Volunteering week

Last week was volunteering week in Cameroon, a nationwide celebration of the contribution that volunteers make to development efforts. At VSO, we were all invited to attend a meeting in order to coordinate our various planned activities. Perhaps a third of the meeting was, however, taken up with choosing a suitable name for the week. Ideas were presented, written down, accepted rejected, accepted again, until finally some bright spark decided to join all the suggestions together into one long name. Thus, after an hour and a half of fierce debate, "Solidarity and Engagement Week: Together for Development, Together Against AIDS and HIV, Together for Human Rights!" was born. Try fitting that on a banner (although, to their credit, someone actually did).

It was at the same meeting that the idea to produce a documentary depicting the work of volunteers in the Far North of Cameroon was conceived. A couple of days later I was asked if I would like to co-produce this documentary, mainly, it seems, because I have a Mac laptop with groovy movie-editing software. Within a week I found myself being chauffeur-driven to various locations in and around Maroua, eating lavish dinners put on by traditional chiefs, visiting schools, watching cultural events and occasionally filming volunteers doing some actual work. I also met the regional representative of Cameroon's version of the BBC, CRTV, who has since taken to stalking me demanding footage. Every time I get on a moto-taxi or walk down a main road he suddenly materialises behind me, wanting to know when I'm free to edit.

All this has taken place alongside preparations for Human Rights Week, the busiest time of year at MDDHL. Fortunately most of the events of HRW were film-worthy, so I was able successfully to combine my two responsibilities (as most people reading this blog probably realise, even one responsibility is usually too much for my poor brain to handle).

HRW was a truly breathtaking example of Cameroonian event planning in action. On Wednesday, for example, we were scheduled to visit Maroua's detention centres (mainly the prison and the holding cells at the police stations). This was an annual event, the date for which had been set at least a month beforehand. On Wednesday morning, however, it transpired that nobody had actually informed the detention centres that we were going to visit them. You're probably thinking, surely that was the point? Alas, not in Cameroon. Here you cannot so much as blow your nose without the official written consent of the Procureur de la République, signed and decorated with three separate but equally meaningless stamps. The acquisition of this sacred document took the entire morning and most of the afternoon, and with only two hours to visit the detention centres, we decided to split into teams. Fortunately, with Emilie on one team and Sarah on the other, each group had one pretty blonde to whom the police chiefs were willing to grant pretty much anything. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to film inside, or even outside in the street; I had to content myself with capturing people's reactions at the end of the day. Needless to say we weren't that impressed: each police station had only one tiny cell in which men, women and children were held together, despite the assurance of the authorities that this never happened.

The next day was a visit to the authorities themselves, for which we also needed, and were granted, written permission. By far my favourite authority was the Lamido. Each town or village in Cameroon has a Lamido, who is a sort of king or traditional chief. As the king of the largest city in the Far North Province, the Lamido of Maroua has more than the usual aura of self-importance about his presence. Everyone entering his palace had to remove their shoes and sit on the floor before the immense Lamido throne, a bizarre contraption that looks like a regurgitated, partially-digested beige sofa. On either side of the throne are wooden elephant tusks, and across the top is painted in wobbly gold letters "His Majesty the Lamido of Maroua". Sarah and I have plans to create our own Lamido thrones in our houses once we've built up a sufficiently large stock of cushions and gold paint.

On Monday Muslims in the Far North Province celebrated the "fête de moutons" (literally, sheep festival, although I believe the official name is' Tabaski') an event similar to Christmas in that everyone goes to church in the morning and then stuffs themselves with food in the afternoon. We dressed up in our finest and went to the largest mosque in Maroua to watch the prayers, a truly spectacular event: thousands of Muslims praying and chanting together. In the name of VSO documentary B-roll footage I got to bring the camcorder with me; I'll try to upload the footage to the internet as soon as I'm somewhere with a decent internet connection.

That's it for now. I'll be back in the UK on 29th December, hopefully with Fausto if the Visa Gods look upon him favourably. So if anyone's free to meet up between then and 18th January, let me know!

Racial equality for America, but not for Cameroon...

