Taking the Long Way Home

This entry is going to be more pictures than anything, but I've finally had time to sit down and write something after being home nearly 1 week. Unpacking has been a little tough to be motivated for since there's so much going on here, but I've finished finally. On my way home I stopped in Paris for 4 days, the pictures are documenting that trip (I have about 250 pictures, but I picked the 20 or so best ones). Since I've been home it's almost as if I never left. I'm still a little awestruck when I go to a grocery store and realize that there's more choices on one aisle than in most stores in Buea, and everything here seems a little expensive...    I spent enough on one banana in LAX to buy me about 25 in Cameroon. Airport food is kind of a rip off anyway, but that's beside the point. Also I'm really enjoying having a washing machine and fridge at my disposal. At any rate, on to the photos.

Sacre Coeur basilica. Pretty cool on the outside, crowded on the inside.

I stayed in the 19th arrondisement near the canal which was a really neat area

Gare St. Lazare. Just had a cool platform so I snapped a photo

Place des Vosges - Oldest planned square in Paris. Former neighborhood of Victor Hugo. Square trees and identical houses all the way around calmed the dormant OCD in me.

The dome above Napoleon's tomb

Napoleon is somewhere inside that big brown box

Right after a snack/picnic of bread and cheese in the grass

First time I've seen the Statue of Liberty (funny enough, it wasn't the one in the States...)

View from the Arc de Triomphe. Best view of the Paris skyline in my opinion

Louvre courtyard

My favorite thing in the Louvre. Count the legs!

Stained glass "rose window" inside the Notre Dame cathedral

Selfie sticks are finally getting the attention they deserve

Absolutely stunning stained glass in Sainte Chappelle. Picture is a poor representation of the grandeur. Interesting stories about this place in WWII. They took all the glass down and hid it in a basement to protect from bombings.

The iconic polar bear of the Musee D'Orsay

Formerly a train station. Great ambient lighting for the numerous sculptures there.

The Catacombs. Little boring after a while, but I went and saw old bones.

Jardin de Luxembourg. Quite a nice manicured garden, complete with tennis courts, a palace, and overpriced crepes

Adieu, Cameroon

Well, this is going to be my last regular blog post. On Sunday I fly out of Douala, with a layover in Addis, to Dublin. From Dublin I will take a 5 day detour to Paris, which I'm extremely excited about. After that I will return to Dublin and catch a flight to LAX, then SFO. It will be good to be back on American soil, that's for sure.

I've got a short list so far of what I'll miss in Cameroon. Most if it is pretty abstract. I am still so excited to be home that thinking of concrete and menial things that I'll miss is pretty hard, but I'm sure the realizations will come. I could write a real long list of things I don't miss, but I don't think that would be quite as constructive of an exercise, and it might taint the view that you, my audience, hold of me. At any rate, I'll stick with the positive parts of my experience here.

I will definitely miss the vibe at the weightlifting gym that I frequent 2-3 times/week. It's frustrating and crowded sometimes, but the place is so alive and busy, I think every weight room from now on will feel eerily lonely and empty, and almost institutionally clean. This gym isn't state-of-the-art by American standards, but it has character that I never thought a simple weight room could have. And the other people that fill the place just add to that character.

I am going to miss having the excuse, motivation, and most of all, the time to learn French. One great thing about being in Cameroon is that I have no shortage of time. I just have a shortage of things to fill that time with. Exercise is an integral part of my life wherever I go, but learning French is something that I wouldn't necessarily have dedicated myself to so seriously if I hadn't come here. Furthermore, I really really really hope I will have the determination in the future to stick with it and continue improving, not throwing away all that I've spent this time to learn.

Yes, I have sat and twiddled my thumbs for an inordinate amount of time here, but I have also had some opportunities to do things that I never would have been able to do in the States. Gee, that's vague. Let me expound: Watching ultrasounds, watching a baby be born, watching a circumcision, starting IV's, injecting medications, prescribing medications (with a doctor's approval), climbing the tallest active volcano in Africa, swimming in the Atlantic on the "west coast" at a black sand beach, seeing a naked guy walk unimpeded (by clothes or otherwise) down the street, eating a mango straight from the tree, seeing snails the size of a baseball, buying a week's worth of groceries for $10, and sitting in a 15 passenger van with 25 people in it. New things will happen in my life no matter where I am, but this "flavor" of unexpected surprises will be something that I will never really get again. Sure, these highlights were punctuations in hours of bang-your-head-against-the-wall boredom, but the highlights are what I'm gonna remember most.

