Thanksgiving day 2007. Briana will be in the US in 3 hours. I Leave Cameroon in about 4 hours. Arrive in Casablanca at about 4pm. Spending the night in Casablanca, and then fly out around noon. Will be in the states on Friday.
Look forward to some rest, reflection, and getting hard at work on Cameroon related items stateside.
It has ben an amazing time. Truly amazing.
Matt D
Greetings everyone!
It has been some time since we have had an opportunity to post on the blog. All of our projects are in the beginning stages, which is to say that there is very little time to do anything else. We have found faster internet than before, so posting some pictures will be possible soon, but it is still quite slow.
Everyone is healthy and happy here. than you all for your letters of support and your prayers. They have all been felt.
Today Jeff and I traveled to Oku which is an area of Cameroon known for carvings and honey. We saw a little of both, and also made some time to get up close and personal with a lovely waterfall.
If the weather cooperates this Sunday I am hoping to take everyone out for a picnic and hike to another waterfall that we saw along the way.
It is with great pleasure that I would like to announce that our very first humanitarian initiative, Sacred Link Jewelry training and apprenticeship, officially held the inaugural class today!
It was a lovely day of teaching, sharing, and rapport building. Petra, Briana, and Chelsea did a wonderful job of taking charge of the class as head instructors. They have worked long and hard on a course curriculum, and that work sure showed this morning when we began the program. I am so proud for them.
We snapped a few photos of the team, and I promise to post them shortly.
I had a busy day today, as I was in attendance for the morning session of the jewelry training, but then traveled some distance to discuss with the Fon (King) of this area about procuring some land for our demonstration farm amongst other things. The meetings were fruitful and exciting.
Life sure has been exciting here in Kumbo!
We are still managing several tasks at one time, so there is never a shortage of meetings with various community members, contractors, or organizations. A brief overview of the projects that we have going concurrently include:
1. Completing the relocation of the Sacred Link Jewelry apprenticeship program that was previously being conducted in our global headquarters in Honesdale, PA. Sacred Link Jewelry uses natural materials from all over the world. We are starting with 5 apprentices for this first round of training so that we can create an intimate setting for training. There are three full time instructors from the United States that have been charged with the task of training the trainer. These first five apprentices will have the opportunity to become faculty members after they complete the three month training program so that the first group will be fully capable of teaching future classes of jewelry making apprentices the proper way to produce and market jewelry to North America and European customers. The training will begin this coming Monday 6 August 2007.
2. Completely renovate and adapt a two story, 10,000 square foot building to meet all of the needs of a full fledged Himalayan Institute Community Center. So many good things have already happened, and yet it seems as if the project will never end.
On a daily basis we have a contractor with a large team of people developing the front grounds of the building to allow for access to the main road, entry gates for both pedestrians as well as vehicles, a guard house by the main gate, a parking area, flower beds, and a lawn complete with a thatched roof gazebo that will allow up to 15 people to relax comfortably.
We also have electricians, carpenters, plumbers, roofers, and gardeners working to have the grounds prepared for the grand opening this coming October.
3. Facilitating the sale of locally grown coffee to buyers abroad. One of the reasons that we selected Kumbo as the starting point for our first community center on the African continent was the existing infrastructure that a coffee marketing cooperative union had established. The structure that this coop was operating with was similar to the way that the beta project in India had perfected, so the town of Kumbo was on the fast track for an HI community center. As mentioned, the international buyers are there, HI has connected the dots between a coop that has not sold one Kg of coffee in many years, and a contract for a full year’s production! All that we have to sort out at this point are a few details, and the wheels of commerce can begin to spin again.
4. Negotiating and facilitating the purchase of locally produced honey to be sold abroad. In true HI form, we stumbled across a honey producing cooperative in a small village north of Kumbo. This honey is exceptional in so many ways. I do not want to spoil the surprise just yet, but just know that it is far from what is available at the local supermarket, and we are buying it (literally) by the metric ton!
5. Procuring publishing rights to two books written by local authors so that the books may be combined into one title and sold globally.
6. Sponsoring the planting of 5,000 – 10,000 indigenous tree species in an effort to fight deforestation, conserve water, and create positive impacts on climate change.
