Wednesday, December 23, 2009


Merry Christmas Eve’s Eve,

So I didn’t really do a whole lot of Peace Corps work this week, but I definitely did stay busy running errands and visiting with people. I did start off the week with a visit to Banyo (bigger town about 4 hours up the road) to finish up all my protocol with the head government and military officials and now that’s finally done J The trip was pretty uneventful but the rides there and back were very entertaining. For those of you who know me well, you know that I used to suffer from a fairly severe case of nervous passenger syndrome (I blame all those years of driving with my father… love ya dad), but no longer! Public transportation in Cameroon has completely cured me of that, and I am convinced that there is not a driver or car left back in the states that I couldn’t handle now. So here’s an example to illustrate my point: the morning I left for Banyo we started off with 8 adults in a small 2-door Toyota hatchback of some sort and it was a tight squeeze. We had only been on the road for about 20 min when we stopped to pick up a family of 5. I kept thinking you’ve got to be kidding me, but no, no they were not kidding and 10 mins later I had reached a new personal best for public transport in Cameroon; 10 adults, 2 children, 3 chickens and all our luggage, all in the same 5 passenger 2 door compact car (but to be fair one of the guys was sitting on the hood of the car, so he wasn’t technically in the car as much as he was on the car). So there I was with 11 other people, and livestock, and a baby with mashed bananas all over it’s hands and face sitting on my lap, and I started to laugh. The guy next to me asked me why I was laughing so I looked at him and said, “What else can I really do in this situation?” We rode like this for about an hour on dirt roads.

On a different note we’ve had some changes to the compounds population. First the devil roster is gone. I can’t remember if I’ve written about him yet, but the short and long of it is there was a roster in the compound that I’m pretty sure was the spawn of Satan himself. He had it out for me. Every morning since I’ve been here he would stand right under my window and start crowing at 4:30. I’m a firm beliver that 4:30 is an ungodly hour no matter what species you are. That bird is the sole reason I had to resort to sleeping with earplugs and now I can’t sleep without them. Anyways I got the last laugh because we ate him last week, and let me tell you revenge never tasted so sweet (pun intended). With the roster gone I guess word got out that there was a livestock vacancy at my place and we quickly inherited a new four-legged friend, a baby sheep named Stacy (after the volunteer before Ralph). I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this yet, but my neighbor is a vet and apparently when I was gone at work a big heard of cattle and sheep came through and there was a newly born sheep that couldn’t keep up with the rest of them so he was given as a gift to Abdulihi. It is so so so cute, if it wasn’t so dirty and buggy I could totally get behind sheep becoming the new dogs, but alas it is dirty and buggy so I enjoy watching it form the porch. When Stacy the sheep got here it wouldn’t eat anything so Hahu and I cornered it, grabbed a hold and bottle feed it some Bouie (hot corn milk stuff) I don’t care for it much, but it did the trick and now it’s eating on it’s own.

Let’s see what other things did I do this week? Oh ya I decided to put in a little manual labor of my own, so I put on my boots, barrowed a shovel and started to dig a hole for compost. The ground was really hard because it’s the dry season and when my neighbor came over to see what the crazy white girl was doing she tried to convince me to wait and try again when the rains come. I really didn’t want to wait 4 months so pushed on and it paid off. After about an hour I had a textbook looking compost pile I even went and cut down some palm fronds to cover the hole with and keep the animals out. All my agro buddies would have been proud ;) About 5 hours after that, (I was still feeling pretty good about my little compost project) I went out back and caught Stacy the sheep eating the palm leaves. Oh well it was a valiant effort. Anybody got any ideas on how to keep my four-legged friend out of my compost?

Nothing else terribly important or funny happened for the rest of the week except that I did finally get to do a computer skype chat with my mom and dad. We got the video streaming up and running so that was pretty cool. Though I did have to explain to the other Cameroonians in the room why I was talking to my computer and how it was talking back to me, but once they understood they thought it was pretty cool too. One of my co-workers even got a chance to say hello to my mom and dad, and he’s been talking about it to anyone who will listen all week. At the moment I have forgotten my skype name, all it says is Kate Millman, but once I figure out what it is I’ll let you know.

