My backyard
Cornfield and mountains behind my house
My house!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Week 2 at school
One day left, and I’ll have completed the first two weeks of school! They were made a little more complicated because I got sick. (A 24 hour fever which was not malaria, although the medicine made me sick, followed by a weird eye situation.) I’m all better now, and more prepared since I know all the hospital logistics. Turns out it’s just like the United States, if you come in crying like I did with my fever, they will see you right away. If you’re composed and tell them it’s just your eye that’s irritated, you have to wait with the masses. It was during the fever incident that I found out my landlord is actually a doctor at the hospital. I had met the man once the first day I came, never heard from him again, and then the day I have a fever he pops out of nowhere, in a totally different context, and can’t understand why I don’t immediately recognize him. Meanwhile, another doctor decided that this was the appropriate time to take me for a tour of the hospital. I told him I’d come back later because I needed to rest. When I didn’t, he turned up at my house, told me I had missed viewing his surgery and tried to get me to go have a drink with him.
However, it was my third (and hopefully final for a long time) trip that I met someone good! I was struggling to figure out the hospital procedure and out of nowhere this girl, Martine, says to me, in English, you look like you need some help. Basically you have to stand in line to pay for the visit, then you put your slip in a box and wait for your name to be called. Then you see the doctor, who in my case prescribed a completely worthless solution. Then you stand in line to pay for the treatment. Then you put your new slip in a different box and wait for someone to give you the medicine. It’s not exactly efficient or intuitive, but all the waiting around gave me time to make a new friend. Martine is 25. She’s from my village, but right now is studying to become a teacher in Maroua. I was very excited to meet another girl my age, especially one who speaks English quite well… more on that later. Because so far everyone here is either a man, very old or very young.
Martine and her family promptly adopted me. She took me to the market with her on Tuesday and just walking around with her was so fun because she knows everybody! She showed me where I can buy popcorn! I had dinner with her and her family that night. They fed Martine and I off of this big silver platter covered in macaroni. I thought I did a good job on that, but I drew the line after I had eaten one ear of corn and said I absolutely could not eat a second. The corn here is a totally different consistency though. At first I thought it was really overcooked because it was really chewy but now I’m wondering if it’s actually just a different variety. I’m a pretty slow eater as it is, but with all this chewing, it took me about forty minutes to get through this whole ear of corn. I think I even decided I liked it by the end. They insisted on sending the other ear of corn home with me saying I could have it for breakfast. And you know what I did? I had it for breakfast Wednesday morning! An ear of corn and an omelet (I’m still working on those eggs.)
Wednesday we had our first staff meeting, it started at 12:30 and went until 6pm!?! I had no idea that something could possibly go on that long, but it just did. I drank two sodas during that time, the huge Cameroonian style ones, but I couldn’t leave to go to the bathroom because I didn’t know where it was (now I do!) Then they brought out all these plates of chicken and the proviseur kept trying to get me to eat more of that.
I was supposed to have my first Fulfulde lesson with Martine’s sister on Wednesday afternoon. But after the most epic meeting of my life, there wasn’t really time to have it. By the time I returned home, Martine had already tried to track me down. I texted back apologizing, saying I felt so bad to keep her sister waiting. She responded, “I hope it wasn’t something you ate at my house, do you want me to come over and take care of you? “ I didn’t know where in the world this message had come from. (It was further complicated by the fact that my phone refuses to tell me who is calling/texting even though the numbers are already saved, blurgh.) I finally figured out that she thought “I feel bad” was “Je sens mal,” as in “I am sick.” Unfortunately I had run out of phone credit and it was too dark to go out searching at this point so I couldn’t even write her back that night, I felt so _____ je ne sais quoi! I’ll have to work on a more precise word for bad.
