Happy Holidays!

The holidays are approaching and I would have no idea if I didn’t have a calendar because it is getting warmer every day, the sun is shining, and there are no Christmas trees here!

A few weeks ago, I had an idea to celebrate Thanksgiving here with everyone that is here in Fontem to work in the hospital or the school. I shared my idea with someone and next thing I know, everyone was asking me about my feast! So we celebrated Thanksgiving! I had only planned on 12 or so people attending in the beginning but we turned into a group of 25! The menu: plantain (a fruit that looks exactly like bananas but you have to boil them and they are really sweet), rice (what would be an African meal without this?), sauce (for the rice), bacon (the vegetable, not the meat), chicken (not quite turkey, but close enough), empanadas, and eggosey (I have no idea how to spell this word or explain what it is, but it is absolutely delicious). For dessert: pound cake, coffee pudding, and a Pillsbury cake with icing from a box that my dad sent me 2 months ago… Everyone came up to me saying, “Mama mia! I never knew you could make cake, this is delicious”! 

Before we ate, I prepared a little history about Thanksgiving and explained the Thanksgiving holiday from black Wednesday to black Friday. Then we went around our huge table and said what we were thankful for. As we went around and all shared what we were thankful for, I counted 25 people from 15 different countries, and 5 continents all gathered around one table. Fourteen different countries coming together for a meal as one family, it was wonderful!!! After dinner, people prepared games to play and even a PowerPoint about Thanksgiving! We ended the night singing the Star Spangled Banner (yes its true, but not my idea!), and I had to lead the group in singing because although we had the words, nobody knew the tune. But everyone really wanted to sing it, so I had no choice! Everyone was really happy to celebrate this feast for the first time, and it was awesome to be able to share something so important to my country with everyone here.

I ventured out of Fontem a couple of weeks ago with two friends for the day. We traveled to a nearby town called Dschang (pronounced “Chung”) to do some shopping and sightseeing. On the way there, we traveled with a Chief and his wife that had a car. The roads out of Fontem are so bad that they had to hire a professional driver to get us there. Now when I say roads, I mean dirt roads…this makes travel much more difficult when it is rainy and muddy! There are some holes in the road that are 5 or 6 feet deep from cars during the rainy season that constantly drive the ground in deeper and deeper. We managed to get there with almost no problem (just a flat tire).

Dschang is much, much bigger than Fontem! I didn’t realize how isolated I had been in Fontem until I went to Dschang. And the market- it is huge. It was like I was stepping into Wal-Mart for the first time when I had only been shopping at Walgreens (not the 24 hour one). We wanted to buy so many things but since we were planning on taking a bike back, we could only buy what we could carry on our backs. My French from high school actually came in handy because we were in a francophone zone (French speaking). So after a few hours of shopping, eating, and walking around, we headed back to Fontem.

                We had planned on taking two bikes (like motorcycles that people drive…its their version of the taxi) to get the three of us home, but at the last minute we decided to take a van… not such a good last minute decision. There were 20 people in this van, shoulder to shoulder with our knees jammed into the seat in front of us. The 2 hour journey turned into 4 hours because we got stuck on the road at least 5 times, and our driver got sick so we had to stop so he could “ease himself”. We had to continue to exit the van so we could free it from the mud and in the course of this, I slipped in the mud and fell on my back, covered in mud. So public transportation in Cameroon isn’t exactly comfortable, but we got where we needed to go!

Since the dry season is coming, we can spend more time trekking in the woods (trekking=hiking, but they say trek here). Our new favorite thing to do is to go to the small waterfall nearby.  Ann Julie (midwife from France), Chiara (my Italian roommate), and I trek to the waterfall whenever we have the chance. This particular waterfall is a series of little falls that lead to a bigger fall, and a place to swim…its like a water park. And there are big rocks all over the place that are flat so you can lay on them in the sun… its amazing! And there is also a cave like structure with still water inside… the surface of the water lights up when the sun hits it, its unreal.  All this only 20 minutes walk away from our house!

Another place we like to go is to a junction where there are 2 hanging bridges… one is literally just made out of pieces of wood nailed together, maybe 2 feet wide with metal wire hanging it from various trees. It goes over a river and people use it everyday! There is a another smaller bridge made of bamboo tied together with a single bamboo tree as a railing…its not so easy to cross!

We added another member to our family in the gen house, so now we are three. Her name is Ada and she is from Vietnam. She is here to do physiotherapy and acupuncture. She knows a lot about Chinese medicine and alternative therapies so I am excited to learn (and to try) them. The other day I walked into the bathroom and she was sticking needles into her head and eyebrows… all she said was, “I am going to sleep very well tonight”! The English we speak in this house is very strange… we speak Cameroonian English with French, Italian, and Vietnamese accents… and I have become an English teacher 24 hours of the day.

