The last week of training was pretty much a whirlwind. We had the closing ceremony of model school where we gave prizes out to the students. The internet broke at the training building which is why I sort of dropped off the map for a while. But it was nice because everyone just spent a lot of time together before going our separate ways in Cameroon. The graduation ceremony was really nice, everyone got a big kick out of our matching outfits which was fun. Then we had a luncheon with our host families. And all us brand new volunteers spent the night together at a hotel in town and left early the next morning (last Thursday) for post. It was pretty sad to say goodbye to the other volunteers, my host family and the trainers. My host family printed out some pictures they had taken of me with the family & Pascaline made me a cake which was really sweet.

After lots of travelling we made it to Maroua where we spent the weekend at the Peace Corps House. We did lots of shopping for our houses but I didn’t manage to buy anything practical whatsoever. That’s because on site visit there was this one locked bedroom in my house. We peered in the window and saw lots of boxes but no one could tell me what it was. Some helpful friends suggested that it was probably dead bodies or the beginnings of Mummy III. But, I was holding out hope that it might be some useful items left by the former volunteers. We planned to film the breaking down of the door when I got to post. So I was disappointed to get into my house and find the door unlocked and completely empty, still a mystery.

The household items that I did buy in Maroua were a marmite (big pot), some tye dyed buckets and a matching set of ceramic dishes straight out of the 1950s, these are everywhere, … all of which turned out to be available at the market here in village. I was able to buy some tye dye bowls that match my buckets. Unfortunately I was left without utensils or glasses, details like that.

Someone from Peace Corps’ brother came and picked up Rose, Liz and I and all our stuff to take us to our posts. We were very impressed to be riding in a CRV with air conditioning… and were just referring to ourselves as “Posh Corps” when the fasten seatbelt buzzer came on and persisted beeping for the entire trip. Then we were reminded that we were actually in Africa.

I was the last one to get dropped off, which I’m pretty sure makes me the last volunteer to actually arrive at post. My proviseur (principal) is also my community host. He came right over with my keys to let me into my house. I had been a little nervous at first when I found out that my proviseur was going to be my community host since we had learned in training that Cameroonian society is very hierarchical and male dominated, especially in the north. So I was pretty worried about how our interactions would go. But he has been more welcoming than I could have possibly imagined. First thing he did was change the lock on my front door and then he started installing new lightbulbs all over the house. He took me home with him to have dinner with his family the first two nights and keeps telling me that I’m his daughter. The first night we had macaroni and the second we had couscous and gumbo (neither are anything like what you are probably thinking) which we ate with our hands which was pretty fun.