ANNE

Village life:

After a few brief showers, at last enough rain arrived on the 18^th June to give people hope that they will have something to eat for the coming year. Many people had already sown millet three times by then and had to watch it wither and die or not appear at all. Our experience here is giving us a much clearer understanding of what the changing seasons due to global warning are doing to this part of the world. It really does mean life or death.

Work:

In the last blog I indicated that life was about to get quieter. Wrong! Last week was one of my busiest since arriving here. On Monday I was at Membeng to check on progress of the new classroom (See photo). There I became involved in a 3-hour meeting about money for teachers’ salaries which had gone missing. Two people cheerfully admitted stealing it (bouffed in local parlance). This all came out amid much laughter and no talk of repayment. Eventually one culprit (the one who was sober at that time of day) agreed to pay back the missing money at the beginning of July. We shall see. After that Godam and I headed for the other 3 schools to organise parents who want birth certificates for their children and to give information about the big meeting of the new AME (associations of pupils’ mothers) in Maroua on Saturday.

Tuesday saw me again at Membeng to collect the door of the new classroom and take it to market to be welded. The car filled up with mums going to our meeting in Mofou-sud to discuss how they were going to spend money from the Canadian International Development Agency. Three of the four AME decided that money should be spent on equipment to teach girls cookery and two hours later the three groups headed for market with their shopping lists, Godam and I in hot pursuit. Four hours later we were still there, getting receipts for all purchases from salesmen who can neither read nor write and were convinced we were trying to trick them into admitting that they were selling stolen or contraband goods. Shattered and burnt by the end of that day.

 The rest of the week was spent hurtling back and forward to Maroua for work-related reasons. On Wednesday, Hamish, the pastor and his wife, who is President of Mofou-sud’s mums, her treasurer and I all headed for Maroua – Hamish for an Aids meeting, the pastor to get something printed and the mums to buy sewing machines and cloth with their Canadian money to start a little Centre de Formation in dressmaking at the school. We left in our first serious sandstorm with black clouds above. Halfway to Boula the pastor announced that he had forgotten a vital piece of paper and Hamish, with teeth gritted, turned back. By the time we got going again, the sandstorm was easing but it was clear that rain was coming. We raced towards Boula trying to beat the mud but failed miserably. Hamish eventually admitted defeat and started to turn back but our three locals knew better and persuaded us to carry on. We got through and deposited our passengers at the market while we both headed off in separate directions. When I got to the VSO office to collect more Canadian money, I discovered that my boss had left a message saying that the last volunteer to arrive should be given whatever money was left in the kitty. I got an extra £250 to spend. My lucky day after all and it means I now have money to pay for the extra tricycle wheelchair, ordered in the hope that money would turn up from somewhere. The tricycle will go to a girl in the beginners’ class at Boudoum – Hooray. No, that’s her name.

Thursday started with a puncture before I could make for Maroua again, this time to go to the Rotary Club in search of signatures in the hope of getting funds for a borehole to provide clean water at Mandoula. Feeling nervous about having no spare tyre, I left Zidim on the rough 22kms track before the tarmac but got to Maroua without a problem. Spent some more Canadian money on books and jotters before going to Rotary. Got the required signatures and headed for bed.  Woke with the usual noise from the Mullahs from 4am onwards but would not have slept anyway because of the heavy rain thundering onto the tin roof of the mission. I wanted to head immediately for Zidim but because of the rain, that was not to be. The advice we have been given is to wait 3-4 hours after rain stops before driving on the track if you don’t want to get stuck in the mud. Having ended up in the middle of a field last year, I had to be patient. I arrived back in Zidim in time to give Hamish his birthday present – Godfrey the goat Junior, although we think he may be older than Godfrey senior. He will be the main course for our leaving party and the liver will make great paté (Sorry, Shona). My plan was to deliver Godfrey to the house on the roof of the car (a normal means of transport for livestock here) but Godfrey didn’t think much of my driving and jumped off. The ensuing commotion alerted Hamish and the surprise was blown (See photo).

