1.18.06
Yesterday I went to Nkambe (a town an hour North of Ndu) for a meeting/ceremony with the Senior Divisional Officer—it was his New Years address. We went to represent the NGO (and other NGOs in the area, although there were only two others there). It was also a chance for me to meet him, since I’m supposed to meet all the administration figures in the area. The ceremony was pretty cool, lots of important people. A representative from each “group” would give a little speech talking about needs/wants/recommendations for the year, say ‘happy new year,’ and then the whole group would pose for a picture while nice classical music played over the speakers…it was quite pleasant! However, some speeches lasted a little longer than I would have hoped but they were important, talking about countering corruption, the HIPC initiative (Highly Indebted Poor Countries), the unity of Cameroon and such things. I was able to meet mayors, deputies, divisional leaders, etc. The day was long and dusty, the road there is not good, but good to see and I enjoyed meeting all the important people!
The African Nations Cup starts on the 20th…every one is psyched! Hopefully Cameroon will do better than the last important game they played (losing in October and not qualifying for the World Cup)! It’ll be an experience, these people live for futball! We are giving a peer-educator training next week. It will be good experience for me—I’m leading a few sessions of HIV/AIDS and peer education—plus it will be good to see what information is already out there.
Hopefully soon I can start going to schools and working there as well…I’d still like to start a girls group but since there are many schools in town it is hard to decide which one to go to…maybe I’ll start two! I am surprised at the amount of work I do have, it’s nice though. I am glad to be able to go somewhere each day, even if some days I just read or type to you all, I do have planning to do and preparation for a few trainings. I like having work, it keeps me busy and when I look at my calendar I am shocked…it’s already January 18th!! The time is flying by. I am excited for the Superbowl in a few weeks (crossing my fingers that the Broncos will be in it!!) and can’t wait for another weekend with my friends to watch! We hope to find a place with a satellite showing it.
Miscellaneous:
-Usher, Celine Dion, Brian Adams…playing ALL the time. There are moments when I’m feeling very “African”—walking down the dirt road with goats, children and women carrying massive baskets on their heads, traditional clothes everywhere…and then I hear Celine Dion blasting…it’s like a clash of cultures.
-I am buying a machete this week!
-I used almost all my water store on Saturday washing my floors and doing laudry. I pounded so hard that I was sure I’d developed carpel tunnel syndrome in my writs…they’re fine though.
-When I was running the other day I had three little kids run along side me for a little while (maybe 25 yards) laughing the whole time. I gave them high-fives and told them to run with me next time. I have no doubt that they’ll be waiting when I go back.
-My neighbor who has satellite tv (with an amazing number of channels!) LOVES WWE (apparently the new version of WWF…lost of drama, body slams, and oiled up, half dressed bodies). They cheer and have favorites. I’ve been lucky enough to watch it with them a few times, they don’t understand why I don’t know all the wrestlers by name…I haven’t tried to explain!
-More next time :)
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Friday, January 13, 2006
01.13.2006
Last night I went to my neighbors to see the new baby. He's adorable! They were taking a bunch of pictures and had me stand in most of them which I thought was funny. They also made me put on a nice pair of her shoes, apparently my dirty flip-flops weren't quite picture material! It was great...Especially when they handed me the baby and took some of just him and me...Made me feel important! They had me open the bottle of champagne (made me nervous because I was sure the cork would break something important! It was ok though). Later I went outside with them women and ended up plucking leaves off of vegetables for an hour with them. They were hilarious, laughing and yelling, it was great. It was my first real glimspe into women together in the kitchen, usually I'm sitting inside with the men, which is also entertaining but much different! They're always finishing off beers or palm wine and watching TV...It's fun either way to be included. They love to show me "Cameroonian" things and laugh when I try to do them!
01.11.2006
Ah, Cameroon wins again! I had a good two pages written for the blog when the power, naturally, went out. This shouldn't surprise me, yet I continue to not save things regularly and only remember when I'm staring blankly at the blank black screen thinking, "Ally, you should have saved it!" Oh well. Everything is going well here. Just working on little things here and there, days are passing quicker and quicker. I have many things on my 'to do' list including going to schools and churches to discuss work options with them. With SOF we're working on peer educator trainings and maybe a business training for my co-workers. Now I am not giving this training (obviously for those of you who know a, how I feel about business or b, how much I don't know about business) but another volunteer will give it. Aside from those things I am trying to learn Limbum, the local language, which I'm sure will be of great use to be once I return to the States. But it will be very helpful here to communicate with more rural villagers and women. I am still trying to learn some Pidgin too, always entertaining, and I know will be useful someday in giving wedding speeches and such! I hope to find a French tutor soon too, I'd like my 3 months of French to not be a complete waste! I still have random stuff to do around the house and am trying to meet my neighbors and others around town. So, I am staying busy, or at least trying to!