I think that’s all for this week. I hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas. See you next week, same time, same placeJ

Peace,

Kate


*** Devil Chicken and Stacy the Goat... I feel like i live on a farm :)


Monday, December 14, 2009

Greetings All!

So first things first, welcome to my mother’s faithful email army, and to everyone else (if there is anyone else… I’m starting to think mom and dad are the only one’s who read this thing) thanks for the interest. I’m sorry to say but I had to cut her off, I know some of you might be sad that the weekly emails have seen their final days, but I realized last week that if she dictates our weekly phone calls into emails, I’ll be left with nothing of interest to share. So, thank you mom for keeping everyone updated of my Cameroonian happenings but as promised I’m going to start updating this thing regularly.

One story that I forgot to write about last week, but that is definitely note worthy was my official presentation at the Lutheran church last Sunday. Upon my arrival to Bankim, I quickly realized for all its diversity, religion runs this town. To speak on diversity, in my neighborhood alone, to the right of my house is a Baptist church, to the left a mosque, directly across the street is the catholic mission, and I work for a Protestant health center. Needless to say balancing the Peace Corps’ a-religious stance, the religious spectrum in Bankim itself, and my own personal beliefs is proving to be no easy task. On a lighter note when I showed my counterpart, Bernadette, a picture of all my VBUMC friends she decided that it was of the upmost importance that she officially present me in church the following Sunday. I asked what exactly that entailed and she said all it was a quick introduction so that people in the community would know who I was. Pretty straightforward, pretty painless, so I thought… Turns out Bernadette is a church elder which means that she sits at the front facing the congregation, and you guessed it, I got to sit right next to her which meant for the next 4 hours (and no that’s not a type-o it really lasted 4 hours) 500 pairs of eyes were on me like white on rice. Besides the fact that it was in French I couldn’t tell you a lick of what was said during the service because I was afraid to move. I also don’t think anyone in the congregation could tell you what went down because they were pretty intent on watching the strange new white girl the entire time. I totally get the fishbowl analogy now. When it came time for introductions, Bernadette gave me a lovely intro and then unexpectedly through the floor to me… YIKES! No one told me I had to say anything! and I didn’t have anything ready! (side note; it’s super hard to bullshit you’re way through things in another language) So I mumbled out a quick couple words and then sat down sure that everyone was going to think I was a bumbling American idiot. I couldn’t have been more wrong! All this week people have been coming up to me in town telling me they saw me in church and welcoming me to Bankim. I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome, and thanks to my 4 hours of fame at church I feel like the integration process has gotten off to a great start.

As far the rest of the week, Wednesday I went to the clinic to help with the baby vaccination day and got peed on by an squirmy 6 month old baby boy, Thursday putzed around and hung out with the nuns at the catholic mission, and then Friday went back to the clinic to help out with prenatal visits. That was pretty cool, because I got to sit in on all the ultrasounds. One woman came in from a village way out “en brusses” because her midwife told her that she felt the baby’s head in two places and was worried. Turns out after the ultrasound they realized the women was pregnant with twins. I immediately wanted to go over and tell the mom-to-be congratulations but decided to wait on her reaction first… still waiting… by that I mean there was no reaction at all. It was strange to me, I thought either she would be really happy to have two healthy children, or she might be really worried about the extra mouth to feed, at the very least some sort of emotion, but alas, nothing.

Saturday I got a nice surprise when another volunteer on her way to Yaoundé for her close of service called me. She said that her bush taxi had broke down about 10 k outside of Bankim and so she was getting in a small car headed to town where she was going to wait for it to get fixed, and did I want to get lunch with her. Of course I said yes and so I spent a couple of hours with her chatting about this and that and picking her brain about things she had done during service.

