Yaounde to Bafia!

September 26, 2012 – Wednesday

Peace Corps Staging

Location: Yaounde, Felydac Hotel to Bafia, Host Families House

Today morning we headed to the Peace Corps office for a Homestay Orientation by Monique our Homestay coordinator.  Monique gave us a lot of insight into the following areas:

Importance of Homestay

1.       Language

2.       Culture

3.       Safety

Families Selection

1.       Willingness to host

2.       Availability of a room

3.       Accessibility of the house

4.       Health of family members

5.       Hygiene conditions (Cameroonian wise, not American)

6.       Learning environment

Family Orientation Topics

1.       Peace Corps Goals

2.       The purpose of training

3.       Family role

4.       Nutrition of PCT (Peace Corps Trainee)

5.       Privacy

6.       Diversity

7.       Sickness (we learned that the family has no boundaries where you are concerned and all medical issues will be treated as pieces of gossip, so there’s a huge possibility, that your neighbours will stop you on your way to training and say “Oh I heard you had Diarrhea last night, are you better?” haha!)

Placement of Trainee into a home

1.       Health/allergies

2.       Language level

3.       Trainee questionnaire

4.       Family questionnaire

Complaints PCT’s have about their families

1.        Lack of cleanliness

2.       No variety of food

3.       Lack of privacy

4.       Mistreatment of women and children

5.       Very noisy

6.       Large families

7.       Mistreatment of animals

Complaints Families have had about Trainees

1.       Lack of cleanliness

2.       Stinginess (they won’t share their laptop, iPod etc)

3.       Drunkenness (we have a curfew of 7pm, what kind of PCT was drunk?)

4.       Lateness

5.       No phone calls from the PCT after training had finished and they had moved to post (aww)

After this presentation, we had a lengthy discussion on what we should do if we see our “mum” or one of our siblings getting abused.  David our training manager told us that children here were disciplined severely, and whereas in America, it would definitely be labeled child abuse, over here, it is “Spare the rod, spoil the child”.  We were all very uncomfortable with that.  Monique told us that she had informed the families that the kids should ideally not be hit in front of the PCT as we were not accustomed to seeing such blatant mistreatment of children.  But we were warned that because it was common practice to discipline the children in front of the whole family, there would be times when we would be witness to the abuse.  We were told not to panic or react overtly, and to just keep busy, by reading, or doing homework, or to just walk away.  We were also told that if we felt that our safety was at risk, we should call Monique immediately, no matter the time and she would get us out of there (So don’t worry mum and dad!). 

Monique told us a story about one PCT a few years ago, who had locked herself in her room when she heard her host dad beating her host mum.  She called Monique crying saying she didn’t feel safe and was scared for her host mum.  Peace Corps got her out of there that night. 

After this story, we had a lot of questions, firstly and most importantly, what would happen to the host mum, how could we just leave her at her home when she was clearly in danger?  David told us that we could file a report with the police, but that presented us with whole new set of problem:

1.       The police will ask for a bribe

2.       The police will ask for a witness to the abuse (it has to be a man).

3.       The police will bring up Traditional Law where the man is always considered right.

David told us to remember that in the United States, (for the most part), women are respected, independent and we can do whatever we want.  In Cameroon, most women have no means of supporting themselves other than by their husbands. 

It’s a double edged sword, because do we report the abuse and shame the women in her community and risk her losing the “security and support” of her husband? Or do we do nothing and let her go on living with her abusive spouse?  Oh god!

After this emotionally charged discussion, Kristen led us in a session on Diversity. 

Then it was back to the hotel for a quick lunch then we were off to Bafia to move in with our host families.

Bafia is a small town, about 80km North of Yaoundé.  It was created in 1937.  It is an urban centre with an estimated population of 40, 000.  There is 1 hospital in Bafia.  Cocoa production is very big in Bafia, and yes, they do make their own chocolate.  It’s called Mambo, I have tried it, it’s no Dairy Milk or Recesses, but it’s not bad.  Corn, apple, tangerines, pineapples, plantains and bananas are all grown here.  Cassava and Jam are heavily produced here as well.