The Fun of IST

The Fun of IST – Tuesday, April 2, 2013

 

Inter-Service Training (IST) was… an interesting time.  As a result of our initial training being shorter than normal, our IST was longer – two weeks instead of one.  Unfortunately, they had to do it with the same amount of money.  This meant that instead of having it in Kribi or Limbé, the beautiful beach towns that Cameroon has and where the last few ISTs have been held, we had it in Mbalmayo.  Mbalmayo wasn’t a bad place, but I would never just go there to see it.  Luckily, we did find a couple of good bars, including one called The Goblet that had draft beers and beer towers.  That discovery led to some crazy nights. 

 

During IST we also played a bunch of games.  Capture the Flag was set up a few times, and led to some pretty good injuries.  I personally fell onto some concrete scraping up my knees while chasing someone.  Those cuts are just now almost healed, almost a month later.  The problem was that every time I rode a bus I was so squished in that my knees were always pushed into the seat in front of me, reopening the cuts. 

 

I also organized a game of Sock Assassins, something I played freshmen year of college.  Everyone who wanted to play got the name of someone else, who they have to kill by hitting them with a sock.  After that, they would take the name the person they killed had, going until there was one left.  There were a few safe-zones like the lunchroom, your room, or during meetings, but other than that you were fair game.  It was fun to watch the chases happen in between meetings, though there were some pretty substantial falls. 

 

Other than the games, it was awesome to be with everyone from training.  After a few months it was great to see some of the people I never get to.  Even people that I didn’t hang out with a lot before I started to get to know better.  We were also able to go to the bar most nights.  Even though we weren’t in Kribi we still made the most of it. 

 

A bunch of us ended up going to Kribi for a few days after anyways.  I ended up staying two and had an amazing time.  It was such a stark difference from my normal life here, just sitting on the beach, having a beer, and relaxing.  I ended up buying some souvenirs too – a couple of oil paintings of Cameroonian scenes and a couple of small statues made from hippo bone.  They are supposed to help your joints if you shake them up.   A buddy and I ended up swimming out to this distant rock and we got a lot of great food while we were there too. 

 

After that I went with a couple of friends through Douala, which looked like a pretty gross city from the part I saw, up to Bamenda, the capital of the Northwest.  It is an Anglophone area, and it was pretty weird speaking to Cameroonians in English, I kept accidentally switching back to French.  I bought another souvenir there – an elephant mask.  I really like Bamenda, one of my favorite cities I’ve been to in Cameroon.  I had a great time with some friends out there, then went to the post of one of them about 40 minutes away.  We went to this orphanage while I was there to check it out. 

 

After that I headed to Mbuda in the West region, about midway between Bamenda and the capital of the West, Bafoussam.  A couple of friends of mine live there and I went to Women’s Day there, which was a lot of fun.  The next day I went and saw a museum and a monastery that made it’s own yogurt.  Probably the best yogurt I’ve ever had. 

 

I was going to head to Bafoussam then before heading back to Yaounde, but I got a really lucky break.  We were trying to flag down a bush taxi, and a really nice SUV pulled over.  The guy ended up being someone who was trying to get elected to the National Youth Council, was heading through Bafoussam, and would have no problem giving us a ride.  When we got to Bafoussam I asked if he was staying, he said no he was going to Yaounde.  Long story short, he gave me a ride all of the way there for free, right up to the case door.  It was amazing, probably saved me a day and 7 mil CFA worth of travel.  I’ll cover more next time – I still have about 3 weeks of catching up to do.