Saturday meant yet another trip to Maroua for the big meeting of all the AME the education volunteers have created over the last year or so. It was the first time some of these women had ever been to Maroua, 45 kms from Zidim. Others had only visited once or twice before. There were 71 participants and halfway through the morning, after an interesting trip to the loo herself, one of our VSO bosses had to make an announcement that the toilets were not in fact immediately behind the door marked Toilets, that another door had to be gone through before arriving in a third room with two cubicles. She pointed out that the drainage hole in the floor was still not the toilet and went on to describe a WC and how to use it. This really brought home the gulf between Maroua and the bush where most of these women had come from. A great day seemed to be had by all and the women would like it to become an annual event.

Hamish

Exciting times in Zidim – will the Cameroonian doctor (newly qualified) turn up and how well will he cope with life in the Far North?  Will one of the Congolese doctors arrive as promised in early August?  In short, the future of the hospital here is looking very uncertain since Anne Poppelaars announced her resignation.

Last Saturday we received another boy with a badly treated fracture.  He had fallen out of a tree and broken his right forearm.  It was an open fracture but the traditional “healer” had treated it, as they do, with a tight splint.  Four days later when he arrived at the hospital, the arm was gangrenous and he has now had it amputated below the elbow.  To say the least, I was very angry at this avoidable mutilation of a young boy.  I demanded that they bring the so-called healer here so we can show him what damage he has done but that seems unlikely.  According to our Fulfulde tutor, Oumarou, there are a lot of people who claim to be healers, but they are fakes and just out to make some money.  He says the real healers know their limits and would not attempt to treat an open fracture like this.

More witchcraft news.  There was an item on the local radio news about the burning down of a house in a village called Salak, near Maroua.  The locals believed the owner of the house was a sorcerer and when two local men died mysteriously, the sorcerer was blamed.  Not only did the crowd set fire to the house, but they wanted the man’s head as well.  He took refuge in the local military base.  This all sounds like mediaeval stuff, but just across the road is the 21^st century airport!

State institutions are not renowned as being user friendly and we heard another example this week.  A couple turned up at the District Hospital in Mokolo (our “county” town) as the woman was in premature labour.  They had walked 23 Km to get there only to be told to go back home as they had no money and couldn’t pay for her care!  They had hardly got back when the woman delivered triplets!  Her husband returned to the hospital with the tiny babies in a box but was rejected again for lack of money.  He sought the aid of the Préfet, the local representative of the state, who insisted the hospital provide care.  He, the Préfet, also publicly criticised the hospital for its poor reception of patients and the fact that the doctors are rarely available.  I doubt if anything will change, however!

We had a really impressive rainfall on Thursday and the temperature dropped below 30º, to 28º, and stayed there.  Here, that’s COLD!  Given that, the time was ripe to have Christmas pudding and custard.  Kind friends at home have sent them out, but with the postal system here they arrived too late for Christmas, so we’ve been saving them for the arrival of cold weather!  Note the festive candle in the attached photo.

Today, we climbed to the summit of Mount Maroua, only 200m or so, but boy did we find two years of little exercise has taken its toll!  We had some difficulty finding the start of the path up; no handy signposting for public walks here!  Eventually we were told the best place to start is beside the local prison.  We set off with a “guide”, a young boy with five pals.  They ran up like mountain goats while the “oldies” huffed and puffed their way up behind!  When we got to the top it seemed we’d come across the local fitness centre as there were several young men “working out”; exercising and using boulders as weights.  The view from the top was worth the effort though, as we had a clear view over Maroua and the surrounding plain.  The photos show our young guides at the summit and some of the local keep fit enthusiasts.

Last photo is of our most recent wedding, our ninth, of Tom & Aicha.  You can tell that Tom’s from Ireland; he chose an emerald green boubou for the ceremony!