week 1 in Bafia

We made it to Bafia which is where I will spend the next 11 weeks in training.  So now I’m living with my host family which has a father who work at the foreign service building but does community development for Bafia which ive been told by the kid that he oversees the construction of roads (unpaved), schools, ect., but that’s also little unclear.  Then I have my “host mom” who is his niece from what I gather, she has been to and graduated from a university and works in the capital for the ministry but they are on break now? Then there is my host dads daughter who is 20 also graduated from the university but it doesn’t seem like she works.  Then there is another girl who is 16 who is still in school but I have no idea how or if she is related.   So far they are all very nice.  They have had a peace corps  volunteer (pcv) stay with them before.  They all speak a bit of English but the dad speaks the best.  Culturally though I’m a bit confused, they have electricity, running water, a car, and an education yet, seem very unaware of sanitation issues.  For example, we have a well that they draw water from to clean dishes but they don’t boil or treat the water first.  The only time they actually treat the water is when they drink it so they use dirt water to shower and wash clothes, to be clear the running water is brown and the well water is grey. They also never wash their hands let alone use soap.  I get the impression that they don’t know about germs and think that if wiped off or if they don’t see it, its clean. :/

Monday-Saturdays we have training at the pc office which is about a 5min walk from my house.  We usually have four sessions a day except for Saturday when we only have two.  The sessions vary on size depending on who they are for; the whole group, just the CED (community economic development) people vs. the ED (education) people, or our small language groups.  The trainers so far seem very good and also have a very good understanding of American culture and want to help us as much as they can.  Language class was a little frustrating more because I have so much to learn and want to spend as much time as I can on it.  In one of my CED classes we are learning a model for a saving and lending program which we are going to actually do a mock version of but instead of actual loans we can “borrow” (we actually have to pay for them and we don’t give them back) American food such as oreos, snickers, gummy worms, maple syrup, Pringles, etc. it should be fun and we all already miss our junk food.

                Speaking of the food, it’s okay.  My host mom doesn’t understand what a balanced meal is and most meals are only carbs.  Sometimes we have fish other than they all she has made me was rice or pasta.  She finally made a vegetable yesterday!!  At least I think that’s what that was.  Other volunteers have different experiences though so I need to learn more French so I can ask her to make me more vegetables and beans since they have a lot of them available.  On the bright side one of the moms come to the peace corps office and brings lunch which we can buy and she brings everything; meat, fish, beans, rice, salad/avocados, pineapple, and potatoes. So I make sure to eat a lot then and a smaller meal at dinner.  For breakfast I usually get an egg with some bread.

                Other than that, things have been interesting it’s a unique feeling of never quite knowing what to do or how to act.  Not always bad but not always good mostly it’s been interesting.  Once my French is better it will be easier to talk to my host family about the culture.  For now we get by for the most part.  It helps that im in class all day then have hw so only leaves a few hrs with my host family.  Im glad though that they want to try to communicate so we do talk a lot we just have use the dictionary a lot! The most exciting thing so far was that they have a lot of the music that I have like rap/hip hop and they know all the words.  Even songs that just came out they already have so that’s been fun.

              I only get internet at the pc office and have to share it with the other volunteers soi wont be able to get to it every day but probably a couple times a week.  talk to you all again soon. 

love and miss you!