One baking hot November afternoon, my colleague and I were sat by the pool (contemplating how difficult life as a volunteer can be) when we saw something very strange.  

A tall, skinny man had entered the water.  He would not have been particularly remarkable were it not for the fact that he was wearing a full body swimsuit at least three sizes too big for him.  He was also acting very peculiarly: at random moments he would suddenly leap from the pool, run a lap around the edge and then throw himself back into the water head-first in a manoeuvre that reminded me strongly of a Fosbury Flop.  He would then turn his head eagerly in our direction to find out whether or not we had been watching.

We had of course been watching - I've not seen anything so entertaining in years - but we pretended to be heavily absorbed in our books.  After several unsuccessful attempts to get our attention, the man (I have christened him Baggy Swimsuit) lost patience and swam over to our side of the pool.

"You don't remember me, do you?" he said when he reached us.  I had to admit that I did not.  "I talked to you at the wedding," continued Baggy Swimsuit.  Now I remembered.  A few weeks ago, a British volunteer had married a Cameroonian and the entire VSO contingent had been invited to the reception.  Unable to dance  (I am physically incapable of dancing to any music that requires me to move my hips and my feet at the same time, and African music falls into this category) I contented myself with sitting at the side, rebuffing as many men as possible with the 'my fiance doesn't like me talking to strange men' line that had worked so well on you-know-who.  Baggy Swimsuit had been one of those rebuffed - although, thinking back, he had been one of the most difficult to convince.

'I've forgotten your name,' said Baggy Swimsuit suddenly.  I was in no hurry to remind him so I said 'devine,' which means 'guess'.  'Ahh, Divine,' he replied, 'now I remember!'  And he swam away, satisfied, to dazzle us with yet more Fosbury Flops.

This incident and countless others have made me reflect on the curious attitude towards race in this country.  I have never received so much attention in my life and it's bizarre to think that it is entirely because of my skin colour.  Before I came to Africa, I had never viewed my identity in terms of race or ethnicity - in fact, I hardly thought about it at all.  Here, however, the colour of my skin IS my identity: I am a 'nasaara', 'la blanche', someone from the West.  I embody all the connotations therein, from sexual promiscuity to advanced technology and healthcare.  I represent money, power and visa opportunities.  I therefore receive an inordinate amount of attention as I go about my daily business.  

The fact that Cameroonians themselves place me on a pedestal because of my race definitely surprised me.  Yacoubou has tried to convince me many times that my country is far more advanced and developed than his, not only in economic terms but also socially and culturally.  My presence has been requested at meetings and on trips that don't have anything to do with me, simply because having a white person as part of the delegation adds clout.  Sometimes I want to shout, 'I'm 25!  I'm fresh out of university!  You all know much more about this than I do, so why are you all deferring to me?'

It's interesting to see how volunteers have reacted to their newfound rock star status here.  I suppose it's difficult not to let it go to your head, but sometimes it makes people do things that they would probably never even contemplate back home.  One country's quiet, middle-aged businessman is another country's serial dater of ever younger women.  I was confused about the contradictory rules for giving way at roundabouts until I learnt that everyone gives way to the white girl on the bike.  And as we discovered recently, one disapproving look from a recently splashed white swimmer can lead a lifeguard to evict an entire pool of black swimmers in seconds, whether that was the white swimmer's intention or not (it was not).  

As Americans elect their first black President, apartheid and segregation are still alive and kicking in Africa.  

A day in the life of an organisational development advisor...

Life in my compound begins with the call to prayer at 4:30am.  I had no idea that such an hour as 4:30am existed until the mosque near my house installed speakers; now their call to prayer is so loud my house practically shakes with it.  

Not being muslim, I refuse to leave my bed until at least 7:30am, at which point I go to the bathroom to make use of the first of my Great Luxuries: running water.  My shower is somewhat temperamental, in that more water comes out of the unidentified pipes on the wall than out of the shower head.  Taking my morning shower therefore requires me to run back and forth between the various torrents while taking care not to slip on soap suds or passing spiders.