I ended up having my first Fulfulde lesson today. Martine’s older sister used to be a teacher but doesn’t have a job right now. I’m so happy to have finally found someone to do lessons with. After the lesson, I went back to their house with Jeanette. The family was in the process of viewing a major music video montage, so I probably just observed more American pop culture than I did in America. The highlight was probably when they asked me what “smack that” meant. Anyways I thought I had planned my visit perfectly to not coincide with any meals. But, when I tried to leave at 3:30, they were like you can’t leave until after you’ve eaten! And the carbohydrate parade continues…
However, it was my third (and hopefully final for a long time) trip that I met someone good! I was struggling to figure out the hospital procedure and out of nowhere this girl, Martine, says to me, in English, you look like you need some help. Basically you have to stand in line to pay for the visit, then you put your slip in a box and wait for your name to be called. Then you see the doctor, who in my case prescribed a completely worthless solution. Then you stand in line to pay for the treatment. Then you put your new slip in a different box and wait for someone to give you the medicine. It’s not exactly efficient or intuitive, but all the waiting around gave me time to make a new friend. Martine is 25. She’s from my village, but right now is studying to become a teacher in Maroua. I was very excited to meet another girl my age, especially one who speaks English quite well… more on that later. Because so far everyone here is either a man, very old or very young.
Martine and her family promptly adopted me. She took me to the market with her on Tuesday and just walking around with her was so fun because she knows everybody! She showed me where I can buy popcorn! I had dinner with her and her family that night. They fed Martine and I off of this big silver platter covered in macaroni. I thought I did a good job on that, but I drew the line after I had eaten one ear of corn and said I absolutely could not eat a second. The corn here is a totally different consistency though. At first I thought it was really overcooked because it was really chewy but now I’m wondering if it’s actually just a different variety. I’m a pretty slow eater as it is, but with all this chewing, it took me about forty minutes to get through this whole ear of corn. I think I even decided I liked it by the end. They insisted on sending the other ear of corn home with me saying I could have it for breakfast. And you know what I did? I had it for breakfast Wednesday morning! An ear of corn and an omelet (I’m still working on those eggs.)
Wednesday we had our first staff meeting, it started at 12:30 and went until 6pm!?! I had no idea that something could possibly go on that long, but it just did. I drank two sodas during that time, the huge Cameroonian style ones, but I couldn’t leave to go to the bathroom because I didn’t know where it was (now I do!) Then they brought out all these plates of chicken and the proviseur kept trying to get me to eat more of that.
I was supposed to have my first Fulfulde lesson with Martine’s sister on Wednesday afternoon. But after the most epic meeting of my life, there wasn’t really time to have it. By the time I returned home, Martine had already tried to track me down. I texted back apologizing, saying I felt so bad to keep her sister waiting. She responded, “I hope it wasn’t something you ate at my house, do you want me to come over and take care of you? “ I didn’t know where in the world this message had come from. (It was further complicated by the fact that my phone refuses to tell me who is calling/texting even though the numbers are already saved, blurgh.) I finally figured out that she thought “I feel bad” was “Je sens mal,” as in “I am sick.” Unfortunately I had run out of phone credit and it was too dark to go out searching at this point so I couldn’t even write her back that night, I felt so _____ je ne sais quoi! I’ll have to work on a more precise word for bad.
I ended up having my first Fulfulde lesson today. Martine’s older sister used to be a teacher but doesn’t have a job right now. I’m so happy to have finally found someone to do lessons with. After the lesson, I went back to their house with Jeanette. The family was in the process of viewing a major music video montage, so I probably just observed more American pop culture than I did in America. The highlight was probably when they asked me what “smack that” meant. Anyways I thought I had planned my visit perfectly to not coincide with any meals. But, when I tried to leave at 3:30, they were like you can’t leave until after you’ve eaten! And the carbohydrate parade continues…
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Mom, if you could see the deterioration of your former food policewoman you’d be shocked. Anyone who watched Mrs. Gray’s “Danger Zone” video in home-ec class would be quite naturally terrified of anything that has set out for more than one hour. That’s when the germs start to grow and then you can get sick. I just made tuna salad – with full knowledge that both the tuna and the mayonnaise were past their expiration dates. (Hardly by much, and next time I will remember to check before I buy them.) I don’t even really like mayo that much, but here it’s got a certain appeal for being American. Worse yet, I’m not even refrigerating it. The mayo and my eggs, just chilling on the counter.
