Hi everyone!

Sorry it has been awhile since I have last written. Things have been very busy these past few months. At the of May I went to Yaounde for training. We were getting ready for that new stagiares (or trainees) who arrived in June. I stayed in Yaounde for about two weeks preparing sessions and activities for the newbies with other volunteers and admin staff. While a lot of volunteers were together, we planned a Peace Corps prom with the theme of “Post Apocalyptic Winter Wasteland”. Everyone dressed up in costumes using whatever they could find which consisted of trash bags, large belts, dirt, up for grabs clothes, and random accessories acquired in the market. Needless to say, we all looked pretty fantastic. It was a lot of fun and it will have to be repeated next year.

After I finished in Yaounde, I packed my bags and got ready to go on vacation. First I went to Paris to visit my friend Jasmine who was teaching in Lyon. We explored the city and visited the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, an Andy Warhol exhibit and other museums, as well as countless metro lines. It was a lot of fun and I couldn’t get enough of the cheese and flushing toilets. It was strange to be in western culture again and have access to many wonderful amenities like clean sheets and hot water. I stayed in Paris for three days then boarded another plane for Austin.

Being back in Austin again was so wonderful but also a little strange because I was on vacation in the city I grew up in. It was so nice to see family and friends again after a year of being away. I had a relaxing few days in South Padre Island with my family and also traveled around to Houston to hang out with friends. I found it very strange that everyone has jobs in real world now. What’s that about? I miss college days where everyone lived in the same city and we could have late night dance parties and order pizza at 3 in the morning. While I was in Austin we also had fake Thanksgiving. Being in Cameroon, I missed out on all the good food you have at Thanksgiving so I had my family recreate the event for me in June complete with pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes with gravy. It was fabulous and I really don’t know why we don’t eat these delicious foods year round. I think when I move back to the States I’ll have Thanksgiving at least 3 times a year…

After a fun-filled 3 weeks of vacation, I traveled back to Cameroon to start my second year as a Peace Corps volunteer. It might seem strange, but I actually did miss Cameroon while I was living it up in the land of Ben and Jerry’s and reliable electricity. I have lots of projects going on here and a lot of good Cameroonian friends as well as a comfy house with a lazy cat who entertains me. I really have gotten used to living here. So, the rest of the summer went by pretty quickly. I spent a couple of weeks in Bangangte training the new volunteers and teaching in Model School. It was so weird to be back in Bangangte after a year and to be a trainer rather than a trainee. I saw my host family again which was really nice. They didn’t have another volunteer this year and they said it was because they couldn’t replace me (although I think it’s because they have a terrible rodent problem and no other volunteer wanted to live there…). It was good to catch up though and to speak better French than I did while I was living there. After training in Bangangte, I traveled back to Yaounde for Midservice which is when PC has you go through a bunch of medical exams to make sure you don’t have crazy tropical diseases and worms living in your intestines. It went well and I am free of scary illnesses. The rest of July there were smatterings of meetings and random events and it really wasn’t until August that I was able to come back to post and stay for awhile.

So, now I am just in Lewoh working on some secondary projects and waiting for school to start in September. I am working on getting electricity installed in the high school and some surrounding areas. It is slow going, mainly because the roads are so bad right now that it’s hard for people to travel and transport materials. Hopefully in a few weeks I will have the project posted on the Peace Corps website and all of you lovely people who are able to could donate towards a good cause! We are still working on the budget though, so it is not on the website yet. I am also working with Wendy Lee and a few other volunteers to bring libraries to several communities around Cameroon. Books for Africa is donating 22,000 books to Cameroon which is wonderful, but we have to raise the funds to cover the cost of shipping which will not be cheap. If you would like to donate to this project you can go to this website - http://tiny.cc/booksforcameroon . Most people in Cameroon do not read for enjoyment or know how to use books for research, or have even been inside a library, so creating these libraries will create amazing opportunities for a lot of communities. Thank you for your support!

Well, I just started back teaching after 2 weeks off for Spring Break. The break was wonderful and it was so nice to have a little time to relax and catch up with things. The first week, I traveled to the East Province to see a little more of Cameroon. We went to provincial capital, Bertoua, and got to visit with some other volunteers that are posted around that area. It took awhile to get there, about 2 days of traveling on a bush taxi…not the most fun, but it was nice to see new places along the way. Bertoua was a lot hotter than where I am posted in Lewoh (Southwest province). It is actually pretty cool where I am and I even have to wear a sweater in the morning and use blankets at night. In the east, I was sweating all the time and definitely did not need a blanket to sleep. We spent a lot of time at a pool in a hotel though, so the heat was not too bad. I had a lot of fun and it was so nice to catch up with volunteers I haven’t seen in awhile. I am sure I will visit again when I have more time and hopefully be able to see the other smaller, more rural villages too.

The second week I just spent time around my village. My friend Stanley told me about this place where you can hear water but you can’t see it and said we should go there. I told him that the hike to the waterfall a couple of months ago kicked me ass and I def could not do something like that again. He assured me that the hike was only 45 minutes and was nothing like the waterfall. He lied. The hike took about 2 hours and the terrain was pretty steep (again). It was definitely not as hard as the waterfall, but it wasn’t super easy either. I am glad I went though. The place was pretty cool. It was really just a river bed full of HUGE boulders. The water ran under the boulders so that is why you can’t see it. Apparently starting about the middle of the rainy season, the river bed fills up again. We are just at the very beginning of the rainy season so there bed was still pretty dry.

