PST Week 5

Sunday Market in Pitoa


Drinking at our first bar on Ramadan with our "audience" - we have since found better bars!


Soccer Game - Best regional team in Cameroon versus best regional team in Zimbabwe (we won 4-0)


View of the countryside during my first 6:30am bike ride

Alright so this blog is the first one I will totally write at the internet cafe and not before hand. I have finally figured out how to change any keyboard over to American style (shift and alt simultaneously) but you have to type from memory since all the keys are labeled differently. That isn't a huge problem but sometimes get a bit old.

So this week, let's see. Oh, tomorrow I have my second French test. Lets hope I am making enough progress that I will reach my required intermediate high level in another month. Next week I find out my placement - woot! - and then week 7 is spent at site. Weeks 8, 9, and 10 are spent back here in Pitoa and then week 11 I swear in and move to my site.

Went on a bike ride to Nassaro (spelling) which is where the Agro volunteers live on Wednesday - a group of us decided to bike rather than take the car. It is about a 30 minute bike ride which was fine on the way home at 4:30 but a little rougher in the heat of the day at 1:30 when we were heading there. I survived though and my camelback sure helped with that water access while biking situation!

I found some great cookies - well not great but great comparatively. They are Indian apparently and the package is tan or off white. I cannot remember the name of them but needless to say they are fairly awesome. Also, I have taken to eating the cheese that doens't need refridgeration. A girl can only last so long without dairy. It isn't awful. Or perhaps it really is but I am just desperate. I think that once I get to cook for myself I may be able to make the non-refridgerated cheese work for me. It might do well in pasta with tomatoes or something. Who knows. In case it isn't obvious by my blogs, we talk and think alot about food here. Besides friends and family, food is easily the thing we miss most. So, all you people in America or Germany best embrase the food that you have while you have it. The fact that you can walk into a grocery store and get ANYTHING you want - yea embrase that. Selection is limited in the rest of the world to what is local and in season. Which means I get dried fish and rice and tomato sauce alot. Be jealous.

Let me just take a moment away from talking about my life here to point out that at this moment, I am sitting in a cyber cafe on a random Friday morning while the rest of my friends are taking language test (but me - lucky girl I am - don't have mine until tomorrow) and the man next to me is watching some episode of prison break I believe. I just heard, in English, the words - "last week on prison break" or something of the sorts. I am jealous! I cannot watch movies or tv shows! Now, this isn't normal. Plenty of houses have tvs - about half of the host families do (those with money) and half don't. Mine does not, at least not to the best of my knowledge. I hear that Desperate Housewives and Spanish soapopears are particularly popular here in Cameroon. Go figure? Guess trashy tv loving is a universial guilty pleasure.

I am going to the marche this weekend with another fellow trainee to try to find a halloween costume. We were thinking Rommie and Michelle aka trashy 80s but we shall have to see about availablility. Basically there is a section of the marche that is like a giant outdoor salvation army or goodwill and so we will have to weed through the piles of clothing to find something that will do for a costume. I am not yet creative enough to think of a costume with pagne.

So this week during our community group meeting I got to have my first real experience with power structures in groups of men in Cameroon. The president of the group, a very loud A type personality, who had been absent from the group meeting the week before (of which this weeks activity was a continuation of) had to answer every question, got extremely upset with us when we didn't just take his word as "the word" and tried to extract information from the other group members, would just shout over other people or demand that he be allowed to speak by continually interrupting them - it was interesting. When we asked what they could use our assistance with his replied that they need a megaphone and a car/bike/vehicle of sometype. One of my fellow trainees who was assigned to this group with me asked if they thought it might be possible to use the microphones that are already in place at the mosques. He replied that he was Christian and this wasn't possible. It was very interesting. Anyway, after redirecting the conversation back to each individual person we finally got out that they want to learn more about malaria (aka Palu in local French). Oh, did I not mention that ALL OF THIS WAS HAPPENING IN FRENCH. I got about 1/2 of it I suppose, which is a lot for me. So, we are currently planning an amination (the French and PC Cameroon word for presentation) to present to our group on malaria utilizing the non formal education techniques we are learning... haha.... don't you love my PC lingo usage.

Mail update: I haven't recieved anything but the postcard my mother sent me before I left, my absentee ballot (but I already voted) and a ballot to vote in a local election in Louisiana that took place Oct 4th and I recieved the ballot two days ago on the 22nd. So, mail is taking its time. I have heard from people that they have recived postcards. Many of you had postcards or letters sent and many of you will have one sent soon.

My host father has malaria and has been sick for a month. He went to the hosptial already once since I was there and is going back. Another member of my extended family (who doesn't live in my home) died this week. This is a similar experience for all of us - most trainees have lost family members and everyone has had someone sick (most all of us have had numerous people sick and at least one with malaria). Just wanted to give you an idea of what the health situation here was like. Oh, when asking my host brother about food last night I learned that women don't get fed the same food as men - they get less and poorer quality. Go figure. He did tell me that it is different for pregnant women but wasn't able to get me specifics - again all of this is occuring in French so bare with me, I am learning.

Alright, time to try to get some pictures up on the blog! (which I just did and I will have you know took over 20 minutes and only worked 4/6 times) Hope everyone is doing well and I love and miss you all - keep the comments coming, they greatly amuse me!