Somehow I wound up buying 3 dozen eggs at the market last Tuesday. I’m not sure why, it all happened so fast. I was just so excited that they had eggs, something I knew how to deal with and my mind was already on scrambled eggs and hard boiled eggs and omelets (all without the addition of way too much oil and msg cubes like during training) and I didn’t realize that I didn’t necessarily have to buy the whole tray. (My friend Liz stood next to me during this whole interaction and never suggested that perhaps I only really wanted a half dozen). Apparently most of the things that we refrigerate at home, they don’t really need to be refrigerated at all. For example, jelly, mustard, ketchup, they should all be just fine on the counter. It’s weird to eat these things and not have them be cold though. I sort of miss having stuff be cold a lot. Anyways, I heard it on good authority that eggs can last three weeks if kept in a coolish spot (like underneath my counter?). I test them before I use them by putting them in a dish of water. They’re supposed to sink to the bottom. But, if they float to the top it means they’re filled with gases and have started to go bad. So far so good, except for whatever consuming 3 dozen eggs in 2-3 weeks will do to my cholesterol level.
As far as the teaching itself goes I think I’m off to a good start. I had all my classes write about their summer vacation. I collected these to get an idea of where everyone was at. I was a little confused when I had two kids writing about becoming priests, and then realized that they had confused the words vacation and vocation… who knows possibly due to my board handwriting.
The head of the English Department is still in Yaounde searching for his paycheck. But there is another English teacher who just surfaced today. He’s actually not an English teacher; he’s just an Anglophone who is working for the Department of Health, right across the street from the lycee. I’m pretty sure he’s the only Anglophone in this town so it’s easy to see how he got recruited. Anyways I was just making an exit from school when he came running after me. He’s got the sixiemes and the cinquiemes, the two youngest grades (definitely not jealous of that situation.) Anyways, apparently he’s taught older kids before but didn’t know what to do with these little squirts. So after lunch I went over to his office and brought him the plan pedegogiques and sample lesson plans from Model School. I tried as best I could to explain the concept of first planning out the school year, and then each week, and then each lesson. Then I explained the 4-mat, which is the particular way we learned how to plan lessons. First you get the kids interested, then you present the information, then they practice it and apply it. He didn’t seem like he was too enthused about the idea of singing songs with the children as warm up, but I wasn’t sold on that either until I actually tried it. Anyways he seemed pretty pleased with the stuff I gave him and said he was going to work it out this weekend. I feel like this was my first unofficial “teacher training.” It’s also nice having someone I can speak English with here in town!
There is a new French family here to work at the Catholic mission and it turns out they’re practically my neighbors. The mom is teaching and the dad is a carpenter and they have two adorable little girls. I saw their house the other day and got pretty jealous. They are all settled in already and it is so cute. Their running water works and they have a fridge! She did say that I could come over and take a shower/put things in their fridge which I thought was really nice. I would bring the eggs over there but I sort of feel like I’m committed to this experiment now, we’ll see.
I have another furniture addition! On Tuesday, my friend Bello knocked on my door. He was there with his dad carrying a large stick bed. He goes, you wanted one of these, right? I think that is pretty much the way things are going to happen here. I’ll just keep talking about all the things that I need for my house. Everyone keeps telling me “doucement, doucement” as in white girl, relax. And then, eventually the stuff will just turn up. Regardless, I’m pretty delighted cause I can turn it sideways and lean it against the wall… and then it’s sort of like shelves. Or at least it’s someplace to put some stuff that’s not crumpled up inside my suitcase. Every time I stick my hand in I’m terrified I’m going to run into a lizard. They are definitely all over my house but they’re not too big and they don’t bother me so much as some other things would. I’ll try and take a photo but they’re pretty quick little guys.