For Easter, Stanley and Rasking came over to my house for dinner. We made homemade egg rolls from scratch, deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, and bunny cake. It was a very hodge podge Easter dinner, but delicious. They said they liked it better than my birthday dinner, so that’s good. I had an unusual visitor while we were preparing the food. A local hunter in the village came to my house and knocked at the door. He had a bag with him with something in it that was screaming. Then he pulls out a baby monkey and says he wants me to have it. “I dash you, I dash you!” he says. This means he just wants to give me this monkey as a gift. When I was little I did kind of fantasize about having a monkey as a pet, but I am older now and when he showed me the monkey, instead of having flashes of it sitting on my shoulder and helping me with chores, I had flashes of it giving me the Ebola virus. So, I said thank you very much for thinking of me, but I am going to have to pass on the monkey. Later, I retold the story to Rasking and he told me I should have taken it, he has always wanted a pet monkey…oh well. Next time.

This afternoon I sat on my front porch with some hot chocolate reading a good book and watching the rain and the clouds move in. It was very relaxing and at that moment I was really happy to be exactly where I was. I really enjoy the slow pace of life here and all the free time it allows me. I have had a lot of time to read, go on long walks, experiment with cooking, have long conversations with new friends, and to think about what I want to do after Peace Corps (as of now the jury is still out…). Of course there are a lot of things that are hard about living here, the unreliable availability of water and electricity, ice cold showers, washing clothes by hand, no meat or cheese (most of the time), roads made of mud – BUT now I am pretty used to all of these things and I don’t

(usually) think about things being hard anymore. I have ups and downs of course, but for the most part I am happy living here.

Well, not a lot has been going on lately. A few weeks ago we had our Southwest provincial project in Buea. For our project we set up a tent at the Mount Cameroon “Race of Hope” to talk to people about HIV/AIDS. This race is AMAZING. Participants in the race run to the top of Mount Cameroon and back down. This takes the average person 3 days to hike and the more experienced hiker 2 days. The winners of this race hike to the top of the mountain and back down in between 4 – 6 hours! It is crazy and I don’t really know how it is humanly possible. The winner gets 3 million CFA, so I guess that is pretty good motivator. That kind of money could totally change someone’s life here. I heard that a few years ago there was one woman who won the race SEVEN TIMES in a row. She said she wanted to win a race for each of her seven children. Like I said, amazing. So, anyways, this race of course brings loads of spectators that gather around the finish line so we sent up our tent there and talked to lots of people about HIV while the race was going on. We had a lot of interested people come by and ask questions. I am so glad that we are able to spread information like this, but at the same time it is kind of scary how little some people here know about HIV. There were some people that didn’t know how it was transmitted (they thought through mosquitoes) and others didn’t know that there was no cure and almost wouldn’t believe me when I told them there was not.

Other than that, I have just been busy teaching and finishing up grading for the 4th sequence. It’s pretty ridiculous how much work I have to do at the end of each sequence. I teach every single student at the high school either Biology or Computer Studies so that is close to 500 students. For each of these students I have to grade their exam and record their marks by hand in a big book of all their report cards. Then, at the end I have to do a bunch of statistics for each grade level. It takes a very long time and I definitely have much more respect for all of my teachers growing up. The good news is that we are already through with 2 semesters and there is only 1 more to go and then I will be free for summer vacation! Even though I am on the other end now and am no longer a student, I am still just as excited about summer vacation.

Speaking of summer vacation, I will be coming home in June! I am pretty sure I will be traveling around Europe a little June 6th – 13th, then I will head back to Austin and be there until around June 27th. I am so excited to see everyone again! Start making plans (mine already include fake Thanksgiving dinner, Chuy’s, and Barton Springs). After that I will come back to Cameroon to help out with the next group of trainees at Stage. That is going to be a little weird because it doesn’t seem like that long ago I was a lost little PCT in Bangangte. Oh how the time flies…

Quick shout out to the Irish! Happy (belated) St. Patty’s Day!

So, it has been a little while since I updated this…sorry kids. I will do my best to catch you up now:

