Quotes of the Week:

“If you get worms, amoebas, or giardia… it means that you have just eaten someone’s sh*t.”
~ Nurse Ann, one of our PCMOs. She’s Nigerian J.
“I like your outfit! You look like a wizard! Do you know what a wizard is?”
~ Nadia to Dr. Njiti (one of the Agro trainers), who was wearing traditional Cameroonian garb [+ hat] at the time.
“I was in the lunch line…”
~ Jamie… after I woke her up… It was funny. Really! Well, I guess you had to be there.

Now, let me get you all up to speed. :::Insert your feigned enthusiasm here::: This week has flown by faster than… um… :::thinks of something fast and African::: … Kenyans! Yah. In a few short hours we will all be getting on the overnight train to Garoua, a 30 hour (hopefully) ride to the north. We will be leaving our sweet coastal cosmopolitan city life in Yaoundé to go live with our host families in the Sahel. For those of you who are stewped, the Sahel is that strip of land after the Savannah and right before the Sahara Desert. Nice, huh? Like the majority of the families in the North, my family is Muslim. My new father’s is named Danmanou and my new mother is named Haya; they have 7 children (8 now!). Gone are the days of our posh hotel with hot water, air conditioning, and food that is safe to eat… Hello pit latrines, diarrhea, and 113°F weather (No joke… on any of those points). Our PCMOs told us that we are all going to get diarrhea, so we should just get over it. Apparently, if diarrhea is the only medical problem which we encounter during our service, then we are incredibly, extremely, unbelievably lucky – aka – in cahoots with the devil. Did I mention that our medical kits include syringes/needles, so that we can take a sample of our own blood and send it to the lab if we think we have malaria? Awesome.

Moving on. Training has been long, and the intensity meter is going to be turned up about 900% on Monday. This week we had breakfast at 7:00, then left for the PC office by 7:30 each day. Did a lot of stuff all day long… Technical trainings, Medical trainings, Cross-cultural trainings, “Survival French.” We will be tested on our French all throughout PST (Pre-Service Training); anyone who does not reach the level of at least Intermediate High, as defined by the ACTFL (American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages), will not be sworn in as a volunteer. The French ability of the Sahel Health-Agroforestry Stage (our group) ranges from nada to cheaters who have French parents and more cheaters who majored in it. Needless to say, this is causing much of our group some anxiety. I am on the lower end of the spectrum, but no worries here :] Two volunteers from the Stage that swore in last year have been with us all week, and one of them told us that she had never spoken French before and she made it. Speaking of, this is a testament to the trainers here. They are all amazing; and the PC language program is known as one of the most intense and efficient (and difficult?) in the world.

Miscellany: Erm… we have met a billion people this week. Sunday night’s dinner was at the CD’s house. Beautiful place, amazing food, lots of guests from the Embassy. On Wednesday we got to meet the American ambassador to Cameroon, who happens to be a former PCV and just an incredible guy, overall. Yesterday, the head of the EU Delegation Commission came to see us. A very smart and amusing Spanish guy. What else… Oh. After an incredibly depressing video about volunteers coming back from service with AIDS (Cameroon has the highest rate of HIV infection in Africa, and also the largest amount of volunteers who have come back HIV positive), Chad (one of our PCMOs) asked for some volunteers from the Health and from the Agro (Agriculture/Forestry) to come up. He then placed some “toys” on the table and the condom relay race began. Our team won, obviously. I mean, come on. We’re “Health.”

On a different note, it is a shame that more people do not visit Africa; otherwise, we would get credit for our incredible alcohol tolerance. Walking to and from the PC office, I have seen people outside of bars drinking at 8 AM. Those Russians and the rest of them Europeans ain’t got nothing on us. At dinner the other day, we were sitting with one of the PCVs, Jenny. She was the only one at the table who had not received her meal yet, so everyone was waiting. Then she looked at us and laughed, telling us to go ahead and eat; she then explained to us that in Cameroon they do not wait for everyone to get their food to eat, but they do wait for everyone to get their alcoholic beverage to drink. Such reverence. Hhmmm… In the past week I have received 8 vaccinations and taken 2 malaria prophylaxes, and there is much more to come. Not taking your pills will earn you the “Pan-Am Award,” which is what they used to say back in the day when someone was “Administratively Separated.” Yep, they will kick you out for it. Well, that is, if you don’t die first J.

And on that note… Fin.

"Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it so it goes on flying anyway."
~ Mary Kay Ash

posted by Me at 11:07 AM