Almost to Wednesday

(This was written yesterday, but no internet)

Another Tuesday come and gone. Tomorrow, “hump day,” and already the middle of the week. What makes Wednesdays even better is that class is only until 12 noon. What a nice break in the week!

This morning I rolled myself out of bed at 5:45 AM and went through my carefully strategized morning routine, leaving myself just enough time to steep my coffee and prepare the egg sandwiches for Papa David, Daryl, and myself. Leaving the house at 6:30 (really it’s more like 6:40) we avoid the morning traffic and whiz down the road to arrive at school ten minutes later. To get to Noula School we have a direct straightaway from our house [usually] making the commute speedy.

By 7 AM I was settled into the office with laptop, coffee, and egg sandwich in hand. Today I planned to start writing sponsorship letters to organizations asking for donations for our annual holiday party. Ten minutes in and the usual troupe of nursery kids tromped in to say hi and check out what I was doing. While adorable, it was quite distracting having them jostling around for the place closest to me and simultaneously peppering me with questions: “What does that do? Open that. What are you doing now?” With Papa Jean’s help I finally got them shoo-ed out of the office. Ahh, now I could get back to work.

7:30 AM Denis, the school’s go-to man (he teaches the computer classes for me, fixes the electronics, types documents, and basically is learning to be my right arm), came in to try and fix our “new” printer. The most exciting thing to happen to the office, last week we got a printer/scanner that David had thought was broken to work. Two days later it actually did break down. An hour later we were still stuck on what was wrong so Denis took it to the computer room to work on some more. During this time we were interrupted at least three different times by parents and teachers needing some sort of assistance.

Getting back to my project for the day I did some research on the organizations we are targeting and started to “get organized.”

Interrupted again, our Pedagogic Advisor showed up. Trying to relay the things that needed to be done today and Thursday (the other day he works for us), I got frustrated with his inability/unwillingness to comply with my requests. As a true guru of the field, his years working for the Cameroonian educational system combined with his actual weathered age has given him the “I know best” attitude in all situations. Difficult to deal with when my expectations clash with what he wants to do.

Returning to my project I continue working. Receiving a steady flow of problems and needs from teachers and parents is the norm. I estimate that at least every 30 minutes someone stops in. I have a continual list of things that teachers ask me for: chalk, bathroom cleaning supplies, copies of the first sequence schedule, an advance on their paycheck for the younger brothers’ father-in-law’s funeral, etc. Hard to keep it all straight when we don’t have the means to buy things in bulk.

Next came the sick student. Rifling through the student registration sheets for his grade I couldn’t find his information. Thankfully I recognized his name as being the son of the manager of the Yaounde post office, the man who now makes sure that I receive my packages safe and sound. I had his number on hand and was able to call him up and ask him to send someone to pick up his son. With the number of students who are still not registered 2 months into the school year (around 175), we have had to use fairly creative measures to get parents’ phone numbers for sick/bad children.

Continuing with the letter I start the actual writing. Despite the ever-present visitors, I finished the letter near the end of the day.  Almost directly after, David returned to the school and reminded me that we needed to finish updating the financial records of each student/family in order to start sending out [way overdue] tuition payment reminders. I had spent my entire Monday on this task so I only had a few more additions to the spreadsheet. Talk about complicated: try reconciling the teachers’ class list with the registration sheets, guessing on the names that are spelled based on what the teacher hears; then cross listing this with the list of students whose parents have paid something towards their tuition/registration; then calculating who has paid the full registration cost, and the first payment. To further confuse things we had to make sure parents who made more than two payments were accurately recorded. As my Grandpa Walker would have said, “minor details, minor details.”

My head about to explode by the last hour of class, David and I realized that the teachers meeting we had scheduled last week for today and canceled yesterday had not been announced to the teachers! Feeling terrible for not giving any notice, I notified the head teacher for the week and he informed the others. With so many other things to think about and remember, I am still juggling how to be efficient and stay organized.

Finally I jetted out of the school by 3:45 PM, early for a typical day, and went home.

Life after work is a whole story in itself, so its telling will have to wait for another day.

Thus went a “typical” day-in-the-life-of Sara.

Saturday Mornings

After catching up with my fellow ex-pat friends’ blogs, I realized I have skipped over the documentation of what my days consist of, and went right to analysis of Cameroonian culture. Considering that every day I have something new happen to me, and that these new things can help me describe my day-to-day life, I will try to rectify this void.

Yesterday, Saturday, started like many others. At approximately 6:15 AM the whole house (minus me) was up and vocally active. 6:30 AM, light tapping on my door: “Sara, Sara…Do you have a big headband I can borrow?” Half an hour and four different “wake-ups” later I pulled myself out of bed and headed out into the full-blown action. A creature of habit, I immediately put water on to boil and went about my morning routine. My Maman doesn’t like to eat right away in the morning which thus meant that the rest of the kids had to wait until she was ready ~10AM. Now that I showed up and am usually famished half an hour after waking up, I am the one who prepares the milk and bread for all the kids (since it would be impolite to eat before everyone else). Breakfast has been anything from last night’s leftover dinner, to egg or avocado (my favorite!) sandwiches, to bread mixed with hot sugared milk, to “buit” (bw-ee) a thick corn-based drink with lots of sugar.

After breakfast, the household is put to work. Last nights and this mornings dishes to be washed. Laundry to be done. Floors to be scrubbed. Kitchen/bathrooms/bedrooms to be cleaned. Daily meal to be prepared…There is no break in upkeep for a house of 8 people. While Maman Solange doesn’t usually ask me to participate in any of the work, as eldest daughter of the house and major role model for the kids, I feel obliged to pitch in.

Midday approaches quickly and I have my AIESEC meetings every Saturday afternoon. Yesterday was different as I decided to skip out in lieu of the HUGE football (soccer) match, Cameroon v. Togo taking place at the Yaoundé stadium. After a raucous good time at the previous match versus Gabon, and despite the 30-minute downpour, I was pumped for this game. With the sun shining brightly (must have been around 90^o), dressed in a borrowed Lions jersey, and accompanied by 3 Germans and 4 Cameroonians, I headed to the stadium. Here, when you are a fan, you are a FAN! After being a Badger and loving our pride, the Cameroonian energy put me right back to fall Saturday football games. People were outrageously dressed in red, green, and yellow, riding through the streets in packed cars whistling and waving flags. I even saw a guy gallop past on a horse decked out with a Cameroonian flag as a cape!

The game was entertaining; peppered with cheers, the Cameroonian version of the wave, and the various dance parties that broke out when groups of drummers stopped by to pump up the crowd. 2 hours later and feeling rather crispy we celebrated the 3-0 victory that will put us at the final face-off for the World Cup.

My enjoyment of the day was hampered only by a small incident while waiting for a taxi to go home. Being quite conspicuous with 4 white people in our group, we apparently were followed from the stadium by a group of street thugs. Knowing that the area was not the best neighborhood, we were conscious of our things. However, one of the “dudes” approached one of the Cameroonian guys in our group to tell him that we were going to be harassed if we didn’t buy him a drink. My friend Askand immediately diffused the situation by talking with him and giving him money. In return, the guy ended up helping us find a taxi to get out of there. This situation was just another reminder of how Yaoundé is not a very safe city. I have been lucky to have such Cameroonian friends that keep close tabs on me when we are hanging out and when I leave to go home at night.

The day ended with a few of us grabbing a drink at a bar near Askand’s house. Interesting to think of how easily my day could be transposed into a day in the US, with just a few minor details changed. Oh how the world works the same.