Back to Cameroon

Last week I went to a thanksgiving Mass for a newly ordained permanent deacon from Kikaikelaki. Deacon Marcel was ordained in Birmingham, UK where he has been living for the past 14 years. His wife and kids were with him to celebrate. I've gotten used to the Cameroonian accent so much that it was odd hearing his family (especially the kids) talking with a UK accent. There are no permanent deacons in this part of Cameroon, so they kept having to explain it to everyone. Since we've had permanent deacons at my parishes back in the States for so long, I was a bit surprised at the reaction and lack of knowledge here.

It made me think of things that we take for granted or assume are the same everywhere. We think that the way things are where we are is the way things are everywhere. Most of the time it's subtle things like "common knowledge" or even things like stereotypes. I've had to ask people here to explain things to me that they take for granted that everyone understands, and I've had to explain other things in return. I've learned that some idioms do not translate well across cultures. So it was a little weird when I was back in California this summer and didn't have to worry about that.

I spent most of the school break at home in California. I had a great time especially spending time with my family, even made a road trip out to Colorado. However, I'm glad to be back in Cameroon and Tatum in particular. School is starting this week... secondary school at least. The TTC will start later. 

I spent a good portion of the past two weeks in Kumbo. The Hornes (the LMH family) have settled in at SAC and there are 2 other Americans there with them this year -- Sarah and Alex, they came to Cameroon through their philosophy professor at Univ. of Colorado Boulder (same as Ilan 2 years ago). Also went to Bamenda for a one day get-together with all the other LMH/MDA groups that are now here in Cameroon. It was a strange feeling to be the "senior" in the group since I'm the one who has been here the longest.

This year I'm continuing to teach Form 1 English Language which I started mid-way through last year. That's in addition to Form 2 English Language and Form 1, 2, & 3 Computer Studies. Plus I've been asked to work as the school secretary. (Oh, and I'll still be teaching Music in the TTC.) Looks like it will be a busy year.

Things I've Learned

The school term has come to a close, GCE exams are finished and we only the CAPIEMP (TTC) exams to complete next week. The Hornes (LMH family that will be in SAC) are expected to arrive in Cameroon on June 26, so I'm planning to be in Kumbo that week to welcome them.

It's hard to believe that I have been here for almost two years. As I approach the two-year mark and get ready for a six-week holiday back in the States, I'd like to share a few of the things I've learned so far.

1. Things I didn't know could be done with vehicles:

  - Load a motorcycle on top of a small van (which are the buses here).

  - Fit 20 adults in a small van for a 4-hour drive.

  - Fit 10 adults in a Toyota Corolla.

  - Carry a dead pig while a passenger on a motorcycle.

  - Transport a family of 5 on one motorcycle.

  

2. Truisms that I've seen lived out:

  - The time for an event is when the event starts (not the scheduled time).

  - Who you know is more important than what you know.

  - The one who has a watch isn't the one who has the time.

3. Things I've learned how to do:

  - Wash my hair with a half gallon of hot water in a large bowl/bucket.

  - Walk on a muddy path without slipping (too much).

  - Walk in dress shoes on an uneven surface.

  - Tie a headscarf.

  - Give an hour-long talk.

  - Eat fufu (and cook it - in theory).

  - Sharpen a pencil with a razor blade.

4. Other things I've learned:

  - Personal space doesn't mean the same thing everywhere.

  - Four-wheel drive is a necessity not a luxury on some roads.

  - The road is wherever you can drive.

  - A child of six can carry and help take care of a child of two.

This list is just a short sample of what I've learned in the past two years and is by no means comprehensive. I know I will still learn much more.

Busy End of Term

I forgot to mention in my last post about the diocesan pilgrimage to Boyon Hill in Ndu (the next town after Tatum) on Friday, March 15. Many people hike from Kumbo and other parts of the diocese, starting on Thursday. We had many of them spending the night in Tatum. On Friday morning, everyone converges at the grandstand in Ndu for a blessing. Then they walk to Boyon Hill, which is a few miles outside of town, praying the Stations of the Cross along the way. At Boyon Hill there is a life-sized crucifix. When everyone has completed the hike, there is holy mass. This is only the third year for the pilgrimage. I was unable to go last year because of exams in school. This year the mass was celebrated by Bishop Agapitus, the Auxiliary Bishop of Bamenda, who is originally from Kumbo.

April was a very busy month. The first week was spent doing mock exams for the TTC, and then the secondary school classes began the second week. The third week, final teaching practice began for the TTC students and that last 3 weeks, with the final week being their evaluation. The TTC students were also finishing their term papers which were due at the end of April and I had agreed to type several of them. Some of them waited until the last minute to submit them for typing. Add to that the problems we've been having with electricity for the past several month. So I spent many nights typing as much as I could while the school generator was turned on for the students to study in the evenings. I was able to get them all done on time for the students to get them printed and submitted, but it was very stressful.

