Some pictures

Greetings Friends and Family,

So the last couple of months have been pretty quiet and laid back. Though I have guarded all of the pictures so now when you look at them they will be very exciting!

First you'll see a cultural festival that I went to where an Anglophone tribe celebrated at their local meeting. The guys in the blue smirf costumes are traditional dancers and they were getting pretty crazy, here you'll see one of them is hanging from a rafter! Which is saying something because the building did not inspire strength. You will also see me in my Women's day Pagne which is pretty much so girly I look like a coupie doll. I am also showing off the lovely latrine, don't ask me why, the answer would involved how many beers i drank.

You can also see the arrival of Rainy season, which is pretty awesome the clouds were magnificient. Adn finally in the you see me Siobhan and my counterpart Bertha. These people make Bertoua awesome! Love you all.

Little Story to get your day started

Greetings from Bertoua
I am back in town after going to Yaounde for the week because I had a meeting for Peer Support Network. It was a really good time. But now I'm back home for my birthday which I think I prefer. So far I have spent most of the day watching movies (Funny People) and rereading my book (Chig gave me it, its about a girl whose half vampire/half werewolf). I'm also currently listening to the new Nora Jones, its makes my feet tap. The ladies are cooking up some food for dinner and the crust to my cake is making the house smell good and kinda radiate with heat, but we'll forgive the oven this one time. I thought now might be a good time to shirk my work responsibilities and to type up an entry I wrote yesterday while waiting for the Bilingualism Day celebration to start. I not only impressed everyone with how much I could write but also how good my pen was (thanks mom). So here we go:

A couple of weeks ago I went with my counterpart, Bertha, to Giwi Yogamo to present our formation on teaching English with songs. It is a small village on the paved road North of Bertoua. We left very early at 5am and arrived at 7:30am. Many of our colleagues had chosen to stay the night at an Auberge- really about 9 rooms that look like closets. Since we arrived early we were ushered into the room of a colleague where we awkwardly sat on the bed ans starred at the wall while listening to the other inspector sing in while taking his bucket bath, which he was having in the shared bathhouse just next to us. Nothings too awkward for Africa

After this we were brought to the principal's house where we were served our choice of a beer or a coke. One of the inspectors took a large beer- note that he was presenting before us so everyone had to wait while he took 30 minutes to drink his beer and chat with me. He has very wiley eyes and essentially flirted with me all morning. Did I mention that he is about 5'6" and 50stomething with at least 1 wife and 7 kids? Nice. Then we are told to wait for an hour while he finishes his presentation and we can start. At this time the chief of the group sends in the only Anglophone in town. I'm not sure if she was meant to entertain us like a court jester, but she was a young teacher and seemed a little nervous. This was the time when, powered by all of that caffeine no doubt, my counterpart decides to give the poor girl an hour lecture about the problems between Anglophones nad Francophones. She continues to explain that Anglophones suffer in the East because n one has respect for them and resents them. Then she talks about the crap school system, the whole time the poor girl looks like she thinks she's being accused of something.

As this is going on, I am looking out the door which gives ma perfect rectangle's view of the women outside preparing for the coffee break and lunch for the conference. They are frying plantains and cleaning fish and its nice to watch their domesticity in full swing. However, as I'm watching one of their sons comes by holding a chicken and searching for a knife. I know what will happen next. I lived in village for a year. The goby grabs a dull knife and literally standing perfectly framed by the door, I watch as he saws at its neck. So the knives here are never sharp enough and the kid has to stop on the bird's wings and saw away. I get to watch the death of the chicken and then watch it run about as it's head is not all off and the boy accidentally freed its wings. As this is going on I decide to find the latrine where I can get away from the slaughter.

A nice woman points the way for me and I go into the small enclosure and get into position and then a parade of children begin to walk in on me. I am squatiing down in all my pagune and my aura of authority and one girl just comes into the latrine adn talkes to me while I'm peeing. I guess talking to the white women is anovelty anywhere- even the latrine. Finally, we go into the classroom and are greeted by about 70 teachers and proceed to give our workshops. Our presentations lasts until about 4. It goes very well, at this point Bertha and I work crazy well together.

We decide to take a taxi home instead of a bus because it'll be quicker seeing as how they drive faster and don't unload as much baggage. The y put me in the front seat because I am not used to being smooshed evidentially because I'm white. Now these cars are about as big as a Geo Metro, but my chauffeur fits 5 ppl in the backseat, then my counterpart sits next to me int eh front seat. Then he stopped again to pick up two more people. He puts one in the trunk where he sits on piles of manioc. The other gets into the driver's side and sits on the drivers seat, and the driver gets in and begins to drive. Now there are 4 ppl in the front, 5 ppl in the back, and one in the trunk. The driver then proceeds to drive at light speed on the windy road dodging animals and honking at children. The whole experience was sereal, but we did get to town in about 1 hr 45 minutes as opposed to 2h30 minutes, I was impressed.

