Holy Week & Easter

It's been a busy few weeks. I was planning on having a nice quiet holiday, just staying in Tatum and marking papers.  I was in Kumbo when I sent my last post and a little while after I sent it I met up with a friend (Peter) from the Diocese Education office who also does music with the Diocese Youth. I ended up getting invited to go to the World Youth Day gathering that the diocese was holding in Shisong (a parish/suburb in Kumbo where there's a big hospital). That was on Tuesday, March 27.

So I marked papers on Wednesday and on Thursday before Palm Sunday, I went back down to Kumbo and spent the whole weekend at the World Youth Day, hanging out with the band and the sound technicians. I stayed with some priests on the campus of St. Augustine's College (SAC) so I didn't have to travel back and forth from Tatum every day.  That's where Frank teaches but we didn't get a chance to meet since he went out of town for the holiday. The weekend was a lot of fun and I got to know several of the people working on the Diocese Youth commission, including the new youth chaplain, Fr. Paul, who just returned to Cameroon from studying in the UK last August. I've been invited to help with the youth events including a week-long retreat during the long holiday (summer vacation). The mass on Palm Sunday was outside because of all the youths (I heard an estimate of about 3000).  It was a nice sunny day and I forgot my sun block so I got a little bit of a sunburn - as did Jan and Rafaela (German volunteers who were also there). I didn't get back to Tatum until late afternoon on Monday.

I spent Tuesday marking papers again and then on Wednesday went back down to Kumbo with Br. Ivo for the Chrism Mass. Now that was something to see. The cathedral was as packed as could be. The music was great. (After hearing them on Palm Sunday, the bishop had asked the youth musicians to play for the offertory.) I don't think I've mentioned this much before, but for important events the offertory is often in "kind" more than in "cash" - meaning that people give goods instead of money. Also, everyone processes during offertory, bring their gifts to the altar (instead of just sitting in their seats and putting money in a basket). So the offertory procession includes people carrying all sorts of goods - usually farm produce. It's common to see corn, carrots, sugar cane, potatoes, yams, etc and on really special occasions you see chickens, goats, and sheep. Well, for the Chrism Mass, there was all that, plus wine, hosts, bottled water, and all sorts of other things, including eleven cows (Br. Ivo's sister-in-law counted). The offertory procession alone took over an hour. After the mass, we were getting ready to head back to Tatum when the Bishop saw Br. Ivo and insisted on him going to the Bishop's House for lunch.  Since we (bro's sister-in-law, another teacher, and me) were travelling in Brother's car, we all ended up eating at the Bishop's house as well.

And then it was the Easter Triduum. The services in Tatum were very nice. During Easter Vigil, there weren't any adult catechumens but about a dozen babies were baptized. The students came back to school on Monday and classes began again on Tuesday. This term is only about a month for the secondary school (official closing date is May 21). The TTC & ENIET have an additional month, but that is mostly exams.  All the students should be gone by June 23.

Oh, and during Holy Week the raining season finally started. (Yeah for rain!)

Second Term Completed

Well, I made it through the second term. We're now on holidays for two weeks. Classes start  again right after Easter. In the third term there are only about 2 weeks for actual classes; the rest of the term is testing and the like. The secondary school finishes in mid-May and the teacher training colleges finish in early June.

I'm spending my holiday in Tatum. I am marking exams for the TTC in ITC (information and communication technology) and Religion.  I don't teach either subject, but the teachers both asked me to help them and I had the time.

The rainy season was supposed to start last week, but didn't.  As I mentioned when we had the early rains, people are concerned when the rains don't come as it greatly affects their crops. Speaking of which, we're planting some in my garden - the carrots have been growing for a while (and people keep stealing them) and I think Nico has planted beans, potatoes, corn, and jama-jama (the greens that are eaten with fufu).

Nothing much else to write. Keeping busy as usual.

Exams and Observations

They've been keeping us busy at school this term. After Youth Day on Feb. 11, there were two weeks of teaching practice for the TTC students. Like during the first term, the teachers have to go out and observe the students. The first week was just observation but the second week we had to evaluate their performance.  I got off light the first week because I had a bit of a cold but during the second week, I had to go out to Memfu again -- this time on Monday to the Presbyterian school and Friday to the Catholic school -- and to the Islamic school again on Wednesday. Unfortunately, Monday was quite rainy in the morning, but we still managed to make it out to Memfu without any troubles. That week we also had more CATs in the secondary school, so I arranged to give all my tests on Tuesday and Thursday. For a change, this past week has been a "regular" schedule.

They want us to squeeze in another round of CATs next week and the two weeks after that we have mock exams for the TTC students. (The final exams are not given by the school but by the government, so the school gives mock exams beforehand to prepare the students.)  This week we had to turn in our mock questions for typing, but I was told that the Music exam is oral so the questions don't need to be typed.  I'm just wondering how I'm going to manage to give oral exams to 120 students, even if they are only 4 questions each.

The other computer teacher had a baby in January, so she's just started coming back part time. In the meanwhile, I've been trying to give her students a little lab time and they have another teacher coming up from Kumbo once a week to work with them, especially Form 5.  Form 5 is the final year of secondary school at the end of which they take their Ordinary ("O") Level exams. Apparently, Computers is a new subject for the O Levels (at least within the past year or two), so they're working hard with the students to prepare them for the exams.

Weather-wise: Normally, the rainy season doesn't start until the middle of March, but this year it seems to have started early. As I mentioned earlier, we got some rain at the beginning of last week.  We've had a bit more this week as well.  Everyone is wondering if it will continue or stop again for a few weeks.

We had a nice Mass on the morning of Ash Wednesday to the start of Lent so almost everyone was walking around with the ashes on their foreheads the whole day. During Lent, they are having Stations of the Cross every evening and ringing the bells for Angelus at noon. But they don't do "fish fry" Fridays.

Still no updates on when we'll be getting internet at the school, but we all continue to expect the good news anytime. 

Putting Out Fires

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.