7. Locating and negotiating the rights to a large area of land in order to establish a demonstration farm and model village. Right now we are trying to procure 100-500 hectares (240-1,240 acres) so that we can provide massive employment (500-1,500 jobs or roughly 3 jobs per hectare), as well as proof that all of the teachings of our BioVedic Energy Farming educational programs can work as promised. The demonstration farm will also be capable of producing enough medicinal herbs, aromatic plants, and oil producing seeds to meet local need, and still have plenty of left over produce for export. There is a tremendous export deficit in this country, so creating some foreign reserve would be a huge boost to the national economy. The people that will be working the land will also have the opportunity to become members of a model community that will be able to produce all of its food crops, bio-diesel for powering electrical generators, and also focus mainly on producing cash crops so that every day the future will be a little bit brighter for their families than the previous day. This will be a self sustained society in every way, and I am certain that we have no even scratched the surface of where this concept can go. Also, do not forget that this is a demonstration farm that is really designed to inspire local land owners to follow suit, so there is no end to the amount of income that this project can inspire!
8. Developing concepts to reality – We are constantly considering so many other concepts that are brought to us by supporters abroad, local NGOs, as well as other ideas that our faculty happen to conceive. These include, but are certainly not limited to working with local prisons to improve conditions, commissioning locally produced indigenous artworks that can be marketed in the US, establishing a local chapter of Rotary International, collecting new and used sports equipment in order to outfit a wonderful sports academy that was founded by a local philanthropist, recording and documenting local traditional music, and the list goes on and on…
So that is a brief summary of what the days have been like or us. I only wish that the internet speeds would allow for the posting of photos and videos so that we could share more of our experiences in a multimedia format. A couple of videos that Jeff Abella produced here in Kumbo should be uploaded to this blog from stateside soon. They do a wonderful job of documenting our first few days in Cameroon.
Oh yeah we DO manage to squeeze a little time in for fun every day as well.
Until next time, please stay well.
Things are still progressing well here in Kumbo. Everyone is healthy, happy, and we are well on our way to adjusting to this new culture and pace. The days have ben busy, but rewarding. The center is really starting to take shape, and we should have the main hall of the Community Center fully constructed very soon. Once the main hall is complete we will begin the Sacred Link Jewelry Apprenticeship. We have selected 5 applicants to begin this three month intensive. Chelsea, Petra, and Briana are busy at work finalizing the curriculum for their first five students, and Jeff an I are working hard to get all of the construction, agricultural, and administrative initiatives underway. It seems that at every step there is a new twist or opportunity to explore. Needless to say, the work has been very fluid and exciting.
The web speeds are still quite slow, so posting video and photos are not an easy undertaking. I did send some pictures and videos to our webmaster in hopes that he would post them to the web.
That is all for now. More and more info will be coming.
Things have been very busy, as starting a business is one thing, but starting one in Africa is a whole other ball of wax! There have been so many meetings with applicants, contractors, government officials, and local royalty, that there has barely been any time to think.
We did sneak away today to a place called Oku where some of the most talented artisans in the country are located. We stopped by several handicraft shops and met with artisans, and also stopped by a local Honey collecting and marketing Cooperative. All in all it was an interesting visit. The scenery was breathtaking as Oku is one of the highest elevations in the country. We were in the 8,000 - 10,000 foot range above sea level.
Briana is really taking things in stride. She is very relaxed and strong in the face of such a culture shock. I (as always) am very proud that she is my wife.
I have to run now as time is always tight. I will be trying to upload photos sometime soon.
Be well,
Matt D
After successfully removing our container from the port of Douala on this past Saturday, all nine of us completed a 9 hour journey (broken into 2 days) to our new home in Kumbo which is in the North West Province of Cameroon. It is wonderful to report that we made this journey riding in our own vehicles that were donated to the project by some wonderful people in Madison, Wisconsin and Chicago, Illinois!
Kumbo is lovely, the townspeople have been very hospitable, and we are all getting adapted to all of the new climates associated with this sort of venture.
Since Sunday we have been working hard at all of the necessities of forming a full fledged NGO in this country. As you can imagine there is an infinite amount of plans being made, necessary items being purchased, contractors in negotiations, and local government agencies being visited.
We have chosen one large space in the building to become the launching pad of our activities for now. The room will become a virtual microcosm of the work that we will be doing in the early stages of this venture. The space will have workstations for up to 12 apprentices in our Sacred Link Jewelry making and marketing apprenticeship, shelving for Himalayan Institute books, Varcho Veda herbal elixirs, as well as provisions for all sorts of other items that can be set out for display. As of now we are calling this room the Himalayan Institute Cameroon Community Center because in addition to all of the items on display listed above we will also have a nice public relations desk set up so that our public relations officer can offer an orientation to the HIC and all its’ programs and even take people on a tour of some test plot gardens that will be set up in the adjoining courtyard.
