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!