When I got home I decided to take a bucket bath because I was going over to eat dinner with my neighbors that night and I knew they probably wouldn’t approve of the dirt tan (seeing as how they bath three times a day). So I got the water ready, striped down, reached for my towel, and had it half way around me when I saw something move on it. At first I thought it was some sort of mutant mouse-like- tree-frog, but then quickly realized it was actually a bat. I threw down the towel, grabbed some clothes, and ran to my neighbor’s house. No one was home, so I went to the next, again no one home, so finally I left my compound looking like a hot mess and went to the one next door (where I hadn’t officially introduced myself yet, I only knew a couple of the kids). I found one of the wives and was like, “hi I live next-door and I need one of the little boys who live here, I know there’s a bunch of them.” In hindsight it probably wasn’t the best idea to go up to a complete stranger and ask for their little boy… oh well live and learn. The wife asked me if I was ok and I sad yes, but that there was an animal (whose name I didn’t know in French, so which in my Franglish came out as, and I quote, “the thing that’s like a bird, but not a bird because it has hair, and flies at night”) in my house and I needed help getting it out. After about 2 minuets of contemplation I guess she decided I wasn’t deranged and so she called for one of her sons to help me out. Thirty min. after that, with the help of a 12 year old Cameroonian boy and my baseball cap we corralled the bat out of my room, out of my house and back into the wild. You know how people sometimes say, “this isn’t funny now, but it will be someday” not true in this case, here it was funny pretty much the entire time. I guess it’s a good thing I finished up with that series of rabies shots last month ;)


Wednesday, December 9, 2009

I MADE IT!!!

I’m officially a volunteer, I’m officially at post, and I’m officially on my own, well sort of on my own, I do still have to report to Peace Corps, but for the most part I’m doing my own thing, which is kind of scary, but kind of exciting at the same time.

So last I left off day one of traveling to post was about half way over, and let me tell you that was the better half of the day by far. Right after I left the internet cafĂ©, I was blind sided by a terrible case of what I suspect was food poisoning. I’ll spare you the details, but just know that it’s no fun to be violently ill in a room without running water… Thankfully my bout of sickness only lasted 24 hours and I woke up the next morning feeling considerably better, which was good news for me because Aislynn and I had the bulk of our traveling still to go.

The ride was pretty uneventful and can be summed up with three words: long, bumpy, and dusty. It’s the dry season now so whenever a car goes by it kicks up about 5 inches of pure dust that’s always sitting on top of the roads. Good news is I’m looking really tan these days, bad news is it’s actually just the dirt. Oh well , I’ll take it!

Day one at post, I literally walked in the door dropped my stuff, found my bed and crashed for 5 straight hours. It was fantastic!

Day 2 I figured it was probably time to start unpacking and cleaning my house. Side note, in the 2 weeks that Ralph left and the house was empty the spiders, cockroaches, and mice pretty much took over. I think I might get a cat to get rid of the bugs and mice, no mousetraps in Cameroon. Anyways, I unpacked in the morning, and then headed into town for the afternoon. While I was there I ran into some people from the health center who were giving vaccinations for the national vaccination campaign. I know I’m supposed to take a week or two to move in and get situated before I get stared with actual work, but I just couldn’t pass this up. Turns out I made a good call, I got the chance to see some of the neighborhoods, and met a ton of people in the process. I think at the end of the day we had visited almost 300 houses and vaccinated close at 400 kids for Polio, Vitamin A deficiency, and intestinal worms. Needless to say I was wiped.

Monday, I was planning to finish up with unpacking, but I got a phone call at 6:30 am (another side note: I can’t sleep past 6 am anymore, it’s bizarre, I never thought I would ever be saying those words) from a very excited man at the district hospital named Joseph, who I had met during my visit in November, wanting to know If I wanted to take a day trip “en brusse” with him to see all of the small villages in the Bankim district. Again I could hear my boss saying, “take it easy, you have 2 years to do this,” but I was just excited to see the area so I said sure and 15 min. later I was in a 4 wheel drive truck heading into the bush. All I could think while we were driving from village to village was how beautiful the landscape was and how incredibly strong the people who live here must be. Their lives are no walk in the park (no electricity, no running water, limited water sources in general, and roads impassable in the rainy season) but each time I waved hello, or greeted someone they all flashed me huge smiles and friendly faces. One final word about Monday’s outing; we stopped for lunch, and I had cuscus and jamajama, and I ate it with my hands, and it was awesome.