Also, I was appointed to work in the secretariat for the TTC exams, which meant that during all the evaluation phases (classroom teaching, oral exams, practicals, defense of term papers, and written exams) I am supposed to be in the office all day to help organize the exams and to tabulate the marks as they come in. Needless to say, busy-busy-busy.

In the first two weeks of May we finished the classroom teaching, the practicals (Agriculture, Productive Arts, and Home Economics), and the oral exams (Music, French, and General Knowledge). We also had promotional exams for Forms 1-4, Lower 6th (high school), and levels 1 & 2 of the TTC & ENIET. Oh yeah, in between everything else I was dong above, I had to set the promotional exams for all my classes. After the exams I had to mark them, but that was relatively easy.

This week has been much more relaxed. The TTC students are preparing for the defense of their term papers, the Form 5 and Upper 6th students are preparing for the GCE, and the rest of the students are preparing to leave for the long holiday - which means they are having to do a lot of manual labour to clean up the school compound. I got one of the students to dig a path for drainage in front of my house because the rain has been pooling there and threatening to flood the inside.

This weekend I'm heading to Bamenda for a meeting for the GCE computer practicals, which start on May 21. They would start on Monday, but 20th May is National Day in Cameroon (kind of like 4th of July). At the meeting I'll find ot where they're sending me (because they don't send people to supervise at their own schools). I'm hoping and praying that I get posted to SAC in Kumbo, because then it should be finished in one day and I can quickly and easily get back to Tatum for the defense of term papers which start on the same day. Since the meeting is on Saturday, I've contacted the Newburns (the LMHers there) and invited myself to spend the night with them so as to return to Kumbo and Tatum on Sunday evening, before leaving again on Monday afternoon for wherever I'm posted.

I'm going to miss the bishop's visit to Tatum on Saturday for the Confirmation of some of the students at St. Pius X and I'll miss the launching of our choir. Oh yeah, I'm in a choir. It's a new choir formed by one of the teachers. Most of the members are teachers in the local schools (primary and secondary). We chose the name "St. Francis' Choir" in honor of the new pope.

The secondary school is closing on Friday, May 24, with the awards ceremony on Thursday afternoon. That's why I hope to be back from the computer practicals quickly. Then the TTC graduation is on May 25. Then May 27 the GCE exams start; and this year we have the first batch for the Advance Level as well as the Ordinary Level. After the GCE, the TTC has their written exams. So we still have a ways to go before we can call the school year finished.

**Those of you in SoCal, during the long holiday I'll be home for 6 weeks (July 2 - August 16) for a family reunion and some other stuff.

****I thought anyone who reads this blog might like this link I just received - 'cause there's a picture of me in. It's to an article in L'Effort Camerounais (newspaper of the National Bishops' Conference of Cameroon) about an award that LMH & MDA received in October from the US Catholic Mission Association.    (http://www.leffortcamerounais.com/2012/11/lay-mission-helpers-association-and-mission-doctors-association-receive-prestigious-national-award-for-international-mission.html)

Happy Easter

Happy Easter! The second term flew by. The third term starts on Monday April 8, but the TTC will be back for mock exams on April 1.

Besides the usual busy-ness of the second term, the school secretary "put to bed" (gave birth) at the beginning of March, so I was helping in the office especially with entering the end of term marks (grades) so the report cards could be completed. Also in the first week of March, the mother of the dean of TTC and the mother of the school chaplain both died. I went with the school staff to both funerals - one in Njinikom (about an hour from Bamenda) and one in Sop (about 40 minutes from Kumbo). The roads were pretty bad with the start of the rainy season again. Happily, the government has started to work on the road so it's getting better a little at a time.

 Palm Sunday weekend was the diocesan world youth day celebration, which was held in Jakiri (about an hour from Kumbo) at the new Cardinal Tume Comprehesive College (secondary school) with more than 3,000 youths. While there, I stayed with some sisters at a convent near the parish church. There is another set of sisters who are working at the school, one of whom is Brazilian. The bishop came on Saturday evening to join the celebration and stayed until after mass on Sunday morning. Bishop George is very good with the young people and they love him.

I spent the beginning of Holy Week in Kumbo, relaxing and typing term papers for TTC students. After the Chrism Mass on Wednesday, I got a ride with Fr. Anthony at St. Albert's in Bafut, where I spent Holy Thursday and Good Friday with the Marist Brothers. Then, it was back to Kumbo on Saturday (via public transportation - a small bus). On the way back, the bus got a flat tire in Babessi (about the halfway point). While we were waiting for the new tire, the clouds decided to let loose and there was a good downpour with lots of wind. I took shelter with the other passengers in a bar by the road. Between the tire and the rain, we were stuck there for about 45 minutes before the driver gathered us up to continue on. I was sitting by a window and got a little bit of a sunburn on my shoulder which I didn't notice until Sunday morning (it was sunny most of the way).