Sometimes after work, I go to Cristabel’s house (a friend I met when I first arrived). Its always an adventure for me because she has chickens, goats, and geese (after much practice, I can now catch chicken with my bare hands). They always insist on feeding me when I come over, which isn’t a problem for me. Her brother was cooking fufu one evening for about 15 people, which isn’t easy because you have to stir it for a long time and it is very thick… I don’t know what came over me but I just grabbed this big wooden stick and started to stir this giant pot! Everyone got a kick out of seeing a “white man” cook this big pot of fufu, but then I accidentally broke their stick because I was stirring too hard!

Everyone here treats us like family. You can literally walk up to anyone’s house, walk inside, and talk with them (and they will most likely make you stay for dinner). When I was walking home from the market one day, I was talking with one woman that was making dinner. She said she was sad she wasn’t finished so that I could stay for dinner. She was cooking a huge quantity of food but there were only two people in her house so I asked why she was preparing so much food and she said there was no way she could make food without sharing it with her neighbors. Everyone here seems to have a strong sense of responsibility for others. Even in the hospital, if a patient doesn’t have food to eat (because no, we don’t have room service), you can guarantee he/she will be fed by the family of another patient. The kids here are also really friendly. It’s not unusual for me to be walking on the road and some little girl will come up to me and just hold my hand.

I have come to appreciate everything I took for granted back home, even the value of a ziplock bag. My dad sent me a box a couple of months ago with various things wrapped in ziplock bags in case they burst open. Little did he know that these ziplock bags were probably the thing I was most thankful for! We had nothing to wrap food in or to carry food to work for a snack, but now we do! I used to throw away ziplock bags after using them one time at home but now we wash them over and over again as if they are Tupperware. And I’ve also discovered how useful some things can be- like a rock! We grind all our spices, ginger, garlic, etc., with a stone and it works so well…who would have thought? And when we exercise, we do arm exercises with stones. I don’t even know how I am going to cook without this stone when I come home.

The hospital is getting really busy because people are able to travel easier to the hospital during the dry season. One man came to the hospital last week after falling from a palm tree. His transportation? A stretcher made out of bamboo carried by 10 men, trekking for 5 hours! We have so many patients in the medical ward right now. Yesterday it was me and a nursing assistant working in the medical ward in the afternoon…we had 32 patients! I had just enough time to do vitals, pass medications, consult an outpatient, and do a couple of procedures. Some patients I had not even a clue why they were in the hospital… luckily they were all stable!

In December, I will be traveling to another village for a clinic, and then to a bigger town for a wedding. In January, I will be traveling around the country for a week before leaving. It will be a busy month so I don’t know if I will be able to update…but in case I don’t, I hope everybody has a Merry Christmas!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time flies when you're in the bush!

Greetings!

I am truly terrible at updating this blog, so please forgive me.

The dry season is approaching! Dragon flies are everywhere- this is a sign that the rainy season is ending. Its also getting really, really hot here. The sky is clear at night and the moon is so bright- it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen! I don’t even need a flashlight to see at night because the moon is so intense!

I’m learning some language of the dialect here (Bangwa). I love walking into the ward in the morning and asking patients how they slept in their own language- all the natives get a kick out of it! They really enjoy when us “white men” speak their language. One of the nurses told me I will have to teach them how to speak my dialect-when I told him I don’t speak a dialect, he didn’t believe me! It took me ten minutes to convince him that we don’t have dialects, and we only speak English in the US (well for the most part).

One thing I learned here is to never ask to use the bathroom anywhere you go. I was with some friends getting something to drink one weekend and I had to use the bathroom-there was no waiting until walking home. So the owner of this fine establishment pointed me to the back, where I found a wooden stall. I opened the door and found a small hole in the floor….luxurious!

The roads to Fontem are so bad that many people are not traveling-which means stores are selling out of things that they buy from larger villages. Things like flour, carrots, and cabbage are becoming less common now… I’m realizing how much we take for granted being able to buy whatever we want, whenever we want at the store!  Even the European volunteers here ask me, “is it true that you have stores open 24 hours a day in America?”… of course we do! All the volunteers here see how spoiled we really are in our own countries, but I am truly the most spoiled amongst the spoiled. Americans have everything at their fingertips, almost every second of every day. We have almost all the resources we need to do whatever we want. For example, if we want to go to college or get a master’s degree, we apply for financial aid or student loans to pay if we cannot afford it. Most of the nurses here won’t earn the amount of money necessary to go to school to get a master’s degree if they worked their entire life! And there is no such thing as financial aid or student loans here. Many of them apply over and over again to master’s programs in the US (any program- even if it isn’t something they want to do), and pray that they can be a lucky recipient of a visa so they can go to the US, attend a program they aren’t even interested in, just to be in America. This experience has really opened my eyes to the opportunities we are given in the US and it has inspired me to rethink my goals!