Having decided to avoid Men on Honda Street, my bike and I wobble down the longer but infinitely more scenic route to work.  On our way we pass some or all of the following: herds of cows, sheep or goats that wander down the centre of the road, apparently without anyone to mind them; groups of children who shout 'nasaara' (white person) to get my attention before dissolving into fits of giggles (I've never been able to figure out what's so funny); the man who lives by the side of the road and holds long conversations with himself in Fulfulde; vultures with great hulking backs and tiny pink heads who pick at discarded trash; market vendors selling fruit, vegetables and phone cards, who think my name is 'chérie'; thousands upon thousands of lizards; women selling beans and beignets (doughnuts), the oh-so-sumptuous meal that is going to render me the only person to go to Africa and actually put on weight.

I arrive at the MDDHL office and begin Work.  It turns out that VSO intends for its volunteers to do very little Work - we are supposed to assist others in doing more and better Work themselves, as apparently this is more sustainable.  Currently I'm preparing a workshop that will explain all this to my colleagues: I hope to temper the news that they'll all have to do more Work by investing in a bountiful supply of tea and croissants; however I fear they may see through this strategy.

Some time between 12pm and 1pm I break for lunch with my two nasaara colleagues; some time between 2pm and 3:30pm we come strolling back into the office to discover that everyone else is still on their lunch break.  Everyone, that is, except Yacoubou, who is a constant presence behind his desk at all hours of the day, even when (as is currently the case) he has malaria.

Twice a week at 3ish our Fulfulde teacher arrives.  His name is Oumarou and his 'real job' is as a talent scout for professional football players.  This means that at a moment's notice he may be sent to some far-flung corner of the continent to retrieve a promising young player and escort him somewhere equally far-flung.  Such is the case today, and so Sarah (my partner in crime for Fulfulde classes and other Work-avoidance schemes) are planning to sit down with our copious sheets of illegible notes and see if we are capable of teaching ourselves.  We may even do a better job than Oumarou, who sees nothing wrong with jumping from the present tense to the subjunctive when he knows very well that we can barely say 'hello'.

In the evenings I cycle home.  The light here is so beautiful around 5:30pm that the whole city appears to be under some kind of enchantment, and even the cries of 'nasaara! nasaara!!' can't disturb my peace.  I arrive at my house to find Babadou, Abdoulaye's cat, waiting for me to let him in.  He spends about an hour scuffling about the living room, looking for trouble and tinned fish, before eventually getting bored and wandering off.

Each evening the question of how to fill the hours of darkness between 6pm and whenever I decide to go to bed is raised.  Occasionally I find that the solution is to go to bed at 6pm, but mercifully there's usually enough going on in Maroua to keep me occupied.  Fried fish, grilled chicken, and even pizza and banana bead (courtesy of a fellow volunteer's chef boyfriend) are all a moto-taxi ride away, as are the houses of various volunteers who are often equally baffled as to how to kill time in the evenings.

On weekends Maroua fills up with volunteers coming in from the villages, looking for entertainment.  So far this has meant that a large and raucous group of ex-pats has gathered at The Bar Opposite the Chicken Place (to use its official name) drinking Cameroonian beer and eating fried chicken with their fingers in the dark, so that you cannot tell until you put it in your mouth whether what you are attempting to eat is chicken, bone, slice of onion or random stray insect.

So that's what I do all week.  Not a bad life, all told.

Unwanted Attention

Are all the men in Maroua completely mad?

One evening, shortly after I arrived home, there was a knock at my door.  It was Bogo, my landlord's mother in law, who handed me a sheet of paper and launched into a long explanation in Fulfulde, not a word of which I understood.  The sheet turned out to be a letter addressed to someone called 'Jeanne' and signed 'Dieudonné' (yes, literally 'God given').  Being that my name wasn't Jeanne, I had never heard of a Dieudonné and Bobo's insights into the matter were lost on me, I decided to ignore the letter.

A week later a young man with glasses and a baseball cap appeared on my doorstep.  When I opened my fly-screen door to see who it was, he greeted me like an old friend and asked me if I was settling in well.  I have a terrible memory for faces but I was sure that I had never seen this person in my life before.  I asked him who he was and he replied in astonishment, 'Mais c'est moi, Dieudonné!'  I wracked my brain and then remembered the note.  'Didn't you receive my letter?' he asked.  'Yes,' I replied, 'but my name isn't Jeanne.'  'But you're a new VSO volunteer.  I do a lot of work with VSO,' he continued, 'helping new volunteers to settle in.'

