DelaneyFest

I realize that most of my posts have been about people coming to visit, but I must pay homage to visitors.

Caitlin and Kevin fought off the rebels of Chad to visit their favorite older sister. They landed on Kevin's 22nd birthday and we celebrated in style at Porte Mayo, the best restaurant in Maroua. The two are now the same age (Irish twins) so we spent the trip pretending they were twins. It was just easier that way.



After that it was off to Tourou for 3 days. When I opened my back door I was surprised to find Bean and Beinet annnddd a BABY GOAT. Matt suspected Bean was pregnant; I had thought that she was just getting fat. I guess he was right. So little Bon Bon was born that morning and was walking around and eating by the time we got to my village in the afternoon. Now all that's left to do with the goats is to eat them.

Caitlin experienced my Cameroonian cooking for the first time with the authentic dish, Zucchini Parmesan. Apparently my oil and salt intakes have increased to dreadfully unhealthy levels. We had dinner with my counterpart, Tanembe, and Matt's counterpart.

Lucky for my sibs, February 11th is International Youth Day so that got to experience the skits, chants, and parades of the 10 schools in Tourou from a special stage with all of the important people in town. It's funny how much I've gotten used to festivities like this. My sister kept noticing how we were the only females up on stage and the only ones invited to the reception; this observation seemed very normal for me.

Afterwards we went down to Garoua to visit my the family that I lived with for the first 3 months in Cameroon. They were so honored and excited to meet them. My mom cooked a 3 course meal and sent them away with drinking glasses, a love frame, and plastic flowers.


At the Gorges de Kola near Garoua.

It was wonderful to have my family see where I was living, to meet people in my village, and to hang out with the other volunteers. It was really interesting to do the traveling with them. Helping them on their motos for their first ride to the bus station and seeing how they dealt with sharing a back seat with 4 other people when only 3 fit comfortably reminded me of when I first got here.


Our view from the back of the bus.

They took a million pics, so check them out on facebook!

Mama Cleaver comes to Thanksgiving

After a 2 week trip in Jordan and Egypt, Matt and his mom made it to Tourou the day before Thanksgiving. Perhaps the best way to describe the trip would be through the order of mishaps.

1. There was a little party planned that afternoon with people that Matt works with in village to meet his mom. Matt had lost his bag coming from Egypt (Ethiopian Air also lost it going to Jordan) which also happened to have the keys to his house. I also locked my extra set of keys inside his house so the choices to what the do next were: move the party to my house and then cozy up there for the night or cut the lock off of Matt's door and keep the party at the mansion. Needless to say, choice #2 happened. (For the record, this was not my fault. Who puts their house keys in a checked bag? That's just silly.) The party was a hit; everyone was really excited to meet family from the U.S. and see that they actually exist and still love us.

2. On Thanksgiving day we headed down to Maroua for the feast. I was thinking this would be the most amazing trip I would have to Maroua, travelling in a private car and all. After picking up Thea, the volunteer in Mokolo, all we had was an hour on a paved road to Maroua...if things went as planned. We had the first flat 5 minutes from Thea's house. The second and the third somewhere between Mokolo and the turnoff to Maroua. Five hours later we made it to Thanksgiving, only missing a half of a pumpkin pie that had kept us alive on the road.

3. On their mini safari they had three more flats. Just to say to any other future visitors, travelling in Cameroon is not like this normally.

When I got back to post, everyone was wondering when my parents were showing up...no pressure Parents.

Kat and Cara's Glorious Adventure

After being chastised for pretending that nothing happened between July and November, I hope this post can remedy things a bit. Work wise, it was a difficult time because people were working in the fields. The start of the rainy season means a good 4 monthes of labor with millet, corn, black-eyed peas, beans, and okra. After that the drying and storing process begins with the goal to be finished before the end of December celebrations.

So, to that "ode" to that anonymous visit: Katherine! She decided that Mali was close enough to Cameroon that she could pop over before school starts again, so I was graced with a visitor. She's much more qualified to be a Health Volunteer than myself having lived in Africa for over a year, speaking French since she was a wee babe in England, and going to her 2nd year in med school. It's also a nice stroke to my ego to hear, "Wow! Your friend speaks much better French than you," but so does most people, so I handled it well. Unfortunately, she was the one who took all of the pics and I can't figure out how to get them from facebook.