As you can tell, this truly is an exciting time for us. Things are literally being created from scratch. It is so wonderful to have such a dedicated and motivated team of people here pushing to realize this dream. There is not a chance for failure, and it will not be long until the impact of the HIC is being felt on a large scale.
Tomorrow we will all travel to the palace to meet with His Highness, The Fon (king) of Nso (the area in which we are working). There is always a big celebration at the palace, and it is an amazing cultural experience. We are excited to return.
The future is very bright!
Just a quick note to let everyone know that we have all arrived safely at our final destination. We have ben in Kumbo since Sunday afternoon, and it is wonderful!
The rains have settled in, so things are wet and slippery, but the air is clean, the energy is great, and we are in full swing getting the center up and running. We should be making jewelry by this afternoon, or tomorrow morning at the latest!
More thoughts, details, and photos to come!
We have not taken too many photographs of Douala. You have to be careful for two reasons. One, some people really get angry at you for snapping heir photo, and two, some people will want to take your camera. So most of our footage has been video from moving cabs. The videos are great. I am working on uploading some of them, but the web connection is so slow. Enjoy these pics!
It has been a busy and successful week for us. We have poured all of our efforts into getting the container that we shipped from the United States on 2 April out of the port of Douala.
The container arrived on last Saturday the 16th. That means it took 75 days to travel from Door to Port, and it is still not yet out of the port itself. Sending this container has been an arduous and expensive process. We are hoping that we will be able to remove the goods first thing Tuesday morning.
We have made all sorts of connections here in Douala, so there have been many meetings with people at banks, the port, customs, and even the U.S. Consulate. On top of all of the meetings there is a lot of running around preparing things for the container's release.
Things are much different here than in the West. There are no one stop shops for anything. If you want to have a document notarized, you must go to two places instead of one. If you want to retrieve the bill of lading for your container, you have to visit several places first before making the request at the shipping office. To put it more plainly, it is a chaotic sort of work that is interesting and exciting in the short term, but as a livelihood, it must be difficult.
Yesterday we spent the entire day in the port while we observed the customs inspection of our container. Things went well, and we made the best case we could for our goods, but we will not know how they will value it for taxation until Monday. Even though we are a certified NGO in Cameroon we are still subject to paying some taxes. That is a difficult thing to grasp for an American, but there has been a lot of abuse of non-profit status here, so it is very difficult to receive full exoneration from taxes right away. Once we receive word back about the value, we will pay the taxes and then will work feverishly to remove the container from the port so that we can travel to our home base in Kumbo.
We now know everything to expect in the ports. The good stuff, the shady stuff, and WHATEVER YOU DO, do not get caught taking pictures! We nearly lost a camera yesterday when some guards spotted Jeff snapping pictures of the ships in the port! I really wish we could have filmed the argument that ensued. Our driver and Austin were out of the car yelling and screaming back and forth with several guards for several minutes. It was not until we made an emergency call to the U.S Embassy that the guards agreed to allow us to delete the pictures from the camera rather than seize it. We were happy with that result, and also with the fact that they did not see my camera, so we still had the photos and videos that I had taken. We all had a good laugh about that.
Douala is a crazy town of nearly 6.5 million people. They are mostly French speaking, and finding a stranger that is an anglophone is rare. We have 4 people who are traveling with us that make sure that we are getting on fine. Two of them live in Douala as Customs Clearing Officers, so they help us through the ports their names are Austin and Derrick. One of them is a man named Eric. I know Eric from our last visit. He is a very nice and helpful person. He is the finance officer of the HIC. Our other host is our driver who is also well connected in Douala. His name is Shey-Don. Shey is a title of honor given to certain people in Cameroon. Shey-Don took us on a scouting trip of the marketplaces and specialty stores in different parts of the city. He knew how to find everything we were searching for.
Everything else is going well. Finding food to eat is proving difficult. Eating meat here is not a good idea as there are all sorts of things that you can catch from it. That is an easy pill to swallow for us. Jeff and I are both vegetarian, but it is difficult to find places that prepare vegetables in a manner that we find appetizing. So for the most part we have been cutting up fresh pineapple in our room, eating mandarin oranges, cookies, granola, and the staple has been one of three sandwiches that we make in the room:
We also have a strong desire for variety, so you can take any of the above ingredients and mix them together, and one of us has made a sandwich out of them. Jeff was even so bold as to have an avocado jelly sandwich with cookies on it! HA!
We did find a good place to get pizza the other night, and I am hoping to return there tonight. It is very nice to eat hot food every once in a while. That pizza was the first hot thing that we had taken since the plane ride to Morocco.
