Ramadan!

Ramadan!

September 9, 2009, 1:13 pm
Filed under: Cameroon

Dear readers,

Since last time I blogged… TWO of my very close and amazingly beautiful, smart, and talented friends have started their Peace Corps journeys as well! Kate is now in Thies, Senegal finishing up training to start as an agroforestry volunteer, and Sara just got accepted into Peace Corps Niger for their animal husbandry program. Let’s give it up for them *clap*! I am just so excited for them and they are going to have an amazing experience and accomplish great things, I know it. Also fun is the possibility of me visiting these two wonderful people. On my way out of country I could go through Nigeria to Niger by car, then fly to Dakar, Senegal, then fly home. Sounds like a good and low-budget after PC trip!

So I just finished up a SUPER long trip down to Yaoundé to take part in the new informational technology committee. In total I have traveled for over 70 hours in the last week getting down to Yaoundé and back up. On the way down we arrived in Ngaoundere and attempted to reserve tickets on the overnight train that arrives right in downtown Yaounde and normally takes around 12 hours or so. We arrived at the train station to discover that the train had de-railed the night before, injuring 300 people and killing 5. Right after we found out that train tickets were not being sold for an indefinite period of time we also got a frantic call from Peace Corps making sure we were not on the train. LUCKILY no Peace Corps volunteers or admin or anyone was on the train that night, an amazing thing since people are always traveling down to Yaounde. So, now that the train was out the only other option was a hypothetical that we had heard existed… a car from Ngaoundere to Yaounde. Now, the reason the train exists is because there really are no roads connecting Ngaoundere to Yaounde directly… or even indirectly. The terrain is very hilly/mountainous and through rainforests. The four of us volunteers who were going down for the meeting contemplated whether we should try the car or not and finally decided to give it a shot. We went to the station and asked how long it would take. The driver said we would leave at 5:30am and get into Yaounde the same day, during the late evening.

To spare you all a very long story, we left at 5:30 am and didn’t get into Yaounde until around 8am the next day. Yeah, 27 hours in a car on bumpy, muddy roads packed in like cattle so you really cannot move and get chafed shoulders from rubbing against the person next to you. Haha… it was quite the experience. Yeah, an experience, but not one I will repeat.

Well, the IT committee went really well and we are working on setting up a website for Peace Corps in Cameroon (Cameroon.peacecorps.gov). It should be up and running in a couple weeks so check it out!

On the way back from Yaounde the train was running but I went to the station with another volunteer and we waited from 7 pm until 2:30 am for the train to leave. It left at 2:30 am and arrived in Ngaoundere around 8:30 or 9 pm the next day. Hrm. Well, here I am safely back in the extreme north and I am heading back to my post tomorrow.

It is Ramadan right now which means that for thirty days Muslims get up at around 4am to eat breakfast, drink water, and then starting with the 5am prayer do not eat or drink anything until the call to prayer at 6:30 in the evening. This time is in memory of Mohammed who once did not drink anything or eat anything for three days straight, along with doing Ramadan as it is practiced now. These thirty days are a period of spiritual clarity and are meant to re-focus Muslims on the teaching of the Koran.

I supported my village which is around 95% Muslim by fasting with them for two days straight. It was just amazing to get up at 4, walk over to my neighbor’s house with some avocado and bread to share and drink tea and share food until the call to prayer. We then sat and chatted about development as the sun rose, it was a very… spiritual… moment. However, let me tell you, it is NOT easy to go an entire day here and not drink water. Not eating food is not such a big deal but since it is still over 100 degrees many days and the sun is so sharp, the two days that I did not drink water I spent most the day not moving for fear that I would start sweating. It was a great experience though, around 30 minutes before they are allowed to break the fast many people are selling food along the streets (not a normal time to sell food) so that people can break the fast with the goodies they like. Most people break the fast with some fried dough and bouille (a milk-ish substance made of millet, sugar, sometimes with rice in it). Then at around 10pm or so they eat the real big meal of the day and then go to bed to start all over again.

Another difference is that during Ramadan everyone is obligated to go to the mosque at 7pm and pray 17 prayers, which takes around 30 minutes to do. I don’t yet know the symbolism of why 17 prayers, but neither do the individuals I have asked so… just more prayers to mark that this is a holy time..?

Hehe, one fun thing is that every morning around 4ish there are young people who run around in the streets yelling, banging pans, singing, to wake everyone up so they don’t sleep in and miss their opportunity to eat and drink water for the morning. Alarm clocks are not very widespread… J.

The family who I eat dinner with, their father Kari is who I ate breakfast with and break the fast with each evening, he does not drink water during Ramadan. He only drinks a ton of bouille in the evening. He states that if you drink water after not eating anything it isn’t good for your organism and can cause stomach issues. I just simply cannot understand how he can survive without drinking water besides bouille… but Africans continue to surprise me with their lack of need for water…

My soy field is growing well and I had to weed it all with a hoe by hand before I left for my committee meeting and whew, that is HARD. I must say though that people in my village are amazing. I was out weeding one morning and a young boy happened to be walking by and just started helping me out. He was much more skilled at it than I was too and over the course of 2 hours probably did twice as much weeding as I did. But, that was just so nice! I mean, surely he has a field to be working in, and is probably tired and sore from working every day but he stopped and helped me, it was just great. I gave him what I had… some peanuts. Hehe. Also, one of my other friends in village offered to help me and helped for around 4 hours for three morning straight until we finished weeding, and he did it all just out of the warmth of his heart. He has a field that needed weeding too but he helped me for three days, working his butt off, helping me, and didn’t ask for anything. I waited a week and then paid him 2,000 CFA (4 dollars) and he went overboard trying to thank me… I was like… Uh no. YOU are the one who is generous and amazing, you helped me not expecting anything. Thanks for being such a great friend. I may have come here to try to lend a helping hand to the population, but I can’t help but feel like they help me more than I help them…

That is all for now… talk to you soon!

Brad

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