Moto Accident and Standfast

I’m back in Yaoundé, again.  Between YD Steering Committee, National Girls’ Forum Committee, and ICT (Information, Communication, Technology) Committee, I travel down here quite a bit.  Luckily, I like the more national work I’m doing, because at this point I’m not getting a whole lot of work done at post.  I have plans to teach a couple of classes a week now that school is back in, and my post-mate and I got funding approval for a latrine project at a high school, but those are still in motion and haven’t really started yet.  Currently, I’m down here to train the next stage (class) of YD trainees.  I had to come down early for a couple of reasons.  The first, is that the Technical Manual for YD that I’ve been editing and adapting was too big to email. 

Drinking is hard work

The second is that I am training next week, and we are going to be on standfast from tonight until Wednesday morning because of the first parliamentary elections in 6 years.  Peace Corps (PC) is worried about any violence, riots, protests, or whatever else that could happen during the elections, so they don’t want anyone traveling.  I realized after I got here that the session on Tuesday I thought I was a part of I’m not, so I don’t have to be in Bafia before standfast starts.  Now I’ll just head there after it ends. 

The most tame game of Lions vs. Elephants I've ever played

Which is a good thing, because now I’m on med hold.  On Monday night on the way back from a great barbeque in Beka, a small town about 5 km outside of Ngaounderé, another PCV and I got in a little moto accident.  It wasn’t anything too bad, we were just driving on this bad dirt road at night, the driver went too fast, hit a couple of holes or something, and he and I went flying off the moto.  The girl that was in between us somehow managed to stay on and the moto and went into a little ditch on the side of the road and the bushes there.  It stayed upright with the wheels still spinning, so the driver came and lifted her off.  Luckily she was fine. 

I went to the ground head and knee first.  Fortunately, I was wearing my helmet (like I always do, if any admin are reading).  My knee got banged up, but my ribs took the brunt of it.  I was carrying a cassier (a big, plastic case for beer) under my right arm and landed right on it.  I found out this morning that I’ve got a few cracked ribs, so I’ll be hanging out in Yaoundé until Wednesday.  As a friend of mine pointed out, I won, because the cassier had 5 broken beer bottles and I only had 3 cracked ribs. 

Little kids collect old water bottles.
Later they fill them with new (not filtered) water, yogurt, juice, or something else to sell.  

After that we got back on the moto and he drove on.  At this point we actually started to pay attention to his driving (he wasn’t very good), and the girl with me asked him if he wasn’t habituated with driving motos.  He of course blamed us and said we weren’t habituated with riding, with is ridiculous.  We were sitting straight and still, definitely his fault.  Either way, everyone is fine, and now I don’t have 4 unwanted extra days in Bafia because of standfast. 

A girl selling bottles of honey

Plus I have a lot of work to do here still.  I have to finish writing the justifications about why we changed the Global Core lessons like we did for YD, and I have to write my VRF – our report each of us do 3 times a year to tell Peace Corps what we are really doing and who we are helping.  I’m also taking the Foreign Service Officer’s Test next Sunday, so if I’m smart, I’ll take this time to study.