ANNE

Work:

We have reached a really interesting stage in our work as we begin to compare statistics this year with the ones we started with at the beginning of the 2007-2008 school year to find out if more girls are in school and if there are more children of both sexes. All four of the schools have increased the number of pupils on their roll and the number of girls attending. There are not that many more girls yet (between 10 and 54) but it is a start. Overall numbers are up by a massive 55% in one school, 21% in the second, 12% in the third and a puny 1.5% in the last one. Oh dear, it’s Boudoum again! Really odd as we have done the same work in all of the schools.

The first Association des Mères d’Élèves (Mums’ Association) outside of Maroua was created in the Mofou-sud Primary last Saturday. The mums are thrilled to be trail blazers! Predictably, Rachel, the pastor’s wife, was voted in as its first President. With her at the helm, it has a good chance of succeeding.

Literacy classes (or the Centre d’Alphabétisation as my young colleague calls it) started after a short delay – Godam was late! After lecturing the girls at our introductory meeting about punctuality, he was 20 minutes late himself! While we are trying to encourage people here to take responsibility for their own actions, he explained that sleep had overwhelmed him! Progress is slow – one letter of the alphabet per 2 hour class. When I complained that the girls would need 13 weeks to learn the alphabet, Godam thought that was great as they normally spend a whole week on one letter and a whole term on numbers 1-20 in school! The third day, he taught numbers 1-5 and the letter C. I thought we were on a roll until he spent all of the next lesson testing what had been learned so far. I have to be patient and remember that these girls are learning to read and write in a foreign language – French.

Now we are in the middle of planning International Volunteers’ Day, linked with Human Rights and HIV/Aids, as a whole week of events at the beginning of December. Cameroonians are never happier than when they are parading for something, so on market day that week, girls who have never been to school but would like to go, will have a procession, accompanied by traditional musical instruments, to the Chief’s “palace” and then on to the market itself. From there we will return to Mofou-sud for a quiz on the local environment, followed by a football match between two teams from the literacy class – their choice! Some time in the course of that week, someone from the hospital will speak to the girls in our class to raise their awareness of the dangers of HIV/AIDS.

Home:  

Nothing exciting happening on the home front apart from eating peanut butter made from our very own peanuts. Thomas, our laundry man, wearing a Madras Rugby shirt left behind by our daughter, is fairly surreal.

Market:

Grapefruit, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and onions are plentiful and good. The régime of bananas (see photo) was a bad idea – banana loaf, banoffee pie, banana with lemon sauce, bananas with breakfast, lunch and dinner but I had to do it once!

Village life:

While Zidim is quite well off for water, other villages are not so lucky. One volunteer is in a situation where her nearest well has dried up already and the next well is 10 kms away. Fortunately her guard walks the 20 kms for her a few times a week and she visits another volunteer in Mokolo to have a shower once a week. She is not very happy, understandably and is already thinking of trying to cut down her two-year contract.

Random thoughts/facts:

• With the end of the wet season all the beautiful, colourful birds have disappeared
• Rocket which I sowed about 6 months ago has decided to grow now when there is no rain – weird but delicious
• I was told recently that when a girl is born here, there is joy; when a boy is born there is more joy

Hamish

Now that the dry season has started, the toll of malaria is beginning to reduce slightly, but we see more respiratory infections.  We also seem to be getting more and more HIV positive patients.  On a lighter note, I had to say to one patient this week that I just could not believe it was the same person.  He has both TB and AIDS and was close to death in the hospital just six weeks ago but when he came for a check up on Wednesday, he was looking the picture of health; he’s piled on the weight and looks quite robust.  The only hope now is that he keeps taking his medication – he already has a history of defaulting – and one of the big challenges here is making the patients understand the necessity for compliance.

Dr Djemba remains a real asset to the organisation………………not!  He has been told that the hospital is short of money and won’t be able to keep him on after the end of December.  Despite the return of the Médecin Chef, he continues to saunter down late in the morning for a ward round then disappear for most of the day.  This week he’s run out of money and has been trying to borrow from the locals, most of whom have little for themselves.  Lydia, who comes to us once a week to “teach” Anne African cooking, works for Dr Djemba the rest of the week (she’s a good source of information on what he gets up to!) but he hasn’t paid her since September saying the hospital’s not paying him enough!  Despite this, he tried to borrow money from her, but she was strong enough to refuse saying he already owed her money for her wages.

Today, Saturday, we visited a village called Zamay, about 25Km from Zidim.  Our Lamido (village chief) knows Anne is trying to help her schools build new classrooms and he’d like to get the work.  He took us to Zamay to see a classroom he’s built for their secondary school.  All very interesting, but Anne has found a reputable organisation (Fondation Bethleem) who can build a double classroom for 7,000,000 CFAs less than the Lamido – largely because they don’t look for or pay bribes.  There’s a photo of Anne with the Lamido, Godam and the Lamido’s secretary outside the classroom.

Finally, sometimes we wonder if we’re living in a farmyard rather than a hospital compound.  The attached photo was taken at our gate and is a view down the main hospital road.  And, as you can see, they drive their cattle through the school playground!