At this point he made a gesture to come into the house, but I blocked his path.  'So you work for VSO?' I asked.  'Well, not exactly,' replied Dieudonné.  'I assist VSO volunteers if they need help.  'But if you don't work for VSO, what do you do?'  Pause.  'Actually, I'm a student teacher... but I appreciate the work that VSO does and I want to help VSO volunteers.'  Again he tried to enter the house and again I had to stand in his way.  'Could I have a glass of water?' he asked, finally.  'Of course,' I replied, and as he again made his way up my front steps I closed the fly-screen in his face and left him outside as I filled a glass from my water filter.  Thinking back, I wish I'd given him amoeba-water straight from the tap.

By the time I brought him his glass, Dieudonné had recovered himself and immediately launched into a detailed description of all the VSO volunteers he was friends with.  As I heard names I recognised I began to feel guilty about treating him so coolly - had I just insulted someone's best friend?  I mentally chastised myself for  being so mistrusting of people's motives, and so when he asked for my phone number, I couldn't think of a single reason to say no.

My suspicions had not gone away, however.  The next day I decided to investigate Dieudonné's background from the many volunteers he had listed as 'close friends'.  Of the ones who had heard of him, most said that he had randomly turned up at the Baptist Mission in an identical manner to my encounter, alleging an alliance with VSO and promising to help them with any problems they had settling in.  Some people were concerned by what had happened and encouraged me to do something about it.  'You should tell Abdoulaye,' they warned.  'If Dieudonné knows where you live then it could get more serious.'

My relationship with Abdoulaye is two-fold: he is in charge of VSO volunteer welfare in Maroua, and he is also my landlord.  My little house, squeezed into his compound, is so close to his that I wake up if one of his wives so much as coughs in her sleep.  I cannot begin to describe how comforting it is to live within a stone's throw of someone whose job it is to keep me alive and out of trouble.

Abdoulaye has already caught on to how completely daft I am (whenever he explains things such as how to pay the water bill or where to empty my rubbish bin, he turns to me and says 'Do you understand?  Are you sure?').  For this reason I was a little hesitant to relate my Dieudonné story to him, especially as I had so rashly given away my phone number.  'Well that wasn't prudent,' was all he said when I eventually told him, 'but if you hang up whenever he calls you, he'll get the message,'  As an afterthought, he added, 'If he keeps calling, tell him you have a fiancé.'

Dieudonné called and texted at all hours of the day and night and wasn't in the least put off my my non-response or by my hanging up on him.  In an effort to avoid surprise visits I spent my evenings at friends' houses, not returning home until after 9pm.  Thinking myself finally safe after a lull in the phone calls, on Tuesday evening I invited some other volunteers over for a curry at my house.  Realising that after several days of avoiding my house I had not so much as washed a plate in a week, I headed home early to start scrubbing pots and peeling vegetables.

About ten minutes after I arrived, Dieudonné appeared at my door.  'Can I come in?' he asked.  'I'm busy tonight,' was all I could think of to say.  'What about tomorrow night?' he continued hopefully.  My British phobia of being rude to people can be really inconvenient sometimes!  As I stood in the doorway, stammering, trying to think of a polite way to say 'sod off,' Abdoulaye suddenly marched around the corner towards us.  'Are you Dieudonné?' he asked.  When Dieudonné replied, Abdoulaye launched into a furious tirade in Fulfulde.  Snippets were in French and so I caught '...you can't just come to volunteers' houses uninvited...' '...taking advantage of people who are new to the country...' '...no connection with VSO...' '...her house is private...' .  Having said all he needed to say, Abdoulaye turned and went back to his house.  Dieudonné, slightly shaken, turned to me and said, 'so can I come in?'  

'My fiancé doesn't like me having male friends in my house,' I replied upon a sudden burst of inspiration.  It seemed I had found the magic word that could do what even an angry onslaught of abuse in Fulfulde couldn't: Dieudonné apologised for troubling me, turned and walked straight out of the compound.  I haven't had a single call from him since.