I now work afternoons and overnight at the hospital, in addition to morning shift (of course not all in one day). The doctors are only at the hospital during the morning shift so I have to make a lot of decisions on my own when working in the afternoon or night. I feel totally unprepared some of the time, but I am doing my best. A lot of the nursing here involves using your instincts… something I am just beginning to develop as a new nurse. There is no way for me to assess all of my patients because at times I can have more than 20 patients so I just have to pick and choose the most critical ones. And when we do vitals, everything is done manually- manual blood pressures, pulses, respirations, and the old school mercury thermometers. Taking vitals can be a real torture but it may be the only time I speak to some of the patients in my shift so I have to really use my time wisely!

My ethics class in nursing school definitely didn’t prepare me for the issues I have faced working in the hospital here. I am constantly encountering things that I should not be doing, but that I have to do. For example, when we start an infusion and miss the vein, you are supposed to throw away the needle and start again or you risk giving the patient an infection. When we miss a vein here, we can’t get a new needle because we have to consider whether or not the patient will be able to pay for it when the bill comes. So we risk giving the patient an infection, or risk the patient not being able to pay for the bill. If patients consistently cannot afford to pay their bills, the hospital will suffer the costs and we risk putting the hospital in a financial bind. If we put the hospital in jeopardy, how will it be able to afford to care for the hundreds and thousands of people in the surrounding villages?

We must constantly think about costs and be extremely mindful of the materials we are using. I am aware that in reality, you have to change someone’s IV and infusion set tubing every 72 hours, but we only change these when it is absolutely necessary (so, almost never).  It’s almost as if we have to sacrifice the safety of one patient for the well being of the hospital, but can you do when you don’t have all the resources you need? 

And speaking of infection control- I found a big crab in the hospital the other day…it walk inside, died, and ants were eating it- I didn’t even know crabs lived in the bush of Africa! And that’s not all the wildlife I find inside the hospital… lizards and birds are always running around inside.  

The surgeon of the hospital is amazing. He does all kinds of surgeries and procedures from c-sections to colonoscopies to repairing hernias, removing gall bladders and more. He does a little bit of everything because really he has no other choice! The other day I was watching him do an upper endoscopy (which was the area that my final clinical was in)… I was so happy to see something I actually knew about! We deal with all kinds of diseases that I never learned about in nursing school because we don’t have them in the US. Typhoid fever, malaria, chickenpox, measles, and tuberculosis are some of the common reasons for admission, but I knew very little about these before coming here so I have had a lot of learning to do!

I went to the government high school the other day for a club meeting and then to watch sports. Every Wednesday they have social activities where clubs meet and then they play sports. I went to the Youth for a United World meeting, which my friend was leading because she is a teacher in the high school. It was really inspiring to sit in a classroom completely different from my own, with people from a totally different culture, on the other side of the world, and to know that we were all there to live for the same thing- a united world.  

Chiara and I have been living on a serious food budget! We barely made it through October, buying only the necessities- rice, pasta, potatoes, vegetables, etc., but somehow it just wasn’t enough money. On Tuesday, we ate the absolute last thing we had for lunch and dinner:  sweet potatoes (that we received as a gift from someone). Just plain sweet potatoes. It was the kind of situation where you have to laugh or else you could be seriously upset- so we laughed. But then we realized that although we had been stressed about food for a couple weeks, many of our neighbors are living like this every day. And if we absolutely needed to, we could ask the hospital for more money but the people that live here have nobody to help them if they can’t afford food. So after we realized this, we stopped whining and welcomed our short moment of suffering!

Everybody here eats pepper- African hot peppers. If a meal isn’t spicy, it isn’t good! So last week at the market, Chiara and I bought peppers to make a sauce with. These things are nothing to mess around with. After we ground the pepper, we had to fry it with spices. Nobody told us how dangerous this could be! Within seconds, the kitchen was engulfed in this pepper poison and we couldn’t breathe. I had to run out of the kitchen, my chest burning and coughing. We immediately turned off the stove and put the pepper away. I made sure to wash the dishes very well, but unfortunately I contaminated my hands with this pepper when I washed them-they were burning for the rest of the night! I had to keep going to the kitchen to put my hands in the freezer because it was that painful! So we are learning things the hard way, but at least we are learning!

