We actually got a little rain last week, which was very good because we'd been dealing with a fire in the woods behind the school since the week before. No one knows exactly how the fire started. I've heard various theories from it starting in a farm down the hill to it being started by some TTC students smoking in the woods.
It started on a Monday afternoon and we spent the rest of the day fighting it. There is no "fire department" to battle fires so everyone has to pitch in. There happened to be a prayer service in town the same day, for the first couple hours there was hardly anyone around to work on the fire. Aside from a line of water buckets, the main technique is to take a leafy branch and beat at the flames until they die down. As luck would have it, the water cut out shortly after we started fighting the fire, so we had to use the beating approach. One of the problems we had was that there was a thick layer of leaves and sawdust (from the cutting of firewood) on the ground so even when the flames were gone, it was still smoldering underneath. (I'm sure those of you who have fought forest fires back home have encountered the same thing.)
At first it was mostly students working on the fire and whenever they didn't see any flames, they thought the fire was done there. So besides helping to beat the flames, I was walking to the various "hot spots" to check on them after the students had left and calling the students back when they flared up again.
I called it quits when the sun went down, with a tiny burn on one of my fingers from trying to move a piece of wood that I didn't realize was burning underneath. The fire flared up again after that and around 8PM they rang the church bell to summon help from town. People came and they got the flames back down again. However, it flared up again during the night and continued to do so for most of the week. As I said, it wasn't completely out until we got the small shower. So that was the latest adventure.
We've also had the first CATs for this term and the PTA meeting (the school magazine was ready in time) plus last week was Bilingualism Week, where everyone is encouraged to practice speaking the OOL (other official language) from the one they usually use. The school had an interesting debate competition where the topic was whether bilingualism is actually practiced in Cameroon. It caused some heated discussion in the audience.
At the end of this week is Youth Day (Feb. 11), which is a big day in Cameroon. All the students are to do a "march pass", which I think means they march into town and pass in front of the important people in town. They're spending a few hours every day this week practicing. In all, it's been a pretty busy month and looks to continue on the same track for the rest of the term.
Oh, during the holidays I purchased some fabric and a few weeks ago I got a local lady to sew my two "African" outfits out of it. I wore one of them on Sunday and received many compliments. I'll try to send a picture of me in it next time I'm in Kumbo.