I was in Bamenda this past weekend friends for our Provincial meeting. It was a lot of fun. Shopping, hanging out at the hotel watching bad movies and CNN, eating out, and even a little karaoke (which pretty much involved me laughing the whole time while Kelsey tried to sing "Favorite Things" from Sound of Music and we ended up "singing" about 10 words of the chorus from "Angel" by Shaggy). At lunch one day we watched a group of men chopping wood. We were sitting outside on the balcony of a restaurant playing an intense game of "BS" while they were chopping wood below. Over the course of a half hour we watched them start and finish a bottle of whiskey and then proceed to dance, sing, chop wood with flimsy sandals on their feet, and toss the axe back and forth. I stopped watching after a while because I could clearly see someone's hand or foot being cleanly cut off...it made me nervous.
The dust has been amazing...it's everywhere. I sweep my house daily and still (even though I keep the doors and windows shut) there is dust, everyday. But, yesterday it rained! It was wonderful! After about an hour the plants were green again, the roofs were shiny and there was red mud & dirty water dripping off of everything. This morning town just looked so clean, it was great! It was cold last night and unfortunately all the firewood just sits outside, so no fire to warm up the house. I just made some tea, some dinner, and sat and read Newsweek by candle light...it was a nice night and even nicer when the power came back on just in time to charge my phone before bed.
Today a woman walked up to me on the street and said, "I am eating carrot!" I smiled and responded, "Great! Is it good?" Then she handed me the whole bunch of carrots from her bag. I politely took one and thanked her...this is the kind of weird, yet nice, stuff that happens daily. This, and I am laughed at about 56 times a day. Among the many lessons I am learning here, one is humility! I try to take as much as I can with a grain of salt and laugh along with them even though 9 times out of 10 I have no idea what I did that was so funny. I still have children who stare and point at me as though I am an alien. I just smile and say, "Gooooood moooorrrnniiinngg." There is generally just blank stares and continued pointing but I hope that I'm making some progress and maybe by 2007 they'll just stare, or just point, or maybe even speak...we'll see! Last week was the last market before a Muslim holiday (Feast of the Ram) and at one point I was passed by a truck with (easily) 75 goats and sheep inside and probably another 15 tied to the outside. I stood there staring in awe wishing there were someone around who found it as amazing as me...nobody seemed to notice!
The other night, while we watched WWF on satellite (humiliating for me seeing as they associate America with WWF and I didn't attempt to explain the ''entertainment'' factor), my neighbors told me that I spoke well. They asked if I had been to Africa before and were shocked when I said no. They told me that I spoke English so they could understand, and that was amazing. "It's like you are talking to children!" They explained. So thanks to the Ferreros and Schmitz (specifically) for helping my language skills develop to the point they are now. It has been almost a month in Ndu, and time has gone fast! Most days drag on but weeks seem to fly by. I have been lucky enough to talk to a few friends and my family on the phone this week, which is very nice. Even if there isn't much to say or anything meaningful to share, it's just nice to hear their voices and hear the little stuff that's going on (or big stuff, like engagements and such!). Hope that 2006 has started out well! Talk to you soon.
Last night I went to my neighbors to see the new baby. He's adorable! They were taking a bunch of pictures and had me stand in most of them which I thought was funny. They also made me put on a nice pair of her shoes, apparently my dirty flip-flops weren't quite picture material! It was great...Especially when they handed me the baby and took some of just him and me...Made me feel important! They had me open the bottle of champagne (made me nervous because I was sure the cork would break something important! It was ok though). Later I went outside with them women and ended up plucking leaves off of vegetables for an hour with them. They were hilarious, laughing and yelling, it was great. It was my first real glimspe into women together in the kitchen, usually I'm sitting inside with the men, which is also entertaining but much different! They're always finishing off beers or palm wine and watching TV...It's fun either way to be included. They love to show me "Cameroonian" things and laugh when I try to do them!
