But in this one, nobody dies.
We made it through our two weeks apart – thanks for all the prayers, guys! Our future home, Bamenda, is just perfect for us, and we can’t wait to get settled there! For now, we’ve officially made it to the half-way point in our training. So what does training look like, you may wonder. Here’s our typical day in Bafia.
We get up between 6 and 6:30, get dressed, and usually our host-mom has beignets and Ovaltine (or some variation on that theme) waiting for us for breakfast. No Little Orphan Annie decoder rings here though! Between 7:30 and 7:45 we’re out the door and walk to our separate training facilities by 8. Throughout the day we have sessions in language (French and Wes Cos Pidgin now), technical training (general info on small enterprise development or teaching, respectively; Jack starts teaching in both English and French this week), cross-culture training, medical/safety info, and vaccinations. At 10 we get a twenty minute coffee break, then more sessions until 12:20, when we break for lunch. Local women sell traditional dishes at each of our locations every day, or there are other places within walking distance in our neighborhood where we can get egg (sliced hard boiled egg and mayo, not a bad egg salad substitute) or avocado-salad sandwiches (one of our stagemates pointed out that these sandwiches are,technically, still African food). After lunch we have sessions until three, when we have another fifteen minute pause before our final session, and we finish most days at 4:30. After that we usually return home to drop off our bags, and then meet up with the other trainees at a little boutique, which is sort of like a convenience store with tables and chairs out front instead of a parking lot, where we can enjoy a soda or beer or a snack (or all of the above) and have a little downtime before we all return home for our seven o’ clock curfew. We usually spend a little time in our room on study/prep for the next day, and then join our host family for dinner prep or getting the table set, and then eat together, usually between 8-9, and join them for a little of their favorite French-dubbed telenovellas (predictable plotlines and simple language make it decent language comprehension practice). By 9 we’re getting showers or bucket baths, then finishing up work for the next day, and bed. Saturdays we have a half day of training, and then start laundry (it’s kind of an undertaking), or we go into town for grocery or toiletry items we may need, or just to get a change of scenery, and do homework, and Sundays are filled with laundry, sweeping out our room and lots more homework (approximately sixteen years old, remember?).
So that’s our daily grind here. Not too terrible, but not terribly exciting either. We’re looking forward to telling you about life at our post in a few short weeks! Our site visits came just in time, when everyone was about burnt out on our training schedule and in need of a reminder of why we’re all here. We both feel refreshed and motivated to push through the next month and a bit – the goal is in sight, and it sure is a pretty sight! An informal poll of our stagemates says the number one thing we’re all looking forward to is cooking our own food, followed closely by not living in someone else’s space! 39 days and counting!
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