We made it through our first week in Africa! Here are some of the highlights:
Everyone in our staging group is really cool. They’re mostly in their mid-twenties, though we have a few who are fresh out of college (graduating only two or three weeks ago) and a few who are closer to our age. The flights were unremarkable, we slept a lot.
We were met at the airport by our Country Director, who is really nice, and got us through customs and baggage claims and to our hotel quickly. Yaounde was pretty, but not like any Western capital city you’ve even seen (Yaounde is the cultural capital of Cameroon, Douala is the economic capital). There were lots of single-story tin-roofed buildings, homes and shops, spread out, with the occasional larger cement brick “high-rise,” between lots of trees and foliage. We have had so much crammed in to our first days here: language assessment, vaccinations, health and safety briefings, cross-cultural training. It’s been a lot to process. We also had a dinner at the Country Director’s home and got to meet the Ambassador and his wife, which was pretty cool.
Now we are in Bafia, which is prettier and more lush that Yaounde. We’re in the rainy season here, and we get some good downpours every other day or so, with occasional showers in between. If we can get pictures up, we will. To Western eyes, it looks more rural than urban. Most of the roads are red dirt, and there are plants and animals everywhere! The food is really good, most everything is seasoned with a red pepper sauce called piment. Pineapples are in season right now, and we’ve had some with lunch almost every day. So are bananas, which are a different variety than we had in the States, and are a bit sweeter. We also ate carp the other day – very tasty! Keep that in mind if you get the opportunity to eat the invasive Aisian carp in the Midwest!
We are living together in the same homestay! We’re so happy about that, and our host family is probably the best of our group. Two parents, one younger brother, one little nephew, and two children (one a baby) live here, and now us. Our family has been so welcoming, eternally patient, and accommodating of us. We were greeted with cold water and a fan in our room (the fan makes all the difference, and paired with a cool shower/bucket bath in the evening, we don’t even miss air conditioning). We go to training all day, and spend the evenings talking with our host parents (again with their great patience as we stutter and stammer our way through French – but we’re having actual conversations!), or playing with the kids. Our host parents are our age, so we don’t call them Mom or Dad like some of the others in our group do in their families. Some of our stagemates’ (fellow trainees) time is pretty scheduled, but we come and go as we please, and if we need some alone time, we’re able to find it. They don’t like the way we do laundry – we don’t scrub vigorously enough, and our Dr. Bronner’s bar soap was deemed cute but inappropriate for actually cleaning anything – but today, our host-mom said we’d done a good job of washing our sheets (when she was gone), so we guess we don’t do too badly… We’re sure there are many other things that we do strangely, or with questionable ability, but they’ve let those things slide.
Things we wish we’d brought, for those of you who were interested in sending care packages: Hand Sanitzer! This is a serious need, not just a crazy Western germophobe thing. The water goes out every other day or so here, along with the electricty, and we’re pretty limited on options to keep our hands clean throughout the day. Also, more tiny washcloth-sized microfiber towels (like those found at REI), because when we can, or invent the means to, wash our hands, there’s no way to dry them. Portability is key. Lastly, hot chocolate, Tazo Passion tea, and echinacea tea would be nice!
So, things we’ve learned so far, for future volunteers: Really, don’t worry about clothes. Bring enough for a week or so. Go ahead and bring your white/light colored things. Hand washing is so much more effective than a machine at getting the dirt out. A deodorant stone is a sound investment for avoiding pit stains on your shirts while staying funk-free. About a quarter of us have been dealing with (we think) bacterial dysentery (yes, really), which sucks enormously (Kiyomi has gone through the entire supply of rehydration salts issued in her medkit), but it passes in about a week (no pun intended), and then you’re still here, living in one of the most gorgeous places on our planet! Bring powdered Gatorade, or some equivalent. Also bring a light (flashlight or headlamp), because the electricity goes out pretty frequently. Also, take naps. Our whole group has been surprised by how tired we are pretty much all the time, even after our normal amount of sleep, but this is kind of a huge thing, your body needs time to adjust to a whole new environment, and Peace Corps gives you so much new information, all while you’re trying to communicate in a new language – naps are good.
So, we’re here! Safe and sound and happy and mostly healthy, with nine and a half weeks of training to go. It feels like months since we said goodbye and got on a plane. We should know where we’ll be posted in early July! In the meantime we’ll be working to get to our required French proficiency and just taking in all in.