01.11.2006
Ah, Cameroon wins again! I had a good two pages written for the blog when the power, naturally, went out. This shouldn't surprise me, yet I continue to not save things regularly and only remember when I'm staring blankly at the blank black screen thinking, "Ally, you should have saved it!" Oh well. Everything is going well here. Just working on little things here and there, days are passing quicker and quicker. I have many things on my 'to do' list including going to schools and churches to discuss work options with them. With SOF we're working on peer educator trainings and maybe a business training for my co-workers. Now I am not giving this training (obviously for those of you who know a, how I feel about business or b, how much I don't know about business) but another volunteer will give it. Aside from those things I am trying to learn Limbum, the local language, which I'm sure will be of great use to be once I return to the States. But it will be very helpful here to communicate with more rural villagers and women. I am still trying to learn some Pidgin too, always entertaining, and I know will be useful someday in giving wedding speeches and such! I hope to find a French tutor soon too, I'd like my 3 months of French to not be a complete waste! I still have random stuff to do around the house and am trying to meet my neighbors and others around town. So, I am staying busy, or at least trying to!
I was in Bamenda this past weekend friends for our Provincial meeting. It was a lot of fun. Shopping, hanging out at the hotel watching bad movies and CNN, eating out, and even a little karaoke (which pretty much involved me laughing the whole time while Kelsey tried to sing "Favorite Things" from Sound of Music and we ended up "singing" about 10 words of the chorus from "Angel" by Shaggy). At lunch one day we watched a group of men chopping wood. We were sitting outside on the balcony of a restaurant playing an intense game of "BS" while they were chopping wood below. Over the course of a half hour we watched them start and finish a bottle of whiskey and then proceed to dance, sing, chop wood with flimsy sandals on their feet, and toss the axe back and forth. I stopped watching after a while because I could clearly see someone's hand or foot being cleanly cut off...it made me nervous.
The dust has been amazing...it's everywhere. I sweep my house daily and still (even though I keep the doors and windows shut) there is dust, everyday. But, yesterday it rained! It was wonderful! After about an hour the plants were green again, the roofs were shiny and there was red mud & dirty water dripping off of everything. This morning town just looked so clean, it was great! It was cold last night and unfortunately all the firewood just sits outside, so no fire to warm up the house. I just made some tea, some dinner, and sat and read Newsweek by candle light...it was a nice night and even nicer when the power came back on just in time to charge my phone before bed.
Today a woman walked up to me on the street and said, "I am eating carrot!" I smiled and responded, "Great! Is it good?" Then she handed me the whole bunch of carrots from her bag. I politely took one and thanked her...this is the kind of weird, yet nice, stuff that happens daily. This, and I am laughed at about 56 times a day. Among the many lessons I am learning here, one is humility! I try to take as much as I can with a grain of salt and laugh along with them even though 9 times out of 10 I have no idea what I did that was so funny. I still have children who stare and point at me as though I am an alien. I just smile and say, "Gooooood moooorrrnniiinngg." There is generally just blank stares and continued pointing but I hope that I'm making some progress and maybe by 2007 they'll just stare, or just point, or maybe even speak...we'll see! Last week was the last market before a Muslim holiday (Feast of the Ram) and at one point I was passed by a truck with (easily) 75 goats and sheep inside and probably another 15 tied to the outside. I stood there staring in awe wishing there were someone around who found it as amazing as me...nobody seemed to notice!
The other night, while we watched WWF on satellite (humiliating for me seeing as they associate America with WWF and I didn't attempt to explain the ''entertainment'' factor), my neighbors told me that I spoke well. They asked if I had been to Africa before and were shocked when I said no. They told me that I spoke English so they could understand, and that was amazing. "It's like you are talking to children!" They explained. So thanks to the Ferreros and Schmitz (specifically) for helping my language skills develop to the point they are now. It has been almost a month in Ndu, and time has gone fast! Most days drag on but weeks seem to fly by. I have been lucky enough to talk to a few friends and my family on the phone this week, which is very nice. Even if there isn't much to say or anything meaningful to share, it's just nice to hear their voices and hear the little stuff that's going on (or big stuff, like engagements and such!). Hope that 2006 has started out well! Talk to you soon.
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