Archive for the 'Culture' Category
A new site, CultureCrossing.net, is requesting your help. Please check out the Culture Crossing Questionnaire. They would like to have this completed by any and all who have experience in Cameroon. Just download it, answer the questions as best you can and email to the address listed.
Below is information about CultureCrossing.net:
CultureCrossing.net is a community built guide to cross cultural etiquette and understanding for living, working and studying in the global community.
CultureCrossing.net is an evolving database of cross-cultural information about every country in the world. This user-built guide allows people from all walks of life to share essential tips with each other about how to navigate our increasingly borderless world with savvy and sensitivity. Easy to navigate, free to use, and organized into topics such as communication styles, eye contact, gestures, taboos, dress, negotiations, meeting etiquette, school rules, gift giving, and more; CultureCrossing.net provides an opportunity for travelers, businesses and students to:
* Find information about 200+ countries and add your own knowledge to our guides
* Ask specific questions and chat with other users and experts
* Connect directly with community members from around the world
* Access global resources to further your cross-cultural exploration
In addition to the community-built country guides the site will also feature:
STAR CROSSINGS: weekly interviews in which highly regarded “stars” from various fields (business, creative arts, politics, education, etc.) share their cross-cultural experiences.
FORUM: discussion forum monitored and moderated by CultureCrossing.net staff experts
CULTURE CRASH BLOG: highlighting common cross-cultural issues and faux pas.
CULTURE IQ QUIZ: weekly quizzes that let you test your Cultural IQ and track your scores.
CX CONNECT: free social networking tool allowing members to connect through a secure form.
WHY CultureCrossing.net
Culture influences our behavior in countless ways—subconsciously guiding our actions, reactions and interactions. In order to successfully engage with the global community, it’s essential to understand how culture affects the way we socialize, communicate, and do business. Managing a multicultural team? Transitioning to a life abroad? Developing international partnerships? Just curious about world cultures? No matter who you are, CultureCrossing.net will facilitate all of your international experiences and deepen your cross-cultural understanding, which in turn will cultivate peace in our interconnected world.
WHO WE ARE
CultureCrossing.net was founded by a few individuals with a passion for exploring the world and a commitment to fostering cross-cultural awareness and understanding. The organization also relies on the support of a team of professionals, students, and community members from around the globe to build, manage and grow our ever-expanding database.
Michael Landers
Director - Culture Crossing
Email: michael@culturecrossing.net
www.culturecrossing.net
Since the organization was established in 1987, the Friends of Cameroon has funded more than two dozen village-based development projects in Cameroon, valued at more than $30,000. Projects have been located throughout the provinces of Cameroon, and have included a foot bridge in Kumba in the South West, a safe for Maga Health Clinic in the Extreme North, a beekeeping project in Njinikom in the North West, and a school for the deaf in Yaounde. Projects typically are in the health, education, and community development sectors.
The most recent projects funded were four community-based development projects worth 1.589.670 CFA ($3,117) FCFA, were located in Makak in the Center, Mvangan in the South, Batouri in the East, and in Yagoua, Extreme North Provinces, and focused on HIV/AIDS education and outreach. The projects were selected for the various methods proposed to reach out to local communities and educate the populations about the dangers of HIV/AIDS and how to protect against the deadly disease. The proposals were submitted by local organizations working in concert with Peace Corps Volunteers assigned to the areas.
FOC projects have included:
FOC support of $621 to the Club des Jeunes Aveugles Rehabilites du Cameroon helped the group, made upof blind and vision-impaired persons, expand their poultry business in Yaounde with the purchase of a freezer for their store.
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In 2004, FOC funded the purchase of a cassava grinder for the Neyokoty Ariey Cooperative in the Acha Etemetek village. The grinder, purchased for $820, helped the village group to expand its business while making the grinding of cassava more easily availableto the local community.
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One of FOC’s earliest projects was the construction of a footbridge crossing the Kumba River, easing the travel of villagers to the main market in Kumba. FOC contributed $1000 towards the construction of the bridge.
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In the Eastern Province, FOC support of $1,000 helped to purchase a mixed gas and electric refrigerator for the health clinic in Sokamalam, shown with the health center chief Nguel Isiclure. The fridge is used to store vaccines and allow the clinic to reach more people. The project was guided by PCV Jennifer Goldman.
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FOC supported the “Modern Beekeeping Project” of the Boyui Young Farmer’s Club in the North West, which allowed them to purchase needed equipment to improve their hives (such as the one under the arrow) and expand their honey production and group income.
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FOC project requirements
In order to be eligible for FOC funding, the applicant must live in Cameroon, be Cameroonian and/or working in Cameroon with either a private, non-profit organization, a cooperative or registered non-profit, or a village-based organization for by villagers for a communal purpose. The majority of the members of the applicant organization or the majority of the beneficiaries must be Cameroon citizens. It is required that the applicant is planning to provide, in cash or in kind, a minimum of one-fourth of the total cost of materials and/or labor of the project(s) supported by FOC funds.