Well anyway, that's all for me recapping stories I thought you'd enjoy. Please don't feel bad for me for being in Africa on my birthday, honestly I'm having a great time. In Yaounde I got to eat a hamburger, mac and cheese, ramen, a cheese sandwich and egg rolls, and chicken. I'm not complaining. Someone even bought champagne! I love you all and wish I could see you today! Big party in 5 months!

Cheers,
Elyse

Call to ARMS!

Greetings Family and Friends!
So my project is finally on the Peace Corps website ready for donations!

Go to the Link below:
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=694-157

or go to: www.peacecorps.gov
Then click donations
then put in my project number to find my project: 694-157
And you can read all about my project. Please send this link to everyone you know, even if you give 20 dollars it would be great, and you can write it off because tax season is coming up.

I love you all and miss you!
Elyse

Siobhans Blog

So its totally worth it if you have some time to check out Siobhan's blog. Not only does she post more pictures, but she also tells you a little something about the regions we visited!

http://cameroonsiobhan.blogspot.com/

The much awaited continuation!

Blog continuation
Okay, so we got to Christmas. Alright, well after Christmas we went to Waza. Now getting up at 5 in the morning after celebrating the savior’s birth is never fun! Even if you are going to see animals. But we persevered. On our way to Waza, our car broke down which is a normal occurrence but we were all sad because we were in the middle of the desert and our driver didn’t seem to have any idea what to do, hence the picture of him fixing the car with rope and a prayer and the picture of us looking dejected on the side of the road. However, our car was finally fixed and we were underway. As we entered the park we saw a little family of warthogs which were super cute. Then we paid our guides and started into the park. It is not the season to see animals in Waza because the lions and the elephants have migrated to the Congo but we were still optimistic. After about 10 minutes in we had to stop again to fix our axel so we stood next to a watering hole and looked at Elephant tracks (the picture of the mud below), which is probably as close as I’ll ever get to dinosaur tracks. We also saw some cool birds’ nests and some deer things at the water hole. As we ventured on we were able to see some monkeys, vultures, and yes giraffes! The giraffes kinda made the day, there were tons of them and they were just chilling. We got to see some babies and got to watch them run around which was really surreal, they look so odd when they run like they are in slow motion.
After driving around for some time later, and yours truly taking a totally lame nap on the bus because I was so tired, we decided to head back to Maroua. (Don’t safari when you are tired- that is what I learned)
The next day we decided to go to Mokolo where our friend Fleurange lives and to head on to Rumsiki one of the biggest tourist attractions in Cameroon. Rumsiki has beautiful rock formations and to get there you can take a moto that goes through the hills and is about a 1 ½ ride. Honestly this was my favorite part of the trip. The moto drive was beautiful and really fun, we drove through little villages and drove alongside the donkeys and horses that pepper the landscape. Siobhan even got to touch one when a herd of cows passed and we were stopped.
When we arrived at Rumsiki we decided to splurge and stay at the nice hotel where we were told that we got a 2000Cfa discount and that we didn’t need an air conditioner because we were peace corps. However, because it was tourist time, they were all booked up so we lied and said there were only 2 of us when there were three and we had a very small room with one very tiny double bed. We fixed the sleeping arrangements Peace Corps style by taking the mattress off the bed and making the box spring into a bed. We also took down the curtains to use as extra sheets, as it was a bit chilly up in the mountains. Siobhan said that she would take one for the team and slept on the box spring and every time she moved we got to hear it, but honestly it was pretty comfy for everyone.
My favorite moment of the whole trip was when we decided to spend the next day and a half at the pool. The pool is crazy deep and really cold but it overlooks the valley and it’s quite beautiful. We all put on our bathing suits and bought an overpriced beer and lay out in the sun. I was very amused by their “chaise lounges”, because they must have seen a picture of them or something and tried to build them out of local supplies. As I recall they were small medal bars painted white and welded together and there were not enough bars so you were sorta really uncomfortable. We also did a bunch of pictures where we ran and jumped really high and took the picture in mid air. They’re pretty great, but not particularly flattering, maybe if you buy me a couple of beers I’ll show you.
