The Voyage North

Sunday, December 2, 2012 – The Voyage North

Our trip north started just over a week ago on Friday.  That morning, we said our goodbyes to everyone who was not traveling to the Grand North, and piled into busses for Yaoundé.  We got going a couple of hours later than scheduled, which was fairly expected, and made it to Yaoundé around noon.  I went and got some pizza and smoothies with some friends once we got there, which was awesome.  The pizza actually tasted like something you would get in America, and the smoothies were delicious.  After that we hit up a grocery store for some supplies for the train, including pretzels, pringles, water, and boxes of wine.  By the way, I found out that in most other countries they are called bretzels; I think that makes more sense. 

Around 4 PM we went to the train station, and finally departed around 6.  There were four people per ‘room’ and we had the whole car to ourselves (minus one Cameroonian guy in one of the end rooms).  It was a pretty fun train ride, just talked with people and did a bit of drinking.  We had to hide our drinks from train personnel – when they were going through and checking our tickets they told us that we weren’t allowed to drink on the train, which we didn’t know beforehand.  The ride lasted about 16 hours, and we made it to Ngounderé , the capital of Adamoua, the next morning.  It’s too bad that it was mostly at night, I would have liked to see more of the countryside.  I was on the top bunk with the window open at my feet; I ended up almost kicking a bunch of my stuff out of the window.  I literally found my shoe wedged between the window frame and the bed, with my camera between the shoe and the bed.  I got lucky. 

We hung out in the Case (pronounced cause) in Adamoua (the place where PCVs can stay when visiting the city) for a few hours – our baggage that we sent a week before still hadn’t arrived.  That afternoon when it got there, we loaded up two different busses, one for the Extreme-North and one for the North, and said our goodbyes.  The ride took about 6 hours instead of 4 to get to Garoua, so we got in that night.  We were greeted by my post-mate, a guy from my cluster, and another volunteer from my region.  We spent the next hour or so unloading everything into the Garoua office.  Apparently the people who went to Maroua in the Extreme-North got greeted by a bonfire and beer Olympics.  Not complaining, just saying, Northerners. 

We stayed 3 nights in Garoua instead of the four that we thought we were going to stay.  That time was pretty much spent going to the market, opening our bank accounts, checking out different places to eat, and going to bars.  Luckily a couple more PCVs came into town, and between the group we got a lot of help opening our accounts (which took literally all morning, so much paperwork), and looking for stuff that we needed in our posts. 

Since my house was empty, I had a lot to buy.  My post-mate and another PCV were especially helpful finding things and negotiating prices.  Over those few days I was able to get a stove (a little one kind of like a camping stove), a propane tank, a little fridge, a mat for my floor, a mattress, and a couple of pillows.  All in all, I ended up spending quite a bit of money, including all of my moving-in allowance and the money that I had bought from America.  The mat really ties the room together though. 

I have to say – so far I really like the North.  There are aspects that I don’t like, such as everyday being 95-100 degrees, and this is the cold season.  Apparently during the hot season, March-May, it gets to be 135 degrees in the shade.  Not looking forward to that.  The rest of it seems good though.  The people are nice, and they don’t derange (the French word for bother) you like they do in the Grand South.  I’ll get into the culture and my town, Guider, more next post.  

Swearing-In and Thanksgiving

Friday, November 30, 2012 – Swearing-In and Thanksgiving

Well it has been quite a while since my last post, and a lot has happened, so I will probably break it up into a couple different posts.  It’s hard to even remember everything that’s happened. 

Two weeks ago we had our Bridge to Post where we met our counterparts.  Mine is a guy who is the chief of the CMPJ, which basically translates to a multifunctional youth center.  He seems like a really nice guy, and we made a pretty ambitious plan for my first few months here, including starting to teach the students English, Sexual and Reproductive Health, healthy lifestyle decisions, computers, and micro financing.  There is also a lot of protocol to do like meeting the mayor, the prefet (kind of governor of the area), the commissaire for public security, and the traditional chief of the area, who is called the Lamido.  I also have a bunch of integration activities to do, like going to the market, meeting directors at schools, my neighbors, boutique owners, and stuff like that. 

My counterpart sounded really excited to have a volunteer to work with, and seems like he wants me to get going as soon as possible.  He was a bit long-winded, but funny too.  He was also happy that my French was as good as it is, and that I want to learn Fulfuldé, which I found out is basically like Fulani, so it is spoken in something like 7 countries – a lot more useful than I thought it would be. 

Then Last Tuesday, we went to Yaoundé to do banking and administration stuff.  It didn’t take as long as I thought it would, and we ended up going to the boulangerie (bakery) and spending way too much money.  It was nice to be able to get something a bit different than the usual in Bafia.  I thought I was going to get my tooth fixed by the dentist (the one I broke a month and a half ago), but apparently there weren’t any appointments available.  Now I have to wait until IST, which is at the end of February.  Luckily it didn’t break to the nerve so it doesn’t hurt.  After that we went to the Palais de Congress and practiced a bit for the next day. 

We went back to Bafia that night, and then headed back to Yaoundé the next day where we had our Swearing-In Ceremony, so I’m finally a real Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV)!  It was a pretty big deal – a lot of dignitaries showed up, my host-mom was able to come, and we kept on schedule for the most part.  Our training group performed Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror with a Cameroonian choir, and it actually sounded surprisingly good.  Afterwards we took a bunch of pictures, and Chantal Biya, the First Lady, came and looked at booths for the different Peace Corps sectors and regions.  I’m going to post a picture below (never mind, didn't work), but definitely look her up too; she has an… interesting style. 

That night we had a shindig back in Bafia, where we rented out a hotel room.  I shared it with another guy here, but had to sleep on a couch in the lobby, which was pretty uncomfortable.  It was definitely an interesting party. 

The next day, a few of us had Thanksgiving at the house of a friend.  I didn’t do too much but talk to people and cut up the sweet potatoes.  The others made mac and cheese (which was pretty good, but more mac than cheese), stovetop stuffing (that turned out really well), sweet potatoes (that we called sugar potatoes, which were basically sweet potatoes with sweetened-condensed milk and pineapple), and a pumpkin pie (that turned out great considering it was pan-fried).  I swear, it’s more than two weeks later and I’m still on a sugar high.  After that I had fish and fried plantains with my family.  Just writing this makes me miss those guys. 

Well it’s market-day here and there are a lot of people in town, so I am going to go hang out with them.  Still a lot of catching-up to do. 

 I posted this a day later because I was trying to upload pictures.  That didn't work.  My internet key is ridiculously slow.