Filed under: Cameroon
OK! So here is a description of the pictures even though I thought I had written descriptions that randomly didn’t show up once I posted them…
1. I brought jello along in my luggage and made it for my host family. That is my mom on the left, beatrice my sister on the right, and vivi at the top. They loved it… 
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2. This is some of our group outside the training house. Basically we spend all day from 7:30 am – 4:30 pm here inside this house or out back in sessions, doing language, tech…etc. The trainers live here too and stay in the rooms inside.
3. The inside of my host families house. They are very wealthy for a Pitoa family.
4. The outside of my house. To the left is the inside of the house that you just saw, to the right is the kitchen and my room attached together.
5. My mom and beatrice hanging out on the weekend.
6. The inside of my room here in Pitoa.
7. Me, Matt, and Thea walking around Garoua looking for internet. It is always a wild goose chase… and hot and sweaty. Not the good kind of hot and sweaty…
8. A random road in Pitoa a month or so ago. It is definitely not as wet anymore as it has not rained in like a month and a half.. .
9. Most of the health training group and some volunteers at a bar in Pitoa after class.
10. First moto ride. I = scared.
11. Brian and I sporting our brand new moto helmets. Badass.
12. My house in HINA! This is where I will be living for the next 2 years. Can’t you just see me sitting with my legs up, petting my chickens and goats and reading a book?
13. On our way to Zivoul and Mayo-Kabba, small towns near Hina. I met with the traditional chief of the tribe and he gave me a gift of a cock. Booya. Hopefully he didn’t mean it literally…
14. On our way to Gamda-goum by way of Hamidou’s market truck. I will be riding a lot in this trusty old truck to Maroua and the surrounding villages to hitch rides for cheap. The area is beautiful though!
So… less than one week left of training! I found out that I passed my oral language test this monday so that means I can officially become a volunteer and don’t have to worry about the language requirement anymore.. YAYY! Also, that means I started learning a little bit of Fulfulde also which is the local African language spoken in Hina and many surrounding areas in Cameroon and West Africa as a whole.
Today we had our IEP presentations where each person researched a topic about Cameroonian culture and presented for at least 15 minutes in french. It went well and I did mine on “Nigerian Imports” to Cameroon because they are HUGE. Almost everything that is in the market aside from food here is imported illegally from Nigeria. All the gas too comes straight from Nigeria and is sold on the side of the road by random entrepeneurs.
This thursday is swearing in where we swear to uphold the American constitution and then thursday night we are all (Agros and health) going to downtown Garoua and staying in the nice hotel here and having a going away party which will just be a good time as they have a pool and music and everything. THen, early friday morning we will all be jumping in bush taxis and heading to our respective posts to begin our 2 years of service… AHH!
After we go to post we have 3 more meetings. IST (In-service training) is after 3 months at post so will be around the beginning of March and it is going to be down in the south hopefully on the beach at Kribi or Limbe for us health group. Mid-service training is after 1 year at post and will be in Yaounde. COS (Close of service) is after two years and is when we all head down to Yaounde and leave the country after a conference and a ton of medical stuff.
I had a request to give a standard day in the life for what I eat here:
6:30: A baguette with Tartina which is basically crappy Nutella and either Nescafe or Tea with citron
7:30: Head over to my trusty bean lady on the way to school and get 2 more baguettes filled with kidney or some sort of? beans and eat both of them before school even starts
9:30: Get hungry and during our 15 minute break head over to the primary school and buy one of many things… peanuts, corn-muffin-oil-filled balls, coconut balls (THE BEST), peanut-crunchy-stick things, biscuits…?
12: Head for lunch. We used to all go to our “lunch lady” who charged us all 700 CFA a piece and made rice with fried potatoes every day with a bunch of sauces, beans, peanut sauce, legume sauce, meat sauce, but really she was an awful cook and it all just tasted like MSG, Salt, and Oil mixed together. We recently stopped going to her after we finally got the balls to start eating street food that looks SUPER sketchy. So, now we all head to “omelette row” and get omelettes on, yes, you guessed it, another soft white baguette. So I get a 3 egg omelette with as much tomato and onion as she man will give me and try to explain to him that I don’t want it floating in oil. I also sometimes augment this with soya (street meat of questionable animal origin, either goat, sheep, or beef), this all depends how hungry I am which is always extremely.
The other day at lunch we went to my normal trusty omelette guy who makes me what I want and how I want it for 475 CFA (around a dollar) and I came and sat down and phil goes “dude, there is a guy under the table, be careful”. And I know Phil.. a joker.. just like me.. so I pull back the tablecloth and nope… there really is a guy under the table passed out. Along with eggs that I had been resting my feet on. Haha. Kauleen came over and sat down too and I was like Oh… dude… there is a guy under the table. He then proceeded to like push her leg out from under the table. It was his area, we were clearly the intruders. Oh, and also, the first day I went to my trusty omelette man I stepped in the sewer basically… what Phil and I called (Schisto water)… schistosomiasis is basically the worst thing ever and you should look it up… it and Filaria. Look up eye filaria and imagine all the horrible things we had to learn were possible to happen to us being here for two years. Pooping worms really does not seem so bad now.
3: Ok, on the note, back to eating! Yay Fecal–>Oral route in action! Eat the same sort of food as I ate during the 9:30 break.
7: Eat dinner at home which is always rice, yams, or potatos with tomato or peanut sauce. Basically usually just imagine a little color with salt and a white starch. MMMMMMMMMM. Really, sometimes it is good… but lately my host family has gotten the notion that I love dried fish in these dishes and it just smells like something died. I mean, something really did die… but a long time ago. I like fresh fish. I really have nothing to complain about though my host family feeds me enough food… they are wonderful and I love them!
Aight, I should head home to Pitoa… just wanted to update you all a bit! Love and miss you all! P.S. I got letters from Tanner, Kate, Abby, and the “Brad Wagenaar Fan-Club” yesterday. It all almost made me cry reading it and it is just amazing to recieve letters here. Thank you so much guys, I am blessed to have such caring friends.
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i’m so glad you got the letters! it only took almost two months….but i am glad the mail did not lose them. hooray!
good luck at your placement. i can’t wait to hear an update about it!
Comment by abbyclane December 6, 2008 @ 7:34 pm