Off to the South West

I am posted to the South West region of Cameroon. It is hot, humid, and rainy. Extremely rainy. In another two weeks I will go on a site visit and have much more information about the region, because currently there are no agriculture volunteers in the South West. Myself and another trainee Joe will be the first agricultural volunteers in the South West in many years. I am opening a new post near a decent sized city. The South West is considered the bread basket of Cameroon and contributes heavily to the agricultural exports of the country. There are a lot of assumptions I can make about how the South West climate and culture will differ but I will simply wait and find out on my own. Site visit is in two weeks where I will be with my counterpart (A native Cameroonian who I work directly with) discussing goals, projects, and getting to know my site. From what I gathered I will be focusing on agribusiness projects such as farm to market analysis, income generating activities, and working with small business groups called GICs. Of course this is all premature and I could come to work strictly with farmers in the field if the demand is higher for that. I will know more in a few weeks.

This past weekend the agro-forestry trainees went on a field trip to the West region. It is at a higher elevation than here in the Central region, thus it was a bit cooler. This was great until I got back from the field trip and proceeded to sweat profusely. The only good thing I can think of about how much I sweat is that it appears to be an effective bug repellant. I have not been bitten nearly as much as some of my fellow volunteers. I digress, the trip was a blast. We explored the night life of a city in the West which was awesome. We simply sat out on a crowded street and ate kabobs of street meat and drank beers. Street meat is interesting here because it is like playing a lottery. You could be getting beef. Or it could be rat. Or monkey. It is hard to tell, but thoroughly enjoyable. Other trainees opted for the safer option of rice and fish.

As for the learning portion of the trip we visited several volunteer projects that gave us an idea of what we actually might be doing when we get to post. These included bee keeping, tree nurseries, work with an NGO, work with a local group to create a bakery, and some agricultural farm plots. Good stuff.

There are some things I will try to write about later this week, like food, biking around, getting lost in translation, religion, diarrhea, and much more that I have forgotten. Being here is like being lost in a book.

Pictures will likely follow.