Somehow I wound up buying 3 dozen eggs at the market last Tuesday. I’m not sure why, it all happened so fast. I was just so excited that they had eggs, something I knew how to deal with and my mind was already on scrambled eggs and hard boiled eggs and omelets (all without the addition of way too much oil and msg cubes like during training) and I didn’t realize that I didn’t necessarily have to buy the whole tray. (My friend Liz stood next to me during this whole interaction and never suggested that perhaps I only really wanted a half dozen). Apparently most of the things that we refrigerate at home, they don’t really need to be refrigerated at all. For example, jelly, mustard, ketchup, they should all be just fine on the counter. It’s weird to eat these things and not have them be cold though. I sort of miss having stuff be cold a lot. Anyways, I heard it on good authority that eggs can last three weeks if kept in a coolish spot (like underneath my counter?). I test them before I use them by putting them in a dish of water. They’re supposed to sink to the bottom. But, if they float to the top it means they’re filled with gases and have started to go bad. So far so good, except for whatever consuming 3 dozen eggs in 2-3 weeks will do to my cholesterol level.
As far as the teaching itself goes I think I’m off to a good start. I had all my classes write about their summer vacation. I collected these to get an idea of where everyone was at. I was a little confused when I had two kids writing about becoming priests, and then realized that they had confused the words vacation and vocation… who knows possibly due to my board handwriting.
The head of the English Department is still in Yaounde searching for his paycheck. But there is another English teacher who just surfaced today. He’s actually not an English teacher; he’s just an Anglophone who is working for the Department of Health, right across the street from the lycee. I’m pretty sure he’s the only Anglophone in this town so it’s easy to see how he got recruited. Anyways I was just making an exit from school when he came running after me. He’s got the sixiemes and the cinquiemes, the two youngest grades (definitely not jealous of that situation.) Anyways, apparently he’s taught older kids before but didn’t know what to do with these little squirts. So after lunch I went over to his office and brought him the plan pedegogiques and sample lesson plans from Model School. I tried as best I could to explain the concept of first planning out the school year, and then each week, and then each lesson. Then I explained the 4-mat, which is the particular way we learned how to plan lessons. First you get the kids interested, then you present the information, then they practice it and apply it. He didn’t seem like he was too enthused about the idea of singing songs with the children as warm up, but I wasn’t sold on that either until I actually tried it. Anyways he seemed pretty pleased with the stuff I gave him and said he was going to work it out this weekend. I feel like this was my first unofficial “teacher training.” It’s also nice having someone I can speak English with here in town!
There is a new French family here to work at the Catholic mission and it turns out they’re practically my neighbors. The mom is teaching and the dad is a carpenter and they have two adorable little girls. I saw their house the other day and got pretty jealous. They are all settled in already and it is so cute. Their running water works and they have a fridge! She did say that I could come over and take a shower/put things in their fridge which I thought was really nice. I would bring the eggs over there but I sort of feel like I’m committed to this experiment now, we’ll see.
I have another furniture addition! On Tuesday, my friend Bello knocked on my door. He was there with his dad carrying a large stick bed. He goes, you wanted one of these, right? I think that is pretty much the way things are going to happen here. I’ll just keep talking about all the things that I need for my house. Everyone keeps telling me “doucement, doucement” as in white girl, relax. And then, eventually the stuff will just turn up. Regardless, I’m pretty delighted cause I can turn it sideways and lean it against the wall… and then it’s sort of like shelves. Or at least it’s someplace to put some stuff that’s not crumpled up inside my suitcase. Every time I stick my hand in I’m terrified I’m going to run into a lizard. They are definitely all over my house but they’re not too big and they don’t bother me so much as some other things would. I’ll try and take a photo but they’re pretty quick little guys.
