Tuesday, January 14. The inevitable finally happened, in
a poorly ventilated office in Yaoundé. In a security meeting about the Guider
satellite posts, the country director of Peace Corps Cameroon pronounced four
calm words that would shape my service and those of the closest volunteers to
me, Becca and Debbie: “Your posts are closed.”
Mandama is no longer to be my home.
My half-completed work here is now, by dictate, done.
In a way, we brought this on ourselves. In response to the release of Père Vandenbeusch,
the kidnapped French priest, Becca and I requested a meeting with the embassy
RSO—regional security officer—and associated Peace Corps staff to discuss what
this meant for our safety in bush villages abutting the Nigerian border, and to
express our growing unease about our isolation and the impossibility of
communication. Jack, the economic
development volunteer in Guider, called me the day before the meeting. “You realize that just by asking for this
meeting, by drawing their attention to your position, you’re increasing the
probability that they’ll close you,” he cautioned. I paused, then voiced for the first time what
had been brewing at some semiconscious level since the priest was
kidnapped. “Yeah, I know. I think that’s the point.”
Since being released from consolidation, my apprehension has
become markedly worse. During the day,
I’m fine; I have work, I have friends, and Mandama drenched in sunlight looks
like the sleepy village it’s always been.
It’s hardly a dangerous place, and I don’t feel I am at risk. But nights… well, nights are hard. As soon as I come back from my neighbor’s
compound, I lock all my doors, and endure until the morning comes and brings
with it some relief. I don’t sleep
well. I’ve taken to keeping my dog in the
house (or sometimes even in the bed) with me, because it’s a small comfort to
wrap my arms around her every time I hear a moto speed by my house coming from
the direction of Nigeria. I’ve had a few
stressful false alarms; there was the time I walked out after the last call to
prayer to buy eggs for Scipio’s dinner, and heard a group of strange men in the
carrefour speaking Hausa. I panicked,
almost running back to my house, where I armed myself uselessly with the biggest
knife in my kitchen and sat on the floor of the salon, waiting to be
kidnapped. It turned out they were
innocent Nigerian cake-bread deliverymen, who had intended to come in the
afternoon but were held up by a flat tire.
Or worse: tired of being alone in my house, I spent an
evening with Dieudonne, an Anglophone friend who teaches at the bilingual
school. Around 9:00 I reluctantly
decided I should go home, and he offered to walk me there. We were ambling down the road when a moto
roared up from the other direction, slowing and turning into his compound. Dieudonne paused, looking back. “They are looking for me?” he mused
rhetorically. “Who could that be at this
time of night?” Evidently seeing the
locked door, the driver turned the moto, and as the headlight swung around I
could clearly see that the passenger was armed.
Boko! I thought, throat
constricting with fear. They came by my house first and someone told
them where I was! I didn’t speak—I
couldn’t—but Dieudonne must have sensed my terror, as he motioned me off the
road, trying to shield my body from view with his as the moto leapt towards
us. Just as I was tensing my legs to
sprint into the bush (turns out I’m a flight kind of girl), the passenger waved
his semi-automatic rifle and started shouting in Pidgin English. Dieudonne visibly relaxed, laughing and
shouting insults back. This was a friend
of Dieudonne’s from Bamenda who had recently been sent to Mayo Oulo as a BIR, a
member of Cameroon’s elite military force.
He had a night off, had gotten tipsy in a bar, and decided to come visit
his brother in the bush. They escorted
us the rest of the way to my house, my presumed assailant becoming my very own
armed guard.
These fears are provoked by my overactive imagination—in no
cases have I had any hint that there was real danger—but still, these are not entirely
unfounded. Boko Haram’s presence in
Cameroon is growing.