So that is the scoop from the first 5 days of our journey. We are going to take a day tomorrow to get caught up on rest, laundry, and other personal matters. I think I will even cut my hair. That what Sundays are for!
My travel mate and I arrived in Douala very late in the night. We did not get to our hotel and settled until early morning on 19 June. We are up now, but feeling very jet lagged.
Our stopover in Casablanca was amazing. We made a friend with an English speaking cabbie and got the 3 hour nickel tour. The highlights were an amazing Mosque, a shopping bazaar, and the beach. It was fun. We even got invited to have mint tea with a shopkeeper.
There is a lot to get done now, so I will run. Life is going to be interesting... I can SEE it!
Since there is a lot of personal stuff interwoven on this blog, I decided to create a "business only" blog to chronicle only the work that we are doing in Cameroon. Whenever I post on that site, I will try to mirror it on this one as well. I will not be the only contributor on the new blog, so there will be as many as 10 people's thoughts and perspectives to read! These are exciting times! Keep up with our movements in the next 5 months. The past year has been all about getting ready for tomorrow...
This blog is dedicated to chronicling the progress of 10 people from the Himalayan Institute as they travel to a small town called Kumbo in the Northwest Province of Cameroon, West Africa.
Where is Cameroon you ask? It is the dark shaded area on the map of the continent of Africa below:
And while we are talking about Africa... Contrary to what many people who I speak with about Africa might think, Africa is a continent, made up of 54 different countries. In fact, I do not know if people understand just how big the continent is. Below is a graphic that we stumbled upon a few month back. It really helps put in perspective the enormity of Africa:
Last January I had the pleasure to give a presentation on the Himalayan Institutes's rural empowerment projects in Cameroon to a couple of local Rotary Club chapters.
It was so much fun! Rotarians are an amazing bunch. Their slogan is "Service above self" I can't think of a better better pursuit.
After the presentation the Rotary club decided to cut us a check for $1,000 to be used toward the expense of shipping a container of supplies that we will use to launch the Himalayan Institute Cameroon this coming fall. In their most recent newsletter, there was a short update on the progress, and this photo accompanied. Thought that I would share.
The container left our campus on 2 April, it has made a stop in Antwerp, then in Abidjan, and now it is on its' way to Douala. The container is set to arrive at its' final destination somewhere between 8 June and 14 June. Once we know it is in the port we will spring into action. There really is not a lot that can be done without these items, so we must have patience for it to arrive.
I should have some news on the revised travel plans soon, check back in a few days for the official plan!
-Matt D
More pics of donations:
Brand new Refrigerator and three new stoves from Madison
An entire 16' truck full of assorted items from Madison
By and large, Madison, WI had the biggest hearts of all. Jeff, the man on the right in the photo above solicited all sorts of agricultural, household, and construction tools and supplies with the help of his father Bob and girlfriend Chelsea. Just as seasons come and go, so it seems do names for blogs.
The old blog name was not entirely true. Fear had not gone anywhere, it was still hiding in all of those uncomfortable location in life.
I have been thinking a lot lately on attraction and aversion, comfort and discomfort. I am rather fascinated with how one man's trash is another man's treasure.
I resolve right now to spend the remainder of my life to mastering the science of turning uncomfortable situations into natural enjoyable situations.
Feel free to follow along!
Briana and I are in the final push for our trip to Cameroon later this month. It is looking like we will be over for longer than we previously thought. It seems that we will be there for the months of June, July, August, September, and October. That is five months! I bet we are going to get a lot of practice in the search for equanimity for the remainder of 2007.
More updates ( & explanations) to come soon!
p.s. we do realize that disComfortable is not a word, but if Mr. President can coin new words at will, why can't an old boy from New Orleans do the same every once in a while?
Since the 5th of December I have been heading up all efforts involved with soliciting, collecting, and shipping a 40 foot container full of goods to be sent to Cameroon.
This initial shipment is full of many of the items we will need to have a fully operational community center up and running in the city of Kumbo located in the Northwest Provence of Cameroon. We are sending agricultural supplies, construction tools, household goods, books, office supplies, a full kitchen outfit, a Saturn Vue, and a GMC Savana 3500 van.
The community center will be where a thought turns into action. Before when my mom would ask "Son, what is it exactly you all are doing over there?" I would have to respond with a conceptual answer. Now I can tell Mom that we are going to create a fully functional community center that will begin with work study / certification programs in either jewelry manufacturing, sales and marketing or Biovedic (organic / biodynamic) farming techniques for biofuel, medicinal herbs, and aromatic plants. The community center will also offer indirect support, training and assistance to the heart of the community which is an ailing coffee marketing Cooperative Union that has been on a rapid decline in coffee sales over the past 20 -30 years, and in the past seven years has not sold any coffee at all. The problem is not the coffee or the weather, but rather the lack of connectivity to the global marketplace. We will be helping with crop diversification (Agricultural school) as well as becoming the link to global trade.
