Greetings from Cameroon. You are welcome. That’s what everybody says here. But sometimes we wonder if that is how our host family feels. We are experiencing some technical difficulties. At first they gave us food then they stopped and told us we had to cook for ourselves. This is after we had given a substantial amount of money for our food and general keep. The Warden (that’s what they really call the Principle at this school) has left on a trip and the woman she left in charge said she left her almost no money for food. She insisted we take all our meals in the house and that she would help us cook, but she was out of all staples. This girl is one of the ones we thought was the Wardens daughter. It turns out no one is really blood related except for a niece who went back to University. Anyway, I suggested that I would buy what the household needed but could we then just eat what she cooked. The food is all fresh and good albeit different. This girl tricked me into buying huge supplies of everything and then she still won’t feed us. We had to buy gas for the range. There is no oven. I bought her a huge bottle of oil. They usually just fill empty bottles they bring to the marketplace. We paid for everything and helped the young girl, Honerine, who they make do all the cleaning carry it home. The older girls don’t have to do that kind of work. Oh, but cleaning is not an accurate term. By cleaning I mean moving dirty rags around and carrying heavy things-and working on the family farm, a small plot somewhere. Anyway we bought it all but whenever we went to add some fruit or fresh vegetables to our starch, it was all gone. Then when we were out they would just run to the market and get just enough fresh stuff for themselves. This girl, Edwan, had given us such a convincing sob story we really thought they weren’t eating. She was practically crying that the Warden did this to her often and they all practically starved. Then one afternoon I see her giving a huge plate of food
to a man who works at the school who has now been at the house everyday since the Mama Cat has been away. Said food was the last of a huge salad we had made the night before that was financed by me. I told her not to be feeding everyone else with our food. “This is Africa,” she said. They have to feed people like that when they came over. It turns out that that is the truth if a man comes over. When Polycarp comes over she makes him a huge plate of food too. Not to mention bringing in a basin for him to dip his hand in. I could go on and on but I’ll wrap it up. I just need to tell you one more thing.

Remember Honerine the young girl (about 16) who I mentioned. Well, Sunday she complained in the morning of a headache. I gave her an Advil. Then she came down with a fever. Edwan took her to a local clinic who described all her symptoms as what we would consider the flu. There was no doctor available so they sent her home. She got worse and worse. This man who works at the same clinic for the poor that Polycarp works at came by with his wife just to say hello to me and Hayley. Well it was a Godsend because Honerine actually had Malaria. This man calls himself a doctor, but he is actually a lab technician. Anyway he went to his clinic and bought back a drip. He took blood but said he would check it in the morning. It turns out she has Typhoid too. She had so much in her bloodstream she needed an extra drip treatment (4 IV’s total). Now she is on pills and doing much better. She had chills so bad, that even in this stifling heat we couldn’t keep her warm. Everyday she gets a little better.

Ok back to my first complaint. Guess who came crying to me to reimburse her for the money to pay for the treatment? You guessed it, my good friend, Edwan. She said she had no money -that she borrowed it from her friend and she needed the money back. So I gave it to her friend. I gave a Cameroonian fortune to these people and again I see her feeding her man friend with food I provided, but mixed in with all fresh ingredients she had mysteriously now had money to purchase at the market. “ That’s all I can stands, I can’t stands no more”. I finally had it out with her. I just wanted her to know I knew what she was doing. She raised her voice back at me after her usual lies and BS wouldn’t work. But the harshest thing I said to her was to never ask me for money or anything again. So now Hayley and I have wised up’. Hayley saw through people faster than I did. It took me a whole week. Polycarp has been jerking our chains too. But later that day (Tuesday), I told him too. I was just too generous to everybody and some people took advantage. The people here are really friendly but so many try to befriend us just to start asking what we can give them or how we can help them once we go back to the USA. So now we know.

Next time I’ll write about the good stuff again and there is plenty. The kids and the teachers really appreciate us. Remember that teacher who at first didn’t really want me to work with her. Now we get along great. She is a good confidante. She knows how some of the people are. She understands Europeans as she thinks of us and realizes Africans think very differently than Westerners. The teachers actually hit the kids. The men do it with whips. Maybe Hayley will tell you about her experience today in the computer lab. Maribel says they have to because the parents don’t discipline them at home. But she knows it upsets me so she won’t do it when I’m there. Overall though the kids have been pretty good and seem eager to learn. Oh! I made a mistake too when I wrote that mostly everyone spoke French. I was wrong. It’s pigeon English with a French accent…more on that next time. I really miss you all. Thanks to Gooma, Annie, Joan, Evan, and Laura for blogging back. Everybody else better get cracken. We’re sometimes a little lonely here. Just like Gilligan’s Island-as primitive as can be, as primitive as can be.

-Kathy