What the Hell Am I Doing Here?

There have been so many days when I have asked myself this question, and meant it quite literally.  Not, how did I get here, or why am I here.  What I mean is:  What am I supposed to be doing here? What projects? What work? It’s also a question I’m sure many of my friends and family have been asking. Well, it’s taken some time, but I think I’ve finally arrived at the answer. 

At first, I was overwhelmed.  There are so many needs, so much poverty, and so many things I wish I could do that just aren’t possible when everything seems to come down to the one thing I don’t have:  money.

So what do I have to give, I asked myself?  I wasn’t sure, but I knew one thing, and that was that women’s empowerment was important to me, and in this department fate had kissed me with luck.  I inherited a project from my predecessor entitled “Women in the Media” which entailed a plan to help females tell their stories of violence against women through different mediums, such as blogging, photography, and radio transmissions.  I loved the project as soon as I read it, but because it was compressed into an overly-simplistic six week training course, I didn’t fully grasp its potential.

However, I also had the good fortune of being placed in the government agency Center for the Promotion of Woman and Family, where there is a women’s rights class.  Every day I sat in on the class and listened to the students, realizing more each day how important it is to hear their stories.  Until one day, it finally hit me that the project I had been given, was exactly what I should be doing here, except on a larger scale.  Six weeks was ridiculous.  Instead, I would focus my two years here on acquiring a few necessary things for the Center, including a couple more desktops and internet, as well as teaching leadership skills, English, and how to blog, take photos, journal, and speak in public.  And while I taught Cameroonian women to do the same, I would also conduct interviews, research human rights, and collect stories for a book that I would write.  It’s the perfect storm of my passions:  sociology, women’s rights, and writing.

As a secondary project, I will continue to work in Mokolo prison.  I don’t want to slight this work, because I have a feeling it will overlap with my other project; and I also love it.  Every Wednesday I do presentations on health and human rights topics for the women prisoners, and I hope to soon expand my audience to the juveniles and then men.  Additionally, there are small enterprise artisan groups at the prison that make bags, vases, hats, etc, and I am trying to help the women start one of their own.  They are all men’s groups now, with whom I am also working with to build partnerships with local merchants to sell their goods.  (Currently, if someone wants to buy something from the prisoners, one has to visit the prison, - which makes for a tough sell).  Finally, as a pipe dream, I want to convince a couple Cameroonian development organizations that they need to collaborate with me to find funding for a juvenile center (right now the juveniles are mixed in with the adults, which leaves them vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse).

Thus, in addition to battling mosquitoes, heat, and overcharging merchants, I hope I can do some good here.  But I also know that it will be slow and frustrating, and two years isn’t a lot.  So I also need to remind myself that it isn’t just about what I’m doing, but the quality, or the presence that I give to it.