About two weeks ago, a bunch of fellow volunteers came to Fontem to hike to the waterfall nearby. It is called Lebialem Falls and everyone has been telling me since I got here that I just HAVE to go and see it. A few of my good Cameroonian friends offered to be our guides so we picked a Saturday and went for it. Little did I know that this hike would be the single most physically challenging thing I have ever done in my entire life. Seriously. I am not overreacting. It took us about 3 hours to get to the waterfall. The first part wasn’t so bad, there was an actual road that we followed and the terrain wasn’t too steep. We did have to cross two pretty sketchy, Indiana Jones looking bridges though. One was made of metal cable that had single pieces of wood on the bottom to walk across. The other was a log, just a log. There was a smaller log a few feet above to hang on to but really, it was just a log. We hiked this part for about an hour then my friend Rasking (a Bob Marley loving, dreadlock wearing, flute playing as we are hiking, peace – loving artist from Lewoh) stops at a tiny entrance into the jungle and signals that now, this is where we will be going. I laugh because I think he is kidding, but no. So we enter the jungle and there is barely a trail and bush surrounding us. This wasn’t even too bad. What made the hike really crazy is that we have to hike down to the valley where the pool is where the waterfall falls into. The hike down the valley is incredibly steep. So steep in fact that we have to scoot down on our butts for some of it because if we walk upright we will go tumbling down the mountain. It was hard and all a lot of us were thinking about as we were scooting down this incredibly steep incline is, how the crap are we gonna get back up this? So, we make it down to the valley. Then we scale some huge boulders in the surrounding area to get to the waterfall. Now, once we got there, it was totally worth the hellacious climb down. The waterfall was beautiful, like something out of a dream. There was a nice, cool breeze and flowers surrounding the water streaming down into the pool. I was definitely glad we came. We stayed for about 2 hours or so, then we had to head back so we wouldn’t get caught out in the jungle after dark. We start to hike back and my legs are still so tired from the hike down, I know the journey back is going to be epic. The really steep incline we hiked to get down here seems even steeper when you are climbing up it instead of down. I felt like I was on a climbing wall for an hour that just wouldn’t end…and you can’t stop. It’s going to be dark soon and you are out in the middle of the bush where no motos or cars can get to you, you just have to keep going. We took breaks and trekked our way back to the top. When we finally made it, it was an awesome feeling. Then of course, to top it off, it started pouring down rain as soon as we made it to town so we walked back to the house completely soaked, completely dirty, and completely exhausted. All in all, I’m definitely glad I went…but I’m not doing it again any time soon.

In other news, I’m an old lady. I celebrated my birthday on January 27th and I am now 23…that is crazy to me. Am I an adult now? I certainly don’t feel like one. To celebrate Brad and a couple of my Cameroonian friends came by. There was Stanley, my carpenter and go-to Lewoh friend for pretty much anything I need and who also went to the waterfall with us, Rasking who I mentioned earlier, Sebastian who is Stanley’s brother and the student who gave me my cat I have now, my neighbor (her name is very Cameroonian and I don’t know how to spell it) and her sister. It was a nice little gathering of some of my good friends here. I made homemade rolls, imitation fetticini alfredo, and pumpkin pie. The Cameroonians nodded politely and smiled when I asked if they liked this American meal…but there were definitely a lot of leftovers.

More news, I am getting 6 more computers for my school! The Peace Corps got a donation of computers and I have told them that my school desperately needs them so they donated 6 of them to Lewoh. I am so excited to have more practicals with working computers. I am traveling to Yaounde this weekend to pick them up from the main office. It works out perfectly because the vice principal of my school is getting married in Yaounde the same weekend I am going to pick up the computers so a lot of the teachers are going to be there to help me get them back to Lewoh (through bush taxis and sketchy agencies…fun stuff).

Youth week is beginning which is kind of a big deal in Cameroonian schools. I am not really sure exactly what happens, there is a lot of talk about youth empowerment, dancing, poems, and presentations. As for me, I gave a seminar on HIV and AIDS to some interested students. It went surprisingly well. I first played a game with them where they had to identify different statements I made about HIV as myth or fact, like “I can get infected with HIV from hugging someone with HIV” (myth) or “Mothers with HIV can transmit the disease to their unborn children” (fact). They did pretty well at this and got most statements right which is great. Then we talked about transmission and prevention. At the end I had them divide into small groups to come up with challenges they face here that makes them at risk to get HIV. The group work went pretty well, they mentioned things like lack of parental support, poverty, and rape. A lot of students kept bringing up that girls are at risk because if they don’t have money, they go out and use sex to get men to support them. It really is a big problem here because women are still treated as inferior to men and there aren’t a lot of job opportunities for them. We talked about how getting an education and developing life skills like self esteem and independence will help combat these challenges, but there are still a lot of problems that need solutions.

Well, that’s all for now…more sooner rather than later.

Love all of you and missing Austin and Mexican food,

Connie

Wow, I have lived in Cameroon for over 6 months. I can’t believe how fast time is passing. Living here seems so normal now and I feel really comfortable in my village. I am planning on coming home to visit the States in June and that is going to be really weird. Going to grocery stores, riding in cars where I have my own seat, hot showers, washer and dryers, going to restaurants…I am so not used to it anymore. When I first arrived I used to miss those things but now I have adjusted to living without it and I don’t think about it as much. Only sometimes when I go to the market and they are out of eggs and I don’t have water for 2 days, then I think about America.

I went to this big celebration in my village this weekend. They were celebrating the life of this Italian woman, Chiara, who was the president of the Folkalarini which is a Catholic Italian organization who have donated a lot to this part of Cameroon (this area is called “Fontem”). They first came in the 1960’s and decided that they really wanted to help develop Fontem, so they came back and built a really nice hospital and Catholic school along with developing the roads and water supply. It is actually pretty amazing what they have done for this community. Chiara died in March, so to honor her Fontem had a huge funeral celebration. Most of the time funerals here are held long after the person actually died because of the all the preparations. There were a lot of speeches, traditional dances, food, and drinking. There were also a lot of Italians around for the celebration which was kind of strange when you aren’t used to seeing a lot of outsiders. It was a lot of fun and definitely an interesting thing to see.

