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

"Sister, You Have Been Missing For Too Long"

When I decided to leave my job in Niger and return to Cameroon, I knew very little about what my work in Cameroon would entail.  Three weeks later, I'm still figuring it out.  But I did know four things and those things have indeed been true.

1.  I would be doing work that I believed in.  My job mostly entails overseeing the integration of nutrition into the continuum of care for patients in health centers and hospitals in the Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon.  This means that I come alongside of Cameroonian health professionals and help them implement evidence-based nutrition practices at HIV/AIDS care and treatment centers, infant welfare clinics, antenatal clinics, and in-patient treatment. It also means that I work in a variety of settings doing a variety of work--research, program planning and evaluation, staff development and training, patient counseling, and teaching.  I count it a great privilege to work with Cameroonians who are doing their best to help their neighbors.  They provide the ideas, I just try to help them systematize their work.  A couple of weeks ago I was impressed by a young Cameroonian nutrition educator sharing her reasons why exclusive breastfeeding is best for HIV positive mothers.

One of the Nutrition Educators explaining the importance of Exclusive Breastfeeding using an algorithm she created.

This also means that I often get to interact directly with all kinds of people--program managers, nurses, nutrition educators, patients, Westerners, Cameroonians.  A couple of weeks ago I went out to visit a HIV support group and was so happy to simply sit amongst the women and ask them questions and hear about their lives instead of coming in with a program to manage or data to collect.

Sitting with women during a support group meeting.  

2.   I would be with people I love. When I left Cameroon in July 2012 it was dreadfully hard to say goodbye to many dear Cameroonian family and friends.  And now how sweet it is been to be reunited with them, after "missing for too long", as they are quick to say.   Its also been fun to travel to different parts of the region as inevitably someone recognize me and knows me from either my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer or as a researcher.  There have been a lot of serendipitous reunions in the last few weeks that have reminded me of all of the frustrations, joys, sorrows, anger, love, confusion, and laughter I have experienced in this country in the last seven years.  Certainly the pleasant memories far surpass the painful ones and now relish the multiple reunifications.

       

Celebrating Baby Kate's fifth birthday

3.  I would be in a place of beauty.  I guess the Colorado girl in me needs to be close to mountains and natural beauty to feel at peace.  Although I've tried for many years, I can never capture the beauty of this place.  It was once explained to me that this is because the light here is different, equatorial light, so the brilliant greens and purple sunsets never come through clearly.  Whatever the reason, I daily marvel at seeing a waterfall from my front yard after taking out the trash or the rolling green hills just beyond the health centers and hospitals I visit.

View from Mendakwe Health Center

View from Mbingo Baptist Hospital

4. I would laugh.  Between statements of the obvious and the vocabulary of Pidgin English, Cameroonians keep me laughing.  Some of my favorites so far:

"Oh, you are from Colorado?  I heard that they have mountains there.  At least I hard that from a Lil Wayne rap song."

"My jewelry rhymes with my outfit"

"The placenta is like a corn sifter for the baby in the womb.  It keeps the bad things out and the good

 things in" 

"Your head is just like the computer because it can store so many things inside.  So God is wonderful." 

And I'm sure there will be more to come....

New Life

I believe that once again I am being sent on and will return to Cameroon again.  Whether for work or leisure, I believe I will return.  I wrote those words in my July 30, 2012 blog post.   For the second time in my life, I've returned to Cameroon much earlier then I expected.  On August 1, 2012 I left Cameroon and moved to Niger to work as a Health and Nutrition Program Manager for an international non-governmental organization.  I was supposed to stay for two years, I left after eight months.  Unexpectedly I returned to Cameroon in December to spend the Christmas holiday with good friends.  On the second to last day I providentially had a conversation with the Director of Health Services for the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Board (CBCHB).  He explained to me that CBCHB recently was awarded a President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) grant and desperately needed a Nutrition Advisor.  The next day I left  for Niger encouraged by the possibility of returning to Cameroon, a country that I know and love, but realizing the likelihood was small.  But then all of the pieces came together and on March 29th, 2013 I returned to Cameroon once more.  