The next day, I was cycling home from work when I head the sound of a motorbike behind me.  I moved closer to the side of the road to allow the bike to pass, but instead of continuing down the road, the biker cut across in front of me and tried to block my path.  As my bicycle is slightly too big for me, I try to avoid stopping (and therefore falling over) whenever possible and have turned wobbling precariously around obstacles into a sort of art form.  I therefore somehow managed to circumnavigate my interceptor and carried on cycling, speeding up so as to put some distance between us.  

The biker accelerated and then I realised that there were two of them, both well-dressed, in their thirties and riding large Hondas.  One drew level with me and the other followed behind.  At this point I started to panic.  I tried to maintain a passive expression and ignore them but this became more difficult when they again attempted to cut in front of my bike.  'Leave me alone!' I shouted to the first biker.  'I won't leave you alone!' he shouted back.  I sped up and he kept pace with me (to be fair, I can't cycle very fast and he was on a motorbike).

Not knowing what else to do, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my mobile phone.  Before I could even dial the number, the bikes were gone.  I called my friend Calla who lived about two blocks away and five minutes later I was recovering in her living room, trying not to burst into tears.  When I recounted the story of my traumatic encounter, first to Calla, then to some friends and finally to my work colleagues, they all concluded that the men had simply wanted to talk to me.  And they couldn't think of a better way to get my attention?!  

Anyway, I'm fully recovered now and according to my Theory of Limited Fear (in that I cannot be afraid of too many things at once else I'd be in danger of spontaneously combusting) Men on Hondas have replaced cockroaches on my list of Scary Things.  Which means I'm no longer afraid of entering my bathroom, and that can only be a good thing.

Things start to happen...

Lots and lots to tell...

Firstly, I survived the dreaded amoebas and feel ready(ish) to face whatever Africa has to throw at me next...

Secondly... I have a house! True, it's smaller than my hotel room in Yaounde, but it has three whole actual rooms with which I can do as I please. For those taking bets on how long it takes me to burn the place down, I'll put £50 on the first week of October.

Saying that, at present I'm actually ridiculously house-proud. I can't stop buying domestic-type things - so far I've bought pots, sheets, a broom, a wash tub, a fan and a 47 piece tea set. All of which, incidentally, can fit on the back of a moto-taxi. At once. I am especially proud of the tea set, even though the cups are too small to hold any useful amount of liquid. I keep inviting bemused volunteers around to my house for tea and biscuits - they probably think I just really miss England.

I've finally braved the moto-taxis as they're the only practical means of getting round the city. VSO have generously provided me with a helmet which is next to useless as I refuse to fasten the chin strap. This is due to a rather traumatic early moto-taxi experience: the driver (who sits in front) farted, and the smell rose up into my helmet and gassed me. When I arrived at my destination I hurried to remove the helmet only to find that the strap was stuck and I couldn't get it off. The horror is still fresh in my mind.

I have also started Work. I'm still not quite sure what Work entails, although I received a vaguely clearer picture yesterday when Yacoubou, my supervisor at MDDHL, sat at my desk (I have a desk) and told me everything that was wrong with the organisation. He finished this twenty-minute diatribe with the ominous words "...and so that's why you're here." Dad, if you're reading this, I think being the patron saint of lost causes might be hereditary.

Other than surviving amoebas, my greatest achievement to date is killing the monster cockroach that I found in my bathroom with only minimum shrieking and squealing, even though the bastard thing started chasing me when I tried to attack it with bug spray. Honestly, why run towards the person armed with the can of poison? I am now on full Cockroach Alert and sleep with the spray under my pillow, which is probably none too healthy.

Description of Maroua coming soon I promise!! As I write there is a giant orange lizard sitting next to me on my table, he looked quite cute at first but now I worry that he's planning to eat me so perhaps I'd better sign off here and leg it before his plans become any more concrete...

At least it's not malaria....