I started back teaching last week after a much needed 3 weeks off for Christmas break. It started with In Service Training in Kribi with the other volunteers for a week, then I traveled to this village called Batie and spent Christmas with a few other volunteers. We made a delicious feast and just relaxed and it was wonderful. I spent New Year’s at post and that was also fun. I just hung out in the market with some of my Cameroonian friends, so it was definitely not a typical New Year’s in Austin but it was nice. Easing back into the old school schedule was relatively painless. I had 2 more practicals with my Lower and Upper Six classes. These are the highest 2 levels at the high school and the class sizes are smaller so the practicals went a little smoother. It is still hard though when not everyone can use their own computer. Most of these kids have never used a computer before, never. So they don’t know how to use a mouse or type and what they really need is a couple hours of practicing basic skills each week, but that just isn’t possible right now. Hopefully, by the time I leave I will be able to get some more computers for the school so the students can get more practice in.

Today in class I called on one of my students to answer a question and he got flustered and all of a sudden a small bird flew out of his pants. Apparently he was hiding it there because he wanted to bring it home with him. I told him take the bird outside and leave it there and he did…I thought. I was walking around the class later on and heard a squawking coming from his table. He had went outside and tried to hide it better inside his pants. I actually wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the situation but I held it in and sent him to the discipline master. Oh, Cameroon…

1. "ça va" becomes a regular part of your vocabulary

2. You don’t even flinch when you walk out your front door and a family of goats is grazing in your front yard.

3. Riding motos from place to place has become your primary mode of transportation.

4. Sitting 8 people in a bush taxi is normal and only 3 people in the back just seems like a waste of space.

5. Trips to the Frip (an outdoor market that sells used clothes which is kind of a like a big thrift store outside) has taken the place of the mall.

6. Casino/ Score (a supermarket in Yaounde) seems like a little bit of heaven on earth because it sells ice cream, pizza, and cinnamon.

7. DVDs with only one movie on them seem bizarre.

8. Cold showers have become routine and even refreshing.

9. Laundry has many levels of “clean”.

10. You stare just as much as the other Cameroonians when you see another white person in your village.

11. You have a stack of books lined up to read in the corner of your living room…and you are actually going to read all of them.

12. Soya and a Castel seems like the perfect antidote to a stressful day.

13. Texting has become your primary way of communicating.

14. Time has become relative…if someone says they will be somewhere at 5, you know that usually means 5:30 or later.

15. You’re a little tanner after traveling in a bush taxi because your skin is covered in a thin layer of dirt from all the dust.

16. You laugh when you are baking and the recipe says to “preheat the oven” (…because you don’t have an oven and you bake everything in a huge pot with only one temperature – HOT).

17. A spaghetti omelet and a steaming cup of Nescafe with sweetened condensed milk is the breakfast of champions.

18. A functioning toilet is a thing of the past.

19. You have developed cravings for kola nuts and burning fish.

20. At least one of your meals each week is a pineapple.

Kind of… I had my first practical today with my Form 4 students. We finally got 4 out of our 5 computers to actually work at the same time. There was a problem with low voltage but we now have a cable running from a greater power source to the school so we can use the computers at the same time. The fifth computer’s monitor is broken, so I’m trying to get a new one soon so then we’ll have all 5 working! Anyways, there are about 60 kids in Form 4 so I broke them up into small groups of three and only took 12 kids to the lab at a time. Each group got about 20 minutes on the computer because I had the class for 2 hours. Things went…ok. For a lot of them this was their first time using a computer so it took awhile for them to get the hand of moving the mouse and such. For half of the lesson I just told them to identify the different parts of a computer and point out the different parts of the desktop that I called out so they would become familiar with everything. Then their big task was to move an icon on the desktop. This was harder for them than it sounds and it took a little while for most people. So, there is still a lot of work to do but things are finally moving along.

So my cat I got during training died pretty soon after I arrived at post after it got in a fight and the wounds got infected. I was pretty sad about it and my Cameroonian friends said they would be on the lookout for another cat. I wasn’t really sure I wanted another cat and I didn’t actually think they were going to look for a cat for me, so my expectations were pretty low. Anyways, yesterday I was taking a nap and heard some knocking on my door and I groggily woke up and answered it. One of my students was standing there with a market bag and he said he had a cat for me. At first I wasn’t sure what he was saying but then he opened the bag and there was a tiny little kitten inside. Apparently he heard that my cat died and knew of a kitten in a small village nearby so he trekked for 2 hours to go get it for me. It was so nice and unexpected and reminded why I love living here so much. People just go out of their way to help you and make you feel at home. So, now I have a new kitten and I named him Milo. He is really cute and already litter box trained (I think 2 days might be a record).

One of my colleagues is getting married in Bamenda in a few weeks and that prompted a discussion of marriage in Cameroon between myself and the other teachers. I asked what the average age was that people get married here in Lewoh and found that most women get married by the time they are 18 and for men by 22 or 24. These are actually relatively old ages by Cameroonian standards where in some places it is normal for a 14 year old girl to be married, but compared to America it is still pretty young. Polygamy also still exists here, although it is becoming more rare. Usually only the chiefs and more well off families have multiple wives because obviously, it is more expensive to have a very large family. My host family in Bangangte were polygamists (my host dad was a chief) and there were two wives. The wives lived in 2 separate houses and all together there were 11 kids. It seemed to work for them and the wives appeared to get along just fine. This is not always the case though and I have heard many stories about the wives trying to poison each other or get together and try to poison the husband. However, like I said, polygamy is becoming less popular and more frowned upon. Before a couple gets married, they have to sign a document saying they either plan to be polygamists or promise to just be faithful to each other. I think the purpose of this is to promote discussion of polygamy between the couple before a marriage takes place so there aren’t any surprises after they are married. Naturally, our discussion of marriage also led to a discussion of divorce. Divorce is VERY rare here and the rate is very low. I asked if they could tell me if there are any situations in which a couple would get divorced and I received an interesting response. One of my male colleagues said that some couples get divorced if the wife puts a charm (spell) over the husband and gets him to do everything for her like make dinner, go to the market, do the housework, take care of the kids. Of course if the man starts doing these things he must be the victim of some type of sorcery and the woman is trying to control him. My response to this was, well what if the man just sees how much work the woman is doing and wants to help her out? I was answered with laughter. Anyways, it was a very enlightening day.

