I made it up to Ngaounderé for St. Patty’s Day. Ngaounderé is probably my favorite city in
Cameroon. It is part of the Grand North,
so it still has the culture of the Grand North, but is where you catch the
train south, so it is pretty developed.
It also has amazing weather.
There were a few evenings where I was actually cold. I haven’t worn anything with long sleeves in
quite a while, so I didn’t have anything.
A friend let me borrow her scarf to wear as a shawl. It probably wasn’t even that cold, I’m just
so used to the heat.
It also has some awesome food.
There is shwarma right outside the case at a couple different spots, an
awesome omelet sandwich guy for breakfast, along with some other tasty
spots. There is even a place to get
pizza. There are several bars around
that are decent, and the stores have a pretty good variety of stuff. Plus, and this is the biggest thing, the
Adamaoua has some of my favorite people, so it’s a great place to visit.
The St. Patty’s Day party that they organized there was great. We played some epic games of corn hole, beer
pong, and card games. We listened to a
St. Patty’s Day mix I made and had a bonfire; it was a great time. A friend of mine bought me a Indomitable
Lions jersey (the Cameroonian soccer team) that was way too small and
sleeveless, so I looked ridiculous, but at least it was green. Another friend went out and got omelet
sandwiches for us, which was one of the nicest things anyone’s done for
me.
Afterwards I went back to post for a while, but there has not really
been a lot for me to do. The last two
weeks have been spring break, so they are just getting back to it today, which
means I can really just start projects today.
Luckily, I was able to get some work done in other ways. I am on the National Girls Forum (NFG) committee
– we are in charge of organizing the three-day event in June. The idea is to bring together Cameroonian
girls, counterparts (which probably work with kids in some way), and volunteers
for trainings, discussions, and best practices.
We had a meeting for it that brought me back down to Ngaounderé, for a
few more days where we outlined what the forum would look like.
I actually have to go back down to Yaoundé next weekend. We have another NFG meeting and then a
steering committee meeting. After that
I’ll head back up for a few days to do a map project with my post-mate. It’s where we paint a world map on the side
wall of a school, in this case, the Lycée Technique. Then straight back down south. This time I’ll probably take a bus that goes
through east Adamaoua to visit a friend, then down to Bertoua, the capital of
the East region. It will be my 9th
region I’ll have visited out of the ten in Cameroon. From there I’ll take another bus to Ebolowa,
the capital of the South region, where I have a water, sanitation, and hygiene
conference at the end of the month.
It’s great to be on these different committees – they are really good
experience and can help me decide what to do after Peace Corps. The problem is that they are really keeping
me away from post. It was spring break,
and now the end of the school year is rapidly approaching. Tests aren’t until June, but a lot of kids
stop going in May.
We want to still be productive this summer, so we are planning on
doing three more map projects at the other two high schools and at the youth
center. We are trying to plan a camp as
well that we will have in Guider, maybe Mandama and Douroum as well. We are thinking about having it for three
days and having it revolve around health, decision-making, savings, and
income-generating activities. It’s just
hard to get everything in place before the school year ends and we don’t have
anyone to invite. Right now the plan is
for most of the cluster to work on it, so maybe five of us go to each
camp.
One piece of good news is that some friends are moving closer to
me. One is actually moving to Guider,
while others are going to Pitoa and Garoua, all really close to me. It’ll be great to have more people to hang
out and collaborate with.
