Sorry for the lack of updates, but we are currently experiencing technical difficulties here in Bankim. By that I mean that for the past week and a half we’ve only had power between the hours of 1:00 am and 5:00 am. Not exactly the most convenient time frame for your average resident. On the bright side (although not very bright) I know exactly when the power comes back because my neighbor starts up his big coffee grinder and has his guys work through the night, thus waking me up and giving me a chance to plug in all my electronics for the next day.
So let’s see, what have I been up to? On the work front last week I started a community health and sanitation survey. I have an in-service training (IST) coming up so the goal is to use some of our findings in our report we have to give. Bernadette and I decided to divide the village up into sections and the plan is that over the next couple of days we’ll hopefully visit fifty families from a variety of different backgrounds and then compile the results into a report that can help us to plan effective activities in the future. It’s hard work, but already the results are proving to be helpful, so I’m feeling pretty pumped about that.
In other news I turned the big two three this past Monday. It was fun but low-key. I got to Skype chat with my family at home and received a surprise call from Miss Altice back in the states, so that was very exciting. Birthdays are most definitely not celebrated to the same extent here in Cameroon that they are in the states. For instance you shouldn’t tell a Cameroonian it’s your birthday unless you are ready to give THEM a gift or buy them a drink, kind of backwards from what we do but thankfully my neighbor warned me about this ahead of time so I was armed and ready. Party favors this year came in the form of fried plantains… lots and lots of fried plantains. I enlisted the help of Fadimatou, my 9 year neighbor, and the two of us spent the morning in the kitchen deep frying massive amounts of food, and then in the afternoon I made the rounds to pass them out. I hit up all the immediate neighbors and then my colleagues at the health center and finished up with my friends in the market. I don’t know how good the food actually was but everyone seemed excited that I made them myself.
The real birthday fun came later in the week in the form of a visit from the Mayo Darlé crew. Aislynn and her boyfriend Josh (who’s visiting Cameroon at the moment) came to spend a few days with me, and everyone knows the only thing better then one white person in Bankim is three ;) . I have to say I always love when Aislynn comes; one because I enjoy the company, two because I like speaking American English and not feeling restricted by a five year old’s vocabulary (which is about what I have in French right now), and three because she’s a great cook. In fact, that was her birthday present to me, she and josh made me a steak dinner with potatoes and greens (a real treat since I don’t frequently visit the meat market, which is a whole other story). We asked Haua if we could use her fire pit and did a bar-b-que in the backyard.
It was really funny to watch Haua watch us cook. First we used a big fire where as Cameroonians normally grill on coals, so she kept reaching in and literally pulling the wood out of the fire. Then josh cut the meat into small steaks instead of hacking it into little pieces, and she kept saying, “no no no you’re doing it wrong,” and finally pulled the meat off the grill, went at it with her knife, and chopped it into pieces. So that put an end to the nicely cut steak, but I had to laugh because I know she was trying to help and thought we were going to ruin the meal by cooking in this bizarre manner.
Other highlights from their visit included a hike to the top of our cell phone antenna tower, a visit to the big man bar for drinks, and oven baked pizza. All in all it was a wonderful visit and it was just what I needed give me a push to get through the next week and a half before I get to see all my friends from stage at IST. Speaking of IST I’m not bringing my computer, so this thing will more then likely be dormant for a while. Fear not though, I’ll give you the complete update when I get back into town ;)
Until Next Time,
Kate
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