So, last week I experienced my first Thanksgiving living outside of the US and it was definitely sad and weird to not be with family eating turkey, but us Peace Corps volunteers know how to make do pretty well. A few volunteers met in a town called Foumbot and made up a truly delicious Thanksgiving feast from scratch. We ate green bean casserole, pineapple casserole, mashed potatoes, creamed onions, chicken (turkey was unavailable), and a wannabe apple pie. I was in charge of the apple pie and making it from scratch is definitely not easy. It ended up coming out something like a cobbler, crumb cake, stroudel of some sort…but it was still tasty. All and all, I felt stuffed and didn’t want to move after dinner so I think that means it was a successful Thanksgiving.

In Service Training (IST) is just around the corner and I can’t wait! All of the volunteers meet in this beach town named Kribi with our counterparts and we have conferences and more training sessions…but we also get to see all the other volunteers again and go to the beach. I am so pumped! It will be great to get a little break from teaching and to see friends again.

I had a dream last night I went to the grocery store and bought swiss cheese and Ben and Jerry’s Dublin Mudslide ice cream, then I woke up and realized I was still in Africa and there aren’t any grocery stores that sell Ben and Jerry’s… When I first arrived here, I had cravings for American food ALL the time. Chuy’s Tex Mex enchiladas, peanut butter, hamburgers, bbq sauce, pretty much all dairy food, I thought about it all the time. However, the longer I am here, the less cravings I have for American food. Now that I have been here for awhile, I have found some local food that I really enjoy. One of my favorite meals is beans and beignets. Beignets are these little dough balls that kind of taste like a mix between a donut and a funnel cake. The Mamis (older ladies) make them in the morning by frying them over a fire in a huge pan filled with palm oil. You then place hot beans over the hot beignets. I never really thought of beans as a staple breakfast food, but now I can’t think of breakfast without them. Mmm, beans and beignets..so good. Other than that, I eat a lot of rice with various sauces, koki (kind of like a blob of ground up corn), cassava (this is a kind of plant), and burning fish (a whole fresh fish that is grilled over hot coals – I eat the skin and have tried the eyes, but they are kind of chewy and not great). I also eat a lot of eggs in various forms. There is the spaghetti omelette which is basically what it sounds like, cooked spaghetti noodles are added to the scrambled egg mixture in a bowl along with tomatoes and onions and then the whole mixture is fried in a pan. This is something else that sounded weird at first but now is just normal. I also fry or hard boil the eggs or make French toast. I also eat a lot of peanuts (they call them “groundnuts” here) either roasted or boiled – great to bring on long trips. I am lucky to live in the Southwest province because we also have a lot of fresh fruit. I eat a lot of papayas, oranges, and pineapples. Sometimes the fruit is hard to find if it is not a market day but the village is beginning to catch on that I love fruit and they leave me a cadeaux (gift) once in awhile. I will wake up to find a sack of oranges on my door knob or a bag of papayas on the porch. I was walking home from school yesterday and one of my friends told me he had something for me and went to his garden and he chopped off a pineapple fresh from the vine and gave it to me. So, yes, it is true they don’t have Ben and Jerry’s here but there are lots of other things and I am doing alright.

I am starting to give my second round of tests for the second sequence. When I gave the first tests, I wrote the questions on the board and they wrote down their answers on their own paper. I didn’t want them to start before I could turn around and monitor them, so I wrote most of the question but left out keywords so they couldn’t start before I wanted them to and cheat while I my back was turned to the board. Right before I had them begin, I filled in the keywords to the questions. Despite my best efforts, there was still widespread cheating. Kids were blatantly looking at each other’s papers and whispering. With a class of 94 students and 3 students to a desk, I just couldn’t monitor everyone at the same time. I did send some people out and take off points of the people I saw, but there were still some I didn’t catch. So, this time I decided I would make photocopies of the test and make different forms of it. This is pretty expensive and I have to go to a different town to make the copies but I decided it was worth it so I wouldn’t have to worry as much about cheating. Hopefully testing will go smoother this time…I’ll keep you updated.

There are many things that I am doing here that I didn’t anticipate having to do before I left. One of these things is drawing diagrams of dozens of different organisms on the board. The syllabus for my Form 2 Biology class (set by the ministry of secondary education according to which information they will include on the GCE – a standardized test they will take in Form 5) instructs me to teach basically a series of different animals. Most of the students don’t have a textbook, so the notes they take from the board are really their only source of information. So, I have to draw the diagrams of the organisms on the board so they have it for their notes. I started the year off with arthropods and so far I have become an expert at drawing a mosquito, housefly, honeybee, cockroach, spider, scorpion, centipede, millipede, crayfish and a crab. Now, these are not simple organisms to draw but I practiced and now I can draw a pretty decent arthropod with a piece of chalk and a board. Negotiating is also something I have to do ALL the time that I did not anticipate. Almost nothing in Cameroon has a set price, you have to bargain for everything. I bargain for the food I get in the market, how much I will pay for a moto ride, all the stuff I bought for my house, my cat – everything. So, I have learned to argue and get the right price. It’s all about not letting them know you want something…just walk away like you don’t have to have it and they automatically drop their price.

