Fêtes

Friday my supervisor had at celebration to honor David, the outgoing volunteer, for all of his work and to welcome me to the health center. Little did I know, but I had to give a speech. That was nerve racking. Standing in front of so many people and speaking in French, when I am not even comfortable giving speeches in English. But I made it! And I even got them to clap and laugh a few times in my speech – success!

I really enjoyed it and I am excited to get settled into my village. For now I am going to stick with the house that I have in the health system. While there is a lack of privacy and a lack of silence, I have a great support system there with my counter part. But first thing I need to do is to get glass windows put in because I need the sunlight in the morning. Right now I have wooden doors that I need to close at night so that the bugs don’t come in, but that means that I do not get to wake up to the sunlight.

David said all of his goodbyes and I know that was a tough time for everyone. He will definitely be missed here. And I will have a lot of work, just to live up to what he has accomplished. I think the first step will be establishing that we are different people and will do things differently.

So right now I am in Yaounde and I need to figure out how to get home tomorrow. Traveling is probably one of the hardest things to do here. You have all your stuff with you and there are so many steps to every trip. This will be the first time I am really traveling on my own and it is about a 6 hour trip if you could go straight there, but with all of the steps it will probably take me much longer. Wish me luck!

** The picture on my blog is from my post. It is the tea plantation that covers much of the area.