Fête after Fête, and Not the Fun Ones

Thursday, February 20, 2014

This morning was yet another holiday, this time Reunification Day.  All of these celebrations are really making it hard to get work done.  Leading up to each one, clubs are canceled and sometimes even classes to practice.  I’m not exactly sure why they need to practice again and again, they do the same thing for each one – march passed the crowed.  They might have a song or a little dance they do on the way, but that’s it.  Over the last month or so we have had Bilingual Day, Youth Day, and now Reunification Day.  In another two weeks will be Women’s Day.  It’s starting to get frustrating – I was supposed to teach a couple of times and go to a club this week and it was all canceled.

 

It was sooooo long, too.  I got there an hour after they told me to (of course it still hadn’t started), and was still there over three hours.  I didn’t have time to get my invitation from my counterpart, so I was just going to stand with the crowd.  I think it’s better anyways, I feel weird being one of the grands in the stands, but they rarely let us.  This time was no different, I was standing there and a police officer came up with a stick swinging it at the kids to get them out of the way; they all ran passed me.  I stood there staring at him and slowly moved to the side, but he came up and had me brought to the stands.  Of course they sat me with the Chinese guys. 

My other work has been going well.  The latrine project that my post mate and I are doing is almost done; I just gave the school director the money for the roof and doors.  My post mate has friends coming and they are going to sponsor a water project at the same school.  They are bringing about 300,000 cfa ($600), and we are going to branch off from a water pipe from across the street to get a standpipe for the school.  It feels great to have such a tangible project – by the time this is all done, a school with no water or sanitation facilities is going to have enough latrines and water for the whole school population.  Once those are done we are going to train the students on the importance of proper sanitation and hand washing – we’ll probably have a soccer tournament at the same time, just for fun. 

In a little over a week I have to head south to train the latest stage on a scholarship program and work zones/cross-sector collaboration for their Inter-Service Training (IST).  It’s in Bamenda, an Anglophone city in the Northwest.  I’m planning on seeing a couple of friends while I am out there too, so that should be fun.  We call Bamenda, Bamerica because it is so nice; it will be a great trip. 

National Girls’ Forum is coming up quick too; it will be here in less than a month and a half.  Planning is going really smoothly right now – we actually don’t have much that we can do until the applications for both the committee and the Forum itself come in on March 14^th.  It’ll be in Limbé on April 9^th – black sand beaches!  I can’t wait! 

I’ve also got to finish updating the Peace Corps Cameroon website, I’ve still got a lot of work to do on it.  I guess the website has a due date of March 31^st.  I’ll have to hang out in the case and try to get it done some time; my Internet at post has been so slow. 

Even before that I’ll have to go to Steering Committee to plan for the next Pre-Service Training (PST), which starts in June.  I’ve also been trying to do some job searching and research for my paper.  I’ve actually been thinking about extending my service another year, but it all depends on the options I get for my extension.  I really don’t know what I’ll do.  Either way, it feels good to be so busy.  There are even people who have been visiting/will visit Guider, so we’ve had a lot of company.  This weekend will be the first time I’ll be alone in a while.  I’m looking forward to relaxing and getting some work done.