It started at around 2:30am on Monday.  I awoke to find myself sweating profusely and barely able to breathe within the stifling confines of my mosquito net.  The fan had been turned off in our room and with five people and the accumulation of a day's heat it was like trying to sleep in a furnace.  Eventually I gave up, smothered myself in insect repellant and went outside.  There I settled into a plastic deck chair and listened to the distant Ramadan prayers and the shrieks of giant bats.  My whole body ached, my skin felt sore and even my eyeballs hurt - I knew something was wrong, yet for some reason I had neither the energy nor the incentive to wake someone and ask for help.  Eventually the mosquitoes became too much and I staggered back into the room and collapsed on my bed where I managed maybe half an hour's fitful sleep.

Forcing myself to go to the bathroom, I found that I couldn't make it back to the top bunk and so slumped into another volunteer's recently vacated bed.  She returned from breakfast a little confused as to why I would have chosen her bed over my own.  I mumbled my symptoms at nobody in particular; all I wanted to do was sleep, but when our resident returned volunteer pointed out that these were precisely the symptoms of malaria, it was decided that something had to be done.  At first the inference was that I would have to travel to the local hospital on the back of a mototaxi (literally, a motorbike taxi), braving the thunderstorm that had just erupted outside and was in the process of drowning the entire city.  This decision was mercifully overruled and a VSO car came to pick me up.  Diana, another volunteer, was showing similar symptoms, so we headed off to the hospital together, competing on the back seat over who could appear the most anaemic and floppy.

Malaria is apparently business as usual in Cameroonian hospitals.  I described my symptoms in rapidly deteriorating French, was weighed (I had already lost three kilos) and had my temperature and blood pressure measured; a prick of blood was taken from my finger for testing, other tests were carried out and finally I was asked to return at around 2pm for the results.  I went back to the Mission, forced some rehydration salts down and immediately felt better, so I wasn't surprised when 2pm came and it turned out that I didn't have malaria.  "Amoebas," said the doctor, examining his findings.  "You have to be very careful about what you eat and drink - no fruit, no tap water - wash everything carefully in filtered water."  He drew the same conclusion from Diana's results and prescribed us both with several boxes of chalky, foul-tasting, over-priced pills.

I thought that would be the end of it but apparently it was only the beginning.  Every time I think I'm getting better, I suffer a relapse within half an hour.  The medication makes everything taste awful, the result being that I have no appetite and can only stomach the blandest of food - even rice is unbearable.  A trip to the kitchen to get water or bread necessitates a siesta of at least half an hour to recover from so much walking.  My body is a human blender.  All in all, the shiny veneer of Africa has been tarnished somewhat by the experience, but I'm optimistic that it'll redeem itself in due course.  And it hasn't been all bad.  My employers and VSO have given me all the time I need to recover.  And really it couldn't have come at a better time, as I'm surrounded by volunteers with nothing to do but wait for their placements to start and satisfy my every whim in the meantime.  They've all been fantastic, especially Grahame, who accompanied Diana and me to the hospital, made us food and rehydration salt solutions, let me sleep in his room for hours with the fan on and has been keeping a constant eye on us to make sure we eat properly.  He deserves a medal and all he gets from me is muttered grumbling when he tries to force feed me bananas.

I'm beginning to realise that this year is going to be far more challenging than I had ever anticipated....

The journey to Maroua

Djabbama!  I'm finally in Maroua after nearly thirty hours' travelling by bus and train.  The journey would have been unbearable were it not for the awe-inspiring scenery that we passed through - mere words cannot do justice and my photos are all blurry but suffice to say I'm beginning to understand why so many people fall in love with Africa.  Over the course of a single journey the view from my window changed from rainforest to savannah and then to desert, with occasional pockets of civilisation in the form of conical huts made of straw and mud bricks.  

I managed to somehow involuntarily cause an incident on the train.  Shortly after we departed from Yaounde, a waiter came to our carriage to place orders for dinner.  I wasn't overly hungry, yet faced with an overnight journey I thought it might be wise to eat something and so I ordered ndole-chevre (a spinach-like vegetable served with goat's meat).  The waiter returned after a few moments to inform me that there was no ndole but that he could serve me goat's meat on its own.  As I had been regretting my decision to eat I took the opportunity to cancel my order.  He appeared upset by this and repeated that the goat's meat was available.  I told him that I wasn't hungry.  He gave me a slightly hurt look and left.

