Joyeux Noël!

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

-Isaiah 9,6- 

Infield Course in Kenya

Wow! Ngaoundéré is not really a big town! Coming to Douala (the largest city in Cameroon) was one thing; a place where they had at least three different brands of bottled water, a big variety of spreads and cheeses and even freshly baked pizza in ONE place.

No matter how big Douala seemed, there are no words that could express my amazement over Nairobi at our arrival. With big eyes and my mouth wide open, I saw giraffes, streets without potholes, well-organized traffic, wonderful buildings, street signs and no dirty ditches when we drove from the airport to the Norwegian school.

As we were the first ones to arrive, Idunn and I spent a relaxing Sunday at the Norwegian school, before our teachers and fellow students who are in Kenya, Uganda and Madagascar came. It was a happy reunion, with lots of laughter and experiences to share.

During the Infield Course, we have had teaching, counselling, safari, time to talk, laugh, play and relax. Apart from this, we spent Tuesday in the slums, which was a very special experience. On one side, Nairobi is so developed and organized, a town greater than anything I have seen in Norway. Still more than half of the city's population does not have the opportunity to appreciate this, or even get to see it. More than half of Nairobi's population live in slums, in extreme poverty.

First we visited the slum of Mathare and saw the project that the Kenya team from Hald has been working in for almost three months now. After this we drove to Kibera, Kenya's biggest slum, to get introduced to the Church Army's project there. I am really impressed by the work of the churches there. They really live out God's Word by feeding the poor, sharing the Gospel, loving the loveless, caring for the sick and helping people to get an education and possibilities to get a better life. The churches in Norway really have something to learn about being a holistic church and reaching out to those who need it! If they can in one of the poorest places in the world, how much more should not we be able to make a difference in our society?

Returning to the richest area of Nairobi (where the Norwegian School is situated) was hard for me. The contrasts are so vast, and it felt terrible to just leave the people like that. I am grateful to have everything I need, but the fact that I have so much more tears me apart.

Nevertheless, this is an experience I highly recommend to everyone. Feeling the unjustice of the world so closely changes something in you, and that change is something everyone in the rich parts of the world should go through. Finding words that could describe is too difficult, it has to be seen, smelled, touched and felt.

Safari, Sunscreen and SuperMarius

Yesterday we went to the Buffle Noir national park and had a wonderful day on safari. Since it is the beginning of the season, most of the animals had not come yet, but we got to see monkeys, different kinds of antelopes, birds, hippopotami and even some crocodiles. Andreas the Missionary, Ole Henrik the NMS Photographer and our guide also saw a leopard...

Even though Idunn, Marius the Gap Student and I missed the extraordinary sight of the leopard, the trip was terrific. We spent most of our time standing on the back of the car with a slight taste of sunscreen in our mouths (due to my brilliant idea of also protecting the lips against the sun). As there were a lot of high grass and branches that could hit us as we passed them, Marius enjoyed his role as our personal Super Hero in order to save us girls from their hits.

After a warm meal at the camp site, I got to drive home from our refreshing Saturday in Buffle Noir.

(Maybe more animal pictures will come later. Ole Henrik the NMS Photographer promised to give us his photos)

Two months already?

Here comes a short summary:

As soon as we set our feet on Cameroonian ground, we learned that things do not always turn out the way you expected; try to be flexible, relax and meet the world with a smile!

After having left the rainforest in the South, we were ready to settle in Ngaoundéré, which is to be found in the more dusty and dry highlands of the North (that actually is in the middle of the country. The real North is called The Extreme North).

Apart from work, our life have consisted of choir rehearsals and concerts,

Learning French and trying to keep up with what is happening around us,

Talior visits,

Retrait Spirituelle, a day with seminars for the young girls in Church,

 

Learning to cook Cameroonian food,

Afternoon escapes in fresh air,

 

Misjonstivoli arranged by the Norwegian kids; fund-raising to the church's AIDS-project,

 Getting to know people,

And these days we are quite busy with our culture-assignment; I learn a lot and write about girls in Ngaoundéré.