It started out with some intense traveling to get from Douala to my post: 4 hour bus to Yaounde, 14 hour train ride to Ngoundere, 8 hour bus ride to my provincial capital, 1 hour bus to Mokolo, 1 hour moto ride to my house.

After a rainy market day, we headed to Rhumsiki, the nearby tourist trap that is amazingly beautiful. Hit up the wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhumsiki for more info. That afternoon we took a tour through the village and saw the crab sorceror who told us the future. He scoops up the crab in his hands and whispers the question to it before placing it into a special bowl with sticks and other things in it. After a minute he takes off the bowl's cover and according to what the crab has knocked down, the future is read. Apparentely, I'm going to be happy and successful with work and I will/already have many suitors and I'll have my pick. Afterwards we had an amazingly romantic dinner by the light of the moon. The next day we hiked into the valley. Well I hiked, Kat, after leaving her kicks to dry in Maroua, had to hike in flip-flops and almost tumbled down the mountain. It was kind of scary, but our guide decided to walk next to her afterwards so that he could catch her the next time it happened. Don't worry, we made it back.

Anyway, it was an awesome visit! If you have facebook check out Kat's album.

FARNG Updates

The volunteer house in Maroua now has internet!!! Now crazy things like youtube, gchat, and uploading pictures at unimaginable rates (just did 5 in 10 minutes!) are possible. Therefore, I also no longer have an excuse to slack on my blog. (has it really been 4 monthes? oops)

First with an update on that FARNG program I talked about in a previous entry. The goal for this program is to create support groups for pregnant women where they listen to a health message, share their experiences, rest, and eat a meal together. They would also receive prenatal consultations at a central location brought by the Tourou Health Center. My counterpart, the head nurse of the health center(Tanembe), another female nurse(Dalika), and myself trained 30 people to organize and do health presentations at the end of September. The group was made up of members of the health committee from the 6 villages, midwives, and mothers (who would actually be doing the presentations to the pregnant women). This was the first time many of them had been formally educated on health topics so there were a lot of questions. It was great because everyone

This is me with Ayuba, the translator doing a nutrition animation on the first day of the training. We had some trouble finding a good language to speak in; we ended up translating into two which made the day a bit longer than planned.


The program is based around improving the nutrition of pregnant women and their children so of course lunch had to be a good example of this. This is Matt and Tanembe enjoying some couscous and sauce made from huckleberry leaves, peanut butter, and dried fish. I promise it's good.


Everyone rocking their new t-shirts.

A month later the 6 villages had their first meeting with pregnant women from each village. Because the Tourou Health Center has only 3 regular staff members, only two of which are trained nurses, it was planned to have all the meetings in a central location. This first day 70 women showed up which was exciting and extremely overwhelming. Tanembe and I did prenatal consultations from 10am to 7pm. This month we have to find a better way to organize the 6 villages to break-up the work.


The pregnant women receiving a presentation on nutrition.


The mothers that were trained are using their manuals to give the presentation.


Tanembe and myself doing the prenatal consultations.

Thanks so much for your support in this! This program still has some kinks, but my plan is to use this pilot program as a jumping off point for similar programs in other villages around Tourou.

Ciao

New Four Footed Friends

That's right. I am officially the proud owner of 2 goats, male and female. They are very cute and (I think) they like me. As a first-time goat owner, my neighbors have been rightly questioning my ability to keep these animals and keep them happy. This started with me trying to drag my goats from the market to my house after I bought them; apparently if I continued my method of transport for much longer I would have had two goat bodies on my hands due to suffication. For future goat owners: Throwing the goat over your shoulders is a better and more comfortable way to get from market to doorstep. I have been getting tons of advice from neighbors and bundles of herbs and grasses find their way to my doorstep as presents for my goats.

Pictures of the 2 will be included in the future. Their names are Bean (girl) and Beneigt (boy, means doughnut in French). Their future plans include making babies so that I can have more, cuter friends (girl) and getting castrated, fatten, killed, and eaten (boy). I've had them for a month and so far, only one event has marred our friendship (besides the attempted murder of transport). Bean got into the house a week after I got screens for my doors. She freaked out and tried to escape for freedom through the closed screen of the front door. There are now 2 horn holes in the screen for misquitoes to find their way through.

In other news, rainy season has officially begun which means my life has become a little bit lonelier as everyone has taken to the fields. It's me and the children under five left in village all day long. The other day the temperature dropped to a little bit less than 60 degrees and I couldn't feel my fingers. Hmmmmmm.