Monday, September 6, 2010
First Day of School!
My bike is fixed so I rode it to school this morning. I got there around 6:45 since my proviseur said to arrive before the flag raising ceremony at 7am. Not a person in sight for about a half an hour. I was beginning to wonder if this was a big joke and school was going to start the next day. But then the vice principal turned up around 7:15 and by 7:30 most of the teachers were there. Classes were supposed to begin at 7:30, but there were no students at all. Then they rang the bell (banged on a huge rusty pot, that is wedged in a tree) and a bunch of kids materialized. So finally they got the flag up, sang the anthem and the proviseur gave a speech … but by this time it had started to rain. Fortunatly my first class was supposed to be two hours, since we ended up just starting an hour late I just had them for one hour instead but still got to meet with them.
All these stories about classes full of upwards of 100 students, I had 8 kids in my premiere class and 9 in my seconde. I just went through the program today, made class rules, discussed grading etc. The kids were absolutely delightful and definitely knew some English. I’m guessing that’s cause these are the 8 that took the time to show up, they’re probably the most interested. Apparently more and more kids will continue to show up each day as they return from vacation, so we’ll see.
Additionally, my curtains are up! Liz had extra stuff in her house that the previous volunteer had left so she gave me a rug, a mattress and a seat. I also moved my trunk into the living room so it could be a little table. So I’m much happier now that my house is becoming inhabitable. Let’s see, I had a pretty interesting weekend:
Saturday, I thought I was going on a walk with Agnes and Majoua at 9am. We ended up hiking up the side of a mountain, making and eating couscous and braiding my hair. I’m not really sure how all of this happened, I thought I was supposed to be working on my lesson plans. It poured rain all morning, so they turned up around 11. Then we followed this route, weaving in and out of yards/compounds etc. until we got to this mostly dried up river bank. There we somehow jumped across the puddles, trekked through a cornfield and then started legit rockclimbing. It didn’t look so big at first but it certainly tired me out. I guess I don’t have the energy of these fifteen year olds… made me feel kind of old. It was a really beautiful view from the top, I’m so mad I didn’t have my camera with me. Going down was borderline terrifying. Their strategy was to all hold hands, which I think they were doing to support me cause I was wobbling all around and I was in sneakers while they were wearing flip-flops, I don’t know how they did it.
After that they brought over some flour and were like let’s make couscous. Couscous and sauce is a traditional meal here. Before I would have said it was just water and flour, but now after having made it, I can definitely confirm that that is all it is. The sauce actually has lots of ingredients in it, tomatoes, onions, meat, piedmont, salt, ginger, garlic, a special ingredient that the importance was stressed but I forget the name of. Anyways it’s sort of an elaborate procedure to make this whole meal and the couscous is pretty much like glue so it sticks to the pot and it’s difficult to clean so somehow during this whole cleanup process the hairbraiding got started. They wanted me to keep it in for school starting but I took it out this morning cause it got kind of messed up after sleeping on it. Then Saturday night I broke fast with my Muslim neighbor by drinking booyay (this is definitely spelled wrong but that’s how it sounds). It’s sort of like hot milk with ground up rice meal and peanuts in it. It was really good.
The girls told me that church started at 7am on Sunday. I thought this was pretty early, but figured I wasn’t doing anything crazy Saturday night anyways. But then my neighbor said no it starts at 8am. So I went at 7am to check it out and there was nobody there so I went home. I returned at 8 and there were some kids chilling out in the seats. The church is actually outdoors , there’s all these stone stools that face a big stone wall that hides the sun and has the alter in front, its very beautiful. Finally around 8:30 a bell rang 3 times and then everyone turned up and processed together from the entry way to the “inside” of the church. It was really cool. They said the mass in French and translated it into at least 2 other languages during the service. There was a choir singing really nice songs. And everyone decked out in their best outfits or a Cameroonian football jersey. There’s a French couple who just arrived to teach at the grammar school in the mission and they brought their two little girls with them. I think they’re actually sort of my neighbors but I didn’t really get a chance to talk to them because all the teachers from the school found me right after the mass. Turns out, there isn’t really a start time, its just whenever the priest is ready, they ring the bell three times and then everyone comes. So, I’ll need to get used to this whole bell system.
