#4 - Reading, PressConf, Kmer Ressourcessss, Dreaming Big

Kmer 09 - Thoughts, Reflections and Experiences (Weeks 5,6,7) jeudi 27 août 2009, à 16:05

My Journal entry for the past 3 weeks… yes, I’m slacking off. Well, well…

• Malcolm X’s auto-biography by Alex Haley is an excellent book. I finally flipped the last page of the book today. Yay!!!! I’m telling u, I had to discipline myself to do that. But I’ll reread it. At least the 100+ pages I’ve folded and highlighted.

• I have a dozen of books yet to be read. I bought about half a dozen books here. Dad offered me many more. We both loovveee reading. And as you discover another passionate reader, you want to feed them to the point of reading-obesity with all the readings you have. I need to find someone I can overfeed with readings. For me, sharing knowledge and rubbing brains with people is truly an exciting and rewarding experience! Reading is like living another life. On Twitter, Orrin Woodward tweeted that, “Reading great books is like having a full day with one of the greatest minds. It helps you stand on the shoulders of giants.” (6:35 AM Jul 17th from web)

• I’ve vowed to myself (and now to the fb fam) to read ONE book each week. I did 2 books (plus other readings) each week in college, it shudn’t be that hard to focus on one book a week. It’s not easy though, with the dozen other incentives in my life, pulling me away from reading my precious books.

• You don’t want to think about how and in what conditions some foods are prepared here, back home. All that matters is the taste. ‘cause for real, if you wanna dive into the culinary details of the food you eat here, you will stop eating, and starve to death.

• I see it this way, we have the art of sharing germs with each other, we might even be immunized to half-million of the germs specie. Lol. In pidgin they say “Durt no be kill black ppls.” Lol. It still kills though. i.e. probably the other half-million of germs we aren’t immunized to. Sometimes I think it’s all in the head. 4 real.

• Beyond that though, I think at the end of the day we are all ONE. We are all manifestations of One Being. Whether it’s dust, sand, cars, rocks, plantains, groundnuts, dogs, cats, men, women, babies… we were all created by one hand, and so sometimes eating dirt/germs doesn't kill u, because we are all ONE. That's my way of making sense out of this man....

• Lauryn Hill all day everyday (The Miseducation and Unplugged) jamming on my PC on repeat. I never get tired of her.

• Seems like every guy here wears skinny jeans and chest-leveled shirts. Lol. Over-sexiness. hehehe

• People are in love with X-MALEA (Yelele) and VALCERO. Didn’t know Cameroonians cud be such passionate fans! I’m going to their concert on Friday night. In the new “Palais Des Sports”.

• I had a fantastic weekend with family and friends. It was some kind of reunion, with my sisters who came from france for the summer, and with my gurls who study at the Medical school here in Yaounde (Gigi), plus my other Gigi (Gina), aka Toxik Jina, straight from Tunis... and my cousin from Bagangte and DLA, and my brothers. We all went to a basketball game - The final of the annual bball tournament in Yaounde.

• The house has emptied itself so quickly, 4 cousins left in the span of 3 days... and in a week 4 others will leave. It would definitely be a drastic change to only have the 3 of us at home. No screaming, jumping, crying, running around… Just adults, living their quiet lives.

• UNICEF is so great. People are wonderful, the atmosphere is chill, and they actually listen to your suggestions.

• The first mini-Press Conference I helped organized was greaaaattt!!! It’s so exciting. Journalists asking questions and probing for answers, and you (more so my colleagues) responding to the best of their ability. I luved it.

• McSTEAAAAMMYYYY is working on the floor below mine. I'm glad. More space to focus.

• Roshan is the UNICEF envoy to Cameroon. She had a 2months mission here, to boost up the office and make some recommendations to the local branch. I had the honor to work with her. She gave me the right tools to organize and co-plan the press-conference with her. She left Cameroon last Thursday. And she made a super sweet recommendation for me, to the next UNICEF representative coming in September. I was obviously super happy. She gave me major tasks to do for the visit of UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, Mia Farrow, to Cameroon in mid-September. I’m exCiiiiyyTeeeddd!

• Mrs James, aka our second mommy at ASOY, now known as the Queen Mbombo Njoya, is one of the most superb human being I know!!! And her office is dream-land. I thought I was in one of the Federal Agency rooms, like those in the TV Show 24. With 3 Plasma TVs on the wall on the right-side of the room, in the center of the room is a round brown-marble table, with high leather chairs, and mics coming out in front of each chair, and flat screen PCs hooked in front of each seat… it’s high-tech man. You can’t imagine you’d fine such things here in kmer. I was with Johann, and throughout the tour of her offices, our mouths were dropped-open.