Sunset over the Niger River

For about a month I knew that I would be leaving Niger on Good Friday and my first full day in my new home would be Easter Sunday.  Every so often I contemplated what it meant spiritually to leave and arrive on those religiously significant holidays.  The day before I left Niger, Maunday Thursday, it occurred to me that I these last 8 months have been like a Lenten journey through the desert.  I searched for peace, joy, life, and contentment like a nomad searches for water, but never really found it.  On Good Friday morning, I boarded a plane and left the desert.  

I arose early on Easter morning in my new Cameroonian home and joined hundreds of others to climb a hill outside of Bamenda and watch the sun rise.  After a few prayers and a short meditation, we descended the hill paraded through the streets of Bamenda singing while dodging taxis and motorcycles.  Later in the day I was challenged to think about where I see new life. Certainly I saw it in the Easter morning message, the lively crowd, the view of the waterfall,  but then I realized I see it most prominently in me.  Its been a long eight months since I've felt this content, peaceful, and whole.  My desert journey is over, my new life in Cameroon has begun.  

The deep calm you experience, the profound inner peace with which you are filled and which you find so sweet, is not an illusion, but a true operation of the Holy Spirit, who speaks to the center of your soul.

Abandonment to Divine Providence

You Have Come to Flash Our Eyes

"My Sister, how long will be staying?" my friend Doris asked.
"I am leaving the day after tomorrow."
"Waay, so you have come just to flash our eyes?"

Doris at the LAP Center.  Don't let the t-shirt confuse you, she is one of the kindest people I know.

Indeed, I was in Cameroon over the Christmas holiday to "flash" my Cameroonian friend's eyes.  And it was wonderful.  I had no intention on spending my Christmas break in Cameroon.  My original plan was to visit Cameroon in May or June when the weather there is absolutely perfect, but what has been a recurring scenario during the last five years, I've returned to Cameroon sooner then I expected.  I was going to spend the Christmas break visiting a friend in Malawi, but the flight schedule kept changing and finally just became too ridiculous to even attempt traveling across the continent.  My housemate convinced me that I needed to get out of Niger for the holiday and brought me to an airline ticket office where I bought a roundtrip ticket to Cameroon, departing four days later.  And it all worked out, not exactly the way I thought it would, but it did, just like it always does in Cameroon.  Like arriving at the bus station in Douala to find out there were no available buses departing from Bamenda and thus forced  to catch a ride with some random stranger or planning to take Peter and the kids swimming, but instead attending a death celebration complete with cultural dancing.

Ju-ju dancing at the Death Celebration

Although unexpected, the day was a good opportunity to spend time with Eunice's children and hold little Kate once more.

Little Kate and Sister Kate

Babila and my "cool" sunglasses

All of that dancing makes us very tired

On Christmas Eve day I took Peter and the kids shopping to buy "shiny clothes" for the following day. 

New "shiny" clothes for Christmas

I spend Christmas day with my friend Elsie, from Canada, and a few other missionaries.  Elsie is the kind of friend who you can call the day before and say you are coming and she will immediately open her home to you.  It was a wonderful day of good food and fellowship.

But that of course was not the only day I ate good food.  Many Cameroonians asked me what I was eating in Niger and tried to describe to them how little can grow in the desert.  They immediately said to  me, that means Cameroon is very blessed.  We have so much food!  I couldn't have agreed more.

For my arrival in Kumbo Emmanuella prepared my favorite Cameroonian food!

After my days in Bamenda I traveled to Kumbo to visit friends and see my new namesake. 

Franklin, Baby Carol, Kate, Baby Kate

As was expected, I was warmly greeted and enjoyed feeling cold and reminded of the beauty in the highlands of Cameroon.