We also were able to eat at a restaurant that all PCVs love called the “Vegetarian Carnivore” A local guy owns it and he speaks really good English and grows all of his own veggies. He loves PCVs and treated us really nicely. When we arrived he kept telling us, “You are welcome, you live here, and this is your home.” We asked if we could have some drinks and he actually took us into his hut that was used as a kitchen and had us open the fridge and pick what we wanted! It was pretty silly. He then brought out some bread and this roasted garlic sauce that was so amazing that when the bread was finished we started spooning it our mouths alone! He also brought us chocolate croissants. I decided to have to veggie pizza and it was really good. So good I kept saying I was going to stop eating it and I finished every last bite!
Our trip was really relaxing and after we did some hiking on the second day and I finished my girlie beach novel, we headed back on a very enjoyable moto ride to Fleurange’s house. She welcomed us with some homemade peanut curry veggy sauce and rice! It was delicious. Unfortunately you cannot hide long from Africa and I was working some major stomach funkiness that started that day and plagued me for the rest of the trip! It’ll be interesting to figure out what I have.
New Years
It is now necessary to discuss the most memorable part of the trip for me which was New Years. Number one, it is important to explain that this was a very serious event for many people. There was some intense party planning going on. Peace Corps volunteers have taken a page out of Cameroon’s book and we have learned how to celebrate! First off, we had some committees going. We had a beverage committee who produced three different flavors of awesomeness for everyone’s consumption. Next was the lighting committee. You don’t want to find yourself having a dance party with fluorescent office type lighting. The solution (after 2 previous attempts) was to rap the fluorescent bulbs with electrical tape! Booya, instant red lightly dance partiness! The 3rd committee was in charge of music. We made sure to have the best mix of rock and roll, sexy dance, and oldies. We spent the evening dancing up a storm, playing party games, and sitting under the stars. At midnight, which we used someone’s watch to count down on, we spent about 15 minutes just going around and hugging all our new and old friends! It was definitely a moment to remember, as I don’t recall having been hugged that many times in a long while. There was a spirit of brotherly love and hope for the coming year.
After New Years we headed back down to the East. The train proved to be easy compared with our first trip and we arrived in Bertoua just in time for me to wake up 4 hours later and go to class. Honestly, it was one of the best times I’ve had in Cameroon and I really dug the trip.
I think it’s also important to point out that Peace Corps volunteers are some of the best people to travel with I know. If they get hurt, sick, lost, confused…whatever, it’s all part of the experience. Everyone just let’s it roll off their back. There are no cry babies and everyone man’s up! Another thing I love is that we became very adept at traveling together. Siobhan, Lisa, and I became a well oiled machine. What we need to travel tomorrow? Okay- Elyse is in charge of tickets, Siobhan save’s seats on the bus, Lisa takes care of baggage! We remembered to get snacks, to hide money, to charge iPods. We all took care of each other in a totally organized fashion. I love it when a plan comes together! Maybe we got so good at this because we have to deal with so much inefficiency here in Cameroon that we like to control things as much as possible, either way, we should write a book.
I wanted to say that I hope everyone a happy new year and that you get everything you want this year. This year has to be good right?
My brother is getting married. I get a new sister. Tyler finally gets to drink legally! I get to have a quarter life crisis. Dad is looking more and more like Steve Martin (that’s a compliment!). I make my triumphant return to the states and then start a new adventure, only God knows where. Mom decides to join the hippie movement and sits down for a totally of 2 hours in a row! (who are we kidding, this won’t happen). Sounds like everyone will be doing well this year!
I love you all and miss you!
Elyse

The Holidays in Cameroon

Greetings all,
I know that you are all awaiting my sweet analysis of the vacation that I took and the way that I fell off the planet for the last three weeks. Well I am here on this Sunday to satify your curiosity, and maybe to make you a little jealous that you aren't in the Peace Corps and that you did not have the holidays I had...because you will be jealous!

So for the second week in December I found myself in Kribi for the second time in my Peace Corps service. I was invited back to teach the new stage of education volunteers all that I know and to introduce them to the work that I've been doing in Bertoua. However, what the week was really about (running sessions aside) was the beach! I spent about 5 days on the beach, waking up in the morning and taking a run through the intense humidity, then going to work, and then going back to the beach. As remembered, The Hotel Paradise (as it is translated), still has amazing food and nice accomodations, but I somehow am more impressed with the food the longer I am in Cameroon, the more aware I am of quality cuisine. During this week I even engaged in some pretty intense beach football matches. American football. I found myself bounding around and playing for keeps. Sure it was touch football, but the tide didn't seem to care we were playing so you had to dodge your opponents as well as the surf!

