PST Week 8

Today I saw some truly bizarre things on a motto. I saw 6 – yes count them 6 – grown men on one motto. While that was truly amazing and highly entertaining, the most amazing thing I saw by far was a man driving a motto with a table overturned on the back and in the table was a live cow and on that cow was another man just sitting. Seriously – how did they get that cow into that table and onto that motto? I cannot picture that occurring.

Okay so some things appear to be universal. Sibling rivalry. I have seen a number of siblings here in Africa bicker the same way I do with my siblings and the same way I witness countless other people in the states bicker with theirs. Love of cold beer. That transcends all cultures I believe. Curiosity. I think all people are curious about things they don’t know much about or understand – like the children here with us.

So I have had some fun this week experimenting with random street food and the market. There seem to be many possibilities for food here if you are willing to put enough time and effort into the process of experimenting. Rice beignets could make an English muffin like base for a personal pizza. Parle G cookies could be crushed up to make a pie crust. These types of things. Also, I am super excited to have time to get to experiment with food soon. I have found some winning foods on the streets of Pitoa. The bakkaroo (crunchy sticks of peanut butter basically) are rather tasty. This beautiful ginger candy has appeared lately. Spaghetti omelets with beans. Fullery juice (which tastes like hibiscus) with a bit of ginger. Fresh peanut butter – which apparently I am suppose to boil before eating but haven’t yet done that. Rice beignets I am partial too. This street soup called Ham Ham that is basically fullery and peanuts (which are cooked to taste kind of like tofu) – this Italian wedding soup with peanut like tofu instead of meatballs. The food situation is getting better and will certainly get much better once I can cook for myself and control the amount of cotton oil and magi that is going into my food. Right now I cannot and so I have just given up being healthy.

So exciting news, most of the trainees are going to the final regional African soccer match on Sunday. Coton Sport (The best team in Cameroon which happens to hail from Garoua – my provincial capital) will be playing the other best regional team in African who happens to hail from Egypt. I am super excited and think I will celebrate by buying a jersey to wear to the game. Score and such to come.

Okay so Christmas presents, don’t expect them. I have yet to figure out the mail situation. I have been sending letters slowly but surely and don’t worry if you haven’t received one – I got more envelopes and plan to send more soon. I will send things to people as I find and buy them and once I figure out the mail system. Know that I love you all and am thinking about your potential birthday or Christmas presents. I will text you for sure!

Let’s see. Since site visit not much has happened. We are all pretty over the whole training situation and ready to get out there to our villages and start some projects. That being said, I think I for one am also equally terrified of being on my own in my village and having to speak French with everyone and terrified that I will suck at my job as a community health promoter, that no one will understand my French, etc. But, petite a petite as they say in French (little by little in English). I have my next French exam next Friday and while they claim it is our last we all know there is a secret one right before swearing in for all those of us who still need it. I am learning more and more French but it is still hard as hell to communicate health messages.

This week we got to go to a local school and first observe a health class and then teach a short health lesson. The health class we observed was super interesting. It was suppose to be about communicable disease with a focus on palu (malaria). The information they learned was learned verbatim from all the students who could tell you things like that you take quinine for malaria and that it is spread by the anopheles mosquito (things I doubt most health classes in college would expect all students to know in America). But, at the same time these students didn’t know much about malaria life cycle or how this knowledge they had applied to them or impacted their chances of acquiring the disease. School in Cameroon is extremely focused on memorization. When the teacher makes a note on the board under a certain heading all the students break out the notebooks and copy word for word the paragraph, then all the students memorize this exact paragraph and can spit it back at you. No critical thinking is done. The whole time we were at the school many students raised their hands to answer questions (verbatim stating things they had memorized previously) but not one question was asked by a student. I was pleased to see that both girls and boys seemed to contribute in school fairly equally. To be called on they raised their hands and snapped – it was bizarre. For our session we chose the message of hand-washing. Short and simple. We first did two skits (one with good sanitation practices and one with bad). Then we asked them about the two skits and to tell us the differences and what such. After analyzing these skits we taught them a song (Si tu veux le bon sante lave le mains – if you want good health wash your hands). It was entertaining beyond belief. Then, we played a good game of telephone (which we taught them) with health messages like “wash your hands after you go to the latrine”. It was certainly an interesting experience. Keep in mind we did all this in French and I understood it enough to at least write about it!

The other impressive French thing I did this week was during our community groups. We were doing an animation (which is the PC buzz word for presentation that is interactive) about the fecal oral route and diarrheal diseases. I was in charge of facilitating the discussion about which diseases were diarrheal diseases and whether they were viruses, bacteria, parasites, or worms. It was interesting. Then, I was also in charge of making the oral rehydration solution with them. I did manage to get both of these messages across in French. Quite a personal accomplishment might I add. Other than that we make a poster about the fecal-oral route and how each leg of it could be prevented. Then we talked about what type of diarrhea needs treatment. Super fun and lots of talk about poop and diarrhea – that seems to be a PC theme.

Still no packages. Apparently there have been problems with the embassy pouch and apparently the mail man who gets to mail from the embassy and brings it to PC has been sick. Anyway, I probably won’t get anything for at least 2 weeks since that is the next time I know of someone coming up here from the south. No one got anything this week and all of us were expecting something. We were fairly sad but I suppose that’s life here and we all are just trying to adjust our expectations with the mail system. But honestly, no one even got a letter. Bogus.

Alright well not much else to report here on the Africa front. Found a magazine that is published weekly here in French that talks about world affairs that I will be buying to practice French and try to stay connected to the world. Also, listen to BBC focus on Africa fairly regularly now. BBC here is hilarious and does things like holds English lessons. It does the job though – fills me with basic worldly information. Miss all of you and send me emails and blog comments! Two double fist pumps to Obama – which is all we seem to get here (with at least5 daily Obama shout outs). Bye for now!