Cholera Scare

So this morning I woke up at 3am with horrible abdominal cramps. This wouldn't be the first time, so I laid there until it passed, thinking about what I had eaten the day before. Then at 6am I woke up for school and like usual, had some water and cereal for breakfast. In the next 20 minutes I had watery diarrhea about 4-5 times. This is a sign of cholera. Also, everytime I take a sip of water, I get nauseous. Vomiting is also a symptom. By the way, I live in the heart of the cholera outbreak (yes the disease from Oregon Trails). So I call my friend who's a health volunteer and she says I should go to the hospital. So I go there at 7:30 am. They open at 6am but the doctor wasn't there. I spoke with the janitor in fulfulde/french and he told me that the doctor usually gets in around 8 or so. So I waited in the waiting room, as it started to fill up. Around 8:45 the doctor showed up and even though I was the first person there of course 2 people cut in front of me. When I finally got to talk to him, he said it was probably not cholera because I wasn't projectile vomiting but he said to go get medicine and come back to see how I feel. So I went to the pharmacy to get one kind of medicine. The other stuff I needed was at the clinic. After getting lost on my way to the clinic (again the problem of not having addresses or streets), I finally got the other pill. As I was walking back to the hospital, I took it on the street. Bad call. I immediately felt it start coming back up. I puked numerous times by the side of the road. As I pulled into the hospital again, the principal of my school rolls up in his car. Ca va? no ca va pas. We go talk to the doctor again and he says I should get an IV and stay awhile. The filing system here is basically they give you a little notebook that you keep and everytime you go to the doctor you bring it and he fills in notes. So my brand new notebook says “suspicion of cholera” on the front page. Meanwhile I talked to the Peace Corps medical office and they were in agreement with this plan. So my principal had brought along the school nurse, so she stayed with my in my hospital room. 4 months in Cameroon and there are still surprises. I've come to be able to recognize when a place is clean by Cameroonian standards. This hospital room was definitely not. It was your typical cement room. There was a small metal bed frame circa 1910 and a mattress. No sheets- you bring your own. I was SOL since I didn't know this. There were flies, mosquitoes, spiders and grasshoppers in the room. The walls were filthy. There was a bathroom- no toilet seat, soap or toilet paper. After I purchased my IV supplies at the pharmacy ($15), they hooked me up. The day passed as they came in periodically changed bags and I tried to nap. At one point the school nurse took some of the pills I had bought (no idea why) then disappeared for an hour. Apparently she threw up from them too. Why should took them will remain a mystery to me. Finally since I didn't throw up or have diarrhea anymore they let me go home, instructing me to change my clothes and shower when I got home. I just ate a PB and J sandwich so we'll see how I feel......

Teaching

So I'll describe a typical day of teaching. Thursday, class started at 7:30 am. I was teaching sixieme, which is like 6th grade, so the kids are young and still small. We have not received our order for desk yet, so half the class sits on the floor. They bring little pieces of cloth or scarves to sit on. There's over a hundred students. This is my best class because I'm starting from scratch (they're the youngest) and they are motivated to learn. So I taught how to say and spell their names and where they're from. Two hours for this class gets really long. It's already hot by 8 am. At 9:30 class ends. They scheduled our school meeting for noon, so my 1:15 class gets cancelled. The meeting was originally supposed to be on the 8th but was cancelled due to Ramadan. The meeting starts promptly at noon thirty. It lasts for 5 hours, and includes a summary of pretty much everything that happened the year before at the school. Apparently they have a problem with so called “clando students.” These are the students that do not pass their grade and so they are stuck in the same class. But they refuse to be held back so they go to the next class and do the work, tests for that class. But when its time to do report cards, they do not get a grade for the work they've done in the wrong class, and they fail the class they're supposed to be in. Not to mention the time the teacher spends disciplining them and grading their papers. Students also do this when they have not paid their school fees. At the meeting cold water was served. There was one glass that everyone shared. Then we ate a meal of beef, sauce and manioc (no knife) and drank fanta.

My First Week of School

September 9th, 2010

This concludes my 3rd week at post and my first week teaching at a real Cameroonian high school. About 2 days after getting here I came to the realization that I was going to have to get used to a lot of “me time.” I'm in a city- a district capital. This mislead me to believe that there were going to be things to do and food to eat in my town. The center of town consists of about 25 little tiny shops with the exact same products-pasta, cookies, unscented bar soap and toilet paper. Then there's street venders selling tomatoes, cucumbers, leaves, peanuts, and eggs. I have discovered 3 restaurants in town. The first one I found because I was walking through town with another volunteer that came in for the day and a shady guy came up to us and was like “hissssss hey white girls, there's a restaurant over here.” So of course we follow him through an alley and lo and behold, there was a restaurant with a chalkboard menu and everything. I asked if they had cold drinks and he said yes they have fish. I love language barriers. So we sit down. When ordering drinks, it turns out they only have ginger juice, which is fine because it's delicious. Then my friend orders fish and I order chicken. They're out of chicken. Beef? no they're out of that. Ok fish it is. The fish was good and the elation of finding a good restaurant lasted until my friend and I had a case of the runs when we got home. Not gonna lie, I'll probably go back.