Another notable happening that I shoudl share about Kribi is the position I found myself in during the sessions. You see, all of the presenters have to do this big written report about IST after the5 day seminar. This report has always been a very big undertaking and has not been any of the trainers favorite thing to do. Well after reviewing this problem and seeing that a lot of the counterparts that were attending did not speak English well enough to actually benefit from a lot of the conference, I decided to use the projector and laptop to type what everyone was saying for all to see. Thus, the report was being done in tadum with the conference and people were able to read English which they are better at than listening. However, a small off shoot from this idea came when I found myself translating French into English in time with the person's comments. I was actually sitting infront of about 60 people translating French as they listened. There are a couple of comments I need to make here. 1. I totally was not good enough to be completely correct or to translate everything word for word. But I am good enough to listen and synthesize the points that the people were making. This did two things, it helped people understand and it showed the long winded talkers that what they said could have been summed up 10 minutes before. 2. Who in their right mind would have thought that a year and a half ago, I woudl be translating french! Crazy

THE NORTH
After Kribi I headed back to Yaounde, and found that my packages had not arrived! Sad! But that's not really what christmas is about and I know when I do finally get them it'll be awesome. Maybe it will just be a super crazy birthday this year!

The next leg of my trip was to take the train up North where I would meet Lisa and Siobhan and we would explore those upper reaches of the continent that resemble what you think of as Africa. Desert, heat, people speaking Fufulde, etc.

THE TRAIN
Every person that lives in the north has to take the train to get there, and they are all in agreement of one thing: The train sucks! First off, the train derails all the time and its always late. We were supposed to leave at 6pm and then we were told we would leave at 11pm and then finally we were told we would leave at 2 pm. Wow, not fun. So finally we are allowed to board the train and we are lucky enough to get a sleeper car. Imagine when James Bond is finished saving the world and gets into his train car and there are those pull down beds and then he has to throw jaws out the window. The sleeper cars are a little like that, except half the size and there are 2 bunk beds in the room. Its actually pretty comfortable. The ride is about 14-16 hours or so which sucks, but we actually got to see the countryside pass in the light of day which was quite nice. We arrived in the Adamoua at 6:30pm the next day and found ourselves starving and very tired. We fixed the starving part by going across the street from the case and eating some of the tastiest brochettes ever! Essentially this is like a kabab. Tasty meet on a stick that is painted with a spicy garlic sauce. They were crazy delicious, and so began our two week tour of eating any and all meat in the North. The food up there isnt very good because its desert and you can't grow a lot, so it was a lot like being back in Arizona. They grow cotton, millet (like corn), and they raise a bunch of cattle! It was really odd to see bruised black bananas for exuberant prices and to pay out the nose for any type of fruit. But the yogurt and cheese up there is great!

After the Adamowa we headed up to the extreme north (EN) in a coaster car for about 7 hours on paved roads. I am still amazed by paved roads and think they are the bees knees. We spent Christmas in Maroua where we foudn a slew of very happy and joyous volunteers. We were crazy impressed with the EN because of all the ex-pats that live there. There were white people everywhere! The roads were lined with trees and there were even medians in the roads! Everyone was insanely nice, and I didnt get bothered as much for being a white person which is refreshing!

For Christmas we made cookies and decorated them, the girls from the east made pancakes for everyone, and a big group of us made calzones for dinner which were delicious. A couple of the boys even went out and picked up a large piece of a tree and set it up in the living room hanging from the ceiling and we decorated it and danced around it. We listened to Christmas carols all day and drank a lot of beer. It was a very nice time and I very much enjoyed all of the Christmas movie watching and happy company.

Okay this blog is starting to get crazy long. I will be back later with the conclusion of what I was up to at the end of 2009

Pictures of my trip to the North and Kribi More to come!

What's up with November?

So here I am with some very happy Cameroonians who had obviously drunk too much, but Cameroon just won against Morocco so it was only right to celebrate!












Okay, here is Siobhan with our meal we had- mashed potatoes, gravy, candied carrots, stuffing, two turkeys, green bean casserole with mushrooms and home made onion rings on top, corn, creamed peas, cranberry sauce.

We also had appetizers- deviled eggs (you know you miss my signature dish), plantain chips (the closes thing we can get to actual chips, guacamole,and ranch with a veggie dish.

For dessert was: Pumpkin bread and pumkin pie. You can see the pie crust in the next picture, with our eggs we are boiling and our amazing stuffing. My favorite dish!



Here we have the girls of Thanksgiving. Laura came from the South west and Kate and Connie came across country for a collaboration project and stayed on for the food. As always we have lisa, siobhan and myself.













