Kumba Cluster

Things have been fairly busy in Kumba.  I have been visiting my host organization and learning about their processes, their organizational set up, and how they attract new clients.  I have also been meeting with several other groups and individuals to potentially work with.  Other than that Julius the Agro volunteer also in Kumba has been planning a HIV clinic that all the volunteers from Kumba and Buea helped with.  So we had three days of classes from 3pm-6pm on HIV, sexual health, sanitation, and other related topics.  We focused on youth to educate them correctly and have a safe space to actually talk about sex since it isn’t talked about in schools.  Adults were welcome to come but we had far more school age children.  Then on Saturday the fourth day we had free HIV testing open to the public and pre and post test counseling while at the same time we held soccer games for the children.  We had a pretty good turnout of about 200 people who got tested.   

                Still taking French but its slow and I need to step it up and do more outside of class.

                In other news some very exciting news, we have a new European restaurant in Kumba.  The chief is from Sweden who now lives in Kumba.  He has partnered with a Cameroonian nurse that lives and works in London.  Together they opened a little restaurant that does European/American food breakfast, lunch, dinner, as well as their own bread.  They also are opening a wedding shop next door to rent out wedding dresses and bridesmaids gowns.  This is actually a very clever idea since American weddings (also called white weddings) are fairly common yet the dresses are very expensive and hard to afford.  Kumba has also just gotten its first schwarma stand. YAY! On top of that the vender is a woman.  She says that she was the only vender in Duala and that she now has come to Kumba and is teaching other woman how to do it.

                So far I’ve been in good health knock on wood.  I hope everyone at home can say the same.

                Next weekend we will have a regional meeting with all of the volunteers in the south west region.  So there will be about 15 people coming to Kumba.  After the meeting we will have a Halloween party Legendary theme.  Costume is a work in progress pictures are sure to come.

Likes – I really like the way that people shake hands here.  They have a couple different ways to do it but they all pretty much involve a snap.  This is only done with friends not with professional business relations but it can be done with children or adults.

Dislikes- I have seen a few times some woman with a zip on hair piece which can be removed and replaced with another different top piece usually the zipper is very visible and sometimes even different colors and is on the top sides of the head and can be changed to have different top pieces and when removed completely is basically a horse shoe.