Visitors

So Kiyomi’s dad came to visit in August, and we all had a nice time. It is great to feel that we’re still connected to the lives we left back home, and that the world, for all its vastness, is not so big that we can’t get around it to have a bit of that life here. It did lead us to a bit of compare-and-contrast with when Kiyomi’s mom and partner visited. We hope our insights will be helpful.

Have visitors come after your one year mark at post. Mom and Curt came in April, and there were things we just didn’t know. People with access to private cars, for example; but also, how to hire a private car, or where to direct it once we had it. We toured a nearby monastery with Dad, an outing we just didn’t know how to arrange before. Also, we didn’t know where to go hiking until this summer.

Go to Kribi if you want to go to the beach. In fact, go to Hotel du Phar, walk to the fish market, stall number 6, eat your fill of delicious, fresh seafood prepared four feet from your table with a view of the water. Go to the marina and order lasagna or brick oven pizza. Frolic in the waves on the hotel’s private beach. Wrap up the evening with a beverage on the oceanside deck.

Don’t go to Limbe. The botanical gardens are nice for a stroll, and the Wildlife Centre, or “zoo,” is not comparable to any American zoo, though all the primates are rescued or born there. You can do both in a day. Downbeach, Limbe’s fish market, has fish, but no other seafood to speak of, and a view of what might be a pretty beach if every inch of it wasn’t covered in trash. You’ll be lucky to find hot water in a room unless you go to one of the resorts on the outskirts of town. Same for a swimmable beach. Getting there by taxi will cost you dearly, and so will eating all your meals at the resort.

If you do decide to go to Limbe, several volunteers have recommended Madison Park for a beach camping experience, but you’re well away from town, so bring food.

Go hiking! At least in the northwest, you can take a taxi, or walk out to the base of any of the foothills and spend your day hiking in some gorgeous scenery. Just go through the fields until you hit a cow path, and the mountains are yours.

Three weeks seems like a good amount of time to visit. Travel anywhere is going to take a full day, and two weeks (or less) is going to make for a rushed trip. Three weeks gives you time to get to post, travel a bit, and hang out for a bit.

Don’t try to do too much. We know some people really like to get up with the sun, go all day, and into the night, in order to “get their money’s worth,” but visiting family aren’t likely to be used to Cameroon travel, so go easy on them. Take a day to rest and reflect here and there. Let’s face it, most of our friends and relations had never heard of Cameroon before we came here – and guess what they came here to see? Let them get a taste of the normal pace of your day to day life. They won’t be bored, they’re in Africa!

Do take them up on the offer to be pack mules! It’s like getting a care package with a loved one inside. Hugs AND Hershey’s kisses!

Tell the truth. That’s what we try to do on this blog, but we know there’s a temptation to gloss over things in e-mails and calls home – or you’re just so happy to be talking to someone back home, that it makes you forget every struggle. But part of our “mission” here as Peace Corps Volunteers is to share our experience with our communities back in the States. Travel is a great thing, seeing how other people live is so important to making informed and intelligent decisions on things as wide ranging as what restaurant to have dinner at, to whether mahogany furniture is in fact such a good thing, to how you vote or urge your representatives. As Christians, we believe God gave us, as a species, stewardship over this savage garden we find ourselves in, and seeing and experiencing it is essential to knowing what that entails. But not everyone can travel, and certainly no one can travel everywhere, and visitors are only here a short time, so it’s important to be real and be honest about the good as well as the bad.

Eat everything. Well, mostly. Don’t eat bushmeat. It’s not sustainable, it exposes humans to all kind of viruses we have no defense against, it leads to habitat degradation, we could go on. But do drag your guests out to sample as much sustainable local fare as you can. Bring them to eat your favorite dishes, and bring them to try the stuff you’ve had the opportunity to discover you don’t like as well. The more educated and varied your palate, the more nutrition you get, the more options you have to answer the question, “what is food?”

Have guests. We know it won’t be possible for everyone, but do encourage your friends and family to visit if they can. Having someone from your past life see where you are now is the best way to recharge your batteries, open your eyes again to the place surrounding you, and not feel like such an alien. They won’t understand - how could they? – but they’ll have a better idea than any amount of e-mail, phone calls or letters home can convey, and just as we as volunteers are stretched and challenged, our guests will be too.