This
past week the health stagaires went on a field trip to the West and the
Northwest. It was hugely encouraging to
see current Volunteers’ projects, from a tofu-making workshop we joined in a
Francophone village to an ambitious—and thus far wildly successful—water
engineering project a Volunteer named Stephen has been coordinating through an
NGO in an Anglophone village called Fundong. It was amazing to watch women organized by the
village’s elected Water Committee digging trenches to pipe water from a
mountain spring to the local elementary school. Dressed in eye-wrenchingly coordinated pagne,
the women sang to keep time to the rhythmic, synchronized down strokes of their
hoes. These women, like many of the
people involved in the water project, were not being materially rewarded or
externally motivated to give up their days doing hard labor; they were pitching
in out of communitarian spirit, because they saw the project and the dream of
clean, running water as being important for the whole village. While I have my doubts about many, if not
most, practices in the field of Development with a Capital D, Stephen and the
people of Fundong were proof: when it is done correctly—that is to say, when
people identify their own needs, are fully included in pursuing the fulfillment
of those needs, and are invested in the outcome—it can empower people to become
their own resources. This is development
done right.
But
inspiration was not all we gained in Fundong.
After showing us the project, the head water engineer presented the
group with three sleepy-eyed chickens.
These were, it transpired, to be our lunch. The village was honored by our presence, and
wished to celebrate our visit in style.
This
was, of course, flattering, but ill-timed; we were only passing through, and
had already arranged to eat lunch at a Volunteer’s home. Stephen explained this in fluent Pidgin to
his counterpart, who nodded, and then shoved the alarmed chickens into a small
wicker basket, which he presented to us anyway; we could take them with us to
eat later.
Feeling
obliged to accept the hospitality, we reluctantly took the indignantly clucking
basket. We tried to pass the
responsibility to our technical trainer, Theo, but he wanted nothing to do with
the birds. He in turn tried to pawn them
off on Stephen, but it was no good.
Stephen, rightfully sensing that even temporary possession could quickly
become unsolicited ownership, immediately abdicated them to the bus driver,
Nyanga. Tired of this whole charade, he
settled the matter by stuffing the basket under the back seat of the bus—and
there they stayed for the rest of the trip.
Curiously
(or perhaps understandably), it was the four vegetarians of the group who grew
concerned about our feathered friends’ welfare.
We fed them corn in the parking lot of our hotel in Bafoussam; we tried
unsuccessfully to figure out how to drip water into their panting beaks. And upon our return to Bafia, we inadvertently
took permanent possession of the three intrepid travellers.
After
pulling up in front of the training center, we had unloaded our luggage onto
the grass; the pile comprised twenty or so dirty REI backpacks, the watermelons
and pumpkins that had been purchased in the fertile mountains of the West,
various books and Chacos that had escaped under seats— and the chickens.
David,
our program director, wandered over to inspect the birds. “We will send them to Yaoundé,” he said
decisively. Surprised, we asked
why. They were to be given to the
country director, he explained. The four
of us exchanged glances, frowning. Our
country director, Jackie, is a well-dressed woman who inhabits a beautiful
residence in a fashionable district of Yaoundé.
I can imagine her being many things, but a chicken farmer is not high on
that list. We probed David: did Jackie want chickens? What was she going to do with them? “Well, she has… lots of room in her
compound…” David began unconvincingly, his suddenly shifty tone indicating that
the space to which he was referring was in the freezer, not the yard.
My friend Halima had cottoned on. “You can’t kill them!” she protested. “We’ll
keep them!” This was not something we
had discussed, but our mutual dismay at the thought of their imminent demise
brought us together, and without thinking we began clamoring to care for birds
we had no actual interest in owning.
David, clearly amused by our so very American concern over chickens, let
himself be swayed. A dual product of
Cameroonian culture and years of working in Peace Corps administration, David
loves nothing as much as bureaucracy and delegation, and a delighted grin split
his face as he conceived yet another level of management: “You four can be the
Bokito Chicken Committee!” he pronounced, and thus we ended up piling twenty-one
people, their luggage, fruit, and the basket of chickens into a 14-passenger
van to return home.
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| Like this, plus a little. |
The
chickens, after a brief episode that reminded me irresistibly of the
chicken-chasing scene in Rocky II (YouTube it, internet-capable folks), are
currently roosting in a closet in our training center in Bokito. Their names are Pamplemousse, Kumquat, and
Compost. We’re winging this all (pun
intended), as I know the most out of anyone about raising fowl, and that is the
very little that I picked up working on a farm and from an aunt who raised
birds of all feathers. We’re not even
sure if they are laying hens; the fact that they were to be dinner makes me
suspect they’re past the age. Those
health stagaires with host families who keep chickens have been implored to go
home and figure out what we should know about keeping them alive. We will be consulting our agroforestry
friends (fine, the farm boys) about how to build a chicken coop. However, the future is unclear for
Pamplemousse and friends. There have
been whisperings of furnishing our stage’s Thanksgiving dinner from the Bokito
Chicken Committee, and apparently Theo doesn’t even want to wait that long; he
would like to see them gracing the table at our Diversity Day celebration two
weeks from now. Even if they survive until
we go to post, it is uncertain whether we will have the capacity to take them
with us—they may be a parting gift to the training center caretaker, Asse, who
has no compunctions whatsoever about making the intended use of them.
But
until then, Pamplemousse and company will cluck on, growing fat from the
pampering of their sentimental American keepers.
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| My mildly smelly charges |