Today, was pretty unexciting compared to the previous parts of my week. I went around and passed out protocol letters, which means I went around to introduce myself to all the important people in town to be like , hey I’m here. We don’t really do anything like that in the states, so I always feel a little awkward just walking up to someone who’s a big deal, and being like good morning, I’ve arrived. The most intimidating letter to deliver was to the traditional chief. You have to pull out all the stops and be super formal, so needless to say I kept the conversation super short with him. The last thing you want to do when you’re new to town is piss off the chief of the village by insulting him with bad French.

So ya, that’s what’s new with me in Cameroon. I’m going to try and make it out to the place with internet once a week so I can keep everyone posted. On my happenings here in Bankim.

Until Till Next Week!

Kate

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Trainee No More

Hey All!

As of yesterday I am now officially a Peace Corp Volunteer! Yesterday there was a big swearing in ceremony with lots of important people, including the American ambassador, the Peace Corps Country Director, a handful of traditional chiefs, the mayor of Bagante, and some other people who I know were important because they got the good seats, but I’m not quite sure who they were exactly. Also it was really awesome because all the host families were invited and they all dressed to the T. You could really tell that they were all so proud of us and my host mom and dad were no exception. They both came looking amazing in their traditional clothes and they you could tell they pulled out all the stops. The ceremony lasted about an hour, and at the end well all took the PC oath and then viola! we went from trainees to volunteers.

Post ceremony there was a luncheon and then we all had to say goodbye to our families. Not gonna lie it was a lot harder then I thought it would be. I know I’ll go back to visit, but when I watched them walk away everything became really real. Like Ok from now on you’re on your own! Yikes! It’s a little intimidating, but very exciting at the same time!

Post-Post ceremony all the new volunteers spent the afternoon and then pretty much all night “celebrating” We had a nice dinner together and then just enjoyed each others company for the rest of the evening. This morning everyone got up early, packed up all the stuff and then headed out to post. It was really sad to leave everyone, but on the bright side now I’ll have places to stay and excuses to do a little traveling around CameroonJ

As I’m writing this now part one of the trip is complete. Aislynn and I left this morning for Bafousamm and arrived no problems. Were spending the night here in a hotel and then catching the first car out tomorrow morning at 5:30. Should get to my post sometime between 2-3 in the afternoon.

That’s all for now! I hope everyone’s enjoying the holiday season!

Peace,

Kate

Thanksgiving post that I'm just now putting up!

Greetings Everyone!

I guess the first thing to say is happy Thanksgiving. It was weird not being with the gang in the Outer Banks but I definitely had a great time celebrating with everyone her in Cameroon. It was really cool because we invited all the trainers and so the meal was a fusion of traditional Cameroonian cuisine and then some American classics. We had turkey, stuffing, salad, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, kokie, plantains, guacamole, green beans, pineapple, melon, and tons of other stuff. As usual I ate way too much and slept like a dog all night! We even threw around the football around a bit. All in all it was a great day.

This week is the last week of stage! YAY !!!!! I’m defiantly ready for it but I know I’m going to miss my host family and all the other volunteers but I know it’s gonna feel great to gain a little independence. As of right now the plan is to swear in on Wed. leave Thursday and then arrive in Bankim on Friday. I can already tell it’s going to be a whirl wind.

Nothing else super exciting going on at this end. Hope all is well in the states!

Love,

Kate

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Salut tout le mondes!

I hope that everyone is doing well and enjoying the fall weather and all that, that entails (football, football, football, thanksgiving ,football, not that I miss it or anything ;) I’m having a great November, although I’m sure much different then most of yours (sweating bullets in November is something that’s going to take a little getting used to ☺). A lot has happened since I last got a chance to update this thing so forgive me if this post feels like it’s all over the place. Ok here we go!

