Six months!

This past Saturday (December 4th) marks the six month anniversary of my arrival in Cameroon. How did I celebrate this momentous occasion? Well, my day began as usual around 5:30 (it stops seeming so early when you're in bed by 8:30 every night). I drank a cup of coffee, read a book (see my “List of Books I've Read in Country” page), then hauled out my buckets and spent an hour scrubbing dirt, sweat, and miscellaneous filth out of my clothing. After hanging it out in the sun to dry (one nice thing about living in the desert – clothing dries faster in the sun here than it does in a dryer at home), I ate a bowl of spaghetti (come on, breakfast options are limited in the village...plus I live alone, so there's no one here to judge me), got dressed, and headed over to the lycee (high school). I spent a couple hours filling out report cards, writing grades over 20 (10/20 is passing; 15/20 and above is overachieving) in tiny boxes, then multiplying them by a coefficient (each subject is weighted differently in each grade) and writing a predetermined comment (18/20 is “Excellent”, 12/20 is “Assez bien” ('good enough'); my favorite is 9/20 – “Mediocre”) and scribbling my signature. I did this about a hundred times (halfway done!), then threw in the towel and headed back home. There I raked my yard and turned over my compost piles, discovering all kinds of horrifying gigantic insects in the process. Feeling pretty accomplished, I grabbed my Ipod, set a chair out in the shade of my tree, and passed a couple highly enjoyable hours watching a swarm of delighted lizards chase the bugs that I had just made homeless.

Sitting in the shade, listening to Lil Jon, and watching three particularly large lizards chase a smaller one who had managed to dig up some kind of huge (like seriously – bigger than my pinky finger), disgusting larva, I suddenly began to think about how I used to spend my Saturdays. Sleeping in til 10 or 11, maybe going out to breakfast (bacon and eggs instead of spaghetti), doing some shopping (buying things off a shelf instead of out of a bucket, not spending ten minutes arguing to get 10 cents knocked off the price of tomatoes...), hanging out with my boyfriend (instead of a pack of lizards)...

The funny thing about being away from home for six months now is that my “normal” life in the States no longer sounds that normal, and unless I stop to think about it, I don't necessarily realize anymore how weird it probably is to have to shake lizards out of my bucket (they fall in and can't climb the slippery sides) when I want to “shower”. Six months feels like a significant landmark – when I first got here, it felt like so much happened every single day but somehow no time was passing, and the date when I would come home never seemed to get any closer. Now I'm wondering how it got to be December so fast (although part of that might have to do with the fact that I spent a considerable part of November sleeping off malaria and amoebas) and eighteen months isn't seeming like that much time to do all of the work I want to do. My stage (training group) is no longer the newest – the stage that arrived in September swore in earlier this week and is on their way to post. The stage that took us on site visit and showed us the ropes is now back in America, and I find myself now in this funny position where I am expected to know how to do things (I've been here half a year!), and yet I am still often so absurdly clueless.

Fortunately, I've now been here long enough and done enough things that aren't completely ridiculous that people here (my colleagues, neighbors, etc.) have realized that I'm not totally helpless and do know how to do some things (like teach English...at least sometimes). I think this has helped me make the transition in people's minds from being a total crazy to being perhaps charmingly quirky (at least this is my hope). “Oh that Hose. She is still almost completely unable to form a logical sentence in Mandara, but she does have some cool pictures of America and she's definitely good for a few laughs...” At the very least I think I provide entertainment for the village children who love to shout hello to me as I walk to and from school. They don't speak French, but have learned “Bonjour Madame”...or more often, “Bonjour Monseiur” (lots of local languages around here don't distinguish between masculine and feminine; I've spent a lot of time in 6eme explaining that your mother is a girl and your father is a boy)...although often when they say this, I pretend they are saying “Bonjour ma soeur” – “Hello my sister” – much more pleasant. Anyways, after one of them gets up enough guts to shout hello to me and they find out that I am, in fact, capable of responding, each one (children usually travel in packs of about ten here) proceeds to greet me (the littlest ones usually shouting something that sounds more like “Banjo Adam!” than anything else) and then dissolve into giggles. This isn't to say that I've won over everyone – it's still a normal occurrence on my walk to school in the morning to pass a parent who has decided to play a hilarious prank on their toddler, and waves them right in my face as I walk by, cracking up as the child begins shrieking. This seems to have the same effect on small children as if their parents were dangling them over the edge of a lion's cage at the zoo. Hilarious.

