Fou

Saturday, October 19, 2103

We’ve had friends visiting for a few days.  One of them had lived in Larbak, a nearby village, for a couple of years before extending to Maroua.  When Maroua was closed she moved to Ngaounderé, where she was just approved to extend for a 4^th year.  My post-mate is actually talking about extending for a few months so he would COS (close of service) with my stage.  He is going to be replaced by someone that comes with the September stage, so he figures he might as well hang out with us until then. 

The other one is leaving very shortly.  He was in our cluster for a few months.  He had been evacuated from Mali with a bunch of other people and moved to Mayo Oulo with my post-mate’s stage.  Unfortunately, Mayo Oulo was also closed, so he was moved south to Nkongsamba, in the Littoral.  He will be COSing in just over two weeks, so he wanted to see it again before he left. 

The other day we were at the market, when my post-mate grabbed a little baggy out of a kid’s hand.  It was full of ‘solution’.  Solution is toxic glue that they breathe in to get high.  They can just pick the baggy up off of the ground somewhere, and a bottle of solution only costs 200 cfa, or about $0.40.  This kid had been walking around for who knows how long huffing this glue.  We could barely understand him when he talked. 

It’s like we were seeing pre-fou.  Fou means crazy in French, and in Cameroon, a fou is someone who is crazy.  They walk around in rags all day bothering people, asking for money, and just being crazy.  In America picture a homeless person with severe mental problems.  I think most of them here actually sleep in a compound, there families taking care of them at least a bit, but I’m not sure about that.  We even have a street in Guider we named Fou St., because the main fou that bothers us is always there.  I feel like these kids who are huffing glue are just working their way up to being full-blown fous.

I started teaching on Thursday at the CMPJ, my youth center.  I’ll be doing life skills with them mostly, but I promised I would throw some English in there too.  It went really well.  I taught about the bridge model – basically showing them what skills that they need to build a bridge and avoid the ravine of drugs, HIV/AIDS, malaria, other illnesses, alcohol, and unwanted pregnancy – stuff like that.  Then the different lessons will cover those skills.  I’ll be teaching there every Tuesday and Thursday.  The lesson went really well.  The students were well behaved, and since there is only about 20 of them, it wasn’t too tough involve everyone and keep their interests.  I had a few problems with French, a couple of words I didn’t know, but overall my language skills were fine. 

I’m planning on going to one of the high schools on Monday to talk to the principal.  I want to work with the health club when they meet on Wednesdays on the same life skills stuff.  I would like to be able to work with clubs from all three schools, but throughout Cameroon clubs only meet on Wednesdays, so I can really only work with one unless I switch off each week, which I don’t think will be effective enough. 

I started a writing club with friends around the world – some working, some PCVs, a bunch in America too.  Basically we write to different prompts, whatever they inspire.  The only rule is that it is a 500-word minimum.  Everyone sends me their submissions and I post them on the blog I started for it – ScribblersGuild.blogspot.com – under a pen name.  It’s really fun reading all of the different submissions and being the only one who knows who everyone is.  If you want to join, let me know, otherwise, check out the blog!  There has been some great writing so far.