While I won't miss it directly, I think the inefficiency and incompetence here will be something I'm acutely cognizant of when it's gone. Yes, it's a huge inconvenience, but I almost feel like the incredulity and dumfoundedness I experience almost daily is going to leave a hole when I don't have it anymore. I'm used to waking up each day and trying to guess what the dumbest thing I'll see or hear about will be, and yet...   I'm still always surprised. Maybe that makes jaded, but I really think that having something (or someone) to laugh about/at has helped me through this experience. Besides, it's teaching me to laugh it off, try to make the best of the situation, and  not sweat the small stuff.

I know most people find freedom of choice to be a life or death matter, but I've learned here that sometimes there's freedom in not having to make a choice. For instance I can pretty much only ever have 1-ply toilet paper here (Although two weeks ago I had a choice between pink or white). I don't have to choose the temperature of my shower, it's always chilly. There's one brand of chocolate here (you can find other candy bars, but for pure chocolate you get Mambo or you get nothing). I mean it's nice to be able to choose, but if my memory of the first world serves me correctly, there is an overload of viable choices (excluding our presidential "candidates"). Soap, shampoo, conditioner, "face soap with exfoliating beads". Sudoku or crossword puzzle. Cheerios and milk or granola and yogurt. Pandora or Spotify. Flip flops or wingtips. Whose car I'll drive. And then I gotta actually leave the house! Usually at the store I just pick whatever's the cheapest per serving, but I think the other decisions are gonna be hard for a while.

On the concrete side, I'll miss these small, lifechanging snacks called chin-chin. These little deep fried, sweet golden wonton chips of joy can't truly be appreciated until they're experienced. The flavor is most closely related to animal crackers, but they're so much more than that to me. I'm sure a recipe could be found online, but I think there's a secret ingredient that's closely guarded by some ancient African witchy woman.

Continuing with the tangible stuff, of course I will miss a number of my coworkers. The workplace is so much more interesting with all the different personalities, and I think each of my colleagues has brought a little something into my life and/or taught me something new whether I realize it or not. I think one thing that I'll miss is that any time I wear shorts and a t-shirt, people here at the hospital will ask me if I'm going to "make sport" (their funny way of saying exercise), and me explaining and reexplaining that, no, this is just the way I dress. I guess it's an honest mistake because sometimes I actually am going to "make sport", so it could be a little confusing. Following this logic though, I should go around asking everyone in blue jeans if they're going to "prospect gold", and everyone wearing flip-flops if they're headed to "make shower".

Even though it's ephemeral, I'll miss the view of the mountain. Most days it's not that good, but when it's good, it's great. Cameroon has very little to offer as far as wildlife viewing, and I'm still disappointed that the biggest "game" I've seen was a chihuahua sized rodent (so much for my aspirations of seeing elephants, giraffes, and zebras). On the other hand, as a closet bird-watcher I've found the avian life here to be pretty diverse and different than what I'm used to. I brought binoculars, but no field guide unfortunately. Next time I come to Africa I won't be caught with my pants around my ankles though, I'll  be better prepared.

Will I miss Cameroon? Parts, yes. Will I be back someday? Maybe. Did I have a good time? Yeah. Did I have a bad time? Yeah, that too. Was it really the hardest thing I've ever done? Not by most definitions of "hard". Did God put me here for a reason? I wish I knew the reason, but I have to believe the answer is "Undoubtedly".

TL;DR Leaving Sunday morning. Douala>Addis Ababa>Dublin>Paris>Dublin>Los Angeles>SFO. Will take the scenic route home through Paris! Looking forward to practicing my French. Abridged list of things I'll miss: Time on my hands, workout vibes, certain opportunities (although few and far between), the ridiculous stuff I see every day, some of the people, some of the views.