This is my counterpart for basic education. Her name is Bertha and she's such a fabulous lady. She's really motivated, English speaking, and I love seeing a woman in charge in such a chauvenist coultr

Sharing some Pictures

Okay here is the Halloween Crew











I was in charge of game, here's the apple bobbing!












Here we are hanging out at an sweet bar, with the nicest decor in town. You know that, because of this life sized picture of Averal Lavine















So here is when I locked myself out of my house and then proceeded to use every hanger and crow bar I coudl find. Thanks for the Help Siobhan





















Here are Lisa and Evan for Christmas. Evan is dressed as an African Mamma.

Catching up

Wow I guess its been a little long since I've written. Sorry about that, but I became super busy, which is good for Cameroon and for me, but not for my blogging. I'd like to catch you up so I'll try to summarized the last few months in an interesting way.

Work
Wow, I've been crazy busy. So I have created a CD of 59 songs to teach English and 10 tracks of pronunciation exercises. Then I have been selling them (not for profit but so I can get my money back from making them) to all of the francophone teachers of the East. The result is that the better part of the teachers of the East are listening to me sing "Bingo was his name o" and "I have a head...a head...on my head what can you see". Don't worry, if you want a cd I have plenty!

The other big project I have been working on is writing a book for these basic education teachers to help them better teach English. I finished the book a couple of weeks ago and I am in the process of editing it. I also wrote a grant to try and fund the printing of the book, but more to come with that!

The aformentioned things are all the office work stuff I've been up to, but I've also been out in the field as well. So far I have presented seminars at 6 different Journee Pedigogiques (essentially pedigogical conferences for teachers in the different regions of the east). I have been presenting information about how to use songs in lesson planning at the basic education conferences and this is where I give out my cd. At this point I have given the same presentation like 5 times and I've been solo a few times so its just me in a room full of teachers about twice my age, singing and doing some theatre exercises! Its been really fun but pretty demanding because we have had to travel a bit to get to all of the conferences. (more on this later) I have also presented at two conferences for the secondary education teachers. Here I was able to give a speech (in English don't overestimate me) to about 300 teachers and administrators. I was pretty proud of this because I was able to change the normal format of presenting papers, where the presenter just reads for liek 20-40 minutes and bores everyone to death. Instead I was talking about hte bilingualism game. Essentially its a new thing the ministry is trying to get everyone to do, where the last 5 minutes of their class they play a game related to their lesson in English. (since Cameroon is supposed to be bilingual). So of course, instead of just reading my boring paper I decided to play a game and give an example of the project. All the teachers loved it and came up to me after and seemed happy for the change from the normal procedures. I was also obliged to present during the English workshops where I discussed lesson planning and how to make lessons more student centered and interactive.

So as you can see my work is going really well, even if I'm a bit ready for the holidays. Coming up I have a girl's camp on Saturday where we will speak about health and making good choices and stuff. Then on the 1st of December I will be presenting at the national CAMELTA conference, this is essentially the English Teacher's Union. I've been asked to present two exposes on my own, so I've got a lot of work to do.

So enough with Work...where are your funny stories Elyse?
Well I definitely have a lot of those so I should put some here so you know its not all work and no play here.
1. I went to Abong Bong which is a village about 3 hours from Bertoua where we were going for a conference. The conference was for two days so I stayed at an Auberge with the other inspectors. I was given my own room. You have to understand that I'm the only woman that works at the higher level of inspectors and I'm a white chick so everyone treats me like I'm an idiot. I couldn't go to sleep because my colleagues kept tapping on my door and asking if I had soap, then toilet paper, then they came by to tell me to lock my door- as if I couldn't figure any of these things out. Then I try to go to sleep on the thinnest mattress in the world and you can feel every wood plank that is holding you up. So I decide to rearrange the wood planks so that they are in a less annoying spot. So I lift up the mattress and what do I find? About 40 used condoms on the floor under the bed! Ugg...well at least they were careful?

2. I was in NDiang a village about 1 hour from Bertoua, on Wednesday. Now when you go as an inspector everyone treats you to a meal and gets you drinks and are incredibly hospitable. I can't help wishing however, that their efforts resulted in me eating Famous Dave's Barbecue, or delicious sandwiches for lunch instead of what I get. So for our first break they give me a cold omelet that is 4 parts oil 1 part egg. And as I'm eating it I taste something slimy and can't figure it out, then I look down and realize there are sardines in my omelet. ugh! So for the next meal they open the lids to two pots with great gusto and I look in. First we have plantains mushed together in this sorta spongy side dish (I actually like this dish). Then there is obviously some type of meat in a tomato sauce. So I take a smaller helping to be polite and proceed to try and decide what the meat is. I finished my helping which is mostly fat, by stealthily feeding some to the cat by my feet. Then one of my colleagues asks what kind of meat it is to the lady of the house and she proceeds to say, "tu as goute quoi" "What did you taste?". Then we all laugh and say, no really what was it. And she says, you don't ask in village you just eat it. So obviously we ate some kind of bush meat, who knows what it was! I hope it wasn't dog!

