Ndop Adventures

Great day today - and it's not even over yet! I had my first really hot shower since coming to Bamenda, we were served puff puffs (kind of a mix between donut holes and beignets, just much less sugary. Also my all-time favorite Cameroonian food so far), and I spent the day with Sarah and Carolin at a teachers' training in Ndop. We drove out there early this morning (it's about an hour's drive from Bamenda) to a primary school which they've been using the past couple of days. Everyone who was there, about 15 in all, are teachers in their villages and came to learn better ways to use the resources they have to teach both kids and adults the alphabet and to read aloud and write in their own language. Carolin was there to supervise the training, but she and Sarah and I spent most of the day pretending to be students as the teachers practiced using the blackboard and reading aloud stories in Chrambo, Ngiemeke'ke, and another language I can't remember. It was quite interesting attempting to speak it, to say the least. But I love languages, so it was enjoyable as well as embarrassing. Especially with dozens of kids standing at the windows watching us and whispering to each other and laughing... haha. Good thing I know how to laugh at myself, or this would not work out so well. As it is, there are plenty of things to laugh at here, besides myself; Cameroonians' sense of fashion, for one! They wear everything from traditional Cameroonian dress to t-shirts with President Obama's face on them, and everything in between. Today one of the male teachers at the training was wearing a women's black shirt that quite literally bedazzled with sequins - Sarah and I quite enjoyed that. People here don't understand many of our quirks, though, either - for instance, they eat literally mounds of food at every meal. When Sarah and I said we were full, after barely half a plate piled with potatoes, cabbage, and fish, one lady responded, "You don't know how to eat." Haha, well perhaps this year I will learn to eat and be fat by the time I come back. You never know.