Et Le Navire Va: Field Trip

Saturday-Sunday, October 27-28, 2012 – Field Trip

We just got back from our fieldtrip to the West Region – it was a lot of fun. We stayed in the regional capital, Bafoussam, for the night. Of course that means we did some drinking too, something that I probably took a little too far. I definitely had a hangover all day, which wasn’t helped by the fact that my stomach is still not doing great. I broke into my oral rehydration salts when I got home, but my body doesn’t want to accept water or food right now. They taste like crap too. The good thing is that my best friend sent me Crystal Light packets that are really helping to get it down. I’ve also got some great friends here who babied me all day, so that made things better. I talked to the nurse too; she said to eat bananas and starchy food.

We went to an orphanage while we were out there, which was great/depressing. The kids were adorable and really excited that we were there. There were 27 kids in total and only 2 rooms with 3 beds each, one for the girls, one for the boys. A few of them were also HIV+, which is just so unfair. Not only are they living in an underfunded orphanage, but they were born with this disease, and they didn’t get it from decisions that they made. There was even a little baby there – the woman in charge was telling us how expensive it is to buy food for him. I’m not sure where their funding was coming from, but it didn’t seem like they had a lot of it.

The orphanage also sold necklaces, earrings, and honey to help supplement their funding, so I bought myself a necklace. I wanted to get honey too, but I didn’t bring enough money.

Afterwards we went to a museum. It was pretty interesting, but I went through it pretty fast, we all did. I think we all just wanted to go outside an enjoy the good weather.

For dinner on Friday night and lunch on Saturday I got shwarma from this place in Bafoussam, it was really tasty. At least it was really nice to eat something a little different than normal. I really wish I could be placed in a big city where I could have regular access to food like that, but I don’t think it is going to happen.

I had my placement interview last week too. I basically asked for three main things:

1) To be placed in a French-speaking area. Not just a Francophone region, but a French-speaking village. I don’t want to get some place and have to learn a local language that only a few thousand people know.

2) To be placed in a position that is more large-scale than small-scale. I would like to work on designing and developing programs and curricula rather than just teaching kids directly about making good life decisions and sexual reproductive health. If I could work with an NGO or government organization, that would be great.

3) To be placed in a big city with amenities. I’ve always liked living in cities, so the bigger, the better. I also need access to the Internet and electricity so I can keep in contact with my University and write my Significant Research Paper for my Master’s International program. I also mentioned that I am more interested in a cooler climate, like Adamaoua, but we’ll see how that works out.

I really want to hear where my post is, but that won’t happen for another couple of weeks. I’m nervous about it, but there’s not much that I can do about it – I have to go wherever they send me. I just don’t want to be sent to a really small, really conservative village in the middle of a desert. Apparently it is really hard to get any sort of variety of food in the Grand North for most of the year, which is what I’m worried about the most.