I have now been at post for about 2 and a half months. A lot has been going on and I have been busy teaching and meeting people in the village. I am now teaching Biology to Forms 1 and 2 and teaching Computer Studies to Forms 3 to Upper Sixth, so basically I teach every student at the high school either Biology or Computers. My Forms 1 and 2 are pretty huge, about 90 students in each class but the other classes aren’t as bad…only about 50 – 60 students. My biggest challenge so far has been disciplining such large classes. I have a few techniques: the stare down until they realize I am looking at them disturbing and finally stop, making the class sit in silence before I let them go at the end of the period, giving a speech about respect (this is the least effective), or sending them out of class or to the discipline master. I used to not want to send them out because they would miss the lesson and get behind and would have to do manual labor from the discipline master, but the more they disrupt the class, the less sympathy I have for them. I am getting better at controlling the class and now that they know I will send them out if I have to, they are behaving better (sort of…).

The other problem has been the lack of computers. We received 5 new computers a few weeks ago BUT we don’t have a power source big enough for all 5 to work at the same time. So, I still haven’t been able to have practicals. Even if all 5 computers did work, with such large classes, practicals are still going to be difficult. My plan right now is to divide them into small groups and take turns using the computer they are assigned to within these groups…I really have no idea how this is going to work out but it is the best we can do with little resources and so many people. I would like to start working on a project to get more computers and Internet. There is no Internet in my village right now, so if anyone wants to get online, the nearest internet café is a 30 minute moto ride away in Menji. This is expensive for most people and so they do not go and have never used the Internet and don’t really know what it is. It is going to be a long process to make this happen – I will need to first of all find a space and a power source to store the computers and make them all run, then find the funds to buy more computers and the devices needed for Internet capability. There are ways to do this and I will look into it…I’ll keep you posted.

Other than teaching, I have been meeting a lot of people in the community and attending various events around the village. I have been to 2 funerals so far. Funerals here are a big deal and everyone in the village attends them. There is lots of food, music, and dancing…it is really more of a big party than a somber event. They always kill a pig and cook it and there is always lots of fufu (my favorite…). The pork meat is actually really delicious and I like eating it whenever I can get it. There are specific dances that people do and I’ve asked what the meaning is behind them but no one has given me a very clear answer besides “oh, this is just a dance that is done at funerals.” During these dances, there are sometimes people dressed up in costumes. One of the costumes is made from shreds of bamboo trees and when the guy is dressed up in it, he kind of looks like Chewbaca. He dances around with this big pole for about 5 minutes then goes on his way, only to reappear again every couple of dances. There are also some people that wear huge masks made from wood that dance around. The last funeral I went to, I got to sit with the chiefs and they all say I am a chief now so I guess I am rising up in society, haha.

It is kind of strange not being in America right now. First, not being in America during the election was a little heartbreaking. I wish I could have been there when everyone found out Obama was our new president. (I found out by myself late during the night through text message…not very exciting) Although, everyone here knows of him and were really happy that he won. One of the other teachers at the high school even has an Obama watch which he loves to show me. Also with the holidays coming up, it is strange to not be with family and friends. Halloween was pretty uneventful. No one here knows of it and when I described that on that day kids dress up in costumes and go around to people’s houses asking for candy, they looked at me like I was crazy. Then comes Thanksgiving and Christmas. Those are definitely going to be different. Christmas should be fun because it will be after In Service Training and I will hopefully be able to see a lot of other volunteers. I am just going to miss the pumpkin pie, Christmas lights and eggnog…

I am going to end this post with a series of awkward moments I have experienced in Cameroon:

1) Accidentally locking myself in the classroom with the students – I closed the door because the class next door was being too loud and didn’t realized that it would lock after I did that and I didn’t have a key. So, naturally a few kids maneuvered the lock with their machetes and opened it after about 5 minutes of unstoppable laughter and excitement.

2) Having freckles – One of my fellow teachers looked at my arm with a concerned expression and asked if I was having an allergic reaction to the climate here…

3) How do you feel about marrying a Cameroonian? – I get asked this question a minimum of 3 times a week.

4) My veterinarian storing the medicine for my cat in the base of a banana tree to keep it cool because I don’t have a fridge.

(P.S. My cat got into a fight and then the wounds got infected and she hung on for about a week, but then passed away…R.I.P Lola)

5) Bargaining with sweet (not) old ladies at the market who are trying to charge me 500 CFA for a pineapple when it should only be 200 because they don’t think I know how much they cost. I’m getting quite good at negotiating…

6) The old man who keeps coming to my door and asking for money to buy whiskey sachets.

7) Whenever a student asks to go ease themselves. (This is how they ask to go to the bathroom…but there isn’t a bathroom)

Love and miss all of you beaucoup!

