with Cameroonian friends and health professionals about sickness, disease, and wellness.  Last week I had a particularly interesting conversation with my friend Peter:

“Sister Kate, I was really down.  I no be fine.  For five weeks I couldn’t eat a-n-y-thing.  My figure was like this” (pinky finger pops up to demonstrate his thinness) “I went and consulted at the hospital and they told me it was malaria and gave me drugs.  I took the drugs, but didn’t get better.  I went me back to the house.  My stomach was worrying me! I was just down.  I finally had to go see a traditional doctor.  The doctor told me I had food poisoning.”

“But Peter,” I said, “If it was food poisoning that wouldn’t last for five weeks.  Usually that passes in 24-48 hours.”

“No, Kate, someone poisoned my food.”

I quickly learned about the existence of traditional doctors and medicine in Cameroon when I first arrived in Cameroon in 2005.  They are omnipresent and exist in parallel to the biomedical system of hospitals and clinics with nurses and doctors trained in the germ theory of disease.  I still remember years ago as a Peace Corps Volunteer seeing a child admitted into the hospital because of severe anemia.  She had an enlarged spleen and her parents thought this was because of an evil spirit and brought her to a traditional doctor for exhortation.  The traditional doctor tried to rid her of the evil spirit by cutting her spleen with a razorblade.  After this didn’t work, her parents brought her to the hospital. I’ve observed that there are a number of factors that determine whether Cameroonians will consult traditional doctors, Western doctors, or use both when they are sick.  Generally, I’ve seen that they use both. However, if they believe that their illness is the result of spiritual forces, only a traditional doctor can cure them. 

Peter believes that someone was jealous of him and so this person tried to harm him by poisoning his food.  I asked Peter if he knew whom this person could be and he said that the traditional doctor told him that the person would appear to him in a vision.  Shortly thereafter he had a dream about a co-worker with whom he had a disagreement a few weeks prior to his sickness.  Peter went on to tell me about how the traditional doctor treated him by having sit on top of a clay pot with traditional medicine burning inside while the doctor laid his hands upon him and called out names of ancestors, hitting his stomach with a pouch full of powder, and then using a razor blade to make small cuts throughout his body and rubbing powder inside the cuts.   The traditional doctor gave Peter rubbing oil with traditional medicine to be rubbing on himself and Lord, Babila, and Kate to protect them from future attacks.

The day after Peter told me all of this I woke up sick.  The sudden onset of headache, lower back pain, nausea, cyclical fever 14 days after being bit by a mosquito could only indicate one thing—malaria.  I’ve had malaria before and keep treatment with me so I can start taking the drugs immediately.  I went to the hospital the next day for a confirmatory malaria test and see a doctor.  Three days later, I’m feeling fine and almost back to normal.  However, after the long discussion with Peter it crossed my mind that what if my sickness was the result of an evil curse on me?  I asked an anthropologist friend this question and she told me, “Your malaria is only a result of a curse if you believe that is the cause.” 

Time

I just returned to Cameroon after 2 1/2 months of being in the States.  Eager and a bit overwhelmed with all that has to be accomplished in the next few months, I began this week determined to manage my and other's time well. 

 I have a young girl, Mildred (not her real name, to protect her privacy), who assists me in my house with cleaning and basic food preparation and an office assistant, Mary, who usually arrive at our office around 7:45 each morning.  Typically Mildred meets me at my house around 8 am and I quickly give her instructions for that day's house chores then hurry to meet Mary in the office so she is not sitting idle for too long.    Monday came and went fairly successfully. On Tuesday morning 8 am came and went, then 8:30, finally at 8:40 Mildred arrived.  I quickly scold her for showing up 40 minutes late and tell her she needs to plan her time better because when she shows up late, other people wait for me.  I left the house in a huff, thinking to myself why does it have to be so difficult for her to show up on time?  

I've known Mildred for a few months and every time I ask her about how she and her family are doing, her response is quick and short, "They are all doing fine."  When I first hired her, I knew that her mom recently died, but that was all I knew about her family, despite my daily questions.  After she arrived Wednesday morning at 7:50 am, she asked me what to do about someone who is sick, but refuses to take their medication.  This was the first time that she has asked me anything beyond where the soap is located or what I wanted to eat for lunch.  Seizing the opportunity to get to her know her better, I started asking more questions.  Within a few minutes she told me her family's story.  Her father is taking  medicine, but refuses to show anyone what kind of medication he is taking.  He also refuses to go to the doctor even Mildred has asked repeatedly and has involved other family members.  Prone to alcoholism and abuse, she tells me that no one can reason with him, he just shouts and becomes very angry whenever anyone asks.  I asked about her mother and she told me that her mom died of AIDS a year ago and she suspects that her father has HIV.  She further explains that she has been late in the morning because she has to prepare her father's breakfast and her nine-month old son.  I had no idea that she even had a son!  

