We are steadily approaching the year anniversary of our departure to Philadelphia and then on to Cameroon. On the 16th of September last year I left my parents and my brother at the Cleveland airport and landed in Philadelphia. There I met the people with whom I’ve been spending the past year. We never would have guessed when we flew out of the US on the 19th what was in store for us.  A lot happened our first few days in Cameroon. I left the US thinking that there was a chance that I would go my entire service living in an Anglophone region and rarely needing to use French. Now, here I am in a Francophone region with a second common language, Fulfulde. It’s been quite the ride thus far.

Since my last post, I’ve done a series of composting trainings in village, visited lakes and waterfalls, built a pepiniere, planted lots of herbs and lettuce, and went to a training on mushroom propagation.

Casey and Fanning conducted a training on the miracle tree, moringa, and I tagged along for moral support (and as an official photographer). They nailed it, it was amazing!

My composting series was definitely a highlight of my service thus far. I had a classroom session on different types of composting and their benefits, and then a second hands-on session where we made Bokashi, a nutrient rich compost that can be made relatively quickly and affordably.  Hady  was an enormous help in translating my French into Fulfulde when farmers needed clarification, and as a result I asked him to be my counterpart for the mushroom training in July.

Here are a few other exciting things that have happened in the past couple of months:

Casey’s friend Scott visited, and we FINALLY swam at the ranch like we’ve been planning to do since the first month.

The mushroom training was great, I can’t wait to get things going in village this month with the information and the “seeds” we were given.

These trainings are especially important because they teach PCVs techniques to use in village that are not included in the agriculture documents that we have from our general pre service training.  At this training we learned much needed “bush” options for sterilization and propagation of mushrooms that don’t include incredibly expensive and difficult to obtain equipment. The trainings also include a community counterpart for each PCV, which makes the exchange of information more sustainable.

After the training, I achieved a months long dream, and got to eat some Indian food that I didn’t make.

I came back after the mushroom training to find that my landlord had vastly improved my pepiniere by vaulting it in the middle, allowing the water to flow freely off the sides. I’ve now got lots of weeding and TLC to do in and around the beds themselves, there are a few things sprouting here and there but I definitely need to resow. I’ve turned down Yaya’s offers to spray the grasses around my garden several times now.  I know it would be a lot easier than manually weeding but I feel like on principle I should avoid chemicals wherever possible, especially since this is such a small scale endeavour. I’m also not a huge fan of the thought of eating lettuce that’s been in close proximity to herbicides, but that’s just me.

My melon fruited while I was gone! I had honestly nearly given up on this bed ever giving anything, what with the torrential downpours drowning the baby plants every other day. The cucumber in the bed next to it has come up as well, so I’m hopeful that those will survive as well, they’re a pickling variety that I’m really looking forward to using.

This is my current view! I’m sitting on my veranda enjoying our SECOND SUNNY DAY IN A ROW. It was the perfect day to wash and get rid of the damp that was clinging to my sheets. When I got back on Tuesday night my whole house seemed to be covered in a fine layer of mildew. That’s what happens in the dead of rainy season when you leave for a week I guess! No open windows = party time for the damp and gnats. Don’t even get me started on the gnat invasion. You leave ONE cup of berries out that you meant to use for seeds and suddenly you’re hosting a swarm of the things. Luckily a jar of sugar water mixed with apple cider vinegar and some dish soap does a pretty good job of attracting and subsequently drowning them. That being said, I did get frustrated and spray Raid at one point yesterday. Which I realize is funny coming from someone dead set against using herbicide in her yard.

Other than the gnat infestation, I’m doing well! Power was on when I got back, but has since gone back out again. This really isn’t a big deal though, since we’ve had so much sun and I’ve been able to charge my solar panels. I’m convinced it’s a present on my mom’s birthday, which is actually why I’m posting this today! I was going to wait until my pepiniere was a bit more presentable, but there’s nothing wrong with showing a work in progress. After all, that’s what Peace Corps service and life is all about. We are all works in progress, and I will be working at integrating and improving and learning up until the day I COS. And then after that I’ll be doing the same somewhere else.

So, until next time!

See yeeso and Au revoir,

Katie