Orientation

I AM FINALLY HERE!

This adventure is off to a fantastic start! 

The group arrived (after 23 hours of travel) and we were greeted by Serge. He is one of our advisors, a really nice man. We loaded into three different cars and headed to a Monastery on Mount Fébé where we lived Monday through Wednesday. The view from the monastery was BEAUTIFUL! (I will post pictures as soon as I can).

This "we" that I keep mentioning includes 9 American students from different universities. Everyone is one year younger than me. The group has spent a lot of time bonding and getting to know each other which is so great. We all get along very well.

The orientation was Tuesday and Wednesday. We woke up and had breakfast at 7:30, usually bread and jam (difficult for a gluten free diet) with Ovaltine, coffee or tea options. Class started around 8, but as we have been reminded multiple times, we are working on Cameroonian time. We are told to expect people to be at least 30 minutes late to everything! This is perfect for me! 

Continuing... We have class until about 10 and then have a 30 minute break. During this time we have been learning about life in Cameroon, safety, culture, and have been setting goals for the program. We have a hot lunch at about 12:30. The food is SO good. Often chicken or fish in a sauce, mostly tomato based, rice, bean, and for now avocado and tomato and corn and fruits but we were told they are doing this because they know we Americans like it, uncooked veggies and fruits won't be common in our home stays. 

We go back to class after an hour and a half lunch and learn some more helpful tips. We finished at 3:30 Tuesday and went on a long walk as a group. This area is very hilly and luckily for me, very active! There are people running ALL the time! I'm really happy to know that!

On Wednesday instead of afternoon class we did a "drop off". It was exactly what it sounds like. We were in groups (thank goodness) of three and drivers took us from the monastery and dropped us somewhere in the center of the town to complete 10 different tasks and find our way home. We were given money too! Some of the tasks were to go to an internet café, to go to the US Embassy, to buy a gift for a friend etc. We were out and about for about 4 hours! Such an overwhelming experience, but really exciting. My group got yelled at by a taxi driver for not having small enough bills to pay him, but no worries, I hopped out of the car and three people came over quickly asking what change we needed! Every problem that we had was easily resolved with really friendly Cameroonian locals! For those interested in the specifics... a normal taxi fare is 200 CFA per person which is less than 50 cents. The exercise was so useful! I am not yet comfortable to be alone in the city, but I feel more comfortable having had some practice. We also got to go out to dinner last night!

Today we moved out of the monastery and are now in the SIT head quarters where classes will be held. We are doing some debriefing from yesterday and then at 3:30 today we meet and go home with our Cameroonian families! We were told that they will have an average of 3 children per family so I'm really excited! I promise to write more and post pictures in the next week!