Anyways, I am now approaching another Peace Corps landmark – In-Service Training (IST). I will spend most of December down south, reuniting with the rest of my stage and our counterparts at a hotel by the beach. The alleged purpose of this trip is for new volunteers to receive further eduction on health, safety, project planning, and funding opportunities...but the fact that they are putting all of us together at the beach makes me wonder if part of it isn't just Peace Corp saying congratulations on making it this far, and thanks for not panicking when you were on your own for the first time and deciding to quit and go home. The first three months at post are supposed to be the very hardest part of this whole experience, and I'm looking forward when I return to the village at the end of the month to really being able to sink in to life and work here, and figure out how to get the most out of the next eighteen months.

Thanks, as always, for all the letters/texts/packages/love/support, etc. You have no idea how much it is appreciated. Much love!

"Well, I feel less stupid and on fire."

This is what I said to my friend Claire Friday night, a couple hours after beginning my second round of Coartem (anti-malarials) in the last month. It's a pretty accurate summary of what malaria feels like. Yeah -- in case you haven't heard, I got malaria. Twice.

Before I begin this story, I would just like to say that malaria sucks. A lot. It is kind of like having every sickness you have ever had all at the same time, and then worse. Ridiculous fever, chills, headache, stomach ache, backache, headache, nausea, exhaustion. I have never been so tired in my life. Like I went three days without so much as washing my dishes because I was too tired. Yesterday I slept all morning, then walked five minutes to the store and back and had to take another nap. Yeah. Malaria sucks.

But to begin at the beginning...early in October, I started having these mysterious fevers and feeling really tired. They were never above 100 degrees, and seeing as I live in Africa, where it is always really hot and I am always really tired, I didn't take it too seriously...especially as they seemed to go away on their own after a day or two...then come back a day or two after that. About a week later I was informed by a friend (how did I not know this?) that a cyclical fever is classic sign of malaria... something to do with the reproductive cycle of the parasites living in my blood. Awesome. So, I decided that maybe I should go to the hospital, but seeing as my temperature was still not that high, I thought it could wait again, and my principal offered to drive me on Tuesday morning.

Naturally, Monday night, I woke up in the middle of the night with horrible chills and a 103 degree fever. First let me say, nothing is more confusing than having chills when you know it has to be at least 90 degrees outside. You can feel the air and it is hot, but your body is telling you it is cold. Something is wrong. Stuck in the village (only way to the hospital is a 45 minute moto ride; no motos to be found at night), I got up, took a bucket bath and some ibuprofen, made malaria slides, and started my three-day course of intensive, brutal anti-malarial meds.

The next morning my principal came to my house to drive me to the hospital. I work really hard here to look professional -- it's not easy to do this when you are 22, a woman, a non-native French speaker, and unfamiliar with the school system and the culture you're working in. It's particularly not easy to do this when you are in a malarial stupor, riding on the back of your boss' motorcycle. Anyways, the hospital is in the town where my principal lives, so instead of stumbling around on my own and waiting in line for hours, he literally took me by the hand, led me everywhere I needed to go, did all the talking for me ("This is my teacher. She has malaria. I need her to get better so she can work. We will see the doctor now."), barged straight into the doctor's office, and even translated what the doctor was saying for me when I didn't understand (malaria is like kryptonite to my ability to speak French). I got stabbed in the finger again, more malaria slides were made, and an hour later I was told I had 2% malaria. I don't know what this means, but I was informed by the Peace Corps Medical Officer (PCMO) that I don't need to worry until I have 6% malaria. Awesome. So I was told to finish with the Coartem, sleep for a week, and come back if it got worse. I slept for a week (like pretty much the entire time), then was pretty much better, and returned to work.

Fast forward to Thursday afternoon...I've been feeling really great lately (even started running again), but I come home from school and am exhausted. I think maybe it is because I have been having too much fun and not sleeping enough, so I decide to take a nap. Three hours later I wake up. That's weird. The next day I come to Maroua for a meeting. I arrive at the Peace Corps house in the afternoon just in time to eat a gigantic ridiculous lunch of cheeseburgers and onion rings that the volunteers who got here earlier have made. I am feeling great. Then I notice that I am really hot...take my temperature, it's 99.2 degrees. That's weird.

Three hours later it's 102 degrees, and I have chills and all the other ridiculous body pains that accompany malaria. Well, shit. I call the PCMO and the following dialogue transpires:

Me: Hi, sorry to bother you after hours, but I think I have malaria again.
PCMO: Well, you just had malaria a couple weeks ago right? The Coartem is supposed to last at least that long, so you probably don't actually have malaria. What are your symptoms?
I describe my symptoms.
PCMO: Hmm. It sounds like you have malaria. You are probably going to want to take Coartem again.

