This is a good day. This is a good life. It does not take much to remind me of all the wealth, non-material, of course, and beauty that exists around me. Sometimes I do need to remind myself. I have now been in Cameroon for about seven months, since I started Peace Corps training in September 2008, and at post in Maroua for about four. As my own communication skills have improved, I have been welcomed into homes and into families, intimacies have been shared, friendships formed. I have gotten beyond the superficial. But as I get closer to people, I see their hardships, I feel their difficult choices, I see the effects of our unfair world.

While it is personally difficult, heartbreaking at times, integrating myself into the community is the only I can ever hope to do anything positive or effective. I know that in some ways, no matter the extent to which I follow the cultural rules and respect the norms, I will never be an insider. I will never completely understand what it is like to get water from a well every day of my life. I will never understand what it would be like to be a woman here, confined to her concession without talking to anyone unless she has permission from a husband or father. I will never understand what it feels like to not be able to afford to feed my child, or for that matter, not to control my own finances. Many of the women here do not.

More and more, though, I wish that I could understand what it feels like to be a member of an African community. Coined by a Harvard sociologist, the term “collective efficacy” has been used to describe the solidarity seen in African communities. It is a term that describes the unique capacity for people to come together, who aren’t related to each other, to help each other in solidarity and equality. When I need reminding of Africa’s beauty, I need only to recall the evidence of collective efficacy that I have observed here.

When one woman in the ASSYSGOD support group was experiencing the effects of stigma in her Godola neighborhood because of her HIV-positive status, her fellow group members organized a meal at her house. Breaking bread together is a deeply rich, symbolic action. In this case, it brought her neighbors, family, dozens of village children, and the traditional and administrative leaders of the community to her house. Sharing a meal cooked by all the neighborhood women, many of whom are HIV-positive, made a definitive statement that those living with HIV are not to be feared or excluded. Like all human beings, they need love, care and compassion that families and communities deliver best.

It is efforts like this, initiated and delivered by the community for the community, that can never be “programmed” or replicated by an external organization. It is difficult to measure. In this instance, our mark of success came from the happiness that we saw on her face and reports that in the week since the community gathering that she has gained weight because her neighbors have continued to bring her food.

I recently went with Amada and a member of AJEPS to Kousseri, a city on the Chadien border, because there was word that several HIV-positive men and women were interested in forming an official group and joining the EFA network. They first came together because of the efforts of a Presbyterian minister in Kousseri. The minister’s brother was HIV-positive and helped to form one of the first organizations of HIV-positive youth in Cameroon, AJEPS, but the group’s status was disclosed from the rest of the community for fear of being outcast. The minister did not know until after his brother’s death that he had been was HIV-positive. The minister faulted himself for his brother’s premature demise: for not caring enough for his own brother, for not knowing enough about his life, and for his own stigmas about HIV. From the minister’s feelings of guilt and remorse came a spirit of action. He identified members of his own congregation living with the disease and actively sought out others in Kousseri. His sense of collective efficacy was strong enough to know that together they could accomplish more than they could separately. Now he is bringing them together to support one another.

Perhaps this appreciation of collectivity is among the most valuable things that I can achieve in Africa and in Cameroon. I have always felt, especially concerning HIV, that if anyone suffers, all of humankind suffers. It is a mark on our collective souls that we, as humanity, can let people go hungry, drink dirty water, and suffer the terrors of disease. It is my duty to show my solidarity and to stand behind my friends as they navigate lives’ challenges.

-Caitlyn Bradburn, Peace Corps Volunteer

Tags: AJEPS, ASSYSGOD, collective efficacy, community, Maroua, News from Cameroon, outsider, peace corps, stigma