On the Road Again

Greetings all!
I hope everyone is well and happy and not sweating too much with the summer hitting. Not to rub it in at all but it is amazing weather here and simply gorgeous where I currently am. I have just finished teaching in Bangangte and I am now touring the west because I have a week before I have to go back to Yaoundé for mid-service. Mid-service is the time in peace corps where you get to do all of your medical checkups- and let me tell you, pooping in a cup is not on my list of things I want to do.
Anyway, I wanted to talk about going back to Bangangte which was not only great but really eye opening. I arrived with my friends Jim and Mattie (Mattie is in my province in Batouri and Jim lives about 1h 30 min from Bangante in the west). When we arrived we were all hit with how odd it was to be back. It was like returning to your home town after you left as a young naïve teenager. Everything smelled the same, the mud was still atrocious and the rain was still persistant, but we were totally different people. Now I could understand French, and I was coming home as a trainer and not a trainee and I suddenly became an expert in all things Cameroon. We were the first volunteers to come to Bangangte and help the trainees settle in and they had so many questions I felt like I was on a game show for a week straight. I’m really glad I was there and could give encouragement and make people feel more comfortable, but mostly to assuage their fears. Some of the questions seemed really silly in retrospect because of how obvious the answers seem to me now, but the kids have only been in Cameroon for about 20 days so I had to give them a break. They seem like a really good group of volunteers and they are really serious and focused which is always good. We know that we are getting two new TEFL volunteers in the East and that they will both be girls (guess I’m not going to find my future husband in the PC). The girls we think are coming are really great and I’m super excited about so that’ll be fun come August.
However, the best part of being back in town was seeing my host family again. Not only was I prepared this time with a bag full of gifts but my family was crazy happy to see me. I arrived and hugged all 20 of them (remember how many people were living in that house with me?) and we talk until about 9 pm. I was able to understand them which was not only amazing but so rewarding to hear all they had to say. My mother also kept saying that I wasn’t the same person and asking who was I and what did I do with the shy girl that couldn’t speak French. It was crazy fun to share all of my stories and to hear what all the kids were up to. It’s amazing to me how quickly the kids grow up, little Piquita now looks so tall and skinny! Anyway, it was really great and I went back again last night and had delicious dinner with them and asked the mother her opinion about the problems I’m facing at post when dealing with trying to motivate women. I realized my mother is not only really committed to higher education, but also extremely developed in her belief about gender roles. She’s a strong woman who is an equal with her husband and she’s opinionated and not always in the kitchen, and it’s just amazing to see a woman here like that. I really wish they lived in my village, they are probably the best friends I have here and a lot closer to the American mentality than you will find in a village. I also realized while I was in Bangangte how developed it is and how nice I had it for stage. The city is almost all paved and they have a lot of restaurants, internet cafes, and night clubs. My house had running water, an American toilet, and was really clean compared to village standards. I can’t believe how much I complained when I was there and how much I changed my tune when I went back. One of the things they are always telling us in education is to make the learners reflect on their learning experience to see how they learn and recognize the process (metacognitive thinking). I feel like with the insane learning curve and all of the changes I’ve gone through in the last year, it’s pretty obvious the process I went through to be able to come home to Bangante and have such a different feeling.
Anyways, it is now 38 days until I will be back in America seeing my family and friends and I can’t wait. I love you all and hope things are going well.
Love you all,
Elyse`