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