My welcome sign at the Little Stone Lodge

Lake Oku

When I was on the plane from Niger to Cameroon, I met a man who works for a Maritime Security Company.  He asked me about my work and life and where I consider "home."  I told him that I don't really know.  Before he got off the plane in Lagos he gave me a toothbrush and told me to leave the toothbrush in the place that I feel most at home.  The morning I left the "Little Stone Lodge" in Kumbo,  I left this toothbrush in a drawer.  As has been the case in the past, I may be reclaiming that toothbrush earlier then I planned.

Home is, of course, not simply a physical place.  It is a sense of belonging, of remembering, and being remembered, put back together again when our journeys into the world have fractured and fragmented our sense of self.

Oriah

Bye For Now

When my friend Eunice was in the hospital dying of cancer, I started communicating more with her husband, Peter, to find out about her health and the situation of her three children, Kate, Babila, and Lord.  I always appreciated that he ended our phone conversations with, "bye for now."  Uncertain if my recurring phone calls with questions that really couldn't be answered were more annoying then helpful, I appreciated this salutation.   To me it signified that it wasn't the end of the conversation, just a pause for now.  I could call again and continue my search for answers.  

Peter, Baby Kate, Babila, and Lord

   

I returned to Cameroon at the end of June to collect six month post data on the efficacy of the audio program to promote exclusive breastfeeding, train health workers in using the audio program in their antenatal clinics, verify the translation of the audio program into two local language, arrange for the recording and broadcasting of the audio program on two local community radio stations, co-facilitate a press conference with the local media and health delegates to share our results.  Now I certainly didn’t and couldn’t have done all of that and everything else related to his project without the assistance of wonderful, loyal, competent Cameroonians.  And that is why it is hard to say goodbye to dear, dear friends and colleagues, even if it is just for now.   

Doris and I at my going-away party

Every once in awhile I experience moments of deep connectedness, wholeness, completeness.  Its hard to exactly explain these serendipitous moments, because they are a matter of the soul, not of the mind or intellect.  They may happen in the most unlikeliest places, such as in a circa 1980 Toyota Corolla with 9 other people wedged inside or walking along a dusty road, dodging goats and chickens, aware that everyone is staring at me because I look and talk different.  Or they may occur in more predictable ways like watching the sun set while hearing the happy voices of children playing football or seeing the healthy, beautiful babies of the mothers who participated in our research program.  But it doesn't matter when or how they occur, the point is that they do, and for me they happen the most often in Cameroon.  And this, probably more then anything else, is why it so hard to say good-bye, even if it is just for now.  

Sunrise from my loft window

In the last week I compiled a list of all of the things I've learned during this project and it didn't take long to reach over 50 different items.  Some of them are quite practical like scrap metal makes excellent bread pans and how to keep a fire going, some are professional like how to get over 200 people to return over 5 times with little forewarning and explanation and write a dissertation, and many are related to learning how to allow the sorrows of this place to break my heart over and over again and the letting the joys make it whole again.  For all of the lessons learned is why it is hard to say goodbye to this project, even if it is just for now.

View of Oku Mountain from my house

But now I have said my good-byes.  All of the money for this project has been spent.  I have packed up my things and moved out of my “little stone lodge.”  I have exchanged phone numbers and emails with promises that “we are still together” if even from afar.  When I left Cameroon after serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in 2007, I was told that I was being “sent-on” only to return to Cameroon.  I believe that once again I am being sent on and will return to Cameroon again.  Whether for work or pleasure, I believe I will return.  Although not easy to say it, it still is bye for now.