African families are so big! An average family is 6-9 kids and I have found that families are very close knit. A nurse-friend of mine at the hospital was telling me about his family: he is the youngest of six kids. His father died when he was just a baby so all of his siblings have taken care of each other. The mother put the first child through school, then the first child had the responsibility of putting the all the children below him through school. The second oldest made sure everyone below him was able to afford school. This continued on down until the last child. So since my friend is the youngest, he has the responsibility of helping all of his siblings’ children attend school before he can send his own children to school. It was really moving to see how dedicated families are to helping one another. Even in the hospital, families never leave their relative! Cousins, nieces, nephews, aunts, grandchildren…they are all there to visit their sick patient. One of my friends here was telling me that a man may have no material possessions, but he can truly say with joy, “I have no materials to call my own, but look at my ten children!”.

I have been keeping busy after work and on my days off visiting people, going to schools for sports, and helping with the Catholic Mission center. A bunch of young children had a retreat last weekend that I helped out with. They were so much fun! I brought a frisbee that I received in a box from home and they went wild playing with it! We also watched Jesus of Nazareth in Pidgin- I don’t know who in the world translated that movie into Pidgin but it was pretty funny.

 I am still enjoying every single day I am here. It isn’t always easy, but it is always worthwhile!

 

One big dose of Africa

Two months in Fontem and I am 1/3^rd of the way through my experience! It is going by fast, I think might have to stay longer  J

Just a quick update on life here:

Im not the only American in Fontem! There are actually two other Americans here from the Peace Corps…  A girl from Chicago and a boy from Florida.

People still can’t understand my English and everyone tells me I am “eating my words”.

I am fat? One lady came into my ward looking for her daughter and described her as being almost as fat as I was, and then started laughing hysterically! And friends, if you are laughing at me…when I show people pictures of my family and friends at home, they say you are fat too! But don’t worry…this means we are healthy and we eat well!

I found a lizard in my room a few days ago and as it ran up the wall, I didn’t even bother trying to catch it- this is how I know I am getting used to the African wildlife. 

I discovered that all of the staff in the hospital call my ward “America” because it is the newest addition to the hospital and it has the most “advanced” rooms.

Our banana tree is almost ready to harvest!!!

 

A couple of weeks ago, the girls in my house and I were invited to dinner by a nurse that works in the hospital. He prepared some African dish with meat. I was so excited we were eating meat! In the US, we normally eat the outside portion of the animal…in Africa, you normally eat the inside of the animal. I realized this after I was served a plate full of meat I didn’t recognize. I just couldn’t bear to eat it and I shoved it onto Chiara’s plate when our friend wasn’t looking. I was left with a large ball of meat on my plate that I couldn’t get away with hiding, so I ate it. It was the size of a baseball and really chewy…God only knows what this was but really, I don’t want to know! And speaking of strange meat, people here eat all kinds of animals… rats, snakes, dogs, cats (so sad). There are some friendly cats that hang around our house, and one of them is really skiddish. I asked our neighbor why he is so afraid of people and she explained to me that he was traumatized. A couple of years ago, this cat ate some fish that belonged to a patient at the hospital so the patient caught him and tied him up by the legs. He knew the cat spent a lot of time around our neighbor’s house so this man wanted to ensure he was not stealing someone’s cat. Our neighbor received a phone call from this patient who asked, “can we eat your cat?!”. He was going to eat the cat because the cat ate his fish!

I am sure this is just a coincidence to the last story about eating meat at our friend’s house, but last week I was feeling really sick. I stayed home from work for two days and returned to work on Friday. When I went for mass in the morning, everyone was surprised to see me and asked me if I was feeling better. How did they all know I was sick? Then I went to the hospital and all of the staff (even people I didn’t know) told me they heard I was sick. Talk about small town news! It was nice to know that everyone cared… this is definitely something we could use more of in our country.

Work at the hospital is going really well! Patients usually stay in the hospital much longer here than they do in the US…I would say the average stay here is 10 days. Because the patients stay here so long, we really get to know the patients and their families…it is nice to build these relationships but also sad when the patient doesn’t make it. In the US, we see a lot of heart disease and trauma. We see some of the same things here, except we also see some interesting things like tetanus, meningitis, malaria, kaposi’s sarcoma, snake bites, AIDS, and typhoid fever. Also something really different about hospitals here is that they have no blood bank. If a patient needs a blood transfusion, they have to find the donor themselves. If they can’t find a donor, a nurse might offer to donate but if they can’t find anyone… it’s not good news for that patient.