All these stories about classes full of upwards of 100 students, I had 8 kids in my premiere class and 9 in my seconde. I just went through the program today, made class rules, discussed grading etc. The kids were absolutely delightful and definitely knew some English. I’m guessing that’s cause these are the 8 that took the time to show up, they’re probably the most interested. Apparently more and more kids will continue to show up each day as they return from vacation, so we’ll see.
Additionally, my curtains are up! Liz had extra stuff in her house that the previous volunteer had left so she gave me a rug, a mattress and a seat. I also moved my trunk into the living room so it could be a little table. So I’m much happier now that my house is becoming inhabitable. Let’s see, I had a pretty interesting weekend:
Saturday, I thought I was going on a walk with Agnes and Majoua at 9am. We ended up hiking up the side of a mountain, making and eating couscous and braiding my hair. I’m not really sure how all of this happened, I thought I was supposed to be working on my lesson plans. It poured rain all morning, so they turned up around 11. Then we followed this route, weaving in and out of yards/compounds etc. until we got to this mostly dried up river bank. There we somehow jumped across the puddles, trekked through a cornfield and then started legit rockclimbing. It didn’t look so big at first but it certainly tired me out. I guess I don’t have the energy of these fifteen year olds… made me feel kind of old. It was a really beautiful view from the top, I’m so mad I didn’t have my camera with me. Going down was borderline terrifying. Their strategy was to all hold hands, which I think they were doing to support me cause I was wobbling all around and I was in sneakers while they were wearing flip-flops, I don’t know how they did it.
After that they brought over some flour and were like let’s make couscous. Couscous and sauce is a traditional meal here. Before I would have said it was just water and flour, but now after having made it, I can definitely confirm that that is all it is. The sauce actually has lots of ingredients in it, tomatoes, onions, meat, piedmont, salt, ginger, garlic, a special ingredient that the importance was stressed but I forget the name of. Anyways it’s sort of an elaborate procedure to make this whole meal and the couscous is pretty much like glue so it sticks to the pot and it’s difficult to clean so somehow during this whole cleanup process the hairbraiding got started. They wanted me to keep it in for school starting but I took it out this morning cause it got kind of messed up after sleeping on it. Then Saturday night I broke fast with my Muslim neighbor by drinking booyay (this is definitely spelled wrong but that’s how it sounds). It’s sort of like hot milk with ground up rice meal and peanuts in it. It was really good.
The girls told me that church started at 7am on Sunday. I thought this was pretty early, but figured I wasn’t doing anything crazy Saturday night anyways. But then my neighbor said no it starts at 8am. So I went at 7am to check it out and there was nobody there so I went home. I returned at 8 and there were some kids chilling out in the seats. The church is actually outdoors , there’s all these stone stools that face a big stone wall that hides the sun and has the alter in front, its very beautiful. Finally around 8:30 a bell rang 3 times and then everyone turned up and processed together from the entry way to the “inside” of the church. It was really cool. They said the mass in French and translated it into at least 2 other languages during the service. There was a choir singing really nice songs. And everyone decked out in their best outfits or a Cameroonian football jersey. There’s a French couple who just arrived to teach at the grammar school in the mission and they brought their two little girls with them. I think they’re actually sort of my neighbors but I didn’t really get a chance to talk to them because all the teachers from the school found me right after the mass. Turns out, there isn’t really a start time, its just whenever the priest is ready, they ring the bell three times and then everyone comes. So, I’ll need to get used to this whole bell system.
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