Traveling and Malaria
Fontem
Each province (which is now called a “region”, in the government’s efforts to complete the world’s most absurd decisions made by a country ever/usurp the independence of the Anglophone provinces by eventually molding them into their nearby Francophone neighbors) has a meeting every 4 months of all the PC volunteers. So I took the bus to Fontem, which is still within my tiny region (imagine California divided into 10) and it took me 10 hours to get there. Yeehaw Cameroon!
Le Palu
I signed up/fought for an invite to come to a conference on a “Policy Briefing on ACT” which is big words for the combo drug treatment for malaria and how to make politicians listen to the research. Why would one fight to do that? Because I’d heard that the conference might be at the Hilton, and that’s the only place I know in this country with a jacuzzi. [While extremely skeezy, Jess's honesty redeems her in some strange fashion]
So I leave the volunteer’s house at 6am in order to be in Yaounde by somewhere between 2-5pm. I had all kinds of fun plans upon arrival. I take a moto down this unbelievably dusty road (I finally looked in a mirror and thought, “I’m somehow tanner and I have eyebrows… dust is a brilliant idea!”), basically spurring the driver on so I could rush and catch the bus. But what for? I arrive and ask this old pa how much it is to go to the park where I need to be, and he proceeds to help me out in finding a bus. Helpful of him, but I ended up climbing into an empty bus against my better judgement (you don’t get in empty buses here, you’ll be waiting forEVER!). When I asked how many people they were going to wait for, since I didn’t want to be waiting long, the explanation that I heard in French was something about the back seats being reserved so it wouldn’t take long. <guffaw> Hilarious. I sat, cringing away from imminent sunburn as the sun burned through the windows, for 3 hours. Then, just as we left the city, the gendarmes stopped us to bribe someone on the bus for the goat tied to the top of the bus. There were 2 problems with this: a.) the soliciter of such bribe was wearing a lab coat on the side of the road. b.) goats on top of buses are NORMAL. Who can take bribes for that? It’s absurd. It took an hour to get out of that. Then, we’re all good for awhile until the bus makes a crazy high-pitch squealing noise. Another 45 minutes as he whips out his piece of cardboard to go crawling under. I got to Yaounde at 8pm. Forget all my fun activities, now I’m just worried about finding this hotel for the conference in the dark. The name of the neighborhood? Mvolye. Not the easiest thing to say when you’re not used to it. So it takes me forever, and 2 locals helping me, to find a taxi that will take me out there (at nearly double the fare). Furthermore, it’s pitch black in this neighborhood. He drops me off, I can’t see any signs from inside the taxi, and when I get out, I’m in front of a massive house. There’s no little stores or anything. I start strolling, with my big backpack, until I reach “Club France”. There’s a security guard, so I ask him if he can help me find it. He’s the nicest guy ever (are you taking note of how many locals have helped me during this day so far?) and tells me he doesn’t know where it is, but there’s a guy playing tennis and he has a car.. he’s almost done… he’s a good guy.. he’ll drive me wherever… etc. So the next thing I know, I find myself sitting on a bench with a gorgeous view of the city by night, watching a guy playing tennis and trying to figure out how to say all I need to say in French. 45 minutes later I realize it’s ridiculous and decide to take a taxi. Everything worked out OK, I just went back to the Peace Corps house to avoid anymore issues.
The Conference
So although I walked in completely unprepared, I think the subject is really interesting. The other participants are journalists, pharmacists, researchers, or extremely educated Cameroonians doing work in malaria.
Most of what we’re doing is evaluating this document that researchers have put together in order to make policy makers do something to fix the problem. The problem is huge. They cite the rate of malaria as 11%… which means that at any moment, about 11% of the country has malaria. I think it’s higher than that. But then people are so used to it, that they just buy medicines often in the market. These are medicines from God knows where, often China, which could be baking powder/expired/completely different medication. Then, they might start taking a medication and not finish it since they feel better. So it just keeps going. Anyway, we’ve got this 19 page document to look over and discuss issues with statistics, wording, relevancy, etc. I haven’t done something like this in a long time. It’s just exhausting, but still interesting. What else I find fascinating is that the conference is bilingual in the sense that nothing is translated. People just talk in English or French and everyone responds in whatever language they feel most comfortable. Where in America can you hear that? It’s fun.
