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!