Something my nursing friends will appreciate: One of the problems with the medication system in the hospital is that all of the medications for the day are stored in one large box with the patient’s bed number and the person administering the medications has no idea which medications they are giving at certain times…the medications are in a box with pills inside supplied by a nurse working a different shift. I suggested a new system of supplying medications each shift, and writing the medications on a sheet of paper with the patient’s bed number so that the nurse knows what he/she is giving. After a couple of weeks, the head nurse implemented my idea! I am happy because this will be much safer for the patients. Chiara and I are working on trying to create some documentation for wounds so hopefully we can create something useful for the hospital staff that they will find helpful even after we leave.

A few weeks ago when it was my turn to cook, we didn’t have much food in the house. To be economical, I decided to cut some greens (aka: leaves) in our neighbor’s garden to prepare for dinner. There are many different kinds of greens here…one type is called “green”, another is called “bacon” (I really got my hopes up the first time I heard we were eating bacon for dinner), and there are many more. Our neighbor told us that we were free to cut as many “greens” as we would like, so I went chopping away. It was dark outside so I couldn’t see very well…our neighbor came outside and saw me cutting and yelled at me because I accidentally cut down her mint bush. She saw me with a handful of mint and was not happy (I had a whole bucket full of mint she didn’t see because it was dark)…she directed me to the green bush and again I started chopping away. When I got home I realized that I still did not cut down “green”…I cut “bacon”! This type of leaf takes a long time to prepare so we were not even able to eat it! In the end, we had an angry neighbor, a month supply of mint, and a shabby dinner…that’s what I get for trying to be economical!

On Sunday, I went with five other people to another village for mass. We drove one hour in the car (going 5mph the whole time, rocking back and forth so much that we were smashing each other because the roads are so bad) then we parked the car and walked uphill for about 40 minutes. It was SOOO BEAUTIFUL! The sun was shining, and as we were climbing this hill, I turned around and could see mountains, a giant waterfall, palm trees, a river….it was amazing! The church we went to was really cool! It was smaller than the living room at my dad’s house and it was made out of mud/cement? I would say there were 50 people inside this tiny church! The only decorations inside were a picture of Mary, a cross, and a coffee table for the altar. The stations of the cross were literally written on the wall: “Station 1” “Station 2”, and so forth. There were many people outside that couldn’t fit inside because it was so crammed. The whole place was loud with singing and dancing, it was awesome! It just goes to show that you don’t need fancy decorations to have a beautiful mass! Just about everyone personally greeted us and made us feel welcome. I understood almost all of the homily which was in Pidgin…this was a big deal for me because I have not understood a single Sunday homily since arriving here. I still can’t speak Pidgin though because I feel awkward speaking broken English. After mass, we went to the palace of the Chief and ate lunch. Oh and we drank palm wine! Yes, wine from a palm tree! It was delicious!

I have been asked many questions about America when people hear I am from the US. Some people ask me if I see celebrities on the streets. We currently have three young girls in our ward in isolation for chicken pox. I have been spending time with them when I am not busy because they are very bored inside isolation. It is almost scary how far off their interpretation of American life is! They asked me about my maid and when I said I cook and clean just like any other person, they laughed at me! They didn’t believe I actually did cooking and cleaning at home…not to say that I do a lot of cooking and cleaning at home…but in theory, I can. They even felt my hands to see if they were soft or hard from washing clothes…so I was busted when they asked this question because we use washing machines.

One thing I have learned from this experience is how much you can give a person without money. I didn’t come from the US with money to give…not to mention my salary at the hospital in one month here is less than I would be making in five hours in the US. But I can still give many things (inside and outside of work): my smile, my laughter, my time, my knowledge, my greetings, my positive attitude, my love, my encouragement, my unity…myself. I am only beginning to understand how powerful these gifts can be when you really have nothing else to offer. Its something that I have heard of before, but only now am I able to experience how meaningful they can be when you receive them.

School has started here in Fontem. All the kids here wear blue uniforms to school and pink uniforms to nursery school. The roads are flooded with kids walking to school in the morning…many of them call me “white man”, but I have to correct them and say “white woman!”. Even the nursery school kids walk by themselves! Imagine- we cannot even leave our kids at the bus stop in the US without worrying about strangers and Cameroon toddlers are carrying their diapers to daycare, walking by themselves!

 

That’s all for now…I hope American life is treating everyone well!

 

One month old in Fontem

Woah one month in Fontem! Life here is busy busy busy!

