Sunday July 4th, 2004 Day 34

I want to wish a Happy 4th of July to all my friends and family in America. I had a great weekend visiting my post as I mentioned in my last posting. I have a nice two-bedroom house (kind of a duplex) with a large living room and a decent size kitchen with limited equipment, but Ill make do with what I have. I purchased most of everything that I will need for my place, so I will have very little to buy when I arrive in August. Also Peace Corp will reimburse me for whatever I bought from Nick (the guy that I am replacing.) So, I love my place and I am looking very much to head up there and start working.
I think I mentioned that I met some of the staff at the school that I will be working, but I wanted to describe briefly the school. It is a teacher training college, so the students range from 18-35 (give or take.) The school is very poor and has very very limited resources. I mean no books, very few desks, some classrooms do not have blackboards, and very seldom it will have electricity. Also, I am the only math teacher in the whole school. So by default, I am the Head of the Math Department. Not bad position for studying very little math and never stepping foot in a classroom. I also figure without any math teachers and math staff meeting will be pretty limited. Maybe just a holiday party!!! Will see if I am busy at the time J. The principle seems very dedicated to the school and very supportive of Peace Corps Volunteers. I am the third straight volunteer at this school, and apparently that is very uncommon to have that many in a row.

My 4th of July consisted of waking up at 6am to take a bus that leaves at 9am to head back to training (I still don’t know why I woke up so early.) The bush taxis are a very interesting experience and I believe I have talk about it a bit in some past postings. Finally, I arrived back to the training facility at about 530pm and enjoyed some grilled burgers, potato salad and a few cold beers. No American beers, but we were OK. We sang some Patriotic songs and had some Cameroonians indulging in some America cuisine. Although, I do think the burgers made me a little sick. I was assured it was beef not…who knows what it could be.

Monday July 5, 2004 Day 35
Today we began observing the teachers during summer classed. My first session that I viewed was probably 5th or 6th grade history. Then my second one was 11th or 12th grade math, ya, in French. It was a complete waste of time for me. Firstly, I didn’t understand what the heck he was saying, as well as, not having a clue what he was teaching. Wednesday is my first day teaching in front of a class and I will do this for the next three weeks in this school.
I believe the dead monkey is gone from the freezer, although I did not do that much investigation to get a definite answer.
I am feeling a bit under the weather today, so I hope it is nothing serious. It’s just a headache and a bit fatigued. I’ll pop some vitamins and some rest. Hopefully that will do the trick. That’s about it for the day. Good night
Dave



Tuesday July 6, 2004 Day 36
The monkey has left the building. This is confirmed news!!!

Today was an exciting day of meeting the summer school faculty for a staff meeting that was 1.5 hours but should have been 20 min. I have also been spending the morning sessions observing classes. I found out today that I will be teaching computer science, which include mainly novice level computers. Novice level might not describe the level as accurate as it should be explained. I observed a class today, and the first hour (of a bit over hour and a half) how to turn on a computer. Many students would be so impatient that they would keep pushing the on/off button over and over again while the computer was booting up. This is not to good for the computer. I really did enjoy the class. It is amazing that many of these students (ages from 16-35) have never sat in front of a computer, and they are so curious about how it all works and what it can do. Thursday I will be teaching my first computer class with two other volunteers.
So, I have not had a shower since Sunday because the shower drain is clogged and there is nothing to unclog it. The water that is standing in the shower is absolutely brown and gross. The monkey was probably cleaned in there for all I know. Hopefully it will unclog soon.

Wednesday July 7, 2004 Day 37
My first day of teaching went pretty good. The students laughed at the way I write, talk and teach but that’s ok, but I think they learned something. I am not sure what, but it was something.
The shower is still clogged. This makes day three with no shower. In addition to the shower, the floor in the bathroom has a dead cockroach the size of Lassie. I think he is dead but sometimes I see his legs struggling to move. It’s quite gross. I think he has been there about three or four days. Who wants to visit???? I know it sounds very enticing. Anyway, that’s it for today.
Dave

Thursday July 8, thru Tuesday July 13 2004 Day38 –43
Before I get started, any apple people out there who are familiar with troubleshooting let me know. For some reason, my laptop does not want to work. The problem is that the screen will not come on when I restart it. I can hear that the hard drive is booting up but nothing shows up. Also it freezes up when the screen does come on. My computer geek friends see what you can come up with … thanks guys

The shower finally unclogged and the cock roach… well I am not sure were it went.

So with that; you can understand why I have missed a few days. Everything has been going very well. Since I have started teaching ti,e has been flying by. I am teaching one math class with eight children and a computer class with 8000 kids who have never seen a computer. The class should consist of seperate sessions for french and english, but that does not happen. Most of the time the classes are a mix of all levels and langauages. The computer lab has about 11 computers and 8 work most of the time and each computer on an average day will occupy 4-6 students. It is very difficult to manage a class like this.

My weekend consisted of a long drawn out session on HIV and gender differences in Cameroon compared to the USA. Many times throughout the day I had the noose around my neck ready to kick the chair back. After the torture, the education volunteers challneged the business volunteers to a friendly game of football (soccer.) Yes, we did win. Although I did battle through the game, it was difficult keeping up with the rest of the players because most all fairly athletic and yours truely has not had any excersise since junior high obver ten years ago. My unhealthy living caught up to me after the game as I continued to vomit in the privqcy of my own home. I am sure it was a combination of unheathly living and the excessive diaharria for the past week. Good info for the kids reading.

I try to update more soon.. Take care

A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT. A BIG CONGRATS TO MY FRIENDS JOHN AND JULIE MACINTOSH WHO JUST GAVE BIRTH TO A BEAUTIFUL BABY GIRL NAMED SAIGE
I AM SO HAPPY FOR YOU GUYS AND KEEP THE PICTURES COMING

Hey mom here is the list of stuff I wanted
PB cups
Jar of Peanut Butter
Ramon noodles
Small nips of Captain Morgan and Gin
Handy Wipes
Pictures
Hostess Cup Cakes ( random craving)
Maxium Magazine
Disks 3 1/2
hershey chocolate Bars

Make sure any food that is sent is wrapped tin foil and plastic. Apparently there are rats somewhere along the way
Thanks Mom Love Dave

PS. I am trying to organize the entries in some order. Please be patient.
Also my guestbook is full. Do not try to sign in on it. Hopefully I will fix it soon!!