Week 5
I am now novice high in French,
which means that I’ve gone up two levels and I have four more weeks to go up
two more which I think is very possible.
French class since then has gotten much better. We have a new teacher and instead of four of
us there are only two students in class.
I’ve also noticed a big difference between how much I can say and understand
from the week before. I have even gotten
far enough that my host family and I can communicate fairly well and they now
ask me not to go do my homework after dinner so we can talk which is nice and all
I usually have for homework is review French.
Speaking
of my host family things are going okay.
They still don’t feed me super great but I’ll be on my own soon and can
cook for myself. We do talk more but the
youngest sister is going to Yaounde the capital to stay with her mother which I’m
not happy about since she is the nicest to me.
Instead the middle sister is coming back to Bafia from Yaounde, but she
is the one I don’t really like and there seems to be a mix of resentment and
jealousy and wanting to show off that she has a white friend. Not a fair trade but the light is at the end
of the tunnel and I can keep myself busy and out of the house.
We found
out our site this week. In our interview
about our site preferences in Yaounde week 1 I had said things like… I want to
be in a French speaking area, I’d rather be in a village than a city even if
that means not having electricity and running water, I don’t want to be
extremely isolated from other peace corps volunteers. Then I found out I was
going to Kumba.
Kumba
is the economic capital of the South West region. Each region in Cameroon has its own capital,
and even though Kumba isn’t the capital it is a bigger city than Buea which is
the capital. It’s Anglophone, and speak pigeon
and “simple English”. On the site
summary that I got it also stated that they eat horse meat L. It is an hour away from Buea. Buea is the closest site to the beach approximately
an hour drive. I was also told that all
the pcv’s in the area our out of the country on vacation and that I would be
staying in one of their houses by myself.
First reaction
…reserve judgment until after site visit.
Week 6 (site visit)
Met my
community host which is a person from out site that is suppose to help us integrate
socially. He came to our work shop and
traveled with me to Kumba. He seems really
nice, a little quiet, but also very involved and motivated. He works with and is associated with a lot of
different organizations and is very excited to have a CED volunteer to help
with all of them. So it seems like ill
have a lot of work to do at site.
We traveled
to Yaounde where we stayed the night. In
Yaounde we (me and three other trainees) walked around, went to the bakery and
got pizza, we went to the central park, and hung around the peace corps house. Then we went out for dinner and had smoothies
and sworma (sp??), overall had amazing food experiences. We also got to have hot showers which I had
almost forgotten how amazing they really are. Then in the morning we were on our way. I met my community host at the bus station
and it took us about six hours to get to Kumba.
I got
to Kumba and met Jessica my pcv that is hosting me at the bar. The next day I got to see my house which is
huge. It has three bedrooms, a large
living room, a kitchen, bathroom, three verandas, and is located on the third
floor above a bank. I also got to see
one of the organizations that I will be working with which is a small micro
finance institute, which is about a 10 min walk from my house. I’m also about a five min walk from the
market which is also gigantic. I met my neighbors
and some other Amerians who are staying in Kumba as part of a college
program. Kumba has a lot of restaurants and
all kinds of foods. I ate grilled fish,
escargot (which is fried not like they make it in France), fried chicken and French
fries at classy burger which is a restaurant but they usually don’t have
burgers, etc. I’m also located in the
same village as two other volunteers that will be there until about December or
January but should be replaced. I’m also
an hour away from two other CED volunteers one in Tombel and one in Buea. The climate is also much more relaxed in
Kumba than in Bafia where we are training.
People in Bafia constantly are calling out to us and you can never walk
anywhere in peace. It is also a norm
here for men to grab your arm (they do this to local woman also). But it makes walking around a bit of a
hassle. Also they have much less
resources as far as restaurants and what the grocery store offers. Whereas Kumba and most of the Anglophone
regions are much more laidback and even if you are the only white person they
still understand that it is rude to call out at them in general let alone by
screaming “the whites” and pointing. Overall
I had a really good time it was nice to have a break from classes and curfew
and I think that I will enjoy my site and the people that I’m living around.
On the
way home I stopped in Buea travel back with Erica. Where I met a lot of the pcv’s that are staying
there. We left for Yaounde the next morning
and got there around 1. We were supposed
to leave at 6:30 but the bus didn’t leave until 8. Then we stopped in another bakery and got
lunch and headed to the bus station. We got
there around 2:30ish but had to wait for the bus which came at about 5 and we
all crammed 5 people per row (unless you have kids then they sit on your lap)
which usually sits 4. On the way the bus
broke down about 45min outside of Bafia. So the driver called a bus in Bafia to come and
pick us up. The trip is usually only an hour and a half to
two hours but we didn’t get in until about 8:30.
Things I’ve learned from traveling:
·
only take one bag
·
even if you don’t have to if there is a toilet
use it
·
bring more food then you’ll need in “designated
travel time”
So
I’m back in Bafia and have five more weeks of training.
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