So this week was the first week of school. I was told to be there on Monday at 6:45am. So of course I got there at 6:40 and there was not a soul in sight. The first people started coming in about 7:20. The principal rolled up at about 8:15 in a car, the only person who has one. All the teachers gathered in his office for a meeting. He gave us all a pamphlet on Cholera and said that the ministry requested that we teach our first lesson on cholera. I'm the only female teacher. The only other woman working at the school is the secretary. The new people that just got transferred are not even here yet. So the first day I introduced myself to my classes, which had about 15 out of 100 people present. This week was the last week of Ramadan, so many students did not come. Others didn't come because they did not know that school was starting, so we told people to tell their friends. No one this whole week showed up for afternoon classes. I was told by numerous people that it was because of the sun. Don't get me wrong, if I was fasting I would not want to come to class either but really? the sun in africa? All week, the date of Ramadan was unsure because it goes by the moon. So if it ended up being Thursday we would not have class Friday. Well, it turned out to be Friday, but only about 20 out of 2800 students showed up for class on Thursday (must have been the Christians) and so class and the general meeting were cancelled. The classes I did teach went fairly well. The students are far below the level in English that they need to be, but I was expecting that. It's just also really hard to teach people vocabulary about 'The News' when you can't even buy a newspaper in the town and most of them don't have TVs. I have to teach them the concept and then the English which puts a wrench into things.

My First African Bike Trip

On Tuesday I felt up to the challenge of riding my bike to visit my friend in Tokombere and checking out the market in her town. I didn't know exactly where I was going or how far it was. I knew that other volunteers made the trip and it took them about an hour. So my friends directions were as follows, turn right, its far down that road, go over two bridges which may be full of water but maybe some people will be there to direct you, and then the paved road turns into a dirt road, pass some villages, then the road becomes paved again and you will see the place des fetes. (On a side note, this is how directions are in the rural areas. There are no street names, no names of businesses, nothing). So I venture off at 8:50 am with a water bottle, some pretzels and a vague sense of where I am going. It takes about 10 minutes to ride out of my town. Once I am on the open road, I feel great. The sky is blue, the mountains are all around me. I pass many people on bikes as well, even a couple women. They are not on pleasure rides, though. They are transporting goods like huge sacks of rice or big containers of water. Or another person on the little basket in the back. About 45 minutes into my trip, I start to get tired, which is not surprising considering I have not done any exercise except for a couple of yoga classes in the last few months. So I hope that I am at least half way there. Then my first hill comes. I'm going uphill of course. By the time I get to the top, I want to keel over. Did I mention that I am biking in the desert? Yeah by this time it is hot, I'm an hour into my bike ride, and I'm not sure how long it will take me. Finally I get to the turn off. I try not to think about how she said its a long way off once you turn. The sign said 14 kilometers, which I think is about 10 miles. I'm hoping everything is relative. No, an hour later I am seriously considering pulling over and taking a nap by the side of the road. At this point other bikers are passing me like its their job. I haven't even reached the dirt road yet. Who knows if I'm even going the right way. I've been riding for 2 hours. Then up ahead I see a crowd of kids. This isn't going to be good, I think. Yep, its the first bridge. And there's rushing water going over it. I try to fight them off and say I can carry my bike myself, but they are stubborn. So about 15 boys help me and my bike across the river. Then they say they will take euros or dollars...really?? Next they see that my front tire needs air so they pump a little in it (yes we have little pumps attached to our bikes). So I give them some cfa and continue on. 45 minutes after that, I seriously think I am headed in the wrong direction. How can this be taking me almost 3 hours??? Should I just pull over and have my friend send me a moto? Finally I start to see something like civilization, and I ask someone if that is Tokombere, and she says yes. By this time I am so exhausted I don't know how I'm still pedaling. My muscles are not only sore but so tired they barely work. It seems like forever until I finally reach the place des fetes and call my friend. The first thing I say is I'm taking a moto back. I would like to say I feel a sense of accomplishment from finishing my bike tour, it turns out it was only about 25 kilometers, which I think is about 18 miles. And it took me about 3 hours which is terrible time. I don't know if I'll ever do another bike tour. I did feel good after 3 hours, chugging water, and eating. I had my first salad in 3 months. My friend Claire and I went to the market, which is an experience. The first lady we go up to doesn't speak french, and we dont speak enough fulfulde yet. Some young man says, “you look like you need help” in excellent english. The whole time we were at the market a group of children, also known as pickpockets, were following us. We bumped into everyone Claire knows of course. When we got to her house, we soaked the lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes and onions in bleach water (to prevent cholera). Then I made a vinaigrette dressing and it was one of the best things I've eaten here so far! So then Claire's friend said he would book my car back to my village. I give him the money and he comes back and says they're leaving in 5 minutes! So I rush over there and pack into this conversion size van, with 25 people. There is a chicken by my foot that is thrashing and I don't want it to bite me. Each time the driver needs to start the car it takes 3-4 tries. We get home about an hour later and I ride my bike back to my house. I figured if I didn't want to be sore the next day I should do some yoga. It was really nice out so I put my mat down outside. My neighbors stared at me the whole time and the little boys tried doing it with me. Then I went inside to take a shower. After my shower, I go into my bedroom and see that there is an inordinate amount of termites. Don't get me wrong, there's usually a bunch, and when I first got here I had to destroy like 5 of their little sand houses. So I follow them to the source and see that there is about a million behind my bed and I had missed one house. So I spray them all with insecticide. I made the mistake of coming back into the room 5 minutes later, because I heard the sound of a million little termites writhing in pain and dying. Not a pleasant sound. Still haunting me. 10 minutes later, they are dead. And do you know whats almost as bad as a million termites in your room, a million dead termites in you room. I spent the next 20 minutes sweeping the dead lifeless carcasses up. I slept like a rock that night. I don't know if I'm cut out for this whole bike tour thing.