I have been learning a lot about the culture and traditions of the people here in Fontem. Last weekend, we went to the palace of the late chief of our village in Fontem. Each town (such as Fontem) has a Fon, which is the head of the town. Within the town are small villages (more like neighborhoods) that are lead by chiefs. So the palace we visited is now more like a museum. It contains several traditional items from the history of the people here. It was really neat to learn about the history and traditions…it gave me a great appreciation and understanding of the people here in Fontem (the Bangwa tribe). It was also interesting to see how much life has changed here in the past 50 years. Before the focolare came to Fontem, people were eating out of bowls made out of mud but with the rising influence of western life, people now have cell phones here, just 50 years later! Also, each chief is entitled to as many wives as he would like. However, with the rise of Christianity here, the number of wives of the chiefs has decreased. The 4th chief before the present chief had 100 wives, the 3rd had 50 wives, the late chief had 6 wives, and the current chief has only one wife!

A couple of weekends ago, two girls from my house and I were invited to dinner by someone who works with us at the hospital. We showed up a bit late and when we arrived at dinner, the whole room was silent and all eyes were on us. It turns out that the District Officers (which would be the equivalent to the Governor or Mayor, I’m not sure which one) were joining us for dinner, but we had no idea we were in the presence of such important people! We sat down as everyone stared at us and our friend was trying to explain who these people were (hoping we would introduce ourselves) while we were trying to figure out why everyone was staring at us. Then at once he said, “introduce yourselves to the authorities”. Authorities? Then he pointed to a man in a Lil Wayne t-shirt…how was I supposed to know the man in the Lil Wayne t shirt was the District Officer?!

I am finally learning how to cook with minimal supervision in the kitchen…it is difficult to find new things to cook because we don’t have any dairy or meat (so I have become vegan…not by choice). Luckily we have a plum tree in our back yard so when we want fresh plums, we just climb up the tree and shake it until they fall to the ground. Our banana trees are also almost ready to harvest so we will have plenty of bananas soon!

Last Wednesday was the Feast day for Mary so we had a 2 and a half hour mass. We had a procession around the village carrying a statue of Mary and then a lot of singing and dancing in church. At one point we all filed out of the church and came back through the center singing and dancing…needless to say, people don’t fall asleep in African mass.

After mass on Wednesday, I went to visit one of my friends in town. Her mother’s house had partially collapsed and she was very upset. They cleared all of her things out of the collapsed room but another part of her house is about to collapse as well. To make things worse, it cannot be repaired until the dry season because the house is made out of clay and mud…it was a really sad situation, especially because we couldn’t do anything to help but despite this, the family was in good spirits when I came to visit.

Her family was very big and very nice! They showed me all of their fruit trees, vegetables, chickens, and goats (they let me pet the goats but thought it was weird)….then they insisted I stay for dinner. When it was time to eat, her brother gave me a bowl of water, so I was really confused and everyone was telling me, “wash your hands!”. So I dipped my hand in the water and they were like, “no Katie wash your hands!” Again I dipped my hands in the water and they were all laughing, yelling at me to wash my hands but I couldn’t figure out how to wash my hands with no soap!

I am still getting used to nursing here. It is difficult to communicate with patients because some speak French, some speak English, some speak Pidgeon, and some only speak the native language. Every time I want to talk to patients I have to act out what I am trying to say…some understand my English and look at me funny for using my hands to talk but others still can’t understand me when I use my hands to talk! I am learning a little bit of Pideon, the native language (Bangwa), and I am brushing up on my French. Because of the way the nursing routine has been established here, I am doing everything that I learned not to do. Little by little, I am finding ways to incorporate what I learned in America to the hospital here. Nurses are given a lot of freedom here to order meds, hold medications, add medications, etc. We don’t have many orders from doctors so we are responsible for closely assessing patients and figuring out what to do based on the clinical situation.

I have found many interesting ways to cut corners when you need to be conscious of costs; for examples, using a latex glove as a drain for a wound. Also, I have much sympathy for the patients here that are in pain because we hardly give pain medication…Ibprofen is our standard pain killer. When suturing wounds, making incisions in the skin, delivering babies, aspirating fluid, or even during a thoracentesis… pain medication is not given. It bothers me because I feel like I am torturing patients at times (sometimes grown men cry!) but this is due to both the cost and availability of pain medication here!

I never realized how prevalent the American culture is in other parts of the world until coming to Africa. Everyone here knows American music, politics, cities, and life in general. Obama is EVERYWHERE! I am constantly seeing people wearing jean jackets, t-shirts, and pants with Obama written on them. I even found Obama underwear in a market shop last week! People are constantly asking me who is going to win the election…I keep wondering why they care but it is big news here!

I am constantly embarrassing myself by using the wrong word for pants. If you say pants in Cameroon, people think you are talking about your underwear…so if I want to talk about my pants, I need to use the word “trousers”. I can never remember this so I am always saying things like, “I didn’t bring enough pants”, “I just washed my pants and now they are dirty”, “my pants are wet (from the rain)”… people give me funny looks until I realize I made a huge mistake and then I have to explain why I was talking about my underwear and not my trousers.