Things on the home-stay front continue to be great. My family is wonderful and I’m going to be sad when I have to say goodbye in a few weeks. I definitely plan on stopping by for a visit whenever I’m in town.

Here are the highlights from the past month and a half:
1. I got locked in the bathroom at the training house for 30 minuets and had to end up being axed out by 3 Cameroonian men.
2. I attended a special ceremony in a neighboring village where a new chief was being crowned. It was by far one of the coolest things I’ve done in country thus far. There were easily 5 or 6 thousand people there and it was like a giant festival/party/parade thing! Also it was pretty cool cause we got the VIP treatment and were invited into the “royal compound” for a private party… BALLER ;)
3. I was sneezed on by a goat, that’s one of three currently living in our kitchen. It was gross and at the same time so funny that I actually laughed till I peed my pants a little. It’s moments like this, when you find yourself sitting in a wood fire, dirt floor kitchen, and your arm covered in goat snot, when you just have to laugh!
4. I got a chigger. It was really disgusting. I can happily say that now I am chigger free (YAY!) but digging a parasite out of my toe with a needle and a pair of tweezers, accidently popping the egg sack, and watching tons of little chigger egg-pus ooze out of my foot is definitely worth making note of ☺
5. I found out my post and attended a counterpart workshop, which was hot and long and a little boring but totally worth it, because one I got to meet my counterpart, and two I got to learn a little about my post in Bankim. My counterpart’s name is Bernadette and she is the senior nurse at the Lutheran Health Center in Bankim, which is the institution I’m partnered with. As far as I can tell she’s motivated, dedicated, and really excited to work with me. I don’t want to call it to soon, but I think we’re gonna work great together.

Site Visit Recap!!!
1. My post is in Bankim in the western part of the Adamoa. It takes 4 hours to get from Baffousam (the provincial capital of the West) to Bankim on mostly dirt roads in a bush taxi when the roads are fairly dry, and up to 9 hours at the height of the rainy season. It took me about 5 to get there and then 6 to get back at the end of the week, so not bad if I do say so myself.
2. Basic things you need to know are it’s a major truck stop so a pretty bustling medium sized town, there are no paved roads, even though main street is technically an international highway, the people are great, and there’s a huge amount of diversity in the town because Bankim finds itself an ethnic crossroad of sorts
3. People in Bankim speak French, Pidgion, Fulfulde, Tikar and what it’s commonly referred to as “special English.” I’m gonna need to make friends with some people willing to translate ASAP
4. There are easily 25-30 little villages “en brusse” surrounding Bankim, and I think I’ll be doing the bulk of my work as a PCV in these areas. We visited one of these little villages and I would say the population was probably less then 75 people. Not gonna lie it blew my mind a little!
5. I sat in and helped with a baby vaccination day. For those of you laughing hysterically right now let me just add some fuel to the fire. Picture me in a room with 50 Cameroonian babies all under a year old and their mothers for 5 hours. All I can say is someone out there has a great sense of humor. All jokes and soul sucking stares aside though, I really did have an awesome time helping out. Maybe babies aren’t so bad after all… maybe ;)
6. I took my first motorcycle taxi ride and… IT WAS AWESOME! Mom, if you’re reading this clam down I was wearing a helmet and I told the driver to be careful… breath. The driver took Ralph (the guy I’m replacing) and I all around Bankim so I could get a good feel for the landscape, which by the way is gorgeous. I’m right where the rainforest and the Sahara start to meet so there are tall grasses and beautiful tropical trees everywhere.
7. So Ralph… I think he’s kind of a legend within Peace Corps Cameroon. He’s a 65 year old retired Navy seal/ski patrolman/ Peace Corps volunteer who’s been working in Bankim for the past two years. He was great site visit host and it’s not going to be easy to fill his shoes. If you’re reading this Ralph, thanks again for showing me around Bankim. I had great time and can’t wait to get back and start working! One last note about Ralph and site visit; I can now officially say I’ve been in Africa and watched Mean Girls with a retired Navy seal… just you try and beat that one ;)
8. Overall I loved my site visit and I’m really excited to get back and settle into the community. I feel like there are a lot of places in Bankim where a PCV can be a community mobilizer, and I’m PUMPED!!!