 Tomorrow I’m leaving for Niger to begin a new job as Health and Nutrition Program Manager with Samaritan's Purse.  I’ll be based in the capital city, Niamey, and overseeing a child survival project.  That and that it is very different from Cameroon is about everything I know.  Niger is in the desert, I lived in one of the lushest places in Cameroon. Niger is predominately Muslim, I lived in the predominately Christian part of Cameroon.  I will live and primarily work exclusively with expatriates in Niger, I’ve lived by myself and worked primarily with Cameroonians.  With all of these differences I often wonder if it will be as difficult to say good-bye to Niger as it has been to Cameroon. I don’t know, I can only wait and see.  I have started a new blog to record my experiences in Niger and can be found at springsinthedesertblog.blogspot.com

It takes courage to move away from the safe place into the unknown, even when we know that the safe place offers false safety and the unknown promises us a saving intimacy with God.  We realize quite well that giving up the familiar and reaching out with open arms towards Him who transcends all our mental grasping and clinging makes us very vulnerable.  Somewhere we sense that although holding on to our illusions might lead to a truncated life, the surrender in love leads to the cross.  It is a sign of spiritual maturity when we can give up our illusory self-control and stretch out our hands to God.  But it would be just another illusion to believe that reaching out to God will free us from pain and suffering.  Often, indeed, it will take us where we rather would not go.  But we know that without going there we will not find our life.

Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out

Prayers of the Mother

Across this world, in homes both large and small, in neighborhoods of low, mixed, and high socioeconomic status, in moments of peace and turmoil, in a multitude of languages, there are mothers praying, crying, rejoicing, pleading on behalf of their children. This fact struck me this past week when spontaneously my American and Cameroonian mother gathered at my house this past week to pray.  In their own languages, both were offering their heart on behalf of their children.  Praying for protection, strength, and guidance.

Ma and Ma after preparing corn fufu and njamajama

 During this project of promoting exclusive breastfeeding through an audio program I have interacted with many mothers.  I’ve heard stories of women losing their husbands to death and alcoholism and display unwavering strength to provide for their children.  It continues to remind me of the strength of the bond between mother and the child that, although manifests differently in various cultures, is nonetheless invincible.  

And it reminds me of my own mother and the power of her love and prayers that enables her to support and visit me multiple times in Cameroon and join in the adventures.    

    

God could not be everywhere and therefore He made mothers
Jewish Proverb

Your White Man is Back

I’ve been back in Kumbo for a little over a week now and it didn’t take long for the word to spread that I returned, or as my good friend was told, “Your White Man is back.”  It’s been good to be back and struck once more at the complexities, paradoxes, and rhythms of life.  It seems like when I’ve come back in the past, I return to bad news.  Someone has died or been injured or attacked by thieves.  This time when I returned, it was news from home that the Waldo Canyon Fire was sweeping through my parent’s neighborhood, displacing 32,000 people from their homes including my dad.   This time the reminder of the harsh realities of life didn’t immediately come from Cameroon, but from my hometown.  Because of so much smoke in the air and the large damage throughout the area it took days to find out the status of their house.  Meanwhile I was reconnecting with many Cameroonian friends who, in typical fashion, were asking about my family and “all people for that side.”  When I was able to explain to a few Cameroonians what was happening, many showed their concern and for days asked how my family was and promised to pray, demonstrating their solidarity, which is such a hallmark of the Cameroonian people. When I left Kumbo last February it was dry, dusty, and barren.  Now it is rainy and verdant green, a powerful reminder of the resiliency of the earth. I am happy to report that my parent’s home was spared from the fire and my dad has been able to return home.

Waterfall in Oku--a common site this time of year.

I am only in Kumbo for a few weeks to collect some more data and facilitate a training with a few health workers.  Last week we called for all the participants to return to fill out a post test.  It was delightful to see the participants again, this time with their babies who had been born while I was away.  I especially enjoyed asking the parents their baby names and enjoyed meeting Blessed Assurance and God Reigns.  The joy, however, was tempered with a twinge of sadness as the couple that traveled the farthest to meet us, explained that their baby had died and thus could not complete the post test.  And my joy in being back is also tempered with a twinge of sadness that this project will soon finish and my days in Cameroon are numbered.

Blessed Assurance,  one of the study participant's daughter

The notion that our lives are like the eternal cycle of the seasons does not deny the struggle or the joy, the loss or the gain, the darkness or the light, but encourages us to embrace it all--and to find in all of it opportunities for growth.

Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak