Projects at post

Fete de la Jeuneusse: Some elementary school students getting ready for the parade.

February: Bilingualism Day. The student of English club prepared a bunch of skits and performed for their classmates.

Making jewelry out of recycled paper at the Environmental Education Camp
January: Environmental Education Camp, all the kids in their team colors. Talking about money management and savings with local women beignet sellers.

December 1st: AIDS Day awareness. The girls club hosted a soiree to educate their classmates about AIDS. This was our round table featuring two female health workers talking about the increased susceptibility of girls to the disease being moderated by one of my terminalle students.
November: "Fete de la reculte" The harvest festival.

The Kellys Come to Cameroon

My mom, dad and Aunt Barbara came to visit me over Christmas! They met all my friends in village, saw the sights and travelled around the country a bit. Everybody was so excited to see them it was a really awesome visit.

My friend bought this pagne expressly for my father... so we got a matching ensemble made and wore it to a wedding that night.

Mom and dad drinking bilbil (millet beer) out of traditional kalabashes at Martine's house.
Bello and Daniel showing how its really done.


Hiking out to Mariam's village, the damn and the sorcerer.

Group visit to Waza National Park in our matching outfits. We saw lots of giraffes, warthogs, antelopes, ostriches, monkeys etc.


We stayed overnight in Waza, hoping to see some lions very early the next morning, which he unfortunatly didn't. But, it was pretty seeing the animals in the early morning.

We spent Christmas near Bamenda in the anglophone region with my friend Roger and his family. We went to a church and then had a big party at his house and climbed up an old volcano. It was great for my parents to actually be able to speak English themselves.


We went to visit Kumbo in the Northwest region where a big cultural festival happens every other year. All of the traditional "jujus" came out and paraded. Except, it wasn't just a parade where you would watch people walk by. If a juju came up to you, you had to bow down out of respect, and so that they wouldn't hit you with their sticks. Then you threw money at their feet. One came up to me and wouldn't stop waving his stick, even though I gave the money, and finally I realized that he wanted my beer & he chugged the whole thing!

Some jujus are more dangerous than others. For example, this one was the most dangerous of all. Those ropes attach him to handlers who can pull him in if he gets too agressive. They didn't do much to stop him from jumping onto Jake's friend's car and smashing the windshield.

I have a new postmate! Her name is Adele and she's from France. She just arrived while I was in Yaounde doing training for the new volunteers. She is at the Catholic Hospital being a midwife. Here, my neighbor Bridgitte is braiding her hair.


Making yogurt. Well, Dada already made the yogurt, I am just helping to put it into plastic bags the night before the market. The yogurt is really good and most importantly, cold.

Eating couscous and sauce.


Everybody decked out for Fete de Muton. This is the big Muslim celebration which occurs 40 days after the end of Ramadan. If people have enough money, they slaughter a sheep. And then you eat a lot of sheep.

Most akward photo ever. Mambih's "copine" (girlfriend) feeding him food while I totally lose it laughing while sitting between the two of the them. Did I really come all the way to Africa just to be the third wheel on people's dates... Any PDA is strictly taboo in this country... but this somehow is totally appropriate?

Some pictures from post

GIANT squash/melon. Its the end of rainy season.

Defache's two kids. How adorable are they?


Lunch at Mambih's house (far left) with Tikire, Defache and Rose.


Me and one of my colleagues in our Teacher's Day Pagne 2011. This year I had it made into pants and a shirt since I'm sick of getting stuck in the bicycle tires trying to ride to school in these long skirts.

Back to training

I just got back from helping out with training. I went and visited my host family which was a lot of fun to see them all again. My host mommy had a baby since I left, so that is Felix, only about 6 weeks old, so cute! They have a new stagiere living with them now so we swapped some stories.

I helped do some training sessions for the new youth development program so that was cool to meet all the new volunteers and hopefully give some good advice.

Now its back up north and back to school, and grading.

More house photos

My bathtub! (and Roasile's bicycle)
Front porch
Hanger and Outdoor Kitchen
Kitchen building
My bedroom

New (School) Year!

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!