May 2009

So May passed by in a flash. At the beginning of the month, I was finishing up school. Final exams went well, with little cheating thankfully, and I filled in report cards. All grades (called marks here) are filled by hand, so it takes forever. On my last day of school, a horrible thing happened. A was riding a bike (motorcycle taxi) to school, which I do every day. Near the primary school, there are quite a few speed bumps, to get people to slow down. Of course, this doesn’t really slow the bike men. They just speed up in between each one. My bike man wasn’t paying attention, and when a small child ran out into the road, the bike collided. The child flew off across the road, somehow losing both shoes, and we stopped to see if he was ok. Thankfully the child was only upset, not injured, but it was terrifying. These kind of accidents are commonplace here, but it doesn’t stop me from getting nervous everytime I travel.
At the end of May, I had to travel to Yaounde to help with the new SED/ED training program. I traveled with a friend to Bamenda first, before continuing on. I traveled by motorcycle to Bamenda, which was interesting. It took about 3 ½ hours on a rutted dirt road. My behind was very sore by the end. I stayed overnight with my Cameroonian friend, but we met a few volunteers in the area. We decided to go for roasted fish, and we were relaxing and enjoying ourselves. All of a sudden, a young man reached over and stole one girl’s purse. It took us a minute to understand what was happening, and finally one girl started yelling “thief! Thief!” Unfortunately we had decided to dine in an area filled with thieves, so when we yelled for help, everyone let the thief pass by. Our Cameroonian friends tried to follow the man, to no avail. It delayed our trip to Yaounde, because we had to wait for hours at the police station the next morning. Its horrible to be robbed here. My friend did not even lose anything worth money, but it feels like an invasion.
After the police station, we traveled to Yaounde and began training. The two weeks passed by really quickly, with planning during the day, and nice meals at night. A few of the girls are great at cooking in bulk, so we had great meals, like quiche, spinach ravioli, and chili with cornbread. I ate better in those two weeks, than I probably do in 6 months at post. May 20 was National Day, kind of like an independence day. We heard loud noises from outside, and we thought a storm was brewing. We went up to the 2nd floor balcony of the PC house, and could see fireworks in town. It was a long show, and really cool. We had one main event halfway through training, and it was the Peace Corps prom. No one could decide on a theme, so all of the potentials were melded into the “Post-apocolyptic winter wasteland”. People went to the fripperie (second-hand shop) to find outfits, and I tagged along. I didn’t buy anything, but I made a lot of Cameroonian friends. One of them even bought me a cup of fried termites. I had seen students collecting them at school (they arrive as soon as the first rains fall after dry season), but never an urge to try them until now. I was very nonchalant, saying sure I would eat them, and had one in my hand, but as it came closer to my mouth, my hand moved slower and slower. I had a really hard time putting it in my mouth, but I did it. It was surprisingly good, a bit crunchy with a touch of pepe. I ended up eating the whole cup. Anyway, when I arrived at the prom, I was not dressed up, so a few girls decided to help me. I ended up wearing a plastic market bag as a shirt, with my hair all crazy. Most people there looked like zombies, so it wasn’t a bad party. I had spent my free time cutting snowflakes, and people made a dance floor. Sadly the preparation made most of us so tired that we didn’t last too long in the evening.
The rest of training passed quickly, and then I was on my way to Douala for my holiday to Egypt.