Half an hour later a steaming plate of goat's meat was placed under my nose.  Surprised, I reminded the waiter that I had cancelled my order.  'Yes,' he replied, but the chef had already prepared your food and so you have to accept it.'  Having argued down the price of a beer in French earlier in the week I felt confident of my confrontation skills and so refused to take the tray, reminding him that this wasn't even the dish I had ordered.  'You're being very rude,' said the waiter.  By now our stand-off had acquired a small but rapt audience.  My waiter took advantage of this and repeated again, loudly, 'It's extremely rude not to take this food.  What do you expect me to do with it?'  I was tempted to give him some suggestions but felt that this would not help matters.  There followed a prolonged battle of wills in which the waiter proffered his tray before me and repeated how rude I was, and I shook my head and muttered apologies.  He finally left in disgust.

The remainder of the journey passed without mishap, and we arrived in Maroua on Monday evening.  I'll save my description of the city until I've had a chance to properly explore but from the brief tour we had yesterday it seems like a nice place.  I still don't have a house and might have to stay a little longer at the Baptist Mission where VSO have placed us for our second week of training.  We've also had some basic training in Fulfulde, the local language - mi wolwata Fulfulde amma mi don ekkita - and I'm hoping to start proper classes soon.  'Work' starts next week apparently, although nobody is as yet completely sure what we're expected to do.  But I'm sure all will be revealed in due course - as they're fond of saying in Cameroon, time is flexible.

One week down...

How to start this blog?  When I expressed my intention to join the blogosphere at lunch last week, I was informed by several seasoned bloggers that a blog is not something one simply 'starts'.  There is apparently a finely honed skill to blogging, helpfully described by a French-Canadian colleague as 'l'art du blog' - the fundamental principle of which is that blog entries should be brief, concise and coherent.  If this is the case then I am clearly going to be a terrible blogger and apologise in advance for my protracted, rambling posts. 

So my malaria tablets and I are now safely in Cameroon.  I arrived in Yaounde last Friday, having misread the date of my flight in true Emma style.  I can honestly say that I know so little about Africa and my expectations prior to arriving here were so confused that if, upon arrival at the airport, a lion had thrown itself up against the window of the plane, I would not have been the least bit surprised.  However, so far everything has been comfortably familiar.  Yaounde is like any other large city (although perhaps with more chaotic traffic than most), the climate is pleasant, terrifying mutant insects have been kept to a minimum and so far I have not seen a single lion.  

My home until now has been a Catholic Mission about a kilometre from the city centre. I must admit that I did not expect this kind of luxury from VSO!  I have a large room with a double bed and en suite shower (although the latter gives me an unpleasant electric shock every morning that leaves me with pins and needles until almost lunch time).  There's even a passable wifi connection up on the covered terrace, meaning that I can sit with my laptop on warm evenings and watch the sun set over the city horizon.  This is also by far the best place to witness the mindblowing thunderstorms that are apparently scheduled to perform every evening around 7pm.  

Unfortunately, besides classes on cultural awareness (do not pass anything with your left hand) and prevention of HIV infection (complete with condom demonstration through which I giggled like a ten year old schoolgirl) not a lot has actually happened!  Veteran Africanists will not be surprised by this: it seems that Africa considerably outclasses Latin America when it comes to the concept of mañana.  They're also leagues ahead in other areas, most notably flirting, as I discovered when a quiet after-class beer in the local bar turned into an episode of The Benny Hill Show  While the Latin American gringa hunter gives a certain degree of credit to his prey and will avoid out-and-out cliches or obviously insincere statements, the Cameroonian dragueur soldiers through an exhaustive list of Mills and Boon lines and can conjure up authentic surprise and devastation when you still refuse to marry him.  

On that note I'll draw my first post to a close.  In theory I will be travelling to my VSO placement in Maroua today; however, as we've already been delayed by a day due to the inconveniently-timed derailment of our train, this might be slightly optimistic.  If all goes to plan, however, my next entry will be from the Far North Province.  Apologies for any ramblings, please leave comments, and useko djurr!