1) Site visit (old news)
2) Model School (news)
3) FAQ's/Rants
1) Site--I've been posted to a "college" (middle school through high school equivalent) in a small village just outside of Mamfe in the Southwest province. I visited there a few weeks ago, and am very excited, and becoming more so about how things will go there. There is an apparently decently equipped science lab, and a computer lab, though both of those will require further investigation for functionality. Everyone that I met was very welcoming and nice, and there are 2 volunteers within 15 minutes of me, and another an hour away, so it will be nice to have some friends close by!
Downsides: it's in an Anglophone (read: English speaking) province, which means my (currently "Advanced Low") level of French will likely deteriorate. This is typical for science volunteers, though, as they are all placed in places where they will be teaching in English. Why? Well, can you explain osmosis? Yes? No? How about in French? No, didn't think so. Me neither.
It's also pretty remote. It's only 150km from Bamenda, a fairly major city, but ALL the roads leading to Mamfe are horrid, especially during the rainy season. In theory, they are working on the Bamenda road at the moment, but it took one volunteer 7.5 hours to make it going that way. Lame.
I took a different road, from Kumba, a southern route. It looked like this:
So I did this:
I know, classic american move. I'm the whiteman in the middle. That's a semi that's stuck in the mud behind me. What you can't see are the teeny tiny flies that were biting the crap out of me at the time. Don't worry, I'm pretty sure I don't have filaria. Or schistosomiasis.
Yes, whiteman--it's a non-gender specific term.
Ok, so that's my post. I took pictures of my house, but don't want to post them yet because I intend to make it much nicer after I get there, so look for a before and after post in the future. One more fun fact--it's an all girls Catholic boarding school. So look for some fun cross-cultural religous moments in the future. The priest that is in charge of the church there (not the school), is apparently Dutch, but gives his sermons in Pidgin. Looking forward to Mass just for that alone!
2) Model school. Peace Corps sets up a "Holiday School" in Bangangte for all the trainees to test themselves out. The kids are real, the subject material is real, the lack of resources is VERY real. Right now, the main textbook I'm using for my 9th/10th grade equivalent Biology class was published in 1985, and classifies bacteria and fungi as plants. Oh lordy lord, what will I do.
I'm also teaching 6th grade chemistry. The syllabus requires that we cover lab safety and equipment. Of course, we have no lab, or lab equipment. So that means drawing a Bunsen burner on the board and describing it. Fail. Most touching moment so far: a boy comes up to me after chemistry class and says, "Madam, do you think that maybe some times when we are learning about chemistry, you could bring some things from chemistry into the class? I am very interested in learning more about chemistry." 1, 2, 3, "awwwwwwww".....ugh, tragic. Looking forward to actually having a beaker to pass around the room. Note to PC: you can put a computer lab in, any chance the science team could get a test tube? Just one?
And, I'm also teaching the 9th/10th graders computers, IT as it is known here. First practical lesson was on opening an email account. "Click on the address bar and type mail.yahoo.com". Not hard? Yes, hard. After an hour, I think about 3 students managed to open an account, and I'm not sure if all of them were able to remember their user name and password. So we'll go back to that again this week and try again. And then I'll be teaching a theory lesson on excel. What is a theory lesson you might ask? Well, in Cameroon, all students are required to learn about computers. Regardless of whether or not there are actual computers available. So, we draw a picture of the window, and explain what each part is, where you would click, and what would happen. Of course, this is the reason WHY the instruction "click on the address bar and type mail.yahoo.com" is difficult.
But, overall, teaching is going alright. I'm learning a lot, and I think I'm figuring out what works for now, and what will work differently when I get to post.
3) "Autre Chose". French keyboards. My dad told me to post my rant, so here goes:
a) You have to shift to type a period. The same key is used for the explanation point. Why on earth would you think you would use the exclamation point more often than the period!!!!!!!
b) Numbers--you have to shift to enter a number. Insanity, I tell you!
c) Too much crap on each key: On a french keyboard, there is a shift, a control, an alt, and an "Alt Gr", so you have even more options for what to press to get the character you want. For example, to get the @, you "Alt Gr" and then press 8 (I think). No wonder it's difficult to type anything in the address bar!!!