Quittin' Time

Today I logged my last day of regular work here at the hospital. As of today I will never have to write a single letter in that registration book again. The relief is indescribable. I think this Sunday is going to be a general cleaning of the operating room to get it prepared for use, so I might volunteer for that.  One of my coworkers just kind of casually mentioned that now that I'm done working I'm just a tourist. I had never thought about it like that, but he's definitely right! Also, a few people have actually told me that they're gonna miss me. I'm not sure if they're just being polite but it really made me feel good to know that they'll at least notice that I'm gone. I was a little unsure there for a while if anyone even cared that I was here, but it looks like maybe there are a few.

Yesterday I learned that Cameroon observes Cinco de Mayo. Actually it was Ascension day so it's just nationally observed so that everyone can go to their mid-day mass. Even though our staff is predominantly Adventist, a lot of people were late or didn't show up. Far be it from them to refuse a day off! I showed up because I'm a sucker and didn't know it was a holiday. We spent most of the day with a slow trickle of patients. After learning it was Ascension Day, I took an extended lunch break and did a little ascension of my own, up the hill to the grocery store. It was such a beautiful day yesterday that I had to get out and enjoy it some. It was partly cloudy, probably low 30s, and with a breeze so the humidity wasn't as bad. The mountain was in clear view. A 30 minute walk up the hill did me good.

You know, I'm just gonna come right out and confess: I've had phone anxiety for most of my life. I think everyone is a little bit this way, and I don't get really nervous unless I'm making a call to someone I don't know, or someone who is a notorious mumbler. Cameroon has made this problem 100x worse than it was before. First of all, the call quality is a dumpster fire. I would be better off using two tin cans connected by a string. Which would also be nice because of point number two: You pay for every second of call time. Each and every time I have to ask someone to repeat themselves, it's burning through my phone credit. Phone credit is one of the more expensive things here, and you don't get what you pay for (see point 1). The third and final grievance is simple user error. I've gotten a lot better at understanding the accents here,  but I've also learned how much I rely on lip reading to do so. When I'm on the phone, this technique doesn't exactly work. Additionally, there's nowhere you can go in Buea where there won't be a ton of background noise (that's another story though). The last thing is that if you ask someone to repeat themselves enough times, they will remove the phone from their ear, place the receiver about 1 mm from their mouth, and yell as loudly as they can (regardless of who's around or how small a space they're in). This is counterintuitive because yelling into the phone that close to your mouth is the best way to ensure that the other person won't have a prayer of understanding what you're saying. Fortunately, I see people talking in this fashion all the time, so I think I'm in good company when it comes to asking "Could you say that one more time?" For every ounce more phone shy I've gotten, I've found that I'm equally less pee shy at least! People go when and wherever they please. I've even been confronted mid-stream by someone saying I couldn't pee where I was currently peeing. I politely stared them in the eye and smiled as I finished the job, and while zipping up I offhandedly mentioned that it must be the only place in Cameroon where peeing is not allowed.

There's a running joke with me and the Cameroonian nurses here. One day after I was thoroughly tired of being badgered about marrying a Cameroonian and taking her back to the States with me, I said that I couldn't afford two plane tickets back to the States, so I would gladly marry one but she would have to take one of the sketchy big canoes across the Atlantic and meet me in New York. They all thought this was pretty funny, so now that I'm about to leave some of them have been joking to me about buying their boat ticket to New York. I don't want to toot my own horn, but I think making a joke out of it was a pretty good idea because now both sides can appreciate it cropping up in conversation. Before I always cringed and avoided, and dreaded the eventual accusation of only liking white girls. I mean I ain't blind, I've seen beautiful girls here, but my short life has taught me that you can find as many 10s as you want, but if your common ground is a 1, things will suck. There's just such a disparity between my background and a Cameroonian's. So now I just tell people that if a girl can swim or owns a good life jacket that I'm down. I'm still dodging around the questions, but now at least it makes them laugh.

TL;DR My work here is done. Yesterday I had a semi-holiday to celebrate Ascension day/Cinco de Mayo. Talking on the phone here has given me a complex, but Cameroon has increased my ability to brazenly pee anywhere I please. I'm bring back a few souvenirs but a shiny new wife is not one of them, much to the dismay of many eligible ladies here.

 Not sure why they have to overcomplificate things so much, but I suspect they're using fancy jargon to get customers to spring for a muffler bearing flush. Either that or George Bush wrote this sign.