So I did. A couple hours later, I was feeling less stupid and on fire...and although I nursed a 100 degree fever all day yesterday and couldn't stay awake for more than a couple hours at a time, my temperature is finally down this morning and I am feeling a lot better. Thank you Coartem.

So malaria sucks a lot...but it has also been a good reminder (both times) that I do have an excellent support system here in Cameroon. Round one I had my principal literally pick me up at my house, drive me to the hospital, and cut through all the red tape to get me the help I needed. Round two I was with friends in Maroua who read the directions on my medication for me when I was too out of it and made sure I remembered to eat food, then stayed home to watch movies with me instead of going out. Pretty great.

Aside from the malaria, things are great here. When I'm not too sick to go to work, I'm loving my job and think I might even be getting good at it sometimes. I'm also settling in a bit more in the village and might have even found a Mandara tutor. I'll be out of touch the next few weeks -- probably not coming into the city again until Thanksgiving, but hope to connect with you all then. As always, your love and support (and care packages!) mean the world to me, so thanks.

Ode to 6eme

It's more than likely that you have heard me complain (possibly at length) about my 6emes. They are both my largest class (about 90) and my youngest (6th graders...so 10-16 years old). I see them for five hours a week -- one hour on Mondays, and two on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Yeah. Imagine trying to get 90 6th graders to do anything for two straight hours. Now imagine them four to a desk in 100 degree heat paying attention to someone (me) speaking to them in a foreign language for two straight hours. Yeah.

BUT I have been feeling rather fond of them this week, as they almost all did extremely well on their exams, and I am beginning to feel like at least some of them might be learning a handful of words of English, which totally validates the U.S. government spending thousands of dollars to bring me here. So, with all that said, I thought I would take some time to dwell on some of the wonderful things about teaching 6eme. They may be my largest and most overwhelming class, but they are also probably my most enthusiastic...and certainly my most adorable class (picture 90 6th graders standing up and shouting "GOOD MORNING" at the top of their lungs at you every time you walk into the room. Yeah. Adorable.).

So, as I mentioned, my 6eme class (there are two sections -- I only teach one) consists of about 90 6th graders ages 10-16...Most are in the 10-12 range, with a handful of kids that are clearly quite a bit older. I have about 10 or 15 girls, too, who I try not to play favorites with, but just adore. Several of them are among my best students, too. At my high school there are probably close to 200 students in 6eme altogether, and when you think about how there are only 13 in my Terminale (Seniors in high school) this year, it can be pretty discouraging...but it is hard to dwell on that in class when you ask a question and see 50 hands fly into the air, students literally climbing out of their seats they are so excited to answer your question. Here are some of the wonderful and hilarious things they say to (okay usually shout at) me:

1) "Exercise! Exercise!"
This was confusing to me in my first weeks of teaching, because at the same time as I would start my class, the other section of 6eme would be going out to play sports. "Exercise? Like you want to go run around?" It turns out that "exercise" is the word they have learned (or adopted from French?) for an activity that we do in class. For some reason, they LOVE to do fill in the blanks. One time to practice numbers in English I had them do math (one + one = ____) and the expressions on their faces were incredible. They were just delighted.

2) "Boxer Madame! He is boxer!"
Like "exercise", I am not sure where they learned this word, but it is what they say to me when someone hits someone else during class. Which happens pretty much every day. I have tried to teach them the verbs "to hit" or "to fight" but they will not catch on. When I hear a ruckus and ask "What is the problem?", every time it is "He is boxer!"

3) "Please Madame, I am very very quiet!"
This is what my kids like to tell me when they see me getting mad at them for making too much noise, or tell them I will only choose someone to write on the board who is quiet. I have tried to explain to them (in English and French) that if they are shouting at me that they are quiet, they are not in fact being quiet. It has not been understood. However, I have to give them points for trying, right?

So this is my 6eme class -- exhausting, overwhelming, enthusiastic and hilarious. Almost as often as they frustrate me, they make me laugh...and on top of that, I get to work with students who are so excited to learn. I can definitely remember being in a foreign language class when I was young and all of a sudden being able to fit a new piece of the language puzzle into my brain -- connecting it to my first language and seeing how it was delightfully both similar and different. I see those lights go off in my 6emes -- see kids so excited by the fact that they can express themselves in a new way -- and it becomes pretty easy to forget about the talkers and the boxers.