I know I’m forgetting things like crazy but it’s hard to put this entire experience down into words. Final things I wanted to let people know are that I have a phone (you can get the number from mama millman), you can text for free from Skype, there’s internet in Bankim (KMillmavt09@gmail.com), I wrote some letters so be on the look out, and I miss all of you tons but I’m still having the time of my life here!

Peace!
Kate

P.S. Happy birthday Rose and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone else!!!

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Hey Everyone!

So I've been in country for about 3 weeks now and everything is great! I live in this tennie-tiny little village in the western province of Cameroon called Bamena. I'm pretty sure you won't find it on a map. I think the closest mapable place is Bagante, which is where all the agro volunteers in my staging class live.

So there's so much i want to say, but i have to be quick, so i think the best way to explain my situation is to give you a day in the life of me.

I wake up at 5:30 every morning to the sound of my host father and host mother yelling at my host sister and host brother. Not in a bad way more in a "i just want to be extra sure you hear me kind of way" After that i go to the fire to warm up some water, wait pour it in a bucket and then head off to take a bucket bath. Side note, i brush my teeth in the backyard and when I look out i can see the entire valley below us. It's so beautiful, some days i can't even believe i'm really here.

After i get dressed and cleaned up i head up to the restraunt my family owns (the only one in the town) and grab a quick bite to eat. I make a little small talk in french ( literally a little) and then I go to school. I think the walk to school is one of my favorite parts of living in Bamena. Everybody says hello to each other and people actually stop to ask how you are and where you're going and how your family is. It's refreshing to meet busy people, who aren't to busy to say hello :)

Once I get to school, i spend from 7:30 till 4:30 going back and forth between french classes and technical classes. All my teacher's are awesome. Theo, the tecnical health trainer is great. He really knows his stuff and he's always up beat, and he has the best laugh ever. It's one of those laughs that makes you laugh even if you don't know what we're laughing about. My french teacher is equally awesome. Her name is Djanabo, and she's got to be one of most patient Camerounains i've met so far, which is good beacsue ome days my french is pretty rough but she is always encouraging and that is certainly making things easier.

After school is over all the trainees go to one of the local bars to hang out and unwind from the day. Normally we hangout playing cards until about 6 and then we disperse for home. When i get home I help my mom with dinner and then we all eat together on the front porch. I do have to say thought that I always eat dinner with my fork in one hand, my plate on my lap and my french dictionary in my other hand. It makes for pretty entertaing table talk ;)

After dinner I do home work for a little while, sometimes i write a letter (keep an eye out for them) and then go to sleep. It's a pretty simple life, but I love it :)

Peace,
Kate

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Salut !!!

I can now officially call myself a world traveler! In the last three days I have flown alone for the first time, traveled into Europe for the first time (even though it was only 1 sort of stressful hour) and landed in Cameroon. There are 32 people in my group, and they're all awesome! We landed in the airport and it was a little chaotic but we all got through customs and made it to the hotel in Younde. I'm sharing a room for the next 5 days with a really nice girl named Liz and then from there we all head about 1/2 hour out of town to where our PST (pre-service training) will be. I'm sorry this is such a short message but my time on the computer is very limited, but all is well and i am confident that this will be an adventure of a life time :)

Peace,
Kate

Monday, September 14, 2009

Packing My Life Up


Step 1: lay everything out on the living room floor in a giant pile



Step 2: repackage everything in zip lock baggies, and yes I mean everything ;)



Step 3: cram it all into a duffel, a travel pack, and a back pack

Now the test will be tomorrow when I take it all to get weighed... something tells me a few things aren't going to make the cut

Monday, September 7, 2009

It's Crunch Time

So as of today I have 9 days until I depart for Peace Corps. I'm feeling really excited because I've been waiting so long for this to actually happen, but I'm also starting to get some of the pre-departure jitters. I'm thinking that this is normal and I mean who wouldn't feel a least a tiny bit anxious about leaving the country for 2 years. Lucky for me the excitement is heavily out weighing the nerves :)

Today I went shopping with my parents to get a few last min. items. I picked up some skirts and shirts and a planner. The whole leaving at the end of summer has actually worked out really well because everything is marked way down on the sale racks. I like to think of it as the silver lining to the previous trip being cancelled.