Connie

I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer! All of the trainees swore in as volunteers on August 22nd in Bangangté. The swearing – in ceremony was in the center of town and all of our host families attended as well as chiefs from other villages, the Mayor of Bangangté, the PC country director (James Ham), and all the training staff. It was quite an event, even the American Boy Scouts from the Embassy came to present the flags. All of the trainees introduced ourselves in the language of our choice (I chose Francais) and then we all recited the swearing-in pledge as a group. After the ceremony was over, we enjoyed a tasty lunch with our host families and the other new volunteers at a restaurant in town. After this I raced home to pack before the staff came to pick up our trunks and baggage from our houses to load onto the different vans. It was really surreal to be packing up all my stuff and to see my room looking so empty. When I first arrived to training in June, I thought it was never going to end but somewhere along the way time started going at lightening speed and I feel like I just blinked and now it is over. To celebrate (and because now that we are volunteers we don’t have curview), a group of us went dancing at a night club in Bangangté. It was a lot of fun and a good way to end our time in training and say goodbye to friends.

The next day, early in the morning, we were off to our posts. I headed off with the Southwest group to Dschang, the closest big city to Lewoh. It took about 2 hours to get to Dschang from Bangangté and another hour and half to get from Dschang to Lewoh. This ride usually is not that bad but this time I was traveling with a massive amount of baggage and my cat (oh…did I mention I bought a kitten a few weeks ago? At first I thought it was a girl and named it Lola but then I found out it is a boy. I decided to keep the name because in the song about Lola, the person is a transvestite and you never quite know if they are male or female…so it kind of fits my situation.) Anyway, I do not recommend traveling in bush taxis with a cat. It turns out they are not too fond of moving vehicles. I fashioned a crude cat leash out of pagne (scraps of fabric) and that actually worked pretty well in between cars when we got out in the different towns, but Lola was absolutely horrible at sitting in the car. Cameroonians already think it is weird that I pet my cat and give it a name but to put a leash on it and bring it inside the bush taxi with me sitting on my lap…let’s just say there was a lot of staring. Well, I finally arrived in Lewoh and Brad (the closest volunteer to me who lives 30 minutes away in Menji) and the my counterpart, the “Chief”, helped me carry all of my stuff up this mountain to my house. The Chief is an older man in his sixties but he raced up that mountain with half of my stuff like nobody’s business leaving Brad and I in his dust. It was ridiculous… hopefully by the time I leave here I will be able to get up the mountain that fast. We finally got my stuff to the house and then went to the only “restaurant” in town for lunch. It only serves one type of food a day and that day it was my least favorite meal of all time – fufu and porcupine. Fufu is this white gelatine looking substance that is made from corn. It basically has no taste and you eat it with your hands and dip it in a soup- like dish. I have given it a good try…believe me I have. My host family gave it to me all the time and I even helped make it once. It is very prominent in the Southwest and the Cameroonians love it and so it would be so much more convenient if I liked it, but I just don’t. It doesn’t have any taste (except maybe sour swiss cheese…) and doesn’t have any nutritional value. I like porcupine mildly better but I’m still a little bit leary of raging on any kind of bush meat. So, my first meal in Lewoh was not the greatest but I had high hopes for the future meals I would make myself with my gas stove.

So, over the next few days I cleaned my beyond disgusting house and unpacked. The former volunteer (Jesse) left over a year ago and no one had been in the house since so it was really dirty and full of creepy crawly friends. There was even a dead lizard in my sink (don’t worry…I took a picture to capture the moment). I went to Dschang to purchase some essentials and some things to make the house a little more homey – a stove, gas can, kitchen supplies, sheets, some rugs, etc. It is looking a lot better now and I am getting used to it, although at night it is still really creepy because there is not a lot of light and I kind of feel like I live in a garage because the floors are all cement. My dad will be proud that I successfully hooked up my stove and fixed my toilet that wouldn’t flush all by myself…it was bound to happen that some of that engineering would rub off. Everyone in the town has been really nice and inviting, they all say “you are welcome, you are welcome” whenever I meet a new person. Although the little kids just yell “White man! White man!” whenever I walk by. I am the only white person in the town and I guess I’m kind of spectacle whenever I walk into town. It is getting better as I meet people and the village gets used to seeing me around and it is not so new anymore. I am not the first volunteer to have come here…Jesse was here for 2 years a year ago before me. I like to call him “the ghost of Jesse” because I have never met him but I hear all of these crazy stories about. The Lewoh-ans loved him because he could speak Pidgin and their native language fluently, they even made him a noble in the town. Let’s just say, I have a lot to live up to.

I am almost finished with my first week of real Cameroonian teaching. I am teaching 10 hours of Computer Sciences to all different levels and 3 hours of Biology to Form 2 (~ 11 yrs old but some are older because they are behind). I really did not want to teach Computers because I came here as a Science teacher, but the school really needed a computer teacher and no one else had experience with computers. They are getting 5 computers mid-September (theoretically), so hopefully the students will be able to get a little practical experience. The office JUST got their first computer the same week I moved in and I helped them install the printer. They just thought I was amazing after I got it working and were so happy I was here. That made me feel good and useful but honestly…I’m a little nervous about teaching computers to hundreds of students with only 5 computers (that haven’t even arrived yet). Every student is not going to get a lot of time on the computers because there are just too many students and too little resources. I mean there is only so far you can go with a chalk and chalkboard talking about computers. It would make things so much easier if they could see what I was talking about as I was explaining…but alas, you’ve got to work with what you’ve got. My Biology class is enormous and growing everyday. Right now there are about 60 kids and it is only the first week (as the weeks go by, more and more students start to come back to school but right now a lot of them are still working on the farms). Because it is a big class, they disturb a lot and I am trying to work on my mean teacher attitude but let’s face it – I’m just not very intimidating. I haven’t had to send anyone out of class yet, but I’m sure it’s coming. The schedule for this first week was really disorganized…there basically wasn’t a schedule and they just said to go to any one of the classes and teach and when you are finished, find another class to teach. It was ridiculous. Hopefully next week will be better when they have finished the time table. I’m not really sure why they can’t do the time table before school starts. I think it’s because all the teachers aren’t here so they don’t know what subjects they have teachers for and such. They really need to enforce that the teachers need to be here before the first day of school so that the time table can be finished and a schedule can be made before the first day of school. This is the way they have done it for years and years and I guess the staff is just used to the chaos on the first week.

