November 18

November 18, 2007

Site visit came and went. I finished up with that malaria business just in time. Kate was a fantastic host to have. All of the health volunteers headed to Bamenda together and stopped for a bite to eat at Uncle Sams (how fitting for a bunch of white kids) before departing for village. It was the first slice of pizza I’ve had in a long time, sure not Dream but still fabulous! We did a bit of food shopping at the “white mans store” (has imported products mostly from Europe) and the open market. On our way out of town Kate introduced me to a pharmacist she has been working with on diabetes education. Pharmacy, eh? OSU has a good pharmacy program now that I remember it. Little did I know he was a graduate of OSU! A picture of commencement in Gill along with other Corn-valley memorabilia threw me – that’s what life in this country is like. You never have a clue as to what or who the day may bring.

After a 20 minute taxi ride we ended up in Village, dropped our bags and went to do the rounds. Basically meet as many people as possible. First stop, the Fons palace. Present gift to Fon, which was a bottle of wine. Stand up when he walks in, sit down when he does. Say a few words oh and don’t cross your legs. There is something taboo about showing him the bottom of your feet. Check and check! We met up with some members of the HIV/AIDS Compassion group. It was great to see so many welcoming faces whom I’ll be collaborating with soon. After that we were off to greet the Mayor and other important officials. At first the 2 Kate’s jokes were awfully funny and silly as we laughed along with everyone we greeted. Though the jokes only got better when the 3^rd Kate, an Agricultural volunteer who will be posted about 45 minutes away from my village stopped in for a visit. It will be lovely to have her so close especially since we’ll hopefully collaborate on projects. I’m pretty sure these nice people in village will only think of American women as people whom are tall and come with the name Kate. So folks you know what that means – I’m changing my name again!

For those utterly confused with my name changing over the past few years, I am here to settle the score. The folks name a gal Katherine, she goes by Katie till university, which turns into crew/rowing Katherine, then into Frisbee Kate and now back to Village Katherine. The queen of the palace gave me the name Suri so I’ll probably go by that too.

Back to post. Went to my first water committee meeting, overwhelming but good. It’s great to see people coming together to work for the common good in their village. It’s a very interesting and complicated project which I’ll gab about later another time. Though the important thing is that things are moving along and motivated people are on board, which is more I could ask for in my first major project. That evening we had dinner with the sisters of the convent. There are about 25 of them and they are quite the gals!

One afternoon we went out to toss the disc near the girls boarding school. There were quite a few children playing soccer and came over to throw. It was a nice warm evening and we could hear the girl’s choir singing in the background. The kids were having a lot of fun playing a new interesting game. I was thinking oh how great is this, I can’t wait to swear in and move here. Then bam! I smack some innocent little girl in the face with the disc. That’s life in the Peace Corps, you think its all fantastic and then back to reality! She ended up getting a bloody nose. Sheesh, I felt terrible. Though she was fine and we kept playing. Some of those kids had some pretty sick one handed grabs! It was great to see for sure. I am hoping to integrate the sport into a health club at the school.

Now we head into the next two weeks of training. I only have one level of French left to meet then I can begin French classes. Fantastic!