hey guys i put some pics on facebook you should check them out!

So I survived my first week of teaching in Cameroon. There were tears, and there was laughter.....j/k i didn't actually cry although it was one of the hardest weeks of my life. For 6 out of the 8 hours I taught I had Quatrieme, which is the equivalent of eight grade although the ages of the students vary greatly because they don't always start school on time or pass the grades. There were ups and there were downs. Sometimes they would surprise me by getting all 5 of the true/false questions on the reading correct, and sometimes they did not do their homework because I gave them an assignment which was way too advanced for them. The biggest struggle is that there are about 5 kids who actually know what I'm saying and the rest are lost. They also constantly talk in class, which isn't surprising because they don't see the value of learning English in eight grade. There is also the fact that the classrooms here are all like separate buildings or rows of classrooms. They do not have electricity or windows or anything, just holes cut in the walls for ventilation. The only thing in the classrooms are wooden desks which consist of a bench for sitting and a bench for putting your books on. The teacher's desk is a little table built into the wall. The only other thing in the classrooms is a small chalkboard. Students cannot afford books here, so we as teachers get a copy of the book that we can hopefully photocopy or get other materials from the internet. The only resources provided are brown butcher paper and markers to write out exercises or readings before class instead of taking the time to write them on the chalkboard. The classrooms are literally falling apart. They are made of cement but they are crumbling and full of holes and cracks.There are 3 latrines for the students to use, but most of the time they just do their business in the field out back. The school is one of the only places that has garbage cans. The students that come late spend their first hour at school picking up garbage and putting it in the garbage pile by the field, which they burn periodically. The boys also cut the grass with machetes as punishment. Many students are late because they have work to do in the morning, like fetching water, cooking, cleaning, or selling beignets in the market. At lunchtime some mommies from the community sell goodies like fish pockets, spaghetti and avocado sandwiches (my favorite) or omelets. Sellers also come around carrying boiled eggs, peanuts and other things on their head.

So I had two stories that should probably be shared....one was wednesday when I went to school wearing one of the african shirts I had made. Well, the zipper in the back decided to break during class so my whole back was exposed to the class when I was writing on the board. A group of girls in my class came over to try to help me but it was no use. So I had to wear my backpack to cover myself and I went home to change over the lunch break.

Another good one was when I taught premiere, which is equivalent to junior year, so they know english pretty well. The topic was science so I found an article on yahoo about the position of peoples belly buttons explaining why black people are good at running and whites at swimming. Then after we read the article the first question they asked was what is a belly button. And the second and third questions were whats an innie and whats an outtie---I'm teaching the future of Cameroon here!

I hope this gives you a little glimpse into what a Cameroonian school day is like and where I will be working for the next two years.

For those of you who don't believe you can gain weight while living in Africa, picture this: spaghetti sandwiches.

Also, I started learning an African language yesterday, fulfuldé, which is pretty much blowing my mind because not only is pretty much everything here new, but also because we're learning it from french to fufuldé, not english. I'm pretty sure that my head exploded like 4 times since then. Fufuldé is the language of the Grand North part of Cameroon. In my town they actually speak something different as well called mandara.

Here are the 2 articles I wrote for our training newsletter:

How To Kill A Cockroach

by Liz Adamo

I hit the pavement on Tuesday with one mission in mind: to discover the best way to kill a cockroach. Having never encountered one until I arrived in Bafia, I was unsure how to handle the disposal of these creatures that I like to refer to as “big beetles.” One day, one silly specimen, which was apparently living in my bedroom door, did not make it back to its home in time before I shut the door on half its body. Surprisingly, it was still alive, which I discovered when I pulled the other half of the body out of my door frame. A novice to the slaying of cockroaches, I smashed the little critter, only to discover that when you do so, a good amount of what can only be described as goo oozed out of the body. Not wanting to ever repeat this experience, I interviewed a few trainees to see if they had any ideas of their own. This is what they had to say:

Jeneca described three methods in detail. The Shoe Method, in which one whacks the cockroach with a shoe. The Bugspray method, which she says you can purchase at the supermarché. Finally, she mentioned The Starvation Method, in which one traps the roach under a glass and waits for it to starve to death.

Claire had another unique method. She said the best way to kill a cockroach would be to first flip it over. Then make a tissue sandwich with it so when you smash it the guts do not get all over.

Ben had some other ideas. He said smash its head, use insecticide, or eat it.

Allison described a method in which her host brother use a broom to flip the cockroach over. Then her siblings play with it and never really kill it at all.

