ANNE

Work:

Have spent the last week working at home on the new, updated school development plans for the coming year. These will be handed over to the schools in May or June if all goes according to VSO guidelines. On Saturday two more Mothers’ Associations were created at Mandoula and Boudoum.  119 mothers and 12 fathers turned up at the first school; 94 mothers and many fathers at the next. While the men at Mandoula, a Christian village, were welcomed by the coordinator, she asked them to leave at Boudoum, a Muslim village. She felt the women there would be inhibited by the presence of their husbands and would be afraid to speak freely.

VSO recently asked head teachers for the percentage of pupils without birth certificates. The answer was a staggering 66%. As at home, these cost money and in Cameroon they are difficult to get. From here in the bush, both parents, the child and two witnesses have to travel to Mokolo, a good hour and a quarter or a whole day away depending on transport used and at huge expense, go to the Town Hall and fill in all the forms. Until recently, many parents were unaware of the significance of having this document. UNICEF has given funding to VSO and its Cameroonian partner organisation to inform parents of the importance of these and to ensure that all children eventually have a birth certificate. A scheme has been agreed on whereby the local chief/Lamido can do the necessary paperwork and thereby cut out the expense and inconvenience of the journey to Mokolo. All parents have to do is provide 1,000 francs (£1.30 ish) and UNICEF provides the remaining 2,500.

Without a birth certificate a pupil here cannot complete his/her leaving exams at the end of primary school or go on to secondary education, so huge numbers of children have been lost because of that. Without it they cannot, later on in life, have a National Identity Card, vote or marry legally. Most jobs are out of reach too. UNICEF’s funding could change the lives of many of these young people. It is a huge step forward for development here.

PS Godam still hasn’t got the Birth Certificate of his little son, born on the 8^th February. This can be got free from the hospital at the time of birth and is a legal document. He is now outwith the 30 day limit but obviously did read the bit which says parents are free to choose any name they like for their child. I hope Poor Family(pronounced Por Famee) likes his name when he grows up.

PPS I am scared to tempt providence but enough funds have now been raised to start construction of a classroom at Membeng. I have been promised that as soon as cement arrives from the south, building will begin. The rush is on to beat the rain before it closes the road for months.

Village life:

Over the last week, cloud and heat have built up, colourful birds have started to arrive and the first drops of rain fell on Saturday. Yesterday (Sunday) the first real rain since October fell for about an hour and a half and the temperature dropped briefly to a pleasant 30C. Overnight it was scorching again. The villagers tell us that the rain just makes the heat worse! The photo shows that even without rain the desert blooms. The need for water is at its peak now with some women rising at 3am to beat the queues at the boreholes and wells. Another photo shows the line of 60 buckets waiting their turn at a borehole near the hospital by 8am. Other photos show a mango tree – not at all what I had imagined- and a chicken delivery. The freshest of fresh meat and no refrigerated trucks here!

A man turned up at the door the other day with something he wanted to sell me. He couldn’t tell me what it was as he didn’t know the French word for it. Without my specs, all I could see was a tail! It turned out to be a live and very frightened looking monkey. I declined the offer.

Hamish

Workload remains intense.  Apparently, the surgical team here have not met their target for the first quarter of the year.  This seems bizarre as the number of patients going through theatre has been much higher than last year.  Either the statistics or the target is wrong!

Some time ago I spoke of a Thursday when we suddenly received 9 accident victims.  Well this Thursday we received 17 casualties from another overturned vehicle accident.  Fortunately the majority of injuries were minor and nobody was killed.  An interesting day for one of the two students from Holland.  Her colleague was stuck in the house ill with dysentery so missed the fun!  On both occasions, the vehicle involved originated from Mokolo, our “county town”.  Seems the transport companies there specialise in rollover vehicles!

Our Fulfulde tutor, Oumarou, took us on a tour of the village this week to see the different water systems.  Fascinating.  First shot of the series shows Anne with Oumarou wondering how easy it would be to dump her bald husband and the second shot shows where I might have landed.  This is an open well and the problem with these is that the water becomes contaminated by rubbish & other things thrown in by children and animals.  The third shot is again of a well, but this time it’s covered with a concrete top and there is a pump mechanism.  With this system, the water is clean.  The finals series of photos show a crowd round a water hole dug in the river bed, a girl scooping water from the “canari” (earthenware pot) used to collect the water, into a bucket.  In the final shot, she looks really happy with her lot!

Water is of course a huge issue.  As the dry season draws to a close, many of the wells have dried up and the forages (boreholes) are locked and only opened at specific times – hence the line of buckets waiting for opening time.  Water collection will start as early as 3 or 4 am while it’s still dark and of course it’s always the women doing the work.  I don’t think we ever realised just how lucky we are with ready access to clean water and good sanitation.  This week we have had the start of the rain, so soon folk will be starting work in their fields, and our access to the outside world will become more of a challenge.