Only one week left at work now, before we are heading for infield course in Kenya, followed by Christmas holidays. Funny that we have come to Christmas already... When I start working after the holidays, we are more than halfway!

Mount Ngaoundéré

Today the Muslims have their Fête du Mouton, or the Eid-al-Adha, as it is also called. It is a national holiday, and all the students are free. Ergo no one to teach.

Idunn, Andreas the volunteer, Marius the gap worker, Lena the missionary and I spent our day off exploring Mount Ngaoundéré. In the middle of a stressful week, it was nice with some fresh air for both mind and body. With Marius' "whole grain"-rolls, Andreas' jam and chocolate spread and Lena's frozen Tampicos (juice in small plastic bags that we Norwegians freeze to get saftis), we had a really nice picnic in the sun.

Mount Ngaoundéré to the left

(Some children we met on the top)

 

 

Ps. Happy birthday, pappa!

CAPS LOCK

Teaching can be hard. Teaching Computer Skills when I do not have them myself is even harder. Teaching Computer Skills when I do not have them myself, in French - you get the picture.

Before I turn all dramatic, I must admit that I do know a little bit about writing a simple document in Word. So that is what I teach. I do know what happens when I press the Caps Lock button. The girls I teach, do not. And I explain. I explain again. And again. Five minutes after I think the explanation was successful (after all, she did say yes every time I asked if she understood), the same mysterious thing happens with her computer again; all the letters come out capitals!

Communication is a curious thing, especially when I am in a position where I probably see the world in a totally different way than all the girls I teach. When I think I have made myself so clear (both because I have repeated myself five times and they nod and say je comprends (I understand) no matter what I say), I actually have no clue if they still are following me.

My mind is triggered to think in new directions; to find the fine line between how I think I would best learn Computer Skills or English and teaching in a way they are used to learning. No matter how good I think Norwegian teaching strategies could be, they do not help if my Cameroonian friends not are accustomed to them and therefore gain nothing from my teaching.

It all boils down to the term cultural sensitivity: Before imposing on my host people all my fine ideas on teaching and everything else, I need to take the time to learn how things work here. I want to learn to see the world through Cameroonian eyes. Hopefully then I will understand...

All I Have to Offer

I am no expert on computers, but what obstacle is that when an Informatics teacher is needed? I do not know the Bible by heart, but why should that stop me from correcting Bible courses?* I do not know much fulfulde, but since when was that a reason not to "converse"?

Finding myself in situations where I do things I think are beyond my capabilities is funny. I learn to make the best use of what you have. If you have a small amount of something, you use that something, you share it. Many people having a small amount of knowledge, money or food is better than someone having "a lot" and the lot being at a lack of almost everything, n'est-ce pas (don't you think)?

*Do not worry, I had the solution at hand  :)

It is Cold

Waking up with a sore throat. Running nose. People outside wearing thick winter coats. Shivering Norwegians. Putting on a warm sweater. Woollen socks. Dreaming of a blanket to wrap myself up in.

Yes, I am still in Cameroon. Yes, it is cold. Not all the time. As the dry season is arriving (almost a month too late), it gets hotter during the days, but at night and in the mornings, my boyfriend's woolen slippers from Mongolia are often to be found on my feet.

La Blanche en Pagne

This afternoon Idunn and I found out that it was high time for us to explore the Petit Marché ("the Little Market", which actually is bigger than the Grand Marché). We grabbed the opportunity as Andreas the volunteer and Marius the gap student (I finally have learned the English word for ettåring - thanks, Sophie!) were going to the gym in town, and set out for the market on our own.

Quite impressed by our orientation skills, we found our way through narrow alleys, the overwhelming odours from the meat area, people constantly shouting nasara (white), "You are SO beautiful", "come here, my queen", "la blanche en pagne (the white in pagne, that is the typical African women's outfit), you look so nice", and so on and so forth, and tons of different fabrics (i.e. the pagnes).

