Finally!

Bonjour Tout le Monde!
Alright, so I must first apologize for the delay in this blog post. I have now been in Cameroon for nine whole days! It those nine days have felt like AT LEAST four months! Turns out internet access is slightly difficult to come by on this continent… surprise! But I have finally located a “cyber café,” as they are called, and if the electricity will stay on, I will try my best to update on the many, many happenings since I’ve been in country.
So my last post was when we were still in Yaoundé. That is the capital of Cameroon, and it is the city that I, and the 42 other volunteers that are in my training class, flew into. We spent a few days there doing some initial orientations, including initial language proficiency tests, medical sessions (completely with immunizations, my favorite!), food and water preparation training, etc. We also took care of a ton of paperwork, completed some immigration processing, bought cell phones and regulators, and other miscellaneous mundane errands. But we did some super fun stuff too, like the tribal dance festival, and we had a super fancy welcome dinner at the Country Director’s house where we met all of the Peace Corps staff.
After being in Yaoundé for four days, we drove to Bafia, which is still in the center of the country, only about two hours from Yaoundé. It’s a much smaller town than Yaoundé, but its not a village. There are probably about 50-60 thousand people living in and around Bafia. So I’m living with a host family, and they are super great! My father, Guy, is in agriculture (we have tons of fruit trees in our yard, including palm trees, mango trees, and guava trees!). My mother, Beatrice, is a primary school teacher, but school is finished for the summer now. The have a daughter, Vanessa, who goes to university in Yaoundé, a son Ariel who is 19, Fabiola who is 14, Brando (or Bato for short) who is 12, and Charles-Anette who is 5. So the house is always crazy and loud and exciting! The mother is actually from the Anglophone part of Cameroon, but she speaks French to me (I need the practice!). My host parents are incredibly intelligent, insightful, and opinionated people. They love to have conversations with me about politics and globalization and imperialism and Africa’s role on the international stage. They are well aware of how the majority of the rest of the world views their continent, and the stereotypes that surround it. They, and the rest of the town of Bafia, are so grateful that we are here, they can’t stop thanking us! As they explained to me, that are just happy that we are here to see how they live and experience their culture and realize that while it is true that Africa has a reputation for corruption and disease and poverty, there are people here that work hard to make a living and succeed at doing so. They have electricity, and a television, and a computer! All of which surprised me. As for food, to anyone who is wondering, I have not eaten meat yet! They eat a lot, a lot, a lot of fish. Also a lot of rice, plantains, potatoes, and manioc (I don’t know what the English word for this is, but they eat every part of this plant, the stem, the leaves, the root). Yes, there’s a theme, and its heavy on the carbs. One night we had spaghetti AND rice with tomato sauce!
Besides hanging out with my host family, all of our time is consumed by an intense training program. I’m in a French class with only two other volunteers, and its really nice to work in that small of groups. We’ve been having technical sessions on what exactly we will be teaching (the Cameroonian schools have strict lesson plans that we must stick to). We will be starting a model school in Bafia on the 1st of July, where we’ll offer summer school classes to kids aged 10 and up in the mornings, and classes to adults in the afternoons for subjects like English, business, and computers. I’m pretty psyched about it! I think it will be a great way for us to practice and get feedback before we leave for our post (the place we will be assigned to for the two years of service) while simultaneously helping out the community a bit.
I get quite a bit of attention when I walk around Bafia, and so do all the volunteers. My favorite is they like to call out “La Blanche, La Blanche!” which literally means “the white female.” And apparently, it is every Cameroonian’s dream (especially the youth) to go to the United States. So marriage proposals from young Cameroonian men, hopeful that they’ll find an American sugar mama who will provide them with a green card and the American Dream, are quite prevalent!
The World Cup is all anyone can talk about since got here, and I must say, it is pretty exciting! Africans in general are so proud to have a World Cup hosted on their continent, and the Cameroonians are simply ecstatic for their team to be in it! Unfortunately, they did loose today to Japan. It was a heartbreaker, they had so many chances to score they just barely missed. Definitely some heavy hearts here in Bafia (the town pretty much shut down to watch the match!).
So there are a few updates from Cameroon, I’ll try to post more frequently with more stories (there are too many!) now that I’ve found an internet source! Loving and missing everyone dearly…