Road to Adamawa

Hello again!  Its been a while but I wanted to make one more blogpost before swearing in as a peace corps member and moving to Adamawa next week! Today I met with one of my counterparts: Alphonse, a motorcycle riding nurse.  Awesome right?  He seems eager for me to get started right away and is very busy.  I'm excited to get started.

I've been busy in the last few weeks as well.  Four weeks ago I went to the market to buy a live chicken.  I was dressed in my finest pagne (African fabric) and a collection of phrases in Bulu to no avail as the chicken salesman did not show up in time. I had to go to class but my aunt purchased the chicken instead and it was waiting for me after class.  I named it Marie Antoinette, learned a new farm skill and that night had some of the most delicious chicken I've ever had.

While in training we had a few chances to practice classes and activities on the unsuspecting locals of Mengong.  We had a nutrition lesson in a primary school.  Afterwards one of the volunteers nearly started a riot by handing out the paper cut out fruits to the children after we used them for an activity.  We escaped alive.

We ran a nutrition screening at the primary school, did an activity on attitudes of men and women with a group of high schoolers and my group taught a class on Ebola at the health center.  The Ebola class was interesting.  Some people were really interested yet others were not too concerned.  The class focused on the current crisis, causes and prevention.  I talked about prevention.  I think with the way Paul Biya is handling the airports (masked doctors screening arriving passengers) and the borders, and the way many Cameroonian's eat bush meat (monkeys and bats are the main potential Ebola carriers), it is more likely an Ebola strain starts in the rural regions here then spreads I through the airports.  Either way it is unlikely in the near future.  I hope.

All for now, next blogpost in Adamawa!  I hope you are all well!