Thursday, February 5, 2015

Future Volunteers of Mbakaou, Cameroon or Bogo, Cameroon

My work in Cameroon is done, but I wanted to leave something for those that follow.

Bogo, Cameroon was closed off to Peace Corps Volunteers and many other foreigners because of the actions of Boko Haram.  I have a few documents relating to my time there that may be of use to any service worker venturing there..  I also wanted to post a few documents from my time in Mbakaou.  I know one thing that was frustrating for me was finding any resources on work done prior to my arrival.  It's not much, but perhaps someone will find it useful.

Mbakaou, Cameroon:

Mbakaou, Cameroon - Post Book - Oct 2014
This is a document that I wrote for my successor in Mbakaou.  It was meant to be casual and humorous while hopefully conveying some information about living and working in the village.  If you are looking for any interesting bits about life in Mbakaou, you'll find it here.

Mbakaou, Cameroon - Malaria Survey - Mar 2014
This is an Excel document for a survey on malaria in Mbakaou that I conducted.  I went to a number of households and asked the head of household (or usually the oldest woman) these questions.  There is a summary page that I threw together of some interesting stats based on information other volunteers were gathering.

Bogo, Cameroon:

Bogo, Cameroon - Community Needs Assessment - 2013-01-09
This is a document I wrote up after a few months in Bogo.  I gathered information from a variety of sources and compiled it look for areas where I believed I could work during the rest of my service.

Bogo, Cameroon - Post Book - Nov 2012
I take no credit for the creation of this document.  It was given to me when I first arrived in Bogo and compiled by volunteers before me.  The date is that which I received it.  It was of course the basis for my own Post Book that I wrote about Mbakaou.

Other Materials Created by Me:

This document was created by myself and Caitlin Howe, the greatest partner in crime ever.  It's in French and supposed to be used by Cameroonians to assist them in outreach for HIV/AIDS prevention.

Finally, if you made it this far, you might be interested in knowing more about what I actually did during my time in Cameroon.  This is the official report of my service.


If anyone has more information or documents that you think would be beneficial for future service workers in Mbakaou or Bogo, please feel free to send me a message or comment below and I'd be happy to host them.  Good luck.

Oh and my future blog is located here: Welcome to the Daleverse


Sunday, January 11, 2015

Next Step

I want to thank everyone who followed me over the years.  I particularly want to thank everyone who sent care packages.  I seriously won the lottery in that.  I mean I got some good stuff... yea.

Since Africa has come to a close, I figured I had to move on from the whole "Dale does Africa".  Not to say I'm done with Africa, but I don't plan on going back for awhile.  At least not for a hefty pile of cash.

I picked Africa instead of something more specific because I didn't even know where I was originally going.  That was fortuitous as the first place, Mali, got closed down before I ever showed up.  Then I spent three months of blogging about an awesome time in Charleston and a month in Nicaragua.  Even after I finally made it to Cameroon, Africa I didn't stay put.  I spent a couple months in Bokito near the capital for training, six months in the deserts of Bogo in the Extreme North before  Boko Haram shut us down, and only finally settled down in Mbakaou in May of 2013.  That was over a full year after I started the blog.  Luckily I spent a whole year and a half in my lovely river village.

Thanks Mbakaou!  (and AES Sonel for providing me with delicious electricity)

What's next?  No idea.  But in keeping with my luck of broadly named blogs...  Come check out The Daleverse!  You may have noticed that I actually just changed the url for the old blog and then recreated this one so if you followed my old blog or anything like that, you ought not to have to make any changes.  But let's be honest, you only ever got here via Facebook anyway.

Thanks again.  And for me most loyal, I leave you with this:

Me and my little brother Riz