3. So there is some phenomena right now where all of these praying mantises are decending on Bertoua, along with their friend Mr. Cricket. So my front yard is currently a corn field, because my landlord owns it and uses it for his field. So, having a corn field as a front yard sorta encourages these critters to gravitate to my house. I currently have a ridiculous number of them in my house, and its to the point where I'm killing so many I have to make a pile before sweeping them outside. Unfortunately, they are really big, so killing them makes quite a mess. Anyway, so I'm trying to sleep the other night and I keep hearing this crazy sound coming from my ceiling. Now, Siobhan has told about having mouse in her ceiling for a while and I really hope that isn't it. But after listening for a while because I can't sleep, I figure out that its one of those freaking mantises. There is a tile in my roof that has been removed because that's how you get up in the ceiling to rearrange the power lines. Well this piece of ceiling is right above my toilet. So after not being able to sleep I go into the bathroom to pee, and my friend in the ceiling decides to take this opportunity to dive bomb me. However, as he's coming down he decides to find somewhere to hide, and of course choices under my butt in the pot. SO I jump up because I've just been goosed by a huge green bug and I proceed to dance around my bathroom with my pants around my ankles, trying to kill him. Needless to say, I have recently swept out a large pile of these guys.

Well, I think that's probably enough for you to contemplate today. I miss you all and love you!

Weece

Bertoua living the high life

Greetings Family and Friends,
Sorry about not updating more in depth, we still don’t have the internet at the case in Bertoua so I have to come to the internet café, where the keyboards suck and it takes about 9 years just to log on to email. Boo. Hopefully the situation will change soon because I am buying a new phone which I can use to access the internet from my computer. So what has happened so far with me this month? Good question.
I’ve been extremely busy here in Bertoua with my new job and with school starting. I must confess I find that I like my health, my happiness, and my overall contribution to peace corps a lot better now that I’m in Bertoua. I’m extremely busy and I am actually doing work that I think might be helpful. While I’m sad to be away from village, the fact that the mayor and a few people in town are still giving me a hard time even when I moved away, reminds me that village was not all sugarplums and lollipops. What do I miss? First off, I miss the fact that I had so much time for reading. I also miss the quietness and the community of Ndelele. I miss the forest too, I don’t much feel like going out of my house to run because there isn’t the same type of serenity in town. I also miss my students and the fact that they had a better rapport with me than they do here, simply because I had more teaching hours and I lived right next to them. But, there are somethings I don’t miss, like the horrible travel to get there. The lack of electricity and water (though Bertoua has its share of problems with water), and also the fact that a lot of undeserving people are in power and they abuse that power. I also don’t miss the fact that I didn’t feel very useful there.
On the upside, here in Bertoua I have been having a great time. First off, I moved into my new house last weekend. I’m so proud of myself, I pretty much moved all of my stuff by myself and everyone in my cartier now thinks I’m very strong. The first thing I set up was my kitchen, because with all the awesome food I have gotten in packages it just seemed like the most necessary thing to do. Unfortunaetly, Bertoua has these horrible red ants that are so small you can barely see them or feel them. Anyway, when they bite you its like fire and its pretty much the most horrible feeling ever. Unfortunaetly, they have already decided to live on my countertop that comes to my waste. So I am currently covered in these horrible bites around my waste. I have however, taken new precautions with my food and I have bought RAMBO which is their ant killing spray here. I hope to be free of the problem soon, if only for my mental health. I keep having bad dreams where ants cover me and eat me- very Indiana Jones of me.
The other room I have set up is my bedroom, and its awesome. I have a new bed and a bedside table, and now with the power I’m actually able to plug in my reading lights and my radio so I don’t have to go through so many batteries. I have found a bit of a problem trying to post anything on my walls though. Cinderblock walls have never corporated with nails or screws! So my mirror and all of my posters are looking quite sad in a pile on my floor. The other things I have done is put up all of my curtains, because with out them the people that are still building the house next to mine and my fence, can look right into my room! Not cool.
So I am very much loving my house and when I finally arrive back there every afternoon I feel like I have a bit of a haven, I can’t wait to pick up my new furniture and actually create a living room. One thing I do have to say is that I’m really enjoying the power because Siobhan got me into these workout videos. I work out like an hour a day and I always feel tons better afterwards!
I do want to tell you alittle bit of the work I’m doing in Bertoua right now. First off I teach 8 hours at the Lycee Technique de Bertoua. I teach 9th grade and 10th grade and every time I have a new class I find that I am greeted by more and more students. At this point my 9th grade class has left me about a two foot walkway to maneuver by the board in the front of the class. The students are a bit rowdy, but the faculty is very nice and the school is so big that they have many discipline masters to assist me. I have really been enjoying teaching thus far simply because the kids seem to really respond to my activities and my enthusiasm. In my 10th grade class I had to teach the national anthem in English because they had to sing it and it was such a fun exercise because really the anthem is quite beautiful and the kids sing it really well. They got me dancing and I even had a student act like he was doing the cymbals and make the noise when the band would.
A part from my teaching I am also working for MINESEC which is the ministry for secondary education. I normally go into their office and work on my computer creating didactic materials, sample lesson plans, and things. This week I went to a seminar and gave a presentation on activities to motivate students. Next week I will travel to a village and observe some classes, (thankfully my counterpart has his own car). I am also working with the Ministry of Basic Education. This is where I am doing most of my work right now. I have decided to create an instructional book for all primary students on how to teach English. A lot of the teachers don’t really speak English so this will be a great manual. I am also creating a cd to go with the book of songs and pronunciation in English. This project is proving to be very fun and incredibly exciting. So far my manual is about 75 pages and I haven’t even added 3 chapters. I also found that I can record with my computer and my microphone so I visited some elementary school classes and recorded the students singing, which was about the cutest thing in the world. I’ll have to upload some of the files, it will make your day.
Overall, I’ve been very busy battling the hierarchy as well as trying to be at three places at once. Its been a really good couple of weeks though and honestly I can’t wait for Siobhan to get home so that we can discuss our days over a glass of wine. Can you tell by my long entry that I have a lot to discuss? Anyhow, I hope you are all well and I love you all so much! Big hug and kiss.
Elyse

