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…