The rainy season seems to be calming down a bit…it still rains every day but the sun has been shining for a bit each day as well. I continue to be amazed at how beautiful this place is…it doesn’t even seem real! I have taken many pictures but they really don’t capture everything I am seeing. I’ll try and post some soon!

That’s all for now…I’ll try to update in a week or two!

On African Soil!

I have been in Africa for almost 2 weeks now! The internet is very, very slow here and I didn't have a converter for my computer so I am finally updating my blog.

 The second flight too Africa went well. I met a boy my age from the US that was flying into Douala as well so we helped each other to our next flight. It turns out that his dad had security meet him at the terminal in Douala, and the security guard thought we were traveling together so we both bypassed customs (which was way too easy...) and found our bags at the baggage claim. When we got to baggage claim, I saw a lady holding a sign that said, "Caty Fontem", so I figured she must be waiting for me. She didn't say anything and motioned for me to follow her (she didn't speak English)... I didn't know where she was going, but I didn't really have another choice so I followed her and she lead me to my group! I got my first glimpse of Douala outside of the airport...Douala is a very big city with many people everywhere. I have never seen so many people in my life! We stayed the night in Douala in a Catholic missionary hostel building and then left in the morning for Fontem. The day before I arrived, an Italian girl named Chiara arrived in Douala to go to Fontem as well, so we traveled together with an Italian focolarino (from the hospital) that came to pick us up in his truck.

The journey to Fontem took all day. Most of the trip was on paved roads, but the last two hours were on dirt roads. The dirt here is orange and very slippery when wet so since we are in the rainy season, we were sliding allllll over the place. The road was so rough that I hit my head on the window two times on the way! We climbed some mountains and then descended into the valley where Fontem sits. It was a beautiful sight coming in- a little town in the middle of a jungle with a river flowing through and palm trees everywhere! So many different fruits grow here as well- plums, bananas, coco (what chocolate is made out of), pineapples, passion fruit, papaya, guava, sugar cane..etc. My house is on a giant hill and the hospital is about 100 yards below. We have sugar cane, pineapples, plums, and bananas on our land! I live with my Italian friend, Chiara, (she is also a nurse), and three women: two from Africa and one from Chile. Although everyone here speaks English, it is a very different English! It is a British African English so it is difficult for me to understand sometimes what people are saying and vice versa. It actually keeps things interesting but I am causing chaos in Cameroon because my American English is so hard for everyone to understand. The locals also speak a form of English called “Pidgeon English”. It is basically a very basic form of English with many slang words. When you want to know if someone has pooped, in Pidgeon you would say, “you de shit?”. The first time I heard this my mouth fell off of my face…a nurse kept asking a patient if they needed to “shit”. But then she explained that was how to ask if someone has gone to the bathroom in Pidgeon.

Chiara and I met with the matron of the hospital (the head of the hospital) to discuss our jobs before working. In the middle of our serious meeting, my chair suddenly collapsed beneath me and broke! I fell right to the ground on top of the broken chair that belongs to the head of the hospital. Then the next day when we started working, Chiara fainted while dressing a wound. The new nurses had a rough start to their jobs but it can only get better from here!

I am working in the men's ward with men (obviously) and some people with infectious diseases such as TB, malaria, AIDS, and chicken pox. When I get back to the US, I am going to be so grateful for saline flushes, paper, trash cans, toilet seats, alcohol swabs, paper towels, fitted bed sheets, and washing machines because these don't exist in the hospital (or in Fontem). If you need a saline flush, you must withdrawal it out of a saline bag with a syringe. If you need an alcohol swab, you must pour alcohol on a cotton ball for use. It works just the same, but it takes much more time! They re-use everything here in the hospital. For example, we wash gloves that aren't soiled, we use cardboard to write on and label things, and we use the plastic bags that infusions are packaged in for patients that need to vomit.

Nurses are allowed to do much more here such as suture wounds and order some medications. The women are all kept in one big room and the men are kept in the new ward, so there are three to a room. Everyone must pay for everything out of pocket, so if the family cannot afford something, they refuse treatment. Today, we wanted to put oxygen on a dying patient but the family refused so we could not give this to the patient as he was dying. It was very hard for me to watch, but there are also many happy moments in the hospital.

I work from 7:30am to 2:30am Monday through Saturday. Mass on Sunday lasts longer than in the US...last Sunday was almost three hours! Mass here has an African twist with singing and dancing...its awesome. Cooking also takes much longer here...from the beginning of cooking until the end of dishes is about 2 1/2 hours! But the food here is very good so far. The five of us take turns preparing breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I have cooked twice so far and butchered both meals. Hopefully I will get better soon. We also have to wash our clothes by hand because there is no washing machine, so I am still getting used to that as well! We buy our food at the market, which meets every four days. We must walk 30 minutes uphill to get our food and then carry everything back home. I need to learn how to carry food on my head because it looks much easier than carrying everything in your arms. 