I’m not much of a poker player, but the game provides a
handy metaphor: you’ve got to know when to fold. Being in Mandama is a losing hand, no matter
how the rest of the game plays out; the question is how long I’m willing to
keep upping the ante. In the worst-case
scenario, the game ends with me or Becca kidnapped. The RSO felt that this was not likely—Boko Haram
is involved in not only an ideological but a financial gambit, and the American
government is known not to negotiate with terrorists—but neither is it
unthinkable. A second scenario: in a
month, or three or six, someone else would be kidnapped, in which case Becca,
Debbie and I would be shut down immediately; three strikes, the RSO told us,
and we’d be out. We’d be evacuated and
only allowed back with a military escort to gather our things. At that point, we’d have mere months in a new
post, or the similarly unappealing proposition of heading home on interrupted
service unexpectedly early, with no time to line anything up for when we got
there.
This third way, then, seemed the best. Because the impetus was coming from us, and
not from the RSO, we were not being forcibly evacuated. In fact, we were able to negotiate the terms
of our departure: a month to close out projects, explain to friends and
neighbors what was going on, find counterparts to carry out unfinished work in
our absence, and transition to the next stage of our Peace Corps services. In an ideal world, it’s not what I would have
wanted, but it’s more than most volunteers whose posts have been closed have
gotten, and for that I’m grateful.
As the meeting came to a close, I realized I needed to
figure out my next steps, and fast. I
took the train north that night, plotting in my rickety bunked cot as the train
swayed back and forth alarmingly, and spent the next two days site prospecting
in the Adamaoua. I quickly settled on Mbang
Mboum—yes, pronounced BANG! BOOM!, like the written sound effects in a Batman
comic—a small village an hour north of Ngaoundéré. It is slightly smaller than Mandama, and has
a similar lack of amenities; I’ll be holding on to the satellite phone, as cell
phone service is minimal at best, and selling my hastily (foolishly?) purchased
refrigerator and fan. Electricity, you
were a cruel three-month tease.
I’ll have an actual postmate, this time around; although I
always referred to Becca as my postie, she was in a separate village 10
kilometers away. Alizabeth, an agriculture
volunteer from the most recent training group, will be my next-door neighbor. A thoughtful, slender blonde from Spokane
with artfully messy hair and a penchant for mismatched skirts and blouses,
Alizabeth made us a candlelit dinner of lentils and white wine, and we spent
hours talking about environmental impact studies and the dam slated to be built
just above Mbang Mboum in 2018. I have
the feeling we’ll get along swimmingly.
Although not far from the North geographically, the Adamaoua
does have appreciable differences in terrain, tillage, and vegetation. Instead of sand, Mbang Mboum is built on red
clay, which in dry season becomes a thick, pervasive dust. After an afternoon of walking around town, a
layer of red earth had settled into every crevice of my boots. If Guider feels like the Wild West of the
gold rush, Mbang Mboum feels like the Kentucky of Daniel Boone. The Adamaoua, while far from lush, is more
fertile than the North; I couldn’t help exclaiming every time we passed a
banana tree, and was thrilled to hear I’ll be arriving in high avocado
season.
Alizabeth and I walked out of the village to the south just
before sunset the night I spent in Mbang Mboum.
The view was breathtaking, and unexpected; we passed the last mud-brick
huts on the main street to see the land fall away to either side. Before us spread gently rolling fields
sloping down to the distant confluence of two rivers, the spot of the proposed
dam. We couldn’t see the rivers
themselves, but their presence was betrayed by ribbons of emerald green snaking
through dry fields of cornstalks and thorny acacia trees. It looked like perfect territory to go for a
run, a bike ride, or a long thoughtful walk.
I met the chief of the health center, Engelbert (like
Humperdinck, and if anyone gets that reference
I’ll give you ten bucks). He came highly
recommended from the last health volunteer, also a displaced Fulfuldé speaker,
although from the Extreme North, and also named Laura. Confusion among the general population
expected. Engelbert was eager to show me
around, answering my questions transparently and proudly showing me his
records, which were neatly filed in clearly labeled cubbies. I felt like I could cry. After fourteen months of dealing with
Tilirou, the health center chief of Mandama—he of the unwarranted aggression
and inexplicable secrecy, he of the fictionalized, never-submitted supply
reports, he of the grimy storeroom stuffed with dusty knee-deep drifts of
records and unorganized sheaves of papers—this was like making it to the
Promised Land.