On the weekends that community center will become a place where people come together to keep the flame of their indigenous cultural heritage alive. This is where we become the student and get to listen to ancient stories, drumming, dancing, singing, and many other wonderful activities.
Once we complete phase one we will be well on our way to realizing our first goal, rural empowerment.
The Community Center is the key to brining back value to a land and a people that have been devalued for thousands of years. Once people see beyond the border of their village or town, and then beyond the borders of their own country, and ultimately beyond continental borders a whole new world will quite literally be staring back at them. To play even the most insignificant role in this awakening is both humbling and energizing at once.
The second core goal of this venture is to create a model of social sustainability.
The only reason that a project like this speaks to a person like myself is that it walks its' talk. How can you set a goal to teach empowerment and sustainability if you yourself are not self sustained? That is where humanitarian aid becomes humanitarian trade. The end result is the same, but teaching trade is where you teach the person to fish. What we are doing will create revenue generating micro-businesses, entrepreneurial and employment opportunities. We are doing all of this without the need to beg for donations. Charity is more addictive than heroine. Even an aid initiative with the purest of intentions can do more harm than it does good. If you tell a person that they are a charity case, they tend to believe you. I have never met a charity case that can help itself, but I have seen these people. They are beautiful, bright, able bodied, and enthused about finding a better way in life. All they need is someone to introduce them to their own potential.
Our last core goal is to create enlightened leaders.
Enlightened leadership is really the offspring of rural empowerment and social sustainability. It is the point at which the training wheels come off and the people take full control of the future. It is the ultimate goal, and the measure of its' success will be when we sit across the table from someone telling us that we are no longer needed.
Then we take it to the next town or the next country or the next continent...
You get the picture.
This time I am excited to take Briana along as she will be one of two founding members of the jewelry making apprenticeship program. She has been training this entire year in the jewelry department so that she has the skills needed to teach the first batch of apprentices. We will most likely be going in early June and will be gone for a minimum of a month, but may need to stay longer. In these early times flexibility and fluidity are key to sanity and success.
Oh container, you were in my thoughts for 4 months, in my life for one afternoon, and now you are gone old friend. Godspeed on your journey, may your contents plant seeds of hope all over Africa and beyond.
To Briana on her 30th Birthday:
Dearest Briana,
You know that this is an impossible task to undertake don’t you?
To express the deep appreciation, respect, and love that these past fifteen years have afforded us is not something that a man with my rhetorical skills can weave into cognitive expression. So I will not even make the attempt.
What I will do is define who you are to me in one simple sentence:
You are the most precious gift that this world has ever offered to me.
When we met I was in quite the transitional period in my life. I was fourteen years of age and trying to decide which side of the “tracks” I wanted to live on. I was neither a gentleman nor a criminal, but I knew that I had equal tendencies to be one or the other. Once I met you there was no doubt which path was the right one to follow. I was your companion, and you preferred gentlemen, so the high road was where we walked, and we have walked it with style.
You have been there through it all. The good times, the bad, for richer, and now it seems for poorer, and I would put it to you that not even death can separate this union as the laws of attraction will not allow our souls to be apart for any length of time. We have become one.
You are the most precious gift that this world has ever offered to me. Not because of all of the good times, or your ability to make it through the bad. Not because we are all that we have ever known, and most certainly not because of anything you have ever said, done or given to me.
You are the most precious gift that this world has ever offered to me, simple because you have been You.
Everything you do is perfect; everything you say is perfect, everything you think is perfect, because it is You. I am so proud that you are beginning to realize this as well.
I have watched you grow into the most amazing woman. You have made enormous strides toward conquering all of your doubts and fears. You have shown everyone that you are willing to live what you believe rather than what others expect of you. You are amazing. Do you realize this? Absolutely brave, absolutely selfless, and absolutely willing to tune out the world and listen to your true nature.
What have I done to deserve You?
So sweetheart, thirty years have now passed, and there is sure to be 60 or more in the future. So see yourself for what you are in this world. You are like a child taking its’ first steps. You have the rest of your life in front of you, and you have the newfound skill to attack it with charm and vigor.
I cannot wait to see how it turns out…
In love and life, happy birthday!
Matt D