Life here is beautiful. The people in this town are amazing! People are so nice and welcoming...everyone you pass greets you with a handshake and wants to know how you are and what is your name. I am meeting many WONDERFUL people from all over the world and I am having a GREAT experience so far!

I'll update more in a couple of weeks!

Half the adventure is getting there

Yesterday (Wednesday) was the day I finally set out for Cameroon! My itenerary for the trip was: Chicago to Philadelphia to Belgium to Cameroon. Since my flight was out of Chicago, I had to leave Indy around 8am to get there with plenty of time to spare (thanks to my mom for driving me!). I had planned on giving my mom my phone to take home with her because why would I need my phone in Africa, right? But I decided to keep it in case my mother couldn't find her way back to her car because parking in the airport is a little confusing, so I could help her back if she got lost. This last minute decision to keep my phone was crucial! So after passing through security and arriving at my gate, I made a few goodbye calls and waited to board. Turns out our plane had a problem with the brakes and it was going to be delayed. Let me first mention that my layovers for this trip were a little on the short side. Just over an hour in Philadelphia and about two and a half hours in Belgium. My 1:50pm flight out of Chicago was going to be delayed three hours, so I was obviously going to miss my connection in Belgium. I was directed back to the US Airway ticket desk to figure out a new route to Belgium. I should also mention that my checked bag was ten pounds overweight, so I had to transfer that weight to my carry on, which was already heavy. I had a backpack with a couple of things in it, but my carry on was extremely heavy, and since I am not up to par with the 21st century, my carry on didn't have wheels.
After going back to the front of the airport, US Air decided to put me on a United flight directly to Belgium so I would catch my connecting flight! However, I had to get my 52.5 pound checked bag from baggage claim and walk to United to check in. I walked outside to United which took about 15 minutes with all of my bags only to find that the counter I needed was at the other end of the building. Apparently many people fly United because the lines to check in were about 30minutes long, but I needed the break to catch my breath! I went back through security and walked to my new terminal, which was another 15 minutes away. Needless to say, I used the moving walkway to transport me there. I waited at my new gate for a couple of hours and then they switched our gate, so I made the hike with my overweight bags to the  next one. I can't stress how sore my shoulders were from carrying my backpack and my carry on. Luckily I had my phone with me so I was able to update my family on what was happening! After saying another round of goodbyes and getting ready to board at the new gate, our plane (which was supposed to leave at 6:07pm) was delayed due to mechanical problems. I was thinking surely this was a joke, or a sign from God that I wasn't supposed to travel! But, as someone once told me, getting there is part of the adventure. Or, as someone else told me, maybe God is just preparing me for what is to come in the next six months! After waiting another couple of hours, the time had come that I was going to miss my connection in Belgium. The United representative printed me off a new itenerary, which would have me leaving Thursday at 6:07pm.
While I was talking with the United agent, I was starting to think about who I could stay with in Chicago since I clearly was not going back to Indy for the night, when the United agent printed me off a voucher to stay at the Hilton resort! She also gave me cab vouchers and food vouchers to use at the airport. Unfortunately, my cell phone was dying and I didn't have a charger since I didn't plan on using it for more than a couple of hours yesterday. On top of that, I had put my phone on seasonal standby as of midnight today, so it was going to be shut off anyway but I was going to be without a phone all day today at the airport (tragic, I know...a huge American problem). But in my defense, there were people that I needed to update on what was happening and that wouldn't have been possible without a phone. At 11:30pm Indianapolis time, I remembered this, so I quickly called Sprint and asked for another day to use my phone until they put it on standby so I could use it today. So, after waiting in the airport all day and going nowhere, I arrived at my hotel at about 10:30pm Chicago time last night. The front desk had a charger for me to use which was a great ending to a crazy day. I slept like a queen in my queen bed and woke up sore but well rested, ready for round two! So, if God is preparing me for what is to come in the next six months, I am excited for what is to come!

Two weeks till take off!

Alrighty! Ladies and gentlemen, I created this blog to stay in touch with all of my friends and family while I am away in Africa. I have no idea how often I will have internet access while I'm over there, so I thought blogging would be the easiest way to keep in touch with everyone. I have officially passed my nursing boards (thank the Lord!) and I am preparing to leave for Africa in a couple of weeks. I'll post more information before I leave but I just wanted to give those whole blogging thing a test run!