Welcome to Cameroon

Bienvenue au Cameroon!

I was going to start this post by telling you how long I’ve actually been in Cameroon, but I realized I’m not actually entirely certain, and I don’t feel like counting backwards, so let’s suffice to say that it feels both as if I arrived yesterday, and as if I’ve been here for months already.

I arrived safe and sound in Yaounde, where we spent a day generally orientating ourselves to life in Cameroon before being shipped to Ebolowa for PST. We got a crash course in Cameroonian culture and ran through medical and security briefings that left us convinced that we were going to get into a motorcycle accident, be robbed, get malaria and also have diarrhea, all at the same time. We’ve since come to the conclusion that Peace Corps training is meant to instill us with a healthy sense of paranoia, so that when we rebound in the opposite direction, we land at an almost reasonable sense of caution.

I moved in with my host family last Saturday. My family consists of 12 people — 9 children, two parents, and who I believe to be an aunt, but my French skills aren’t solid enough for me to actually clarify her relationship. Possibly she’s just some lady who walks in and out when she feels like it. The world may never know. It has been a lot of fun, though. I really enjoy spending time with my (numerous) host siblings. It’s been difficult at times, since I speak barely 5 words of French, but I like to think I’m getting better, and they’ve been very patient. I went from being “la bebe” to being “la blanche,” so I’m going to take what I can get.

Training in Ebolowa has been fun and exhausting. There are 21 stagiaires in the group (down from 22 in Philadelphia). We’ve been covering topics including safety and security, medical, the role of Peace Corps in development, teaching methods, and, of course, French. I was placed in the novice level, the lowest category of language ability. Classes are small, only 2 or 3 students in the class. I’m in a class with Paul, my fellow PC trainee, and we are among the group that has taken to calling ourselves the Remedial Club (the Remedials for short). As a group, we slingshot between being excited about all of the French we’re learning, and panicking because we worry that we aren’t learning it quickly enough. Because what would life in the Peace Corps be if we were capable of settling at a happy medium?

I’ve been trying my hardest to take pictures as often as I can — I’ve made a deal with myself to take at least one picture every day. Most often, that turns into me taking a last minute picture of my room somewhere around 10:00 in the evening, but still, I try.

We do have WiFi at the school, but it’s not stellar, so I don’t use it very often (and besides, I’ve got a lot to study in my free time!). Regardless, I’ll post and email as often as I can while I’ve got semi-regular access to the internet. I was going to leave you with a few pictures, but the WiFi is taking far too long, and I need to get this posted before lunch ends. So you'll just have to wait until next time!