Anyways, I have been at post for a little over 2 weeks and I have never felt more like I was on an emotional rollercoaster. Some days I am so completely happy I am here and totally taken aback by the beauty of this country and other days I can’t believe I agreed to live in Africa for 2 years. Living alone has definitely been a hard adjustment. I have always had roommates, I have never truly lived alone before and it is very different. After every little noise at night, I think someone is breaking in and I am not sleeping very well yet. I like cooking for myself but I don’t like not always having someone to share a meal with. I’m sure it will get better once I make some good friends in the village but right now it is very strange. Living alone in Africa does leave you with a lot of free time though. I have been reading a lot and going on little hikes…that part I really enjoy. I also see some projects on the horizon that I want to get involved in. After I get settled in more and actually feel like I am living here, I think the rollercoaster will become less bumpy.

Well, I’m off to wash my laundry out of a bucket. I love all of you and miss you!

XOXO,

Connie

PS: I will try to be better about updating this thing now that I have more time…

Im sorry I havent written in awhile...oops... Anyways, there has been a lot going on.

First of all, last week we went on our site visits to see where we will be living for the next 2 years. I am posted in the Southwest province in this little village called Lewoh and I absolutely looove it. It is really tiny and there is only one small market and no internet but it is BEAUTIFUL. I have a really nice house that has electricity and running water, the hospital is right across the street and the doctor is my next door neighbor. The people there are also really nice and speak english so it will be easy to get to know people hopefully...although you have to change the way you speak english in anglophone provinces. You have to talk really slowly and annunciate your words, we call it our "special english", haha. They also speak pidgin which is basically really messed up and simple english and it is sooo much fun to speak. I am now taking pidgin classes because I have reached my level in french. One sentence I actually learned in class was "My big papa gets three women dem" which means my grandfather has three wives. Also "A be women for America" means I am from America. Fun, n'est pas?

So, after we got back, Model School started which is basically a summer school put on by Peace Corps so that trainees can practice teaching. The first week we just observed other volunteers and Cameroonian teachers and made up our lesson plans. Then, this week, we started teaching ourselves. I am teaching 2 biology classes and one information technology class (IT) and so my total workload is 10 hours of teaching each week. The first day I was TERRIFIED but now it is not so bad. My IT class is really a combination of 2 classes and they are horrendous but I have each of the classes separately for biology and then they arent so bad. I really like teaching and everything has been going pretty well so far. All of the students call me Madam Connie and stand up when I enter the room... its pretty fun.

Only 1 more month of training and then I will officially be a volunteer!

Bonjour from Africa!

I arrived in Yaounde (the capital of Cameroon) on Saturday night after a looooooong 18 hour flight. We had a nice dinner in the hotel with the whole group and met the Peace Corps Director of Cameroon and our teachers for Pre-Service Training. On Sunday we explored the city a little bit. This experience only reinforced the fact that I am horrible at French and survive only by speaking Frenish (a combination of French and Spanish...). I can't wait to learn more French and actually be able to have conversations with Cameroonians.

On Sunday night, we went to the Country Director's house for dinner. We got to meet the Ambassador of Cameroon as well as other Peace Corps officials. Everyone was amazing and very inviting. Today we had our Language Placement tests and let me just say...there were a lot of pauses and I tripped out of my chair as I stood up to leave...that should give you an idea of how things went.

I absolutely love it here right now and am having an amazing time. Although, as our medical packet said today, this is Stage 1 and you are filled with euphoria and unrealisitc expectations. Stage 2 follows shortly and is definitely not so happy...but I'm not there yet so I will just say I am still in Stage 1.

I will write more later...people are waiting for the computer.

I miss everyone!! Write when you can!

Love from l'Afrique,

Connie

Hi everyone!

I finally created the blog I kept telling you I was going to make. A lot of you asked me how to stay in touch while I am away, and I think this will be the best way for you to keep up with what is going on. In the past I have been horrible about keeping up with a journal, but I promise I will really try to update this as often as I can! I hope all of you will also keep me updated with all that is happening in your lives! My new email is: cbogardpccam@gmail.com So, please write and let me know how you are doing!

Well, I leave for Philadelphia early tomorrow morning and will be there for 2 days. Then I will be going to Cameroon with all the other Peace Corps volunteers on June 6th! I still have some packing to do, so I will have to write more later. Ahh! I can't believe the time has come already...I am so excited!

Oh...and I love getting snail mail as well, so here is my address in Cameroon (for the first 3 months at least)

Connie Bogard

Corps de la Paix

B.P. 215

Yaoundé, Cameroon

Love,

Connie