quickie

Hello Everyone
Im working here in Bertoua and Ive been so busy I havent had time to write. Im also waiting for PC to put in free internet so I havent really been on. I have still yet to move into my new house but i think in about a weeks time ill be good. they did paint the interior walls a really fabulous shade or orange and then the guy told me i should like it because my skin matches. not sure what to do with that information

Last weekend I went to Batouri to do the camp with lisa that fell through a couple of weeks ago when we tried to do it. Thankfully this time we were able to coerce a bunch of students to come. I think the kids learned a lot and it was really successful. I think we planned really diverse excercises so that helped. I was also really happy to hang out with the Batouri clan, especially because Lisa made me her famous chili which is exceptional.

Any way I hope everyone is well and ill work on a more indepth blog later. love you

elyse

Back to life, Back to Reality

Greetings Everyone,
I hope that you enjoyed my little photo blog. My vacation was really something else. Thank you so much to my parents, Grandma Betty Jo, Grandma and Grandpa Peragine! You guys really helped out a poor volunteer to have an amazing vacation. Thank you to Dave for putting me up for a week, to Jaime, Chad, Dave, and the two humongous cats for spooning so expertly in a queen bed! Thanks to Billy Elliott for teaching Tyler to dance, even if it is in the subway after a few glaces of wine.

So I thought I would make some comments about the photos:
First off, we have a picture of us lazing around Dave's house after we walked the better part of muesums and Brooklyn!
Second is me laying in the grass at the historical cemetary in Brooklyn (all Jaime's idea)
Third is Jaime and our new friend Ivy at a bbq at Daves house (who knew a vegetarian could cook meat so well)
Fourth, this is Dave sleeping, he slept until 12:30 one day! He was very tired.
Fifth, Jaime at the BBQ looking down home and country.
Sixth, Shot of the church at the historical cemetary. I enjoyed this because it had nice bathrooms and was air conditioned.
Seventh, Chad Ramsey sporting his chest as we are leaving. Evidentaly in America showing some chest is okay.
Eight, These are my terribly attractive parents, Who doesn't love this photo?
Ninth, This would be an immigrant slapping my bum.
Tenth, TYler dancing in the subway.
Eleventh, Eating Giloto( sp?) in Little Italy.
Twelfth, Hanging out in the NBA store. One of these things is not like the other...
Thirteenth, tyler with crazy sideburns. This made me laugh a lot
Fourteenth, me in one of my favorite places, hanging out with pastries
Fifteenth, Ethan and ty in little italy
Sixteenth, Ethan eating mac adn cheese in a restaurant that only serves mac and cheese! Tyler's heaven.
Seventeenth, Dad and I in the disney store.
Eighteenth, Mom and tyler doing their Circ de soleil auditions.
Nineteenth, Wow America loves technology!
Twentieth, Me checking out a well sculpted statue!