Satisfied after buying ourselves some fabric for future dresses, we walked up to the gym, trying to be nice to the boys so that they did not have to drive back to the market for us. However, it turned out that they were being nice as well and had driven down to the market. We did not hear that they called us, and I had of course told them that we would answer the phone as long as we had not been robbed, so we kind of stressed them up... Luckily we found each other and everything went okay at the end. Back in our appartment we finished the successful afternoon at the market with coucous, our new favourite food.

Our future dresses

The Office

Last Thursday was cleaning day at the office. Today after the daily devotion, the whole central direction of EELC (that is the people I work with at the office, sort of including me at the time being) went out into one of the quartiers, to the home of one of the office workers to pay our respects. Her uncle had just passed away. The term "office work" keeps getting new meanings as I work there...

It was something nice about it, paying respects to this employee's family. You don't see that as a normal thing for a group of colleagues to do in Norway when someone is dead. At least, I don't. Here they did it as the most natural thing to do. We went over and the president of the church said some words, the uncle's older brother said a few words in fulfulde, we prayed and sang some songs, before we had some soda and went back to work. Nothing odd about it. Death is also a part of life, and I found this a fine way to embrace it. Natural, relaxed and at the same time very respectful.

The Tello Falls

Some days ago Idunn and I went on our first excursion in the bush. Together with Andreas the missionary, Andreas the volunteer, Hilde Marie the ettåring, Marius the ettåring and Erik the representative's visiting sister we went to the famous Tello Falls (some scenes from the first Tarzan movie was filmed there, by the way). The journey was a funny experience in itself, driving in Africa is a quite funny experience, for example when you meet more cows than cars in an one-hour's drive (and because we were allowed to sit on the roof of the car a little while on our way home. It was fun).

It was great to get out of Ngaoundéré for some hours, and Tello was really worth the trip. I still love Africa :) Anyway, here are some pictures from our trip:

Helping the domestic worker

Yesterday was my first day working at the church's office. I was taken to Jeannette's office, where I was going to help her to archive documents from the last 30 years or so. Jeannette is the leader of the organisation Femmes pour Christ (Women for Christ).

Working at her office was so much more amusing than I had imagined. You see, we had to spend the first fifteen minutes after the daily devotion to clean her office (or, I was told to sit in her couch while she and another lady cleaned). She was so upset by all the spiders and their webs in her roof. And after having cleaned the roof, it was absolutely necessary to dust the desk and the shelves, clean the windows, then sweep the floor before topping it all off with a peach-smelling spray.

Jeannette told me that it was very important that she, as the leader of the women of the church, she had to clean her office very well, so that the domestic worker would understand the importance of doing a good job. It was obviously logic to her that if the domestic help found her office in a bad shape, he or she would think that Jeannette was a woman who did not care about the cleanliness of her office, and therefore would not care to do a thorough job. What a funny way to be a good example :)

What are you doing here?

"So... What do you want to do?"

"Are you German or American? Ah, Norwegian, all right. Are you going to work at the hospital? Oh, really, you are going to work here every Monday? Right..."

"Oh, are you starting to work here today?"

All these questions have been asked either by my employers or my coworkers at the places I have been working this week. "Attending Hald", I thought, "is a safe and structured way to go (which it is), where the programme is set and the people I work for and with are prepared for my arrival."

What I have been learning this week, is the meaning of the term exchange programme. We went here to be part of another culture for half a year, not to live the Norwegian way in another country. And we do learn how things are in Cameroon. One of those things is that the planning mentality does not work the same way here. "But why couldn't they just start planning?" one could maybe ask (especially if you are from Norway, where organizing often seems to be of utter importance).