I also met my landlord and concession head, Jodah, who was
bursting with excitement and pride to get another volunteer, tripping over
himself to show me around, answer my questions, and buy me a heaping platter of
beans for my breakfast. “He’s super
nice, and very helpful,” Alizabeth whispered, “but you have to rein him in
sometimes.” I took a cautiously
optimistic liking to Jodah, but am wary that this might be the biggest
adjustment I’ll have to make. I
currently live in a lovely, light-filled house with a large back yard and
garden, and while I sometimes complain about the innumerable children who seem
to permanently inhabit my concession, in truth I have a fair amount of
privacy. In Mbang Mboum, I will be
living directly in Jodah’s compound, in a much smaller and darker house mere
feet from the other houses in the concession.
When Jodah’s wife starts banging dishes at 5:00 in the morning, I’ll
hear it. When I have diarrhea, they’ll
probably hear it; my latrine is inside
my house this time around, a choice that seems odd to me (who would want that
in their bedroom? Won’t it smell? The
hole’s also about a third of the size of my current one, so I’ll need to really
up my aim). The goats and ducks I
spotted will doubtless become an intimate—or at least immediate—part of my
life. I asked Jodah about bringing a
dog, and he said it was fine, but I’m anticipating that Scipio could cause
strife. I don’t want to make too many
assumptions yet, as I’ve only seen the place once, but this is the aspect of
Mbang Mboum that I am the most hesitant about.
On the other hand, this will force my integration into Mbang
Mboum, or at least into one family, quickly.
The blessing and curse is that I only have ten months there; if given
the choice to hide out in a house withdrawn from public view, I might be
tempted to default to introversion and end up making little headway in the
community. As it is, I’ll have children
to play with, always; a potential friend in Jodah’s wife; a garrulous
Cameroonian Pops in Jodah himself. And
if it’s frustrating? Well, it is only ten months.
It’s been rough to close out Mandama; although most of my
projects were at a place that allowed them to be wrapped up or passed on
easily, I hate the look that comes into people’s faces when I tell them I’m
abandoning them. The hardest was the
first people I told, my neighbors. I
spent almost an hour surrounded by wives and children, dandling baby Oumaiatou
on my lap and chatting casually, before I worked up the courage to break the
news. Djoulaya, the youngest wife,
continued stoically kneading a great ball of peanut butter to ease out the oil. The children, who hadn’t really understood
the implications of what I was saying, kept playing, grabbing my limp hands for
another clapping game. But the two
oldest wives, Howa and Mairamou, silently turned away from me, pulling their
pagne capes over their heads. Anguish
stabbed my heart. Were they angry with me? How could they blame me for this? I wanted to keep explaining, to lay all the
responsibility at the embassy’s feet, but then I realized they hadn’t turned
away in anger; they were crying. Fulbé
culture values a sort of Spartan strength—women give birth silently, something
I thought impossible before seeing it happen—and so my friends had covered
their faces to hide their tears from me.
I handed Oumaia to her sister and pulled Howa into a hug, my own face
wet with tears.
But as I tell more and more people, I get used to explaining
it, and it seems a reality to be accepted rather than raged against. By the time I told Tilirou the health center
chief—who, far from crying, smiled broadly and then leered at me, asking
mockingly, “Are you afraid?”—I was able to baldly state my departure as a
fact. My pragmatic side has taken over,
organizing my parent’s impending visit to Cameroon and Mandama, the move to the
Adamaoua, and the grand opening of Mandama’s Women’s Center, which will also act
as my blowout goodbye party.
And then, at long last, the next chapter of my service will
begin.