Finally, Christina says you should just throw something at it.

It is up to you to decide which method works for your lifestyle. Good luck!

Les poules ne se perdent pas au Cameroun

La caractéristique qui me frappe la plus forte au Cameroun est que la vie me semble de passer lente. Aux états-unis, on dit que la journée n'a pas assez d'heures. Les américains ont tellement d'activités et choses matérielles pour occuper le temps. Mais il me semble que parfois, les américains ne prennent jamais le temps pour vivre, sans la télévision, l'ipod ou l'ordinateur. Mes voisins camerounais passent les jours assis sous un arbre à l'extérieur de leur maison. Ils y cuisine, se bavardent, et soignent leur petite bébé. Cela ne passent jamais aux états-unis. C'est vrai qu'on y connaît l'importance de la famille, mais on ne passe pas chaque jour dans cette manière.

Un jour, j'ai vu les poules de ma famille d'accueil pendant que je assoyais au porche avec ma mère. Je l'ai demandée, “Comment est-ce que les poules rentrent chaque nuit?” Et elle a répondu, “Les poules ne se perdre pas.” De même, aussitôt que les américains modernisent de plus en plus, et mettent tellement de l'importance sur les choses matérielles, leurs maisons deviennent de plus en plus obscures.

Translation:

Chickens Always Know Their Way Home in Cameroon

The most striking characteristic of Cameroon that I have noticed thus far is that life is lived slowly. In the United States, we say that there are not enough hours in a day. Americans have so many activities and material things to occupy their time. But it seems to me that sometimes they never take the time to just live, without TV, an ipod, or the computer. My Cameroonian neighbors spend each day sitting under a tree in their front yard. There they cook, chat and even care for their little baby. This situation would never be seen in the United States. I'm not saying that we don't know the value of family, but we also do not spend each day in this manner.

One day, I saw my host family's chickens while sitting with my host mom on the porch. I asked her, "How do the chickens get back to their house every night?" And she responded, "chickens always know their way home." In contrast, as americans become increasingly modernized, and place more and more emphasis on material goods, their homes are becoming increasingly obscure.

Visiting my new home and other random tidbits

I only have 1 hour left on my computer battery so I'll jot down some tidbits about my site visit this week. I'm posted in the far north region and the trip takes 3 days. (email me if you want to know the town I'm in). So we were supposed to leave Tuesday then they told us wednesday. Tuesday morning we show up and theyre like surprise, you're leaving today at noon, go home and you have 20 minutes to pack. That was the beginning of this long voyage: 2 hour bus ride, 16 hour train ride (overnight) and then an 8 hour bus ride and another 1.5 hour bus ride. So the first night I finally got to my town, i was with a few other volunteers from the area. They took me to their friend Patti's bar, which was really just a lady's front yard. All of a sudden a storm rolled in so we went inside the house. She then preceded to pull out mattresses for us to sleep on because obviously we were not going to go home that night. So I laid down of course. We ended up going home later. Except for the big cities the taxis are motocycles here. So we took motos home on wet unpaved roads. We only fell off once.

I also forgot to mention that on one of the bus rides we ran over a goat. I saw it coming and the bus driver did not slow down. Then I looked back and the baby goat was on the ground disappearing behind us....

Animals such as chickens, goats and sheep run free here. My friend even has a turkey at her house. Somehow they belong to people tho (more on that later).

So I went up north with 4 other girls. We were all sick by the trip back because we had no notice and we did all this traveling to spend 1 day in our town. then we had to turn back and do it again. everyone was on the bus feeling sick, people were puking on the bus or in bushes at the side of the road. These french people came up to me during one of the stops and were like are you guys ok? I was like its been a long week.

So when you are traveling by bus there is no bathroom. you have to go by the side of the road when the bus stops. but the bus always stops at a town, so it gets weird. people usually end up seeing you do your thing.

on the 4th of july we stopped at someone's house for a party. they grilled burgers and made mac and cheese potato and fruit salad. then people obnoxiously read the declaration of independence and various other american documents. it was pretty funny.

At a bar the other night I ordered fish and of course how do you eat it? with your hands. thats why hand sani is really useful here....

So today we had the opening ceremony for the summer school we're having here (for us to train) and we had to sing the star spangled banner. I took the high note at the end there...it was great. i knew ms hansons teaching would come in handy in africa.

Thats all I can think of for now. we have internet at the site now so I will be able to update more. let me know if you have any questions.

xoxoxo Liz