• Christelle’s traditional wedding was so great. It was really impressive to see the solidarity of the Benin-community in Cameroon. They came to support their country-brother who was marrying my cousin. It was the first time I actually attended and watched how a traditional wedding is prepared/ performed. It’s not as mysterious as I thought it was. The whole concept was actually funny. Basically, the family of the groom is supposed to be searching for the woman for their son (neither the bride nor the groom are in the room). They ask questions, never explicitly saying they are looking for a woman. It’s a back and forth game, each time the families give hints of what they came to find. In short, it’s a great family-binding, couple-binding ceremony. It’s important and necessary. Then the party that followed afterwards. We danced till 5am in the morning. I love seeing my parents and their friends have fun. They surely know how to break it down!

• Traveling by bus to the village can be one of the most frustrating experiences of your life. Especially, especially if you haven’t slept all night, you are taking the 6:00am bus, and you are not at all ready for adventure (which is very rare in my case). But I was not at all ready for all the drama, the tight-squeezing 5-per row seats, the heat, the smell, the loud salesperson trying to sell his candies at SIX O’CLOCK in the Morning. Jeezzz… I was on my last nerve! No more! No more!

• The Catholic church… hmmmm…. I don’t wanna make any negative comments about an entire religion. Just know I’m vehemently shaking my head in disapproval. Smh.

• I’m in a revolted-state. And I’m writing it down (In my real, personal, physical journal).

• Sometimes some people act so shamefully and disgracefully that you share their shame, and you don’t want to denounce their behavior because you love them so much.

• It’s truly refreshing to be home at home.

• Gigi's birthday dinner was really nice. I went with Johann. It helped de-stress form the week long stress at work.

• My dear friend made this metaphor today: “La femme est comme du Yaourt: douce, mouelleux, sucre et volluptueux” – Johann Gonsu, notre future Docta, qui se voit aussi être un potentiel poète.


• I feel like people here have been deceived so many times before that there is a general climate of pessimism and cynicism. Yet, underneath that blanket of cynicism lays a bedrock of hope. You just need to push people to see beyond their perspective, inspire them to dream big, and they will hang on to that beam of hope you helped them perceive.

• The little kids are gone. They left today. I’ll miss them so much!

and Gloria the Diva:

• Cameroon has RESOURCES ! You hear me? Cameroon is filthy WEALTHY! But its people are drowning in misery, mostly because they might not be conscious of the wealth this nation has.

o Can you imagine the diamonds that were found in Eastern Kmer this year are 5 times the annual world-wide production of diamonds. They found approx. 750million carat!

o They found about 250km square (or even more) of oil in the Douala region> In Kousseri as well, there’s about 12km square of oil.

o In Foumban, the Queen Mbombo Njoya, less than 6 months ago, found a huge reserve of marble underground. It’s more than 7km square of pure, rare, brownish marble (not the common pink one).

o GEOVIC, the Cobalt-exploitation company located in Cameroon is exploiting the cobalt that is used to make cell phones from Cameroon.

o Oil Companies are coming en-masse to Kmer to invest. It’s crazy… the natural wealth we have.

• Yet, look at a region like the Eastern region… It has 75% of Kmer’s resources: the diamonds, the timber, the oil … but it’s one of the most neglected regions of the country. They don’t have universities, hospitals, proper schools, in short all the infrastructure necessary to get them on their two feet. More importantly they don’t have any advocate to plead their cases. Companies just go there, exploit the maximum they can, and give peanuts back to the community.

I tell you, with all the resources the East region has, they should have had even 2 General hospitals, a University of Liberal Arts, a Polytechnic Institute, fine roads… I mean… with only the diamonds found there Yaounde, Douala, Baffoussam, Garoua, Bertoua can all look like Tokyo, Washington DC, LA, Paris, London all together.

• It’s truly sad though to see how misused our wealth is. But I won’t fall on the pessimist road. There are many opportunities that come with challenges. The unprivileged, the disinherited, the need advocates. They don’t have enough leverage to plead for themselves. It’s us, the intelligentsia, who are destined to help those who can’t helped themselves. We are to use the knowledge and intellect we have to plead for the cause of others, or at least to work towards the improvement of their standard of living. Whether you are a lawyer, doctor, business manager, nurse, international relations, diplomat, engineer, your talent is crucially needed in Africa. And you will be rewarded tenfold more, beyond monetary reward.

• We must all constantly remember, and even memorize, what our main man, while still a senator said, that “Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition.” A poverty of Ambition.


• Dare to dream big, to be ambitious, to see beyond peculiar gain. I love to quote Dr Cornel West, he often says:
Our society has become obsessed with bling-bling and G-string, instant gratification and bodily stimulation… a certain “fetichism of commodity”, that will leave you at the end with “existential emptiness” and “spiritual malnutrition.” I’m telling you brothers and sisters, let’s canalize our energies, our dreams, towards goals that are grander than ourselves. That’s a sure way to live a fulfilled live.

• Allow me to quote an excerpt of our Harambe Bretton Woods Declaration. It’s a clarion call to all Africans/and African lovers out there: “We will not let the hero in our soul perish in lonely frustration for a life our continent deserves, but has never been able to reach. We will check our road and the nature of our battle, yet in the end, the Africa our generation desires can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is ours. " (www.hendeavor.org)