So there are a lot of photo's there adn Chad and Jaime posted some great ones on facebook. The vacation was great and I think the memories will last me the next nine months. I have a tons of work to do this next year and I'm really excited to start. I'm not sure when I'll next get to blog but just know I'm working hard to help out some peopel in the east, because the lord knows I have been away from my peeps too long. I love you all and I will miss you, embracing the coming fall for me because that's my favorite time of year!

Love you
elyse

Pictures from New York

First two days in America

The family is all sleeping right now because they are on West coast time and I am on Africa time so I went to the gym and took a shower and now i'm posting this for all you lovely people. Enjoy the insanity!




In the Douala Airport, wow Africa! Doesnt it look like Adventure land in Disneyland!


















Did someone order some New York with a side of Hot and Crusty. Here I am in NY next to a pizza place!









First Grapes in a year! I'm eating them in Time Square, is there a better place for Produce?

















Here is a Tussey Family Gem!






I dont think tyler knew he was getting video. Don tworry all the ones of the family are coming soon, i thought i'd just show you some of my antics first!

Greetings from Belgium

Brussels: I am currently in Belgium and I have a couple of thoughts to share with you, obviously these observations will be solely of the people I have seen and met in the airport. First off, everyone is white here except the people that got off my plane from Africa and then conveniently disappeared. It’s really startling to leave Africa and see so many white people in one place. I know this sounds crazy but it is a really exciting development to not be a minority. Secondly, no one speaks English here, they all talk like the muppet’s scientist guy..not beeker he just beeped, but the Swiss guy. Anyway Dutch is the weirdest language ever and it cracks me up (its Dutch right, not Belgish). Also, everyone and their mom are still speaking French! What do they think they live next to France and they should just keep speaking that language! Lame! Anyway, I am only here for 3 hours before I fly again. The plan was to eat Pizza Hut Express (yes I know it is 7 am). Of course this was thwarted when they told me they don’t serve pizza yet, anyway It would be weird to be in Europe and not get some local foods. So I bought some chocolate bars- if you are nice I’ll share! I also bought one of those fabulous premade sandwiches in a triangle box. After about 10 minutes of deliberation I went with the Chicken and Bacon on 7 grain wheat.

May I take a paragraph to write about not eating wheat bread for a year (hahah some boys just walked by speaking Dutch- they sound insane someone should lock them up!). Anyway, I love sandwiches, they are my favorite food. They are versatile. They can be hot, cold, dry, saucy. And, my, all of the choices of bread! Don’t get me started on how I was born in the wrong time and should have married the Earl of Sandwich. Anyway, this sandwich is currently amazing. The bread is all grainy with little nuts in it and the chicken is not scary at all, and I didn’t have to witness the death of the bird. Of course the bacon isn’t really crispy (Crazy Europeans someone should teach them right) It’s more like meaty ham, but it is still making my palate super happy. The only issue is that the food on the plane was also amazing! (yeah I said it). First off I had really bad free red wine (I was trying to sleep). Then I had “Bœuf” in some brown sauce which was delicious with mashed potatoes and oniony green beans. Then there was the side salad with chunks of fancy cheese and a hold your breath! 1 Pepperchini! Holy moley, I missed those little guys. Needless to say my stomach is already confused as to what I will be doing to it for the next two weeks. Hang in there buddy we’ve got some eating to do. I plan on arming myself with many medicaments when I get to the states, which is in T-minus 10 hours!

Other updates include: I am the most annoying partner on a plane. I had to sit in the middle aisle in the middle seat where I proceeded to move every two minutes so the people next to me couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t like I timed it but I’ll tell you what, I figured out every position needed to alternately make your limbs fall asleep. I’ll write a manual: Yoga in your airplane seat: How to deny others the sleep you crave.

Anyway, obviously you can see I’m super happy and ready to head out. I’ll be boarding in like an hour so now that my sandwich is done I think I’ll take a look at one of those chocolate bars (I also bought gummy bears and fancy Dutch gum). Hold on tight for the next update, it might be called something like “The Reunion of the Century” or “Frantic hugging turns into impormtu leg wrestling tournament”

1 Day more!

Who is super excited!
This girl!

Oh yeah!

2 days kids!

Three maids a milking!

3 days baby! count them 3! I'm getting impatient to hug my family!