After vaca extraordinaire 2011, I spent about 2 weeks in Yaounde helping with the design of the new Youth Development Program. It was really cool to be a part of the development although sometimes things got a little too complicated and tied up in the exact way objectives needed to be worded etc. which was a little discouraging but overall a good experience and I’m looking forward to coming back down south in October to actually help train the new volunteers.
I have a new cell phone. I upgraded to a 2-sim card phone like all my Cameroonian friends. Now I have two phone numbers, each card is a different company so this way you call the people with mtn from your mtn card and orange calls from the orange number. The best part: The ringtone that came with the phone? “Boom Boom Boom, I want you in my room.” (I wasn’t going to admit to losing another phone but that ringtone is just too good to keep in Cameroon.)
One of the coolest things we did in Yaounde was attend a football match. It was Cameroon vs. Mauritus. It was a little disconcerting since the score was still 0-0 at the half and I thought we were going to have to leave early (the last match vs. Senegal ended in a bit of a riot) but apparently at this point we we’re already out of the competition so the stakes were not so high. Then Cameroon ended up scoring 6 goals and everybody was happy.
I finally made it back to post and my friend Bello had almost completely moved me into my new house. I can’t believe how perfectly the situation worked itself out. Mosquito net assembled, curtains up, literally everything. I was so happy because I don’t think I could have dealt with moving in to a new place and starting the school year simultaneously like last year. The house is pink (!) It has a (nonfunctioning) bathtub and beautiful tiled floors. In addition my friend Mariam, who’s sister-in-law is the landlady, arranged for this furniture to get placed in. So I have a legit couch/chair situation on loan which is wayyyy nicer than all of my other furniture which had been made out of sticks. Most importantly, the house is in the same concession as 3 other houses. There’s the doctor from the laboratory with his child bride and baby in one house, another house is Mariam’s nephew (also a former student) and the last house is one of the new guidance councilors from the school. (Why we got affected 2 guidance councilors when there are not even enough teachers is a little beyond me) All of them plus 2 exceptionally mean dogs, I am very happy here already.
School is underway. Of course I am teaching none of the classes which I was expecting/asked for. I was pretty annoyed at first but It turns out that the principal was actually directing me towards some of the smaller classes (and by smaller I still mean 80) but it does make a difference. It is a little sad though since I don’t have any of my same students and they’re all like madam what happened!?! I also got suckered into doing more hours this year but I won’t be managing the library since that’s where the guidance councilors are getting stationed … its unclear to me that anyone knows exactly what to do with them and I’m a little worried that they’re not going to manage the library well but we’ll see.
Its been really nice to get settled back in and see everybody. The general consensus is that I have “pris des poids” (gained weight) during the vacation. I keep reminding myself that they just mean it as a compliment and I’ve stopped trying to correct them because that just makes them insist more adamantly about really how fat I am!
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