Being in Cameroon is always a humbling experience and this was a reminder of how easily I think that my time is more important than anyone else's.  I  quickly become impatient when others don't show up on time or how I think I can manipulate or manage time to meet my needs.  It also reminds me to look beyond chronos, a chronological view of time to kairos, to the right and opportune moment.  What the ancient Greeks called the moments that seemed ripe and intended.   In his book, Turn My Mouring into Dancing, Henri Nouwen writes about these different views of time.  He says, We see how the events of the year are not just a series of incidents and accidents, happy or unhappy, but the molding hands of God, who wants us to grow and mature....Time becomes not just something to get through or manipulate or manage, but the arena of God's work with us..We are part of a very impatient culture, however.  We want many things and we want them quickly.  And we feel that we should be able to take away the pains, heal the wounds, fill the holes, and create experiences of meaningfulness--now.  We have plans and projects we are convinced we want, and then we become irritated when something happens to get in our way.  But a view of time as kairos helps us to be patient in believing.  If we are patient in this sense we can look at all events of each day--expected or unexpected--as holding a promise for us.  Patience let us see the people we meet, the events of the day, and the unfolding history of our times all part of that slow process of growth. Today is my birthday and I find these words not just a a good reminder when dealing with culturally different views of time, but also as a reflection of God's orchestration of growth in the past and in the year to come.

Had to Climb the Rocks

Last week I was sitting in the maternity at Banso Baptist Hospital when the words of an all too familiar song penetrated the air, competing with the voices of a dozen or so women and the cries of their newborns:

Give pikin bobbi, give pikin bobbi.  Give pikin bobbi as long as ye wants 'em.  For all kind chop we de give 'em, bobbi be number one chop for ye.

Those were the words from our theme song from the audio program we developed and tested to promote exclusive breastfeeding.  All of that finished in July 2012 and I thought I would never hear that song again.  But, I was wrong.  One of the maternity nurses at the hospital continues to play the audio program for all of the women right after they deliver, reminding them of the wonders of exclusive breastfeeding.

 See Pa, I de hold two fists.  The na be the amount of starchy food ye de take for one time.  You get plenty sugar for blood and you need to reduce em.  

In the past few weeks I've been visiting different hospitals in the Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon, mostly to see how the nutrition counselors are educating mothers about infant and young child feeding.  But with chronic diseases like diabetes and hypertension on the rise, I also find myself periodically counseling patients about diabetes, hypertension, and obesity.  Which is exactly what I did when I first came to Cameroon as a Peace Corps Volunteer.  

  

Last Thursday was Ascension Day, a National Holiday in Cameroon, and a marker in the Christian calendar of when Jesus ascended to heaven.  He ascended 40 days after Easter and since I returned to Cameroon just before Easter, it is also marks the number of days passed since I've returned.  On Ascension Sunday, I was reflecting on what has happened since I've returned, both in these last 40 days and in the last 7 years.  Before I left for Cameroon the first time, my friend and I had a saying from a popular song at the time, "You have to climb the rocks to see the mountain view."  And that certainly has been true of my experiences in Cameroon.

View from the bottom of Mt. Cameroon on Ascension Day

In Cameroon I've climbed a lot of rocks, both figuratively and literally, and its been amazing to look back and see how all of it has molded and shaped me for what I am doing now.  How what I thought were insignificant conversations or experiences then gave me a perspective that I appreciate and use now.

Kate and Eunice, May 2006

The Tuesday before Ascension Day, May 7, marked the third anniversary since my good friend Eunice died of cancer.  As I was reflecting on all of the events that lead up to her death and all that has happened since, I realized that if she hadn't gotten sick, I wouldn't have come back to do my doctoral research and if I hadn't come back to do my doctoral research I wouldn't be doing the work that I'm doing now and enjoying such contentment, joy, laughter, and love in being back. 

View from the top of Mt. Cameroon

I know the journey isn't over and I've only reached the plateau in the continual ascent, but every so often its good to stop, take a breath, and reflect on how far we've come.  

We went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.

Psalm 66:12