Mice and roaches: 6 mice down, who knows how many more to go. Anyone from 4th R here? Remember showing up monday mornings to the smell of death from the mice that died over the weekend? Yeah, that was under my bed.
Explorit: Yes, madagascar hissing cockroaches that live in a fishtank are fine, unknown cockroach species that live in my bedroom AND HAVE WINGS, are not.
Food: Everyone wants to know what I eat:
Breakfast--varies between eggs and bread (my fav), bread and "bouille(?)", a thin cream of wheat type porridge that's corn based (tasty, not so filling), and today we had bread and margarine. Nescafe to top it off, mmmmm.
Morning snack: Used to be cake and coffee, has shifted to spaghetti-bean-sauce-piment (spicy stuf) sandwich. Yummy protein. Especially important on Bouille/margarine days.
Lunch: There's a lady next door to the PC office building that makes lunch. Usually spaghetti with carrots and green beans (btw Amanda--I have officially gotten over my undying hatred of green beans, due to their abundance and lack of other green non-gross veggie options), beans, plantains, and something else. Today was boiled potatoes with carrots and green beans also. Very tasty, though sometimes I go across the street for a spaghetti-omelette sandwich for variety.
NB: Yes, I have said twice now that spaghetti goes in a sandwich. And spaghetti goes in an omelette. And an omelette goes in a sandwich. Moral of the story: Anything in bread is good.
Dinner: With the host family, highly variable. We'll do a top 3 and a bottom 3 for comparative purposes.
Top 3:
1)Koki--crushed beans and oil, boiled inside a banana leaf. I think of it as Cameroonian tofu, and Is definitely my fav.
2) Ndole and cous-cous: Cous cous is not what you think. Here, it's kind of a paste, that you eat with your hands, dipping it in sauce. Ndole is a green leaf that has to be prepared carefully in order to not be very bitter, haven't tried my hand at this yet. Cous-cous can be served with many other things, and most of them are pretty ok. This is usually served with a meat of some sort in a red sauce. So you grab a blob of couscous, dip it in the sauce, grab some ndole and some meat, and eat. Yum.
3) Poisson Braisse--Grilled fish. Yes, it's a whole fish, with skin and bones and other assorted parts, but it is SOOOO good. Usually taken with baton du manioc, which are rope like things made of manioc flour. Kind of pasty and flavorless, but good for dipping in spicy sauce that comes with the fish. Dig.
Bottom 3:
1) Gombo. Not Gumbo. Not even close. Texture is exactly that of a snail slime trail, except slimier. Eaten with couscous, I still haven't mastered the art of getting a wad of it up, as it sticks together constantly. Will probably actually refuse to eat this if it's offered a third time.
2) Dried fish in sauce. Dry, bones are impossible to find, flavor is fishier than fishy. Downgrade.
3) Assorted cow parts: So far have done stomach, intestine, skin, and I think heart has been thrown in without my knowledge. I have every intention of going back to vegetarianism (except for the fish!) once I get to post. Don't like having to play "guess the organ" at dinner.
Note: Si ma famille le lit, s'il vous plait ne prend pas d'offence. La plus part de la nourriture que vous m'avez offre etaient TRES bien, mais mes amis et ma famille veulent savoir que je mange, et je veux dit la verite de la nourriture Camerounaise!
I think that will do for now! Love to you all, hope all is well with you and yours, and now that I have my own internet (oh yeah, I did that too), I am hopefully going to be a more faithful blogger. Oh, and--I've also made it a goal (that I've actually stuck with better than blogging), that I write one actual physical letter per week. Please let me know if you'd like to get one, and feel free to send one my way. Mail is super exciting, and your good thoughts and wishes are even more important to me than clif bars, baby wipes, trail mix, hand sanitizer, College science textbook cd's, and crest toothpaste. Although any of those things would also be handy :) A la prochaine fois. Next time: I go talk fine Pidgin for ma blog.
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