I other news I AM THE WORLDS WORST PROCRASTINATOR. I mean I've known this for a long time but every time i do it i just think, "why do I do this to myself?" I have 14 hours of French left to do and I'm trying to have it all done by Friday. I just keep telling myself I work better under a little bit of pressure.

Lastly tomorrow and Thursday are my last days at the Potter's House. I'm so glad that I decided to work there this summer, and I'm definitely going to miss all my new friends!


Saturday, August 29, 2009

Bug Net

So I bought a free standing mosquito net a while back because it was one of the things that was on the packing list for Mauritania, and I just figured it would probably be a good thing to take to Cameroon too. Today I busted it out and set it up in the living room made sure everything was in order and then. about an hour later I read a post on Facebook from a current PCV in Cameroon saying not to bother with bringing things like bug nets. Now I'm not sure if I'm going to try and sell it or just go ahead and bring it with me. hmmmm.... any suggestions ???




Friday, August 28, 2009

The Man At The Bike Shop Sized Me Up

Ok so this really isn't that exciting but I got sized for a bike today. I got an email from Peace Corps Cameroon at the beginning of the week and one of the things I needed to do was go find out what size bike i ride. I called a couple places this morning and the first one wanted to charge me $30 bucks for one measurement. The second place wanted $95. Finally I found a place who said that they didn't really do bike measurements but once I told him what I needed it for he said to come on in and they would help me out free of charge. They were great. I'm not gonna lie though the guy asked me to get on a bike and ride it. I looked at him for a second and was like... where? He was like, oh just around the store. It was kind of awkward. I just took the bike around the store for a few laps while other costumers were shopping and checking out at the front. Didn't seem to phase anyone but me.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Flights booked !!!

I'm leaving September 16th out of Norfolk at 9:13 am and getting to Philly around 10:45 am for staging. I have a full day of basic orientation stuff and then on the 17th we go to get all our shots, and when all that's over we leave the States around 5:30 pm!

I'm so excited, starting to get a little pre-service jitters, but very confident that I am ready to go (except maybe I should practice my french a bit more ;)

More news to come

Peace,
Kate

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Good News !

First off, welcome to my new blog. I figured since the old one was titled Hokie Pokie in Mauritania and since this Hokie is no longer Pokie'ing there it might be time for a name change. Incase you're way out of the loop or just really confused let me give you the short and long of it:

-June 15 supposed to depart for Mauritania
-June 9 get a call saying my Mauritania training class is postponed till mid-August because visas are still being processed
-June 24 get a call saying my Mauritania training class is cancelled completely because of no visas
-June 25 my info was re-processed and Peace Corps started looking for a new assignment
-June 30 I got invited to Peace Corps Cameroon

and today......

I ACCEPTED !!!

So as of now I will be heading over to Cameroon tentatively on September 16 as a volunteer with the Community Health Project. The job description is pretty broad until I get there and get assigned a specific place within the country, but basically it includes helping communities identify where their biggest health concerns are and equipping them with tools and knowledge to prevent spread of disease. The job also includes teaching preventive healthcare practices.

Not gonna lie this is a lot different then what I was expecting to do and it's not exactly my expertise, but I know that Peace Corps wouldn't put me in there if they didn't think I was qualified. Also I get three months of technical training from PC staff so it's not like I'm being thrown in and it's sink or swim.

Overall I'm happy with where things are. The re-assignment was a set back but everyone keeps saying I really lucked out because of the situation in Mauritania. Regardless of that fact that this is not what I had originally planned to be doing, from what I've read Cameroon sounds like a exciting place to live and I can't wait to get there!

Peace,
Kate