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!