They are not lazy. They do not lack practical intelligence. They just have a completely different starting point for their lives. You cannot plan in details an expensive trip if you do not know whether there actually will be enough money for it. You cannot always expect things to be ready at a certain date, because maybe there is no money to buy the supplies needed in order to finish it. You do not order new medicines for the pharmacy if you still have something left; maybe you need the money for something else. And this hand-to-mouth way of thinking and planning life affects the whole structure of society. So that even the things you actually could have planned, is not regarded urgent to organize. You take life as it comes.

My first day at work, in pictures

Going to class (my class is Moyenne Section, Middle Section, age 3, the row to the left)

"Physical Education": How to place the chairs around the table

Writing: drawing circles

Blond hair is not something you see every day in Ngaoundéré

Cameras are really exciting, especially if you are allowed to hold it and look at the screen (does not matter if you take a picture or not)

Time to rest

Someone is not tired and practises their drawing skills instead

Celebration

Today is the first of November, and a perfect day to celebrate. So I decided to try out our gas oven to make buns, and we invited some of the Norwegian people over for supper, buns and Freia Melkesjokolade.

It all tasted really good, and it was wonderful to have our house full of people. Full of buns and chocolate, we played a game of Ligretto that caused a lot of shouting, laughter and stress (for some of us at least). Idunn won. That happens a lot... She is good!

Our first month in Ngaoundéré is already over, and it has went by really fast! Tommorrow at eight o'clock we are being thrown out into the unknown; our first day at work. It is hard to believe that we have only five months left, so I am glad that we finally are going to begin what we came here for.

Please pray for our work; that we will find good teaching strategies, that we will have the courage required for fulfilling tasks we do not yet know how to do and finally that our work will bring blessing for those we work with and for.

Eeeey - ebaa!

(I recommend you to read the post below before you read this one)

The concert was, from beginning (that was 19h40, by the way) to end the coolest concert I have ever been to. First of all, our choir is really good, and secondly (and this is mainly what made the whole thing so fun) because listening to a concert means something completely else in Cameroon than it does in Norway. There were dancing, singing along (there was even a woman that gave a solo in one of the songs!), running up to place coins on the forheads of the singers when you liked the song, and so on and so forth. There are no words for it (perhaps except from Eeeey - ebaa!, which they shouted at the end of every song, or whenever they felt like it), so I strongly recommend all my blog readers to travel and experience it for yourselves!

How to Stop the Rain

Ten minutes to five we run out into the pouring rain, to ensure that we won't be late. After all, it takes three minutes to walk down to the church, where we were supposed to meet at five pm sharp.

You see, at last night's choir rehearsal Idunn and I learned the embarrassing way that "African time" is not always a popular concept, even in Africa. Our choir is a serious one, and when they say "meet at six pm", they do not mean ten minutes past.

"So, let us not make the same mistake today", we thought. It did not matter how wet we would get, as long as we were at the right place at the right time.

Arriving soaking wet, on time,  noe one from the choir was in sight, except from one of its very important men. After five minutes in silence, the man said, "En Norvège, vous connaissez comment arrêter la pluie?" (In Norway, do you know how to stop the rain?). He explained that here in Cameroon, they do not, so the rain seems to stop them instead. We agreed that sorcery was definitely not the way to go, but one could always try praying.

As we saw no immediate answer to our prayers, we joined a small, joyful singing group that had emerged from the lack of anything else to do while waiting. The joy they expressed through their songs made me forget my headache and tiredness for a moment, especially when they sang familiar worship songs in English...

One hour later, motos (motorcycle taxis that we Norwegians are not allowed to take) and a taxi for Idunn and me had taken us all to the cathedral where we were supposed to give the first of many concerts of the coming week (it is Gospel Singers' 40th anniversary), at six o'clock.

Five minutes to seven I sit in a demi-filled cathedral, waiting as the choir is warming up. I am not singing today, because I have mal à la gorge (sore throat) and I am fatiguée (tired).

When the concert will start, I do not know. This is Africa.

Graduation ceremony at Centre Socio Ménager

 

Ecole Maternelle Privée Protestante

 

Goats are everywhere! :)