Holy Saturday Easter vigil was in Kikaikelaki where I was greeted by some students from St. Pius and TTC. In the morning, I watched the Easter Sunday mass in Rome on EWTN at the fathers' house in SAC.

And that pretty much brings everything up to date.

Got blessed by the Papal Nuncio for Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea

One hundred years ago, the first missionaries came to the Kumbo area. (To be exact, the Sacred Heart Fathers from Germany arrived in Shishong on December 31, 1912.) So the whole diocese is celebrating the centenary of faith in the diocese -- which is really cool since Pope Benedict XVI declared this to be the "Year of Faith". The festivities culminated on Friday, January 25 with a big mass and feast at Saint Augustine's College (SAC) Nso. There were about 15 bishops present (including the retired Cardinal and the Papal Nuncio) and I would hate to try to figure out how many priests were there.

I came down to Kumbo from Tatum on Thursday evening in time to get to the cathedral for the arrival of the Papal Nuncio and vespers (evening prayers). I got the blessing because I happened to go in the entrance next to the sacristy just as the nuncio was heading there to vest for the service.

It's wonderful seeing how alive the faith is here.

Aside from the centenary celebrations, I've been busy with school as usual. School re-opened on January 3. But I guess I overdid the holiday because, as soon as I got back to school, I came down with a bad cold and couldn't work very well for a few days. And I had to finish up the school magazine in order to get it to the printer which turned into a bit of a fiasco.

It was suppose to be done for the PTA meeting on the 19th, but since I was sick I didn't have it ready until the 13th. That should have been enough time. Now, usually they go to Bamenda to get it the magazine printed, but we decided to try the Diocesan printer in Kumbo this time. So on Monday (the 14th) I took my thumb drive to Kumbo. I met with the manager of the print shop and he agreed that they could get it done by Friday. I copied the data onto his hard drive and went back to Tatum for the rest of the week. On Friday (the 18th), I returned to Kumbo with Br. Isaac to pick up the magazines (assuming they were done). However, it turned out that they hadn't finished printing the covers and pictures (the only pages in color), but they promised to have it done on Saturday morning. The PTA meeting was scheduled to begin with Mass at 9am on Saturday. They worked all night but then the color machine broke in the morning before they had finished. So... there  was no school magazine for the PTA meeting. The main reason for the school magazine is to advertise the school and secondly to be sold to parents as a fundraiser. Since we didn't have it at the PTA meeting, we couldn't sell it to the parents.

The magazine is now done (the chaplain went to pick it up with afternoon). And we've decided to hold on to it and try to do it as a fundraiser at the graduation(s).

Oh, I will now be teaching Form 1 English Language. The original teacher left at the end of first term to go back to school and the principal couldn't find a full time teacher to replace her. I had to collect the students' notebooks to find out how far they had gotten. We have tests this coming week, so I decided to include on the test only what she had covered with them before I going on to anything new. It should be interesting because the Form 1 students still sometimes have difficulty understanding me.

Update on what actually happened during the holidays, as opposed to what I expected. The new parish priest for Kikaikelaki is Fr. Andrew who spent the last several years studying in Germany. He invited me to lunch on Christmas day at the Education Secretariat where he is currently staying. There were a mother and daughter (Sonja & Elinor) visiting him from Germany who I met on Christmas morning. We connected pretty much instantly. I ended up spending not just lunch, but pretty much all afternoon at the Secretariat and then we spent the evening at the Youth Center. Fr. Paul invited Sonja & Elinor to the mass with the altar servers the next day (the 26th), so I met up with them there and then we went over to the market (Mbve) where they bought a lot of fabric (since they like to sew). We didn't finish up there until late afternoon. For the rest of the holiday, I spent almost every other day with them. We even took a trip down to Mbiame with Fr. Paul and  Fr. Joe for a 50th wedding anniversary celebration. The mass I was expecting at the youth center on New Years Eve didn't get planned, so it didn't happen. Also, I haven't gone on the radio with Fr. Paul yet. He still wants me to do it, but because of school it probably won't be until either Easter holidays or summer holidays.

For the Easter holiday, I'm planning to go to Bamenda for the first week. We have mock exams for the TTC during the second week.

Monday kicks off National Bilingualism Week, so we'll be missing some classes especially on Monday and Friday. February 11 is Youth Day, so again we'll be missing classes. That's the way the second term goes.