The Friends of Cameroon was established in the United States in 1987, and the group’s members include persons who worked and lived in Cameroon as Peace Corps Volunteers, staff of the U.S. Embassy, USAID, and missionaries. The primary function of the organization is to keep members informed about Cameroon, continue to link those who served there, and to support small, community development projects in the country.
Kamtok (Cameroon Pidgin)
http://www.une.edu.au/langnet/cameroon.htm
(more can be found at the website, but a partial text is below)
written by Loreto Todd
(with help from Martin Jumbam and Herbert Wamey)
Kamtok is the pidginised English of Cameroon. This English-related language has been a lingua franca in the country since at least the 1880s. The 35-year period since 1966 has seen dramatic changes in the attitude of speakers towards the language. Speakers have always recognised the usefulness of the language but, in early writings, it was frequently referred to as “Bad English”, “Broken English” and “Bush English”. Today, due mainly to its extended use in Churches and on Radio and Television, it is becoming known as Kamtok from Cameroon Talk, and is taking its place as a recognised medium of interaction.
It is difficult to distinguish between a widely-used pidgin and a creole. The sociological differentiation, often cited, is that a creole is a mother tongue whereas a pidgin is not. However, this distinction is overly simplistic in West Africa where multilingualism is the norm and where the same language can, at any one time, be a mother tongue, a language of wider communication and a first, second, third, fourth or foreign language. This is the case with Kamtok. It is acquired by many in infancy at the same time as their other mother tongue(s) and spoken at a similar speed and with similar flexibility. Many, including clergymen, traders, travellers, gendarmes, soldiers and prisoners utilise it as the most viable means of communication in a country with two official languages, French and English, and a minimum of two hundred mutually unintelligible vernaculars. Other people, including immigrants and expatriates, learn it with varying degrees of proficiency and a few, albeit a diminishing number, still refuse to speak it because they believe it incapable of civilised discourse.
Kamtok is spoken, in some form, by at least half of the population so it would be overly simplistic to suggest that it could be described in a few pages. What I can do is offer some generalisations with examples, all drawn from live speech unless otherwise indicated. I should just like to emphasise, however, that there are many varieties of Kamtok including:
· Grafi Kamtok, the variety used in the grassfields and often referred to as ‘Grafi Talk’
· liturgical Kamtok. This variety has been used by the Catholic church for three quarters of a century
· francophone Kamtok. This variety is now used mainly in towns such as Douala and Yaoundé and
by francophones talking to anglophones who do not speak French
· Limbe Kamtok. This variety is spoken mainly in the southwest coastal area around the port that used
to be called Victoria and is now Limbe.
· Bororo Kamtok. This variety is spoken by the Bororo cattle traders, many of whom travel through
Nigeria and Cameroon.
GRAMMAR
Kamtok has an eight-term set of personal pronouns:
a, mi ‘I’ mi ‘me’
yu ‘you (singular)”
i ‘he, she. it’ i, -am ‘him, her, it’
wi ‘we, us’
una, wuna ‘you (plural)’
dem ‘they’ dem, -am ‘them’
Some people use a pronominal set that occasionally reflects sex:
A bin si i. ‘I saw he/she/it.’
Hu? ‘Who?’
Shi, di wuman pikin. ‘Her, the girl.’
and case:
Dei no sabi laik ohs. ‘They don’t really like us.’
Usually, plural is not marked:
ma pikin ‘my child/children’
To avoid ambiguity, however, plurality can be carried by a modifier:
dat tu man pikin ‘those two boys’
wuman boku ’several women/wives’
Hey guys. I’m currently serving as a PCV in Ambam, down in the South province of Cameroon. I thought you’d like the recipe I’ve learned for Beans chez-les Bulu, the dominant tribe in our area. They’re good. And easy. And maybe so obvious that you’ve neglected to put them on your website, but I’ll write it all down anyway.
Ingredients:
- beans
- chopped garlic, onions
- 2 little cans tomato paste
- salt, pepper, other spices
- piment
- 1/2 cup veggie oil
- 1/4 cup water
- two handfuls of beans, soaked overnight and cooked for 2-3 hours
- heat the oil and then add the garlic and onions
- when the onions look clear, add the tomato paste, water, piment
- let the mixture cook for a few minutes, then add the beans
- if there’s not enough sauce to taste a kick in each spoonful of beans, add some more oil and/or water
- add salt and pepper to taste. I also suggest a little chili powder
I recommend this with spaghetti or rice, comme d’habitude.
Blair
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J. Blair Reeves, PCV, gaslight@gmail.com
B.P. 270
Ambam, Province du Sud
Cameroon
“Small small catch monkey.”
- Cameroonian proverb
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